Pointless Mr. ProbstBy Beatriz Seelaender
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Mr. Herman Probst, an uneasy man, always fidgeting with his hands, was presently in a New York hotel being celebrated for his years and years of tracing down ghosts. Mr. Probst was very fond of ghosts - that is, of the figurative ones, with whom he was most acquainted, as opposed to the scary dead spirits so peevishly portrayed by popular culture, but whom he in his life had yet to encounter [1].
[1] Mr Probst’s mother, a feeble believer, had no doubts whatsoever that ghosts lived among us. She was, in fact, a self-proclaimed specialist: palm reading, lucky charms, numerous sorts of vibes - these were such a prominent part of his childhood he took a long time to perceive it as an idiosyncrasy or odd trait of his mother’s. Once he did, Herman often experienced feelings of embarrassment and, to a lesser degree, frustration.
When Herman Probst got older, he lost his father to a hurricane and a storm, and his father never came back even though he was not afraid to die and he used to say that in the end all of us turn into ghosts. Despite his mother’s constant feelings of “vibrations” and her reassuring Herman of his father’s continuous presence, young Herman; too young, really, was permanently convinced that the Afterlife, as they call it, was an elaborate scam. Such suspicions were soon to be confirmed by many an important thinker (see: Nietzsche, all of it) and his mother’s frequent and one-sided conversations with his deceased father, which never seemed to go well. Some days he would listen to her whispering in the kitchen, ordering a dead man to make a car honk nearby if he meant yes to whatever question she needed an answer to. Thankfully things went back to normal after a year or so, after a dry summer that felt like three in a roll.
Still, his mother constantly prayed to God, or the ghost of God, to protect the boy despite his wandering ways. She thought him a snobbish child, and often illustrated that thought by telling him that “curiosity killed the cat” - although, she did enrich the narrative: the cat’s name was Leonard, and what a proper name for a cat, thought Herman, because for some reason “Leonard” reminded him of whiskers. Or perhaps he had just made a late association and to him Leonard seemed like a proper name for a cat due to the insistent memory of that story. It was almost as if he remembered the story before he remembered himself, and the story was simply there, forever, and he knew it by heart as though he’d never had to learn it.
Anyhow, it made poor fictional Leonard into the king of cats; the cat of all cats.
Is that something all of us humans do? Pick one representative of an extensive group of various participants, as if that one individual example counted as the platonic definition, the cat all cats are trying to recreate? Someone very wisely observed to me once that they had never seen a yellow duck, and yet for some reason when asked to draw a duck, the duck he drew was always yellow. Now that I come to think of it, I too have never seen a duck of that colour. We as society probably get the idea that ducks are invariably yellow from children’s books drawings and fanciful cartoons, and rubber ducks. And who is to question these pre-conceived notions generated in childhood? It is clear now our children are being viciously deceived by the vile poultry industry.
Ah, poor Leonard; now Mr. Probst knew he was always going to die, and the story never really mattered. The story, he wrote, is an afterthought to the undeniable premise; the undeniable lesson.
His mission, he said, was of utmost importance to society. He was a scholar, an authority in history - almost like an archaeologist, if you will, even though he refused to dig through actual dirt [2].
[2] Herman thought this a very funny joke. In reality, his hatred for dirt was much more serious than a stunt on archaeologists. He hated dirt and getting dirt under his fingernails and on the soles of his feet or his shoes. Of all types of dirt he hated sand the most. Even as a child, in fact, Herman was terrified of sandboxes. What happened was, someone made the mistake of telling him that old proverbial factoid; that even if one were to spend one’s entire life counting grains of sand on a single beach, there would never be time to count them all. For some reason, this was a matter of great affliction to young Herman, and old Herman did not like to think about it. He hated the beach and getting sand on his flip flops. The logistics of it is problematic, he would say. I can go into the ocean to wash the flip flops but still have to walk through sand on my way back. It’s pointless, he sighed. He liked the ocean, but not the beach. The ocean was vast, but it was whole.
