Formal Request

“Dear Sir,” he began, too formal, he thought, but then the informal was too informal and missed the mark by even more. “I take it that,” no, scratch that. “Some months have passed since I last wrote, and I must assume, infer, from the absence of any response, even a brusque note regarding your intent to not reply substantively to any inquiry, that you are unwilling to answer my question. I consider it unlikely that you didn’t receive my letter, but if that is the case then I apologize for implying that you were inattentive to my request, and I write again: what, sir,”—the formality here too?—“what did Madimaken find in the abandoned chapel? I would like to justify this question, qualify, for I think it fair to assume that you consider it to be a matter of the utmost trivia. A great many words are let fall upon the page regarding this or that immoderate fancy of our beloved protagonist, yet none, not even those constituting the exigencies of his birth and education, weigh so heavily upon the mind as those describing his movements in and about the moldering entryway of the Chapel on the Hill. It is not enough to say nothing in this regard, nor will it suffice to say that there is no content. Yet it would be equally absurd to fix any one definite object. Among the concrete dry goods, sacks of flour, a wildflower garden, some dying animal, a three-legged milk-maid’s stool, none will satisfy. So too for the abstracta: free floating ennui, bravery, love of country, no, I daresay you have written an impossible situation, yet, by every hint of your language you give the impression that this is a question you can answer casually with a flick of your pen.”

Finishing this last line he crumpled the page and let it rest in his palm—it was wet at the creases and made the ink bleed. It was nervous business writing a letter, and the lack of reply was discouraging. But he had to know. Must I know? he thought. The point, that of not knowing, was weakened if he remained satisfied in not knowing—wasn’t it? It was. But I hadn’t the heart to spoil his fun by giving him any hints. I rested feebly on one leg, my calf burned, all mouths screaming, and no mother crying. Carrying Madimaken, sometimes dragging his limbless torso through a thick veil of thistles, was lonely work, and just as often it would displease him for all my efforts. Why then did I hang around, following him at times, giving my unsolicited advice and extending an unwanted hand? A good question. To be attempted later perhaps. He was pathetic—without qualification he was base—though noble in many ways, and I liked to think it was his noble qualities which attracted me to him and not his pathetic ones.

Such stories occupied my mind for some time. Nothing to do while Madimaken slept. After all, the tv was broken, working that is, but no reception. White noise seems to undulate with the stress on the front of the beat, at first, but then the mind flips the sound structure, and the accent falls to the back beat. And it doesn’t flip again until you start over. You may try to get it to go back. Go ahead. Madimaken slept with his boots on. I’d thought of taking them off but decided it would make me feel too close to him. He smelled of musk. It was overwhelming sometimes. I didn’t mind so much.

It was some time before he rose and we left his small apartment to walk to his class. No one would be there. The room would be dark and empty, perhaps even locked. Madimaken would sit down and copy the notes the professor had left on the board. Together we’d try to make sense of them, even recreate some of the discussion. Then Makimaken would crack open the back window and smoke a cigarette. Earlier he’d rolled about a dozen in under two minutes—he didn’t mind showing off at the things he was good at. Almost always he carried his cigarette kit with him. He got a bit of attention this way and even made a few friends as people would often ask him for a cigarette, and he’d make small talk while rolling a fresh one—even when he had a case of them already made.