Xong of Xuxan

i learned a thorny language of the dead; attacked and kicked and pounded on my brain with book and tape; a word, another word, until i knew the ancient wizard way to freeze my dreaming, pin my whirling mind down to a piece of paper like a moth, and watch it twitch and flap and maybe die. but no, it did not die, it grew, branched out, becoming very like another me. another me that reached around the world. the act of teaching language to my mind kept me afloat, kept me from killing me, kept me from going mad, and kept my mind from brooding, in my lonely life, on love.

there, i have done it. written an entire paragraph without the nineteenth letter. i knew i could do it if i really tried. but i find it rather limiting and pointlexx.

it wax a happy day when firxt i xtumbled onto thix ruxty old typewriter, and taught myxelf to uxe it, and fi¢ed it up, and oiled (continued on page 160)Xong of Xuxan(continued from page 157) it, and found wayx to ink the ribbon. the xhift key and the dollar xign were far beyond all fi¢ing, but that i did not mind. more xerioux, more irkxome, wax the mixxing letter, nineteenth letter of the alphabet. how could i write without it. i decided to xubxtitute the letter x. all right, but what then would i uxe for x. not much occaxion to uxe it, i reaxoned, xo i will uxe ¢ in itx place, it wax only after i had gotten uxed to thix arrangement that i xaw what a fool i had been. why not uxe ¢ for the nineteenth letter and uxe x for itxelf. but by that time it wax too late, and bexidex, what doex it matter. i am alone, all alone, all alone.

later

i have tried to figure out how old i am, but it ix too difficult, i cannot do it. i think i am young. i have xeen my reflection and i look like the young women in the old bookx and magazinex.

my hair ix very long, of courxe, for i have never cut it. it reachex to my waixt. it ix yellow, fla¢en the old bookx would call it, like the hair of rapunzel and melixande. men would probably tell me it ix beautiful. i am rather thin, becauxe it ix not alwayx eaxy to find thingx to eat and i get a lot of e¢ercixe doing everything for myxelf, and i walk a great deal, but i do not think i would be called xkinny. i am very tan from head to toe becauxe i am in the xun xo much. my eyex are blue. my breaxtx have finally xtopped growing, i think. they are not ax big ax xome in the magazinex but are about the xize of large applex. i have xeen picturex of people eating applex xo i know how big they were, but i have never xeen a real apple.

if i kept to the citiex there would never be a problem about food. plenty of food in canx and jarx in the xtorex, enough to keep me going for the rext of my life, i think. but i do not like the citiex very much and i try to keep out of them ax much ax i can. i take ax many canx of food ax i can carry and live out in the hillx until i run out of food and then i come in for more. in the bookx, they talk about living off berriex and nutx, but i have never found any and there are no fixh in the xtreamx.

later

i think about xam an awful lot. how i played with him, and talked to him, and how he tried to talk to me in hix own way. i loved him and i know he loved me. he alwayx woke up before i did, and he wax alwayx glad when i awakened, almoxt ax if he wax afraid i had gone away, and wax happy that i had returned. i would alwayx xay good morning, xam. it lookx like a beautiful day, i would tell him, chattering on and on, the xky ix blue, no rain in the air. i would axk him what will we do today, xam, and then i would anxwer my own quextion. today we will go down into the town and get food to eat. how would you like a can of corned beef haxh, i would axk him. i feel like having xome chili, myxelf. and maybe a can of peax or axparagux. xam would eat peax but not axparagux, but i like them both. after that, i would tell xam, we will go to the library and get xome more bookx. no, not for you, you xilly thing, for me. bookx about the way it wax before you and i were born. true bookx, xome of them, and xome of them made up by men and women to pleaxe each other. i think xam wax a little jealoux of the bookx, and the way i would xit and look at them for hourx and not play with him. now i wixh i had played with him more than i did.

later

today ix a day of blood. the word for it ix from an older word meaning month. when it happenx twelve timex, i figure that ix about a year. unlexx i have loxt count, i have had forty-nine of the blood timex, which would be about four yearx. but i do not know how old i wax when i had the firxt one, xo it doex not help me figure out my age. maybe i wax twelve, which would mean i am xi¢teen now, but there ix no way of knowing for certain.

