Stunned by your words I have to write

There are the accepted norms for conducting these kind of things, and before we proceed to the thumb screws, we’ll begin by asking you kindly. Please tell us everything that you know. Make it easy on yourself because in the end you know that you’ll have to talk.

It’s us asking the questions, and the man is sitting naked under the spotlight in the centre of the room. He begins talking. He talks freely in fact, switching positions and telling it from a second point of view, and then a third. In triplicate – there is no shortage of words. Talkback.

It’s the stenographer’s fault in our opinion. They have the job of recording everything that is said, and it is our belief that they made a mistake. It is easily done after all when the words are coming at you from three directions at the same time. We know. They shouldn’t have left the blank in the middle of that word : Bus-ness. Was it Business, or Busyness?

There will be an official inquiry of course and the proper procedures will be followed. We will have made up our minds anyway by that time. let’s face it, we made up our minds long ago didn’t we? Judgements were passed, and, as we like to put it, the man condemns himself to remain until further notice within the confines of the prison of his own making.

You could say that Homer was a stenographer too, and some are actually of the opinion that he was more than one – and so in a way like us. Because at this point for some reason I am reminded of the last conversation between Odysseus and Achilles.  It is the one recorded in one of the later books of the Odyssey. Achilles has been dead for several years, and Odysseus has journeyed to the ends of the earth to have a final conversation with him – to “go in”.

What’s it like in the Underworld?, the wily trickster asks him – adept at the ‘Cunning Method’ he can travel across the barrier into the world of shades. We are all dying to know, he continues. Achilles isn’t looking happy. In fact he’s looking downright miserable. Bus-ness as usual, he replies.

Under interrogation his body is naked, and still strangely attractive, retaining its sinuously threatening beauty and a devastating sexual allure. From the killing machine perspective, it is indeed still bus-ness as usual. He prefers to think he is immortal. It is only from the other perspectives that the hellish frustrations arise to thwart his pride because down in the Underworld there’s nobody around left living for him to biff about or rape.

Bus-ness as usual, with more than a hint of irony – triple agony. At the end of their chat there’s a moment when Odysseus pauses, wondering whether he should ask Achilles if he would like to come back with him and rejoin the living. Or am I making this part up?

But How – how can somebody be rescued from himself? Odysseus thinks to himself. No, I don’t think I can ask him back, he continues, doubling his voice and listening to his own talkback. I think it needs a woman’s voice, he says out loud. One generous and strong enough and with a righteous anger to begin this slow process of evolution, he thinks later, but by this time he is outside again, and helping himself to a cup of coffee.

(Note: includes a phrase or two from Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas)