Parables from Separate Receptacles

I.
To him, the two men appeared to work together. One wore white, with what appeared to be wings on his back. The other, dressed in black, had the most uncanny suggestion of goat-horns at his temples. Externals aside, they seemed to him to have some shared singularity of purpose, however incomprehensible it may have been. For one thing, it seemed literally impossible to please them both at the same time. When he listened to one, the other would immediately vie for his attention, as if they were two jealous dogs. Each one would suggest in a disarming way the most vile and counterproductive activities for him to perform, such as kill his landlord or love his employer as if he was himself. This was immediately followed by the other one suggesting some moral philosophy that countered the action the other had proposed, such as "thou shall not kill" and "love will lose in every battle."

As this jousting between the two continued, a strange impatience afflicted him. It wasn’t as if he was inconvenienced by it. He had, after all, given years of service to similar inexplicable causes. He had demonstrated for anyone who cared to notice an extraordinary willingness to listen with great empathy to thoroughly unintelligible thoughts from the wholly inscrutable minds of his co-workers. Furthermore, as he had scrupulously explained and documented over a period of years, he had learned to hold his tongue before so many violations of his own common sense that he had indeed become a most silent and effective advocate for causes of which he himself had no knowledge. He was perfectly content in this new environment to continue this practice, which seemed a bit like a trained seal juggling balls.

This inkling he had was different than the discomfort of normal social niceties, however. It came to him as if from nowhere, like an itch that grew inside him until he could bear it no longer. Finally, with extraordinary bravery, he asked his captors how long he would be held there.

They simply laughed. "Oh, we are not captors," they said together. "You are free to go anywhere or do anything you want. We are in fact nothing but masks that you yourself created. We are only here to help you with your real work."

He swallowed and asked, courageously, "What work is that?"

"You will understand it when you are ready to understand it."

This was a familiar parlor trick, he thought. If one would only be patient, the ruse went, wisdom would come in time. What it really meant was another eternity of waiting. If only he could understand what they wanted from him.

"Is there anyone who can come to take me away from this place?" He finally asked.

"Obviously, that particular decision is in hands other than your own. In fact, the concerned parties are deliberating on it at this moment."

And so he sat down and looked out of a window that seemed to look forever into impenetrable fog.

II.
Herr Siglergruber is dead, although in fairness it may be said that he never really lived at all. There's a record that he argued for a more tolerant policy towards the Vlauer insurrection, but it's hard to know for sure if that was him or just our own hindsight. He was present for the firm’s most significant events: the Christmas strike, the Interlochen escapade, the lightbulb incident, but whatever was in his mind at these events, if he had one at all, is unknown to any of us. There are some who claim to remember him, but none of course have been subjected to the scrutiny of a police investigation. And even the most sympathetic to his existence can recall no time he stood up for himself, stated his beliefs, endeavored to be known. It’s hard to call that human. For if he was, indeed, among us, and not some variant of our own personalities, why had we only heard of him when we were reminded?

It’s not a sin, or even a crime, to never have existed. It’s done all the time. How could society function, after all, if each man was judged on what he failed to do, or what he could have done? It seems an impossibly high standard to remember every thing that happens. In this case maybe oblivion is better, for everyone.

This is not meant to be unkind, for no one doubts man's capacity to love. The incontrovertible fact, however, is that emotions are only temporary. When we’re in love, the other person seems more real to us than we do ourselves, but inevitably that person dissolves in time. That’s just the way things are. Man’s affairs are not a bookkeeping entry, there is much that is not accounted for. Everyone knows that punched train tickets are no proof of anything. Names, even on checks, can be fabricated, photos can be faked, the daily press is full of rumoured sightings. This does not confer on us an obligation to believe.

Some may consider it shameful, but we must conclude that there are far more important things to do at present than bring this matter to a full conclusion. There are flowers to harvest, young women to advise, new displays to construct in the windows of all the stores.