Our refurbishment. Our new offices.

Who painted the walls, the doors purple? The void. Who laid purple carpets? The void. Who made our offices so strangely vast? The void. So the void could echo. So it would hear itself, echoing. Laughing to itself. Chasing its own tail.

 

Our new offices.

Purple-carpeted. Purple-doored. Dark purple and lighter purple and very dark purple. And so vast. You’d have thought space would be a premium in a city centre campus. But it’s what the void wants: space. Space for the void to come close to the void. Space for it to consummate the relationship with itself – the void. For the void to be lost in the void.

 

And thick paint. Thick purple. Dense purple.

 

Our new offices.

This is where we’ve washed up, on purple island. Is the void purple?

This is where fate has brought us. It’s a psy-ops, all this purple.

 

Our new offices, far away from the humanities buildings. Our new offices, hidden on the top floor, above chemical engineering.

We’re unnoticed, in many ways. Maybe we could survive the closure of the humanities … Maybe this is what’s behind the chemical engineering move: someone’s trying to rescue philosophy. Someone’s helping it avoid the inevitable fate of the humanities.

We’ll hide out here, in our new offices. Masquerade as some applied ethics department. As some chemical engineering adjunct. And we can get on with our real work. With our real teaching.

Negative philosophy, like negative theology.

 

Which is why philosophy is the truest subject: because it’s about the void.

Philosophy can bear that. Philosophy doesn’t mind being about nothing.

 

The void: that’s what’s moving us to chemical engineering. Nihilism itself is moving us. Nihilism’s alive. It does things. It plans. It’s like a God – an anti-god. The void is the source of all dastardly plans.

 

The void wants to destroy philosophy by having us teaching it. Us. And in chemical engineering. Us! In chemical engineering!

 

The void desires. It wants a bit of entertainment before everything becomes void. Before it absorbs all into itself.

And we’re the entertainment. We’re the game the void plays with itself.

Who are these people we work for? These idiots? It’s the uni laughing at itself. At what it’s had to become? At its defilement? At its degradation?

The uni’s a masochist. Hatred for itself. A twisted hatred for itself. Auto-hatred. Twisted around to observe itself. To see itself, in its degradation. With its death’s head grin. With its dance of death.

 

It’s a uni suicide. It’s an SOS. It’s uni self-harm. Self-parody as a way of saying to the world: look at what they’ve done to me. Look what they’ve reduced me to. It’s pathetic.

 

Years of dimunition. Years of fluoride added to the water. Years of chem trails. Years of aluminium in our food. You don’t produce our kind overnight. Years of preparation.

The opposite in Dune of producing the Kwisatz Haderach. An antimessiah … And so we stepped up, we three. We anti-messiahs.

 

We ought to feel grateful. Special. Chosen – by the void. (Laughter.) As if it was a personal favour bestowed upon us. By the void. In the gift of the void

We should thank the void. Say, okay void. What would like, void?

 

The void’s sucking it all in. Sucking us all in. Lecturers, students. The void’s assassinating us. Mass murder – of the soul. The willed failure of an entirely system. 

 

We know what the void wants, but we do the void’s bidding anyway. We can’t imagine anything else. We play along, knowing. We do the void’s bidding. Why not? The world's alread destroyed.

 

The void, swallowing us all. The void, that’s everywhere. In all of us. Looking out of our eyes. Looking at us in the eyes of others. Looking at us from the sky – the whole blind sky. Looking down, blindly, in the sky’s blindness.

 

The void wants to keep us in death – in a perpetual dying. The void wants to witness our degradation. Our humiliation.

 

The void wants the void. The void’s fascinated by the void in us. The void wants to see the void in the mirror. The void, disappearing into the void. Losing itself in itself. The void – absolute. Like Schelling’s absolute. The void! Only philosophers can understand the void! European philosophers! Who’ve read Schelling! Who understand how the void itself is lost in the void …

 

The void’s showing itself now. The void no longer keeps its own secret.

