«The emptiness drives me on, out of eternity's sight. Drives me on to drown in my humanity, and I sway to the winds of time vibrating under my skin. I try to warp into my own veins, to drown in my own blood, and this is where he awaits me, he, who never shows his face. I self-destruct not to see what else awaits for me in these blackened arteries, all the shame and hatred, boiling with all the poison that needs to be released. And I fall down in despair. And he looks away, but I need those eyes upon me. "
This is how the play's first act went. Someone read it and I acted. It was so natural, like I finally got the chance to do it. And maybe I did. When you're twenty-seven you learn to hide things well. I knew these people some time ago. And they knew me. All we can say it's a coincidence, and may the runes fall so that we would never dare think of this as atonement for what we never did.
But I can't remember that, can I. While ignorance is such a bliss in defending oneself from the hostile outside world, it can never be of use against the harsh enemy within. And this time I've tried too hard, possibly. I made a wish and it came true, to forget all the shame, all the failures, the envy and the pain.
God forbid me from ever thinking of this play as anything but coincidence. I was just the only available shame of a playwright that's done fighting oneself. The rest are just busy with pondering over their existence.
Ignorance is bliss. Keep repeating that and you'll be alright.
But on that stage it felt like I was composed of that despair, like it was the only thing I ever had. And those words, they really did seem like they were written by me, if only I could remember what it was about.
I'm all alone in this dusty room again, at this dusty desk that retains its veil no matter how many hours I spend at it. Ignorance is bliss, keep repeating that and put the duster back where you found it. Let the desk have its secrets.
I'm all alone in this dusty room, still staring at the pages of the script. They promised to have another rehearsal tomorrow, but I could pretend to have too much on my mind and they'd have to find someone else, someone who can make it a product to sell, a tear-breaking, tragic play about… what was it about again? I wish I could keep at least that in my head. But then I'd have to keep all the other stuff, too. And we wouldn't want that, would we. Ignorance is bliss, keep repeating that and get back to work, turn the page back if you don't remember, if you can't make yourself remember. You could make it a completely different story, what difference would it make to you if you don't even know what it's about. And there's no way back, it's been played, it's been lived, you don't want a different pain in your heart, do you.
But the thing is that you perfectly well know what it's about: it's about mystery and a weary soul. Look at you, in your smart suit, trying your best to pass for a sane human being, your appearance screaming that you're infinitely far, far away from pondering about the universe, incredibly, unreachably far from mystery and weariness, it is radiated from your standard business smile. But the awful truth is that you perfectly damn know what it's about, you just wish you never did. Ignorance is bliss, but when you stop repeating that, they all come back to you, and when there's no place for ignorance in a play of mystery and weariness, you have to refrain from saying it out loud, and you live your life again with all the nightmares that you've caged away, waltzing with your own solitude as you fall down to the floor in a fit of laughter over your very own existence.
I walk over to the window, as if behind the layer of dust you could see the world in its true colors, but there is only the curtain sliding off of his silhouette, revealing another figure you've been desperately trying to forget. It is this silhouette that would give your play a touch of mystery and weariness, but then you would have to admit it being your play, your weary soul and your very own mystery Zemiel to take you down, down, down to a place you thought you could escape. No, no, no, you simply can't relapse into forgetting yourself, that would be just too easy.
«Who are you,» I ask, though I know perfectly. This is the name I will never forget.
«I have not a name, " said he, and this is the truth I will never change.
«Destroy me,» and I know what a weary soul needs when it meets its mystery on a grey sullen day.
And he walks over to the dusty desk, stepping so loudly on the floorboards, alarming all the ghosts that rested for so long, and he snatches the red velvet that covered the desk, sending all the drafts that I wrote in the last week, almost blindfolded, and more which I knew not of, to fly, and every single sheet contains one eternity of pain that's etched onto my heart forever. And the wind ushers me on into the blinding lights, and whenever I hesitate to think who might be watching me from the darkness, the same wind sends a couple of those sheets flying past, giving me a prickle of pain. And I go on to remember every single one, to weep of infinite loneliness and to fall down in a fit of laughter, to speak the lines myself, for they are my pain and mine alone. And I go to take my last bow in a story of mystery and weariness, of the only mystery I ever needed and never had, of how, when I mourned that he would never come, in hesitating over the doorstep he overheard it all and left to seem modest, gently closing the door behind him. And the pain is so real, it overwhelms me and floods my mind with words that were always there, because this ill luck was all I could see in the darkness before me. And he walks away in silence, but I need those eyes upon me.
