Krovvy

In 1741, un-noticed by anyone, a brilliant writer actually exploded against a wall. The children who blearily depended upon him for intellectual sustenance were summarily executed for being witches delving into farce. Hence today you will never see the stain, never find a trace of ink, or any obituary -- today, I suspect you already know why it is said that he just, exploded.

I've been sitting here for some time now, trying to ascertain any evidence that may possibly be gleaned about this fantastic poet. It simply does not exist. Sure, they sell it on the travel brochures. You fly over here, and the cabbie knows where you're talking about. All the kids know where to direct you, and some of them will even tell you a ghost story or two, cheekily. They all really want to believe he existed, the locals. It's a part of their tourism industry.

They really want to believe he actually exploded. Against that wall.

There are layers of course. You will find that high-school teachers over here like to put on an emphasis on morality, and 'what his life must have really meant' -- you know -- in order to end up that way, exploded like that. They say that he could never recover after the woman he had thought was his true love slipped him off. Just slipped him off, like he was nothing but cheez-wiz remnant sprayed off an old aerosol tip. These high-school teachers romanticize, of course, that he even made a long journey, through fifteen airports, across the world. Across their fifteen immigration agents, and their plethora of lackeys. Across doubt and uncertainty. When he finally got through and found her, she was making love to another man. He then flew all the way back, another fifteen airports and plethora of lackeys, to the other side of the world, and finally exploded, against this wall, this very wall I have been funded to study.

I sit with my friends Pierre and Ursa here, some of the fine locals. I've become something of a celebrity myself -- 'the writer about the writer who exploded, against the wall'. They think I'm going to make them all famous. They buy me shots, and after a little while I start to feel that it is not that they want something from me. This is just how things are, over here. With the locals. They are a fun-loving people.

Tomorrow I have to go home with the rotten job of explaining to my own culture about how there is 'really no actual man, no writer, who just exploded against a wall.'

Spontaneous combustion is a myth, yet I somehow feel as though I'm betraying all these people I have come to care about.