scree

(i)

It’s a Saturday. The newspaper is claiming, quite obnoxiously, that it’s a Thursday. But it’s a Saturday nonetheless. One of those short, vulgar, student Saturdays on which your body barely receives an airing. A few meager hours of diseased awake time crammed between two stretches of restless sleep. Head screaming, body groaning, I sit in silence; thin and fallow. Every night out demands that the next day be sacrificed in its honour.

I’ve been trying to write, but I’ve not had much success. A single paragraph, and quite probably one that I’ll delete in shameful anger when I come back to re-read it later on. A few hours are all that is really necessary to descend from prodigy to wretch. In one’s one mind, at least. For now, though, it’s not the success that matters, merely the performance. If she could see me now, as Struggling Writer, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself falling in love with me again. For I play the part very well indeed. Every thoughtful, wandering facial expression, every indecision over the correct adjective, is for her. The secret thrill gained from the knowledge that I’ve sat here for maybe ninety minutes and produced only a hundred words. “Oh, how hard writing is”. If it weren’t for the mediocrity of the work on this screen, I’m quite sure that I’d be completely indistinguishable from Kafka.  “My trouble is, I’m a linguistic perfectionist”, I can hear myself saying.

(I should try to write only on paper, there’s a great deal more pathos in it.)

It occurs to me that I am a bastard, but that’s nothing new.

Yes, take out the flagellum. That always offers some comfort. Another type of performance, of course. I’m often told that I am very self-aware. Upon hearing such an attribution, I tend to allow myself a wry smile and to reflect, in an affected manner that would make Chekov cringe, that I am ‘an honest man’.  The truth is that I only dabble in self-analysis: I’m a dilettante. I play at holding my hand up to the flame, but I always withdraw it before the burning becomes too much to bear. I am no more a penitent than I am a writer.

For it’s true that I don’t give a damn about literature, and that I’ve no interest in writing. Not a priori, anyway…

The only thing that I really desire is to be wept for. My abilities should be recognized, but never employed. The masses would sense it in me instinctively -- the burgeoning, precocious talents destined to one day encapsulate the fears, prejudices and dreams of my generation. Feigning timidity, I’d think up some excuse to shrink from the task. I would be too tired, or else I’d have other things to be getting on with. As they plead to me with begging eyes, I would appeal to their sense of sympathy. ‘My friends, what am I to do? This heedless, addling world has poisoned the fruits of my imagination and salted the earth’. At first, they would suspect me of false modesty and repeat their entreaties with a heightened intensity. I would be perfectly unmoved by their appeals and, eventually, would withdraw myself entirely. Ridden of this toxic superfluity and free from obligation, I would spend the rest of my years dormant yet content. Each night before retiring to bed, I would gaze out from atop my ivory tower, down at the body of my remaining disciples, subjects to a king who had denied his bloodline. Their tears would nurture me sufficiently, I would drink and bathe in them. That would be enough. To be recognized as a genius is serene, to actually write is a fatal mistake. Any idea expressed with fixity has no value. A manuscript can’t be buried deep enough to spare it from those aspirant mediocrities and their scornful eyes: dwarves clambering all over my broad shoulders. Coronation begets succession; they are one and the same.

My telephone bleeps. Shocked out of thought, I begin to feel the extent of my body and am sickened. That will be from her, and it will begin the end of this whole thing. It is already over. I can already see her doleful eyes and sense her mind reaching for the least hurtful expressions. A stunning groundswell of emotion that will leave us both mired in treacly embarrassment. She wants to see me, for the sake of her own conscience, and there’s going to be quite a scene. Not shouting and screaming; far worse than that. A passionless retraction of past actions. My pathetic hopes will smash against her revulsion, like chestnuts swung by two children. And neither will be quite destroyed.

