Work in Progress

Their counter-city, within the city. Their own city, within an existing city. That has nothing to do with the city – the old city. That basically ignores the old city.  Ignore Newcastle.

That does it’s own thing, entirely, without reference to the old city. That might as well be anywhere! That’s international, really. That could be anywhere, really. That’s anonymous, really.

Is this local stone? Are these local trees? Are these a vernacular building style?

Massiveness, instead. Bulk, instead. Heft, instead. Vast buildings. Vast rectangles. Vast boxes. Al straight lines. That stands around us, dwarfing us.

And none of it human size. None of it built for humans. Designed to cow us, instead. Designed to psy-op us, instead. To nudge us. To think of ourselves as minions. As an ant farm. As  worker drones.

 

Let us never adjust to this. Let us never accept this. Let it be a perpetual outrage. Let it never be allowed to complete its work on us.

We must not trust this campus. Its world – its cosmos. This is not our place – remember that.

That isn’t our sky, above us. And it isn’t our earth, below. We can’t see the earth. The land. Only its rising and falling. Only its contours, hidden. Built upon. No bare earth. No land. Except at the edges of the campus. Except where stone gives way to stony soul. But we’re far away from its edges.

The trees are trapped. The way they were just plugged into the pavement. The way they were forced into the earth. Crammed into the earth. Through silver rings. And all lined up.

 

Quick growing trees. Forced-upward trees. Silver birches.

What punishment is being served here? What would they have done in a former life? What karmic retribution?

And water! The betrayal of water! The harnessing of water!

Doesn’t water know better? Isn’t water anarchic?

Commandeering water’s desire to flow. Making water flow decoratively, obediently. Subordinating water to metal and stone.

 

Could water just bust out of all this. Burst its banks. Overflow. Run over the pavement in great waves. Couldn’t water lick at the bases of the great towers? Erode away the stone? Over generations, but patiently.

 

Isn’t water on our side? Isn’t water our agent, in our service, doing water’s work, our work, on the Organisational Management campus? Can’t we even look to water with hope. To water’s flow?

Can’t we even pray for water, or let water pray for us?

 

Our sympathy with water. The secret pull of water. Don’t our tears, starring on our cheeks, long to rejoin the great flow?

 

Water, our secret friend. Water, our secret ally.

Are there underground rivers, water seeping through soil, beneath the carefully laid out paving stones?

 

Water, doing good work. God’s work. Water, dreaming as it flows, light on its back.

Water, dreaming our dreams, dreaming with us and for us.

So that we only have to look out at the water to know hope is there, our hope, the hopes for the world.

 

Let the snow fall, really snow, not just a few flakes, but covering the campus. Let the snow obliterate the campus, bury it.

Let some great flood come, some great impossible flood. Let it rain like it did in Noah’s day. And let it sweep the campus away, and sweep us away, too. We want Biblical rain.

 

The whispering of water. The constancy of water. Doing our work.

Water will win, right? There’s a watery revolution – always. Ongoing. On our side. And patient. The work of decades. Of generations.

 

They can’t control the water, can they? Water’s just playing along. Water’s merely going along with it. Water’s biding its time. Water’s patient. Water will outlast this. And water knows that.

 

Water, melting it all. Deliquescing the campus.

Water in great pools, looking upwards – that’s what we need. Water, lying in pools, reflecting the sky. Instead of all this.

What ideas have you had, philosopher? What’s going in the dome?

Have you had a productive day? Did you get something important done? Were you able to take an essential step? Any significant advances?

 

Do you ever sit and do nothing? Do you ever just look up at the skylight? I would, if I were in here. Do you ever go for a walk on your own along the beach?

 

What if I said that I’m terminally ill? I could be terminally ill. I’d actually like to be terminally ill. It might give some meaning to my life.

 

How long will our adventure last?

How long do you want it to last?

Until it stops being an adventure. Until it becomes more drudgery.

 

Don’t think anymore. Turn off the dome. Give yourself a thought holiday.

 

What I just turned up here one day with my bags – what then? Would I be welcome? What if I said: I’ve left him I’m making a new life with you. You’d feel horrified, wouldn’t you? Imagine it!

 

What if we had a little party up here? Introduce our friends to one another. Do you want to throw a party with me? How would that be? Friends of mine you should meet. Friends from when I was small. Old friends. School friends. What would they make of you, I wonder? What would they make me of me with you? What would they think I was up to?

 

I’m fascinated, philosopher. I’m fascinated by you. Nothing could be more interesting.

Do I say anything that interests you? Anything? Anything you’ll remember and write down and put in your book? I’d like to think I was interesting.

 

I didn’t know I had a philosopher shaped hole in my life. Until you arrived.

 

Tell me a secret. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.

