I Do Need From Here
Perhaps because I'm too cheap to buy new computers, first desktops and more recently laptops, my machines develop this problem or that sooner than expected, and I'm faced with whether to take it for repair that will cost as much as simply buying a new refurbished one, my den/study/office is currently home to four second-hands, of which one works acceptably. So I've been making it a project the last several days, to erase them, wipe them clean and reinstall the base system and the operating system that goes on top of it. Two of the three recalcitrant ones are now finished, lacking only the ten year old one that I bought used nine years ago, that went to Cleveland with me and that Tass and Joe used to post updates on my CaringBridge site. It's clean, but the number keys don't work, so I haven't yet been able to get online with it and install the new software. Anon.
At any event, as I wipe them, I'm looking at what's to be deleted and saving some pics and other things, a few articles I liked and meant to come back and read again.
One such, from summer just over two years ago, I copied and pasted below. It intrigued me because I do not at all agree with it: unlike László Krasznahorkai, I do very much need from here, those beloved and those close to me; and although, like László, I also have looked into what's coming, I'd let it all go in a heartbeat if I could keep instead the love and loves I've loved here. But that's not possible, is it. "For (1 Timothy 6:7) we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out".
Illustration by Alex Merto
At any event, as I wipe them, I'm looking at what's to be deleted and saving some pics and other things, a few articles I liked and meant to come back and read again.
One such, from summer just over two years ago, I copied and pasted below. It intrigued me because I do not at all agree with it: unlike László Krasznahorkai, I do very much need from here, those beloved and those close to me; and although, like László, I also have looked into what's coming, I'd let it all go in a heartbeat if I could keep instead the love and loves I've loved here. But that's not possible, is it. "For (1 Timothy 6:7) we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out".
This is the second in a series of flash-fiction pieces that The New Yorker will be presenting throughout the summer.
I would leave everything here: the valleys, the hills, the paths, and the jaybirds from the gardens, I would leave here the petcocks and the padres, heaven and earth, spring and fall, I would leave here the exit routes, the evenings in the kitchen, the last amorous gaze, and all of the city-bound directions that make you shudder, I would leave here the thick twilight falling upon the land, gravity, hope, enchantment, and tranquillity, I would leave here those beloved and those close to me, everything that touched me, everything that shocked me, fascinated and uplifted me, I would leave here the noble, the benevolent, the pleasant, and the demonically beautiful, I would leave here the budding sprout, every birth and existence, I would leave here incantation, enigma, distances, inexhaustibility, and the intoxication of eternity; for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me from here, because I’ve looked into what’s coming, and I don’t need anything from here.
Translated, from the Hungarian, by Ottilie Mulzet.