Every year, the man goes through a gloomy and ultimately pointless phase of lamenting his ownership of so many unnecessary things.

Oh, good, thinks the woman. This again. Even though the man is only talking about his things, she knows he is also eyeing up her things.  

I have two thousand books, he says. Who needs two thousand books? I can hear them multiplying at night. They suck the air out of the room while I sleep. They want me dead! 

And then there are the shirts. When we moved here, I had three shirts. Now I have fifty. Fifty shirts! I am not a rich man. There are people in this world who dress in rags, and they dress their children in rags. And yet I have fifty shirts. How has this happened? Where have forty-seven shirts come from?

I have thirty pairs of shoes, says the woman, but I would rather have forty. I think having forty pairs of shoes in my closet would be a wonderful accomplishment.

Evidence of a life well shod, says the man.

I wouldn’t mind having only four, though. Or even three. But I don’t think I could get by on less than three pairs of shoes.

Oh, you would get by. You would get by with one pair. Or none, he adds, accusingly. Even barefoot, you would get by.

Yes, I probably would, the woman admits. I must not care about shoes after all. But I do like them.

I no longer like shoes, says the man in such a dour voice it makes the woman giggle. I used to like shoes, but now I am tired of them. I am fed up with shoes. I’ve been dealing with them all my life and have never come to terms with them.

I wonder which of my thirty pairs of shoes I’ll be wearing when I die, she says. Maybe if I knew the answer to that, I could burn them in the oven and live forever.

The man shudders. Imagine living forever!

Well, I wouldn’t want to live forever. But it would be nice to know you had the option. I could probably do another five hundred years without running out of things to interest me—and if I ever got bored of it all I could simply slip those shoes on and die.

I thought you burned those shoes in the oven.

I only pretended to. But I would never burn shoes in an oven. Not even my death shoes. Not even if I knew those shoes were going to kill me one day.

You will live forever, says the man. Nothing will ever kill you.

I wouldn’t want to be the only one with this option, though. As much as I would enjoy living for five hundred years, I wouldn’t want to outlive everyone I know.

You’d meet new people. You’d get by.

The woman sighs as she contemplates living for five hundred years without him. The man has never understood the woman’s attitude toward death. She is the only person he has ever known who truly does not worry about her own death. She only worries that her friends might die before her. She has a terror of outliving her friends and family. She has even made him promise not to die first, claiming it would be rude of him, considering her great fear. And yet he is certain she would get by without him.

I have a box full of my old teeth, says the man. Why have I kept them? What good are they?

You can show them to tiny children, suggests the woman. Imagine their surprise!

I don’t know any children, he says. The days of knowing children are over with. So much is over with.

You can glue them to the front door then. When was the last time you heard about someone gluing their old teeth to their front door? It would make a strong and quite original statement.

I would prefer to smash them with a hammer. A hammer is a useful and necessary item!

We have five hammers, says the woman, that I know of. They are very useful when they are of use. Otherwise they are strange and awkward. Idle hammers—let’s face it—spend most of their time just lying around in drawers and boxes like dead people.

My mother kept her gallstones in a tin box. And now I keep my teeth in a box. What is this life?

It is a life, says the woman. That is all I can say about it.

Do you realize I have underwear I haven’t worn in ten years? What am I saving them for? How has this happened to us?

Perhaps we can stitch them together into a hammock for the yard. When you get home from work you can lie in your hammock made out of your old underwear. Wouldn’t that be nice?

If I had one hammock, I would soon have more than one hammock. I can’t begin to imagine how this would happen, but it would happen. Eventually I would have unnecessary hammocks. In the end, my hammocks would have me.

Do you still have your mother’s unnecessary gallstones?

I have so many unnecessary things that I even have my poor dead mother’s old gallstones. They look like misshapen lozenges from the underworld. Or doodads a rodent might covet.

I want to see them.

You can see them and you can have them. I’m giving you my mother’s gallstones.

If we burned this house down with all of your teeth and books and gallstones inside, says the woman, that would solve your problems immediately.

Then we could roam the earth, says the man, excitedly. We could roam the earth, carrying only our most essential items.

We would be at liberty to roam the earth like wraiths.

