70 (65) years

A tale of prospective growth

The moment I wake up, I will have forgotten what it was that was troubling me the day before. Needless to say, something that is only troubling for one day (or less) can hardly be called a distinct trouble; it’s rather like noticing that you’ve just finished the peanut butter and feeling vexed about not being able to eat your next sandwich with peanut butter, while somewhere during that process another part of you has already realized cheese tastes much better with this kind of bread anyway. I don’t know what to call troubles like these and I don’t know what to remember of yesterdays, almost as much as I fail to take any pills that are forced upon me by physical prescription. Let’s face it: it has become illegal to die nowadays. Perhaps one thinks that the moment all your troubles have gone away, along with your short and long term memory, there is eternal bliss ahead of you. Instead, I tell you, not remembering what troubles you is much worse than remembering it for, in fact, rather surprisingly, you will always remember that you do not remember anything. Life is a memory falling apart in front of you, with your claws – for that is what they have become, and for some have always been – clinging on to a vast emptiness, and your feet barely walking upon it. For so long, I haven’t dared take another step.

Today is one of the better days. I think I can recall things more clearly than yesterday or the day before that but at the same time I can’t decide whether I’m awake or sleeping. I also think the drugs have made me more numb than usual. I speak French to myself, English to my paper and Dutch to my dead dog. I have accomplished what I was meant to accomplish in this life. In books, when they have reached the part after the epilogue, there is nothing but empty white spaces on an even whiter page. I’m quite sure about my thoughts on the after-life, still, whatever I may have thought about it before; but I don’t believe that I could ever have been so stupid as to believe in something being written on those white pages of books. It is obvious that they are empty. In a way, my life’s the same now. The page is still there but the story has already ended. It seems like the pen could start writing – wait, I mean like the computer could start typing new words any moment, sort of like the half-way break in theater. But there are way too many breaks on this page. Something feels odd. And today, today is one of the better days, one of the clearer ones. When I look up to the ceiling, I imagine an outside sky bluer than the one on the day I met you. Now I remember you and forget you again before I realize that I either remembered or forgot you. Today is one of the better days, one of the clearer ones, and I rise myself from my bed to get the feather to use the last drops of ink that are about to dry up without having written another word.

My heart has started beating just for the occasion, albeit just a little bit, but I don’t desire more. My feet have started walking and the feather has started writing, scribbling words that are incomprehensive and non-lingual, although I’m sure others exist that will be able to read it – not many, perhaps, but some might exist. I’m sure of it. My eyes see one of the largest dunes they can remember – images are easier to remember than thoughts, aren’t they? They are even larger than the one on which we laid ourselves that day, one of the days I met you for the first time. On other days, I would so much like to have met you again for the first time, on that dune, larger than this one, but today I walk past it. I can smell the salt, occasionally smeared through some of the earlier and later and middle pages in the book. I walk until it is only water I feel, and, exhausted, I realize that I need to write only a bit longer. It is much darker than before and I relive the happiness of the clear morning. The day will come to an end soon. The water is even saltier on my hand than it is in the book. My skin takes in the salt and my hands wither before my eyes, as do my feet and knees, and almost my waist now. My fingers stop writing as my head submerges in the sea water and I float towards the emptiness of my memories.