Work in Progress

The Metro to the coast.

The city falling away. The suburbs. Flat fields. Horses, grazing.

Open space. Open skies, criss-crossed by chem trails, as Cicero would call them.

Pondering the meaning of Cicero’s coast-move. What was she looking for at the coast? Why did she move right out of the city? And why did we follow her, out of the city? Because aren’t we moving out there one by one? Don’t I already have my high Cullercoats flat, six floors up, facing away from the sea, it’s true, but still enjoying the coastal ambience; the coastal air? Hasn’t Hans his North Shields maisonette, not far from the Fish Quay, from the world’s greatest fish ‘n’ chips shops? And there’s Ava’s South Shields tenement, just across the Tyne …

We’re philosophers of the coast. Or would-be philosophers of the coast. Or aspiring philosophers of the coast, philosopher being not a description but an honorific, which can be bestowed only by others.

And there’s Cicero herself, the real philosopher of the coast. Cicero, with her rumoured lottery-win money; with her rumoured inheritance, domiciled in handsome Tynemouth not far from the Armstrong memorial. Not far from her beloved Sir James Knott Memorial Flats, on top of the hill, overlooking river and sea …

Was Cicero in search of sea air, full of ozone, following her early retirement? Was it the vistas she wanted – needed – to unfold her more expansive ideas, the full sublimity of her thought, now she was free of her teaching and administrative duties? Was it to be among the coastal people, among seafarers and descendants of seafarers, who, tired of the city, likewise wanted to live among seafarers and descendants of seafarers?

The coast is the place where the lie is exposed: hasn’t Cicero always said that? By the extent of the sky. By the vastness of the sea. The coast is for the undeceived, she's said more than once. The coast is for the unfooled. The coast is for the not entirely destroyed.

We’re here to exchange molecules with the coastal air: that’s what Cicero’s told us. With the coastal sky. With the sea! With the river Tyne as it runs into the sea! We’re here to become porous. For the air to enter into us, or for us to enter the air.

The coast will become our last redoubt: that’s what Cicero’s said. Our last holdout. The coast will draw our kind towards it: the righteous kind. The resisting kind. Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear what’s really going on.

Texting Cicero.

We need her help. We need to be told what to do.

Cicero, our erstwhile organ grinder! Cicero, the old head of the philosophy dept! Cicero, who handpicked us – us – to work here!

Cicero, who plucked us – us – from our provincial universities. Cicero, who summoned us here. Cicero, who scouted the conferences for  … what? Not the up and coming, we were never that …

The desperate! The put-upon! The cornered! 

Yes, Cicero, who sought us out: the prospectless! The defeated – spiritually! Financially! The lower class! The bordering-on-resentful! The all-but-embittered! The skint! The pretty-much-down-and-out! Who’d never normally be given a lectureship at a Russell Group university! 

Cicero, who had some kind of faith in us – no doubt entirely misplaced! Cicero, who was apparently deluded. Cicero, who brought us north to her adopted city.

Did she see signs of brilliance in us? we wonder. Might we be brilliant after all? Brilliant in our stupidity. Brilliant in our mediocrity … Perhaps we’re brilliant inside. Very deeply inside. So deeply we don’t know about it. So deeply we show no signs of it, and never will …

Face it: Sis actually wanted idiots around her. She didn’t want to feel threatened … She wanted a background to allow her brilliance to shine yet brighter. For contrast, like. It was a chiaroscuro thing.

Cicero knew who we were, we agree. What we were for. Cicero understood our role, our apocalyptic role. Part of the end times will be a parade of deformities and grotesques. Not physical, but mental deformity. There’ll be mental  sports! Twistings! Human contortionists! Like in that Hieronymous Bosch painting, but in thought … That's who we are: the cerebral freak show. Obscurants! Hermeticists! Conspiracy theorists!

Anyway, Cicero fought all kinds of dreadful administrative battles to keep the department open, we agree. Indeed, she risked her sanity to open it in the first place. She went to the most gruelling meetings. The most trying meetings. Which is where, in fact, she developed some of her most crucial thoughts, as, she said, the dialectical opposite to said meetings.

