In Chap­ter 134 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” a bleak win­ter envelops Mon­ta Clare, where a heavy lay­er of snow cre­ates a sur­re­al, mono­chro­mat­ic atmos­phere. The pro­tag­o­nist, Patch, remains iso­lat­ed in an old house for the week, stuck with­in its dusty con­fines. He dons his father’s out­dat­ed cloth­ing, lay­ered for warmth, as he opens the win­dows to let in the frigid air.

Sam­my makes a spir­it­ed entrance, bring­ing with him a bot­tle of Glen Grant, and quick­ly crit­i­cizes the dull envi­ron­ment. His humor is sharp as he jokes about blow­ing his brains out to add some col­or to the drea­ry décor. Despite the ban­ter, humor pre­vails when Sam­my sits in a wick­er chair, only to com­i­cal­ly destroy it upon sit­ting. As Patch laughs, Sam­my reminds him of his respon­si­bil­i­ty to take care of the house, even pre­sent­ing a check from a paint­ing he sold to help with tax­es.

Patch express­es con­cern but is quick­ly pla­cat­ed, and they dis­cuss Sammy’s recent sale of his art­work, includ­ing a mem­o­ry of the paint­ing titled “the ice.” Sam­my sold it for a good price but scoffs at the idea of Patch buy­ing it back, sug­gest­ing instead that he cre­ate new art. This leads to rem­i­nisc­ing about past inter­ac­tions and the peo­ple that affect­ed their lives, includ­ing a woman who pur­chased one of Sam­my’s pieces.

Their con­ver­sa­tion strad­dles humor and seri­ous top­ics, such as Sammy’s pre­vi­ous roman­tic entan­gle­ments with a chan­nel 7 news girl, and the odd pack­ages he sent Patch dur­ing his prison term, which were appar­ent­ly con­fis­cat­ed by guards. Although Sam­my attempts to light­en the mood, they also touch on the real­i­ties of Patch’s past strug­gles, the sac­ri­fices made, and their friend­ship.

As they wrap up, an air of nos­tal­gia hangs over the pair, with Sam­my acknowl­edg­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of their bond despite the changes life has brought. Their dia­logue reflects an under­ly­ing sense of cama­raderie and warmth, high­light­ing the con­trast between the harsh envi­ron­ment out­side and the con­nec­tions they share with­in the old house.