‘…in the beginning there was nothing. And then there was…something!’
‘How does that sound?’ ‘Not very good’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because’ ‘Yeah-eh?’ ‘Can I finish?’ ‘Yeah, go on’ ‘Because it’s just’ (sighs - gives up) ‘It’s just what?’ ‘Because it’s just’ (sighs - gives up) ‘Are you gonna do that all the time?’ ‘Do wot?’ ‘THAT!’ ‘OK, calm down. It’s just...let me explain shall I?’ ‘That is what I’m waiting for’ ‘It’s just…shit’ ‘Shit?’ ‘Yes, it’s just shit!’ ‘That’s all? Just…shit?’ ‘Yes’ ‘All you have to say about the beginning of my book is that it’s shit?’ ‘Erm, well yeah’ ‘Why?’ ‘Why wot?’ ‘Why do you think it is SHIT!?’ ‘Well, it’s not really a beginning is it?’ ‘What do you mean ‘not really’? It says: ‘in the beginning’ – how can that not be a beginning?’ ‘No, No, you got me all wrong. I meant it’s not a beginning. It’s not a suitable beginning’ ‘Why is it not a suitable beginning?’ ‘Well, we already know that don’t we? ‘Know what?’ ‘Know that in the beginning there was nothing’ ‘So what’s wrong with that?’ ‘Well, it’s just stating the obvious right?’ ‘The obvious?’ ‘Yes’ ‘No It’s not. Lot’s of people don’t know that!’ ‘Yes they do!’ ‘No they don’t!’ ‘Yes they d…look why don’t we just ask that guy?’ ‘Wot, the Rastafarian heading this way?’ ‘Yes’ ‘OK’ ‘Hey there, excuse me sir can we ask you a question please?’ Man stares but doesn’t say a word ‘Erm…I don’t think he understand English’ ‘Ask him?’ ‘D-o y-o-u understand E-n-g-l-i-s-h?’ Man stares and doesn’t say a word They look at each other ‘Maybe he’s high on drugs?’ ‘Why do you say that? Cos he's black and a Rastafarian? That’s just racist!’ ‘No, because he’s not saying anything!’ ‘OK, Just tell him to go away’ ‘Sorry sir. You can go! Bye! Bye!’ Man stares but doesn’t say a word ‘Shit, how do we get rid of him?’ ‘Maybe we should shooo him away’ ‘Shooo! Shooo! Shooo!’ Man keeps staring and doesn’t say a word ‘Man, he doesn’t understand a thing’ ‘Maybe he’s deaf?’ ‘You think so? ‘Yeah, I mean look at the way his just staring at us. Definitely deaf’ ‘Sir! Are you deaf?’ ‘That’s not gonna work is it?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘He's deaf!’ ‘Do you know any sign language then?’ ‘Why the fuck would I know any sign language?’ ‘I don’t know. Just asked man! Jeez!’ Man keeps staring. ‘Shall we just walk off?’ ‘Yeah come on’ They walk off ‘Hey, there’s another guy coming. He looks intelligent. Let’s ask him’ They approach the intelligent looking man ‘Excuse me sir, can we ask you a question please?’ The man looks at them not saying a word ‘Oh, For fucks sake! You’re not another deaf-druggie are you?’ ‘Who me? No! Of course not. I’m no deaf-druggie. Ask me what?’ ‘OK, what do you think of the following lines?’ They show him the lines Man reads the lines out aloud:
‘…in the beginning there was nothing. And then there was…something!’
‘What do I think of these lines?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Well to be honest I think they’re stupid!’ ‘Really, er why?’ ‘Well they don’t make any sense do they?!’ ‘See! I told you so’ ‘Shush! Let him finish’ ‘Why don’t they make any sense sir?’ ‘How can you get something out of nothing? That's just stupid. Just ask any three year old!’ ‘So you don’t think this is a good beginning for a book?’ ‘For a book?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Oh. Well, why didn’t you tell me that this is for a book!? No, this is a perfect beginningfor a book!’ Man walks of
‘See I told you so’
'I still think it's shit' 'Oh shut up! So, in the beginning there was nothing...and then there was...something! - Mmm, I like it. It sounds rather deep, don't you think?' 'Yeah it's deep alright. Deep in shit' 'Oh shut up! 'And then there was...something' - Mmm, now I've just gotta think of what comes next' 'I know, death' 'Death? Why death? 'To spare us from what's gonna come next!' 'Oh fuck off!'
