The Burrow (Der Bau)

 It is an evening like any other, you are with your family or maybe with some friends. You have prepared some tea accompanied with some small cakes, it isn't late enough for conversation, yet still too early to turn on the television. Someone rings the bell.

Fine, let's say so!

Without taking the usual precautions, in a casual and almost unconscious manner, you open the door. A woman, whose traits and clothes are unknown to you, but whose smile is refreshing and familiar, joins you.

Fine, let's say so!

You are naturally a bit embarrassed, but very considerately she closes the door and locks it, "you never know", she says to you. You walk her to the living room, you introduce her to your family or maybe your friends. You offer her some tea, which she immediately accepts. You have not yet even served her and she has already closed your shutters, unplugged your telephone, and verified that no repugnant little creature is hiding under the cushions or in the cupboards.

Fine, let's say so!

Reassured, she takes a seat and tells you the complete history of the construction of your interior. Then, in a captivating moment, you realize that you are not at your house, that you were never there, that you have taken advantage of the woman's absence to shamefully move in. This home that you patiently decorated is her burrow, her fortress. The only thing left for you to do is go back to your house.

Fine, let's say so!

But how can you go back to your house when you have only ever lived in her house? Furthermore, can there even be a house for such a vagabond as yourself, facing alone all the dangers of heaven and earth? And if your interior is on the exterior of her interior, where is your exterior? And if you were to find it, wouldn't your exterior risk being on the interior of her exterior? From this point on where could you find refuge? Unless interior and exterior are the horrifying markers of a geometry of space that you share with this unknown smiling woman? So, there would not be refuge for anyone and we would all be horrible rogues who want shelter without having to build it.

In this case, you were wrong to invite your family or maybe your friends to drink tea.

Jean Lambert-wild