Cityscape: Copenhagen

1.
cobbled streets leading to a harbour of ancient ships. The sound of
English voices raised and echoing beneath a bridge crossing the canal.

2.
Kirkegaard's shoes. The heels heavily worn away. The sound of
footfalls thrown against the walls of terrace sailorís cottages to
become the explosions of fireworks towering above the harbour.

3.
Christiania. Quiet riverbanks. Wooden houses peak from between trees on the
opposite bank.

4.
In a warehouse a man builds a submarine and sails it in front of the
Royal theatre. Someone says that the same man plans to build a
rocket.

5.
In Andy's bar, the smell of cigarette smoke still lingers from a time
when sailors and 2nd world war soldiers would stumble up the stairs.
On the wall is a painting of a woman standing in the centre of
Copenhagen with her knickers down. A saxophone begins to play in the
other room.

Les Pensées

Artaud a self-styled intellectual was reading The Man Without Features but couldn't concentrate, the letters floating off the page. He put his book down and stared outside at nothing in particular.

The Shield of Achilles: Bucephalus

alexander remembered his father's words
spoken to him still being a child
my son, find yourself a kingdom equal to and worthy of yourself
for macedonia is too small for you
ever only since
could he remember the loss of home
for home was macedonia
how can a shelter offer comfort
when it cannot hold oneself
being not appropriate to one's needs
he took a last glance at his home
then saddled his horse
how can the soil of his land
ever satisfy a god
that is to rule a people
that is to govern the present
when home is a higher future
how can man carry glory
without knowing courage by heart
alexander rode to where the sun rises in the morning
for this is the path to heaven

Les Pensées

Artaud opened the envelope containing the results of his genealogical DNA test to trace his male lineage. No trace of his favorite author, a Portuguese who was raised in South-Africa and abandoned his studies of literature early on. No trace of his favorite philosopher of whom only a dozen of aphorisms were known beside his name. Disappointed, he questioned the value of knowledge.

In Search of Duende (2): Must We Burn?

Was there freedom in madness. I knew there was, I had believed there was, I had always been certain, but I suddenly doubted madness. I doubted not the existence, but the realm of madness. I realized that despite the popular usage of the term, which was vulgar, plain, I never felt aloof from it, not to say I was crazy, but I had always felt bored by normality, so I had without giving it much thought, assumed madness was normality, which was obviously not how most people meant it, when they said, you are crazy, or that's insane, and I didn't know what to reply, I just stared at them with a numb wit, scrambling to understand what they meant, losing my ground, what precisely of what I had just said did they think was insane? It was as if they believed there was a reality of concrete matter and a world of mental madness, which separated from the reality by a wide moat and an unbreachable wall. True, I couldn't tell anymore if I was on the inside or the outside, and if I was on the inside would I liberate myself by breaking out of this castle on the cliffs, and was madness in fact a prison, was I like De Sade locked up inside the Bastille, shouting at the masses, they are killing the prisoners, but then why had the defense walls been erected, in defense of what, as if madness was a prize, a tribute of war, the holy grail of sanity and the masses storming it on it outside, slowly losing their minds in the frenzy of blood hunger, smelling the power of madness, losing oneself, becoming god, or was I on the outside of the walls, and was madness the loss of perspective, without space, being able to follow the horizon in every direction and never approaching it, and was sanity the prison, like the asylum where De Sade found freedom, a safe harbor from the roaming infinity of madness. It was pitch dark. I couldn't tell if I had been dreaming or thoughtfully awake.

In Search of Duende (1): The Deep Song

They say the city never sleeps, but the street was quiet and dark. I held my breath and tried to hear the deep song of the city, could I hear the heartbeat of the soul, but I heard little, only the rustle of the wind in the gossip of the night. I felt disturbed, uneasy, annoyed perhaps, by this void, by the absence. I yearned for a jolt of madness, but just now when I was in search for it, the madness seemed to evaporate at every turn. A young girl in the corner possessed the inflamed, black eyes of a gypsy, her luscious stares tortured me, but when I approached her, her eyes turned flat and dull, and I lost my taste for her. The muscles of her olive colored calves contracted, I felt her gentle, pointy breasts screaming, I was haunted, but when I pulled her close to me, her body collapsed, her fatty arms released my captivation, her heavy torso disgusted me, and I lost my appetite. This madness, to possess, this physical need to enforce myself upon the helpless creature who had surrendered herself, this need to impose myself by force of will, it rose from within, it came out, and hang there in the air, motionless, pointless, aimless. Dawn rose. Normalcy rose. Bodies responding to their habitual, biological cycle woke up and filled the streets of day. I was engulfed by this tide, and I too disappeared into the day, sane, normal, all without madness. It was then, that I could hear the echo of the deep song.

