July 29th, 2009
There is a deafening fracture, a manifold thunderclap, a sound that offends my every molecule. Glittering debris tumbles from the firmament like a bit of soil loosed by a crack in a terracotta pot. Away out over the sea a great fragment of the sky dislodges, and as it descends I lose purchase on a heretofore unknown sense that I exist in the world. The glacial slab plunges into the sea and drives up a column of spray to rival the Tower of Babel.
M. Brasillach grabs me in hysterics, screaming though none of us can hear. He finds no comfort in me as his fragile sanity breaks before my eyes; overcome he hurls himself from the ledge. The irreality of it all has displaced me from fear. I watch in perfect awe as the sky begins to collapse like slowly shattering glass. Some don’t know what they miss.
A tidal wave crashes into the cliff and sends up a massive wall of seawater, raining down with herring and detritus, washing away those too near the edge. Some try escape by the footpath but I see them now pointing up, hands on each other shoulders, beneath a growing shadow. A colossal fragment of the sky hews the rock shelf; the earth shudders.
I find Mlle. Delamare amid the pandemonium, lovely in her chartreuse dress; she is mesmerized, as I am. Like children in a thunderstorm we watch as the world collapses, our humility restored.
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July 22nd, 2009
I am seated next to Mlle. Delamare in the dappled sun, her shining tresses splash down upon shoulders bared by a chartreuse dress. Love is a cruel farce; birds giggle in the bushes. The pastries are brought to us on a porcelain service, and without ceremony I pluck one and carelessly deposit it in my mouth. My audacity draws from her the slightest smile; what tiny victories we cling to in our private fancy. Only then does my tooth click on a tiny figurine.
For a moment I think of swallowing it, but my throat has seized with panic. I experience a fleeting moment where I feel I might go back in time and take a different course, any course but the one that led me to ruin. But, as this fairy notion floats away the present bears upon me like cold iron. My mind searches for an escape but overturns a thousand follies instead. For all my knowing I know nothing now.
I withdraw the little ornament from my mouth. Mlle. Delamare blinks at it; what a pretty sight she makes before the end, I think in weakness. I stand on legs of wood, the eyes of the others upon me; I suppose they are tittering and braying, but I cannot rightly hear. Mlle. Delamare trembles and a bit of tea splashes on her dress. Only then do things truly go wrong.
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July 15th, 2009
This is not to say that there haven’t been some rather commendable departures as well: M. Manco stuffed his mouth with earth, raked his face and wailed in mortal anguish before leaping to his end; Mme. Faucit stepped off in charming fashion, wearing an alabaster mask of L’Inconnue de la Seine, with her characteristic closed eyes and placid smile.
When his day came, M. Ghislain, a close friend of mine, removed his bowler hat and quoted from the Apology saying, “If you suppose that death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, a sleep like the sleep of one who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, then it is an unspeakable gain.” He then politely excused himself by the ledge.
I see with frightening clarity now, and understand the mechanisms of nature as well as they are understood. When I was a child all the world was new; in the garden of my imagination truths were mere trivia. This once animate world has petrified before my eyes; the chimeras have all fled. I stumble now around an endless wood, walking among barren trees.
We are not committing suicide out of despair; it is a reasonable supposition but I reject it. We gather each year to witness as one of us tosses back the gift of life; it seemed a handsome fruit at first but the flesh was spoiled with worms.
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July 8th, 2009
Most will recite an aphorism, a decision which I generally find quite distasteful; you almost want to salute when they go over. An aphorism is a poor magician’s trick that seems to unveil a hidden truth, when really it has only charmed the audience. I imagine some have a trunk full at home and constantly change their mind about which one to employ on their appointed day.
One lady went so far as to perform Queen Gertrude’s monologue, “There is a willow grows aslant the brook…”; everyone pretended to love it. After she leaped the consensus was that it was in dreadful taste, though you could see the uncomfortable looks of those who had secretly considered the words of the Bard of Avon for their own dénouement.
Worse than these are the disingenuous, the unhappy Fools who lose their nerve and have to be pushed. A few have even had the silly notion that if they leap far enough they will clear the rocks below and plunge safely in the sea. The first to try, poor M. Fuljambe, in an attempt to wring the most out of his leap, misjudged his steps, slipped on the brink, and cuffed the cliff side more than once before dashing upon the rocks below.
Spry Sturtivant went the following year, and I think some harbored a secret hope that he would try, if only to see if the feat could be achieved at all. Sturtivant got up a sprint and made a great push off from the rim; those with lingering fear of our endeavor were forced to confront their cheering hearts – if only for a moment – as naturally he too made an awful wreck upon the rocks.
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July 1st, 2009
“Where did we get this story from? Would you like to know? We got it from the grocer’s paper barrel. Many books, both good and rare, have ended up in the paper barrel – not to be read but as wrapping for flour and coffee beans, salt herring, butter and cheese. Literature, I suppose, has its uses. Things are often thrown away that shouldn’t be.”
- Hans Christian Anderson, Auntie Toothache
Once a year we convene before a curling iron gate, near to the brink of an unbowed cliff that overlooks the sea. We are not the grim society one might expect, and greet each other with cordiality; the men wear suits and bowler hats, and the ladies wear fine summer dresses and carry parasols. The gate is unlocked, and filing through we proceed down a narrow flagstone promenade that wends its way along the precipice. The walk is hedged by low rock walls, dressed in wild shrubs and brakes of gardenia, with an iron balustrade to prevent the accidental fall.
At path’s end one steps out onto a lovely pergola set into the rock, shaded by a trellis woven with honeysuckle. A weather-worn statue of a bearded old man stands in the middle of the mottled shade, his expression lost to time. Perched on his shoulders are a raven and a dove, spewing arcs of water that play in his upturned palms, happily burbling against the muffled crash of waves below.
We take our seats on stone benches; tea is served and slices of puff pastry with almond filling. One of us finds a porcelain figurine hidden in their pastry and is designated le Mat, or the Fool. That person is allowed some time to collect their thoughts, to say a few words if they like. When the nominee is ready they gather the nerve and jump from the cliff to their death.
…
