stumbling and burbling

Here’s my crazy plan for the future. When I leave here, having served my time or been ‘cured’, I don’t want to go back to Belle Isle. I don’t want to go back to any place. The only thing I’m sure of is that the past is absolutely dead. The future must be absolutely new. This is true not only of me but of you and everyone. A new beginning must be made. People must begin all over again, as tentatively as strangers meeting…I want to go with her, a mute, psychotic, totally ravaged and defiled woman, take her to a little cottage over there, and there take of her. We could speak simply. ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘Are you cold?’ Perhaps we could take a walk on the levee. In the new world it will be possible to enjoy simple things once again. But first I must communicate with her. I realize that. Have you tried talking with her? She won’t talk? She’s turned her face to the wall and that’s that.