My friends are cyclists on racing bikes. They rush past me while I stare at my screen reading new ‘whats app’ postings. She, on the other hand, has no vision. Born blind, she thinks that a tunnel right after the sea is wonder at a celebration gaining altitude in a valley.
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Despite a brief period of blurring, I regained my eyesight temporarily, and observed the custom of spitting on a gold coin which up until now I had avoided. The sky, land, and air seemed to recede slowly, until I sensed no physical feeling.
But I knew to my surprise how pointless it was to bar the windows again, and decided to present myself to the public as a natural phenomenon after my articles were accepted. Probably I hadn’t gone far enough into the blank wall of rock. From there, it was a dizzying but not entirely odd disposition. I recovered from this fit of pique and prevailed upon the world to serve me.
Many things weigh on me. I remember when my teeth had too much air between them, and how this empty air almost hummed with sadness. This makes me think that it was a gesture of a very young part of me. But it’s possible that my thoughts are shaded with ineffective monuments of adaptive forgetfulness.
I have three faithful mistresses, in two Brooklyn flats and a room in Soho. Sometimes I wake completely naked in the middle of a room and don’t know where I am. This is a habit that has become colder and spicy during the winter months.
I think she knew and saw my limitations. That’s why I needed some form of subsistence beyond the back-seat waiting for me. She was one of the few people always marching against the bitter trials of the world. Perhaps ‘we’ were a slip-up on my part, or perhaps she was just smarter than me. I would have given a gold chaplet and the faintest flavor of flattery for her loyalty.
Her transformation was about political engagement, and I thought not valid. Dissolution of her ideas within life under the conditions of minimalist production was not the same process as finding room for me in her bed. Convergence with her life forms might feature a goat or a cow.
They had stopped laughing, and I remained in the same position, conscious and yet not. The noise beyond my sight was a preposterous frivolity in at least nine languages. My eyes remained on her face. I had endured the youthfulness of many years. “His intestines were hanging down to the ground,” they had said later.
She created a photorealistic life, with inflatable boys, cartoon appliances, classical music, and details of a man’s lips layered and juxtaposed with visions of vegetables.
Day by day I think about what we think we know and accept. Sometimes the draughts of cool air curl in snake-like form, hovering in a moonless sky, as remembrances slip past my eyes. It’s not what I was expecting.
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August 2018
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