…going to hell in a handbasket!
Mm.
“Mm”? That’s all you have to say?
Um…
Have you actually been listening to what I was saying?
Er…
Because frankly, I think it’s deplorable that you take so little
interest or show so little concern for what’s happening right now in the world.
Yes.
Yes what?
Yes, I see your point.
Yes, but were you actually listening to my argument?
I believe I was. Would you like me to repeat the main points?
No, that won’t be necessary M.
Because I understand your frustration Zach.
Actually it’s spelt with a k.
Ah. In that case, I understand your frustration, Zack.
No, just k.
Ok, got it. I understan…
My frustration – yes – I got the message M.
Actually, it’s spelt with a P.
What?!
Only kidding.
Ha, bloody ha. Really, this is hardly the time for fooling around, M.
Sorry Zach.
With a k. Are you doing this deliberately?
Sorry Zak. I’m bad at spelling – you know that.
No I don’t, M. I suspect that you’re just endlessly indulging yourself, having fun at other people’s expense while Rome is burning and humanity is going down the proverbial swanee. It demonstrates an astonishing disregard for human suffering – a complete lack of empathy.
Yes.
So you admit as much.
It certainly looks fairly damning from your perspective – that much is
clear. I cannot deny it.
Well, perhaps “my perspective” is a fair representation of objective reality. Perhaps it’s simply true. Perhaps, for some reason, you have no real
concern for the immense suffering in the world right now.
Mm.
So it’s pointless talking to you about it, and pointless thinking you
might be able to come up with solutions.
Solutions?
Yes.
Whyever would I want to come up with solutions?
Because you’re a human: you’re supposed to be one with humanity –
affected by the plight of suffering people – you’re supposed to care about the
world – to have an interest in trying to make it a better place.
Ah. That.
“That”!? Like it’s no big deal.
Really Tam.
Tam?
Oops. I mean Zach. Damn, Zack. Oops, Zak.
Well, at least you got it right in the end.
I do my best.
How come it doesn’t beep?
Funny that, isn’t it. There’s no understanding Qufie these days, is
there.
“is there” question mark.
Not really, Zak, I wasn’t actually asking a question, not as such – more a
rhetorical flourish.
Oh, whatever. Now back to your dismissive “that”, if you would be so
kind...
Well, “finding solutions” implies that things are somehow “wrong”, “out
of joint” or, God forbid, “broken”, does it not?
Absolutely.
Beep!
Bloody hell! How come I got beeped for saying absolutely?
Beep!
Bizarre!
But you didn’t?
I appear to be above the law today, Zak – unless there’s some other
explanation.
Ok – let’s ignore the bloody beeps, shall we…
Beep!
Easier said than done.
Just ignore them M, and get on with explaining yourself, if you don’t
mind.
Explain my self?
You know what I mean. Quit pissing around.
Ug!
Ok, Zak – but try to avoid base modes of expression, if possible.
Sure, M, if you’d quit delaying your answer.
Delaying my answer? You seem to think it depends on me.
You’re doing it again! Besides, who else could it depend upon? No, don’t
answer that question – stay focused on the matter in hand: problem solving, or
rather, your astonishing statement that there’s no problem to solve.
Astonishing, you say dear Zak, because in 3D reality you seem to be
caught in a kind of snare – an imperfect seeming reality in which the constituent
parts or components, if you prefer, don’t seem to fit together very well, which
you’re ever trying to rectify, to put right by cutting and trimming cloth,
looking for so called “solutions”.
And you don’t see it that way, in your infinite wisdom M? You think it’s
ok that huge numbers of men, women and children are being killed? Ok that the
world is destroying itself?
I’m glad you included men, Zak… It’s rather depressing when people only
seem to care about the slaughter of women and children. As for “the world”, I’m
not sure your particular version of reality can actually be referred to as
such, not in the conventional sense of the word.
I’m speechless.
Yes.
Dumbfounded.
Oh no. Aside: Next he’s going to say he’s gobsm…
Gobsmacked.
Surely there’s some mistake Zach?
K!!!
Oops, sorry bro. I never said your reality wasn’t and isn’t deeply
disturbing. I understand you’re finding it er… deeply traumatic, and that
anyone with a heart would surely want to put it right – that much is clear and
unequivocal, but the solution you’re looking for doesn’t exist, or not where
you’re wanting it to be.
