ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
I just came back from work, and tomorrow I’ll go to work again, and so on and so forth. I’m too tired to think these days. I don’t want to think about things, it’s doubly exhausting, and I don’t see any way of snapping out of it either.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no such a thing as waking up. Like, spiritually, I mean. Not really, never completely. I don’t think I believe in real ‘change’ as such, only substitutions. We can only exchange one for another, not too dissimilar from the one before. One dream for another. And to me, this is real. All too real. True and a half, and you’ll be the third, but I see I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s first get back to the lies.
Don’t lies eventually lead to truth? My favourite thing to say at work is that, unfortunately, there’s nothing to be done. They are taught to accept that answer and I don’t like to quibble. There are powers greater than you and I, whoever or whatever they may be. Just rest easy knowing they are in their tower, deciding, directing.
People are often obstructed in their hearing. They’ll misunderstand. For instance, they’ll accept apologies never given, so I’ve made it a habit to agree to words never spoken. How to communicate when you don’t? Communicate with a gesture: yes, this way please.
For reasons I’ll intentionally leave blank, I found myself in the situation where I needed an ever elusive something (of course always money, yes, but let’s not be a bore, try a little). Yes, the why I’ll leave open ended, for you to fill in. It’ll be good practice.
In any case, I had to find a way to bind myself into a different shape of servitude. So, in an ever so clever act of sleight of hand, I found myself a pleasant little job, didn’t I? Indeed I did.
I’m so miserable. I’d better find something to do at once . . . Work, work!
Between being miserable and tired, I chose what I could tolerate better and to this day, I’m employed on a bridge. That is to say, I watch crowds of people pass from one side (a bank, or reserve) to another, mostly the same as the first. And of course: I scrutinise them, watching them in all their humanity, their boundless stupidity, wholly unaware of my spying on them. I look on as they approach and eventually pass by my little station until eventually I stop seeing them. My little, fixed place in this world, slice of heaven.
But this place of course isn’t really much of a place at all, is it? Rather, it is space, that is, the space between discrete places. Because this space isn’t really any place, they are also never fully there, as it were, because, one could say, it isn’t at all. That’s what I do, I occupy the indeterminable, this unstable state, an unruly sense of crisis made tangible, the material shape of indecision. ‘Where are you?’ ‘On the way!’ And what I do is I see how people grapple with that, and grin from behind my hand, though nothing has earned me that right and really we’re no different, except that I don’t move on.
Simple enough, right? Yes, wonderful. So now, here will follow a quick story. You’ll have to forgive me, because I’m not up to telling the whole thing. Let me, however, paint something of a picture for you. I’ll give it to you in broad strokes, then for you to take on. I’ll point you in the right direction and let you be on your merry way.
Yes, I put all my faith in you, I trust you completely. And indeed I must, for there is no one else. It’s beyond me at this point. Like I said, I’m tired. You didn’t already forget about that, did you? Otherwise this next part might prove tricky, as you’ll have to stand in for me, take my place. Yes, I am the same as you, verily the same!
DON’T CHASE THE HARE OUT
We find ourselves in a bar, but of course it doesn’t really matter. It’s an excuse, if anything. Someplace that checks all the boxes. Any commonly familiar place for gathering people would do, I’d say. A place where, on one hand, people are free from toil (aristocrats, thinking about music and art) and on the other, there are those who aren’t, who serve those mentioned before for a pittance (preoccupied with money). So most places.
But just like you and me, they’re the same coin, just at different points in time (different phases, or states). Is it not the same money they’re exchanging, after all? In any case, a nice place to eavesdrop, to juxtapose oneself, in an act of cunning, as the third, nested neatly and unseen, in between people’s private matters.
Yes, the scene is set. It’s perfect actually. At this bar, sitting in front of the bar, there is a certain someone enjoying a leisurely drink, before their shift at the bar, that is, the shift to being situated behind the bar, the very same one. Their face is covered by a naturalistic mask bearing the likeness of a brown hare, and so is everyone else’s face in this place, for effect.
From on the other side of the bar, this person themself is pouring from an empty bottle into their glass. They are rehearsing what’s to come, in a playful way, let’s say. The one standing is asking for pointers, the one sitting abides the request and directs. ‘Go there and do that, now that, now come here and do this, now this.’
But it can’t all be business, there are of course two roles to represent, and all work and no play makes one dull, doesn’t it? So they must also talk-talk interspersed throughout, but what about, then? Of course they only talk of themselves, as is common, about what they have in common, which of course is everything.
Are we not all alike, constantly talking and to no one, forever up against the same questions although we know the answers in advance? Those are not my words, but they might as well have been. And now they’re yours, so, here.
Then they stand up and turn towards their subsequent role. They tip toe over, it’s tight. They take the bottle from their counterpart’s hand and stand back to the bottled wall, tidily out the way to let themself take the seat they just stood up from. Now the roles reverse, but not completely. Though they do deliver the same lines, they retain them in their new roles. They’re directing themself now, directly. The other’s questions serving as cues they can now respond to with confidence. Look at them go. They grow up so fast, don’t they?