later

i guexx i have no name, no real name, but once i found a name i liked in one of thoxe old tapex. xuxie. i liked the xound of that. xhort for xuxan. i called myxelf xuxie for a long time, but now i am xorry becauxe i cannot xpell it right on thix machine. why didnt i pick a name like mary or elizabeth or amanda or gwendolyn or yvonne or charlotte or lolita or maude. but it ix too late to change it now. i am uxed to it. xo xuxie it ix.

that firxt paragraph, which i wrote a few dayx ago, did you notice it ix a kind of poem. fourteen linex, ten xyllablex to a line, xort of a xonnet i guexx. blank verxe, no rhymex. i will try a rhymed poem xometime. i love poetry.

later

it ix warm here, it hax alwayx been warm, ever xince i can remember. xo uxually i do not wear any clothex. xometimex, though, it ix fun to go into one of the old xtorex and put on drexxex and xtockingx and xhoex and braxxierex and thingx like that. but the fun went out of that a long time ago.

it never xnowx here. but i have xeen xnow in the picturex and read about it in the bookx and i wixh i could xee it xometime. maybe if i walked and walked and walked for the rext of my life i would find xnow.

of courxe, i know all about rain. there are timex when it rainx for dayx and dayx, and that ix when i xtay inxide one of the houxex.

but i do not like the houxex. that ix where the deadx are. i am afraid of the deadx.

i know that i will be a dead xomeday. before that, i will get old. i have xeen picturex of people who have gotten old. they hardly look like me at all. they look like a different race. i wonder how long it will take for me to get old and then be a dead.

xam ix a dead. he died a lot of dayx ago. i wax xad. he wax a good dog, followed me everywhere, xlept with me, ever xince i can remember. maybe he wax ax old ax me. i think hix bonex hurt, though, and in the laxt dayx he would not eat anything, juxt drank a little water when i put it right in front of him. then one morning when i woke up he wax cold and xtiff and i knew he wax a dead. i cried. becauxe i knew that now i would really be alone. when i wax very little, i thought he wax a perxon juxt like me, but when i taught myxelf to read the bookx, i knew he wax a dog and i wax a human being. i buried him and marked hix grave with a piece of wood. on it, i carved the wordx, here liex xam, beloved friend. i had to carry him a long way to find a place to bury him. i walked for milex and everything wax concrete and axphalt, hard to my feet, then finally i found what had been a park and i buried him there. i mixx xam. he wax my only friend, my only family. i named him after xamuel taylor coleridge, who wrote the beautiful poem about ¢anadu. xomeday i may write a poem about xam.

later

i make myxelf learn three new wordx every day. there are a lot of wonderful onex in the dictionariex. today i learned coronet and eider down and virgin. i have never felt eider down. i have xeen coronetx and crownx in picture bookx. i know what a virgin ix. i am a virgin.

i dream. in my dreamx i am not alone. i dream that there are other people all around me, talking like the people in the tapex, wearing clothex like the people in the bookx. beautiful men and women. i dream of men. tall and xtrong, their armx and legx bulging with muxcle, their belliex flat and hard, like the picturex of the old, old xtatuex. in my dreamx they kixx me and do other thingx.

i often dream of xam. I throw a xtick and wait for him to bring it back to me, wagging hix tail.

the dreamx are not alwayx good, laxt night i dreamed of my mother and father. i never knew them. in my dream they had no facex. they tried to call (concluded on page 191)Xong of Xuxan(continued from page 160) my name, but they could not do it. all they could do wax moan, like thix--mmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmmm.... i woke up in the middle of the night, my whole body wet with xweat, my eyex wet with tearx, my mouth dry ax xand.

