COMMENTARIUS PERPETUUS/ Delilah...Rotted Teeth... Spite and my fucking coat!

                                      COMMENTARIUS PERPETUUS

You have heard enough of your poor narrator´s babblings and weak apologies. It is my task to tell the story of a man who was neither great and was not an insect. And I fail at that task miserably. It is not a task I sought nor asked for. It was laid upon my lap by merciless destiny, and so please do allow me some meanderings dear reader. I think I will sip this fine wine and draw a puff from this opium I have held on since my stay in Sumatra last fall where I was paid to collect samples of petrified human excrement dating back to the stone age by a firm in London. But again, I digress and shift my focus from the duty that has befallen me, the duty of the telling the story of one man´s uneventful life. Let me close my bloodshot eyes and see what morsel slips from the dusty journal called Commentarius Perpetuus:

The weather here in Seattle is not suitable to my mood as of late. I am dreary and weak. I have some trouble with my neck and teeth. I have abscesses in my teeth, and there is blood all over my tooth brush each day. I took a pin and punctured the abscess and on my right molar and it secreted a foul puss and bile. I have no medical or dental insurance and so what can I do? I went to the public clinic and it was a farce. They gave me an appointment for three weeks in future, and when I missed the appointment from apathy they billed me anyway. The soulless bastards. How dare they bill me, when I am in pain and not in a rational state of mind, and have to wait three weeks for their fucking attention. What the hell do they expect?!!!, Maybe the puss and bile has leaked into my brain and nerve endings and has influenced my ability to make a sound decision.

My God. Why did Daniel not write me? Ask me for help? I am not rich, but I have a sum of money I earned from the series of books I wrote on the mating habits of preteen Japanese schoolgirls. My dear Lord. Let me suck on this pipe and swig on this bottle and see what else I find in the thick and worn volume of despair that will evermore be called Commentarius Perpetuus. Evermore.

I have not had a call from Delilah in months. What am I to deduce from that other than the fact that she hates my guts. Well, I always knew she hated my guts when she lived with me as my wife. The fact she would periodically tell me she hated my guts confirmed my suspicions. I wonder now day and night about why I married such an angry and vindictive female. Was it some masochistic impulse in me? Was it the fact that her angry energy was a fuel that I, a mere squeaky mouse, lacked? Well, in any case... that is all I will ever write or say in this sacred journal about Delilah. As Aleister Crowley said... SO MOTE BE IT.

And that is all I can find in this dusky tome as a comment on the twelve or more years Daniel shared his life with Delilah, whom I never had the pleasure or discomfort to meet. I heard she was bright woman of average beauty with a fiery and angry disposition, and one in conflict with Daniel´s rather withdrawn and lethargic melancholy. My good but reticent friend Daniel never spoke much of his turbulent days with Delilah and how he tried to raise her son Bobby Prometheus. But it was his way, and I never asked much and had he disclosed secrets I would feign share them here of my on accord. I am here to transcribe what is found in the tome known for evermore as Commentarius Perpetuus.

I am sure I have lost my mind. But what the hell does that matter. I have ceased to gulp done the cornucopia of drugs that the doctors say I need to maintain some balance. I can´t piss. I can´t shit. I can´t ejaculate. I sleep 16 hours at a stretch. But I am assured these drugs will make me a happy man. Am I a fool to be dubious? Doctors and analysts. Books and pills. Bottles and Bibles. I ask what do any of they portent when it is three AM and one can not sleep and can barely breathe? They all mean nothing... nothing at all. Maybe I am too bitter, too cynical and if I am so what? Maybe I prefer being a cynical and bitter man. And if anyone thinks the less of me for that then to hell with them. I am a broken and angry man with no compassion left in me.

            Of course, I lie. I do not know why I lie. I am not an angry man, nor broken, nor without compassion, in fact I cry over small things others would not notice. I worry over people and situations beyond my power to control for no other reason than I seem to care. Yet maybe I do not care. Maybe I think I care, pretend to care. Hope to be  a thing that cares and I try to practice what caring might feel like some day when it is really a a part of me. Maybe I am a heartless prick of a thing. But in fact.. I am not. Maybe I want people to think I am. Maybe I do good and decent things I never share.

            If I was to tell you one week ago I gave the coat I was wearing to a poor man in the rain would you believe me or care? No matter, as I had two ore coats at home. I really did not do such a good deed  because I would never give my only coat away. But what if I had three coats and he had not one? Can I not bear the rain until I get back home to my warm bed and wine? Very well... damn it... it did the deed and to hell with your judgments. Maybe you think I should let him freeze and suffer. If I do not give him my coat it will wake him up and he will be in Harvard next year studying law. So... curse me... I held back his career by my selfish deed. Maybe I did the deed only to confess it here and hope someday it will be discovered and someone will say "my, what a good man Daniel was." Well, I do not care one scratch if you think I am a good man or not. And I lied anyway, out of spite. I never gave any coat to anyone ever, and out of spite I made up the whole story and  pretended to reveal the true side of myself which is the one I am doubted of having. So what if I lied and made up a story. So what?. Did anyone reading this ever giver their coat to a cold and wet man? I think not.

            What is wrong with me? My God. Of course I gave my coat to that man. That poor, poor man.

My Buddha. I must rest my head and let the opium run its course. My God Daniel, I am not your keeper but I miss you old chum. And now I know what happened to that coat I loaned you. I must take a repose, and will return dear reader in due time with more from the moribund scroll to be known evermore as... Commentarius Perpetuus.

8:44 PM - 12/15/2005 - post comment

Like old St. Francis.

He was humble in his way.

Anonymous - 2:46 PM - 12/17/2005