it is winter and they are sitting at a table in the kitchen watching the snowflakes as they fall outside. they are three young men together talking, and as one talks the others look out upon the snow. it is hard to focus on anything else, even as no one can really focus on the flakes themselves; one can only look out onto the hills, visible from the windows of the kitchen, filling with snow. either that, or, yes, the flakes themselves, impossibly, falling one by one, imagined to exist, wearying the eyes, looking behind them to see nothing: the empty hills and the horses who are not subtracted from the landscape but from whom everything else in the world is.

they are speaking about something difficult to discuss, and one of them appears uncomfortable. he doesn’t seem to want to discuss it and when he speaks, he speaks reluctantly, defensively.

“this snow, how it falls. it’s strange. i can’t quite focus on it. is it really here with us?” he pauses. “and what would it mean for it to be here with us, for i sometimes have the feeling that i am not entirely here. even though i know this is not possible. it is not possible that i am not here. but, i don’t know. it feels strange to me that i really exist, and so i find it more comforting to imagine that i am not really here, that i am nothing in whatever this is.”

“so what are you going to do,” one of them asks.

“if i deny the here,” he replies, “what happens to me? do i survive? it is not that i don’t believe, i just don’t know that i really can believe i am here. i can sooner understand that something is taken out and that that is what is here.”

“and what, we’re observing it?”

“maybe.”

“are you afraid to be alive?”

“am i alive? if i denied that there is any here i am left with those horses over there, upon the hill.” and he points towards the horses.

“where?”

“there. over there. but, then they’re not quite there, are they?” and he pauses, “i believe in them more than i believe in myself.”

“so what about them?”

“i look at them and i suppose i see something peaceful. i’d like to be where they are, but i don’t know how to get there. i think, but i am not really here. or maybe i am part of the world they have subtracted. if i want to be where they are, i’d have to go over to it somehow. and i would, which is why i don’t really feel i am here, that one can be here. that there is no here. and then i think of the people i’d have to talk to, before whom i’d have to deny the here. i could do it. that’s what i’m afraid of. i could do it so easily. but i know i would suffer, that i wouldn’t be able to live anymore. then i see the horses and i think, ok, well, fine, what am i waiting for?”

it continues to snow.

“the train leaves in an hour,” one of them says.

“i know,” he said, continuing, “i feel like i’ve only just arrived. i feel like i’m right at the beginning.”

“maybe you are.”

“yes, that’s how i feel.”

“still, we have to go.”

“are we going together?”

“why not?”

“i didn’t think you were coming.”

“we could just try.”

and it continues snowing.

“we’d have to have a good reason,” one of them says.

“yes, like what’s it like with these horses.”

the horses stand in their negativity.

“but, even if the train was right outside i wouldn’t take it,” he says.

“you mean we shouldn’t.”

“i mean, none of us should.”

“but we can’t not take it. then it’d be empty.”

“for once,” he said.

“but why would it exist if it was meant to be empty.”

“you mean, like these horses?”

“yes, maybe. but i’d rather be in the empty thing. and remain empty.”

“i don’t know if i feel like i’m here. though i know what you mean. it’s like it is here as something empty.”

“like the horses see us. even if their eyes are closed. they see us. it’s like they’re meant to see us. like how the empty thing is meant to be empty.”

“you never had to go,” one of them says somberly, darkly.

“i did.”

“no, you didn’t.”

and he sighed.

“you can’t just say it like that. it doesn’t make you more right. if i stay, i have to choose that.”

“then why don’t you?”

“i can’t. i don’t know how. i don’t even remember how to breathe sometimes. until i look at the horses. in my mind. but, they're not there.”

“no, they’re not.”

“sometimes, and one of them speaks to him, i close my eyes and it assists me to imagine when you are not there. i miss you terribly. like how i might miss myself or my childhood. i don’t know how it's possible. and so i close my eyes and i try and think you have never left. i wouldn’t have it otherwise. i prefer to keep my eyes closed as i live. i think that there can’t be anything else to live, but that we would live with our eyes closed. because that’s love. i would rather not live than not have you in it. i would rather not see. and if i choose between the world and you, i choose you. and then i wake up and i realise that that is the world. that you are in it in this way even when you are here, that i already see you as if my eyes were closed. and i realise still, that i cannot see the world without you. and i cannot live. and, yes, though it is unbearable, that i cannot be without you. but i have to go.”

“no, you don’t.”

“i’m already gone, just close your eyes.”

“i already am.”

“but you can’t go,” the other one says. “i feel it in my stomach.”

“like you're inside the horse,” he asks.

“it’s inside me. i feel. well, i don’t feel well. i guess i don’t know how to feel well. but i’m not well. i met you again in a dream i had last night. i met you for the first time, because i don’t remember our beginning. i cannot recall that we had one. and so i saw you there. you were at the platform. and i didn’t know you. and all i knew was i couldn’t let you go. all i knew was you couldn’t board that train without me. i didn’t care if you stayed or if we just left together, but i couldn’t be without you. and i didn’t care what i had lived. i was ready to go with you even though i didn’t know you. i was ready. and then i woke up. and i despaired because i knew that was my life. and i knew you were leaving and i knew you and that only made it worse. i knew i couldn’t stop you. and i felt afraid to give up on my life. but when i was walking here, i was ready again. i saw the snow and the horses, and i don’t know. i was ready.”

“but what do we do?”

“even if we go in the train, it stays empty. it sees us emptily.”

“but where do we go? if we stay here, emptily, and the horses are there, all else subtracted, where do we go?”

“maybe we will stay.”

“i have to go,” he says.

“if we stay it’s like we’re gone. we have to go to stay. like this is the beginning and we have never met.”

“this is the beginning.”

“and we have never met before.”

the horses stand in the field and observe in their negation. there is nothing upon which they look; it has been subtracted. the train has left but they cannot hear or see it. it is empty, anyhow. everything is white and only the horses remain, though they too have been subtracted.