BoJack is sitting in the observatory, Sarah Lynn has just died. There is creeping silence - as Bojack is coming to terms with his immeasurable loss. There is a sound of someone struggling to crawl across the floor.
BoJack: Hey, what are you doing there? Who are you? What did you see? Am I dreaming? Samsa: No, it is not a dream, I thought so too - but it looks like, it is as real as reality can get. As to who and what I am - even I do not know that. My name is Gregor Samsa, not that you will remember me anyways. BoJack: How did you end up here? How am I able to understand you? Samsa: Misery is universally understood by those who suffer. BoJack: Are you trapped in that shell? It looks like you are trying to get out. Samsa: We are all trapped in our shells, and we are all trying to get out. It is who I am now. What about you BoJack? BoJack: I think I am trapped inside a dream, where I have just killed my only friend, due to my self-absorbing behavior. Samsa: Certainly not the only friend. But yes, it does look like that. Again, it is not a dream. You are now trapped in the reality of your choices. BoJack: What do I do? How do I fix this? Samsa: Take a look at me. Do you think I have any knowledge of fixing things? BoJack: I guess we are trapped in this reality forever. Samsa: I do not know about forever but for now - Yes, we are absolutely trapped in our respective conditions. Bojack: I think I can fix this, I will pretend I was never here, and call the police. Samsa: By doing that, you will only postpone the inevitable. And, you certainly can’t fix this. BoJack: What is inevitable here? Samsa: The condition you exhibit - the one you have metamorphosed into, and its aftermath is something that will catch up to you and eventually be the end of who you are. BoJack: Has your metamorphosis caught up to you yet? Samsa: I think it has. I have left my family alone and they seem to be thriving and happy without me. BoJack: And how did you do that? Samsa: Oh dear BoJack! Exactly how Sarah Lynn did.
BoJack looks at Sarah Lynn and looks back at Samsa. But Samsa has disappeared and is nowhere to be seen. BoJack starts calling
Samsa… Samsa… Samsaa…
The bleakening silence returns as BoJack gets up and leaves the auditorium, leaving Sarah Lynn and Samsa behind.
the way i read the iliad at the tender age of 17 to get achilles’ grieving scenes which like SURE but 17 year old me should have been reading the táin.
June, July, August. Every day, we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes.
“It is a muggy August morning and the air in the room is still. Well over half the year has gone by already, which is a worry. I wanted to make something of myself this year. There’s still time, I think. Definitely some time.”
Always keep mint on your windowsill in August, to ensure that buzzing flies will stay outside, where they belong. Don’t think the summer is over, even when roses droop and turn brown and the stars shift position in the sky. Never presume August is a safe or reliable time of the year. It is the season of reversals, when the birds no longer sing in the morning and the evenings are made up of equal parts golden light and black clouds. The rock-solid and the tenuous can easily exchange places until everything you know can be questioned and put into doubt.
“She remembered it was August and they say August brings bad luck. But September would arrive one day like an exit. And September was for some reason a lighter and more transparent month.”
“It is August: the true ending of a year. I’ve grown sick from trying to love who I am.”
The Months, Linda Pastan (x) // The Terrible, Yrsa Daley-Ward // The Pond, Mary Oliver (x) // Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (x) // In Search for a Dignity, Clarice Lispector (x) // Basic August, Eileen Myles // High Bridge Park, CarlieHoffman (x)
![[ID: there and back again / i traveled there on tranquilizers, / back on painkillers / there were no other routes / i felt so shattered, / feared i’d pierce the aircraft cabin, / the hotel’s interior was intricately designed, / the interlocutor’s bodies so beautiful / war doesn’t suit the rest of the world / like mutilation with an evening gown: / the look’s too heavy / the language too sharp / the details too brutal / let’s close death’s eyes with your hands, dear, / you can reach, you’re closer there / we’ve got a special person for the hard conversations / we’ve got a special room / separate entrance and exit, not here, please / beautiful young bodies dive into the canal’s waters, / sunlit, full of love, life, laughter / perfect, audacious, like / German pre-war postcards / a healthy spirit in a healthy body / carefully selected grains with no blemishes, / as we once were, sure of ourselves, love-filled / in the face of death i say to you: / love me as if there will never be / enough light to find each other again / love me until it seems / death’s turned a blind eye, / but she’s spying, from now on always everywhere / we know it, we can’t finish / the war’s taking care of our future, / as they say / as they see it / when you call from the war / birds are chirping / so the world still exists]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/a7b3a77003b5de3903a96d9d3563f3a5/e42add3994d781c9-19/s500x750/c2875dfc3994888d2e234be45dc6e3554cb98370.jpg)
