Work in Progress

A perfect despair – that’s what led to it, Io says. With everything. With my whole life. With the whole fucking universe. And I … asked for help. I said, Jesus, if you’re there, give me a sign.

You really said that? Sophia asks.

And there he was, Io says. Right by my side.

Who, Jesus? Furio says.

Who else, fuckwit? Driss says.

Yes, Jesus, Io says.

And was this a punk Jesus? Furio says.

Don’t take the piss, Sophia says.

It was Jesus, Io says. I knew. Standing right beside me. Unmistakeable. And I didn’t deserve it. It didn’t have to happen. But it did happen.

I wish it would happen to me, Furio says. I’ve got fucking faith-envy.

And has it actually changed your life? Driss asks. Are you actually a changed person?

Immeasurably, Io says. Totally.

God, what were you like before? Furio asks. Even more vicious?

I don’t get it – where does the punk thing come from? Sophia asks.

I told you – it’s a grassroots movement, Io says. It’s something new. Like, a punk thing. We’re not all seventy-five. We’re not embarrassed to believe stuff. We don’t want to be patronized. We don’t want Jesus, like, made relevant.

Is there a special, like, punk theology? Furio asks. Angelology? With Johhny Thunders and Ari Up out of Slits.

Were they Christian? Driss asks.

They were punks, I say.

So why are you always so angry? Furio asks.

I’m angry that the world is generally the opposite of Jesus Christ, Io says.

It’s not Jesus-y enough for you, Furio says.

And I never take the Lord’s name in vain, Io says. Not like you guys.

And are you a proper apocalyptic believer? Furio asks. Do you believe in the apocalypse and the Second Coming and all that?

Sure I do, Io says.

Do you think these are the end times? I ask.

Who knows? Io says. They could be.

So when you hear bells ringing, what do you feel? Furio asks. That they’re ringing for you? I love hearing church bells. That’s what I’d like to hear on this campus: church bells.

There aren’t any churches, I say.

St Mary’s is close, Sophia says. And the church in Summerhill.

I want to hear church bells, Furio says. Like that guy in Satantango.

Eternal life: I know what that means now, Io says. There’s something higher and better than all this.

Yes, I say.

And God looks over everything, and knows each hair on our heads and all that is true, Io says.

Like, good surveillance, Fiver says.

Which is why they’re targeting the God gene, Driss says. Right here on this campus.

Maybe that’s my problem: I’m missing the God gene, Furio says. Doesn’t that suck? Have you got the God gene, Io?

Furio, you’re too much of an enthusiast, Driss says. Jesus doesn’t like enthusiasts.

Is that true, Io? Furio asks.

You’ve got to be a bit indifferent, Driss says. Like Io. You’ve got to be a bit punk. A bit cool. God likes a challenge. You’re making it too easy for him.

There are some things you can’t mock, I say. That are off-limits. Cicero honoured that.

What did Cicero think of your punk Christianity? Sophia asks.

She liked I, Io says. She liked my ferocity.

Did you ever feel any demonic attacks? Furio asks.

Furio actually wants demonic attacks, Driss says.

Like, when the ground falls out from beneath you, Furio says. And you can see into the void. Or when the ceiling opens up, and there’s just blackness. And demons flying in towards you. Fuck.

This whole campus is a demonic attack, I say.

I’ve never had any demonic attacks, Io says.

And have you seen any angels? Furio asks.

Like, fallen angels? Driss asks. Organisational managers are fallen angels.

Organisational managers are Nephilim, I say.

No just ordinary angels, Furio says.

I haven’t seen any angels, either, Io says.

Faith Zone.

An anti-temple. Consecrated to nothing.

 

Is God so absent that he’s present?

It’s not some apophantic thing.

 

Faith Zone.

This is their making room for thousands of years of religion.

They think they can just thrown us a sop. That they can give us this and that we would be happy.

 

As if our spiritual needs were needs like any other.

This is a matter of eternal life – and what do they give us?

 

The Faith Zone. This … tawdriness is their greatest insult. And their greatest weakness. They underestimate us, right? They underestimate the power of the living God.

 

Faith Zone. This is their greatest mockery. Their greatest sin.

This is their imitation of the Temple of God. This is their fucking version of the True fucking Church.

 

They think they can just throw us a sop. That they can give us this and that we’d be happy.

 

This tawdriness. The greatest insult. And their greatest weakness. They underestimate us, right? They underestimate the power of the living God.

