Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

by Olga Tokarczuk

With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts.

Sometimes all it took was a disturbed Night’s sleep for everything to start tormenting me. My hands would shake, and I’d feel as if a current were coursing through my limbs, as if an invisible electric net were wrapped around my body and someone were inflicting minor Punishments on me, at random. And then a sudden, painful cramp would seize my shoulder or my legs. Now I could feel my foot going entirely numb, stiffening and tingling. As I walked, I dragged it behind me, limping. And there was more: for months my eyes had never ceased to water; my tears would flow for no reason, out of the blue.

What if I found myself described in them in a way that I couldn’t fathom? Or my favourite places, which for her are something completely different from what they are to me? In a way, people like her, those who wield a pen, can be dangerous. At once a suspicion of fakery springs to mind – that such a Person is not him or herself, but an eye that’s constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences; in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality – its inexpressibility.

But the truth is that anyone who feels Anger, and does not take action, merely spreads the infection. So says our Blake.

Reality has grown old and gone senile; after all, it is definitely subject to the same laws as every living organism – it ages. Just like the cells of the body, its tiniest components – the senses, succumb to apoptosis. Apoptosis is natural death, brought about by the tiredness and exhaustion of matter. In Greek this word means ‘the dropping of petals’. The world has dropped its petals.

Fancy being given a body and not knowing anything about it. There’s no instruction manual.

When I heard Good News’ account of her life, I mentally began to formulate questions that start with the words ‘Why don’t you…’, followed by a description of what – in our view – one should do in this sort of situation. My lips were on the point of producing one of these impertinent ‘why don’t yous’ when I bit my tongue.

I had my Theory about interjections of this kind: every single Person has their own expression which he or she overuses. Or uses incorrectly. These words or phrases are the key to their intellect. Mr ‘Apparently’, Mr ‘Generally’, Mrs ‘Probably’, Mr ‘Fucking’, Mrs ‘Don’t You Think?’, Mr ‘As If’. The President was Mr ‘In Truth’. Of course there are entire fashions for some words, just like the ones that for some crazy reason suddenly make everyone start going about in identical shoes or clothes – people just as suddenly start using one particular word or phrase. Recently the word ‘generally’ was fashionable, but now ‘actually’ is out in front.

I couldn’t help thinking that someone who overuses the phrase ‘in truth’ is sure to be a liar.