To be forgotten

...an excerpt from...
The Rings of Saturn
by W.G. Sebald
(1995)

Much as in this continuous process of consuming and being consumed, nothing endures, in Thomas Browne's view.  On every new thing there lies already the shadow of annihilation.  For the history of every individual, of every social order, indeed of the whole world, does not describe an ever-widening, more and more wonderful arc, but rather follows a course which, once the meridian is reached, leads without fail down into the dark.  Knowledge of that descent into the dark, for Browne, is inseparable from his belief in the day of resurrection, when, as in a theatre, the last revolutions are ended and the actors appear once more on stage, to complete and make up the catastrophe of this great piece.  As a doctor, who saw disease growing and raging in bodies, he understood mortality better than the flowering of life.  To him it seems a miracle that we should last so much as a single day.  There is no antidote, he writes, against the opium of time.  The winter sun shows how soon the light fades from the ash, how soon night enfolds us.  Hour upon hour is added to the sum.  Time itself grows old.  Pyramids, arches and obelisks are melting pillars of snow.  Not even those who have found a place amidst the heavenly constellations have perpetuated their names:  Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in the Dog Star.  Indeed, old families last not three oaks.  To set one's name to a work gives no one a title to be remembered, for who knows how many of the best of men have gone without a trace?  The iniquity of oblivion blindly scatters her poppyseed and when wretchedness falls upon us one summer's day like snow, all we wish for is to be forgotten.

"Where are you taking us?"

...an excerpt from...
The Burn
by Vassily Aksyonov
(1980)

Why am I here? I must get out at once, crawl up to my loft, bow to Our Lady the Consoler of the Afflicted, switch on the lamp over my table, put on a record of Chicago jazz, and lay a clean sheet of paper on my desk. How much longer can I go on being shaken up in this vile train? Surely I can jump out of it while it's moving even at the risk of my life? Who put us on this rattling train, with these rattling bottles and glasses and all this sticky food? Where did we board it? Where did we take our seats on its vomit-covered velvet seats? Where was that platform, spattered with gobs of spit? Where is our baggage being taken to: our childhood, our freedom, our creative work? Where is it locked up? Under what lead seals is it secured? We guess that our creaking monster is rumbling across the green hilly countryside, over mountain ranges, now the outlines of cities. We guess that we are crossing huge squares with crowds of people gripped by passion. We guess all this, but we see nothing, and all we do is pour ourselves drinks and eat and dully remasticate our stale ideas. We make friends and join groups because we are too frightened simply to get up from the table, wrench the door open, and ask with plain, straightforward anger, Where are you taking us?