Too Many Words

Why do we speak. We speak because we need to manage our lives. But when we’re not managing our lives we still speak. Day after day, night after night, we jabber on and on and on. 

There is no such thing as just talking. Casual conversation is a euphemism, an excuse for what is really taking place. We do not speak because we need to. We speak because we are nervous, because we are anxious, because we are incapable of remaining silent. When we are calm we speak less. When we are sure of who we are, of what our purpose is, we don’t even speak at all – we act, we watch, we listen, sometimes we even smile. What is talking? It is a condition of the neurotic. They are directly proportionate.

The act of conversation is a self-consuming one. One forgets oneself in the flow of words. One is in love with the sound of one’s own voice. Just as in war and sex, one is so caught up in the act that one’s self is momentarily forgotten, and with it, the neuroses attached to it. There is also the interlocutor, the other, to whom our ego is completely dependent upon for existence. When we speak we are not saying I am funny, I am interesting, I am deserving of sympathy. We are saying Am I funny? Am I interesting? Am I deserving of sympathy? Though we may come to believe that we possess these attributes, we are constantly asking to be reassured of them. We are unable to remain certain on our own. We have to be given permission. We have to be congratulated, admired, provoked. We have to be told I love you, to believe it.

Lovers who speak incessantly are not necessarily deepening their bond by discovering more of each other but simply reassuring one another of their own self-worth. The words themselves mean nothing. One couple will talk of art, literature, science. Another of television, movies, magazines, other couples. There exists an established strategy in which we seek positive affirmation from our interlocutor that begins in childhood with a parent who smiles and makes faces believing it to be for the pleasure of the child alone. But in the gesture is hidden the question. Because if there was certainty there would be no question, there would only be action. And so the problem remains. And soon the child’s own dependence on the question is in turn created too. Growing up they inherit the same insecurity, looking for assurances in everyone but themselves.

Why are we so reliant on the other? Because our culture is Other orientated. We do not know how to manufacture personal happiness alone. We only know how to work for others to give it to us. What else are the ambitious, the creators of the world, the writers, musicians, architects, scientists and inventors other than those who are either burdened with a greater need for assurance or a greater ability to provoke assurance. Their work is the same as others except that it is more concentrated. They will go for long periods without any assurance at all in exchange for the hope of a great amount of assurance all at once. The creator produces for himself an independent satellite that flows around him and alleviates the need for him to actively seek out assurances one at a time like a foot soldier. The creator is a general who creates an army that now works for him while he sleeps. He need not lift a finger.

When we speak with our friends we are so often entering into a mutually beneficial agreement of self-serving satisfaction. Calling them at the end of the day we take turns to whine, unload our sorrows and exchange our pent up energy simply because we have not been provided with an alternative. We still do not know what to do with it. We have no idea how to transmute it. We only know how to redistribute it, thin it out, either all at once to a parent or lover, or bit by bit to one friend and then another, taking extra care not to exhaust the saturation levels of each. The archaic energy flow of the family unit. The spreading out of a single problem to every member available.

But this does not make psychological problems easier to solve. It enables them and gives them more fuel to thrive. Unless a problem needs physical labour, more people will only compound it. Why do we spread it from one member to another? Because we have been conditioned to avoid opportunities to grow psychologically at every turn. Yes, we are weak, and we cling to it.

The next evolutionary step in human communication is telepathy. For many it is already a reality. But before it becomes widespread the understanding that we are saying nothing will slowly and naturally become the norm. Like bad breath a certain impotence will become associated with verbosity. When the eyes of the other begin to stalk us, our blabbering will drop off entirely. From shame a truer communication will emerge. And thus, by definition, a sparser one.

You wake up and whisper sweet nothings to your wife. She smiles at you and you get it. You kiss your baby good morning, he smiles, gurgles and you get it. You say hello to your secretary at work and a clever phrase to your boss. Again, you get it. Then at lunch you go out and the man at the sandwich counter gets your order wrong. When you tell him your ego is subtly triggered by the micro sensation of superiority because you have been given an opportunity to correct him justifiably. But because you exert yourself sensitively, generously you save his face and he is suddenly in your debt entirely. Handing over your sandwich he nods gratefully. Your victory over him is total.

