INVISIBILITY CLOAK

(Image: Pol Úbeda Hervàs - I'm Not There) 

 

I sent off for an invisibility cloak. I've had it a while now. When I put it on I'm completely invisible. I like being invisible. Well, I like not being seen, you know, going unnoticed. I rarely take the cloak off now. The cloak allows me go about my daily business without fear of being recognised. Recognition is a fear of mine. Have you ever been recognised yourself? I don't just mean 'spotted', I mean actually recognised. I can't stand it. I'm ashamed of myself you see. For the longest time I have been dogged by a sense of embarrassment that is caused by being me. It's like the feeling teenagers get when they are seen with their parents only I get it when I'm seen with myself, which is always, unless I'm wearing the cloak. I love the cloak.

When the cloak is on, my unbecoming physical carriage is concealed as is my appalling dress sense and my facial expression of acute defeat. The only thing I could possibly do to mess up my day is say something stupid but I recently had my vocal cords severed so that too is no longer a concern. I'm only made detectable by the shopping list I carry. As far as others are concerned, I'm just a floating piece of paper with words like 'sausages', 'eggs', 'washing up liquid' and 'Chambourcy Hippo-Tots four pack' written on it. The people of the town don't bat an eyelid. There's a few of us using the invisibility cloaks around here. There's a lot of floating shopping lists and wallets and briefcases. There's a lot of people who want to continue availing of the world while not actually being part of it. It's a beautiful planet, it's a pity to mar it with oneself.

Personally, I think everyone should wear invisibility cloaks. Maybe kids shouldn't, so we can keep an eye on them. Kids have nothing to be ashamed of anyway. But the rest of us, my God, the things we have presided over or instigated, allowed happen or failed to make happen. Really, I'm astonished most of us still show ourselves in public. We should all be invisible and we should all get our vocal cords done too. Then the only way left for us to mess things up would be to write something down, as I am here. Writing would be the only remaining threat to our culture of ultra-discretion. A ridiculous blogpost, an angry text, a love letter to someone who doesn't love you, a ransom note to the wealthy parents of the nervous child in your box room. All of these things are likely to occur if we retain the ability to write. But I have a solution to this threat. All keyboards, pens and writing implements of every sort should be rigged with a fatal booby trap that will activate should the device detect that you are writing something other than a shopping list or a purely utilitarian combination of words such as 'out of order' - which, incidentally, happen to be the words I want engraved on my tombstone.

I'm not sure how the writing devices would be able to detect what you are writing but I'm sure some clever person out there will figure it out. I'm too stupid to sort out that kind of thing myself. My stupidity is another deficiency that is evident when I am sans cloak. My stupidity is visibly demonstrated by my clumsy gait and open mouthed breathing. I really am a pitiful sight. I look like a stupid dumbass just like you look like an arrogant jackass or a wonton tart or a violent thug or a scared little bug.

Yes, we should all be invisible, all of the time. Well, ...most of the time. There might be occasions in my unseeable utopia when it is appropriate to take off our cloaks and reveal ourselves. These would be the times when we need to be together. To share moments of visual and tactile intimacy. On these occasions we'll uncover ourselves and stand naked before each other, revealing our scars and stretches, our folds and wrinkles, our distended packages and unimpressive appendages. All of these things and, of course, our eyes. Our vulnerable eyes, staring into the vulnerable eyes of another, with no cloak, no chatter, no hoodie, no shades, no Facebook profile page to protect us. Just ourselves, completely naked and hoping not to be rejected.

SERVICE PROVIDER

I'll steal your world from you and you'll rent it back. You'll appreciate it more because it has a price. You'll earn the money to pay for your keep by working for me. I'll pay you almost as much as you pay me. You can borrow the rest you need from me so you don't fall behind on the payments but you'll have to pay me interest. It's my world after all. You owe me, in perpetuity.

I'll do the same with your peace of mind. I'll rob your self-esteem and flog you placebos. I'll tell you that you are ill and sell you pills if you become fatigued. You are unwell. The world is well, that's why you pay for it. If you can't pay for it you are not fit for it. You are too weak to be part of the world. You are aberrant, a malcontent, a criminal, a skiver or sick. Take your pick.