Her stuff about the theogenic process. About blind increate formlessness. About the aboriginal nonground. About banished fundamentals. Were it for her gruelling meetings, she would never have come up with them: that's what she said.

And she brought us on! Encouraged us!

I wouldn’t say that, exactly, Ava says. She was pretty insulting.

But it was a kind insulting, Magellan says. It was meant to spur us on.

It was meant to crush us, Hans says.

Yes, but she knew we could rise from our ashes, Magellan says.

I’m still crushed, Hans says.

Don’t be so fragile, Magellan says. It was a bootcamp of sorts. She wanted to toughen us up. Particular you, Gan. She could tell you were a soy boy.

She used to call us shitlibs! Ava says.

Only to wind us up,  Magellan says. To defend our default academic leftism. To sharpen it into a weapon.

She said all the energy of the counterculture was on the right, Hans says. That the left were statist tossers.

But it was in service to the left, Magellan says. To the leftist revolution!

Don’t bet on it! Hans says. Cicero was a provocateur. Do you remember her MAGA cap?

Cicero always saw herself as a principle of negativity, it’s true, Magellan says. As the freedom of the negative.

Isn’t that what she called her band? I ask.

Oh I forgot all about her band, Hans says.

Cicero’s led many lives, Magellan says.

She’s living death now, I say. Her drinking …

Anyway, Magellan, we’ve all ridden the rollercoaster of Cicero’s enthusiasms …, Ava says

… And despairs …, Hans says.

We’ve all been up and down with Cicero …, Ava says.

… Mostly down …, Hans says.

But the highs make it worth it …, Magellan says, In the end, we’re Cicero’s army. Cicero’s ragtag. Cicero’s band of … what?

Idiots, of course! We agree. Holy fools!

Cicero’s texted, I say. She’s inviting us to the coast.

News: they’re moving the Philosophy department into Organisational Management.

General shock. Can they do this sort of thing? Without consultation? Is it allowed?

Apparently.

Is there a rationale? Have they explained themselves?

They don’t have to explain themselves. They just act.

This never would have happened in the old days.

In the old days, we’d never have got jobs. Not at this kind of uni.

True.

Look, It’s just some random thing. Some stupidity. Some manager or another wanted to make their stamp on the uni. Some idiot …

… They’re all idiots …

… Had some interdisciplinary initiative, or something.

What about Organisational Management? What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe. 

Laughter.

Our international reputation.

Laughter.

Our general sanity and well-adjustedness.

More laughter. 

Why couldn’t they just have left us alone? Why couldn’t we be allowed to go on as we were, untroubled, unharassed? Why should we have to be destroyed and remade? It’s cruel … it’s needless.

Come on – you think this is arbitrary? They’ve declared war on philosophy. They know that it’s philosophy they have to go after. Not history! Not the fine arts! Not music! Not English literature! But philosophy, alone among the humanities!

Because they sense something about philosophy. They feel a kind of awe of philosophy, despite everything. They know us as a threat – unconsciously. They experience us as an enemy – in some recess of their minds.

Because they know only philosophy can grasp what they’re up to. Only philosophy can put all the pieces together and understand their Plan. That only philosophy has the possibility of seeing it in all its dimensions.

What plan?

For unconscious revenge on philosophy. On the humanities in general. There’s a whole institutional unconscious at work. A desire for revenge. On humanities expansiveness. On humanities freedom of thought.

And that’s why the closure of philosophy would never be enough. The humiliation of philosophy: that’s the aim.

Whence the organisational management move. It’s meant to discipline us. To make us biddable. To make us understandable to the university authorities. To have us all teaching business ethics, or whatever. Because the authorities dislike what they cannot contain. What questions them. What questions authority and the limits of authority.

Sheer grandiosity. They have no idea about philosophy! They don't know what we teach!

That’s just it: they have no idea. And they want an idea. They want us teaching applied ethics. Organisational ethics! Management ethics!

