São Paulo penumbra. Two neighboring buildings are separated by a gap of approximately three meters. She and He appear, on an indeterminate floor, in windows that face one another. With the main lights off in both living rooms, little can be seen of the interiors. She has her eyes closed.
———— approximately three meters ————
She [opening her eyes] No.
He No?
She For lots of reasons. No. And that’s
not what I said, together.
He Lots? Here comes the
countdown of reasons; so,
attention. One?
She [laughter?] Linguistic. For example.
Define the word relationship—define
relacionamento.
He picks up: dictionary.
He Relacionamento, let’s see;
relationship. R, r-e, r-e-l—
according to this dictionary, the one
at hand, first definition: the act or
result of relating, that is,
relacionar(-se). With the reflexive
pronoun in parentheses; a detail
that underscores its relevance.
Relevance, first definition, relation
to the matter at hand, et cetera,
practical applicability, et cetera, in
the current scenario.
He puts away: dictionary.
She Detail: the reflexive pronoun
in parentheses?
He In the current scenario—
which isolates everything, and
everyone, between parentheses.
Bodies and time.
She In other words: one window across,
reason; the command of one’s mind,
one window across.
He You said No, but I can, in the
blink of an eye, close the window.
And: the end. Can’t I?
She Close the window. Your And: the
end, though, never. The end of a
hypothesis?
He Strange. When, in the last four
weeks, have you lost your mind?
She Every second? Every second—
in parentheses? Or, when you say
time, do you mean all time?
He ’Round About Midnight, Miles
Davis, released on March 4, 1957.
The parentheses, so to speak, in the
track “’Round Midnight”—
separating the half that’s like
copulation, except in a
confessional, from the half that,
then, goes out into some nightlife
street
She [aside?] Some
with neon signs
and sighs and invitations,
She [aside?] Some.
before,
perhaps frustrated?, sliding to the
conclusion that mercilessly melts
the nightlife street, melts the
melody, melts the whole quintet—
is sixteen seconds and eighty-three
milliseconds long. I timed it. From
the brusque pause while Miles puts
the brakes on his D, through the
five attacks, Laa-Laa-LaaaaLaa-
Laa, sharps, to the knockout in C-
sharp, piercing: sixteen seconds and
eighty-three milliseconds. The
parentheses that contain the
greatest tempest of sensations ever,
beatings and kisses and bombs of
different intensities, pressures,
textures. Tiny gestures, in this
interval, tiny human maneuvers, are
perceptibly emphasized: lungs,
muscles, tendons. The vinyl record
turns three thousand four hundred
and fifty-six degrees. I counted.
She Straight from the needle to wireless
headphones, via bluetooth.
Counterpoints? I can’t, I can’t anymore;
and I’m not sure if—
He You want to?
She One adapts to the old life, right?
Since—when?—Plato? Since?, before
even? And, suddenly, I’m afraid, I figure
the elastic’s so stretched, so stretched it’s
worn out, exhausted, it’s snapped. And
I’ve suddenly lost my certainty: I’m not
so sure we have the right.
He The right to adapt and readapt
The Republic, The Symposium, for
centuries—to the vestiges of
postmodernity?
She Do you keep a stopwatch, as
well as the high-and-mighty dictionary,
at hand?
He Nothing that has been at hand
in the last few weeks can have
ceased to be.
He picks up: stopwatch.
She Nothing.
He At the most, it’s, it’ll be,
one—small—apartment away.
She Sixteen seconds and eighty—
what?—milliseconds.
He Eighty-three.
She Ready.
She and He swallow silences for sixteen seconds and eighty-three milliseconds. From São Paulo, sparse traffic can be heard: the drone can be heard; except for the dry, sterile thunder that rumbles up, and a siren passing in the distance.
He There. Hear the siren?
He puts away: stopwatch.
She I can hear it.
He But?: it’s gone.
