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I wondered what pigeons know about death. At one point I had a sense that the widow wasn’t so much mourning as waiting, as if she thought what had happened to the pigeon could be reversed. My suspicions were confirmed, in a way, when the wind started to blow. The widow got excited because it looked like the corpse was stirring; the wing that was outstretched, as if it had fallen there, began to move in a kind of flapping motion. The widow abandoned her pose and started pacing nervously up and down, though she didn’t move any closer to the corpse. She simply walked back and forth in a straight line, shaking her head and looking concerned. When the wind dropped, she returned to her waiting. This happened again, two or three times, with every fresh gust of wind. I kept putting off my breakfast, fascinated by the scene. Then my memory presented me with the key to this tragedy: I suddenly recalled that a few months ago I’d seen a different incomprehensible scene unfold outside my window. On a balcony of the hotel opposite, on a higher floor than my apartment, I’d seen a man, who was neither young nor thin, absorbed in a strange pursuit. The hotel is no longer in use; it’s closed down, and the building is very dilapidated. There are no windows or blinds, and one of the openings that lead onto the balconies doesn’t even have a door. On the floor below there’s always a little window lit up at night; I don’t know who lives there, or even if they’re legal residents. Now and then I’ve seen someone, someone younger and thinner than the other person, drinking mate on the balcony of the floor level with this one. In the strange scene my memory presented me with, the man who was neither young nor thin was firing stones from a catapult, aiming at the street corner diagonally across from the hotel. The man noticed me at the window and launched several stones one after another, apparently at random, and then vanished into the hotel. I thought he’d found a catapult in the street and couldn’t resist trying a few shots. But today I realised something else was going on: that man hated pigeons, and had made the catapult himself in order to kill every single one that came within range. It seems implausible, but I’m sure it’s what happened. I hope the widow is spared.
why is this so moving
Today I don’t feel like writing. I’m low on energy and a bit fidgety and uncomfortable, perhaps because for some reason I got up before I’d had eight hours of sleep. I spent a bit of time reading this diary; I’m going slowly, because it’s tiring. I don’t know if it’s tiring because it’s badly written or because it’s my diary and my brain has to work harder than it would if it had been written by someone else. But even if it is badly written, I think it’s an interesting read. I’ll have to edit the style a bit, give it some substance; it covers so many different topics, and sometimes I try to say too much in a single sentence. And because it only talks about trivial things, if the style doesn’t draw people in there’ll be nothing going for it. Who knows what I’ll do; nothing, for now, besides carry on, one way or another.
A whole day spent programming. Uncalled for. Inappropriate. Inadequate. This won’t do.
lmao
Another day of muscle pain and distraction, or rather what my doctor, who called in late last night, described as [a word I can’t remember right now, a synonym of ‘splitting’; she used a more technical psychiatric term]. Chl came before that. Her PMT was in overdrive, but she’s always a delight. Today her radiant beauty was enhanced by two equally delightful Tupperware containers full of milanesas. My freezer is packed: bread, milanesas, stew. What more could I ask for in life?
sweet
But now I’m rambling. I’ll just mention that the computer was turned on for most of the day. I didn’t receive a single email. I turned one of my Visual Basic programs into another, which will tell me whenever I’m straying from the schedule I set myself for using the computer. Because today I woke up furious at my addiction; I’d gone to bed furious the night before and I woke up furious after spending the small hours, and much of the morning, dreaming – and thinking – about a program that would close Windows at a specified time. In the end I opted for a less aggressive system, because having Windows close automatically after a series of strict, draconian warnings has never helped me much; in situations like that, I generally rebel. This program, which is very advanced, will simply show me a little box with a friendly reminder that I’m trying to detox. I’m not sure if it’ll work, but I owe it to myself to try. I’m still doing everything I can, as with the difficult, even arduous task of paying attention to my shoulders. Every now and then I remember and lower them to their natural position. Yesterday, or rather today, I was able to go to sleep without the back and kidney pain of recent days. The body responds quickly, and very positively, to the slightest effort to improve.
lol
Yesterday (Friday, I mean) I had time to phone my cousin; he left me an answerphone message about ten days ago, and I hadn’t been able to get to the phone at a reasonable hour to call him back. And you need plenty of time to spare if you want to talk to my cousin; he doesn’t share my phobia of telephones in the slightest and can rabbit on for hours, the way women do. When you try to suggest that you’re busy and need to hang up, he works in yet more topics of conversation. Ever since we were much younger, he’s been introducing me to his friends by saying, ‘This is my crazy cousin,’ and I introduce him in turn with exactly the same words. Although we’re very different in lots of ways, I’m sure we have a very similar psychological make-up. For now, what differentiates us is what you might call our awareness of the illness; my cousin almost completely lacks that awareness, and is convinced his problems are caused by things that have nothing to do with him, such as the situation in the country, and perhaps a set of circumstances that have come together by chance just to annoy him. I’m aware of what’s wrong with me and I fight against it – unsuccessfully, most of the time, though with the odd transient or temporary victory. But I carry on being aware of it, even if I can’t overcome it. I wonder how long this awareness will last, and these partial victories which, though fleeting, let me keep doing what I need to do to survive. It’s very likely that before too long I’ll find myself with no solution, restricting myself more and more by the day, and without a clue where my problems come from.
