THE POLEMIC

 

He walked the busy streets that night. It was dark, or would have been but for the false, naked city lights, the illuminated shop windows bustling with frantic, late-night, day-working shoppers bickering for a bargain, debating in their heads the merits of a particular item of merchandise, and fetching into their pockets or purses for the requisite sum of money with their decision made, their sanity intact. It was also cold, for it was a Melbourne winter, and invisible clouds were crowding the sky overhead as the pedestrians crowded, jostling, in the streets below, and a fine drizzle, like mist, softly floated down in a forlorn, non-committal, lazy way.

He was wrapped in a thick, stiff coat that however did not keep out the cold; but he walked briskly, as if in so doing to keep one step apace of the cold that was just that one step behind. He was glad of heart, and that was good. He observed everything in the scan of his eyes, yet was oblivious to all that was going on around him.

There was very little wind to speak of, but then, as he reflected and smiled to himself at the thought, why speak of wind to begin with? Is wind not there, for all to see, beyond words and debate? It is so: and surely we have enough sense at least to not start about fighting a war over some pointless semantic question of the wind, this broad summer, a wistful morning, incitement to riot, revolt for... but what for? These people exist, as I, on this street, on a moonless night of a Melbourne winter. They say the dollar is falling, and patriotism fluctuates with every slight whim of the money-makers and power-benders: sack the workers; lock up the communists; turn back the clock; bring back the Russian Tsar, the Holy God; every gain is a loss; bickering and bartering, bitching and barking; a senseless dialogue; my head keeps ringing yet my heart is still...

            It had been a long time since he had felt this way, since he had breathed in freedom, sensed the chance to be free, to exist without fear in the face of mortal danger. He was wise not to take it all so seriously; or at least relieved, that he remained unaffected by the newspapers, the radio and television: he may read listen or watch, but set himself apart and refused to let this world touch him. He had resisted and been broken before, but one cannot raise oneself above the mainstream treadmill unless and until one has sunk to the depths and tasted the dregs. And anyway, hadn’t he said it before, it was preferable to be broken than compromised, and to be dead rather than broken...

He couldn’t understand why he felt so glad inside of himself; glad to be alive, indulging in this expanse of freedom; but he desired not to question it. It was sufficient to apprehend that it was happening, to be aware, to not have life falsified, but to know what was outside of him, just as only he could know himself. He wasn't in the habit of asking others why, only what; was not interested in reasons, that is, excuses, lies and pretexts, but only in the facts of the situation, from which he could draw his own conclusions. Or, what was better, so he could accept without concluding, without placing his stamp of approval on things, without judging others. But that is why he dismissed others' claims and questions, and withheld judgement and disapproval. Of course he did conclude, did judge, but he refrained from joining in the general chorus. How could he keep from conclusions and judgements when he was mortified by life and sickened by all that went on in the wide world?

He loved wild weather in particular, for it mirrored his own mood at those times; and he could enjoy watching the antics of others in trying to escape nature just as they avoided in the every-day the real issues that were in need of being, that demanded to be, addressed. Let them hurry and break into a run! But where would they go to when their crimes came to a head, when their ignorance failed to keep them intact? There was no doubting nature did keep its book of accounts and the imbalance created by humans would be set to rights. You could stall but not put off the day indefinitely, unless... Yes, unless… But also useless to consider and die in the labour of a thankless task: to be killed for the sake of posterity.

He saw something that made him laugh suddenly and aloud, but he did not notice as others looked up to stare at him, and in a few minutes although he was still enjoying his amusement he had forgotten what it was that had so amused him. The things of this world no longer had any hold on him. Even if the law were to without cause lay its hands on him, or if they were to drag him of to a lunatic asylum, they could do him no harm, it would mean nothing to him. For had he not been arrested before? committed before? He knew the ropes, the law of consequence, of fiat of circumstance and cause and effect. But this gift of life was valuable, was priceless, was in the absence of god the next best thing, better in fact, for it did not tie one down, it did not demand that you were always good, always right, it could not expect perfection, but must be content with the imperfect, with the small and weak, with the problem of living and the absolution that is found in death.

It was no use pretending: life passed out of reckoning like these diminishing streets along which he walked, out into the night, away from the noise of people who never have enough room to move, who have never breathed a fresh air, who have never sensed freedom. He could not vanquish his thoughts as he did these bustling streets left behind him, but he could have his joke with them, and chide himself for being unable to escape his thoughts that pursued and preyed upon him.

