March 24

A book written so hectically one can’t help thinking that the author was trying to hide something

Animated cartoon: a unicorn in a tree top, mourning his lost love. It brings tears to my eyes

I evaded evil with my body, though it came from my body

A successful breath

Dying in an auto tunnel (I felt my body expanding)

There was a vase of forsythia in the center of the table. I propped my elbows on the table and saw that the flowers trembled with my heartbeat. When the others propped their elbows on the taljle, the forsythia didn’t stir

In my fear of death I begged her to stay, but she scented death and fled

If only this booming, deafening fear of death would become a silent bodily pain, as it was just a moment ago! (I can’t hear myself any more)

The cold telephone

What looks to me like a malignant glitter of machines in among the people in the park is baby carriages

I notice that in my mortal fear I move with upraised hands and out thrust behind, like some kind of homosexual

To think, even while zipping a zipper, that this will be the death blow

“Oh stay a while,” I said smiling. “I’m rather frightened”

A bus passes, with the yellow evening sky in its rear window: “It doesn’t do anything for me anymore”

And then I washed all the dishes, so nothing unclean would remain. (I write about myself in the past tense)

Perhaps this mortal fear, in which everything, even a grain of rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, the squeak of a cork, etc., wants to give me the death blow, is only there to teach me control—and yet when that feeble-minded couple was here a while ago and I felt obliged to give my full attention to listening to what they said and understanding what they are, my condition grew even worse. I had thought I could escape into the perception of others, and saw that that was just what made me sick.