Story-time with Aaron: Part 1
Tuesday March 30, 2010
So I bought an iPod touch, at the more expensive Korean price because I'm impatient, thinking that I would be able to write things on the train. I like the touch screen keyboard, and the size is ideal for train typing. I hope to do my Korean homework on the train when the new semester starts, but I also thought I might be able to write other things for fun. Tap Tap Revenge is pretty darn fun, but one way or another I have actually started writing some stuff. I'm as surprised as anybody. So here's the beginning of a strange little story, written in the second-person present imperative, with a major character with my name. Not really edited at all, just whatever I was rambling at the time. And I think I ought to add, I'm feeling a little sick.
It can't be helped. "Even great minds suffer from the occasional lapse in confidence. I'm sure he'll be fine."
Mrs. Tabernacle is momentarily confused. "Oh - it's not that. I mean he isn't believing that he exists right now. He can be hard to talk to when he gets like this."
How peculiar. Still, it can't be helped. Head into the house. Follow Mrs. Tabernacle up the stairs. Aaron is laying in bed, shrouded by an extravagantly overstuffed duvet.
"Hello dear, are you existing, at the moment?" Mrs. Tabernacle calls to the corpse.
"Mother," comes the reply, have you been telling people I don't think I exist again? You know I told you, it isn't that, it's just that I don't see any compelling reason to believe that I do exist. It's not the same thing."
Mrs. Tabernacle has heard this before. "Okay dear, well, your friend is here." She leaves the room.
"Cogito ergo sum though, isn't it?"
Aaron sits up to answer. "You know, it's the damndest thing. It's an issue I think is important, and something I think about rather a lot, but do you know what I always have to say first whenever somebody mentions that?"
"No, what?"
"He published it first in French. Did you know he published it first in French?" Aaron does not wait for an answer. "He deliberately did it in French, but everybody insists on quoting it in Latin."
"Oh."
"And that's what I always have to say first. But it doesn't matter. Either way, it's wrong."
"So you don't exist?"
"Well, I'm reasonably well convinced that something has to exist, thanks to ol' Descartes, but I don't see how I should be able to know just what it is. Anyway, why are you here?"
"It's Thursday."
"Ah, yes." Aaron smiles on half of his face. "We still haven't quite got the hang of Thursdays, have we?"
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