Fucking in the afternoon. As a way to ward away the afternoon. As a way to use the afternoon. For ourselves. Not to, like, fear the dissipation. To fuck and then … lie here … sleep, maybe.
Openness. Drifting. And looking upwards, through your skylight at … the air. The light. The sky. The clouds … All these fucking things.
It’s a secret romance. A secret just between the two of us. That no one will know but us.
This. Us. The affirmation of us. That’s our secret. That only we could know. Only we could know how we are with one another.
This stuff. How we talk together. How we are together. Our … gestures, or whatever. The way we fuck, even. All this stuff …
The world isn’t as it was. It’s changed. The world’s cracked open.
Something’s revealed. A vista. An expanse. Another way of living. Of speaking. Of seeing.
It just chugs along. Does its own thing. It likes us to be together. It brings us together. It makes us … kiss. And fuck. And hang out.
It: who’s that? What’s that? Lust? Love? The coast?
Maybe it’s God. The God of romance. Cupid. Eros. I don’t know.
We want to be left alone, right. Left alone by the world. Unnoticed by the world.
We want to suspend the world. Deactivate the world – the logic of the world.
Suspending the law of the world: is that it?
What law? What world? What anything?
It’s about a world we’ve created together. A you-and-I world. Our own world. With our own rules. Our own way of being together. Our own way of being together. Of talking about stuff.
Just a little bit of excitement, that’s what I wanted. A bit of fun. Because there’s no fun in the world anymore.
I don’t believe you.
What do you think I was looking for?
Look, maybe I was just greedy. Maybe I was just bored, and ready and indolent and willing to throw everything away for some excitement. Pathetic, isn’t it?
All these books. These old books. They’re from a different time and about a different time, only you haven’t understood that yet. They’re outdated, just as you’re outdated. Do you think you can live like that – like those old-time thinkers, in old-time jobs, in old-style unis?
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 don’t know. Romance, maybe. This romance.
We’re having an affair just like everyone who’s ever had affairs. It’s been done. We’re completely average.
Let’s keep God between us. Let’s keep the between between us. Keep the light between us. Keep the air between us. Keep the coast between us.
Are all philosophers like you?
Are all organisational management-ers like you?
See, we meet in the middle. Where our disciplines intersect.
Laughter.
Wouldn’t you rather be with a philosopher? A thinker? Or is there only room for one thinker in our relationship?
You wanted an adventure.
Sure, an adventure. Because life without adventures is … boring.
You wanted to make things happen. To prove that you could. To relish your powers of attraction.
You’re a luxuriator. A cat, purring. This is an idyll in life for you. It’s a grove. It’s a vista. But it’ll pass. It’s a treat. It’s an indulgence. But your real life is elsewhere.
It’s like you’re playing with me. You can play at romance with me. Your real relationship is elsewhere. So all this is a … toying. A playing. Some idle distraction.
Oh, it’s a bit more than that.
Come on, it’s just Something to Do. It’s a Diversion. It’s a little escape.
You’re on the trail of my Seriousness. For you, I have to be Serious. That’s what it’s All About. Everyone has to have a Secret Seriousness … But maybe I don’t. Are you disappointed?
You want to be some European throwback. A throwback to some culture you weren’t even part of. What’s it got to do with you, anyway?
What’s anything got to do with anyone, these days?
All your youth and young manhood tethered to this. About this. Philosophy … Something you’d like to be good at, but are never really sure you’re good at.
What are you going to have to show for your life? The ruins of your magnum opus. And some bad imitation French prose poem philosophy. It’s not much, is it?
You’ll get bored of it, age forty or so. Get married. Reproduce. That’ll distract you for a few years. And all your European philosophy books will just stand there unread. If your living room. Then you’ll move them into your office. And there they’ll sit, completely inert, completely unread …
I’ve seen your future, philosopher. How long can the magnum opus dream sustain you, do you think? Until, like, middle age. Until you get fat, or whatever. Until your testosterone dies down. Until you lose your drive. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since it’s own driven you to … idiocies …
And what about you – what’ll happen in your middle age? When you lose your power to seduce. When no one wants to fuck you. You’d better have a family by then. Something to … keep you occupied.
Philosophers have been wrong about everything, haven’t they? What haven’t philosophers been wrong about?
Maybe I should leave him. Move in here. Don’t make that face. Do you think we’d get on? Do you think we could make a life together – me, you and your magnum opus?
