Spurious

The Youngest Day

When did we meet, on what day? And when will it come again, that day when we met for the first time, at the brink of adulthood? The first time: but did we meet, then? Who met? I'm not sure we met, I'm not sure it happened, but perhaps that non-happening is also our friendship. Perhaps it was the incompletion of what happened then, its failure to come to term, that is the life of our friendship. Or perhaps that is what deprived our friendship of itself, making you less than a friend and our friendship less than friendship.

With you, apart from you, I no longer know what the word friendship meant. Or perhaps I learnt of another sense of that word as friendship seemed to attenuate itself between us, to wear itself to nothing. Perhaps I learnt of what friendship must be, if it is to be anything at all.

But this is not right; I had other friends, and with you, I thought, it was different. Ours was an exceptional friendship, a friendship with the exceptional. But how many times I was disappointed because it was not friendship enough! Perhaps it was the same for you. Then for us both the word friendship echoed in a direction it could not reach. Unless one can learn of friendship by experiencing what it is not and it is when friendship breaks down that it reveals what it is.

What did we share? I remember, then, we disliked the same things, that our retreat pushed us together. I found you outside the house where the party was. No: you found me there. Outside - as I would find you again, on other occasions. In fact, I think whenever we met, by chance or design, it was outside. We were driven outside, each for our own reasons, and that was where we met, and continued to meet.

But now we have made our way in the world; we are settled in our lives, albeit in different parts of the country. I can remember today because I am so far inside - because, now, the life outside has become a spectacle; I remember because I am safe, and will not find myself exiled. And you, what do you remember? You turned to me - a letter would arrive, or the phone would ring - when you were exiled from an affair. Why, with a kind of ceremonialness did I feel I had to seek your blessing when I began a new affair of my own?

Perhaps it is that we need witnesses to our lives, and this is what we are to one another. Witnesses, distant now, but watching still. Distant, but watching with a great and benevolent love. I am here today, tomorrow and the day after that. Constancy: the whole sky - the great night with its stars and contellations, in its great, slow movement. So you to me - so your life moves slowly and vastly like the whole sky. So is your life to me even as it watches me and is turned to me, in its own way. And what is my life to you? A similar sky? A similar turning-as-a-whole, the sky that turns in its entirety?

What is it to live life watched! What it is to have elected a watcher, as I was elected your watcher! But I wonder, still, if this is not too much. It is not that I am watched or that I watch you. What is your life, after all, to me? What do I know of your days and nights, and what do you know of mine? Is it, rather, that your life must be exemplary to me, as one who came in from the outside. That we met when, outside, we had not found a place in the world. That we met so that this same outside would always be between us; that what we shared was just what what we could not share with others. We met outside, and we turn now to the other when we find ourselves close again to the outside.

What is it we share? Each is a sign to the other of the condition that was once their own. And the other to be called forward as witness to that first exclusion, the one that set us apart at adolescence, at the threshold of life. To be called forward by a letter or a phonecall, witness to the bare life that was once ours. But who is called forward as the witness? Not one who lives in the world, who is comfortable there, but the adolescent at the threshold. The outside calls you. Bare life calls to bare life.  I heard your voice on the phone, but what did I hear? I heard myself speak, but who spoke?

When when will it come again, that day when we met for the first time, at the brink of adulthood? On the last day which is also the youngest day, when the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. On that day to come which is also today, the day that does not complete itself today and whose non-completion is our life, our living.

Truancy

At That Time, in That Place

Hesitant speech, speech yet unsure of itself, speech that does not know the decorum of speech, of what might be said and the way it should be spoken: I remember how we spoke, then, as adolescents. I remember a speaking at the brink of itself, a searching-speech which was never resolved, a speech tentative and half-formed, as though it were looking too quickly to clothe its nudity. A speech in which what mattered was not the content of what was said, but the fact of speaking, in which speech, all of speech, spoke of itself.

It was not a matter of personal confession, of anecdote or intimacy. True, there were confidences, that's how it began; I learnt about you and you about me, we spoke of ourselves in trust and sincerity. But such speech is magnetised by what it would convey; it was not yet indifferent, it did had not come to speak of itself and only of speaking, the fact of speaking; it was not full with the wonder of speech where each word is strange because it is addressed to another, where each word is wondrous because it is unsure as to where it is travelling, and to where it will bear speech and its speakers.

How quickly we wore speech away! Almost at once, there was nothing to say and speech was worn down like a pebble. But that was the condition of speech. It was then, wasn't it, that speech spoke and we were dispersed even as it seemed we were brought together? It was at that moment, wasn't it, that speech interceded on its own behalf?

Perhaps this is to idealise what might have been, after all, only fumbling and idiocy. How could we speak, we who were so young? What had we to say, adolescents on the outside, at the brink of life? But what happened, I maintain, did so because of inexperience; inexperience was its condition.

'But We Never Said Anything'

We never said anything, that's what you said later. Then, it was though we were present only to accompany speech, to let speech remember itself and lighten itself by passing between us. Yes, it was as though our presence allowed speech to lighten itself, to offer speech a new direction. Curious that we seemed to come to ourselves after everything had been said, that we were always too late.

But what, after all, had been said? We never said anything. That was true; you always seemed comfortable with that silence, though later you told me you were never comfortable. I was always uncomfortable, I tried to say too much, as if ashamed at the nudity of speech. But in a sense, everything had been said, and silence was the speech of what remained.

Sometimes we drank, we took bottles of Thunderbird into the woods. We drank and we were warm by drinking though the woods were full of ice and snow. We drank and it seemed necessary to drink, as if drinking was another way to assist speech. Then there were silences - many times, we walked home in the night without a word spoken between us. Silence - but that was speech; speech happened by our silence.

We never said anything, yes that's true, nothing was said, speech was worn down, and it was as though everything we'd said and heard had been the river that wears pebbles into roundness. Nothing was said, we never began, because it was as though we came too late and there was nothing left for us to say.

Truancy

Dusk: I would meet you at the roundabout. Dawn: you'd pretend to be staying overnight with a friend and we would go into the wood and through the fields to see the sun rise. And we were together in the day, too, when we bunked off school and went to the woods and drink beer and skim stones across the lake.

What did we seek? Escape - from school first of all, but then from everyone, everyone else. To face one another? No, never that - we walked one alongside the other, we passed through derelict land and the new golf courses, we passed through the new estates and the land reserved to build more estates, we passed through the last woods and the last fields. We went, truants, and bore between us the truancy of speech, speech as truancy, that demanded we pass and always pass.

Later, when we had learned to speak of many of things, we sought to reckon with what we said and did not say then, so many years before. Later we decided to speak of that we had omitted to address then, in the dusk and the dawn and in the days truant from school. We never said anything, you said, but we knew, didn't we, that speech had happened, even though nothing had been said. We never said anything, you said on the phone.

Lightened Speech

Then, we had used phones then only to convey the minimum of information: let's meet at X., see you at Y. We had always written, that is true, but only to seek a writing loose enough to let speech speak. How seriously we wrote! But it was not a pretend-seriousness, there was a lightness to speech, we gave speech lightness by giving it another direction. Speech spoke of its lightness by our seriousness. Speech, between us, playing between us, became light even in the seriousness of our words.

