Chapter 36 Section 34

It's spider time.Spiders in high corners of the room.The egg sac is wrapped in spider silk.The silver thread is flying, purely like the flickering of light, and light like fleeting news, concepts conceived in the light.A voice from upstairs said, "Now look at this. Joni is trying to kick Ralph's knee with a bushido kick. She strikes, he falls, she runs." Denise told Babette that Steffi checked her chest every day for lumps.Babette told me again. Murray and I expanded the range of meditative walks.One day in town, he had a small, embarrassing euphoria when he talked about parking cars sideways.There is a charm and a sense of Native American amidst the rows of slanted vehicles.This type of parking is an integral part of the American townscape, even if the cars are foreign-made.Not only is this arrangement practical, but it also avoids collisions—the kind of stance that can be sexually aggressive when parking nose to rear on crowded big city streets.

Even if you're somewhere, you can miss it and feel homesick, Murray said. A two-story world on an ordinary high street.Courteous, sensible, unhurriedly commercialized, a pre-war approach, with architectural details bearing pre-war remnants of storeys, copper-clad cornices and lead-clad windows and "dime store "On the drum-shaped frieze above the doorway. It reminds me of the law of ruins. I told Murray that I wanted to build buildings that would collapse like Roman ruins, not rusty wrecks or alleyways of crooked steel and crappy concrete.He knew that Hitler would have appreciated anything that might shock future generations.He painted a picture of the romantic collapse of a Third Reich-style building made of exotic materials, with crumbling walls and broken columns surrounded by wisteria.I said that the creation of ruins is to show some nostalgia hidden behind the principle of power, or to construct the tendency that future generations desire.

"I don't trust nostalgia in anyone but my own," Murray said. "Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and anger. It smoothes out the discontent between the present and the past. Nostalgia The stronger it is, the closer you are to violence. When people are forced to cry out in praise of their country, nostalgia takes the form of war." A period of wet weather.I opened the refrigerator and looked into the freezer.The plastic wrap that wraps food, the tiny lids on half-eaten things, the Ziploc bags of liver and ribs, all glistening with ice crystals that make a strange crackling sound when touched.The cold, dry hissing sound seemed to be the sound of some kind of ingredient bursting and melting into the Freon mist.A strange static, lingering but barely audible, reminds me of beings in hibernation, some form of dormant life about to regain consciousness.

There was no one around.I walked out of the kitchen, opened the trash compactor drawer, and rummaged through the trash bags.A soggy mass of squashed cans, hangers, animal bones, and other rubbish.Bottles shattered, cardboard boxes crumbled.The color of the product is undiminished in gloss and intensity.Animal fats, juices, and heavy grime ooze from the squeezed layers of vegetable pomace.I felt like an archaeologist trying to sift through and look through the debris of utensils and miscellaneous cave litter found.It has been almost ten days since Denise crushed and compacted "Dai Leer".That round of rubbish has almost certainly been sent outside and is now being picked up.Even if they hadn't, the pills must have been crushed by the rams of the compressor.

These things helped convince me that I was just killing time by casually rummaging through the trash. I opened the flap of the garbage bag, released the latch, and lifted the bag out.The pungent stench rushed out.Could it be that this thing belongs to our family?Does it belong to us?Did we throw it out?I took the trash bag to the garage and emptied it.The compacted mass of trash stood there like an ironic modern sculpture, big, squat, mocking.I poked it with the rake handle and spread the contents out on the concrete.One by one I pick from them—clumps of things that have shape and that don't.As I unraveled some deep, perhaps shameful, secrets, I wondered why I should feel guilty if I was an invasion of privacy.It's not easy not to notice something they've chosen for this powerful machine to destroy.But why do I feel like a spy in the family?Is garbage also extremely private?Does the warmth of the individual, traces of the deepest nature, traces of secret desires and disgraceful flaws, make it glow at its core?What habits, obsessions, addictions, hobbies?What solitary actions, routines?I found several crayon drawings of a man with ample breasts and phallic penises.There was also a long string, knotted with a series of knots and loops.At first glance it seems to be made randomly; on closer inspection, I think I have cracked a secret, namely the size of the buckle, the way of knot (single knot or double knot), the knot with the buckle There is a complex relationship with individual knots and so on.There is also some sort of mystical geometry or enchanted symbolic friezes.I found a piece of banana peel with a menstrual tampon stuffed inside.Is this the dark side of consumer consciousness?I saw a horrible clotted mass of hair, soap, ear swabs, battered cockroaches, tin can pull rings, sterile gauze stained with pus, blood and lard, segments of used teeth. String, ballpoint pen refills, toothpicks and the small pieces of food they are pronged on.There was also a pair of torn shorts with lipstick on them, perhaps a memento from the Grayview Motel.

