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Five Days Ago

by DAN CARVILLE

Certain events came to light. There is no need for me to detail these occurrences. As the perpetrator she is well within her rights to come forward, although I know she will not.

It is enough to say I remember hearing your name that first time. (I saw her moving around, gesturing at the still photo of a child. When I spoke to her then, it was like a man addressing a very proud eagle.) You acted flattered by what I said, but when I thought back to what it was, I had not considered the remarks encouraging at all.

"It's a matter of scale," said the paleontologist to the triceratops.

You will remember that as a boy that I knew the names of such creatures. Once my mother saw me puttering about the yard. "Use your words," she said. (I did not realize she meant it condescendingly until much later.)

I was only a child with poor eyesight when that took place. Should I not have told you of it until now, should I have bided my time to some future date when you could begin to understand what I am composed of?

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There were other such places, people. Sometimes I was among them as you always seem to be. Evidence in shining eyes, a joy of your own making, not mine. It makes me envious.

Maybe you could not say these things as well as me, that is why I say them to you now. I assumed you knew, but you acted surprised. Do not tell me about them, and do not give their names, and do not transmit photos of them or of you when they are nearby.

I had a strange experience in an airport last year. I haven't told you of that either. I saved someone. You'll want to know all about this. Perhaps later.

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When searching for the reason something is beautiful, I consider three main principles:

(1) Does it make me feel something I have never felt before?

(2) Can I hold it in my hands?

(3) Does it give a reflection in a mirror, and what kind of image is revealed?

These are all ways of touching. I myself do not like it when another is in control. (We all know that many creatures are by this definition not beautiful.) I do want to be that familiar, as though disembarking from the revelation involved in pushing the sleeve of my shirt up to the elbow.

These lifeless husks you meet could not satisfy you because they are not the girth of the world. Light flows through me alone. It is folly to consider another. When I lie - when I find myself lying - I consider it sort of an ode.

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For the rest of time, it has been an utterance on my tongue, a splitting deep in my lower abdomen, the den of all pleasure and all pain. There is no purpose in being like this, except to the extent that it represents a form that must be inhabited before it can be discarded. That is what you wanted me to think or feel, hurt by the faith you lack. There is no difference in between those modes of thought: the indeterminacy signals only acceptance.

Making visible the hours in the arbor, holding a small object rather than a long, thin point. The sea of the formerly inconceivable. He must turn against himself, a key frame redrawn on paper. I'll show you.

Dan Carville is a writer living in New York. He last wrote in these pages here, and you can find an archive of his fiction on This Recording here.

Images by Julio Larraz, except for Heavy Dog Kiss by Dennis Oppenheim.