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I say, keep the infection local. God! Haven’t we done enough damage on this planet? Now we’re going to go somewhere else and leave our filth and garbage all over the universe? Jesus, what a pack of fuckin’ idiots we are. Thank you.

SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES: A DIALOGUE

KEVIN: Boy, a lot has changed in twenty years.

RAY: Yeah.

KEVIN: Is Naughton still around?

RAY: Frankie?

KEVIN: No, Jimmy.

RAY: Jimmy’s dead. And Frankie died at the funeral. They’re both dead.

KEVIN: What about Bobby? How’s he? RAY: He’s dead, too. A lot of em are dead.

KEVIN: What was the other Naughton kid’s name? Tommy? Is he dead?

RAY: No. Tommy’s not dead.

KEVIN: Thank God for that.

RAY: He’s dying.

KEVIN: Jeez! The mother must be heartbroken.

RAY: The mother was killed in a boiler explosion. Blown to pieces.

KEVIN: Jeez. I’ll never forget that house the Naughtons lived in. Kind of a cute little place with green shutters.

RAY: Hit by lightning fifteen years ago. Burned to the ground. All the pets were killed.

KEVIN: Jeez. That’s too bad. I remember the Naughtons always liked that house because it was so close to the church.

RAY: Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering?

KEVIN: Yeah.

RAY: The church is gone. Condemned by the city last year and demolished on Good Friday.

KEVIN: So where do the neighborhood kids go to school?

RAY: Most of the neighborhood kids were killed a few years ago by a rapist who worked at the grocery store.

KEVIN: Dorian’s?

RAY: No, Babington’s.

KEVIN: I liked Dorian’s. They always had good produce.

RAY: Dorian’s collapsed ten years ago and killed nineteen customers. The entire Halloran family was decapitated at the butcher counter while they were pickin’ out meat.

KEVIN: Jeez. Times really change. RAY: Well, life goes on.