5. The Final Dispatch, contd.

But if we are all dead, then there is certainly no rush to catch the girl who, no matter how I fling myself forward, down the road I fling forward before me, remains [indistinct]. And yet . . . so I hitch [. . .] if I just [. . .]

[Extended rustling, footsteps, rapid breathing.]

So am I [indistinct] after all?

But wait, there is a way to tell! Any moment now, if I’m dead, someone will open her throat to me, so that I may remind her of my will and her duty. And if that does not happen, then I am not dead, or there has been some delay, or something. That is not very conclusive. But if it does happen, then I am certainly dead, for I believe—I am quite sure—I am at least fairly sure that it is not possible for the living to channel those who, though among the dead, are only visiting, though now that I think of it, I am not sure at all.

By gum, I think I have hit on something. By gum, I think we should put it to the test. If I am not dead I will act on it immediately. If I am dead I will tell someone else to act on it immediately. Either way someone will act on it immediately.

I feel much better. And so I am better. My shoes have eyelets. My nails have cuticles. In other words, I have spontaneously come out in details that a moment ago were beyond me. My fichu even has a few specks of blood on it. And look, here’s the road, firming up underfoot, curving back toward the trees, and, nestled under them, trying to look inconspicuous, old Sabin’s sugar shack, which I have always suspected of encroaching on school property, make a note of it.

And now another idea comes to me, I am really brilliant today: that it might be possible (dead or alive) to speak through more than one throat at once. Thus composing a sort of one-woman barbershop quartet. Or choir. Or—fancy the whole school speaking in my voice! Chattering to myself in a hundred accents over thin vegetable soup and a slice of bread smeared with bacon fat until I yell Quiet! and bang my cane on the long table so that the forks jump; sneaking away with myself into the bushes to grope inside my stained underpants with cold little fingers and tell myself no, no, and yes, yes, and no, no, all right, but I’m not going to kiss it; standing up in front of myself, my buttocks tight with self-regard, and lecturing myself until my eyes glaze with boredom; prying open my mouths and prodding my tongues with pencils and leading myself in exercises to stretch my embouchure until my tonsils bleed; croaking in chorus, invoking myself, my dead self, and when I fail to speak saying Hold out your hand and bringing my ruler down upon my already swollen, already reddened palm, and with vicious satisfaction raising the ruler again, and with fear stifling a plea, and with curiosity in which pleasure is mixed with apprehension looking on, unconsciously rubbing my own palms; somewhere stealing a few coins from the little box that I mistakenly think no one else knows about; somewhere snapping out a command, and somewhere pushing a wad of bread into my cheek with my tongue, replying Yes, ma’am; and somewhere bending myself over a bench and forcing myself painfully up my tender bottom and whispering distasteful endearments into my ear and later stabbing myself with a butter knife and shouting incoherent damnations over my corpse on which I then urinate until I shoot the lock and burst in en masse shouting imprecations and take myself in custody and bear myself downstairs to our oubliette and leave myself there to whimper to myself all alone in the dark as in the walls the mice mutter in my voice— Oh horrible—[static, hissing, distant howling]

Compose yourself!

The road, leaving field and thistles and birds behind, has dipped back down into the ravine. It is not necessary to be more specific. In any case, here in the deep shade of the trees, all details are indistinct. Somewhere a fungus is grunting. Under the rotting leaves, the infant dead are telling their monotonous secrets. I know better than to listen to their whispers. Or glance around for their pale heads, pushing up the leaves like puffballs.

Yet I seem to be a little out of sorts. Something came up that troubled me, I can’t remember what. [Pause, sound of breathing.]

I remember now. The question: If I am inventing the world around me, as of course I am, am I inventing the girl as well?

Oh, I hope she is real, because if she is not, how can I slake this save her burning in my throat?

If she’s real, she is inventing the world around her, too, there being no other way to travel here. Golly! I might turn the page and see, say, a gloomy water mill, whacking the stream with black and rotting paddles, a stream that is not speaking or even thinking of anything, least of all of me.

How happy I’d be just to stand on a piece of dirt I didn’t have to shit out first, if you’ll excuse the expression.

Secretary, mark for redaction.

Let us get out of this ravine now. Suddenly I have had quite enough of it. Fields, that’s better, and I do not mind the rustling in the grass, if it is grass, though there is no wind here.

It is possible that, just as I have remade the landscape, I could remake her. There is another possibility, however: that if I could remake her, she could remake me! And do not be alarmed, but if she could remake me, then she could make me. And if she could make me, she may have already made me. In which case I do not exist and never did.

[Pause, static.]

Oh, I consider it unlikely. It is not at any rate as likely as the opposite hypothesis, that I made her, and even that is less likely than that we are both here, self-made, or made by God and our parents, if you prefer, which I don’t. But it is just possible that she, running through the land of the dead, imagined herself pursued, wanted to be pursued, and so created me to follow her. [Pause.] It would even answer some questions, as for instance, why do I want to catch her? Students have disappeared before, if I remember correctly. When it happens, I feel some regret, if only for lost revenues. I even fetch them back. I believe I fetched you back, once. But I do not generally hurl myself through my own mouth in hot pursuit. Why this time? I wish I could remember. Is it possible that I care?

Why not? Other people care, it would seem.

Is it really easier to believe that I am a figment of her imagination, that I wish to follow her because I was created to follow her, having no other purpose?

Yes, it is easier.

Though even easier to imagine the cognate possibility: that I created her so that she might flee me, because I wanted to chase something I could never catch.

The problem, of course, is that I cannot really care about something that I invented solely so that I might care about something. I am not such a sucker as that.

Suppose that she did invent me. Did she just want someone, anyone, to run after her, or me in particular? Surely the wish for an unspecified “someone” would not produce me of all people. But would she really bring into being someone (me) who imagines that she (me again) could bring her (Finster) into being? Would she—could she bring into being someone who really could bring her into being? Or even someone who actually had?

Oh I am lost. [Static.]

Oh where am I. [Static, sound of breathing.]

That was a close call. That’s why only the strongest personalities ought to safari here, those who can hold on to an idée fixe for grim life. I have the grip of a raptor, but my concentration lapsed, I forgot that in the real world effects may not precede causes. Nota bene! To such rules we travelers must adhere, arbitrary as they seem. Books may not write their authors. Little girls may not invent their fathers, I mean their mothers, I mean their teachers.

We are not in the real world, however, as is obvious from the tiny lowercase letters dropping like ash on my sleeves, gathering in the folds of my gown. Here, it is probably possible. Possibly probable, though if so, it is equally probable that I invented her so that she might invent me. So that I might invent her. So that she might invent me. So that I might invent her. So that she might invent me. So that I might invent her. So that she might invent me. So that I might invent her. Are you getting this down? Dear listener, you may think that this can’t go on forever. It can. Here, it can. Death is where everything goes on forever. [Laughter, extended fit of coughing, several words inaudible.]

So, the road. My road. To the school. I plant one foot on it. Then another. Then another (no, not a third foot, the first one again). Obediently, the world assembles itself around me: rutted track, grassy fields, scattered trees.

A little more detail, please. Road: brown, ridged, its puddles reflecting the clouds. Grass: black and curly as your hair. Tree trunks wet. Leaves shuddering, showing their ribbed undersides. Smell of ozone. Letters falling.

As I said, it takes a strong personality.