On the Source of Wisdom

The perspicacious reader will recall that I was speaking of the appalling lack of wisdom displayed by myself, my housemate Galya, and the cat. I think we can all agree it was a scene far from ideal, and I’m quite sure none of us (with the possible exception of Galya, whose arrogance exceeds mortal comprehension, and the cat, whose brain is too small to comprehend mortality) knew how to defuse the situation without losing a considerable amount of self-respect. Fortunately, at that moment, Percy burst into the room, rubbing his hands together and shouting with a kind of inexplicable heartiness. I was thankful for his intrusion, because he immediately began an argument with Galya. I suspect that one of the lessons to be learned here is that one of the best remedies for a poverty of wisdom is witnessing an even greater poverty of wisdom.

I took a sip of Earl Grey and – in a fashion which was both surprising and incidentally pleasing – listened to the tirade of rising voices with something akin to benign tranquility. Feeling quite certain that it was time to regard infinity, I left the room with cup in hand, and stepped outside into the backyard. The ruckus within had faded to a dull roar, and my mind, I dare say, expanded to fill the universe, transversing ley lines and gently deflecting cosmic rays and so forth as it did so. Clearly I was on the verge of a revelation. Eager to maximise the mentally stimulating properties of sweet dawn’s serenity, I ducked under the dripping grapevines and ventured around the side of our crumbling home. The street was empty: it was time to undertake one of those wonderfully courageous missions which revelations are inclined to demand. I pulled on Percy’s green gumboots and wandered further afield.

Several streets away lay a private garden which was throat-chokingly impressive in both scale and beauty. It easily encompassed half of a sprawling riverside block, alternately hidden behind an ominous and looming greystone wall, or else a monstrous and tightly compacted hedge. The existence of the garden had inadvertently been drawn to my attention one evening when, having mustered the courage to venture out after convincing Percy to accompany me, I had shied in eyeball-rolling fear at the sheer solidity of the greystone. It was, in a word, There, and terrifyingly so. For mine, I was perfectly prepared to treat the wall as an unbreachable impasse: it was manifestly designed to keep people out, and looked as if it was damned good at its job. Doubtless the blood of braver men than I had been splashed across the morbid stack of stones. O the vagaries of humankind: it was the very tangibility of the blood-soaked greystone which instilled within Percy a determination to get inside. There must (his addled brain probably reasoned) be something worth seeing beyond, or the wall would not be trying to stop him. Over the course of a week, Percy and I traversed the boundary of the garden: he searching for a way to climb over the fence or under the hedge; I nervously tagging along behind, bleating at him to cease his foolishness and come home. Several modes of entry presented themselves; to my relief none of them were accessible to our humble selves. Then, one gentle evening, Percy stumbled across a forgotten labourer’s entrance while attempting to thrash his way through a privet hedge.

The garden seemed to have few inhabitants. The occasional sparrow, of course, and Percy claimed to have once seen a rabbit, though I believe this was a concoction of his latently rustic mind. There was, however, a human presence: a gentleman frequented the place, though he was an elusive character at best. Percy had encountered him before I, and commented that he was quite genial, if rather vague and naïve. I had run into him several times hence, and held a general impression not dissimilar to Percy’s. He seemed to work irregular hours, and was wont to materialise from behind a hedge or squat unnoticed at a potted tree, almost a part of the landscape until he startled the unwitting by moving. He made courteous enquiries about myself, but seemed to hold the outside world in a polite contempt. In an outrageously creative fit of imagination, Percy had dubbed him ‘the Gardener’, though during a later encounter the gentleman informed me that he was known as ‘Old Man Salvia’.

On this particular day, I ventured through the labourer’s entrance with the distinct intention of tracking down Old Man Salvia, who had a frustrating habit of being found only when he wished to. Fortune, however, was with me, and not far behind were startling results. As I delicately high-stepped through the quagmire that was the forgotten labourer’s entrance, I was nonplussed to note a pair of legs jutting upright out of a shack window, gumbooted like my own, and wildly waving around, like two sparring cobras waiting for the chance to sink a fang or twelve into the other’s neck. I cautiously approached them, unprepared to commit myself to any role but that of the rather scared observer. There was a cacophony filtering past the legs, a noise which seemed to emanate from somewhere directly below the window. I could only presume that the figure in question had leaned over the sill and begun struggling with an object of some size and weight. Curiousity passed, amusement waned, and fear subsided, so I cleared my throat. The legs stiffened a little, then, with several frantic jerks, the unorthodox gentleman extracted himself from the window frame. It was indeed Old Man Salvia, looking unusually flushed and agitated.

‘Hello,’ I said mildly, trying to put him at his ease, a feat which must have met with some small success, because he visibly relaxed upon recognising my face.
I took a sip of Earl Grey, but it had grown nauseatingly tepid.

‘Ah,’ said Old Man Salvia as I unceremoniously emptied the cup onto a nearby hedge. ‘Yes. How are you?’

He cleared his throat twice, and I am ashamed to admit I reveled in his discomfort.

‘Quite well. You don’t need any help?’ I asked, nodding in the direction of the window.

‘No,’ he declared. ‘No, thank you. I’ll manage here. Actually, it’s probably about time for a break. Fancy a refill?’

I gratefully nodded and he quickly led the way to a cast-iron gate, the entry to a portion of the garden I had yet to explore. Beyond this gate, a rolling hill swept down towards the river, grass sparkling with morning condensation. The graded field was speckled with orange trees, sparse at the top, but thickening towards the bottom, until, at the river’s edge, they formed a veritable grove. Old Man Salvia picked his way between the trees to a long wooden table. Here he came to a halt, seating himself without decorum on a bench. I took the other without invitation. Old Man Salvia reached behind himself to the ground and brought up a small yellow rucksack, from which he fished out a battered floral thermos and a plastic cup. Having retrieved my tea cup from my hand without word, filled both vessels with a steaming brew. The scent of bergamot filled the air, and my soul leapt in ecstasy. We drank our Earl Grey in silence.

‘What’s on your mind?’ he asked.

‘Wisdom,’ I replied. He gave this some thought.

Finally, he said: ‘The State Library. That’s where you’ll want to be heading. All sorts of wisdom there.’

I could only nod in confirmation.

On My Friendship Circle

The reason I mentioned all of that sentimental rot about friendship is because I am about to explain about my friendship circle. It is a source of particularly acute embarrassment, hence I ask the considerate reader to be appropriately indulgent.

The compassionate reader will clearly understand that I needed a hefty injection of friendship. I believe I’ve heard various inane platitudes about friendship being the meaning of life and whatnot, and at that time I was prepared to grab ahold of any driftwood floating my way. I figured that seven or eight inane platitudes could be strapped together and perform admirable service as the raft, as it were (speaking in a fashion both metaphoric and, may I say, touchingly poetic), upon which I would float to salvation.

Well. The very first inane platitude that one should detach from the blasted raft of salvation and cast back into the sea with a spit and a curse is: ‘Any port in a storm’. Fucking, I say thee, fucking Percy. Let’s be clear: I was in a bad way. Being a sensitive soul, my rude disruption of a millipede menage-a-trois had induced within me a melancholia of the most profound breed. Then I thought of Percy.

I should, of course, spare a word to explain the phenomenon that is Percival, and being an obliging if not always engaging raconteur, am happy to offer several. Percy, as he seemed to be called, had many years of experience in the field of commercial failure. Perhaps the best that could be said of his credentials is that he had stumbled through one dismal enterprise after the next with admirable consistency. I had first encountered him several years ago on the docks, where he was attempting to make his fortune very quickly and with the least possible effort. The immediate acquisition of wealth was incorporated into all of Percy’s ventures, and it was this impatient hunger which always predicated his failure.

One could justifiably question why I would associate with such a parasite. The answer is simple: Percy was a sincerely likable fellow. His naivety brought forth a benevolent pity which was extremely gratifying, and his witless charm induced an easy affection. Most importantly, the absurd zest with which he embraced his immediate surroundings inspired others around him to forget their own questionable existence. Percy was interested neither in contemplation nor reflection; he wanted to interact with the Now, and was concerned only with his own impending future. It was Percy’s selfishness that inadvertently caused him to become my knight in shining armour: his predatory instinct required resources to exploit. As he had done on several previous occasions, Percy contacted me at a mysteriously propitious time, offered a brief and very sincere apology for not repaying the money I had invested with him two years ago, and inquired as to my interest in joining another venture. I accepted there and then. Far better, I figured, to invest a pittance on a poor wager than to fritter it away on the exigencies of day-to-day living.

Like all pathetically baseless optimists, Percy was overjoyed by my acceptance. There is, I suppose, nothing like a fellow traveller to make one feel better about one’s manifestly obvious insanity. What is it about fellow travellers? Take a person who passes his time jabbing himself with pins to ensure he still understands the concept of ‘pain’ and chuck him in a deep pit: he’ll be miserable and broken. Give him a pitmate who is, at the very least, prepared to refrain from condemning his behaviour, and the pinjabber will be mucking his pants in self-content. What is it about the human spirit which demands some vague reassurance that one need not solely rely upon oneself to get by? Are we so bereft of capability? How fearsome, how destructive the might of doubt! How powerful – and desolate – and impossible, to be sure – the character who can dismiss self-doubt, and do it on a whim, no less. Much as I wanted to blast through my own mortal coil, I succumbed instead to the demands of this fucking organic shell I inhabit: Percy was better than no one.

He had also managed to convince another old friend of his to embark upon his scheme. I did not inquire too deeply into her history: Percy had many acquaintances, and knew very little about any of them – but it was, I felt quite sure, safe to assume she was severely deranged. According to Percy’s laconic account, said friend had foolishly spurned her wealthy benefactors in order to become a self-made woman. Percy advised me that her attempts to put her ‘stupid, dreamland ideas’ into practice had ‘only landed her in trouble’. Of course, I did not question the nature of this trouble: as the well-bred reader will doubtless agree, such enquiries are unnecessarily nosey, and let us not disregard how easily a friendship can be lubricated through sheer ignorance. Galya was her name, and during our first meeting, I found her to be quite amiable, if a little forceful and easily frustrated. She and Percy spent most of the meeting arguing ferociously over insignificant details or engaging in petulant disputes that one appeared to initiate solely to antagonise the other. Nonetheless, it was evident that they appreciated one another’s enthusiasm, and revelled in taking issue with someone over anything. Shortly afterwards, I asked Percy if he did not think Galya’s failure to live up to her own expectations was affecting her mental stability. Percy assured me she was indeed far less capable than she proclaimed, and should be regarded with the greatest suspicion. I thanked him for his timely candour: by that stage I had handed over my meagre savings, and it was too late to withdraw.

