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#2382- Friday, February 3, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz
Exclusive to The Highlights...
In today's issue is an original short story by Kriben Pillay. Kriben's website is here: http://www.noumenon.co.za/html/kriben_pillay.html There is other good original material that has been submitted to the Highlights which will appear in upcoming issues. Thanks to everyone for contributing. Well written short stories with a nondual appreciation factor are particularly unusual and rare, so thanks to Kriben for sending this.
--Jerry
Imagining John Lennon
A Short Story
‘So, you’re not John Lennon?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I reply, ‘I only appear to be. I admit it’s
a good likeness, but it’s just a show, and…’ And I
pause, trying to see if I can be as accurate as I possibly can.
‘Yes?’
‘And I have no clue about how it happened. How I came to be
John Lennon, I mean. But I’m not. I never was.’
My thoughts characterise her as earnest and well-meaning, with
clothes to show herself off as voluptuous. Beyond that, there is
just silence. I am not even waiting for her next remark, or
curious about the possible direction and consequences of this
interview. I just sit.
It is an interview, I’m aware, to figure me out. Ever since
I announced to family and friends that I’m not John Lennon,
it’s been something like this. Questions. Many, many
questions. And I understand their difficulty, even their fear, so
I try to answer as best I can.
Yes, I know I have the John Lennon face and haircut, and the John
Lennon glasses, but surely they must have suspected when I have
only a picture of Yoko in my wallet? No actual Yoko anywhere. I
have always asked them about that. But they evaded or seemed
nonplussed by that question, and similar insistent questions when
my sense of not being John Lennon started to surface. It’s
like they needed me to be John Lennon, rather than being
unequivocally convinced that I was. So, somehow, they would
convince me of my John Lennon ness, and I, not quite certain
myself, would run the whole thing again. After all, I was John
Lennon, so why not?
But she knows all this. When they brought me here they described
my periodic confusions, but this time I thought I had them
cornered. I had proof. But that only made matters worse. Their
response was almost instant, and angry. Very angry. I had to be
set right; I had to be disabused of this notion that I wasn’t
who I have always been. It was important for me, they said. But
their eyes told another truth, like her eyes before me now.
‘I’m told that you have some kind of evidence that you’re
not, and never were, John Lennon. Conclusive proof.’
‘Yes,’ I reply. And from my shirt pocket I take out the
carefully folded printout of an article. I pass it to her, and
she reads aloud.
‘In the late afternoon of 8 December 1980, in New York City,
Mark David Chapman met Lennon as he left his home in the Dakota
building for a recording session and got his copy of Double
Fantasy autographed. This goodwill gesture of Lennon signing an
album for a presumed fan was caught by a photographer present,
and would be published on the front page of the New York Daily
News later that week. Chapman remained in the vicinity of the
Dakota building for most of the day as a fireworks demonstration
in nearby Central Park distracted the doorman and passers-by.
Later that evening, Lennon and Ono returned to their apartment
from recording Ono's single "Walking on Thin Ice" for
their next album. At 10.50pm, their limousine pulled up to the
entrance of the Dakota. Ono got out of the car first, followed by
Lennon. As Ono went in, Lennon glanced at Chapman, then proceeded
on through the entrance to the building.
As Lennon walked past him, Chapman calmly called out "Mr.
Lennon?" As Lennon turned, Chapman crouched into what
witnesses called a "combat" stance and fired five
hollow point bullets. One bullet missed, but four bullets entered
Lennon's back and shoulder. One of the four bullets fatally
pierced his aorta.’
If there was ever an example of controlled terror, it’s what
I see now. It’s not so much in what she says as in how the
whole body contracts, and how little nervous mannerisms appear,
like the slight tapping of the right forefinger on the desk. Like
a school teacher about to chew your head off for a very bad piece
of work. With her it also expresses as her certainty of
knowledge, knowledge which she no doubt is going to use to
disprove my case.
‘And this came from where?’ she asks. I detect a slight
disdain in her voice.
‘Wikipedia,’ I reply.
‘Ah, Wikipedia,’ she says, almost triumphant. ‘Wikipedia,
that fount of unconfirmed information on the internet. This makes
matters so much clearer.’
‘Unconfirmed?’ I ask.
‘Yes, information from dubious sources made plausible at
times by the indiscriminate mixture of fact and fiction.’
She speaks these words with effortless authority and academic
certainty.
‘So, John Lennon is not dead?’
‘No.’
‘But how can you be certain?’ I ask.
And she looks at me with what must surely be eyes of relief
posing as something else. Perhaps eyes that want to make me feel
safe and secure.
‘Because you’re John Lennon. You’ve never been
anyone but John Lennon. Everyone knows that. You know that.’
‘And Yoko?’ I ask. ‘Where is she? And where is my…’
But she interrupts me before I can continue, as if to control
this delusion once and for all.
‘We all know who you are. You know who you are. This
avoidance of what’s so obvious is what we have to address.
But, out of curiosity, if you’re not John Lennon, who are
you?’
‘I don’t know, and the truth is, it doesn’t
matter. Not in the least. Not in the least.’ As I say this,
a flash of something dark crosses her face. But quickly the habit
of control is there, erasing all traces of any disturbance.
‘But that’s the point, it does matter! You can’t
really live not knowing who you are, or denying what you’ve
always been. After all, you’re John Lennon. We’ll find
ways to bring you back to yourself. There’s nothing to worry
about.’
‘You’re right, there’s nothing to worry about,’
I say quietly.
She smiles benignly at me when I say these words, but she doesn’t
question whether we mean the same thing.
She arranges her posture in a way that tells me that our time is
over. As she does, I catch her name badge set against the breast
pocket of her white coat.
‘You’re Dr…,’ I am about to say.
‘Spears,’ she replies. ‘Britney Spears.’
Kriben Pillay
2 February 2006