But there was no trace of a crushed amber vial, or the remnants of a disc-shaped tablet, anywhere.It doesn't matter, although without the help of chemistry knowledge, I will still face what I have to face.Babbitt said, "Dailey" is fool's gold.She was right, Winnie Richards was right, Denise was right.They are all my friends, and they are all right. I decided to have another physical exam.When the test results came back, I went to see Dr. Chakravarty in his small clinic in the medical building.He was a fat-faced man with dark circles around his eyes, and his big long-fingered hands lay flat on the desk, his head shaking slightly, and he was sitting there reading a typed report.

"There you go again, Mr. Gherardini. We see you a lot these days. It's a relief to find a patient who takes his condition seriously." "What's happening?" "The condition of being a patient. It's easy for people to forget that they are a patient. They simply forget about it as soon as they leave the clinic or hospital. But, like it or not, you are all patients forever. I am the doctor and you A patient. At the end of the day, a doctor doesn't stop being a doctor. Neither does a patient. Doctors are expected to treat patients with the utmost seriousness and all their skill and experience. But what about the patient? How professional is he?"

He never looked up from the typed report as he said these words in his curt, monotonous voice. "I guess I'm not very happy with your potassium levels," he continued. "Look here. The number in brackets, the computer put an asterisk on it." "what does that mean?" "You don't need to know that at this stage." "How was my potassium level last time?" "Pretty normal actually. But maybe this time it's a spurious rise. We're testing whole blood, and there's a coagulation problem here. Do you understand what that means?"

"not understand." "There's no time to explain now. We have both real and fake elevated potassium levels. That's all you need to know." "How high is my potassium level exactly?" "Clearly the ceiling has been exceeded." "What is this sign?" "It can be a sign that nothing is wrong, or it can be a sign that the problem is really, really big." "How big is it?" "Now we're in the realm of semantics," he said. "What I'm trying to figure out is whether these levels of potassium could be indicative of some kind of symptom that's starting to occur, maybe from an ingestion, an exposure, a fallout -- something in the air or in the rain. Matter—an involuntary inhalation?"

"Have you actually been exposed to this substance?" "No." I said. "Are you sure?" "Absolutely. What, do these numbers show some sort of possible exposure?" "If you've never been exposed, then they can't possibly show a sign, can they?" "That way, we're on the same page," he said. "Tell me this, Monsieur Gherardini, with complete sincerity. How do you feel?" "I feel really good physically, as far as I know. Really top-notch. Relatively speaking, I feel better than I've been in years."

"What does 'relatively speaking' mean?" "Considering that I'm a little older now." He looked at me carefully.He seemed to be trying to keep me from looking up.Then, he wrote it on my record.It was as if I were a schoolboy who was called before the principal for a string of unforgivable absences. I said, "How do we know if the elevated potassium levels are real or fake?" "I'm going to send you to Glasstown for further testing. Would you like to do it? There's a brand new facility called Autumn Harvest Farms. They've got shiny new equipment, you won't be disappointed, just wait and see. It's still It really shines!" "Okay. But the potassium level is the only thing you have to watch out for?" "The less you know, the better. Go to Glasstown and tell them to look it up thoroughly. Check every corner. Tell them to bring back sealed reports of the results when you come back. I'll take care of them down to the smallest detail." They're all analyzed. I'm sure I'm going to analyze them all. On 'Autumn Harvest' they have the technology and the most sophisticated instruments, I assure you. The best, the so-called 'Third World People' Maverick technicians, up to date operating procedures." The big smile on his face is like a peach hanging on a tree. "Doctors and patients together can do things that we could not do separately. There is always a need to emphasize prevention. The old saying, prevent problems before they happen. Is this an idiom or a maxim? Of course, the professor can tell us .” "I need time to think about it." "Anyway, prevention is always business, isn't it? I just saw the latest issue of American Undertakers, and there's a rather shocking photo. The business hardly serves so many dead." Babette is right.He speaks English beautifully.I got home and started throwing things.I threw away fishing baits, useless tennis balls, broken bags.I turned the attic upside down and found old furniture, discarded lampshades, warped screen doors and screens, bent curtain rods.I tossed out picture frames, shoe lasts, umbrella stands, sconce stands, toddler high chairs and cribs, folding TV stands, "bean bag chairs" that change shape with the body of its occupant, broken dining table turntables.I threw away old papers, faded letterheads, manuscripts of my articles and their strip proofs, the publications in which they appeared.The more things I throw, the more things I find.There was nothing but blackness and staleness in the house.There are so many things and so many things, there is a connection, a failure.I strode around the room throwing things into cardboard boxes.A fan in a plastic case, a burnt-out toaster oven, and a collection of needlepoint lace.It took me over an hour to move all this stuff to the sidewalk.Nobody helped me.I don't want help or companionship or understanding from others, I just want to get those things out of the house.I sat alone on the front steps of the house, waiting for a sense of ease and peace to settle in the air around me. "Decongestants, antihistamines, cough syrup, painkillers," a woman passing by on the street yelled.

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