We should never have been: that’s our Original Sin. We should never have been born! But we were born! We grew up … And now we’re here … Here – where we should not be. On the face of the earth! Shameless! Right here! Right now! Full of sin! Sinning at every moment! At every instant! We rise in sin, go to bed in sin. We live out our whole lives in deep, deep sin.
Our original sin. The sin we carry with us. And sin’s worse when there’s no God. When there’s no one to absolve your sin. When there’s no way to be forgiven. Because we shouldn’t be forgiven, for what we did by being born. For being born at all …
Our original sin. Our original fault. That we can’t do anything about, it’s true. That we can’t solve, admittedly. A debt we can’t settle. That we carry with us, every day.
Isn’t the solution just to kill ourselves at once? To excise ourselves from the record! To change our birth certificates – to tear them up! All our records, destroyed. Disappearing from every photograph. From every online archive. Google searches of our name, turning up nothing. Memory-holed so thoroughly that our friends can’t recall us. That our own parents have forgotten our names …
And the world’s burden, lightened. The world’s load, lifted. The world, breathing a little more lightly. The sky a little higher. Its blue a little bluer. An unburdening. A lightening. A lifting. A release. A singing – why not? The song of a world released! The bliss of a world unburdened! Doves rising into the sky! A flock of birds, rising up! The souls of all, lifted higher.
And the world would never know what it’s been liberated from – that’s the thing. The world will have forgotten us – and hence the conditions of its liberation. The world will not remember why it feels lighter, happier, breezier. Why the sky seems deeper, bluer. Why the sun burns brighter. Why more birds sing. Why leaves push higher. Why flowers open wider.
The magnificence of the world without us! Without our presence! Without our shadows! Exaltation everywhere, and no one quite knowing why. A debt paid back. A burden lifted. An encumbrance. A lightening.
To think: we have it in our power to liberate the world. To lighten it. To loosen it. To lift it higher. We’d just have to … eliminate ourselves. Remove ourselves from the equation, and from all equations. Discreetly. Quietly. Without drawing attention to ourselves. Without making any kind of fuss.
We have it in our gift … That’s what we could bestow … That could be our generosity. Our blessing. That’s what we could give back. That’s how we could solve the problem. Solve our problem. Undo everything we’ve done. The terrible mess we’ve made. All the knots we’ve tied. That’s what we could do for the world. For everyone!
But what about the mess we’d leave? Who would have to clear up our bodies? Who would need to tidy up our affairs? The terrible jobs we’d leave others. Our bodies – hasn’t that been the problem all along? And what would we leave behind but our bodies?
Throw ourselves on the Tyne, and we’d wash up somewhere. Throw ourselves in the North sea, and we’d wash up somewhere. Throw ourselves off Claremont tower, and someone would have to find our battered bodies. Gas ourselves in our own flats, and someone would have to cart us off for cremation. Electrocute ourselves – same problem. There’d have to be an autopsy.
Always something left over. Always something. Our lifeless bodies. Our suicided bodies. If only there was a way just to be vaporised. Just to be blasted out of existence. Isn’t that possible? To be exploded. Every molecule dispersed. Every atom. An entire – eradication. A complete – wipeout.
Better to rewind the whole universe to the time before we were born. Before we had a chance to make trouble. Before our parodic existence, before our parody. Before our mockery. Before our absurdity – the absurdity of our existence.
Better to destroy the universe as such, because of the chance that beings like us could appear. Better to wipe out everything that exists, because things can go so terribly wrong. The original sin of existence. The original sin that there is anything at all …
Could we really eradicate all our effects? All the trouble we caused? All the terrible things we set in motion? Do we overestimate our significance? Do we make out ourselves as too important? Do we get the degree of our influence wrong? Our malevolence? Our evil-doing? The infestation that we spread? That spreads from us like a cloud?
The pain we’ve transmitted … The sadness we’ve passed on … We’ve made people shake their heads. Purse their lips. Tut quietly. Pity us. Feel sorry – desperately sorry – not just for us, but for the whole of humankind. For the whole human predicament. For the human ruin. For general human nest soiling. For general human auto destruction.
Reaching out. Spreading everywhere. For the curse of the human. And of the animal. And, we dare say it, of the planet. And – why not – for the whole of existence. Isn’t that what we’ve taught people? Shown them? Introduced them to?
The error of existence – of human existence, animal existence. Vegetable existence. And existence as such! And the existence of anything! Haven’t we made people doubt themselves. Doubt everything. Their right to exist. Their right to go on. In the face of … us.
Haven’t others wanted to kill themselves from shame – from shame for us? From being of the same species as us? For being human like us. For being animate like us. For being alive – just that?
What we’ve done … The pain we’ve caused … The misery we’ve spread. The great curse. The great, spreading horror. The sprawl of terror. Isn’t that what we’ve shown, to those who’ve known us. To those who’ve seen us at work. Who’ve read our papers. Who’ve heard us give talks. Who’ve been taught by us – God knows!
Shameless – our shame. Shameless – our shamelessness. The fact that we do not feel ashamed – or not ashamed enough. Not self-destructive enough. Not desirous of death enough. That we didn’t kill ourselves months ago – years ago. Isn’t that our shame? That any suicidal impulse we’ve felt has come too late – years late! Decades late!
That we’ve gone on regardless. That we haven’t at least tried to remove ourselves. To hide ourselves away. To shut ourselves up, so that we can’t be seen. To live a life as quiet as possible! Disturbing no one! Barely letting ourselves be seen! Thought about! Not just untouchable, but unthinkable. Unconceivable!
That we’ve actually published, and will publish more. That we actually write. That we actually give talks – academic papers. That we actually talk at conferences. That we actually share our thoughts. That we presume to spread our gospel.
When all that we’ve said or written has the same essential message: Stop us now. Kill us now. Strangle us now – right away.
Our capering. Our aping around. Our levity. Our joy – even our joy! We’re even joyful! We’ve even happy sometimes. Well, jubilant. Well, drunken!
That we should have any other thought than destruction – self-destruction. That we should have other plans other than extinction – auto-extinction. That we should we should write about anything other than the need to prevent us from writing. Than the urgent need or censorship and self-censorship.
That we assume to submit our learned essays to academic journals. That we presume to send our papers of our thoughts to this journal or that one. That we notwithstanding it all continue our academic careers. Continue to teach! Continue to write! Continue to come into our offices! Continue to walk the corridors! Continue to climb the stairs! Continue to step into the lift! Continue to sit in our swivel chairs! Continue to turn our computers on! Open Word for Windows! Begin to type!
How can that be? You’d think there’d be some rebellion of things against us. Some refusal of stuff. So that the computer wouldn’t switch on. Word wouldn’t open. Computers would just … explode internally. Computer viruses spontaneously appear.
People would turn their faces away from us. Birds would fall silent. Plants would just … wither. The earth itself would groan as we stepped across it. A rebellion of all things against us.
A world-flinching. The universe flinching. The universe recoiling in horror. The universe, horrified. Fearful. Of what it had created. At what had been made. At the terrible crime of our existence.
The very ground should quake. The very air should suck itself out of our lungs. The sun should turn its face from us. Sunlight shouldn’t reach us. We should live in perpetual shadow. In silence and darkness. Shunned. Cast out.
We’d be willing scapegoats. Sacrificial lambs. Send us out! Into the wilderness! We want the wilderness! At least we’d be doing something useful! Carrying away the sins of humanity! Of everything! Yes! Yes! Nothing better! And our own sins.
But we’re too late – always. The moment to kill ourselves lay long in the past.
Work in Progress 