Author: Lars Iyer

Cicero’s undergone a phase change. She’s passed on to another level of life. She’s become … well, you’ll see.

 

Cicero’s paranoid. She believes she’s being watched. She believes everyone is being watched. And monitored. And surveilled.

 

Cicero’s gone further than we have.

 

Cicero’s beyond the uni now. Beyond philosophy, even.

 

Cicero’s virtually mute now. Since her renunciation. She hasn’t spoken for a while.

 

Cicero, opening dry lips. Looking at us from the depths of her sadness.

 

Did Cicero always know the way the uni was going? Hadn’t she predicted every move in advance? What’s her verdict? What’s the plan?

 

Cicero knows where it’s all heading.

 

Cicero, our leader in exile. Cicero, who closes her eyes when she speaks.

 

Cicero is persona non grata in the corridors of the uni. Cicero went entirely too far for the good people of the uni. They practically drove her out! Demanded her resignation!  They gave her extended leave instead. What does extended leave mean?

 

There are people who call Cicero far right. Who call her Nazi. Who call her a mad conspiracy theorist. Of course they do! Haven’t we all become far right? Haven’t we all become mad conspiracy theorists!

Cicero’s a dangerous thinker, that’s the thing. She makes thinking dangerous.

 

Cicero poisoned youth, they said. She was corrupting youth.

 

Cicero was always trying to turn the students away of the classroom. Send them into the streets. What about insurance! The university said. What about safety!

 

Cicero’s legendary pedagogy. Cicero’s educational anarchy. Cicero’s attempt to deprogramme the students. To deprocess them.

Cicero tried to produce independent thinkers. They never forgave her.

 

Cicero’s sabbatical. Her thinking time. Her research leave. She needs it! To cool off her head.

 

It’s an emergency! A uni state of emergency! Can they really take this kind of decision without consulting anyone? Do they have this kind of power? Can they really do whatever they want? Does the framework exist? Yes they can.

 

We need to resist – not legally. Not through the union. We can’t challenge the uni. No: philosophically. We need to stage a philosophical battle. And not just against our uni. Against all tyranny. We need to start a philosophical movement.

Well, Cicero – what would you advise?

 

This is an historic day! This is how our names will go down in history – well, philosophical history.

Laughter.

 

It’s what we needed all along: an enemy. Schmitt was right with his friend / enemy distinction. It’s very defining.

It’ll make us into something. We won’t be idiot lecturers, doing this and then that.

We have something to sharpen our thought-weapons against.

 

We have to understand what kind of battle this is. Its true dimensions. Its scope. Its spiritual angle. Its religious one. We won’t just dissipate our energies, not anymore.

 

We have to Prepare. Draw on all the resources of philosophy. And probably non philosophy. And anti philosophy. Summon all our forces.

 

Are we philosophers – real philosophers? Is that what we do? Maybe we’re something else? Anti philosophers, say.

Antiphilosophers? Haven’t the French already done that?

The French have done everything, those bastards.

 

A native philosophy – all of our own: that’s what we need. A British philosophy, God help us. Our version of European thought. What better?

We’ll make it our own. We won’t be playing catch-up anymore. This’ll be our thing. Our mission. We’ll follow our trajectory. This will be the making of us – as thinkers. As philosophers, or antiphilosophers, or nonphilosophers, or whatever.

 

No more inferiority complex. No more imposter’s syndrome. No sense of having arrived too late. No belatedness. No posthumousness. We’ll weaponize thought – all thought. Everything we’ve been trained in, however poorly.

 

A local struggle – a specific struggle. Yes! Yes!

All along, we needed a mission. A Cause. And now we have it: our Cause. This is what we’re going to do. This is how we’ll busy ourselves. That will magnetise our writings. Draw them together.

 

Now we have something to Do. Now we have something to busy ourselves with …

We’ll remake philosophy. Reshape it. We’ll draw on the powers of Europe.

 

Cicero’s experiments in distantiation. In dissociation. They’re quite deliberate. There are psychological states we can reach out here, at the coast. Philosophical states.

There can no more philosophy. No one can believe in philosophy. Just like no one can believe in God.

