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Thursday, August 30, 2012

"Ill Seen Ill Said"

The old woman is slowly giving away to age, becoming blind, and scatterbrained. She begins to question every intangible truth in life she once knew such as time, direction, truth, good and evil. Memories lull in and out of her mind. She no longer knows the day, but only the night and twilight, but even these she has suspicions for. She no longer knows what to say for she cannot trust her mind or eyes "Ill seen Ill said."

"Such-such fiasco that folly takes a hand. Such bits and scraps. Seen no matter how and said as seen. Dread of black. Of white. Of void. Let her vanish. And the rest. For good. And the sun. Last rays. And the moon. And Venus. Nothing left but black sky. White earth. Or inversely. No more sky or earth. Finished high and low. Nothing but black and white. Everywhere no matter where. But black. Void. Nothing else. Contemplate that. Not another word. Home at last. Gently gently" (460). 

This old woman is stuck on the unknowings of her mind, and slowly becoming one with her home, the shack. She will not leave, cannot leave for good. It is the last sure thing she has and must grasp hold of it. The two of them, slowly dying, sit and stare out at the world, but cannot stray far into it. All her ramblings and suspicions are pointless. She won't remember her starting thought when she reaches a conclusion, and will be left confused, better to sit and stare in her chair, in her shack.

 "Incontinent the void. The zenith. Evening again. When not night it will be evening. Death again of deathless day. On the one hand embers. On the other ashes. Day without end won and lost. Unseen" (463). 

The unnamed woman tortures herself in knowing that she does not know. She is not afforded blissful blindness to the maze between her eye and mind. She knows that she knows not certainties any longer.

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