Now God, Little or Nothing

On a sunlit veranda I played the lyre while Dampier took on Willie and Winnie with a fine Sicilian defence. The violent young calling had passed us by, although there is now a room down there built by bastard men in bastard suits, and my movements were degrading. They may not have existed at all. It would be a lie to say I felt time flowing, not quite a lie, a lie to say I cared, no, a lie to say this vile river we were cursed with had any effect on me whatsoever. The metaphors extant, it was sunny, also raining, and I played the lyre.

I should tell you about Dampier. He sort of ran things. When he smiled, which was rarely, yes, though he often said I amused him, but when he smiled I felt or thought I felt machinery creaking somewhere behind his features. I have sometimes, yes, sometimes felt there can be no true happiness without the gears to hold it in place and I attribute this view greatly to Dampier and his Beethoven brow.

I wish I could have stood at that point but I feared the risible little bugs on the carpet, almost as bad as open sores, wounds, sores, almost of the nature of being opened up by their teeth when they did their teeth things. Piceous, dreadful floor aside we were in a room, yes, a white room, and it was sunlit, also raining, but surely rainbows sparkled somewhere, and possibly those marvellous coloured streaks terminated in pots of aurous gold.

Winnie and Willie – alike in their shorts and their shirts and with Winnie also in a hat – took Dampier’s bishop and threw it on the floor. This panicked me and I trembled, fearing my turn would be next. My problem stemmed from the feeling that I had never really been born or even expelled from the womb.

“Dampier,” I said. “I feel unclothed.”

“God forbid,” he shuddered.

“Stand me up, but not on the carpet.”

“Impossible,” snorted Dampier, “one cannot stand on nothing.”

“Bull,” snorted I, “stupefied gagas like yourself stand on principles all the time.”

“Or stand our ground,” he said, thinking he was being very clever, but in fact Willie had just eaten one of his pawns. It is always the way; the general spouts and flutters while the army marches on the stomach.

“Ragtag bastard!” cried Dampier, noticing, and I could clearly see through the glacious fibre of Willie’s stomach that the little man was melting away at a pace somewhat frightening. What a stupid, yes, stupid and pointless thing for him to be doing. I would have despaired. I despaired. No, not despaired, I trembled, no not trembled, no, I had no handle on what to feel, no, no handle at all.

Astride of a difficult feeling, I fell from my chair. It was not sunny. It was not raining. Damn that other sky! I may not have been there at all.