Alive

"You were never ... alive."
"I was ... alive," he says feebly. "Alive?"

"No, you weren't," I say. "You know what I mean."

"What was I, then?" he asks.

"You were just" — I pause,
look out over the expanse
of white carpet into
a massive white kitchen,
white chairs on a gleaming tiled floor
— "not dead."

— Bret Easton Ellis, "The Informers"