I waited for letters from you, and sometimes they would come. I wrote to you, and sometimes you wrote to me, sometimes letters would reach me. But we never phoned, we distrusted phones, for years I never heard your voice, and that was right. We distrusted phones; my voice was too heavy and yours too light, I was too quick to speak and you preferred silence. Letters came, a flurry of correspondence and then nothing. Years passed, but their passing was marked by letters or by the absence of letters.

Later, we decided to reckon with speech, to speak and to meet. Later, when we had learnt a great deal, we thought we'd chase speech down, to track it all the way to the source. I phoned you - or did you phone me? - we spoke, we arranged to meet. Much later, when we were already old, speech laughed and disappeared - how could we expect speech to be punctual? We lost speech by searching for it. We lost what came of itself and by itself, like the deer that crossed the fields before us in the dawn.

We never said anything, you said, but now we said too much and spoke as adults. We never said anything, but that was because we had not learnt to speak, not then, we had not asserted our rights over speech. And today, what is left for us to say? Too much; everything - but now to 'catch up' is no longer truancy, no longer our passing from the world.

'They Hate Us'

Do they hate us? Have they even noticed us? After all, the battle has been won, we've been driven out or driven under. The battle won, and they are everywhere and we are nowhere, so why should they hate us? Most are unaware there was even a battle. The takeover happened without appearing as such; the battle was over before they knew it began.

What battle was there, what takeover? There is no one for them to hate, after all, we've been driven out or driven under, driven outside or crushed by great wheels. We're already out, or if we are inside, we are too busy, too wretched, in too marginal a position, they've forgotten us, and we're being crushed by great wheels. What hope is there for us? But there is infinite hope for them; they have won; but the victors have been so victorious they don't even know there's been a battle.

What battle?, they say, and blink. Was there a battle? It felt like one, but in truth we were so unmatched to our enemy we hadn't a chance. Did the enemy notice us as they rolled over us? Or was it that they could only roll thus, that the great wheels must turn thus, and we were only that which was in their way? In truth, they paid no attention to us, we were not worthy of attention. In truth, we were brushed aside as an annoying fly was brushed aside, temporary irritant.

What did they have on their mind? Getting on with business. They were strong and we were weak; what could we say to ourselves but, they hate us. They hadn't noticed us, we were nothing to them, they were already fearsomely strong, but we said to ourselves, they hate us. The great wheels rolled over us; what else could we say but, they hate us, they sought us out and hunted us down, the great extirpation was systematic, they deliberately drove us to the margins or drove us out, it was their plan from the start. But they didn't notice us, we were nothing to them, there was no battle, but how could there be when we had no power, no voice.

The great wheels rolled across us as wheels roll. They wheels turned, we were crushed, but they didn't notice. How could they notice when we were so small and insignificant? They hate us, we said to ourselves. They hate us, which is why they've sought us out, but in fact they never sought us out, the wheels turned because wheels turned; they were strong and we were weak, and their strength, which increased daily, meant we could not endure.

Do they hate us? I've looked into their inscrutable faces and can see no hate. I've looked into their eyes and I see no malice. How soft and pudgy they are! How unstrong they appear! But their softness is a sign of their strength. They can allow themselves to grow soft because of their strength. I do not understand them, but I know there is no hatred, only strength, only certainty. They know the future is theirs. But they with a knowledge that is benign, their sense of their rightness is absolute; they are in possession of the right methods, the right techniques, it is obvious to them. They are on the right path, but for them it is not even a path, it is the broad day, it is the morning of the world, it is the still-new morning. They have the right techniques, but to them they are not even techniques, but the expression of what they are, the gestures closest to them.

How I admire their strength, and how I fear them! How I admire and fear them! I am drawn to them, it is true, I love nothing more than certainty that is unaware of itself, I love those with a sense of the inside and the outside, I love those who can divide night and day. But I fear them, that is also true, and I want to say they hate us, even if that hatred is as vast as their strength, and even if they do not know they hate. I have know them well, have studied under them and worked beside them; I know them and am drawn to them.

What certainty! What direction! What strength! One wheel of the great juggernaut, a forewheel of the great vehicle, part of a vaster ensemble that drives itself across us. A wheel, one wheel of the juggernaut, a plate of the caterpillar tread as it flattens us: they belong to the new industries and the new techniques, they speak of the new world and of the flattening of the old world. What chance could we have?

They hate us, we say to ourselves, but like the juggernaut, the great bulldozer, theirs is the movement forward, theirs is the drive forward, theirs is the expansion to the far limits of the horizon. Who are we to them, unbraced against the future? Who were we, unprepared and dreaming? The battle was over before it began; in their histories they will not remember us. Their histories, the epic poem of their victory will have no room for us. We are forgotten, but in truth, we had never been remembered; no one set their sights on us; no one sought us as a target, we were only part of the foilage, part of the world to be conquered.

In the end, for them, there will never have been a battle, the world was theirs before they noticed it; there was no battle and no frontier, there was only the inside, which was to stretch across the horizon. In the end ... but there will be no end, they belong to the morning, they are machines of the dawn, and have only begun, one wheel of the juggernaut, to flatten the world. Where runs the line between inside and outside? For them there is no line, no frontier; there was no enemy. Victory is theirs and it was not even victory. The battle was won, but there was no battle. They hate us, we say, but we were always unnoticed, they looked beyond us, their gaze was fixed on the future.

2.

Ours is a pluralistic tradition, they say, all are admitted, they say. We are tolerant, they say, and all can be admitted. Just speak as we speak, and speak to us. Learn to speak like us, and to speak with us, and you will be admitted. Speak as we speak, learn our tongue, and you will prosper in our kingdom, we'll make a place for you. Translate yourselves into our tongues, make it so we can understand you, and we'll give you some room, you'll decorate our world. Who was not more open to debate than we are? Who was not more welcoming of discussion? We have time, all of time, to walk with one another and to talk. We have all of time, it is still morning, to walk with you and speak. Only learn our language, learn how to speak, and you will be admitted.

For a time, some of us tried to speak, some of us went over to them and tried to speak. They spoke; some went inside, some disappeared there. But the rest of us never learnt to speak; we were too weak. They hate us, we thought, and what chance do we have. They hate us, we thought, and it is not worth our time to learn their language. For how could we make ourselves understood? How when the conditions of the debate were theirs from the start? How when the rules were in their hands, even though they didn't know the rules were in their hands?

Happy victors who held everything, who possessed everything in their great hands! Happy victors for whom the day was still young and the horizon wide! They hate us, we said, but in truth they were like clumsy beasts who wanted to play with us. They hate us, but they came towards us like great and clumsy beasts who would tear us from themselves as they played with us. They were curious, that was true. They bounded towards us, we were new sport, new curiosity. They were not cruel; there was no hatred in them. They came towards us, curious at their new playmates. But how could we play with them, we for whom it was not a game? How could we but watch as those who played thus were torn apart and scattered to the wind?