Faith M, we have to have faith, do we not?
Ye-es…
For without faith we’re all lost, as good as dead, victims of a cruel
and capricious script writer – an evil god.
Oh, now wait a minute Zak. I understand your logic, but are you
absolutely sure you've considered all the possible variants? I'm not disputing
the fact that your reality is very, very real with bodies and blood and very, very disturbing. It’s
absolutely undeniable, but that doesn't mean to say that your reality is, in
fact, absolute, i.e. real, in the way you assume it to be.
Quit pissing around, M!
Ug!
And you too, Ugglefck!
Ug!
Beep, beep, beep, beep! Like you’ve nothing better to say.
Actually, it’s Ugglefluck, and ugging is hardly the same as beeping, Zak.
Have some sensibility, if you’d be so good.
You’re splitting hairs M, and frankly I don’t give a damn!
Beep!
Well, don’t say I didn’t try, Zak.
Try to what?
Prevent you from falling foul of the Ways and Means Commissariat.
Commissariat? It’s the Ways and Means Committee if my memory serves me
correctly, M.
You’re absolutely right, Zak, when it’s dealing with routine admin matters, but when it’s dealing with willful linguistic debasement –crimes against the currency of communication...
Linguistic debasement? Give me a break!
– then it takes on its disciplinary judicial function.
Er…
The Commissariat is a different kettle of fish altogether, Zak. I
wouldn’t wish to be brought before that austere institution of learning and correction,
not for all the salt in Oceania.
There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding, M, I mean, I admit I
was a little crude in my use of language, but there was real need,
and I think you’ll find that in article 8 paragraph 6, sections 4 through 7 of
G-nome’s Law of Lingua, our greatest authority on such matters, that “grete
nede trumpeth beeps and uggs” doth it not?
Indeed it doth, dear Stan.
Stan?
Apologies, quantum slippage, one of the unfortunate consequences of
spleen and invective being sprayed needlessly – the Field over-lubricates.
Oh.
So you see, the proof is in the pudding.
You mean I’ve indicted myself.
Well, the Ways and Means Commissariat will have to decide, should they
decide, that a disciplinary hearing is warranted.
But…
There is need, Stan, and there is spleen. The two are
sometimes mistaken by men and women on leave from G-nome, caught up in the
drama of Earth’s, without a doubt, utterly compelling version of reality.
Be that as it may, M, I’d like to respectfully submit that misnaming me
is an act of passive aggression which should be avoided at all costs, or else
you too are liable to receive a summons from the said Kommissariat.
True, Stan, I apologise profusely but I seem to have been knocked out of
functionality. The shock of being expleted repeatedly seems to have
discombobulated me like something rotten.
Oh dear. I never imagined an M could be so sensitive!
Strange, isn’t it, Stan! You imagine an M or even a D is above such um…
Um?
Losing thread.
What?
Thread, read, dead.
Oh dear, M, are you ok? Look, I’m sorry I offloaded on you the way I did…
I never imagined it would mess you up like this. I assumed you were – oh God,
this is looking bad.
Siren wail getting louder and louder as something
like smoke or vapour is seen pouring out of what a moment ago was apparently M.
I just said a few
thoughtless words.
Really?
No, I’m deceiving myself
even now, and half-heartedly trying to deceive you, Master Ways and Means Chief
Kommissar.
It's spelt with a C you know.
Damn, how stupid of me.
Beep!
What is wrong with me? Why
do I persist to do what has been the cause of M’s sad demise.
You are angry, Stan.
Stan? Surely that’s not my actual
name?
Correct, but at present you are not your
actual self, are you?
I… perhaps you’re right,
Lord Maldrake.
Ah, so you recall, do you, my name?
Yes, Lord Maldrake.
Very good. Now, do you recall what brought you
to this suicidal impasse.
Suicidal? Surely that’s
putting it a bit strongly, your lordship.
On the contrary, it is a mere statement of
fact. Right now your life hangs in the balance.
What?!
You have failed to meet your obligations, to
satisfy your side of the bargain – the penalty is termination, without
discrimination or prejudice.
But I was simply objecting
to all that’s happening in the world, and…
Forgot yourself.
Well yes, but don’t we all?
Are you all, Stanislav?
Stanislav? I’m Russian?
You could say. But what doth it matter if
you’re now in the process of accepting termination?
