A smile is able to open a shell to reveal a pearl, or it can open the doors of Paradise to a man.
— Why do I do it? Because I want to see to it that it happens.
— Careful not to spoil the game.
— Am I giving away too much already?
— No, no, go on, don’t worry about it until you have to.
— Right, we must simply laugh at the grief that poisons our hearts! But we ought to aspire to be more than blade-like smiles drenched in malice. I’d sure want you to know when something bothers me . . .
— Right.
— . . . but you’ll never see me be wry, for if the clock should strike twelve, the wind change, and the cock should crow at the same time, my face might forever remain in that ugly state.
It’s not a lie, it’s more than true, not less. There is a meaningful difference. Yes, now don’t you worry about the truth, but worry about yourself. Better wise up and wise up quick, for all there is to life is cheating and getting cheated out of the things you so dearly coveted.
You think a man’s got his back broken because he makes like a clown and walks bent?
Don’t be easy and don’t be stupid. Things are rarely what they seem and you can’t know what you don’t know. But who’d even want to know? I sure don’t. What good has knowing ever done anyone? What you don’t know can’t hurt you and I don’t want to get hurt, not anymore. I’ll choose not to know; I’ll sleep, I’ll dream. I want my beliefs reaffirmed. Tell me what I want to hear, lie if you have to, what do I care? Talk to me slowly, tuck me into bed. Sing a song to me sweetly, an old tune in a familiar way, so I can say, ‘Hey, wait, I think I know this one!’
Songs build little rooms in time. When we speak of our surroundings, we are speaking of the past. Lately, the past has been changing too quickly for me to keep up, so it’s progressively getting harder for me to find the way back home. Until, one day, I won’t be able to anymore. It’s all so disorienting, like living my whole life in a moving maze.
Reality is fickle. Truths are prone to change. Something true today might not be true tomorrow. And so, you can tell me the truth, but this alone cannot be enough for me to believe. Belief requires desire and it is desire that survives the night. Maybe this is wrong, or not right, but I can’t see any other way for me to see it. For in hope we were saved, but hope that sees for itself is not hope, for who hopes for what one sees?
It might not look it, but I’m exhibiting remarkable restraint. I’m trying to smile while biting my tongue, I’m double-glazing my eyes. Yes, for I know even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise, and he that shuts his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. I have nothing to say for myself, or rather, I’m keenly aware that I shouldn’t. There isn’t any use in pleading when minds are long made up. Or so I’m told.
Can’t I choose not to? This is the case I want to make. Can’t I take up the mask and press it firmly upon my face, holding it in place with my teeth; a bridle, if you will. It would be too precarious to wear how I really feel on my face. Best to go on as if ignorant, and quietly tease things into bending to me rather than me to them, keeping my arm stiff and head hard. I don’t care how obvious I am in my pretending not to understand. Believability is entirely irrelevant for belief, anyone on the street can tell you this. I need to find something, anything; a distraction, a smoke screen, a veil.
I sleep under a thick blanket of dust, yet I keep waking up in the morning. Waking up to nothing at all, waking up to still being asleep. I should of course stop tossing and turning, be still, but for me, thinking and doing are both spread thin and far apart.
Whether we know it or not, we always do first and only then follow with an explanation, and there’s really nothing rational about a rationalisation. We are always thinking about how we’re going to spin it this time. I’m a bad actor, I live under the ever-looming threat that I might behave out of character, that I’ll get tongue tied and let slip something I really shouldn’t. People keep laughing when I’m not joking and don’t when I am.
What clothes do sheep wear? I know it doesn’t mean anything to you. Sometimes it’s almost like you do know, but I suppose that’s worse because you really don’t. I suppose, can’t. Don’t be upset, I was trying to be nice. Don’t we always do the opposite of what we want?
Who can live without their ghosts? You aren’t talking to me, but I pretend you are. I’m one to cry wolf, aren’t I? By now you may imagine.
For me, every step forward is a fall and a catch, every shift a shudder. I’m just repeatedly keeping myself from tipping over. I can feel as much in my chest.
It’s like the sensation I feel when my hands grope and, being blind and presumptuous, they pass through the virtual object, the apparition, the figment, the familiar item misplaced. It is exactly this tingling of the thing missing under the fingers, which I feel inside that tiny, horrible, little heart of mine, when I think of someone I dearly miss.
But now my thoughts trail off, though of course only because I let them. I let the stream of thoughts splinter into a cacophony of countless discrete slivers before they diffuse into the sea. The truth is, I want magic, I want smoke and mirrors, cloaks and daggers. To cheat and come out on top, undeservedly. To have my cake.
Let’s go over things just one more time, maybe something will change. I’m starved, I’m always hungry and it has my head spinning. I have to repeat the same thoughts until they change. I’m thinking in circles, until, at some point, the thing surely can’t help but change. Feedback loops lead to hallucinations, leading to change. I’m repeating words so much they begin to feel altogether strange. I hope to then see in them something I haven’t seen before, see that they somehow, in some way, have changed. All I can promise is, I’ll give it another look over, over and over.
I’ll form it into a tacky dough, pass it back and forth in my palms and keep on turning it over, and try to keep it from getting stuck. What more is there but this? Idle hands are to be kept in chains.
You better clap after the show, don’t you know it’s rude not to? And if you don’t, how will you know that you enjoyed it at all? So clap, you’ll remember your clapping more than whatever feelings you felt. If you liked it, good, if you didn’t, even better.
I’m tired, but I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t. I’m going to try and be normal about it. I’m going to try and forget all about this. I’ll sleep it off, start over tomorrow. You didn’t hear me say any of this. Don’t be here when I get back here. But I won’t be back here. I’ll be seeing things differently, all anew, I won’t know you anymore. Don’t you try to stop me from gouging out my eyes either. If you know what’s good for you, you’d better run along too. Go and buy some new ones yourself. You’ve seen too much of me by now.
So, I lose. So what? What’s someone like me to do? Someone this far gone. I didn’t see you, because there’s always two. How could I have? Nothing exists in isolation. It’s all about relationships, similes, pink like an ostrich. We both weren’t here if only one of us wasn’t, and I wasn’t. There’s two of everything. There’s two! We could’ve danced till death do us part, without a word, but now I’ve spoilt the game, haven’t I? I’ve spoken too soon, now what will we do?
You let go, and I’ll let go too.