Cicero, in his cups. Cicero, drinking. Epically. Heroically. All day. And now he’s reached an end of the day wisdom. A whisky wisdom. A coming of night wisdom.
Cicero, calm. Cicero, wise, with the wisdom of God. He knows what God knows. He’s Certain, with the Certainty of God.
Cicero’s traversed the day like you traverse a life. Cicero’s lived everything. All lives. He’s been to the end and back. And now he’s ready to share his wisdom.
Cicero’s reached the apocalyptic night. He’s reached the last night of all. He’s speaking from the end – the utter end. He’s voicing what’s to come. Last things, eschatological things. They’re second nature to him, at this time of night. It’s the language he speaks. He couldn’t speak otherwise. Truth, truth. And all you can do is listen.
My hatred of the world: you don’t take it seriously, do you? It’s the inverse of a love – a great love. See, I love the world, too. I love it more than anything. The real world – not this fakery. Not this stage set. Not this scenery.
I’ve retired from frontline thought. From teaching, in other words.
From teaching!? What a loss. Cicero’s famous disaster lectures. Cicero's famous messianism lectures.
I thought you were going to write a magnum opus.
Life is my magnum opus.
Drinking yourself to death will be your magnum opus.
It’s a honourable death. We have to admit we’ve been defeated.
Do not struggle. They’ll simply use the energy against you. Sink. Fall. Embrace the catastrophe. Make sweet love with the catastrophe. Fuck the catastrophe – why not? Be fucked by it. Or are you too busy with Ava? But then maybe she is the catastrophe, who knows?
All the exits are closed. The doors are sealed. It’s really only a question of how you’re going to kill yourself.
The only honest thing to do is drink. Is fade away. It’s only death games from now on.
There must have been precedents in defeat. Who are our precursors? The utterly routed? What did they do?
Just died from depression. Wasted away.
Is that what’s going to happen to us?
The void – is that it? We have to head into the void. The void will come to us. We don’t have to head anywhere.
The void will knock on the door, like the secret police. No – the void is already inside you. Understand that. It’s in your head. Your own head.
You’ve been hijacked. Everything good and compassionate about us has been hijacked. Every kindly impulse we have. They know how to do it. They have the behavioural psychologists. The nudge units. The techniques.
They’ve seen them succeed. Beyond their dreams! And now they’re emboldened. Now the master plan – their master plan.
Fade-out – that’s the best we can hope for. To just go under. To have the good taste just to die of despair.
Killing yourself grants too much power to them. It’s their gesture, not yours. Sink down, and wait to die. Sink down, and drink, waiting to die. There’s an honour in that.
As in the days of fucking Noah, right?
Work in Progress 