THE FIRST TIME I MET HER was in the ‘foreigners only’ ticket office in the train station in Varanasi. We were in a queue, we were sitting down, and I was reading ‘Faust’ by Goethe. I remember the moment clearly. It was the scene where the Devil, in the guise of Mephisto, is about to make a wager with God to prove that he can tempt the man Faust unto sin:
Mephisto: What would you wager? Will you challenge me To win him from you? Give me your permission To lead him down my path to his perdition?
God: While he’s on earth, while he is still alive Then you may tempt him – that is my condition For man will err as long as he can strive
How I was struck by this base and sordid wager – such a dirty business it was! To think they could so lightly place bets on the faith of a Man’s soul - so little their opinion of us. It all seemed so naughty and shamefaced! (I believe that Goethe is having fun here. He was after all a member of Spinoza’s pantheist school of thought)
Anyway, what happens next in the play once the wager has been made, is that we get our first scene on earth, in Faust’s study. But before that there is a little soliloquy from the devil:
Mephisto: I like to drop in on him if I can Just to keep things between us on the level It’s really decent of the Grand Old Man To be so civil to the very devil
I love these lines. I love them for their sheer bravado and how they encapsulate what it means to be a Devil. He describes the almighty as the ‘Grand Old Man’. These lines are dripping with disdain and contempt. Such audacity! I remember thinking what a fine creature the Devil is. Far more interesting in the flesh than the moody-goody-two-shoes that is his polar opposite. But it is precisely because of his faults that he is so intriguing eh? And like a contemporary bad guy he gets all the best lines too. Take John Milton’s epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ for example. Here the Devil has the best line in all English poetry: ‘Better to reign in hell, than serve in Heaven’.
And how true! So there I was thinking these very thoughts, when that girl (the one alluded to in the beginning), interrupted me in my thoughts, by asking me what I was reading. ‘Faust’ I said. ‘Ah, OK’ she nodded. Then I told her how much I admired the Devil and she baulked and looked at me askance (perhaps she thought I was going to go for her jugular) ‘He’s so more interesting! The Devil is’ and then I read her some lines to prove my point. She was receptive. But not convinced. So I went back to reading Faust. A few moments later she asked me a whole bunch of questions about where I was from, where I was staying and how long I planned to stay etc (the usual travellers liturgy). That’s when I noticed her properly. She wanted to talk and I had no choice but to oblige. She was from one of the former USSR States; Azerbaijan, she was blond, slim, with glazed eyes that betrayed her feelings. She was wearing light blue jeans and was pretty. ‘I’m from London. I’m staying at the Paradise Guest House near the Ghat and I’ll be staying for another two more days’ was my succinct reply. Though she was no doubt pretty this was no excuse for me to drag myself away from Faust. I’d had plenty of such generic encounters on my travels and they always covered the same bases. So I dived back into my reading:
Faust: I’ll know what makes the world revolve Its inner mysteries resolve No more in empty words I’ll deal Creations wellsprings I’ll reveal
I recall being enraptured here. The lines echoed a burning desire in my heart, a promise. It was a glorious thought - a wonderful idyll. Noble even: to dedicate one’s life to seeking knowledge and understanding. I remember closing the page between my thumb (so I wouldn’t loose the page) and whilst holding those lines in my mind, casting a gaze across the station concourse. Allowing my eyes to wander freely without hindrance upon eddies of swirling humanity. The people were in knotted clumps and surrounded the information boards and ticket booths. The whole scene was lit by slanting rays from outside that stirred the dust motes above their heads. I saw them whole. A feeling of happiness swelled from deep inside my heart and took over me. My whole body loosened, my troubles vanished, and I relaxed. Suddenly I found myself willing to embrace all. I felt like reaching out. To everyone and all! To the whole world! I was overcome by a feeling of cosmic empathy. She must have been watching me because she suddenly said:
‘Can I come with you?’ I snapped out of my reverie. ‘What?’ I said almost annoyed ‘Your hotel’ and then she added ‘Please’ I looked at her. How could I refuse? ‘OK, when we’re finished we’ll go together. OK?’
