Forward to the work

Here it is; twenty-seven chapters of my old story We Rats of 20C. I completed this story in the spring of '09. It was was a short experiment, which I began in the late summer of '08. It went through a few drafts and here lies its final version. It is a version that I might call abandoned, since it is as far as I believe I could take the format and idea in its purest way.

There are conditions in this writing that make it unusual and the book almost immediately starts with these differences of condition, that a novel-enthusiast (the kind that knows nothing above the novel) will quickly make. One of these, namely, is 'characterization'. It is an aspect of the "the method" that I find unattractive in every art form, whether writing, music, film making or photography. I decidedly dispensed with it, in favour of a more spacious landscape, leaving the reader to engage with all the information of the scene. It was important to make sure the reader was not brought too close to the character, I wanted to introduce the reader to the stage.

Without going in to too much detail, I was my intention to make out of this writing something of a piece of literature, and not confine my writing to the conditions required for writing a novel, least of all was it my intention to write something a reader would be familiar with, that is and has been the novel. In this I might have failed as much as I succeeded.

The book is principally about one person overcoming their circumstances. Twenty-one of the chapters are written by the protagonist directly in to his journal, which is what you the reader will be reading. There is a continuous reference to history and art throughout the writing, every character within has a shadow from mythology (either grecian, roman, or norse) and their scenes are always loose retellings of each of their mythological tales.

My principle device, besides the metaphors throughout, is Voice. The voice of a work of literature tells you everything, and a reader should avoid works that are not audible to read. You can learn everything there is to know about the character, its author, and what to expect from the work in the instance you hear its Voice. I tried to manipulate the voice throughout the work so that the reader could gain knowledge of the character without giving away too much about himself. The protagonist begins with an agitated voice, conflicted, and at times bitter, and vengeful, which is echoed on to the description of his surroundings and the writing itself, as the story progresses all this subsides and the voice becomes calmer during the middle period of the work and likewise echoed in to the above mentioned aspects of the story, and as the fourth part of the work progresses the voice becomes much more joyful and pleasant, and is reflected on to his surroundings and the writing itself.

The story folds in to four parts, and though I ought not to admit it, I might prefer directing a reader straight to the fourth part, as that is where the preceding parts are urging the reader towards, and therefore aims to be the most gratifying. As a work it aims its reader to continue to press onward, and to read the entire work is one sitting is most preferable. It's not a work to take your time with, it is best enjoyed quickly, like a short-story.

A last point to make, is that the trouble I had in writing this was that I could not find myself in the work anywhere, especially not in its characters. Only towards the culminations of the story do I begin to see myself. To ask whether I believe in any of this is unanswerable, I might say entirely, but not as these characters announce it.

The entire meaning of the story might be well expressed through these lines:

"Once I lived in sadness and sorrow;

now I rejoice, and these anxieties

that I have suffered for so many years

make my present happy state more dear."

taken from Alessandro Striggo's libretto for L'Orfeo

James Anderson

Roots: Chant 1

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will to be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

T.S Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

I had always wanted to experience the meaning of those lines as something glorious, and not as something dissatisfying, as some invisible beauty that wouldn’t be revealed unless you were to peel away the surface layer. But the deeper I got, the more I knew of this place, the more miserable I found it to be.

* * *

In the beginning, Bjorkvard was a peaceful place, a northern temperature climate, and all species were easily grown from seed, the trees grew with the town, and the people were what grew there.

My mother and father, along with my first born sister, Karelian, were amongst the first villagers to settle in this town. The landscape had grown to semi-sized birch trees and small feathered shrubs. The bark of the birch was still strong, and still scratched with the markings of lenticles.

On the first winter the leaves fell, the town became reclusive, but only for the season, and if one were to have flown over the town at this time, it would have appeared that none yet lived here at all. From the sky you might only have seen a few of the hundreds, walking the streets from one place to another, or leaving their vehicle to enter their home.

Though the land would have appeared dead at this time, more were arriving with each passing month. The calls of the geese could be heard from any place, and echoed to every corner. Yet the trees were still preparing. The aments had formed and were holding rigid through the bitter cold. And soon at the coming of spring, each were to bear flower.

By the summer, my parent’s second child was to be born, Carelica, and the landscape now resembled those Oriental gardens. The trees would reach high, in coatings of silver bark, spraying thin leaves with a short audience of shrubs.

My father would work as part of the community, as did other fathers and husbands at the time, to utilize the birch, which became our resource for many things. Though the paper on the birch would hold tight, with little effort it could be extracted and washed.

The summer: a lovely time of year, as birds wisped across the sky, butterflies (reds, whites, soft blues and pinks) would flutter across the garden, and at night, when the sun sank, to hear the song of summer sounds.

On the following summer, I was to be born. As I grew older in the village, I would enjoy resting in the garden, between thin stemmed leaves, which sprouted and curled, and the flowering tall trees, listening to the concertos of the birds behind leaves.

Time had passed and the village had now formed itself, and not before long, migrants arrived in the season of simple leaves. People had begun to arrive from the neighbouring towns, and the smaller surrounding villages, the trees continued to grow with these Dorian arrivals, and the variety of simple leaves would differ little.

They would often appear in pairs, but seemed to be borne on two-leafed stems. Those who migrated were vastly different from the first generation that developed the town in to what it was. And with them, they brought their habits as though larvae. They brought poorer spoken words, which confused the dialect of the town, until all voices began to become lost to each other, scattered and segregated amongst its people. Whilst the leaves still grew, appearing either toothed or lobed.

They admired our homes and we taught them to build their own the same. But as they saw us, not building but watching, they resented their work and built homes of poorer quality. And whilst the trees still grew, the female catkins would fall apart to release seeds unlike the woody cone of the female adler.

The town then became divided between the first and the last. The first began to leave, to leave to areas that resembled the village they had sown, and not that they had not wished to reap. This was the season when allergies were ripe. And still the birch trees grew, and many trees perished at being left overgrown. The last would remain and even some from the first, but the town was no longer of one but of many. But still all species were easily grown from seed, and the people were still what grew there.

“Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended

Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place

Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.”

Winter was conceived, as snow had fallen over night, and all around the village, on to the bare necks of birch trees, layering the ground, and rooftop, snow wrapped the town in its frosty coat. And wherever snow had failed to settle, barks and stones were coated in rivers of moss.

The clouds hung overheard so ugly that Wordsworth himself would not have thought them worth his ink, and no matter how strong the winds blow, nothing ever causes them to leave. As for its form, it covers the entire village, and neither sun nor sky could be seen through, and so we’re left underneath stubborn ochre clouds, that even if they thinned, they become so blinding they were unbearable to look at.

The air fills with noise which travels from the through roads and by roads, and the roaring hum of heavy vehicles, and less and less chirping is noticed from waking birds. Public bins that have been burnt, street lights that have been uprooted, and shattered glass lies on the street by the bus shelters that had been knocked through the night before. Yet tomorrow it will all be repaired, as that is all the Lepidoptera will ever do; replace the damage, and have forgotten with it.

Yet despite its dull sight, my reader, an apartment window, high above the ground, served well as an eye to the village, or perhaps better expressed, an eyrie. From it most of the village could be seen, the houses of each district, by their shape and colour, so distinctive that it is as if they were trees marked with brushes of paint to be cut. It proved as useful as the eyes of Pausanias to the east the Demos of Pendula, to see to the west the Demos of Pumila, and between, the Lutea And somewhere around, out of view from such a window, was Weidvag Heath, an area of waste made of birch forests and moss lands.

With time the different parts of Bjorkvard had aged to different degrees, and though once everything could had resembled each other, with deserved attention received or lacking, each part of the town took on a new appearance so much that there were distinctive differences between two places by even turning a corner.

In the Demos of Lutea, beneath the over passage and dual carriage ways, beneath the b-roads, and through subways, it is tiled with graffiti; a name, the years, obscene words, dressed with cigarette packets scattered on the floor. And standing cold and forgotten is the abandoned church of Bjorkvard that had once been lead by Father Rusalki. Hidden from view by the trees, behind the rooftops and central to the village, is the park, that was once a place to play and take pleasant walks at night across the field and beside the lake, but are no longer safe to do, due to the haunt of the satyrs on their weekly liberella, who turn to drink and flood the park to play juvenile pranks, and public displays of sexual behaviour.

