I remember it. Do you?

Do you remember I sang you Edith Piaf?

Do you remember how thrilling it was at the beginning of our relationship? That feeling of finding someone? You were conducting your study of Near Death Experiences, and I told you that every day for me was a “Near Death Experience.”

We found an understanding.

At least for a time.

Can we find an understanding again?

Death Be Not Proud

At this point in our correspondence I remember quoting John Donne, the Tzombi poet (those of you in literary circles may scoff at this suggestion, but remember “Death be not proud?") Anyone with a passing familiarity with Izaak Walton’s biography of Donne will know that he exhibited most of the traits associated with the Tzombi race. In fact, one of his early poems, “The Good Morrow”—the title itself a reference to the “morrow” after death—contains the line “Whatever dyes, was not mixt equally.” Most scholars consider this a love poem, when in fact it is a coded reference to his Tzombi status, the term “mixture” being largely applied in the late 1500’s to one’s combination of nationalities. Here he is proclaiming his “mixture” to be equal parts Tzombi and Anglo.

At any rate, I remember including lines from the Tzombi poet’s “The Anniversarie”:

Only our love hath no decay;
This, no to morrow hath, nor yesterday.
Two graves must hide thine and my coarse,
If one might, death were no divorce.

TO: Rodrigo Weiss
FROM: Mathilde Bagnoire
DATE: 05/18/98
SUBJECT: Base desires


Rodrigo -

Death surrounds us like a shroud, but I must honor it, and you must honor me. I can see you are not ready. It is for your own protection.

Mathilde


TO: Mathilde Bagnoire
FROM: Rodrigo Weiss
DATE: 05/19/98
SUBJECT: Necrophilia


Mathilde -

I will honor you. But follow my line of reasoning: love has no logic, but perhaps it can be applied here: if you are, in fact, dead, then the doctors are wrong, and I don’t, in fact, exist. If this is true, everything is in your head and the rules of society hold no sway over us, because society is merely a construct of your own imagination. If I do, in fact exist, then so do the doctors and you are not, in fact, dead. Therefore the necrophilia you mentioned is impossible.

I feel like a schoolboy trying to convince his crush to dance with him—forgive me. But this, too, adds to a vitality that I have not felt at all during my adult life, so perhaps these adolescent feelings are appropriate. You have made me new again.

Yours,

Rodrigo

TO: Mathilde Bagnoire
FROM: Rodrigo Weiss
DATE: 05/18/98
SUBJECT: Base desires

Mathilde --

I must admit to you that, in general, I am a stranger to base desires. Perhaps it is due to my being steeped in the materialist branches of philosophy; perhaps I recognize such things as simply a means of furthering a species I am uncertain is worth furthering; perhaps I am unable to engage in such things because I see the world as a joyless sham. What I do know is that when I contemplate indulging in the carnal with you it seems, not like the base act it is, but rather an act of affirmation—the ultimate proof that we both exist and have overcome the death which surrounds us.

Rodrigo

TO: Rodrigo Weiss
FROM: Mathilde Bagnoire
DATE: 04/22/98
SUBJECT: The solipsistic conceit

Rodrigo -

I feel I should distinguish for you between the rational, empirically provable fact that I am alive and the emotional truth that I am dead. The paradox here is essentially the same as that which underlies the solipsistic conceit: the doctors can tell me that I have a mental or chemical condition, but when I question the very reality of those doctors, none of what they way matters. I KNOW I am dead. I also know that others find this difficult to accept. I am perfectly within my rights to doubt their existence.

When I am capable of being rational, I am fully aware of my situation. I have been diagnosed with Cotard’s Syndrome by a team of doctors in Paris. I spent eight years in an institution on a daily regimen of Venlafaxine and Zuclopenthixol. When my doctor, the leading specialist in Cotard’s Syndrome, decided to relocate to Southern California, I followed him. I have not seen the specialist for years, although I have continued my drug regiment. But when I am here, Paris does not exist, and the doctors do not exist except as constructs of my own imagination. My problem is a reality. I am dead. If the doctors do not exist, their theory that I suffer from mental illness is simply a construction of my mind. Nobody else exists—I am in the grave, surrounded by six feet of isolation. If anyone is capable of making me believe in the autonomy of the other human beings around me, it is you. I know my psyche, which has known so little kindness, love, or generosity, is utterly incapable of inventing a person with such an abundance of these qualities.

However, though sweet, your words worry me. I do not want you to be absorbed. If anything, I want to be absorbed into you. As I’ve said before, your existence is proof positive that I am not alone.

If you will have me, I am yours.

Mathilde.

P.S. I suppose kissing is fine, but I will not have you sullied by allowing you to engage in an act that amounts to necrophilia, much as I might desire it. Please honor my wishes on this point.”

The Episode

Mathilde.

You must listen to me.

You don’t remember your episode.

I remember everything.

You were out of your head. I moved you from the window, where you were lying in the sun, complaining that it was burning your flesh away, to the darkened bedroom. I sat with you for hours. You wrapped the sheet around yourself like a shroud. I stayed for several hours until you fell asleep. I came back every day to check on you.

I must admit that feeling needed by you was an exhilarating and slightly frightening proposition.

Having no family other than my grandmother, the bonds of any kind of love were bound to be a bit untried - I only hope I could honor them to the level at which they deserve to be honored.

You know that blunt trauma to the head was the cause of my syndrome.

Be honest with yourself, Rodrigo. You were there.

An Overriding Aesthetic

I would hardly characterize my fastidiousness as a “disorder,” but rather an overriding aesthetic with which I live and work.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD):


A condition that is characterized by the presence of obsessions and/or compulsions. Obsessions are recurrent, intrusive thoughts usually irrational worries that often necessitate behaviors to prevent untoward consequences (e.g., fears of contamination from dirt requiring the individual to wear gloves at all times). Compulsions are recurrent behaviors that the individual feels compelled to undertake which are beyond what are considered normal, usually to preserve personal safety, to avoid embarrassment, to perform adequately (e.g., checking multiple times to see that the gas is turned off before leaving home).

In the Interest of Understanding

Dear Readers:

In the interest of understanding, I’d like to draw your attention to the phrase in the above correspondence which Mathilde illegally posted on my blog: “It’s so rarely that I am able to escape my own head.” This statement epitomizes Mathilde’s affliction, which is characterized as a type of megalomelancholia.

In the beginning of our relationship, I sympathized with these feelings, even encouraged them, as I felt they were a healthy appraisal of the philosophical idea of solipsism , an idea which it is impossible to refute. What I began to realize, however, is that this attitude was a sign of mental illness.

Please note I attribute my inability to perform a certain function to the slovenly nature of Mathilde’s flat. Before the function in question was to be performed, I had stepped on a cockroach in my bare feet. This, and the fact that she was wearing her communion veil.