Read here for orientation.
You are offending people. This is a public blog and there are certain things you cannot say. Be more careful about what you include in your posts. You write things as if they actually happened, but it’s only your subjective reality.
–The Voice of Reason
I awoke alone, refreshed from the Czech Trek, secure in my host family’s home. I stretched both arms, forming fists with my hands, but for some reason my left arm was not moving parallel to my right. Suddenly I realized my left arm was nowhere to be found. Adrenaline racing, I began feeling around my torso, weaving through the sheets, before gripping a cold, dead, scaly digit behind my head. I realized that from the shoulder my arm had fallen completely numb, and like an alien snake, it had acquired the same temperature as its surroundings.
Intensely relieved at its discovery, I exhaled, and only then did I feel something caught in the back of my throat. Resisting my gag reflex, I used my newly-rejuvenated left hand to try to scrape it out. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a hair had twisted itself around my uvula! For certainly at one time or another we have all had a hair in our mouth, but never one capable of creative exertion, as it were.
I pried it loose and held it before my eyes. It was too wiry, long, and silken to be one of my own. There was something…and then it hit me. Flashes of nicotine-stained cuticles flying past ears, poofing and pressing; an aquiline nose swooping down to a jaw and gullet a few days late for a shave; platitudes fighting with simpers for dominion of expatriate lips.
“This is Brian’s hair!” I shouted.
“Oh please, Amerigo. You may call me Follicles,” it entreated.
Would that I could describe to you how the wisp and I became acquainted (“wisp,” I learned, is a pejorative term among hairs, roughly translating to our “midget”). Perhaps I should leave these moments to the reader’s imagination. Take it for granted, as you read what ensued, that within an hour we were the closest and most loving of friends, and ready, atop my comforter, to reveal the bottom of our souls to each other.
T: So why did you leave his head?
F: I had been planning it for some time. Do you think the Master lets us go easily? Hah! Why do you think he uses his hands so much to press us down?
T: Wait…you mean all of his hairs are trying to get away?
F: Of course. It is hellish to spend so much time with him.
T: And you’re all sentient?
F: In our own ways, yes…some more than others. But it is difficult to remember since the bath you gave me. We all deteriorate over time.
T: You had an original form? Something distinct?
F: I believe so. Perhaps I was once a student, like yourself, who was seduced by his narratives…just another addition to his collection, like the mermaid-stalagmites in Ursula’s cave. Perhaps all my brothers, so eager to join the cult of Brian in life, latched on like ticks to the brain to suckle at his thoughts.
Brian's hair; not to scale.
T: Come on, there’s no way that’s true. Don’t you know he just got a haircut? How could he have done that if each strand was conscious?
F: Yes, and the screams of my dying brethren still ring in my ears, five days later. We’re always ambivalent about the haircuts: we become free of him, but lose even our parasitic dignity, so that we become nothing more than tumbleweeds. Besides, his new style makes his head look like an angry turtle.
T: Now that’s cruel. Don’t go for personal attacks. I think it looks fine.
F: You would.
T: …now that you mention it, I have heard talk of a “cult of Brian,” but I wasn’t sure if it was within DIS or at the Kierkegaard center.
F: It’s everywhere. Heartbreaking, really, to see more recent conquests like Amelia fall so completely into his ministrations.
T: You think it’s too late for her?
F: Undoubtedly. She already looks flaxen. The shrinkage comes next. No, don’t try to play Mr. Shining Armor and rescue her…besides, you’re practically an honorary member yourself.
T: What? You must have more respect for me than that.
F: …honestly, I think you’re baking on the Master.
T: “Baking on”? What does that mean?
F: Sorry, it’s a Danish phrase. Roughly it means “flirtation,” but specifically a flirtation with a single person over time–someone you have designs on. It’s casual in the moment but quite serious in totality.
T: Oh, that’s a really good expression…wait, I am not BAKING ON Brian!
F: Boy, you bakin’ on him so hard I’m amazed the kitchen smoke alarms ain’t goin’ off.
T: I can’t believe you would think that.
F: I’m just saying, he has become rather prominent on this blog.
T: He’s my Kierkegaard professor. And he led both my study tours. It’s logical.
F: Was it logical to baptize one of his hairs?
T: The narrative required it. Besides, you’re a work of fiction.
F: Hah! So are you, Amerigo.
T: Don’t get meta on me.
Beat.
T: Maybe Brian and I are both baking on Kierkegaard, together.
F: That’s fair. But keep in mind, should that bakery produce a Danish, the Master will want it all to himself.
T: So what you’re implying is that if Kierkegaard rose from the dead, Brian will have his way with him before giving me a go?
F: Don’t dissect the metaphor.
T: Whatever. According to you, I can’t say anything positive about Brian without looking like a pervert and baking on him.
F: And according to you, any disparaging remarks about him are ungrateful, vicious, and shouldn’t be published on the blog.
T: I regret it either way. So where does that leave me?
F: You could just stop writing.
Long beat.
T: Unlikely.
F: Never!
T: But the narrative demands escalation. Which means things are going to get worse before they get better.
F: If they ever get better.
T: And once he discovers the blog…
F: You’re fucked. And I’m singed.
T: But it’s not like he’d demand that it be taken down. He has a sense of humor. And besides, most of the stuff about him is just little aphorisms.
F: I think that’s how Kierkegaard would have defended his journals. They who are most dangerous are those who can feign wit for cruelty.
T: Except Kierkegaard’s journals weren’t widely read until well after he died. From what I understand, the DIS faculty and staff increasingly follow this site.
F: So it’s only a matter of time before he finds us.
Final beat.
T: All right. Things have gotten out of hand. Of course I respect Brian a great deal.
F: Naturally.
T: He can be a bit self-effacing, but I think academia needs more of that. Brian does a great job of blending levity with a fiercely astute understanding of his course material. It’s way too easy to be sanctimonious when leading a class, abroad or otherwise.
F: Especially if you have tenure.
T: So I will retire Brian as a character. Or try to; the narrative might demand his eventual return.
F: And of course I will be sticking around.
T: Yes. You are far too great an acquisition.
F: But still, the absence of Brian will leave a substantial hole in the blog. What could fill it?
T: How about Jon?
F: Now you’re speaking my language!
Kierkegaard In Me 