We have become technicians at camouflaging our demands for assurance. Most go directly but the more perceptive use inverted snobbery. Too wary of the game they simply go the other way. But the need is the same. With more perception one is simply assured less easily. But it’s a game that one plays alone. Manic depressives are simply inconsolable because their minds are too knowledgeable. They arrive at Tolstoy’s conclusion. Everything is pointless. But then they have also reached a threshold. And with a little push they too like the old man may come to find God. And where? Oh yes ho ho – inside. 

Wait for assurances and you will wait forever. But provide them to yourself all unconditionally and you will create a state of mind that is beyond games altogether. Then you will have become your own provider and in turn you will have blended with the creator. Then you won’t need anything from anyone ever again. And for the very first time, you will actually be able to give.

What is Reality to Americans today? And did we ever have a grasp of it?

Reality is to Americans today the same as it has been for anyone else at any other time – subjective and comparative. To grasp it one must imagine the existence of an infinite number of realities closer to the truth, and an infinite number of them further away from it. But what is truth? It depends who’s asking. Reality is everything that is, and everything that is not. One cannot be without the other. They are inseparable. And America is a perfect example. It is both abundance and poverty, liberty and imprisonment, happiness and misery. It is the greatest nation in the world, and it is the worst.

There is so much in America today, so much availability, so much that the average man, woman and child is subjected to as a functioning member of its society. Through every available channel we are assaulted. Very little space is left empty. We have become over stimulated. The result – we are psychologically fragile. Worse, psychologically immature. And for the psychologically immature there are only three realities – money, fame, and marriage. But marriage is not love, and money is not security, and fame has nothing to do with self-worth. But how many of us truly have a grasp of that?

As Americans today we predominantly live in an illusion. One of our own creation. One of lies. And more than anywhere else in the world one of reality, one of truth. We are spearheading civilisation in opposite directions at once. On the television, in our newspapers, in our homes and our relationships, we are more awake than ever, and more asleep. This is our reality. But do we have a grasp of it? Grasping something is to understand it fully. And to understand something fully is to be free of it. It is to go beyond it. It is to transcend it. And we have yet to do that. We have yet to go beyond what we have and what we want, who we are and who we would like to be. Our desires still prick us. Our dreams still haunt us. This is reality for an American today. But it is also an illusion. It is like weeping every time the sun sets and the moon grows smaller. Because grasping reality is understanding that the sun never sets and that the moon’s size never changes. And to understand that is to free oneself from the fear of losing the moon, from wondering whether the sun will ever return. Because reality is the same. It is an existential question. The only one that has ever persisted. The struggle to be totally and permanently fulfilled. The question of God. But what is that?

Existentialism is not dead, and neither is God. When Nietzsche said it he should have been more specific. God is not dead. The word God is dead. It holds nothing that it once did. It is no longer seductive, mysterious, grandiose, suggestive of something else. Because our language system is saturation based, it has become a sponge soaked in brine. The word of God is not dead, God the word is. We have even become ashamed to use it. It has been spoken in the name of so much. It has become repulsive.

But what has God to do with reality? God is reality. He is not one thing or another, in one place and not another. He is not confined to a particular creed, colour, nationality or status. His patronage is to life. There is no place in which he is absent. He is everything around us. And it is our level of understanding of this, that defines our particular reality. It is directly related to how close we live to the truth, or how far. The difference is profound, though it cannot be seen until it is being lived. For the one thing that all realities have in common, is their appearance, on the surface.

And it is those who still live on the surface, that live in realities that are the furthest from the truth. Realities that are based in separatism and fear. Realities defined by the first knowledge, the knowledge of inexperience, the knowledge that is heard and accepted. The knowledge of conditioning. The knowledge of ignorance. People in this reality are hard but weak. Fighters but cowards. They have been forced to inherit a world in which nothing has meaning. One in which cynics live, men and women who believe that they have seen everything. Who though young, are already old. Who see futility everywhere, who live mechanically. Who will die having never lived at all.

For those who live in a reality closer to the truth, the bedrock of their existence is not fear, but love. Their knowledge comes only from experience. It is not bought, learnt or inherited. It is gained from sweat. People in this reality are strong but gentle, warriors but not fighters. They are men and women who have left behind their shadow selves and their childhood conditioning. They have understood that to lose ones temper is to fail profoundly, to punish someone is to become their slave and that to marry someone is to love them only on condition they love no other. Of all things, it is to understand that I love you, is a question.

Both of these realities exist as much for an American today as they do for anyone else. And they are based on levels of perception that we inhabit one by one and that are irreversible. Just as much as we cannot avoid reading once we have learnt how. Seeing symbols on a page and the process of reading them suddenly becomes unavoidable. There is no going back. But the symbols have not changed, our perception of them has. It has become deeper. And the question of God, of reality, has only ever been one of perception. Of how deeply we perceive. And how deeply we perceive is dependant upon one thing and one thing alone – how deeply we have perceived ourselves. How clearly we have seen our actions and our motivations. How much we’ve excused them, how far we have gone to protect them. For to perceive our own hidden depths only rarely, in brief, painful glimpses is to allow the truth of reality to remain hidden, unfulfilled, un-grasped. It is to allow it to remain something superficial, banal. Something defined by colour, creed, nationality, status. A moon that fades a little every day, a fickle sun.

To perceive deeply requires an honesty, a personal integrity so strong that it allows us to get away with nothing. It is to choose never to see symbols again. It is to keep reading. Because only when we refuse to read are we at war with ourselves. And when we are at war with ourselves we are at war with the world. We live in fear. We are in darkness.

Light is simply an image used for those who have overcome themselves. Who are at peace. And to be at peace with oneself is to be at peace with the world. It is no longer a war zone. Even if you are in one. It is no longer a struggle to become successful, it has become natural.

In his only work of poetry Nietzsche spoke of a moment of change, a time at high noon, when the sun was at its apex, when its heat was strongest, when it cast the shortest shadow, when a man or woman was able to walk from one state into another. Every scripture speaks of this change of state. In every religion, and in every culture, the elements are the same. It is the reality of the hero quest. It is the same in all the myths of the world, and in all the fables.

Reality is to Americans today the same as it has ever been – subjective and comparative. But what is that? It is an opportunity. It is to understand that our reality can be changed, that we are not confined to a single, unpleasant one, indefinitely. It is to realise that it is simply a matter of strength, of sweat, of courage, of psychological integrity. It is defined by our relationship with ourselves. It is based on respect, love and patience. It is based on what we put out. It is based on what we give. It is grasping that heaven and hell reside in the same place. It is appreciating that where we choose to spend our time is our own choice. The only choice.

Fiorenza and Aruro

Fiorenza, the Byzantine love poet, was an overnight sensation. Within days of her first publication large numbers of the populous began to recite her verse before dinner and at celebrations of state. Streamers were often associated with her style, herring and fruit baskets were distributed when she spoke, and matrimonial vows quickly incorporated her verse. Within a year she had attained the stature of a global icon. At nineteen Fiorenza had become a legend. Emperors as far as Iceland sent for compositions and commissions. Paper extracted from the oldest oaks were provided for her manuscripts and precious octopus wrung for their ink. Great minds, cultural leaders, tycoons and spiritual men all fell to her charms. She was pulled from every side and revered to exhaustion.
“I no longer wish to live a lofty existence,” she said. “I want secular happiness, conventional riches and jewelry made by the less privileged. I want to feel happiness at the expense of others and know that I am a success because all around me I see only failure,”
Fiorenza was beautiful when she spoke from dark places. Never was she more attractive than when she channeled the simplest dreams, her eyes sparkling when she forced her lofty values into the sludge of common thought. For her it was the greatest struggle. She was only happy when she pushed herself to her limits, when she exceeded them, when she was able to feel herself stretch. But she could go no higher, she had reached the summit of ethereal beauty. Her growth could only go backwards.
“I aspire to a commonplace philosophy. To live and breathe by the rules of a fool would be for me a grand achievement. If I can master the weakest thoughts, bend my mind to the most foolish reasoning, then I will have achieved the most difficult task. I have delusions of mediocrity. Genius has come to me too easily.”
In the winter of her 20th year, Fiorenza observed a man one evening in the drawing room of an acquaintance. He was attractive and charming but persisted only in making himself look ridiculous for the pleasure of those around him.
“How foolish,” Fiorenza said to her mentor who stood silently beside her. “He puts three profiteroles into his mouth and then star jumps. What next?”
Bruno puffed heroin from his cigarette holder. Billows of blue blazing smoke chunneled from out of his nostrils.
“They say he has begun a new renaissance in painting. That his formulas in astro physics are bringing time travel into the present. His Sistine Chapel is deemed even greater than Raphael’s. His name is Aruro.”
Fiorenza watched as he put his legs behind his head and drank soda though a straw in his nose. Bubbles emerged and he spluttered and laughed before falling onto the floor. Those around him clutched at their sides, bent double, and slapped their thighs.
“He makes a perfect spectacle of himself for the amusement of others. But who pleasures whom?”
Fiorenza’s mentor chewed at his lip and stared in Aruro’s direction.
“People call him a fraud, members of the historical community are up in arms. He often exposes himself in public. Some say he is wise,”
Fiorenza was difficult to impress. As she drained her glass, she walked past the crowd of spectators and left by way of the escalator. That evening in her bed she thought of Aruro and the smile on his face. She found it difficult to give in to him. Somewhere she felt less frustration in denying him his crowd pleasing acts than indulging them. His cow-towing is exasperating. Like a monkey, he does a monkey’s dance. Like the accordion, he is perfectly ridiculous.

