[ s t a r s k y . t h e n . v e r s u s . s t a r s k y . n o w ]
by kHo

“Okay,” the older gentleman said, frowning at his younger counterpart. “So you´re me now?”

“No, I´m you then.”

“Me then, then? But you´re not me then…”

“No, no, I´m you before then,” the younger one said, licking his lips. “Before you were you.”

Nodding, the older one laced his hands together. “Well, I tell you, I´m stumped.”

The younger one laughed, the laugh contagious enough to make the older one laugh despite himself. “I´m you before you became you,” he said, slowing the words down as if it would help. “Before you were you… I´m that guy.”

“But wasn´t I always me?”

“Until now, you were always you.”

The older one gritted his teeth. “Again, kiddo… stumped.”

“You were always you, because you were the only you… until now. Now there´s my you.”

“Which somehow comes before me,” the older one clarified, gesturing in the air as if trying to figure out a tally in his head.

“Theoretically,” the younger one said, reaching up to scratch at his head. “See, I was going to be you, but then you were you. Or, anyway, that´s how they´re playing it now.”

The older one sighed exasperatedly. “So… you were me, but then I was me… so now you´re me before I was me? This is so fuckin…”

“Okay, wait,” the younger one said. “This is how… you´re you. But in the context of this movie, I´m you.”

“Okay, but you´re not me.”

“Not exactly no.”

“And… what?”

“Because they´re playing it like I was you, and he was him, but we didn´t get it right, so then that´s when you became you and he became him.”

The older one hung his head in his hands. “So… I´m not even me?”

“No, you are you.”

“What?!”

“In the natural progression, there was only ever you… but now, with the writing of this movie, what we´re presupposing is… that I was going to be you, but it didn´t work out, so you became you.”

“Okay,” the older one said, nodding and clicking his tongue at the younger one. “Got it.”

The younger one smiled. “You´re still stumped, aren´t you?”

“Completely,” the older one said, laughing and clasping a hand on the younger one´s shoulder. “But let´s drop it, okay?”

“Okay.”

The older one leaned back, smiling at the younger one in front of him. “You´re a handsome fella… I suppose if I have to not be me, I´d want you to be me.”

The younger one smiled. “Thank you… so were you.”

The older one raised an eyebrow. “Were?”

“Are,” the younger one corrected with his hands held up in surrender. “Are.”

“Damn straight, kid,” the older one said, chewing on a toothpick and grinning at him.