David Wallace - Oblivion

‘But snoring is not really the issue, Randall, is it?’

‘But I never for one moment suggested that it was the real issue.’

‘After all, hay fever or no, lots of men snore.’

‘And were I one of them [meaning someone who ‘snored’ even during seasons when hay fever was not a factor], I would submit [meaning to Hope’s accusations] without hesitation.’

‘Why is it so important to you whether you snore or not?’

‘The whole point is that it is not important to me. That is my entire point. If I were, in point of actual fact, “snoring,” I’d have no trouble admitting it, assuming responsibility and taking any reasonable steps necessary in order to address the alleged problem.’

‘I’m afraid I still don’t understand. How can you even know for certain whether you snore or not? If you are snoring, then by definition you’re asleep.’

‘But [attempting to respond]. .’

‘I mean, who can know?’

‘But [becoming more and more frustrated by this point in time] that’s the whole point, which I have tried here to explain I don’t even know how many times already: it is precisely when I am not in fact yet even asleep that she accuses me.’

‘Why are you getting so upset? Do you have some special stake in the issue of whether you snore?’

‘If I am, as you put it, getting “upset,” it is perhaps because I am somewhat irked, impatient or frustrated with these types of exchanges. The whole point is that I emphatically do not have a stake in the so-called “snoring” issue. The point is that if I were in fact“ snoring,” I would admit it and simply roll over on to my side or even offer to go sleep in Audrey’s bed and not think twice about the issue beyond a certain natural regret that I had in any way disturbed or “compromised” Hope’s rest. But I do, however, know that one must be asleep to “snore,” and that I know when I am truly asleep and when I am not, and that what I do have a “stake” in is refusing to placate someone who is being not just irrational but blindly stubborn and obtuse in accusing me of something which I must be asleep in order to be guilty of when in fact I am not yet asleep, due largely to how tense and exhausted I am from the whole absurd conflict in the first place.’

The P.P.O.’s counselor, who appeared to be in, at most, his mid- or late 30s, and wore spectacles, had a large forehead which was domed in such a way as to suggest deep thoughtfulness, an appearance which was, it increasingly emerged, misleading.

‘And is there no chance — just for the sake, Randall, of argument — no chance or possibility, however remote, that you yourself might be being, as you put it, in any way stubborn or blind about this conflict in you and Mrs. Napier’s relationship?’

‘Now I must confess to becoming frustrated or even, if I might say so, somewhat annoyed or exasperated, as the whole point, the entire root of the unfairness and my frustration or even anger with Hope, is that I myself am willing to examine this possibility. That it is myself who am here, examining it, as you can plainly see. Do you see my wife here? Is she willing to come “lay [the problem] out” and look at it with a disinterested party?’

‘And can I ask why the thing with the fingers?’

‘But no, Ed [the P.P.O.’s counselor all but insisting on being addressed by his first name], if I may, the fact is that Hope is even now returning home from Exercise class or the cosmetician and is very probably in the tub stewing privately over the conflict and fortifying her position and preparing for another endless round of the conflict whenever she next dreams that I am keeping her awake and robbing her of her youth, vivacity and daughterly charms, while at the same moment I myself sit here in an unventilated office being asked whether I might be “blind.”’

‘So, if I am hearing you accurately, the real issue is fairness. Your wife is not being fair.’

‘The real issue is that it’s bizarre, surreal, an almost literal “waking nightmare.” My wife is now no one I know. She’s claiming to know better than I myself whether I’m even awake. It’s less unfair than seemingly almost totally insane. I know whether I’m sitting here having these exchanges. I know I am not dreaming this. To doubt this is insane. But this, to all appearances, is what she’s doing.’

‘Mrs. Napier might deny that you are really even here right now, you feel.’

‘That isn’t the point. The issue of my actually being here or not is merely an analogy intended to high-light the fact of my knowing whether or not I am asleep, just as you do. To doubt this would be the road to insanity, would it not? Might we agree on that much?’

‘Randall, here let me reassure you once again that I am not in any way disagreeing with you, but simply trying to make certain I understand this. When you are asleep, can you really actually know that you are asleep?’. . And so on and so forth. My hands often ached from gripping the vehicle’s steering wheel as I then resumed or continued the commute home along the Garden State Parkway from the Couple counselor’s office in a small collection (or, ‘complex’) of Medical and Dental buildings in suburban Red Bank. More generally, I began often to worry or fear that I would succumb to sleep deprivation or fatigue and might fall asleep at the wheel and drift across or ‘jump’ the median into on-coming traffic, as I had all too often seen the tragic aftermath of in my many years of commuting.

Then, while seated with Dr. Sipe at the table in what Raritan Club members often refer to as simply ‘19’ or ‘the Hole,’ another unwilled or involuntary interior tableau or, as it were, hallucinatory ‘shot’ or scene of myself standing, as a boy or small child, on a precarious or slanted surface at the foot of something resembling a ladder or rope ladder or rope, looking upward in child-like fear, the stairway, ladder or rope trailing down from some point in the gloom above, beyond or atop the great, stone icon or statue or ‘bust’ of someone too massively huge and ill lit for the face to be seen overhead (or, ‘made out’), I myself standing precariously on a rise in the statue’s great granite lap with one or both hands clutching or grasping the end of the rope, peering up, as well as with someone far larger behind me’s hand heavy upon my shoulder and back and a dominant or ‘booming’ voice from the darkness of the great stone head overhead repeatedly commanding ‘Up,’ and the hand pushing or shaking and saying ‘For God. .’ and\or ‘. . Hope’ several times. ‘Father’—whose area of professional expertise at The Prudential is (or, rather, was) something called ‘Demographic Medicine,’ which involved his evidently not ever once, during his entire career, physically touching a patient — had always regarded me as a bit of a bore and\or ninny, someone at once obtrusive and irrelevant, the human equivalent of a house fly or pinched nerve, and has made precious little effort to disguise this, although as a ‘Greatfather’ he has always been exceptionally doting and kind to our Audrey, which with Hope and myself goes a long way. When he concentrates on the clipped end to get it alight, he appears briefly strabismic or ‘cross eyed,’ and the hand holding the lighter shakes badly, and in that instant he appears every bit his age or more. The excised tip was nowhere in view. The whole room seemed somehow menacingly coiled. He and I both looked at the red end as he held the silver Ronson to it and drew and exhaled, trying to light it in a durable way. His wrists and hands were yellowish and somewhat freckled, not unlike a corn- or ‘tortilla’-chip, and the size of the flame and Cohiba made his very dry, narrow, furrowed, hunched and out-thrust face appear smaller and more distant than in reality it was; and this effect was not a visual distortion or hallucination but a common and simple ‘Illusion of perspective,’ not unlike a Renaissance horizon. The true flame was the one in the middle. Feigenspan’s slight tannic bitterness being also traditional. (The following, as well, being also typical of the exchanges with the second Couple counselor in his sterile, generic office in suburban Red Bank: