I Don't Know How It's Going

"How's it going?" he asked.

"I don't know how it's going." the other man answered.

"How can you not know how it's going?"

"Sometimes you just don't."

"That's silly. You always have an idea of how it's going. I'm going to assume you mean, things are going badly."

"Don't just assume stuff. I told you. I don't know how it's going!"

"But you're supposed to know how it's going."

"I'm not supposed to know anything."

"This is really weird."

"Yeah, how do you think it feels on my end, huh?"

"I mean, you're acting really strangely. I just asked you a question."

"A question I don't have the answer to."

"Doesn't mean you have to be rude about it."

"No, but I'm just sick and tired of people asking me the same question about the same thing that I can't change or don't know anything about."

"What do you mean you can't change it?"

"I mean... Maybe I don't want to change it."

"Aha! That's an entirely different thing."

"I mean, I don't feel like it's on me to change it."

"Well, you can't wait for somebody else to change it or make them change. Nobody has that power over someone else."

"I know. It's just hard being in the unknown and feeling stuck there."

"So you're feeling sad?"

"I don't know what I'm feeling. I'm feeling a lot of things at the moment. It's kinda like when you mix all the colours together and you get yucky brown. And you don't know how to extract the good colours anymore. You just kind of stare at the paint."

"That's kind of a feeling too, you know. Why didn't you just say that?"

"Cause that's not really how you reply to a light how's-it-going question, is it."

"I guess not, but I do get it now. And you're sure you can't do anything about this paint?"

"I'm sure. I just have to watch it dry."