But it’s so absurd! It makes no sense …

Of course it makes no sense. That’s the point …

What about meaning?

Forget meaning!

It’s mockery – in plain view. They’re laughing at us.

It’s self-mockery. The uni’s laughing at itself … At everything a university once was …

Were they laughing as they did it? Did it amuse them? Do they know what they’re doing? Couldn’t they sense the nihilism – even if they’d never heard of the word, nihilism? Or did they do it because of the nihilism – an unconscious nihilism, but nihilism nonetheless. Did they do it because of the absurdity?

Look, it’s the madness of the world showing itself. The madness behind the world. A deluge of madness. A mad flood of insanity. And it’s a sublime madness. It’s genius in some random way. Because who would be crazy enough to move philosophy to organisational management?

The uni can do what it likes: that’s what this says. Anything could happen! The greatest absurdity! This is a shock and awe move. This is a cow-the-humanities move. This is a watch it or you’re next move.

It’s like parking a tank on your front law. They can do whatever they like: that’s what they’re showing. They’re doing it because they can – however mad it is. In fact, they’re doing it because of that madness.

Because they’re above reasons, with their like, omnipotence. Above rationality. It’s a show of power – of utter power. It’s to prove they can do exactly as they please, no matter how mad. They can simply bend reality to their will.

Anyway, don’t look at it too closely. Don’t think about it too much. Ponder the logic of the organisational management move and you’ll go quite mad.

Maybe we should go mad. Maybe that's what it'll take. 

We’re misusing our time, Priya says. We’re desecrating our time. Doing wrong things with it. This isn’t how we should be living, is it?

I dont know, I say.

We’re at the bottom of some pit … looking up …, Priya says.

At what? I ask.

I don’t know, Priya says. God, maybe …

Silence.

We don’t have to live like this, Priya says. Things don’t have to be this way. But we do, don’t we? We’re sinners …

We’re fallen, Priya says. Desperately so. Because we don’t lament our fallenness. We don’t experience it, not really. It hasn’t reached us …

What are you turning me into? Priya asks. You and your philosophy! You’ve infected me with philosophy. You’ve made it okay to talk like this – as no one should be allowed talk. No one should be allowed to say these fucking things …

Who’s the organisational manager’s organisational manager? I ask. Who do common or garden organisational managers talk about in reverence? Who’s, like the organisational management G.O.A.T.?

Like, how old is the field? I say. When was organisational management first a thing? Do real organisational managers read academic organisational managers? Seriously. I want to know.

Just because your subject’s ancient and prestigious and totally useless, Priya says. And no one British can basically do it …

I swear time’s slowing down, Priya says. It’s supposed to go quickly when you’ve having fun.

Is that what we’re doing: having fun? I ask.

The day’s going on without us, Priya says. The day’s doing its day thing. And we’re doing our you and I thing. Whatever that is. What is it, anyway? Who are we, anyway? These questions, philosopher. These afternoon questions …

We’re just falling into the afternoon, Priya says. Faster and faster. We’re castaways of the afternoon, the eternal afternoon.

My flat.

You’re drunk, Priya says.

I am drunk, I say.

So this is drunken you, Priya says. I don’t think I like drunken you.

Have a drink, I say. Catch up.

I don’t want to drink, Priya says. I don’t like seeing you like this.

Like what? I ask. It’s okay. Join me. Come on, you’re staying the night. Follow me down the drain.

You are my drain, Priya says.

So come on down, I say. Flush yourself down.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Priya asks. Am I supposed to patch you up, take care of you, like some tragic fucking artist?

You’re not supposed to do anything, I say.

I’m doing this to you, aren’t I? Priya says. Driving you to drink. I mean why are you drinking today, when I was coming to stay?

Because, because, because, I say.

I shouldn’t get in your way, Priya says. I should just leave you here for you to drink on your own.

Don’t go, I say.

Why not? Priya asks. Why shouldn’t I go?

Because you’re so – fucking – hot, I say. Because you transfigure the world – my world.

Aren’t I part of the natural world? Priya asks. Aren’t I part of the honey trap?