Decoction

Michael Popek: An Incomplete Biography

Along with Alf Treloar and perhaps some others, Michael ‘Mick’ Popek was one of the most renowned livestock and land owners in Maldon.

Mick Popek was born somewhere in the Netherlands, probably in the twentieth century. I doubt very much he was born in the nineteenth century, but I can’t say for sure. What is certain is that he must have emigrated to Australia and settled in Maldon a long time ago. The laneway beside which he built his house came off Newstead Road and quite aptly came to be called ‘Popek’s Road’. Although Popek’s Road was asphalt for several hundred metres, it soon became an unsealed track which led down to Sandy Creek, and eventually emerged back out on Newstead Road just before Welshman’s Reef. Precisely when the laneway was officially named ‘Popek’s Road’ is unknown to me. I do know that another road coming off it, which was called Rowes Road (and which I lived beside for some sixteen years), was named after the town butcher.

Mick Popek owned quite a lot of land and livestock around the southern parts of Maldon. I was most familiar with his back paddock which in effect was my back paddock too. Our back fence was also Popek’s back fence, and, as it happened, it was also the official boundary between the township of Maldon and the forest of Muckleford. It bordered a large paddock, some three or four acres, containing a blackberry-ridden gully, a leech-infested dam, several dozen sheep, and a large faerie tree, dubbed ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ by the local kids. Brown snakes were known to inhabit the paddock and the top of the hill, and from time to time a grumpy and half-blind ram would impotently rage about the upper reaches.

Mick Popek had two sisters, although as I have never seen official verification of their familial status, it’s possible that they were not his sisters at all. They were certainly his lovers. They were old, and left the impression of having slightly humped backs, and of wearing cardigans. From time to time, they would sit on Popek’s unprepossessing front porch. Occasionally a black cat sat with them; it could have been living, or it could been painted terracotta.

Popek’s English was poor, and he was prone to misunderstanding people. Fortunately, his livelihood did not depend on good communication skills. He mistakenly referred to my own father as ‘John’ for his entire life, although perhaps he was having a quiet joke at my father’s expense. Popek was known to drive his white hi-lux along the roads lining his properties at a very slow speed. Once we came across one another on Rowes Road. He crawled to a gradual halt as we drew level.

‘Hey, you’re John’s son, right?’ he asked.

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘How old are you now?’ he asked.

‘Twenty one.’

Popek looked surprised.

‘Twenty one, eh? Bloody hell. Well, all the best to you, my boy.’

And we continued on our respective ways.

Mick Popek died some years ago. The debauched ménage a trios came to an end, and the paddock containing the Magic Faraway Tree was divided into lots and sold.

another try

It’s so rare I get to show up a smart guy who’s my friend too, that I jumped at the opportunity from heaven when buddy said he didn’t get out and vote in the election last week.
‘So what’s all this about being so smart then?’ I said to his face.
‘Yeah, damn it,’ he said, ‘I was really aching to get out and get my word in, but geez if the last couple of days haven’t been hazardous enough.’
So I asked him to tell me the deal.
The whole affair hinged on a couple of complete unforeseeables that, added up, fell down into place like sheer stupid luck, unconnected, but by the power of mathematics, wearisome.
‘Happy New Year!’ he said, ‘this is my story.’
First he was sitting around one day, reading a book, probably, and out of the blue the phone rang.
‘Just a fluke of nature,’ he said, ‘and not foreseeable in the least. My mother’s only friend went down with a case of coming undone at the seams and they took her away to the hospital. Poor lady has a twelve year old daughter, and though my ma offered and asked to take care of the girl, the services came and took her away. But she also has a cat and nowhere to put it into, so I took it on, as mother has the fear of animals and viruses. So I got the cat, and you know, the thing is just adorable, but I must admit I know nothing of how to care for animals, the sphere of my knowledges being limited to politics, and I felt obliged to keep it entertained like any old guest. So after they brought it by, I was spending my time rolling around with it on the floor; I went to the store and bought a ball of yarn, and I’ve been rolling around throwing the ball of yarn at it, and basically we’ve been having a grand old time. Despite the wounds on my face and arms, we have bonded famously and I call him little cat face, and it’s great. Eventually I had to go to work and do my thing there though, and poor cat face, as any guest could be expected to, got bored. So when I got home I found he had eaten everything made of material, and scratched the walls up to boot, and I had a long night stitching up my business suits and making the place liveable again.’
‘That’s all interesting and good,’ I said in impatience, ‘but I don’t see how it kept you away from the polling booths.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘seeing as your culture is one inclined to impatience and punch lines I can forgive you, but if you just let me go, I’ll lead you on to the end.’
‘Ok,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘A couple of days later another thing happened that was just a complete fluke too, and not an everyday occurrence. While I was snoring in my bed for the night, dreaming of all the slurpees my modest wages bring me after the loan payments have gone through, I found myself awoken by the telephone with another urgent bad call from my mother. This time a robber had cracked in and broken the window by her backdoor, and made haste with her purse. She had no documents and didn’t know how she would recover her peace of mind, or convince other people she was who she said. I managed to calm her down enough to make out her words and promised to stop by and help her talk to the police. I did just that, and said “thank you” to the officer, and was about to leave when my mother asked me to give her the cat for company and to feel protected.
‘“The usual collocation is guard dog, mother,” I said, ‘but if it will help with the tears, I guess you can have him.”
‘So shattered as I was at losing my new companion who understood me so well, I took the cat over to my mother’s and said farewell.
‘I have to admit I was feeling a little down, but I still had all my destroyed furniture to look at and remember him by, and there’s no use getting down every day.
‘Then the coup de grace struck me right off. You know I’m really in love with the modern world, I’m not a student any more, and I see no point in protesting against the new technologies; I love spaceships and TVs and online banking, but I couldn’t get into my account. So I ran in to the bank and asked them what the problem was and they told me they had sealed my account on account of my suspicious activities.
‘“And what’s so suspicious about loving the modern world?!” I said.
‘“Well,” they said, “it’s the way you gave all your money to a stranger by email.”


“Mama Mia!” I cried, and when they managed to calm me a bit down, they promised to find who had taken it, maybe, and explained that it was common practice to shut people out of business when such suspicious transactions happen and take place.
‘“But if you had really been itching to close me down, why couldn’t you have done it before they took all the 944 dollars I’d managed to save by pinching pennies together and rubbing dimes? Or let me live my life in peace with the money stashed under my bed, instead of insisting with your buddies in the government that in exchange for my hours of backbreaking, the companies I sell my soul to have to deposit my worthless life directly into my account? Why can’t I just be paid in potatoes immediately at the end of the day? Or do I have to move to some corrupt third world country like Russia or Australia where people still rely on the barter system?”
‘But unfortunately there aren’t answers to everything, and though the sum may be laughable on big banking streets, it’s gonna take me 14 years to get that much saved again from working all day long at the library, and by night at the bakery.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘as they say – super! But I’m damned if I can see the connections or how the election is to blame.’
‘Yeah, damn it, what connections are there in life? And nobody here is blaming anyone, except maybe the laws of probability. It’s nothing. It’s only something because last year the lady at the bank with the black hair - you know I love the dark hair - said a document concerning my student loan had been lost and she had promptly given my case over to the agency for deadbeat dads and other working class scum. And that’s fine, hold on, I’m not going on and on about it, though I might feel entitled to – they never even said, “Mister, hey buddy, we’re terribly sorry,” and I’m by nature inclined to the politeness of the British. No, that’s not the point, and I’m not getting my legs all bent out of shape by it. There’s no use in pointing fingers all day long. I just want to complain once and a while too, you know, like any other normal person who hasn’t yet found out that life wasn’t meant for pleasure. I think it’s all incredibly ironic that it happened on the very day we are to pick the ruling class – which is full of all the people who refuse to accept that death and disease exist to keep the population down at a normal size, and that hurricanes only exist to destroy all these stupid beachside condos we exchanged our natural habit for.’
‘Hold on,’ I said, ‘you’re starting to let fluency and beauty of speech get right in front of logic and sound argument. Death and disease is all very good, but what is our natural habit then, eh?’
‘Caves, buddy, caves. We sleep at night because it’s dangerous to wander out from the cave. We sleep around the fire because if the wolf tries to pull your baby away, you throw flaming brands at it. And now that we don’t live in caves and only rarely battle wolves we suffer from insomnia and stay up all night watching soft core porn, our eyes barely registering what we see, but our minds not missing a single frame. And so when we get old we need Viagra because our brain has a different idea of beauty, and it’s always at an angle we can’t reach anymore. The doctors can say what they want about inflamed prostate glands – we all know it’s an inflamed sense of false eroticism. In this sense the continental Europeans have always been superior to us. If it weren’t for the fact that their cities are thousands of years old, and the fact that the plague could suddenly pop up out of the ancient sewer systems, I would move there without even saying goodbye to my urologist. As it is we are trapped, and if it isn’t a lie about the reasons for sexual dysfunction, it’s civic duty. There are so many traps out there you can’t take a step without becoming a victim of your own stride.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked, unable to resist the feeling of being a little lost at sea.
‘What any normal person would do.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘I don’t know. Forget about the whole thing for a while. Get drunk. Work lots of overtime. Who cares?’
‘That’s ridiculous and I feel like I’ve been robbed of my reason and sanity. How can you justify talking about nothing but yourself and lying? I feel strange and violated.’
‘Listen buddy,’ he said, ‘just get a girlfriend and you’ll come to adore the feeling.’
‘But you’re not my girlfriend and what you’re saying has left the bounds of reason. You can’t falsely advertise what you are going to say and then not say it. I’m sure I could take some sort of legal action against you and your family. Not to mention the difficulty you would have justifying your reasoning in front of a judge if I told him the rotten and perverted things you said about girlfriends.’
‘Our culture is indeed one that crossed and left behind the bounds of understanding many years ago in the past, but I would hardly say I have left you any reason to be dissatisfied with my answers. On the contrary, I ought to be lauded and told wonderful things, and I wish you would stop reminding me about girls.’
By this point both of us were quite beside ourselves and livid by the direction the conversation had taken, which was quite understandable, to be perfectly honest. I should have known better than to try and show buddy up. Nothing begun with its motives in pride can come to anything good, and what were my motives if not my pride, based in my desire to show myself to be superior and better than buddy.
So I got up and walked out, and left buddy alone. And he did the same.

