You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [48]
Silver had written on the board, “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust. The dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam; whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away, etc.—Ham 5.1.”
“Why?” he’d asked us, “is Hamlet talking about Alexander and Caesar?”
“We all return to dust,” I said without thinking and then looked up, surprised to hear my own voice.
He smiled at me. “Yes,” he said. “Go on, Gilad.”
“It doesn’t matter who we are. Were. We die. We disintegrate. We fill holes. That’s it. That’s all.”
“And so?”
I looked down at the quotation I’d copied on my page. When I looked up I met his eyes. He seemed to be studying me, curious. I felt the warmth of affection, of pride. Chosen. To be looked at that way by him. I couldn’t speak.
“And so,” this was Colin, “nothing matters. But we have to live anyway. That’s the problem. Nothing matters but we have to live anyway. Even though we end up in someone’s ass, we have to live anyway.”
Laughter.
“I was with you up to the ass part,” Silver said.
“He says,” Colin was flipping fast through his copy of the play, his cheeks red. “Here! ‘To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?’”
Silver smiled at him and nodded his head. “Look at the note, Colin. A bunghole is a hole bored into a barrel.”
Ariel laughed too loud. Colin narrowed his eyes.
“However, the point you make remains. You said that nothing matters but we have to live anyway. Go on.”
There was a silence. Then, “No matter who you are or what you’ve done in your life, you end up dirt.” Colin turned to Ariel and said, nearly spitting, “We all end up dirt.”
“Exactly,” Rick said to himself.
“Except,” I said.
Colin turned to me. We looked at each other for the first time that year. I was struck by his anger, the rage in his eyes. It frightened me. And it made me jealous.
“Except?” Silver asked.
“Except it isn’t totally true.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t have to live. That’s the whole point. That’s Sartre. That’s Shakespeare here. That’s the whole question. To be or not to be. That’s the question. To live or die. To die. To sleep.”
Colin looked at me. His eyes softened, he nodded his head. “You’re right,” he said.
“They’re right,” I answered daring a fraction of a smile. He relaxed. Nodded his head again in approval.
“And so we choose what to do with our lives. We do even if we don’t. We choose by not choosing. That’s what Sartre says, right?” Hala, who’d fallen quiet those last weeks, was leaning forward again. “We either kill ourselves or we do something with our lives. That’s it. Those are the choices.”
“Totally,” Lily said chewing pensively on a braid.
Jane laughed and looked up at Silver.
Rick nodded to himself. Abdul stared at his desk nodding in silent dissent. Cara, her head back, studying the ceiling, asked, “So that’s what he means by absurd? I mean that’s the absurd thing? We die anyway but have to live.”
“Totally,” Lily said smiling at Cara. “Totally.”
Cara looked at Silver for confirmation but he only gave a slight grin.
It felt to me then, for all of us who were on his side, who loved him, as if something important had happened. It had little to do with the philosophy, such that it was, and everything to do with Silver, with having pleased him, with having become, in some way, adult. It was a feeling of adventure and family.
“What crap,” Ariel said.
We all turned to her, all of us except Colin who fell still, staring into the middle distance.
“Killing yourself isn’t an option. It’s wrong. Come on. Life isn’t as simple as that. There’s instinct, there’s, human, I don’t know, you don’t just like, what? Jump off a bridge? You can’t live as if suicide is a real option.