I’m tired of burning out my eyes, writing, I say. I want to look at something … beautiful. And here you are.

You’re so weak, Priya says. You’re a weak man. I despise weak men.

I’m very glad that you’re here, I say. You’re proof that … it doesn’t all suck. The problem is … The problem is … everything. The problem is life. The problem is existence. The problem is time. The fact that there’s more of it. That it never stops.

The problem is the great mechanism’s at work, I say. Pumping on. Making more of the same. More of the more.

The problem is the tedium, I say. It’s the boredom of existence. I hate it. I hate it all.

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

My hatred for all things is a sign of my … capacity to love, I say. It’s the inverse of a love – a great love. See, I love the world, too. I love it more than anything. The real world – not this fakery. Not this stage set. Not this scenery … And I love you.

Don’t just say things, Priya says.

I just told you –, I say.

You told me nothing, Priya says. The other day, I was part of nature’s honey trap, or whatever. And today –

Today is today, and full of love, I say. And full of God! Hallelujah!

God was drunk when he made us, I say. He’s drunk as he loves us. And we’re drunk when we turn to him. When we pray. Drunken prayers are the only ones God hears. When we bow our drunken heads. When we speak our drunken prayers. When we slur our drunken words.

God is waiting for us … on the other side, I say. And drinking is the way to go to him. Which is why God wants us to drink. Which is why God wants me to drink more and more.

Let’s dance, I say. Let’s drunk dance. Let’s dance ourselves to death, or drink ourselves to death, or whatever.

Don’t – touch – me, Priya says. You haven’t earnt the right. And you know, drinking like this has been done. It’s very mid twentieth century, alcoholism. No one’s into that anymore. People are more sensible.

I hate sensible, I say.

Alcoholism’s so boring, Priya says. It’s such a cliché. You hate clichés too, don’t you?

But I’m not actually an alcoholic, I say. I’m not even an alcoholic. I’m not even anything. This is just an … afternoon thing. It’s an afternoon melancholy thing. Don’t you ever feel afternoon melancholy? When you started the day with such hopes, such dreams. When you set out to write the best things you could, and then …

Then what? Priya says.

Then you run aground …, I say. Inevitably …

You thrive on this, Priya says. On failure. On nihilism. This is what you’re like.

Do not entrust yourself to failure, I quote. That only makes you nostalgic for success.

You should write about wanting to write a magnum opus, that’s what I think, Priya says. About the impossibility of your writing a magnum opus. That might be more interesting than trying to actually write a magnum opus and failing.

Write about what you can’t do, Priya says. Write about how mediocre you feel. Write about how you disappoint yourself. Write about afternoon melancholy …

My bedroom.

In bed.

Tell me something that happened to you when you were young, I say. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.

When I was young … I lived an ordinary life, Priya says. I did ordinary things. I had ordinary happinesses and, God knows, ordinary sadnesses. Which is to say: nothing happened. Nothing extraordinary, anyway.

I wasn’t talking about anything extraordinary, I say.

Of course you were, Priya says. I’ll bet you’ve always been determined to be extraordinary. Which means you’ll always run up against my ordinariness. Because I am ordinary. Just as I’m mundane. Are you disappointed?

No, I say. Because I don’t believe you. You’re the most philosophical organisational manager who’s ever lived.

Do you ever think that I might say something profound, just by chance? Priya asks.  That would surprise you, wouldn’t it? Out of the mouth of the organisational manager, eh, philosopher? Out of my humble organisational manager’s mouth … It might speak through me, whatever it is …

What’s ‘it’, anyway? I ask.

That’s the question, Priya says. That’s the mystery … All the things we talk about. All the questions we ask … No one’s going to answer, are they? No one’s interested.

Maybe they aren’t questions, but prayers, I say. Maybe they’re ways of praying.

To who? Priya asks. To what?

God, maybe, I say. The sky, maybe. The light, maybe.

I’ll miss our talks, Priya says. I’ll miss talking like this.

It isn’t over yet, I say.

