„Ich suchte eine Seele, die mir ähnlich wäre, und konnte sie nicht finden. Ich durchsuchte die verborgensten Winkel der Erde; meine Ausdauer war vergeblich. Allein konnte ich jedoch nicht bleiben. Ich brauchte jemanden, der meinen Charakter bejahte; ich brauchte jemanden, der ebenso dachte wie ich. (…) Einige Minuten lang sahen sie sich fest ins Gesicht; und beide erstaunten, so viel grausame Lust in den Blicken des anderen zu finden. Schwimmend drehen sie sich im Kreise, lassen einander nicht aus den Augen und jeder sagt sich: ‚Ich lebte bis jetzt im Irrtum; da ist einer, der böser ist als ich.‘ Da glitten sie zwischen zwei Wellen, einstimmig und in gegenseitiger Bewunderung aufeinander zu, die Haiin, das Wasser mit ihren Flossen zerteilend, und Maldoror, die Fluten mit seinen Armen schlagend; und sie hielten den Atem an in tiefer Verehrung, jeder von dem Wunsche erfüllt, zum erstenmal sein lebendiges Ebenbild zu betrachten.“

(2. Gesang, 13. Strophe)

- comte de lautréamont, die gesänge des maldoror

quote-book:

“She stood, in a room of crumbling plaster, pressed to the window-pane, looking up at the unattainable form of everything she loved. She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”

— Ayn Rand (via infinitebutterflies) (via aura-avis) (via sine-qua-non)

marianne [singing]:

I never told you I’d love you all my life. Oh my love, you never swore to adore me all your life. We never made promises like that, knowing me knowing you. We never thought we ever would be caught by love fickle as we were. And yet, and yet, step by step, without a word between us, bit by bit, feelings slipped between our merry mingle bodies and words of love rose to our naked lips. Bit by bit lots of words of love began to mingle gently with our kisses. How many words of love? I never would have thought I’d always want you. Oh my love, we never would have thought we two could live together and not get bored. Wake up every morning and be just as surprised to be just as happy in the same bed, desire nothing more than that oh so banal pleasure of feeling so good to be together. And yet, and yet, step by step without a word between us, bit by bit our feelings bound us tight in spite of ourselves, bound us tight forever Feelings stronger than any words of love known or unknown. Feelings so wild and so strong. Feelings we never thought were possible before. Don’t ever promise to adore me all your life. Let’s not make promises like that knowing me knowing you. Let’s keep the feeling that this love of ours, this love of ours, will be short and sweet.

- jean-luc godard, {1965} pierrot le fou

V

“Her still singing limbs.”

*

“Look at the sky, look to yourself and remember: we are only god’s echoes and god is Narcissus.”

*

Aside from recurrence, revision and commensurate symbolic reference, echoes also reveal emptiness. Since objects always muffle or impede acoustic reflection, only empty places can create echoes of lasting clarity.

Ironically, hallowness only increases the eerie quality of otherness inherent in any echo. Delay and fragmented repetition create a sense of another inhabiting a necessarily deserted place. Strange then how something so uncanny and outside of the self, even ghostly as some have suggested, can at the same time also contain a resilient comfort: the assurance that even if it is imaginary and at best the product of a wall, there is still something else out there, something to stake out in the face of nothingness.

*

As Gloucester murmured, “I see it feelingly.”

*

Lude would never feel how “empty hallways long past midnight” could slice inside of you, though I’m not sure he wasn’t sliced up just the same. Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part.

*

Myth makes Echo the subject of longing and desire. Physics makes Echo the subject of distance and design. Where emotion and reason are concerned both claims are accurate.

And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love.

There is only silence.

*

And so it was that before another synapse could fire within my bad-off labyrinthine brain, he was already lying on the floor. Or I should say his mangled body was lying on the floor. His head remained in my hands. Twisted off like a cap. Not as difficult as I’d imagined. The first turn definitely the toughest, necessitating the breaking of cervical vertebrae and the snapping of the spinal cord, but after that, another six or so turns, and voilà - the head was off. Nothing could be easier. Time to get bowling.

*

Quick note here: if this crush - slash - swooning stuff is hard for you to stomach; if you’ve never had a similar experience, then you should come to grips with the fact that you’ve got a TV dinner for a heart and might want consider climbing inside a microwave and turning it on high for at least an hour, which if you do consider only goes to show what kind of idiot you truly are because microwaves are way too small for anyone, let alone you, to climb into.

- mark z. danielewski, house of leaves

IV

Hillary, their one year old Siberian Husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24” Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers - Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the world is still out there, continuing on as usual, even if two new doors now stand open, providing a view across a new space of darkness, from parent’s room to children’s room, where a tiny nightlight of the Star Ship Enterprise burns like some North Star.

- mark z. danielewski, house of leaves