Prose

[Nilsi]

It feels as though time and space have come to a halt. In the moment of my greatest triumph, there is neither champagne flowing nor jubilant cheers. Everything around me is deathly silent. My inner monologue has dissolved into thin air, as if it had never existed. Past and future vanish into the void of this moment. I don’t even notice their fleeing.

In the stairwell, I pass a few grotesque faces. One congratulates me. “Thank you,” I hear myself say. Was that my voice? I don’t care. I push open the door. Wind rushes toward me. Is it cold? I wouldn’t know, nor do I care. The ember of my cigarette streams into my lungs. My mind is empty. “This must be what freedom feels like,” a romantic might say.

Romanticism seems to catch up with me, I think later, as I turn my head, scanning the room for the waiter. I’d just meant to take another sip of Chianti, only to realize the glass was already empty. I think of Goethe and his Faust, of his pact with Mephistopheles, and the condition that the relentless pursuit of power and knowledge would seal his death, should he ever succumb to the perfection of a single moment.

Those eyes - they will be my downfall. That youthful nonchalance of hers almost feels like a performance, if only I could believe in such grandeur in her acting. The contrast between her sharp, almost masculine cheekbones, her flawless jawline, and her full lips might have intimidated me - if it weren’t for her slightly dumb, albeit faintly erotic, half-open mouth. The façade of her beauty begins to crumble under the emptiness of her expression. 

A battle between good and evil rages within me. Yet I reveal none of it, as I place my hand on her shoulder, casually thank her - and already find myself attempting to seduce her. My well-practiced game of calculated distance pulls its victim into the trap.

We laugh about that clown, about his petty ambitions, which he managed to spectacularly fail at despite his grotesque overabundance of diligence. Even his hobby - fishing - gives us cause to mock him, drawing us closer in our shared disgust for such a pathetic figure. I suppose I’m a fisherman too. But not one who delights in devouring his catch, nor one who bothers to grant it freedom. No, my greatest pleasure is hauling the fish out of the comfortable deceit of its watery domain into the great freedom of the air - and watching it slowly, agonizingly perish in that very freedom.

It’s already well past midnight. “Great Freedom 36” glows in neon letters above the shabby nightclub where I’ve experienced so many great moments. A hint of nostalgia washes over me. Memories flicker to life: the three French exchange students and the ice cube we passed from mouth to mouth, like a family of songbirds, until our tongues forgot which bodies they belonged to. Or the two blondes who gave me a blowjob here, while I desperately tried to imagine whether a perfect ten might emerge if one’s breasts and the other’s ass could be combined into the same body.

I suppose I can’t handle the intensity of togetherness. The risk is too great that something as vulgar as love might disturb the perfection of a purely aesthetic sexuality. My Muslim friends are, as always, one step ahead of me - with their well-curated harems. Perhaps I’m a Muslim too, though one who relates to Islam as Žižek does to Christianity: an “atheistic Muslim.” Yes, these well-tempered warriors have much to teach us Westerners.

Edited November 29 by Nilsi