No, Herman was obsessed with the forgotten in his own way: forgotten people and places and even words. At times, during the night when everything was quiet, he wondered whether they had even existed at all. It would be quite depressing, he often thought, to have been born as a peasant in the early Middle Ages, and to have lived in there and to have felt the plunge of human emotion and to have died and been buried in a field of rice, gone without so much as a record of one’s existence. Where’s the plunge, then? Without proof Herman couldn’t vouch for them having ever been alive at all. Didn’t they care about being forgotten? I think they just thought of the present, Herman thought. When did people stop thinking in the present; when did we start thinking about the time? It was almost as if the present was an antiquated concept; a thing of the past - a place where all these little people in all their historical smallness kept on living just for living’s sake. Were they still there, in the present?, Herman wondered sometimes. Did they ever even leave? [3]
[3] This strange question had somewhat of a deeper concept inside it. One of the things, in fact, that Mr.Probst had learned in his years of research is that, always, no matter how shallow and plain a concept is, there will be something waiting to be discovered inside it.
So, when Herman refers to the present in an expansive way, rather than as one fleeting moment, he is thinking about numbers: numbers were all infinite in themselves. There is an infinity of numbers from one to two, because you would never stop counting the numbers behind the comma. Which means you could never really get from one to two, or two to three, even if you spent your whole life counting. Is that how time works?, he would think. Are we continually stuck in this damned place like we are idiots on a treadmill, trying to get to the next stop? Because between two numbers there are infinite numbers, and inside each of these there is another infinity, which holds yet another, and another, and the number of infinities itself is infinite. So perhaps there are ghosts living somewhere in the past, continuously, caught in a loophole.
“Well, they believed in God, you see. They believed in heaven.”, now and then someone would tell Herman so as to comfort him. This attempt, however, only exasperated him further [4].
[4] Were Mr. Probst a religious person, he believed he would not care so much for dead people and rescuing as many as he could from the fate of eternal indifference. Religious people were certain that God forgot nothing and therefore no one. To them, God was in charge of keeping track of us. Mr. Probst was nonetheless sceptical of that notion, because he knew there were a great many forgotten places on Earth, and people lived there and there was no God out there.
Herman believed the reason why people liked the idea of God so much was that, once God was always on their side, they could never be alone. But Herman never minded it much; being alone. He had lots of things to think about and was never bored by them.
All it did was remind him of the fact those people died with false hope. He had rescued some of them; yes, but there was only so much that fit inside the lost and found. Many a time Mr. Probst had wondered whether some of these lost things were his to keep [5], but no one ever came looking for them.
[5] He knew a lady from the 19th century had cheated on her lover with her husband, and he knew about South-American tribes who were spotted four hundred years ago by some Portuguese explorer but were yet to be seen again, and he knew the dates for every eclipse, all of which he was sure many real forgotten people had noticed and felt something and then forgotten about it themselves. He agonized over the stars that were already dead a thousand years ago but were still visible from the sky back then. That is what he did. He stared at stars already gone before they were gone for good- stars today proclaiming the unremarkable fate of someone who died years ago.
Much like most readers with their favourite novels, a sense of ownership over other people’s memories eventually crept in - and Mr. Herman’s knowledge of trivial episodes in history slowly morphed into the landscape decorating the back of his mind; always in the back of his mind. The characters were his to dispose of, and his mind filled the gaps in their stories until he could no longer separate truth and fiction. When it comes to abandoned things, the truth is for anyone to take, and make into something believable.
Yet there was always the question of whether it would all die when he died; whether they would die all over again. And he was scared, you see; that he had unburied all these lost stories only to take them to the grave himself. What is the point of knowing, anyway? What cannot be recognized goes by without notice; with no one to tell its story. Yes, I think, therefore I am - but I cannot prove this to anyone but myself. It is quite a claustrophobic thought, and Mr. Probst was particularly prone to the occasional claustrophobia.
Mr. Probst was the footnote man at Lyndon & Feldman, inc. For forty years now he had been their footnote man. The unhealthy obsession he led for information no one cared about - specifically because no one cared about it - had presented him with a relatively successful career. Jordan Sulk, a writer who achieved great recognition in his twenties, only to have it fade away more and more as he reached old age (Herman thought of him as Jordan, the untimely [6]), had studied with Herman and taken notice of his memorizing skills.
