Torkulweef say:
We offered to introduce Tiresias, but he refused, for no better reason than that he thought we would lie and say rude things about him. But people from our clan—and we’re from another dementia than the reader—are all either too stupid to get away with lies or too smart to tell them. Well, of course that’s true for human beings, too. And as for the possibility of offending Tiresias, we would remind you that, in the Book of Torkulweef, Chapter 17, it says that “Truth has certain privileges, one of which is that it is entitled to be rude.”
And anyway, since we have access to his multiple personalities, we were able to get one of them to put our own stuff in ahead of his. Cassandra is such a sweetie.
So who is Tiresias? Well, first of all, he’s been a massive failure in almost everything he’s done. To stay out of trouble he stayed in school, gathering degrees until, by degree, he became unqualified to become anything but a college professor with a drinking problem. Through trickery he got a position at an Ivy League University; through guile he held on to it until, prompted by the less absurd of his multiple personalities, he saw through himself and fled from teaching like a namosk from a hungry chonchon. But of course you’ve never visited the bestiary in our dementia.
Tiresias has occasionally published a book or article, but never anything of note, and that’s why we decided to help him out a bit. You’ll recognize his contributions by their sullen irritation; ours, by their soaring genius. We expect him to say unkind things about us—and even we admit that some of our personalities are a bit abrasive—but our steadfast humility is a defense of sorts.
Let the games begin!
Tiresias says:
First of all, this is my blog, it deals with how writing is made vivid, and no Weefs were ever invited. I can’t stress enough the importance of not believing anything they say. I say “they” because all Weefs are assemblages of multiple personalities of bodiless creatures independent of time and space. This means they can infest the mind of anyone who has ever lived, draining away information, implanting ideas, and playing tricks on mankind by switching past and future. Déjà vu is just one of their annoying little inventions.
Being multiple, they reject any attempt to turn them singular, even grammatically, which is why their entry is entitled “Torkulweef say.” They don’t have a word for “crowds” because they don’t have non-crowds. And the claim that they don’t lie! I asked Torkulweef about their past life in their own dementia, and they said they were connected to law enforcement. And they were—as a fugitive from justice! One of their personalities is actually imprisoned somewhere outside space and time, and I can only hope that he doesn’t show up here one of these days, given that their authorities have a policy of catch and release.
And I deny that I have multiple personalities. A lot of people talk to themselves. Just because the imaginary person I talk to has a name doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. Besides, I talk to myself only so I can fit in on Hollywood Boulevard, where I am in charge of a project to provide dead cell phones to the homeless so they can look like normal people. In Southern California, after all, you can’t tell that someone is homeless just by the condition of his clothing. Here people buy pre-tattered jeans. So if the homeless just mutter into a cell phone, they look like everyone around them, which would raise their self-esteem if they were somewhere other than in Hollywood.
But Cassandra and I digress. I don’t see how this can work. It is so annoying to have no secrets from this multiplex fiend who has crept out of invisible slats in the universe that science hasn’t even discovered yet.
Torkulweef: We knew you were going to say that.
Nisemono Sudo: “As someone once said, always give your sources.”
Cassandra: [Cassandra declined to comment, observing only that while Tiresias does indeed talk to her he never listens to her.]
Originally published in another dementia on June 26, 2011