Declaration

I have terrible habits; I am a very cruel person, in reality. Not malicious--just a little cruel. Always have been. I caught frogs and garden snakes when I was young. I held a baby bird once (it was on the ground and the mother was gone). I catch moths when nobody's looking. I always let them go; but sometimes, I cannot resist catching them. Even though I have grown into a prim and proper adult--I try to play with things that don't exactly share that inclination.

I am that awful, ridiculous kind of person that can live on secrets and secrets alone, I think. Here I must bring in Derrida, though I'd rather not, because I understand so little of what that man says. There is Abraham, there is God, there is Isaac; there is me, there is other, there is my irl self (that is not an exact parallel, but I will use it until it gives me trouble). I am sacrificing some part of myself, some real part, some continual part, some future part, when I content myself with Other. Content? I do not want this to be the right word. But I'm not sure it's not.

Abraham's silent, secret decision is unforgivably cruel; but the result is not. Far from it. Somehow, I feel I operate in reflection of this; my decisions, my secrets, my stories are not cruel. They are pleasing and beautiful, even when they are terrible. But the result? There is some cruel, copper taste to it left on my tongue, between the grinding of my teeth.

It is not right to catch snakes.
It's not right to lift rocks [to find crayfish].
It is not right to play with toys as if you are one.

I cannot tell what is even going on here. Have I killed Isaac? Do I worship him? Do I abandon him for the Other? The happier I am, the more I drift into dangerous territory. God, what have I done? Nothing--and that is the cruel bit of it. I have not killed him; but he now knows I would have. And that kinda shit don't sit well with no one.

[There is a sweet nuance to the sort of cruel I'm referring to. Like umami.]

I put the Other before Isaac; I put myself before myself. I am all greed. I am all hedonism. But I have nothing to show for it. What is this, then? This hording of nothing--no, I will not say hording. I am more discerning in my tastes. This collecting. This piecing together. But what is this flavor that has nothing to show for itself? I have nothing to be ashamed of--and so I am. Nothing.

Isaac, you are involved. You are part of this secret. But you are the object: you are the secret. If God and Abraham share a laugh at the end of this, it is not extended to you. They are they relationship; you matter, the medium through which it is expressed. You are rendered by their relationship. Come to dinner, Isaac. You are invited. Take a seat--yes, right there. On the plate. You are the meal.

I will say a terrible thing: nothing consumes me, sometimes. It excites me. Not as things do, but as only nothing can. It terrifies me. I see myself in all the wrong characters; too often, Kawabata's. I cleaved Kreisler from Ettlinger in my thought experiment because it was good. But they are not really so different. I am not really so different. I sympathize with Daisy, Emma, Edna, and the narrator. The narrator, perhaps, most, because of that awful penchant for creeping that we share.

That is another bad childhood habit I haven't quite rid myself of yet--creeping. Sneaking. I was very good at sneaking out of the house to play. Outside was the free zone, where you couldn't be found, not behind trees, not behind hills, not crouching between the car and the blackberry bushes. The more I think about it, the more I remember how carefully I used to turn door handles (go to the backdoor--it turns like a mouse), then close the door. Step slowly over the porch step, because it rattles. Don't take the gravel--it crunches. Duck down or you'll be seen through the window.

I loved taking me with you those times, because your doggish footsteps hid mine. And somehow, you knew I was creeping. And it made you antsy. And it made me antsy. So as soon as we made it past all the windows, we ran like convicts.

But I can't run too much here--and never again with you.
So I've internalized it. I've turned my dogs to robots; I've made silicon cats. Hedwiga turned inward--why can't I? I play in mechanical ways. Does this mean that Isaac is dead, through some fault, through some slip? But the Other is still Other.
How horrified they were by the Princess's illness. How disturbed.
But what Ettlinger did was far worse.
And thus it was unspeakable; unforgivable; cruel. A secret. Internalized. How ugly, to watch that foolish man-boy put a bullet through that bird. Put it back. Put it back. God, nobody remembers to put it back. Nobody plays by the rules. She is alone in her game, and that deviates it--dements it.

I did not want to kill him; he was my son, for fuck's sake. Nobody wants to kill their fucking son. And I wouldn't have had to. But something went awry--something interrupted. Or maybe the thing I was waiting for just never came and everything else did. I closed my eyes and felt the angel stay my hand; I felt God. I felt the unforgivable wretchedness of our relationship. It made me weak; it made me strong. The knife was gone--slipped away, or taken, made a secret article by the angel that seized me. I trembled. I wanted to see my son, before I trembled to the earth in this strange ecstasy. But look--
The alter is gone. Isaac is gone. The knife is gone. There is a gun at my feet. I don't know where my son is. I don't know where my son is. I don't know where my Other is. Fuck--what the fuck happened here? I don't know what happened. But I have been divided. Someone has cut me while I slept [because that is what you do to dragons].

I am awry. I do not know where my son is. Will I recognize him when he returns? Will I love him, then? Will I kill him, then? I had not let go--I was interrupted. He was stolen. And now I am weak. I have not been given the chance to learn. To incorporate. To gather. My object has walked away. My medium has unrendered itself. I shudder to think what you will be when you return. A monster. Me.

And what, in the meantime? I am alone with my Other. Halved, it will pity me. It will fill in my gaps. I will be whole again. That is, I will appear whole again.
There is suspension.
There is awe.
There is Aura.
We are waiting, aren't we? Each on opposite ends of the world.

I didn't cut you from me, boy--God, I swear I didn't cut you from me. What? No, I don't know where my knife is. That gun isn't mine--it hasn't even been invented yet. The blood on my feet? Oh God. Blood on my feet. I don't know. I don't know whose it is. Is it yours? If you're going to come back without it, better not come back at all. I'll kill you. I'll kill you then. And I'll weep like a man before the grave. Whatever happened today won't matter then--if you come back to me, without the blood on my feet (if it is indeed yours), I'll have to cut you then. And I'll do it right that time.

But God I hope I didn't kill you. That would be so goddamn fucked up.