The consequence of truth
My Dear Mannheim,
Not so very long ago, we spoke of the consequences of truth. Why we had to keep our relationship such a closely guarded secret. I understand all you had to lose, the necessity of the lie. Though in the end, of course, I must wonder if what you lost in actuality was worth it. Would you have willingly paid the price that was extracted from you?
I do not flatter myself to believe so. My company is not as precious a commodity that such a cost be justified.
I wonder what do you think of me now? I haunt the halls of the university in the evenings, a disconsolate ghost drifting purposeless in the places where once he lived as flesh and bone. I registered for courses, in the evenings and online. Subjects that interest me, lacking discernible pattern. I sit quietly in the back of large lecture halls - no more my inquisitive nature, on which you complimented me. Oh the underlying curiosity remains, doubtless. But I must now call no attention to myself in this invisible state. Must follow the rules of my new society, that charge me to pass through their world as a shadow. Not that I ever had a wide variety of friends, but there is a loneliness inherent in making a conscious choice towards muteness. In greeting every friendly smile with a look away, a small sigh of feigned disinterest.
We are all, in our own ways Mannheim, dying for connection. Is that not the purpose of this mad, mad world - to intersect with each other, to interlock in a tangle of limbs or blows or ideas? Stripped of that purpose, of that drive of humanity, of the sound of a heartbeat - what remains? Hunger. Thirst. Sharpened to a sword's point, in the pit of the stomach and the marrow of one's bones. The aching emptiness that is never full, the feeling of being a hollow vessel, without bottom. Yet there is something spiritual in hunger, in surrounding oneself with things that could satiate (or at the very least, stave) and making a conscious choice to allow oneself none of it. To surround oneself with beating hearts, to allow oneself the memory of heartbeat . I live like an aesthetic. You would be proud of my control. There is the matter of dinner, but I do not eat on campus. How could I? These are still my people, poor creatures that they are in their ignorance that no formal education will allay.
I trust this letter will find you well, and that you will make contact in your own due time. I trust that you are thinking of me yet, as I think of you, regularly and with fondness.
--Maus
Not so very long ago, we spoke of the consequences of truth. Why we had to keep our relationship such a closely guarded secret. I understand all you had to lose, the necessity of the lie. Though in the end, of course, I must wonder if what you lost in actuality was worth it. Would you have willingly paid the price that was extracted from you?
I do not flatter myself to believe so. My company is not as precious a commodity that such a cost be justified.
I wonder what do you think of me now? I haunt the halls of the university in the evenings, a disconsolate ghost drifting purposeless in the places where once he lived as flesh and bone. I registered for courses, in the evenings and online. Subjects that interest me, lacking discernible pattern. I sit quietly in the back of large lecture halls - no more my inquisitive nature, on which you complimented me. Oh the underlying curiosity remains, doubtless. But I must now call no attention to myself in this invisible state. Must follow the rules of my new society, that charge me to pass through their world as a shadow. Not that I ever had a wide variety of friends, but there is a loneliness inherent in making a conscious choice towards muteness. In greeting every friendly smile with a look away, a small sigh of feigned disinterest.
We are all, in our own ways Mannheim, dying for connection. Is that not the purpose of this mad, mad world - to intersect with each other, to interlock in a tangle of limbs or blows or ideas? Stripped of that purpose, of that drive of humanity, of the sound of a heartbeat - what remains? Hunger. Thirst. Sharpened to a sword's point, in the pit of the stomach and the marrow of one's bones. The aching emptiness that is never full, the feeling of being a hollow vessel, without bottom. Yet there is something spiritual in hunger, in surrounding oneself with things that could satiate (or at the very least, stave) and making a conscious choice to allow oneself none of it. To surround oneself with beating hearts, to allow oneself the memory of heartbeat . I live like an aesthetic. You would be proud of my control. There is the matter of dinner, but I do not eat on campus. How could I? These are still my people, poor creatures that they are in their ignorance that no formal education will allay.
I trust this letter will find you well, and that you will make contact in your own due time. I trust that you are thinking of me yet, as I think of you, regularly and with fondness.
--Maus