should ever again suffer, at least in his house. Let them go somewhere else to suffer.
The Writer can’t stand suffering. Especially other people’s, that’s why he insists on eating with the television off. The news must be blacked out, television must regress to being little more than a screen on which to show cartoons for The Baby, pay-TV films for daddy and mummy, or at a pinch that quiz the porter was watching, which wasn’t bad, come on.
And even outside the house things aren’t much better. When he bought the house he made sure that the neighbourhood attracted the right sort, that only respectable people lived in the area. And that’s how it was, until a few days ago—the episode disturbed him so much that he hasn’t told anyone about it yet—a few metres from the automatic gate—thinking about it again, it’s inconceivable—just in front of the recycling bins, he saw a man, an old man with stooped back, searching angrily in the rubbish. It had never happened since he had come to live in this neighbourhood. If something like that ever happens again, The Writer will sell the house. Forget about compassion.
Life is too short to be devoted to suffering, people who suffer
want to suffer
, suffering is an invention of man: above the clouds the sun is always shining.
That’s what The Writer thinks. That’s why he has learnt to turn the pillow on the side that’s less creased, to winter somewhere warm and spend the summers somewhere cool, to leave for his holidays when everybody is coming back from theirs, to spend the weekends in the city and the weekdays outside—in other words, for him the glass is never half full, but always full, full to the brim.
The day of his divorce? A liberation. His father’s death? The deposition of a weary king. The end of a friendship?Social cleansing. Everything that happens can become an opportunity.
In all these years, The Writer has been the personal gardener of his own success. He has carefully mown, watered and fenced off the evergreen lawn of his well-being. And now? Now he won’t allow anyone to get close, and fires off a volley if he so much as sees anyone lurking around the fence of his life. The obvious threat comes from outside, because inside his garden there is nothing and nobody that can harm him, he can run free without fear of tripping up: there are no obstacles or rusty tools in his garden. No offence can come from The Baby or The Second Wife—they are pure, innocent creatures who are unacquainted with evil, and wouldn’t even know how to do anything wrong. He does.
That is why now, faced with his intubated Mother, her artificial breathing, the skein of grey hair on her pillow, her nightdress with its faded colours, he can’t really forgive the salty tear that streaks his face like sea spray.
And what about this unheard-of second tear following the first? Why? Why? Why? Something has gone wrong, this wasn’t the agreement, this wasn’t planned.
“Mother…” whispers The Writer in a thin voice. “Don’t leave me… What will I do without you?”
He squeezes The Mother’s little hand, the hand of an old child, and holds it in his own, strong, masculine hand.
“I know you can hear me…”
The room is silent apart from the regular breathing of the mechanical ventilator, the working machinery, the monitors. The cold eyes of the LED lights watch discreetly over the patient.
“You can hear me, can’t you? I know you’re there…”
An imperceptible variation in the heartbeat.
“Don’t let go, mother, don’t let go, not now. There’s not long to go, we’re almost there, we’re going to win this time, it’s forsure, The Prize is ours, it’s ours and nobody can take it away from us. Hold on mother, hold on. Think of the advance we’ll get next time…”
“Life is merely passing time and the desire to be loved. Nothing else.”
Life, life, life… How unbearable they were, these writers always talking about life. What do
The Writer can’t stand suffering. Especially other people’s, that’s why he insists on eating with the television off. The news must be blacked out, television must regress to being little more than a screen on which to show cartoons for The Baby, pay-TV films for daddy and mummy, or at a pinch that quiz the porter was watching, which wasn’t bad, come on.
And even outside the house things aren’t much better. When he bought the house he made sure that the neighbourhood attracted the right sort, that only respectable people lived in the area. And that’s how it was, until a few days ago—the episode disturbed him so much that he hasn’t told anyone about it yet—a few metres from the automatic gate—thinking about it again, it’s inconceivable—just in front of the recycling bins, he saw a man, an old man with stooped back, searching angrily in the rubbish. It had never happened since he had come to live in this neighbourhood. If something like that ever happens again, The Writer will sell the house. Forget about compassion.
Life is too short to be devoted to suffering, people who suffer
want to suffer
, suffering is an invention of man: above the clouds the sun is always shining.
That’s what The Writer thinks. That’s why he has learnt to turn the pillow on the side that’s less creased, to winter somewhere warm and spend the summers somewhere cool, to leave for his holidays when everybody is coming back from theirs, to spend the weekends in the city and the weekdays outside—in other words, for him the glass is never half full, but always full, full to the brim.
The day of his divorce? A liberation. His father’s death? The deposition of a weary king. The end of a friendship?Social cleansing. Everything that happens can become an opportunity.
In all these years, The Writer has been the personal gardener of his own success. He has carefully mown, watered and fenced off the evergreen lawn of his well-being. And now? Now he won’t allow anyone to get close, and fires off a volley if he so much as sees anyone lurking around the fence of his life. The obvious threat comes from outside, because inside his garden there is nothing and nobody that can harm him, he can run free without fear of tripping up: there are no obstacles or rusty tools in his garden. No offence can come from The Baby or The Second Wife—they are pure, innocent creatures who are unacquainted with evil, and wouldn’t even know how to do anything wrong. He does.
That is why now, faced with his intubated Mother, her artificial breathing, the skein of grey hair on her pillow, her nightdress with its faded colours, he can’t really forgive the salty tear that streaks his face like sea spray.
And what about this unheard-of second tear following the first? Why? Why? Why? Something has gone wrong, this wasn’t the agreement, this wasn’t planned.
“Mother…” whispers The Writer in a thin voice. “Don’t leave me… What will I do without you?”
He squeezes The Mother’s little hand, the hand of an old child, and holds it in his own, strong, masculine hand.
“I know you can hear me…”
The room is silent apart from the regular breathing of the mechanical ventilator, the working machinery, the monitors. The cold eyes of the LED lights watch discreetly over the patient.
“You can hear me, can’t you? I know you’re there…”
An imperceptible variation in the heartbeat.
“Don’t let go, mother, don’t let go, not now. There’s not long to go, we’re almost there, we’re going to win this time, it’s forsure, The Prize is ours, it’s ours and nobody can take it away from us. Hold on mother, hold on. Think of the advance we’ll get next time…”
“Life is merely passing time and the desire to be loved. Nothing else.”
Life, life, life… How unbearable they were, these writers always talking about life. What do
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