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| A Day on the Estate - Prequel | |
| By sam_duke | ||||
| 07 June 2007 | ||||
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This comes just before the passage posted earlier, and so far is the true beginning of the larger piece of writing from which it comes - though ostensibly it bears very little relation to what follows. This time I think rather than being loaded with description it's loaded with conversation which seems to me to get rather heavy and repetitive too at times. But see if you disagree... “What’s going on in that head of yours?” someone once asked. She’d been staring at me for an age. We were sat alone together on a field of green, the vista flooded with sunbeams enough to make our whole earth dazzle and shimmer. But all the while, all through the day, I had hardly said a word. The park was buzzing. There were little boys and little girls running and giggling, playing their happy games, mothers and fathers looking on, grandmas and granddads perched on the benches with weary but gentle smiles etched upon their furrowed faces. Meanwhile up in the air the contrails of a single plane were almost the only cloud that dared defile the clear blue of the early summer’s sky. Down on the ground there was someone flying a kite, holding sole dominion over the bird as its colourful cloth fluttered and flew, almost touching the heavens. A child no older than five or six stood beside, glancing upward. His gaze, however, was fixed not on the marvellous grace of the float sailing through the skies, but instead admiring the intent and resolute face of the man guiding its course from the ground. But my mind had raised my head so that my eyes were gazing beyond it all, beyond the grass, beyond the trees, and up towards a firmament that might have lasted forever. Suddenly I shuddered, as though I’d plunged back to reality. “Nothing,” I said with a sigh. She chuckled. “You’re never thinking about nothing.” I smiled, but said not a word more for just a moment longer. “What do you believe in?” I suddenly asked her, turning my gaze to her romantic dark eyes and her chestnut mane falling either side of her smiling face. I only whispered my words, yet their low and gentle key seemed somehow to intensify the bold and daring thoughts the question brought. She furrowed the tawny skin of her brow. “What do I believe in?” “Do you believe in destiny?” I asked. “Having a mission, a purpose in life.” “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never really thought about it, to be honest. Life seems like something you just have to get through as best you can.” I shook my head. “No,” I said softly. “It can’t all be as pointless as that, surely!” I said, my eyes returning heavenward as though I was pleading with something up there beyond the blue. “There has to be value to life. There has to be a reason why we’re here.” But when she simply asked, “What if there isn’t?” my eyes turned downcast, and I sighed. “I want to understand things,” I said, looking away once again, my mind apparently distracted by some new pattern of thought. “I do believe in destiny. At least, I think I do. Or maybe I hope I do. Maybe I want to do. But it hardly matters, because it’s the pure belief that carries me forward.” “So it doesn’t matter whether or not destiny is real, just as long as you believe it’s real?” I was still watching that boy in the distance, whose eyes were fixed on the man driving the kite. I laughed. “I don’t know.” The girl simpered. “You think too much,” she said. But I scoffed back. “Why do people always say that to me?” I demanded. “I mean, it’s not as if people who don’t think at all actually do too much, is it!” She flicked her hair from her face. “I take your point.” I carried on. “I want to understand the meaning of things. I want my life to have a profound purpose. I want to know what it means to live a worthwhile existence, to have principles I will fight for and die for, even to truly love.” The words came from deep inside, and when they met with my lips they seemed to hang forever in that space between the two of us, never wandering off anywhere else to be forgotten and to expire. “I sometimes wonder whether there really are forces which govern this world, like destiny, purpose; like hope, and faith too. All I can ever do is marvel at the very ideas, for they’re just so grand to behold. But then I realise that these are the forces that run us! These are the forces that are made by and which fuel each and every human being, and it is only in their absence that we become lost in the mists of emptiness.” I said it all with passion, with meaning, and with belief. But that was exactly how the girl said I always spoke anyway. Yet all the same she just kept staring into my eyes, ardent to hear more. “You’re a scientist,” I said, my thoughts travelling a new course, venturing onto a new track. “And you’re an English student!” she replied, as if she thought that said it all. “Listen to me,” I begged with a laugh. “Science comes up today with so many ideas, so many theories dressed up to be so convincing they’re indisputable. But these very same theories and concepts stand in the face of the very essence of what it means to be a human being. These theories that science raises up reject human consciousness. These theories say all our decisions, all our thought patterns, all our personality, they are all the result of natural processes higher and mightier than we human beings ourselves.” “Even religion,” I suddenly began. “Religion, the great pillar which truly should be about the good of the human being so often says that the human soul, even though it exists and has value and worth, is nothing unless it is invigorated with the breath of a god, and that the only true salvation lays in the hands of that very same god, and that human beings must bow and kneel and submit themselves before it.” “Politics, the affairs of state, governance, all require humans to be organised into groups, apparently for the best and fairest allocation of resources. The political consensus of today especially rejects the human being and his integrity, his responsibility for