"I will die
in the roses
they will kill me"

Les Pensées

Artaud crossed strange avenues, turned an unfamiliar corner, in a city strange to him. At an unknown bar, he ordered a coffee and a glass of water. Artaud's forehead was sweaty and his heart was racing. Was it the madness of the city or was it his own madness?

Les Pensées

He walked along the flottage du bois, the deck in between the four towers of the national library that looked like wood drifting down the river. All that is published in France was stored here. Artaud felt like Citizen Kane on his death bed and whispered 'rosebud'.

The Voyeuristic Lives of the Author

V sipped his beer, observing two friends dancing with a single girl. The girl rubbed her hips between the bodies of the young men, who had her locked in between them, one kissing her lips, the other's hands pulled her waist closely against his pelvis. A few minutes later they paid and left the bar. V waited a few moments and followed after them. When he stood outside, he was just in time to see them slip into the little park across the street. V followed at some distance.
V's latest novel had been a great success, reaching the top five of every bestselling list. His trademark was to invent perversions of ordinary characters by describing the most intricate, common details of their day to day lives. Often journalists and critics asked how he came up with his descriptions, how he was able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and some politely suggested he was depicting none other than himself. But the truth was that V. was simply an average character with little fantasy or imagination, nor did he possess a lot of life experience. He was by account of everyone who knew him, a very stable and reasonable person who disliked extravagances. His only mischief was perhaps that he was extremely curious.
The phone rang. V answered, it was A. They met an hour later at the Auberge de la Butte. A felt exhilarated, she kept on talking without end, panting in between words. S called me yesterday. You know, I didn't want to see him anymore after we broke up last month. But we talked for an hour, just as friends, and I realized how much I enjoyed talking to him, so I felt there was no harm in meeting simply for dinner. So we ate at this small restaurant S knew and that serves foie-gras specialties. Before I knew it, it was midnight and we were the last and only guests still present. They didn't push us out of course, but you could tell from their impatience that we were obviously holding everyone from being able to go home. So we decided to leave and walked without a particular sense for direction until we suddenly stood in front of his apartment. S asked if I wanted another drink perhaps, and before I knew it, we were fucking like animals in the staircase. V had been listening quietly with full attention and expectation. He interrupted A with brief to the point questions. Were you still wearing your clothes or had he undressed you by then? Did you kneel down and suck him? Did he come? Did you use a condom? Did you say anything? did he call you names? A unraveled rapidly the thread of what had happened, answered V's questions diligently, as V ushered her into the detailed descriptions of each moment. V did not understand how any event could really have meaning, come to life, without the slow sequence of scenes following one another patiently in full detail. It were the details of the single word that brought the fucking in the staircase to its culmination, not the impatient pounding of two lonely people pressed against the wall. A however kept stumbling over her words and excitingly rushed on, while V interrupted her.

Cityscape: An African Kitchen Song

I found myself whipping a squashed avocado, mixing the paste with the diced tomato at the beat of the Senegalese song that echoed in the space at the back of a characterless apartment complex. The voice jittered around the inner court from low to high in an unintuitive timing, its irregular beat was fascinating to the rational mind. I estimated the woman of the voice which was high-pitched, to be in her early twenties. I imagined her wearing a boubou, like the Senegalese women in the street, with a Senegalese pattern in bright yellow, gray and black figures that repeated around her waist. Earlier, I had still gotten irritated by the loud speaker voice of a radio or television, being forced to overhear the reciting of Ramadan prayers being broadcasted. Maybe if the recital voice had been of a real human being in their kitchen, the singing recital of a praying man whose humming danced out of the window, I would have been joyfully trying to make out the inaudible words of the distant song. The Senegalese woman had to be cooking I think, as the kitchens were all in the back of the building. The apartments were stapled on top of one another like Lego blocks. While one person was beating his wife, two meters above him, only separated by a concrete slice of 20 centimeter, a man and a woman were fucking passionately, while to their right or left, a man bowed down on his knees with his hands on the rug for prayer, bend in the very same position as the woman being fucked five meters to his right, while coincidentally facing the same direction as the man beating his wife. I listened to the singing of the Senegalese voice again, which sounded unique and solely.