There was no hatred in them, that was true, but there was a fearsome strength that was the strength of the whole world. They hated nothing; they were pleasant, amenable, but in truth they were at one with the strength of a new world and with the morning of the world. Conquerers, they didn't know themselves as conquerers! Conquerers, they didn't see us as the conquered, as panting and exhausted from the first! They hate us, we said, but we spoke of the hatred their world had for us. They hate us, we said, but it was their language which hated us. How could learn to speak? How could we translate ourselves into the new idiom?

Back and forth they went all day; back and forth, with seminars and colloquia. How busy they were! How feeble we were! Back and forth, busily, they spoke here and spoke there, and invited others to speak here and speak there. How marvellous, that activity! For a time, we tried to imitate them. For a time, we lived by imitation, we tried to do as they did. But the strength failed us; the measure of strength was denied us - were the losers; we had lost and sank down in despair.

3.

The inside was inside and we were outside. It seemed we were inside, but in fact we were outside. In the offices and lecture rooms, we were already outside, we knew we were outside, we were held into the outside everyday. We who had worked ourselves inside, we in fact outside from the first. We who were inside were in fact outside, we belonged outside, we had no place inside.

The inside was inside, the great wheels turned, the juggernaut rolled forward and we saw it brought a whole world. The inside was inside, it sang of itself and perpetuated itself. The inside sang in the podgy faces of our colleagues. How could know their stare but as an accusation? How could we know them but as usurpers? In truth, they had always been there. In fact, they had always been there, the inside had always been the inside.

True, for a time, rules were relaxed and a kind of opening had occurred. For a time, it is true, they allowed others to come, others were allowed to join the party. But those times were passed, those times had already passed. Who were we to think we had a place in the new world? We were men and women of the past; we were men and women of the exception. We did not belong and could not belong, for how could we belong?

They belonged inside and we were outside. They belonged inside and were continuous with the whole history of the inside. Theirs was the inside and they embodied the whole history of the inside, its great tradition. Who were we, who were outside? Who were we, who were the outside inside? Sometimes they would sniff us curiously. What is that smell? they would ask themselves. Sometimes, they would step back, confused: who are they? what is that smell? They would narrow their eyes for a moment, but only for a moment.

The enemy, they thought, who was not even an enemy, was vanquished. The battle, which was not for them a battle, was over long before. They, the new breed, had conquered the world. It was immediate and obvious, it was the air they breathed and the wide morning. What were we to them? What could we be? They passed over us; they ignored us. They were busy with the seminars and colloquia, and who were we to them?

They hate us, we said, but this was a lie even to us. They hate us, but who were we to them? They were on the side of the inside. They were on the inside of the inside, theirs was the kingdom. Inside, they feared nothing, for they brought the inside everywhere, and what had they to fear?

4.

Slowly our last strongholds fell. Slowly, the last kingdoms fell. Some were conquered by a show of arms - just a show, that was enough. Some converted, some went over to the inside, even though they would always remain outside inside. Some, exhausted, dispersed to the four winds. Slowly we lost the battle, but was there even a battle? And what did we embody, we who were outside? What was it we were to defend, what tradition was ours?

Only pathos was left to us. Only a feeling of defeat and strangulation. Only pathos was ours. Only the pain-filled knowledge that the inside had confirmed itself as it had always confirmed itself. Only the pain-drenched knowledge that the inside was at one with the tradition of our country and that nothing had changed in that tradition. Who were we to think we could change anything? Who were we, outsiders, who thought we could change anything. The inside confirmed itself; the law confirmed itself. The inside was the inside, and we were the outside. The inside rolled its great wheels across us and broke us.

Some of us were grateful to be so broken. How they had hated themselves! Now was the judgement enacted. Now was it passed, the great sentence, in the juggernaut which broke their backs. And the rest of us? We were too weak for hatred. Too weak but to say, they hate us. Too weak but for that to be our mantra, they hate us, as if they had noticed us. For what had they noticed? Who were we, such that we could be noticed? Laughter. Laughter of the whole day. Who were we, after all, to be noticed? And with our last breath, we breathed - for how hard it was not to be noticed, never to have been acknowledged as an obstacle or an enemy - they hate us.

The Last Neanderthals

What happened to the last Neanderthals, driven to the edges of Europe by the new breed? What happened to them, cave-dwellers, driven to their caves west of the invaders? They knew they did not belong and could not belong; they knew the world was not theirs. They were not hunted to extinction, I know that, but died of shame. No one tormented them, the new breed were kindness itself, bursaries were offered and scholarships set up, but the Neanderthals knew they were not for them, and that to take them was to die of shame. For all that, they still died, ashamed by their heavy brows and brutishness. They died even as the world was offered to them. They died because of that same offer, because of the shame in their hearts as they knew they were unmatched to the world, that nothing was possible for them, that their old lives had fallen away and the new breed was coming.

But they also knew, as they died of shame, that their successors, too, would one day die of shame. They knew the new breed would become the old breed and there were others on the way. And it is true, with our apish nostrils we can smell the change in the air, we sense what they, the new breed, cannot sense. A change is on the way, and as we are excluded, so they shall be excluded. A change is coming, the new breed beyond their breed has set out to find them. Will it always be like this, succession and annihilation? Will they always be be coming, the breed beyond the new breed? Will we always be outdated, we who are driven to the West, to the edge of Europe? They will come as they always came, with new skill-sets and new enthusiasms; they will come with a new sense of project and possibility; they come - faster than before, always more keen and eager than before, always wanting to involve us and to include everyone.

But don't they understand that by their coming they condemn us to death? Isn't their cruelty clear to them, they who come with their new enthusiasms? The day spreads all around us; we are comfortable here. We live and die beneath the wide sky. But the edge of our world is trembling; a new epoch is beginning and it will reach us even here. The old world is rotting and the new world is coming. The old world rusts but the new world will regenerate us. The unregenerated will be regenerated, the new world is opening. But how can we be regenerated? How will acquire knew knowledges and new skillsets? There will be courses, we know that. There will be fees and bursaries to help us, we know that. There are funds set aside for the transition, schemes to get the sick and the tired back to work, we are assured of that. The leaflets are dropping through our letterboxes. A new world, all of us, black and brown and yellow and white, in the pages of the leaflets.

But where are we in the leaflet pages? Where are the unregenerated, with their heavy brows and dangling arms? Where are the Neanderthals in the pamphlet pages? What will become of our swamps and still water? What will happen when they drain our marshes? Only the Neanderthal knows of the distance from instant to instant. Only the Neanderthal knows of the space which stretches between intervals and of a whole life as an interval. Only the Neanderthal knows interval-space and interval-time, of the holes in space and time that are like the gaps between the arches of the railway bridge.

How can we explain our anachronism to the new breed? How can we speak of days and nights beneath time? What do we know of the new, we who are barely our own contemporaries? What can we know of initiatives and certainty, we who barely coincide with ourselves? How can we tell them that today, for us, is never yet today? How can we explain that we are not here, we who face them, that our gaze wanders elsewhere, that our souls are lost over swampy marshes? How will they understand our magma, our indetermination, and how each bleeds into each, how each of us is everyone and no one, how each Neanderthal speaks for all and for no one and yet not even of himself?

Laughter as our names are called and we step forward. Laughter as we pass along the corridor to the interview room. Why bother with us? Don't you see it? We'll die of shame soon enough, but meanwhile midges buzz inside our heads and mosquitos hatch in our heart. Why bring us here? Why call our names, we who were never anyone at all? Why when our names let speak who we are not? Laughter in our dull heads as we fill out your forms. What has this to do with us? It's over, you win, it's finished. We'll make way, we'll die soon, we know that, but why don't you know it? Look at us - we are the old breed, and you are the new breed. Look at us - there is an absolute distance, an absolute divide. Our heads are buzzing and our hands are trembling.

The great stagnancy! What will they know of that, the new breed? How certain they are, how keen. But one day a newer breed will come and the margin they occupy will become infinite. One day, the breed beyond them will come and the rustbelt they occupy will divide time and divide space, setting each apart from themselves. One day, they will come, the new breed and turn the pages of their flipcharts before you in small classrooms. One day you will sit as we sit, mute and incomprehending, your attention dispersed, your focus lost, as the new breed tell you about the new world.

The Outsiders

1.

Don't give us a thing, we won't be grateful. Don't give us anything, we'll spit it back in your face. There's no point in bringing us into the fold, we don't belong there. You mean well, you'd like to bring us in, you'd like to make it less exclusive, but really there's no point, as we don't belong inside. You are generosity itself, you want to help, to open things up, to allow a new group of people to get in, but it's a bad idea, we don't belong there, we'd only spoil things for you, we'd only throw what you give us back in your face, we'd only resent you for what you tried to do.

You say you want nothing from us, but in fact you want a great deal. You say we can come in just as we are, but you know, don't you, that we don't belong inside, but should stay outside, with our own kind. You want nothing from us, we can come as we are, but we belong outside, not inside, and to join you would mean we'd have to give up too much, because we'd have to give up everything we are.

You say nothing need change, that we are welcome as we are, that we bring our own insights, our own perspective, that this is valuable, this is already a contribution, but don't you understand that this same insight, this same perspective is what confirms for us that we do not belong inside? You tell us it is about inclusivity, about new voices and fresh perspectives, but don't you see that as soon as we cross the threshold our perspective is no longer fresh and that our voices are no longer new?

You want to include us, it is true, and we appreciate the gesture, but if we accepted we'd come to resent you, it would lead inevitably to resentment. At first, it is true, we appreciated your generosity, we liked the gesture, but really you shouldn't give us a thing, we won't be grateful, we'll spit it back in your face. Because on the one hand, there is your generosity, your desire to do good, to include us at last, to take account of us at last, and on the other, there is the impossibility of taking account of us, the impossibility of admission. On the one hand, your generosity and on the other hand, our ungenerosity, on the one hand your grace and on the other, our resentment, our hatred.

True, some of us may look like we've fitted in, some of us, like well-trained apes, may look as though we belong, but this is only because we wanted to escape unemployment and temporary work, only because we wanted a resting place to draw breath and look around and see where we were. But how can this last when we know we do not belong, that the inside is the inside and the outside is the outside, and no one should have brought us in, no one should have granted us admission? How when the inside is there precisely to keep us out, when the inside defines itself by our exclusion, when the very sense of the inside depends on our being outside?

2.

The inside is inside and the outside is outside, this was how it always was, until that period, which thankfully is nearly over, when a few of us from the outside were brought inside. Yes, there was the inside and the outside, it was as it always was but for those few of us who were admitted, who were allowed to come in, though it was clear we did not belong, who were invited in and for whom place was made. Yes, there was a change in the academy, for a time the rules changed, we were sought after, and we were supposed to bring a fresh perspective to the academy, to open things up and we were welcome for that reason.

Why didn't they understand it would poison them, those who were inside, and poison us, who were made to come from the outside to the inside? Why didn't they understand that they offered us would taunt us, that what they gave we would throw back immediately, that we would only resent them for their kindnesses, for the grants they gave us? Why didn't they understand we accepted the invitation only to pause, only to rest and catch our breath, and that as soon as we did, resentment would fill us and we would resent what we had been given and those who gave it to us?

Worst was that while we'd lived in ignorance of our exclusion, now we were aware of it, now that awareness was all there was. Worst that we knew our exclusion even as we were included, we knew our exclusion by way of that inclusion. Now the way in was the way out; the place of repose was exposed on four sides to the outside, there was only the outside into which we were held even though we were inside. For a time we were resentful, we hated everything, but over time, resentment fell away from us. Even resentment was impossible. We carried the outside with us, even here. Even inside, there was the outside, and here more than ever.

For a time, we consoled ourselves by imitating others, we would write articles and books, we could teach like the others and administer like the others. For a time, we were content to imitate others, content to do as others did, even though we knew for all that we were still apes, even though our labours were bent on imitation. But we knew one day that the ruse would be up, our imitation would be revealed for what it is, for what were our books and articles compared to the ones of those who belonged inside? Yes, for a time, it may have appeared we had promise, that we were producing interesting work, but one day we knew the game would be up, it would come to an end, we would be revealed for what we are, it would be revealed to us, as if for the first time, that we did not belong, that the inside was inside and we belonged outside.

How could it be otherwise? If it was by a kind of mistake we found admittance, that mistake would reveal itself to us, and to us first of all, we would know our station was ours only by mistake, and that the position in which we found ourselves was above all not ours, that it could not be ours.

How could it be otherwise? They knew as we did not know how to write and how to speak, they knew how to dress and how to hold doors open for others, they knew how to eat in public and how to drink in public, they knew what to say and what not to say, they knew how to walk without loping, they knew how to show polite interest and involve others, they knew how to speak in complete sentences, they knew all of this without knowing it, it was clear to them without their ever being aware of its clarity, except when, perhaps, we so obviously failed to dress properly and to hold doors open for others, except when our guard was down and we failed to show polite interest and to involve others, except then when we fell short of what had been asked of us, when we came up against the limits of our capacity to imitate, except when our apishness was revealed for what it was - then, perhaps, they knew what we were not and what they possessed, then, with disappointment, they had to admit the experiment was a failure and we had disappointed them, that it had been impossible from the first and we had no chance of fitting in.

They knew then, our benefactors, what they possessed and we did not possess, they knew what was theirs by birth and what was not theirs by birth, knew what they had, our benefactors, without knowing that they had it. Yes, they saw how every line we wrote and every line we read confirmed our non-belonging, that everything we read and everything we wrote confirmed what we were not and could not be.

Our feeble talk of ethics-and-politics was only our way of carving our name on the great edifices of culture; our half-Marxism was only our way of scrawling a resentful little signature across those great, beautiful edifices, whose beauty, in truth, we admired and aspired to, but that we could only spoil with our apish hands as soon as we tried to add our names to the great lists of professors and readers and senior lecturers, to those oeuvre-builders, to those of long careers and lengthy schooling who had all of Western culture at their beck and call.