Any birdbox you can happysnap...

Нелидиво. Сентябрь 2005.

Russian village houses in August

Yoda is a Dead-Set Legend

Yoda, you Jedi you,
You mind-tricker,
You Sith-licker,
You dead-set legend.
But a quiet and peaceful death
Is not the Jedi way.
Yoda, you're not really dead...
Are you?

Four hundred and fifty five words on friendship

It is necessary, at this moment, to pause in our reflections on wisdom that I might drop a charmed word or four hundred and fifty five on the topic of friendship.

When in need, there are few greater resources than a gaggle of willing friends. It’s ever so handy to have at one’s disposal a select group of moderately incompetent well-wishers to ease the rocky roads we are all forced to tread from time to needlessly trying time. I suppose that the satisfaction derived from being a Daemon Lord lies not only in the pursuit of carnality, but also in the knowledge that one has a bevy of hyena-men pootling about, jaws aslaver at the prospect of giving you a damned good hand with the dishes.

I recently discovered that I had no friends. Being such manifestly wonderful creations, one could be forgiven for thinking that making friends would be to humans what nest-building is to birds: a task you’d rather some other bastard would undertake for you, so you can simply receive the finished product with little babies waiting to hatch and an irresistable urge to chunder in each others’ mouths, but by dammit something that can well be done with one’s own hands – or wings, as the case may be – and with considerable aplomb, should the need arise. Well, I certainly hope I need not mention that such is not the case. Readers who, having cast an appraising eye over the preceding sentiments, casually evoked somesuch thought: ‘What is the man whinging about? Making friends is like wanking: fast, easy, and satisfying,’ may avert thine eyes now. We are not all Gods walking upon this Earth, able to win true and lifelong friends willy-nilly by sheer force of our numinous nimbi, rampant libidos, and lightning crackling from fingers. It’s damned hard work – especially those of us who, obliged to fulfill certain domestic responsibilities (Earl Grey does not make itself, after all), are unable to venture forth with a cheery smile plastered across the old mug, hugging this prole and that in an orgy of soulmatery. Friends are supposed to be the kind of people who wriggle their disgusting way out of the woodwork at just the right time. Well, do you think any came wriggling my way? It was quite, I can assure you, the opposite: I planted myself on the ground and waited for friends to flock around, frothing with enthusiasm, yet found myself watching three millipedes trundle away in that enragingly pointless fashion of theirs from under the leaves I had disturbed. Millipedes, for God’s sake: even a smelly little blighter with thirty-thousand excess legs and a tendency to coil up like a poo had more friends than I.

THE SUFFOLKCOUNTYPARKPOLICETEAM

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ANOTHER WONDERFUL STORIES OF OUR OWN

deuxieme vue

Parfois, souvent, cycliquement, sans reflechir, mecaniquement, la ville inconnue leve sa tete de beton dans la nuit electrique, se laisse caresser son entre-jambe asphaltee, ouvre grand ses bras a la decadence.

Mekanika.

On sent les colliers en Argent foueter le visage, amazonne en treillis, petits seins replets, levres corallines, ongles de pieds rouge vif, tromperie.

Sonic Youth.

J'y serai. In. Vodka-Red-Bull. Performance. V-J. Xs et tremblotte, regard maitrise sur la foule, emotion palpable, tenant la main imaginaire de Marina, la brise de l'air conditionne, le plafond, la fumee des pipes. Une roquette me transperce le cerveau de fond en comble.

Ce soir, je meurs.

Reflections on Wisdom: 3

I was recently unsettled by a particularly onerous task. In a frustrated fit of strop, I decided then and there that what I needed was a good dose of wisdom. Wisdom – and only wisdom – could tell me whether I should undertake said task or run away, screaming wildly. Wisdom – and only wisdom – could advise how best to complete said task or else how best to find a loathsome hidey hole deep enough to evade capture forever and ever.

So I flung the cupboards open and rattled the drawers in a great show of exasperation, for when one has succumbed to strop, one must exorcise the daemons with immediate action. Of course, no elixir of wisdom was to be found, and I decided to blame the cat, who happened to be minding his own business on the kitchen floor. Having stomped around and issued a brief and unsatisfying rant, I pointed my finger at the wary feline and, enraged at his impertinent refusal to scamper from the might of my wrath, aimed a kick at the blighter.

Now, of course, is the moment to assure the horrified reader that I am not a cruel man but a considerate and gentle one. I have no truck with violence spawned of anger, especially when directed toward animals, children, and disgusting cripples. Said kick, admittedly aimed in the cat’s direction, was not actually intended to launch a bundle of powdered bone and catmeat through the wall and into the street – merely to invoke within him the Fear of Me.

However, at that moment, my housemate descended the stairway, and, seeing me winding a rampant toe back to nape, assumed the worst.

All three of us had been undone by a poverty of wisdom!

Reflections on Wisdom: 2

Herein lies the fundamental problem with Wisdom: it is cloaked in the decidedly ragged garb of Advice. Yes, ragged, I say – Advice which has enormous holes, which is held together by a few loose threads, which is easily torn apart under the slightest pressure. It is only after one has donned the filthy rag and wandered around Hades for a spell, fending off men-slugs and three-headed dogs with a flute, that one can determine whether it is indeed mere Advice or actually and in fact mighty Wisdom. Every self-respecting wiseman will be only too pleased to sit at your kitchen table drinking Earl Grey, eating boiled eggs, and praising the virtues of Wisdom. But what of the man who, donning his ragged cloak and descending to the Netherworld, hopes against hope it will prove to be Wisdom, yet discovers, as beastmen rend him to bloody gore and shards of bone, that the blasted thing is, after all, just Advice – and Bad Advice at that? It would be a wise move indeed to place tags on the backs of these cloaks, reading either ‘100% authentic Wisdom’ or ‘Produced from the Best Quality Advice’.

God of Ugly Things

Wetapunga, you fetid wretch,
Where are you now?
Piki Mahuta is dead and the North Island,
The North Island grows lonely.
Yesterday's carapaces and volcanic waters
Have been lost among a seething carpet
Of rats and plastic and tetra-paks.
Wetapunga, you terrible grasshopper,
What will happen to us?
Living death beneath the snow,
And hissing isn’t enough anymore.
Besieged and ancient: Wetapunga,
Your time draws near.
What will happen to we ugly things
When you are gone?

Reflections on Wisdom: 1

Wisdom is one of those tricky blasted concepts which shits a man to tears through force of its perfection. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you sneak up on the beggar with a garotte or drive a bulldozer at it – it always wins, simply by virtue of being wise. If I could come back to this Earth (or better yet, another, vastly improved Earth) as a trait incarnate, I would choose Wisdom. Of course, I’d probably become so peeved with my own smug sagacity that I’d end up biffing my own teeth out, but then, being Wisdom Incarnate, I’d probably be wise enough either not to be so damned wise all the time, or else I’d understand that biffing my own teeth out would serve a very useful purpose. The thought occurs that I may indeed already be Wisdom Incarnate, looking upon these barren lands with eyes that have known all, dispensing good advice as if it were mere opinion. If it comes to that, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Wisdom Incarnate is wise enough to understand that He can never understand that He is Wisdom Incarnate. Such being the case, the charitable reader will understand if we proceed from here under the quiet supposition that I am Wisdom Incarnate, albeit lacking self-awareness and a grey beard.

clothes

Today I wore my scarf at home because it was so cold. That is somewhat unlike the time I wore my jeans to bed just to see what it would be like. I thought – I wonder what it would be like to go to bed in my jeans. And so I did it. I didn’t like it.
I did, however, enjoy the scarf. I enjoyed it thoroughly, though, as they say, it was done for necessity. It really was cold.
My socks all have holes in them, but this is not a matter of necessity. I simply don’t mind in the least. I think it lends me a Victorian dignity.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s just this – once the stinky foot smell gets into something it never gets out. And that goes mostly for shoes.
Take my advice - never stop wearing socks. Once that smell gets into mostly your shoes theres nothing for it but the garbage bin.
I stopped wearing socks, a long time ago, before i was interested in Victoria's unique suffering and isolation, before i stopped caring, or rather: before i stopped minding. And i'll tell you what - it's not worth the temporary freedom. Never stop looking people in the eyes, and never stop wearing socks.
As a matter of fact there are so many things i would like to share with you in relation to clothing. In particular i would like to tell you about the results of an experiment i once tried on my co-workers, but i can see time is running slim and you have to get going. dont worry, next time.

