Monster - 1. "Petals on a Wet Black Bough"

I cannot shake the feeling that my mother is still alive. Down in the cellar of that collapsed mansion, she slouches in her wooden chair: head down, eyes shut, arms crossed under her breasts. Aside from the parasomniac nourishment of spiders, she sustains herself with stories. Unlike Scheherazade, she is the author, audience, and subject of her own monody. She awaits her death, wondering if it is even possible.

I, on the other hand, have no doubts about my mortality. The end is not far off. I will write out this story, this confession, and then expire quietly under a cherry tree. My mother believed I was capable of only base animal emotions, but I think my choice of resting place indicates an appreciation for beauty beyond the grasp of whatever cold-hearted monster she mistook me for. Then again, she may have been right: if my scope is as limited as she thought, then I cannot trust my sense of human emotions. The key to my neuroses is my inability to understand them.

And so I will soon expire by my own hand. With open veins, I will settle back against the trunk of my favorite cherry tree, mouthing Riley's name for the forgiveness he cannot afford me. Blanchot says forgiveness accuses before it forgives, and Riley could never reach far enough back through time to accuse me justly. In any event, he is down in that cellar with my mother, dead.

The perfect version of this story, the one I already know is impossible to write, would exonerate me. It would recast my family and me as victims of history, heredity, and society. The relativist's defense: if all are guilty, then so are none.

A shower of rain and petals follows a sharp northern wind. That its beauty staggers me shows I am human; that I find anything beautiful in spite of my history shows I am not.

I fan open my hands. They reveal no answers.