Diary of a Discontent (5 page)

~

I look for Ashley in the library; I stand
outside the window of the underground girl’s apartment; I listen to
the lovemaking of my neighbors, every whisper, every wail. I’m so
lonely that my soul hurts. There is an ache in my chest, sometimes
strong enough to suppress my breath and still the beating of my
heart. I turn to these pages, to my pen and the promise of truth
turned to lies, but I am unable to create what does not already
exist inside me.

When I was young I sustained my solitude with
stories, fictional futures in which I came to possess everything I
lacked. But now the future has arrived, and I am still lacking in
everything I desired. Can I continue my storytelling? Can I
continue to suspend the truth? Only, I fear, by surrendering to
lies forever.

~

I’ve received a letter from a lawyer, a slimy
man who happens to represent both the mayor and the governor. It
seems I may have made a slight mistake: though my name remains a
secret, my address is known. I might have been a bit careless, or
overconfident, perhaps, when I sent in my second essay. Not wanting
to see the success of Mr. Willows escape me, I included my address
with my submission. How else would the newspaper—and the editors
and agents, for that matter—contact me when they wanted more of my
work?

But somehow this lawyer—an aptly named Mr.
Grimes—got hold of my address and is now threatening to sue me for
libel. He has perverted my intentions as only a lawyer can. I’m
being blamed not just for gross dishonesty, but for my “disgusting
attempts to damage the characters of two noble public
servants.”

Ha! There is but one servant involved in
this, and he is about as noble as an affluent prostitute. Tell me,
Mr. Grimes, is it a crime to speak the truth? Are the governor and
the mayor immune from criticism? You can threaten me with silly
lawsuits and attempt to silence me, but the perceptive pen of Peter
Willows will not be set aside. Your efforts have backfired. You
have succeeded only in inspiring me.

~

The underground girl eludes me still. I
cannot see into her room during the day, for the light casts a
glare on her windows; and at night, all is darkness—she has gone
somewhere else.

I haven’t been able to write, haven’t been
able to think. Yesterday I walked to the university and wandered
around the library until my feet became sore. Ashley never
appeared.

That grimy lawyer has clouded my
consciousness with his absurd allegations. If he were of any
significance I would direct my next essay at him. But the briefest
thought of him is nauseating; he is like a rotten odor, or a
disgusting taste in my mouth. I want to spit him out, to expel him,
to purge myself of his filthy presence. Libel! How ridiculous!

I fear for our race, for our age, and
especially for the thinkers among us, if it is now considered
illegal to tell the truth.

~

I haven’t spent much time in my apartment
these past few days. It makes me feel like an animal in a cage, a
prisoner behind bars. No, at times like these I need the openness
of the outdoors, the freedom of nature. But the world, always
intent on my demise, has made other plans. The weather is horrible,
the rain and wind so relentless that no sooner do I venture outside
than I have to seek shelter. So I’ve passed the days in bookstores
and coffee shops, movie theaters and shopping malls. The lovely
outdoors indeed.

A small pile of mail has accumulated in my
box, but I refuse to open a single letter. I noticed in the
classifieds an elegant one-bedroom apartment near Westover Park.
Perhaps I’ll go and take a look at it if the weather improves. I
have to do something, for I feel entirely out of place—out of time,
even. This world is not for me. I long for another age, be it in
the past or in the future. I deserve a different century.

~

However entertaining a diary may be to write,
it is an outright embarrassment to read. I’ve just flipped through
a few pages of this notebook and had the overwhelming urge to tear
them to pieces, to erase all evidence of these reflective efforts
of mine.

~

Through the windows, a golden view of the
underground girl’s life. Clothes strewn about the room. Drawers
emptied, closets cleared. And the girl, such a lovely little thing,
sitting with her legs crossed on the floor.

Every few minutes she stood up and
disappeared. When she returned to her seat, limbs folded like a
child’s, she was wearing different clothes. I hid in the alleyway,
against the gate, gripping its soggy wooden spires to steady
myself. She stood up, shifted, pirouetted in and out of focus. She
stepped off stage for a moment, only to return for the most
perfect, precious pose. And there she is still, in my mind, between
the window frame, the picture frame, a photograph I will never
forget.

