Jesse:
Do you remember when I told you that I was 104 years old? [Winnie nods]
Jesse:
Well... it's the honest truth. [Winnie looks confused]
Jesse:
I'm gonna live forever. I'm never gonna change. The same with Miles and Tuck and Mae. Something happened to us. I mean, as far as I know, I... I'm gonna be 17 until the end of the world. It's the spring, Winnie. Something's wrong with it. It stops you right where you are, if you'd had a drink of it today, you'd stay just like you are... [Both hear a rustling noise. They turn around to see Miles]
Miles:
Don't you wish he'd told you... before you kissed him? Did he tell you that immortality isn't all the preachers crack it up to be?
Jesse:
Hey, leave her alone, Miles!
Miles:
Well, now, you wanted her to hear it Jesse-boy. She's the first person you want to tell the truth to.
Jesse:
You just don't want me to have what you lost.
Winnie:
Stop this... both of you. Tell me... the truth... I wanna know.
Miles:
[Miles nods and walks over towards Jesse and Winnie] We all had a drink. Except for the cat, and that's important. [the rest of the monologue is told in flashbacks of what Miles is saying]
Miles:
The water tasted like... heaven. It floated over your tongue like a cloud. Tuck carved a T in the trunk and we moved on west to find a place to settle down. We put up a house for Mae and Tuck and a little shed for Jesse and me. That was the first time we figured there was something... peculiar. Jesse fell thirty feet and landed on is neck. He was up on his feet before Mae could work up a good cry. Didn't hurt him a bit, no broken bones... nothing. But that's not all... not by a long shot. Things began to happen. Some brush-poppers mistook Mae's horse for a deer. Thing is, the bullets didn't kill hime. Barely even left a mark. Then Tuck got bitten by a rattle snake, and you know what... he didn't die. [laughing]
Miles:
But the cat did, of old age. [Somberly, touching the ring on his finger]
Miles:
And Miles got married. [Whispering]
Miles:
Bo. Little Anna. [Out loud]
Miles:
Tuck figured it early on. It was the spring. We all drank from it, even the horse. It had to be... the source of our changelessness. I begged her to come back... to me and find the spring and drink from it. The children, too. It was our only hope... to be together. She'd made up her mind that I'd... sold my soul to the devil. And she left me. She took my babies with her. [Angrily, with tears in his eyes]
Miles:
Everyone... pulled away after that. There was talk of witchcraft... and... black magic. I went lookin' for wars to fight... and I saw brave men die at Vera Cruz. And then Gettysburg. Thousands of them in the blink of an eye. [Crying]
Miles:
But not me. I couldn't die. Like Little Anna. The influenza took her before she was fifteen. And Bo. He'd be almost eighty now if he were still alive. And my sweet... my sweet young bride. She died in an insame asylum. Old and alone. But I'm still here... I'm still here. [Unable to say any more, he just cries. We turn to Winnie, who is also crying. The screen fades to black]
Harper Pitt:
I got this tree from the great Antarctic pine forest, right over the hill.
Mr. Lies:
There are no pine forests in Antarctica.
Harper Pitt:
This one's a blue spruce.
Mr. Lies:
There are no blue spruce in...
Harper Pitt:
I chewed this pine tree down with my teeth. Like a beaver. I'm hungry, I haven't eaten in three days. I'm gonna use it to build something. Maybe a fire. Lucky I brought these.
Mr. Lies:
Snow'll melt
Harper Pitt:
Let it. I don't understand why I'm not dead. When your heart breaks, you should die. But there's still the rest of you. There's your breasts and your genitals... They're amazingly stupid, like babies or faithful dogs. They don't get it, they just want him. Want him.
Mr. Lies:
Eskimo's back.
Harper Pitt:
I know. I wanted a real Eskimo, someone chilly and reliable. An Eskimo dressed in seal pelts. Not this. This is just some lawyer, just...
Joe Pitt:
Hey, buddy.
Harper Pitt:
Hey.
Joe Pitt:
I looked for you. I've been everywhere.
Harper Pitt:
Well, you found me.
Joe Pitt:
No, I'm not looking now. I guess I'm having an adventure.
Harper Pitt:
Who with?
Joe Pitt:
No one you know. No one I know, either.
Harper Pitt:
ls it fun?
Joe Pitt:
Scary fun.
Harper Pitt:
Can I come with you? This isn't working anymore, I'm cold.
Joe Pitt:
I wouldn't want you to see.
Harper Pitt:
You think it's worse than what I imagine? It's not.
Joe Pitt:
I should go.
Harper Pitt:
Bastard! You fell out of love with me.
Joe Pitt:
That isn't true, Harper.
Harper Pitt:
Then come back!
Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.
But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says