It had been a long time since he had wandered the streets at night like this. But in those days it had been for the purpose of exhausting his restless nature in order to prepare himself for sleep and dreams. This time it was different: it was derived from diffidence and an overwhelming gladness that was in want of expression by moving out and about, by striding along rather than having it locked away in the lacklustre bare and brooding room that was his home, the harbour of his dreams and his writings. Out here, beneath this grand ceiling, he could stretch in effortless abundance, and embrace the world in all its unhappiness, as if with the happiness that he was himself imbued with he could transform the world in one night, with one all-encompassing sweep of his gaze.

            He knew it was not so, of course; that in the morning the world would be the same as always, that The Age would contain the same old and tired ‘news’ about nothing fundamental, for lack of saying what was essential, by turning a blind eye, blinded by a false eye, reporting nonsense precisely because there was very little of sense that could be said, because there had been no fundamental change wrought overnight...

No, it was not so easy to conquer the world, not even in the old days, when the world was young, when there may have been a chance of doing some good. Whomsoever desires to conquer the world is already lost, already a traitor at heart...

The revolution, when it comes, if it comes in time, will be a bloodless affair fought out in the battleground of the consciousness. The one and only necessary revolution cannot be spoken or made, and yet shall come into being, borne on the collective backs of every sick soul that has ever wasted for want of truth, for want of freedom, that has known the deceit of language and the intrinsic lie of democracy, that knows the false demi-gods of material gain and private property for what they are, that recognises the power-brokers who have raped the earth and starved the poor, confining the poor to servitude and a miserable existence, a wretched business of having to fight off each other in order to eke out a little poor life for themselves. What the revolution will be and who will fight it is a business of the champions and politicians, but logic is a straight line that has been known to bend and encompass everything, anything, including the impossible and inconceivable...

Can meditation really quiet one’s thoughts and cure a high-strung nature? But at what cost? At the price of giving up the fight? Isn’t it the fight that is so dear to me? My thoughts that are so precious to me? My grasp of reality the only thing that enables me to defend my right to exist, that excuses my not having suicided?

So, with his thoughts, with his battle, he continued walking, he knew not wither. Cars sped by him going to he knew not where. He passed by a few solitary night walkers, wrapped in their own solitude, embracing the night, pursuing their own dreams, pursued by their own nightmares, and careful to keep level-headed with a firm foot on the ground. He doesn’t ask the purpose of it all. He knows there is no purpose; that there are too many purposes. He knows nothing and has all knowledge inside of him. What attitude ought one to have and hold on to in looking out at the world? in looking in on oneself? Another futile pursuit and pointless question, harbinger of doom, to attempt at wresting from life what it has not within it to give. This freedom is petrifying. The stench of having lived, living still and still to live, getting by on the strength of a conviction, parading prejudice like a gospel, as if the word could ever be spoken to begin with, as if anything could ever be believed beyond the moment, the ephemeral, the certain, certainly ambiguous but settled, set down, struck off the record, the exhilaration of being free at any given moment, of the chance to be, of the realisation of one’s selful obligation, one’s necessary commitment to hanging in there and hanging out, holding on with benumbed fingers to dear life.

The unfortunate ones are those who never know this feeling, yet they remain safe, they do not know the experience of being forsaken when once it is over, when one has returned to the stuff of what the earth is made.

Without warning a voice hailed him out of the empty air in form of greeting. A familiar voice, but unpleasant because unwanted, because an intrusion, because a return to earth... The drizzle had become heavier and was now a steady rain streaming down and causing rivulets of water to run off into the gutter or form pools on the pavement in shallow depressions.

 

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know... No, good actually, for a change.”

“Gad to hear it. I don’t feel too bad myself. But that’s hardly news. You know me, high-spirited, energetic, talkative. Do you mind me walking with you? You going anywhere in particular?”

“No and no.”

“Good. Then I’ll come along if I may. I’ve no plans myself for the evening. There’s a pub nearby. Handy, eh?”

“Yeah. Well, it might be a good idea to get out of the rain for a bit.”

“Right on. Anyway, how are you? No, I asked that already. I always repeat myself, asking stupid questions simply because I’m so forgetful, and for the sake of conversation. You don’t mind me talking to you? I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No. No. I was just thinking; aimlessly wandering. The usual thing. But not usual because it was good. I was happy.”

“Was. Does that mean: and now you’re not? Because of me?”

“No. Again no. At another time you could drive me to despair. But not tonight.”

“Well then, I’m glad to hear it. Still, if I do bother you, just say so. But you’re usually so low. I always feel the need of brightening you up, dragging you out of yourself. But you’re as reluctant as a bad tooth. Haha! Well, my witticism failed to hit the right chord in you. Still, I like to laugh at my own nonsense.”

“How far’s this pub?”

