Tears stream down the body’s face,
first time experienced
with this particular,
animate,
marionette,
the searing caress of saline
nevertheless
an all too familiar friend.
It holds the body’s left wrist
(in the body’s right hand)
firmly,
focusing intently on its breathing
as it tries to bring
the suffocating pressure
emanating from the body’s chest
under control.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
It doesn’t work.
(Who
– or what –
does it think it is kidding?)
It never does,
time to focus
on more drastic measures.
It lets the jagged thumbnail
of the body’s right hand
dig into its left wrist
– keeps perfect time
with the tormenting regularity
of the body’s pulse –
pressure increasing:
aggressively,
progressively,
exponentially;
pictures an accompanying graph,
curve surging off
into an infinite abyss.
(Euler’s number positively joyous
over its complicit involvement).
Force versus time:
interesting thought.
Force.
inertia at best.
Time:
in paralysing overabundance.
How much time had it spent living?
It laughs
– to itself –
conspicuously unaware
of potential audiences.
Living:
one concept
that never fails to summon
an ironic curvature
onto its body’s lips.
Dying usually being a more apt description,
but in its case
not even that
could be said
to be true.
It wasn’t dying,
never could.
It didn’t matter how much it
wanted,
desired,
or craved it,
longed,
yearned,
or even begged for it;
it could not die.
Its death wasn’t its to live.
(Having,
on numerous occasions,
tested the theory,
and currently in the process
of a renewed attempt,
supposing the glistening claret
leaking from the body’s left wrist
be permitted
as supporting evidence
to the fact.)
But they would never let it
(die that is);
they own it
– judicially,
unequivocally,
ethically? –
wouldn’t let it go
just like that.
It is too valuable,
they had invested too much,
it has so much more to teach them
(despite the fact
it itself appears
to know nothing
at all).
Returning to matters more visceral,
it looks down
at the viscous substance
oozing from the gash
– which has now taken form
on the body’s left wrist –
the sight of which
brings its tears
to a jarring halt.
Self-inflicted pain
(questionable adjective in this case perhaps)
being more satiating in action
than as mere thesis
of thought.
Nicholas Lawrence is a postgraduate philosophy student living in Stockholm. His original fiction has been published in Tincture Journal and his translations appear on Monday Art Project.