How could we add our nasty little scrawl to that long list of professors and readers and senior lecturers? How could we add our resentful mark to those who by their modesty and meticulousness, had built great oeuvres? How could we think our portraits would join the portraits of others who worked patiently and meticulously, who worked step by patient step, pausing to make sure the first step was taken, that a step was secure, before a second step was taken?

In truth we who were once too wild, would be shown by our portrait to be only dull-eyed apes, diminished beasts. How difficult it was for us to cross from instant to instant! How difficult to muster our thoughts! We were scattered across the day, our attention was caught and held by a million things, our apish attention was hypnotised by our many tasks and we conserved nothing of our strength. How disappointing we were to our benefactors! How ashamed they were of the way we turned out! They gave up and turned from us; our office doors went unopened and we laboured in obscurity. Years passed in dust and darkness.

3.

The cleverest among us, the most cunning, argued our benighted position was everything, that our entrapment was also the condition of our release, the promise of our freedom. The cleverest supposed this promise lay in our forced apishness, in the imitation by which we lived; that ours was a position of critique, that we exposed the great lie for what it was, that ours was the living refutation of the great lie of the academe. Apes emailed apes, apes phoned other apes and for a while, a new excitement was felt: perhaps ours was the position from which something could be born, perhaps we, who had fallen so far below need, who remained outside, could draw on a freedom that was uniquely ours. The academe would have failed in us, it would have come to an end with us, that was our ethics-and-politics, that was our chatter of ethics-and-politics and the coming revolution.

But what we possessed we did so because of our weakness and because of our failure. What we had we had by way of weariness and boredom, and we lost it by way of weariness and boredom. Failure did not become victory, weakness did not become strength and we apes stopped emailing one another and greeting one another, and withdrew into mute apishness and mute despair. We hadn't the strength, we hadn't the initative. Who would rise from our ranks and lead us when our positions were so precarious and our contracts so short? Sometimes resentment would cross our faces, sometimes wildness would fill our eyes, but we were tame apes, and we dreamt not of the savannah, but of the books we would write in imitation of others.

I have an essay on Appelfeld at Ready Steady Book.

Waiting for the Auditors

They are coming from the future, the auditors, prepare for them. They are coming, the auditors, turn your faces to the future. Soon, they'll come, the auditors, the new barbarians. Soon, they'll sweep over us, the auditors who have come from the future, soon from the future, they will come, the auditors, the new barbarians. They are coming, feared or unfeared, from the future.

The auditors are coming; be ready, ready your paperwork. The auditors approach, as they are always approaching. A surprise audit, a challenge audit, can happen at any moment; be vigilant. At any moment, a surprise audit, watch out, keep your paperwork prepared, ready it each day, make it ready at each hour of the day.

They are coming; your paperwork is vulnerable. Above all, what is written is vulnerable; what is said does not matter, what is written matters. They are coming, the future is bringing them, they will reach you from the future, so make sure your paperwork is in order, make sure everything you do is written down, make sure everything you write is written down.

The future belongs to auditors. The auditors are coming in great droves. We do not know what they'll do. We don't know what they are thinking. We have guidelines, it is true, but auditors are unpredictable.

They are coming, the auditors. From the future, they will come, the auditors, the marauders. Theirs is your paperwork. It is theirs from the start. Theirs are your minutes and your reports. There is no such thing as a private set of minutes; there is no such thing as a private report.

Coming, from the future, the auditors. Be ready. Prepare yourself, prepare your paperwork. When you meet them, be bullish, be upfront. Admit to no error, admit to no defeat. Show you're prepared to learn, that's important. Show you're ready to learn, but admit no defeat. Show you're ready to listen, but that you will not be pushed around. But in truth you have already been pushed around. In truth, you were pushed around from the first.

Quality is on their minds, the marauders. Every loop must be closed, they will search for open loops. Your paperwork is vulnerable, it is your soft and vulnerable flesh stretched out. Your paperwork is the sail spread and vulnerable, for the auditors can blow up a storm.

Be ready. Be prepared, spread your sail, but make sure it is patched up and enduring. Spread it wide, catch the breeze, but be prepared for the audit-storm, the storm of barbarians and marauders. Be ready, learn what you can of their language. Brace yourself against the future, catch the wind but not the storm.

Quality is all, quality is the sole measure, all is quality, the sun, the moon, the seas, your vessel: all is made of quality, everything is quality, and quality is assured. The cosmos is quality and asks to be assured. In the beginning, there was quality, and quality must be assured.

The loops must be closed, no that. Every quality loop must be closed, and nothing must escape. Quality must feed itself, it must flow, Ourobos, into itself, conserving itself. Quality circulates and returns to itself. Quality steers the moon's orbit and the earth's orbit, quality is the force that binds the sun to the galaxy and the galaxy to the core. Quality is cosmic or it is nothing at all.

Do not ask them to define quality. Do not ask for a definition. Do not press them, like Socrates, for a definition. They will only be able to gesture. They will only be able to say, quality is excellence, and excellence is quality. They will be able to speak only in great tautologies. For quality cannot be defined, just as excellence cannot be defined. They escape us; they belong to the gods. But even the gods are audited; even Poseidon is subject to quality reviews. The highest gods are audited by higher gods; and those higher gods, in turn, are audited by the cosmos itself. And who audits the cosmos? It is auditing; the audit audits, it gives auditing: formulations difficult because auditing does not give itself up all at once. Difficult formulations because there is something which withdraws at the heart of auditing, which allows the essence of auditing to be forgotten. But what is it that allows this essence to be forgotten thus? What, in auditing, hides the essence of auditing?

They come, the auditors, but even they do not understand auditing. They come to us, the auditors, but they are only its agents. Perhaps, beyond them, there are quality-mystics, great quality-seers and quality-prophets who look into the future and find quality there. Perhaps, at the heart of the Quality Assurance Agency, there are the great bodies similar to those of the Guild Navigators in Dune. Perhaps, half-blind, half deaf, but with great and swollen bodies, these quality-navigators steer the Quality Assurance Agency on its great path. Perhaps in their blindness, in their deafness, they steer the Quality Assurance Agency and steer us all on our celestial voyage.

The auditors are only agents of auditing, its minions, its worshippers. The auditors are only the servants of the audit, and are far from its heart. For the essence of auditing is nothing auditological. Its essence is such that it hides itself; it withdraws, even as its withdrawal is forgotten. Only a great seer, a prophet can know this withdrawal and speak of it to others. Alas, it is closed to us who know only the traces of this withdrawal as it reaches us in the vast forms we have to fill in and the reports we have to write. Alas, we do not know it, we can discern - but only in our greatest strength, our greatest ardency - the traces left by auditing. What would it be to stare the audit in the face? What glory! What roaring! But in truth, whoever sees the essence of the audit dies. In truth, no one can approach.

They have come, the auditors, and all around us is ruin. They have come, the auditors, the storm, and have left us with ruins. They have come like a great force, a great hurricane, and our ship is torn and leaking. Truly we tried to prepare our vessel for the storm. How we tried to make it firm, to repair any leaks! But we were vulnerable, our paperwork was vulnerable, we knew that. Our sails spread to catch the wind were what exposed us to the full force of the stream.

