Chase

“And what never happened always seems beautiful. You are a deception that gives birth to discontent, a deception that I cannot and do not wish to drive away, since it disarms me and protects me from suffering with a quiet grief.”
― Meša Selimović, Death and the Dervish

“--How I Was Visited By Messengers--
Something clicked in the clock on the wall, and I was visited by messengers. at first, I did not realize that I was visited by messengers. instead, I thought that something was wrong with the clock. but then I saw that the clock worked just fine, and probably told the correct time. then I noticed that there was a draft in the room. and then it shocked me: what kind of thing could, at the same time, cause a clock to click and a draft to start in the room? I sat down on a chair next to the divan and looked at the clock, thinking about that. the big hand was on the number nine, and the little one on the four, therefore, it was a quarter till four. there was a calendar on the wall below the clock, and its leafs were flipping, as if there was a strong wind in my room. my heart was beating very fast and I was so scared it almost made me collapse.
"i should have some water," I said. on the table next to me was a pitcher with water. I reached out and took the pitcher.
"water should help," I said and looked at the water.
it was then that I realized that I had been visited by messengers, and that I could not tell them apart from the water. I was scared to drink the water, because I could, by accident, drink a messenger. what does that mean? nothing. one can only drink liquids. could the messengers be liquid? no. then, I can drink the water, there is nothing to be afraid of. but I couldn't find the water. I walked around the room and looked for the water. I tried putting a belt in my mouth, but it was not the water. I put the calendar in my mouth -- that also was not the water. I gave up looking for the water and started to look for the messengers. but how could I find them? what do they look like? I remembered that I could not distinguish them from the water, therefore, they must look like water. but what does water look like? I was standing and thinking. I do not know for how long I stood and thought, but suddenly I came to.
"there is the water," I thought.
but that wasn't the water and instead I got an itch in my ear.
I looked under the cupboard and under the bed, hoping that there I might find the water or the messengers. but under the cupboard, in a pile of dust, I found a little ball, half eaten by a dog, and under the bed I found some pieces of glass.
under the chair I found a half-eaten steak, I ate it and it made me feel better. it wasn't drafty anymore, the clock was ticking steadily, telling the time: a quarter till four.
"well, this means the messengers are gone," I said quietly and started to get dressed, since I had a visit to make.
-August 22, 1937”
― Daniil Kharms

“We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.”
― Thomas Bernhard, Extinction

“As I sat there in Southwold overlooking the German Ocean, I sensed a quite clearly the earth's slow turning into the dark. The huntsmen are up in America, wrote Thomas Browne in the Garden of Cyrus and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. The shadow of the night is drawn like a black veil across the earth, and since almost all creatures, from one meridian to the next, lie down after the sun has set, so, he continues, one might, in following the setting sun, see on our globe nothing but prone bodies, row upon row, as if leveled by the scythe of Saturn – an endless graveyard for a humanity struck by falling sickness”
― W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn