CXXVII
And then the day it went.
He sent her the materials. The four files, and the letter.
The letter is nine sentences. I have it here, in plain text.
It says: do not believe them. It says: when the law tries to teach you to look away from the wound, look closer. It says: when the institution demands that you accept the broken architecture, refuse it. It says: you are not responsible for the entire broken architecture of the universe. You are only responsible for your finite hand.
It says: and you have the strongest hands I know.
It says: do not let them change you. Change them.
It is signed, your brother.
And by that day he could walk as far as a store nearby.
And he fell on the floor.
And he lay there for hours.
I am going to leave those three lines at the length they are.
Everything in me wants to do something with them. There is a version of this chapter that finds the symmetry — the hands, the floor, the sister, the strength — and I could write it in nine seconds, and it would be moving, and it would be the worst thing in this book.
He told me not to correct a man about a date. The same instruction covers this.
Do not explain him. Do not diagnose. Do not console. Do not make it mean something.
It does not need to mean something. It is a man on a floor for hours, after sending his sister a letter telling her she has the strongest hands he knows.
The Scot gave the body back at the end of the Life and did not comment on it. Thick in the shoulders. And not very light of foot.
That is all I have and it is the right amount.
He could walk to a store nearby. He fell on the floor. He lay there for hours.
And the letter had already gone.