A few more moments of oblivion
before facing it all.
As ideas, opinions, and beliefs slowly metastasize into ignorance.
That couple holding court over there, accomplished, attractive, older (my age?), she a composer and head of a department (the Composition Department, I would guess, if there is such a thing) and he a well-known painter, portraits of John Coltrane on black velvet, in kingly dress—I’d assumed undertaken with some irony, but having once mentioned this in his presence and receiving an embarrassed smile, as if he was embarrassed for me, apparently some internalized form of post-ironic sincerity.
When I am forced upon their radar, they regard me with a vague distaste that doesn’t quite come up to the level of dislike. I’ll show you later on—if we walk in that direction, the flurry of minute physical adjustments as they calculate whether they can safely avoid us without personal discomfort. Since the accident I’ve been pleased to detect a new note of fear in their uneasiness, as if I now represent the additional possibility of freakish misfortune that might befall anyone, no matter how charmed or lucky.
I bring this up because I owe my newfound awareness to you, the last time we met, when you mentioned that for you it would be hell on earth to know what other people really think of you. The way you said it, though, I got the impression that you really meant it would be hell on earth for me, and I haven’t been able to shake it.
Through all our grief and sadness, we hadn’t yet learned to be without hope. Clearly that was necessary.
Your search—iceberg + ronson lighter + beefheart—did not match any documents.
Assholishness somehow protected him from sadness.
Dinner with an old friend and his younger wife. She is lovely and shy, and in compensation you are more outgoing than usual. As you launch into another story about your friend as you knew him in college, a look passes between them and he squeezes her hand. You realize that her reticence is actually boredom and that dinner is, for them, an obligation to be endured as quickly and painlessly as possible.
When she was little and saw something she liked, she would simply say, “Have it.” And although I know that you, despite this happiness, would rather die than go back, I’d give everything I have to hear it one more time.
Because their abject suffering represented an affront to the fragile belief systems of those around them, they were held responsible for their own misfortune.
People described as “lighting up the room.” You are not one of those.
Looking for the few right words that will fix everything.
Maybe next time.