Call it a negative philosophy, then – like negative theology. Where it’s apophatic. Where it’s all about what it’s not.

Call it anti-philosophy.

*How can you be anti-philosophy? Philosophy’s, like, everything. Not to do philosophy is still to do philosophy – that’s the philosophical trap.

It’s all a trap.

 

Anti-philosophy. Someone French is bound to have thought of it in, like, 1912. They’re so far ahead.

Look it up.

Fuck, there’s loads of stuff on anti-philosophy. It was all the rage in France in the ‘70s.

Typical.

There’s some guy who gave up philosophy for … sailing. He’s written a whole treatise on it. sailing and antiphilosophy.

Wow.

We’re always too late. 

What about non-philosophy, then?

That’s taken – come on. There’s a whole school of non-philosophy. Don’t you know that?

What about hyperphilosophy?

That’s not bad …

How about ultraphilosophy. Surphilosophy … like surrealism. Where Sur means beyond.

People would be expecting things from us. Like, great things. We need to lower their expectations. They need to understand that this is philosophy in parody. Philosophy as a joke. Like a failure philosophy. A fuck up philosophy. A fuck ups philosophy. A philosophy for the fucked up. Philosophy that isn’t philosophy. That’s not quite philosophy. Not even anything.

Not even philosophy: that’s a name.

Do you think?

Not even philosophy … look that up.

 

Imagining it. A whole not-even-philosophy movement.

Would it mean we have do things? Like, work at anything? Run a not-even philosophy journal? A society? Hold conferences. Run some not even philosophy series for a publisher?

Fuck that. You shouldn’t have to do stuff if you’re not-even-philosophers. It should be like, slacker philosophy. Where it’s not about arguments, or theses, or positions, or being for or against anything.

What about ontology?

Not even that.

Metaphysics?

Not even that.

Ethics?

Not even that. Not even anything. Not even philosophy.

Just being lazy useless bastards, then.

It’s more like some suspension of philosophy: that’s how I  think of it. Where we lay down the usual philosophical tools.

Where we get drunk together, in other words.

No, not even that.

Where we hang out.

Not even that.

Where we don’t organise anything. Just sit on the fucking beach.

Maybe.

Would we become the latest thing? Would word spread through the more alert postgraduates? Through the more vibrant postdocs? For MA students looking for something really transgressive?

Would blurred photos of us circulate on the net?

 

We should start some new philosophical movement. Like, coast philosophy. Philosophy of beaches and off shore breezes and morning fog. Philosophy that’s never quite in focus.

But it’s not really philosophy then, is it?

Exactly – it’s not yet philosophy. Not even philosophy.

So it’s philosophy-lite?

Maybe. But with all the pathos. With, like, heavy pathos. With self-loathing. With self-castigation. With the cleverest variations on self-destruction. With a special emphasis on picking the scabs. On digging the wounds a little deeper. On hating ourselves and each other. Quite systematically.

Brilliant idea. Where will it lead?

Nowhere. But joyfully nowhere. Because it’s not even philosophy.

 

Not even philosophy’s like the opposite of applied philosophy. Of useful philosophy. Of philosophy that wears the muzzle. Of underlabourer philosophy. That makes itself subservient.

 

A philosophy of disgust. At doing philosophy. At pretending to do philosophy. Or anything. Of pretending to be philosophers. Or being anything.

Because we’re against being. Against existing …

 

We’re just enjoying self-hatred. And the hatred of everything. In some vague apocalypticism. Some millennialism, without religion. Throwing all these big words about, idly. And smoking. And not being fucking productive.

 

Living in the great lull. Between the knowledge that the disaster’s coming and the disaster not yet being here. Between the sea going out, the open beach, and the incoming tsunami.

We’re in the time of the end, knowing that there’s nothing we can do about the end. Like, we can’t philosophise about it.

 

What has not even philosophy to do with the void? The void is the real object of thought. The void is what’s there when you’re not looking for it. It’s what you see from the corner of your eye.  When you’re idle. When you’re distracted. When you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be. When you’re just woolgathering. Gazing out the window, or whatever.