From role to role. It’s been quite a busy day. No longer a writer, I am now the Jilted Lover. I’m miscast slightly, that must be admitted. I don’t even believe in love, and have no desire to talk with her in those terms. Still, any actor who appreciates his craft must venture outside of his usual milieu from time to time. Besides, I’m still exhausted, and lack the requisite energy to confound her expectations. It’s not such a bad part. Perched on the end of a bed, delivering a poignant soliloquy on the topic of crushed fantasies and spurned affections to a gallery with a single occupant. What a riot. There might even be tears.

All this knowing cynicism is making me grin. I notice it in the mirror. Do I believe in any of this in my very core? Or am I merely being excluded from a playground game and then declaring coquettishly that I never really wanted to join in? Forget it, what’s the difference? There is no ‘core’, nothing beyond this froth and foam, bubbling to the surface and then fizzling away. A wry grin, a tear-stained wail, there’s nothing to choose between them. I’ll accept this assignment gladly, and give her a performance to remember me by.

I regard myself one last time, staring straight into those white orbs that conceal so much rotting wood. ‘Windows to the mind…’, that’s both impressive and satisfies my secularism. Well, I’m ready. Or, at least, I nearly am. I should at least change my shirt.

(ii)

She greets me with the sigh of someone who has just missed a bus. I am, to her, a mild inconvenience needing to be dispatched of, as neatly and as painlessly as possible. Though there will indeed be at least a small measure of pain. Having stumbled into the trap, she has now to set about this business of gnawing off her paw.

As for myself, I feel only steeped in superfluity. The flight of her desire is supremely tangible: when I look into her pretty eyes or become aware of the jutting extremities of my own too-large, pouting lips. Any hope I may have preserved is drained away further, though it is not entirely expended. That stuff never is, drops of it cling together and stick to the bottom of the glass. And it’s powerful stuff; a few atoms are all that is needed. How terrifying. I am glad only for the fact that I know my place before I even set eyes upon her. Being spared those crude, physical misunderstandings is one blessing I am quick to count.

Her room is as it was on the only other occasion I entered it. Messy, for one thing. Moreso than my own room, in any case. This is how a student’s room should be; clothes, shoes, books, newspapers all strewn across every available surface. Yes, this is how one should live. My unbelonging is brought into sharp focus again. It is, of course, a thing mostly of my own making. Usually reminders of it fill me with a contrarian sense of achievement. On this occasion I feel only inferiority.

Lying on her bed is a book that she has been reading for the past fortnight or so. ‘It has outlasted me’, I think, though the notion has little impact. It’s for the sake of something amusing to think, to improve the anecdote when recounted at some later juncture. Besides, there’s no real shame in that state of affairs. Culture is usually a great deal more comforting than the human beings who produce it.

(iii)

I open the door, and step out into a bright summer’s day. It’s mid afternoon, and the path is dotted with clusters of people walking together in groups. The lake is frozen still and looks almost pleasant. A beautiful expanse of watery fowl excrement in the middle of human civilization. I grin and feel a kinship with this little body of water. I gaze across at it as I walk, and it appreciates my circumstances, for we are both stagnant. It with the filth left by its inhabitants, and I with muddy pools of regret. If only I could live this week again. If I could have let that first domino alone, the whole set would spring back into place. Better to dispense with a dream before there’s any hint that it might be realized…

She had held me; and asked to kiss me. Dumbly, I had acquiesced. It would been just as easy to take a sharp half-step backwards in feigned surprise. To take away my hands and avert my gaze with a contrived embarrassment. She would have been the one consumed by shame. Another little performance would have been the only thing necessary on my part. My lips would have to be pursed tight to conceal delight with a perfect victory: crushing, final and morally spotless.  Rejection is far better than sex. It’s both easier and cleaner, and the time immediately afterwards remains your own. But these facts I always forget when they matter most.

