) He was admonished by a reader who complained about the excess of the first person singular, the infamous “I”, in the chronicles. “You’re too subjective!” she despaired. And so did he. He doesn’t know what to do and, as he writes these lines, he thinks how ridiculous it would be to play Pele and refer to himself in the third person singular. Although a distance between the “he” perceived by others and the “I” perceived by himself might create the armor he needs so much at the moment.
Reprimands of this kind are commonplace and, in most cases, welcome. Sometimes I say, he
reads them to his wife and the two start talking and one thing leads to another and, when they know it, they are both laughing the hearty laugh of those who haven’t lost the ability to admire their own failures. “No one wants to talk anymore”, he sentences, fateful as always. Another reader says he is pernostic and uses pedantic words like “pernostic”. He could have just said stuck up. Or arrogant. But how to explain that words have a purpose that is sometimes musical? How pernostic! How can one explain, furthermore, that he insists on not underestimating the reader who insists on knocking him off a pedestal he does not occupy? And all this he slowly digests. So he who hates mesoclises and enclises and semicolons (there’s no hyphen, but here he goes anyway because he wants to). Soon he who rejects Latino and is allergic to “otherwise” and “nevertheless”. Soon he was taken away from the legitimate and (it was thought) inalienable right to look within himself, dispose of good feelings over the fireplace, throw bad feelings into the toilet, and bear the hard-won pronoun: eu. These, however, are the formal reprimands, born of the other people’s bitterness that he I don’t understand or have a way around it. He had, perhaps, embraced the sour overseer and, with that gesture, perhaps, always perhaps, a zillion perhapss, saw him abandon the whip of sourness. But what do I say, he
) is saying, my God? It does not presuppose the bitterness of others. Not always. And definitely not on a beautiful sunny morning like this. If the shape bothers you and can’t (it’s no use even trying!) to cross the barbed wires of idiosyncrasies (ops), what about the content? He still tries to argue that it’s all talk. An. Great. Talk. Try to invite people to sit down, offer salami and beer which, ok, maybe not that cold, but. But the truth is that there are and always will be some admonitions that seem to be taken from the head of an Annie Wilkes, the villain with a touch of comedy played by Kathy Bathes in “Mad Obsession”. He cannot speak ill of it. Or good of that. And he can’t stand on the fence either. Express doubts? No way! Don’t even dare say the subject doesn’t matter. Or that matters, although you are aware of the ridiculous. If he shows commiseration is being weak. Or arrogant. If you give in to indignation, you are out of control, you need to take an urgent medicine. If he doesn’t share the rabies pandemic, it’s because he sold his little soul for thirty bucks. If he just wants to stay in a corner, melancholy admiring the battlefield and thinking that one day this whole theater will come to an end and, damn it, how can Humanity so easily forget its finitude and such – that’s why he there’s no way. Enough of the mimimi, man! He thinks of ending the text saying the obvious: it is impossible to please all readers. Even more so, living in a world obsessed with certainties and practically exhausted by self-doubt. But to say that would be to suggest silence as a solution – which is a form of giving up, of confessing defeat. When not from cowardice. That’s why he sends bitterness to the gourds, and other people’s and puts Ella Fitzgerald to brilliantly forget the lyrics of “Mack The Knife” or improvise on “How High the Moon” (what a record!). And, just because you can, because you want to, because you’re free and because you don’t see anything wrong with it, I allow myself There is no way out
Reflective silence
