Listen to me. Listen to me talking. I blame you, philosopher. I blame you for letting me think like this and talk like this and be like this. It’s all because of you. It’s the effect of you. Of what you’ve done to me.
What am I now? Some kind of hybrid. Some sort of in-between person.
I don’t even feel real. And maybe I’m not even real.
We’re futile, philosopher. We’re futile beings.
What was all this for – our lives? All this … rushing about. Where were we heading? What did it amount to?
We’ll be done soon. Gone and unremembered. Unmourned.
What if … we’re just like anyone else? If we were exactly the same as everyone else?
We might as well be robots. We might as well be … synths.
I want to be turned off. I want my thoughts to be turned off. Switched off. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to be anymore. I don’t want anything … It’s getting worse. All of it. It’s all getting worse.
What’s getting worse?
It, philosopher. Everything …
Why can I be real, philosopher? Why are none of us real? Or alive? Why aren’t we anything other than dead?
I look at my husband … I look at Alan … I look at my house. I look at my living room. I look at the dining room. I look at the garden. And all I see is … death. My death. The death that I can’t … wake up from
I look at whom I am and what I am and what I’ve become and it’s just death – nothing else.
And I would say, Help me, but you probably can’t help me. I’m probably dead forever. And if you’re not going to help me – if you can’t help me, then who will?
Why must I always be falling? Why does it have to be unbearable – all of it? Why do I even have to speak of all of it and everything and nothing and, God knows, the eternal void?
Is this Angst? Is this what Angst is? And dread is? And depression – do philosophers write of depression? Is that word philosophical enough? Does it sound too clinical, or whatever?
Melancholy, maybe.
Sure, melancholy, philosophy. Is this melancholy?
I don’t even know whether I’m suffering. I don’t even know who’s suffering. I don’t know anything I don’t know whether there’s anyone here. Whether I am at all. Whether anything’s real.
Do you know how tired I am of being dead? Do you know how tired I am?
How did we end up here – in this Limbo? Who brought us to so-called life here? Who let us be born again, and here? It was cruel. It was mean, to make us so-called live again. To bring us back to so-called life.
Do you remember who you were – in your last life? Do you remember whether that life sucked quite as much?
Maybe this will be the last time we’re reborn. Maybe we’ll escape the whole wheel of rebirth.
All we want is … obliteration. All we want is not to exist anymore.
One day pfft – that’ll be it. One day – what? One day, philosopher … one day … there’ll be no more days One day, there’ll be a end of days. And an end of time. There – I’ve told you. It’s my secret.
Just this torment. All these words. This sickness. This sickness of words. Everything’s wrong with me – or I’m what’s wrong with everything. It’s my fault – or everything’s fault. It’s all wrong.
I’m a shadow that falls upon the sun – who was it who said that? I am a shadow. I am a shade. Is that how you see me, philosopher?
Something is wrong. Something’s wrong, philosopher. And it’s wrong with me. Or the world. Or both.
I’m so sick and weary. The world is tainted with myself – who was it who said that? Did I say that?
Haven’t I got what I want? I’m not a … beggar. We’re not beggars. Why isn’t that enough for us: not to be beggars?
I can’t remember my name.
Priya.
Not that name – my real name. The name that God gave me.
What name is that?
My … secret name.
Do we have to say, thank you? Do I have to say, thank you?
Thank you for what?
For what we’ve been given.
Given? Given by who?
Why, from God, of course. Like, give us this day our daily bread. Yeah – like that.
I’m going mad. Slightly mad, philosopher. This is my little madness.
This is what I’m like when I’m slightly mad.
It’s like I have a fever – a terrible fever. I’m ill with something. Mad with something. Is it philosophy? Am I mad with philosophy? With your philosophy? With you?
There are menacing … spirits. Who threaten me. I’d – like – to – cut – them – out –
Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong – with everything? Is there something wrong – with God?
Are all philosophers crazy, or just the good ones?
In the last hour, in the final hour, I went mad. Madness came. In the last our … In this last hour.
Nothing but lastness. In this eternal last hour. In this eternal non-eternity?
You with your writing and me with – you.
Maybe I’ve fallen for you. Maybe I’m just falling. Are you going to catch me? Are you going to save me?
You must be familiar with this kind of angst. It must be ten-a-penny in philosophy. You must be an angst expert.
I’ve got a bad case of – angst. Is angst contagious? Have I caught it from you?
Do you get better from angst? Do you recover?
All my life – I’ve … what? What can I say about all of my life? What can I say about anything?
All my life, I … all my life … What can I say? Who am I to say anything? Who do I have to be to say anything?
Only it isn’t about what I say. It isn’t about what I want. It speaks – I don’t speak. It speaks – and I shut up. Do you wish that I’d shut up, philosopher?
I feel ugly sometimes. I feel dead sometimes – but you know that.
You’re not ugly.
But I am dead. Is that what you’re saying?
Work in Progress 