Free Pravda by Edward Docx

woman to whom he might have confessed himself. And already, as quickly as the evening was falling through the sky, the entirety of more than three and a half decades of his life seemed to him implausible. All the things he had never said. Or rather, all the things he had said, all the things he was always saying, but only to himself.

    I am a bloody fool, Masha. A bloody, vain, and self-denying fool. Could you have understood this ... this idle carcass of mine? Or did you always understand, despite my silence and deceit? I think you did. Could I have told you everything? I think I could. Even the worst of it? The very worst? Could I have told you and would you have understood? I tried ... once or twice, I tried. But I was afraid you would not be able to bear it. Not want to hear it. I was afraid you would leave me. I was afraid of everything. I lived in chaos. I lived through chaos. I lived on chaos. And Christ, you never asked. Masha, you never asked ... And I suppose I was grateful for that. I loved you because you didn't ask. I loved you dearly. The others ... All those hundred others, they always wanted something answered. Something settled. "How can you?" "Why do you?" "Why can't you?" "Why don't you?" They wanted me to provide "clarity"; they wanted me "to be honest." Clarity—can you believe it, Masha? Yes: you would understand. I know you would. Because you know how difficult it is to hold the line against the thousand daily surrenders this craven new world requires, to keep on coming back for more, heart in pieces, soul in rags. Clarity! Oh, Masha ... As if I ... As if I,
one man shuffling through all the disgusting piss and filth of this twenty-first century, one man at the tail end of a million desperate and profoundly unclear generations, none of whom have ever known the first thing about who they are, why they are, where they came from, what they are made of, where they it in, if they it in, why they are alive, why they die—as if I could provide anyone with any kind of clarity. But time and time again, Masha, I have been forced to this conversation: "Oh, but you can't live like this, Nicholas," they say. "Like what?" I ask. "With all this uncertainty and—you know—messing around." "Messing around? You call this messing around? No, Christ, this is not messing around. This is the very opposite of messing around. This is as in earnest as it gets: you and I, naked and alone, here and now, in this bed, the rest of time and space irrelevant. The soul's exchange, the body's vow, the mind's reprieve. Our most human nexus. I take this extremely seriously. It's the only thing I take seriously. It's the only thing I can take seriously." (Is this hurting you? Should I stop? For four years I was only yours. I swear it. Not much in a lifetime, but it was four years. I swear to you. My best years.) "Come on," they say, "be honest with me, Nicholas." And then, Masha, I have to fall to silence as the questions rain down upon me ... Because what you cannot say, what you must not say, is that you are living your whole life enacting the only honest, clear fact that you do honestly and clearly know: that nothing is honest and clear. (My God—you are smiling. You do know all this. You knew all along.) The cells, the DNA, the molecules of the blood—they all—they all—have different opinions, different opinions on everything, from euthanasia to the Hippocratic oath, from Israel to Palestine, from God made man to Man makes gods. They do not agree. There isn't even a consensus. Not within me. And certainly not out there. Half the world is screaming for water and freedom when the other half is ordering cocktails and complaining about the service. (Didn't you always say that, my Masha?) And what could I say to them about me? What could I tell them about what I feel? The head distrusts the heart. The heart ignores the head. The balls want to carry on regardless. It's a total and utter mess. Chaos. "Come