The next time Fiorenza saw Aruro they were eating at separate tables in a restaurant on the beach. The sun had begun to set and the tide was slowly overtaking the land. As coffee was brought water began to flow between the legs of the tables and chairs. Several of the men removed their shoes. Trouser cuffs slowly began to moisten.
As a starter Aruro had ordered éclairs and a napoleon. Undecided about his main course he had interrogated the waitress at length, and had asked her questions about her childhood, sporting interests and musical tastes. They had agreed on two bottles of wine and a glass of gin with fish. Aruro had even stood up to thank her.
When his food arrived he had let out a belly laugh before excusing himself and removing his pants. He then examined his food thoroughly, mixing it irreverently, and throwing pieces into his mouth by way of high arching lobs. Twice he gagged and was forced to strike himself. When his digestif was brought he splashed it into his eyes and screamed hysterically before falling onto the floor.

Of all his traits, Fiorenza was particularly interested in his manner. He seemed never quite calm or at rest, he always raced and spun and squeaked. What is this condition that allows no poise, she wondered. He is desperate for stimulus. His boredom is at its apogee.
As the sun finally disappeared and the moon illuminated the water and crystal, Fiorenza stood to face the sea before departing. The waves were soft and respired slowly and deeply. She let her eyes follow the horizon all the way to the shoreline, lifting her dress and clenching her toes in the sand. Behind her there emerged a voice.
“Breadsticks! Breadsticks! Ragu! Humboldt! Vacherin! ”
Fiorenza turned to see Aruro, hand standing on a plastic deck chair, his thin, hairy legs flailing left and right. He sneezed, fell, and then saw her. He laughed with sand in his hair and his mouth pursed. He stood and shook himself like a dog, looking at her at intervals, blinking, and sneezing. Fiorenza stared at him impassively. He went to his table, took two glasses of wine and approached her.
“I’ve been watching you upside down.”
She looked at him without answering.
Aruro tilted his head like a puppy and furrowed his eyebrows.
“But you look better now.”
Fiorenza watched as he drank from both glasses.
“Swim with me,” he said, and they ran into the sea and shook off their clothes. The Mediterranean clasped them with water hands. They walked up to their necks and began strolling parallel to the beach in slow motion, their bodies under the water level, their heads above the surface. Like two eggs, they hovered eastwards, circling each other and gently swaying with the tide.

“We spoke of astrology at length and then Chile. We exchanged several recipes, a chicken parmigianno, and took turns swimming under each others legs. Then we found a manatee and named it.”
Fiorenza’s mentor nodded his head and reheated his light bulb, inhaling deeply on the brown, black smoke.
“How many lives has he lived?”
Fiorenza swung at the fumes and redirected them into the fire.
“I did not ask him outright, but I believe the number to be a double digit, and even. He has seen so much,” she continued. “Everything bores him. He is oppressed by a need to constantly stimulate himself. It is slowly becoming his only business.”

Aruro and Fiorenza continued to walk through the water, their bodies submerged and weightless. Aruro was excited as he spoke.
“Many people have died of boredom. Cases have been found in Syria, Israel, the Middle East, Miami. Think of witches, alchemists, radicals. They were bored shitless. The opportunities in any world will eventually prove finite. With enough time everything can be done. Then what?” Aruro lowered his mouth below the water level and blew bubbles onto the surface.

“He does not buy into the concept of struggle,” Fiorenza said to her mentor.
“His treatise on neo-morality denies the existence of nobility in struggle. He calls it a pumpkin-pie philosophy. One created by men whose hearts are made of lasagna.”

