I have become centaur, destroyer of worlds
The radiator is beating itself up, I think it’s had a hard night. Too much carousing and drinking in the heat, and, now it’s hungover, waking up slowly and warming water to take as a cure. As for me, I’m sober and light, if a bit tired, and I’m ready to take on the day, which, seeing as it’s still dark out, is as far away as the Second Coming.
Last night I wanted to dream, but couldn’t. It’s funny how sleep is a gamble, or, for some, a gambol. You get in bed, tuck yourself under covers, and throw those dice hoping for the numinous. Generally, I hope to get sleep, but the odds on that may be the toughest at all. Take last night, all I wanted was to see a few things and be woken up by the sun, and now, I find myself typing this in the wheelchair, waiting for rays to appear. We are thwarted when we hope, but it doesn’t keep us from trying. Like a child that prays for a cat to appear in his closet, we keep opening sleep’s door, anticipating a MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOW.
Perhaps, it’s the wanting that hurts us. Many holy men have been saying this, yet they desire an impossible communion as well: discourse with The One. All I wanted was a glimpse at the kingdom, or, at the very least, to be up at the light. It’s fine, I rather be here with you now. I’ve flooded my living room with electricity in an attempt to replicate nature’s flashlight. There goes that drunk again, he’s rattling as he wakes, what was his night like? I better ask him:
Me: Hey Radiator!
Radiator: Yeah.
Me: How was your night?
Radiator: I met someone man.
Me: Oh really?
Radiator: Yeah, she was beautiful but I forget her name.
Me: I’m sure you’ll meet her again.
Radiator: I hope man I hope.
He’s still wasted—it’s embarrassing. Since the sparrows fled, I’ve been reduced to talking with the fairly animated objects in my house. I was screaming at my fleece, discoursing with my desk, and laughing with my velour pajamas. My wife still hasn’t left me; she must be a saint. It’s still dark out. My impatience makes me look at the sky behind the window. Who knows what mysteries it holds? I certainly don’t. My ignorance of the world makes me laugh. Like any man, I believe I can look up facts on my device, but they are but mere signals of a more powerful force at work. I should have read Derrida in college, but at that point, I preferred fiction to philosophy.
I hear the beginnings of a low siren, whose sounds vanish as soon as I comprehend them. I haven’t been out, no, I’ve been staying here, lest they do to me what they did to Socrates. Good ol’ Socrates had the worst of it. That charge of corrupting the youth was clearly false, but we know what men do and how they do it. They’ll make you reconnect with a radiator whose gaze you’ve been avoiding.
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Hubert Adjei-Kontoh is a cultural critic and an Associate Editor at Pitchfork.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Hubert Adjei-Kontoh’s serial novel, The Tenth Configuration. He’s interested in how we seem to be stuck in history’s clutches. You can read the rest of his novel here.