“Doesn’t count for this.”
“It doesn’t say he dies again, does it? No word of him dying again. He could have been the third.”
“It doesn’t have to say he died again. It’s a given, dying.”
“Awful lot of givens in your argument.”
“Giving Lazarus a miss at this stage—” Arthur began.
“I don’t see how you can give Lazarus a miss,” Bedivere said.
“Are you suggesting that Lazarus is still walking among us?”
“Just don’t see how you can give Lazarus a miss.”
“Giving Lazarus a miss,” Arthur said, “and barring the possibility of exception (which there’s no sign of, I think we can both agree; look at poor Sir Lucan the foamy), the only aspect of the present situation I can control are my faculties. If one has to die, one had better die drunk, so as not to be so bothered by it. And since the hour is not known to any, not even the Son of Man, best to be as drunk as possible as often as possible, to improve one’s chances. And since the hour is looking awfully imminent at this point, there’s no harm in fortifying oneself against the likeliest possibility. And since I can’t get any for myself at present”—here he briefly looked down at himself and cursed—“you’ve got to be a dear and get something to drink for me.”
“But I haven’t got any money on me,” Bedivere said dazedly.
“You have my good sword Excalibur,” the king said, “that noble sword whereof the pommel and the haft are all of precious stones; take that rich sword and get me with drink from it. Bedivere, please. Bedivere, Bedivere, Bedivere, please, Bedivere, get me with drink. The boat cometh, and I am not prepared to board it. This is the last, the last, the last chance. Even if hurt comes from it, it will be the last hurt, and you can acquit yourself of guilt from it.”
So Sir Bedivere departed from him, although he was loath to do it, and by the way he thought of his noble king, and said to himself: If I throw this rich sword into the water, and tell the king there was no drink to be found, thereof shall come no harm, but only good, for I have seen the king when he gives himself over to drink, and I will not put him to drink again by my hand. So he hurled Excalibur into the lake, and a hand came up out of the water and grasped the sword, and shook it fiercely three times before vanishing itself back under the waves.
Therefore Sir Bedivere returned and said to the king that there was no drink to be had, not even for something as dear as the sword Excalibur.
That were untruly done of you, my darling, the king said.
It were truly meant, Bedivere said.
As you love me, said the king, do my bidding; as you love me, keep your word; as you love me, bring me the last drink, oh please.
Then Sir Bedivere went away again, and thought it sin and shame to let the king end in drink instead of glory, and so he did not come back at all. King Arthur lay a-waiting, and never did he see Bedivere again. This long tarrying putteth me in great danger of my life, Bedivere, he cried out. But if thou do now as I bid thee, if ever I may see thee again, I shall slay thee with mine own hands, for thou wouldst for my rich sword see me dead!
But Bedivere was a true friend to him, and stayed away. And King Arthur lay in the dirt and cursed his friend’s name until he died.
Alternatively: How King Arthur Curled His Arms and Legs Around His Body Like a Starfish and Recited H. G. Wells to Himself in Panic and Heart’s Terror
“Not to go on all fours. The lump of mystery opposite is a man, a five-man,” the king gabbled to himself. “He comes to live with us. The pause is interrogative; he comes to live with us, he comes to live with us and learn the Law. Stay a while, Bedivere; are we not men? Say the words, Bedivere, before the lump of mystery comes to live with us. If Bedivere will not say the words, Lucan might, if Lucan lives. Not to go on all fours, that is the law, not to suck up drink, that is the law, not to chase other men, that is the law. Are we not men? Does the boat approach, Bedivere? I don’t want to be king again, no matter how great the need or dark the hour. Don’t make any promises on my headstone, Bedivere; I make you no promises now. Are we not men? God, why won’t any of you touch me, or hold my hand?”