Be careful, voyagers on the high seas of quality. Be careful, you who cast out from a port and venture into the high seas, you great sails of paperwork spread to catch the wind. Caution, voyagers, look forward, know that a storm can come out of nowhere, know that surprise audits are now possible. Prepare, oh voyagers, mend your sails, go over them, inspect them to the neglect of everything else. What does teaching matter? What do students matter? For nothing matters that is not written down. Nothing matters that is not quantifiable.

A smile is not quantifiable; the time you give is not measurable. The time you are given, the time you give is not measurable, so do not give time. No smiles, no time given, for all time is the audit's and all smiles must be smiled at the audit. Give no time; take it - take time and give it back to the audit. Take time from teaching, take time from teaching preparation, take the time you had to speak to a student you bumped into in the corridor and give it back to the audit. For time is what has to be taken back from your teaching, from teaching preparation, from anything that cannot be measured and written down.

Do not give time, be wary of giving time and those who would take time from you. For in truth, they are taking time from the audit, they are stealing the valuble minutes of the audit, they are preventing your from closing quality loops. Keep time, hoard time, take back a little surplus-value of time each day to feed to the audit and to quality. Do not give time, give nothing, but take time back, give the minimum and take time back. Take it back to go over your paperwork, take it back to prepare your reports, take it back to go over your minutes, for everything must be ready, do you understand?

The auditors are coming, and I'm afraid. I heard rumours, we are next, the auditors are coming, and I fear we are not ready. A storm is brewing; the distant sky is black, and it is from there they will come, the auditors. I am frightened. I fear for myself and for the others around me. I fear our vessel is not strong enough. We must tighten up the operation, I tell the others. Continual monitoring, continual inspection, we must be ready. Look to your paperwork, comrades, for that's all that matters. Look to your paperwork, inspect your paperwork, scrutinise your paperwork, for that is what counts, and nothing else counts. If it isn't written down, it does not count. If it can't be quantified, proved and written down it does not matter.

Brace yourself, comrades, for they are coming, the auditors. Do not ask, why us?, do not ask, why did we deserve it?, for it was written that they could come and they are coming. It is fate, comrades, in truth, they were always coming and were coming from the first. Our fate, comrades, our destiny to brace ourselves against the coming storm. Be upfront and bullish, comrades, admit nothing. Be upfront and proactive, colleagues, look to your paperwork, give evidence of your vigilance. Give evidence that every quality loop will be closed.

Will I be strong enough? Will I be ready? I am drooping, comrades, help me up. I am afraid, comrades, for they are coming, the auditors, and I cannot understand their language. Help me, comrades, I pray to you, stand with me, hold me up, tilt up my chin so I confront the storm. Mind not my tears, comrades, mind not my protests, for they are coming and it is inevitable.

In my heart, I am afraid. In my heart, I know I care too little for quality and too much for everything else. My heart droops, I am weak, for I know there are others who speak the language of quality better than I, others, time-stealers, who can prepare without distraction! My eyes burn, comrades, but I am not ready. I am bent over my report each evening, comrades, but I am not ready. Teaching, comrades, what is that? It's forgotten, comrades, everything is forgotten, everything forgets itself except for the audit. There is only forgetting and the audit, which is why everything has to be written down. Then at least there will be writing, forgetting and the audit.

Leave nothing to chance. Look to your paperwork, write, write, because otherwise it will be forgotten, otherwise we'll have only our memories to rely upon, which are growing weaker by the day, for who can remember anything except that the auditors are coming. Write! Set it all down! Then at least there will be something that remembers, even if it is not us. Write, and what we write will remember for us. Write, and our reports will keep memory in our place, the archive will live as we will not. Write, above all write, set it down, let there be proof, let there be records. Nothing must be left to chance, for chance is on the auditor's side, chance is what they possess, not us, initiative is theirs, not ours, for they can come at any time, the auditors, and they are coming.

Write, let there be writing, that is all initiative leaves to us, our freedom is only freedom to write and prepare, chance is theirs, time is theirs, they have everything we lack except our writing. Even they, the auditors, depend on our writing. True, they will pass quickly through our paperwork. True, they will pass quickly like a horde of locusts. How quickly they can read! How practised they are, how ready! They will read in the base room, and we will wait outside. In the base room they will read and we will wait, outside. Imagine them tearing open each box and opening each file! Imagine their eyes passing down our minutes and reports! I shudder, but I know the chance of such paperwork is their gift to us. I tremble, but such paperwork is the chance they give us, we are allowed at least this chance, this opportunity.

It is said that whoever sees the audit dies. I am dying, comrades, but not because I've seen the audit, but because I fear it will see me. Audit, eye, you sweep the horizon. Audit, I know you are staring up at me from my paperwork. Audit, I know you will see us in the eyes of the auditors. The all-seeing, all-knowing eye sees all, and all wither. Truly the eye of the audit sees all and measures all, truly this eye, this single, glaring eye, ever vigilant and never sleeping knows the measure and worth of all things.

We have spread our sails, comrades, and that's all we can do. In truth, they must always be spread, must always be braced, for time is the auditors' and chance is the auditors' and we have nothing but our paperwork. Tonight, comrades, I do solitary vigil on the deck of our ship. You are asleep, but I am awake, as I know the audit is awake and watching me. Strange comfort, knowing it is out there, and I am seen! I am writing, it is true, but this is not a report. Is this permitted? I am seen; the audit-eye is watching me, and unlike Winston Smith I know there is no hiding place. Permit me this small writing, audit. Give me this small stretch of time, this midnight vigil. For tomorrow is the day you might come.

The Unregenerated

Old Europe

The welfare state recedes and we are beached on the great shore of the future. We are deprived of our element, our milieu. What are we to do now, on the new shore? What can we achieve, we who are stranded in the new world, in New Europe? New buildings are going up, but not for us. The rust belts are being regenerated, but not for us. How can we afford to live in the new buldings? How could we buy a flat in the regeneration zone?

We are the dross of the new world. They should leave us lying here on the shore, beached whales, creatures grown fat on the welfare state, creatures who passed through the great oceans of unemployment! It is a distant memory, but once they paid our housing benefit and our council tax. Once, but this is a long time ago, we were given an allowance for a cooker, for a television. Once, there was the fortnightly trip to the dole office for our unemployment benefit.

It wasn't called Jobseeker's Allowance, not then. Unemployment - the un was privative, but we experienced it as liberation. Unemployment, unemployed - we had broken ourselves from the world of the employed, we were cast adrift, but they made sure we had a fridge and a telephone. Cast adrift, but for our fortnightly giro and our rates relief and our housing benefit. Some of us were on the sick, some of the dole. But all of us went unnoticed under the same indifferent skies. Some of us cycled, some walked. Sometimes we gathered at the cafe in the sun. But that was before the regeneration. That was before they tore up the cafe and the squats and a new world was made.

What did we do in those long afternoons? Time was propitious; we had been given time, great swathes of time on the condition that nothing could begin. Time gave us everything because it was not yet itself, because we damned up something of time for ourselves.

