conversation on binaries versus analog

"do you think its possible to just turn off?" Chloe is twirling a recently deceased leaf in between her index and forefinger with the distracted meaningfulness of one about to invent the helicopter. "I mean, have you ever felt a certain way about someone and then just one day not felt anything anymore? I don't mean love turning to hate or anything like that i mean a true rarefied sort of connection to someone that just stops like throwing a switch?"
	There is something terribly irritating about the way she is twirling the leaf and i desperately want to snatch it away from her, but instead I sign heavily and try not to contemplate the depression of the Southern autumn, the anemic monochrome of browns that pass for fall. What I really want to say is yes of course. The light comes on, the light goes off and comes on again at some distance from where it last was, like lighthouse on wheels captained by a lunatic. But after much hesitation this seems perhaps not entirely true, at least not true all of the time. "Well, i mean, of course it's possible, anything is possible... It happens that way sometimes certainly. But it's often to be more of a sunset, a prolonged sinking that's not entirely beautiful and not entirely tragic but totally compelling. I mean think about it," I glance west at the thin wisps of clouds visible through the bare branches. "the sun is going to set over there in about two or three hours, and if we happen to be somewhere we can see it, we would probably say that it's beautiful, but at the same time we never acknowledge the fact that it might never reappear again. I mean we assume that it will because it always has, but it really doesn't have to. I think that's why sunsets are beautiful because they have that compelling element of doom in them. Of course I'm a night person so i don't really think they're depressing at all, sunset is usually just about when i hit my stride."
	Chloe doesn't seem to have heard a word I've said. Or at least she remains totally unaffected by what I've said which is momentarily humbling and i begin to wonder whether i actually said anything or merely thought them to myself at a rather high volume.