Try Harder – Fail Twice

What he was dealing with here was not just another manifestation of mind over matter but a more subtle method of drawing on previous conclusions and learning in a sort of indirect way out of the moral dilemma the prisoners had set up for themselves whilst cooped up in a damp and dark little cell of which only they had knowledge.

It was precisely this that inspired Inspector D. to investigate the life cycle of the moles and vampire bats that were plaguing the city at night. Clubbers were smeared all over the pavements and streets, their mucus trailing like shopping carts filled with slime and muck raked up from the inner depths of the soul they did not believe in. Inspector D. took note and moved on. He had more important things to consider such as the sex life of the bi-annual mammals that frequented these quarters around this time of year.

The young people did not seem to … were not letting up … in their endless quest for ever increasingly diverse forms of intimate pleasure, plagued by moments of insurmountable and overwhelming doubt. The inspector tried to fathom, tried to grasp but failed at the last moment as his grip gave way under the intense meaning of the streetlights. Never had he felt more alone than tonight, the gales were singing the winds were nowhere to be seen.

The street seemed a desert of mine fields tripping up endlessly under their own inertia. The young fostered the old, the elderly raped their daughters in positions of perpetual intimacy and interlocking features such as those found on cheap airline brochures. This was not deterring in itself, the difficulty lay in finding the path of least resistance; resistance to the mob who were by now pouring out of dark holes like dogs through the gates of the life he had left behind weeks ago (nonetheless, it seemed to make a great impression on him – twice).

The inspector, the wife, the man in the shop, the man across the street, the incessant teenager who was promised a slice of the action, but was disappointed to discover that shoes can only be worn once (he was himself worn and shorn away by the mediocrity of life and limb, not a situation to be envied despite it’s apparent benefits). No, he was not going to give up the search just yet; he had the suspicion that what he was so desperately seeking was just around the corner. Something even seemed to make sense for a brief moment, and he felt he was regaining that elusive grasp on reality that had long ago slipped away like a fading dream just beyond the tip of his tongue.

He walked around the corner of the building, hope in his heart and desire in his belly (of a most disconcerting sort, it should be added). Of course, to his delight and dismay, he found nothing. Maybe this wasn’t the time, maybe he was expecting too much. The Superior, just the other day, told him that enough was enough. He had not believed him at the time, knowing in himself that enough could also be ample. He was not willing to settle for less, for the possibility that meaning had only one. The duality was staking him again, and he felt the hairs on his nape stiffen, curl up and die a most painful and desultory death.

I can’t go on like this, he said to himself (and to the Other, in case the other happened to be listening). He felt unsure, and was found self wondering whether “I” was just a label.