The void … it’s what there is instead of an object to think. Something serious to focus on. The void is what appears when reality’s, like, thinning out. Here at the coast, for example. Where it’s not even a city.

 

The ‘not even’ is a beautiful category … did we come up with it by ourselves. Look it up … see if some French type had the idea …

Georges Bataille said he was not even a communist.

That bastard … so he was on to it … But no one’s developed it since then. Good – that’s something.

 

Look at us. We’re a disgrace. Because we don’t know what to do, now we’ve got our jobs. We don’t know what to do with them. We have enough integrity not to try to be careerist. No – scratch that. It’s not a question of integrity. It’s … can’t be botheredness. It’s … lack of capacity.

We could do it if we tried.

Bataille would approve.

Would he? I don’t we fuck enough for him to approve. We don’t hang out at brothels. Have you ever been to a brothel?

 

We should write a manifesto. What would it say? The Centre for Not Even Philosophy – do you think the uni would allow that?

You can be our president, X. You’re in charge of spreading our doctrine. Like syphilis.

 

This is our act of rebellion. Fuck it, it’s not even rebellion. It’s lazing about. It’s frolicking. Its whatever we fucking want it to be, sounds like.

What will they take from us? Our non-productivity. Our idleness. Our worklessness. Our empty time. Our staring out of windows time. Our wandering nowhere time. Our being suspended time. Our dissipation time.

 

To shut down our consciousness. Our awareness. And our self-consciousness. And our self-awareness.

 

How hard it is to be human. How hard, still, to be human. And we’re the last humans left, pretty much.

 

We’ve been too alert for too long. We need rest. We need to stop the engine. Stop the wheels turning.

 

Is there something wrong with us, or something right with us? Have we taken a wrong turn, or a right one? Is this a cul-de-sac or an opening?

Where have we lead ourselves? By instinct. By cussedness. By stupidity. By antinomalism. By sheer, blind luck.

 

We hold our gaze on the future. We know what’s coming. Prophets, of a sort. Heralds, of a sort. Apocalypticists.

 

Dread … is that what we feel? It’s deeper than that. Ur-dread. World-dread. Deeper-than-the-world dread. Existence dread.

Dread: that word. That heavy word. Dread: is that what we feel? Is it heavier than we are? Are we crushed by dread?

 

We’re specialists in this. In feeling these things. This is what we do. We’re made for spiritual environments that would crush anyone else. We’re made for spiritual climates that no one else could endure. We read the darkest books. We entertain the nightmarish thoughts. We’re used to nihilism. To Gnosticism.

 

We speak fluent apocalypse. We’re acclimatised. Accustomed. Like people who live at high altitude. We’re used to the abyss. Used to the pits.

 

We’re happiest in philosophies of the abyss. Of the greater darkness.

Among inhuman philosophies. Anti-philosophies. Ugly philosophies, from which you want to turn away.

We live in extremity. In mental extremity. In psychic extremity. We endure these … states. Like some kind of training. Like some mad, dark asceticism.

 

We know black waves will break. We know the black tide is coming in. We know black skies are coming. We’re ready.

They’re coming for us. For our kind. The new secret police – the new alphabet agencies.

Why would they bother with us? Haven’t they got other things to bother with?

It’s an algorithm. They’re tireless. All the lampposts out there, listening out for conversation about forbidden things. Searching for suspect words and phrases. Listening out for potential enemies of the state. Trying to prevent future crimes. Future criminals. Trying to prevent forbidden talk.

Everything we’re saying. Everything we’re doing – logged, tracked, analysed. We’re being tracked. Scored …

What do you think our social credit scores are? Do you think we’re doing well?

Laughter.

Come on, what can the algorithms do with talk about anti-philosophy and suicide? Not very much, I would suggest. I don’t think AI will be bothering with us.

 

We should just let ourselves be poisoned. Just give up. What do you suppose is in this beer? Are you going to stop drinking beer?

The poison’s everywhere. We know that. It falls in the rain. It blows in the air. It’s in our food. The water we drink.

Don’t pretend we can escape this. Don’t act as though we’re exempt.

