[I wrote this a few years back and just looking at it recently it has it seems to me to have become more apposite, that there is a sifting process going on at the moment, particularly vividly in the States, and so anyway with that in mind I’ve dug it back out from its dusty virtual shelf, even if it is kind of unfinished. To add, when I write something like this it’s not done strategically, which would involve having a firm idea what underlying reality I may be referring to, and what relevant points are then being made. Instead I try to keep such thoughts away and insofar as possible allow the piece to flow on its own terms so it can look after itself without my conscious mind intervening and trying to direct things, which would inevitably result in far narrower and more finite energetic/artistic structures.]
There was a law, and what are laws but to be broken, but this it seems was an absolute law, in full accord with reality, and so could not be broken. It was a law of nature. And so what did man do - man in the collective - but gather himself together and strain himself to the utmost to try and break this law, to test its absoluteness. All means, instruments, tools were used in all kinds of ways but to no avail. The law remained, unbroken - which was very satisfactory. Man put down his tools. Now he had his law.
But after a while it turned out not all had put away their tools, or if they had, some of them, they'd taken them back up again. Whatever was wrong with them - they must have been possessed of some kind of infection - they could not be stopped. They were met at first with bemusement, but this soon turned to anger, outrage even, and out of all proportion one might have thought to the scale of things, but maybe they feared some kind of response from above, so to speak, some collective form of retribution, for what kind of way was this to behave towards the law?
And so tolerance of those who refused to put away their their tools became intolerance - requests gentle and stern having been ignored, threats of excommunication and exile likewise, their instruments were confiscated, smashed, leaders imprisoned; but the infection it seemed was a fatal one, and those in its grip went underground and carried on their tests in some kind of darknesses, modern catacombs as it were beneath the city.
What did they hope to gain? Did they really think this law could be broken? And even if they were to find points of weaknesses within it, however impossible and unlikely - what could they expect to do then? They could hardly expect to be able to bring these findings - however dubious - overground, not now. But you can't really ask a man in a fever to logically justify why he is feverish - why he doesn't just discard his fever. And anyway whatever they might do later with their findings could, they might answer, look after itself then.
And whatever about the law in its core, they were led in their pursuits down all kinds of tributaries, sometimes confined for ages within the most torturous of currents, but which would suddenly and unexpectedly open into grand spaces, illuminating darknesses - darknesses they hadn't even realised were darknesses - and having gazed all around, having peered into all the corners, then a choice of tributaries, directions, would be theirs, where to next, and so their explorations were rewarded more and more, and on and on they were drawn further and further down into the unknown.
Did they stop and wonder at all where they they might be being led? Were they keeping pace, internally let’s say, with their discoveries? Should they, to try and keep some sense of perspective on things, come up for air a bit more often? Let’s say for example someone found out how to split the atom, one giant step for whoever, but at the same time he has the emotional maturity of a ten year old. What’s he going to do with his atom?
But anyway, whatever about the mental health of these people underground, in time word of their mysterious workings began to seep upwards, this word behaving akin to some gaseous substance, to which however the older generation, in general, seemed immune. These gases could writhe slowly all about them, but it was as if they were encased in some impenetrable shell. But for the younger people though, these vapours from below seemed often to seep through every pore and even take possession.
And so the finest minds, who it seemed were most vulnerable, were ever more being drawn underground, joining the strange mental crusade, the momentum of which was gaining, while above, the city now largely bereft of the finest of the rising generation, became more stagnant and brittle, and whose shrill cries of condemnation of what might be going on underneath appeared all the more desperate.
And then as time passed, numbers began to emerge from below, with papers and proofs, solemn but not far beneath the solemnity, jubilant, fearful and mocking; and what could the city leaders do but welcome them back, obsequiously; and so pale from lack of sun and with hard, fixed eyes, these inhabitants of underground returned and took up their seemingly unquestioned places at the head of society, redirecting its flow.
The time-piece upturned, underground was now overground, and what, a little further in time happened but some of the most archetypal beings of overground began to go underground. These most emblematic of people were not as you might expect so much the leading establishment figures, who with a little bit of shuffling managed to cosy themselves in with the new order, and go on in truth much as before.
No, the people most in tune with the previous way of life, those who most believed in it, believed in it with their very blood so to speak, were much less noticeable. They departed quietly, made little fuss, but left, at least in the immediate aftermath of their absence, an uneasy impression - their departure only being noticed after the fact. Why had they left? It was puzzling, but still, whatever it was about, they were obviously no loss. There was more room for the rest of us.
With their departure underground these exiles found something they didn't expect to find, which was that these realms weren't quite as empty as they'd expected. Evidently not everyone had gone back above ground, and those they found who had remained were it seemed the purest forms of the earlier waves downwards. Those who were heading back up to take possession looked on these few as mad; and when these mad few had in response to the mockery of the more worldly majority simply ignored them, this had only raise their contempt all the more. They were going up to usher in a new age, and meanwhile these mad fools didn't even bother to glance over their shoulders at their departure, they mattered so little to them. That these madmen were the most gifted of the experimenters was a bit inconvenient, but somehow or other could be explained by their very madness. In their very addiction to truth they had lost sight of it - or something like that.
And with the arrival of the newest wave from above, the denounced retrogrades, interestingly, the two unworldly groups seemed to recognise each other - inwardly. They had found themselves together underground by some kind of sifting process, some sieve, as could perhaps also be said of those overground. Sheep and goats as it were.
And so how did the two hemispheres progress? Naturally, upstairs – so to speak – the old Law was overthrown, but not with any great fuss. It was discarded, thrown in the rubbish, amidst, insofar as it was noticed, laughter. Word of its departure went largely unmentioned but for the odd mocking reference; its presence had been imaginary in the first place so what was there to miss. New laws had been put in place but funnily these laws and their nature tended to go unmentioned also. It was more a case of inferring their existence than anything else, though there were very few it seemed to do much inferring. Whatever these new laws were though, they were essential. One could be sure of that.