The void’s come to itself now. The void’s awoken to itself. It knows itself now. It’s aware of itself, as it wasn’t before. It’s opened its eyes to itself. It’s conscious, in its own way.

The void’s becoming absolute. Becoming all. Until there’s nothing but void.

 

The void knows itself – and it’s a terrible knowledge. The void’s coming to itself. The void’s awakening to itself – and its terrible. Because the void doesn't want to be the void. The void wants to be anything but the void.

 

The void – speaks. The void’s words. The void’s hollowing out of words. The void resounding through words. The void, voiding. That’s all it does. Hollowing out what it can.

 

The void, appearing only now – now. Revealing itself only now – why now? Why has it waited for so long?

 

The void, flowing through the void. That’s all we see. The void, flowing to itself, returning to itself. Coming back to itself. That’s all we see. The void coming to itself. Opening its eyes.

The void. What does it want? To come to itself. To return to itself. Through everything in the world. Through all that exists. Through the death-drive in everything. The void-drive. The movement of void to the void. 

 

All things want to return to whence they came. And things came from the void, and things are returning to the void. 

 

The void seeping back to the void. Calling everything back home, to itself. By way of the world. The whole world.

The world is just the returning of the void to the void. The way it returns. Everything we see around us: that returning. 

 

The void is all. Crying out. Screaming. The void is screaming. And laughing as it screams. Laughing at itself. Burdened with itself. Having to be. Having to go on.

Because this is the ultimate horror – the void cannot die. The void is nothing but itself. It can be nothing else. It goes on forever. Which means laughing at itself, forever. Which means knowing horror at itself, forever.

The chemical engineering move. Was it planned in advance? Were we recruited as part of some dastardly plant to discredit European philosophy? To make it look ridiculous. To destroy its reputation? To drag it down even further. Were we one of the many chess pieces that had to be moved into place?

 

Of course not. It was a whim of some manager, that’s all. It was a more or less random event.  They put no thought into hiring us – not really.

It was a movement in the void, of the void. It was the void hiring us, the void bringing us in. The void that was the centre of all plans. The void desiring. Laughing. The void moving all the pieces. 

Nihilism at work. The void at work, as it’s always at work.

 

We’re a product of mass Higher Education. Of diversity programmes.

We were ripe for the chemical engineering move. Perfect for chemical engineering move!

They were counting on us being flattered. We’d been lifted above our level, into a Russell Group uni. They knew we’d be grateful. Manpulable.

 

How often do three jobs in continental philosophy come up? At a Russell group uni. Never. Never ever. But they came up. And we applied. And we got the jobs.

 

There must have been some greater game here – obvious. And now we’d find out what was going on. Intriguing – to see how the plan pans out. To see what will happen. What we’re for. What our role is. What part we will play. What the void wants of us …

Each in our own way, orbiting the planet of despair. Each of us, reading our own philosophers. Making our own way through their oeuvres.

We write things – sure we write things. We publish things – that do not matter. That are accepted by journals. That are read by no one.

 

We came to our Conclusions early on. We knew. We were Certain. We’d already learnt the essential Lesson.

 

We were allowed to survive. We were passed over. Did they not see us? Not notice us? Were we too small to notice? Did they plan this?

 

Survivor’s guilt because we made it into academic jobs, why others didn’t. Others more worthy than we are. More deserving.

Who couldn’t get it together, like we could (could we really get it together?) Who couldn’t organise themselves to publish, to market themselves, to press the flesh at conferences. People with integrity, unlike us. People with standards. Of ethics – high ethics. Who were too good for this wretched world (we were never too good for this wretched world …)

 

Why us? Did we want it more? We’re we more desperate? Did we have the look of people who’d do anything – anything – to get a job? Who would put up with anything? Who were just saps?

They saw in us what we were looking for. Useful idiots. Desperate types. No morals. No standards. No integrity. They saw they could turn us into whatever they wanted.

 

There was a weakness in us. We couldn’t hide it. We had that look about us. Desperation. General patheticness. We’re yea-sayers. We’d agree to anything. We’d just go along with things. No fucking resistance.

Wanting only a safe harbour. Wanting only to keep our heads down for a few years. To shut the door and read and write and teach. Imagine it: teach! 

 

After all the whoring for work! After all the prostituting ourselves for work! We wanted simply – to work!

 

Was it by chance that we – we – got a job. Were we just lucky to find ourselves here? Was it merit? Was it philosophical ability? Did we think we simply hadn’t been found out? That we’d slipped through the net? Past the gatekeepers? That it was just some fake – some chance?

No – they saw, our employers – that we were perfectly suited to what was required. That we were exactly what they were looking for.

 

It wasn’t by chance. It wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t just luck. Their guard wasn’t just down for the moment. We hadn’t slipped past the guards. No – we’re here for a reason. They gave us – us – a job. We no ones. We randomers. We wanderers-in from the street …

 

They know we’d just get down to so-called work: doing what we’re supposed to. Working around the clock. Weekends. Pleased to be off the streets. To be anything vaguely academic.

Busying ourselves with their lie, and the perpetuation of their lie. Putting ourselves under their cosh. Whipping our own backs.

 

We were absurdly grateful. Absurdly flattered that we were to be ‘lecturers’. Flattered that we were to profess. To teach.

 

And the students. The ones that were put before us. That we were to teach – to lecture. (Laughter.) Expounding the thoughts of thinkers much greater than we were. To present their views. To assess them. To pass on the tradition.

To be representatives of the European tradition, in our way. (More laughter.) An honour! To carry it forward – continental philosophy, and in the UK. We’ll carry the European torch (still more laughter). As though it had been left to us …

Some last energy. Some sickness of despair.

It doesn’t just sink down. It has some … life to it. Grotesque life. Twisted life. There’s an energy to ruination.

 

A drama to despair. An ‘and more’ …

 

We demand the meaning of meaning. We shake the bars of this world – that’s what we do. Cry out. It makes prison no longer seem so bad.

 

We’re making a last stand for meaning. We’re demanding meaning from the world. We’re not just accepting our fate. We’re not taking this lying down.

 

Revalution: that’s what we crave. But a revelation of nothing, for nothing. A purposeless revelation. The great blank. That means nothing. Commands nothing.

 

We want to know what no one wants to know. We want to feel the full indifference of the world. Let there be NOTHING. Let us be NOTHING, too.

 

We’ll make our protest. Our lives as protest. We didn’t take all this lying down. We didn’t just go along with it all. We weren’t duped.

 

All our zest: despairing zest. All our vim: morose vim. All our exhilaration: depressed exhilaration. The manic spike of the manic depressive. Don’t forget: where there’s an up, there’s a down. Where there’s a further down, there’s a whirlpool of down.

News: they’re moving philosophy to chemical engineering.

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

Apparently.

Puzzlement: who’s behind it? Whose idea has this? The dean of the sciences? The dean of arts? The uni president himself?

I sense the hand of Antichrist.

You always think it’s the Antichrist.

That’s because it usually is the Antichrist.

So what do we do about it?

Nothing. Once the Antichrist’s involved, it’s a fait accompli. It’s like the apocalypse. You can’t do anything about it – it just comes.

Wow. Is there a rationale for the move? Have they explained themselves?

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

It makes no sense …

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

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

Is it only us they’re moving? Are they going to join up English and mech eng?

Only us.

That’s cruel … singling us out, because they know we’re weak … There’s only three of us, for fuck's sake.

They’re trying to trap us. To make us resign … To lower our morale … To decrease our recruitment. They know we can’t last …

Those bastards!

 

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.

Philosophy … chemical engineering. Someone’s done it as a joke. It’s a joke told to someone else. Someone’s laughing …

No one’s laughing. The horror is that they mean it.

What are the chemical engineering types like? What do they want from us? What’s in it for them?

Our student numbers, maybe. 

Our reputation.

Laughter.

Fuck … this is insane.