Les Pensées

It was the night of doubt. Artaud looked up at the nightly heaven and saw nothing but a dimly lit dull sky. Artaud had never felt more uncertain.

Les Pensées

Being away for so long, Artaud had grown remarkably fond of her. He looked at her picture again and noticed now how beautiful she was. Artaud realized he did not know her at all and felt a deep sense of regret.

Cityscape: Les Couleurs de Belleville

I stared out of the stained window of bus 96 onto the pavement of the Rue de Ménilmontant, where three black women sauntered down the street in darkly colored chador garments and leather sandals, twisting their hips and torsos in alternating directions, pacing slowly forward. One of the woman however in particular drew my attention and repulsed stare in consequence, as her face looked so crudely male and miserable, that I was convinced she had to be a Shia cross-dresser. I searched desperately for breasts or a wasp tail, tried to imagine the vaguest of sexual poses or nudity underneath her dress, but the widely shapeless gown hid her body completely underneath and left but mystery to wonder about for me. The only body parts that could clearly be distinguished apart from her strong masculine facial features were her ankles and heels. A thick yellowish layer of callus on the heel bones of her elephant feet in combination with the country side fashion of chador garments here in the city made me believe these women had been burdened by years of carrying water jugs along many miles of Senegalese fields and dirt roads. This impression seemed to be confirmed by their crude peasant faces, that looked hardened and unpleasant, in which every sex appeal or elegance had been worn off by the endless hoarding of water and firewood in the tropical heat. But maybe there was more to these three women than their crude covers that revealed them to be Twelvers. Could it be that the male female was in fact a homosexual protected by his two older sisters, the other two women, who by their mass alone would make you think twice to throw any sneer or vile comment at them and even kept off the disapproving judgment by their imam and elderly. Enlightened by the chanting and praying of endless recitals of Arab which they couldn't understand, while being on the haji in Mecca, they had been overwhelmed by compassion for their confused and troubled brother in Paris, bought three chador garments, and then and there decided they would not let their little brother out of their sight ever again.

An Alley

Heringbold Crumb, in wanting to walk from Hungerfield Close to Pear Tree Close, was faced with two options: either he follow the course of the road which ran like a horseshoe, skirting the outside of a small forest standing between the two closes, or he take the small alleyway running directly through the forest itself. It was a question that had weighed on his mind many times over the last twenty eight years. As a boy he had chosen the alley without question, running nimbly and thinking little of it. But now he wasn't quite so sure. It was the darkness more than anything that made him falter. The street was well lighted with neat streetlamps throwing pools of amber onto the pavement at precise and regular intervals. The alley was small, enclosed and dark. Crumb knew that once he entered the alley he would be forced to give himself over to the darkness, that he would be certain of the direction in which he must move, but would remain oblivious to his surroundings. What frightened him most was the thought of some other body rushing up against him in the eternal night of the alleyway. What a strange thing light is, he thought. Surely all beauty is light and nothing more than light alone, all happiness, all freedom from anxiety is light, nothing but light. And then he drew level with the alley and gazed into its dark mouth. The line of street lamps stood to his right, evenly paced and whispering for him to join their path outside the forest. What if I should crash against someone coming in the opposite direction, he thought again. What if that person should be carrying a knife? But then he sensed his body starting to move, and realised with these last words drifting through his mind, that he had already plunged headlong into the darkness, and that the streetlamps were far behind him and then he felt a rush of euphoria.

The Drain

It began quite quietly and unthreateningly. A word was lost here and perhaps a number there, but not so dramatically as to cause alarm.