~

Every lonely soul knows that it is society,
not solitude, that makes our condition so difficult to bear. We
feel far more lonesome among other people than we do by ourselves.
But we are born into an overcrowded world, into a life that is
fundamentally opposed to our personalities. And to make this all
worse, we are told that it is
our
fault,
that
we
are to blame, that
we
need to adjust ourselves, to adapt, to be
normal.

But why should the shepherd listen to the
sheep? He shouldn’t—and I don’t. But neither do I speak, for it
would be futile: the calm and steady voice of the shepherd isn’t
heard among the bleating of the sheep. I retreat into silence, into
that realm in which I have always felt most comfortable. I continue
my existence in this world of ours, but in my mind I am far
away.

~

I was eyed suspiciously at the library. I was
followed by a little man in a brown suit. After some sneaky
maneuvers I managed to lose him on the third floor.

Outside, it rained with such intensity, such
violent sadness, that all I could do was sit by the window and
watch the world dissolve.

~

It rains and rains and rains. I am forced to
stay inside my apartment, forced to endure an unbearable boredom. I
hear every creak of the ceiling and floor, every thump against the
wall, every muffled voice, every slammed cupboard, every groaning
door. I feel imprisoned between other people’s lives. I am
suffocating beneath the weight of these trivial existences, these
piles of objects and bodies that seem to serve no other purpose
than to keep me from myself.

~

I walked through the rain to the café on
James Street. It was full of students, as usual. I ordered a cup of
coffee and found a seat near the window. My shoes squeaked with
each step I took; the rain had soaked through my clothes. I felt as
though every eye in the place was focused on me, as though every
movement I made was being criticized. Never have I felt so out of
place…

But I can’t write about it anymore. I can’t
fill these pages with more complaints about my isolation, however
justified they may be. I write so little these days that I’d prefer
to save my words for better things.

~

I couldn’t settle for just one sight of the
underground girl; the glimpse I caught of her hasn’t left my mind.
So I descend the back staircase every evening, and I wait in the
alleyway until her light goes on. Sometimes I only see her shadows,
but on other nights the beauty herself steps into the frame. She
seems so far away from me, almost unreal, like a starlet on the
screen rather than an actual girl of flesh and blood. Perhaps this
effect is due to the silence, for she exists as an image, nothing
more. But as an image, she is exquisite.

~

I had a visitor today—that is, I would have
had a visitor had I chosen to open the door. But no, I did not give
in to the persistent pounding, nor to the shouts of irritation. Who
could want to see me? Well, no one, in fact—the visitor had come
for Mr. Willows. He said his name again and again, pleading for me
to answer the door. Willows, I’m afraid, is a wanted man. This is a
compliment to his writing, of course, for it takes a certain skill
to write one’s way to infamy.

I will not waste my time reading the letters
of a lawyer, and I certainly won’t answer the door for one.

~

We are often told of the good deeds of
policemen, yet no one ever seems to witness these deeds. Instead we
witness the aggressive driving, the hassling of pedestrians, the
handing out of tickets, the arrogant stares, the pompous postures,
the excessive displays of power, etc., etc. And now I can add a new
activity to the policeman’s list: storming an innocent man’s
apartment and frightening the landlady.

I returned from a walk, drenched by the rain,
only to receive a scolding from this old woman.

“They demanded to see your apartment!” she
shouted at me. “What’s this all about?”

“What did they say it was about?” I
asked.

“They were looking for
Will...Will...
Williams
! A Mr.
Peter Williams
! Do you know him?”

“Williams? No, certainly not,” I said,
grinning with perfect honesty.

“Yes, well, that’s because no one by the name
of Peter Williams lives here!”

“So what did the police do?”

“They left.”

“I don’t see what the trouble is, then.”

“They said they’d be back!”

She slammed the door in my face. I cautiously
climbed the stairs to my apartment. It felt more like a prison than
ever before.

~

A perfect evening ruined. An image of divine
beauty unfolding before my eyes, and then…

What exactly happened, anyway? I don’t know.
One moment I was crouching in the alleyway, staring through a
window into heaven, and the next moment…

The gate opened with a creak and a slam. I
was knocked off balance. A man shouted at me and grabbed the collar
of my coat. I struggled to free myself and then ran away, my heart
pounding so violently that it blocked out every other sound. I ran
as fast and as far as I could, until I reached a neighborhood I
didn’t recognize. The man was no longer following me. I waited for
an hour or so, leaning against a tree, hiding among its foliage,
gasping for air.

I’m home now, but I can’t stay.