Speak it like Beckett
December 17th.
Today I have lost the ability to speak to people. I opened my mouth but I could not find the words. Nothing was adequate.
My father made me an omelette. I could not thank him. Our eyes passed each other by and waved while my mouth kept twitching. At one point I opened wide, teeth out, silent. Dad laughed and brought me another chunk of the yellow-black, overdone slop. I could not eat it but finished it anyway. “Hhmphg,” I grunted. Dad turned to me and asked: “It was that good, huh?” Another grunt. Nothing was adequate.
I went up to the tree that grew through the middle of the living room. Maybe, at least, I could get myself to say something here, address it to the branches. Somebody had left a massive softcover copy of Samuel Beckett’s Collected works floored blunt on the roots. I saw it and I finally, for the first time that long morning, knew what to say. “Samuel Beckett’s collected works,” I told the tree. The tree said nothing. Maybe it was just that sort of day, and my family’s deranged living symbol had also lost its ability to speak. Who else?
I picked up the book. It was surprisingly light. Light meant smart and quick and easy. This Beckett would teach me how to speak again.
I went back to face my father. My vocal chords redirected all the formed sounds back into my lungs. U-turn cop-out. Nothing was adequate.
My middle part of the day was spent on the park bench peering at the Beckett pages through a polka-dot scarf.
December 18th.
It’s been a week or maybe a month and a week since I have lost my ability to speak. Beckett’s helping.
In the morning, the woman at the grocery store, with her usual look of profound pity, asked me if I wanted a plastic bag. I thought of the usual pictures of dead leather-shelled turtles. “It was a little child that fell out of the carriage, Ma’am,” I told her. “Oh god, oh god oh god, what happened?” She said, pitying me or maybe the little girl. I left the store carrying the milk, carrots and bananas I had bought cradled precariously in my hands.
The middle part of my day was spent on the park bench helping the wind flip the pages of Beckett’s collected works.
December 19th.
Yesterday I lost my ability to speak.
Beckett teaches that one does not have to speak. I can be A, or perhaps B, from the Act Without Words II.
My father made me an omelette today. It was burnt and smelled of pinched needles. I sat down on the chair and demonstratively crossed my legs. In my shirt pocket I found a carrot and a banana. I put the banana back in my pocket and chewed on the carrot. It tasted like metal. It had soaked in the stench of the room. The message I wanted to communicate to my Dad was this: it is alright, I do not need the omelette, you can sit down and relax and not work so hard. My father frowned and pushed the omelette towards me. I kept chewing the carrot. Snap and crunch.
“Yes I know, it’s a little burnt, but you have to eat… you haven’t been yourself,” Dad crooned.
After a while, he reluctantly shuffled the plate back away from me. His eyes searched mine. His mouth opened to speak, but stopped short. His hands threw the plate vigorously onto the floor, where it smashed against the roots. The tree would be happy; the tree would feed, burnt or not.
Beckett’s words twirled and pranced around in my skull.
Nothing was adequate. Tomorrow I would have known what to say.
I spent the middle of the day periodically wiping fallen leaves and dust off Beckett’s collected words.
December 20th.
I woke up some time ago and found I could not speak. This did not last very long. After months of studying Beckett I am able to speak like him without quoting him directly. The key is to imagine the person I am talking to is not really there, and the words I am saying are addressed to Beckett, while He is testing me on the adequacy of my interpretation of his collected works.
Several times people have gotten up in a fury over my conversation.
“Nobody talks like that,” they say, lips taut. But I know somebody talks like that. And I know, as well (and this is something He teaches) that words and patterns create universes, and sooner or later the power of my unique form will convince my co-conversationalists that there is a world beyond “everybody”, a specific place where how I speak is the law of things. Speech and motion and their repetition are what makes life, and saying that my speech does not correspond to reality is to simply be outdated. As I speak, I update what is possible and what is real. In this I follow Beckett and his collected works. His characters never spoke “realistically”, instead they birthed patterns of words, and words make logic and logic builds an understanding of the world.
I spent the middle part of my day peeling bananas and throwing the peels down to feed the park grass. I did some reading too.
December 21st
Beckett teaches that my father is not my father, but a father. He is also a signifier, or a variable. A,B,C, maybe D or X or 23 or Dad. He is a signifier who has attributes and lines. One of those attributes is that today he has made me an omelette. Another is that he, along with Beckett, will die tomorrow. 22nd of December, Beckett’s death day. I don’t feel much connection to him. Or my father for that matter. Like his characters, I now feel like I have nothing to do with anyone else. I am adequate for nobody.
The worlds I have spoken into existence have all disappeared the very next second. I am increasingly certain, however, that most ideas are best explained by well placed picture words. A couple words that do not try to explain but let you feel the presence of the things described, invoked; this is how you plant the seeds of ideas. Beckett may have had something to do with that thought.
The middle part of my day was spent wondering where the later parts of my days go.
22.12.
Here I note, in some attempt to calm my scurrying thoughts, the case of the matter. I found this diary just now, the evening of the 22nd of December, in my room, on my bedside table. It does not belong to me.
My own father has been dead for 7 years. I have not read a page of Samuel Beckett in my life. Maybe I have seen Waiting for Godot staged in a park some summer, but I’m not sure -- that may have been me imagining someone’s retelling of that event. Whatever. What disturbs me more is this, on my table. Whoever wrote this is definitely not me, so how did it get here? We bear one similarity, me and this time-addled author. We both have a tree growing through the middle of our living room. The parallels end there. I will ask around, then try to forget. But right now, there is such silence. I feel like my breath has been vacuumed out of me. I am starting to think the earth might be uninhabited.
Written by Yan Nesterenko, a dedicated Writing Committee member!
You can find Yan on Instagram: @n_strenkyn