Diary of a Discontent (3 page)

“Matthew…” I said in embarrassment. It was a
horribly uncomfortable situation. I wanted to leave at once.

He stared at me in expectation; I couldn’t
meet his eyes. Then he slumped back in his chair, as though he had
been deflated. “You don’t remember?”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“But how can you not remember?”

“How long ago was it, anyway?”

“Oh, twenty years at least.”

“Well! I can’t be expected to remember
something from so far back.” I smiled at him and emitted a feeble
laugh, attempting to lighten the mood.

“I can’t believe…” he stammered. He rose from
his chair and then sat back down. I thought I saw tears forming in
his eyes. It was a pathetic scene.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, and then I asked,
perhaps impertinently, “Are you leaving?” I wasn’t trying to
dismiss him; I just wanted to know whether or not I should leave,
for it was obvious that one of us had to. The pitiful awkwardness
of the situation could not continue.

Upon hearing my question he stood up again,
turned his back on me and walked away. In his haste he tripped on a
crack in the courtyard’s floor. I looked away in embarrassment.

Needless to say, the morning—and the peace it
had provided me—had been undermined. I waited around until the
library opened, but when I got to its front doors I realized that I
had no desire to enter. I walked sullenly home.

~

A man’s life is best represented by a
pendulum swinging back and forth between boredom and pain.
Happiness comes only in those imperceptible moments when the
pendulum pauses in order to change direction.

~

This evening, while I was wandering around my
neighborhood, I saw a girl approaching on a bicycle. She was a
beautiful little thing, a precious and jubilant creature tiptoeing
along that delicious borderland between childhood and womanhood. As
she pedaled down the street the resisting wind pressed a strand of
hair against her face. She brushed it aside with childish grace and
acknowledged me with a fleeting smile.

It was not until she had nearly passed that I
noticed she was wearing pink sandals.

~

I awoke this morning in the haze of a fading
dream. I felt poetic and vague. I wanted to wrap the world up in a
lovely metaphor; I wanted to write a letter to all the girls I’ve
ever loved.

Instead I went for a walk and sat for a while
at a café, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Something
Robert Louis Stevenson once said came to my mind, and suddenly I
felt proud of my leisure. A few hours later I bought a bottle of
red wine and drank it in the park. If only my younger self could
have had the freedom I now enjoy…

~

It has been a lifelong ambition of mine to be
a writer. Perhaps stating it in this way is a bit of an
exaggeration; I should say, rather, that there is no activity I
would rather dedicate myself to than writing.

So far, I have been unsuccessful in this
endeavor. Agents and editors are imbecilic middlemen without the
slightest appreciation for art. The literary magazines currently in
circulation are perfectly vapid. And, I must admit, my passion for
writing, if it can be called that, has always exceeded my talent.
So I have spent my life scribbling for nothing. I’ve accumulated
vast amounts of partial stories and outlined essays. Yes, I possess
a marvelous collection of fragments, but no whole. If I could sew
together my various failures, I just might create a success. But
the pieces won’t fit together; each of them is utterly incompatible
with the others.

And yet I continue to write, though I have
resigned myself to the fact that nothing will come of it. I suppose
we all have our own ways of counting down the days.

~

The effects of growing old all by oneself,
rather than among friends or family members, are too vast to detail
in full. I imagine that most of them are detrimental, perhaps even
poisonous—each one a little catalyst for death. In just a few
moments of thought I can bring to mind several of the ways in which
my isolation harms my health. How can one reach my age—and I am not
even that old—without shriveling into a cynical pessimist, if one
spends nearly all of one’s time with only oneself for company?

But let me step into the light for a moment
and insert a little optimism into this dismal monologue. For surely
there are ways in which my solitude has strengthened me. I am
dependent upon no one but myself; I cannot be tossed about by
others’ whims and fancies. Conversely, I have no control over
anyone else, no duties or responsibilities to restrict or inhibit
me. In short, I am free—free to do what I want, whenever I
want.

Oh, this soft and sunny glow cannot last. Let
me slip back into the shadows with the dust and the damp, for it is
here that I am most comfortable, it is here that I experience those
moments of clarity that possess my soul and convince me that every
freedom would be worth throwing away for the chance to share
another’s life with my own.

~

The shared life sentence of humanity. The
absurdity behind every human endeavor. The great lie of friendship.
The tragic betrayal of family. The inevitable unraveling of our
existence, and the naivety with which we endure it. The most
intense loneliness isn’t caused by isolation from other people, but
from the ultimate incompatibility of our dreams and the reality to
which we eventually awaken.

All of this came to me in a sharp inhalation
of cold morning air. I blinked and saw the world for what it is,
but when I closed my eyes to get another look, it had vanished.

~

I feel like a wet rag, soaked in a lifetime
of sadness. Every sight, every sound is a reminder of a better
life, a life I might have had. This afternoon a melody floated
through my window; someone was whistling a familiar tune. The music
carried me away to a past I had forgotten. Now I feel as though I
might die of nostalgia.

Yes, it is just as Hesse said: the most
powerful desire is the desire to forget.

~

This morning I was possessed by a rather
youthful and lively spirit. I walked to the library with an armful
of books and found a desk near the windows on the fourth floor.
From my creaky seat I stared through the glass, at the silent
world, with contemplative satisfaction. I watched a row of poplars
swaying in unison on the opposite side of the adjacent courtyard. A
girl sat on the fire escape outside of her dormitory window,
scribbling eagerly in her journal. Her skinny legs dangled through
the slats in the wrought iron as the breeze played with her hair.
It was an aesthetically sublime scene, and it filled me, as all
true beauty does, with profound sadness.

