John was worried about the next inquisition. He had realised that words were his prison. He entered his house through the window. The door had too many connotations. It was okay as a swinging device, which opened and closed, but the word ‘door’ had damaged it. His friend, Philip, had suggested mental illness, but John rejected it. If words had no place in his life, he could not be defined.
‘Still using the window then?’ a girl asked.
‘Bit*h.’ John said.
‘Words mean nothing?’ she enquired.
‘Yes words mean nothing.’ John said resignedly.
‘Just checking, I was wondering if you were calling me a bit*h?’
‘I have to go away.’ John said. ‘Every time I think, I die.’
‘Why?’ the girl asked.
‘Because I think in words and words are lies.’
‘Well then think in better words.’ She smiled.
‘They’re too limiting.’ John looked pressured.
‘Maybe your ability is…’
‘Bit*h’ John shot back. He wondered if he destroyed what he had, would it make him free? He looked at Clare. He saw her as a person. She was an object to him. Every person other than him was an object. He was the subject; the composition, and all these things were objects. For a moment he felt disgust, and then he imagined the luxury of Clare’s bre*sts.
It was the bells impact not the sound it made. And then they both interpreted the sound of a bell. Clare looked at John and he looked at her. Eyes, mouth and ears, they were joined: they were six. Clare looked angry.
‘I am an Orchid gaping at you.’ she said looking deep into his eyes.
John saw the flower. It was a large, fragile, purple fan. And it was dangerous. Her radar tower had snared him. He gazed at the church-like door of the floral façade and realised that all knowing was religion.
She was the object and he was solely the act of receiving. His breathing became very slow; the instant moment was immense. Perhaps he should leave his carcass here and just be. If he was object, there would be no subject… but for him there was always one last taste, one last taste… a nipple on the tongue… does that belong there?
‘Stupendous.’ John said. What a weak move… it crushed all occasion. Yet again he had done it. Yet again, when faced with the immensity and plurality of existence, he imprisoned it with a word. She would get bored soon, she did not want to be objectified, she wanted to be objected with.
John’s tongue was fat and fleshy in his mouth like a stoned cats’. The air damned his nostrils. He was tortured by its movement.
‘Church square.’ He said. Clare had tried to pass by him but now she was frozen, impaled by the thought of a steeple; once more frozen by the possibility of nothing.
Life offered nothing to them; they were book-covers to the air. They belonged to a regime of thought. An army of creators worded the world around them and through this cryptic configuration they wandered.
‘Shi*.’ said Clare. Oh no, the lowest form… A bottom pushed over them; the onslaught of slovenly ruin. John almost sneered but his face was engulfed by flesh. Some dawn would eventually arrive. They waited.
‘The point is...’ John said, as a spike started piercing his chin.
‘…nothing dies.’ John continued. It didn’t have to be said. It was impromptu.
He raised his hands and Clare handcuffed him to the bed.
‘Property’ she smiled. He was seized and sealed by the word. He was object. Clare’s subjection made him an object. She believed pain could set you free. She would hurt him and by making him the receiver of pain he might realise that he was the act of receiving, but not the receiver.
‘I should leave.’ John said. It was part role-play, part sick of playing roles.
‘I’ve thought about what we are doing…’ John said.
‘And?’
‘We’re just copying people.’
‘There are no other people like us.’ Clare said.
‘Yes but the action, the act, it is as useless as words. Even if you killed me it would only be titillation. Pain because of pleasure, death because of life. These are empty actions; nothing is complete. We need to evacuate. I hate you.’
John watched the words cloaking her; tiered emotions stacking up in her mind.
‘Sexual replacement’ Clare said and thumped his chest. There was nothing. She was trying to trap him. Words were traps. The distance, in history, between the first thought and the first word, was immense. The first word was a lie and every word after that sought to prop up that lie. Thoughts became compromised; bastar*ised by the word. With guttural representation we formed a person from the void. We were the Gods; the curiosity of the object created a subject to understand itself better. Yet it was a trap; rocks we were, and now we were locked into the recognition.
‘Break my mould.’ John said to Clare. Without hesitation she walloped him across the chest with a broomstick. The pain was immense. John writhed. Fu*k, why did it hurt? It should not. This was confectionery from the toilet.
‘Let me go?’ said John.
‘That’s your choice, is it?’ Whack. The broom came down again. Black and orange pain exploded from the canon of John’s chest. He followed the pain, he did not stay with himself. He could not speak; the voice was taken away but the words remained. He was deep in subjection, evolving through the neural pathways. There was intelligence in this pain; the rational realisation of association.
Clare undid the handcuffs.
‘I hate you.’ she said. John did not see her. He was incapable of freezing the moment for inane communication. A wordly tomb awaited him.
‘Purple canister.’ Said Clare. But she couldn’t have him anymore. Now he would go. The weary Christ of the cross, dejected at the disappointment of there being no god. Once more the broomstick fell on his back. Hate was cruising on the black velvet highway.
‘You may well see an object, but I am just a collection of experience.’ John muttered, as he tipped forward into the void.
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