The Aspern Papers

Yesterday I decided I would take a walk in the park. Its a beautiful set of parks, actually, quite close to where I live. The weather was nice, warm and inviting so I decided that I would go without my jacket. I brought Nietzsche with me because I have taken to reading while I walk...it gives my eyes something to do besides watching where I am going. And, yes, this is the man who recently spent a week in a hospital for falling down a flight of stairs!

The walk was pleasant...I needed it to arrange my thoughts (I read some wonderful things by Emerson this weekend...I was supposed to read about war crimes, war crimes v. love, society and solitude by Emerson...I am too humane for that to even be a decision!). Dark clouds were gathering and a slight chill had arisen in the air so I began to move briskly toward the subway station.

A few blocks from the subway station I passed a human maze of hedges, and the child in me took over. I wandered through the maze, I am not sure for how long, until I reached the center. In the center there were two park benches on a small circular patch of grass. Why not sit for a few minutes, take a load off, read a bit. I will tell you why...because it was getting cold, rain was approaching, and I was in the middle of a maze!

Nevertheless, I sat and did a wonderful blend of daydreaming and reading. I thought, maybe my future wife would walk into the center of this maze, driven by the same childish impulses, and sit down on the bench across from me with a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. Of course, this was mere rubbish! I knew darn well that it was me and Friedrich stuck in the maze together. That is really a theme here in Denmark!

As if on cue it began raining almost immediately and I started, in a frenzy, to search for the way out. To no avail! Deadend yet again...my book was going to be ruined! Just a tip fellas, when its 38 degrees Fahrenheit, pouring down rain, you are stuck in a "human maze" without a jacket and your immediate impulse is to safeguard your five year old well-worn paperback copy of Nietzsche's The Will to Power then you can be sure you need to get a life. Still no way out of this infernal vortex of dead hedges and dying grass. Perhaps I could walk through the hedges...that won't work either...they are supported by chicken-wire, which also rules out climbing them.

Suddenly! There it is, the path to freedom. As I stumble hurriedly out I barely have time to revel in my conquest over this surreal blend of nature an industry before THE RAIN STOPS! What have I done? Does anyone happen to have a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets back there in the States?