"No, seriously, Jaz," she said gently, parking the car and looking over at him. "It's what right. You stop doing things when they make people uncomfortable. Don't worry."
He looked at the dashboard, obviously in thought. "I suppose it would be better here, since it's quiet."
She paused, giving him a small, shy grin before stepping out of the car, avoiding eye contact with the turkey in the back.
She began walking, her hands in her pockets as she began walking, squinting into the sun. "I don't like the city much," she commented, considering the skyline. "But it is pretty."
"I like to imagine what they used to be," she said after a moment of reflection. "Those stairs in the building adjacent to ours - why do they have those brooms along the side? And those giant, metal boxes. What did they do? I like to look at them and I get to hope that we can return to that one day. What about you?"
He seemed surprised, looking ahead with the occasional glance at her. "Me too.. Without the leaves and debris and with working cars. There's so many old cars on the road it must have been crazy back then. Or the square things with screens and normal lives.. It's weird."
She laughed, sounding a little sad. "Yeah, weird might be the right way to put it. The struggles they faced are completely different from ours," she said, shaking her head. "I just wish I knew more. I wish I could understand it. You have no idea how maddening it is to see the entire infrastructure of humanity as a broken machine and realizing that you don't have the tools or the know-how to fix it."
"I'm sure if they couldn't we would have a much harder time saving it.. Their technology was far better than what it is now." He sighed. "Not everything can be fixed so easily."
She raised an eyebrow, considering him thoughtfully. "That's a pretty pessimistic outlook," she said, almost playfully.
"Not unless you have the right tool," she replied, raising one eyebrow. "You can do anything if you have the right toolbox."