All these conjured images weave together to form a pathetic reverie, scripted and directed by myself and to be performed countless times in the coming days...  at the very least. It could run for years, to rave reviews. And, surely, it will serve to take the edge off, though it can’t quite alter the stubborn fact of my defeat. For that is what I am experiencing, and that is all that I regret. For the rest of my days, she will be my superior, my conqueror, my liege lord. She pretends to be sorrowful, but she is, at this moment, resplendent in victory. As for me, my tail is tucked tightly between my legs, and I am beating a shameful retreat. I strain to keep the memories of my tributes, my prostrations, my timid pleas at an arm’s length. They cannot be avoided forever though, and I will soon have to gird myself. What a fiasco. To torture oneself with mistakes is understandable; to do so with one’s perfectly reasonable decisions is exhausting, and surely a sign of sickness.

The other temptation is to think ‘if only I could have had her’. That would at least provide me with some leverage, something over her. Yet one can’t even be certain of that. The penis is a very unreliable instrument for the provision of pleasure; much worse than the brain. Who really gains any satisfaction from those clumsy, comic entanglements at any rate? Blinded by the fug of libido, we allow them to pass for expressions of affection. If the mist was lifted unexpectedly and we caught sight of ourselves in the middle of those ridiculous gyrations, we would throw on our clothes and declare ourselves chaste. Desire gushes out with the fluid, it contracts us and returns us to normality, in which the touching of two bodies is cause only for disgust. Post-coital reality is a brick wall that we can never prevent ourselves from charging into, head down and at full speed. A man who has just been relieved is a murderer: thrown into a panic at the sight of a stranger’s body motionless and ensconced in his bed sheets. How did it come to be there? And, more pressingly, how can it most easily be removed? It’s enough to send one running for the arid, ignorant comfort of the monastery. Sex as an expression of power, I can understand. Anything more than that should be kept for television.

I long to confront these primal desires, to sweep them away with bellowing, mocking laughter, to tear at them with my bare fingers and leave them in tatters. I could do it right here, observed by strange eyes on the path to the library. Unbuckle my belt, drop my jeans and briefs to my knees and let it hang there in its limp state. People would stare and point. Shout maybe. They’d take me for one of those straggly perverts who expose themselves to young girls in the cover of the woods. Ignoring them, I would produce the scalpel. It would only take a moment. Gritted teeth and closed eyes, one vicious swipe like a credit card through a cash register. The puddle of red gunk forming around my feet would be the signifier of my freedom. The light glinting off the blade, my knees juddering with the bolt of pain, the revulsion on the faces of the bystanders… what a spectacle for them, and no entrance fee. ..

Footsteps to my left whisk away all of these images. I’m walking too slowly, people have started to overtake me. The fantasy passes, and I no longer quite believe it. It’s a cheap defense mechanism, and one I’m well acquainted with. Tonight, I will masturbate, and then grimly set about mopping up my own effluence with a tissue. The room will reek with it, and my body will ache. A little purge, but what’s the use? Since there’s plenty more where that came from.

(iv)

Solitude. Here in the darkness and the sickly warmth of a bed sheet. My eyes are a kind of glue, there is a film over them. Not that I’ve been crying, you understand. I have done nothing, neither slept nor eaten. This bed makes me itch, my skin is alive with it. Shuddering.

It seems that none of them will try to comprehend me. It’s useless. Certainly, they have formed their neat, fixed concepts of my ‘character’ or ‘personality’. That’s quite beyond my control. From other minds in other bedrooms, long tentacles stretch out and wrap themselves around my consciousness. They grasp and mould, they’re greedy. I am a chattel slave to a body of adjectives. My permission is neither granted nor required. Besides, if they truly knew me, they would understand that I am nothing. I am not any (particular) thing.

Not that I’m any different, or any more innocent. More than that; it is not a question of innocence. We are each of us a sleepwalking hunter, never cognizant of the traps we lay for the others. If only we could wake to find one of these upside-down dangling bodies, swaying in pathetic jaunt. We’d cease to think of ourselves as fine fellows. It would be a catastrophe. For one thing, it would be the end of love. That is to say, the birth of freedom. Yes, we’re none of us blameless. Not even she.

