Einstein in Tunisia

This was my initial reaction, other than weeping, to the events of 9-11. What we call heaven contains all the positive memories of the human race; hell the opposite.


I have been held in this Mediterranean fortress for the last eleven years.  My apartment is appointed with paintings of the local terrain—all hillsides and empty beach scenes.  I can’t tell where I am.  I have forgotten something vital to European security and my jailers and I have been attempting to find what I have lost.  A nuclear device is buried somewhere in Europe.


I was an undercover agent working with the DIA when an explosion in Tunis, Tunisia effectively shattered my memory of all preceding events.  My cell had been targeted by the CIA.  A classic fuck-up.  We know the implanted device is real from a cable I sent to the DIA a good two months before.  I was the only survivor.


For the last eleven years I have been given drugs, watched endless film and video; my jailers even gave me a girlfriend.  I’ve read and re-read my diaries.  All the research, all the prodding, and I don’t know who I am.  I can’t imagine being the person they say I was.  Tonight my jailers throw a farewell party for me.


I read the last entry in my diary: “Feb. 18: People are mad.  Each believes in their own fantasy.  Sanity is for those who see this—the way it is: writhing and terrifying.  People are mad for they remain oblivious to the power of the unconscious.  I think people have always been afraid of me.”  When I was a child I would tell adults, “It’s all in your mind.”  I infuriated them.


“You know nothing about it.”  “Wait till you grow-up,” they would say.  Now here I am.  My freedom is all in my mind and I can’t find it.


The very last note in the diary (the morning before the CIA attack) reads: “Large spirits tend toward domination.  For those spirits to become great they must refine themselves and their desires.  Concentration and restraint are the watchwords of dominating spirits.”  What could I have been thinking?


Roger, one of my guards, comes in.  He stands inside my door looking like the languid Christ he is.


“Anything?”  He asks plaintively.


“You know me.  I gave up a long time ago.  I can’t live my life for them.”  His long face leans toward me.


“A lucky guess could postpone the party.”


“Ah, I had not thought of that.  Would you mind not disturbing me until perhaps a pot of coffee at four?”


“Okay Einstein,” he says politely and retreats.


My parents had been notified years ago of my MIA status.  Hannibal was from Tunis.  Carthage, to be exact. In ancient times it was famous as a place for human sacrifice.  They were also the perfectors of the mosaic.  O Exquisite world, which I’m sure I never loved enough, why can’t I see you?