My reader, there comes a shriek so strange, I can neither tell if it is man or woman, and my eyes are drawn to the street. I see three boys aggressively throwing snowballs at an elderly woman, who is cowering and covering her head with her hands as one would expect. Yet the boys, showing no signs of shame for themselves, continue to reach down for clumps of snow and hurl them at the elderly woman, who I could not believe had done a thing to have provoked this since when even being pelted in this manner she does not utter a foul word against them. And now the woman takes to her feet, and with a slow and dizzy-like manner, runs from the boys, who are laughing and begin to follow seeming to find it all the more amusing the more distressed the woman becomes. They seem to have given up now the woman has fled. They’re standing, talking, as though nothing has taken place at all and now appear bored, nudging the snow with their feet and folding their arms.

I turn away from the window, feeling dissatisfied with what I have seen, and retuned to my writing desk where I feel comfortable and at liberty to speak of myself.

I am living in an apartment here, though it is nothing special. The apartment block needs looking after, parts of the interior need redecorating, the grounds require tending to, and the light on my ceiling hasn't been working for months. A simple light bulb change is all that’s necessary, but I’d grown to adapt to using a small lamp and so no longer noticed its fault. But of all the places I could find myself in, it was this small closet apartment that I cherished the most. I am free behind these four walls, I could live out the world from in here. It is only when I am outside that I am contained. No, in here, I am free.

As I said, I am at my writing desk, and all this is written down in my notebook. Yet no matter how pleasing it is for me to put pen to paper, I can not help but feel I do so out boredom. That my life had reached stillness and I do this simply to pass time.

I deny myself the pleasures of most things in society because they too leave me bored. And the repetition of seeing other tenants of the apartment block quickly leaves me fed up, yet I could not understand why everything now felt different, what reason the world felt dull to me and where my own passions went or the feeling that my body was awake. And it all drove me here, to my writing desk, scrawling ramblings in notebooks.

Something was so very different about how I see myself in my memories, more than nostalgia, I felt as though I were then a different person, someone else who still retained much of their cheerfulness, and good humour, who knew nothing of words like malicious. And as I traced back in my mind, I questioned if it had been the years of my adolescence that had cause me to drift and loosen the strings on what I valued. But like a magnetised piece iron that floats in salt water, assisting sailors to their destination, there was always my conscience to set bearings to my misguided thoughts.

I could not account this ennui on money or loneliness, but that my life lacked purpose, lacked direction. It was not a civil purpose but a personal one; what drove a person’s life. And perhaps it was not myself I needed to understand, but all that was around me, to discover what had been lost.

And sinking down in my chair, putting my elbow on the table and resting my forehead against my fingers, it has occurred to me, it is not only ennui, but sorrow. I am sorrowful, and have been so for a long time without my realizing.

And in this moment, I have stood up and look around the room, that seems different, as though in agreement with my confession. Yes, I repeat, I am sorrowful, and must be rid of it.

Yes, when I am moved, when my feelings are moved to speak as though for themselves, that is what I wish to regain and what will rid me of my sorrow. And my stomach felt tense and feelings rose upwards as if expressing words of their own:

Conscience, sing the song of my age, the song that has delivered me sorrow and shunned me of gladness, and unfurl in gentle words the stalks of all my sorrow.

Bole: Chant 1

It was pouring down with rain, I heard the splattering of footsteps in puddles that formed on the uneven pavement, and from my apartment view, appearing like a charcoal sketch of an old Victorian town, I followed the sound with my eyes until they reached two figures walking along the pavement below.

One was a young child, though I was not able to accurately say how old, accompanied by, who I will presume from his hunched posture, his lean frame and the greying of his wet hair, to be the young child’s grandfather. But the child was cold and, as frequently happens with young children, his hunger had revived. I could soon identify the young child as a boy from his grandfather’s comforting words, which expressed his name repeatedly as though it would encourage a relaxing effect. The grandfather, after pulling up his hood, noticing they had now stopped and how discomforting the rain was, knelt at the boy whose hands were placed in his pockets. And the grandfather, taking out a pair of mittens (though he referred them gloves) from the bag he had been holding, placed one after the other on the young boys hands, who held them both out together, one warming by the mitten, one getting wet by the rain. And the grandfather wiped off his hand before placing the other on, then rose to his feet, and took out a small biscuit or cake, I could not clearly see, and handed to it to the young boy. And after also having one for himself, all he now heard was the rain at his feet, and taking the boy’s hand, they continued along the pavement, whether having far or short to go, receiving no comfort from the rainfall. I watched them continue to walk down the road, and my attention was turned, no longer on the two of them, but to the rain as it landed in puddles on the ground.

The sight of this had provoked a sensation which drew me towards my chest of draws where in the bottom draw I would keep an assortment of objects that found no suitable place either on the walls or on flat surfaces. And I reached in, having known what it was I was provoked to find, and removed a picture still encased in its frame. I turned the frame over, unpicking the hinges and clips, and removed the photograph, placing the frame on top of the chest of draws. The photograph was an old image of my father, and it seemed fitting that it was not a recent one, yet the memory was lost of how or when I had acquired it. But on seeing it before me, it roused feelings within me that felt discordant, as though for a moment I had been short of breath. And as I saw a light drift from one corner of the room to the other, it evoked the passing of time. And as the shadows fell on to my books and passed over the photograph, I could not help but think of an earlier time, when for my birthday, two years ago but not to the day, I had coffee at a table with my father, where I was to see him for the last time. I remember it vividly. The café was small and dressed in auburn colours, my father wore his clean suit, but not his cleanest as he did not like to project he had a job that allowed him time for those kind of errands. And as we pulled out our chairs to take our seats a waitress approached to take our orders.

—Hi, he says as the waitress greets us at our table. I’ll have a beer, he orders. And what do you want? A beer?

—I don’t drink, Dad, I say. I’ll have a coffee, please, I order from the waitress.

—That’s what you drink? he says with a look as if I’d just told him I was ill. Alright, he says. Two coffees.

The waitress leaves and my father wriggles in his chair and pushes back his shoulders so they crack.

—You look well, he says.

—I’m not doing bad, I reply

He nods and looks at me for a moment to think of another question.

—Your place is . . .it’s working out?

—It’s comfortable, I say. I like it.

—Good.

He brushes his chin with his hand, feeling the roughness of his stubble against his fingers.

—What about. . girls? He asks. You still got that pretty one I saw you with last time?

—Who? Oh, I say remembering the scene. No, you got the wrong idea, she’s just my neighbour.

—Ah, he says, a little offended that I had found him mistaken. He takes a sip of his coffee. So you got a girl?

—Not for a while, no.

—Well you better get another one, he says. I hate to break it to you, but they’re not all lined up waiting for you.

I saw he found his remark amusing without noticing that I were not amused also. But I ignored it so as not to encourage another.

—What about yourself, Dad. How’s the work going?

—Ah, I work too much, he says sitting back as though rather proud of being overworked. Life of an architect, he continues. You work hard on something and they reward you by working you harder.

—Like Emelyán, I say.

—What’s that? Is that from one of your books?

—Nevermind.

—You should cut a hole in one of those books. Then maybe you’d take a look at life once in a while.

I had received that comment from him once before.

—I’m thinking about going to Crete, he says trying to change the subject.

—Oh, really, I say with faint interest.

—Yes. You should get away too, Zy. But, he says with a wave of his hand, I know you hate to fly.

—Oh, the flying part I’m fine with, I say. It’s the death part that worries me.

He doesn’t laugh and instead places his elbows on the table before him and wraps one hand over the other, with an expression of pity, that I wouldn’t bring myself to do something, which on several occasions, he had tried to convince me would be perfectly fine.

He looked at the table and began to arrange his cutlery in size order, starting with the smallest to the largest, so they were spread out like a fan. But as he was about to say something, the waitress returned with our order and hands my father his coffee and then my own, offering me her smile, which I returned with my own.

—What took you so long? says my father. It take three of you to make it?

He looks at me as if his comment impressed me. And the waitress bites her smile and walks away.

—I tell you, he says to me, more work and less skirt, and this place would be going somewhere.

I fake a smile and reach for my coffee, which is too hot to drink and so only allow it to touch my lips to receive its taste and fragrance.

—So, what is it you’re actually doing here? he asks me bluntly.

—Working . . .thinking . . .occasionally living.

—Well, maybe if you occasionally thought, he says amused, you’d do more living.

Realizing I was not as amused as he was with his response, he asks.

—Do you have any plans for the future?

—I don’t know, I say. Or maybe I do, and it’s just been weathered away by the lack of knowing how to do it.

—Well, work is very important, he says. What else can you do, he asks me rhetorically.

—I’d thought about more schooling.

—Why? So you can delay more time of not getting a real job?

—I was just thinking about it, I say.

—I just don’t know what it is you’re going to do. Do you know what it is you’re going to do? I don’t see how you’re going to get yourself out of this.

—It’s not really much worse than your situation.

—I have a career, son. You have a job that doesn’t pay very much. Don’t you appreciate the things you can buy with a good job?

