Monthly Archives: July 2009

Talking to you is like moving through a forest, X tells me, like the one that grew next to our house, the one I grew up in and played in. Except I knew then I’d be able to get back home no matter where I went, but now I don’t, now I come out where I thought was home and realise I’m in a bigger forest. A forest of kitsch. And where are you, he asks me, who do you think you are to lead me astray?

X tells me he’s finally found the truth about himself. He’s needy, he says, that’s the basic truth, isn’t it? He needs the sound of my voice, he says, he needs me to tell him something kitschy and comforting. He’s like that teenager who got lost in the Australian bush and was kept alive by his longing to hear his mother’s voice, he says. He wants to curl up in a foetal ball and listen to me whisper words of comfort in his ear. That’s the perfect image of what he wants, a foetal ball, rocking back and forth, being lulled to sleep by words of comfort, isn’t that what you think? he asks me.

I’m right, X tells me, how could he have said all that to me, what drove him to say all those pompous, absurd things? Where does this need for puffed-up declarations and personal kitsch come from, and how can he excuse it? he asks. He can’t, he says, and that just adds to his problems. I’m right to wonder if he thinks the world revolves around him, he says, if he thinks he’s the hero of his own kitschy drama, because he clearly does, doesn’t he? he asks. Like some delusional case in a room somewhere, rocking in his chair and scribbling all the reasons why the world is against him and vice versa, and why it’ll all end in tears. No, he says, he needs to sober up, beware of himself and try to understand his circumstances instead of making them worse. Maybe wearing a suit would help, he says, or getting laid. Maybe he should keep a notebook, he says, a healthy, normal notebook, countering all his negative thoughts with positive ones, isn’t that how it’s done now? What’s certain is he’s out of line, he says, out of touch with reality. He needs to clean himself up with limpid, objective thoughts, he says, see himself from the eyes of the world, society, God, Sigmund Freud, Margaret Thatcher, anyone. But first he has to get rid of me. He doesn’t want to be that guy down the street, he says, the guy with the stained jacket. But it’s like a mess of rats is running around his brain and mating, he says, that’s why he talks to me like this, he’s doing it now, can’t I hear, why can’t I help him instead of making it worse with my silence? But of course I’m right, he says, he has to help himself because no one else can, so in a way my silence is a blessing.