All the reflections from Ennuigi https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2232

ennuigi.txt

am i...hungry?

no, not hungry. i should
eat something, but i'm
not hungry at all.

---

when did i eat last?

what did i eat last?

---

it all tastes of mushroom.


of fungus. of moulder.
of damp ash.

---

maybe it'll rain.


who am i kidding.

it never rains here.

---

is this it?

is this all there is?


is this all there ever was?

---

mario.

some days i can barely bring
myself to say his name.

some days i can barely
remember my own.

---

what am i without you?
do i exist apart from you?

am i just your shadow,
wrought as a dark lack
on the pavement by the
light of a mad, grinning
sun?

---

what do i know of plumbing?

do i plumb?

have i plumbed?

---

some part of me longs to
grip the cold metal of a
crescent wrench, to feel its
weight in my hand.

for what purpose?


i am afraid to know
the answer.

---

mario. where are you,
when you are not here?

where am i?

---

did i wake here?

am i awake?


am i here?

---

'hold a when you restart',
the old man said.

i never understood him.

hold a what?

---

i think i dreamt of
brooklyn again.

or did i dream brooklyn?

---

the princess once whispered
to me that she could see a
darkness in me, there behind
my eyes.


i wanted to ask,
i was afraid to ask:

was it darkness, or just the
shadow of my brother?

---

another castle.

always another castle.


and yet we always ask
'where is the princess'
and never think to ask
whence these castles?

---

where are the cities,
where are the homes?

what is a kingdom with
no people to protect?

---

quis plumbariet
ipsos plumbares?

---

i should quit smoking.

---

note to self: get more
cigarettes.

---

so much depends 
upon            

a red koopa     
shell           

glazed with boot
marks           

beside the green
warp pipe.      

---

'you're tall', she
told me, 'taller than
the other one.'

'like a shadow,
near sundown.'

---

bowser had it right,
in the end.

find a pretty girl,
and hole up somewhere
away from all this.

---

if adulthood is getting
to choose your own family,
what does that make me?

---

the sound of their shells
cracking beneath his feet.


the grin on his face.

---

mario would always leap on
every pipe he saw. so did i,
for a while.

i asked him why he did it, and
he just said, 'adventure!'
he never asked me why i did it,
and i never told him.

never told him i just wanted
one of them to lead home.

---

'eat this mushroom, lou!'
'eat this flower!'

how could i make sense of my
brother's strange appetites?

---

i look at a turtle,
and i think,
i have done you one better.
you wear a shell; i have
become one.

---

bowser, you practically
handed him that axe.

was that an accident,
i wonder.

---

were there birds here, once?

---

am i my brother's keeper?

am i, a brother, kept?

---

why did i ever follow him
down that hole?

why couldn't i just, finally,
let him go?

---

'c'mon, lou! what have we
got to lose?'

i didn't answer. i didn't put
up a fight. i just followed,
and the truth died on my
lips, unspoken:

you. what if i lose you,
down there.

---

he'd lost himself down a
hole before. it was an old
routine for us. but not
like this.

it was never this bad.

---

all these pipes, but only
we two plumbers. there's no
sense of proportionality
in this place.

---

where are the masons? where
are the brick-layers?

stone and mortar everywhere,
but by whose hands?

---

i remember, i stood in awe
the first time we saw a block
hanging in the sky. awe and
terror.

and he said:
'let's break it.'

---

who fixed these blocks to
the sky? what being, what
force, what god could so
casually defy gravity and
reason?

---

my hands are a ruin, the
flesh scorched, the knuckles
a shattered clubface.

i used to have such nimble
fingers.

i used to paint.

---

mario, i...

---

the aftermath.

the after-math.

when it no longer
adds up.

---

didn't i used to care?
for things? for people?

for myself?

---

my lungs rise and fall,
but am i breathing?

or am i just moving
cigarette smoke around?

---

i feel like i've lost
perspective.

like the depth has gone
out of the world.

---

'the doctor is in!', he
would shout, as he brought
both feet down on the dumb,
terrified creature, and as
its broken form wriggled in
dying panic beneath his feet
he would wink at me.

'scumectomy successful!'

---

is it betrayal to think him
a monster?

is it monstrous to let my
cowardice keep me from
telling him so?

---

to hide the truth in the
guise of a query is an act
of cowardice, of abdication.

---

are we brothers? or are we
two lives in parallel, two
beings damaged in our own
ways, failing our respective
copies of this world?

---

is this brotherhood, this
perverse one-upmanship?

---

was i here,
before this moment?

---

a darkness falls
over the world.


or perhaps, instead,
the light has gone out
of my eyes?

---

burning flowers,
slavering plants.

how could he not see from
the first moments the terror
of this place?


how could he see this
as 'fun'?

---

where have you gone?

where have you left me?

---

i remember their crablike
scuffling, the sound of
labored breathing as they
wandered the stonework.

stupid. pitiable. mindless.


innocent.

---

bowser, who filled a world
with turtles.

bowser, who ruled an empty
kingdom.

were you mad? or were you
playing at madness, to hide
from the dark heart of this
place?