And then one morning he mislaid his notebook. This too occurred without the sirens of drama; It had been in the left inside pocket of his jacket and then just as naturally, it wasn't. The weather that morning was warm and pleasant and welcoming and he sat on the terrace sipping a coffee and thought little more of it. Returning to nature he thought with a shrug, this is no more than the next step on the road to freedom.

It is true that considered within the pattern of events his life had taken over the last few months, there was nothing really strange or out of the ordinary at play here. At first he had sold his computer, being sure to shut down each email account and means of social networking before doing so - just in case he should be tempted to scurry into an Internet cafe and fall back into his old routines. He had also rid himself of his cell and house phones and had made no effort to inform friends of this fact. Yes, this is freedom he thought. And then the word freedom itself slipped from his memory and he asked himself what this feeling was and found nothing offered in response. And so he thought of other words but each, in the moment he glimpsed them, flew from the branches of memory and hurried out into a silent white expanse. Anxiety gave way to acceptance, gave way to relief, until he found that instead of scaring language away one word at a time, waves of emptiness were flooding into his mind and washing whole paragraphs away, and with the paragraphs went the chapters and with the chapters went all language in volumes and novels, each pouring rapidly out and away from him.

Then what? Then nothing. Or worse than nothing, a space with no means to describe it. Emotions flashing in pulses and pictures. He pulled himself from the chair and walked through a garden and made his way to a staircase that led down onto a beach. The weather was beautiful but the beach was quite empty. He could see children a little way off prodding a large jelly fish that had washed onto the shore with large sticks. They struck quickly at its body before retreating back up the sand toward the cliff face. He removed his shoes and waded out a little into the water and for a moment felt a sensation that had once been happiness or joy or contentment. But just as quickly as it arose, he found that it flickered and died and with it went anger and misery and confusion. The water was nothing and he was nothing and the jellyfish was nothing and the children were nothing and he lost sight of the boundary between the water and his body and between the jellyfish and the children. Everything melted then into a soup of color; colors swirling as though a rainbow were pulled into a whirlpool. The whirlpool revealed a drain latticed with bars of metal to stop objects too large from being sucked down to block the pipes below. But there was nothing large enough to worry the drain here which drank in all color and all shape so that everything became a blur of spinning grey like a pulped book. And then the drain gurgled and fell to what he would once have called silence.

Les Pensées

Artaud woke up hearing the very same chirps of house sparrows as the day before, and through the single window in his bedroom, he saw the same white canvas that was the sky as yesterday. He became unsure if he had confused yesterday with today, or today with yesterday.

Help Me To Raise Um

Helmut stood on the navigation deck of the cargo freighter in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and peered out at the horizon and the vast surface of the ocean that was all there was to be seen. His wrinkled skin had darkened from months of salty wind and sun, obfuscating the blue lines of the tattoo on his right shoulder depicting an anchor. Cumulus clouds drifted by in the sky above and sank behind the horizon in the distance. Several illuminated spots on the dark water surface reflected the openings in the cloudy heaven and beams of sun light were clearly visible falling through them. Helmut stared at the endless number of crests that formed on the waves. His attention was caught by a sudden black movement on the surface. The constant change in surface pattern interrupted the trance of Helmut's thoughts induced by the endless sight of repetitive patterns of waves, crests, that rose and fell, disappearing in the mass of water again. Every now and then, he thought he saw a dolphin jump playfully out of the water, or the vague shower of vapor of a whale's exhalation sprout into the air, but then again he thought he had mistaken himself. As a sailor in the German navy Helmut had sailed the world for four years, from 1954 to 1958. Ever since he had not been back to the sea and had lived on a farm in Westfalen. He enjoyed listening to songs from his favorite shanty choirs and retold adventures with his comrades from the navy. When he retired last year, his children had offered him a ticket around the world on the Rickmers Singapore. But his memories had betrayed him. Even on board this German ship from the most prestigious German shipping company no body spoke German, and no sailor played the accordion to sing a shanty like they used to. For months, all day Helmut stood here in the sun, on the navigation deck, and stared into the distance.

Les Pensées

Artaud finally saw the Venus with his own eyes, but what struck him more was the army of unshaped bodies flashing their cameras and posing in front of the marble statue. He became worried that beauty was not what attracted the rows of visitors to the block of marble from Paros.