It is though, really, Priya says. It was always over. It’s like we’ve outlived ourselves. We’re already dead. It’s like 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, I think, I say. Death’s fucking busy …

God, what do we add up to, we two? Priya says. What do we add to the universe? Sharing our nothings. Our… insignificances. Contemplating the nothingness of the day and our nothingness and our obscurity and the fact that Earth's just falling through space forever.

These are the skylight dialogues, I say. A erotic merger between organisational management and philosophy.

It feels like philosophy’s winning, Priya says.

Like I said, you’re the least organisational organisational manager who’s ever lived, I say. And the least managerial.

Does that make me a philosopher? Priya asks.

Maybe it makes you a poet, I say.

I'll say something poetic, Priya says. It feels like the day’s fallen out of step with itself. That there are these strange lakes of time … Pools of time, just lying there … Reflecting the sky. It feels like we’re in some … split off universe. Some ox-bow lake universe that’s broken from the river of the real one. From the real flow of history. This is where time’s got lost. Where everything’s forgetting itself, and so are we.

Wow, I say. Just wow.

Silence.

Now you have to tell me about yourself when you were young, Priya says. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.

It’s simple: I used to want to write a perfect book, and then kill myself, I say.

Is that it? Priya asks.

The work, I called it, I say. Everything was about the work. I used write night and day. Or edit. It was mostly about editing.

And what was it about, the work? Priya asks.

It was supposed to be some absolute statement, I say. To be an absolute book, totally incomparable. Like Lautreamont’s Maldoror, if you know that.

I don’t know anything about Lotry-what-not’s anything, Priya says.

It was supposed to say everything through a kind of inversion, I say. By saying the opposite. I saw it as a Gnostic treatise. As an expression of the Gnostic imaginary.

And did you ever finish it? Priya asks.

I’m still trying to write it now, I say.

So you can kill yourself after? Priya says. How melodramatic.

It was cheating, because I knew I’d never finish, I say. And that I’d never write anything perfect. Or that was even any good.

Longsands, Tynemouth.

It’s so foggy, Priya says. Where’s, like, the sea?  

Out there somewhere, I say. I can hear the waves, crashing.

It all feels so unreal, Priya says. So … slowed down. It’s like nothing’s in focus. It’s all so muffled and echoey … What are you supposed to do on days like this?

Gaze into the nothingness, I say.

Is that what it is: nothingness? Priya asks. Then you should know all about it. This should be your specialism: nothingness.

Silence. Walking in the sand.

We’re always at a remove from everything, aren’t we? Priya says. We’re always stepping out of the moment and looking down at it. Or looking up at it. Or looking sideways at it. But we’re never in it, are we? Or perhaps you are. But I’m not. Don’t get me wrong – I like being here with you. I like our erotic afternoons, but we’re so meta- … Talking about this stuff. Instead of … whatever …

Talking’s part of it, I say.

We’re always talking, Priya says. And never deciding anything. Never concluding. Where does all this talk lead? Where does it take us? Nowhere. The same place as we were before.

But everything’s a little bit different, I say.

No, everything’s even more the same …, Priya says. All this talking, and we never get to the point.

What point? I say. There is no point.

There’s something important to be said, I’m sure of it, Priya says. Something that wants to be said … Something that could overturn the world. 

Tell me something, then, I say. Say it. Let it speak.

It's not about me speaking, Priya says. Everyting I say just gets in the way.

Just say things, I say. Let it intervene, or whatver.  Tell a story about your past. About your girlhood.

I don’t want to tell … stories …, Priya says. I want to talk about what stories are about. I want to get behind the stories. I want to talk, without saying anything. I want to leave words just … hanging in the air. Just … vibrating  in the fog. God. I’m turning into a philosopher … Turns out philosophy’s infectious. Turns out I can play philosopher.

Listen to me … listen to me talking, Priya says. How come I can talk like this? How did I get to talk like this? It’s like … I’ve swapped places with the air. Like the air’s speaking. Like the fog is speaking. Like the day’s speaking. Like this is the speech of the afternoon.

