I don’t know what to compare it to. I think if I knew, it would be different from what it is. The comparison would change it.
This reminds of me of how to make a headache disappear. I’m not making this up. You describe the headache—its shape, color, and location—then you estimate how much water it can hold. You answer each question in turn, looking carefully. Then you return to the first question.
What happens is, your answers change each time through. I think this is because your headache changes. Or maybe it’s the other way around: your headache changes because your answers change. In any case there comes a point at which there’s nothing left to change because at that point the headache is gone, you’ve described it out of existence.
I suppose I could tell a story about it. The story wouldn’t be about it, but about something that has happened because of it. I wouldn’t say what this something is—just what happened. It would be like making a mold from it. The mold would be the story.
Right now it’s shaped like a giant exercise ball. It’s as blue as the blue in her eyes and it’s wedged in the bathtub. It’s as wide as the bathtub and can hold enough water—just enough—to drown in.
13 November 2004 | Gumdrop
There was once a gumdrop who worked as a sales rep in the candy industry. His favorite thing to say was, “Oh, sure, anything for you.” Whenever someone asked him to do something, no matter what it was, he’d say, “Oh, sure, anything for you.” Another thing he liked to say was, “Ask me if I care.” He would say this in response to nearly anything anyone said to him, even compliments or offers of assistance.
The reason he worked in the candy industry instead of simply being candy was because he didn’t have any sugar granules along one side of his body. He was bald there. What happened was, a little piece of something, probably wax paper, got into the machine while he was being manufactured. This little piece of something blocked the sugar granules from sticking to him along one side. For this reason he was removed from the conveyer belt and kept separate from the other gumdrops.
He never discussed this experience with anyone. Whenever someone asked him about it, he would either the ignore the question or say something like, “Oh, sure, anything for you.”
His job as a sales rep required him to fly to lots of candy industry conferences. He hated everything about flying, but most of all he hated the giant seats he had to sit in, which were about a hundred times too big.
Whenever an airline host or hostess asked if he was okay, he’d say something like, “You wish,” or, “As if,” or sometimes, “Tell me you’re kidding.”
He spent most of his time at candy conferences looking for other candy to have sex with. Despite his unpleasant personality, he was remarkably successful at this, although these liaisons rarely lasted beyond a single night. Often he would wake in the morning, badly hung-over, unable to remember what he had done during the night with the jelly ring or set of wax lips asleep beside him.
Sometimes when he was having sex, he would remember the day he was separated from the other gumdrops. While it was happening, he didn’t understand what was happening or why. The way he experienced it, something lifted him from above and suddenly he was flying through the air. He had never flown before and couldn’t believe how marvelous it felt. It was as though he could taste the air with his whole body, so sweet and effervescent.
Another thing he liked to say was, “Yeah, and I’m the pope.” He would say this whenever other sales reps introduced themselves to him at conferences. “Hi, I’m so-and-so,” they’d say. “I work for such-and-such company.”
“Yeah, and I’m the pope,” he’d reply. “Let’s have sex.”
It amazed him how often this worked.
07 November 2004 | Today
I’m still alive. People have asked, so I’m answering.
Actually, I’m only certain that I’m alive as I write this, not necessarily as you read it. It’s possible I died at the moment I clicked “Publish,” or perhaps died many years later, by some other means, and now many years have passed and you’re reading what I wrote long ago, before I died.
I’m serious: this could be true, and likely will be, in time.
Today, though, I’m alive. Today meaning: the day I write this.
On this day, in the morning, I stood at my window and looked at the clouds. They seemed extra white, and the sky behind them, extra blue. It was beautiful, such whiteness and blueness, one moving against the other. I thought of times I’ve bought new glasses and gone outside and suddenly seen how contrast-y the world is. The world is quite contrast-y, as it turns out. When I can’t see this, I forget. In fact the only times I remember are when I haven’t seen it for a long time, so long that I forget having ever seen it, and then something happens, like getting new glasses, and I see it again.
While thinking about this, I remembered my imaginary child. I have an imaginary child. He’s usually around ten or eleven years old, and he’s always a boy. When I think about him, I often imagine that I’m dead and that I’m communicating with him from the grave. Since I’m his father, I want to tell him things, I want to impart some of the wisdom I accumulated while alive, but unfortunately I’ve never been able to think of what that would be. It’s not that I haven’t accumulated any wisdom; I think I have, a little. But when you add it up, it seems so paltry—certainly not the sort of things you want to impart from the grave to your one and only son.
I know he wants me to speak, I know he imagines I have something to tell him, but the truth is, I don’t. You do what you can and the days go by, and that’s the whole story, pretty much.
One time I broke down and told him to see the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly The Sacrifice but also Solaris and Stalker. I don’t know what got into me—the boy is ten or eleven years old and has never seen a film with subtitles. The next day, realizing my mistake, I told him to forget about The Sacrifice and to see Finding Nemo instead.
I now regret the entire business and wish I’d kept my mouth shut. As it is, I come across as a wishy-washy dead father, uncertain of his own pronouncements. Worse, the poor boy went out bought Finding Nemo on DVD, and now he watches it every day. I know what he’s doing: he’s looking for my message to him, buried in the story of a desperate father’s search for his lost son. What can I say? Message or no message, I hope he finds it.