As I see it, a baby’s cry is a kind of capitulation, a frustrated realisation that communication is impossible. It is a crisis, for they have not yet learned to accept this impossibility. They are still wrapped up in the process, they are in between.
But how is it that parents lose their first language, that is, the language of babies? Because is there anyone among us who hasn’t at one point been one? Or do they know but choose not to, to avoid an argument? Do they feign ignorance for their own selfish gain? Or are they, as well, simply too tired to? Don’t think it won’t come back to bite!
When I was small, I’d cry quite often. My father would then direct me to the staircase, or if I was fortunate my room, until I’d be ready to come back down again. And I’d do as told.
From very early on, I remember feeling the desire to hide in the hollow of the hedge, to pretend I lived there. I guess I’ve always been a voyeur at heart. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, which of course is no one.
Yes, I’ve always tended to partition myself off, but I only made perceptible to the world what I already had felt for myself. I took it on and strove to exact control over it. What was natural to me was never natural to the world, and so, the world appeared to me as wrong, inhospitable, too painful to bear.
This may also serve to explain the early onset of myopia. Just an off-hand thought I had. It’s poetic.
Anyway, people can be unpredictable and I’d only gamble if I knew I couldn’t lose. I’d even rather gamble knowing I could only lose. I didn’t want to be seen, discovered, or found out, caught unawares. It seems I felt the need to turn it around in my favour, to immerse myself and expel from inside, out into the world. We tend to prefer our pain on the outside, tangible. I’ve been told I walk quietly and I’ll often startle people when they turn their head in my direction.
But why am I mentioning all this? Well, you might want to consider that those who confess eagerly, may do so precisely to obfuscate and tamper with the confession itself. They’ll hide under the pretence of openness, whatever that means. Is it not my lawful right to deny until my last dying breath what I know in fact to be true? Again, it’s only an exploit to exact control, to hide in plain sight (a substitution, if you will). This is my story after all, it’s just you who will be telling in my stead, and I don’t envy you. It’s exactly the way I want it. My heart has sunk deep into my chest and over the years I have never given myself more than piecemeal to anyone. For shame!
Yes, and as a teen I’d end up doing quite peculiar things. One of my favourite things to do would be to come home from school and take a long bath, put my head under for as long as I could. Then I’d sit until the water got cold, sit until the sun had gone down all the way. Yes, youth, whose memory drives one to despair!
I grew up too, maybe a bit late, and now I’ve exchanged my frustration for resignation. A hard hand left me placated, complacent. Why else play these games and hide? We tend to take pride in the prisons we inhabit, because we built them ourselves. Of course my preoccupations are patently decadent. An aristocrat at heart, aren’t I? But assuredly, I’ve got a diligent little worker in me too, for faith still lives there.
On a recent visit, my mother discovered me reading a facsimile of a book that I’d been slowly but diligently chipping away at for over a year. Though she knew as well as I did that she would never as much as touch the thing, she requested to borrow it, to possess a piece of me for herself. I begrudgingly obliged, but now as an adult, without grief. She then gave me one of hers in return, which I, in turn, will likely never read either.
Yes, I grew up, and all I can say is I feel like an idiot for doing as is directed, or desired, but, decidedly, I still do. It’s second nature. I don’t have the time for anything else anyway. I follow the rules of conduct, but for what? What is the meaning of all this? What is it all for?
Let’s turn our attention to the room. First there is one couple beginning to have a heated argument, they rise out from the rhubarb of the crowd. They defend their points of view fiercely, as if they were absolutely, diametrically opposed to their conversational partner’s, and there can be no resolution without their opponent’s unequivocal surrender. They do this only for a short while until they calm down and continue as they did before.
It is a mutual capitulation, they accept that communication is impossible, being adults they agree to disagree. They must live with the schism. Then another, and then another, and so on, until every couple has had their turn arguing. They attack each other with ferocity. Yes, these March hares, don’t they just love belabouring over minutiae, semantics. They’ll never agree on what is, in a roundabout way perhaps, the very same position. After the last one has rounded off, they all get up to exchange their roles like before.
Don’t people, maybe without knowing, mostly argue from the same set of values? Mostly the same, repackaged, and then disagreement arises over aesthetic differences. Otherwise it would be said that discussion isn’t in fact even possible, or permitted. Do we negotiate with terrorists? Not a word. Some things are not fit for discussion at the table, and they are all so civilised here. Everyone in society is polite, or else.
As they get up from their seats, an angel passes—silence. The door creaks loudly as someone new enters through the door. A white hare, unaccompanied, without its double. A shock to everyone and they all turn to face this nuisance. It’s you!
What, you thought I’d forget about you? How could I? As you are well aware, I’m in dire need of your help. Am I not using you, after all? Even explaining it to you so I understand it better myself. See, I knew you’d understand, because you have to. It’s your big debut, you’re the bright, shining star of the show, and they all hate you for it. They resent you for your heart, the way you stand alone, fragile. They are suspicious of you, of what your presence might mean for their comfort. You’ll have to forgive them, for of course they know not what they do. Isn’t it indeed the very same people we love whom we loathe?
Then you begin to sing. You do know how to sing, don’t you?