I’ve hit rock bottom. It’s language that reduced me to this state, it’s the agitating, incitement-to-riot effect of the written word and the smokescreen of uncontrolled feelings that words belch out, as the fire grows more and more enraged with each bucket of gasoline tossed on it. Every language contains all the folly that humans are capable of; language just spills it from their mouths. It makes no difference whether it’s coming from the oral cavity of a god or of the last clandestine migrant to arrive; the important thing so far as language is concerned is to foment, to befoul, to devastate. You write one sentence and you toss on the first bucket of gasoline, immediately the flames of hyperbole and intolerable grief flare up, and the more you write, the crazier you get, the more you’re convinced you believe what you’ve said, the more you’re on your way to pure madness, to plotting nefarious plots. Whereas if you never think, or worse, write, you won’t have moods or feelings, and you can live blissfully and serenely for billions of years. With no risk of screwing up.
The problems arise with the very first thought, whatever it is. Because that first damn thought will immediately invite another, which will be: Am I right to think that? Not to mention the third, which will almost certainly contradict the first, without, however, dismissing the second. And the fourth will be Why do I exist? and the fifth, Do I really exist? and the sixth, Am I in love? and so forth and so on, and all the while you’re behaving ever more inappropriately, ever more rashly. Thoughts are infectious, they contaminate actions, they create monsters.
Millions of human beings would cheat and steal to have even a millionth of my powers and my privileges, I know. They’d think this business (business!) involving the ex-inseminatrix with the purple braids is a non-event, insignificant. Nobody ever died of love! they’d say. He’ll get over it like everyone else gets over it! Of course, they’re all convinced that if they were in my shoes they’d fare better than I. I’m getting mighty tired of this arrogance of theirs. Ever since my supposed son persuaded them I’m a harmless social worker, if not actually an old fool, I’ve had to listen to their sermons.
Everything would be simpler if I could just take off on a trip, some hike or safari to rest my brain and empty out everything to do with that woman. Or even if I could retire for a while to an isolated galaxy where omniscience and omni-foresight were out of order, like those places where there’s no phone signal. I’d concentrate solely and exclusively on my own affairs. Out of sight, out of mind, as the notorious proverb goes. But there’s no way I can run off somewhere else or look the other way: wherever I turn I see her, wherever I go, she’s there. Not to mention that my memory is perpetually infallible.
What men have going for them is that they forget; little by little they forget everything. All those broken hearts capable of fastening onto substitute love objects in a flash; all those inconsolable widows who one day start to dance and flirt again. And then of course they die, and that’s the most radical type of oblivion there is. While I never forget and I don’t die. I can fool myself for an instant thinking about something else, but one part of my mammoth brain never lets go of the bone. And anyone who comes up with a better metaphor here, please let me know.*
* This matter of addressing potential readers, as if anyone really could read this, and requesting their aid—well, I didn’t plan this, I swear.
It’s easy to vow to do something, harder to get down to business without hesitating or changing one’s mind, even though in my case we’re dealing with metaphysical facts (if I may be permitted an oxymoron). I knew very well what I must not do, knew that I mustn’t allow myself to be tempted, and yet something went awry. The only solution at this point is to close up shop—mental shop I mean, exterminating those thoughts before they see the light of day. So that everything can return to normal. And I’ll recall these events as a terrible tempest, a dreadful Stations of the Cross. Maybe some doctor of theology will draw transcendent lessons from them, or even add them to the sacred texts of some religion, one of those slightly cheeky cults that always seem to be springing up these days.