I'll make you feel ashamed of being poor or poorly or too fat or too thin. I'll make you hate yourself, outside and in. I'll be the sole gatekeeper of your self-approval. I'll be your self-improver. I'll sell you books that tell you how to get by but they won't tell you how to get by so you'll have to buy more. Then I'll get you to pay me for an army and I'll send it to war against another army that you also paid for.

When the fighting is done, I'll charge you for reparations and get you to pay me to pay you to clean up the devastation. You'll pay me for the monuments that you'll build in my honour. If you died in my name, I'll say you were a martyr. I'll sell you a coffin and pass your debts to you kids. I'll be the one who decides where you spend the life after this. Heaven or Hell, I'll own you even in death and you'll thank me because it was too much responsibility to own yourself.

MY DE BRUIJN LIFE

Mathematical De Bruijn sequences are sequences that seem to have no sequence but actually do. They look like chaos but have hidden order. De Bruijn sequences have been discovered in the assembly of genomes, revealing a comprehensible system within a life causing mess.  

Yes, life is messy and being someone who wishes to live life correctly, I have found it correct to make a mess of my life. I am living in accordance with De Bruijn principles. I tidy my flat in a De Bruijn way. My dress sense could be described as Haute De Bruijn. My every act is De Bruijn, seeming insane and random but with a hidden rationale. What that rationale may be is beyond me as I have never been good at maths but I am content in the knowledge that there is a rationale there, …somewhere.

My philosophy is the De Bruijn philosophy. You may think it makes no sense but that is because you are missing the hidden sense, as am I, that is the point. If I could see ‘reason’ in how I live my life then I wouldn’t be living it in a De Bruijn way.

As approaches to existence go, I think mine trumps yours. Your way of life is the opposite of De Bruijn. You live a life that looks rational and perhaps feels rational but really, underneath the ostensible order, there is nothing but chaos. In reality, your actions are motivated by petty egoistic needs and random brain chemicals and are neither systematic nor logical. In fact, your actions can often be self-destructive. In short, your algorithm is banjaxed and it’s you that is the disordered one, not me.

Anyway, that’s pretty much word for word what I said in my defence to the judge before I jumped up onto his bench, took a shit in his wig and fled from the courthouse shouting: 

‘Jimmy had a micky that was ten foot long 

and he showed it to the lady next door. 

She thought it was a snake 

so she cut it with a rake 

and now it’s only five foot four.’

That is all. Happy Christmas Fuggers!

MONKEYS DON'T HAVE WORDS

In a former life I was a monkey. I didn't have a name, just a scent. I used to drink water from leafs and pee anywhere I liked. I spent a great deal of time screeching and hopping up on other monkeys who didn't mind at all. I jumped from tree to tree and threw berries at predators, taunting them from the safety of high branches, just for the laugh.

Past life regression therapy has brought these memories back to me. The main thing I remember is an overriding sense of urgent delight and an overwhelming immersion in what they call Oceanic Feeling. I wasn't just in the jungle, I was the jungle and I was everything else in the jungle.

I eventually got old and fell out of a tree and into the jaws of a big cat, which was a nasty end but up to that point I'd had tremendous craic. Anyway, even though I was eaten by a big cat, I was the big cat. It's hard to explain. It was a feeling beyond words. Monkeys don't have words. They don't need them. They'd find them inadequate.

In another former life I was a cartographer of either geographic land or the human mind, I'm not sure which. All I really remember is a sense of discomfort. There was a kind of fear there: of boundless spaces, of uncharted realms, of unlabelled and uncategorised things. I didn't have this fear as a child but as I grew older, and read stories of wild places, wild animals and wild people, I came to understand that categorisation was necessary. I too was categorised and this gave me a robust sense of what they call Ontological Security and this Ontological Security provided me with a buffer which I used to protect myself from the sheer randomness of what they call 'outrageous fortune'.

I eventually got old and developed dementia. I started drinking water from leafs and peeing anywhere I liked. I spent a great deal of time screeching and hopping up on people who took offence and contacted the authorities. I jumped from building to building and threw bottles at the police, taunting them from the safety of high rooftops, just for the laugh.

I eventually fell from the top of a multi-storey car park and dashed my brains on the pavement below and was taken to a morgue where a little label was attached to my toe, with a little number on it, and I was put into a drawer that had another number on it and then I was put into box that had my name on it and then I was buried under the ground in a plot in a cemetery that had a saint's name on it and then I could have sworn that I felt a nameless monkey walk right over my grave and I think it took a pee.