Fantasies

Childhood fantasies. Novels of Diana Wynne Jones, where the gifted one never knows he is such until the end of the book, when it is revealed that his ordinariness hid his extraordinariness, and the others turn to him, modest one, in wonder. But my fantasy was that what was revealed thereby was only the absolutely ordinary, the more ordinary than ordinary, and it would be seen, in the end, that I was just like anyone else, but only there where (second fantasy) I was dying, or at least close to death.

How nice to be ill, and being drawn sweetly towards death. Who told me that dying of hypothermia was like falling asleep? To fall asleep into death, and that point to be the most ordinary, and anyone at all. Do you see, they would say, around my bed, or, better still, elsewhere, even far away, living their own lives – do you see, he was just like anyone else. Anyone, no one: what was the name of that girl who scratched my arm, just to see how I would react? But I let my arm lie there, and thought: this is how I will die, just lying there.

And a stronger memory: letting a boy, weaker than I, wrestle me to the ground. I was stronger, but I was weaker too: by what weakness did I let myself be brought down like a wild animal? I kept quiet; I said nothing. I liked his meanness, and the meanness of his brother; I thought: here it is, here at last, and now, before their meanness, I am anyone at all.