Collapsed on the chaise with a book, it slowly dawned on me that I was being watched.
I gingerly lifted the book and saw this:
A miniature llama. Sitting on my stomach.
He hadn’t been there a moment ago, but there was no disputing that he was there now. Sudden Llama.
What was he doing there? Smiling mainly.
My silly girlfriend must have come into the room, seen that I was absorbed by the book, and quietly put the llama there. She can be unpredictable in that way.
I, on the other hand, am a serious man–wholly predictable, thank you–and I was reading a serious book. I was not about to be undone by such silliness.
I did what any serious man would do and ignored the llama.
If I didn’t see him, he wasn’t there. I adjusted my glasses and returned to the book:
The trajectory of Freud’s and Lacan’s theory, said Žižek, goes from desire to drive…
But I knew the llama was there. Silent, with his friendly smile, on the other side of the book.
But what if he wasn’t. What if he’d llamaed off?
Maybe he was both there and not there. Schrodinger’s Llama.
Worse, maybe he’d never been there. I’ve been waiting for that to happen. I’m the ideal candidate for a pooka.
I peeked over the top of the book to check on the situation. I affected nonchalance, so that the llama wouldn’t know he was getting to me.
I saw this:
Yes, he was still there. Obviously. Piercing gaze. Vacant smile. Elderly Welshman’s haircut for some reason.
Nonsense, I thought and returned to the book.
The trajectory of Freud’s and Llama’s theory goes from desire to drive.
What?
The trajectory of Freud’s and Lacan’s theory goes from desire to drive.
Samara came in. “I see you two are getting along!”
“Yes,” I said, “like a house on fire. I’m trying to read and he’s distracting me.”
“How,” said Samara utterly reasonably, “is a toy miniature llama distracting you?”
“It’s the look on his face,” I said, “it’s mesmerizing.”
“Don’t let him get to you,” she said, “you’re more sophisticated than he is.”
I wondered for a moment whether she was talking to me or the llama.
“I won’t let him get to me,” I said, “My mind is a fortress”.
She sat beside me and began to toy with the llama. “Read something out loud to me,” she said.
“The trajectory,” I said, “of Freud’s and Lacan’s theory goes from desire to…”
I could feel his llama gaze burning a hole through the cover. Like this:
“Oh, it’s no use!”
Needless to say, Samara found this hilarious.
I snatched the llama up in my hands. I was surprised by how soft he was, hand-made possibly from alpaca fleece. I brushed him softly against my cheek. He was actually rather lovely.
“What is this anyway?” I asked “Who’s out there turning out miniature llamas?”
“He’s so silly,” she said dreamily, “and I have no idea where he came from.”
I thought it had come from the box of Samara’s childhood things her parents had recently pulled out of storage.
“Nope,” she said, “We’ve had him for longer than that.”
We thought about this for a while. The mysterious origin of the llama, how it arrived in our home.
It didn’t seem to trouble Samara, so I steadfastly decided not to let it trouble me either. I would not be tormented by this:
Seriously now. Where did this thing come from? An egg?