—What if I went to study architecture?

—An architect? A long way to go if you’re going to pull out. Four years of schooling, industry experience, two more years of schooling, and then at least another year before anyone’s even going to take you on. You think you can do that? No, I think a son should follow their own direction.

—I appreciate your confidence.

—I’m being realistic. Don’t aim too high or too low.

—So, you’re working pretty hard right now? I ask him changing the subject.

—Yes, he says. I’m very good at what I do, but I believe I’ve got myself in to something inescapable.

—I’m sure you’ll find your way out, I say

Since you’ve built yourself in to it, I wished I’d continued.

—Yes, they’ll lock you up until stress is your only company.

—What is it you’re working on?

—A grand design, he says becoming more enthusiastic. I tell you this construction I am working on is so high, that from the top you can see heaven.

—And what’s at the bottom? I ask.

—The city, he says.

—It sounds as though your career is doing alright at least.

—Yes, well it’s very competitive though, he says seriously. Another architect becomes your rival. And you would not believe the deceitfulness of people, Zylitol. Let me give you a lesson, he says leaning forward to speak to me seriously. Don’t give anyone a chance, he says. Not a mile, not an inch. There just aren’t enough people in this world you can trust.

—Hm, I say. Maybe then I’m not doing so bad.

He looks at me confused with what I had said.

—I didn’t say any of that was bad, he says. It’s business.

—Well, I’ll figure something out, I say.

—Well, just know, no matter what you do, or how hard you strive, I’m your father, and I won’t be too disheartened if or when you fail.

A dog ran in through the front entrance and up to our table. Their owner ran inside after it and apologized, taking their dog by the collar.

—They’re like children aren’t they? he said to my father

—Yes, he replied sternly. Except they have less reason to be ashamed.

The owner looked confused by what my father had said, but laughed it off as a remark which he had misunderstood its meaning.

My father watched the owner lead his dog out of the entrance by the collar and turn the corner out of sight, before returned his eyes to me.

—What is it I can do for you? he asks. Money? Do you want money?

—No, I don’t care about money, I say.

—You don’t care about money? he says astounded. I put money in your account each month. You don’t work for it. Maybe I should take I back, if you’re not going to even work up a respect for it.

—I just meant that I don’t need. . . I just meant that I . . that I’m alright, I say trying to think of a safe answer.

—Hm, he says settling himself. Well.

I saw the waitress looking over at our table, with a concerned expression, whether out of curiosity, whether out of concern for the business, or whether out of sympathy for myself, I wasn’t sure.

He lets out a deep sigh and appears to run over the things I had said.

—I thought I’d left you in good hands, he says. Didn’t Samara raise you right?

—This is nothing to do with my mother, I say quickly. Maybe if you weren’t absent so long.

—Well, I. . . he begins to say but cuts himself off in favour of a different approach. Of course, I’d love to come up to see you more often, he says. But you know very well, I have a practice to run, and there’s the house, and my. . . and those living in it, and all prices are rising. Everything has to be paid for. You’re not thinking realistically, you’re just thinking of what you want, and that you deserve to have it because you want it.

—Maybe if you cared more about me than about your work, I mumble.

He went livid.

—Do you not think for a moment that I care about my work because I care for you? Do you think if I dropped all of this it would make everything easier? breathing fire to his words. You want to stop reading books with happy endings, he says. Wake up!

—You just don’t seem to show it, I say as if having written it on a napkin and passed it to him across the table.

—You don’t think I care? I’d build a temple in your honour if you ever gave me a reason to.

I look down at my table, and reach for my cup of coffee, but no longer feeling a thirst for it, I simply hold on to the handle.

—Don’t you appreciate that I come up here? he says. That we get to sit here, and talk, that you get to see me? Because I do. But it bothers me that I feel I come up here for nothing.

—Maybe if you hadn’t left in the first place, I say glancing up at him.

—Look, he says in a calmer tone. Your mother and I had our obstacles. She didn’t have it in her, he says. She couldn’t tolerate my . . . well . . . my behaviour.

He would always try to soften the truth with a lie, as though I were too young and naive to see through it.

—I don’t like when you answer me like a child, I say.

—Then don’t ask childish questions, he pronounces.

I sigh and sit back in my chair with my arms folded and resting on my lap.

—Some fathers don’t do this at all, he continues. Some don’t get to see their fathers again. Would you prefer that? I’m doing you a favour, Zylitol. You should appreciate it.

I let my eyes glance about room while he talks and noticed couples of people eating at tables close by had ceased their conversations and were looking over having felt uncomfortable to pleasantly continue their meals. Whether my father had also noticed, or whether he was too focused and lost in his temper, I wasn’t sure.

—Don’t forget you have not once visited me, he says. And I hardly receive a phone call. So don’t fire all your arrows at me.

I remove my cup of coffee from its saucer and take a gulp, causing my cheeks to puff out, and swallow, feeling its warmth as it trickles down my throat.

—I know. . . .I know it bothers you. It bothers me too, he says.

I look at him with surprise.

—It bothers me that I have to come up here because it bothers you.

Not surprised.

—You’re growing up, Zylitol, he says. I shouldn’t have to come up here to wipe your tears.

He breathes for a moment, and looks at me, cracks his shoulders once more and speaks calmly.

—Why don’t you come down to visit me? he says

—I don’t think I’m . . . I don’t.

I wanted to tell him I was angry that he had asked me, that I felt it offensive that I would repeat the same answer time and time again, but he continued to look at me, waiting for an answer, as though this were the time I was to say something different.

—I don’t think so, I say.

—Well, I’ll keep asking.

—Thanks for asking, I say. But understand that it might upset me if you repeat your asking.

—Well, he says smiling. I’ll take my chances.

He lifted his cup to his mouth to drink the last drop of coffee, and made an dissatisfied face, as though his cheek muscles had twitched him.

—Worst drink I’ve ever had, he says and places the cup to its saucer.

Yeah, I think to myself. Me too, Dad.

—Damn drink when straight through me, he announces. I’m going to find the lavatory.

He stands up, putting both hands on the table to raise himself, buttons his suit jacket and looks first to the left, then to the right to locate a sign for the toilets.

—They’re over there, I say.

—I see them, he says without looking to me and walks to where I had shown him.

I sat for a minute, allowing my emotions to find their direction and settle where they found peace, but they were determined to continue moving and collide with one another. I stared at my empty coffee cup. How cold it was now, how pale it seemed to me and how I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stood up from the table, walked to the entrance, putting on my coat as I went and left him there. I wanted to walk out on him. As I walked through the front entrance on to the street I heard him calling my name from inside, without knowing which way to find me.

—Zylitol? Zylitol? I hear. Where are you?

I still held the photograph in my hand and after a sigh I could not hold its image before me, but had to remove it from my hands. But after sitting for a moment with my elbow on the desk, my forehead rested on the base of my palm, it felt to be a nuisance and rising from my seat I snatched it up and walked over to the draws and slung the photograph in the draw where I had rediscovered it.

No, I thought, it was wrong to remove it.

And with that, turning away from my desk for a moment, filled with a temper and displeasure at things which were not my own, I began to stamp around my apartment in circles, which must have made a racket on the ceiling to the floor below, pointing at this item and that which were all things inherited from my father and I no longer found myself wanting to keep. And in erratic gestures, I at once wished them all to be gone from my sight and return to whom they belonged. I pulled all the objects off the walls, and lifted all the objects that stood on table surfaces and shoved them all in to a bag, and without sensible care, though some were sharp and some were rusted. Yet by now, having realized the time, and understood that not only I did not find myself in the mood to continue in this strange manner, it was late and I decided tomorrow would come too quickly whether I slept or not.

Bole: Chant 2

Leaving my apartment the next afternoon, I trapped the wings of my tattered coat in the door as I closed it, and received the jolt of a shock as it clung to my shoulders as I tried to step forward. Scurrying through my pockets for my key I bent down to unlock the door and free myself, just as Masur was walking up the stairs.

—You ought to think about getting a shorter coat, he says.

—I like this one. I’d die if I lost it, then I’d still look for it.

—Where you off to?

—I’m thinking of leaving.

—Where to?

—Ah, . . .I don’t know yet.

—Well, before you go, you wanna come up have a drink?

—A drink of water?

—Right . . yeah, he says remembering.

Masur lives on the top floor of our apartment building, three floors above mine and across the hall. His apartment was roughly the same size as mine, and he had filled it with posters of our national sports teams, and his book shelves consisted of adventure novels from the war and biographies of those who fought in them. He handed me a drink and we sat on opposite ends of the room, bridged by a coffee table. Our conversation was pleasant until we began to speak of the future, and I mentioned that I had been thinking about leaving for somewhere else. At first he understood this as leaving to another area of Anglii, but I assured him I meant further on. Our differences of opinion began to grow apart like red salt water, until we were separated by more than the coffee table. A dispute which was raised by the statement I made about our country; raised against his one-eyed patriotism. The same kind of one-eyed patriotism that a fool has for the ground beneath his feet, or a prisoner does to their bed. The sentimental attachment for that which they feel, I must here choose the word he so exhaustedly used, grateful.

—Our nation has the National Health Service, you must at least recognize elsewhere you wouldn’t have that? he says

—Ha! I let out an involuntary laugh. William Beveridge would be turning in his grave, I remark. Probably still saying I’ve got a thousand things to do.

—What grounds have you for saying that?

—You call me ungrateful, but look around, Masur. Drugs, drink, squalor, we’ve got people around here eating themselves to obesity, cancer of the smoke. And yet you talk to me about people who don’t have clean water, proper food, or shelter good enough to call a home. Whose the one whose ungrateful?

Masur pauses for a moment, processing my remark, accepting and rejecting it.

—Are you saying we aren’t entitled to enjoy ourselves?

—I’m saying thank God we have the National Health Service. Because we certainly aren’t helping ourselves.

That was perhaps the discussion. His absurd and unasked for outrage, at what was in his perspective: my ungratefulness towards my country. I had never questioned it once. I had never even let it be of concern, you don’t questions your patriotism, you either have it or you don’t. We spoke from different worlds, a world which he has much to learn, and his words were all his father’s. I could feel them, the repetition of his worlds, the out of context statements he used, the irrational arguments he proposed. I was talking to his father’s generation, and talking to him was like talking to a puppet, and I know of no other young man more their father’s son.

—But we must also have low brow culture, decadence and even the sleaze, he says. Otherwise it would make people sick, for not being able to express how they feel.

—Sick?

—Yes, sick with a lack of expression, he replies. High culture is not strictly higher living. You need all of it.

—Okay, I agree with that, I said, having understood his argument. But we have too much of one and too little of another. And too much of the wrong kind.

—Heh! Elitist.

—For what? For saying good things are better than bad things? No, there must always be an authority that directs to right and good things, without authority there is no respect.

What irritated me most of all, was that it was not an argument nor a discussion at all. I simply made a statement which was of no one’s concern other than my own, which he attempted to topple, foolishly attempting, without reason. So I felt no reason to explain nor defend my statement. What’s said was said. They were the words that I could only could have repeated. And the only effort on my part was to try to hold back any further statements that would spur this continued and pointless chatter.

—I didn’t realize you were a fascist, he says.

—Well that proves it then! I said. Orwell was right.

—What?

—Well, who isn’t a fascist? If fascism is the discouragement of a nihilistic form of decadence, and the encouragement of good and high things over low, I say with a slap to my left arm, sow me a badge.

—What happened to you, Zylitol?

Without acknowledging his question I continue my remark.

—It’s quite simple, I say. If you give people low brow culture, they’ll become low brow people.

But his words said so much about who he is, and I knew that they spoke so greatly of his relations and those around him, that they are all contained under this one belief system, and simply because there were many who believed it, and because those beliefs were embedded in to our very way of living, they believed it was right.

—I think you should go, he says.

—Ah, but we were just starting to have fun.

—Now, please.

—You know, I say standing to leave, a problem with you, Masur, is what you know is just vocabulary.

Or rather, my reader, these were the things I had wanted to say, but felt I could not, as I am not this person known to Masur. And so instead, feeling as one sometimes does when they have shared others company and felt there were things they had wished to say, I chosen to replay the episode to my own imagining.

After replaying the short evening at Masur’s over in my head, and recalling some of his remarks, I began to laugh with myself, having now the liberty to do so. And feeling myself more at ease in my own apartment, I began to laugh wildly. And laughing so wildly and talking aloud with such wild temper that the neighbours must surely have left their rooms and come to the door to hear. My reader, every time I read a scathing remark about our nation, our soft-spirited nation, I laugh in an outburst of mad joy. That it was not only me who felt such intense things. And that there were others who said it best in numerous ways, to speak of something foul and to cause a reaction of something wonderful. Our land, not of gentle men, but of gentle spirits. These remarks I leave to the wind, my unknown reader, but the pleasure I keep with me. I hold on to it, as it soothes my muscles. Vasta says ___________ and Vihta says __________, these lines which have kept me laughing for days on end. A private joke amongst dead branches. And my neighbours, they must surely cease their chatter, on hearing this wild laughter, and raise their ears to walls and over hedges. Yes, it is correct, their ears speak, it is mad laughter, coming from that child—For in their minds I perhaps am a child—And they wonder what on earth has provoked such an obscene sense of pleasure. But this is also my reason for laughter; it paints my picture beautifully. I am laughing for having seen and felt what I had known to have been there to see and to feel. Yet, they only see me, laughing, and only question with ears what have I heard. Not piercing through our soil and leaves to have seen what I have seen, what my Vihta and my Vasta have known to be. Nor have stretched out their branches to have felt what I have felt—but Vasta said it in his famous, all too famous lines: what is great is for the few.

And having enjoyed laughing like this, I felt a melancholy that I was unable to say these things in pubic, and only released them in solitude.

Where are you, conscience, when I am in public spheres? Why do you not roar and cackle as I would have you do? Is it because, lonely sun, you would not have another to share your brightness, but only rocks and vapours?

But my thoughts were again distracted by the sounds of voices at the base of my window, I stood up from my writing desk and walked over to the window to see what the noise was. There I saw beneath, at the grounds of the apartment, a small collection of people who seemed amused at the arrival of a young man who was approaching from the west. The young man’s name was Chrysolepsis. He is older than myself and I expect everybody knows him, or of him, one way or another. His name was never spoken without praise, or flattery, and on every young woman’s lips his graces were spoken with an adoring tone, and on every young man’s his achievements were spoken with such admiration it was easy to believe he was each their closest friend. The crowd, on seeing him, turned to each other excitedly in the expectation of his presence and made an effort to make themselves appear either more casual or more attractive; the boys turning from cheerful smiles to wincing as if in the duration a moment the world had become an enduring weight; the girls looking away from him as though trying to picture something or place themselves in a scene that left them calm, where those emotions could be revived, wearing a look that suggested nothing troubled them and simple to speak with them was to experience a rare delight. All this while Chrysolepsis continued to stroll along the pavement towards them. And on arriving, without making a gesture, they were all unable to conceal their smiles and each greeting him in their own way, some enthusiastically, some too shy to say much at all. Yet after Chrysolepsis wandered on, having I suppose not ever intending to stay, they all went back to talking amongst themselves, slightly distracted from what they said, as though dizzy from a quick passing with this renowned young man, whilst Chryoslepsis walked on in his direction, noticeably raising his head a little higher than when he arrived.

And shaking my head, not without smiling, I thought how funny it is to live in this apartment of a thousand eyes where Pheme may still blow her trumpet, and I turned away from the window and went back to my desk.

Bole: Chant 3

—You’re always listening to Palmieri, where my first words as I entered the kitchen of our apartment block to find Casuarina cooking.

—Well, when the weathers white, you gotta listen to music that’s colourful, she says.

She liked her music and I liked to think she was full of all the passion I heard in it. She was wearing a long dress, dropped at the shoulders, held with a waist belt, sort of a Régnier’s fifties fashion. And if I had not known she was against the thing, I would have believed she was an allegory of vanity.

—What are you making? I ask

—Just a stew.

—Enough for two? I ask looking over the pot

—Eh, stew for one, stew for two.

—Thanks, I say gratefully

I moved to the table and pulled out the chair which faced her.

—S’how you been? I say sitting down. Alright?

—Not bad, she says, spinning round to add, if that’s the same thing.

—Close enough, I say. But it sounds like you’ve got something on your mind.

—Oh . . nothing. Just stew and you, she says playfully.

I had learnt by now that a woman speaks her truth from her eyes not from her mouth.

—Casuarina, I persist.

—When I listen to music like this, she says turning to me. I feel as though I am on a tropical island under the hot sand, on sandy beaches, where everybody is dancing.

—It does have that effect, I say.

—I know, but then look around, we live under a grey cloud, she says parting her hands and shrugging.

—Yeah, but you can’t change the weather.

—Short of turning off a light switch now and then.

—Right, I laughed.

—Wouldn’t it be lovely to be living like that? she says, returning to her cooking.

—It would certainly be nice.

—Or to be the musicians themselves. Who get to travel the world and visit so many more of these places.

—Well, envy is to be found in all places.

—And think sometimes what it would be like to be famous, and everything good that would come.