himself, his honour, his everything.” With every pause the girl beside me simply nodded her head thoughtfully, and kept on listening. “In the fourteenth century,” I suddenly said, my tone again changing, my thoughts wandering down a new avenue, “as the Renaissance took hold throughout the continent, intellectual ideas and beliefs began to change. Humanist ideals emerged. Humanism placed a higher premium on human dignity and the capacity of mankind, the impact we can have on our surroundings. This was supposed to be a kind of reaction to the Christian values that had been known and advocated for centuries, like humility, submissiveness, meekness in the face of it all.” “Yet even these supposed diametric opposites had common ground. Even the scholars of the time who took their ideas from as far back as Aquinas still understood the extraordinary capacity of mankind. The Christian theologians, the schoolmen of the day, these were not people who said humans were poor and sorry creations. They knew of the capacity of our species, however their aim was to ensure our modesty, I suppose, and see to it that humankind didn’t become arrogant and forget or abdicate its roles and responsibilities.” “Today, we don’t even have that. It’s perverse that in our modern age, in the age of the internet, the airline, the space shuttle, in an age when the nuclear bomb is becoming obsolete, that we fail to at least contemplate and comprehend the extraordinary capacity of the human being. Something, some force, some power, has stolen away our belief in what we can do, and we are a lesser civilization for it.” Casting a hand across the vista, I carried on. “Look at the way we lead our lives. For so many of us, life is just an existence to potter on through, day after wasted day. Some people still want to get rich and have fun, but how many want to grow stronger inside, and learn something worthwhile through our lives, and leave our souls and spirits fulfilled?” The girl laughed to herself. “Most just want to get drunk and have sex, go to raves with their mates and wake up sick the next morning, and then just drudge on through life all the rest of the time,” she said. “Exactly!” I said. “I mean, look at us, look at all the people we know, young men and women growing up just like we are. If you ask them what they want from life, then this is it. Never mind a strong family, a happy home, a good community, fulfilment of our hearts’ most profound wishes. This is all we want nowadays! And look what it does to us: it’s made ours a society of loneliness, of depression, of violence, of aggression, of sadness, of emptiness within our hearts, of pure despair. Ours is a society which doesn’t care about deep, loving relationships, about respect for one another, about true aspiration, about our own worth and strength as individuals, and this is the source of all our greatest troubles.” “We could change the entire world if only all human beings could know their worth, the great value of their every thought, word and deed. We could create a utopia if only all people knew of what good they are capable. Our lives could be so much better, so much more fulfilling and worthwhile.” She kept on gazing my way, watching my mind move wherever it was headed. “I don’t know,” she suddenly, solemnly murmured. “I mean, you want the name Benjamin Paine to mean something; you want to lead a worthwhile, virtuous life; you want to learn and grow content inside; you want true love and spiritual happiness; you want a perfect world. You talk in values and ideals, and I love you for it. I think it’s amazing. But maybe you trick yourself into thinking that everyone else wants the same.” “But the world would be so much better off!” I proclaimed. “People would be happier and stronger for it if they aspired and worked hard for their own betterment, and valued their own integrity and honour so much more. I’m sure of it!” “Maybe,” she said, “but maybe it’s just you. I mean, you’re no ordinary person. You’re looking to the stars always, but still you have your feet on the ground. Even in your most modest, falsest moments, you’ve always got that look about you, that twinkle in your eye, that passion, that smile of courage and confidence and determination. When I first met you, I thought it was just an illusion. I thought it was something, some cover that anyone can put on. But now I know. It’s just you. You’re no ordinary person, Ben, and you never have been.” I chuckled. “Thanks,” I said, in a tone as though her words were mean. “And I know you prefer it that way too!” she declared. “But even if I think you’re a good, deep, strong man, that’s never going to be enough in itself. When people just think that someone is a great person, they can’t just sit there all smug and expect everyone to fawn over them. You have to live up to that reputation and build on it every day through your deeds, not just your words. The very fact that you know you’re no ordinary person means it is your duty and your responsibility to devote your life to some extraordinary quests. You’re an extraordinary person, but extraordinary people have to do extraordinary things, or else they just become ordinary again. We forget they ever existed, and the rest of us even lose a little hope. You’ve got to give us hope, Ben,” she said, speaking with the most intense softness. “That’s your duty.” I couldn’t bring myself to say a word more. The thoughts she gushed humbled me too much. “What if I’m nothing though? What if my core becomes so firm and fixed on all these principles and ideals, yet there remains nothing I can do to make the world a better place for it? I always look inward, and challenge myself, and ask myself whether I’m really a good person, an able person, someone who can do good with my life, and so often the answers I find leave me a wreck. What if I can’t do it? What if I lack the application or the know-how? What if I’m right but nobody else can find it within them to listen to me or appreciate my view? What if I lack the courage to transform my principles and ideals into good deeds? What if I lack the energy and the vitality? What if I lose my way like so many others?” “You have to try hard,” she