“Just a block or two, I believe. I don’t come this way often myself. It’s a good pub though: I’ve visited it a few times.”

            “What time is it?”

“Oh, only early, I should say. But what does that matter? It’s Thursday night, so the pub won’t shut till late.”

“Good. That’s all I wanted to know.” After a pause: “Where have you come from?”

“Dropped out of the blue, didn’t I? Surprised you. Surprised me too. I had no intention of being down this way. And yet here I am. And you too. The gods at play I suppose with their own secret purpose.”

“What? Are you suggesting some special significance in this chance meeting of ours?”

“No. Of course not. We atheists must stick together. There’s so few of us left. And have you heard the radio lately? All those trashy landmarks to christiandom. I tell you just about every bastard’s being ‘born again.’ They butcher the planet and want to inform us about god as they rest from their labour. Us for christsakes, they want us to see the light. Are you still thinking of establishing a society based upon the teachings of Judas?”

“What?”

“You know. Someone told me you were. I don’t know who or when. At some party or somewhere.”

“People are idiots.”

“But this was a friend of yours.”

“I don’t have friends.”

“No. You have friends all right. Only you don’t accept them because you judge them as you judge yourself: too severely. No-one else can live like you. And you know that but cannot accept it.”

“If I do have friends, that doesn’t mean they aren’t idiots also.”

“Like me?”

“You’re not a friend.”

“Come now. Well, an idiot?”

“You make your bed...”

“And you take your own medicine?”

“My own poison.”

“Well, that’s the same thing. What you need, no, don’t tell me to shut my mouth...”

“Shut your mouth.”

“...is some love in your life. A woman. Someone to brush you hair and kiss your pain away.”

“You’re a pain in the arse.”

“And you’re love-sick.”

“I’m sickened to death by people who try to tell me what I’m sick from. Next you’ll be preaching God to me. ‘If you can't get a woman, love God instead. Makes sense, and it costs nothing but cures all ills.’ Sure. I’ve heard it a thousand times before. More than a thousand. From everyone their own cure-all. Each different; all the same. Where’s this pub?”

“That’s your cure?”

“No. It was you who suggested the pub. And in there I can shrug off your stupid remarks over a scotch.”

“So you’re drinking scotch now?”

“Didn’t I just say so?”

“But you may not have meant it.”

“I mean everything.”

“No.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No. Tell me.”

“Inquisitive bastard, aren’t you?”

“Just interested, as amongst friends, you know. There’s nothing particularly terrible about that, is there?”

“There’s something wrong with everything if you only apply your mind. But that doesn’t bug me. Not tonight at any rate. So this is the pub?”

“Right first time.”

“I’m always right.”

“How is that possible?”

“By applying my mind.”

“And I don’t?”

“You talk too much, so much that your voice forgets your mind. You speak without thinking. But you can’t help yourself.”

“I said you were too critical.”

“Also honest.”

“That may be, but not always. What do you want to drink?”

“I told you.”

“Yes, a scotch. With ice? Yes, one scotch please, with ice, and for myself, have you any port? Yes. Five ounces will be fine, thank-you. You better grab a table while I’m getting these.”

There were a few empty tables despite the crowded bar. He selected one by a window, that did not reveal the view outside, but rather threw his reflection back at him. He seated himself, and his partner made his way over with the two glasses in his possession. His scotch was placed in front of him and his friend took up the seat opposite his and was the first to take up the conversation again.

“Been writing anything lately?”

“Not much.”

“But that’s what you always say.”

“That might be the way it always is.”

“But it’s not.”

“No. But what I write is no concern of yours. You wouldn’t understand it.”

“How can you know that?”

“How do I know anything?”

“A sound defence, but not foolproof.”

“Well, are you the fool to slip through it?”

“Your wit is improving. You must be in a good humour.”

            “Ha!”

“How long is it since you had a fuck?”

“Oh, now that’s a really intelligent question. Those who live by the cock die of syphilis, haven’t you heard? Or aids or what-not. Sex is not an issue. I’m not celibate, but that doesn’t mean I’m ruled by my penis. It’s you who have a sexual hang-up.”

“No. I’ve got a woman. A good woman. We screw most nights. And then there are other women on other nights.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s a problem with you. If you couldn’t get it you’d be desperate.”

“Yet I’m not desperate. It’s you who are desperate, always thinking of killing yourself.”

“But not from lack of sex or an absence of love.”

"Then…?”

“I told you. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I'm willing to listen, though.”

“No. You only want me to say something in order to give you an excuse for talking, to provide you with something out of my private world for conversation. You only like to talk intelligent, but not to be intelligent.”