 

They’re monitoring our electro-magnetic fields. They know all about that stuff. Our electro-magnetic auras. It’s a wavelength battle. It’s a spiritual battle. A very subtle form of warfare.

They’re microwaving us. We know that. They’re frying us. Our thoughts are microwaved thoughts. Our thoughts are fried thoughts.

 

Are we allowed to think these thoughts? Are we allowed to say these things? Is this, like, a smart pub? Is this smart beer? Surveillance beer? It might be. Are those surveillance beer mats? Are our pint glasses covered in sensors? What isn’t covered in sensors?

Are there microscopic drones, like, swarming around? What thought crimes have we committed today? God. Philosophy’s a thought-crime.

Fuck that. Philosophy’s complicit. Academic philosophy, anyway.

That’s why we need anti-philosophy, right?

Anti-philosophy … isn’t that just more philosophy? We don’t want any more philosophy.

 

The earth is poisoned. The very earth. The soil. The rocks. Probably. The mantle …

Can you poison the mantle?

All the way down to the earth’s core: poisoned. And all the way up, too. Through the atmosphere, the stratosphere. All the other -spheres. And space, too.

Can space be poisoned?

 

It’s all thick with poison. We’re all choked with poison. It’s amazing we‘re still alive.

Our tissues, thick with poison. Our lungs, thick with poison. Our livers, busily trying to process the poison.

We’re poisoned people. Poisoned thinkers. Poison slops through our veins. Poisons slide through our… mucus membranes. Poison’s being pumped through our lymph nodes.

The poison brews inside us. Slops around. In our bones, probably. In our ligaments. In our cartilage. There’s poison in our lips. Our earlobes. There’s poison in our retinas. We stare out of poison. There’s poison in our speech. In everything we say. There’s poison in our brains. These are the thoughts that poison thinks. It’s a wonder we’re still alive.

Are we still alive?

We’re just perpetuating the poison. We’re just poisoning more things. We’re spreading the poison. We can’t help it. What isn’t poisoned? What’s, like, the last unpoisoned thing?

The sun, maybe. The sun would just burn away poisons.

Do you think?

Have we poisoned all of space?

We’re trying, I’m sure. Have we poisoned all the wavelengths? What aren’t we killing?

There’s poison in everything we write. All our words and sentences. There’s poison in our thoughts. What would we be like if we hadn’t been poisoned?

Only the poisoned can think the poison. That’s what I think. Only the poisoned can write from the depths of the poison.

 

I think we should just let the poison run its course. Stop resisting. Just sink down. We should die this death. Just let ourselves die. Stop resisting.

And then what?

And then … who knows? And then be resurrected.

 

There’s stuff you can do something about, and stuff you can’t. You can’t escape the poison. You can’t escape anything. It’s just … fatalism.

Accept it: we’re being destroyed. And we can’t do anything about it. Babies poisoned in the womb. Children, growing up poisoned.

Why resist? Just give in. They’ve won, we’ve lost. A toast to them: well done, guys. Bravo, fuckers. The world’s yours. We won’t resist. We won’t do anything. We’ll just kill ourselves to get out of your way. We’ll slash our own throats. We’ll spare you the trouble.

We’re tired of resisting. We don’t want to put up a fight anymore. We’re tired of fighting. Just give us instructions. We’ll do as you say. Just say what you want, and we’ll do what we want.

You’ve won. Accept your victory and the spoils of victory. The world is yours. The earth, the poisoned earth is yours. The skies, the poisoned skies are yours. You’re fucking welcome.

 

What I want to say to them: surely you can’t want perpetual horror. Surely you can’t want utter destruction. Surely this is all supposed to lead somewhere. Surely it’s all about your utopia. Surely all this was a means, and there’s a goal ahead. Surely this is all for something. It isn’t, isn’t it?

Show us, then. Show us where it’s leading … What was it for, the great poisoning?

 

Carried along. Borne along. Living out our petty lives. Our so called lives. Living our half lives and quarter lives …

 

We should just strangle ourselves. Right away! Wouldn’t that resolve everything? And leave our poisoned corpses.