—Are you planning on becoming famous? I ask

She laughs and turns her head to me.

—Fame? she laughs. How twentieth century of me.

—Well, do you not think you could be?

—What have I got to offer?

—Everyone has a talent.

—Maybe, she says. But you could.

—Me? What with?

—You have talent don’t you?

—Perhaps, but I think I should focus on something more realistic.

—But you have gifts, she says.

—My parents think I should pick one and follow it.

—But surely one inspires the other, she says. Picking one would be like cutting off your right arm because you don't use it as often as your left.

—Yeah, I feel like that sometimes. I think of what I would let go of, if I were to drop one.

—And just indulge in to the other one?

—Yeah.

—But it is good to submerge yourself in to it, right?

—For a while, but it can become quite claustrophobic.

—Yeah, it’s nice to have something else.

—Perhaps excess is bad.

—I don’t think so, she says. I just think excess leads to something bad.

—It’s the same for Birka.

—Is that the girl who lives on the top? she asks raising her finger.

—Yeah, she’s an artist.

—Another artist in the building? she asks delighted.

—I’m not an artist. I just like to do things.

—What kind of art does she make?

—Lots of things. Canvas paintings, pottery, wood carvings, she’s always busy working on a thousand things.

—She must be good.

—Yeah, she finds it hard though, because it’s hard to be an artist.

—Oh, I know. You have to trade it to be a media star if you want any kind of success.

—Definitely. Where is the art today?

—Yes, she says. It has been such a decline of art to media.

—I suppose it’s because media makes more money.

—Right, she says. It appeals to a wider audience.

—Plus you reach most of the audience through media outlets.

—Yeah, course that way it’s just a competition of popularity.

—And the best is always rare.

—All methods of art eventually suffer from popularity.

—Who said that?

—Vihta I think.

—In fact think about it, she says placing the ladle in the pot and turning to me. How many real artists can we think of, and not media stars?

—Not many, very few who are living.

—Exactly, because its been set up that success is channelled through media outlets.

—It has been that way for so long though, do you think it will ever change?

—They are so eaten up with pride and vanity that they’ll soon end by eating up each another.

—It’s certainly a threat to art.

—Media, she says, is the mechanism of popularity, machine of mediocrity, and the destroyer of individualism.

—The destroyer of individualism?

—Yes, she says. Because media tends to unify opinion.

—Art certainly loses its originality.

—This music, she says referring to Palmieri. I love it, but how often do you hear this?

—Not unless you’re cooking, I say.

—But not on the radio or on television, or on these heavily promoted festivals. We see the talented only become a talent and lose their full roundedness. No longer becoming a talent, but instead, becoming just an act. Like an imitation of talent.

—Sure, but I don’t listen to the radio, and watch almost no television.

—Well, most of our living is enclosed by the media. It’s the glove around all our lives.

—I suppose, almost every aspect of our social lifestyles I think involves media in some way.

—Some people enjoy media because its subordinate and inferior to them. Others were born with it around them and merely accept it, almost as a fact of life. And so, admire it and enjoy the jolt of restlessness and self-judgment that it creates through that envy. It's a way of silencing ourselves, I think. Those who gravitate towards it inevitably become like cattle.

—Yeah, I believe it’s hard to break out of thinking in a way that you’re brought up.

—It starts with schooling, she says. They school you to adapt to the world, knowing nothing about the years that have already made you, in to a world that’s pre-designed.

—Designed by who?

—Whoever profits.

—Well, you know, it doesn’t have to affect everyone. A lot of people just get on with their jobs.

—Of course. We’re specially skilled. Fortunately my parent’s taught me outside of school as well.

—You should write a letter to the government.

—Well they won’t listen, she exclaims. Politics can't handle opinion and speculation, it needs facts and evidence. You approach them with mere concerns Enough! Send in the jesters! they’ll say.

—Yeah, getting politicians to do anything is getting a child to wash dishes. It seems like such a chore to them.

—Exactly, they’d prefer we’d be occupied with other things.

—Yeah, just watch some TV, listen to the radio, buy those magazines.

—It's easier now to shape the minds of the public than ever, we all flock to the same pond to drink, she says.

—It can be pretty manipulating. I hardly watch TV because I feel I can’t think, as though my mind has suddenly poured out what’s inside. No, I correct myself. That it’s being filled with garbage and needs to make room by pouring out the other stuff.

—It’s like the production and distribution of states of minds, she says. But of course you have to realize that, when you get down to it, the audience is in control. Without the audience, all media is meaningless.

—Yeah, we could just shut it off and turn away from it.

—The problem is, she says. People rely on the media for their information. Newspapers, the TV, the radio, magazines, and in certain countries it is even down music and cinema.

—True, but not everyone. There are people who don’t involve themselves with media.

—Yeah, but it is not often they’re doing anything better.

—I don’t know, I say. They’re just enjoying their time perhaps, just relaxing.

—Well. there's no better relaxation than basking in your own accomplishment. But what is our leisure now but celebrated idleness?

—True. Hanging out at the Agora, or just walking around the city for no reason, I say.

—Yes, she laughs. The modern phase of idleness.

—But then, I say. We have more opportunity to. We have more appliances and technology that helps us have an easier life.

—But our living has increasingly become second and no longer surviving on its own, not dependant on itself, but on these achievements that have ever more supported our idleness.

—But I think it gives us more time to work, and more time to relax.

—I don’t know, I think we still work long hours. Any longer would too cruel, she says.

—I suppose, and technology replaced people’s jobs.

—But improved productivity, that’s what counted for them.

—But their conditions weren’t really favourable. The work they had to do then was too cruel. It was a good thing it was replaced.

—If it provides work for those it replaces, but a lot of people lost their jobs. And the important thing is that people need work, and there can be no fair economy that puts people out of work.

—Then if you have to work, people should work for the pleasure it.

—So they love what’s cruel?

—No, so they’re in a job that they enjoy most of all.

—So working is enjoyable, you mean?

—Yeah, so that they’re not working to earn their leisure, but all work is their leisure and when the air of leisure arrives it is not in the air of idleness between the hours of work, but in the air of achievement between the hours of that working leisure.

—But then you would work all the time and have no earned leisure, she says.

—I suppose, I say. Plus people need time out of work to go to places and buy things. And if you work so hard, you will want to see the rewards of that by up-scaling your house, and buying nicer things. We all have those kind of compulsions.

—But we are burdened by more and more unnecessary compulsions, she says. Driven in to a mad frenzy by numerous distractions to living we have forgotten how to live without.

—Yeah, we kind of adapt to every new thing we’re given. And in turn that thing relies on getting something else.

—And usually it’s sold by the same people, she says.

—The amount of money that I’ve spent on things because I was attracted to the idea of them. And even the idea that it’s expensive.

—Well, what isn’t expensive, she says quickly.

—True, I say. Prices are always rising.

—It’s a great disappointment that the lesson of the value of a pound gets shorter with each new generation. To where the lesson teaches that the value of a pound will buy you nothing of value. That in order for a pound to be of value, you must first spend a hundred.

—Well, we need to buy these things.

—Exactly, she laughs. We pay through the pocket for what we want, we pay through the nose for what we need.

—But what are you going to do? I say. We need money. What else would we trade with? If I didn’t trade with coins, everything I own is instantly a liability. I would buy things only to exchange them.

—I agree what that, she says. Money is a good exchange. When you have no goods to spear, or when there is no available goods to exchange, it is practical to have these pieces of nothing that are worth something. But it is when people value these pieces of nothing itself when problems arise. When these pieces of nothing are worth more than useful goods themselves, and when these pieces of nothing are worth more than people themselves.

At this point of our conversation, I said to myself: Thank you very much, Mr. Adam Smith.

—Always how its been though, right? I say. Someone’s rich, someone’s poor. Whether it’s for money or for food. Someone has always got more than someone else.

—Well, one person can’t gain unless another person loses. And what a person loses is determined by what another person gains. You can only gain as long as someone else has something to lose.

—It’s the distribution that’s the problem, I say. More than the money itself.

—And think about what happens when people have nothing to lose.

—They steal from each other.

—Exactly, she says. Poverty and crime are destined to flourish.

—But not everyone has that intention to lash out.

—Are you kidding? she says. Do you think a person who is dying of hunger will just lie in the street?

—What else can they do?

—Not stand for it.

—Do you think people would do that?

—The spirit of rebellion exists in every great city.

No, that is not quite right, prevalent was the word I believe she used, rebellion is prevalent. It was a strong thing to say and I understood her reasoning. And I believed it was the great task of governments to keep it dormant, as if it wakes, it may be a force which not even Heracles may restrain.

—Every city is an army.

—Well said, she says. Governments says that too.