She No, it isn’t. It’s deafening,
recorded, buried in the scratch on the
record of the vestiges of postmodernity;
vestiges that are beginning,
for that matter, moment by moment,
every second?, to grow cold. What’s
left: icy grooves. And also: the needle
prancing-antsy-pantsy-pa-per-perhaps–
He Perhaps frustrated?
She Perhaps the worst thing: to lose
one’s certainty.
He picks up: dictionary.
He [laughter?] OK, High-and-
Mighty, let’s see. C—first
definition, the quality of being
reliably true, et cetera, the
conviction that something is the case,
et cetera.
He puts away: dictionary.
She [laughter?] To lose the
conviction that something is the case
—along with one’s mind, to boot. Chaos.
What’s left?
He Not even time, for bodies.
Distinct parentheses. When I say
time, isolating, it’s the time that has
strayed from the time that in history
goes on. There’s an interval—
suspended: partitioned from both
the previous half and the latter half.
For us, what’s left is nothing.
She Shadows.
Silence.
She stretches her arm out the window.
He stretches his arm out the window.
They don’t touch.
He Almost?
She But it would be imprudent, unsafe,
at any rate.
He Why? If we’re each
individually in isolation. Home
office. Home office. Seven weeks.
Home office. Free from the
incubation—
She Mail: big risk. Deliveries: ditto, big
risk. The hallway, ditto, to the garbage.
When did you last take the garbage out?
He Today.
She So then, thirteen days.
He Always: today.
She So then, thirteen days, always.
Thirteen days with the potential for the
horror to manifest.
He How to resolve my pent-up
—infinite—curiosity about your
smell?, about your skin?, or your
taste? How to satiate it?
She My smell: big risk. My skin,
ditto: big risk. My taste?
He Magna risk?
She *** [incomprehensible]
He Magna risk?
She picks up: flashlight.
She Would you, by any chance, besides
your dictionary and stopwatch, have a
flashlight at hand?, or, at the most, one—
small—apartment away?
He Of course.
He picks up: flashlight.
She My turn?
He closes his eyes. She positions the beam of light against her own hand: the shadow of her hand is projected into the neighboring apartment; the shadow of her hand wanders over his face and body. Is there Pleasure? She sighs. Flashlight: She turns it off and puts it away. And closes her eyes. It’s his turn. He positions the beam of light against his own hand: the shadow of his hand is projected into the neighboring apartment; the shadow of his hand wanders over her face and body. Is there Pleasure? He sighs.
He I love you.
She [with her eyes closed] I love you—
is only the idea of love. Love. Can one
really achieve it? Illusion. Because, at
the end of the day, I have understood:
when the elastic has snapped, we no
longer have the right to occupy that
space—which we’ve dominated and
destroyed, readapted to The Republic,
The Symposium, outside of parentheses.
What’s left are icy grooves; we remain,
here, dot dot dot?, trapped in cracks.
He But: the relationship.
She [with her eyes closed] Melancholic
game—sex?—of shadows, at best.
Love?
He But—
She [with her eyes closed] Love? What
do we know about each other, really?
He Outlines? Snippets?
She [with her eyes closed] Is it enough,
the surface? Little can be seen of the
interior.
Flashlight: He turns it off and puts it away.
He Do you believe, really, that
—together—we’re just a
hypothesis?
———— approximately three meters ————
She [opening her eyes] No.
Miles Davis: “’Round Midnight” starts to play on loop (between 2:41 and 2:58: the parentheses of sixteen seconds and eighty-three milliseconds). During the excerpt, dry, sterile thunder rumbles, mixing with the quintet; in addition to a siren passing in the distance. With each repetition, however, the siren resounds with increasing persistence and intensity, closer and closer, until it becomes, mercilessly, the caustic mass of continuous, violent, deafening sound, from which no one will emerge alive.
4/16 to 5/29,
33rd morning to 76th morning
“Parentheses” © Felipe Franco Munhoz. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2023 by Alison Entrekin. All rights reserved.
