Humiliation

Come on, you’ve won, you’ve humiliated us. And now we’re humiliating ourselves. We’re doing it for you. We’re carrying out the devil’s work – your work. You sentenced us to death by humiliation. And we’re carrying out the sentence.

Shame … shame at being alive in this world … shame at living on in this world …

 

But we never actually take our own lives. We always hold back from the suicidal act …

As if we expect to be saved. As if we think things might change. There’s hope in us, despite everything. That we could just get away with living a little longer. Taking a few more breaths …

 

There’s a way of living in disgust – pure disgust. A way of living in hatred – pure hatred. Purifying hated. That is even a kind of joy in its purity.

Pure refusal. Pure retreat. Pure withdrawal.

 

Nothing remains of God but the void, right?

 

Lost in the coils of our evil. Lost in the coiling, the writhing. Lost in the agitation of our sin. Lost in the deepening of the Fall.

 

Despair, rather than Intelligence. Horror, rather than logic.

 

Thought coming from the bottom. From the lowly. From the fools.

Our hope: a black dawn is rising. The dark sky is opening. The greater sky. The sky of disaster, the stars blown out like candles.

Our hope: the night that we hold between us. That laughs between us. That trembles through us. The sky that shines through our drunken eyes.

 

Are we God’s idiots? The devil’s?

 

Is our idiocy sincere? Is our idiocy really a wanting to change? Is our despair an actual prayer? Do we merely wallow in our stupidity, dwell in it, rather than actually want to be transformed?

If we felt, really feel, our mediocrity, what then? Might something really happen then? If we experienced, really experienced our despair at our idiocy, might we not be idiots anymore?

 

The world’s just some … monstrosity.

But we’re monstrous, too. That’s the thing.

 

Maybe we’ll find salvation where it’s least sought. There, where you don’t expect it. In the void. Yes – why not, in the void! In the night of the world!

Maybe we’ll find salvation in our lack of salvation. If we experience our hopelessness in the right way, then …  If we experience our damnation …

 

The aching of all things in their self-hatred. In their loathing for themselves. In their atheism.

The atheism of air, of water, of the earth. Our own atheism, which is the heart of our self-hatred.

The air hates being the air. The air’s just wandering lost in air. The air, dazed in air. Just like water’s flowing lost in water. Just like water weeps tears in water.

 

It’s clicking into place. It’s worldwide. They have their hands around our throats. Each of us.

 

We should try and prolong the last moment forever. Make it last … forever.

 

They won the battle. And now they’re letting us live on, to see their victory. To live out our humiliation.

 

We’re already dead, that’s what I think. We’ve already died to the world. We’re already immune. We’ve seen through all things.

 

This isn’t our world … These aren’t our lies. We don’t need them to be true, like everyone else. We don’t need this all to be real. We’re not addicted to the world.

 

We haven’t become inured to this world. We haven’t accepted its terms. We haven’t surrendered.

 

We hate them, the world-perpetuators. The world-apologisers. The ones who are well-adjusted to the world. Who fit into it: the world – this world.

We hate them, the ones who accept the principle of the world. Who accept the fundamental order of the world. The world as system.

World-accepters, not world despisers. Who don’t want to clear the world away. Who don’t want to see it destroyed. We hate them.

 

That they’re not entirely lost in despair. The fact that they appear happy enough, content enough. The fact that they’re moderate – that they’re even-handed, even-voiced. The fact that they’re measured.

 

All our lives, primed for apocalypse. Fill of apocalyptic expectations. All our lives, ready for apocalypse. Watching out for apocalypse. Alert for all the apocalyptic signs.

 

All our lives, preparing for it, apocalypse. Full of apocalyptic bias …

 

An emergency of everything. Of all things.

 

These aren’t our stars. These aren’t real stars. I don’t believe in the sky. I don’t believe in the night.  I don’t believe in the earth. I don’t believe that this is the real world. It doesn’t feel real to me. And I don’t feel real. And you don’t feel real.

Are these our words – are they real?

These aren’t our words. This isn’t our time. None of this is real at all.

 

We don’t live and breathe anymore. This is not a world in which we can live and breathe …

 

Corpses lie all around us. And we’re corpses, too. And yet we can’t even be corpses. We can’t just lie there, all dead. There’s still a little life in us. We still stagger about. We still … live, if this is called living. If we can call this life.

 

It can’t go on like this, and yet it goes on. It can’t get any worse, and yet it gets worse. It’s even accelerating.

 

It’s happening more quickly now. Things are speeding up. They’re rushing at breakneck speed to implement their agenda. They’ve gone up a gear. They’ve pressed turbo. Why are they in such a hurry? Why is there such urgency?

 

Is it a sign that they’re losing control, or gaining it? Are they losing or winning?

These are our new lives. Our new monitored lives. Our new tracked-and traced lives. Our new battery hen lives. Our new micro-surveiled lives. Our new watched-at-all-times lives. Our new listened-to-ceaselessly lives.