Yet there was always the question of whether it would all die when he died; whether they would die all over again. And he was scared, you see; that he had unburied all these lost stories only to take them to the grave himself. What is the point of knowing, anyway? What cannot be recognized goes by without notice; with no one to tell its story. Yes, I think, therefore I am - but I cannot prove this to anyone but myself. It is quite a claustrophobic thought, and Mr. Probst was particularly prone to the occasional claustrophobia.
Mr. Probst was the footnote man at Lyndon & Feldman, inc. For forty years now he had been their footnote man. The unhealthy obsession he led for information no one cared about - specifically because no one cared about it - had presented him with a relatively successful career. Jordan Sulk, a writer who achieved great recognition in his twenties, only to have it fade away more and more as he reached old age (Herman thought of him as Jordan, the untimely [6]), had studied with Herman and taken notice of his memorizing skills.
[6] That is quite an epithet, and it was due to Sulk’s famous ability to always, without failure, show at the worst moment possible in a conversation. E.g: A couple with whom Mr. Sulk is acquainted is in the middle of a fight in a public space, say, a café. They are about to reach the climax to their argument - that is, what the nature of the important business the husband had attended in the night prior to this morning actually was - when, My! Mr. Sulk spots them, proceeds to sit at their table and asks what it is that is, as one says, up.
The epithet is also a reference to Jordan’s peaking early in his career, quietly fading away. But he was not the only acquaintance of Mr. Probst’s to have gotten epithetic honours. Herman actually happened to attribute epithets to most of them. His current boss, Carlyle Feldman, for instance, was Carlyle, the futile.
When his editor mentioned he was looking for someone to do the footnotes for a project, Sulk did not hesitate in recommending him. Strange man, Sulk. Why he would have remembered his of all names is still a mystery to Herman. They had studied together in University, but Herman was hardly an exemplary student - on the contrary, he often got terrible grades due to his “insufferable meandering over everything and simultaneously nothing at all”[7].
[7] The complete report, as it was written by Prof.Altridge; PhD:
“The student does not complete the assigned tasks and instead writes about what he wants. Does not follow instructions. Needs to study editing as an urgent matter, or he will never graduate. Half of his papers are composed of irrelevant bullshit. One must figuratively carve the few excerpts related to the theme.” (ALTRIDGE, M.)
However it came to be, though, Herman was now a highly regarded footnote man by all others involved in the business. So much that about a week ago, the squeaky door in his office squeaked once again as his boss, Steve, the moustache-less[8], walked in.
[8] Originally “Steve, the moustached”. The complicated history surrounding this epithet may sound obvious, but it has led to many a philosophical disturbances in Herman’s head. In a way, everything forever changed when a once well-kept and carefully trimmed moustache was shaved off; without any warning whatsoever. It was an eventful day at the office, for, as long as he could remember, Steve had had a moustache, and everyone was surprised. To conceive of such a man deprived of his defining quality was difficult even when Herman had tried to picture Steve as a baby - almost always, this attempt would end in the inaccurate mental projection of an oversized Matador-like moustache on the baby’s face. Moustache-less Steve was an elephant without a trunk; a chair without a seat; a pair of glasses with no lenses- and what was even more paradoxical than this was the fact that “moustache-less-ness” (that is, the lack of a moustache) became his primary, defining quality.
“How are you doing, Herman? How’s my encyclopaedia man doing?”
A forced smile outlined both their mouths. Steve seemed to be in a hurry. We are paying an homage to your forty years in the company in the next corporate party, he said. If you could make a Power Point presentation [9], get some of your photos in there, a nice song - that would be great.
A forced smile outlined both their mouths. Steve seemed to be in a hurry. We are paying an homage to your forty years in the company in the next corporate party, he said. If you could make a Power Point presentation [9], get some of your photos in there, a nice song - that would be great.
[9] Steve also got disproportionally excited about Power Point. Herman made a mental note to later ponder about starting to call him Steve, the Power-Point-enthusiast.