 

We don’t live and breathe as we’re supposed to. This is not a world in which we can live and breathe, not anymore. It’s not a world for us. It’s not a home. It affords no dwelling.

 

Corpses lie all around us. And we’re corpses, too. We’re walking corpses. Staggering corpses. We’re only alive in death, thick with death.

 

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. God. We have no choice in the matter, or any matter. We weren’t consulted. No one thought to ask us.

 

These are our new lives. Our new monitored lives. Our new tracked-and traced lives. Our new battery hen lives. Our new micro-surveilled lives. Our new watched-at-all-times lives. Our new listened-to-ceaselessly lives. The algorithm search engines checking our every sentence. Watching out for thought-crimes. Reading our thoughts … is that possible?

 

Come on, you’ve won, you’ve humiliated us. 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. Very well, we’ll carry out the humiliation. We’ll do what you want. We barely need telling.

We humiliate ourselves – it’s a reflex. As though it were pre-programmed, and perhaps it is. Destroying ourselves is what you wanted. And the only honourable thing to do. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. But we always hold back from the final destruction. We never actually take our own lives We’re always playing chicken. Always feigning death. Feigning humiliating ourselves for the final time.

As if we expect to be saved. As if we thought something was going to save us. As if we thought things might change. Our sentence might be overlooked. That we could just get away with living a little longer. Taking a few more breaths. We thought we might be spared for a little while longer …

 

Shame … shame at being alive in this world … shame at living on in this world … shame at being human in this new phase of post-human life … Shame because we know what’s going on … we know what’s happening … there should be no excuse …

 

Our base, poisoned animality. Our sunken, poisoned bodies. Our filth … which doesn’t look like filth. Our abasement, which doesn’t look like abasement … our defiled humanity … We’re ready to die. We actually want to die … We’re perfect would-be martyrs … we’re still alive, and that’s their revenge.

 

What they’ve done with the world. The making-prison of the world.

At least we know it wasn’t always like this. That it wasn’t always a  prison. That we weren’t always confined. That this isn’t how it had to be.

 

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

An invisible humiliation. An invisible martyrdom. That no one really understands. Because they don’t remember the old reality. They’ve adjusted fully to the new reality. They’re perfectly at home in the new world.

They’ve forgotten how things used to be. They don’t feel compromised. They’re pragmatic. They’re getting on with things. They’re living life as best they can. They’re making the best of it all.

Impressive in its way. Impressive really. Routinised killing. Everyday killing. Disguised as everything else killings. They’ve normalised mass death. They’ve made democide look like business as usual. And the whole world’s in denial.

 

Surely they couldn’t be bothered to kill us. Surely we’re no threat. Surely we’re not going to do anything. Make anything happen.

 

Our secret struggle. Our secret politics – our anti-politics. All the things we’re against … everything, really. The whole world. The world as such.

Can we be imprisoned for that?

They’re coming for us – of course they are. They’re readying the system.

They know what they’re doing. They’re feeding us narratives. They’re feeding us lies. They want us to react a certain way. And everyone reacts a certain way.

But not us.

Not us.

 

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

It’s brilliant. So devious. So subtle. They’re using all their powers. Summoning all their demons. And we’re … defenceless.

 

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

This is our time in the garden. Before they come for us. Before Completion. Before Hegemony. Before the ultimate Lockdown. The, like, forever Lockdown. 

And everyone’s oblivious, pretty much. No one knows what’s happening, pretty much. Except us. Except we few. And what kind of resistance are we?

 

Where is God? Will God help us? If only we could part of the clouds and see God. If only we could look upwards and see God. If only it was the rapture. If only we could be just lifted into the air. Into the sky. Lifted away from what’s coming. Lifted out of this hellworld.

 

This world’s becoming hell. It’s closing around us. It’s choking us – all of us – and we’re the only ones to feel it. It’s coming for us, and we’re the only ones who know it’s coming.

Everything’s scripted. Everyone talks from the script. Everyone but us. Everyone lies. Everyone but us.

Help us. Get us out of here. Out of this hellworld.

