Winter is Coming

“Winter is coming” my father says.

These words always bring a painful strain in my stomach.

These words mean that good times are over and bad times are coming.

They mean that from now on there will be scarcity and want, there will be pain and I will require patience and self restraint.

My father means that this is only one winter of many, that he has seen more than I have, and that I must learn from this one and from all that come after so that I can be strong.

These words mean that there will be less sun and less warmth and less enthusiasm, less food and less entertainment.

These words mean that a test on my character is coming, and what makes my stomach ache is being aware of it.

I prefer not to be aware, but it is impossible. If my father hadn’t spoken the words, someone else would have, to the same effect.


I guess I’ll move to the tropic.


D.

On Victory

So, I don’t have everything, big deal, no one does. I thank the gods that what I don’t have is not essential. I’m alive, I have food, I have a roof over my head, I have money, I have a significant other… What am I complaining about? Am I complaining at all? Life is not as heavy as I draw it, it’s not that complicated. Then what is it?

Why do you want to put a name to it? You won’t destroy it, you know that much, it’s what makes you write, and writing is what gives life a meaning, a reason, a sense or whatever… So, why?

Because in looking for a name I will name myself, I guess. For example now, I am wishing to catch someone’s attention, I’m wishing someone would come and ask me what it is that I’m writing, I wish to feel someone’s interest on me… Yet I’m unwilling to show interest for other people, openly. I’d be embarrassed about it.

Enthusiasm is life itself, the less you feel it, the less of it is inside you.

How do I get it back?

Through victory. It’s so easy and perfect that it’s scary. When you consciously do things that lead you away from victory, you are stupid. Stupidity is a great flame extinguisher.

Am I being stupid protecting the things I have?

Only if you don’t want them.

I want them half the time.

Then you are half stupid.

I am only nothing.

You are half genius and half stupid, you are human.

Was Cortazar human? All those great writers, Dostoievski, Saramago, Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Bodoc,…

All human, that’s why most had miserable lives. Is that what you want for yourself?

I want so many things…

That only gives you a wider range of possible victories. 

 

Searching for Valdemar

The youths ravaged the city. Windows were broken, doors were breached, people were beaten down.

They had found out about death.

No one had told them about it before.

They wondered in anger. So after all, there is death, they thought. After being beat up as children, after being forced to do things they didn’t feel like doing, after neglecting fun over chores, after sex, marriage, children, work, grandchildren… there was death.

And after death was nothing.


Fucking bastards, they thought. They never said it before, now they come out and tell us that, just like that, like it’s ok.

After the riots, they stayed quiet and low for a while, like nothing had happened. Research was being made, people were being contacted.

They found the clinical history of a man named Valdemar. The people who worked at the hospital said he was still ‘there’.

So they went to find him.


D.