juleshorne

I Think at First

The 1,000-year-old man furrowed his brow. The furrow – of course – could not be seen among the  many already in place. Such a slight frown could scarce begin to shift the weight of all that practised flesh.

He licked his lip with a slow tortoise tongue. It was bad, this dying business. No one to feed him. No one even to hydrate him. They used to bring occasional sponges – square cubes that soaked up no more than half a teaspoon of water. His daughter used to press them to him. He lapped them like the finest whisky. They made him just as delirious.

Then she died. He was told, though he couldn't hear the words. He knew she was frail. They looked so alike, the two of them. More and more alike, the older they got. Both entirely bald, with the same softened eyes and thinness. Sometimes the nurses pretended they couldn't tell them apart. Thirty years made little difference after a thousand of living.

She simply stopped being there. He was too weak to wheel in to see her. Perhaps they thought it might finish him off? And if they were right?

He'd wanted to die a long time now. He'd stopped accepting the sponges, though he dreamed of them, sometimes. They tried his arms for a vein, but the needle fell out.

Now he waited to desiccate. His heart was horribly strong.

13/3/2008

Faustine

Emma Tennant, 1992

p 55

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm

Le Grand Mystere

'The author is unknown'. So says the gloss in the preface.

So there's no information about the sad sack schufter. The groaning bad-backed misanthrope that chopped out this book. The aching creaking lump of pale flesh that wobbled gelatinously as its thin fingers pianolaed across the keyboard, or etched across the paper, tentatively, crossly, desperately. The frown-furrowed bum-scratcher, the hunchbacked kidney-stretcher, the coaster-rolling ditherer, the pen-counter, the pencil-sharpener, the rubber-rubber, the chin-picker.

Unknown.

Oje!

Don't let on.

Don't tell that crotch-howker, that nose-bohrer. Don't tell that miner of thoughts, that sayer of sayings, that harvester of the gold and the glum. That spinner and späher, that watch-and-listener. That typist. That pianist of the letter-chord.

G minor. G major. G scale, tonic, dominant, tonic, cadence, and almost-cadence.

That alphabet-tease. That word-maker. That anecdoter.

Oje!

Unknown?

Perhaps that's best.

Perhaps that's best.

For all concerned.

4/3/2008

Chateaubriand

Atala, René, 1964

p 111

http://www.lekti-ecriture.com/editeurs/Le-grand-mystere.html