đ New in the Commonplace CommuniquĂ© â 00063 ¶ from Prophet Song ¶ Paul Lynch
I managed to get a letter as primary carer for my father, Eilish says, but it took me a while, heâs in decline and has no awareness of his illness, sometimes it seems that he suspects something is wrong but cannot see his own mind so he turns that suspicion outward, if heâs not false then it is the world that is false, there is always someone else to blame. Carole looks up as the waitress steps towards them with a tray and places the drinks on the table then smiles and steps quickly away. You look as though you havenât slept in a week, Eilish says, are you sleeping at all? Sleep, Carole says, her voice distant, far off in time, she looks across the table at Eilish without seeing her. I donât sleep much at all, she says, I dream each night of a soundless sleep but that is impossible now, it took me some time before I understood that I was already asleep in a manner, you know, that I was sleeping all the time I thought I was awake, trying to see into the problem that stood before me like a great darkness, this silence consuming every moment of my life, I thought Iâd go mad looking into it but then I awoke and began to see what they were doing to us, the brilliance of the act, they take something from you and replace it with silence and youâre confronted by that silence every waking moment and cannot live, you cease to be yourself and become a thing before this silence, a thing waiting for the silence to end, a thing on your knees begging and whispering to it all night and day, a thing waiting for what was taken to be returned and only then can you resume your life, but the silence doesnât end, you see, they leave open the possibility that what you want will be returned some day and so you remain reduced, paralysed, dull as an old knife, and the silence does not end because the silence is the source of their power, that is its secret meaning. Eilish folds her arms and leans back in the chair, watching Carole reach into her bag, she brings a folder to the table. It is clear now theyâve been lying to us all along, Carole says, that the silence is permanent, that our husbands will not be coming back, they will not be returned because they cannot be returned, everybody knows this, even the dogs on the street know itâŠ
âPaul Lynch
âfound in Prophet Song (2023)