—Except they prefer the people to battle it between themselves.

—Right, we have all this street violence, and what do they do? Film it for reality TV.

—And there’s all kinds of fatal crimes, over domestic issues, racial issues, and any kind of prejudice. Where is the government in that?

—Well they’re experts in that. They hire people to sow prejudice. That’s how wars get started.

—Well, I suppose the military has to do something.

—As long as there’s those within government whose job and duty is it to cause prejudice between nations how can we feel . . . She begins, but leaves her sentence to sum up in another. A government that can not protect the well being of the nation is not a government at all.

Hearing her talk like this, she looked to me like a Frémiet statue.

—People have to rely on their governments though, I say.

—Well, exactly. I mean you don’t have local people at peace treaties.

—Well, I don’t think it would so wise to.

—Why?

—Because, its not the chain, I say. It’s too far from them. Their responsibilities are local. They should at least start from their communities if they want to change things.

—But why then should they have to rule over their community to make it better? she asks.

—People sometimes need to be lead.

—They should learn to lead themselves.

—But there has to be authority, I say.

—Well, real freedom is when one beats their conditions, and stand against bad authority.

—Well who has the right to grant that? I ask.

—No one, she says. Only themselves.

—Yeah but, I say. If they don’t know what they’re doing, and they haven’t thought it through, they could end up much worse.

—If you were told to dig a hole and you found yourself deep in this hole you had dug, and there were no hands to pull you out, not even from those that ordered you to pick up the spade initially, would you remain there, or would pull yourself out?

—Well be careful, Casuarina. All advantage has disadvantage, and Vasta and Vihta both say: those who do the most good, are they who do the most harm.

—Well, I’m just saying for some things could be better. And remarkably enough, if you want some good things in this world, you have to do something more than ask for it.

—You think people should rule their own local communities? But don’t you think in doing so, they will not be ruling themselves but only each other. And since it’s visible to them, it will be under tighter control than how government is now?

—I just think the way of government is backwards and a method that is very old.

—What would you prefer? I ask.

—There needs to be an emphasis on a love for your country not a love for your government. No love for your master that renders you a slave. A love for your country and those who share it, no love of a hierarchy, but a love for the lack of.

—Yeah, it is admirable that the Vespucci always express love for its land no matter how bad it gets.

—Yes, you have to love it. Or what positive changes could you make.

—But what if one country loves their country more than another, and so wants to enforce their country on another.

—Then they’re foolish.

—Of course, but you must understand, there does exist bordering nations?

She sighs and stirs the stew with more energy.

—We insist on marching with flags and badges of our nation, a patriotism not only for our countries but against another’s, whilst remaining fixed to the one home, this our planet, and we should sooner realize for the better that we are all as one, of one home.

—I guess we’re all human after all.

—Ha! she laughs. That’s giving credit to some.

—Do you think we’re more divided?

—Probably the same, she says. But in different ways. I mean, how far could William the Conqueror get today? Probably not as some economists.

—True, we have changed in our habits, but I think if you were to break it down, the intention is still the same.

—Maybe yeah, they say power is money, or weapons. But an armed wealthy man might not get too far if he’s outnumbered by those the same who oppose him.

—Yeah, I suppose for something to thrive, there must be a collective attitude, I say.

—The only society that thrives has only ever been one of love for each other and love for their territory. A society, to thrive must always have a shared goal.

—Yeah, but, that too hasn’t always been used for good reasons.

—True, I suppose from the mob to the military it is a collective attitude, she says.

—Generals are something of a larger version of their armies.

—That’s also true, but what if there were those who demanded like that but for good?

—Demanded to act?

—No, demanded to live.

—If only there were more people like you, I say.

—We’ll there should be, she replies quickly. There’s more people everyday.

—Yeah, population numbers are going up.

—And yet we talk of an overpopulation crisis as if there's no work to be done.

—I agree, I mean it’s a problem for us. Not for nature.

—No, she says. Nature doesn’t really care. Nature’d be here with or without us.

—More likely without us, with how much nature we tear down.

—I know, it’s not like we don’t find ourselves complaining so much about the world, that we’re not at unrest with the state of things?

—I hear it all the time.

—Surely then there is plenty of work to be done, plenty of work to be found, and plenty more purposeful than where you are nothing but a small cog in a big wheel.

—Totally, it’s opening up avenues for all kinds of work.

—But instead what do we run to? The popularity and recognition, not in the form of achievement, but in the form of fame.

—Well, it also shouldn’t stop the rest of the world from happening. I mean, Palmieri still needs to make music.

—Of course.

—But I suppose people who are skilled for these things should follow a path where the higher duty lies, I say.

—Yeah, but they don’t, she says. Because they’re too few signs for how to get involved or what the reward is for doing it. And so they end up following the regular routes and then complaining that there are fewer jobs.

—People will always turn to the most obvious route first, I say.

—Well, it would make sense to, but there are other ways.

—I suppose they prefer to do what is easier.

—There will always be the feeble-minded, she says. And they will always respond to the same thing. To take considerable concern in things which fill their empty lives with purpose. Because no matter how much energy, time or money, they will always believe it is easier to please themselves than to please others.

I liked to hear her speak like this, and she proved she had all the passion from her music, but I was worried for her, that she, like I, lived in a setting she was not found.

—Remember, that all the things you hear me say, she says turning to me. Are ramblings from flood gates and not to be taken seriously, compared with the serious ones that I keep to myself.

—Well, I say. We all have the thoughts we keep to ourselves.

—When I speak like this, it is only the culmination of thoughts. Although they are thoughts from the tip of an ice berg, there are much larger thoughts beneath them still. But you have to trust that I don’t speak against the larger thoughts they stem from.

—I don’t imagine you’ve spoken a single word you don’t believe. But I also know that you feel comfortable to speak freely with me, and so you may have said things you may later withdraw.

—I don’t like to take back my words, she says. If I have said them, there must be some reason for it. And if I change my mind later, I will redeem myself with some other words.

—Sometimes I find it hard enough just to say what I mean.

—They what do you say?

What is well received.

—Enough, I say.

—It’s good to let yourself out and speak, Zylitol. I would like to let go of my past, she says. Cast it off like a worn out garment.

—What’s wrong with your past? I ask curiously.

—It lingers too long, she says. At least longer than the present.

—You don’t like the present?

—I suppose nostalgia is just sometimes better.

—Much better than the present? I ask.

—Just . . . life, she confesses. We don’t get to experience much of it around here.

—You feel you’re not experiencing life?

—Well, my grandfather was in the war, and my grandmother worked in the R.O.F. here.

—You think your life would be better in war?

—No, I think they perhaps experienced life more than me, because they lived closer to losing it.

—What are you saying? That you want to . . .

—No, nothing like that, she corrects me. And then smiled to restore her composure, having felt she went deeper than she initially wanted, and that I no longer seemed to be understanding her words.

—Anyway, I just meant that I’d been thinking about it.

—About something to . . .

—Something to wake up my life. she concludes.

—Yeah, I say. I know what you mean.

—There’s so much misery is the world, she says. I sometimes feel I’m without hope.

I saw her body tremble and she began to weep, in a mixture of joy and fear, and not knowing which to rest at. My mind rummaged for the correct words to lift her from her tears, but as she had turned her back to me to weep, I could only believe she had not wished for me to notice.

—How’s the stew? I asked, having thought of nothing else to say.

—Bubbling, she says staring deep in to the pot. Full of life.

I felt bad that I could not continue our conversation. But I didn’t know what to say at the time. I could have come out with some remark, some words that I perhaps needed myself, but I didn’t want to sound like a tumbleweed existentialist. And there was a perspective was not open to her yet. She still believed in death was the pathway to life. It is so foolish of people to believe they need to experience death to experience life. That is the kind of people who leap out of aeroplanes, believing they are going to be welcomed with a new perspective on the world and on their life, only to be disappointed that it is the same words, the same life, they had meet them on the ground. These are things I wished I had said to Casuarina, but I did not believe she would have readily taken my words. She was clever, but not knowing where to apply it, she was insistent on untangling complex thoughts, which prevented her from seeing its larger frame.

After feeling I had nothing to say to Casuarina on the subject and felt more like changing the subject than continuing it, given the state it had brought her to, I leaned back in my seat and looked out of the window, where I saw a couple of children playing on the grass outside the apartments, the kitchen being on the ground floor. They were happily playing whilst their parents were talking to each other, running around them like young wild and laughing as though it was the most fun to be had in the world to which all adults and young persons are unable to participate. Looking at these children, their care free sense, though acceptably too childish to be intelligible, I admired it, and thought to myself, what do these care of politics, these whom still know how to live.