“Of course no-one is as intelligent as you.”

“Don’t feed me that. Do you think I haven’t heard it before? I have, and from you too. From Christians also. ‘What are you afraid of?’ they say from the safety of their cocoon. They’ve forgotten what it means, or never knew to begin with.”

“But you’re still more intelligent than me?”

“You’re only trying to lead me on, baiting me all the time. You’re not satisfied that someone should not share their little secrets with you. I’m wise enough to recognise the limits of my intelligence, and to know that we are not two of a kind. You are not I.”

“A very comfortable position, to be sure.”

“What do you know of comfort? My very life means discomfiture, unknowing, a void that threatens to suck everything into its belly. You’re the one whose comfortable. You’re an atheist, but parade a host of gods of your own choosing or making. You have reason for living...”

“Is that bad?”

“No. No. Ten times - ten thousand times - no. It’s a question of who you are, where you’ve arrived at. Far better to know than to doubt all the time. But it’s not a question of choice. I’ll tell you something. This, this is a secret, but I don't give a damn who you tell. Today, oh no, I haven’t come to god: I am god. No-one is free, yet today I am free. Here before you, seated at this table, sipping on this scotch, and talking I am free. Absolutely. I have come to know what it is to breathe a good air. I am untouched, immune; but I cannot explain this freedom to you. It’s not a question of explanation. I cannot share with you my taste of this freedom, my glimpse of the expanse, the scent of this hallowed turf. I cannot teach you how to get where I am. But your gods, your reasons for living, have nothing in common with it. Nothing can approach this experience. No-one can tell it. No doctrine can enlist or institutionalise it. No-one can take it away from me.

“I will lose it, of course, perforce, for it cannot be borne for long. One would have to plunge oneself off a cliff in order to escape it, for it is too abundant and terrifying. It is not possible to live with too much of a good thing.

“I’ve been glad before, though rarely when I was sober, and never like this. I know it can’t last; that I am doomed; that no world can suit me; that I will never fit. That is because I am too good for the world, too exacting in my nature, set too far above it: I have no wish to share in its spoils, to profit from life. For in the grave everything is levelled, but in the living? The sheer diversity, the utter super-abundance of this thing... Oh, you talk of sex, or love, or a good table, a fine meal, a clean air; but no-one can come to this air that I breathe. And how could any lover satisfy me when I have had a taste of perfection?

“Look, I could go on talking, but would never get nearer the mark, could never express this feeling. It has to be experienced to be known. And it is not given to everyone. I pay for it in ways that you can have no idea of. I have died a thousand deaths for this, and because of it am condemned to eternal damnation, to die a thousand times again for freeing myself from the yoke. Everyone has their vision yet I have none. I have only what is. You wanted to hear. Well, have you had your fill? Do you  understand? Is it clear to you that I am one of the untouchables? Of course not. No need to tell me. I need not your reassurance or innocuous remarks.

“Once upon a time I searched high and low for my superiors, but had to give up on that fruitless endeavour. Since then I have tried to cope and looked around for my equals, also without success. But today, today I can begin watching out for my inferiors who are hunting me out. Not that I can help them. I will simply turn them about, redirect them, send them on their way, their own way, the way to themselves. They may lead the revolution or kill themselves for no reason, simply out of life’s affirmation of the self, of the need to find one’s own end. And what of you, what will you do, where will you go? Your appetite can never be sated only because you are so empty. I’m sorry, I’ve spoken too much, much too seriously. I’m much too simple for my own good, much too sickly to be deserving of this self-effacing rapturous applause, much too nervous to remain in your company...”

            Abruptly, before his friend - with undisguised astonishment and mouth agape - could utter a word, of conciliation or defence, he drained his glass, stood up, and walked off, away, out, into the night, beneath the dark sky. The wind had died like the rain, and the moon was peeping out, shedding its unearthly cold and forsaken light between drifting, torn rags of cloud that were breaking apart.

 

He was suddenly seized with remorse and shame for all he had said to his companion. He was shuddering with the cold, but also with an awful thought, and as if to ward off the thought rather than his chill he drew his overcoat tighter about him. Something passed through the matter of his brain like a sharp pain or involuntary convulsion: one of his attacks. It was gone almost immediately, but it reminded him of reality, of the fact that he was not escaped even for a moment. He wanted to run but had nowhere to run to.

