Mad

I’m going mad, Priya says. Slightly mad, philosopher. This is my little madness. This is what I’m like when I’m slightly mad.

I’ve got a bad case of … angst, Priya says. Is angst contagious? Have I caught it from you? Do you get better from angst? Do you recover?

Is there something wrong with me? Priya asks. Is there something wrong – with everything? Is there something wrong – with God?

I wish there was something I could quote, Priya asks. I wish there were poems that I knew by heart. I wish I could say something from the Bhagavad Gita. I wish I could remember what Krishna said to Arjuna.

I’d like to sleep for ten days, Priya says. And wake up … with all my problems solved.

Something’s wrong, Priya says. Something’s wrong, philosopher. And it’s wrong with me. Or the world. Or both.

Something’s wrong, Priya says. No – everything’s wrong. It’s all wrong. And part of its wrongness is that no one sees the wrongness. No one but me …

Something’s wrong, Priya says. And it’s my fault, in some way. And I’m part of it, in some sense. And it calls me to do something, this something’s wrong. It wants me to do something. And I don’t know what.

I don’t even know whether I’m suffering, Priya says. I don’t even know who’s suffering. I don’t know anything I don’t know whether there’s anyone here. Whether I am at all. Whether anything’s real.

Why can’t I be real, philosopher? Priya asks. Why are none of us real? Or alive? Why aren’t we anything other than dead?

I look at my husband … I look at Alan … I look at my house, Priya says. I look at my living room. I look at the dining room. I look at the garden. And all I see is … death. My death. The death that I can’t … wake up from.

I look at whom I am and what I am and what I’ve become and it’s just death – nothing else, Priya says.

And I would say, Help me, but you probably can’t help me, philosopher, Priya says. And I would say, Explain it to me, but you probably can’t do that, either. And I would pray for guidance, but I’m not good at that. I don’t know how to pray.

Do you know how tired I am of being dead? Priya whispers. Do you know how tired I am?

Listen to me, Priya says. Listen to me talking.

These aren’t my words … that’s what it feels like, Priya says. I’m not saying these things. It’s my distance saying them. It’s the faraway that’s speaking. And it’s speaking of being faraway.

I blame you, philosopher, Priya says. I blame you for letting me think like this and talk like this and be like this. It’s all because of you. It’s the effect of you. Of what you’re doing to me.

 

Maybe I should bequeath my body to Philosophy, Priya says. For philosophical research. Do you think I should?