1.22.2008

The Whole World

There is the line that is no longer the sky, it is no longer a line, it is not anything at all, it is just a mark, a dot, now it is nothing at all. There is no longer the sky. The sky is like a line, Harrison says at midnight and then he is suiciding himself, against his better wishes, against her intentions, against both their plans, he is suiciding himself, he is not even sure if that is correct. It is painful to cut the skin, below the palm, in straight lines. It is painful without water, without warm water. You were supposed to get in a bath, Molly says. She is joking, she is making laughs about all of this. I can’t even remember seeing the sky, he thinks and he is certain, most certain, that he has not seen the sky in at least three days. She is stubborn like that. But it does hurt. The blade is brown, red, rusting. Like it will matter, she had scoffed, yes, indeed, scoffed. And if it did, well, then the infection would kill him and he would at least succeed. But he is not certain, not really certain if it is appropriate for him, indeed proper, for him to suicide. It was, at noon, in October, the day that he forgot about the universe, about the vacuum, about the around and around and bang and splatter of the world, the whole world—I mean all of it. He forgot about it at noon. Time was broken into specific segments after that: how to complete this, how not to do this, why this is important and very valuable for success. I am successful, he even voices to Sandy. Sandy is his therapist. She is forty-seven and plump, no, not fat, plump, like peach cobbler makes a woman plump. It is very impressive to be successful, she suggests and writes notes, but the notes are actually circles and the circles signify sex. At least that is what Mr. Gary tells her. Mr. Gary is her therapist, a professional psychotherapist. She is violating her ethics to improve her business in being supremely ethical. It is really common practice. Mr. Gary is not permitted to discuss patients or patients of patients for that matter (if patients were to have patients, like Sandy). But this is not the sky and this is certainly not remembering the sky. This is forgetting the sky, ignoring the sky, there is no line that is the sky. That is what he said, indeed, intoned, early, after the sun was a little bit up, a little bit up over the evergreens. See? Yes, see, he did see the sky—you did see the sky, you brat, Molly said, aggressive. No, it is ever so painful to kill yourself, Harrison admits to himself in the mirror. There are little tributaries of his blood falling into the sink and squirming down the drain, like in the movies. No, it is really too painful, and besides, there may, at some time, after all, be another time for him to see the sky, for him to see the line that is the sky and to remember it all is worth waiting. Worth waiting to suicide, at least until it is really impossible to see the line that is the sky at all. But at that point, I mean really, he would be already suicided.

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