I am reminded of Mr. Poe, who once said that
the most intense and pure pleasure comes from contemplating beauty.
I cannot forget the words with which he followed this thought, for
their truth resonates within my soul:
Beauty of
whatever kind in its supreme development invariably excites the
sensitive soul to tears
.

~

It comforts me to know that my existence is
eternal, but it torments me as well. Speaking of this, I’ve devised
a neat little proof of immortality:

My consciousness—and by this I mean my very
self; my personality, my soul, my being; in short, the thing I
understand as I—is but the product of various physical
arrangements—arrangements that are finite and definite, and
therefore, due to the infinite nature of Time, bound to reoccur.
When the exact arrangement that gives rise to my consciousness
does
reoccur, I will live again, be it
hours or ages after the cessation of
this
life. And just as when we are in a deep, dreamless sleep we are not
aware of the hours that pass, so will I be unaware of the gulf of
unconsciousness between my lives. In this way my existence will be
continual and eternal—in other words, immortal.

Yes, it is when I think I am being so clever
that I am really so stupid.

~

The school year has begun. The university is
crowded once again, filled with cheerful students and proud
professors. I’ve always preferred the environment of the university
to any other, both as a student and now, long after those days have
passed. I’ve always felt at home on campus. I breathe more freely
in such a setting, among the youthful and the eager, in the
presence of stately and ivied architecture, sprawling lawns,
winding walkways. When I step onto campus it is as though I am
stepping outside of the world, as though I am returning home. At
the university, the past, present, and future exist as one. I can
disappear into the library, into the fourth century B.C., just as
easily as I can indulge in the immediate attractions of a passing
coed. I can wander alone with my thoughts or lose myself in the
lively laughter and conversation at the student pavilion.

Of course there is one limit to these
pleasures: the fact that I can no longer
participate
in this domain, that I am neither a student
nor a professor. Perhaps it is no different from my life in
general: I have become a bystander.

~

Few things are as boring as other people’s
dreams. What seems so magical to them is utterly irrelevant to you,
for it did not take place in
your
mind,
your
world, and it is therefore
meaningless.

That being said, I must describe a dream I
had last night. Perhaps putting it on the page will remove it from
my mind. That is my hope, at least.

I was at home, standing by the window,
staring into the sky at an afternoon moon. There was a knock at my
door. I went to see who it was, but by the time I opened the door
and stepped into the hall, nobody was there. In dreams, we are able
to make sense of perfect nonsense. Somehow I knew that the knocking
at my door was not a visitor, but an invitation, a request, to go
downstairs. I did so, and the next thing I knew I was knocking at
the door of the basement apartment. An old woman greeted me and
told me to hurry inside, for the police were coming. I did as I was
told. The old woman smiled, and I noticed that she was wearing
children’s clothes. She was standing at the window, and I realized
then that we were not in fact in the basement but on the top floor.
“I have a very good view of your apartment from here,” she said.
“Come, have a look.” I went and stood beside her, and indeed, the
view into my apartment was very good. “How long have you been
keeping her?” the old woman asked. “A few weeks,” I answered, and
then we both observed a young woman walking around in my apartment.
“She is young,” the old woman said. “Yes,” I replied. “She’s been
trying to change that.” The old woman nodded, and I realized that
she was my landlady. “Have I forgotten to pay this month’s rent?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “You’ve forgotten to pay me for this month
and
last month. In fact, you’ve never paid
me at all!” “I’m sorry,” I said, and then I gestured towards my
apartment. “She steals all of my money, you know.” “Yes,” the
landlady said. “She is young, after all.” There was a pounding at
the door. “The police are here,” she said. I started to climb
through the window and down the drainpipe. The pounding grew
louder, and then I awoke.

I can make no sense of this dream. Now that
I’m awake I lack the sleeper’s secret logic. I shudder at the
memory of the old woman’s face and the grotesque way in which she
was dressed, and feel the sickening sway of guilt whenever I think
of the young girl in my apartment, as though by dreaming of her I
committed a shameful crime.

~

The most remarkable thing has occurred today.
The most extraordinary, unexpected, and, I must say, overdue…

The local newspaper published an essay of
mine. Section B, Page 4: “His Majesty the Mayor” by Peter Willows.
Now, of course my name is not Peter Willows, but nonetheless I am
the author. I have always written pseudonymously. One look at the
stacks of unpublished writings stored away in my closet reveals a
wild assortment of invented names. Willows is a recurrent one. To
write under my own name is impossible. I’ve tried it before, but
after a few words I’m too embarrassed to continue. I can’t keep a
diary for this reason; the honesty, I suppose, is unbearable.

I should restate that last bit differently,
for I have in fact kept a diary before, just as I am keeping one
now. However, the diary I keep is not my own. It is written
pseudonymously, and to do that, of course, I’ve had to invent not
just a name but an entire identity. It has been quite amusing
creating an alter ego—liberating, even, and often
exhilarating—though at times it has been rather tedious as
well.

But back to my main point: I am now a
published author. I’ve received no money for my work, but that
doesn’t bother me at all. This morning, every intelligent person in
the city woke up to
my
words,
my
ideas. What payment could exceed that?

~

I walked to the nearest coffee shop and
bought another copy of the newspaper. As I sat down to re-read my
essay, I noticed a man nearby reading the paper as well.

“Did you see the Willows column?” I asked
with a friendly smile. The imbecilic man, however, had no idea what
I was talking about. He was reading the horoscope. I shook my head
and turned away.

My walk through the city this afternoon was
blissful. The cool autumn air and the dull gray sky made for
perfect conditions. I walked for several hours, all the while
reciting in my mind some of the best lines from my essay and
simultaneously planning a sequel. Yes, I’ve constructed a sketch of
my next essay already. I’ve grown bored with the mayor and moved on
to the governor, that pompous prig whose reign has been far too
suffocating, far too prolonged.