“I
am more and more plagued by a single question,” said the yak from Nepal: “What
is the meaning of it All?”
“I
am sorry to hear that,” said the Bengal, “and sorry that you are not well.”
“Who
said anything about being sick?”
“You
did. I distinctly heard ‘plagued.'”
“It
was just an expression, a figure of speech, a vague make-do word. You know.”
“Yes,
I know. So—it just popped into your head, a sort of accident? Well, there are
very few accidents in the ways of the mind. Everything is relevant.
Furthermore, for your information, whenever somebody speaks in virtual
capitals, saying ‘Life’ or, as you said, ‘All’, they are not empty locutions
either but broad, urgent, fraught, and he is saying that he is already lost in
some wide catch-all empyrean, an indefinable Every Place or No Place—actually
annihilation—and probably for a long while already—gone, as they say. How far,
we shall soon determine.”
“‘Gone?’
I’m insane?”