simply said. “If you believe in love, in the worth of human beings, in living your life an example of honour and virtue, then you have to go out and fulfil that promise. You just have to.” She spoke on, “People can see what you are, and who you are. You believe in the capacity and the power of people to do good and to know the right thing, therefore you should understand that people can see you are a good person with noble intentions. I don’t think there’s any shame in fearing that sometimes people won’t see your goodness, your virtue. But at the same time, I don’t think there’s any need to fear it. If you think something, and believe it passionately, then you shouldn’t be afraid to stand up and say so. If you have a story to tell which we can all learn from, you shouldn’t be afraid to speak out and upset people or whatever else it is you worry about. People will listen to you. If you are right, you shouldn’t be scared of your own rightness. You should question yourself, so that you may be sure of your rightness, but you should not be afraid.” I smiled at her every word, but still wasn’t sure. “Still, it feels wrong. I feel like an arrogant man for the things I say and think. I feel like I have too high an opinion of myself. I feel as if place too much importance on what I think and feel, and even believe. Values are arrogant, they’re smug. That’s what people say. Self-belief is arrogant. Pride is arrogant. Destiny is arrogant.” “Modesty is arrogant!” she said, raising her voice above mine. “Precisely!” I smiled. “I know that well enough! But not only that, they’re all flawed and false and weak as well. Think of all these little boys and girls on the talent contests on TV convinced they’re destined for stardom. They come on telling us how much charisma and charm and talent they’ve got and how they’re going to change the world with the power of their voice. They think it’s their destiny, where they’re headed in life, and in so doing they reduce and degrade the depth and meaning of destiny and of purpose. But then, when they finally start singing, they’re a joke.” She laughed. “One of my friends tried out for a show like that before,” was all she said. But my mind was left absorbed in something else. “I tried to write a novel once,” I began. “It was all about this kid growing up on a council estate. He was a bit pompous, a bit insecure, a bit too lonely and brooding for his own good. He was growing more and more upset, or disappointed, dismayed perhaps, with his family, with his friends, with his society, but most of all for some reason with himself. But, you see, he had high ideals and principles all the same–” “So you then,” she interrupted. I shrugged. “Something like that,” I said with a gentle, coy smile. “But anyway, I started writing, and when I finally got into the story I thought it was going to be the greatest thing ever written. I thought my work was going to change the world. It was a story about all the misery, all the sorrow, all the despair of the world as I saw it, but more than that it was about how we can change it, and how there’s still hope. I thought my book was going to be like ‘Les Misérables’ or ‘Crime and Punishment’. I thought the name Benjamin Paine was going to be up there, one of the greats of the English language, along with Orwell, Dickens, Twain, Shakespeare even, and all the rest of them.” As all the thoughts came forth, my voice suddenly just gave way. “Then one day, I’d finished about two hundred thousand words, and the story had hardly got anywhere. And I just looked at it, and I suddenly thought to myself…” “What?” she asked. “It was terrible!” I tried to laugh. She chuckled along. “Everyone who even just looked at it thought it was a joke! There was no plot, the characters were all thin, the ideas and themes it explored were just spoken about in big, long soliloquies like this, and it ended so abruptly that it looked a complete mess. I showed what I’d written to someone, a quiet, sensitive, wise young man, you know, the type who’d never just laugh at me but smile knowingly and gently suggest how I could perhaps make it better. He just said to me, ‘Well, you’ve got the words right, but maybe not the music’.” She could only chuckle there next to me. “I made the main character look like an arrogant, self-obsessed, vainglorious, haughty, shallow and just generally dislikeable, disagreeable little swine.” “Christ! It really was you!” she declared. I laughed. “Shut up!” I demanded, teasingly smiling. “But think about it. I thought I was a great writer whose ideas could make the world I knew a better place for good. But I was crap! So am I just like those desperate, wannabe singers on the television, for all my hope and my belief?!” She laughed, bowed her head softly with a look of sympathy and let her dark hair fall once again. “Oh Ben, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe you’re just a fantasist. You talk like one. You act like one. Maybe that’s just you.” I sighed. “But still, I don’t know how you can compare yourself to everyone else. Your ideas and your thoughts, and simply the things you say, they all amaze me. You’ve got a mind like none I’ve ever known, a heart of passion, sensitivity, depth, understanding of things about the world I can’t see and grasp. You’ve never been like other people,” she said, spitting out the words, casting away the mere thought that there was even anyone else in the world of ours. “This is a world where so much is wrong, not just in what we can see around us, but how we feel deep within. You can see that, and it’s your duty therefore to change it. You have a promise to live up to. Now’s the time for you to begin to fulfil it.” I merely sighed, and glanced around the park once more. “But all the same,” I suddenly and finally began as the rest of the world looked happy and at peace that summer’s day on the vast green field, and as that boy still admired the grace and the poise of the grown man’s guiding hand, “what are we? Who are we? Why are we?” “Do you mean, ‘what am I?’, ‘who am I?’, ‘why am I?’?” she suggested with a wry smile. “Maybe,” was all I could say.
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