Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. --George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”Translation:
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill ; but time and chance happeneth to them all.--Ecclesiastes, IX, 11****************************
From the roommates’ pores, evaporates the smell of Canadian whisky.
I look out the window to stare at the grey-haired man sitting in front of that old blue door all day and all night, as if guarding the process of time, down the dimly lit alley way, exactly 11 steps west from my apartment window. Each day I see him and he sees me, playing our own version of existence. And I wonder; if his story congealed into a two minute movie, would it be…picoseconds of multicoloured flashes or the repetition of a single moment of trepidation.
And I tell myself:
Down with the barriers, the imaginary prison and the post-modernistic bullshit. There must be answers, there must be fundamental truths, and I’m ready to smash open the kaleidoscope to pick up real pieces of plastic.
There, between the nonsense, the oxymorons and the absurdity, I said, I will find some kind of happiness.
And we spend hours of our lives spitting out phrases, words, sounds hoping for those orgasmic moments when we truly connect with another human being. And it never comes. Maybe it used to ...before we drowned in oceans of elaborate small talk disguised in x amount of flavours. But memories are always illusions. What about now? How soon is now?
The combinations abound, words tied in this way or another, formal or informal, convey the same thing, and still manages to communicate nothing. At end of a bitter day, you feel so suffocatingly isolated even among the crowdiest of crowds.
Stop a moment, I whisper. Look straight into the eyes of a stranger and imagine the life he’s lead. Then calculate the amount of glucose required for his brain to function properly. 23.4 grams assuredly.
The privileged world we live in is one where guilt is just a fleeting visit, a pang after an “inspiring” movie, the fuel to an overpriced education. Black umbrellas and cheap flowery scents permeate the lecture halls this week as the rain keeps raining. Perhaps the clicking noises inside this skull aren’t quite manifestations of insanity yet but merely a brain tenderly reminding living matter that this exhausted bag of flesh is melting. The cerebrum has never felt stuffier than the now or never. So full and so dull, twisted and deformed, floating and vapid.
Le sort réservé à l’être humain tient dans un sablier.
Meanwhile, there is still vodka...
