We seek oblivion
we chase it our death
wish as readily as we chase our life wish
some buzzed
cat in conversation who wandered into the liquor store where he clerked
they talked before shelves of
tequila
Manh who knew there were this
many tequilashuh Wha they think theyre scotch or whisky or wine
More than just a few Ill grant
you
Yes
Exhausting
Who knewHUH(exaggerating echoing his dull
rejoinder)
You got a queer look on your
face manh when I mentioned death wish You do know what Im talking
about
I dont I dont have a death wish
Of course you do maybe you dont
call it such but you we all do
I dont
You may believe you dont
you know your exhaustion at the end
of the day Were exhausted from
contending with our jobs with other people making money were exhausted and when
we get home we eat stay up for a bit then we seek sleep and sleep is the
vehicle to our dreams and nightmares and they happen for us in pursuit of our
death wishes
Illuminating them
Terrifying us
Death reaches out of life
You need only look at a tree to confirm it see it exist in life in real
time
Diseased they refuse to fall
Dying they refuse to fall
Killed they stand and weather
death and over time drop pieces of themselves sticks and whole limbs
Think of their treetops dead and crooked
Wood shafts lightning inverted running
up into the sky and nearer the earth the tree hides its death behind green
leaves
They
still flower and bear fruit
They grow more frail every year
And if you really care to see on windless days they move
And seeing them move we have to create
excuses to explain it away
Anything
thatll sound legit
But why lie
the tree moved it sighed it shifted as we do to make ourselves
comfortable
No the wind did it
There is no wind
So we lie to become more
comfortable comforting ourselves because we havent an explanation
It seems everything needs to have a reason or an explanation if something is unexplained it creates
doubt
And we dont like that
And we dont like that
We want to be assured
So lying assures us
Lying is easier than accepting
doubt
A lie is a coin weve minted
Heads
or tails one or the other and agreed and decided on the result of the flip we
accept it
Thats the deal we make when we lie
But now it has to be remembered
or other lies have to be made up to protect it
Sever a lie and look inside it tree rings overlapped overlapping its heart its core is hidden and protected
he nodded his head firmly
he said Yaknow I gotta wonder what you would have talked
about instead if Id talked to you in front of the whiskys
The life and death wishes you
mentioned you said occurred to you during your first iteration as a therapist
Yes My first
And obviously youre a long way
from that iteration
I am
Is it possible your recollection
or the vernacular youre using now is faulty regarding it as a wishFreud I
understand described life and death instincts
But instincts arent wishes
He identified associated his life
instinct with sexFreud was all about sex and death with aggression and healthy if
healthy is appropriate a healthy aggression externalised against the other
I can see how you might align a
wish with instinct though to me an instinct is basic a wish is created it invites
something more though I wouldnt think youd agree
But no matter
I am intrigued however that you have
ascribed iterations to yourself
You disagree that we are iterations
that they occur to us over our lives
Id call them changes changes that
we have either brought onto ourselves or are ours by circumstances which
initially had nothing to do with us
Then unfortunately we are collatedl
with them
My life is made of iterations
So youve been utterly guided by
your decisions alone No influences
Thats bullshit
and I say bullshit because
right now if I were to assume the inspired warrior iteration you mentioned to
me earlier and knocked you headlong into these shelves of tequila my fist to
your jaw the crashing handles and fifths that randomness that influence might make
of you an iteration you hadnt an imagination of not five minutes earlier
Not your decision
Which isnt to say that I havent
found this conversation exhilarating
Its
not often someone comes in to buy booze typically an in-an-out proposition and
intellectually spins me
Although I might suggest you save
your iterations for the likes of her outside leaning up against your sports car
and looking quite fetchingShe got legs that go for a mile and I hardly ever pay
attention to a womans legs
1516, Monday --
Labor Day, 5 9. 16
1111, Day-between-Two-Ts, 7 9.
16
