No, I can’t do it alone. I need a body to receive the leftover voices, otherwise the therapy won’t work, he replied.
I’m not a garbage can.
But for you, if I understand correctly, these voices are not garbage.
I said nothing.
You can earn money and help these women at the same time. That’s not such a bad thing, is it? he said gently, placing his hand on mine.
I had never before thought about wanting to help women. I couldn’t explain why the whole idea seemed so absurd to me. And I wasn’t convinced the women felt better after their consultations. It’s true most of them said they felt much better after the treatment, but to me they looked as if Z had broken one of their bones.
This bone might be a tiny, insignificant one, perhaps so tiny no one even knows it exists. Its location and function are possibly unknown, and no one has tried to find it. Nevertheless, one can clearly see when this bone has been broken.
Sometimes I even see a woman walking down the street in broad daylight with a broken bone. She can be well-dressed or wearing heavy makeup, she can be in good spirits or seated in the protective armor of an automobile, but still I can see she’s had this particular bone broken. Which doesn’t necessarily mean she’s been treated by Z. I see too many women with broken bones for this to be possible. There must be many many people performing the same service, though to this day I don’t know exactly what it is Z does. He speaks with women, or stares at them in silence. That’s all I can make out.
When I wake up in the middle of the night, I often feel the need to write something down. I sit at my desk and hold my fingers above the typewriter until I can remember the clattering sound I once knew. It’s no longer possible for me to write something about a particular subject. Often I even have difficulty putting together coherent sentences.
When I am incapable of writing even a sentence, I simply type the words that occur to me of their own accord. I divide them up incorrectly:
Maga z ine
Fro z en
Reali z ation
When I look at the page the next day, I find only a series of meaningless words and no longer know what it was I wanted to notate. Writing these broken words is the only activity that calms me. Then I pick up the full page and hold it in my hand, satisfied, as if I’ve notated something important.
Un z ip
Pri z e
Hori z on
Sei z e
Ha z y
Mesmeri z e
Recogni z e
Ga z e
Da z z led
Z ig z ag