The task of making a Power Point presentation consisting of one’s own pictures was something the least self-aware man would perceive as one step too far, but it seemed as though his boss did not want company time wasted on such a task. Every year the company payed homages to its elder employees. It was their kindly way of saying “Thanks, but you’re too old now”. Obviously, the older employees knew that, given that they had worked there since forever.
“We were thinking of ways in which your transition could be facilitated for us all. You must be excited, hum, going on permanent vacation.”
Herman examined his subconscious in order to distinguish any sign of discontent. There should not be any. Most people looked forward to their retirement, and Herman was no different. Except that, whenever he considered retirement, he imagined something different. Almost as if he was different himself. An older man, completely realized, career-wise, with a sense of self-accomplishment for having fulfilled his destiny in the history of mankind. But there were always more footnotes he could write, and he was old, and the elder, wiser version of him was older than him no matter how old he was.
What’s more, Herman was angry at Steve’s dismissive tone. Earlier that year he conducted a market research which had indicated consumer interest decreased when a book had too many footnotes. That research alone resulted in Herman being cut from three projects.
“See, Herman,”, his Steve said at the occasion, “the thing is, no one likes to read these things anymore. We have to adapt.”
“I don’t like this either”, Carlyle, the futile continued, “but you have to understand that people are stupid. It’s why we don’t have a functional democracy, and why their attention span is three minutes; tops. What they want is simple: bigger, better, faster, more. They don’t want to know the details of stuff.”
Despite the company’s remarkable indifference towards Herman, he had never before been deemed dispensable. Given the infinity of his trivial knowledge, his notes were rarely inspected and hardly ever questioned. Herman had a profound conviction that he was the overwrought pair of feet supporting the entire body of workers of Lyndman and Feldman’s, and simply knowing that was enough. Frequently ignored and very often taken for granted, Mr. Probst was willing to carry and maintain the company’s reputation on no more than thirty thousand a year, and had the power to ruin it in a sitting.
Someone had said, once - who had it been? - that the most powerful are not those who have made or built more, but those who have the power to destroy it. Due to the potentially destructive properties of his function, Herman considered himself to be a very powerful man. He had a hunger, a hunger sound asleep, to show the world what he was able to do - which did not mean he was not conscious of its presence in his body.
Nevertheless, like those of us who manage to keep our money inside our pockets, Herman was aware that the pure feeling of being able to buy an expensive item was infinitely better than actually spending money on it. Looking at shops with absurd pricings, going about them all knowing you could separately buy this or that, exempts one of that conflicting pinch that comes whenever one is not able to buy both. Mr. Probst, therefore, also realized that spending the money he had on him - that is, power - would empty his metaphoric power wallet. And so he was always on his place, doing his job. He always figured he would get to show off one day.
“What I do is important, you know,” he let his bosses know in a sad old man voice. Herman Probst was not an idiot, despite his disposition for analysing facts and only facts. Experience had taught him the firing of old men who have worked at a given job their entire lives is, at the very least, motive for awkwardness; often used in films as tear-jerking moments.
He didn’t feel it yet, though; the movie moment. He did not feel like an old man - in fact, he did not feel like it was him in that scene.
“The thing is, Herman, some people just want a light summer read. You can’t force knowledge down their throats; especially if it’s just knowledge for the sake of knowledge [10].”
“We were thinking of ways in which your transition could be facilitated for us all. You must be excited, hum, going on permanent vacation.”
Herman examined his subconscious in order to distinguish any sign of discontent. There should not be any. Most people looked forward to their retirement, and Herman was no different. Except that, whenever he considered retirement, he imagined something different. Almost as if he was different himself. An older man, completely realized, career-wise, with a sense of self-accomplishment for having fulfilled his destiny in the history of mankind. But there were always more footnotes he could write, and he was old, and the elder, wiser version of him was older than him no matter how old he was.
What’s more, Herman was angry at Steve’s dismissive tone. Earlier that year he conducted a market research which had indicated consumer interest decreased when a book had too many footnotes. That research alone resulted in Herman being cut from three projects.
