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Phil John:
HIM
(PART TWO)
Eichwalde, November 4th, 2002 - Fragment # 4 - 737 Words
When I saw him yesterday, he seemed busy, walking from one place to another, hurriedly, with some sense of purpose in his eyes, determined to achieve something as it seemed. He had something going on, a project, something occupying a portion of his mind large enough to not let him think of something else, of somebody else. He seemed normal that way, he seemed to be okay, undisrupted in the flow of things. He didn't stroll through the hallways, he walked or rather marched, his glance seemed to form a tunnel with the direction being clear and anything blocking his way circumvented easily. He would talk relaxedly, listen patiently, nothing would reveal anything out of the ordinary. However, that was yesterday. Today, he seemed a different person. His glance would still form a tunnel, but it would focus nowhere, lead to nowhere, and see right through things and people; but in a different way. Now, there was nothing there, nothing at all. He would still listen and talk, but with some sense of unease, almost unnoticeably, and you probably wouldn't see a difference if you didn't suspect anything at all. But there were some little things that would betray the appearance, would crack the mask, but only slightly, and you couldn't really be sure as to whether what you were seeing was indeed true, or just some wild speculation. He talked a bit offish, however, he talked too much, and more off topic than usual. He wouldn't control his little speech impediments, he just wouldn't care. He'd even indulge in it, and strangely smile and almost be proud of his being more and more drifting away from normality. He'd be able to focus, he'd just not do it, he didn't give a damn, not anymore, not today at least. Thus he seemed strangely more confident, but it was a strange confidence -- you can be confident if you're sure you'd deliver to your audience, that you'd make no mistakes and be perceived the way you wanted to be perceived, be seen as normal, whatever the fuck that should mean, and even exceeding expectations. His confidence seemed different, but only if you dared look a bit closer, and maybe even allow him to talk about it. He once told me no one would listen, really listen, because everybody would be afraid to allow themselves to enter such a topic. And still, even if you'd claim to be able to listen, he'd still tone it down, minimize the calculated damage, there'd still be some computing going on in his mind, however far he had drifted away. No, his confidence was of a different kind, born out of the knowledge that at the end, nothing really mattered, and nothing would really change no matter what the effort proved to be like. In the end, he'd be alone anyway. He wasn't confident, he had just given up. When you looked in his eyes at the right moment, you'd be able to see it. Still, this didn't mean he'd just stop everything, it just meant that he was moving beyond caring about the opinions of others. He cared about a very few of such opinions, and in the end, he'd just care about one other than himself, that one being the only thing central to his life, yet removed from him, outside of his reach, and all ways to reach out seemed cut off. He was in a quagmire of perfect dimensions, he was stuck and unable to get out, so he'd just let himself sink deeper, letting himself no choice. His was the confidence of someone who, contrary to others, knew he was already dead, and that's where he drew his life from. At a certain point, you have nothing to lose, and all artificial bonds and restrictions and role plays reveal themselves in all their silliness and vanity. He'd be able to talk about it, for sure, yet he'd prefer to cloud it into allegories and hardly noticeable sidelines, afraid to draw somebody else into his pit, especially not the one he cared for the most. But still, I couldn't be sure what I felt. Just a short moment later he'd be back in yesterday's mode of conduct, and the split second he was willing to reveal himself was gone. Maybe, in the end, it was just my imagination interpreting things that just weren't there, and I really can't tell.
November 4th / 21st, 2002 [HTML Version]
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