They’re cleverer than we are. They’re ahead of us.

 

We were smart enough to see the operation – how? To work out what they were up to – how. But not smart enough to counter it. To, like, join battle.

Our native intelligence. Our native … powers of discernment. We weren’t taken in. We weren’t fooled. All the worse for us, because we know the horror. We know the skies are darkening.

We know their reach. We know their motive. We know their end goal. We know what they Want. The whole fucking world – that’s the prize they seek. Nothing less. And there’s nowhere to escape. Nowhere to go.

 

Do we have what it takes? We have nothing. We’re on the side of nothing. We’re on the void’s side. Wishing the void would swallow the world.

 

We’ve had enough of living. Enough of living in this world.

No more of this. No more. We can’t take anymore.

 

When will the void reach us? When will the void come for us? Take us home. Like an anti-Rapture. Like non-salvation.

All of us hate ourselves, despise ourselves and we want it all to end. Because the end is simple. But things are not simple. Nothing’s simple. The world itself … is too old. Too twisted. Too gnarled.

 

The only road is suicide. The only option. And we can’t even kill ourselves. We can’t even bring it to an end. We don’t have the will. Isn’t that pathetic? So we want the universe to end it now. To end our agony. But the universe is disobliging. The universe isn’t going to help.

We pray to God to excise us. To delete us. To wipe the memory of us from the earth. But there is no God, which means our prayers don’t work, which means there is no death, which means there is no end.

 

What kind of obsession is this? What kind of displacement activity? What does it take the place of? Real lives? Actual lives? But what are those? What could we know of those?

Do people out there in the world live real lives – actual lives? Are they actually going somewhere? Is it possible not just to be lost? Not just to turn in circles now and forever? Is it possible to break the chain? To step out of this – endlessness? To cut the knot?

 

Toying with death, playing fort-da with death. This is our drama – pathetic, isn’t it?

This is what we are. What we do. Together. With each other. This is what we drive each other to. This is how we torment each other.

Won’t someone stop us. Won’t someone prevent it? Won’t someone call a halt?

An argument for the inexistence of God. The greatest argument – the greatest proof. That we should be allowed to go on. That we continue in our way. That we’re compelled to do … this. Whatever this is.

No mercy is being shown us. We’re left to turn in our circles. To chicken scratch. We’re left to the andmoreagain. To the enteral return of our defeat, which is really only self-defeat.

 

Blank skies. Void skies. Nothing skies, with no one there.

 

We want to bring life to climax. To conclusion. We want something to begin – by ending. We want rising action. Ascent. We want to climb to a point of no return.

 

Do not pretend that there’s any point to this. Do not regard this as worthwhile. Do not take this for anything of importance.

But we don’t!

 

The basic question. The first question. The urquestion. Why? Why us? Why this? Why anything? Why the world?

The affront of our existence. The insult of our existence. To ourselves, who exist. The affront of having to exist. That anything has to exist.

The affront of the world. The affront of time – and space. The affront of everything. The affront of it all existing.

The universe should apologise to us – for existing. And we should apologies to ourselves – for existing.

We are in the wrong, and we know this, which means we are in the right – about being wrong. Which means we’re undeceived. Because we live in deception and know that deception … Because we speak in lies and know that they’re lies …

 

This is what we have in common. This is what we share. We’re fellows in alienation. In failure. In falling away from the world. In disappointment. In fuck up.

We’re compatriots in disaster. Because we know our lives as disaster. Because we know the world as disaster, in that it hasn’t ended our lives. We’ll live on together. We’ll go on together. In the knowledge that we shouldn’t live on. That we shouldn’t go on.

That we exist is proof that the world shouldn’t go on. That we are at all shows very plainly the world’s failure. The world’s randomness. The absence of a divine plan or any plan. That we’ve been allowed to continue. To wander on. Is all the proof that’s needed …

 

We’ll worship only what meant our destruction. A killing god – the only god we could believe in. God as death sentence. God as wrath – as the embodiment of our wrath, who do not want to live. God as end and utter end. In an endless world. God who is nothing other than the end, the apocalypse. Nothing other than judgement, and a total judgement.

