Work in Progress

I know what it is: intellectual stimulation. You need to read clever things and try to write clever things. Because you’re clever. And because the world doesn’t give you enough clever. Enough stimulus.

So you sit up here, in your high room, which you’ve turned into cleverland. And I’m allowed up here, because you have other needs, and not just intellectual ones. Which I’m sure you despise.

You read these things to feel clever and to exercise your cleverness. To take your cleverness for a walk.


The clever despise the not-so-clever, I know that, philosopher. Different levels of intelligence shouldn’t mix, should they? I shouldn’t even be up here, I know that. I don’t know my way through arthouse film. I don’t follow the latest developments in … literary fiction, or whatever. I don’t have an intellectual life. I don’t study at all, not like you study. I never get lost in books.

I’m glad we can talk like this. About nothing. About everything. I like talking when talk doesn’t go anywhere. When we don’t have any answers. When it’s all questions and questions … When we’re just asking. Asking God, maybe. Asking the sky, maybe.

You can’t count on it. Some days you can write and some days you can’t and it’s all a mystery.

So the Muse hasn’t visited you today.

It’s all so pathetic, isn’t it? Writing things no one’s interested in. For an audience of no one. That no one will even publish. By someone who can’t actually write.

At least you have ambition.

A stupid ambition.

At least there’s something that makes you get up on the morning – think about that.


I always wanted to write the perfect book, and then kill myself. The work, I called it. Everything was about the work.

And did you ever write it?

Maybe I’m trying to write it now.

And kill yourself? But that’ll never happen. Because I’ll never write anything perfect. Or even any good.

Where are you going to say you were, to your husband? How are you going to account for yourself?

I’ll say I was at the gym, as usual. At exercise class. Or was working late.

Does he suspect? Surely he must suspect. He must have some sense that your mind’s elsewhere. And your body …

My body’s not elsewhere. I fuck him too.

Fuck. You’re so shameless.


How does he spend his time, anyway?

Consult. Put in funding bids. Zoom calls to Bulgaria and other half arsed nations. Tajikistan. Uzbekistan and the rest. Giving them advice. As if they haven’t got other problems.

What advice does he give them? What does he know about business?

He’s a professor of organisational management.

How could I forget?

He’s consulted with all kinds of people. He’s published a few things. He’s actually very productive.

Woo – productive!


What if I did leave my husband? What kind of life would I have? Who would we be together? What kind of couple would we make? How long before we’d just be like everyone else? How long would it be before we couldn’t bear one another?

And you don’t hate me, imagine. Why is that? You hate everyone but me. There must be something very special about me. To escape your hatred. Your scorn.


At least I know I’m dead. At least I don’t pretend. At least I know I’m a corpse. At least I know I’ve got nothing to say. At least I know my … redundancy. That everything’s just played out. That the whole world’s been placed in the hands of maniacs.

Listen to us talking. We’re not talking about essential things, are we? This isn’t important – not to you. All this is a diversion. It’s keeping you from your work – your true work. What you were put on earth to do – isn’t that right? Your true purpose …

Which is why this isn’t going to last. Why this isn’t going anywhere. It’s not like you’re paying attention. You’re listening with one ear.  


Would you even miss me if we never saw one another again? Would I miss you? I don’t even know.

I went travelling once. On a world trip with my best friend – not my husband. I’d never had a gap year, see. And I got together with my husband so early. And I went straight from studying to work … Anyway, I had a real adventure on that trip. Fucked some guy.

Did you tell your husband?

Yes. When I got back. We talked it over.  

Did he mind?

Of course he minded. It was a crisis. But all was forgiven in the end. In fact, I think it was good for us.

Ah, the married lives of the bourgeoisie.


I’ll bet you despise us. It’s easy to despise us, I think. I half despise us. We’ve got it all: that’s what you think. We have money and lifestyle, and we’re supposed to feel guilty about it. My husband flies all over the world, earning all this consultancy money and we’re supposed to loathe ourselves. What a joke! Anyway, we aren’t that rich. We’re comfortable, that’s all.

So your husband provides?

And I provide.

Not as much. You’re a junior lecturer, right? And he’s a professor. Is that a turn on: success? A second home in Mallorca? City breaks and so on?

I’m the sort of person they warn you about. Woo – a dangerous organisational manager! An organisational manager gone rogue!

Does that happen? Is there a point you get to when you’re so organised and so managed that you just … flip over to the opposite? Is that an occupational hazard?


The disciplines are crossing over. Changing places. Are you finding yourself becoming more organisational? More managerial?

I bet you think of me as a hindrance. As a pest. As a necessary evil to assuage certain of your needs.

I’ll bet you hate your needs, don’t you? I’ll bet you wish you had the courage to castrate yourself, just like that. And remove all temptation. And just become a slave of work. That’s right, isn’t it?

You could write all day and all night without any disturbance.

We’ve outlived ourselves. We’re already dead. We’ve been dead for the longest time. We’re just waiting for death to catch up with us.

Death has other things to do. Death’s fucking busy …


Let’s die – tonight. Let’s round it all off – tonight. Let’s draw a fucking line under our lives. Under what our lives are supposed to have been.

People like us oughtn’t be allowed.