And so my image vanished,
as if it had never existed. As unbelievable as things were, it was not possible
to mistake in the assessment of the depth of change. In my new life reality
dominated the feeling that my brain is essentially turned off and that its
activity is almost null. I moved about with a feeling that there is a black
space beyond my skull and found it difficult to produce thoughts. In the void
in which I conducted myself the brain wheels operated their meager labor with a
fatiguing slowness, and when people turned to me I stammered for a few seconds
and had to strain my mind again and again in order to decide what to answer.
Every word that exited my mouth was forced and had not a thing behind it; I had
no content, identity or personality from which I could draw, and so I was left
no choice but to emit into space the words that I had forced my brain to
produce in an effort to satisfy every person that surrounded me. The act of
searching for words was so difficult that it had suffering in it. It was so
exhausting, until it left me with no strength. When I did not perform it, I was
silent for whole days. My mind was turned off and I saw myself only as a body
that is carried from place to place.
A permanent weariness fell
over me and was always present. If I was deprived of sleep even for a short
time, the stupor and the mental fuzziness increased and I experienced a real cut
off from reality. I used my voice as a tool that was disconnected from my body,
and its note was artificial and robotic. The reality that was carried out around
me was so rapid compared to my mind and it astonished me; even though I knew
that in the past I had been part of the human beings that surrounded me now, in
the new state of things these human beings seemed to me as being a strange form
of life that was different from me and that I was not part of. Everyone,
without any exception, walked swiftly about, their minds full of such and other
contents, thoughts kindled in them easily, feelings flamed plentifully, while I
was an empty shell.
Why have you become so
quiet, all asked me; taciturn. When the recession bell rang I frequently stayed
sitting at my desk and my friends, who did not notice the change that came over
me, approached and talked to me. I heard their words but no response was
created in me. In an attempt to recruit all my power and to cooperate with them
I looked at them smiling and stammered yes, then fell silent. They looked at me
embarrassedly, without understanding, and went away. A stupor encircled me. My
family asked why me why I was so closed up.
My friend M. asked me why I
had become so quiet, let's talk, she said. Again and again I answered that I
don't know why, that I have nothing to say. I was astounded at her failure to
notice the deep change that had come over me, and she only mentioned my silence
once in a while, although it is certain that during that period she had begun
to experience a personality change and turned all her concentration to herself.
In the reality of my new life I had no interest in a thing, I did not feel a
thing and I did not do a thing. Similarly to my relations with any other
person, my relationship with M, that had been significant and close before,
became a burden too. After a while she contacted me less and less during the afternoon
hours. I did not ascribe much importance to it, although I felt relieved. So
several weeks passed, at the end of which she shared with me her feeling that I
was no longer interested in a relation with her. I explained that the fact that
I had not made contact with her had no meaning, and things resumed their past
course. Her blindness amazed me and I knew that no one could understand. After
a period we talked by an immediate message software, when I let M. know that as
I was no longer the person that she knew, it would be better if we terminate
our relationship. Even though she refused to confirm my words, this came about.
I was left alone without
knowing what I should do next. Before my image dissolved into hidden districts,
I had been a person with powerful feelings and bothered with various thoughts.
I had been a creative human being; I engaged in writing prose and poetry,
painting, photography and playing the piano. Needless to say I neglected writing
and photography in the void that was created altogether. As to painting, surprisingly
I succeeded to keep engaging in it for several more years, but finally I felt
that my hands did not obey me and I could not continue to paint despite wishing
to do so. As to the playing, with the change that had occurred in me, the nature
of my playing changed too: in the past I used to practice different pieces in a
reasonable frequency, but now I played and did not feel a thing. In the
slowness of my new life I found it difficult to strain my mind and my hands in
a playing action that was now horridly slow. I had never stopped playing,
although I had made minimal efforts. I stopped listening to music, which seemed
to my ears as a jumble of insignificant sounds, except for a single group whose
sounds managed to pierce my ears, even though it often sounded suddenly as a jumble
of sounds.
I knew that something was
wrong, but I did not know what it was. In a desperate effort to break the state
of all things, which remained unchanged, each day I deprived food from my body
from the moment I woke up and till I came home from school. To my surprise, a spark
of the familiar humanity was kindled in these hours of fast, although by noon I
gave in to the needs of my body. On one of these days of fast I felt a sort of
curtain coming down in a clear movement and melting from my head up to my feet,
and noticed that the violent energies that had accompanied me these last months
were no longer there. I stopped fasting and only my empty image stayed on.
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