Together we ate and drank in the sun. There were many of us, then. Many, because we hadn't been picked off by the regeneration companies and the new supermarkets. What it was to walk the scruffy pavement by tower blocks that belonged in East Germany! What it was to lose oneself in the alleyways that resembled the great concrete labyrinths of Warsaw! We were lost, we knew that, but we had lost ourselves, and lived in squats in buildings long due for demolition.

Sometimes, it is true, the planners would come and squint upward at the towers. Sometimes plans for demolition would be announced, but it never happened. The city council was never organised enough. The Labour councillors were busy squabbling. The wrecking balls never came, and we were happy, rats in the maze, rats who'd lost themselves in long afternoons and winter sun. We hated politicians; but we could do - this was the time of Thatcher and Major. We hated them, but it was a casual hatred, one taken for granted. It was the backdrop of our lives, that hatred. It was diffused everywhere and we all agreed: Thatcher was the devil, Major was the devil's accomplice. Happy alibi of hatred! Happy excuse for a life suspended!

In the long afternoons we read alone and came together at the cafe. Years passed that way. Years passed, one after another. A fortnightly cheque; our rates paid and our housing benefit paid, what more did we want? At that time, one spoke of structural unemployment. At that time, it made sense for some of the population to be permanently unemployment. True, we were not emburdened with children; we were still young; we were not like the miners who'd lost their livelihood, their way of life. In truth, ours was already a way of life. The long afternoon, discounts on cinema tickets and performances at the theatre, cheap bars and clubnights in condemned buildings.

Yes, ours was a lifestyle. Years passed; we read, we ambled, we cycled to and fro, we sat in the cafe in the sun. Those times will be forgotten, we know that. The long afternoon of Europe will be forgotten. Old Europe's last summer.

Nothing stopped in '97, the Labour victory. '97 accelerated the change. Down came the towerblocks, down the condemned buildings. No longer was the city council lost in arguing with itself. Regeneration began; new European money came to our deprived area. Never mind us, the deprived who were happy in our deprivation. Orange-bricked housing appeared. The tower blocks disappeared, the condemned buildings disappeared and now spread estates of orange-bricked housing and the new supermarket.

What had happened? We were offered council housing, but away from the regeneration zone. We were to be dispersed, scattered to the four winds. We had lived there, we'd thought it wouldn't change, we were happy in the rust belt and would have populated it until eternity, but it was changing around us. It changed, we did not change. We were rusting. Investment poured in to the rust-zones where we lived and we were moved away. Orange-bricked houses everywhere. Identical orange-bricked houses, decent accommodation, nothing to object to, everywhere. Not council accommodation, but private accommodation everywhere. Not for those who wanted a council flat, but for private owners and private investors.

House prices were low, it was said, but they were not low. Investors snapped them up, it was said, and the rents were driven up. How could we afford to live there? The regenerated world was not for us. Gently curving streets. Nothing above two stories. An orange-brick community centre. The cafe rehoused in an orange-bricked complex. The message was clear: leave. We left, what choice did we have? We were scattered to the four winds.

New Europe

Time began again. We'd lived outside of time, but now time recovered its direction. A new purpose filled the world, we could smell it. A new purpose, but not for us. European money, but not for us. Regeneration, but not for us. Now something else changed: a kind of despair descended upon us. We read, it is true, but there was no cafe at which we could meet. No cafe, no cheap pub. The old pub, all concrete and barbed wire, was demolished. A new orange-bricked leisure complex appeared in its place. A complex for those who lived in the new houses, and who shopped at the new supermarket.

Cycle lanes were painted on the roads and the new bikes appeared. Not the wrecked racers we used to cycle, not battered old machines with a rusty lock, but the new bikes, the hybrids and mountain bikes, with yellow-jacketed riders. With flashing rear lights and flashing front lights and yellow-jacketed and behelmeted riders. How efficient they looked! How purposeful! Even going about their leisure, they were purposeful! These are the new Europeans, we thought. We are the old Europeans. These are the new breed, the bargain city-break breed, the mountain-cycling-in-the-city breed, the property-investing breed, and we are the old breed. They're probably scanning the new European countries in search of property bargains right now. They're probably surfing on the net to find the new property bargains in Estonia, in Lithuania. They're probably anticipating new E. U. member states in whose property they can invest.

New Europe was all around us, efficient and gleaming. New Europe was the new leisure complex, the new supermarket. And who were we? Perhaps we are the last of Old Europe, we thought. Perhaps Old Europe ended with us, we thought. Perhaps Old Europe was the secondhand paperbacks we exchanged. It was the compilations we made on cassette for one another. It was Gang of Four and The Raincoats. It was The Fire Engines and Magazine. It was Kafka and Canetti. It was that great tide of records and books on which we were borne.

Who wasn't in a band? Which of us hadn't moved here because of the example of bands that had come together from the long term unemployed? Who amongst us didn't dream of being coalesced in this way, of finding ourselves in a band? Now you studied music technology at college. To be a musciain was a profession like any other: you were taught, there were lectures and modules. You were taught; everything could be taught; everything was a skill, and every skill was part of a skillset and the skillset was to be acquired to broaden your skills portfolio. Nothing was to be left to chance, we were all accountable. We were sent on training courses; we learnt what kind of people we were: motivators, team-players, facilitators or leaders. We learnt about quality and quality management. 

Slowly, before us, new Europe was opening, and we were invited to join the new Europe. Slowly, around us, a new world was opening, where everything could be taught, could be broken down into a school, where there was to be no drifting, no time unaccounted for, nothing that could not be gauged, measured and improved. All was optimisation, all was movement. Training was all; preparation was all. We were made ready, were braced for the new world. This will be a 24-hour city, we were told. Investment will stream through the city, they said, and it was already true. The old warehouses in the city were transformed. A new bar had been built in the wasteground beneath the railway arches.

The world was changing, and we were to be fitted to the new world, our skills would mesh with the skills required. Our skill sets would lock into those our employers would want. We learnt of our transferrable skills, of our skills portfolio. We learnt to construct a CV and to draft a letter of application. In truth we had been mobilised, we were part of the great mobilisation. Everything was ready, the world was ready, the city was ready. But we were already tired. How could Old Europe become New Europe? How could our bodies become New European bodies?

Our Old European heads ached; our Old European eyes were glazed over. The future had come; we were redundant in advance. The future was here, the city gleamed, and we were the dross of the past. How we prayed for a new recession! How we cried for a new wave of redundancies! Let's go back to the rust belt. Let's find a bolthole and settle there for the decade. Let's find a small room to read our old paperbacks! But no sooner had we found another part of town than it was regenerated. Wherever we went, regeneration followed.

The more resourceful among us entered bids for community regeneration and art projects. The quicker and more able were able to seize and make good on some of the new funding opportunities. Community arts! Community projects! Oh dizzying activity! Oh new world, built with European money! All hail the new world, built with money from New Europe! Meanwhile, for the rest of us, the future broke over our tired bodies. We lay on the shore and the future broke over us. Here was the future, but not for us. Here was New Europe, but not for us.

[K-Punk has an interesting follow up. I've opened a new category to explore this topic further.]

