DO YOU WRITE AT ALL?

Nothing makes me more beautiful than my own understanding.

one

People who manage to save up usually hide from themselves money they do not have in places they do not know of, so that later they have enough to seriously consider a trip, not just give it a thought and forget about it.

He is one of those people and that is why he loves it when he manages to trick the profligate in himself. Though both his room and flight are paid for, with the presumption that he would also be getting some money on the side, he is glad that he would be able to relax and not limit himself to eating doners and napkins.

Besides, this is his first business trip and as chance would have it his companion is a writer friend of his boss’s, who, wanting the business to be completed as quickly as and in the best way possible, along with the unexpected escort, gave him permission and blessing to stay in Prague for an extra few days and relax.

He accepted (something like that is generally turned down only in case of the flu or insanity), and took the offer as compensation for not completing the task by himself; little boy on a business trip.

two

With two whole hours to lift off, he orders a coffee, aware that he would probably need another cup to pass the time. He notices something resembling a sequel to a magazine-quality romance series on the neighbouring table, and before he peeks at the ending, just to see if everything would turn out alright, he takes a sip of the coffee.

Ten minutes later he notices a balding man wearing glasses slowly approaching him, puckering his forehead in the attempt to ascertain whether he is the one. He hastily plonks the magazine down on the chair next to him because he thinks he would look foolish if he is brought into connection with the reading material he was leafing through, puts his hands before himself, grabs the cup and does his best to seem relaxed, though he is not really sure how much he is succeeding in this effort. The man comes up to him, introduces himself and looks at him questioningly as if he were still checking whether he has made a mistake, but when he introduces himself in return, the man takes the chair next to him saying that he could hardly wait to sit down and take a load off.

He was still unsure of his first impression of his companion. He was in the habit of splitting his observations into two perfectly clear halves. One based on the first, instinctive feelings and pulses in his gut, the other tinged by opinions built over time. His opinion would later, in the course of the conversation, more often correspond to the learned, acquired and accepted, but deep down he kept and nurtured the initial feeling like a secret. Just in case, because of some irrational respect for the original, authentic impression.

However, what he was not completely sure of, was just that – whether the respect for the original feeling comes from a personal emanation of his own self or from some kind of scientific attitude toward it, from the accepted fact that it is good to acknowledge the natural and impulsive, like painters do when they admire the way a lion plunges its teeth in an antelope, although one part of their brain is peppered with gratitude for the fact that they are people and that lions and other beasts are controlled by law in our world, or academics, enthusiastically reading about Roman bacchanalia, yet sober and buttoned down, respecting the image and its worth, but not feeling that something of that kind should be cherished because it is close to their heart.

three

He knew that they had reached the final altitude. The plane flew straight ahead, above the clouds. The sun seemed very close. He was sorry that he could not relax, though he wanted to, because some people claim to enjoy flying. The muscles in his legs contracted slightly, as they always do at 10,000 metres. He felt unprotected from his own fear, so he ordered wine which he hoped would relax him a little. He remembered the last time he flew, the surreal turbulence and his attempts to discern from the two flight attendants’ looks whether they would be all dying en masse or not. And while he was out there, perishing alone, the two of them wittered on, evidently relaxed and cheerful, as if everything was absolutely fine, for God’s sake.

He thought how a person has his own, elaborately developed crisis management methods. Everyone should know how to have a discussion with themselves when the situation calls for a dialogue, a swift ability to get a hold of themselves in a flash, to grab hold of their core when the body starts to act out more than usual. 

The wine arrived and things gradually began to look up. He saw that the man had noticed his anxiety so he wanted to relax completely, rise up to the occasion and look normal. Like somebody who does not think too much about flying and simply travels.

“Are you afraid of flying?”, he hears the man’s voice.

“Maybe a little. Not so much that it would prevent me from travelling, of course.”

“You seem nervous. Have a drink… We’ll be lending in less than an hour now.”

