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Philosophical talent
If only he had some philosophical talent, X tells me. Then he might be able to explain his feelings, then he might not need to talk to me. If only you’d answer, he says. How am I supposed to get any philosophical talent if you don’t answer my que...
This is goodbye
X tells me he doesn’t want to be or think anything anymore. He doesn’t want to submit to anything, let alone me. What’s the point of thinking, he says, since we don’t even comprehend the basis of our thought, since our words mean nothing? Bet...
Dusk
X tells me he’s always been afraid of dusk. Summer or winter, it doesn’t matter, he says. Some sort of gloom fear or boredom always descends on him with the murk, he says, that’s when he’s confronted by whatever it is that keeps trying to pee...
A winter coat in Africa
X tells me this is it, this is the end. He’s clapped-out, tied up and binned, finished. He’s like a winter coat in Africa, he says, irrelevant, useless, unfit for purpose. Everyone can see it, he says, even children. It’s obvious in the way the...
Well done
Well done, X tells me, you caught me unawares just like you wanted. You got me in the double bind, the catch-22, you boxed me in, checkmated me, cornered me, well done you. ...
Grinning like a chimp
X tells me he falls back into his little hole every day and drinks to fill it back up. Then I hover above it, he says, grinning like a chimp on a branch while I sense it there below me, in the back of my mind. Will you be my chimp behaviourist, he as...
Void
X tells me he feels like a void, or a black hole, not only devoid of life but sucking the life out of everything around him, even you, he says. So he has to leave, he says, or rather I have to leave, so he can be alone, so he won’t do any more dama...
Amateur
X tells me that every day he feels like he’s walking into a new village, like some medieval tinker. The streets are dispeopled the houses unwelcoming, he says. I might be the region’s newest arrival, he says, an amateur, though I seem to hav...
The day is heavy
I wake up tired, X tells me, the day is heavy, I’m too much myself. Everything returns me to myself. I need to escape, he says, why won’t you let me escape? I’ve tried it all, he says, you know that as well as I do, and I just get more weighed ...
The bitter end
This is it, X tells me, the bitter end, the cul-de-sac they reserved for me, the last stand, the defeat after the last stand, whatever comes after the defeat after the last stand. You won’t hear from me again, he says, that much is certain. I’m f...
A form of loss
‘I speak to restore the link between us, but only my words tell me the link is broken. Did it exist, once? I speak from the end, from after the end, and the lost link I seek rises from my words like a mirage. My words themselves are the mirage: the...
The tragic denouement
It’s ended, X tells me, it’s all finished, once again. It’s swallowed me up, covered me with soil, I’m done. This is it, he says, the third act, when the gun comes out, it’s the tragic denouement, every time I wake up. How have you figured ...
Creation
The world should never have been created, X tells me, it was a cosmic miscarriage. He’s convinced God experienced a moment of horror when he saw what he’d done and what would happen, then withdrew from his creation forever. The Deists are right, ...
Trap
‘I can only talk to you by refusing to listen to you. To give into you would be the death of me. Thus talking to you is a trap. You lured me in, or I lured myself in, into beginning what I can’t finish and can’t abandon. My friend and enemy, wh...
Freedom to come
‘When was it freedom became strange and difficult? When did it start to slip between my fingers? Was it when you turned up, when I started talking to you? Is it you, did you replace my freedom, are you my freedom to come? If not, what freedom i...
The terrible truth
‘Don’t tell me. Isn’t it obvious I don’t want to hear it? Just let me get a little close to it, you know it better than I. I know it too, just don’t let me get too close or far.’ ...
Quiet authority
Objective, impartial, balanced, that’d what he should be, he says, like a seasoned BBC war correspondent or a veteran psychoanalyst. The quiet authority of a seasoned professional, that’s what he should cultivate, he says. The sober objectivity o...
Norwich
He loves Norwich, X tells me, he loves the straight-talking Norfolk folk. They still have the country in their souls, he says. The country’s all around us, you only have to drive 15 minutes out of the city and you’re in Norfolk profonde, he says....
Paradox
It’s a paradox, X tells me, my life, I know you know it is, so why don’t you tell me once and for all, why don’t you tell me I’m living in it? Apply your logic, he says, tell me where I made the wrong turn. You’re right, he says, I shou...
Opaque
It was when he realised life was opaque, X tells me, like a cat’s gaze, that’s when he started sensing freedom. That was when the words emerged from the hoard he didn’t know he had, in their infinite opacity. ...
Point of no return
There’s no going back, X tells me, he can’t return. What was the title of that famous play, he says, You Can Never Go Home? There’s No Going Back? He can’t even remember the time before he started talking to me, he says. When did he start tal...
Sentimentality
The fear of death distresses him, X tells me. What a kitschy phrase! he says. Can’t we talk about the old-fashioned feelings without getting kitschy? he asks. Do we even still feel them without getting kitschy? he asks. Why else would Romantic book...
Leave me alone
There’s no point harassing me anymore, X tells me. It’s creepy, he says, it makes him feel like an American girl. You’re a perv, he tells me, you’re creeping me out. I have a life, leave me alone. I need you to back away, he says, like an Ame...
The great discovery
When did he first discover he was stupid? X asks me. You tell me, he says, you should know, you probably helped me, he says. You pulled me out of myself, led me into the discovery of my stupidity, didn’t you? The great discovery! It stayed with me,...
Up the garden path
He took a wrong turn somewhere, X tells me, he got lost. That was around the time everything got fucked up, around the time when this sense of things being profoundly fucked up invaded him. Coincidentally that was when you turned up, he says, when y...
Break
Well, he needed a break, X tells me, there’s no point feeling guilty about it, it’s normal to need a break, to go on holiday. The flat has a sweetly fusty hotel-room smell after being uninhabited all this time, he says. It’s not entirely unplea...
Bollocks
X tells me he keeps catching himself trying to lure himself into wordlessness. Where does this strange desire come from? he asks me. He has to catch himself, he says, because he knows what’ll happen, he’s been in that locked tank before, with i...
Lazarus and Jesus
X tells me he’s finally found out what we are. You’re the Jesus to my Lazarus, aren’t you, he says. Except, when you call me out of my cave I emerge against my will, dragged out by a force I can’t resist. I squint and stumble, stinking under ...
Neither here nor there
X is talking again. He elaborates stammers with stammers. His one subject, his one aim: to hold on. Onto what? he asks me. Speak, he implores me. Speak for once, ask me what I think I’m doing, tell me what I should do. No, don’t, he says. That wo...
The silence of art
People talk about the silence of a great artwork, X tells me, the silence of a great sculpture. But what does this mean, he asks, ‘the silence of a great sculpture’? An interruption in a guarded room… It needs alarms, he says, this precious sil...