Do I sound pretentious? Priya asks. I’ll bet I do. Desperately pretentious … Insufferably pretentious …

Priya, picking a book from the shelf. Reading: Who, if I cried out, who would hear me among the angelic orders? Poems about angels. Do you believe in angels, philosopher?

Fallen angels, maybe, I say. And the Nephilim, who were the offspring of fallen angels and human women.

I don’t care about Nephilim, Priya says. Rainer Maria Rilke: I’ve heard of him, I know the name; don’t think I’m totally ignorant. The Dunio Elegies. Is the kind of thing you read – really? … It’s like intruding on something, opening these pages. On some old European dream … What’s wrong with us? Why can’t we be reached by this stuff? Why aren’t we touched by this?

Speak for yourself, I say.

This just zooms over your head, too, Priya says. Don’t pretend. This doesn’t mean anything to you either. Except as some talisman. As something to worship from afar. When Rilke wants to open us … to God, or whatever. To the sky, or whatever. To death, or whatever. All those things. All those things our great-great-grandparents might have understood …

Once upon a time … once people would have set themselves to learn it by heart, Priya says. To be able to quote this. To remember it all, line by line …

All your books, philosopher … These old books, Priya says. They’re from a different time and about a different time, only you haven’t understood that yet … They’re outdated … they’ve been left behind. Haven’t you realised that yet?

You know what I think about your book-filled bedroom? Priya asks. About your life up here? You’re playing at being a philosopher and I’m playing at having an affair with a philosopher. You’re following your blind alley, as I’m no doubt following mine.

What’s your blind alley? I ask.

Romance, maybe, Priya says. This romance … Which will only last for a while – that’s what I tell myself. It will last for a while and burn itself out, and then you’ll forget me, and I’ll forget you, and that’s how it should be.

And you’ll still be with hubbie? I ask.

That is my fate, I’m sure, Priya says. I’ll be with him forever … It’ll just go on and on …

One day, a long time from now,  you’ll tell your husband all about our affair, I say. One day, when you’re feeling particularly close. On your fiftieth wedding anniversary, or something. On his birthday, or yours … You’ll tell him about your love affair – that’s what you’ll call it. About reading Rilke with your philosopher lover. Reading Rilke in bed, the pair of us! The Dunio Elegies! High modernist stuff about angels!

That’ll teach him not to take you for granted, I say. To show him that you could have lead an entirely different life had you chosen to. That would add an unexpected twist to your anniversary dinner, wouldn’t it? That would make him sit up and listen …

You know, if you met someone else, I’d be terribly jealous, Priya says. Which makes me think you should be more jealous of my husband than you are. Unbearably so. Tormentedly so.

I am jealous, I say.

Don’t feign, Priya says. I know when you’re lying. See, I’d like to matter. Like everyone wants to matter. I want to be someone for whom someone else would live or die.

Your husband, I say.

Maybe him, though probably not, Priya says. Okay – I want you to want me. Desperately. Seriously.

You said we were just going to burn ourselves out …,  I say.

But that could be fun, right? Priya says. That could be fiery.

I do want you, anyway, I say.

I want you to want me more, Priya says. Not to be able to go on without me.

You’re actually married, I say. Which makes you very greedy.

Well maybe I don’t want to be married to him, Priya says. Maybe I’d leave him for you. If it wasn’t for … your work. Your life or death work which comes between you and me.

See, you think you’re exceptional …, Priya says. That you’re better than the rest of us … to stay up here in your eerie and write your stuff … You and your philosophical muse.

Maybe you’re my muse, I say. My new muse.

Maybe you’ll have to court me – properly, Priya. You have to make some effort. Everything just comes to you. I just drive out here.

I’ll write you a love letter, I say. I’ll send it right to your door. Rilke wrote a lot of love letters, you know. He wandered round Europe writing to various women.

It’s easy to love people when they’re absent, right? Priya says. You can imagine me exactly as you like. A philosophical me. A profound me. Who could join you in revering these old books. Rainer Maria Rilke, or whoever …