He turned about face then, and did break into a run - back to the bottle-shop of the hotel. There he purchased a half-bottle of scotch. It took most of the last ten dollars that he had in his possession. As soon as he stood outside again he unscrewed the bottle’s top and, raising it to his pursed lips, took a hefty swig. He grimaced as the taste bit upon his tongue and stuck against the back of his throat, before, he swallowing hard, it found its way down; down, deep inside, to warm his inner self, and to relax his mind. For it was alcohol that he needed at such times: no overcoat would suffice to stop his hallucinations, but in drink he had found an antidote, if not the cure. Although there was a danger there too; he knew that from experience; that if he let himself go, forgot himself to get drunk, to get drunk to forget himself, he would suffer even worse sensations than those he sought to keep from him in drinking.

But now, tonight, he was more inclined, since his conversation and that mild attack, to drown himself in that liquid poison. The bottle he had would be enough to work its effect. He could ease out of himself. He was free, he repeated to himself, absolutely free. Everything in his life was yet to be written, was being written by himself. He could ignore the temptation to get drunk, or accept both it and the consequences: there were consequences in any case, for one had to understand freedom.

That is what he had not made clear; that was what was so difficult to explain. It could be apprehended as mindful reality, grasped with certainty, but to communicate it by means of words was verging on the impossible, was asking for trouble. He felt a fool, but it would have to be borne if it could not be conveyed; he had known beforehand that he could not make it understood, and yet he had not been able to stop himself and had gone ahead in his confidences, and to someone who was sure to spread it about like a disease. Well, he had lived with the laughter of others ringing in his ears for long enough, he could bear with it still, but that is not what concerned him at the moment. Now he was plagued by a new and shocking question: in fact quite an old question that in his fever he had forgotten, or had resisted - had refused to allow it to raise its ugly head - and yet it had been there all the time, at the forefront even, but he had ignored it, he had pretended that it did not exist in order not to lose his feeling too soon. But now circumstance had conspired to place the question before him and he could no longer escape its forceful attention: what was the good of this gladness?

He had been walking on again, but more slowly now; his thoughts were racing along so that to give his mind to them he had to slow down his physical self. He was muttering to himself, “Oh, oh, oh,” giving utterance to his agony. He had a right to live, as did everyone, but to be happy? Well, he was a sick man, he could excuse himself everything, he suffered enough for the world, or himself suffered for most of the time. Could he really demand of himself to reject this happiness, that would pass of its own accord in any case? He took another mouthful of his whiskey, and then fumbled to roll a cigarette, cradling the bottle in the crook of his arm, struck a match, and, cupping his hands from a wind that had again sprung up, lit the cigarette.

He had stopped in doing this; now, sucking heavily on the stick between his lips, he went on walking, but he did not know either that he had stopped or that he now went on; he was engrossed in his thoughts, in his question, in having to find justification for his experience of happiness, or to disown himself, to condemn himself before his fellows had a chance to condemn him, or to formulate his reasons to answer his critics; in any case to prepare his defence, to set himself up against that condemnation.

What had he said? “I am god,” and, “I am free.” But what did that mean? Was it possible to be a god and yet go on living? Can freedom be endured? Was it right to set oneself above the rest? Wasn’t there still a battle to be fought, a bloody battle that would carve up society and create a new order? Was he not one with his fellows in that? Injustices did exist, wrongs were committed: there was badness - madness - in the world. But what could the world - his fellows - expect from him? Had he to live for it - them - only? But one had to recognise oneself, know one’s nature, see what was in one and what one could do, and then to act in accord with it. To whom was he to answer if not to himself? And did he not know himself better than anyone? Did he not know others, indeed, much more than they knew themselves? To this extent he was superior to his fellows, yet even that was false to say: he was different to them to that extent. And yet even of that he could not be sure. For what did he know? And he had been wrong before; so often wrong indeed that you could not help but wonder if it was at all possible to be right, except by chance, that is, accident, or a quirk - a freak - of nature.

Well, of course, knowledge was an insoluble problem so long as one put the question. That issue at least could be avoided for the time being. But for now, what then? He suffered deeply, was tortured in the deeps, and his mind was so active, terribly so; it never kept still and convoluted all over the damn place. He had insights, he saw through things, saw through people, saw people too clearly, and he had startling - horrifying - thoughts, almost as if he were conceiving mentally of the mentally inconceivable, as if he were about to break through some incredible barrier from which he could never return. And he had actual physical sensations and hallucinations, and thoughts of morbidity, awful thoughts that did not bear mentioning let alone thinking about. Every aspect of his life was a trial. Today he had earned a reprieve, but it had already deserted him. His sanity was the most precious thing on earth to him and it was in constant danger of being overthrown. No, he was sick; this rapture was as much an aspect of his sickness as his despair. One ought never to allow oneself to be fooled by mood, and yet mood determined everything, and you could not do otherwise than make a fool of yourself.

