To: Mathilde Bagnoire
From: Rodrigo Weiss
Date: 04/28/98
Subject: Automatons

Mathilde -

When I was a child my grandmother had a massive nativity which she would set up on the hearth. Because I begged her, and because it became tradition, she left the twinkle lights on when she went to bed. As I slept on the couch, I could see the Holy Family through my half-closed eyes—I would drift off, then awaken, and each time I awoke again the blinking lights would give the momentary illusion that these figures were moving. Sometimes they became my family - sometimes just anonymous people who loved me, once - though of course I never told my grandmother, or the priest, about it - once I awoke and I was the child in the manger. The looks on the faces of the Virgin, and the shepherds, were so full of love. After a few seconds, the illusion would fade, and I would find myself drifting off again. But every time, before I started to go too deep, I would awaken again, and once again the illusion that there was a warm, loving circle - a family - surrounding me. I don’t know which was more convincing - the feeling of well-being brought on by that momentary illusion, or the feeling of bottomless melancholy when the illusion faded. I would sleep fitfully. When it was morning, I awoke with the certainty - a certainty extremely difficult to dispel - that the world was peopled by automatons.

Rodrigo