the ugly man chapter 2

2
You know, when I get down to thinking about the daily routine of life, about the little chores, I have to admit that I am not as protected as I would like to be – even people like me need to do daily chores. And what can leave a person more open and less protected than daily chores? They are the great humiliator of the ugly. Everyone has to do them and all you’ve got to vouch for you in these situations is your physical appearance, because the places you go to do them don’t know about your wit, or your giant brain and great inner worth. All they know is what they see. And so, as I said, I want to be honest - what do I do?
It’s very simple - I really am very sharp and on the ball - I’ve managed to work some little things out. For example then, I go shopping during the times when they give elderly discounts, in the middle of the day, when regular people are working and the elderly come out because they have nothing else to do. I prefer the elderly because loneliness has made them kinder. They are more inclined to be kind to people like me because they are so lonely. And I’m more inclined to be kind to them in their loneliness because I am ugly and I think we understand a little bit of each other’s lives.
You know it’s so shameful, I have to stop right there, I was going on and on about wanting to be honest, and there I go again - I’m lying. But I have to fight the desire to lie and act and I need to try and tell you the truth – I’m not kind to these people at all. I thought I could just get away with lying about my relationship with the elderly because, as I was sitting back thinking about it, it made so much sense to me – we really should go together, we really should be the perfect match. But it’s just not the case. I mean, it’s true, I do shop with the elderly, just like I said, and I do it for just that reason, but not because their loneliness has made them kinder, rather it has made them weaker and I don’t fear them, I don’t fear their fangs, which have been worn down to stubs, I don’t fear that they will mock me, or laugh, like schoolchildren do, or teenagers – I don’t even want to get into teenagers, they are the cruelest and not people at all, and some of them never will be - or even adults (the ones who were teenagers); but I am not kind to them. Hardly ever. I just let that sentence continue on to say we should understand each other, but I don’t. I never could, I’m too self centered. I could never understand anyone else.
Just yesterday I was standing in line behind this old man at the supermarket. I was really hungry because I hadn’t eaten for some time, I always leave things to the absolute end, until I can’t take it any longer, because I really hate eating, and I go as long as I possibly can without it, in protest, though in the end it always gets to me and I give in, which just makes me feel viler for being so weak and pathetic, and so there I was absolutely starving from hunger to the point that my hands were shaking from weakness and hatred of my weakness. I was standing behind him, and he was old, he was so old he looked as though someone had dug him up from a graveyard where no one had been buried for at least three hundred years and as a result of his extreme age he was struggling to formulate sentences and communicate and also to make his body parts listen to his commands, if he could even formulate those clearly. His fingers shot out in all directions as he tried to get some coins out of his wallet, which was the colour of the earth that had been dug up with him. It looked as though he were about to burst into tears because of the extreme shame he was feeling on behalf of his body – though to be perfectly honest I think this is a permanent look on the faces of people of his age and needn’t be taken too seriously, unless, of course, I have mistaken the look, or rather, have understood it perfectly, and it really is a permanent stamp of shame and tears. He was standing there and his hands were shaking, and I was standing behind him and my hands were shaking and for a moment I almost thought – we are like brothers, both of our hands shake – and I felt great sympathy for a second. He finally succeeded in extracting three twenty five cent pieces (the elderly are always so stubborn when it comes to carrying change) to cover the charge of the loaf of bread he wished to purchase. He looked almost proud that he had accomplished the deed against all odds but the woman behind the register looked less impressed. She took the change roughly from his shaking hands and returned him the needed three pennies, which he failed to get hold of and dropped on the counter. The woman picked them up again and handed them to him even more roughly and this time he didn’t even get close to getting hold of them and promptly dropped them again. Then the woman picked the pennies up and – would you believe me if I told you? It seems so improbable in our day and age – threw them down on the ground, as far away from her register as possible. The old man was shocked and I was shocked but – he said nothing except to gurgle a few incoherent sounds after which he no doubt felt exhausted, picked up his loaf of bread and moved along. The woman turned to me and began to ring my purchases in. Obviously she was in a hurry, she was ringing my stuff in devilishly fast, and obviously she had no patience for old men whose hands shake, but I thought – am I appalled, am I hurt for the old man, we were almost brothers, though he was hundreds of years older? And then this is what I thought - nobody wants an ugly hero, heroes are not generally ugly people. But I couldn’t decide how I felt about the feeling in my stomach of revulsion until she looked in my general direction (people rarely look straight at me) and said, ‘I can’t stand the afternoon shift with all these old people.’ That decided it for me. She was ready to be my friend if I was ready to support her action against the old man and understand why she did it, namely, her irritation.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘oh, yes.’ And we both chuckled.
And you know, I intended just to show you right now how I don’t have any understanding but it turned out even better, as I was writing it up, remembering what happened it occurred to me – I do understand people just fine, I understood her. And I understood him. So I have no excuses then. And I’m very happy right now with the way things turned out. So you can also see that my life is not one long unhappy day. Even if you never go anywhere more exciting than the supermarket it is possible to understand people.

equality continued

while it would seem the first of the previously stated states of equality need no great clarification, possibly the second does?
the statement one more time: does equality mean that no one is better than anyone else, and consequently, no one is worse?
how can we clarify this, to what can we compare this situation?
this situation is like two men living abroad in a place that uses a different tongue, and where almost none speak the tongue of these two men. so that it becomes necessary for both of them to learn this new language, which they do. only, one of the men learns more quickly, and the other more slowly, so that finally you say about the first man: look at this man he can speak like a native; in fact, perhaps he is a native, there is no way to tell him apart. and the second man sees this happening, and understands that the ability of the first is really much greater, that the first man truly speaks this language well, so much that even though they both began learning at the same time, he cannot understand what this first man says, he speaks too well in comparison to his own childish mewing. and jealousy eats him about and burns him down. whenever the first man speaks, the second listens, but he cannot understand anything, the speeches are over his ability. but he listens, and when the first man finishes and walks away he approaches the natives that the first man spoke with and asks: how was his language skill? perhaps he made some mistakes? and the natives always answered: no, he spoke fluently, was he really not a native? and so it went on until one day the second man met another man who was very kindly disposed, and who believed that lies were justified if they were made for the sake of someone's good feeling and false sense of worth, and so when the first man walked away and the second approached, this kindly intentioned man answered the second: no, his langauge was very deficient, yours is much better.
and the second man was overjoyed and believed him. in spite of everything he knew as obvious, nonetheless he believed him immediately and completely.

continuation, please dont interrupt

so what does it mean to be equal? does equality mean that everyone without exception deserves to be treated with respect of an equal sort, regardless of social standing, race, or, as they say, intelligence and beauty? or does equality mean that no one is better than anyone else, and consequently, no one is worse?

the problem with the west part 1

all of the problems suffered by people in the west stem from one, and i'll grant it's not small, no - major misunderstanding, namely: the meaning of equality.

Le Miracle de Saint Theophile - Rutebeuf

[Theophiles]

Ahi! Ahi! Diex, rois de gloire,

Tant vous ai eü en memoire

Tout ai doné et despendu

Et tout ai aus povres tendu:

Ne m'est remez vaillant un sac.

Bien m'a dit li evesque "Eschac"!

Et m'a rendu maté en l'angle.

Sanz avoir m'a lessié tout sangle.

Or m'estuet il morir de fain,

Se je n'envoi ma robe au pain.

Et ma mesnie que fera?

Ne sai se Diex les pestera...

Diex? Oïl! qu'en a il a fere?

En autre lieu les covient trere,

Ou il me fet l'oreille sorde,

Qu'il n'a cure de ma falorde.

Et je li referai la moe:

Honiz soit qui de lui se loe!

N'est riens c'on por avoir ne face:

Ne pris riens Dieu ne sa manace.

Irai je me noier ou pendre?

Je ne m'en puis pas a Dieu prendre,

C'on ne puet a lui avenir.

Ha! qui or le porroit tenir

Et bien batre a la retornee,

Molt avroit fet bone jornee!

Mes il s'est en si haut leu mis

Por eschiver ses anemis

C'on n'i puet trere ne lancier.

Se or pooie a lui tancier,

Et combatrë et escremir,

La char li feroie fremir.

Or est lasus en son solaz;

Laz, chetis! et je sui es laz

De Povreté et de Soufrete.

Or est bien ma vïele frete,

Or dira l'en que je rasote:

De ce sera mes la riote.

Je n'oserai nului veoir,

Entre gent ne devrai seoir,

Que l'en m'i mousterroit au doi.

Or ne sai je que fere doi:

Or m'a bien Diex servi de guile!

Ici vient Theophiles a Salatin qui parloit au deable quant il voloit.

[Salatins]

Qu'est ce? qu'avez vous, Theophile?

Por le grant Dé, quel mautalent

Vous a fet estre si dolent?

Vous soliiez si joiant estre!

Theophiles parole

C'on m'apeloit seignor et mestre

De cest païs, ce sez tu bien:

Or ne me lesse on nule rien.

S'en sui plus dolenz, Salatin,

Quar en françois ne en latin

Ne finai onques de proier

Celui c'or me veut asproier,

Et qui me fet lessier si monde

Qu'il ne m'est remez riens el monde.

Or n'est nule chose si fiere

Ne de si diverse maniere

Que volentiers ne la feïsse,

Par tel qu'a m'onor revenisse:

Li perdres m'est honte et domages.

Ici parole Salatins

Biaus sire, vous dites que sages;

Quar qui a apris la richece,

Molt i a dolor et destrece

Quant l'en chiet en autrui dangier

Por son boivre et por son mengier:

Trop i covient gros mos oïr!

Theophiles

C'est ce qui me fet esbahir,

Salatin, biau tres douz amis.

Quant en autrui dangier sui mis,

Par pou que li cuers ne m'en crieve.

Salatins

Je sai or bien que molt vous grieve

Et molt en estes entrepris,

Com hom qui est de si grant pris.

Molt en estes mas et penssis.

Theophiles

Salatin frere, or est ensis:

Se tu riens pooies savoir

Par quoi je peüsse ravoir

M'onor, ma baillie et ma grace,

Il n'est chose que je n'en face.

Salatins

Voudriiez vous Dieu renoier,

Celui que tant solez proier,

Toz ses sainz et toutes ses saintes,

Et si devenissiez, mains jointes,

Hom a celui qui ce feroit,

Qui vostre honor vous renderoit,

Et plus honorez seriiez,

S'a lui servir demoriiez,

C'onques jor ne peüstes estre.

Creez moi, lessiez vostre mestre.

Qu'en avez vous entalenté?

Theophiles

J'en ai trop vone volenté.

Tout ton plesir ferai briefment.

Salatins

Alez vous en seürement:

Maugrez qu'il en puissent avoir,

Vous ferai vostre honor ravoir.