He was no longer thinking to himself, but began to speak aloud words over which he had no control, words which had a hold over him.

“This bliss then, this rapture, it exists. I am set apart, yet am I one of you. This is no vision of god, no fictitious hope; it is a product of sickness, but a sickness with which we are all infected to one degree or another. I have no right to it without my fellows, yet do I prove my fellows right, I affirm the battle that must needs be, the blood that must flow before the battle can begin; the battle of the consciousness, that happens in the mind, to break through the barrier - the mould - of sanity and enter the insane, to enter the sheer wonder and beauty contained in a riddle and mystery, the mysterious depths to be plumbed in order to discover the self, to burst out in laughter and be on the verge of tears, to know the terrible pain of this joy, to form the mould anew and recreate the world, to be free to control our own lives and destinies, to choose this bottle or not, to know what it is to be alive and free upon the face of the earth as a god of your own, as your own god, all-knowing and all-powerful, with the purpose of creation residing with you, your glad heart brimming over: don’t kill yourselves, but the bastards killing you; we are but the mud of creation; go to the world and challenge it; go to yourselves and conquer; breathe this air, choke on it, it’s life threatening, soul-destroying, gasp for a lungful and grasp at straws, we’re all drowning, all together, all because of you, of what you can be, where am I, in this street, with my bottle, insane and calling out to the empty air eating up my words.

            “You! You! Hear me, oh, oh, no! What’s this bottle doing in my hands so empty? Have I already drunk it all? So quickly; too quickly for me. And where are you? I’ll smash your head in with this bottle. I’m helpless but don’t want to be saved. No, take yourselves away, you feeble-minded fictions, you mindless cut-out cartoon characters, all of you playing parts not at all suited to... what? What is it? Me? Yes. I know. Oh, don’t leave me now, not this instant, not this night. Where has the moon gone? It gladdened my heart, but now the clouds have snatched your sight away from my tearful eyes. Hahaha! Thought I was crying, did you? Did you? Do you still? Why is it we have to go on living? Have I forgotten everything? Did I ever know anything? Have I found you yet? Have you left me yet? Where are we to go from here? Go! Go! I'm so sad; glad to be mad, to be the one and only truth-speaker, to let you have a piece of my mind. Scotch brings tears to your eyes, don’t you know? And makes you laugh too. Alcohol is a wonderful invention, it sobers you up by making you forgetful, making you irresponsible. I’m not ashamed for I’m shameless. I’m not strong because I’m broken. I’m not a genius because I’m simple. I’m simply speaking the truth. It’s after midnight now and yesterday cannot be taken back. I wasn’t drunk, had no drugs, it happened, I was god because I was free: I was the only free one on the face of the earth. So now I’m drunk. Now I’ll collapse in the gutter and go to sleep. If someone does not come along with a blanket I’m sure to catch my death. I was a sickly child, always catching pneumonia. I almost died of it once.

“To be god means to be free, to have an open mind, to exorcise one’s prejudices, to humble oneself before the humblest, to determine one’s own life, to mould one’s own future, to, oh, oh, I’ve said too much again, really, it’s such a bother, words too can never be taken back, only when one writes them down in one’s room alone at night can one do the sensible thing and erase them out of existence by thrusting them into the fire in the first light of morning.

“Insanity is its own reward; anguish its accord. Oh, but can it be... only me?”

With these last words, almost inaudible, he did in fact lay himself down in the gutter, but before he finally succumbed to the weight of dreams, he vomited once, and with his head resting in the pool of his own making, he sunk into sleep and sluggish dreams.

 

He awoke sluggishly, chilled to the bone and shivering from head to toe, with the feel of a heavy hand roughly shaking him by the shoulder. He rolled over to face his antagonist, and through bleary eyes saw an old, stocky man stooping over him. The darkness of night was still visible, but dawn was near at hand, for there was a dull, diffused light washing in, lifting the veil on the eastern sky. Rain was again falling, softly, but in large, separate, irresistible drops. A few cars, transporters of the early-risers, were trundling noisily by.

“Are you all right, mate?”

“Yeah. I think so, at least. I’ll be fine in a minute... in a minute. Where am I?”

“I think you live here. In this building that you’ve slept outside of. I’ve seen you before coming out of it.”

“Oh... How did I get here? No, don’t answer, I’m still drunk, I suppose. I got drunk last night, you know.”

“Yeah. Well, hadn’t you better get inside? You wouldn’t want the police or anyone to come by.”

“Yes. You’re right. Thank you... By the way, can I do anything for you? Anything at all?”

“No. I shouldn’t think so. I’ll leave you now. You look after yourself, you hear?”

