Stay calm

Back in our old town to start again, or to end again, I’m less discontent than I’ve been for years. Even X allows himself the odd smile as we walk around and unpack in the spring light, under the chorus of small birds on the roof above us and in the trees around us. Stay calm, he says. This doesn’t mean we’re not still in danger. You’re only happy when you’re leaving or arriving, or both. Soon tedium will set in, maybe tonight, probably at dusk, which is already setting in. So stay calm and be prepared.

Talking always wins out

We’ve always hated each other when we talk to people, haven’t we? I ask X. When you talk, X says. Maybe it’s not even ourselves we hate, I say, but the inadequacy of talking itself, the false notes that bounce off each other, between people! No, it’s probably just you, he says. But these days we don’t care as much as we used to, do we? I say. Remember how we used to fall silent with disgust if either of us caught sight of ourselves in a window while we were talking to someone? Now you’ll jabber on about anything, he says, you’d talk in a hall of circus mirrors, you’d talk to your own distorted reflections. Oh we still hate each other when we talk bollocks, I say, but it’s a tepid hate now, like you taught me. We don’t take talk personally. But your jabbering still wins out, he says, you just can’t help yourself. Talking always wins out.

That’s when I love you

You only think right when you drink, X tells me, when you’ve drunk as much as me and the horizon of thought opens up beyond both of us and your words reach out towards it. That’s when I love you, he says, that’s when I know we were meant for each other. Sometimes when we’ve drunk enough I don’t know who’s talking, you, me or no one, and that’s the only time I feel free. Well, that’s telling, isn’t it? I say. The only time you love me is when I’m out of my head and you don’t know who I am. I could’ve been someone but for you, I say. I could’ve been someone if I didn’t love you, I say.

X takes to his bed again

X has taken to his bed again. He lies there all day. It’s all gone to shit, he says when I get back from work. You’re shit, I say. You’re the cloud of shit that’s covering my life. I would have been a success without you. I could have done anything better than anyone if it weren’t for you, I say. I would have had gumption, get-up-and-go, a can-do attitude, all that, I say. Go on, blame it on me, he says, and goes back to sleep.

Warring against God

They should hang us for ‘warring against God’ like they do in Iran, I tell X. Oh we’d fight and curse and spit at them, of course, we’re not pansies, but in our hearts we’d agree with them, wouldn’t we? They wouldn’t even need to torture us for a confession, I say. They can torture me all they want and fuck off while they’re doing it, says X. The only ones I confess to is you and God, for my sins. You’re right, I say, but I can’t stand physical pain. That’s because you’re a pansy, he says.

Stages of drunkenness

Now I’m fixed, X says, are you? I haven’t drunk as much as you, I say. I need to eat, this is madness. There are certain stages of drunkenness you have to learn before you know what it means to drink, he says, certain comforts and discomforts and highs and lows you have to go through before you learn not to get excited. It’s a question of experience, he says. I don’t want to know, I say, why would I want to become like you? You should learn how to drink all day, he says undeterred, keep a steady pace, it’ll teach you not to get too excited. That’s your biggest problem, he says, you’re too excitable. Stay tepid, he says, like this ale, it’s our only hope. It’s when you get excited that they notice us. That’s what steady drinking teaches you, he says. I need to eat something, I say, let’s go.

It didn’t work

It didn’t work, I tell X when we return to our flat. I’m not renewed, I’m just drunk. We need to keep drinking then, he slurs. I can’t, I say, I’ll be sick. Then we need to throw ourselves out the window, he says. But we’re only on the second floor, I say.

Escape from time

X and I are both hopeless at maps, we don’t know Libya from Israel. Geography never interested us. Our friends at our two different schools used to tease us about our inabilities to find our ways around our separate cities. Get some life skills! they told me, I don’t know what X’s friends told him. Just tell us where we need to go, we both said, I don’t care how. We never understood road or tube maps. Yet we were both always on time, we agree, we were both always scrupulous about time. Because time was a different matter, time demanded great anxiety and scrupulousness no matter where you were. We learned early on that time wasn’t ours, that time was something that was demanded of us, that clocks were things that ticked ominously, echoing in the pits of our stomachs. But somewhere inside ourselves we both began to feel the same way about time as we did about the places we happened to be: that time wasn’t theirs anymore than it was ours. It took a long time for this thought to enter our consciousness, and it was around then that we met. And so eventually our common aim, when we’d known each other for a while, became to escape from time, theirs and ours, because theirs had become ours.

Sharks

Don’t get excited, X warns me. Stay calm. Don’t let them notice us. They sense emotion like sharks sense blood. You do know they’re noting down everything we say, don’t you? I wouldn’t be surprised if they know what we think. When they come for us pretend you don’t know what they’re talking about. You’ll just make it worse if you start talking, he says, I know what you’re like.

Salvation in a coma

Salvation is said to come like a thief in the night, I say. Maybe it’s a condition of salvation, of our being saved, that it can only happen while we sleep. Maybe it can only happen when we don’t will it. Ideally while we’re in a coma, says X, you can will in your sleep. But then we wouldn’t need it, I say. But it can only happen when we can’t ruin it, he says. When we can’t use it.