(21) The abracadabrant story of the Moon Child

 

“Thus my purpose is not to teach here the method that each ought to follow in order to conduct his reason well, but only to show in what manner I have endeavoured to conduct my own… But as soon as I had completed this entire course of study, at the end of which one is usually admitted among the learned, I changed my opinion entirely. For I found myself entangled in so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me I had gained no other benefit from trying to educate myself than that I had increasingly discovered my own ignorance.”

René Descartes, Discourse on the Method, Part One

Lucian, together with Igniatius, look at and observe the drawings he has brought. Neither of them understands what they represent… yet both know, each in his own way, that these images are a kind of keys, which might lead them to understand why they are there… and what this mysterious resemblance might be.

Lucian pauses at this opening.
The thing here is not an object. It is what has not yet allowed itself to be taken into the form of someone. And yet, it resembles one. This is where the disturbance intensifies. For resemblance calls for recognition. It invites one to say: “it is he.” But at the very moment when this recognition becomes possible, something withdraws. The “he” reappears. No longer only as what is “inside,” but as what can take on the form of a face without becoming a person.

Lucian notes:
“The ‘he’ can resemble without identifying.
It can appear without becoming someone.”

He then understands differently:
“It is not something else either.”
This does not mean a thing in the sense of an object. It means that the alternative, me or someone else, does not hold.

The “he” is not someone else, yet it is not reducible to a thing… making that opposition impossible.

— When I look at them… says Igniatius…
— I have the impression that it is… me…
— but without me.

Lucian does not correct him. He writes down the phrase and highlights it: “me without me.”

He understands that the word “thing” protects this. It prevents capture. And perhaps what speaks in the images passes through this suspension.

Not someone who would be speaking.
Not a thing that would be shown.
But something, or someone, that can only appear on the condition of not being immediately named as such.

Lucian then notes what is slowly forming in his mind:
“The inside is not a place. It is an impossibility of putting outside.”

For Igniatius has said:
— When I say it is inside… it is not that it is within…
— It is that… I cannot put it outside.

The “he” acts.
Each time a meaning settles, it displaces it.
Each time a connection stabilizes, it undoes it.

— It is what makes it not hold.

Lucian notes this sentence.
What does not hold is not a defect.
It is the effect of this “he.”

The “he” is not what must be integrated.
It is what prevents any complete integration.

Lucian writes:
“The ‘he’ is neither a content nor an image.
It is what, within the image, prevents it from becoming a stable object.”

He pauses.
Then adds:
“Perhaps this is what speaks.”

Igniatius no longer looks at the drawings. He looks at Lucian.

— Do you see it?

Lucian hesitates.
If he answers yes, he would be lying.
If he answers no, he would miss something.

So he says:
—I see that there is something I cannot see.

Igniatius slowly nods.
— Yes… that’s it.

The “he” does not become clearer.
But it becomes shareable.

Not as a common object,
but as a common zone of impossibility.

Lucian then begins to understand differently what is taking place.
The patient does not bring images to be interpreted.
He brings a place where something seeks to bind itself.

And this place is not given in advance.
It forms as connections appear, come undone, and are taken up again.

Some sessions bring nothing. The drawings remain silent. So do the words.
Then, for no apparent reason, a connection occurs. A sentence catches onto a line. A memory joins a form. And something, briefly, holds.

Then it comes undone again.

The narrative no longer follows a line.
It becomes a series of resumptions without assured continuity.

An unstable network where the past remains present, yet no longer fully determines what may come to pass.

Lucian finally notes:
“There are images.
They do not come from him.
They do not come from me.
And yet, they compel us to move.”

He closes his notebook.

But the sentence does not close. For what has opened — this inside that is not a place, this faceless “he” — cannot be closed again. It does not cease. It insists.

And perhaps this is, in the end, what allows something still to happen.