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks again.”

The old man left him, and he struggled to his feet, looked at his dried stain of filth, felt the side of his face and the matted hair that had lain in his vomit during his sleep, shook of his stupor, and made his way into the building outside of which he’d slept, and to his own room, where slowly, disjointedly, he removed his clothes, and with towel and soap and razor went to the bathroom of his lodgings and had a shower.

The water was hot, thankfully, and revived him. He couldn’t understand how he could have found his way, without his being aware of it, to where he lived; and how instead of knowing it and sleeping in his own bed that was so near at hand he had slept the night in the gutter, in his own vomit. But that did not particularly disturb him; he was rather amused by it. It was as if his faltering consciousness had played its own trick on him, as if to illustrate to him at the one throw the depths to which one could sink, as if to present an absurd contrast in order to prove the hopelessness, the sheer pedanticism, of human endeavour. But it showed him more than that. It reminded him of the virtue of the gutter. What had he said? “You make your bed.” No. Beds are more often made for you, but until you find the one that is appropriate for you you will have an uncomfortable night’s sleep. But no, that too was a shuffling of words, a play on words: aphorisms were insults to the intelligence, one dimensional, and poor substitutes for apprehending reality, for conceiving of the whole.

He returned to his room and sat down at his table then. He drank some coffee and smoked some cigarettes. And he wrote. He sought to put down on paper his impressions of the day before, to reconstruct the day on paper; but it seemed to him as if the page lied back to him, as if the pen refused to obey him, as if his train of thoughts were derailed, ineffectually contriving to amount to what was no longer given to them; that, now the mood was over, now he had passed on to reflection rather than rapture, he could no longer conceive, no longer apprehend. Finally, after many false attempts, in frustration he threw down the pen and screwed up the last page on which he had sought to express himself.

For the rest of the day he did nothing. That is, he spent the day in doing the little things that go to making up most of our days. Early in the evening he prepared himself for sleep, exhausted by the day and the few hours only of sleep he had caught the night before. But he could not sleep straight off; and it was now that his thoughts began to emerge and take shape, that it appeared to him that he knew what he had wanted to be able to pen down at the start of the day. He allowed himself to lay like that for a while longer, with his thoughts, not wishing to have them disperse or to bludgeon the life out of them by the act of writing; of having to lift himself out of his bed and sit again at his desk.

Finally he decided to act to capture his thoughts on paper. In the light of a candle he wrote for just over the hour a page and a half of close-scripted words that seemed to drain him, so that when he returned to his bed after it was completed he fell almost at once into a sound, and, he thought, justified repose. The last thing he penned was at the top of the first sheet, where he wrote the inscription: ‘The Polemic.’

 

This was his polemic:

“Every so often it happens that there is a freak of nature. But this is not so at all. It only appears so because of our learning, because of our teachings, because of our artlessness, because of the constraints placed upon us, that we place upon ourselves and our fellows. Everything changes; everything is different. Yet all of this is only so in degrees and by stages. The very soul of the universe hovers indecisively, yet it is contained by the immutability of existence.

“Indisputably, undoubtedly, the universe has soul, for that explains poignancy and anguish, which we all know. We humans are a product of the rock of ages, we are witness to the inviolability of the rock, and yet because we have broken through it we violate it with every means at our disposal. Still, that too is a part: we are an aspect of ‘a part-ness,’ and must learn to live with the mistakes of our past as we adapt to our future.

“It is not to be wondered at that when the ape first climbs down from the trees the initial steps are unsteady, for one must find one’s feet. No other animals have to learn how to live. Only humans, having unlearned how to live, having removed themselves from the state of nature, and having learned how not to live, must relearn the art of living. Goddom must be founded on earth. We must pronounce for ourselves both divine grace and divine approval. But not yet. We must not renounce our earthly ties, but proclaim them. But again not yet.

"Come to know yourself. It seems I have said this time and again, and yet I recognise the problem here. It is not possible to know oneself, for where do we draw the line between our selves and what exists outside of us? We are not only this mud of self, but all the rain that is soaked up by the mud: we are a trickling pool overflowing its limits, a thirsty ocean ever hankering for more. And even if we were able to say with certainty: ‘This is I; and this, all else,’ still we would not be able to do anything with it. The base and vile will say: ‘So this is I, base and vile as I am. Good then; I will be even more base and vile in order to substantiate my claim on life and live in accord with my nature.’ Perhaps today it is necessary to be base and vile; I am not about to argue the case of the Christians for them, that is, to preach goodness.

