It speaks to me. And I needed something, someone to speak to me. So my listening to it is very timely. Her words are my words interwoven magically as if our mouths are of the same caliber. My mind is consumed, and so is my heart: I am speaking to myself subliminally, in another world.
How does one measure a great writer? Where does one start?
-“When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, “Leo Gursky is survived by an apartment full of shit.
Insidiously, she began to wrap me up with shreds of my own skin. I was growing as the story grew, and I felt stronger…happier. I could use this to flip the pages of my life, tear apart the loose ones, sort out the incoherent parts. What will my obituary look like?
-“All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen."
I used to think, “on the contrary”. Always disbelieving, doubtful. My mind was reared to absorb everything. Human grit, check. Laughable follies, check. The more it takes in, the better. Like a hungry sewerage or a starchy sponge. But my mind expends to break apart. Like a sieve for separating the coarse particles from the fine ones, in order to get the most precious minerals. I soldered myself to learn to disagree in the hopes of knowing how to agree.
-“Then one day I was looking out the window. Maybe I was contemplating the sky. Put even a fool in front of the window and you’ll get a Spinoza; in the end life makes window-watchers of us all.”
Kay was looking out the window, with remorse and academic burdens slowly exacerbating her to the point of limping and falling. Her shoulders were tough, they weren’t the problem. She wasn’t just yet resilient. To look out the window is to want to be on the side of the birds. Freedom. She thought of killing her self.
-“Hitler invaded Poland. There were rumors of unfathomable things, and because we could not fathom them we failed to believe them—until we had no choice and it was too late.”
Bam. It hit me in the face (Where exactly? I want to see the damage). Slap. A mother’s slap. I tried to speak, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. It was sealed to keep the blood from oozing out. Wake up, you’re dreaming. 5:57 am. Time to go to school. My lips is swelled.
-“When will you learn that there isn’t a word for everything?”
I have learned to love you unconditionally. We came from the same mound of soil, unified by a string made of the same human flesh. Your words are your actions, so I loved you all the more. In a world where words do not exist, I feel unsafe like I’m bared and bruised to my bones. But as I see you : > : ] : 3 like this, this wordless world can die for all I care.
-“And then and there I realized that, even though I thought I’d been writing it for myself, the truth was that I wanted someone to read it.”
I write for myself, but I write for others too.
-“I want to say somewhere: I’ve tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back.”
This was the point where I craved to write. For myself and for her too. We both deserve this shedding of skin, this building up of backbones, this twisting and turning, this insurmountable surge of fluid-like words and digressions. I want to thank her for writing for me obliquely, like shards of glass piercing my skin to impregnation. I am powerful because of these word-like scars.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/02/09/040209fi_fiction?currentPage=1
[a wip, to be edited]