The Life and Times of a Poor Bibliophile

He stared at her deformed toes, waggling nervously before the shabby couch, in which her lump body had sunk away. Her frowned face stared puzzled at the crossword she had found to occupy herself with. A fire ball of hate welled up in his guts simply watching her. He turned to the book shelves in the living room, her living room, and felt relieved, deeply felt inner joy, the sight of these books gave him an overwhelming pleasure. The fact was that she had the best bookshelves of anyone he knew. Although now, she was a repulsive mass of thoughtless babble, she once, as a student, had been a promising Lacanian psycho-analyst. Her shelves were filled with surrealist literature, existentialist plays, and works by Lacan and Freud. But in the last ten years she had not read a single book of interest anymore, indulging in the mediocre life of a routine-filled job as an editor for a psychological magazine. Georges counted the backs of the books he had lined up in the top right shelves. All the other books he had read already in the long years since they had met. Thirty-two to go, he whispered. He never had loved her, he found no sexual attraction in her body, in her dull eyes, he hated kissing her thin lips, but once a week he kissed those horrid lines in her face. Thirty-two times ten, three-hundred and twenty days, one more year, he crossed the lines in the imaginary wall of the prison of his relationship with her, then he would be free of her, having read all the books in her library, free to leave.

Théâtre de la Cruauté (1): An Ordinary Sunday Morning and Its Consequences

The chirps of a group of house sparrows sitting on the branches of a dead tree filled the morning, which was covered by a white gray sky. Artaud woke up and listened to the irregular frequency of the birds' calls marking their territory. The chill of this mid-August summer day morning felt disagreeable. Unwillingly, Artaud expected the summer to bring sun and an azure sky, gay smiles and happy dresses. The evening had been uneventful, which could explain the slightly passive state of mind in which Artaud had woken up. On his way to La Bellevilloise he had coincidentally followed two petite black girls in black and dark blue cocktail dresses, staring with a growing feeling of arousal at the muscles of their oily calves and the lost contours of their slim waists, for several blocks. Arriving at the Rue Boyer the darkest girl had turned around and smiled leaving an impression of regret in Artaud. Now, in the morning, her dimpled cheeks brought back this sense of regret. In those few blocks he had familiarized himself with her back, the gently sexual movement of her hips, the dark curls dancing in the dim light of moon, lanterns and cars passing, and he had developed a certain fondness for the girl. When she had turned her face, smiled and signaled her dimpled cheeks, she had nestled herself comfortably in Artaud's mind. He knew he would be thinking of her all day, maybe tomorrow, and he would not be able to think rationally of anything else. His Sunday would be completely devoted to thinking about this demoiselle that had flirted before him into the night before.

Cityscape: La Mirage d'Amitié

Bartone, what are you doing tonight? Nothing. What's up? Lets go to K&M. The conversation lasted only a short time, and took on a matter of fact tone, but with a certain expectation in each of the voices. Cool. Artaud killed the call by pressing the red phone icon on his cell. He felt a certain excitement seeing Bartone, and now the plan was fixed, done, all set, he looked forward to go.
Bartone ordered two PBRs. Cheers. Yeah. The aluminum cans touched bottoms and each slurped down a taste of the cold alcohol. The conversation started like a slow boxing match, with careful punches to test the defense of the opponent, dancing around the ring to avoid real blows. Nothing much, Artaud replied. How about you. Well you know, the same, busy, it's crazy. I have this great idea. Maybe they got tired and dropped their guard. Ah, I love it, it reminds me of Derrida, in a way. I was throwing some thoughts down myself the other day. Artaud and Bartone each recalled some of their thoughts that week. And? Not sure. Bartone grinned to display compassion. Ah fuck. Artaud joined in. You know what. What. There's just too much, and it's always the same crap. Right. Artaud had once before gone through a similar event, and he didn't feel like having to experience it from the beginning all over again. Let's agree on certain parameters before though. The conversation gained some substance. I agree. But then lost promise again. Bartone and Artaud ordered another pair of PBRs. The conversation continued this way for some time until each went home and agreed to call the other again when something was going on. Later Artaud. Yeah, see you, Artaud replied, while Bartone turned in the direction of Bedford.

