You received bad news today. Thank God you exist. You possess something which can shake you to your core, that can place you in a space so abstract that you, of course, forget what upset you in the first place.
You received it. By the way it shook you, one might identify its breed as amorous.
Your bathroom floor is pleasantly cold. The sun is going up and down like a broken blind; your window is its reluctant host. The perfect time to reminisce incorrectly is when you are most uncomfortable. So, without wasting any time, you pick up some Camus, willingly misinterpret him as a nihilist, and create a fragmentary text. A fiction cut from the same cloudy cloth as you are made of:
“Today is just like any other day. Maybe today was merely a yesterday; you do not know. A message arrived which meant nothing because it could easily have been sent twenty-four hours earlier.
It contained unpleasant information. It is not your fault. Why should you have to justify yourself to others? They do not seem pleased, though perhaps they should have been there for you. They definitely will be, the day after tomorrow.
For the time being, it is as though the information has not yet reached you. Once you formally consider it, the issue will enter your archive and transform into a neat folder.
This is a circumstance in which one often finds oneself. Misfortune arriving at your doorstep like flies on a burning net. You know a lot about flies; you know a lot about unwelcome developments. Both have tortured you for years. Both require sunlight to flourish. Like you, they inhabit the Mediterranean.
Anyway, this is not about philosophising the nature of misfortune. I can bet that you have heard stories of people encountering it in rain, snow, and every other weather condition without affecting its quality. This is mostly administrative labour. Organising it without the assistance of a costly secretary.
To catalogue your troubles, first and foremost you must be able to recall them verbatim. Your records must be meticulous. One can understand why this task would seem beneath you, but it remains an unfortunate requirement.
Once everything has been recorded, you may gather familiar faces around you. They will speak in separate groups and, whenever you pass by, they will fall silent. You will need spectators; every proper record deserves review.
Be certain of it, they will promptly inform you and ask only for your opinion. The issue now rests in different hands, rough enough to inspect it thoroughly.
They will reveal that negotiations are already underway. The only thing required from you is confirmation that you will be available should your participation become necessary.
That is where your professionalism slowly reveals itself. Distress has become paperwork for higher-ranked colleagues to inspect.
Soon enough they will arrive at a conclusion—that is the aisle on which they will settle.
Now listen carefully. This is where most people make mistakes and ruin an extremely intricate process. They will most likely say something like, ‘You are young, and it seems this is a life you might enjoy.’
‘Would you be interested in a different life?’
That is where your composure is tested. You may be tempted to believe that such things are important, that they deserve significance, that they must carry weight.
Your training, however, allows you to discard the shackles of seriousness. You tick the box marked ‘uninterested’ because you have understood, very quickly, that none of this carries any consequence.“
The unpleasantness has been properly dissected. It is never quite as severe when you cannot remember it precisely, and Camus is merely a large frown occupying a corner office. Afterall, distress can be suspended from the lymph. Human beings have suspended stranger things from the lymph before.
Become a bone, so that people who knew you before your sickness might still recognize you.
