I don’t read much fiction, but the stories, tales and essays of the Argentinian fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges, are worth reading and rereading.
The Mystical County of Ströng Romnï
Diodorus Siculus relates that there is a mystical county, hidden deep in hinterlands of Ohio, known to the ancients by the name of Ströng Romnï. Who among us has not felt, while walking through the twilight, that it exists? The county, faithful to vast and secret laws, is inaccessible by land, sea, or air—except, it is said, with a short layover in Pittsburgh. Still, few outsiders visit the county, and few who reside within it visit the exterior.
There are only two things that are known with any degree of certainty about the county of Ströng Romnï: first, it always goes Republican; second, its votes remain uncounted.
Consider Zeno’s paradox against movement. A moving object at A (declares Aristotle) cannot reach point B because it must cover half the distance between the two points, and before that, half of the half, and before that, half of the half of the half, and so on. Needless to say, by the time the object reaches its destination, the polls will already be closed, due to the state’s Republican Secretary of State.
The Five Wise Men Who Decide the Election
There are five wise men who preside in a courthouse at the top of a hill, and they are the five men who decide the election.
The first man is Antonin Scalia—gruff and unsparing.
The second man is Clarence Thomas—silent and brooding.
The third man is John Roberts—analytical and strategic.
The fourth man is Anthony Kennedy—flexible and reliable.
The fifth man is Samuel Alito—to be honest, I’m not really sure what he’s like.
These are the five men who decide the election. However, if Florida ends up not mattering, everything gets fucked up!
Rove and I
The other one, the one called Rove, is the one things happen to. I am the one who lingers inside the neon studios of the Fox News Channel and discusses politics; I know of Rove only from the monitors there, which report that he raises vast sums from billionaires for his Super PAC. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; yet it would also be an exaggeration to say that there is some kind of conflict of interest between us.
The President and His Sons
A President is defeated and the people rejoice. The President is a great man, but the people grow restless—plus they remember his ill-advised “no new taxes” speech—and elect another man. Eight years pass. The people begin to remember their old President with fondness, and they turn to his son, who presides in his turn for eight years. The son accomplishes much, but, through no fault of his own, the country is more or less destroyed. Eight more years pass. The people, their memories short, have now forgotten the son, but remember once again—faintly—the father, who is now a very old man. And they discover that the father has a second son, Jeb, and that this son is married to a Hispanic woman.
The Mysterious Language of W
There is a language, known to its scholars and scribes only as W, which does not conform to any previously known linguistic pattern. But for an accident of history, it might never have been discovered. The speaker of W heeds no predictable rules of grammar, diction, or idiom. For example, he will ask, “Is our children learning?” He will talk of “misunderestimation” and of “dreams taking wing,” of “he and her.” Often, he will merely stare silently, his eyes blinking ceaselessly, holding we know not what unimaginable discourse with the stars, or with beings imperceptible to our senses.
It was long thought that the Language of W was the most complicated and least knowable language on earth, until 2008, when a new language was discovered, known to those who study it as Palin.
Illustration by Tom Bachtell.