Aruro and Fiorenza walked out of the sea and onto dry land. The evening climate was warm and close. The air quickly dried their skin, and they began walking slowly home in their slips. They walked along the grass to one of the piers in front of them, their bare feet slapped the warm wood. The moon was now lowered, hovering large somewhere in the middle distance. Aruro whistled and sang and did cartwheels as they walked towards the gazebo at the far end of the gangway.
“You are incapable of remaining unsatisfied. You are constantly giving into your whims.
“You’re too kind to yourself. You’d do anything for you.”
Aruro climbed down from the roof of the gazebo.
“I love me. Who else will?”
“Someone else.”
“No one can love me like I do.”

In the morning, Fiorenza put the finishing touches on a poem written in cuneiform and mortar. As she washed the clay off her hands she counted the syllables diagonally and vertically, shaking the water from her fingers and wiping them on her shirt. She looked at the result that surprised and contradicted her intentions. Her mind had been elsewhere as she had been completing it. As a result of one final distracted stroke an entirely new expression had emerged. Jagged lines and complex motifs swirled and repeated themselves in visual fugues and cadenzas. Her calm, calculated intentions had come out flushed with a restricted exuberance.
She looked at the piece for a moment before walking onto the balcony to take in the morning sun. Her mentor reclined on one of the deckchairs under a parasol. In his hand he held a beaker of lysergic acid diethyl, which he casually sipped though a silly straw made of silver. Fiorenza picked up a pineapple segment squewered on the rim of the glass and placed it into her mouth.
“I made the compote with that,” her mentor said. “But I had to soak them first. If you swallow, you may not recover.”
Fiorenza ingested the segment with a gulp.
“What decision can be said to make a difference? The variables have become too great for even me to calculate. I cannot live my life like a hundred games of backgammon. I can no longer exist as an average. I submit to chance.”
As the drugs began to flow through her bloodstream Fiorenza lay down on her bear skin rug and removed her shoes and clothes. The soft, fine hair stroked and tickled her limbs. She undressed fully, stretching out her arms and legs and arching her back. Strange thoughts and subconscious impulses raced between her ears. Her legs curled and her hands clenched as she saw strange men, old and young, parade before her with swords in their arms and bomboloncini in their mouths. She drifted deeper and deeper into unconsciousness until even her dreams disappeared and she was fast asleep.

Many days past and Fiorenza slept and slept. A week past, then another and Fiorenza continued to sleep. Rumors began to spread that the great poet would never reawaken. A service was prepared and obituaries were outlined by all the major media outlets. People were interviewed and relatives sequestered, feature length presentations were produced and book deals optioned, until one day her eyes fluttered and finally opened. Faces frowned over her, a doctor removed a thermometer, and several nurses drew closer.
“You’ve been high for almost five months,” her mentor exclaimed. “You’ve been speaking in tongues and reciting verse fully formed. Your progress has been documented by a cardiologist and stenographer. Cameras were brought in thirty days ago. You have been channeling the word of God.”
Fiorenza’s eyelids opened and shut. She sat up and removed the tubes and wires from her body. Surrounding her bed there stood a small medical team, a selection of media officials and Bruno, her mentor. They watched her with attention.
“I need to be alone,” she said, and walked out of the hospital onto the beach. For several miles she walked until she came upon Aruro, sitting, looking out to sea.
“I want to experience depravity,” she said to him. “I want to know what it feels like to be lonely, unappreciated. I want to taste failure. I have yet to discover a single truth for myself.”
She looked down at Aruro.
“Would you love me?” She asked.
Aruro shrugged his shoulders.
“I am already in love,” he said.
“With who?” She asked.
“With someone else.”

When Fiorenza had first kissed Aruro, she had done it under a full moon. She had held him fast and had given herself to him as if she had been a rainbow and he a young boy. They had spent an entire year together before her sleep, and now, recovered, returned, she wondered how he could have forgotten her.
“You didn’t wait for me.” She said.
“Falling in love is so easy for me,” he replied. “I couldn’t help it.”
Fiorenza’s stomach flipped and her head began to spin. She felt motion sickness and vertigo all at once. She wondered why she had woken up at all. She looked down at her hands and at once found them ugly, her nails long and unpolished. She looked over her accomplishments and found little identification. Everything that she had ever done had come from somewhere else. She had only ever been the host. Could she honestly say that she had ever rationally calculated anything she had ever produced? Her inspiration effaced any credit that she could give herself. She felt mocked by a higher power.
“Where is your heart?” She asked angrily. “Your patience?”
Aruro shrugged his shoulders.
“You have none when you are dying.”
Fiorenza turned to him in shock.
“You are dying?”
Aruro nodded.
“We are all dying.”
Fiorenza laughed.
“Ah, but there you are wrong. We are immortal!”

When Fiorenza was 21 she died of a broken heart. This is her story.

Joseph and Hyden

Joseph stood up from a bench in the park. His eighty years had thinned his legs and arms. In his mind there spun the distractions of an entire life. He threw breadcrumbs at the pigeons and flying animals that scavenged for food. He looked at the setting sun, and shuffled his feet as he walked. Today, Hyden, the last of Joseph’s friends, would die.

The sun began to set on the densely populated city. Pacing slowly towards the hospital he remembered dinners and holidays in distant countries and lands. He had drunk heavily as a young man. He thought of the moments he had spent with his companions, the pleasure they had given him, the time, and the perspective. In these instances he often only remembered his own successes, triumphs, and the events that had defined him as a citizen of the world. His friends were easily pushed into the supporting roles. Nothing could have been easier. All of them were rooted in something that pertained to him. If he remembered their words it was because they had been speaking around him, if he saw visions and antics, it was for his pleasure. He wasn’t selfish in this way. They were witnesses at best. Now in his twilight years he was incapable of spending time alone. He no longer found pleasure in it. He was left with nothing of himself. Their acknowledgement had done more than just amuse him, it created him. He was unable to be single-handedly. Without the reflection of others, he simply disappeared.
As he approached Hyden’s bed, Joseph smelled the approach of his own evanescence. Hyden’s chest rose and fell heavily. His breathing was deep and hoarse. Joseph could not contain himself from speaking. “You are the last of those who knew me,” he said. “When you are gone, I will be gone from the world too. You are taking my existence with you, all of my history. With what will I be left?”

Hyden smiled at his friend. He remembered times when they had walking by the boathouse in the park, laughing at the ducks and quacking at the swans. Their limbs had been shapely and tight underneath their baby blue tennis shorts. They could walk anywhere with their simple, elegant clothes. Women often turned to look at them. Occasionally they stopped. “Experience? Ha, that cheap con. That old maid. Plays hard-to-get but comes round in the end.”
They walked past Hans Christian Anderson and watched an old woman of ninety carefully unwrapping biscuits of shortbread. Her movements were slow and careful. “Look at that old bird,” said Joseph to himself. “Probably only eats twice a week. A chicken drumstick and a parsnip. Probably only sleeps an hour a night too. So resilient, the old. They’ll outlive us all.”

Hyden asked Joseph for the glass of water by his bedside. Joseph brought it close to the body of the dying man, who reached out his hand to find the glass being pulled away. He reached again, and again, each time swinging at the loose air. Joseph was pulling it out of reach. They had never grown out of kidding with each other. It had always brought them together. They adored one another’s humor. And for the sake of it, would excuse each other anything.