Yes, it seems clear that one man is very much like another. The question is whether escape is even possible. Extreme caution is required. If I were to so much as prick my finger, they’d get the taste and I’d be done for. Consumed by that pack of busy fish. Loneliness is not such a terrible thing. It’s a logical continuation of this series of horrid misunderstandings. Dare I equate solitude with freedom? Away from that stealthy, slick grasp of other minds and other consciousnesses. Yes, a pyrrhic freedom, but a freedom nonetheless.

This comes from neither arrogance nor self-love. Not anymore, at least. No, I’ve grown quite bored with myself over these past few years. That’s quite clear. No matter. There are a great many people mired in unhappy marriages. As will I be. Except that I will spare myself the indignity of being gazed upon each morning by a pair of loveless eyes. Of caressing skin that strains with revulsion. How can anyone stand to tie up his existence with that of another? It’s terrifying… not to mention disgusting. 

Besides, a solitary existence is very attractive for a cowardly man. All I’m doing is theorizing -- from my gut upwards. I expect nor demand nothing from myself. So long as my failures remain private, they need barely be considered failures at all. No lovers, no friends, no context. Retaining what remains of my self-respect will be no great hardship. I have very little shame, and so much the better. Talk of honour and dignity has never moved me. What I ‘must do’; what I ‘cannot ignore’; that from which I ‘cannot hide’… their entreaties, addressed to themselves -- I am but a prism. To place oneself into confinement is an honest transaction.

What’s more; I don’t like myself. Of course, neither do I hate myself. I decline to pass judgment. I will see out the rest of my days without entertaining any sort of assessment at all. Yes, it all seems quite natural and obvious now. With myself I have, at least, built up a sort of familiarity…

Often I neglect even to feel the gentle breeze of time’s passing as it caresses my flesh. My body is a sort of hollow ache. My consciousness a persistent buzzing. My mind a leaky tap, a constant trickle.

Constant… yes.

At times I can hardly bare it; this relentless stream that refuses to yield to me; a disobedient child; a train run off its tracks; mother there’s talking in my head, strange alien voices and how they howl; it can’t go on, can’t go on, something will happen to make it snap and break off; a silence will descend upon…

Nothing. Nothing has happened, and nor will it ever. In a few hours, that seductive, brief relief of sleep will wash me away. It solves nothing but, oh, how I long for that squalid respite. In the morning, I shall be dumped back onto the shore again to begin the whole process anew. As the sun rises, my fingers will regain their potency and begin to flex once more. I shall raise them to my face, and force them to scrape the crust away from my eyelids. All at once, in unison, my body will stand itself upright and quiver softly. I will begin walking, barely realizing that I am awake.

(Not yet…)

Perhaps I’m mad. Or if not, I soon might be. My thoughts are too dense, too unbroken, there’s something the matter with me. Other people distract themselves with little effort, I’m sure of it. There really is a possibility that all of this activity in my mind has dried me out. Left me a wreck. No… that’s far too simple a solution. Madness is only to be deployed as a last resort. Besides, I barely believe in it. Solipsists meet with each other in restaurants and send back bottles of wine if they‘re corked.

How I long to sleep. I crave it. It strikes me that my hands are to be feared. Sometimes, without me noticing and of their own accord, they clench into angry little fists. A shocking premonition: one day these fists will properly steel themselves and set their sights on their master. Blow after blow will rain down onto my temple. Justice done.  Yes, that would be quite something. An uprising, a bodily mutiny against the Captain. And why not? He’s older than his years, and frail. In no fit condition to command. Yes. That would certainly give me what I long for…

Oh, what rot I’m talking. What absolute nonsense. It’s enough to make me ashamed, and fall into a hush forever more. It’s all just because my stomach aches and I‘m so exhausted.  I can’t get comfortable, that’s all. Can never seem to get comfortable.