Author: Julian Pravdin

Cited by

• Adam Pelzman (1)
  • IN: Troika (2014) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: I am ashamed -- ashamed to admit that I am so unattractive that I have never kissed a girl. That's not true. I did once, when I was eight, before the girls knew what ugly was. That was a bright-life moment. But soon the fist of hierarchy squeezed tight and rammed me to the underworld. My great loves have been unilateral and unknown to all but me. That is why I write, to create voices, back and forth, with Her, where only a muffled soliloquy once existed -- a maddening, tortured, silent scream. Sometimes I dream about a blind girl, but fear that her sighted friend -- the one she's known since third grade -- would tell her she'd made a terrible mistake. He's hideous, she might whisper, just hideous. Or maybe the friend would have mercy on me. Do you think she would? Have mercy? I once asked a man, my father, if mercy exists. Yes, he said, mercy abounds. And he gave me a tap on the top of my head, a loving yet hollow tap that foretold both the tragedy of a child and the powerlessness of a father, the awful soul-sickening impotence of Our Father. Yes, He repeated, mercy abounds. But I'm not so sure. I was born in Mercy General, says it right here, right on this piece of paper. But that's as close as I get.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL