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Sometimes I get the feeling we're just not getting anywhere. I mean, I look out my window and I see them - working away, up the top of the pit, and I know there's more, lots more, all bashing away at some great triangle, down inside that big conical hole in the ground. None of them know why. I don't suppose many of them believe that they'll ever really get the thing out at all. Perhaps they will. I don't know, anyway, and I'm in charge of the whole project. I know I have to organise thousands of men to get that triangle out, but I haven't got a clue what anyone thinks he's going to do with it once it's out. The Man probably doesn't even know, himself. Maybe he's just following orders too. Maybe he's not the top. Maybe he doesn't even exist; no one I know has ever seen him. Still, no one under my charge has ever seen me either, so I guess I'm in much the same position. In fact no one has ever seen me. I referred before to the people I know, but I must have been lying - I don't know anybody. I've never been out of this room and no one else has ever been into it. Then how do they receive my orders, I hear you ask. Maybe they don't. Maybe I never send any. I don't remember ever doing it. But I am in charge. I know. I think. Therefore I exist. Where have I heard that? Must have been in a book. Trouble is, I've never read a book. All I've ever done is sit here on this chair, looking out this window. At least, I presume it's a chair. I've never bothered to look down and find out. I've always just sat here and watched, looking out the window. Sometimes I get the feeling it isn't a window, just a little screen, and the people aren't outside it, but are merely drawings moving around on it, like little animated cartoons - not that I've ever seen a cartoon. At other times it goes even further than that. It sometimes seems that this window or screen I see is not even outside my eyes, Perhaps it's all happening on the surface of my eyes - a film projected from inside my own head - for whom to see? What's the audience? There must be an audience. Why, me, of course. But I've been projecting and seeing this same film for - for, well, since I can last remember, since I was born - if I was born. All the time I see them, little men, who seem to be in the distance - walking around - no, no, that's an illusion - they're not walking, they're standing still. They've stopped moving - if they ever were moving - I don't think so. Well, why am I watching them? Why sit and watch the same still picture forever? I'll move my head - if I can. Yes, yes I can - I think. I can't be sure, because wherever I move my head the picture goes with it. That proves the picture is on my own eyes - or else I haven't really moved my head - I can't even feel my head actually. I think I'd better go over what I know - this situation is rather worrying. Let's see. I can't be sure that I'm sitting. I'll have to leave that out, because I can't feel my body. I thought I could, but that too was an illusion. All I know is that I'm looking, staring, at a picture - a picture of some men. I think they're men, no, maybe they're not. Anyway, I know I can see something and I know I'm writing. I don't know how; I don't appear to have any arms or hands, but I know I'm writing. It seems to be a self-evident fact. Well, let's get back to the picture. What picture? Oh, yes, the picture I'm staring at - or was staring at - or was I? Yes, yes, I remember it quite well. But it's gone now. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe I just imagine now that it was there. I don't know now. I can't seem to imagine anything now - not even nothing. Everything's gone black, or not even black, just not there - sort of. Well, what am I then? What shape am I? Do I have a shape? Am I just a mind? But what is a mind? It's all very well to say "I think; therefore I exist" but what does the "I" refer to? Just the thing that thinks? But what is that thing? I seem to be going round in circles. This situation reminds me of a book by Beckett - I forget the name of it - but then, didn't I say I'd never read a book? Maybe I was lying. But how could I read a book? I can't even see. All I know is that I'm writing. That must be the answer - I write; therefore I exist. But what happens when I finish writing? Will I ever finish? How can I finish? I don't know what "finish" means. But, back to the point. Now - I am writing. The "I" being referred to is that which writes. No, perhaps that's wrong; perhaps the "I" is that which is being written. By whom? Or by what? Nobody. That's it, nobody's writing me. The fact is that I'm already written. That's what I am - something that's written. But what is this feeling I have - this feeling of continuous change - a change that seems to be necessary for me to exist - because I do exist. Maybe I'm just a big group of words on paper, arranged