 

Try to guess what I’m thinking.

Never have an affair with an indifferent man.

I’m not indifferent.

 

I’ve actually learnt to smoke. I thought it might help.

Help what?

Being with you.

 

I want to be very, very cruel to you. Did you know you bring that out in people. Or in me, anyway.

 

What’s my future? Read my palm. Can you see a great love there? Can you see a great future?

 

Tell me about your ex-girlfriend. What was she like? What’s your type? Do you have a type?

 

‘You’re the love of my life’: say that. You don’t have to mean it.

 

Tell me  secret. I'd like to hear a secret. 

 

Lovers play, philosopher. They aren’t serious all the time.

 

I want to fuck you so much. So much. How many more times will we fuck, do you think?

 

How long can this last – our idyll? Our secret? Who have you told? Who have you told about us?

 

Are we a good influence on each other? How are we changing each other? How am I changing you?

 

Fucking is good for your health. It’s like taking supplements. Or minerals. Seven minutes fucking is the equivalent of forty minutes at the gym.

I feel like I’m sinking. Am I pulling you down with me? Do you want to save me, or go down with me?

 

Let the bomb drop.

What bomb?

Let the sky fall. Let it all fall down. Let it come down.

 

Am I actually in freefall? Is that what this is about? Am I falling – falling through my life?

 

Like a beetle on its back, clawing the sky …

Are you going to spend your entire life in a room like this? Is this going to be it, for you?

 

Where do you think this will end up? What’s going to happen tomorrow and next week and the week after? What’s going to happen, philosopher? Where’s this going?

 

What are your fears? Your goals? What are your hopes and dreams, philosopher? Your non-philosophical hopes and dreams … do you have those? Or has philosophy sucked them all up?

If I was the jealous type, I’d be ever so jealous of philosophy. Philosophy has absorbed everything you are. What’s left for me?

 

Wouldn’t you prefer someone who was nicer to you?

 

Our affair. Our soap opera. Aren’t you tired of our soap opera?

I suppose this is all some disgusting mating activity to you, philosopher.

 

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. Then you could write all day and all night without any disturbance.

 

Is there a philosophy of fucking? There are philosophies of love, I know that. But of fucking?

 

What do you want to do? How do you like it? What are your favourite … positions?

And all your apocalypse stuff. Don’t you see that we’re supposed to think we’re in the end times? That we’re supposed to think it’s all catastrophe. Because that’s what gives them emergency powers. And when they have emergency powers, they can do exactly as they please. That’s how they rule us, right? There’s no time for all the usual democracy stuff. No time for the usual rule of law. Checks and balances. They can drive a coach and four through all that stuff.

So you, with your apocalypse, are just feeding the frenzy. Because it’s exactly how they want us to look at things. They just want us afraid, right? They want fear and fear and fear. There must be a word for that: government through fear. What's Greek for fear?

 

End times? Come and gone. This is the afterlife. Or the afterdeath. We’re all dead. I’m dead and you’re dead, and everyone’s dead.

 

The word has ended. The world hasn’t ended. I am alive. I am dead, They can’t both be true.

A book that is unwritten rather than written. A book that is subtracted from the world rather than adding to it. A book that’s lost. A book that wanders off, whistling.

A book that … fades. That disperses like morning mist. A book that evaporates like puddle of rain.

A book .. scarcely a book. A rumour of a book. A breath of a book. Even a gasp … of a book.

A book that is not yet a book. A half book. A quarter of a book. A book standing in for a book. A book that isn’t yet a book … or isn’t anything.

 

It can be the last book. The last literary book.

The last book should be the most neglected book. The least important book. A book that doesn’t draw attention to itself. A book that’s scarcely even written. That barely even exists.

Our stupidity is immense! Contourless! Impossible to … circumscribe. It’s vast. It’s encompassing. I think our stupidity’s increasing, if anything. Like the night getting darker.

Do you think?

 

Listen to us, weaving nonsense out of nonsense. Our creatio ex nihilo. Our creation of nothing from nothing from nothing. A miracle! An anti-miracle!

Someone should stop us! Someone should put a stop to this. 

What would we be without our stupidity? We wouldn’t be anything. That’s what we are. It’s what defines us. It’s what turns us to one another in recognition. It’s what gives us company.

 

Everything is waiting. To be delivered from itself. To be lifted from itself. To be changed, in its condition. To be altered.

And we’re waiting, too. To be delivered of our stupidity. But what would happen then?

 

We did it! But did what? We’re not transformed. We haven’t improved. We carried our stupidity into the university. And the university changed nothing.

 

Can stupid philosophers philosophise? We can try. Are stupid philosophers even philosophers? 

Stupid philosophers can philosophise about their stupidity. But aren't we too stupid?