I am in love with Shohreh. But I don’t trust my emotions anymore.
The protagonist is a strange man, what is more he says that he is not even a man, for he is a bizarre combination of a human and a cockroach. If he can’t fully identify himself as a person, he – obviously – can’t understand his feelings. The man can’t trust his emotions “anymore.” He says that he is in love but he doesn’t even know what it means and how it feels to be in love. The only thing he is sure of is that he is possessed with a strange need “to seduce and possess every female of the species” that comes his way.
The question of existence consumed me.
The man couldn’t even explain why he had attempted to commit suicide. Of course, his life wasn’t perfect – and it had never been - , but there wasn’t any particular reason for him to end it so abruptly. Every time he had to talk about it with his therapist he tried to explain that it was his way “to escape the permanence of the sun.” “With frankness,” and using “limited psychological knowledge and power of articulation,” he tried to explain that he did it “out of a kind of curiosity,” for “the question of existence” consumed him.
My welfare cheque was ten days away.
To make a life for yourself in a new country is not an easy task. No everyone succeeds in giving up on a dream about a bright future. Some immigrants feel unwelcome, despised, and looked upon, which is definitely not very pleasant experience. The protagonist is one of those immigrants who fail to adjust. He doesn’t have a proper job. His “welfare cheque” is “ten days away.” He is “out of dope” and his kitchen has “only rice and leftovers and crawling insects” that would outlive him “on Doomsday.” He lives in poverty but doesn’t hurry up to change that.
