The words in newspapers put a certain book into my hands, again. Night. I cannot say I like the book or that I love it or that it is good, because it is an unholy thing, a monstrous book. I will never forget the first day that I read it. I was eight years old and it was the day after my older brother’s birthday and I began reading the book on the bus on the way to school and already I understood something of violence- but nothing compared to what I would learn. Night is slim, even someone else could read it in a day and so I devoured it before I arrived to sit in chairs and be taught nothing, all day long, again, as would be my fate for the next ten years.
I spent much of that day bursting into tears. I was still learning what people were like— the way they would hurt and manipulate others, the things they would allow to happen to children, the sweet focusing power that pain possessed when wielded against oneself. When I came to the section where Eliezer was being whipped and writes “Only the first really hurt” and when it is over and the Kapo says to him “Understood?” and he writes “I nodded once, ten times, endlessly. As if my head had decided to say yes for all eternity” … it is not possible to overstate the effect these words had on me. Of course I already knew what it was like to nod my head in such a manner. But I did not know that anyone else in the world knew.
I slept last night, pleased with a day spent working hard and not making mistakes. I woke this morning to read of an appallingly casual act of mass murder committed in Las Vegas, hurriedly checked to make sure the people I knew thereabouts were safe, and felt sickened by my relief. Hateful words like “cholera” and “million” are printed too close together for any comfort and my sobriety makes me feel guilty for everything that I have done and also for everything that others have done. I am aware that my penchant for assigning unreasonable blame to myself is designed to render me powerless but that does not make me feel any differently. The constant assault of tragedy grows taxing, but I would be burdened by the past even if all the world was green.
The only thing to do is take a drink of ice water and feel the unearthly sharp pain of the cold striking the crater of my wisdom tooth. The air outside today is pleasant for what feels like the first time in months. It is the kind of day you would have loved. As is my custom I sit on the porch with the breeze washing over me and I think of the question Vonnegut asked everyone, a question I have been trying to ask myself each day: “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
I spent much of that day bursting into tears. I was still learning what people were like— the way they would hurt and manipulate others, the things they would allow to happen to children, the sweet focusing power that pain possessed when wielded against oneself. When I came to the section where Eliezer was being whipped and writes “Only the first really hurt” and when it is over and the Kapo says to him “Understood?” and he writes “I nodded once, ten times, endlessly. As if my head had decided to say yes for all eternity” … it is not possible to overstate the effect these words had on me. Of course I already knew what it was like to nod my head in such a manner. But I did not know that anyone else in the world knew.
I slept last night, pleased with a day spent working hard and not making mistakes. I woke this morning to read of an appallingly casual act of mass murder committed in Las Vegas, hurriedly checked to make sure the people I knew thereabouts were safe, and felt sickened by my relief. Hateful words like “cholera” and “million” are printed too close together for any comfort and my sobriety makes me feel guilty for everything that I have done and also for everything that others have done. I am aware that my penchant for assigning unreasonable blame to myself is designed to render me powerless but that does not make me feel any differently. The constant assault of tragedy grows taxing, but I would be burdened by the past even if all the world was green.
The only thing to do is take a drink of ice water and feel the unearthly sharp pain of the cold striking the crater of my wisdom tooth. The air outside today is pleasant for what feels like the first time in months. It is the kind of day you would have loved. As is my custom I sit on the porch with the breeze washing over me and I think of the question Vonnegut asked everyone, a question I have been trying to ask myself each day: “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
