Sunday, November 28, 2010

My Personalised Zahir

I was starkly reminded of Borges' Zahir recently.

At times this image comes to mind: a coin that has been scratched and perpetually haunts the owner who cannot rid himself of it. The owner does not even want to get rid of it. Yet it weighs so heavily on their mind as to drive them utterly insane.

I actually began to identify a person I knew as my Zahir. Meeting with them upset my nerves and made me very worried. They were like a coin that I could not or chose not to rid myself of. Yet they did nothing whatsoever to justify this. They are a truly brilliant person. The fact is, I saw them as my Zahir because they reminded me that I am a terrible person. My evasion of this person hammers home just the kind of emotionless shell that I am.

This post underlines the fact even more so. The audacity that I have to actually think of a living person with real emotions and a real vivacity as a drain on my existence makes me physically nauseous. How dare I. This is despicable behaviour and my callous rape of this image for writing material is vile. My word, my non-existent reader, my mind: do not make this worse by pitying me. The only Zahir is my utterly rotten mind. I am monstrous.

I am scum.

-The English Student

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