happiness, moving into the empty hours thatprobably won’t be anything more than a series of rote actions: showering and pouring coffee into a cup and dressing and turning a key in the ignition and driving down streets that are so familiar you don’t even recall making certain turns and stops—though, yes, you are still
present
, your mind must have consciously carried out the procedure of braking at the corner and rolling the steering wheel beneath your palms and making a left onto the highway even though there is no memory at all of these actions. Perhaps if you were hypnotized such mundane moments could be retrieved, they are written on some file and stored, unused and useless in some neurological clerk’s back room. Does it matter? You are still you, after all, through all of these hours and days; you are still whole—
But imagine yourself in pieces.
Imagine all the people who have known you for only a year or a month or a single encounter, imagine those people in a room together trying to assemble a portrait of you, the way an archaeologist puts together the fragments of a ruined façade, or the bones of a caveman. Do you remember the fable of the seven blind men and the elephant?
It’s not that easy, after all, to know what you’re made up of.
Imagine the parts of yourself disassembled; imagine, for example, that nothing is left of you but a severed hand in an ice cooler. Perhaps there is one of your loved ones who could identify even this small piece. Here: the lines on your palm. The texture of your knuckles and wrinkled skin at the joints in the middle of your fingers. Calluses, scars. The shape of your nails.
Meanwhile, the invaders are busily carrying away small pieces of you, tidbits of information you hardly think about, any more than you think about the flakes of skin that are drifting off of you constantly, any more than you think of the millions of microscopic demodexmites that are crawling over you and feeding off your oil and skin cells.
You don’t feel particularly vulnerable, with your firewall and constantly updating virus protection, and most of the predators are almost laughably clumsy. At work you receive an email that is so patently ridiculous that you forward it to a few of your friends.
Miss Emmanuela Kunta, Await Your Reply
, it says in the subject line, and there is something almost adorable about its awkwardness. “Dear One,” says Miss Emmanuela Kunta,
Dear One
,
I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise since we did not know each other, but I believed that is the will of God for us to know ourselves today and I thank him for making it possible for me to inform you of my great desire of going into long time relationship and financial transaction for our mutual benefits
.
Emmanuela Kunta is my name, residing in Abidjan, while I’m 19 years of age, I’m also the only daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Godwin Kunta, with my younger brother Emmanuel Kunta who is also 19 years because we are twins
.
My father was Gold Agents in Abidjan(Ivory Coast). Before his sudden, death on 20th February in a private hospital here in Abidjan, he called me on his bedside and told me about the sum of (USD $20.000,000,00)Twenty Million United state Dollars, he deposited in a security company here in Abidjan (Ivoiry Coast) for business investment that he used my name his beloved duaghter and only son as the next of kin in depositing the money, because our mother died 13 years ago in a fatal car accident. And that we should seek for a foreign partnerin in any country of our choice where we will transfer this money for investment purpose for our future life
.
I humbly seek for your assistance, to help us transfer and secure this money in your country for investment, and to serve as guardian of the fund since we are still students, to make arrangement for us to come over to your country to further our education. Thanks as you made up
your mind to help orphans like us. I am offering you 20%
present
, your mind must have consciously carried out the procedure of braking at the corner and rolling the steering wheel beneath your palms and making a left onto the highway even though there is no memory at all of these actions. Perhaps if you were hypnotized such mundane moments could be retrieved, they are written on some file and stored, unused and useless in some neurological clerk’s back room. Does it matter? You are still you, after all, through all of these hours and days; you are still whole—
But imagine yourself in pieces.
Imagine all the people who have known you for only a year or a month or a single encounter, imagine those people in a room together trying to assemble a portrait of you, the way an archaeologist puts together the fragments of a ruined façade, or the bones of a caveman. Do you remember the fable of the seven blind men and the elephant?
It’s not that easy, after all, to know what you’re made up of.
Imagine the parts of yourself disassembled; imagine, for example, that nothing is left of you but a severed hand in an ice cooler. Perhaps there is one of your loved ones who could identify even this small piece. Here: the lines on your palm. The texture of your knuckles and wrinkled skin at the joints in the middle of your fingers. Calluses, scars. The shape of your nails.
Meanwhile, the invaders are busily carrying away small pieces of you, tidbits of information you hardly think about, any more than you think about the flakes of skin that are drifting off of you constantly, any more than you think of the millions of microscopic demodexmites that are crawling over you and feeding off your oil and skin cells.
You don’t feel particularly vulnerable, with your firewall and constantly updating virus protection, and most of the predators are almost laughably clumsy. At work you receive an email that is so patently ridiculous that you forward it to a few of your friends.
Miss Emmanuela Kunta, Await Your Reply
, it says in the subject line, and there is something almost adorable about its awkwardness. “Dear One,” says Miss Emmanuela Kunta,
Dear One
,
I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise since we did not know each other, but I believed that is the will of God for us to know ourselves today and I thank him for making it possible for me to inform you of my great desire of going into long time relationship and financial transaction for our mutual benefits
.
Emmanuela Kunta is my name, residing in Abidjan, while I’m 19 years of age, I’m also the only daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Godwin Kunta, with my younger brother Emmanuel Kunta who is also 19 years because we are twins
.
My father was Gold Agents in Abidjan(Ivory Coast). Before his sudden, death on 20th February in a private hospital here in Abidjan, he called me on his bedside and told me about the sum of (USD $20.000,000,00)Twenty Million United state Dollars, he deposited in a security company here in Abidjan (Ivoiry Coast) for business investment that he used my name his beloved duaghter and only son as the next of kin in depositing the money, because our mother died 13 years ago in a fatal car accident. And that we should seek for a foreign partnerin in any country of our choice where we will transfer this money for investment purpose for our future life
.
I humbly seek for your assistance, to help us transfer and secure this money in your country for investment, and to serve as guardian of the fund since we are still students, to make arrangement for us to come over to your country to further our education. Thanks as you made up
your mind to help orphans like us. I am offering you 20%
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