He was not sure he felt like talking right then, but he could tell he would not be able to avoid it.

“Always push away your fears”, his companion went on. “I read recently that fear, any kind of fear, though it might seem illogical at first glance, is almost always connected with the notion that we are someone who should definitely be harmed. You are not afraid of flying because your plane might crash. It can happen to anyone, right? You are afraid because, though not aware of it, you believe that you are the one it should happen to. It is simply your lot, while others have other lots, probably good ones… It’s a funny thing, you know. And then you wonder, why would I think that this should happen to me? Now that is the million dollar question. It is irrational, my friend. Just like fear. Is it maybe your fault and would that be a just punishment?”

“I would not say…”

“Allow me. You should start to believe a little more that you are not necessarily the one who should be harmed in every situation.  After all, you are not as interesting to the powers that be as you think you are. You’ll see how much easier everything will become…”

He thought it strange that this man went so far after mere minutes of conversation and was much too caring for his standards, but strangest of all was the fact that he saw right through him. He was grateful for the words that seemed to be painfully accurate, and at the same time a little insulted by the fact that he was just dissected like a frog in biology class.

He decides to suppress this emotion and give more room to the feelings of gratitude and friendliness. It is true, he must not be that interesting to the powers that be.

“You are a writer, right?” He is a little embarrassed that maybe he should have heard about him, and has not, but he has the feeling that his companion would not find the question insulting.

“That is what I identify most as. You know, writing is a very ugly thing. For the writer, of course, not the ones who read his work afterwards. As much as it can lift me up and give me the feeling that I know what I am doing, that I have control, that I am skilled and lucid, it can also betray me. Have you ever written anything? That feeling when, the next day, everything seems absurd; and you wonder is it possible that you did that, that that is the way you chose your words. Because you are aware that it did not feel like that. You wanted something else, something completely different. What you attempted to capture with your words is different from the thing on the paper in front of you or the screen, I assume you write on the computer, you are young… It is easier to press backspace than to cross out two-three lines on a paper with a pencil. On the screen, the lines immediately disappear without a trace, you even have the same white space that seems tranquil, free, the surface is again ready for what you are about to add today. Yet, when you look at crossed out lines on a paper, it is much worse. The mistake is there, staring you in the face. It irritates. You add something new underneath it, but the chaos mere millimetres from what you are in the process of putting down irritates you. It reminds you of how bad you are. It increases the possibility to make a mistake in what you are in the process of writing. The computer is probably better… But, would you believe it, I have always only used paper. And when there is nothing left to cross out or tear up, I know that is it.”

“You are right, it is funny… The backspace key you just mentioned got jammed on my computer once. I am not a writer, I have never written anything. Ha, do you see all the negatives our language endures in one a single sentence?^[1] Anyway… When the key got jammed I first went berserk because at the time I was writing an email and thought how it might feel – not being able to correct something you want corrected straight away, that very second. Having only one chance to press one key just once in one moment. Because it is absolutely out of character for the time we live in. The idea is to be able to go back a hundred times; no limits, nothing is definitive, you feel free because you know that you can always delete everything and start anew, infinitely editing before clicking submit. Even then, who knows, that is probably not final either. Anyway, I was thinking how today the written text is taken much less seriously than before exactly because we know that we can relax. We are almost absolved of any responsibility, it is all the backspace key’s fault. And then it happens, it jams and we start to panic. Suddenly we are obliged to take our words seriously because we cannot go back and delete them. I just imagine a student sending an email to his professor with a little note at the end: P.S. My backspace key is jammed, please keep in mind in case of mistakes in the text. And the ever considerate professor takes it into account. Because he knows how hard it is. He understands the tragedy of a recalcitrant backspace key. Doesn’t is sound ridiculous? First of all, we are denied a real relationship with our own words, we do not have the strength to back them up, but we say we do not have the time. True, we do not have the time, nobody’s denying that… But isn’t it also true that we were a little spoiled by the multitude of possibilities, the absence of the definitive? The little key?”

