There were gyms in different countries, weren’t there? Exercise machines, fields, pitches and courts. What was real? The body and its functions. Physical effort and physical wellbeing, that was real. Blood-pumped muscles, sweat, soreness.
You didn’t need me any more, did you? There were whole years when you almost forgot about me, weren’t there?
There was the mind and the body. You could push aside the mind by only focusing on the body. It didn’t work the other way round. The body would always assert itself. But you could push aside the mind by running yourself into the ground, as in a trance, by making yourself so tired all you wanted to do was to eat and sleep.
Sleep, exercise, eat, sleep. A clean life, a pure life. No thoughts, no me. Trancelike repetition and a clear, stupid conscience. The same things over and over. That’s one way to reduce life, isn’t it, to make it manageable? To fill absences and block out dangerous thoughts?
