Monthly Archives: August 2009

Objective, impartial, balanced, that’d what he should be, X tells me, 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 of a scientist, like Richard Dawkins, that’s what he should strive for, he says. The world-weary scepticism of an English intellectual. That would save him, he says, that would socialise him.

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 famous logic, he says, tell me where I made the wrong turn.

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 famous logic, he says, tell me where I made the wrong turn.

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.

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 talking to me in the first place? he asks. He’s stumbled well past the point of no return, he says, that much is clear. That is unless he creates a point of return, he says, and creates something behind that to which he can return, because you can only return to what you create. But a return to what you’ve created is hardly a return, he says.

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 talking to me in the first place? he asks. He’s stumbled well past the point of no return, he says, that much is clear. That is unless he creates a point of return, he says, and creates something behind that to which he can return, because you can only return to what you create. But a return to what you’ve created is hardly a return, he says.