Do you see what I see? Turn about and wheel about, and do just so. But all that disappears into the water that is behind us and in the desert that lies ahead. None of what mattered matters and it will not matter if the matter matters, no matter what, as a matter of fact. A lie we would do well to believe. But here I am, me again, head propped up, sort of, at a seventeen-degree angle, the bright overhead lights offering no bother. I could be writing you could be writing me could be writing you. I am a comatose old man writing here now and again what my dead or living son might write if he wrote or I am a dead or living son writing what my dying father might write for me to have written. I am a performative utterance. I carry the illocutionary ax. But imagine anyway that it is as simple as this: I lay dying. My skin used to be darker. Now, I am sallow, wan, icteric. I am not quite bloodless, but that is coming. I can hear the whistle on the tracks. I can also hear screaming, but it is no one I know. So, fuck them.
First Continuation
In some woods you became lost, the darkness swallowed you and then spat you out in a quiet place at dawn, where you sat crosslegged beside a tree that in stories might have been called stalwart or majestic, and you sat in a crook of that massive trunk, whereupon you were approached by a young woman who saw and attended to the wounds on your arms from the brush and thicket, dabbed at your blood with broad leaves from a nearby shrub. She wouldn’t look directly at, but stole peeks at, your eyes and you were pleased she was there but more confused, her tender touch slowing your breathing, relaxing your neck. She felt immediately like a friend, steady, redoubtable, like the oak against which you leaned. You wanted to say something, to tell her why you had been running, to ask her how you had come to be in this place, to ask just who she was, but every time you tried to speak kaks and clucks came out and spittle rolled down your chin. The girl finally looked at you and she said, Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves. Her words were familiar and had the ring of truth, looked true on her lips.
They killed my father, you said.
She nodded sadly. And yet here you are.
And where is that?
Where is what?
Where is here?
It’s here.
You sat up straighter and imagined that you understood. What is here next to?
There.
And how far is it from here to there?
Once you leave here, you’ll be there. You’re silly. Next you’ll no doubt want to know how long it takes to get there. Well, I can tell, it varies. If you look over there you’ll see that it’s here for as far as you can see. Do you hear that?
What?
It’s the bear. He’s here.
Where?
Over there.
How can he be here and there?
Oh, here and there are not so different. The two are so much more alike than then and now or now and again, but not near as similar as how and why.
How and why? How are they alike?
Why do you ask?
Because you just said that how is like why.
No, I said they are similar.
I know.
You’re not suggesting that similar and alike are the same thing, are you? Why, they couldn’t be more different.
How are they different?
I don’t know. You tell me. I just know that they couldn’t be more different. They can’t, can they?
I need to find my father.
I thought you said they killed him, whoever they is.
The klansmen killed him.
Whoever they are, she said. Back to how and why? You will later ask yourself how you survived and you will wonder why you survived. So you see, one is the other and vice versa.
I don’t care about all that. You pushed yourself to your feet and brushed off your clothes, then paused to wonder why you’d bothered. I have to be going, you said. I don’t like it here. All you speak is nonsense.
Of course, that’s true, and wouldn’t it be sad if I didn’t? Of course I do and I rhyme, too, but I could make not a sound if it weren’t for you.
I’m sad about my father.
You miss him.
Yes.
But imagine if you didn’t.
What do you mean?
Imagine what it would mean if you didn’t feel so bad, if he were dead and you didn’t feel a thing or you felt good.
That’s not possible.
It’s not possible only because it isn’t, but it is very possible because it could be and since it could be, try to imagine what it would mean. When children die they come back as themselves as adults.
What about when adults die?
A riddle, a riddle, violin or fiddle.
Who are you? you asked.
I am a little girl.
What’s your name?
My name is Name. My name is my name and the name of both the word name and Name, my name. I am not the only one with the name Name and also there are other names.
I’m getting out of here.
Not yet. This voice was not Name’s. It came from the thicket behind you. It was deep and throaty, a familiar voice, and it reminded you of a baritone sax. You turned to it and it was someone who looked just like you, unless of course it was you. You looked at the one that looked like you.
Who are you? you asked.
Who are you? the one that looked like you asked.
You look like me.
And you like me.
And your name is?
You. You are my name.
You mean You is your name?
What kind of grammar is that? You are my name?
Shall I call you You?
No, you are my name.
I am your name?
Yes, You.
Spell your name.
How can you be spelled?
Y-O-U.
That spells you? How can a person be spelled?
Are you saying that I am your name?
Now you’re getting it. You are my name?
Then how shall I call you?
Why would you want to call me?
Name spoke up. What a mess, what a mess. The pig’s playing checkers, the cow’s playing chess. You are his name.
How can I be his name? I’m not even a word.
Don’t sell yourself short, the one who looks like you said. You are as good a name as any.
Do you know him? you asked.
Of course.
And if you wanted to get his attention, what would you call him?
Name pointed at you.
Me?
Name shook her head. Anyway, why would I want to call him when I can call you?
You shook your head. Where are we? you asked.
We’re in a coma, the one who looks like you said.
We used to be in a pickle, Name said. And then for a while we were in a comma, but we lost an m.
What am I doing in a coma?
Waiting to die, the one who looks like you said.
Why do you look like me?
Why do you look like me?
I am your name?
You are my name?
You?
No, you.
A coma?
A coma.
There once was a man in a coma, who couldn’t close up his stoma, the words they fell in, the words they fell out, yet he no longer desired to rhumba. Death is no way to die.
Of course there’s nothing after it, the one that looks like you said.
After what? you ask.
After it, he said. I said there is nothing after it and that’s where I stopped. There was nothing after it.
It.
Qui.
And after it?
Nada.
Before it? As lingua.
Alles.
Why are you doing that?
What?
Answering in different languages.
Non so cosa vuoi dire?