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Do not rise before the light.
We think of health as stillness, but stillness is not life but death. Cleanliness is not life. Purity is not life. We, the lepers and the lame, the scum of the earth, who live, build monuments for the good and righteous, but only after they die for us their honourable deaths. And never before.
I look down from my kitchen window. I see someone. They are small. Am I on their mind as they are on mine? If only asleep, in bed at night. They run off, as if to say, Come with me, maybe I will tell you something. People often say this nowadays. Or such things. Not much at all. Tell me your thoughts and you better not lie to me! they say all the same. The truth or a truth? Yours or mine?
They cannot see me wave my hand at them. But maybe, by some secret design beyond understanding, they can. What am I to do? Do I follow them out into the street?
My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. They say nervousness signals an impending need for action. Will any action do? I do my dishes, but not right now. It smells bad. It makes the whole space unpleasant to spend just about any amount of time in. That is not it, not at all. I have a thirst but only for sweet things. They say sweet drinks only make worse the thirst. I pour a juice. I see I do not keep juice in the house. I never buy it because everyone tells me it is just sugar. I regret listening to other people.
If you ask me, this is probably my favourite door in the house. I like how it keeps in the cold instead of out. I like how when it opens, its little light goes on (I own few lamps so it has an element of novelty). I like how it leaves you nowhere to go. I like how it keeps you just where you are. And I look, or that is what it looks like to anyone who might be looking in on me. I did say that I am looking, but the truth is different. I see much, but I see little. Eventually, however: mostly bottles, but none juice. Or only distantly. Is that all?
Really, I do not care. I just need something to lean on. My sweet had their pot broken. Broken to shivers, the good book would say. The book, which makes the belly bitter, but the mouth sweet as honey. Security is not found balancing two sides of a scale. One needs to be like the famous riddle in the evening. But I cannot speak on this. It is a complicated story. It is full of deeds, not thoughts. Not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. One needs not be frightened by words, they tell me. Just breathe, they tell me. It is only words, they tell me. Are they? Maybe.
I am not listening. I am thinking of small things, tiny things, far, far away from words. Of surfaces. Of my hand and in it, its palm, pressed into at times I had no good reason to expect, following someone new through a crowd. Or when fingers splay a hair wider than would be entirely decent in polite company. These small delicacies.
A kiss, the warmth of the sun. But the sun is also its shade. He says April is the cruellest month. I am out both before rise and after set. If I leave the house into one of these spring days, I shall surely be unable to work. I leave, never to return. I follow only my nose. What becomes of me then? How do I know if I know my own way?
I look back and who is it that I see? They say death is one of two things. Two persons, looking each other in the eye, see not their eyes but their looks. Or is it perhaps by some strange movement still their own?
They were waiting for me to say something. I wonder what they had to tell me. It did not go my way, but still, I relish the moment. In truth, only its memory. It had to become a memory for it to sweeten. Anyone looking in might surmise I hand-waved them away. Had they been there to see for themselves, what would they have thought about it, and me? I should go after them, but do they want me to? Do I?
I used to watch young dogs when I was young. Today, I go on living, like a servant, moving from one servant’s job to another, intoning clichés. All the while, I am alone, in this big, empty space. Put here. To do what? I cannot breathe. It smells. It all repels me. I want to leave. I must run. I shall, but presently I have not. And I want it, but I do not. For shame, the dog turns to its own vomit again.
A plan is the prerequisite of failure. But if I do not look back, I shall not find my way back. Have I no need for it then? They say young people find the best way, that is to say, their own way, that is, to be lost or indeed, none at all. None to speak of.
A plan is the prerequisite of failure. Be ye not as the horse! they say. Or the hare, I add. Being brave is the object of life. You turn your head too much, they say; they then say: you might run into something. If I am not careful, I might run into something. But if I do not look back, I shall not find my way back. Have I no need for it then?
One looks ahead where is found half the truth. One looks back, still half. Half, or one of two? They say death is one of two things. Not this, but that. Without the exception, no rule. I shall not be here, soon enough. I look down on life and find no puzzle or maths problem. Questions go unanswered. I am not happy about it, but I can bear it.
To want is a need; to receive is not. Being let down is far from the worst there is, yet we are made to feel that it is.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
Proverbs 23:35