“See, Herman,”, his Steve said at the occasion, “the thing is, no one likes to read these things anymore. We have to adapt.”
“I don’t like this either”, Carlyle, the futile continued, “but you have to understand that people are stupid. It’s why we don’t have a functional democracy, and why their attention span is three minutes; tops. What they want is simple: bigger, better, faster, more. They don’t want to know the details of stuff.”
Despite the company’s remarkable indifference towards Herman, he had never before been deemed dispensable. Given the infinity of his trivial knowledge, his notes were rarely inspected and hardly ever questioned. Herman had a profound conviction that he was the overwrought pair of feet supporting the entire body of workers of Lyndman and Feldman’s, and simply knowing that was enough. Frequently ignored and very often taken for granted, Mr. Probst was willing to carry and maintain the company’s reputation on no more than thirty thousand a year, and had the power to ruin it in a sitting.
Someone had said, once - who had it been? - that the most powerful are not those who have made or built more, but those who have the power to destroy it. Due to the potentially destructive properties of his function, Herman considered himself to be a very powerful man. He had a hunger, a hunger sound asleep, to show the world what he was able to do - which did not mean he was not conscious of its presence in his body.
Nevertheless, like those of us who manage to keep our money inside our pockets, Herman was aware that the pure feeling of being able to buy an expensive item was infinitely better than actually spending money on it. Looking at shops with absurd pricings, going about them all knowing you could separately buy this or that, exempts one of that conflicting pinch that comes whenever one is not able to buy both. Mr. Probst, therefore, also realized that spending the money he had on him - that is, power - would empty his metaphoric power wallet. And so he was always on his place, doing his job. He always figured he would get to show off one day.
“What I do is important, you know,” he let his bosses know in a sad old man voice. Herman Probst was not an idiot, despite his disposition for analysing facts and only facts. Experience had taught him the firing of old men who have worked at a given job their entire lives is, at the very least, motive for awkwardness; often used in films as tear-jerking moments.
He didn’t feel it yet, though; the movie moment. He did not feel like an old man - in fact, he did not feel like it was him in that scene.
“The thing is, Herman, some people just want a light summer read. You can’t force knowledge down their throats; especially if it’s just knowledge for the sake of knowledge [10].”
[10] This particular phrase bothered Herman for a great deal of time. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Why was that so wrong and undesirable? Why would one disregard a piece of information? Herman had trouble coming to terms with the notion held by most that a piece of knowledge is more valued when it is applicable, because he was used to associating “applicable” to “menial”, and considered menial tasks, such as conclusions acquired from experience, less respectable than, say, academic reflection.
One of his greatest fears, in fact, was that “How-to” manuals took over the market, causing readers to follow its instructions without thinking; without wondering why- because wondering why is useless.
And yet, whenever he was asked what the function of footnotes actually was, he got nervous and stammered.
“You have to ask yourself, is this information useful?”
“I understand.”
“We know you do. You’re a smart guy, Herman, but you can’t assume everyone thinks like you.”
Is this information useful?. There was a time when he would have blamed this phrasing on Capitalism. Capitalism did not allow one to waste time discussing that which cannot be sold, or made into something that can. But he cannot remember what it was that he discussed when he was younger that was so abstract and profound that got people to understand the importance of what he did for a living. In all honestly, some days his job felt like mining - menial and alone.
Right now there were a bunch of people there, watching. Mr.Probst watched himself as well as he toasted from afar:
“I’ve been doing this work for forty years. When people ask me why I care so much about footnotes, I ask them why they don’t. Real history is collateral. You can’t learn history without these little mishaps to connect to the big events. It’s a book stripped off its meaning. History should tell us a story, so we know people have always been people. Footnotes - they’re how we bring them to life.”[11]
“I understand.”
“We know you do. You’re a smart guy, Herman, but you can’t assume everyone thinks like you.”
Is this information useful?. There was a time when he would have blamed this phrasing on Capitalism. Capitalism did not allow one to waste time discussing that which cannot be sold, or made into something that can. But he cannot remember what it was that he discussed when he was younger that was so abstract and profound that got people to understand the importance of what he did for a living. In all honestly, some days his job felt like mining - menial and alone.