Alternatively: How Everyone Was Impaled with Spears and the Fisher King Was More Than a Little Irritated by It
Here is a list of all the men who were braken on one another’s spears that day: Sir Gonereys, Sir Palomides in disguise, Semound the Valiant, Meliagaunce, King Bagdemagus and King Marsil of Pomitain, Sir Breuse, Sir Galahalt, Sir Lamorak, Sir Corsabrin, Sir Ossaise of Surluse, the Earl Lambaile, the King of Northgalis and the Earl Ulbawes, Sir Gawaine, Sir Tristram, Galihodin, Sir Uwaine, Sir Lucanere, Sir Bliant, Sir Bors, and Sir Sagramore. And the Fisher King, with his vague and suppurating wound somewhere between his heart and his feet, had them all born inside his castle Corbenic on litters, and saw to it that all the wounded were attended with all care and courtesy, but his heart within him grumbled, and he snuck himself away from their sickbeds to sit beside the bleeding lance awhile. His had been the wound first, after all.
Alternatively: How King Arthur Snuck Away from the Field of Battle and Lived with Guinevere as Faithful Nuns in Almesbury, Sweet and Loving Sisters Who Were Buried One Beside the Other, Underneath the Same Headstone
(Upon such sacrifices the gods themselves throw incense.) When Queen Guinevere came to know that King Arthur was slain and many a noble knight beside, she stole away to Almesbury and made herself a nun, wearing white clothes and black, and did a great penance, as great a penance as the meanest sinner ever took. All manner of people marveled at how greatly she was changed, and now an abbess.
And Arthur stole away from Avalon in white clothes and black, too, and whispered at Guinevere’s window: What, alive, sweet girl? Come, let’s away together, we two alone will sing like birds and sisters; you kneeling and asking blessing, me kneeling and asking forgiveness, spies of God and live a secret, wearing out the walls and prisons and lives of great ones, in sweet repentance, but come away from that window there, love!
And Guinevere laughed! and opened her window! and they lived in sweetest charity ever after!
Alternatively: How King Arthur Hardly Felt It at All
“It doesn’t feel like anything,” he said, “and I really do think this is it. It hardly feels like anything at all, and I’m sure that this is the real thing.”
INTERLUDE VI Cosmopolitan Magazine Cover Stories for Bewildered Future Trans Men Living in the Greater Chicago Area Between the Years 1994–2002
Cosmopolitan Magazine: Don’t Bother Asking Anyone Else About It, Just Assume Most Women Feel This Way
“I Just Happen to Be a Modest Person—But You Look Great In It!” and Other Demurrals
Breasts and Your Summer Wardrobe: Other People Seem to Like That You Have Them, Just Take Their Cues and Go From There
Nobody Likes Fitting-Room Mirrors, So Don’t Waste Time Investigating Your Own Fitting-Room Experiences: Most Women Have Negative Body-Image Issues, So It’s Safe to Say That’s Probably Just What You’re Feeling, Too
Try the Pill: It’s Still HRT, Kind Of
Dress for Success: Getting Male Attention with the Body You Have, Not the Body You Want
We Polled 100 Readers About Sex: “Mostly This Seems Fine.”
If You’re a Boy, Then Why Are All the Boys You Know Either Mean or Indifferent Toward You? Checkmate.
How to Half-Heartedly Try to Dress Butch Once and Look Weird So You Never Think About *Waves Arms Generally* That Whole Thing Again
Fan Fiction: Maybe That’s What This Thing Is? I Don’t Know, You’re Not Giving Me a Lot to Work With Here
Maybe Try That Microwaved Doughnut Trick? Anything to Keep Attention Off Whatever Your Body’s Doing Right Now
If You Were, You’d Know, and You Don’t Know, So You’re Not. Right? Do You Know? Does Someone Else Here Know? And Other Letters to the Editor (She Doesn’t Know, Either, Please Stop Writing and Asking)
INTERLUDE VII Marcus Aurelius Prepares for the New Year
Hoo. It’s—hoo, boy. Just focus on one thing. Just focus on the thing ahead of you.
