For years I saw him once a day with his after-work drink and loosened tie, desultorily watering the lawn with his free hand. After a few minutes she’d join him, in her Jackie Kennedy white pants, smoking a cigarette and regarding him through narrowed eyes. When he’d finished his drink he’d throw the ice in the bushes before they went back inside. I never figured out if they hated each other or were deeply in love.
Is the thought worth the effort it would take to express itself in words?
To feel the beauty in all of existence, but not in oneself.
I keep thinking we might be able to reverse-engineer this whole fucking disaster.
The promise of the future has receded into the distant past.
Who’s the asshole, somebody asked, and when he repeated the question I realized he was referring to me.
All night I thought I heard her calling out. Of course, that was impossible. Her voice by now was down to palest air. But I still hear it everywhere.
You discover too late the meaning of too late.
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.
Yeah, I get it, but I don’t really get it. If I did, I’d probably drop dead on the spot.