I do not like to speak of politics, my reader, as I find it to be only a nuisance which hangs above my head. And though it follows me wherever I may travel, I do not partake in its concerns. If I act consciously, I act politically, whether for or against. But if act politically, by legislation, I’m acting with no conscience whatsoever. And for the most part, all I will say of politics is that when it improves it is good, and poor when it fails, and each political detail is a shaving of iron that gravitates to either pole. Yet, if we should think for ourselves, we should at least first think well.

However, my concern is with the culture. A culture is the expression of lives. And we have favoured amusement over values such as family, communities, work and education. I almost await the day a young street satyr riding past on a low-riding BMX, would sneer and curse at me in Gallia or Suetidi.

There is no earlier record of human thought than the paintings found on the walls of inhabited caves. There is no greater defining aspect of life during a civilization than its arts. Yet how that declined and rapidly. I do not believe we have ever celebrated such unoriginal, uninspired music, and I expect my reader will echo my words when I say, I have heard clocks with more originality and cinema still struggles to be considered as an art form.

Yet these channels of culture have created panels for confessions of complaints, and not a proposal for improvement. Whilst I have walked around this town and passed by people who are standing at bus shelters and staring down an empty road as they wait for the hopeful arrival of a scheduled bus, I have heard the blame pointed to the House of Hades.

—I had a child and I can't afford to feed them, and it’s the fault of House of Hades.

—I'm a drug addict and can't make rent, and it’s the fault of House of Hades.

—I have qualifications and yet can't get a job, and it’s the fault of House of Hades.

—Violence has risen on the streets and it’s the fault of House of Hades.

—We are under too much surveillance and too strict police discipline, and it’s the fault of House of Hades.

But to these people who wait, tormenting themselves, frustrated by the machine they have chosen to rely on, I have desired to say to them:

—If you were take away this House of Hades for one day, it would be the same, and then who would you have to blame?

I have worried for the child who is born in to unfair conditions. And question for what good reason have the responsible been less favoured over those who have offered life to a child even after the evaluation that the years of the child would be spent in hardship?

What life has been arranged for the well being of that child before its birth? You bring in to the world not a baby, but hopefully the being who will bury you, you bring in to the world not a child, but hopefully too a grandparent, you bring in to the world not a crying infant, but hopefully a happy husband or wife, a happy father or mother. And yet I question where does this priority lies against adding a child to a house, or marriage, or that it may give purpose or responsibility. Forgetting a life is not simply equated to its living.

Once I had finished thinking this discourse over in my head, when Casuarina was ready to serve, I offered a hand to set out bowls and cutlery us both, and she poured the stew. When I sat back down, glancing back to the window, there were no longer only two children and their parents but several, who must have all arrived whilst we had been setting the table, and were talking to each other in such a familiar way that it would seem that it were a regular meeting place, since the park was not far away. And yet despite to myself who did not recognize a face amongst them, there was distinctive behaviour between them, as some would seem more inclined to speak with some than others, though it seemed friendly. And putting these sights together, there was a clear difference between the people that seemed to order themselves naturally. And after eating, having changed to lighter subjects, clearing up and thanking Casuarina for the meal, I left the kitchen and returned to my apartment.

Bole: Chant 4

When I awoke this morning, the first thing I heard was the closing of metal doors as Mr. Fagaceae was placing the letters in each of our post boxes. I leaped out of bed, having realized the time, skipped washing, except for quickly brushing my teeth and throwing water over my face, and instead dressed hurriedly, and left my apartment, stopping only to quickly drink a glass of water. Stepping clumsily on to the mat outside my door, I had pushed it further inside my apartment, and was unable to realize it was preventing me from closing the door. I continued to try to shut the door before realizing the matt was blocking it and in my tired state, I pushed down the matt with my foot, away from the door without success.

—It works better if you pull it from the other side, says a voice from behind me.

It was Mr. Fagaceae

—Huh? I mumble

—Towards you. . .

—Oh, right. . .yeah.

—What’s the matter, Zylitol? Ain’t you got no sense?

Mr. Fagaceae was a short, stout man, a face like an inflated blowfish, and always appeared with eyes half closed. To me, he was like Prokofiev’s ‘Grandfather’, wearing sandals and feathered fedora, and a cane, that I believe he didn’t need, and only carried around to show off the symbol on the handle. I looked at my door and saw the missing number that Mr. Fagaceae had seemingly forgotten to replace. And instead had stuck to the door a piece of paper with a number on it, that could have just as easily been a raffle ticket.

—When are you are going to replace my door number? I ask him.

—When are you going to pay your rent? You’re late.

—I’m later for work, I quickly recover.

Another tenant passes up the stairs, and Mr. Fagaceae turns to the tenant to voice a remark that he failed to make in my presence.

—Some of us get up when the sun gets up, he says to the unfamiliar tenant. He gets up when the post comes.

On my way down the stairs, stepping quickly two steps at a time, I hear a voice call my name

—Zylitol, the voice says. A drink after work?

I look around and I see the head of Carpinus appearing out of his apartment.

—I don’t drink, I say. But I’ll stop by, yeah.

Carpinus’ apartment is two floors below mine. Though his apartment is larger, the space is shared between himself and his girlfriend. After I had finished work, I kept to my promise and visited Carpinus before returning to my own apartment. His apartment was decorated with several vases of daffodils, and inside the frames, which hung on his walls were not paintings but mirrors. But as he welcomed me in and offered me a seat, he took his seat, looking in to one of them as if it were. With the exception of the flowers and mirrors, his apartment was fairly bare. The only piece of decoration was a sign above the door of the bedroom which read: never know yourself.

—Comfortable seats aren’t they? he asks.

—They’re alright, yeah. Are they new?

—Yeah, we’re taking them to the new place.

Carpinus and his girlfriend had been saving their money and had recently bought a house also in the Pendula Demos, not too far from the apartments, though I had thought to myself, it was just a bigger bedroom.

—When is it you move in? I ask.

—We don’t have an exact date yet, he says. But soon.

I see a woman’s coat placed on the back of the chair to my right and I wonder if his girlfriend is also home.

—Is… erm, I begin to ask.

—Yeah, she’s here, he says presuming my question. She’s asleep though I think.

He turns his neck and faces the bedroom door behind him. And calls out but receives no response.

—Perhaps she’s still asleep, I say

—Nah, he disagrees. She speaks when spoken to.

He proceeds to stand up and walk to the bedroom door, not opening it, but tapping his knuckle lightly against it.

—Hey, you asleep? he whispers.

—Asleep, a voice whispers back.

—Zylitol’s here, you want to say hello?

—Hello, I hear from the bedroom.

—Long days, huh, you sound tired.

—Tired.

—Are you not coming?

—Coming.

—No, you sleep, I call to her. That’s alright.

—Alright, she says.

He turns to me and shrugs his shoulders, walks to the portable fridge where he unhooks a can of beer from its ring and asks:

—Zy, do you want a beer?

—I’ll have a water, but I don’t drink.

—Ah, that’s right. Sorry I forgot.

He closes the fridge and walk back over to his seat, opening his beer so the can crackles and softly fizzes.

I won’t bore my reader with the details of our conversation. It mostly proved to be a relentless episode of his self-praise, whilst I was an ear to it, or rather a muted audience.

He tells me he is doing great, in that overtly satisfied way he often enjoys. Perhaps he didn’t need the flattery, but he loved to inflate his esteem. But through his words I could see that he did not really understanding what he was doing, or whether he had made the right choices, or whether they were even good choice, but he perhaps needed to speak of them to test the effect it had on others, and after talking to a few, he may better understand the choices he had made. With his job, he never said he was doing great, instead he spoke of the praise he had received from his superiors and colleagues, and the benefits he had received as a result. He tells me he is able to get me a job in his industry, and I ask if it is well paid. He tells me it would not pay a penny, with a laugh which he then inhaled back in to his lungs, and I smile as if amused. He turns the conversation back to his new house, speaking proudly as though it were not a house but a palace, and that he has a girlfriend to live in it with, speaking of her, not like a princess, but like a prize.