Wraiths need nothing, says the man. They are beyond needing. They are fleshless.

I may have overstated, corrects the woman. We will wander the earth like terracotta warriors without an emperor. We will wander the earth like garden gnomes without a lawn. We will wander the earth like a house fire in search of a gated community. We will wander the earth like a pair of cheap headphones after a total zombie apocalypse. 

Ok, ok, says the man. Enough with the verbal fireworks! My, my.

We will wander the earth, says the woman. We will wander all of creation.

But what would you take with you? What is truly essential?

I’d carry a knife, says the woman.

Yes, a knife is practical. You wouldn’t get far without a knife. What else?

Lip balm. I can put up with all sorts of discomfort, but I won’t tolerate having chapped lips.

Maybe a fork, suggests the man. And some sturdy shoes. One pair. But no books. No books!

They agree that they will carry no books while they roam the earth in their sturdy shoes.

Think of it, says the man. Never again will we wake up with those two thousand ravenous volumes flapping around our heads in the dark, bickering amongst themselves for the privilege of dragging me down to hell.

Or your old teeth rattling in that box. You won’t have to kowtow to them anymore.

How have I become the man who keeps his teeth in a little box?

Life is a harrowing affair, says the woman. We do what we can. You keep your teeth in a little box. I sew.

You are a mighty woman behind a sewing needle. A master of the old stitchcraft. 

I also study languages I will never have occasion to speak. I even find myself dabbling in the dead languages from time to time. Why? Who knows? Such is life.

You might have occasion to speak them while we’re roaming the earth, says the man.

You never know who you’re liable to bump into out there, affirms the woman.

Anyone could turn up, says the man. Even the dead can drop in on you.

The dead do not speak. Not even the dead languages.

They find even language unnecessary! It is enough for them simply to make an appearance.

What else shall we take with us on our roam, man? A tiny radio? Shall we take a radio with us?

I don’t see why not. We can bring a tiny radio as long as it’s eminently portable. We might need to know the weather forecast. What if it’s going to rain? We might want to know about that.

We wouldn’t want to get wet and catch a chill. That wouldn’t do at all.

I suppose we could permit ourselves rain gear, says the man. Rain gear is not unnecessary.

We will get by, says the woman. Sturdy shoes and rain gear, a fork, a tiny radio.

No books though!

No books.

When I was forty, says the man, I used to think I might live another forty years. If I was lucky, that is. I used to sit around in parks or on buses, maybe even at the movies, and think about how I might still have half my life ahead of me. But then I blinked and I was fifty. And I thought, I probably won’t even make it thirty more years! One moment you’ve got half your life ahead of you, and then suddenly you’re on an expressway to death. And you are going to die in a house full of unnecessary things.

We’d better get on the road as soon as possible then. This is getting serious!

Life has become a matter of squandering time while accumulating unnecessary things.

We will burn the house down first thing in the morning if you’d like. Right after breakfast.

A house is a trap, says the man. You walk in and can never find your way out. It fills up with things. You cannot find the door. You have to die in order to get out.

I quite like houses, says the woman—who is beginning to tire of this game. I wish we didn’t have to burn ours down. Of course, I wouldn’t burn our house down as a whimsical gesture. No, this is obviously a matter of the utmost practicality. We will burn our house down out of absolute necessity.

When we came here I was so young and hopeful, says the man. And now I have my teeth in a little box. I am a man who is no longer young who keeps his teeth in a box!

Perhaps we can send them to someone as a gift. What a thoughtful gesture that would be!

The woman knows, of course, that no matter what she says the man will continue to keep his teeth in a box, and they will never roam the earth in sturdy shoes. They will continue to live in this house with their unnecessary things until they are no longer able. What happens after that she does not know and hardly cares. It has never struck her as tragic or even particularly objectionable that one day she will no longer exist.

My two thousand books are probably cawing at each other and scrabbling about in the dark, anxious for my arrival. They’re up there wondering why I’m not in bed yet, tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep so they can pick my bones clean.

Would you mind if I had a quick peek at your mother’s gallstones before bed? says the woman. I’ll bet they’re actually quite beautiful. Ugly things so often are. If, that is, you know how to look at them. If, that is, you would allow for beauty in unnecessary things.