I managed to update my schedule for the week, print it out and turn the computer off again; eight minutes in total. While I was at it, I checked the graph of my screen time; it’s still a bit high for my liking, but it’s dropped considerably, from five hours a day to three hours and fifty-six minutes, so four. Come to think of it, I wonder if this program, which I made myself, has an error in the process it uses to calculate the average. We’re eight days into October, and if my average is four hours a day, the total number of hours should be thirty-two. However, quickly adding up the number of hours each day gave me a total of twenty-four, which should mean an average of three hours a day rather than four. And now here I am, writing about the world of the computer as a way of overcoming my withdrawal symptoms. The world of the computer is even appearing in my dreams; before waking up this afternoon, I dreamed repeatedly about a particular operation in Visual Basic. It involved one line of a program that was meant to delete a file when I ran it. But the line contained a contradiction, because right there within it was a command to recreate the same file. I ran that line, or that program which consisted of a single line, over and over again, and I was always amazed when nothing changed. I couldn’t find where in that line the second command was, the one which invalidated the first. I realise now that, in the dream, I wasn’t trying to change the line because deep down I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to delete the file, and I’d probably added the second command just in case I regretted what the first command had done. This is surely a sign from the highest part of my unconscious, showing me that my ambivalence about something is making me ineffective or, worse, making me waste my energy repeating, over and over, some contradictory actions that don’t change anything, don’t lead anywhere and are therefore completely pointless. I’ll sit down and have a go at analysing this message soon. [...]
lol
[...] I was even more surprised when this presumed male pigeon suddenly broke out into a frenzied courtship dance around the corpse. I’d just got dressed and hadn’t had any breakfast; I was keen to have some and get on with my day, since my monumental all-nighter meant I’d woken up very late and had a lot to do before it was time to turn the computer off (6.15 p.m.) and start my yoga class (7 p.m.). But I couldn’t stop watching the strange spectacle of what I believed was a male pigeon, courting what I believed was another male pigeon, who was, let’s not forget, dead and decomposing. The suitor’s little dance was brief and violent, as if prompted by uncontrollable sexual passion; but then, faced with the immobility of the object of desire, the lack of any response, he broke off abruptly and seemed plunged into a terrible confusion. An occasional light breeze fluttered a feather here and there, on the corpse and on the paving stones where a few were scattered, small and white. That movement seemed to be the main cause of the suitor’s confusion, since although it wasn’t the ideal response it was at least a sign of activity, and therefore, he must have thought, of life. And so, faced with this dilemma, all the suitor could do was walk up and down, like someone pacing nervously to and fro with his hands clasped behind his back, his mind working keenly to solve some urgent problem or reach a decision. Up and down he walked, and then suddenly he jumped onto the dead pigeon like someone climbing onto a small promontory, the better to survey the landscape. He walked around on top of the body, turning in circles, pirouetting, stamping his feet. Then he hopped back down onto the paving stones and walked a bit more, shaking his head slightly the whole time as if to express serious doubt, a total inability to believe what was happening. A gust of wind, a slight ripple of feathers and the suitor was up once again, stamping his feet, turning in circles, until suddenly, with his back to me, still on top of the corpse, he made a few frantic movements of copulation. He must have reached orgasm almost immediately, because he quickly detached himself from what had once been the object of his desire and flew away. I thought: ‘Now this poor dead pigeon has seen it all.’ I also thought: ‘Please don’t let that happen to me when I die.’
:(
I took a long time making breakfast and had just got everything ready when I realised I’d forgotten something, I don’t remember what, and went back to the bedroom. I couldn’t help glancing out of the window at the sunny evening and, my God, what do I see but the necrophiliac male pigeon back for more. This time he was less frantic, though still confused and hesitant. He walked around the corpse, walked over the top of it, stamped on it; all more sedately than before, but the ritual was the same. Then he climbed down from the dead pigeon and stood to one side of it. He pecked among the feathers on his chest, and then pecked at the feathers of the corpse, probably on its wing, which is still lying outstretched. A small white feather appeared in the live pigeon’s beak. The operation was repeated various times. For a second I thought maybe he’d started eating the corpse, but then I realised that wasn’t what was going on, or at least it didn’t seem to be. Another little white feather appeared in his beak. Then, I don’t know in what order, he walked around the body, stood on top of it, strode around a bit more up there and then got back down and stood next to it again. In the meantime, another, considerably bigger and more aggressive male pigeon arrived, whiter and with iridescent blue-green feathers around its neck (a kind of pigeon that for some reason I dislike more than all the others), and began its own courtship dance. The previous suitor beat a hasty retreat. The new male was left in charge of the situation, but he wasn’t interested in the corpse; the object of his desire was clearly the other male pigeon, if he really was a male pigeon, because by this point in proceedings I’d stopped understanding or trying to understand or believing I understood what was happening. The supposed male took a few turns around the roof and left. I went to have my breakfast, feeling a little queasy.
god lol
[...] I thought it might be because I’d personalised my Windows colour scheme; perhaps they’d put the results in white text on a white background and that was why nothing showed up. But there’s no way to change the colours in the program; you can’t even highlight the text with the mouse so it appears in negative, and nor can you copy it. Then I thought no more about it and hit uninstall. That didn’t work very well either, because it left remains of the program on my computer, which I then had to delete manually. The famous Uruguayan software industry … what absolute crap. Modestly, I should add that my own programs, though simpler and less ambitious, are much better designed and made, whichever way you look at them. I configured the Windows screen so it returned to how it used to be, and luckily it worked. Everything was back to normal.
lol