I know it’s kind of hokey, but honestly, after the year this year has been, maybe I could use a little hokey, you know? It’s not like anything else has worked. It’s sort of like—I, emperor of Rome, son of Marcus Annius Verus, heir to Hadrian, know, on some level, that just going to bed earlier and drinking more water isn’t magically going to fix everything, that eventually when it comes to bedtimes and water a person is going to start to experience diminishing returns, and that it’s not going to suddenly solve all my problems and make me the sort of person who gets cheerfully out of bed at gallicinium, ready to face the sunrise. But it’s also like, okay, there’s not a lot that’s within my control right now, and that’s good for me, and that’s free, and that I can do throughout the day as a reminder to look after myself, you know? So fuck it, yes, I’m going to try to drink more water this year, and I’m not going to be embarrassed about it.
Starting this year, I’m not going to be surprised when people disappoint me anymore. This sounds defensive, but I don’t mean it in, okay, a pointed way, I swear. I think of my father, and how he released his friends from all obligation to get dinner with him when he was in town, no matter how far he had traveled to see them and honestly I would love to be just in that same place emotionally. If you can make it, amazing. If not, I totally get it. And I would love to get it!! There will be other dinners. (And if not, so much the better; it’s a chance to prepare for the final and ultimate dinnerlessness.)
I’m just going to wake up—WHENEVER I wake up, and I’m not going to beat myself up if I oversleep once in a while; that’s just a sign that my body probably needs the rest, right?—and say to myself, okay, some people today are probably going to be really challenging, because they haven’t found a way yet to stand in the light, and it’s not that they’re trying to make my life more difficult, they just don’t Get It Yet.
Not that I’m trying to say that I get it! Ahh! Good thing no one’s ever going to see this, idk idk idk, I just mean I’m going to try to respond with patience, and to remember that no one can ever make me feel small without my permission. Or participation; maybe “permission” is too shame-y toward myself. Because if we’re all part of the same divine material, it’s not even possible for someone else to hurt me, which is why it doesn’t even make sense for me to still carry around dark energy w/r/t Antoninus. I want to release that energy! I really do! And if I want to do it, then I do it! Antoninus, I release that energy toward you; I mean, I imagine it was probably really hard for him to see me become quaestor before I was even twenty-four! I would definitely feel raw about if the situations were reversed.
Not that I want to spend time trying to read other people’s minds in the new year. I’m just: I release it. It’s honestly not my business if Antoninus or Gracchus or whomever is jealous of me, if they even are jealous of me. I don’t even want to know if other people are jealous of me. I want to spend more time this year releasing things, whether that’s just clutter around the house or relationships that don’t honor the higher self or books I’m never going to get around to reading, because I really want to get in touch with my own mortality. Not that I want to spend a lot of time obsessing over death, because I can’t change it, but I want to live in a constant state of radical acceptance so that when I do die it’s not like Oh my God, ahh, death!!! like, DEATH!!! but more like, Yes, okay, this. Does that make sense??
Because if I’m really just honest with myself right now, I can accept that I’m never going to read all of these books. I keep buying them and saying I’m going to read them, and then I don’t. Then when people say things like, “Oh, Marcus, what are you reading right now?” which is a perfectly innocent question, I feel like they’re trying to GET me, and I’ll just name whatever books I recently bought (which, is that compulsive?? Need some time to sit with THAT question later) and hope they don’t ask any follow-up questions because then I have to guess what I think the book is probably about (not that a book can really be ABOUT anything lol) and that kind of feels like lying. So I usually just end up saying something like “Oh, actually I’m rereading _____ right now,” and then I just name a book I’ve read before even though I’m not rereading it right now, just in case the secret underlying question was “Have you ever read a book?”
Relatedly!! I don’t want to keep PUTTING EVERYTHING OFF. I sometimes feel like I just say yes to everything because I don’t want to disappoint anybody, and then I can’t do everything, because I’m human, and then I do end up disappointing people, and maybe it’s better to just say no more often, and to accept that I’m not always going to be able to get back to everyone about everything, and that sometimes I actually NEED to do NOTHING because I’m a person, not a job. I’m going to treat time like a resource this year, instead of a problem to be solved.