“The fact is, however, that this ‘this is I,’ is not who I am. I am clay, ill-treated and misshaped, in the hands of monsters who want to beat me into submission and themselves profit from my submissiveness. This is what we are, but we are not what we can be. We can overcome. We can become our own gods, able to shape the clay of ourselves, to have the clay that is our self shape itself through its own innate inclination. There is an order that has been imposed on us, that we have imposed on ourselves; through ignorance, weakness, or whatever; through the law of the jungle and of the pack: but we no longer live in the jungle, and in any case have adulterated that law. Power has been entrenched rather than earned, and is forced by power-brokers and interest-makers upon the pack, and with slight of hand in this day and age. But no-one ought to have power over another. Certainly we ought not to command and the rest obey. But the new order is yet to be created; the old law is crumbling but is yet to be overthrown. Every idea is plagiarised; everything seems to have been said before: how much must be said before one new word can be struck inside the consciousness?

“The religious of every prescription say we must renounce this world in favour of a world hereafter, that freedom is to be found only in obedience to God’s will and law, in freeing ourselves from our temporal selves, our earthly goals, because freedom cannot be founded on corporality. They seek to substitute a lie for truth, to deny reality in order that we are able to live without despair in the face of our unfreedom.

“And what does the Grand Inquisitor preach? That we cannot attain to being free; that because of our unfreedom it must be given over to a small percentage to hold sway over all, over the rest, that they may manufacture and dictate laws in order to maintain sanity and order in the face of insanity and chaos, which logic insists is the fundamental, underlying theme of existence; that in the absence of God and meaning a lie must be conceived and promulgated, to be believed in by the majority, whilst the minority, despite the advantage of their position, because of their privileged position, take upon themselves the universal suffering of the people, to keep it safe in their breast, whilst the rest live intact in ignorance and bliss. But they cannot decide for themselves what is good for them, for they cannot know what is best for themselves.

“Both of these doctrines have one fatal flaw: they assume that we are at an end, that we are the final throw, the only mould; that we are stuck forever in the mud. They have forgotten the ape and the tree. They have forgotten what freedom is.

“The few, I mean the rare, the freaks of nature, who have actually had a taste of freedom, whether they have been known and passed down through the records of history, or have died unheralded and unknown, anonymous and unremembered, whether they be considered fools or geniuses, are considered for all that a fluke, unnatural, an exception rather than the rule. But they are the new rule. On their backs the way will be trodden, just as the banner of the new world will be raised by those standing on the bloody corpses of those crushed in defending the old. The fight is long and hard, for the battle has been going on from time out of mind.

“This new world is unrecognisable to us now except as a hint and glimpse in the eyes of the true genius and the true fool, as well as in the expression of pain and rapture of the truly insane. But that is only a hint and glimpse, for the way is yet to be trod, and no-one can yet know it. Only in time, if we have time on our hands, to shape with our hands the time still to be, and even this is not certain for nothing can be proven. But reality does not need proofs, and I am accursed for I am faithless. I know God does not exist but cannot accept this life. Yet too can I not believe in or live for this future life that is inconceivable and unattainable. That is why I do not say it for my sake.

“Reason for living, life’s meaning, is not to be found in the mind but in the heart. Once we have found it in our heart of hearts, then can we apply our minds to it and communicate it by word of mouth, by language, which is the mind’s tool for conveying messages, for crossing barriers in space and time and erasing distinctions. So far however our minds have been heedless of our hearts, and employed in creating barriers and distinctions to knot our stomachs and tie our tongues. The revolution of the consciousness must begin, and will happen, only by the stubborn persistent clamouring and application of logic in response to our heart’s leaning and calling. Our psychology must undergo, or suffer, a transformation. But our psychology is heart-based and soulful, so that the regeneration of the heart, the affirmation of the spirit for life, and to live, is a necessary precondition for the psychological transformation.

“But logic proclaims also that conditions must be right for the heart and the consciousness to conceive illustriously of themselves and the possibilities of gladness and freedom. Gladness rests in the heart; freedom in the psychology: everything integrates and locks together. But things too fall apart. And in this falling apart, in the collapse of our present order, will be the coming together of all things in a new form, in the illustrious magnificence of the humanly apprehendable, in the shape and form of all things.”

In the morning, upon awakening, he appended the following words, that had occurred to him after leaving the page and turning back to his bed the night before, but prior to his dropping of to the sleep that was his due: “So I am an incurable romantic, then; hopelessly in love with an object set too far above or beyond me. But I am not just that; that is not the all that I am. I am tragically, unashamedly mad, and I proclaim my madness as the means to freedom, for attaining to the impossible. And because of my insanity I know that the impossible is indeed attainable.”