《Human Happiness》Blaise Pascal

165
The last act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play.  They throw earth over your head and it is finished for ever.

166
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.

遊戲

她記得他們玩的那些遊戲：她平躺在地上，他盤腿坐在一旁。脖子後面有點年紀的波斯地毯，味道像烤焦麵包，一陣陣搔癢。她忍不住聳起肩膀，他的右手抓住她左手肘。

他看著她。

「你看著我，」他說。於是她看著他。她的手肘在他手裡，她的腹部像有話要說。拜託，安靜。她心想。她怕自己會說腹語。

後來，兩個人都知道是怎麼回事。她不再聳肩。她知道要看著他，他的另一隻手拿著一根特別粗大的迴紋針，抓住她手肘的右手伸出拇指，按住肘心。

「你緊張嗎？」

她點頭。

「不要緊張。」

她點頭。


她記得他們玩的那些遊戲，那些金黃色的下午，半掩的百葉窗將他一片片割成條紋狀。他們的母親在客廳喝茶，說著沒完沒了的話。她知道她們在說什麼，她以為她不會聽見的那些事，她已聽過了無數遍。那不過是父親的種種事蹟，那些過時的夜歸，無聲的電話。她又不是不會看字，一個人在家裡的時間，茶几上那些發票，有所有的物件、場景、時間。

更何況她見過這些角色。她不知道母親有沒有見過她們。

然而那都離她很遠，那是另一個房間的事，就等於另一個宇宙。她只知道一個個下午，那些抵在她肘心裡的迴紋針。她喜歡那一點點的疼，他右手握著她手肘，拇指按著針頭。他要她看著他，就不會緊張。她一件件數：眉毛、眼睛、鼻子、嘴巴。有一世紀這麼久。

她從來不知道他們打的是什麼針，但是，「好了。」

好了他就放開手，她得用自己的右手捏住左肘心，用前臂夾住上臂。他等她坐起身，坐到電視前面，她坐在他身邊看他在電視裡殺人，左手夾著那不存在的針孔。他雙眼緊盯螢幕，螢幕上有子彈迎面飛來，血濺四方。他洩氣，手上的控制器摔在地上，他看看她。

「要不要玩？」
「... 不要。」

他歎口氣，重新撿起控制器。螢幕上的背影重新出發，危險四面來襲。她看著剛剛還在身上的手做著其它事情。她還扶著自己的左手，確實覺得手肘開了一個洞，透明的液體正泊泊流出。他們隔著一個拳頭的距離坐著，她折起的上臂壓在心臟，那初生的乳咚咚咚地敲響。

＊

在一切燒毀後，她坐在灰燼裡抬起頭，為空白蒼茫的天空貼上葉子，葉子延伸枝枒，捲成莖幹，鑽進土地，地下有水源，那是一切開始的地方。

＊

她的父母終究沒有離婚。他那文雅地煮熱水、倒茶葉、拿出昂貴骨瓷與甜點的母親遭到拋棄，沒有告訴任何人，悄悄的搬離了社區。但還是所有人都知道了。這世上再也沒有秘密，只有錯誤的想像和推論。他靠在她肚皮上證實了一些（父親為別人離開了母親），大部分都是無稽之談（從未有法庭，他父親沒有再娶，父親的新對象從未懷孕）。他的母親更不說話了，她的母親話還是太多。

你的女友說話嗎？

說的，說很多無聊的話。

我無聊嗎？她看著肚皮上的他笑。

你？你只會覺得我無聊。他抬頭看著她笑。

他們都還記得對方，網路各種演算方法，各種資料，終究他們會遇上。他變了許多，又或者她當年遇上的只是一張白紙，與其它白紙沒有什麼不同，但在她面前的是他這一張：留學歸國，交往了年餘的女友，

他們的性愛沒有遲疑，毋需試探，或懼怕。他們再熟悉不過的遊戲。她在過程中一直看著他，她再數一次：眉毛、眼睛、鼻子、嘴巴。它們游移不定，她得一一釘上。他像對著影子一樣看著身體下的她，伸出雙手抓住她兩邊肘心。只有左邊的發疼，那曾經的針孔像感染一樣擴散發熱，身體各處發出遙遠的回聲，她所有神經都認識他，補住那洞口，補住那洞口，多年前一次次扎出來的痛，那尚未名目就已經太遲的慾望之始。

好了。

好了他就放開手，他抱住她。她抱他像重力攏住銀河，懷中有各個星體流轉，一切自有規律。

＊

他的父親沒有再結婚，但也不曾再回家。他弟弟的婚禮上，他父親一個人赴會，他母親帶著恨意與驕傲拒絕坐在父親身邊，他坐在父親坐的位置，他母親從頭到尾沒有放開他。儀式結束，他父親一個人站在遠遠的地方，慢慢的抽一根煙，像一個在教室門口罰站的同學，全班沒有人敢和他說話。他父親彷彿看見了他，彷彿寬心地想笑，他心虛地轉開眼神，再往那裡看，已經沒有人了。

他要到很久以後，才知道那懲罰是什麼。

他說他母親需要一個家。他不說：我愛她。不說：我想和她結婚。不說：我想擁有她，擁有她經歷的所有時間，我想有資格累積，一秒、一刻、一分、一時，毫無意外變成所謂的永恆。

他說：我希望我母親快樂。她自己的家沒有了，我和我弟弟就是她的家。

他母親對她弟弟婚後所有動作都有微詞，弟媳從有名有姓變成暱稱，變成“你太太”，現在是“那個女人”。他母親把所有不滿都告訴他女友，捏著她的手，像婚前捏著弟媳的手一樣，用一樣的暱稱。趕快結婚，趕快結婚，有你這樣的媳婦我的人生就會圓滿。

