The worst part is not thinking about the Master.
The worst part is that I no longer know exactly when I begin thinking about him.
There used to be causes.
Now there are only appearances.
This morning I opened the refrigerator to get milk.
Nothing important.
The yellow light came on.
There was a half-empty bottle.
A plastic container.
Two lemons.
And for one completely ridiculous moment I felt that same sensation.
The same one.
Not an emotion.
Not exactly.
Something closer to recognizing a song before remembering its name.
I stared into the refrigerator for too long.
Long enough to forget what I was looking for.
That is the embarrassing part.
Not the obsession.
The gaps it leaves behind.
The missing seconds.
The misalignments.
Sometimes it happens with even more absurd things.
I am watching videos that have nothing to do with anything.
A man restoring a clock.
Rain hitting a window.
An interview with someone I will never see again.
And suddenly it appears.
Not him.
The way of thinking about him.
Which is worse.
Because it has no face.
No argument.
No reason.
It simply occupies space.
Like humidity.
Like dust.
Like a crack slowly learning the exact shape of a wall.
The harder I try to remove the thought the more visible it becomes.
Like a stain on a white shirt.
At first it barely exists.
Then it becomes impossible to look at anything else.
Yesterday I found myself reading an irrelevant notification three times.
It was a message about an automatic update.
Nothing important.
Not a single word referred to him.
And yet I ended up thinking about him.
I cannot explain the route.
I do not know how it happened.
I only know that it happened.
It is beginning to resemble a disorder of meaning.
Everything connects.
Everything eventually points toward the same place.
The Sadness That Was Not Sadness
There is something else.
Something worse.
Something I still do not know how to name.
I used to think it was sadness.
Now I do not.
Sadness has a recognizable shape.
Sadness wants something.
It wants company.
It wants rest.
It wants explanation.
This does not.
This is different.
It appears when everything seems fine.
When I am sitting down.
When I am eating.
When someone tells a funny story and I even laugh.
And yet there is a small pressure behind everything.
A strange absence.
As though something has shifted slightly out of place.
A crooked painting in an empty room.
It does not hurt.
But it does not disappear either.
The more I examine it the more space it occupies.
And the more space it occupies the less capable I become of describing it.
I think perhaps I miss something.
But I do not know what.
I think perhaps I want something.
But I do not know what either.
Then the thought of the Master appears.
And for a few seconds everything seems to fit together.
Which is humiliating.
Because I do not want it to fit.
I do not want that to be the explanation.
I do not want my mind returning to the same point like a defective compass.
But it returns.
It always returns.
Before Sleep
Night remains the worst hour.
Not because I think more.
Because I am already tired of thinking.
I lie down.
I look at the ceiling.
I try to follow the distant sound of a car.
I try to focus on anything else.
For a few seconds it works.
Then it does not.
Then it comes back.
Not as an image.
Not even as a fantasy.
More like an administrative presence.
Like a file left open.
Like a task that was never properly archived.
Then the embarrassment arrives.
Not dramatic embarrassment.
A small embarrassment.
Private.
Silent.
The embarrassment of realizing how much space something occupies inside me.
The embarrassment of knowing it will happen again tomorrow.
While making coffee.
While waiting at a traffic light.
While watching strangers cross a street.
While living an apparently normal life.
And that is exactly why it becomes harder to escape.
Because nothing looks strange from the outside.
Everything strange happens inside.
And inside the Master remains.
Not always speaking.
Not always watching.
Simply remaining.
And the more I try to understand why he remains.
The more he remains.
The neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
