Two people sit in a bar and have a conversation about what they read. Both of them boast with big Authors, with Grand Novels that make it all the way to the intellectualist Olympus. O yeah I read this I read that you missed it O you really should read this and that. They talk like this for a little while and then start to feel a bit weird. They want to tell each other about their latest discovery but they’re not sure if that writer is an option for an intellectualist, let alone if he is en vogue. Carefully, one of them formulates something about something he read.
“When I read his stories, I have a weird feeling.”
-“What feeling?”
“Like he is there.”
-“Who?”
“The writer.”
-“The writer? How come?”
“I don’t know. It’s just… like he is sitting next to you, whispering in your ear or talking very sincerely about things.”
-“What things?”
“I don’t remember. It’s like it doesn’t matter.”
-“I think we are talking about the same writer. He’s anonymous isn’t he.”
“Yes he is.”
-“When I read his lines, I feel like he is so close, like he really understands me, like I can ask his written sentences all kind of personal questions and they will answer me. I can’t explain it any better, it’s so..”
“Weird…”
-“Yes. Do you have that feeling too?”
“Yes, I feel it too. Would you do it?”
-“What?”
“Visit him? I mean, if you knew his address?”
-“Would I dare? Ha, wow, I never thought about that. But yes I think, yes I would.”
“And what if he’s just another guy, nothing special?”
-“Do you think he is?”
“No, but he could be, in theory.”
-“I don’t want to think about that.”
“I mean, maybe it’s just another hype. They hype everything these days because we are so lonely.”
-“Yes, the loneliness spreads like a virus nowadays.”
“Exactly, and that writer is a shrewd fox making money of it.”
-“A shrewd fox? I don’t want to think about that. It makes me sick.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps we shouldn’t even want to meet him in person.”
-“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what we get from him now, by reading, that might be as good as it gets.”
-“Like he isn’t real?”
“He is just… helping us consoling ourselves.”
-“How?”
“Through his writing we get the feeling of nearness right?”
-“Yes, we do.”
“But we’re alone with a bunch of printed letters.”
-“You can think about it that way.”
“So it’s US. WE are overcoming loneliness by means of an individual weapon called the imagination of the Other through language.”
-“Oh”.
“That’s as good as it gets. We arrived at the peek of human understanding.”
-“Mmm.”
“I see that look on your face.”
-“What look?”
“You want more. You want the imagination of the Self through language.”
-“Stop using this kind of language please.”
“Okay. You want him to confirm your personality.”
-“So what?”
“He can never do that. Unless…”
-“Unless?”
“Unless he signs out from the universality of language and comes to have sex with you.”
-“Ssssh.”
“Why you’re blushing?”
We all go down that same fucking drain.
Waited a long time in the Buenos Aires bus station, talking to this girl Mira, and taking a bus late at night, a bus that will bring me to Iguazu in twenty hours.