Actually, I don’t know if I could live here. It’s a bit cramped. I couldn’t fit in my stuff. I’ve got a lot of stuff …
What’s your philosophy about, anyway? Explain it in a layperson’s terms. In a organisational management-ers terms.
Philosophy is bullshit anyway. But so is organisational management. So are all the subjects. Well, that’s how it seems to me today.
You seem very complicated, philosopher. I suppose I should want to work you out. I’m not sure I do, though. Maybe I need to become a little complicated so I can appreciate your complications.
You need to be distracted, philosopher. From your magnum opus, or whatever. Or your dreams of a magnum opus. Which you’ll never write.
So you write every day? Every – single – day? So you have that much to write?
I write anyway.
You must believe in yourself, in some fundamental way. To believe you have something worth saying. Someone in your life must have thought an awful lot of you. Your mother? I think it’s all about your mother.
You put a lot into this. Too much, maybe. Isn’t it a bit laboured? I mean, what are you trying to do? Who are you trying to be?
You should write something that’s closer to the way you speak. You don’t speak like this, do you? Just capture some of our tos and fros, for example. Everyday talk.
Do you take advice, philosopher? Do you like it? Do you welcome feedback? Are you receptive to the thoughts of lesser philosophical mortals?
Sharing our nothings. Our insignificances. None of this adds up anything. Frittering our lives away.
All this life to waste, to burn up. To offer up … to who? To what? Why – the great why.
Here we are, walking on the beach. Doing romance. Are we good at doing romance, do you think? At being a loved up couple? Does this suit us? Do we cheer up the people we walk by? Do we confirm their belief in love and romance?
This bedroom … where it happens. Where it doesn’t happen. Where everything is lost. And found again. And lost again.
God, hasn’t there always been enough of us? Too much of us? Aren’t we tired of who we are? Of all we have been? Isn’t this peak ‘us’?
Maybe I’m bored of our so-called love. Maybe I’m bored of being a lover.
Fuck what are you turning me into? 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 …
Is this what it’s like to be a philosopher? Never involved. Never real. Never physical.
You’re not even handsome.
You’re not even beautiful.
That’s not what you said the first night.
You should write me a love letter. Not high falutin’ literary-philosophical stuff. Something a humble organisational manager like me could understand.
All our chatter. All this chatting. Do you object to it? Do you think I talk too much? Maybe I should be mysterious and silent.
Lovers tease one another – you do know that, don’t you?
What a way to pass the afternoon!
Are you going to become a man of letters? Like in the old days? Do you want your name to be known?
I miss you even when I’m with you. You’re not really here, are you? You’re not … listening.
I don’t even loathe myself very interestingly, not like you philosophers. You’re very good at that. You’re virtuosos.
All this time and space and peace. I wouldn’t know what to do. It’ so still, philosopher. It’s so suspended. Nothing’s happening. But that’s, like, a positive state. Is this conducive to work? Have you got a lot done? I think I’d like to watch you work. But it’d be too boring.
What books have you read today? What are you reading? Something very, very hard.
God, what did I fall into? What am I doing with my life? Aren’t I doing the most stupid thing possible with my life?
If you met me at a dinner party, would you like me? Do you go to dinner parties?
Sometimes I have utter, complete contempt for … everyone alive. Including me. Most of all me.
Our farce. Our comedy. Is it a comedy? Is this a comedy? Who’s laughing? Where’s the laugh track?
I want to descend. Let’s go out. Let’s walk the streets. Let’s go to the beach. I don’t care who sees us. I don’t care anymore. About anything.
Who else talks like this? About life and death and everything? Is this how you talk in philosophy? Imagine, I could be a philosopher, too.
Nothing happens here except the clouds change. The clouds move. There are different kinds of clouds.
Not a cloud in the sky. The lids off. The day’s open.
I swear time’s slowing down. It’s supposed to go quickly when you’ve having fun.
Just falling through the afternoon. Falling to where, I don’t know.
Meanwhile, there’s your skylight. Meanwhile, there’s your non-view. Meanwhile … We’re wearing the day away. The day’s wearing us away.
I swear you can see through the world. I swear it’s getting thin in places.
What are we going to talk about now? What haven’t we talked about yet?
Fucking in the void. Can you fuck the void away, do you think? Can you fuck your way out of obscurity?
The day’s going on without us. 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?