Right now there were a bunch of people there, watching. Mr.Probst watched himself as well as he toasted from afar:
“I’ve been doing this work for forty years. When people ask me why I care so much about footnotes, I ask them why they don’t. Real history is collateral. You can’t learn history without these little mishaps to connect to the big events. It’s a book stripped off its meaning. History should tell us a story, so we know people have always been people. Footnotes - they’re how we bring them to life.”[11]
[11] He sounded passionate. Don’t I sound passionate?, he thought to himself. He saw books without detail like slices of Swiss cheese scavenged. Mind, mind, mind the gap. Maybe it was all about holes, and in a disturbing way Freud had been right. After all, gaps are to humanity a great source of agony and misfortune. It matters not whether said gap is a vagina, a plot hole, or the symbolic lack of substance which resumes into the question of being. More than ever Herman asked himself the question of what would be; were the gaps to be filled once and for all. Would we still feel empty ourselves, now that everything was whole and complete? He often wondered if we would reach the conclusion it all a huge waste of time, and voluntarily fall into a black hole in a final, desperate attempt to fill it with matter.
“When you come to think about it, really, most things we do are pointless, in the end,” said Mr. Probst colleague in editing, Vincent, the prolific, when they had lunch one day before Herman’s retirement party. Herman hadn’t told anyone he was going to retire yet. He was trying to come up with an excuse to make it sound like it had been his decision to leave the job. Meanwhile, Vincent was talking (a sentence of long-lasting veracity, given how much Vincent actually talks - if one was to spend 24 hours repeating that same sentence, Herman estimated it would be true eighty percent of the time).
“You’re very right - in the end, we just have to look out for ourselves.”
Vincent was about thirty years old, even though he fancied himself a beacon of proverbial wisdom [12].
“You’re very right - in the end, we just have to look out for ourselves.”
Vincent was about thirty years old, even though he fancied himself a beacon of proverbial wisdom [12].
[12] At the moment he is in the process of writing a dystopian novel. When it comes to it, he is simultaneously very secretive and very sharing - after declaring he would be damned for writing such a horrible work, he readily expects his colleagues’ utmost validation, and everyone’s assurance that his novel would, when ready, be the editor’s priority. More than once, he had dramatically tossed a pile of paper sheets in the office fireplace, even though Herman knew he had that all saved in his computer. Sometimes Marlene, the complacent - the secretary who had a crush on him, picks those up and tries to decipher what was written. Herman believes Marlene’s feelings to be reciprocated by Vincent, but he tries to stay out of office gossip. The only pieces of gossip that interest him were historical ones.
His hobbies included playing “devil’s advocate”, talking about the future of civilization, and cultivating decaf coffee beans. Herman would normally stare at him with disbelief when he got into those subjects, in order to demonstrate theirs was not a friendship but a relationship built upon mutual tolerance.
“Why is everyone so worried about future generations? We are so interested in preserving the species, but preserving the species is exactly what is causing the global warming situation. So, this is the queue for my novel, see? It starts with world leaders taking a vote on whether the human race should continue to exist.”
“Oh.”
“A few good people are selected to survive the collective suicide [13].
“Why is everyone so worried about future generations? We are so interested in preserving the species, but preserving the species is exactly what is causing the global warming situation. So, this is the queue for my novel, see? It starts with world leaders taking a vote on whether the human race should continue to exist.”
“Oh.”
“A few good people are selected to survive the collective suicide [13].
[13] How 7 billion people would be forced into committing suicide, Vincent could not explain. He thought it not relevant for the story, and stood by the idea that mandatory suicide was, in fact, to be considered suicide even if the person does not truly want to kill his or herself. In order to illustrate the idea, he summoned historical examples of people who had committed suicide as to scape greater evils. “Just because a given set of circumstances was presented so that these are the only two choices, they are choices nonetheless”. Herman did not agree with that. He thought it inconsiderate of those who wanted to go about living their lives and yet got dragged into that entire nonsense. Historical casualties. Mr. Probst was always very concerned with casualties.
