Last night, a man devised a plan to kill Time. Time materialized and disguised itself as eyes always watching him always glowering. Eyes of one lid, two lids, with lids, without lids. Black, green, brown eyes of every kind. They weren’t a phantasm of his mind. They existed and drifted about the place. They spread out on the sofa in the living room. Stretched along the walls of the bedroom. Piled up inside the toilet filling it. In making love, masturbating, urinating, even in breathing he could not avoid those eyes. There was an eye that had the look of the respected boss in his office, an eye that had the look of President Ho printed on the bills he spent, as well as eyes that looked like those of lovers who had passed through his life. How long this situation had gone on wasn’t clear. He had only the faint awareness that he needed to somehow end it. It’s possible this thought had been lingering since last month, last week or only just yesterday. How could a person with such a good memory in the daytime have a nighttime mind incapable of remembering a single thought from the previous evening. He didn’t get it. What he needed to do was take a knife and slash every last eye around him. The sight of this bloodshed would also be a fairly good way to delude the thinking to Un Chien Andalou, which he enjoyed. With some effort he starts to look for a knife. The eyes squirm. He steps into the kitchen and immediately thousands of eyes set about to eat and clean out his brain. Freedom and consciousness have been assassinated by the time he realizes what he should do. He obediently drinks a cup of water and goes to sleep.

This morning is still a morning with the bared teeth of a gorgeous street, the belly of road exposed and the sky unexpectedly swallowing the sun. He forever feels something lacking.


-- translated by Kaitlin Rees