“It is interesting, what you are saying. I did not expect to find out that you actually do not write. Which, let me tell you, I consider almost unpardonable.”

The old man took a sip of whiskey and leaned back into his seat trying to find a more comfortable position. His head was flung back, his chin slightly raised, like he was looking for an ideal position for his neck sporting a little grey silk kerchief which was maybe supposed to protect him from draft rather than being a fashion accessory.

He felt himself blush a little because the man’s face gave the impression he understood full well that the young man had tried to impress him with his speech about the backspace key and the problems of contemporary creativity, and though he found it enchanting, he thought I am not that easily impressed. Then again, maybe it was just him reading between the lines, or rather misreading, as per usual.

The plane soon starts its descent, by far his least favourite part. He tries to relax as much as possible. It is a little bit funny that upon take-off and landing he always keeps his legs strictly parallel to one another, and his arms almost the same; stiff head and jaw, by controlling his body he seems to control the accuracy of the pilot’s commands, the plane’s flight, everything. His legs are planted firmly on the floor, parallel and ready… For what? To react if everything goes to hell? Ridiculous. He knows it, but he cannot help himself, he has to do it.

four

The car, sporting some twenty thousand kilometres on its odometer, drives over a none-too-smooth road. If there is one album that graced its interior hundreds of times it is This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to think About^[2] not because it is an absolute favourite as much as he keeps forgetting to bring in a new one. And it just so happens, whole sections of the road, and his life, are defined by music or people who just happened to be there.

The road is more or less clear of traffic and he drives at a comfortable pace. He has left early in the morning just to take a drive without any specific destination in mind though he did not plan to stay longer than a couple of hours. He will return to the cabin in the evening. After an hour’s drive he stops beside a roadhouse he has never seen before and decides to go in for a drink. He has taken the binder containing his notes for the book he was in the last stage of writing. It was his first novel, or at least a novel in the making. What seemed a bit odd to him was the fact that he had already finished the last page, but he felt that a great deal in between needed more elaboration. That is why he almost always carried the binder around with him, so he could cross out, add or expand some of the sentences which he sometimes repeatedly mulled over, not knowing whether there really was anything wrong with them or if it was just him not feeling ready to accept those lines, embrace them as something of his own and merge with them, but kept holding them at an arm’s length, pretending that he still had nothing to do with them and that he was not directly responsible for them.

He takes the table by the window. The curtains, though white, are heavy and allow just the occasional shy ray of light to filter through, so the roadhouse is very dark for the time of day. He orders a beer and is also given a basket of bread accompanied by a small bowl clotted cream, though he did not ask for any of it. He is very grateful though, because it is time for breakfast, which he did not manage to have before he left. There is nothing he likes more than when people who do not know him read his mind, he thought, chewing the still warm bread topped with a thin layer of clotted cream. He scatters the papers across the table. He feels perfectly calm, almost as if he were seated in a library, because there are no customers, except for a farmer softly chatting with a waiter at the other end of the room. Once again, he turns the last page of his stack as if he wants to make sure that it is still there, the guarantee that his book already has an ending, through it is up to him to change parts of it here and there. He takes a slice of bread without cream and rips its soft middle with his fingers, bit by bit, noting how firm the crust is, the irregular but beautiful ellipsoid around the middle that no longer exists. Then he turns the pages, slowly, as if seeing some of them for the first time, he skims the lines, carefully, with the interest of someone reading somebody else’s, not his own notes. Three or four pages later he stops at a passage that has clearly reminded him of something and curved the corner of his lips into a smile, a comma, followed by a smaller one, peeking shyly behind the first and deeper one, without which the smile would not be the same.