Those are the ones allowed to repopulate, the decision having been based on morality and good genes.”
“This is… well, it sounds a whole lot like The First Testament. You know, Noah.”
“It is not like The Bible. It defies Christianity and takes place in a post-religious world.”
“I’m sure it does. But it’s not just Christianity, you know. All major religions seem to recount what sounds like the story of the Great Flood. One of the first examples of cuneiform writing[14] - and by extension writing overall- narrates it already like something that happened a long time ago. I can’t help but think the flood actually happened. I wonder why this particular story was the one to survive for so long.”
“This is… well, it sounds a whole lot like The First Testament. You know, Noah.”
“It is not like The Bible. It defies Christianity and takes place in a post-religious world.”
“I’m sure it does. But it’s not just Christianity, you know. All major religions seem to recount what sounds like the story of the Great Flood. One of the first examples of cuneiform writing[14] - and by extension writing overall- narrates it already like something that happened a long time ago. I can’t help but think the flood actually happened. I wonder why this particular story was the one to survive for so long.”
[14] The aforementioned text is called The Epic of Atrahasis and is on display in New York, at the Pierpont Morgan library. Herman loves the Pierpont Morgan library and often visits whenever his feelings of inadequacy reach a high. Pierpont, with whom he had held enough imaginary conversations to be on a first name basis, had been a millionaire who had dedicated much of his life and time to the forgotten. Herman was always comforted by the simple fact of him having existed, and he felt the two would have been such good friends.
“This is good stuff, Herman. You are a quality footnote man indeed. I think I could incorporate this into the novel, what do you think? Take a little bit of this, a little bit of that… Obviously, I can’t make it too similar, but it’s always nice when you give it a nod. I’m thinking I could call one of the chosen ones ‘Noah’. Or is that too obvious? ‘Yes, it is. It is too obvious. What if I call the bad guy ‘Noah’? There is probably some symbolism in that, given that this other generation was already supposed to have solved things, and yet here we are again in another symbolic flood. And the catch in the end is - is this really a dystopian novel?”
“Sure. Well, dystopian novels normally tend to go the other way. In my opinion, the best way to write a dystopian novel is by not advertising it as dystopian - and instead have the reader find out as he progresses.”
“That really is good. But the reason I am talking about my novel at all is because of your knowledge for the sake of knowledge question. Well, the fact that humanity in my novel recognizes its own pointlessness is key to the point I’m trying to make. When you have nothing to live for, you find something to die for.”
“Yes, there is some truth in that. But this collective death thing would never happen; it goes against our fundamental constitution, which calls for the preservation of life.”
“This is an animalistic instinct. Just as that of protecting cubs or even having descendants at all. We are better off without those instincts. We keep trying to find hidden meanings to life because we cannot stand the idea of living for living’s sake.”
“Nonsense! Life is the natural state, Vincent.”
“All right, old man, then riddle me this - would you rather die right now for some cause you are passionate about, or in thirty years of dysentery?”
“I don’t think I dispose of a selection of causes for which I could sacrifice my own.”
“Well, very well, then. But be assured, people are just desperate to die. They just want to be able to die at the right time. We are no more than infinitesimal parts of this weird species thing. Have you ever lived for living’s sake, Probst?”
“Not in your terms. But in your terms no one has ever truly lived. I don’t believe that to be true. And I don’t really believe in people being fractions of a species, at least not in the way you put it. I really do think they were individuals who got lost in history.”
“Maybe, but who cares now? That’s the point, isn’t it? Who cares now? They are dead, and we are gonna die, but somehow we are still here; living.”
“That’s very profound.”
“I’m thinking of putting it in my novel.”
“Yes, that’s all very well.”
“I just can’t finish it for the life of me. I have it all in my head and yet, when it comes to writing it down…Well, there’s no deadline. Did you know Chekhov didn’t start writing until his forties? Obviously, you know that. Not that I am comparing myself to Chekov. I am just saying; there is time.”
“Well, you never know.”
