“AND I SHALL BE A FUGITIVE AND A WANDERER ON THE EARTH, AND WHOEVER FINDS ME WILL SLAY ME”
GENESIS 4:14
I woke up crying this morning and didn’t know why. Clarity evaded me as I struggled to shrug the sleep from my mind, yet there seemed no reason for my uncertainty. Trying to absolve my despair, I trickled to the kitchen, where having assembled my unsure self, piece by chipped piece — bar my overall self assurance — I got a breakfast together.
Nourished with Falsity and other cheap supermarket commodities, I turned to the open window where the previous evening I had stood, drunk and yet still maintaining my senses.
Today, sober and bewildered, I gazed over a lost city of dimensionless cold concrete and depthless reflecting windows: A myriad collage studded with early morning condensation. Revolving in my customary stance, I saw the same picture that I had seen for so many mornings — roads, cars, pylons and all the other paraphernalia that man deems so necessary for his eternal, doomed struggle.
And then there, between the derelict Austin and the concrete sidewalk of the park, my eyes, used to numerical detail only, saw a flash of colour as a ray of dubious sunshine burst through the clouds, illuminating and animating . . . a daffodil.
Eagerly, I leaned forward, careful not to take my eyes off the flower, for fear of losing it forever. Sure enough, it sprouted there, proud of its existence, optimistic about the future, comically defiant of the inanimate surroundings. As I perceived its pride at its accomplishments, so I realised a new self, beginning to take root within me, planted by my uncertainty and watered by those very tears of unyielding confusion.
Then as if to support reality, smog began to drift between the “flower” and myself. Anxiously, I waved my hands frantically, calling for the unclean interference to go, desperately blowing, wishing only for one last peep at my new friend before I furtively attempted the day.
Gradually the wind began to clear the air, thinning out the film. And I saw how my flower died tragically, underfoot — trodden down by the rush hour automatons from the nearby bus terminus.
Turning around, I cried again.
— — — — -
I hate all that is ugly. I detest the very root of all that causes pain, prejudice and suffering. Nor do I use those words — hate and detest — lightly. They are extreme declarations. Final words. Almost part and parcel with that faculty that initiates my abuse.
Strange that to love beauty, one must hate evil, giving love itself an evil component. Idio(t)syncrasy. There is a kind of chivalrous heroism in the protection of the weak. And good is weak. By very nature and definition of its perfection, it is fragile. Too variable for endurance, too timeless for attainment, it eludes us, as haunting in its’ proximity as our own dark shadows. Excluding us from its secret as if ashamed. Precluding us from worshipping it by virtue of its’ mysteriousness.
And so we jealously guard its existence, often against ourselves, fighting within ourself, amongst ourselves to procreate that moment’s fashion. Will destruction never go out of fashion? Is the savage instinct within us so superficial that it too becomes transient?
But I doubt the existence of such an innate cruel characteristic. It’s quality and dependability is too questionable. It’s function too inane.
Rather we appear to possess a common spirit, a (comeradeire) of aggression that ignites to a mutual spark — varying only, from one person to another, in the conflagrational intensity. This collective destructive psyche compels us to our extents. It guides us in our unstructured, venemous crusades against any vestige of philanthropic elegance or puissant symmetry: And often all in the name of an inanimate pulchritude and her vain promises. How amazing that the two should be so intertwined that they become the backbone of our malignant and existentialist actuality!
I hate all that is beautiful. I detest the very hold that the fight for the attainment thereof has on my life. Nor do I use these words — hate and detest — lightly. They are extreme words. Final declarations.