One of the boys at some point (it is important to note: completely irrelevant for you) wants to play football, unaware of the fact that you once lived and did things similar to the ones he is doing right now for the first, second, and some even for the thousandth time; he is moving. He snatches air like a machine, running on the wet grass, focused on the part of the ground where he is to put his foot next. That is just the way it is supposed to be. That moment of actuality where there is no higher or prettier reality than the physical, where with every inch of its surface the foot feels that it has made contact with a new patch of ground and with it completely conquered and recognized that this reality, is just as much a dream as everything else time dreams of.

five

His mind is awash with images, flashbacks of the past and scenes of today, yesterday and the last several days, and he thinks that he often feels that he could not encompass the several lives he seems to have lived within his one, official life. The small child, boy, teenager, young man and now just a man in him seemed to differ so much sometimes, and it was difficult for him to understand it. In one of his lives he was so very relaxed, and in the very next he was counting the fingers and toes of people on the bus, which was known to result from the bureaucratic paranoia he was prone to like any other person buckling under the burden of deadlines. The child picks up a paper, folds it and throws it away, the boy doodles on the paper, always on the lookout for any leftover empty space to be filled, devoid of respect for the thick books he manages to reach on the shelves of the old house; oh how sweet it is to fill in the margins of The Magic Mountain^[3] with endless repetitions of one’s name. The teenager has no special relationship with paper, anything it might contain he feels like an attack on his freedom and sweet void of autodestructive depression which he is known to inhabit for weeks on end. The young man sees in the paper what the boy appreciated more than the teenager, he scribbles on it again and goes back to reading books he feels could help him comprehend himself and the world and maybe drag within reach the answers to some of the questions that sometimes haunt him. The young man likes to fold the paper, roll a cigarette or compose a sentence or two himself, and then bury them deep in his drawer or add them to other scraps bound for the junk pile. The somewhat older man grabs the paper as a crutch; writes and scatters around himself little coloured notes and stickers, lifesavers for his decelerating brain, seldom seeks pleasure in reading because too many topics have become all-too-familiar and many seem cumbersome. Fewer papers are rolled into cigarettes partly because part of him is beginning to fear illness, and he is beginning to pay more attention and show consideration for receipts and taxable bonds which, aware he could not escape them, he carefully stacks into a sizeable binder which he grips like the Holy Grail as he rushes home from the bank and back to the bank from home, over and over again, until his obsession with figures turns to adding the numbers of registration plates or counting the abovementioned fingers and toes of people sitting lost in thought on buses or metros looking somewhere out the window. One, two, three, four, five… six? No, it is okay, it is just five. Some women have feet too big for the sandals they have chosen to buy and their toes spread like a fan and can be deceiving and for a moment make the onlooker believe that they have discovered a six-toe foot, just like a four-leaf clover in the commotion of the hectic city meadow. And so his awe of the paper he long ago ruthlessly defaced with an insolent grin of power, grows with time.

six

They say it is not uncommon for a person to appear as present on the spot where their gaze ends, though it be very distant from the place they actually are.

That is exactly how he could describe the period of his life which he would not like to revisit under any circumstances. He often thought that, like the real point through which an infinity of imaginary lines passes, he too has an infinity of parallel lives he was not living in those moments, without knowing why himself. At night, he would often snap awake from the first touches of sleep, his eyes bulging at the wall, shaken by the horror of the one, specific situation he was in, the one option, at the same time aware of the existence of others which simply did not happen for him or, he felt, maybe he did not even look for. Guilty. There is no doubt that is exactly how he seemed to himself.

He was often bothered by the following thought: the problem is not to live just one of these options if a person feels that it is right for them as he was sure many people he did and did not know felt. The problem was running from one option to another in a chaos of not knowing what one actually wants. And that sometimes felt so hard that all he wanted was to drown himself somewhere, in people, stories, drink. It was all a very strange, yet all-consuming feeling, close to inadequacy. A period of receiving, without giving himself in any way. Like water under a bridge, many are the litres that went down his throat. Mornings did not entice waking, and nights did not invite sleep. The small personal evolution seemed to have briefly reversed again, and a string of dull days marched on in a succession completely devoid of humour which was carelessly and unacceptably left behind.

