Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim. I am owin' my inspiration to Jhonen Vasquez.
Additional Disclaimer: Just because these two characters are in the same place at the same time and talking about the same thing does NOT make this into any kind of romance.
I have long wondered how it is possible for Dib to consider Gaz a human being let alone any sort of sister. Then I watched The Shawshank Redemption.
This conversation could well have taken place just before we see Dib and the hobo discussing his predicament in Gaz Taster of Pork.
Walls
Dib sat in the Mac Meaties, racking his brain for a way out of his problem. What in the name of all that was sane had ever prompted him to do a thing like that? Even at the very best of times Gaz was never particularly approachable, but her foul, vicious temper regularly made Dib wish with all his heart that he had some way to leave home for good.
A subtle but unmistakable stir in the lineup caught Dib's notice; as a bum entered the store, the customers just inside the doors veered away warily. It was one thing as long as the bum stayed outside, begging the price of a Mac Meal from passersby. But when he came inside and got too close, that was another. Dib was surprised to feel an odd kinship with the bum, another rejected outsider.
A few minutes later the bum approached the dining area, and Dib began to have second thoughts. It was a good thing Dib had already finished his hamburger; he could now understand why the crowd had parted at the bum's approach. Dib's nose wrinkled; the smell wafting ahead of the bum could kill anybody's appetite.
As the bum came closer, Dib could now see that his face was different, not at all what the rest of him suggested. It was an intelligent face, even if it did look a little tense. Just as Dib was wondering how such an intelligent person ended up on the street, the bum caught Dib looking at him and took it as an invitation.
The only table with nobody else at it was Dib's... just like lunchtime at skool.
"Okay if I sit here?" the bum grinned uneasily. "Not much room in here today."
"Sure, I guess." As the bum pushed himself in toward the middle of the seat, Dib made sure to pull himself to the very outside edge of his own seat.
Opening his hamburger, the bum began to talk.
"Not many planes flying around these days," the bum offered between bites. "I saw one the other day, but it was just plain dumb. A dumb animal's got no right to be left, but I don't use my left hand much... "
In spite of himself, Dib found himself first listening, and then agreeing. He hadn't realized just HOW starved for conversation he really was. Talk to his father? Even when the Professor was around, which was rarely, he wasn't one for listening. And if Gaz ever spoke three words to him, two of them were certain to be "shut" and "up."
The bum's fingers clutched at the edge of the paper that had enwrapped his hamburger. As he began to tear the paper in long strips, some of the randomness left his speech and he even began to sound more or less as sane as anybody else.
"At first I was stir crazy INSIDE, but now I get stir crazy outside... "
"Outside where?" Dib asked.
"Jail. Stir. Greybar hotel," the bum explained. "Vagrancy. Like where else could I go? Go crazy... "
Here was Dib's chance to find out something he sometimes wondered. "What's it like in jail?" Dib cautiously asked.
Now deliberately tearing the paper in long, even strips, the bum for the first time turned directly to look Dib in the eye.
"Every door is locked... every... single... door. And the walls! The walls never go away... they never, ever, go away. They keep you in. They're in cahoots with the doors. You hate them, but they're always there.
"But it's a funny thing. After long enough, you find yourself startin' to get used to them. Having walls around, I mean. And then when you been inside long enough, you get to dependin' on em. I used to love being outside, but now, I feel all edgy unless I'm indoors... "
Something about the way the bum described the prison walls was eerily familiar. Unpleasant though they were, they never went away. And precisely because they never went away, in time you got so used to having them around that you couldn't imagine your life without them.
Was that the way he was with Gaz? Little as he cared for the way she treated him, he couldn't imagine life without her. She was always there... threatening him whenever he tried to talk to her, throwing shrieking tantrums whenever she lost a game, spitting crumbs in his face when he happened to be the one who ate the last of the cereal, acting like the world had come crashing to an end whenever he happened to take the last slice of pizza... but he couldn't imagine his life without her.
Could it be possible that knowing what would happen, even if it was nearly always bad, gave him a feeling of security? That in spite of everything, he did love her?
"So you can say the walls... make you feel... secure!" Dib concluded. By this time the bum had worked his way down to the final few inches of paper. "Maybe you even... love them?" It was an unnerving, almost impossible thought, but as with everything else, he had to know, and here was an indirect way to find out.
The bum's fists clenched around the ragged strips as he snapped at Dib, "That's crazy talk!"
The End