"WAKING up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a 

while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom 

deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because 

here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what's called at home. 

 But now isn't simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than 

yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all 

past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner —perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it 

will come. 

 Fear tweaks the vagus nerve. A sickish shrinking from what waits, somewhere out 

there, dead ahead. 

 But meanwhile the cortex, that grim disciplinarian, has taken its place at the central 

controls and has been testing them, one after another: the legs stretch, the lower back is 

arched, the fingers clench and relax. And now, over the entire intercommunication 

system, is issued the first general order of the day: UP. 

 Obediently the body levers itself out of bed—wincing from twinges in the arthritic 

thumbs and the left knee, mildly nauseated by the pylorus in a state of spasm—and 

shambles naked into the bathroom, where its bladder is emptied and it is weighed: still a 

bit over 150 pounds, in spite of all that toiling at the gym! Then to the mirror. 

 What it sees there isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament. Here's 

what it has done to itself, here's the mess it has somehow managed to get itself into 

during its fifty-eight years; expressed in terms of a dull, harassed stare, a coarsened nose, 

a mouth dragged down by the corners into a grimace as if at the sourness of its own 

toxins, cheeks sagging from their anchors of muscle, a throat hanging limp in tiny 

wrinkled folds. The harassed look is that of a desperately tired swimmer or runner; yet 

there is no question of stopping. The creature we are watching will struggle on and on 

until it drops. Not because it is heroic. It can imagine no alternative. 

 Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face—the face of the 

child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man—all present still, preserved like 

fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying 

creature is: Look at us—we have died—what is there to be afraid of? 

 It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I'm afraid of being rushed. 

 It stares and stares. Its lips part. It starts to breathe through its mouth. Until the cortex 

orders it impatiently to wash, to shave, to brush its hair. Its nakedness has to be covered. 

It must be dressed up in clothes because it is going outside, into the world of the other  4

people; and these others must be able to identify it. Its behavior must be acceptable to 

them. 

 Obediently, it washes, shaves, brushes its hair, for it accepts its responsibilities to the 

others. It is even glad that it has its place among them. It knows what is expected of it. 

 It knows its name. It is called George."

A Single Man (1964) 

by Christopher Isherwood