She was adrift on her own and had been for a while and was lonely and she found my company strangely comforting (a lone traveller reading ‘Faust’ and talking about how much he likes the devil is always an intriguing proposition!). Later we sat in the back of the rickshaw with her big rucksack on her lap. She was unfazed by the squalor. If anything she enjoyed the chaos swirling about her and the attention she got when we walked along the Ghats that evening. We had a meal together in a place called ‘The German Bakery’ – more a restaurant than a bakery and they served good pizzas and pastas and a fine selection of tea’s and coffee. The bread I recall was fresh and the fruit jam delicious.
Invigorated, we strolled through the muddling bazaar, along cobbled lanes smelling of steaming cow-pat, pass a yoga club, a herbal dispensary and a fishmongers – the catch of the day displayed in all its stinking glory. We peered into alleys, took wrong turns, stepped into people’s homes and stuck our noses into the cubby-holes that were the shop fronts - all to a monotonous background drawl that followed us everywhere like the plague:
‘Meester! Meester! Come! Come! Please come! Only looking no buying. Come! Come!’
There was something visceral about walking down ancient well-trodden ways with solemn pilgrims by your side; dodging the imperious cows that mulched along the path, their mouths frothy with foamy spittle, and the skidding children chasing you for alms. It was a rawness of life, without pretence, devoid of fakery, an honesty that makes honest people out of you and makes you want to chop your heart into little pieces and hand them out as tokens of gratitude. And here I quote Faust:
From narrow hovel and dismal room Out of the shadow of roofs and gables Out of the church’s pious gloom Out from the squash of the streets they swarm
All streaming out into the light Into the open countryside How eagerly they take their flight See, on the river far and wide
You could see the ‘swarms’ from where we were - ‘streaming out’ near the ‘river far and wide’. The ‘river’ of course being the Ganges. It was a beguiling sight set in an enchanted evening. The sky was a deep-blue pricked with stars that squinted and strained. The people were sombre and reverential and you felt safe amongst them. There was a sprightly breeze that rustled the leaves and twisted the flags and decorations, and somewhere in the distance, wafting on the air, bobbed the sonorous chants of ‘Ohm Ohm’. We let the evening roll ahead of us and allowed ourselves the pleasure of surrendering to its caprices and vices. Carried along by the crowds and our thoughts we ended up spending all of it, the evening that is, together.
I still remember that line from Faust:
And when she smiles At me, what bliss, To feel her hand- And ah, this kiss!
My mother groaned! My father wept Into the dangerous world I leapt Helpless, naked, piping loud Like a fiend hid in a cloud
What is this! What is that! What is this thing we’re looking at? Small, sickly, I should have died Not for me the breath of life
The breath it came my eyes opened Lungs roared; the hospital awoken'd She cradled me my mother did In soft blankets there I hid
With great feats I scuttled away Through the ward and on my way Down the stairs and pass the doors This little thing; on all fours
No one noticed; no one cared All busy; in their own little way I jumped the bus and took a ride In the ‘baby seat', if that’s all right?
Slid the barriers; took a train Hid with cargo in an aeroplane Landed somewhere called Hawaii Then missed mummy and started to cry
The police were not, not amused ‘Miracle Baby’ splashed over the news So there you have it; my first air-miles Crawling, crawling; is not my style
Run I will; forever and more Find I will; life, universe, everything And more.
Yes, it’s that time of year again when one celebrates another milestone; another heave-ho; another mighty push, another bumbling crawl towards that distant marker that says…what does it say? My eyes are not what they used to be. Ah, yes it says ‘The End’. And unlike other types of ‘The End’ there’s no part II or sequel to this one. Is this a morbid topic for a day of celebration, for after all it is my birthday today? Yes it is a morbid topic but then I like sex and morbidity. What am I doing on my birthday? Yes, that’s it, you got it: necrophilia (sex with dead bodies) – but I digress.
So here I am, today, at this moment, in time, ready to make that crawl, that push, towards that marker. Shall we? Are you gonna help me? Good. OK, here we go: ready-steady-puuuush! Craaawl! Uggh! This is tiring Puuush! Craaawl! That’s better. Yes, the marker does now seem closer. Thank you for helping me.
Birthdays are supposed to be a day of celebration. But, forgive my ignorance for I am not au fait in human thought, why should we be celebrating a process which results in our teeth falling out, winter fuel payment vouchers from the Govt, and crushes on young nurses? Now, if I was Benjamin Button (as in the protagonist in David Fincher’s new movie), who is born an old man and with the years progressively gets younger, then I can see a cause for celebration – for life will get younger and therefore better…or am I wrong?
