The Maker dies
Now is a good time for the Maker to die. It is the end of January, the weather perfect. A cold wind is blowing from the sea. It blows away the heaviness from the air. He is shirtless. He sits long to consider what next to write. Why?
Why should the Maker die?
For one, he is not as good-looking as before. His letters have become too imposing. Let’s look at the word again: “the Maker.” The capital M looks ugly. It is too sharp edged, too authoritarian, too unweathered. And weathered is what the Maker of these text has become.
He is not sad. He cannot do as much as he used to, but then, he feels he is doing too much already. And an inner voice has told him he can never ever do enough. Leave the saving of the world to God. Try only to make things better. Try only to connect with others who want to do as much.
Good time for us to remember, “the Maker” was always only meant to name the person who made this text. He is a writer. We must excuse him for holding on to the sacredness of words. The Gospel of St. John begins: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
But these are not God’s words. They are his. And they are important to him though he knows they are only signs that point to larger meanings not all of them his. Every word is a story. They reminds us of things past. They open a universe of possibilities. But they exist always in the here and now.
We have a perfect reason to kill the Maker. He is too English, too American. And it is time we dressed him better and in the clothes of his native tongue. Why not Tigbuhat? It is a much more beautiful word. And larger in meaning if only because it includes the memory of him who was the Maker. Let us make it an act of murder, premeditated and performed exactly as Truman Capote described: in cold blood. The act will be easy. Feel no pity. It is the best thing we can do for him. And he accepts this. He is at peace with it.
And even though the Maker dies, his meanings continue even after his passing. They are stories that drift about in the universe, somewhat lost but not exactly so, just like the Maker himself: Hateful. Loveable. Ugly. Beautiful. Fashionably dirty. Gentle. Clumsy. Right. Wrong. Imperfect, but lovely that way. He made us wonder. And that was the whole point about him. He had no answers to the most important questions. At best he himself had only a few interesting questions to ask. He was not exceptionally strong or even powerful. He was absolutely vulnerable. He was no saint. But he tried to do good, if it was not too inconvenient for him. He was not trying to save the world. He was only wondering about it. He was like us.
And he knew he would not be perfectly understood by all who read him. He knew we all understood in our own way. To understand exactly was never the point. He only wanted to make a bit of sense. He was much more inclined to ask himself whether we would enjoy what was written. He was always after the pleasure of reading. And so he aspired for the pleasure of writing for himself. For that was the only way he could ever come near to knowing what we might like or dislike. But now his name is not so likable. It has outlived its beauty. And it is a perfect time for a bit of an ending so that the Maker meets his dignified end. But how do we do it? How do we kill a name?
In the Maker’s universe it is easy. Let it simply disappear from the text, never to be used again. After this, we will read of him no more and he will go as all things must. If he were a body, we would burn him and then be left with his ashes. What happens to a word after it dies? Now, we will find out.
But first, give him his proper time of mourning. Enough to give ourselves time to contemplate redemption and rebirth. The resurrection. From hereon, we will call him Tigbuhat.
