Death Cancels All Engagements
Tuesday, August 23, 2021
"Death cancels all engagements.” Thank God for that. Because I really don't want to go to the party tomorrow. I heard from reliable sources that she will be there. For this entire month, I pretty much hide in my study/office/library to avoid most if not all people. Luckily the bathroom is just around the corner from my office, so I don’t really have to look at anyone. I have a game that I play with dice. Every morning I throw the dice against the bookcase, and if the number twelve comes up, then I don’t do anything foolish that day.
To be perfectly frank, I can spend my entire life in my study with my books. I’m intrigued what’s happening outside my world, but I prefer that I read about it, then participate with the outside world, because I don’t see the point in having a one-on-one relationship with a landscape that is so hostile to my way of thinking. Even seeing a man walking down the street with the wrong type of pants can cause me depression. Even when I walk in my neighborhood and watch, which seem like a painfully slow-motion film, the construction of the new apartment condos on the corner of Waverly and Glendale, causes me a migraine.
There is a woman who will be invited to the party tomorrow that I must avoid at all costs. Her name is Zuleika Dobson, and it seems she welcomes the suicides of men who are obsessed with her. She’s not even pretty, which everyone can gather is less than beautiful, but still, she seems to hold an influence over men who fail to think for themselves. It feels so odd to meet a woman who is actually sexually turned by a suitor’s suicide or suicide attempt. I just have to admit that for amusement sake, I would love to see her in a landscape where I can see men just falling on top of each other just to light her cigarette. When I met her, she seemed to obtain unlimited enjoyment of blowing smoke towards my face. I never liked her, but I wanted to have sex with her.
One time she came to my home and met me in my library and office. As she was making small talk, she went to my bookshelves and started to pull a book here and there, and that drove me insane. She pulled my collected stories by Jorge Luis Borges off the shelf, read a random page, and commented to me: ‘Hmmm.” She then threw the book on my desk, at the same time she went hunting for another volume of something another, and I kept wondering if her hands were clean. I can’t stand people touching my books, especially a woman like her, who God knows exactly where she had put her hands on. I knew some of her conquests, at least the ones that are still alive, and I avoid making physical contact, or to be specific, to shake her hand because I immediately think ‘Oh God she touched so-so’s cock.” Worst yet, I couldn’t bear the thought of looking at her mouth, knowing that so-so’s penis was in that hole below her nose.
I have a small portable turntable in my library, and I put on an album by Léo Ferré “Les Chansons d’Aragon” which usually drives certain people nuts, but she seemed to like the recording. She is a woman of taste, but it is the kind of flavor that chews one up, and then spat out against a filthy toilet. While in my room she toyed with me like I was a yo-yo and that I was the string that couldn’t come back, due to the lack of strength, to the two discs. I literally held my breath till she left.
It is not apparent to me why I have to go to this party tomorrow. I was told that there was a specific theme to the party, and it deals with that there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. Also, the host (hint, hint, the current beau of Zuleika) plans to show his favorite episodes of “60 Minutes.” Also to honor certain guests where 60 is the age for senior citizens in some cultures. I do hope to the powers above me will give me a swift and dignified death before tomorrow.
Influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, Léo Ferré, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson