prose
WRITTEN:
1984, 17 years
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
My first proper venture into solipsism, this is an offshoot of something I had written the previous year but which was not properly sorted out until 1994, namely Were There Tigers?. I also recall having some kind of obsessive interest in paperclips, although I could be getting mixed up with someone I later lived with, who had a definite obsession with the things and whose leanings rubbed off on me slightly. The mention of aspirin is definite, however, and is a "personal reference"-type tribute to a short story called Aspirin which we studied in German in our senior years.
The body is still and there is a knife in the back.
I am imagining letter boxes. I am sure of where to find them, but there they are not. If I am sure of remembering them there, then should they not still be there?
I am imagining about letter boxes. I am thinking in questions, asking, who paints the letter boxes? Who takes the letters from them? Who installs them? Who builds them? Are they magic? Do they truly exist or are they something from the imagination?
I am imagining about paperclips. I am thinking of seeing one. I am thinking of holding it, and of bending the paperclip. It is bent out of shape. It is not a paperclip. Was it really imagined as a paperclip, or was it only imagined to be a paperclip?
There is pain in the head. I am imagining taking aspirin, but nothing happens. I am imagining not feeling the pain, but I cannot remember what this is like.
I take aspirin and the pain is alleviated. I cannot remember the pain. I cannot remember imagined pain. I cannot remember imagining at all.