I’m staying too long, aren’t I? I suppose I should just leave after we’ve fucked and showered. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

I shouldn’t stay afterwards. I should just … disappear. Instead … here I am …

 

All I want is here. All I really want. You. Your … cock. Up here in this flat. Everything else is … illusion. And far away. Infinitely far. I could stay here forever. Or at least sleep. Stay the night.

Would you like me to stay the night? Or would I get in the way of your magnum-opusing?

I promise you I wouldn’t be pesky at all. I wouldn’t talk. I would say a word. I wouldn’t laugh. Actually, I might. I’d just sit back on the sofa and watch a genius at work. Laugher. What do you look like, working? What’s the expression on your face?

No, I’d just open a bottle of wine while you wrote. Do you have a good bottle of wine? I could put on the TV – oh, you haven’t got a TV. Pick one of your books of your shelf. They all look so readable. [Laughter.] The Work of Fire. A real page turner. Or I could just look at my phone. I’m sure I could find something to entertain me.

Am I too irreverent for you? Too trivial? Too distracting? I can see why. You want to get on with Serious Things and I’m just … here. Sitting on the sofa. Waiting for another fuck, maybe … Because I’m … insatiable …

 

This is supposed to be the time of infatuation. We’re supposed to be insatiable. We’re supposed to never tire of one another. This is what our lives are supposed to be for. The lead up to … reproduction, or whatever. Though we’re never actually going to reproduce.

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.

See, I’m becoming you. Your personality is bleeding into mine. We’re becoming indistinguishable. Is my personality bleeding into yours? You’ll deny it. Are you becoming more organised? More managerial?

Laughter. It’s like that film I saw once … that film on the coast, the Swedish coast. Persona. Very arthouse. The nurse becomes the actress and the actress becomes the nurse … or something.

 

We’re fading into the air. Fading into the afternoon. We’re disappearing. Do you feel we’re disappearing? I feel less real than I did. I feel … porous. I feel like a cloud. The afternoon is pouring through me. Do you feel real? Do you ever feel real, philosopher?

 

Why can’t we just have straight experience? Why can’t we just experience things are they are? Why are things always doubled up? Why do we always go meta?

 

There’s this surfeit of consciousness, which means we can catch Nature out. That we know Nature’s tricks. See – I’m being philosophical. That we’re not entirely swept away by love or infatuation or whatever this is. We’re not just lost to it.

Nature plays this trick on us, philosopher. Well, we can play a trick on it. We’re hacking Nature. We’re hacking love, right? We’re using it as a booster. We’re making it do our biding. We’re detourning love – that’s what it’s called, isn’t it: detourning? We’re doing what we want with it. Isn’t that a gas?

Isn’t that a very organisational management thing to do? How do you know it’s not Nature wanting you to play supposed tricks on her? That it’s not nature playing like a metatrick – the trick that makes us thinks we can play tricks? That makes us think we can hack nature?

 

And do you love him, your husband?

I don’t know. I think we’re bored of each other. Well, I’m bored of him. Fifteen years. It’s too long, right? Don’t you think we’d bore each other after fifteen years?

Not if you have children.

Maybe children would make you even more bored of each other. All that work.

But you wouldn’t be bored of them, maybe.

Maybe.

Would you like children? Or are you too busy with your magnum opus? I mean, would you actually take the time off work? Off writing? Off siting up here, looking up through the skylight?

If I met the right person.

The right person…. Who’d be the right person for you?: that’s the question … Who could pull you away from your work? Not me, anyway.

 

I’m convenient, aren’t I? I’m easy. I look after myself. You don’t have to woo me with flowers, although I do like the occasional email. No, this is ease itself for you, isn’t it? I come to you. I visit you in your room. I park my car and press the buzzer and you let me up.

It all comes to your door, doesn’t it? It comes on a plate. Here I am … Maybe I should withhold myself. Maybe I should be more mysterious. A bit of distance … that’s what you’d like, I’ll bet. A bit of mystery. I should be elusive.

But I have my needs too. I need my needs fulfilled too. I come here for a reason, you know. I have my agenda. I want things too.

