We ride an elephant

We’re on the plane, making a very bumpy approach to an island in Thailand, and she is holding my hand tightly because she knows I don’t like flying, a formulation I use because I don’t like saying I’m afraid of flying. I’m not really afraid of flying, it’s rare that I’m truly nervous on an aeroplane, unless there’s turbulence or Arabs in the cabin. I don’t like the feeling of spatial confinement, of helplessness. She holds my hand and gives me a compassionate look, and the plane judders, and the island’s peaks pierce the clouds. She squeezes my hand so tightly it hurts and I wonder if perhaps she’s the one who’s afraid and I give her a slightly irritated look which she interprets as a sign of my fear and squeezes my hand even more tightly, adding her other hand for support and I wonder what the guy sitting next to us must think. We land safely and I’m furious with her.

We’re lying on the beach of an island in Thailand, she’s getting a massage and I’m finishing Sloterdijk’s Critique of Cynical Reason. I read the last three pages again, hoping this will allow me to say in one sentence what the book is about. She returns from her massage and asks, How was the book? and I say, Good, and she lies down next to me, not too close, she can sense my dissatisfaction, and I decide that it’s a critique of idealism. I consider talking to her about it, about the unavoidable compulsion inherent in all idealistic systems to contradict themselves, either openly or in secret, but I hesitate, and I’m not sure whether I’m afraid she won’t understand what I’m trying to say or whether I’m afraid I won’t be able to say it. The next day, we ride an elephant.