Thrashing on the Line

The Voice

Come close to someone and they may speak to you in the voice in which they speak to themselves. That voice, never heard out loud, by which they goad and orient themselves - allowing them to press forward or sink back, to strive for something or to give up. Come close to another, and you'll hear it, that secret voice in which they speak to themselves.

This is the way to learn what another is like. Live close to them, live alongside them, and even if you dislike them, that voice will let speak the integrity of their lives, the way it binds itself together. But also that which that life seeks to bind itself against - you'll learn what threatens them, and how they have made their way through the world.

Perhaps this is why Kafka and his father were set against one another: the father let the son hear the voice which allowed him to lift himself from peasantry. And what a voice! So savage and so raw! Kafka's voice was different; perhaps you could say it had been claimed, that it was literature's - only it was Kafka who claimed himself for literature. It was he who set aside, with a determination that was the echo of his father's, a few hours each night, to write.

Each night, every night, he would experience the claim of what claimed him, reaffirming it in turn. He heard a voice, but it was one which said nothing. A voice as privation, to which he joined his own voice that we hear sometimes in his letters. He said to himself - but also to literature, for what was he, as he asked Felice, apart from literature? -: I will set the hours aside for writing. I will wait for writing and write as I wait.

But what voice was it that told him to put aside The Trial and then The Castle? Perhaps it was literature's voice again, this time saying: do not trust false idols, not even those I, literature, allow you to make. So the peculiar demand to cease work. So the manuscripts disappeared into the drawer and he sought to follow other stories across the days and nights.

Monologers

It is true, much to R.M.'s consternation, that I like very much to hear the voices of others. Nothing better than the pub in which others speak in great gales and floods. Marvellous to hear long anecdotes and long thoughts-out-loud. Then does something emerge that is new, because it does not come from me.

I hear it then, another's voice, the one that would direct their life. I hear it: not fate, exactly, nor necessity, but a sign of that freedom which runs up against fate. The voice which says: I will make myself; I will make something of myself. Which lets speak that self-relation by which each of us lifts ourselves above the given.

Wonderful to be close to the voice as it knits life together. To be there as what is spoken turns round that self-relation which makes of life a coming back to oneself, a movement of return. Yes, that is what is common to my friends: the capacity to speak, the capacity for certainty. And I, who am uncertain, am caught in the great movement of their return to themselves, the sweep of their voice.

But what of those who cannot speak thus? What of the ones whose voice never raises itself against the hand they were dealt?

The Ones We Left Behind

As a child, to come across a new housing estate on our bikes was infinitely exciting. Another world, another labyrinth of roads and paths: where had we found ourselves? Perhaps there would be other children like us. Other children on other bikes in houses much like our own. Joy that our lives were doubled thus! Joy at the vastness of the world!

When we were older, those same housing estates trapped us. One after another, from here to eternity - who wouldn't feel trapped? It was time to move away. Our friends who stayed drifted into drugs. Work, then drugs in the evening. Work all week, and drugs at the weekend. They were either doped or speeding, one or the other. That's how they accommodated themselves to those estates and to the vastness of suburbia.

What, after all, were they to do? In the end, there was no rebellion, only accommodation. They adjusted themselves to life; they were reconciled to it. The voice that spoke to them was capital's voice; it supplanted their own. With what voice did they speak, the ones who'd hollowed out their adolescence? The same as the one I heard in the alcoholics I would come to know - one that lacked itself, that had withered from itself. And in the end, like the alcoholics, it was as though they were possessed, those friends. Only now it was capital that spoke in them, not the bottle. It was capital that spoke and stared through their eyes.

Oily Fish

What happened to those friends of ours? Nothing happened; years passed, they are still there. And what has happened to us, who were able to lift ourselves from that place and go elsewhere? I admit I feel guilty about the voice in which I speak to myself, and that sometimes I hear when talking to those close to me. Yes, there is guilt, which is why I like to hear others speak, and not myself. For who am I to speak?

You were a dominant child, says R.M. looking at an old photograph album at my parents' house. Dominance - it's true I wanted to achieve something, to make something, but what? I never saw anything through until I came to academia. But then what have I seen through? There is that voice which breaks against necessity. How is it I find myself here? By a formless desire to do and to make. A desire that found form.

Up early, never late. Up early, at work before anyone else and then the whole day ordered. Up early, plenty of oily fish, carefully regulated caffeine intake - isn't it capital, still, that orients my days, which have no room for error? I tell myself it is the fear of capital that orients me thus: the fear that I will find myself back on the dole, having fallen from that high place in which I find myself.

A fear of capital - fear born of the deregulation of labour which forced me from of the suburbs. Then unemployment, from this perspective, was my good fortune. Deregulation was my good fortune - and so was capital. I was afraid of unemployment, afraid of recession. I chose a different direction. But how, in turn, not to resent that choice? How not to thrash like a fish on the line?

Unemployed Negativity

I said to R.M. once she was full of 'unemployed negativity' (Bataille). Was I speaking of her or myself?

Most often, Bataille says, it will direct you towards religion, or towards art. Those are the temptations. But what happens when religion and art offer you no purchase? Then you thrash like a fish on the line: you've been caught, and you can do nothing. You've been caught, you allowed yourself to be caught, but what can you do? Resentment: because you escaped, you ended up far from home in a world you cannot really understand.

You escaped, but the world in which you find yourself is not your own. You've escaped, but you can't go back, either. You've escaped, you struggled to gain the high place where you are, but you don't belong there, or you do so negatively, not positively. You are there by default, by a kind of default.

But where are you, and what are you doing there? Look around you in the canteen. Am I like them? Am I really like them? For them, this world is theirs by default; they belong here. For them, this world is continuous with Oxbridge and then a fee-paying school. It is one and the same; they deserve to be there; it is their milieu. In the end, they are on the inside, and you are on the outside.

This a travesty, of course. It is fantasy. For a time, you try to turn away from the place where you work, surrounded by a circle of charred books, written by those who escaped the university. But what does it mean to teach those charred books in a university? In the end, you tell yourself, it's laughable: you are a domesticator just as you have been domesticated.

But even this is naive, for the old patriarchy is collapsing. It is pure naivety, for no one minds that you teach Bataille. No one is bothered that you teach Bataille. You can publish what you want. You write whatever you like, and teach what you like. True, you have to bring in income, but as long as you do that, the university is indifferent. There is no rebellion and no domestication, either, since the old patriarchy is disappearing.

Perhaps the university where unemployed negativity finds itself accommodated. It is where it finds itself corralled not because of restraints but because everything is permitted. You cannot turn away from the university; it is everywhere. Wherever you turn, it is there. The world is training; everyone is training. The university is only part of a world that is perpetually in training. The content of what is learnt does not matter. Only skills matter, and skills that are transferable.

And you, who work in academia, for what do you work? To write another article? another book? So does unemployed negativity puts itself to work. So is it eminently obedient. Unemployed negativity, if it becomes anything, becomes academic. This is what Bataille missed in his 'Letter to X'.

Thrashing on the Line

What became of our friends in the suburbs? The same as became of us, who escaped the suburbs. We have been captured and drugged in a different way. We've been caught, we thrash on the line, but in the end we'll go still and that will have been our lives, that thrashing.