Scene 11

The man and the woman lie naked together. The first part of the scene is shot from Lottie’s POV. In other words, we can’t yet see her face.

LEMON: I don’t have inner experience.

LOTTIE: Hmm?

Beat.

LEMON: It’s very hard to describe.

Beat.

LOTTIE: What is?

LEMON: Like. There is nobody “looking out of me.” I exhibit all the outer manner of human behaviour, including language and social interaction and so forth, but there is no consciousness to match. Inside me, all the lights are out.

Beat.

LOTTIE: All right.

Beat.

They kiss.

LEMON (within the kisses): Is it? I mean is it all right?

LOTTIE (within the kisses): Well I don’t quite know what you mean.

Lemon thinks or “thinks,” We could think, feel, will, and remember, and we could also “act” in every sense of that word, and yet none of all this would have to “enter our consciousness” (as one says metaphorically). The whole of life would be possible, seeing itself only in a mirror. Even now, by far the greatest portion of our life takes place in a mirror.

LEMON: You know how you infer what it’s like to be other people? By combining what it’s like to be you with what you see other people do? Well there’s nothing that it’s like to be me! There are no, uh . . . subjective facts about me.

LOTTIE: You’re nuts!

LEMON: Imagine . . . imagine a sophisticated, sort of, robot that you could make love to. It even groans and moans as if it were enjoying it. And it’s not thinking “God, when will this be over” – it isn’t thinking, or feeling, anything! Except as a kind of, well the way it’s programmed to behave, a particular set of subroutines to change the way it behaves it response to certain stimuli . . .

LEMON (within kisses): . . . like some of the things you do . . . like when your little mouth . . . goes around me . . . and your little hands . . .

Lottie laughs. But there is something in his manner. She moves away, turning her back on him.

We switch to some ordinary shot. There is a trail of still and smudged sperm on her cheek and her neck below the ear. He kisses her spine. He looks at her. He moves his head to speak into her ear.

LEMON: You’ll understand. Anyway I prefer someone looking out for me than someone looking out of me.

Beat.



LEMON: I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it later.

LOTTIE: It’s just a bit boring.

This goes towards establishing a mood.