An Arbitrary Tale
Daniel Borzutzky

An invisible form walked into a bar. There he ran into the manifested will of God. The invisible form could overhear conversations between people who had never met. He tried to share these conversations with the manifested will of God. But the will of God was so immersed in an engaging discourse with a source of light cut off from an interposed opaque body that he paid the invisible form no attention. The source of light was easily bendable and thus the manifested will of God had no problem wrapping it around himself. The two got quite comfortable, and as the night progressed it grew unclear as to who was seducing who. But then a quixotic devotion to romantic and chivalrous ideals entered the bar. He wore velvet and spoke a silent language able to represent every thought one could ever have. He looked at the manifested will of God, said, Would you mind allowing me the kingship of this village. But the manifested will of God was too far removed from God to actually represent his will. He said, I will give you a horse, a castle, and a mountain on which to build a city. The quixotic devotion considered the offer. He said, I will need some offspring. And thus the will of God gave him a carnivorous solitary mammal from the northern forest, who, upon appearing, declared that it is only in a distorted image that passion can thrive. Meantime, the manifested will of God had disappeared with the source of light. And the invisible form had started a conversation with a mental process that cannot be demonstrated objectively. The mental process told the invisible form about his doomed affair with the fundamental nature of reality, who had recently jilted him, and who was now sitting at the end of the bar, staring lovingly at the limits of knowledge. The invisible form attempted to comfort the mental process by giving him access to the secret desires of objects. But the mental process was so enraged that all he could do was weep.

Daniel Borzutzky's debut collection Arbitrary Tales can be purchased at Triple Press.

1996 © 2005