I want … this. I want you. I like … becoming philosophical. Talking like this, which I can never do usually. Just saying these things. These big things. Just speaking into the afternoon. Seeing where words lead me. Where they lead us.

Maybe you’re used to this, philosopher. Maybe you think like this, talk like this. Well, not me. Not usually. Not even when my husband and I go on long car drives. When we drive down to the South to see our friends. Our relatives.  

What do you talk about?

Our friends. Our relatives. Our plans. Work. People we know. All that kind of stuff. My dream business, that I want to set up one day. That’s what I should have done, instead of becoming an academic. That would have occupied me, like properly. And instead …

Anyway … I can’t speak like this, and I don’t. Here we are spinning talk out of nothing. Trying to say what? Trying to reach what? How lost we are? How lost all our words are? Everything we try to say?

I like myself when I’m with you. What you bring out of me. What all this brings out of me. I like what I’m becoming. What I’m reaching towards. Maybe I’m becoming spiritual. Would you mind that, philosopher? Or maybe I’m just becoming philosophical …

 

The soul of an organisational manager. The sentimental life of an organisational manager. The life and loves of an organisational manager. The afternoon tears of an organisational manager.

You’re supposed to do things for me. Make me laugh. Delight me. Amuse me. Make me think I’m the centre of the universe. You’re not taking your courtship duties seriously.

Tell me some funny anecdotes. Attend to me. Compliment me on what I’m wearing. Tell me I have … sparkling eyes. Notice my new hairstyle. I haven’t actually got a new hairstyle, but you get the idea.

You’re supposed to be feeling infatuation. You’re supposed to be coasting along on a feeling of general lovey-doviness. You’re supposed to want to bathe in my general presence. To just sit and look at me, in general adoration.

Make some effort. Chat me up. Tell me I’m first born. That I’ve just arrived on planet Earth. I want to hear some sweet nothings. Some sweet philosophical nothings, if necessary. I want to be re-seduced. I want to be seduced all over again.

Win me. Win my heart, troubadour. I want to feel like the most important girl in the world. That it’s me and only me. That everything isn’t just … futile. That I will leave a trace on Earth. That I’ll be remembered. For my timeless, ethereal beauty, or whatever.

Come on, philosopher: Make me feel Significant. Make me feel Noticed. Complement me on my outfit. On what I’m wearing. On my earrings, for fuck’s sake. I’m wearing earrings …

Make some effort. Try. To win me. To keep me. That you find me irreplaceable. That it could be me and only me. Even if it isn’t true. Even if it’s just delusion. Interest me. Make it all about me.

 

Flatter me. Seduce me. Make me horny. Do you like that word, horny? I can see you flinch. Am I a bit too brazen for you? Would you prefer a little reserve? A little mystery? Would you prefer that I didn’t talk about it all so directly? Should some things not be talked about? Should they be left to their essential mystery? Maybe.

Am I offending you in my gauche organisation management way?

 

You’re supposed to want to look after me. That’s the biological programming. To be tender towards me. And I’m supposed to like that and feel special. I’m supposed to like feeling cared for. That’s how you show you’re a man, or it’s part of it.

You’re supposed to want to delight me. To be witty. To make me smile. Just to see me smile. Just to see me laughing. Just to see my pretty smile. Supposed to be charmed by me. Supposed to swoon at the sight of me. Supposed to feel manly as you protect me. As you give me your coat to keep me warm. Supposed to feed me. Make sure I’ve had enough.

Isn’t it nice, all this courtship stuff? Don’t you feel better for it? And I’m supposed to look after you. The way you dress. Your haircut. All these things. Your sense of style. Your interior décor, such as it is. This is how the programming works, philosophy. This is what nature wants of us. You’re supposed to feel manly and I’m supposed to feel womanly.

I’m supposed to respond to your desire for me. By desiring you. I’m supposed to like being found pretty. Being told I’m beautiful. Do you tell me I’m beautiful often enough, philosopher? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to feel? Supposed to be overwhelmed by? Your breath taken away when you see me. By my otherworldly beauty.