Carpinus is also a musician and, though he does not look at me directly, at least not in the eyes, he tells me he is playing a gig for an event in the city that lies beyond Bjorkvard the following week. And I sit patiently, unmoved, waiting for the story to unravel to its end. But apart from dropping the name of a well-known group of musicians also performing on the stage that day, he offers me no other information. I had listened to his music once, and in their promotional pictures they all wore the same black suits and ties with white shirts. All of them skinny boys, who looked like breast-fed babies with bad habits. I tell him he should push himself more, that his influence was the strongest part, but then a hideously excessive grin appeared on his face and he tells me that the other members do nothing and that it was all him. I did not tell him what I really thought of his music, that I thought it was emotionless, full of clichés, and ruined by its desperation to identify with popularity. But if I had done, my words would have bounced off enough mirrors in this room that they would never have reached his ears. He sits across from me, still talking and supping beer in pauses of self-satisfaction. Yet, I held my tongue from saying what I was I wanted: that you’re doing everything I fear succumbing to at our age. And yet as much as I held my tongue, maintaining my pleasant grin across my face, I almost would have said to him: what happened, Carpinus? Freedom wasn’t working out for you? But even if I had managed to unclip my tongue from my between my teeth, I could not get a word in between his ceaseless testament of self-esteem was a wave that never ceased rising. And in order to get a word so that I may announce my leave, I was required to distract him. Yet since the telephone did not ring once, nor did he cease speaking or taking his eyes off me when he rose for another beer, and only sipped mid-sentence, ensuring me to allow him to finish, I saw no place that I may interrupt. But had fortune not proved to be on my side, I may have remained there for several more hours.

Another hour might have passed before there came a knock at his door, which at first Carpinus as if not hearing the sound against the door, continued to speak, but after finishing his point he rose and walked to answer it. Yet by this time, whoever had been outside his door had left and Carpinus stopped speaking in his confusion, and sticking his head out of the door, looking both ways, and even up and down to see if anyone might be seen, or signs of which way they might have gone, and concluding that it must have been nothing too important, since they knocked only once and left nothing in the way of a message, he pulled his neck back and closed the door, laughing to himself over his confusion. And walking back to his seat, settling his laughter, I felt a moment where I was able to speak, but on first attempt, my mouth so dry from have been silent, I failed to make a sound more than a breath, and so tried again, but even in my hasty attempt I still managed to speak only a second after Carpinus felt to continue.

—(Always the way isn’t it? You’re about to pick it up and . . .)

—This has been good, but I think I’m going to go.

I stand up and he looks surprised that I had decided to leave without warning, having not realized I had been preparing to all the while.

—Thanks for the, I begin to say before realizing that I hadn’t actually been offered that drink of water. Company.

—Yeah. Any time, man. he says smiling and nodding his head.

And then, it being late, I left to return to my apartment upstairs, and as I opened the door of my apartment I thought to myself: No, I would not care to be like that, I don’t envy him no matter how pleased he is for himself. But it is well for him.

And whilst I was about to close the door, having felt to be relieved of what I had stored and carried during the evening, I turned to close the door, and looked at the door opposite and then stepped back outside to look down the corridor, then up the staircase at each vault that appeared the same but felt to have their own personality because of who I repeatedly could associate with them And again I entered my apartment, walking around, and looking at my belongings, attempting to reconnect with myself. But there was something about it, something which repeatedly caused me to inhale and clench my fists, something which my thoughts continued to snag on. And I tried to decide what it was, eventually feeling that if it were important to me it would come to me in time. And so sat down at my writing desk, yawned and sighed lazily, then turning once more to the window, and blinking for a moment, it occurred to me what I had been trying to think of.

Given a particular day I am not working, I may see each level of inhabitants of Bjorkvard, pass before my window. I can see in my foreground, the edge of Pendula, and ahead of me the temenos of Lutea, and in the distance, those of Pumila, all connected by a road and separated by a roundabout.

As the sun rises early, so does the man of Pumila, and whilst the sky is still silver with thinner clouds, he eats a small breakfast, and taking a prepared meal that he made the night before, he wanders to his vehicle, which for his job is owned by the Lepidoptera. And here I will see him drive down the road before my window, stopping mid-way, where, should it be spring, he removes a strimmer to cut the overgrown grass and tame the leaves on the trees.

Meanwhile, the man of Lutea has now woken and after eating a light breakfast, wanders to his vehicle, awarded to him by his company, he drives along the road before my window, passing the man of Pumila, and on to the Business Demos to work.

An hour or so later, the man of Pendula will pass by my window. But I will not see him until after he has woken and ate a fair breakfast of fine foods that will carry him until lunch. Then wandering to his impressive vehicle, afforded on his professional salary, he drives to his office or bureau, and passes by the man of Pumila who is still strimming the grass, and taming the leaves.

But soon the sun rises high and the man of Pumila begins to grow tired, and as his hunger moans, he puts down the strummer and sits down to eat the meal he prepared yesterday. And removes a plastic container from his vehicle containing mash potatoes, peas and ham enough to keep his energy and alertness through to his next meal. In eating through his lunch, another man, similar to himself, pulls up in a vehicle, similar to his own, and gets out with a container and sits with him to eat a meal, similar to his own. And from my window, I may hear them speak. As I listen, I hear them talk of three things: family, relationships, and sex. Regarding family, I hear them speak respectfully, regarding relationships, I hear them speak bitterly, regarding sex, I hear them speak with vulgarity. But all of these in the tone of a casual conversation.

When the two have finished talking, the second man of Pumila stands, enters his vehicle, and drives off down the road, and the first man, after lying on the grass for a moment longer, stands and resumes strimming the grass, and taming the leaves.

As the sun passes across the sky in to the mid-afternoon, the man of Pendula drives down the road, past the man of Pumila, and returns to his temenos. His temenos is large, as is his garden and terrace, and he parks his vehicle in his garage of fair size, revealing a second under its shell. After staying for about an hour, the man of Pendula leaves his temenos and drives down the road, past the man of Pumila, who is still strimming the grass, and taming the leaves. But as he does so, the man of Pumila mutters to himself, something barely audible, but recognizably scornful, about the man of Pendula, which though referring to his impressive vehicle, and the second that sleeps in his garage, and the size of his temenos, it is all expressed under a single word, which is money. And as he is without, he will speak more about money than the man of Pendula.

But the sun rises on, and the grass has almost all been strimmed and the leaves have almost all been tamed, and though the man of Pumila is growing tired and his hunger is beginning to whimper, there is still work to be done.

But at this time, the man of Lutea is returning from work, and passes by the man of Pumila and drives to his temenos. His temenos is fair, but not large like the man of Pendula, it is modern, but not classical like the man of Pendula, his garden is well kept, but not as large as the man of Pendula, and he parks his vehicle on his drive way, which does not meet a sleeping vehicle like the man of Pendula. And after leaving his vehicle, he enters his temenos to relax, and on most days of the week, I will not see the man of Lutea for the remainder of the evening. But on these occasional evenings, he may leave his temenos after returning from work, strictly towards the later days of the week. And I may hear him speak, either on the phone or to a guest, and on these occasions, I will hear him talk of culture, or rather, of popular arts and entertainment. Regarding popular arts, he speaks with passion but with little intellect, of entertainment, he speaks with humour but little interest, and instead, speaks as though he feels it is necessary to be enthusiastic. And on these particular occasions, I would see others of Lutea, arrive at his temenos, leaving their vehicles, talking of popular arts and entertainment, to dine together at his temenos. But as today was the start of the week, I would not see the man of Lutea leave his temenos for the remainder of the evening.

And as the sun now shrinks in to the western sky. The man of Pumila has now finished strimming the grass and taming the leaves, and placing the strimmer back inside his vehicle, he steps inside, and drives down the road, before my window, back to his. . .what would not be called a regular temenos, but a vernacular temenos. And as he returns, I have little reason to doubt, by the gnawing of his hunger, and the exhaustion of his body, he does not prepare a meal, but seeks the quickest available food. But the man of Pumila does not wish to stay cooped up in doors as the man of Lutea, and instead, each night, sparing perhaps one, the man of Pumila leaves his vernacular temenos and wanders down to the tavern where he meets other men of Pumila, similar to himself, who spend the evening exchanging money for drinks and placing money in to hopeful machines.

Around this time, the man of Pendula returns home and leaves his vehicle to enter his temenos, and as he leaves I may hear him speak, not to a guest but on his phone. And on these occasions I may hear him speak, I hear him talk of business and travel. Regarding business, he speaks mechanically, regarding travel he speaks as if its business. But instead of remaining cooped up like the man of Lutea, or going to the tavern like the Pumila, the man of Pendula returns to his vehicle, after having not eaten but washed, and drives to a restaurant beyond the village to dine. And whilst the man of Pendula is eating fine foods in the restaurant, and the man of Lutea is relaxing in his temenos, the man of Pumila walks down the road before my window, tipsy from having drank too much, on an empty stomach, having ate too little, and after stumbling along the road, he collapses, on to the grass he had strimmed, beneath the leaves he had tamed.

And thinking again of Carpnius, how he defined himself by everything he had, and by where he was now choosing to live, feelings rose up inside me questioning his esteem:

Conscience, I do not know how to tell a man apart except by what he has or has not, except by where he goes or goes not. But what, my conscience, what is he?