What if life gets better with age? What if with getting older one begins to start taking things in one’s stride and stops worrying about petty things and begins to savour, like a boiled sweet in one’s mouth, life…slowly – gradually – sucking out the taste – and not biting and devouring in one whole? What am I talking about? Fuck knows.
No, actually fuck does know. What if as you got older you could sit back and enjoy life through ‘Special Vision Spectacles' (SVSs). SVSs don’t actually exist, I’ve just made them up to illustrate my point (so don’t start asking for them at the opticians). SVSs are invisible spectacles through which you see life. But, unlike normal spectacles, these change as you journey through life. In the beginning they are foggy and you don’t see much, but as you get older, they become clearer. As you live more, see more, read more, learn more, they get clearer and clearer, until you reach an age when they are as clear as they’ll ever be for you and you’ll be seeing more clearly than ever before. For some people, their SVSs get foggier with age (they actually see less!), but these people are usually an exception to the rule.
I think the apogee of my life will be when I reach a point when I’ll be seeing through SVSs that’ll be as clear as they’ll ever be for me. But, did you know that you can actually increase the ‘perspicacity’ or ‘clearness’ of your SVSs? Oh yes by doing things. Things like what? Things like keeping an open mind, not letting yourself be ruled by capricious emotions, travelling, reading, watching cartoons, but most importantly, by just taking some time out in your day, for yourself. This morning I spent 30 min's watching blackbirds and a fox in my garden. Because of the unseasonal snow they were struggling to find food, and were sniffing away, pecking through the snow looking for grubs. The fox was so desperate that it had wandered into my garden (something it would not normally do). Has anybody thought about what effect the unseasonal snow and cold has had on the wildlife in London? We’re so worried about traffic problems and getting to work that we forget there are others too. That’s what I mean when I talk about the SVSs. There is seeing and then there is really seeing.
So, on that note it is time to say goodbye to you and goodbye to me and goodbye to this rather odd and personal entry. It almost feels like a confession: a one-to-one. So what will I be doing today? I will be spending my birthday money. Yes, everything I receive today I will spend today (why? Because I want to) and then in the evening (if I have any money left over from my birthday money) I will link up with some mates at the Horse and Hound Public Ale House in Islington, for some drinking and making merry in splendid convivial surrounds. Come and join…if you dare.
The window in the living room was being gently patted by raindrops - tiptap-tiptap-tiptap. Outside, the wind was lashing in fearsome howls and churning up clumps of rubbish that scuttled along the kerbs and fought with the pedestrians and clogged the drains. But inside it was nice and warm. One might even deign that amidst the ancient relics of the flat it was rather cosy. The two figures sat in conversation. Superfly was on the sofa and the Vagabond lay on the floor with legs stretched and his back to the radiator. Empty cups of chai lay by their sides. The topic of conversation was on the nature of ignorance. The Vagabond was in the middle of an academic monologue and Superfly was finding it hard to concentrate. In fact he was being bored out of his skull:
“...The true definition of an educated person is one who knows the extent of his ignorance. Or in the form of an earth maxim: ‘wise is he who knows what he does not know’” the vagabond was saying Superfly scooped out a smudge of his earwax and examined it on the tip of his forefinger.
The Vagabond prattled on:
“I don’t regard myself as someone who knows much; in fact I am given to feel acute psychological fear over my ignorance. I try to alleviate this by reading feverishly; skimming through literature in crazed fits; attempting to soak up the deep juicy bits of books and leaving the skin on the floor. I find that most books don’t resemble an orange but rather a pomegranate – when you finish what flesh are you left with in the end? What do you remember? Not much” Superfly was still busy examining his earwax. It was of a different colour and consistency to usual. Normally it was pea-green, but a year spent on earth, had rendered it with a yellowish countenance.
