Experimental writing, in the tradition of Borges.
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Anthony Cardoza, whose name, in combination with his activities, was perceived by some from an ancient secret order to be connected with certain elaborate configurations of a school of Herring fish, is not dead, contrary to the rumours, though he has been absent from the streets for three years.
I, who knew Cardoza well, am now a messenger, but was once Cardoza’s closest confidante and associate. I distanced myself from him in 1467 after fourteen years of integration when I was 28 and he 42. I have not seen Cardoza during his three-year absence, an absence that is like a wound through the hearts of thousands, and I have not heard from anyone that he is in fact alive.
But I have had time now to recount the fourteen year history of our integration, the days and the locations at which we met, the anecdotes and circumscriptions of those who were near at those times, the book he left me with; in particular I considered the words of the letter found by Alphonse of the secret order who indicated the motion of a school of Herring fish and how it altered the course of an ocean current and the location of the bottle of rum that contained his letter, the bottle Cardoza cast into the water in 1464; Alphonse said these events explained why he found the letter that Cardoza wrote, which explanation I dismissed.
There were some who claimed that, while unconditionally generous and compassionate, Cardoza was plagued by the secrets of a confrontation in 1450 with a tribe of Imazighen Berbers who claimed allegiance to the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad, which secrets, it was said, left Cardoza’s eyes and frequent smile bereft of sincerity, though I knew Cardoza loved his followers with a passion that pierced every dark night that Cardoza had seen but never shared.
But I who once knew Cardoza, no longer know him, though I am certain that I am he. Yet there is no one since who has recognized me and told me so. For this I do not blame them, for I am glad finally to have found anonymity. Still I am uncertain why this has come to pass. And although I have excluded the ruminations of the secret order from my analysis of events past (for the problem of Cardoza’s absence cannot include the ocean currents or the Herring fish because I am here in the flesh and to state that this or that configuration of fish never happened is entirely invalid), that I am Cardoza validates indeed the circumscriptions of those who have provided me clues in addition to my own recollections; that I am Cardoza is proof that things do not change unless specified otherwise: the silence of the townspeople indicates no evidence to the contrary. And I, who am now a messenger, have evidence and no doubt, and now relay the words of the letter that Alphonse found: Cardoza lives!
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