Sade would have distrusted any theory that described the universe as a stable machine.
Stable machines produce boredom.
And boredom was one of the few things that genuinely seemed to offend him.
That is why his books are filled with destruction.
Not because he worshipped disaster.
But because he sensed something more uncomfortable.
That every structure is already in the process of collapsing.
That collapse does not arrive.
Collapse is already happening.
The crack in the ceiling has moved again.
This time I am certain.
Not much.
Perhaps the width of a fingernail.
Perhaps less.
I try to remember where it ended yesterday.
I cannot.
What is strange is that I cannot remember where it ended ten minutes ago either.
I look around the room.
The desk.
The wall.
The folded note.
The glass of water.
Everything seems identical.
Everything seems slightly different.
It is a small difference.
Too small to prove.
Too persistent to ignore.
Sade would have enjoyed this.
Visible destruction is vulgar.
Anyone can recognize a building collapsing.
The interesting destruction occurs when something remains apparently intact.
Yet can never return to its previous state.
Then the excitement appears.
Not physical excitement.
Not yet.
Something closer to a cognitive discharge.
The sensation of observing a truth that normally remains hidden.
Like discovering that the dust on the desk is not accumulating.
It is replacing something.
I do not know what.
But the feeling remains.
I try to look away.
It does not work.
The room has begun behaving like a question.
And questions have a peculiar way of occupying space.
The note remains closed.
I have never opened it.
I am almost certain.
And yet I know a sentence I do not remember reading.
It arrives suddenly.
Complete.
Sharp.
As if it had been waiting behind my eyes.
IT IS NOT THE WORLD THAT IS FALLING INTO DISORDER.
Nothing else.
Just that.
I stare at it.
The note remains folded shut.
That should reassure me.
It has the opposite effect.
Because I have no explanation for knowing what it contains.
The crack draws my attention again.
Then I understand something about Sade.
Perhaps destruction was never what interested him.
Perhaps what interested him was the exact moment a structure discovers it is already destroyed.
The difference is enormous.
A building may take years to fall.
But the collapse begins much earlier.
The same is true of an identity.
The same is true of desire.
The same is true of a civilization.
And perhaps the same is true of me.
The excitement returns.
Stronger this time.
Colder.
More precise.
It is not caused by an image.
Nor by a fantasy.
Not even by the thought of Sade.
It is caused by a suspicion.
The suspicion that I have been watching a disappearance for a very long time.
And only now am I beginning to notice what is actually disappearing.
The room remains motionless.
The computer emits its steady hum.
A pipe knocks once behind the wall.
The note remains closed.
The crack continues advancing.
I have to move my neck.
I am not moving it.
I should.
The base of my skull is a surface of cold plaster.
And for the first time I am not certain whether the room is collapsing.
Or whether the continuity between one second and the next is what has begun to go missing.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
