Untamed

No, I am not going outside today, I refuse to walk down the slender, quiet, back-streets of Paris today. The womanly man has been trying to encourage me to step outdoor for the most part of the morning, and instead I merely sit in this chair, limp, knowing my weight will be more difficult to lift if I choose not to cooperate. Lina cannot stand it; he mutters words in French at me, venting his anger and believing that I don’t know what it is he says. “Branleur! Pourquoi devez-vous être de cette façon, vous connasse,” he yells at me, before eventually leaving me be, as I slump in the seat and stare blankly out the window to the wall of the building next door, only a meter or two away.

No, I am not moving from this chair today, I refuse to stand up and do anything in this place, in this country, in this world, in this life. The only words I uttered today was to Lina, the womanly man, asking him to retrieve me a bottle of wine or anything alcoholic. “You aren’t sitting here all day drinking yourself stupid, Lisa,” he ordered me, “I won’t be putting up with you for an entire day, especially if you plan to drink until you no longer remember your name.” It isn’t my name that I wish to forget – how does one manage to forget their name when completely pissé, I wonder. It isn’t my name that I wish to forget – it is he.

He died this very day, this very day he died. Somewhere in between death and life does he exist, for he is dead, he exists no more. It was this very day that I left my home soil and bound my way for Paris, made the decision to follow that idea of being a writer of some sort. I asked him to come with me, that very morning as soon as I woke; I left on impulse, you see, I left only hours after waking up and having the desire to stay in Paris and write. Always on my right, he was, and so it was that I woke and turned to my right and asked him to travel with me. “No,” he said, “I won’t go with you; I don’t want to go with you. I love you, but no.”

“No”? “I love you, but no”? There was something about those words that I couldn’t believe I was hearing. There was something about him refusing to travel with the person he proclaimed to love that I couldn’t comprehend. He explained to me that he was in too good of a job to risk losing what he had; he couldn’t see himself moving anywhere with me just because I asked him to, because I wanted to follow some spontaneous idea. He cared more about his materialistic possessions, his stately home, and his ever-expanding account to leave any of it for me. It wasn’t that he had to leave it either – I always told him this would be temporary, a change of pace and style.

So I left the house with one suitcase of possessions, alone. It was that moment when my foot connected with the dilapidated pathway that he died and, as I say, exists now between death and life. When I realised that he was more committed to the idea of having large amounts of breakable, ‘at the end of the day worthless’ gadgets that seemed to exuberate him, that was when he died within me. I hear that he still lives in the same place, just as happy without me being there as he were when I was there, and I hear he is making just as much money, if not more, than before. One year has passed since I last saw him, since I last had him on my right. No message, no contact of any kind. I suppose I am dead to him, too.