Of course, I should take my life immediately, that would be the honourable thing, W. says. I should climb the footstool to the noose… But it would already be too late, that’s the problem, W. says. The sin has already been committed. The sin against existence, against the whole order of existing things.
That I should have lived at all is a disgrace, W. says. It’s the disgrace, the disgrace of disgraces. But about the fact that I do exist, nothing can be done.
He could stab me. In fact he’s offered several times. Sometimes I’ve asked him to. Sometimes I’ve proposed a double suicide: he stabbing me, and I him. But then, of course, it would do nothing; it’s already too late. There’s only the fact that I exist, and the fact that his, W.’s, existence has already been utterly contaminated by my existence.
A double suicide — is that the answer? But who would stab who first? Who would string up the nooses? And could W. be sure, really sure, that I was really prepared to die as he was? Or even that he would be prepared to die as I apparently was?
Death seems as far away from us as ever. When will it end?, W. wonders. Isn’t the end overdue? Shouldn’t it have come already? When the apocalypse comes, it will be a relief, W. says. We’ll close our eyes at last. There’ll be no more need to apologise, or to account for ourselves. No guilt…
Lars Iyer, Spurious