Revenez demain au matin.

Theophiles

Volentiers, frere Salatin.

Cil Diex que tu croiz et aeures

Te gart, s'en ce propos demeures!

Or se depart Theophiles de Salatin

et si pensse que trop a grant chose en Dieu renoter et dist:

Ha! laz, que porrai devenir?

Bien me doit li cors dessenir

Quant il m'estuet a ce venir.

Que ferai, las?

Se je reni saint Nicholas

Et saint Jehan et saint Thomas

Et Nostre Dame,

Que fera ma chetive d'ame?

Ele sera arse en la flame

D'enfer le noir.

La la covendra remanoir:

Ci avra trop hideus manoir,

Ce n'est pas fable.

En cele flambe pardurable

N'i a nule gent amiable,

Ainçois sont mal, qu'il sont deable:

C'est lor nature.

Et lor mesons rest si obscure

C'on ni verra ja soleil luire;

Ainz est un puis toz plains d'ordure.

La irai gié!

Bien me seront li dé changié

Quant, por ce que j'avrai mengié,

M'avra Diez issi estrangié

De sa meson,

Et ci avra bone reson.

Si esbahiz ne fu mes hom

Com je sui, voir.

Or dit qu'il me fera ravoir

Et ma richesse et mon avoir.

Ja nus n'en porra riens savoir:

Je le ferai!

Diex m'a grevé: jel greverai,

Ja més jor ne le servirai!

Je li ennui.

Riches serai, se povres sui!

Se il me het, je harrai lui:

Preingne ses erres,

Ou il face movoir ses guerres!

Tout a en main et ciel et terres:

Je li claim cuite,

Se Salatins tout ce m'acuite

Qu'il m'a pramis.

Ici parole Salatins au deable et dist:

Uns crestiens s'est sor moi mis,

Et je m'en sui molt antremis,

Quar tu n'es pas mes anemis.

Os tu, Sathanz?

Demain vendra, se tu l'atans.

Je li ai promis quatre tans:

Aten le don,

Qu'il a esté molt grant preudon;

Por ce si a plus riche don.

Met li ta richece a bandon...

Ne m'os tu pas?

Je te ferai plus que le pas

Venir, je cuit!

Et si vendras encore anuit,

Quar ta demoree me nuit,

Si ai beé.

Ci conjure Salatins le deable.

Bagahi laca bachaé

Lamac cahi achabahé

Karrelyos

Lamac lamec bachalyos

Cabahagi sabalyos

Baryolas

Lagozatha cabyolas

Samahac et famyolas

Harrahya.

Or vient li deables qui est conjuré et dist:

Tu as bien dit ce qu'il i a:

Cil qui t'aprist riens n'oublia.

Molt me travailles!

Salatins

Qu'il n'est pas droiz que tu me failles

Ne que tu encontre moi ailles

Quant je t'apel.

Je te faz bien suer ta pel!

Veus tu oïr un geu novel?

Un clerc avons

De tel gaaing com nous savons:

Souventes foiz nous en grevons

Por nosre afere.

Que loez vous du clerc a fere

Qui se voudra ja vers ça trere?

Li deables

Comment a non?

Salatins

Theophiles par son droit non.

Molt a esté de grant renon

En ceste terre.

Li deables

J'ai toz jors eü a lui guerre

C'onques jor ne le poi conquerre.

Puis qu'il se veut a nous offerre,

Viengne en cel val,

Sanz compaignie et sanz cheval.

N'i avra gueres de travail:

C'est prés de ci.

Molt avra bien de lui merci

Sathan et li autre nerci.

Mes n'apiaut mie

Jhesu, le fil sainte Marie:

Ne li ferïons point d'aïe.

De ci m'en vois.

Or soiez vers moi plus cortois:

Ne me traveillier més des mois,

Va, Salatin,

Ne en ebrieu ne en latin.

Or revient Theophiles a Salatin.

Or sui je venuz trop matin?

As tu rien fet?

Salatins

Je t'ai basti si bien ton plet,

Quanques tes sires t'a mesfet

T'amendera,

Et plus forment t'onorera

Et plus grant seignor te fera

C'onques ne fus.

Tu n'es or pas si du refus

Com tu seras encor du plus.

Ne t'esmaier:

Va la aval sanz delaier.

Ne t'i covient pas Dieu proier

Ne reclamer

Se tu veus ta besoingne amer.

Tu l'as trop trové a amer,

Qu'il t'a failli.

Mauvesement as or sailli;

Bien t'eüst ore mal bailli

Se ne t'aidaisse.

Va t'en, que il t'atendent; passe

Grant aleüre.

De Dieu reclamer n'aies cure.

Theophiles

Je m'en vois. Diex ne m'i puet nuire

Ne riens aidier,

Ne je ne puis a lui plaidier.

Ici va Theophiles au deable, si a trop grant paor; et li déables li dist:

Venez avant, passez grant pas.

Gardez que ne resamblez pas

Vilain qui va a offerande.

Que vous veut ne que vous demande

Vostre sires? Il est molt fiers!

Theophile

Voire, sire. Il fu chanceliers

Si me cuide chacier pain querre.

Or vous vieng proier et requerre

Que vous m'aidiez a cest besoing.

Li Deables

Requiers m'en tu?

Theophiles

Oïl.

Li Deables

Or joing

Tes mains, et si devien mes hon.

Je t'aiderai outre reson.

Theophiles

Vez ci que je vous faz hommage,

Més que je raie mon domage,

Biaus sire, dés or en avant.

Li Deables

Et je te refaz un couvant

Que te ferai si grant seignor

C'on ne te vit onques greignor.

Et qui que ainsinques avient,

Saches de voir qu'il te covient

De toi aie lettres pendanz

Bien dites et bien entendanz;

Quar maintes genz m'en ont sorpris

Por ce que lor lettres n'en pris.

Por ce les vueil avoir bien dites.

Theophiles

Vez le ci: je les ai escrites.

Or baille Theophiles les lettres au deable et li deables li commande a ouvrer ainsi:

Theophile, biaus douz amis,

Puis que tu t'es en mes mains mis,

Je te dirai que tu feras.

Ja més povre homme n'ameras.

Se povres hom sorpris te proie,

Torne l'oreille, va ta voie.

S'aucuns envers toi s'umelie,

Respon orgueil et felonie.

Se povres demande a ta porte,

Si garde qu'aumosne n'en porte.

Douçor, humilitez, pitiez

Et charitez et amistiez,

Jeüne fere, penitance,

Me metent grant duel en la pance.

Aumosne fere et Dieu proier,

Ce me repuet trop anoier.

Dieu amer et chastement vivre,

Lors me samble serpent et guivre

Me menjue le cuer el ventre.

Quant l'en en la meson Dieu entre

Por regarder aucun malade,

Lors ai le cuer si mort et fade

Qu'il m'est avis que point n'en sente,

Cil qui fet bien si me tormente.

Va t'en, tu seras seneschaus.

Lai les biens et si fai les maus.

Ne jugier ja bien en ta vie,

Que tu feroies grant folie

Et si feroies contre moi.

Theophiles

Je ferai ce que fere doi.

Bien est droit vostre plesir face,

Puis que j'en doi ravoir ma grace.

Or envoie l'evesque querre Theophile.

Or tost! lieve sus, Pinceguerre,

Si me va Theophile querre,

Se li renderai sa baillie.

J'avoie fet molt grant folie

Quant je tolue li avoie,

Que c'est li mieudres que je voie:

Ice puis je bien por voir dire.

Or respont Pinceguerre:

Vous dites voir, biaus trés douz sire.

Or parole Pinceguerre a Theophile et Theophiles respont:

Qui est ceenz?

- Et vous qui estes?

- Je sui uns clers.

- Et je sui prestres.

- Theophiles, biaus sire chiers,

Or ne soiez vers moi si fiers.

Mes sires un pou vous demande,

Si ravrez ja vostre provande,

Vostre baillie toute entiere.

Soiez liez, fetes bele chiere,

Si ferez et sens et savoir.

Theophiles

Deable i puissent part avoir!

J'eüsse eüe l'eveschié,

Et je l'i mis, si fis pechié.

Quant il i fu, s'oi a lui guerre

Si me cuida chacier pain querre.

Tripot lirot por sa haïne

Et por sa tençon qui ne fine!

G'i irai, s'orrai qu'il dira.

Pinceguerre

Quant il vous verra, si rira

Et dira por vous essaier

Le fist. Or vous reveut paier

Et serez ami com devant.

Theophiles

Or disoient assez souvant

Li chanoine de moi granz fables:

Je les rent a toz les deables!

Or se lieve l'evesque contre Theophile et li rent sa dignité, et dist:

Sire, bien puissiez vous venir!

Theophiles

Si sui je! Bien me soi tenir,

Je ne sui pas cheüs par voie!

Li evesques

Biaus sire, de ce que j'avoie

Vers vous mespris, jel vous ament

Et si vous rent molt bonement

Vostre baillie. Or la prenez,

Quar preudom estes et senez,

Et quanques j'ai si sera vostre.

Theophiles

Ci a molt bone patrenostre,

Mieudre assez c'onques més ne dis!

Dés or més vendront dis et dis

Li vilain por moi aorer,

Et je les ferai laborer.

Il ne vaut rien que l'en ne doute.

Cuident il je n'i voie goute?

Je lor serai fel et irous.

Li Evesques

Theophile, ou entendez vous?

Biaus amis, penssez de bien fere.

Vez vous ceenz vostre repere;

Vez ci vostre ostel et le mien.

Nos richeces et nostre bien

Si seront dés or més ensamble.

Bon ami serons, ce me samble;

Tout sera vostre et tout ert mien.

Theophiles

Par foi, sire, je le vueil bien.

Ici va Theophiles a ses compaignons tencier, premierement a un qui avoit non Pierres:

Pierres, veus tu oïr novele?

Or est tornee ta rouele,

Or t'est il cheü ambes as.

Or te tien a ce que tu as,

Qu'a ma baillie as tu failli.