He gave an uneasy laughter. Oh, old man, he said. You can be grim sometimes.
Mr. Probst - an uneasy man - always fidgeting with his hands, was in the middle of the process of giving a moving yet upbeat toast to his career. You would think he was thinking about a lot of things; his life going through his head and all. Mr. Probst’s mind, however, was presently completely blank, and the plunge of insignificance he felt go through his stomach was taken for side effect of too much champagne. This was just a moment in time.
“History is somewhere else right now,” he said, “but let’s toast to her anyway.”
He had one or two miserable days left at work, but let us end this here. After all, there is no need for an ending, for we all know the end to every story, just like we knew the cat would die, and we all die, in the end.
When the day came, Herman packed his things and, not really feeling like saying goodbye to anyone in the office, he and his ghost marched out the door [15].
“Sure. Well, dystopian novels normally tend to go the other way. In my opinion, the best way to write a dystopian novel is by not advertising it as dystopian - and instead have the reader find out as he progresses.”
“That really is good. But the reason I am talking about my novel at all is because of your knowledge for the sake of knowledge question. Well, the fact that humanity in my novel recognizes its own pointlessness is key to the point I’m trying to make. When you have nothing to live for, you find something to die for.”
“Yes, there is some truth in that. But this collective death thing would never happen; it goes against our fundamental constitution, which calls for the preservation of life.”
“This is an animalistic instinct. Just as that of protecting cubs or even having descendants at all. We are better off without those instincts. We keep trying to find hidden meanings to life because we cannot stand the idea of living for living’s sake.”
“Nonsense! Life is the natural state, Vincent.”
“All right, old man, then riddle me this - would you rather die right now for some cause you are passionate about, or in thirty years of dysentery?”
“I don’t think I dispose of a selection of causes for which I could sacrifice my own.”
“Well, very well, then. But be assured, people are just desperate to die. They just want to be able to die at the right time. We are no more than infinitesimal parts of this weird species thing. Have you ever lived for living’s sake, Probst?”
“Not in your terms. But in your terms no one has ever truly lived. I don’t believe that to be true. And I don’t really believe in people being fractions of a species, at least not in the way you put it. I really do think they were individuals who got lost in history.”
“Maybe, but who cares now? That’s the point, isn’t it? Who cares now? They are dead, and we are gonna die, but somehow we are still here; living.”
“That’s very profound.”
“I’m thinking of putting it in my novel.”
“Yes, that’s all very well.”
“I just can’t finish it for the life of me. I have it all in my head and yet, when it comes to writing it down…Well, there’s no deadline. Did you know Chekhov didn’t start writing until his forties? Obviously, you know that. Not that I am comparing myself to Chekov. I am just saying; there is time.”
“Well, you never know.”
He gave an uneasy laughter. Oh, old man, he said. You can be grim sometimes.
Mr. Probst - an uneasy man - always fidgeting with his hands, was in the middle of the process of giving a moving yet upbeat toast to his career. You would think he was thinking about a lot of things; his life going through his head and all. Mr. Probst’s mind, however, was presently completely blank, and the plunge of insignificance he felt go through his stomach was taken for side effect of too much champagne. This was just a moment in time.
“History is somewhere else right now,” he said, “but let’s toast to her anyway.”
He had one or two miserable days left at work, but let us end this here. After all, there is no need for an ending, for we all know the end to every story, just like we knew the cat would die, and we all die, in the end.
When the day came, Herman packed his things and, not really feeling like saying goodbye to anyone in the office, he and his ghost marched out the door [15].
[15] Mr. Probst will die of dysentery thirty years later, at 97 years old.
Beatriz Seelaender was born in 1998 in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2016 she published her first novel, in Brazilian Portuguese, and has since been trying her hand at English. Seelaender has had essays published by websites such as The Collapsar and The Manifest-Station, and her short stories can be found in Psychopomp Lit Mag, The Gateway Review and others. Her story "A Kidney Caught in Quicksand", published by Grub Street in 2017, earned recognition from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in the categories of both experimental fiction and humor writing. Seelaender is currently studying Literature and Languages at the University of São Paulo.