“To really imagine the wall as communicative: this is maddening,” Edward says, his eyes bulging outward to the brink of popping. “You see, it’s truly all around us. The force. The actants. Energy. Things. Whatever you’d like to call them. We are in constant dialogue with every step we take. Can you imagine this? I mean really imagine what this means?” He leans into her face, his right hand stroking his cheek, his knees tightly-pressed together, his neck bunched as if a forehead deep in thought.
“To realize that the inanimate, the dead, the things (as we so brazenly call them) have agency, that they act upon us constantly, that they waltz in tandem with us every moment–to realize this brings responsibility, a responsibility greater than most are willing to take. It is the responsibility to see, you understand? To perceive clearly the web that we exist within. It is to recognize that all that we have considered inanimate, animates our lives at every moment whether it be the wind, the food we eat, the desks we sit in, the walls of our homes or workplaces.”
She looks at him as if he is mad, rolls her eyes to the left in a dismissive manner that allows her to hear but not hear, rock her head back and forth in understanding but not truly understand. It wasn’t that she wasn’t intelligent, nor disinterested, nor was it the fact that Edward had broken her heart twice and she had resolved to shut him out forever. She was afraid, afraid of what it might mean to begin to see and explore the ways in which her cubicle walls at work were in constant dialogue with her body, that the fibers in the Berber carpets were talking to her feet, her feet talking back to the carpet. That in a way, she was that cubicle and that cubicle was her. Nor did she want to imagine that her run-down apartment in deep Brooklyn with the sordid, stained walls and moldy shower, the cockroach-infested floorboards and broken mirrors actually composed her life, that the shambles spoke to her, that the materials infused her existence, were part of her. She was revolted. And afraid. There was a longing to expunge such thoughts, distance herself, block those feelings from entering into her purview. For her, to recognize that the material, cold, spoiled and indifferent world in which she lived was alive was overwhelming and sad. What would her cracked tiles say should she choose to hear them speak? What of the pencil she grips as she writes her letters to her ailing mother? Does it beg for warmer words, less sadness? Does it long to write words of love and healing in the place of regret? She shakes her head, can take no more, and looks Edward in the eyes.
“It is true that this can be frightful for we have created what at first glance seems to be a cold and indifferent world of the machine. But look closer. Mystery and magic are right before our eyes. If I look quickly at my desk for instance, I notice only a few things: the biggest scratches, the fact that it is a desk, the coffee stain in the right hand corner. But if I look closer, spend more time, I see deeper, through gradations of the object. I notice the speckled face of the wood, the chaotic pattern of the chipped veneer. If I look very closely, I smell the remnants of lemon pledge, see a crack that runs lengthwise across the desk, a strange discolored diamond at the head. If I spend enough time, I come to know the desk, little by little, with patience and love. And it is not simply a desk that I come to know. Encased within the desk are so many others: those that once sat at this desk, perhaps the child that ran her scissors across its face accidentally while cutting paper, those that made this desk. Then before, the saws which sliced the wood, the workers at the sawmill, the trucks that carried the wood, then the tree that once stood tall amidst other trees perhaps in the Great Northwest, perhaps elsewhere. From the tree to the water that the tree fed upon, the nutrients within the spongy ground which we ourselves are composed of. In moments of personal crisis I remind myself that we are all collectives, every last person, desk, bowl, hospital, apartment complex, taxi, pencil, book. If I look closely, I begin to see the mystery of all that surrounds me, all that supports me, all that constantly speaks to me if only I am willing to listen. When I feel alone or scared, you see, I remember that I am not alone and that everywhere around me the traces of all those past, present and to-come are here, all around me. It is not a metaphysical statement but one based on the material realities in which we wade. What would it do to see this?” Edward smiles, closes his eyes.
She pauses, looks to her wrist. Hanging loosely from her arm is a stone bracelet her daughter gave to her on her 40th birthday. For the first time, she notices in one of the amber stones a white streak shaped like the curved tail of a lion. She smiles.