L'evesque m'en a fet bailli,

Si ne t'en sai ne gré ne graces.

Pierre respont:

Theophiles, sont ce manaces?

Dés ier priai je mon seignor

Que il vous rendist vostre honor,

Et bien estoit droiz et resons.

Theophiles

Ci avoit dures faoisons

Quant vous m'aviiez forjugié.

Maugré vostres, or le rai gié.

Oublié aviiez le duel!

Pierres

Certes, biaus chiers sire, a mon vuel

Fussiez vous evesques eüs

Quant nostre evesques fu feüs.

Més vous ne le vousistes estre

Tant doutiiez le roi celestre.

Or tence Theophiles a un autre:

Thomas, Thomas, or te chiet mal

Quant l'en me ra fet seneschal.

Or leras tu le regiber

Et le combatre et le riber.

N'avras pior voisin de moi.

Thomas

Theophile, foi que vous doi,

Il samble que vous soiez yvres.

Theophiles

Or en serai demain delivres,

Maugrez en ait vostre visages.

Thomas

Par Dieu! Vous n'estes pas bien sages:

Je vous aim tant et tant vous pris!

Theophiles

Thomas, Thomas, ne sui pas pris:

Encor pourrai nuire et aidier!

Thomas

Il samble vous volez plaidier.

Theophile, lessiez me en pais!

Theophiles

Thomas, Thomas, je que vous fais?

Encor vous plaindrez bien a tens

Si com je cuit et com je pens.

Ici se repent Theophiles et vient a une chapele de Nostre Dame et dist:

Hé! laz, chetis, dolenz, que porrai devenir?

Terre, comment me pués porter ne soustenir

Quant j'ai Dieu renoié et celui voil tenir

A seignor et a mestre qui toz mauz fet venir?

Or ai Dieu renoié, ne puet estre teü.

Si ai lessié le basme, pris me sui au seü.

De moi a pris la chartre et le brief receü

Maufez, se li rendrai de m'ame le treü.

Hé! Diex, que feras tu de cest chetif dolent

De qui l'ame en ira en enfer le boillant

Et li maufez l'iront a leur piez defoulant?

Ahi! terre, quar oevre, si me va engloutant!

Sire Diex, que fera cist dolenz esbahis

Qui de Dieu et du monde est hüez et haïs

Et des maufez d'enfer engingniez et trahis?

Dont sui je de trestoz chaciez et envaïs?

Hé! las, com j'ai esté plains de grant nonsavoir

Quant j'ai Dieu renoié por un petit d'avoir!

Les richeces du monde que je voloie avoir

M'ont geté en tel leu dont ne me puis ravoir.

Sathan, plus de set anz ai tenu ton sentier.

Maus chans m'ont fet chanter li vin de mon chantier.

Molt felonesse rente m'en rendront mi rentier.

Ma char charpenteront li felon charpentier.

Ame doit l'en amer: m'ame n'ert pas amee,

N'os demander la Dame qu'ele ne soit dampnee.

Trop a male semence en semoisons semee

De qui l'ame sera en enfer sorsemee.

Ha! las, com fol bailli et com fole baillie!

Or sui je mal baillis et m'ame mal baillie.

S'or m'osoie baillier a la douce baillie,

G'i seroie bailliez et m'ame ja baillie.

Ors sui, et ordoiez doit aler en ordure.

Ordement ai ouvré, ce set Cil qui or dure

Et qui toz jours durra, s'en avrai la mort dure.

Maufez, com m'avez mors de mauvese morsure!

Or n'ai je remanance ne en ciel ne en terre.

Ha! las, ou est li lieux qui me puisse soufferre?

Enfers ne me plest pas ou je me voil offerre;

Paradis n'est pas miens, que j'ai au Seignor guerre.

Je n'os Dieu reclamer ne ses sainz ne ses saintes,

Las, que j'ai fet hommage au deable mains jointes.

Li Maufez en a lettres de mon anel empraintes.

Richece, mar te vi! J'en avrai dolors maintes.

Je n'os Dieu ne ses saintes ne ses sainz reclamer,

Ne la tres douce Dame que chascuns doit amer.

Més por ce qu'en li n'a felonie n'amer,

Se je li cri merci nus ne m'en doit blasmer.

C'est la proiere que Theophiles dist devant Nostre Dame

Sainte roïne bele,

Glorieuse pucele,

Dame de grace plaine

Par qui toz biens revele,

Qu'au besoing vous apele

Delivres est de paine;

Qu'a vous son cuer amaine

Ou pardurable raine

Avra joie novele.

Arousable fontaine

Et delitable et saine,

A ton Filz me rapele!

En vostre douz servise

Fu ja m'entente mise,

Mes trop tost fui temptez.

Par celui qui atise

Le mal, et le bien brise,

Sui trop fort enchantez.

Car me desenchantez,

Que vostre volentez

Est plaine de franchise,

Ou de granz orfentez

Sera mes cors rentez

Devant la fort justice.

Dame sainte Marie,

Mon corage varie

Ainsi que il te serve,

Ou ja mes n'ert tarie

Ma dolors ne garie,

Ains sera m'ame serve.

Ci avra dure verve

S'ainz que la mors m'enerve

En vous ne se marie

M'ame qui vous enterve.

Souffrez li cors deserve

L'ame ne soit perie.

Dame de charité

Qui par humilité

Portas nostre salu,

Qui toz nous a geté

De duel et de vilté

Et d'enferne palu,

Dame, je te salu!

Ton salu m'a valu,

Jel sai de verité.

Gar qu'avoec Tentalu

En enfer le jalu

Ne praingne m'erité.

En enfer ert offerte,

Dont la porte est ouverte,

M'ame par mon outrage.

Ci avra dure perte

Et grant folie aperte,

Se la praing herbregage.

Dame, or te faz hommage:

Torne ton douz visage.

Por ma dure deserte,

El non ton Filz le sage,

Ne soffrir que mi gage

Voisent a tel poverte!

Si comme en la verriere

Entre et reva arriere

Li solaus que n'entame,

Ainsinc fus virge entiere

Quant Diex, qui es ciex iere,

Fist de toi mere et dame.

Ha! resplendissant jame,

Tendre et piteuse fame,

Car entent ma proiere,

Que mon vil cors et m'ame

De pardurable flame

Rapelaisses arriere.

Roïne debonaire,

Les iex du cuer m'esclaire

Et l'obscurté m'esface,

Si qu'a toi puisse plaire

Et ta volenté faire:

Car m'en done la grace.

Trop ai eü espace

D'estre en obscure trace;

Encor m'i cuident traire

Li serf de pute estrace.

Dame, ja toi ne place

Qu'il facent tel contraire!

En vilté, en ordure,

En vie trop obscure

Ai esté lonc termine:

Roïne nete et pure,

Quar me pren en ta cure

Et si me medecine.

Par ta vertu devine

Qu'adés est enterine,

Fai dedenz mon cuer luire

La clarté pure et fine,

Et les iex m'enlumine,

Que ne m'en voi conduire.

Li proieres qui proie

M'a ja mis en sa proie:

Pris serai et preez,

Trop asprement m'asproie.

Dame, ton chier Filz proie

Que soie despreez.

Dame, car leur veez,

Qui mes mesfez veez,

Que n'avoie a leur voie.

Vous qui lasus seez,

M'ame leur deveez,

Que nus d'aus ne la voie.

Ici parole Nostre Dame a Theophile et dist:

Qui es tu, va, qui vas par ci?

[Theophiles]

Ha! Dame, aiez de moi merci!

C'est li chetis

Theophiles, li entrepris,

Que maufé ont loié et pris.

Or vieng proier

A vous, Dame, et merci crier,

Que ne gart l'eure qu'asproier

Me viengne cil

Qui m'a mis a si grant escil.

Tu me tenis ja por ton fil,

Roïne bele.

Nostre Dame parole:

Je n'ai cure de ta favele.

Va t'en, is fors de ma chapele.

Theophiles parole:

Dame, je n'ose.

Flors d'aiglentier et lis et rose,

En qui li Filz Dieu se repose,

Que ferai gié?

Malement me sent engagié

Envers le Maufé enragié.

Ne sai que faire:

Ja més ne finirai de brere.

Virge, pucele debonere,

Dame honoree,

Bien sera m'ame devoree,

Qu'en enfer fera demoree

Avoec Cahu.

Nostre Dame

Theophiles, je t'ai seü

Ca en arriere a moi eü.

Saches de voir,

Ta chartre te ferai ravoir

Que tu baillas par nonsavoir.

Je la vois querre.

Ici va Nostre Dame por la chartre Theophile.

Sathan! Sathan! es tu en serre?

S'es or venuz en ceste terre

Por commencier a mon clerc guerre,

Mar le penssas.

Rent la chartre que du clerc as,

Quar tu as fet trop vilain cas.

Sathan parole:

Je vous la rande!

J'aim miex assez que l'en me pende!

Ja li rendi je sa provande,

Et il me fist de lui offrande

Sanz demorance,

De cors et d'ame et de sustance.

Nostre Dame

Et je te foulerai la pance!

Ici aporte Nostre Dame la chartre a Theophile.

Amis, ta chartre te raport.

Arivez fusses a mal port

Ou il n'a solaz ne deport.

A moi entent:

Va a l'evesque et plus n'atent;

De la chartre li fait present

Et qu'il la lise

Devant le pueple en sainte yglise,

Que bone gent n'en soit sorprise

Par tel barate.

Trop aime avoir qui si l'achate:

L'ame en est et honteuse et mate.

Theophile

Volentiers, Dame!

Bien fusse mors de cors et d'ame.

Sa paine pert qui ainsi same,

Ce voi je bien.

Ici vient Theophiles a l'evesque et li baille sa chartre et dist:

Sire, oiez moi, por Dieu merci!

Quoi que j'aie fet, or sui ci.

Par tens savroiz

De qoi j'ai molt esté destroiz.

Povres et nus, maigres et froiz

Fui par defaute.

Anemis, qui les bons assaute,

Ot fet a m'ame geter faute

Dont mors estoie.

