Wars, Huge and Tiny

[Vung Tau, 6/13/25]

Today started out promising enough. At a new sidewalk café, a lady told me several interesting stories. Her skinny kitten was also super friendly, so I kidded about taking him home. To eat, I even joked. Unsmilingly, she grabbed her pussy back.

By 1PM, though, I had written nada. Didn’t know how to begin. There was nothing to do but drag my tired ass home to sleep.

Finally leaving my room around five, words started surging. Among them was an observation by Borges. Among the abhorrent traits bred by totalitarianism is one often overlooked, idiocy! Something like that. Totalitarianism, I then thought, can also be bred by promoting idiocy. Clearly, we can all see this in progress.

At Cóc Cóc, the barista was still setting up, so I just grabbed a chair. Settled, I searched for the Borges statement, but “totalitarismo” and “idiotez” didn’t yield what I wanted. Instead, I found this, “Es sabido que la identidad personal reside en la memoria y que la anulación de esa facultad comporta la idiotez.” The erasure of memory breeds idiocy! People who can’t remember don’t know who they are. Idiots refuse to remember.