later

xometimex i xing. i have climbed to hilltopx and xung to the xky. when xam wax alive, i xang to him. xome of the xongx i learned from the tapex, otherx i make up myxelf. thix ix one i call the xong of xuxan--

xing a xong of xuxan, xing it long and loud, who rocked xuxiex cradle, who will weave her xhroud, when her eyex were opened, not a xoul wax xeen, ixnt thix a funny world to xet before a queen.

there may be otherx like me xomewhere, i xuppoxe, but i dont think xo. xometimex i xtand on the beach and look out over the ocean, thinking maybe, xomewhere on the other xide of all that water, there may be xomeone. but i feel in my heart that i am the only one.

i guexx i will never know what happened, i have read xo many bookx. lixtened to tapex for hourx and hourx. in the bookx and tapex, there ix a lot of fear. everyone muxt have been afraid all the time. and xome of the bookx talk about the way the world might come to an end.

war, xome of them thought. a war fought with germx and gax and atomx. maybe that ix what happened.

or maybe it wax becauxe the world became a xewer, the air xo foul it blixtered the lungx, the riverx and xtreamx xtinking with filth, the fixh dying by the billionx, the graxx and treex refuxing to grow, the whole world drowning in itx own poixonx.

or maybe it wax nature taking her revenge on the pill, outwitting clever man at hix own clever game, xo that children were not born anymore.

i will never know. from time to time, i think about adam and eve. in the beginning, adam came firxt, then eve. and when i am drunk on hope, i tell myxelf that maybe thix time it ix eve who ix firxt, and adam who will come later. but i have waited a very long time and he hax not come. i have wandered, looking for him, and have not found him.

later

i think that god ix good, but once upon a time, very long ago, he played dice with the devil and loxt. the devil won our world and everything and everybody in it. thix world doex not belong to god. maybe we are born in hell. maybe when we die we awaken in the real world, the world created by god. then all the deadx in all the houxex are now in the real world, and xam ix there, too, and i am in a kind of dream, a nightmare, all alone.

later

i keep remembering a woman i read about in the bookx. i cannot get her out of my mind. a man, renowned for wixdom and magnanimity, ordered her to be tortured without mercy, and hix e¢ecutionerx worked upon her from dawn to evening, mangling and breaking her body, until they were tired and could think of nothing more to do to her. the ne¢t day they burned her with platex of braxx heated red hot. for many dayx xhe wax crammed into a tiny cell five levelx underground in the airlexx dark, and locked into xtockx, and tormented in any and all wayx that occurred to her jailerx. they made her watch her young brother being tortured to death. then they ripped her flexh with a whip imbedded with iron barbx, and after that they roaxted her over a fire, and finally they let a wild bull gore her until xhe died. her name wax blandina.

the fine man who ordered all thix done to her, marcux aureliux, hax gone down in hixtory ax the bext of all the philoxopher kingx. one of the bookx xayx he had, quote, a nature xweet, pure, xelf-denying and unaffected, unquote.

if that could be done by the bext of men, i tell myxelf, what might be done by ordinary men, to xay nothing of the worxt of men?

when i think of thix, i do not yearn for adam. when i think of thix, i am glad i am alone, unloved, unable to be eve to adam, mother of a race. i even fear the coming of adam. fear it and hope for it, until i am torn apart.

later

i know what i have to do. i have to bring thix writing to an end, and leave it here for you, dear adam, where you will find it, if you ever come, and read it, if you know how to read, and come to know why i did not wait for you. poor adam, you will be all alone, truly all alone, and live out your life until you are old and have a long white beard. i am very xorry for you. forgive me. but i have to do what i have made up my mind to do, and i will tell you about it now, in my laxt poem....

i will walk north into a land of white, a land cloud-clean and xoft ax eider down, and i will make the xnow into a gown, a bridal drexx of dazzling virgin light, in which to meet my lover and my xpouxe. upon my head a coronet of ice, with flakex of falling xnow the wedding rice. and he will carry me into hix houxe, into another life, another world. he will prepare a xnowdrift for our bed. and xhow me where i am to lay my head, and lie bexide me, both together curled, hix kixx will be ax cold ax any knife, the night when death, my huxband, makex me wife.