Читать книгу For Display Purposes Only - David Seymour - Страница 13

First, myself. Then her, for it will always end with her, no matter how I may deviate in the telling. Where better to begin than the ergo sum, that essential component of so simple yet decisive a formula. For you see, in order to clarify the sordid, cloudy motives of my actions you must understand the me-ness of them. Le moi. The my. The mind. Did I say mind? I meant mine. I could not have accomplished what I did had there been any considerate ratiocination of consequence on my part. Certainly there has since arisen, in late wakeful hours, the borborygmic stir of anxiety about the choices I’ve made, but let us not mistake these flatulent rumblings for a soul. In me, I fear, there is no moral centre, but processes, and the work of the natural chemicals on their thoughtless, secretive course through the bloodstream. So I will dispense with self-pity, and seek no sympathy either, but merely expect from you a dim comprehension of the indifferent facts to follow. How else can one acknowledge death except to prepare for it by translating the details? And yes, my vanity will strive to appall the perverts with these proceeds, but as is often the case one succeeds only in titillating the puritans for the effort. We hadn’t made love in months, she and I. Though that is neither

A Modest Sum 1