Bank Teller v. Basketmaker

The Bank Teller feels little. This comes as a surprise. She thought she had true feelings for the Bartender. But those feelings immediately dissipated once the Bartender fell lifeless on the turf. Maybe he wasn't such a catch, she says, after all.

The Basketmaker is a round young woman with a flat face. Her flat face wears a sad expression. She's clothed in a colorful patterned dress and boots and a bulky brown coat. She walks up to the oak. She and the Bank Teller speak.

Years ago, the Basketmaker says after a suitable amount of discussion, this was my people's land.

The two women look out over the the Basketmaker's ancestral land. The cairn, the creek, the copse, the corpses, the crows.

Nicer back then, says the Bank Teller, I'd bet.

I was worse, she says. Or the same.

The Basketmaker is a pessimist and a fatalist. A pessimistic fatalist. She plays euchre for money. She wins more often than she loses, but only feels satisfaction in loss. Thus perpetually unsatisfied, her world view is affirmed. The satisfaction from this affirmation is substantive: primarily represented by the money she wins from others, all optimistic determinists.

The Bank Teller decides, if she comes out of this alive, to move on with her life and marry the Pharmacologist.

The Basketmaker envisions a new design for a basket. A basket for keys and coins and cell phones. Also, maize.

They chose their guns and take to the field, standing ten paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.