Joseph now picked at the hospital meal sitting at Hyden’s bed side. He ate the orange segments, crushing them with his lips and sucking the juice in though his teeth. The flavor was delightful and he thought suddenly of the parts of the tongue, the segments of his own body, each created to appreciate an individual sensation.
“Salt at the tip and sweet at the broadside. Even a place in the rear for umami. Truly peculiar, like savory but not quite. Blander, softer, annoyingly arcane as far as tastes go, a sort of Tofu or Y for vowels. Tell me about myself Hyden. Who am I?”
Hyden began to wheeze and chuckle. He was amused to find himself the keeper of his friend’s existence.
“When I go, you will still be you.”
“Yes, yes, but my me, not yours. Not the rest of the world’s. I’ve lived with my soul for centuries. We don’t need more kinship. It’s my identity in this lifetime that’s got me stumped.”
“No one knows your behavior better than you.”
“It is not how I behave! But how I am perceived!”
In Spring, one Paris day, Joseph and Hyden walked languidly onto the polo field. The bride’s family had erected a marquee by the river and a slide that led to the badminton courts. Canapés hovered at chest level, fish brontade, quails eggs, and salmon and dorade carpaccio. Joseph was particularly taken by the noixs St Jacques but only once helped himself.
“We walked the grounds and played tennis in our dinner jackets. We would have gone riding had the horses not been hibernating. You loved their names: Diablotin, Till, Surpressa, Bolero du Val. The weather was divine, the breeze and temperature perfectly refreshing. Towards the evening, if I remember, there was even warm rain.”
Joseph looked pleased at this, and pressed his friend further “The things I said. What of them?” The tips of Hyden’s mouth curled and he nodded slowly.
“You were concerned with synchronicity. One of the few people who saw premonitions and strange occurrences. You so often saw them that you had great difficulty in explaining yourself out of them. You became very skilled at rationalizing them into events of happenstance, and coincidence. But you were never entirely sure. On occasion, this even gave you pause for consideration. I often wondered if it ever went further than that.”
Joseph raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I was ravenous for life. A real glutton. But where did that get me? I’m still here. No broken bones, no enemies. I even said goodbye to my father before he died. What did excess ever do for anybody?”
Hyden adjusted his position uncomfortably. He was tiring and knew that little time was left. His heart rate began decreasing in tempo, now he could feel the cold embrace of eternity, creeping up on him with sensuality.
“Have you ever surprised yourself?” He asked. “Have you acted contrary to your will? Have you seen yourself change, have you ever shaken yourself of your own accord?” Joseph had been eating the hospital meal as Hyden spoke. He finished the potatoes and rice quickly, and wiped his mouth with his finger tips, squeezing the grease and rubbing it onto his socks. He had endured hardship, and knew what it was to be miserable. Endurance was a positive thing. But was enduring?
He was fond of not addressing questions about himself. Sometimes he even ignored them by addressing them. By doing so simply. There was always a small, irrelevant loop-hole that he could slowly jump through. In a legal framework he was constantly quibbling with himself, buying time. He often found shelter from his errors by admitting to them immediately, quickly and then moving on. He looked at the tired, withered frame of his friend, broken on the rack, and wheezing through a tattered blow hole. Darwin was wrong, he thought to himself. This isn’t the fittest.

For years Joseph had not been on speaking terms with himself. At an early age he had criticized his own foolishness. So hurt by his own words, he didn’t speak to himself for years. For most of his adolescence and young adult hood Joseph was internally brooding. Over time however a communication had slowly begun again. And with small words at first, comments, and rhetorical questions, a timid dialogue had begun. With time something resembling ‘normal conversation’ had resumed and the incidents of childhood were temporarily forgotten. Then, one day, a second situation arose, with echoes of the first, and Joseph began struggling with himself once again. He accused himself of hypocrisy, of spinelessness, of all the unspoken criticisms of the first incident that doubled within the context of a second. Joseph was ruthless with himself. He believed that honesty was imperative. This is me we’re talking about! The dispute was never resolved. As tempers flared regrettable unretractible words passed between them until in the end they parted ways and from pride never spoke again.
“I fell out with myself, you remember,” Hyden nodded that he did. Joseph was almost panting. “As if we’re on an island, alone together, sitting back to back. Who will know me when you’re gone?” Hyden shrugged his shoulders. “What can I give you? What would you be happy with? For people to be able to talk of you? For others to hear of you? For people to say ‘he was charming’, ‘a great card player?’
Joseph looked carefully at Hyden, and savored every word. He would do anything to believe him.
“Pitiful, tragic. At least it’s something.”
Hyden continued. “You will become single sentences, brief descriptions. Sometimes phrases that you appear in will not even contain a subject. And all of them coming from the mouths of people incapable of truly knowing you. You will have become filler for phone calls and letters. The best you can hope for is dinner conversation. I challenge you to rest in peace.”
“That’s just it.” Joseph replied. “Eternal peace. It’s simply too much. What is there left to hold onto? I am not an absolute creature. Flat, sheen, infinite surfaces frighten me. I need texture and inconsistency, ridges and corners to nick my shirt tails and pockets on. Something, anything to hinder a clean slate. I don’t want to be old and still starved of recognition. A dying comedian, giving his all for the final laugh that turns everything to gold.”
“You had issues with purity. You sometimes used the term catharsis too liberally. Your self-cleansing was too conceptual. I remember when you made love to a accordion player’s monkey. You tried to convince all of us it was for a higher cause.”
“We met between Etoile and Republique,”
“And mashed them both at my duplex in the financial district.”
“Purging myself. The result of a broken heart.”
“He was not attractive if I remember correctly.”
“He was not. But to overcome despair I was compelled to slap myself, to shake me. I’d never slept with someone so unnecessary…”
“Consider it a form of rebellion. Nothing could have been more difficult. Touching the physical depths whilst in an emotional paddling pool. The inconsistency between the two drove me batty.”
“But the next day you slept with your sister in law.”
“I had feelings for her. That was part of the healing process, after the fact.”
“A healing from the pain of sleeping with the organ grinder which was in turn an attempt to banish the pain of your broken heart?”
“Precisely.”
“Then why did you abstain from sex for an entire year after that?”
“Insulation, hermetic packaging, an epilogue?”
“You talk of clean slates. Of not wanting to build from scratch. You have ended by dragging the entrails of your life behind you. Like toilet paper stuck to your pants. You describe it as repairing the whole. But I only see more abuse.”
Joseph had worked as an archaeologist his entire life. He had begun by discovering the greatest works of art born of religious faith. For the last quarter of a century had watched them all be destroyed, smashed and demolished for precisely the same reason. The closeness-to-God feeling in art, he now believed, was borne out of a con, a finagling of the books, a heavenly form of aggressive marketing. Are these things even possible? Joseph had had it with genuine sentiment. It no longer existed.
“What of the good times?” Hyden smiled and raised his glass. “Tennis was always a solace. Badminton on a mountain top. But perhaps the greatest fun was in the martial arts. You’d mastered a dozen. You were quite the improviser. But then that was always the texture of our activities. Nothing ever changed there. Even though we drank heavily, we kept ourselves trim, we could never be accused of not being a little reckless.”
Joseph laughed and threw a pastry at Hyden’s face. The old man opened his mouth and swallowed it whole.
The two friends looked each other over. Several quips about the declining physical body were made. Joseph joked at the size of his own ears. “From fifty to sixty they grew into rubber formations. They’re dripping like surrealist clocks. Have I not had my time? What’s wrong with looking forward to death? I’m excited. I mean at last, some novelty!”
Hyden frowned.
“But have you disciplined yourself? Have you gone through long, progressive metamorphoses? Been able to execute long range passes to yourself, ten year plans, have you managed not to fumble them?”
Joseph rubbed his ears and took his time to answer.
“Do you see my spiritual development as fluke?”
Hyden nodded.
“One can always reconstruct a logical path of arrival, after the fact. Your enlightenment was hardly premeditated,” Conversation stopped for a moment, as old quarrels bubbled to the surface. They quickly made noises with their mouths, dismissive, thoroughly Jewish noises that pushed the ancient dispute out of sight. Pfffffffffff … Baaaahhhhh … Iccchhhh… They would not indulge any of that now.