La Dame qui les siens avoie

M'a desvoié de male voie

Ou avoiez

Estoie, et si forvoiez

Qu'en enfer fusse convoiez

Par le deable,

Que Dieu, le pere esperitable,

En toute ouvraingne charitable,

Lessier me fist.

Ma chartre en ot de quanqu'il dist;

Seelé fu quanqu'il requist.

Molt me greva,

Por poi li cuers ne me creva.

La Virge la me raporta,

Qu'a Dieu est mere,

La qui bonté est pure et clere.

Si vous vueil prier, com mon pere,

Qu'el soit leüe,

Qu'autre gent n'en soit deceüe

Qui n'ont encore aperceüe

Tel tricherie.

Ici list l'evesque la chartre et dist:

Oiez, por Dieu le Filz Marie,

Bone gent, si orrez la vie

De Theophile

Qui Anemis servi de guile.

Ausi voir comme est Evangile

Est ceste chose;

Si vous doit bien estre desclose.

Or escoutez que vous propose.

"A toz cels qui verront ceste lettre commune

Fet Sathan a savoir que ja torna fortune,

Que Theophiles ot a l'evesque rancune,

Ne li lessa l'evesque seignorie nesune.

Il fu desesperez quant l'en li fist l'outrage;

A Salatin s'en vient qui ot el cors la rage,

Et dist qu'il li feroit molt volentiers hommage,

Se rendre li pooit s'onor et son domage.

Je le guerroiai tant com mena sainte vie,

C'onques ne poi avoir desor lui seignorie.

Quant il me vint requerre, j'oi de lui grant envie.

Et lors me fist hommage, si rot sa seignorie.

De l'anel de son doit seela ceste letre,

De son sanc les escrist, autre enque n'i fist metre,

Ains que je me vousisse de lui point entremetre

Ne que je le feïsse en dignité remetre."

Issi ouvra icil preudom.

Delivré l'a tout a bandon

La Dieu ancele.

Marie, la virge pucele,

Delivré l'a de tel querelle.

Chantons tuit por ceste novele.

Or levez sus,

Disons: "Te Deum laudamus".

Explicit le miracle de Theophile.

L'aube des pionniers

Je n’ai pas trop bien dormi hier soir parce qu’aujourd’hui, il va y avoir le défilé et je vais devenir membre du parti communiste, je vais être Oktiabriata, le tout premier grade des pionniers. Je suis élève à l’école Numéro 1, j’ai huit ans et je connais tous les chants patriotiques de mon cahier par cœur. Avec mes copines, nous avons répété tous les jours après l’école pendant deux heures les différentes parties du défilé et les chants, bon, c’est facile, il suffit de bien marcher derrière Olga qui est un peu plus grande que moi et de faire quelques gestes avec les bras au bon moment, au moment où le tambour s’arrête. Et quand les deux portes-drapeaux, Vassili et Alexandre qui ont gagné le concours de celui qui collectera le plus de vieux papiers monteront sur l’estrade, présenteront à l’assemblée le drapeau frappé de la faucille et du marteau et feront le signe des pionniers, nous devrons crier à l’unisson « Sigda gatov !» et chanter l’hymne national et « l’aube des pionniers » qui est mon chant préféré de tous les chants que notre professeur de musique nous a appris cette année.

Ma mère a bien repassé mon uniforme marron, mon tablier, et mes manches et mon col en dentelle blanche fraîchement cousu par la babouchka sont tous neufs. Ils nous les ont donné exprès à l’école pour l’occasion. Il ne manque plus que le badge avec Lénine et les jeunes camarades dessus et le foulard rouge que je recevrai lors de la cérémonie pour être à peu près comme tout le monde à l’école. Sauf les Komsolmotsi qui eux ont un badge représentant un livre écrit par Staline, que j’ai pas lu d’ailleurs, je ne sais même pas de quoi il parle mais il paraît que l’on va l’étudier très bientôt en cours d’histoire.

Quand je suis arrivé à l’école à 8h16, tout le monde était déjà là, étincelants comme des sous neufs, donc j’ai rejoint Olga qui est ma camarade préférée et qui est assise à côté de moi en classe, nous avons changé nos chaussures dans le hall et nous sommes rentrés dans le cabinet de Peter Ivanovitch, notre prof d’anglais. Il nous a fait lire et répéter un texte sur une dame qui boit du « juice » dans un salon à londres et ça nous a fait rire, il y avait d’autres mots rigolos que les grands utilisent pour se moquer des autres pendant les intercours comme « Pedestrian » ou « look »
Après c’était déjà la récréation et on nous as dit que juste après il y allait avoir le défilé et la remise des foulards, on nous a distribué des Glazirovné Syrok, c’est une barre de lait calorifique au chocolat que l’on donne aux astronautes, et nous avons encore répété le chant sous le préau.
Le défilé s’est bien passé et nous avons du attendre que toutes les classes passent pour que le directeur commence son discours sur la jeunesse, l’éducation et le parti communiste, il nous a dit qu’étudier était un métier et que nous aussi, nous participions à la construction du pays comme les astronautes ou les sportifs valeureux du pays que nous avions vu la semaine passée lors du défilé de la ville, il nous a dit qu’une fois qu’on serait membre du parti nous aurions la charge de défendre les valeurs communes de l’union soviétique, et que l’intérêt commun passait avant l’ambition personnelle qui apporte uniquement la jalousie, la déception et des conflits au sein de la société. Il nous a félicité pour notre travail et a ensuite remis les foulards à toutes les première classes, je suis passé en septième sur cent trente neuf, ce qui est pas mal. Quand nous avions tous reçu notre badge et notre foulard, nous avons tous chanté l’aube des pionniers et nous sommes tous rentrés en courrant pour les montrer à nos parents et à nos voisins.

pour l'ami

You thought that it could never happen
to all the people that you became,
your body lost in legend, the beast so very tame.
But here, right here,
between the birthmark and the stain,
between the ocean and your open vein,
between the snowman and the rain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

The women in your scrapbook
whom you still praise and blame,
you say they chained you to your fingernails
and you climb the halls of fame.
Oh but here, right here,
between the peanuts and the cage,
between the darkness and the stage,
between the hour and the age,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Shouldering your loneliness
like a gun that you will not learn to aim,
you stumble into this movie house,
then you climb, you climb into the frame.
Yes, and here, right here
between the moonlight and the lane,
between the tunnel and the train,
between the victim and his stain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

I leave the lady meditating
on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim,
I journey down the hundred steps,
but the street is still the very same.
And here, right here,
between the dancer and his cane,
between the sailboat and the drain,
between the newsreel and your tiny pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne?
Where are the paths your heroes came?
Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away,
was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?
Oh here, come over here,
between the windmill and the grain,
between the sundial and the chain,
between the traitor and her pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

two cats

Two Cats
One up a tree
One under the tree
The cat up a tree is he
The cat under the tree is she
The tree is witch elm, just incidentally.
He takes no notice of she, she takes no notice of he.
He stares at the woolly clouds passing, she stares at the tree.
There's been a lot written about cats, by Old Possum, Yeats and Company
But not Alfred de Musset or Lord Tennyson or Poe or anybody
Wrote about one cat under, and one cat up, a tree.
God knows why this should be left for me
Except I like cats as cats be
Especially one cat up
And one cat under
A witch elm
Tree.

Spongebob and patrick are giggling in the air in Sergei Possad

Orbit White

a cigarette in a japanese's garden (pour le m.)

if i tell you about science will you let me in on the little things you hide from everyone up your silky sleeves? or if science is outside your interest could i interest you in some grammar? would you like to hear about particles lost in time and phrasal verbs with no meaning?
'a cigarette,' she says like a tiger dancing on a stage with no audience.
'i mean... how? arent you worried about the smell it will make? arent you concerned for the gentle balance youve found here in your -japanese garden?'
'the time has passed,' she says, 'to think about balances and accounts and what we do or do not want - youve never listened before, why would you listen now? oh no,' she says, like a fireman going to a window that has no fire, 'no the time has passed, and whats more - i say to you: ask yourself what you want, and do the opposite; ask yourself what is right, and run for your life as far as you can from the answer. do this - you already have anyway.'

Black Sea

Dans le jardin japonais, en sus des lions plaqués or chevauchés par de courtes jeunes femmes aux lèvres corralines, il y avait le soleil à son zenith qui cramait et tannait les cuirs monstrueux, des milliers de vaches mortes effectuant moults cabrioles comme dans un cirque morbide, où les ossements servaient de confettis, les applaudissement venant des gradins roulaient vers le centre concave d'une batisse en verre qui se démollissait et se reconstruisait, en gros, le bordel, un acharnement démoniaque et quand la femme sur le roi des animaux a ouvert la bouche ce n'est pas une langue que je pus voir mais des bourgeons de camélias qui explosait dans tous les sens. Je voulais prendre une photo mais l'appareil grippé ne faisait que photographier l'intérieur du sol.

Il y avait aussi plus loin, juchés sur la montagne, ces routes serpenteuses qui vomissaient leurs capsules de fer lancées à toute berzingue vers des destinations bizarres; la foire aux acacias, le cirque couvert du bord de mer. Quand mon nez a pris feu, les flammes carressant mes sourcils, la servante a apporté sur d'immenses plateaux de coque de porte-conteneurs des tonneaux d'or remplis de vodka et j'ai pu me resaisir, tenant compte de la distance entre ici et la voie ouverte par les luisances de la lune grandissante, j'ai crié sans que personne m'entende, mes allitérations débiles se lovant vainement dans le creux d'un chapeau habité par une féérie de chair et de sang que j'embrassais sans discontinuer.

L'air du temps

Toutes les paroles prononcées peuvent être expliquées, décortiquées par des esprits si différents qu’elles en deviennent irréelles, l’image provoquée par celle-ci imprimera son lot d’horreur chez untel et provoquera le fou rire chez un autre, quand une personne me dépasse dans la rue, je sens son âme vibrante qui se répercute dans les branches nues des arbres, c’est un peu comme ça que l’air du temps nous consigne des idées dominantes de fornication.

