|
Scene #58
I can't remember the first time I realized I didn't love my wife.
I suppose that's because it's something I've always known from
the very beginning. Which wasn't all that long ago. She said I'd
been sick, very sick, and it must have affected my memory. She
seemed upset and horrified, but I knew even then, disoriented and
nauseated though I was, that she was lying. Lying is something she
seems to do daily and underneath her pretended concern there's
hidden amusement. I may not be the most perceptive of men, but she
seldom bothers to hide it anymore. She literally and
figuratively looks down on me, and that leads me to the why
questions. Why she picked me — because I know she did. Why she
keeps me — because I know she does. I get the feeling she dislikes
me as much as I do her; I wonder if she fears me as much as I'm
beginning to fear her? p We are not a match, I'm not even sure
we're of the same race. There is something inhuman about her.
When she lays her too long fingers on my skin, something inside me
clenches and my balls draw up as if I've been immersed in icy
water. Those cold, bony fingers, spatulate at their ends, remind
me of spiders, although I've seen no spiders here and I'm not at
all sure I know what they really are. They look almost obscene
against my brownness, but she doesn't touch me often, and I touch
her not at all. That she has some purpose for me I have never
doubted, although she has yet to reveal any part of herself to me.
She's like a long, skinny snow cat playing with her prey, enjoying
its confusion and its attempts to understand. She speaks to me
with archaic formalness, words I understand but not the words of my
thoughts. So we have different speech, but I cannot speak my words
aloud, only think them. I mouth her lisping language with no
difficulty, but I am coming to hate it as much as I hate her. I
know I had a life before this time. I know it. Why, oh why can't I
remember it? There is a great void in me, something is missing,
something valuable and precious. I know I had a purpose, it is
something bred into me and without it I am but half a man. When
I first awoke I was as weak and helpless as a newborn babe and my
mind was just as blank. She has tried to fill it with her truths
and with her lies. She tells me I am a Magister and shows me the
formal robes I wear for the teaching — black and floor length with
wide sleeves and a collar that frames the head. Of what I teach,
she does not say. Nor can I, for my mind has been stripped of
everything that I held dear. I know this, I feel this bone deep.
p I have seen only this house so far, and met only this caricature
of a woman with her crest of silver white hair. I must have
knowledge before I can begin to change my state. Where am I, what
am I and what is she? She's dangerous, all my instincts tell me
so. I must try to lull her into thinking I accept this stunted
existence, this excuse for a life; I must, before all, try to
convince her I accept her. But my God — I want to go home,
wherever and whatever that might be.
|