Corwin, Ohio: Death Ship, Part A

He imagined Atlantis as floating undiscovered within the sea of corn. Some mornings he would wade into the leaves and swim through yellow fields and dream of chancing upon an island and being welcomed as a god.

He saw eight legged monsters bearing upon him and he fought with them and killed them. He saw girls with long hair thrown back by invisible tides and arms of fish scales glinting against the sunlight.

In the evenings his Mother's face boiled red and he didn't eat. What sea monsters there are she screamed, are sent by God to raise up the boys that disobey Him from the deep and set them on His path, can you understand that? He nodded furiously and agreed.

Later, as he drifted to sleep and faced the monster sent by God, instead of allowing himself to be swallowed he struck out with his sword and killed the whale before it could open its mouth. Then he felt a rush of relief and power and saw lights from a distant island flickering above the surface of the water and he swam toward them.

Cityscape: Paris, the Relief of the Clouds

I felt vindicated, like a triumph of the will, an angel laying its hand on my shoulder, a bird descending from the flames of hell, carried by the span of its spread wings, floating in full motion, with the sun brightly burning above, penetrating the clouds below my body, until I finally disappear into the fog, like an airplane approaching, the engines gone, the wings gone, a bullet in a void, until small patches of isolated land emerge like a vapor from the boiling ground, engulfed by the glory of the clouds, drifting mountains, marble monuments of air, glorious sky. The irregular architecture of the sky reflects the random lines in the city landscape, that it passes, but how liberating to have one's pen drift wildly by the gravity of passing objects, along and off the grid, only apparently restricted to the contours of the canvas, but in reality expanding in every direction. I feel the pressure of the azure sky without limitation endlessly upon me, I am just a subject to it, what is easier to drown in than the open heaven with its absence of cadres, this oppressive space, with its rule of emptiness, only void, and eventually boredom. So picture my delight, on seeing these gray clouds, filled with mass and matter, being dragged along by the wind, the virtuous rain drizzling like drops of champaign released from the bottle, spraying around gloriously, luxuriously, the sour sweet frizzle, and to walk down the Rue de Ménilmontant, and slowly get drenched by the rain, to feel the chill of the wind drench my thirst, the thirst for an oasis to thinking man, why is everyone covering themselves under their sadly colored umbrellas, huddled like anxious cows mooing under the awning of a Tandoori restaurant, afraid of a bit of rain, of the relief of the clouds.

The Old Man and the Pianist

The old man sat down in front of the standing piano that was placed against the wall. He put the tennis derby at his left foot on one of the shining brass pedals and spread his fingers across the black and white keys. He closed his eyes and touched the chords of the imaginary composition that he was playing, rolling his fingers along the keys, lifting his bowed hand up in a slow, dramatic gesture as if pulled away by the force of his emotions, and flipping his hand while lowering his arm again, lay his fingers on the keyboard again to play the next chord, while the fingers of his left hand were dancing in a repetitive walk back and forth the same circle of bass keys. The old man had his eyes closed and nodded his head up and down on the pace of the notes. But no sound was heard, no tones were played, the room was filled with a melancholic silence. When the old man opened his eyes again, he saw a tall youthful figure with dark, short hair, the bony, lengthy fingers press the keys down with a deliberate, controlled force of a delicate touch, that revealed both the force and sensibility of his character. The shadowed lines of the swollen veins, the sinews of his fingers' muscles dancing on his toned, Mediterranean skin. The long neck was procrastinated, hovering above the hands, the eye white emphasizing the dark eyes that fixated on the fingers, and with irregular jerks the head shifted position. The tunes of the English suite filled the room, the soft and loud intonations alternating, plucking the strings of the old man. There had been a time that the old man would have shed a tear hearing such a delightful piece. The old man sighed with the pleasure of an old memory. He did in fact not even know the name of the young man playing the piano. The dark youth turned his head and smiled with a tender stare of approval.

