I play this guessing game no longer. I understand now that
the phone won't ring, that the house if empty, that there is nothing to
revive a shrivelled shrub, immersed in urine, implanted in ammoniac
soil.
I think about the last days of Hitler: how he roamed his underground
bunker with imagined ulcers, poisoning his beloved canines, his
birthday party, and how he wed his mistress the day before the twain
committed suicide.
How they were both consumed by fire.
This was the topic of my dissertation when I urinated for the first
time in a flowerpot, in my childhood high school, in my forlorn birth
town, so long ago. I had no choice. The school's caretaker locked me in.
And this is what I wrote:
How two get married knowing they will soon be dead and how it matters
not to them. They exterminate the dogs and chew on cyanide, having
instructed everyone beforehand regarding the disposal of their bodies.
And then the shot.
Their last few days I studied in those early days of mine. Their last
few days.
The Future of Madeleine
by Sam Vaknin
Madeleine lodged us in a tiny cubicle at the end of a corridor. Her
establishment is all tidy and neat, but miniature. Madeleine's doll
house, this hotel.
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