A weariness came over me and cast its shadow. That was when my ordeal began. At the entrance to the company there are always volunteers who smile at you, wearing that pathetic look of people who love every living creature. In those days, such treacly displays still offered me some comfort. On the way home I could always stop at the bookshop, where they would give me a coffee and a pretentious chat about cosmic consciousness.
But this weariness was no ordinary tiredness, nor sadness, nor boredom. Who doesn’t go through such things? Life brings them along, and fortunately, we are told, we live in the age of ultimate happiness. Not that suffering has ended or that we have defeated death — inner and outer enemies remain — but among ourselves we love one another and help one another. No one is alone. No one can fall. That is what they tell you.
Of course, I was free to leave. But go where? The world here repeats itself everywhere: vast pedestrianised cities with their lush gardens, their museums overflowing with culture, their nightlife, their monuments… All of that. Or perhaps the countryside, to watch a sunset beyond the cereal harvests.
Yes — but they never leave you alone. They were the source of my exhaustion. If you decided to stay home, they would send someone to visit. In the end, all your acquaintances seemed to know about your low spirits, and all of them played their part to make you feel the centre of the world, the most beloved being, the anointed one come down from the heavens to save humanity. Who can resist that? You were expected to reciprocate, and you did, even when you didn’t want to. There is a remedy for everyone: leisure activities with pleasant people, or with gurus of unparalleled wisdom.
I said I wanted to leave my job and they gave me a stipend. And what are you going to do? they asked. Write, I replied, with no real interest, just to get rid of them. Wonderful! The same relentless enthusiasm as ever, and at once that excessive interest in what I was supposedly going to do. Deep down, they didn’t care. If you feel like writing, write. If you feel like painting, paint. If you feel like lying in the sun, lie there. The important thing is that you’re happy! One thing is as good as another, and naturally it makes no difference who does what or with what talent. That is what books are like now.
Then they flood you with the obligatory thousand comments and pieces of advice. I know a creative writing course… You could publish at such-and-such… Do send me whatever you write… My cousin has written a poetry book, she’s posted it on such-and-such…
I must have said something improper, too sharp. I caused some sort of trauma to someone, who knows. The world is full of delicate souls — delicate men, delicate women — with skin like silk and nerves like thermometers. Insufferable.
Some of my closer friends began speaking to me with sincere concern. What did they imagine? What had they been told about me? It was as though they thought I was sinking into the worst of vices. They found me incomprehensible. Why are you so sullen? I’m not sullen, I just don’t want to watch those stupid films you recommended. Stupid? But they’re lovely…
I went to visit my parents, and clearly they had been briefed too. They treated me like a child who has been bullied at school and let me retreat to my old bedroom. Lying there, I knew they were waiting on the other side of the door, unsure whether to come in, to have one of those family-support conversations — the kind they teach at community centres and that get reproduced endlessly in series and films. But I just wanted to be left alone.
Nothing’s wrong with me, really. I said as much to the social worker when she came to visit. She showed up openly, without the disguise of friendship. She came straight from the health centre because they had told her I was sad. Goodness, a sad citizen! The State cannot allow it.
I understand, she said, the world is full of unhappiness. What is this person talking about, I thought. Why is she here? She knew everything about me — I had been studied, they had a clinical report on my supposed sadness. I was, to them, a restless subject. It was natural that I should feel this way; I needed new challenges.
Why don’t you travel? Climb Everest. Spend some time in a Buddhist monastery — you can book a place at buddhistretreat.com. Take a canoe down the Nile, there are no more crocodiles, no more terrorists, nothing to fear. And what about a trip to the moon? A little pricey, but we can help you get a second-class ticket on the monthly shuttle — my sister went, it’s an incredible experience, you land, you walk on the moon, you do a little hop and come back… She kept proposing plans in that warm, fluent voice. I heard her as if from a distance and nothing interested me. She was an attractive woman, I began to think, and, moved by my weariness, I said simply: I’d like to fuck you. I held a stupidly sincere hope that she might say yes, but she fell silent with the severe expression of an inquisitor.
Love is free, but one cannot be so blunt — a minimum of respect is needed, and a certain protocol. If one knows how to go about it, one can fuck almost anything.
She smiled at me. My case was becoming serious. I was on the verge of a criminal offence.
They sent me a summons. I had to appear at the social court, in the community centre. Everything there is social, right down to masturbation. A tribunal of warm-hearted people wanted to hear from me; they watched me with that look of attentive listening — the professional face, furrowed brow and measured smile. They charged me with harassment for a single sentence, a slip on the step of weariness. The sentence? Community service, naturally — something for the good of the community. A community to which countless beings belong — humans, dogs, cats, monkeys, mice, bulls, penguins, polar bears, and who knows what else — most of them as remote from me as the fish of the deep-sea trenches, but for whom I had to work, because they are life, that sacred gift which gives itself its own law. What was once God is now some vague principle of earthly harmony.
I told them to go to hell, and felt a flush of pleasure.
The presiding judge’s smile vanished and he said: “Young man…”
Young man? What kind of rebuke was that? I burst out laughing, and through my tears I saw on their faces a look of vacant satisfaction. Perhaps they thought my laughter was my cure. But no — it was mockery, it was scorn.
The judge tried to admonish me, but I raised my voice and said:
“I think I know what’s wrong with me! I’ve found the meaning of my life!”
They all cried out: Wonderful! And what is it you want to do? We will support you and rejoice together as your marvellous life unfolds.
And I told them:
“I want to spend my life making fun of you! Laughing at this world of happy idiots!”
They stared at me, dumbfounded, but I went on:
“I also want to commit murder! I want to be a virtuous and joyful murderer!”
And I went on hurling even greater outrages at them. But they knew I was not capable of killing anyone, so they regarded me with perfect composure — and it was then that I knew they had defeated me. Theirs was a look of triumph: the triumph of good, of society. They had seen in me the destination of my happiness, and I had revealed it to them myself, through my words and my actions.
Since then, I am a jester. They allow me to say whatever I like — the wildest nonsense, however coarse, at any moment and to anyone. I appear on television and shout whatever comes into my head. Everyone hears it and everyone laughs in the end. At first a few are scandalised, but soon enough they understand that it is necessary, for the common good, to permit such venting through the mouth of the marvellous comic — the marvellous man of prodigious wit who is content with nothing and looks at everything askance.