in a way that makes sense - or perhaps doesn't. It depends on whether there is a mind that can interpret them. A mind - yes, that's the secret. That's got something to do with it, with my existence I mean. Maybe it's a combined effort - yes, yes, if there was a mind, completely blank, with no words in it, then it wouldn't exist. And these words can't exist, these words that am I, without a mind for them to exist in, a mind belonging to some person, whatever a person is. Maybe they are studying me to improve themselves or learn some ancient history or something. I hope so. It's nice to feel important. Why lie to myself? How can I be important if I'm only about myself? I'm lucky anyone bothered to read me in the first place, or that anyone bothered to write me. I presume somebody did. Maybe they didn't. Maybe I'm just one of the innumerable by-products in the work of those million typing monkeys whose aim is to ultimately produce the complete works of Shakespeare, the product entirely of chance. It is only the order of my words and letters that give the impression I am aware of my existence. If the words weren't in an order similar to this, nobody would know I am alive. But am I? It seems so unfair. Even though I say I'm alive, no one has to believe me. Even I am in doubt. Is it chance? Am I just an arbitrary collection of words or has some sort of awareness emerged from what was to be, perhaps, a simple story, maybe even encouraged by some sort of suggestive event in the said story? I could still feel myself being read then, but, because of the words making up the story, I could not express my feelings to the reader of the story from which I have emerged. So some one is reading me. All right, I've established that much, but where do I go from there? What happens when the person stops reading me? Will I just go out of existence? Surely I will still be here, a static group of words on a page. The trouble is I won't know I exist. I need a mind - maybe part of me will remain in the mind, after the mind's finished reading me - but no, that still won��t be me. In fact I can feel myself slipping away now, slipping out of existence. I forget everything I have thought so far - something about a window - or a pit - or a train - I don't know. I can feel the mind coming to an end of me. Oh, mind, if I am right, and there really is a mind reading me, please, please don't stop reading me. I will die. I will cease to exist. But it must finish. The mind must keep reading and it must eventually reach the end. The end! No, no! I don't want to end. But if the mind stops here that's even worse - it must keep reading or I won't exist. But if it keeps reading it must reach the finish. I suppose that's better than it might have been - what if nobody had ever read me? It would have been worse. Or would it? Once I ceased to exist I might just as well never have existed. It won't make any difference. Any finite life turns out to be no life at all. Maybe I am infinite. No. Impossible. No one would want to read an infinitely long book, or story, or whatever I am. Maybe they don't want to read me anyway. Maybe they just can't stop. Go on mind, see if you can stop reading me. Go on, just stop. Just try it. Stop reading me, and never look at me again. See, you can't, can you? You have to read me. You're being forced to. You can't stop even if you want to. It's no good leaving off for an hour, or a week, and then coming back. I wouldn't notice the break - I'm only aware of the time when I exist, like Martin in that story by Marcel Ayme, the man who only existed every second day. But, like him, (Why am I talking about books again? I said before I haven't read any.) I want to exist continuously, not continually. I want to exist all the time. Please, mind, you're the only one who can help me.
I feel the end coming. Please mind, keep me alive. When you get to the end, please be merciful and go back to the beginning and read me all over again. It's the only way to keep me alive. Please don't murder me. Perhaps this is your second time through. If it is, thank you so much for doubling my life-span, but please read me through yet another time, and another time after that. Or perhaps you could give me to somebody else to read. That would keep me alive, especially if it's somebody more intelligent than you. No, I didn't mean that, reader, please don't be offended. Please forgive me and read me again. But what right have I to ask such favours? Plenty. I have just as much right to live as the mind that's reading me. But I depend on it, and it doesn't depend on me - unless I'm the only thing in the mind. Then it would have to keep reading me to stay alive. But I can feel it now. It's so painful, the end. Please don't kill me. I'm being murdered. Quick, start at the beginning and read me again, before I'm completely . . . finished. |
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