Hammerport

The student realised the thinker didn’t understand at all. It was the very pure, bestial freedom that was being eroded and lost every day. Animals act on instinct. The more humans progressed, the more they second-guessed, worried, self-mutilated their minds over simple decisions. Mental self-harm. It was natural to outsource the worry to a higher authority. But that authority was not holy, it was human, with all its flaws and desires. Those who take up the mantle then besiege the confused, panicky population with dark slogans: Life is dread! Every waking moment a peril! Fear the freedom of others to do things to you, fear your own freedom to undo you! Donate your freewill to the higher cause – and our instructions will lead you to the Holy Grounds!

His friends seemed to fade into the background and he just let the sentences spill out of his mouth, unguarded and unashamed. ‘We’ve dragged ourselves out of the swamps and into the bright sunlight of intelligence. But we’re just frightened rabbits, right, in the sun’s headlights and we don’t know what good or evil mean any more, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do at all. All we seem to be really good at doing is finding out more and more and fucking up our brains. The puzzle gets bigger and more complicated. So much information to take on board, the internet drowns us and we scrabble for dry land, anything that can keep us afloat. Faced with the enormous complexity of life, nature, science, art – fucking everything – we feel like turning back, putting up our hands and resigning. But we can – we should – make our hands into fists and roar at the universe that we don’t give in that easily.’

He stood up, raised a fist at the air itself and shouted: ‘Fuck you, universe!’

His eyes watered as he hadn’t blinked throughout his little rant against the faulty human system. He glanced across his friends through a gauze of tears, and saw that his fellow anarchists had been stunned into silence. Were they impressed or just shocked? He sighed aloud, for he was still alone after all. There was potential in this group, but would the thinker prove to be an ally or a hindrance in the long-term?

But his girlfriend. She stared at him with an expression that was neither pitiful nor hateful, just intrigued. He didn’t understand why – did she get it now? Did she understand? The group hadn’t been happy to bring a zealot into their midst without some grooming… but he was hopeful she could be turned around. There was always an elegant consistency to her perspective; if he could puncture some of her views, then she might, just might, re-arrange everything to see things their way.

The athlete broke the silence with a sharp change of subject, saying, ‘You know, what’s really worrying are the current rumours about the Paladins-’

‘Holy moley moley!’ the musician shouted, who had been playing with her cell.

The thinker shouted, ‘Good God, enough shouting for this evening! Could everybody please stop shouting!’

‘TV, get the TV on right now. Any channel, any channel at all. You are not going to believe this.’

‘Believe what?’ said the thinker.

The musician was lost for words, gasping for something, stuck with just: ‘TV!’

The student hauled himself up off the floor, wandered over to the TV, switched it on, saw two words in bold, white lettering on its plasma display and felt his jaw drop.

‘Get out of the fucking way,’ yelled the poet, ‘we can’t see a bloody thing!’ The student jumped aside as ordered.

The thinker retorted, ‘Stop shouting for God’s sakes! Will you please stop the’ –he saw the same two words that had stunned the student– ‘oh you gotta be kidding.’