 

The worst hubris. That they think they know what we need. How we should live. These bastards. They think they can just take over the spiritual world. They think that the world is theirs – and so are we. They think the world was given to them.

 

Faith Zone: they don’t know what they opened, when they opened the void. They didn’t know that it wasn’t theirs – that it couldn’t be organised or managed.

What the void shows: perfect nihilism. Total disenchantment. The completed fall of the world.

 

Faith Zone: this is where Organisational Management reveals itself as what it is. It’s all here, no longer hidden.

 

Faith Zone.

This is the void heart. This is the true nihilism.

The heart of the new corporatism. The heart of Organisational Management functionalism.

 

Faith Zone. Faithlessness one. The heart of their darkness.

This is what they pray for – without actually praying.

 

Faith Zone. Death of God Zone – is that it?

The dying of God, more like. The endless dying.

 

It’s the Deep. The Sea. It’s Noah’s flood, all over again.

Bubbling. Boiling. Festering, in some way. Throbbing …

Is it sentient?

*Doesn’t this campus know? Doesn’t it understand? Doesn’t it understand its own hubris? That’s part of its hubris. That it’s already damned, and utterly so. Doesn’t it understand what’s going to happen? Doesn’t it fear the wrath of God? The judgement of God? Does it think it can play innocent?

*Something terrible’s going to happen here, I know it. Something vast. Something Good – but cosmically so. Vastly so.

The fury of God. The justice of God. It is real and it is coming.

*Don’t they understand, the organisational managers? The dimensions of their sin? The vauntingness of their hubris? Don’t they see?

*It doesn’t reek of evil – just patheticness. Just pitifulness.

And how can you help but feel sorry for them? For what they’ve done. For what they’ll have to face.

This whole campus is nothing. It’s lost. It’s pushed God away. It’s let the realm of God – voluntarily. It’s renounced God. In every brick. In every stone. It’s gone away.

It can only be destroyed – don’t you see? As an abomination. As absolute sin.

 

Look at the sky. Look at their lights. It’s like an in-drawn breath. A suspension. It’s waiting now. Or Justice. Or the End. We’ve entered the end of the end times.

 

The whole world’s exposed. This campus. It’s the exposure of the world. it’s all the world’s hubris. It’s Defiance.

The sentence is passed. It’s been Noticed. God’s eye is upon it. If it doesn’t repent. If there aren’t, like, pockets of righteousness.

 

The Fall, deepening. A new twist in the Fall. A new Degradation. Is

it crying out? Does it want help?

The campus likes silence. It wants to burrow itself in snow. Like it’s keeping a secret.

It’s shy. It wants to be hidden.

It doesn’t want to be seen by God. It’s ashamed. It wants to cover itself up. Because it’s incomplete.

 

The campus hasn’t realised its demonic powers, not yet. It hasn’t awoken – hasn’t come to itself yet. It’s not got its full confidence. It hasn’t risen to its feet. And when it does …

When it does, what?

It’ll be able to outface it, God.

 

This is where we’ve come to live our smart lives. Until out smart deaths. This is where we’ll do our smart philosophy.

 

Our lightning will rip through nihilism’s sky. Our lightning will tear a hole in nihilism’s sky. Alien fire, from an alien God.

It feels like the last right of the world.

It’s like waiting for the storm to break. For a Decision from on high. The universe has had enough of existing, right? And so have we.

Do you think it’s going to be that easy? Do you think we’re going to be able to die? Do you think it all just gets to end? This is the time of endless dying.

The Northern Lights, in the clear sky.

Reflected in all the windows. In the metal cladding.

A storm of light. A flashing of light. A shouting of light.

Screaming for nothing. Meaning nothing. Flaunting – itself. Brazen. Blazing.

What message is it sending? What does nothingness want to say?

Is it full of horror at itself? Is it ashamed of itself? In its brazen non-shame? Is it self-horror, flashing? Because that would at least be something.

 

Flashing horror. Flashing blind.

Nothing, nothing, nothing in the skies.

My flat.

In bed.

I’m glad you phoned. I’m glad you came round. Distracted me.

You don’t look glad.

I was working …

And I interrupted. Like the man from Porlock …

It was a cool interruption.

It was good, wasn’t it? And now here I am in your most private sanctuary. Your thought-refuge. Now I can see where it all happens …

You’re taking the piss.

Priya, picking up a notebook. The front cover: I want to confess as honestly as I can, but my heart is empty. And the emptiness is a mirror turned toward my own face. I see myself in it, and it fills me with loathing and horror.

You must think what you’re doing is really worthwhile. That must be your motivation.

I just wanted to find things to do alone in a room. Other than masturbate.

Don’t try and be funny. Don’t try to pass it off as something else …

Priya, reading from my notebooks. Judgment Day becomes Judgment Night, when the angels descend and graves open. It will be terrible to see.

I don’t know what to do except write. Read and write. Even if I’m not very good at either. I think it’s because my life is essentially empty.

Or perhaps you want it empty – so you can do this. Whatever this is ….

I like staying in. I’m doing this because I don’t like it out there. Because I don’t like … what everyone else likes. Life, or whatever.

So this is a consolation.

You’re a consolation.

Do you mind me being here? Am I a distraction? Am I getting in the way of your work? Ha – I quite like getting in the way of your work.

I was thinking about you when I was working.

You do.

Sure.

Did you fantasise?

Sure, I fantasised.

Were you thinking of what you’d like to do to me?

I wanted to fuck you.

And so you did. Because I was thinking about being fucked by you. I was thinking about that all day.

Priya, reading from my notebooks. l can't live in this world.
Yes, you can, but you must have something to hold on to.

Do you take advice, philosopher? Do you like it? Do you welcome feedback? Are you receptive to the thoughts of lesser philosophical mortals?

Do I have any choice?

You put a lot into this. Too much, maybe. Isn’t it a bit laboured? You should write something that’s closer to the way you speak. You don’t speak like this, do you?

And there’s so much of it. So you write every day? Every – single – day? Do you have that much to write?

I write anyway.

You must really believe in yourself. You take yourself seriously. Someone, at some time, must have told you that you were great. That great things were expected of you. God, you have such confidence. Like the world wants to know your thoughts …

I wrote it for myself.

You wrote it for posterity. These aren’t just notes. You actually think your thoughts are worth preserving … I’m lucky to be here. To be admitted into the study of a genius …

Reading … Are you stroking my cheek? Are you whispering in my ear? Are you with me now?

Face it, I’m just an interrupter. A regular villainess. You’re so profound, so melancholic, so romantic … And I’m just shallow, selfish and full of basic needs.

And you, meanwhile, are holding out for someone who’ll find you perfectly fascinating. Be in awe of you and think you’re a real genius. Someone who doesn’t just want you for your body, like I do. But for your – mind. For what’s in your head.

She’d be quite in awe of you. She wouldn’t disturb you when the Muse visited. When you needed to be alone to think. She’d be fascinated by your literariness. By your philosophical-ness – is that a word? Of course, she’d have to be very young. Terribly young. Dreamy … Ready to be in awe of her really cool boyfriend … Are there girls like that anymore? I don’t think there are, unfortunately for you …

Reading: God's silence. God's silence? God's silence.

You’re gambling everything on being a genius, philosopher. But what if you’re not one?

I’m definitely not.

I’m definitely not a genius.

Which is very sad when what you want – what you need – is to be taken very, very seriously. For there to be, like, documentaries about you. Special editions of journals on your work. Conferences to be held in your honour.

But you know I think all that stuff is bullshit!

I can see it now, your vanity – which would pose as anti-vanity, of course. In a refusal to appear on camera. In keeping your head bowed at all times, like one of those monks who never looks up to the ceiling of his cell. You’d play all humble. Refuse all the accolades … Shake your head at the encomiums … But all the while secretly enjoying the attention …

Reading.

l enter a large room. lt's bright and peaceful. People are moving back and forth. Some of them talk to me and l understand them. lt's so nice, and l feel safe. ln some of their faces there's a shining light. Everyone is waiting for him to come, but no one is anxious. They say that l can be there when it happens. Sometimes l have this intense yearning. l long for that moment…  when the door will open … and all the faces will turn to him.

You want to be some European throwback. A throwback to some culture you weren’t even part of. Philosophy’s something you’d like to be good at, but are never really sure you’re good at.

And what are you going to have to show for your life? Your notebooks … Records of years spent in a room like this …

What’s your study like? Do you have, like, a home office?

We actually have his and her studies. Not quite side by side.

How bourgeois. Mr and Mrs academic … And what do you get up to in your study?

We don’t fuck there, if that’s what you mean. We used to. Once upon a time. Long, long ago. Work for a bit. Call the other in for a fuck. Nice, actually. But a long time ago. But actually, in my study, I devote myself to … learning German.

Is that right?

I’m rather good at it, actually. I’m going to become fluent. I’ll bet you think German’s wasted on me … All the Germanic things I could be reading … I’ll bet you don’t even speak German.

I read it.

But you don’t speak it, and that’s the difference …

You know what: I like you up here. I like you being here. This is where the real drama of your life is. You and your magnum opus, or whatever. Wrestling with its very possibility. Or impossibility. That’s your drama. That’s what’s keeping you alive.

And I like it in you, your determination. I even admire it. I like your intellect. There, I’ve said it. But I do. I like your dedication. I like the fact that you really want to do something. Even if I also like the idea of distracting you from doing anything.

I like your ambition, philosopher. I like your modesty. Because you are modest. I find comical. And charming. And admirable. I like that there might be Important Thoughts in that dome of yours. Which I, no doubt, will never understand.

And you know what else I like? Taking you in hand, philosopher. Touching you. Like this. I like the fact that I can make you think of nothing else but fucking. It turns me on. And I like to be turned on …

You have an optimistic and trusting nose, Priya says.

How can you tell? I ask. What have noses got to do with anything?

You can see everything in the nose, Priya says. And the chin. And in the shape of the eyes. And you have such kind fingers, though your thumb looks rather stubborn.

Is this how lovers talk? I ask.

I really wouldn’t recall, Priya says.

What about with Alan? I ask.

That was years ago, Priya says. I’m not sure I want to remember.

Was there a honeymoon period? I ask.

There’s always a honeymoon period, Priya says. Then there was a humdrum period. Then there was a blue period – a fifteen-years-together-and-what-for? period.

And what period are you in now? I ask.

The illicit period, Priya says.

You’re what they would call an attractive couple, I say.

Oh I’m sure we are, Priya says. But I really don’t want to think about it.

You must be comfortably off, I say. Your joint salary …

We’re the bourgeois you no doubt despise, philosopher, Priya says. Upon whom you’re getting your revenge right now … You’re sticking it to the Man, right? Or rather, the Man’s wife.

It’s not that.

What was it like the first time you did it? Share your memories, philosopher.

I’m not saying a thing.

Really? Not a thing? It would help me feel close to you. And you want me to feel close to you, don’t you? Didn’t it go well? Didn’t you perform? Is that the trouble?

Not saying. No fucking way.

I lost it at uni. To some poor fool. Some fumbler. I felt I was dissociating. I felt I was miles away and that it was being done to me. Very common experience. It wasn’t a trauma, or anything. It didn’t fuck me up. And what about you, philosopher? What was your formative sexual experience?

I told you. I’m keeping stumm.

You’re essentially a masturbator: I can see that. It’s been all about the masturbation. How many relationships have you actually had? I want numbers. How many lovers have you had? One-night-stands? Aren’t you going to tell me?

One-night-stands are nihilism.

I’ll bet you think relationships are nihilism. Well, aren’t they? They probably get in the way of your work. Come on, philosopher. You’re a man like anyone else. You have needs, like anyone else.

I’ll bet you’d see prostitutes, if you could afford them. I’ll bet you’d go for the girlfriend experience if you could pay for it on an academic salary. Well, wouldn’t you? Someone to be nice to you. To say all kinds of nice things. Everything on your terms. Exactly when you wanted it. When you needed a break from all your work.

Would you pay for me, philosopher? Wouldn’t that make it simpler? Make it all a transaction? What would you pay for? What would you like done to you? What services could I render? What do you want? I just want to find out what you want. Don’t you like me being sexual?

You’re like a cat, purring. You’re totally at ease with being at ease. You luxuriate in luxuriance. You’re enjoying your enjoyment. Savouring it. Luxuriating in it. Like a cat.

I like my body when it’s with your body – that’s the thing. I like your body. I like what it does. I like how it does it.

Look, I’m trying to work out how to be with you – don’t you see? I want to know who I am for you. What I mean to you – if I mean anything.

You mean something.

So terse … Is this what it’s like to be a philosopher? Never involved. Never real. But your body’s real …

You’re not really here, are you? You’re not … listening.

I’m listening.

I’d like to know your entire sexual history, philosopher. When it began, who with, and what happened after. Were you ever with a man? It might suit you, being with a man. Would you prefer it? Ever tempted? I’ve been with a woman.

Of course you have. On your bucket list, was it: losing your gay virginity?

So sardonic. Maybe it shouldn’t be just the two of us. It’s very intense, isn’t it – just the two of us. Always the two of us. No one to bounce off. No one to set us off in new directions. No one to talk about. No other couples, or anything. It’s very … self-devouring …

You think we need a third person?

Do you?  We could invite another woman along to pep things up. Or a man. Maybe we should be a thruple. It’s an option, right?

All this talking …

You’d just like to get back down to it, would you? Is that how you think it works? You’d like a silent, enigmatic mistress, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to be solemn. You’d like me to be serious. You’d like me to say sparingly enigmatic things and to know my place as a muse. Face it: you want some arthouse romance.

Do you ever feel everything you say is in quotes, philosopher? Like it’s been said before? By someone else, maybe. Or by us in another life … Do you ever feel that all this happened before, and we’re just living it again? That all this is part of the whole of life flashing before your eyes as you die?

Who am I, when I talk like this? It’s like someone’s speaking in my place. It’s like someone’s taking my place. Like … I’ve swapped places with the air. Like the air’s speaking. Like the light is speaking. Like the day’s speaking.

It’s like I’m at the brink of something. Like I’ve been lifted up to some … threshold. And I can say all these things. And I’m not who I was anymore. And I’m not even drunk. Or high. Or anything.

And I don’t feel confused, I feel lucid. But I don’t understand what I’m saying. Lucid – full of light. Only it’s not my light. It’s got nothing to do with me.

As though I’ve been hypnotised. Mesmerised. And that I’m saying things that are true. Very true. Truer than I am. Realer than I am.

Do I sound pretentious? I’ll bet I do. Desperately pretentious … Insufferably pretentious … But that’s the sort of thing you like …

Do you ever think it’s all been said before – that everything’s been said before? That we can’t say a single new thing? All the words have already been prepared … All our scripts have been written. All the things lovers have said. And we only get to quote …

Do you worry that we’ll never get to the point? That we’ll never talk about what really concerns us – what’s really important? Do you ever think that everything we say just gets in the way? That all the stuff we’re saying echoes with something much more important? That what’s important is the echoing. What echoes through what we say?

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.

No, everything’s even more the same …

Listen to me. I used to be an organisational manager. What am I now: a philosopher?

Maybe.

We’re so meta. Talking about his stuff. Instead of just … romancing. Fucking, or whatever.

Talking’s part of it.

I’m not even modest. I don’t think writing something called The Work is very modest, is it? Giving it that title. Anyway, the idea was to kill myself at the end of it. When it’s done. When The Work is done. When everything is, like corrected, like in that Bernhard book.

Which is total bad faith, because I know it can never be done. You can’t just correct the fault when you are the fault and writing The Work only compounds the fault.

 

The Work appals me. Every sentence is appalling. And then I have to write more sentences to correct those. And more sentences still.

 

The Work! It’s even got a stupid, pompous name. Calling anything The anything.

I couldn’t think of anything better. Like, sub-sub Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard without the gorgeous music and spiralling sentences.

 

The Work, I called it. 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?

It was supposed to be some absolute statement. 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.

It was supposed to say everything through a kind of inversion. By saying the opposite. I don’t know …

And did you ever finish it?

I’m still trying to write it now.

So you can kill yourself after? How melodramatic.

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

 

The Work's a very, very late work of philosophical literature. Long after the literary boat has sailed. And sunk.

 

Sounds like it’s part of some forgotten literary avant-garde. That played out in another country a long time ago.

Woah – Robert Pinget in the house! Make some noise for Nathalie Sarraute! Don’t tell me you actually read that stuff? Butor and co. And actually enjoy it?

I like the idea of it.

They only read those things in France. And only because they have to. Because they’re made to. To pass their exams, or whatever. Made to do their avant garde duties. Made to eat their avant garde greens. Like some literary nationalism thing. And then they have to go back to watching Canal+, or whatever.

No one else reads them. Not even in translation. The French ministry of culture funds all the translations, but no one ever buys them. There are entire warehouses full of unsold Helene Cixous translations.

You just want to join the long line of crap British imitators of French literary stuff.

Just like you’re part of the long line of pathetic imitation German philosophers.

That’s our fate, right? Total irrelevance. Irrelevance times irrelevance. Irrelevance to fucking infinity.