Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

‘When I asked if you were asleep I was going to ask if you felt like you believed in God, today, out there, when you were so on, making that guy look sick.’ ‘This again?’ ‘…’ ‘Really don’t think midnight in a totally dark room with me so tired my hair hurts and drills in six short hours is the time and place to get into this, Mario.’ ‘…’ ‘You ask me this once a week.’ ‘You never say, is why.’ ‘So tonight to shush you how about if I say I have administrative bones to pick with God, Boo. I’ll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy about. I’m pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I’m not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I, Boo.’ ‘You’re talking about since Himself passed away.’ ‘…’ ‘See? You never say.’ ‘I do too say. I just did.’ ‘…’ ‘I just didn’t happen to say what you wanted to hear, Booboo, is all.’ ‘…’ ‘There’s a difference.’ ‘I don’t get how you couldn’t feel like you believed, today, out there. It was so right there. You moved like you totally believed.’ ‘…’ ‘How do you feel inside, not?’ ‘Mario, you and I are mysterious to each other. We countenance each other from either side of some unbridgeable difference on this issue. Let’s lie very quietly and ponder this.’ ‘Hal?’ ‘…’ ‘Hey Hal?’ ‘I’m going to propose that I tell you a joke, Boo, on the condition that afterward you shush and let me sleep.’