Dialog between a Therapist and a Philosopher

P: Life is without meaning.
T: You mean your life. Let's talk about your life instead of the more impersonal life in general.
P: Well, no, yes, of course, my life too, my life has no meaning either, it is implied, but I meant to say life, I intended to say life. Your life, his life, our lives, life has no meaning.
T: I just think it is interesting that you use the impersonal form. Maybe you are evading the real question, and therefor the answer to the lack of meaning in your life.
P: Your assumption of meaning is false. I would even argue that it is you who are escaping the meaningless of your life by attributing to it unique qualities of a personal meaning.
T: Every life has meaning, every person has a function, a role in society. People are attached to you, they care, they are interested and you matter, and you believe this too, otherwise you would not talk to me right now.
P: I do not deny my perception of meaning, but it is false. I was transcending the personal to the generic, this is the quality of truth.
T: You mean your truth.
P: No, I mean truth. My words are carving out a universal truth, and this truth is that life is without meaning.
T: Your words.
P: Yes, my words.
T: So, thereby your truth.
P: How could my words be understood if they were my words, verbalizing my truth, only. It is my cause to find truths that are valid for everyone.
T: That's exactly why you cannot find meaning, you seek your meaning in the ecstatic space of the collective 'we', you are in a permanent state of narcissistic love, where you have lost your sense of reality as the 'I'.
P: But my philosophy would have no meaning if it only applied to myself.
T: Maybe not your philosophy, but you, the philosopher would find meaning in your life.
P: Life, I was talking about life, not my life, my life is irrelevant in the context of life.
T: I don't feel we are making progress, you keep dancing away from the essence of the problem.
P: No! You are just afraid.
T: I think it is you who are afraid, and you transfer your fears onto me, it's a known occurrence in psychology. Your life has meaning through others, but you avoid this contact by generalizing your life to life.
P: But my philosophy can only be perceived as meaningful to others when it is generalized to a philosophical truth.
T: You have castrated your life as meaningless through your philosophy.
P: My philosophy, truth is the only purpose I can perceive in life.

Landscape 8: Beep! Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep! Beep! The noisy sonars of a line of red and yellow scooters races by. Whoooo! Whoooo! A group of boys, with their slick and pointy hair cuts that glitter in the light from a layer of hair gel, throw their thin hairy chests forward over their steering wheels, turn their gas handles up with their hearts rattling like the engines of their bikes. A girl on the back, her olive colored body displayed, desired, the curves of her thighs, warm and happy, spread against the curves of her seat, her skin shiny from her sweat under a scourging sun, she holds her arms above her ecstatic head, pointing her fingers up at the sky as if treading in the open air, her body floating on the desires, her own and others, speeding by Drafaki in the dusk of evening, on their way to Paradise beach. Whooo! Beep! Beep! Beep! The sirens of their hormones blowing in their bikinis and bathing suits. Tonight is the night. Today is the day. Life is short, time is long.

Pantheon of the Gods (1): Apollo

A single tear rolled down the corner of my eye, ran down the shaft of my nose, and dropped on the granite rock. It instantly hardened, became as solid as the rock it fell on. I dried my face with the back of my hands and stared at the circle of lands, that lay around me. Three granite stones formed a small pyramid, the largest at the bottom, the smallest on the top, droplets of stiffened tears. The peak was now actually full of small granite toy pyramids, scattered around, modern devotions of tourists drawn to the beach bars of Mykonos, finding a refuge away from their boredom, to leave landmarks, obelisks erected by anonymous visitors who are compelled to make a mark, expressing their desires, unknown to themselves, a moment of self perception, the reflection hidden in a monument of themselves, without epithet, but carved out of the yearning to be famous, driven by an indistinct want to matter, to find purpose, to give meaning to their hopeless lives, from which they escaped, all these navels of their pity worlds, dropped like scat, nameless, mute cries, because they did not know themselves, and this is why I cry. The granite pebbles formed a sort of moon landscape, reminding me of Selene, my fair sister, rising in the sky the seventh and the twentieth. The heat was scourging, the land was dry, the wind here on top was a welcome relief from the sun, blowing in my face, my eyes, soothing, cooler than in the shade. Below me the sacred lake with the sixteen guarding lions of white marble, white like the moon, elegant like Selene, oh sacred light, beauty unseen by the eye, embrace me, veil me with your cover, rock me like a child, from pole to pole, along the heavenly spheres.