I’m the sort of person you ought to loathe, philosopher. So why don’t you? You’re in the enemy’s camp. With the enemy’s wife. You’re a traitor. You’re betraying yourself. And your people. And philosophy. And everything.
All your hatred. Your radical politics. Your radical everything. Your dream of writing a hand grenade that you’d throw at the bourgeois. At business studies. At the whole world. Because they don’t read the same books as you. Because they don’t give a fuck about the books that you like. Because they watch boxsets. And Netflix. And aren’t into high art. And don’t actually loathe themselves. Don’t measure themselves against mad Europeans …
You’re getting the best of me here, in this room. Not the boring me. Not the mundane me. Not the pub conversation me. You wouldn’t like me, I think, if you met my friends. You’d find me dull. My conversation wouldn’t interest you.
I’m better here … This suits me in some way … This way of talking … I’m interesting when I come here. I interest myself. I say unexpected things. I talk into the air. You bring it out in me. This … situation.
What’s supposed to happen next? What’s the next step? In our … imbroglio. Is there a plot to this? What’s the next twist or turn? Are things becoming more complicated, or less?
You’re supposed to feel a heightened ability to make me laugh. That’s supposed to me make you feel empowered. To look after me. To make you feel like a man, philosopher.
Is that how it works?
And to make me feel like a woman. A hetty-betty woman. In a hetty-betty relationship.
See, you’re not so different from everyone else in the world, philosopher. And nor am I, though I never claimed to be.
If I told your stories of my life, what would they say? What would they be about? What I’ve learnt. The person I’ve become. Who am I, anyway? I scarcely know, when I’m round here. I could tell you my dreams, but they’re not very interesting. But then I’m not very interesting.
And I’ve lived a very ordinary life. A life like anyone else. But we all live lives like anyone else, don’t we? We’re all very alike. Even you. You’re just another human being, I think. We’re all just other human beings. And I love that. And I love us all. I love everyone I can see from the window. Mothers and their children. Is that stupid? But I do.
Life is people, like my grandad used to say. Life is people.
What allows us to say anything at all? I don’t want to tell stories. I want to get behind the stories. I want to talk, without saying anything. I want to hear the words I say. And you say. Just hanging in the air. Just vibrating there. Just hanging there. Just suspended there, in the light. In the skylight’s light.
Listen to me … listen to me talking. How come I can talk like this? How did I get to talk like this? Who am I, when I talk like this? It’s like someone’s speaking in my place. It’s like someone’s taking my place. Who’s been substituted for me.
It’s like … I’ve swapped places with the air. Like the air’s speaking. Like the light is speaking. Like the day’s speaking. Like this is the speech of the afternoon.
It’s like I’m at the brink of something. Like I’ve been lifted up to some … threshold. And I can say all these things. And I’m not who I was anymore. And I’m not even drunk. Or high. Or anything.
And I don’t feel confused, I feel lucid. But I don’t understand what I’m saying. Lucid – full of light. Only it’s not my light. It’s got nothing to do with me.
Like I’ve been hypnotised. Like I’ve been mesmerised. And I’m saying things that are true. Very true.
What am I becoming? Where is all this … talk taking me? Do I sound pretentious? I’ll bet I do. Desperately pretentious. Insufferably pretentious.
Work in Progress 