Hishtukfut of I

Pen poised to paper. My mind fixated on infinite nothingness until, like a needle of light at the end of an endless tunnel – a tunnel that would take decades to walk – something became visible and grew fluidly. It was an idea. It was an idea of a person and I knew everything about him already – though many of the deeper points of his character were unfocused, almost abstract: like a painting that has always hung on the same spot of the same wall –His name wasn’t Hishtukfut Job, this I absolutely knew – but it is what I had decided to name this obscurity from within my subconscious. I realise how obscene such an idea may be but – through some implausible intuition – I knew that Hishtukfut Job was grateful for my recollection of him and even that, stretching the mark even further,  this person, character, memory – whatever you choose to perceive him as – loved me. Perhaps this assertion of mine is why I’m about to die. Yes, if I must confess my first error to you then, alas, it was this. I pushed Job’s love to the maddening limit of homicide. Let me tell you how.

…

It had been weeks since an idea had lingered around. The publishing house were less than pleased with my latest edition. They absolutely hated the damn thing, and honestly? I don’t blame them. Six domestic pets who decide to make a snuff film together. So, you can understand, I hope, the exhilarating vertigo which pulsated against the discoloured walls of my study when I saw Hishtukfut Job at the end of my tunnel in the middle of nowhere. 

The strangest thing is though he didn’t actually have a story. There was no conflict in his life, no drama yet he stuck in my head. I heard his name in whispers on the breeze and I saw it on the front pages out the corner of my eye. Sometimes I even saw him – his shadow walking behind me in the street-light and behind the frosted glass on my bathroom door. I know how insane this all sounds; and I despise the fact that I’m being so self-referential but it is impossible to talk about Hishtukfut Job without using myself as a focal point. So, here is the core of the matter; the essence of my personality: I am explicitly discontented with everything in life. Why? Some people would characterise a tragic life as one which has seen a lot of heart-break, disaster and injustice. I’ve never seen it like that. The saddest lives of all are the fraudulent ones: people whose self-image starkly contradicts the person the rest of the world sees them as. The delusion and contrived actions of people like that – people like me! – are really painful to watch, and if we’re talking straight, actually quite funny. I can’t avoid that truth: that watching people who are ever so mad can be – despite everyone’s wishes for such a thing to be taken with the seriousness it deserves – really rather hilarious. 

A doctor in a mental asylum checks in on two patients one day. One of them is kneeling on the cold, tiled floor cutting imaginary wood with an imaginary saw. The other was hanging upside-down from the ceiling beams, his face beginning to turn red. The doctor asks the first man what he’s doing; sawing wood, he’s told. After being asked about the man hanging from the ceiling the patient on the floor says, “That’s my friend, doctor. He thinks he’s a God-damned light-bulb if you can believe it. Between us he’s completely insane. They ought to lock him up”. Noticing that the man hanging from the ceiling was beginning to turn purple the doctor says, “If he’s your friend you better help him down before he gets hurt”. Looking troubled the patient stops sawing and retorts, “Well, how the hell am I supposed to work in the dark?” Good joke! It’s okay to laugh. For my whole life I was the first patient, sawing away at imaginary wood with an imaginary saw. Tonight, with my life about to end though I have become the second patient; I no longer have to navigate the contradictions between my self-image and my actual self. Tonight, I’ll be hanging from the ceiling without a care in the world.

​I believe that is all you need to know about myself in order to understand how I intertwine with Hishtukfut Job. Let us progress.

I knew Hishtukfut Job .I knew his character as well, if not better, than I know my own. It started with two words: blameless and upright. He was a man of goodness and enjoyed an opulent life which, it always seemed he deserved above any other. The wholesomeness of Hishtukfut’s character is something that we are all capable of. In time I became more enveloped in his character. I wrote of him – brought him from the annals of my mind to the reality of a written story – evermore each day. I wrote passages of his life and read them aloud. I gave him a loving family, I gave livestock and produce. I blessed him with health and promised him neither woes nor ills. I wrote of how his grace is what saved him from raiders and murderers. And so Job loved me. Sometimes, in quiet moments departed from Jobs paper-world I would hear his voice thanking me for such blessings.

Before long I found myself detached from reality for increasingly long periods of time; my post unread and my milkman unpaid. If I’d known then what I was doing to myself – and to Hishtukfut Job – perhaps I would have ended the story immediately. It was an opiate though. I was intoxicated.

My Tale of a blameless man was met with blank stares. Due to lack of interest, I never even had the chance to finish my story. By virtue of my relationship with Hishtukfut Job, though, there is no end to his story. Only contentment.

Hishtukfut Job’s unwavering love can exist in all of us – if only we manage to transcend our own image. I wished then – and I actually clasped my hands and closed my eyes and really wished – that all my demons, for want of a better word, would be exorcised. I left the door open a crack and it was too late. Hishtukfut Job, I began to deduce, did not love me. He, as I am, is but a man. Yet he is blameless and upright when they cry me delusional and cynical. Why does he love me more than I love him? Because he is a content man. His self-image is identical to the way the rest of the world sees him. And I’m… well, my life must be really painful to watch and actually quite funny from the spectator’s end. With that realisation I had a flash into the future of myself hanging from the ceiling, at peace with my own madness.

​It became clear that in order to save myself from a chin-dribbling, future of mental vegetation, I had get to where Hishtukfut Job is and, in return, I need to bring him here.

The fix was in. Hishtukfut Job was suffering. His land was barren, his family had been plagued by illness and death and his riches had been pillaged by raiders – no longer under my protection. Hishtukfut Job, himself, had received no bodily damage. That was the only rule in place. Perhaps because I knew all along that this was what Hishtukfut Job was; he was a part of me which needed to be abolished in order for my life to achieve fulfilment. In order for my image of the self to align with how others perceived me.

And you’ll know me as the blameless and upright man.

There are no fantastical twists in this story. I never became Hishtukfut; it was impossible for me to ever get to where he was. I want you to understand that I am terrified now. Hishtukfut achieved what I could not. He is here with me now-leering over my shoulder examining every word I write, ensuring that I do him harm no more. He has already tied a length of rope around my throat. I know what will happen.

A doctor in a mental asylum checks in on two patients one day. One of them is kneeling on the cold, tiled floor cutting imaginary wood with an imaginary saw. The other was hanging upside-down from the ceiling beams, his face beginning to turn bright red. The doctor asks the first man what he’s doing; sawing wood, he is told. After being asked about the man hanging from the ceiling the patient on the floor says, “That’s my friend, doctor. He thinks he’s a God-damned light-bulb if you can believe it. Between you and me, he’s completely insane. They ought to lock him up”. Noticing that the man hanging from the celling was beginning to turn purple the doctor says, “If he’s your friend you better help him down before he gets hurt”. Looking perplexed the patient stops sawing and retorts, “Well, how the hell am I supposed to work in the dark?”

…

The author Leon Bonnat has died in his home at the age of thirty-three. Bonnat – who was under contract with Pigeon Publishers at the time of his death – is said to have died of suicide by asphyxiation. Police say there are no suspicious circumstances regarding Mr. Bonnat’s death. Pigeon Publishers confirmed that they intent to release Bonnat’s latest manuscript, a novel about “six anthropomorphic domestic pets who decide to make a snuff film together”. More controversially intend to include a prefix to the novel by Bonnat entitled, “Hishtukfut of I”, which is rumoured to in fact be the late author’s suicide note.