Penultimate Activities

Abstract

Penultimate Activities Alejandro Zambra (bio) Translated by Megan McDowell (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Illustrations and design by Claire Hungerford. [End Page 50] 1 in a word document, using a maximum of five thousand characters (including spaces), describe, in the greatest possible detail, the house in which you live. Observe the walls especially. Note the cracks, the stains, the nail marks and holes. Think, for example, of how many times whose walls have been painted. Imagine the brushes, the paint cans, the rollers. Think of the people who painted whose walls. Call up their faces, invent them. Next consider the leaks, the imperfections in the floors, the carpets (if there are carpets), the drawers that don't close all the [End Page 51] way, the kitchen utensils, the condition of handles and outlets, the shape and quality of the mirrors (if there are mirrors): pay special attention to what the mirrors reflect when no one is looking at them, when a suspicion of uselessness settles over them. 2 Organize any books in the house according to size, not from largest to smallest but in the shape of waves or pyramids. Do not think, please, about the possibility of reading them–that is not the purpose of this activity. Nor should you pay any mind to the titles or authors: confront the books as if they were mere imperfect bricks. Then set them on fire and gaze at the flames from a prudent distance. Let the blaze grow, but try not to let it get out of control. Breathe in a little smoke, close your eyes every once in a while, though ideally for no longer than ten seconds. Think of this: every fire, no matter how slight or brief, is a spectacle. Think of the clouds when the trees burn. Then try to extinguish the fire. Do it calmly and with care, elegantly if possible. Finally, look up at the sky, where God or one of his epigones should be, and give thanks. If you were able to control the fire, if by this point you are not dead or aboard an ambulance, if you managed–with or without faith–to give thanks to God or one of his epigones, you will see some books that are blackened and unrecognizable and others that are half-burned, almost completely destroyed but still recognizable, even legible, and also a group of almost-intact books that are maybe a little wet or smudged but still salvageable. Gather up the ruined books, place them in suitcases you don't often use or in heavy-duty garbage bags, large or extra-large, walk to the nearest river, toss the baggage into the current, look at the sky and give thanks, but this time with no real ceremony, without emphasis, with real familiarity toward God or his epigones or toward the entity that fulfills (or should fulfill) a certain transcendent function. If there is not a reasonably close river, drop the bags in the place where, if you lived in a different city, in a city designed–well or badly–by you, there would be a river. Stand looking at [End Page 52] the current and concentrate on it until you feel as if you are moving forward. Back at home, read the books that survived the fire, and (a) draw your conclusions. Don't over-elaborate your theories: simply postulate some ideas, no matter how abstruse, about the meaning of the fact–fair or unfair but always capricious–that it was these and not other books that were spared from the fire. And (b) think, but without a shred of dramatics or self-pity, about whether these books could somehow save you. 3 Write down your impressions about activity number 2 in a Word file, 12-point Perpetua font, double-spaced, using a minimum of twenty thousand characters (including spaces). 4 Repeat activity number 2 until there are no more legible or recognizable books in your house. Always give thanks, though you needn't look at the sky—just raise your eyebrows. Every time, concentrate on the current of the river until you feel that you are moving forward. Then, with no...