It’s all insane. The world’s insane.

Cicero, lying on the floor of dread. So what’s our plan?

There are no plans. Only surrender.

Bloodless life. Pulseless life. Suffocating horror and pain.

All bearing’s lost. All things dark.

Drained of feeling. Thought morbid, confused. Stuperous.

Restless nights. Cold undercurrents. No window of hope.

Confusion. Disorientation. Agitation in despair.

 

Revulsion – towards everything.

 

Exhaustion. Cold brained.

 

No resistance to the disgust. No longer stirring up the disgust.

 

Four walls constantly closing in.

 

We’ve outlived the end of the world, that’s the thing.

 

The world’s outlived us, that’s the thing.

 

Is it time to kill ourselves yet?

 

It’s always too late to kill ourselves. We’ve been alive too long.

 

Everything is empty, everything is past. All our wells are dried up, even the sea has receded. The earth wants to break open, but the depths will not devour us! Alas, where is there still a sea in which one could drown …

Ah, good ol’ self-loathing.

But it isn’t really self-loathing. It’s the loathing of everything, me included.

Especially you?

And you – I hate you, too.

Well, I hate you, too.

 

A simple life, that’s what I’d like. Simplicity.

But we’re too complicated to be simple. Too … twisted.

Brain damage, that’s the answer.

Brain undamage,  you mean. Maybe some … trepanning.

 

Is there a good reason not to drink? Is there a good reason not to start drinking now? Is there a good reason not to drink ourselves to death?

 

This is a way to muffle the mind. To stop the thoughts. To turn them into void thoughts. Into thoughts the void would think.

Oh, not the void. Don’t talk about the void. He always talks about the void when he drinks.

Because drinking is the path to the fucking void.

 

Drinking. That’s when you come closest to the void. When you stop struggling. Stop thrashing about. Stop resisting. And you can let the void carry you away.

Is that what you want?

 

I want to drink myself into the void. I want to think the void’s drunken thoughts. I want to speak fluent void.

 

We’ve gone very far up this road.

Too far?

See we can only hang out with people exactly like us. Which would be a problem if we didn’t have each other.

We bring it out in each other.

We recognise it in each other. We’re fellow nihilists. Fellow hollowed out. Fellow knowers of the void. Fellow void lovers.

Is that what we are: void lovers?

 

The void: that’s what we’re drinking towards. That’s where we’re heading. At full fucking speed.

 

Accelerating into NOWHERE.

I like nowhere. I want to be nowhere.

 

This is like anti-meditation. When you let the void think in you. What’s it thinking about?

Itself. It’s just … pulsing.

Does it ever say anything?

What should it say?

Pulsing. That’s what it does. It just pulses. Like a giant heart.

An anti-heart.

 

No more words. I just want some oblivion. I want to shut down the dome. I want to close things down. I don’t want to THINK anymore.

 

Want to slip off into a coma. Into the blackness. Just go somewhere better. 

 

To welcome death. To know death as a relief. The ease of dying – would you know that – in your last nanoseconds.

The idlest of idle chatter. Thought out of gear, engine idling. Just rumination. Chewing the philosophical cud.

Making the pointlessness worse, by talking about it. Making the pointless even more pointless by making it explicit.

Our philosophical prattle, to add to all the other prattle. To prattle about prattle, doubling up all the other prattle. Our meta-prattle.

 

Words, words. When’s any of us going to act? When are we actually going to do something?

 

Just the usual nothingness talk. The usual pointlessness talk. Just sharing the horror that anything is at all, that we exist at all, that we can talk at all.

 

This isn’t even philosophy. It’s not rigorous. We’re not constructive arguments. We’re not debating, or trying to reach the truth.

 

Lost thoughts. Thoughts undeveloped, that don’t do anything. Just a general sighing.

 

Idle philosophy. Philosophy at rest. Barely even philosophy. At the threshold of philosophy. We never get any further, do we?

 

Is this a protest? A lamentation? A complaint? A keening?