Pharmakon
In and Out of Rooms
He is not such a fool as to be unaware that there are certain things one does not say. One does not say, “I worked hard and did everything right,” or “I am from a responsible family.” And one certainly does not say, “It is sad when it happens to ———. But how can it be happening to me?”
The problem then is to know what one does say, what one can say. What he says, over and over, to the person next to him is: “It’s just so strange. It’s just so strange.”
He has spent his life in and out of rooms. But never has he been in a room like this one: so small on the outside, but so large and crowded on the inside. He says to the person next to him, “You see, I was given assurances. And what is happening to me now is”—here he laughs bitterly—”so strange.”
The person next to him perhaps does not see. A silence settles between them, as though the things that should not have been said have, after all, been said.
Now there goes the ringtone again (it’s the “I love you” song), and they are dragging someone out again.