September 3, 2009

Page 859


Gately remembered some evil fucking personal detoxes... Cold Turkey.  Abrupt Withdrawal.  The Bird.  Being incapable of doing it and yet having to do it, locked in.  A Revere Holding cage for 92 days.  Feeling the edge of every second that went by.  Taking it a second at a time.  Drawing the time in around him real tight.  Withdrawing.  Any one second: he remembered: the thought of feeling like he'd be feeling this second for 60 more of these seconds - he couldn't deal.  He could not fucking deal.  He had to build a wall around each second just to take it.  The whole first two weeks of it are telescoped in his memory down into like one second - less: the space between two heartbeats.  A breath and a second, the pause and gather between each cramp.  An endless Now stretching its gull-wings out on either side of his heartbeat.  And he'd never before or since felt so excruciatingly alive.  Living in the Present between pulses.  What the White Flaggers talk about: living completely In The Moment.  

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

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