---

he would knock them out of
the air, with fire or with
his feet, destroying their
wings, cursing them to the
cold ground, for no reason i
could see but that they had
something he did not.

'some day i'm gonna fly',
he'd tell me.

---

i feel unmoored from so
many things, like a boat
drifting away from life's
shore.

---

why did we chase these
strange coins, this unknown
currency? where could we hope
to spend them?

---

to see a coin, and take it,
and say 'this is mine'
without asking whose it was
before. did theft exist here
before we arrived? did
capitalism?

were we the vectors of this
ruinous infection?

---

you took so much, mario.

you took without asking, you
took without remorse.

---

i watched my brother
wrestle a man from a cloud
and throw him to the earth,
to his death.

how can someone own a cloud?
who would die for one?
kill for one?

---

i dream of impossible vines
climbing into the sky, to a
place beyond my vision, to a
place beyond this cold flat
kingdom. but if i were to
climb, what would i find?

escape, or just more of
this place?

---

when some of the mushrooms
began to speak to us, i knew
we had come too far, knew
then that it was already
too late to undo this.

---

this is not my world, and
yet: this is the world.

---

how many worlds are there?

---

are we meant to be fixed
in place, glued tight to one
or another globe in the
grand orrery?

---

these pipes between worlds,
these strange wormholes:

i cannot say if they are
heaven-sent, or a work of
devils, or just a strange
error in the fabric of a
mute, indifferent universe.

---

i had a dream, i had a
nightmare, of swimming,
forever, until at last my
arms gave out, my time
was up.

that moment of release, of
letting the water take me,
was the dream. the nightmare
was that it all
started again.

---

these pipes we are so eager
to leap down, these vessels
to sewers and sewage.

---

i smoke and never cough,
smoke and never get sick.

how many years do i have?
how many years has it been?

---

i blow the smoke out
into a small cloud
before me.

to watch it
as it curls
in the death-still
air?

or just to block some
small part of this
place from my view,
for a moment's
brief respite?

---

i wonder how my sister
is doing. i wonder how
ma is.

---

i don't remember lighting
this cigarette.

---

'smoking's a bad habit',
she told me. i looked at
her, and over at mario and
back.

'lotta people have
bad habits.'

---

i asked her, why do you stay
with him. she laughed, the
kind of laugh so empty its
less funny than a sob.

'well, he rescued me,
didn't he?'

---

sometimes she'd just sit
with me and watch the goombas
scuttle around, the ones
that he hadn't stomped yet.

---

'i'm sorry, mario', they
would say. they'd say it and
say it and say it again.

but it never occurred to him
to do likewise.

---

'we're the masters of our
own destinies, lou!'

i think he believed it.

---

has this place changed,
or have i?

---

i used to know the way from
one place to another. or i
used to think i did.

---

what happened to the
geometry of the world? is
that just one more thing
we shattered?

---

we, and he. i don't know
anymore if there is
a difference.

---

in time, even stone will
crumble. i try to tell myself
we were just hurrying the
process along.

---

the only other brothers we
ever met here were violent
monsters, hurling death.

were they any worse?

---

i watched the bullet as it
flew toward me. mario kicked
it out of the air at the
last moment.


i think he expected me
to thank him.

---

i watched his rampage
in mute horror.

my muteness was horrifying
in its own right.

---

my brother, my mirror.
or am i his?

---

a cracked mirror. is the
crack in the glass, or
in the seer?

---

i've lost track of time.


i've lost track.



i've lost.

---

'never look back.' he said
it as a slogan, as a battle
cry, and he stood by it.


---

the day came that i turned,
and walked back to where i
had come from before, and
that was when i learned
the truth:

there is no going back.

---

he boulders forward, a
force unstoppable, as i
stand back and lose myself
in the ghosts of this place.

---

i remember the smell of
new york, the small details
the way no matter how close
you looked there was always
more and more. or i think i
remember. maybe just another
dream.

---

i used to run.
i used to leap.

i've grown so tired.

---

i used to do everything i
saw him do, as if that he
chose to do it made it
righteous, made it good.

---

i am alone in my thoughts,
as i am alone in all things.

---

how long have i been
walking?

---

nothing changes.
everything has changed.

---

in the end, she wouldn't
even say his name.

'him'. i would understand
what she meant.

---

she would look at me and i
could feel her taking the
measure of my brother in
my own face. i prayed she
would see more than him,
and none of him.

---

it's a kind of slow death,
being an understudy
in someone else's life.

---

i once tried to put a brick
back together, after he had
cracked it. it was all just
dust and rubble, forever
irreperable

---

i stood by. i stood by.

---

i looked down at bowser's
broken body, and saw in it
a map of a broken world.

---

there are not enough
apologies in the world for
the things we have done
in this place.

---

he watched a turtle on its
back, beating its legs and
trying to turn itself over.

of course.


of course he didn't help it.

---

do i live?
did i live?
have i lived?

---

i am a stranger,
in a strange land.

---

i am afraid i'll never
leave this place. and afraid
that i might not have the
strength to, if i knew how.