The architecture of this relationship
is that of a small, airless room.
There is intimacy in such a space –
an intimacy borne out of being rammed nose to nose to another.
Nowhere to hide, and also (or possibly because of), no way to get closer.
In his story, he is addressing another - you
YOU feels startling – it invokes the tip of the arrow of Kairos.
This is directed at YOU. This is for YOU. This is about YOU.
The sleek train of logical, methodical thought is approaching its target
I feel anxious for this
YOU
It is startling to suddenly find myself accompanying the mind that is minding all this.
Minding – as in looking after but also as in being rattled by.
A mind whose secrets I have often wanted to possess.
This is a mind that habitually conceals how much it minds.
Yet here I am, in the spider’s lair, watching the meticulous patterned construction at work.
Everything gets trapped in this web –
every story, every inflection, every gesture.
And it is being used to build a large, ominous structure – the TRUTH ABOUT ‘YOU’.
A mind that mines. Forensic detail.
He is not even revealing the intensity of his search,
of his frantic trying to make sense of his experience
He feigns equanimity, but he does mind – very much so.
And he confesses that he is waiting for the right ‘moment’ – to strike.
You tried to say little about yourself, but you have already said too much.
You hide behind your stories
You are Sheherezade trying to buy yourself another day.
He reconstructs you from story fragments,
Like a scientist would reconstruct DNA from the skin you shed on the bathroom floor.
You are your stories, the way you tell them.
It is unlikely that you are a good person surrounded by bad people.
Cinderella? Nobody believes that.
You know that if you had to play the part of the victim, you also learned the lines of the villain.
Like in the play of Frankenstein where Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller alternate between playing The Beast and The Doctor every night. You could do that.
