THE MAN WHO PNUE TOO MUCH
It is curious, is it not, to die? To arrive at life’s final compromise. A sentiment so elusive that it mocks understanding itself. In my youth, I longed for such an escape, to leave this place and move on to whatever clever presumption religion had to offer. Perhaps my life, a series of misinformed gestures, had led me inevitably to this moment. I awoke dead, sprawled across the couch, rigor mortis setting in; my body taut, unnatural— like an erection. Weathered by the sensation, I chose to bury myself in melancholy. Yet all of this seemed irrelevant. I might have been my own pneumatic rival. I had never spoken to the world. And in turn she never responded. I had been so enamored with the idea of self that now I myself existed only as an idea. A preverbal scene, perhaps. There I lay, left to nothing. A memory of answers. One might call me a profound absurdity, though I considered myself a faithful servant of the mundane, poised sat, and rotten into the couch. Surely this must be a dream—but it could not be; I had died. I remembered the cold, the gasp of air leaving my lungs, and then
nothing.
And then, again, I was here. A day must have passed. Nothing changed. Even in death, absence eluded me. Until it felt as if some veil had been lifted from a mere reverie. I was displaced. I faced a small room. In the left-hand corner sat an old woman, eyes like daggers, piercing straight through me. To her right, a small letter-writing desk with a mid-century green lamp. A black cat perched beside it, unfazed, puffing gently on a cigarette. To its right, a grey metal door. Farther along, a gilded birdcage gleamed gold, a raven inside tilting its head as if greeting me. On the far wall, green velvet curtains hung slightly ajar, letting a beam of light fall onto a table at the room’s center. “Ah, I don’t remember seeing you here before,” said the raven. I froze. The bird spoke. “We apologize for the inconvenience; visitors are rare.” A waiting room in death. No golden escalator, no gates of heaven—just a room with impossible inhabitants. The old woman never blinked, knitting as she glared. The cat read the same paragraph over and over, cigarette balanced perfectly between its paws. Hours passed. Time seemed meaningless. Then the old woman stood, cawing like a crow. Slowly, deliberately, she undid her blouse, her eyes fixed on me. I could have looked away, but curiosity rooted me. She revealed herself, grotesque and commanding. The raven laughed. “Watch, Mommy Dearest,” it said. The room stretched infinitely. The old woman’s cries rose, ghastly and in heat. The raven rattled and flapped, feathers falling one by one to reveal green, putrid skin. The cat ignored everything, absorbed in its endless reading. The scene pressed into my skull. I distrusted my own body, my own presence. “Three pillars…” the raven repeated. The old woman reached into a bag, producing needle and thread. Slowly, carefully, she pierced her own laborious lips, sewing her snatch shut in ritualistic formality. “Plough white fields. I hold a white plough,” the raven intoned. The ground trembled. The room threatened to collapse. An ox appeared in the center. Was this the doctor? Judgment itself? The raven repeated its chant, the ox unmoved, stoic.
I understood then: we are reflections of what we perceive, the universe shaped by what we pour into it.