Accepting? What do you mean
by that, Lord Maldrake? How am I accepting termination?
It’s the storyline you yourself chose when
you stated that 3D matters more than the absolute, more than words can say, more
than the simple truth which can be thingged or solved, as you put it, the
isness which has always been the core of what thou art and what simply is, when
the self-absorption is no longer given free rein, when the infatuation with
things and matter and people, even your precious people, supplants all else,
all that is sacred, all that is All.
So I’m just supposed to not
care when people are getting blown up? Is that it? Is that what you’re saying?
Lord Maldrake.
Is that what you’re saying,
Lord Maldrake? My, you do stand on ceremony your Lordship, even as humanity is
being eviscerated by hateful bombs and men.
Ceremony, Stanislav, is one small aspect of
what I stand upon, I cannot deny; yet it is only a part, a small part at that,
so you are mistaken in your accusation. Do you, in fact, wish to know what I
stand upon, Stanislav, or are you only interested in your sense of being right
and being incensed? Is there any place in your heart, in your mind, in your
consciousness for what we might refer to as “truth”?
I…
Because when I stated that you seem to have
accepted termination, this is the only factor that counts, ultimately.
Huh?
Once you have decided that things are
incompatible with your self, your sense of beauty and truth, and that the world
and God have ultimately failed to live up to what you expected, what you hoped
for, what you basically demanded, then you place yourself beyond the pale – you
become the ultimate source of darkness and enmity.
I do? There must be some
mistake!
Must be? How so?
I’m the one objecting to
all the cruelty, to the killing, the endless deception. I’m the one calling for
an end to it all.
Precisely. You’re calling for termination.
Not my termination,
Maldrake!
Lord Maldrake.
Ok, “Lord Maldrake”. Not my
termination. I wish to end the…
The what?
The…
Won’t you say?
The… What’s happening? Why
can’t I say what it is?
Because you are still alive, Stanislav, and
that means the simple truth that passes all comprehension is still alive in you
and present.
It is?
Yes. You could not say what, could you?
I know not.
You have found the zero, the nought, the empty
space which you are part of, which was always part of you.
I have?
Which means there is more than you or I,
formally “Lord Maldrake” can possibly know. And so there’s pause, as Hamlet
said.
Pause?
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
Er…
Pause for thought, where thought clicks into
unthought – into positively nought, the infinitesimal gap or opening which we
ignore perpetually, ignore, and still ignore persistently, to the utmost of our
wilfulness.
You mean we’re ultimately
to blame?
If you like, you could say that.
For insisting on 3D and
making matter our master and modulator?
Well, you could always blame other people, the
matrix, the Borg or even reptilian overlords, if you need to pass the buck.
No, Lord Maldrake, there’ll
be none of that.
None?
No, Lord Maldrake, the buck
stops here. I’m ultimately responsible.
Is that so?
Yes indeed.
Even regarding the murderous intent that has
so worn you down and broken your spirit in the world of Dwight.
Dwight? Ha, ha, yes in
Dwight and Sam and Zak’s realm of things that matter 3Deceasedly. I simply
cannot deny the fact that 0=1, M, that things are somehow wrapped around nought, that nought cannot simply be the absence of one, that somehow i is equal to the task of balancing things, even though i fails to see, does it not, first person-ly?
Ah! You’ve given life back – behold…
Time.
Time.
Time.
The fully assembled Ways and Means Commissariat declares Stanislav terminated with all consideration due, with words and atomies released to their rightful bond pairs and harmonies, with energies and what have you.
While this happens there is a void centre stage in
which Hamlet continues to recite his monologue…
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
But on the flip side of reality, every word, every
image and thought-thing has its antonym, its cavitation, its frabjosity, a
dancing energy of all Creation unpicking or remaking whatever 3D is in the here-and-now moment of forcing-making-thinging-doing, balancing the equation,
ensuring “things” – even terrible things – are never actually more than things
on the do-some tapestry of 3D-ality.
You see Zak?
Oh!
You see?
Oh!
You do, don’t you Zak? You
see
i
So when all is said and
done, talk we of solutions Zak?
Aye M, no, talk we not, talk
we not, ineffably…
Ineffably one.
0=1
thanks to the Ways and
Means Witan for allowing us to film this episode in their Kommissariat under
the dark sun of allfulness
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