Swallowed by Réjean Ducharme

Author:Réjean Ducharme
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Véhicule Press

41

Light has taken shape, released from the ocean of air that gave it the ethereal quality of shadows. The sun has iron spokes. The moon has wooden spokes, like a carriage wheel. I’m calm. I’ll never scream again. I understand it all. I know. When you know where and who you are, you can pounce like a cat on a bead rolling on the floor, pretending it’s a dragon. Once you understand yourself, you can run all over the great armillary sphere, pretending that, like a caged squirrel, you’re playing and being played. You must first understand if you want to own yourself. The only hands that can catch life are inside your head, inside your brain.

I’m not in charge of myself and couldn’t be. Like everything that’s been made, like that chair or that heater, I’m fully unaccountable. A bullet that hits an animal right through the heart isn’t guilty. It was shot and couldn’t avoid its target. I was pushed and can’t avoid my path. Smarter than a hail of bullets, I might want to fight the push and hit other targets, but my flesh and blood are packed with one track, and I can’t change its course any more than a sealed bottle can change contents. In other words: I was made to be Berenice like the heater was made to be a heater. I might resist Berenice and try to become otherwise, but, like a heater will never turn into a boa, I’ll never turn into Constance Chlorus. When you were made indifferent, mean, and hard, you can’t be sensitive, kind, and soft. How can things hurt you if they’re meaningless? You can resist being mean, but you’ll still be mean. A stone can strive for softness, but it will stay hard. A wine lover can’t avoid loving wine. A wine hater can’t avoid hating wine. You’re done. Period. You’re a heater. You can’t do anything about it. Humans are the only heaters who can kick up a fuss, bend out of shape. A human is a heater that may not be content with its own shape and want to assume others. But a sardine swimming up a fuss in the sea still won’t make waves. To be someone is to have a destiny. Having a destiny is like having only one destination. When you only have Budapest, you have one alternative: either you go to Budapest or you don’t. You can’t go to Belgrade. I’m not guilty of anything I do: I’ve never wanted to be or had time to want to.

You’re not born upon your birth. You’re born a few years later, when you realize you’re alive. I was born around five, if I remember right. Five years old is too old to be born, because at that age, you already have a past, and your soul has taken shape. The second a butterfly is born, it tries out its wings. The very first thing it does is dive into the sky, punch-drunk. Butterflies are pretty.

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