Joseph removed the small bag form his pocket and swayed it in front of him. “I have in here certain pills that if taken, will bring upon death in sleep peacefully. I am convinced it is a great opportunity. When I see you fading I’ll pop them, and we can race to the finish together,” Hyden furrowed his brow. “The digestion time would make you a Johnny-come-lately. Use a thinner membrane. Snort them.”
Joseph shuffled for a moment, tucked in his shirt and gathering his jacket together laid the pills out on the table. He used the flat end of a stethoscope to crush them, and then rolling up Hyden’s prognoses report inhaled the fine dust into his blood stream. Hyden looked at him in astonishment.
“We didn’t say when. I didn’t say go.”
Joseph looked at him, his eyes now wide, he sniffed.
“Not to worry, the dosage is three. I have one to go,”
Hyden shrugged his shoulders.
“But is it right?”
“Speak your mind,” said Joseph. “What are your arguments? Tell me honestly what you think. Just don’t bother me with the annihilation complex. This is nothing of the sort – a discovery!”
Hyden clicked the morphine release several times before he spoke.
“I understand your enthusiasm. Your acceptance of the unknown is commendable. But I’m not sure if opening the door yourself is quite the way. Death is of another world. You don’t just waltz in unannounced,”
Joseph stopped at this, and considered it for a moment. His eyes took in the sustain of Hyden’s expression. He looked down at his feet, he looked over his hands, his palms. For a moment he felt his own flesh and bone.
“If I accept your reasoning I do not snort the third. I live, but brain damaged. The two I have taken are most certainly beginning already. Are you asking that I go on as a vegetable?”
Hyden shook his head at him.
“You took the first two before asking my opinion. You made that choice yourself,” Joseph struggled to understand.
“You mean to go on living?”
Hyden smiled.
“Perhaps, but with a slap on the wrist for knocking on deaths door. Turns out you weren’t ready after all,”
Hyden’s breath suddenly drew fast, he clutched at the sides of his bed, his eyes widened. His time had come, and it rushed upon now with speed. He turned.
“But the choice is still yours. If you still want to go, go now. The starting gun has fired.”