我希望她快樂。他還是這樣對她說。就算他們都知道這不可能。他知道他母親婚後會用對待弟媳的方法對待他妻子，她將生氣地對他遷怒，直到他叫她閉嘴。他母親今生再也不會圓滿，也不會快樂，他們都是她不幸的共犯，在這個地方沒有人膽敢快樂。

＊

她當然覺得他無聊。他是別人的員工，主管，兄長，兒子，男友或未婚夫，未來的丈夫和父親：一個充滿愚蠢自豪和瑣碎煩惱的普通男人。但就是這樣一個普通男人，在那些金色的下午，在那裡，用手指掐著她。

連告訴她他要結婚了，都是一個這麼虛弱的理由。

＊

她多麼希望他可以是她的主角，但不是。一個好對手，多麼難。

原諒我只是個平凡人。

他。還有他，他，他。他們都和她這麼說。

《A Little Life》Hanya Yanagihara

But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble.  Somewhere, surrounding to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice.  There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.

《Happy are the Happy》Yasmina Reza

I've lost a friend who had a vision of existence.  That's pretty rare.  People don't have a vision of existence.  They have nothing but opinion.

《Bark》Lorrie Moore

Paper Losses

Although Kit and Rafe had met in the peace movement, marching, organizing, making no nukes signs, now they wanted to kill each other.  They had become, also, a little pro-nuke.  Married for two decades of precious, precious life, she and Rafe seemed currently to be partners only in anger and dislike, their old lusty love mutated to rage.  It was both the shame and the demise of them that hate like love could not live on air.

No one ever said a man was now completely screwed up.  They said, The guy has changed.  Rafe had started to make model rockets in the basement.  He'd become a little different.  He was something of a character.  The brazen might suggest, He's gotten into some weird shit.  The rocket were tall, plastic, penile-shaped things to which Rafe carefully shellacked authenticating military decals.  What had happened to the handsome hippie she had married?  He was prickly and remote, empty with fury.  A blankness had entered his blue-green eyes.  They stayed wide and bright but nonfunctional - like dime-store jewelry.  She wondered if this was a nervous breakdown, the genuine article.  But it persisted for months and she began to suspect, instead, a brain tumor.  Occasionally he catcalled an wolf-whistled across his mute alienation, his pantomime of hate momentarily collapsed.  "Hey, cutie," he would call to her from the stairs, after not having looked her in the eye for two months.  It was like being snowbound with someone's demented uncle: Should marriage be like that?  She wasn't sure.

She seldom saw him anymore when he got up in the morning and left for his office.  And when he came home from work, he would disappear down the basement stairs.  Nightly, in the anxious conjugal dusk that was now their only life together, after the kids went to bed, the house would fill up with fumes.  When she called down to him about this he never answered.  He seemed to have turned into some sort of space alien.  Of course later she would understand that all this meant he was involved with another woman, but at the time, protecting her own vanity and sanity, she was working with two hypotheses only: brain tumor or space alien.

.... It had been a year since Rafe had kissed her.  She sort of cared and sort of didn't.  A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness carefully.  That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness.  An unwise move, good God, you could squander everything.

Wings

"I'm starting to lose confidence in you, Dench."  Losing confidence was more violent than losing love.  Losing love was a slow dying, but losing confidence was a quick coup, a floor that opened right up and swallowed.

She stabbed out her cigarette in a coffee cup, then, turning rubbed her hand down along Dench's sinewy biceps and across his tightly muscled stomach, feeling hounded back into his arms, which she had never really left, and now his arms' familiarity was her only joy.  You could lose someone a little but they would still roam the earth.  The end of love was one big zombie movie.

Subject to Search

"What is the thing you regret most in life?" he asked her, standing close.  There were perhaps a dozen empty bottles, and she and Tom methodically tipped every one of them upside down, held them up to the light, sometimes peering into them from underneath.  "Nothing but dead soldiers here," he murmured.  "I'd like to say optimistically that they were half full, not half empty, but these are just totally empty."

"Unless you have a life of great importance," she said, "regrets are stupid, crumpled-up tickets to a circus that has already left town."

His face went bright with amusement and drink. "Then what happens to the town?" he asked.

She thought about this.  "Oh, there's a lot of weather," she said, slowly.  "It snows.  It thunders.  The sun comes out.  People go to church and sit in the sanctuary and sometimes they see escaped clowns sitting in the back pews with their white gloves still on."

"Escaped clowns?" he asked.
"Escaped," she said. "Sort of escaped."
"Come in from the cold?" he inquired."
"Come in to sit next to each other."

He nodded with satisfaction. "The past is for losers, baby?"

"Kind of like that." She wasn't sure that she agreed, but she understood the power of such a thought.

His stance grew jaunty.  He leaned in close to her, up against the kitchen counter's edge.

"Do you ever feel that no one knows what you're talking about, that everyone is just pretending - except for me?"

She studied him carefully. "Yes, I do," she said. "I do."

"Ah," he replied, straightening his posture.  He clasped her hand: electricity burst into it when vanished as he let go.  "We're all suckers for a happy ending."

Thank You for Having Me

I place a deviled egg in my mouth and resisted the temptation to position it in front of my teeth and smile scarily, the way we had as children.  I chewed and swallowed and grabbed another one.  Soon no doubt I would resemble a large vertical snake who had swallowed a rat.  That rat Ben.  Snakes would eat a sirloin steak only if it was disguised behind the head of a small rodent.  There was a lesson somewhere in there and just a little more wine would reveal it.