He could not figure out whether he was deliberately put to a test or if he was just a jinx, or maybe simply prone to exaggeration.

Still, understanding that few things really last filled him with confidence that at some point things would change. Of course, patience was pretty scarce. He had doubts about everything and anything, letting people come into and drop out of his life with ease, feigning indecisiveness even when it came to love, though that was truly the only thing where one cannot afford to be indecisive.

The fights with her were followed by a time where she simply wasn’t there anymore. Time where everything fell into place, both in his life and in his head; a feeling of profound understanding for the other side, accompanied by a feeling of a distant and feeble love for another being as such, respect for her existence in the world and nothing more… Actually, a growing disinterest in the person and all that they are, and a dismally universal and weak emotion.

It was only later that things seemed to slide into place, it was hardly the first time they swirled up only to settle down, and it definitely would not be the last. Understanding the occasionally re-occurring cycles is of paramount importance for remaining composed, it now seemed to him, and a man is homo amnesius and all too often finds himself in a situation where he is again shocked by something he has already experienced, but it is possible that he does it for one of two reasons rightly to be suspected: he is either inherently too autodestructive or so afraid of boredom that he has to treat the already seen as something unknown because misfortune, just like fortune, has a limited number of combinations and often comes to us in very similar ways. He soon arrived at a convenient assumption that bad luck is just a myth concocted by narcissistic lazy bones out of their inability to tackle things with more faith and energy, and exaggeration is one of many bad habits of the hypersensitive, however, it can, like any other anyway, hopefully be eradicated. A person simply should not turn a deaf ear to their own needs, was a thought that seized him more and more often, and for the first time after a long while he started to feel at peace.

Some things again started to crop up as more important, attractive or better than others, and the fact that after some time he again started to feel curious was the best sign that he was getting better. Though at first he seemed a little pale in all the mirrors he stopped to look at himself in, sometimes almost colourless or insufficiently distinctive, in time he started to stand out from the surroundings much more clearly.

Soon after he ordered his first tea in Boston.

As he drinks the last sip of beer, he moves the curtain with his hand and sees that the day is much brighter than he thought. He remembered that unlike him, his son has very specific dreams. He is afraid of an eruption of the super-volcano in Yellowstone, spiders of the bulkier kind and Ozengur, imaginary villain in the attic who steals shoes because he is dastardly and likes to wear one pair on top of another just to completely wear out children’s shoes and stretch them so the child is compelled to hide his shoes around the house in the most unlikely places to outwit him. And that is mainly that, very precise; no more, no less when it comes to fear. His face spreads into a characteristic smile as he thinks about his son, from whom he could take lessons sometimes, and he reaches for another slice of bread – the smallest, cut just before that loaf is whittled down to the heel.

seven

I know it is not easy to say that you want freedom or love. What if you really got freedom and love, which everybody obviously craves for, and then not be able to understand, describe, feel them. Maybe you would rather have something that is not really freedom, nor is even close to love, but to be able to think – This is the feeling for me, though I do not know what it means, though I cannot name all of this.

The lines on the last page of his notes, behind copious scribbles and partially filled pages, he had started to write on a plane when he was flying alone. He thought that writing would be the best way to distract himself from imminent death and to answer the first fellow passenger who asked him next Are you a writer of some kind? in the affirmative, just like that, for a change.

At one point the turbulence increased and he remembered that he did not know what to think, what would happen to him and whether his feet would ever again touch terra firma which at that moment he idealised and endlessly worshipped. Still, something told him that he cannot be sure of anything anymore.

Except that maybe there is no need to fly with his legs parallel to one another and firmly stuck to the airplane floor, ready to react in case everything goes to hell.

^[1] The English language does not allow for repetition of negation, however in the original, the young man says: “I haven’t never written nothing.” Which is perfectly fine and grammatically correct.

^[2] The first album of the US indie rock band Modest Mouse.

^[3] A novel by Thomas Mann.

Translated by: Mirjana Slavkovski