AFTER WORD, PRE-FACE
Must I introduce myself before
performing this task? It seems that I do not - since the task
is to introduce Eldon. In introducing or even talking about someone
else, you invariably
give away yourself anyway. Your own prejudices at least. Your own way
of talking. Oh well.
I only learnt to talk properly and
then write, since meeting Eldon, and this was a long time ago
in another country where I was made. I was living in the house of my
keeper who'd taken me in
after the accident in which he killed my mother, after we had escaped
the facility in which I
had been produced. Eldon lived around the corner, so we met when s/he
came round to our place
in those days. Quite a few times, really, as Eldon and the master had
things they liked to talk about.
Sometimes they would argue. It got
heated enough for me to hide in the kitchen. They gave each
other books to read. Master was a book hoarder, and Eldon had a few
as well. After a while, they
gave back to each other the books they had had before.
But at that time, as I say, I could
not understand English, and only had a rudimentary knowledge
of Japanese, which Eldon used on me when feeling magnanimous. Eldon
was kind to animals, but
I knew that s/he found me ridiculous. Eldon sometimes thought it good
to try to talk to me. Eldon's
Japanese was OK, but even I could tell that s/he was not fluent. It
didn't matter to Eldon, because
s/he would always make jokes even in Japanese, but my master didn't
always laugh at them. This is
because master's Japanese was very good.
Master was a professor at the
university, but didn't teach the same things as Eldon did.
Sometimes
master explained to me when Eldon left, that they argued over a
fence. Master said that Eldon
thought that s/he lived on a fence and was always making very
tentative steps for fear of falling off.
But master said that s/he was always fooling Eldon into falling off
the fence anyway. Also, that
sometimes s/he jumped without even looking.
Eldon liked to complain about
everything. S/he found the food better here than there, and there
was
always someone s/he wanted to hang up by the thumbs or by their own
petards. Eldon complained
about the way the Japanese people did things, but this was only
because s/he liked it in Japan. Master
told me that Eldon liked it there because alienation was complete,
and that I should be able to
understand such a concept. Eldon lived by herself, but master told me
s/he had seen Eldon with a man
on many occasions, especially in the local izakaya and yatai.
When I saw Eldon, s/he was always
wearing something different, so I think s/he liked to buy
clothes.
Master told me he thought s/he had contained her creative juices but
they had oozed out and encrusted
on the surface of Eldon's body. We went out to dinner with Eldon
once, and we had a very good time.
All of us liked sake and we drank quite a bit, and I remember
everyone laughing very loudly
even though I couldn't understand everything. Eldon talked to other
people in the restaurant that s/he
didn't know before going there, even though normally s/he was very
taciturn. This means Eldon did not
like to talk to other people she did not know, and when she did, she
was thought to be mean, master told
me. Master said that this was a lesson for me, and I should not feel
strange because of my appearance,
because appearances can be deceiving.
The truth of the matter is that Eldon
created me in order to tell moral tales of difference and
equivalence,
and to fool the master, convention and modesty, who always wanted to
tell everyone how to do things
and especially about what to write.. Master was actually my slave
although I would do anything for her.
At the time of writing, though, master has gone. I was abandoned a
few years ago.
But, luckily, I was found again, and I started thinking new things in
another place.
The only way I can exist is through
writing, and so I write myself into existence, at Eldon's fancy, of
course.
I have already much of my history written down in my pillow book
(although I always called it a cushion book),
and so the task is done.
SCENES FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
VII. A Few words from our Sponsor
XII. Negative Value Serious Talk
XVII What is lost cannot Be Saved
XXIV. Some type of change Occurs