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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Impostors : Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Because the talk shows say that there is no past tense for "love," not as far as she is concerned, your concern must go further. Because the only given is that nothing can be taken for granted, in any working relationship, the work goes on. So you take your resolve from Hollywood and glamour magazines. Mutt-clumsy as you are, you make an effort anyway. In your office, under the fluorescent hum of the spastic fixture that never gets fixed, you dream up a bit of wistful mischief. For once, you might think, you might think outside the cubicle, as it were, as you are, in your duty to her try to be something more than dutiful, something other. Someone preferable. Someone else. Because your usual avowals have in recent years been sloppy, too few, and, well, usual. "I'm here for you" has never been more assuring than a modest savings account—a pittance you can hardly bank a future on. As for sex, well, lately it seems as though you've been entering her like a burglar, if at all (on this point the talk shows are merciless), and even at your most devoted, you are predictable and, frankly, unlovely, to her or any mirror. So you deliberate, turning over each idea like a dripping chicken on a spit, hoping to create something satisfactorily tender between you. Romance may loom like boot camp, but you prepare, for her sake and (on this point the talk shows are adamant) yours, the daffy extrapolations of the heart. You decide to sneak back on an evening you know she'll be out and salvage as many of the Christmas lights as you can from their tangle on the floor of the front closet. (The unknotting alone takes an hour, a practice she'd have to appreciate, although—on this point the talk shows are cautionary--not as much as she would your restraint in not calling attention to this.) You string the rooftop with blinking braids to make for a more intimate, more manageable heaven than the unpremeditated heavens provide. (Didn't some diligent lover in a film she misted over do that? That the notion stuck somewhere in your memory must count for something.) You wrap yourself in the rented tux that only James Bond or Fred Astaire could keep from feeling silly in. (The gleaming trousers bind up on you in a way that Bond never betrayed in any adventure; wearing the same kind of cummerbund as Bond barely connects you. And even after taking dance lessons on the sly, you cannot choreograph a single step, much less imply Astaire. Press on anyway.) Having never once in your life discriminated among grapes, you complete the scene by setting out the unpronounceable wine you asked the clerk to choose. In short, you prepare to wow her with all that isn't you. And when she takes it all in, including your puppy-hoping-to-go-for-a-walk expression, what she compliments is your exertion, not your transformation. The problem is that it takes more than a coat of paint to make a paragon, and no one can subsist on a confected essence for very long. Contrivance isn't metamorphosis, a word that recalls Kafka, of course, in the wake of whose extraordinary fiction the paltry changes you've played ring false. Speaking of Kafka, keep in mind that when his Gregor Samsa becomes a bug, everyone in the family recognizes the inherent Gregor in him anyway. No one shouts, "My God, it's a gigantic insect! He must have eaten our boy!" On the contrary, they wonder why he's gone to such selfish lengths. They fret about what to feed him, whether or not to clear out his room, and how to conceal him from the houseguests. They never question who he is. The creature confirms the Gregor they know. Gregor in costume is Gregor revealed, and Gregor nonetheless. Doesn't your beloved have as much sense as a Samsa? Do you really believe that she grieves for the health of the dashing actor when the character he plays takes a bullet on-screen? Are you shocked that she is not shocked to see him beaming at the Oscars months later? Because you did not fall for a fool, you must take care not to fall over your own footing. Remember that suicides use rooftops, too. Even at this unaccustomed height, she does not get dizzy. You can't afford to, either. |
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