in every airport, in every gymnasium, in every stairwell. Thanks to your little trick, I can never forget you. Goddamn you for that.
Love, lust, passion, longing, a sight for sore eyes, tempted by, weakness for, ache for, pant for, hurt for, languish for, cry for, itch for, wild for, yearning, craving, thirsting, coveting, hungry for, voracious, rapacious, unquenchable, insatiable, stuck on, gone on, need, want, set on, driven mad by, intoxicated, in your blood, besotted, befuddled, drunk, buzzed, bombed, high, stoned, hopped-up, coked-out, fucked, hooked, habit.
Somewhere, sometime, somehow you lose something or see something lost.
If you are lucky it was when you were young. If you are lucky you saw your parents divorced. If you are lucky your high school girlfriend died in a car crash. If you are lucky you saw your little sister lose the use of her legs because your family couldn’t afford the right health care.
If you are unlucky, it will happen when you are older. If you are unlucky you will see your son lose his place at the college of his choice to the child of a man richer than you, rich enough to donate some new lab equipment. If you are unlucky your wife of thirty-seven years will develop bipolar disorder and have to be hospitalized after you come home from work and find she has opened her wrists with an electric meat carver. If you are unlucky you will lose your job after twenty-two years of service and will be too old to find another.
If you are unlucky you will realize too late that the way you thought the world worked was just an illusion. If you are unlucky you will become afraid too late.
But if you are lucky you will become afraid when you are young, afraid of the unexpected changing your life for the worse and not having enough power to set things back the way you wanted them to be.
And then, if you are lucky, you will pursue power from that day forth. You will lead armies into Gaul, you will take on a colony in a new world, you will acquire money, you will only maintain relationships where you have the upper hand, only stay in jobs that can eventually lead to you being the one in charge. And you will do this because if you are lucky you will know that power means you don’t have to be afraid. Power means you can do what you want when you want to. Power means you can have what you want when you want it.
If you are lucky, you will do this because you will know it is really Power that is worth any sacrifice, that it is really Power without which you can’t live, that it is really Power without which you can only eat and breathe and sleep and shit and sometimes not even that. You will do this because if you are lucky you will know that when we say we’d die for Liberty we’re really saying we’d die for Power.
Except that in the pursuit of Power one of the things you will have to sacrifice will be the ability to enjoy the thing you lost or saw lost.
So even if you reach that point where you aren’t afraid anymore, that point where you can relax, that point where you are free, that point you never reach, even if you reach that point, you will realize you weren’t so lucky after all.
Yet, you wonder, who can say they’ve never been lucky?
Have you ever seen a domesticated dog with his first bone? He will still try to bury it in his bed or the couch or under a skirting board even after all the pushing has worn the top of his nose raw.
You are sitting outside your house in your imported British sports car. It is winter. The sky has just darkened and you have watched the lights come on inside. The trees and the bushes and the statues all around the house remind you of pictures you have seen of spacecraft during re-entry. Every surface, every edge, facing the house glows with yellow light. But beyond that, the objects disappear into darkness, become indistinct.
You had driven up to Boston for a meeting. Normally you would have taken the company jet out of JFK but the car just arrived last
Love, lust, passion, longing, a sight for sore eyes, tempted by, weakness for, ache for, pant for, hurt for, languish for, cry for, itch for, wild for, yearning, craving, thirsting, coveting, hungry for, voracious, rapacious, unquenchable, insatiable, stuck on, gone on, need, want, set on, driven mad by, intoxicated, in your blood, besotted, befuddled, drunk, buzzed, bombed, high, stoned, hopped-up, coked-out, fucked, hooked, habit.
Somewhere, sometime, somehow you lose something or see something lost.
If you are lucky it was when you were young. If you are lucky you saw your parents divorced. If you are lucky your high school girlfriend died in a car crash. If you are lucky you saw your little sister lose the use of her legs because your family couldn’t afford the right health care.
If you are unlucky, it will happen when you are older. If you are unlucky you will see your son lose his place at the college of his choice to the child of a man richer than you, rich enough to donate some new lab equipment. If you are unlucky your wife of thirty-seven years will develop bipolar disorder and have to be hospitalized after you come home from work and find she has opened her wrists with an electric meat carver. If you are unlucky you will lose your job after twenty-two years of service and will be too old to find another.
If you are unlucky you will realize too late that the way you thought the world worked was just an illusion. If you are unlucky you will become afraid too late.
But if you are lucky you will become afraid when you are young, afraid of the unexpected changing your life for the worse and not having enough power to set things back the way you wanted them to be.
And then, if you are lucky, you will pursue power from that day forth. You will lead armies into Gaul, you will take on a colony in a new world, you will acquire money, you will only maintain relationships where you have the upper hand, only stay in jobs that can eventually lead to you being the one in charge. And you will do this because if you are lucky you will know that power means you don’t have to be afraid. Power means you can do what you want when you want to. Power means you can have what you want when you want it.
If you are lucky, you will do this because you will know it is really Power that is worth any sacrifice, that it is really Power without which you can’t live, that it is really Power without which you can only eat and breathe and sleep and shit and sometimes not even that. You will do this because if you are lucky you will know that when we say we’d die for Liberty we’re really saying we’d die for Power.
Except that in the pursuit of Power one of the things you will have to sacrifice will be the ability to enjoy the thing you lost or saw lost.
So even if you reach that point where you aren’t afraid anymore, that point where you can relax, that point where you are free, that point you never reach, even if you reach that point, you will realize you weren’t so lucky after all.
Yet, you wonder, who can say they’ve never been lucky?
Have you ever seen a domesticated dog with his first bone? He will still try to bury it in his bed or the couch or under a skirting board even after all the pushing has worn the top of his nose raw.
You are sitting outside your house in your imported British sports car. It is winter. The sky has just darkened and you have watched the lights come on inside. The trees and the bushes and the statues all around the house remind you of pictures you have seen of spacecraft during re-entry. Every surface, every edge, facing the house glows with yellow light. But beyond that, the objects disappear into darkness, become indistinct.
You had driven up to Boston for a meeting. Normally you would have taken the company jet out of JFK but the car just arrived last
Similar Books