And to that end, I want to be really mindful about how much coffee I drink this year! More water, less coffee! Coffee just makes me jittery and anxious, not wakeful, and Theophrastus always says that it’s worse to fuck up when you’re jittery than when you’re just consciously like, Yes, I want to do this thing that may not be right for me right now except for maybe that’s what makes this thing right for me right now, and I really want to be more like Theophrastus in a lot of ways, while also still being myself.
I want to spend less time worrying this year about what people think about me, and to let go of the delusion that people even are thinking about me, because maybe they aren’t! I mean yes, okay, I still have my job, I know that people have to think about the emperor of Rome sometimes for work, but that doesn’t define me, and honestly someday there’s going to be an emperor of Rome who isn’t me, like Pontius Laelianus’s son or Commodus or Titus or whomever. God, that’s weird to think about. But this is the year I stop allowing other people to take the present moment from me, which is my only possession, which is why I think I’m finally ready to get rid of all my furniture, like the Cynic Monimus. Maybe a cot, as a sort of gesture, that I won’t actually sleep on.
So not that these are formal resolutions or anything, because I don’t want to set myself up to “fail” or “succeed” at something before the year has even started, because this is the year when I stop setting impossible goals for myself that go against my own nature; this is the year I really try to meet myself where I’m already at and maybe just bring myself a cup of water and a sense of acceptance. I’m just recording my thoughts without judgment.
The soul of man does violence to itself FIRST OF ALL WHEN I get angry or irritated at someone else and forget that we are all part of the same nature. So it’s not actually possible for someone to “cut me off” or “interrupt me,” so there’s no point in getting angry over it. That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to get angry! It means I’m releasing the delusion that anger is a possibility in those moments.
The soul of man does violence, etc. SECOND OF ALL WHEN I turn away from any other fellow creature, or move toward anyone with the intention of anger. So, like, why would I even eat dairy anymore? It’s not a rule I have to follow; I’m not like, officially “not eating dairy anymore” if anyone asks, I’m just going to ask myself in the moment, Am I moving toward a fellow creature in acceptance or in an attempt to dominate? And make my decision from there. Which means I probably just won’t even eat dairy anymore, but it’s not like it’s going
to be a big deal. I’ll just ask myself more questions before I impulsively reach for cheese, and everything will fall into place after that.
And the soul of man does violence to itself THIRDLY WHEN I get overwhelmed by either pleasure or pain. That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to feel things!
The FOURTHSOME way the soul of man does violence to itself is when it acts or speaks insincerely/untruly. So if I haven’t read a book and someone asks about it, I’m just going to speak the truth: “I haven’t read it, actually.” I’m not even going to say, “I haven’t read it yet,” to try to have it both ways because I don’t know if I ever will, and this is the year I stop trying to claim intention as certainty. Ahh! This is like … exciting, actually. Obviously I know it’s a lot to ask of myself but I really think I’m ready to start stepping into these habits this year.
And FIFTH OF ALL, soul-violence happens when said soul allows any act of its own and any movement to be without an aim, or does anything thoughtlessly and without considering what it is, it being right that even the smallest things be done with reference to an end; and the end of rational animals is to follow the reason and the law of the most ancient city and polity. So like: I have handled the Costoboci and the Christians and Avidius Cassius of Syria, and I don’t have to keep worrying about them once I’ve achieved my goals. I’m leaving them all in the last year.
And then this part doesn’t really fit into a list or anything, but I wanted to include it here: Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. So it’s not really a Good or a Bad thing that I personally am extremely famous, and I need to just exist in a neutral space w/r/t my being a famous person. It’s a stream and a dream and a sojourn and oblivion and there’s just a big river that we all belong to.
Something That May Shock and Discredit You Page 7
