Ego in a Cage
Elective Affinities, 1933 by Rene Magritte
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As European seekers did not discover a new world but ran aground on a very old world already established, I have done the same. What is the territory where I’m landed? I even thought to colonize this vasty continent but lacked the guts to act, lacked the monstrous, uncaged ego needed to rampage Kaiju-style over its forests and plains, its unwary population.
My own home continent is over-crowded and depleted. I am suffocating there. Desperation drives me to explore a world unknown.
—
Custom in this alternate place requires that egos be caged. We carry the cages at the end of long poles that we balance over one shoulder. It is said that the shoulder, left or right, one chooses signals information. But as to what information, I can’t guess.
There’s much about which I am ignorant. A good example is that I travel a long time without realizing that the cages need cleaning. Oh, it is humiliating to think of the gross state of my ego’s little cote, waste spilling through the wicker bars, the captive’s feet mired in filth. Weeping sores smell of rot. And me, oblivious.
Little Library Girl brings to my attention the disgraceful condition of my cage. She looks to be about nine years old, bright-eyed and confident, clutching to her heart a stack of four library books. When she appears the sight of her lifts my own heart.
But then LL Girl sees my distraught face, — I am shattered by her sweet decency as she points to the neglected ego — and she responds with alacrity: “No whining or moping! Follow me. This way, this way.” She balances over her right shoulder a bamboo shaft from which swings what looks like a colonial-style lantern of punched tin, only it has no hinged door for opening. Her ego’s cage is entirely shut up except for the decorative piercings. A glinting eye shines from behind a hole. A tiny beak protrudes, withdraws. From inside come the sounds of flutters and bumps.
Little Library Girl takes me to a stainless steel room lined with sinks and vacuum hoses, with work tables down the center, with rolling carts full of brushes, sponges, spray bottles, folded towels, with trash barrels as tall as the child herself.