Mingling with the Masses (Intro)

The innate feeling of competition that exists among we more humanish people is, to say the least, strange and compelling. At which point does one make the transition from sloshing around the milk and honey with John Citizen from next door, to smashing the poor fucker’s skull in with a shovel, that one may thrive on the nutrients contained therein? I should like to say that I, having neither smashed in skulls nor gorged myself on human cerebelli (nor, if it comes to that, made a name for myself as a man who is generous with his milk and honey), do not know. Yet I do know that some speck of this terrible urge lies dormant within my chromosomes or DNA or wherever it is that primal things lurk. At some point in my existence, it is certainly possible I shall covet my neighbour’s life. And I think I would not be accused of being terribly confused were I to say that this notion of us all having a brain-eatingly life-affirming competitive spirit is both worrying and re-assuring. Worrying, insofar as John Citizen from next door, by force of nature’s own design, is doubtless making estimates on the size of my noggin and clearing a space in his freezer; re-assuring, insofar as I’ll be damned if I don’t get him first.

E

Passablement, pas assez, pas encore, et puis quoi d'autre qui ne traîne plus, chez moi, sur le sol comme un cafard d'un autre âge, d'une autre élégance, si infime, si caricaturale qu'elle n'attendrit que les yeux lasses et à demi-clos des personnes vouées au péché, telle que cette fille aux ongles peints en rouge.
A la voix ondulente, pleine de gorge, d'une senteur violente, l'intérieur de sa bouche, une grotte aux stalagtites de bave qui avale l'appendice, du haut du gland jusqu'à sa base, une sensation morte, passable, un grand rideau qui se referme sur ce petit théatre abscon.
Ce que je fixe n'est plus qu'une série de points fixés les uns aux autres par des procédés loufoques, extensibles, sans harmonie, un fracas visuel sans brisure, un truc pas si excitant.
On pourrait presque croire à une hallucination si ce n'était ce métronome organique qui frappe à gros bouillons dans les organes à portée de doigts, l'interieur de la cuisse, un soupçon de rythme, un truc minimal, un faible battement, au ralenti, une chute, de l'eau et un peu de sang sur les doigts.

And this?!

And this?

What the fuck is this?

py.vaults.ca/~x/dostport/

Fop song

PULP LYRICS

"The Fear"

This is our Music from A Bachelors Den
- the sound of loneliness turned up to ten.
A horror soundtrack from a stagnant water-bed & it sounds just like this.
This is the sound of someone losing the plot -
making out that they're okay when they're not.
You're gonna like it, but not a lot & the chorus goes like this:

Oh Baby, here comes the fear again.
The end is near again.
A monkey's built a house on your back.
You can't get anyone to come in the sack
& here comes another panic attack.
Oh here we go again.

So now you know the words to our song,
pretty soon you'll all be singing along.
When you're sad, when you're lonely & it all turns out wrong.
When you've got the fear.
& when you're no longer searching for beauty or love -
just some kind of life with the edges taken off.
When you can't even define what it
is that you are frightened of
this song will be here.

Oh Baby, here comes the fear again.
The end is near again.
If you ever get that chimp off your back.
If you ever find the thing that you lack
but you know you're only having a laugh
& here we go again.
Until the end
Until the end

I felt like a glass beaker in the snowy streets of moscow

I really thought as I passed by these incredibly dangerous stairs.

That it won't take much to fall heavily on the corner of a stone, head first and spill your brains all over the place.

So then, I wondered.

What a miracle, people standing, people walking

without falling

going straight from point a to point b

with all the obstacles standing in their paths.

banking trouble

It’s so rare I get to show up a smart guy who’s my friend too, that I jumped at the opportunity from heaven when buddy said he didn’t get out and vote in the election last week.

‘So what’s all this about being so smart then?’ I said to his face.

‘Yeah, damn it,’ he said, ‘I was really aching to get out and get my word in, but geez if the last couple of days haven’t been hazardous enough.’

So I asked him to tell me the deal.

The whole affair hinged on a couple of complete unforeseeables that, added up, fell down into place like sheer stupid luck, unconnected, but by the power of mathematics, wearisome.

‘Happy New Year!’ he said, ‘this is my story.’

First he was sitting around one day, reading a book, probably, and out of the blue the phone rang.

‘Just a fluke of nature,’ he said, ‘and not foreseeable in the least. My mother’s only friend went down with a case of coming undone at the seams and they took her away to the hospital. Poor lady has a twelve year old daughter, and though my ma offered and asked to take care of the girl, the services came and took her away. But she also has a cat and nowhere to put it into, so I took it on, as mother has the fear of animals and viruses. So I got the cat, and you know, the thing is just adorable, but I must admit I know nothing of how to care for animals, the sphere of my knowledges being limited to politics, and I felt obliged to keep it entertained like any old guest. So after they brought it by, I was spending my time rolling around with it on the floor; I went to the store and bought a ball of yarn, and I’ve been rolling around throwing the ball of yarn at it, and basically we’ve been having a grand old time. Despite the wounds on my face and arms, we have bonded famously and I call him little cat face, and it’s great. Eventually I had to go to work and do my thing there though, and poor cat face, as any guest could be expected to, got bored. So when I got home I found he had eaten everything made of material, and scratched the walls up to boot, and I had a long night stitching up my business suits and making the place liveable again.’

‘That’s all interesting and good,’ I said, impatient to be right after all, ‘but I don’t see how it kept you away from the polling booths.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘seeing as your culture is one inclined to impatience and punch lines I can forgive you, but if you just let me go, I’ll lead you on to the end.’

‘Ok,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘A couple of days later another thing happened that was just a complete fluke too, and not an everyday occurrence. While I was snoring in my bed for the night, dreaming of all the slurpees my modest wages bring me after the loan payments have gone through, I found myself awoken by the telephone with another urgent bad call from my mother. This time a robber had cracked in and broken the window by her backdoor, and made haste with her purse. She had no documents and didn’t know how she would recover her peace of mind, or convince other people she was who she said. I managed to calm her down enough to make out her words and promised to stop by and help her talk to the police. I did just that, and said “thank you” to the officer, and was about to leave when my mother asked me to give her the cat for company and to feel protected.

‘“The usual collocation is guard dog, mother,” I said, ‘but if it will help with the tears, I guess you can have him.”

‘So shattered as I was at losing my new companion who understood me so well, I took the cat over to my mother’s and said farewell.

‘I have to admit I was feeling a little down, but I still had all my destroyed furniture to look at and remember him by, and there’s no use getting down every day.

‘Then the coup de grace struck me right off. You know I’m really in love with the modern world, I’m not a student any more, and I see no point in protesting against the new technologies; I love spaceships and TVs and online banking, but I couldn’t get into my account. So I ran in to the bank and asked them what the problem was and they told me they had sealed my account on account of my suspicious activities.

‘“And what’s so suspicious about loving the modern world?!” I said.

‘“Well,” they said, “it’s the way you gave all your money to a stranger by email.”

‘Then they asked me to stop crying, because they would find who had taken it, maybe, and that’s why they had stopped my activities.

‘“But if you had really been itching to close me down, why couldn’t you have done it before they took all the 944 dollars I’d managed to save by pinching pennies together and rubbing dimes? Or let me live my life in peace with the money stashed under my bed, instead of insisting with your buddies in the government that I have to have the money deposited directly or else I’m not a real person?”

‘But unfortunately there aren’t answers to everything, and though the sum may be laughable on big banking streets, it’s gonna take me 14 years to get that much saved again from working all day long at the library, and by night at the bakery.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘as they say, super, but I’m damned if I can see the connections or how the election is to blame.’

‘Yeah, damn it, what connections are there in life? And nobody here is blaming anyone, except maybe the laws of probability. It’s nothing. It’s only something because last year the lady at the bank with the black hair, you know I love the dark hair, said a document concerning my student loan had been lost and she had promptly given my case over to the agency for delinquent payment makers. And that’s fine, hold on, I’m not going on and on about it, though I might feel entitled to – they never even said, “Mister, hey buddy, we’re terribly sorry,” and I’m by nature inclined to the politeness of the British. No, that’s not the point, and I’m not getting my legs all bent out of shape by it. There’s no use in pointing fingers all day long. It’s just this, if you want your plot line filled in and clear: the random events all met on Election Day. I was walking right up the steps to the polling station, feeling the whole importance of the day, and preparing myself mentally to savour the check mark beside my favorite candidate’s name when mother called again saying the cat was going berserk for lack of tender caresses and cat feed, “and come quick,” she said, “I don’t think I can hold him much longer.” So I had to run to my friend and borrow a couple of bucks for cat food. After that I had to run back into work and explain to the boss how I was using my specially granted voting time caring for cats and he wouldn’t let me go again. He got it into his head that I’m something of a slacker, and truth be told he’s quite justified – nobody here’s pointing any fingers at the boss, it’s just dumb luck. After work I was making my way back towards the polling booths when I remembered I hadn’t eaten since being given the bad news at the bank about my losses, a couple days earlier, and I suddenly felt an unearthly heaviness in my limbs. I looked up at the steps to the polling booths, and felt the quarters in my pocket left over from buying the cat food, and suddenly it was like nothing in life mattered a dime – it was the strangest feeling, and one I’ve experienced only rarely. I have no idea where it came out of, and as I looked up and thought about all things political, I just couldn’t justify the effort up the steps to my hungry legs. At that I turned away, mystified and a little concerned at myself, and full of hope the feeling was fleeting. I stopped in at the supermarket and bought a loaf of the whitest bread I could see and forced it down post haste.’

‘And the feeling,’ I said, ‘what about the feeling? Did it leave you alone after the white bread?’

‘You know, buddy,’ he said, ‘I haven’t had time to pay attention to it, I’ve been preoccupied, as they say, with worrying about getting some cash together before the end of the month to make the loan payments, and if there’s enough left over, maybe the rent. On top of this I’m a little worried lest the money disappear from my account the minute I put it in there, so I can’t say for certain what’s up with the feeling, but I’ll definitely look into it again as soon as it becomes feasible.’