Silent
As he passes his hand over his face in front of the mirror in a gesture of weariness from the day’s work, he sees he has wiped off the right cheek, with its bristle of hairs and its curves to leave a solid as smooth as a billiard ball. He stares, wonders at how weary he must be to have to see this. He passes his hand over his left cheek and gets the same result. He is alarmed at himself and questions his balance. To prove himself wrong in his suspicions, he runs his hand swiftly across his eyes, and they are wiped away, leaving him blind.
He screams, but he is alone. He would stare at his hand, but he cannot see; and he rushes madly out of the bathroom and into the living room, banging himself against the furniture. He is terrified of himself; his hand is his enemy, his destruction, and he holds it at a distance from himself rigidly, frozen in his fear, but in a burst of anguish he rubs his two hands together wildly, as if to wipe away the crime, and they wipe each other out, leaving him with two plugs of solid flesh resembling hooves. He can no longer feel fingers or the palms of either hand. He wishes to destroy himself, he is insane with grief. After the loss of his two hands, what worse is to follow? And he passes his right plug of flesh across his head of hair in exhaustion and, in horror, he can feel the hair disappear beneath his touch. Insane now, he makes these flesh plugs pass over each part of his torso and with each touch that part is wiped away. He laughs, out of his mind. What is happening is like the dream he had as a child, and now it has come true for him. He runs his plug down his legs and across his feet, and he falls to the floor with a crash, legs and feet giving way, since they are no longer there, and he can sense their change into a solid like the body of a fish. He begins to flop on the floor like a fish cast upon shore. The door to his apartment opens and his wife enters, observes him tossing himself about, tangled up in his clothes, and is silent.
1973-74
Page(s) 8-9
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