“Mmm…” he said looking at it. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked it. “Mmm, proteins" he said satisfactorily. “My earwax is full of proteins”
The Vagabond continued to prattle on:
“…but, what I find beguiling (and perhaps symptomatic of some sort of mental illness) is when I meet people who are not bothered about their ignorance. I have often wondered why this is, because it is clear that some of these people that I have met have never read a book in their lives! Good heavens! Nor have they ever sat down and thought deeply about anything. They seem to have swallowed what other people have already chewed. I’m not sure about you but I like to do my chewing myself”
Superfly was getting extremely bored now. It was too early in the day for heavy thinking, and there being no beer to drink, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the Vagabonds monologue. It was during his student days in Andromeda that Superfly had discovered that beer had a beguiling effect on him: it helped him concentrate and focus. Usually, beer depresses concentration but Superfly found it stimulating. Thus he started attending lectures in a state of quasi-drunkenness. To his lecturers’ surprise (and to the chagrin of the other hard working students) this had no adverse affect on his grades. This was mainly because Superfly had a prodigious memory. Everything he read stuck. Stuck like stick-on-notes. His brain was covered in stick on notes of weird facts and figures. These roamed inside his head like dead skeletons and could, in times of stress, reveal themselves to the outside world in fits of verbal premature ejaculation. In fact when Superfly panicked he had the habit of suddenly blurting out some obscure fact or piece of knowledge to whoever was listening. This could be embarrassing. It was like an involuntary reflex.
This had an interesting affect when it came to girls though. Early on Superfly had figured out that the quickest path to a girls’ knickers lay not through her brain but through her heart - girls, being fickle creatures, don’t usually go for nerds. So he went out of his way to shun nerd-em. Oh yes, he skipped lessons, hung out with loafers, wore a leather jacket, and dressed like a degenerate rock-star. He even endeavoured to get into trouble to showcase his ‘dangerous guy to know’ image. This didn’t affect his grades because during exams he could summon at will the 'knowledgeable nerdy' side of his brain. These abilities and his wayward nature caught the attention of the ladies, who perhaps out of some compunction to civilize this brute, went out with him. During these dates he made it a policy to avoid ‘heavy’ academic conversation. There was always the risk that his ‘knowledgeable nerdy’ side might creep into view by way of some idle remark, so he said little during the date and spoke only when being spoken to. It was a spectacular success! His laconic muteness and insouciance, was mistook by the girls for maturity, strength and thoughtfulness.
But like most charades you can only keep them up for so long. After a while his dates were left empty and drained. The girls were convinced there was something ‘missing’ and they knew not what. It was during one particular date when the girl in question showed clear signs of leaving him, that he panicked, and the ‘knowledgeable nerdy’ side of his brain rove into view and he, quite spontaneously, began blurting out some random facts about tapeworms. Most embarrassing. This panicked him even further so that what followed next was a little poetry. Even more embarassing. It was a decadent little passage of rhyming stanzas; in couplet. I won’t repeat it here for sake of sanity.
The poem had a startling effect. The girl was mesmerised. She found the poem funny and it had a quirky rhyming pattern that snagged in the mind (like a song that won't go away). She looked at him good and hard in a thoughtful way. In the end the poetry won. The relationship was revitalised and the girl was more then happy to have his children and marry him. Wow! He soon discovered that he could summon these wonderfully fetid lines of poetry at will. It was so easy like plucking feathers from an invisible chicken that no one else could see. The girls loved this seeming dichotomy in his character and he exploited it by bedding as many of them as he could. The poetry flowed from his tongue and mingled in the sheets between the cries and moans.
The sex was good but the clingy-feely stuff stifled him. So, that's why he got the job at the Lonely Galaxy Guide. It would enable him to travel thus satisfying his brain which craved knowledge and facts, and he would no doubt meet lots of exotic female specimens thus satisfying his more lascivious dimensions. The arrangement was a path to happiness and contentment.
At this particular moment in time Superfly was not feeling happy or content. He was stranded on a dull-as-dishwater planet called earth, and he was bored, and he needed a girl and he hadn’t had sex for months - well not since that girl in Lahore anyway. Suddenly he started feeling frisky.
“You got any porn?” Superfly asked
The Vagabond was in the middle of a lengthy treatise on the benefits of compulsory sterilisation of lower class plebeian scum, and the request for porn took him rather by surprise. No, he did not have any porn, but he did have a Sir David Attenborough wildlife documentary on copulating Bonobo monkeys - if that would suffice?
“Monkeys?” repeated Superfly “Yes, Monkeys. Not very different from humans” “OK”
So the two savants sat watching a wildlife documentary on shagging Bonobo monkeys. It featured an alpha male with large red testicles, who presided over his harem of females with the air of a sexual conqueror. But it didn’t have the intended affect on Superfly.
“No I need something more hard-core” he said “And something less educational and something featuring humanoids; preferably blonde's and that male voice in the background is annoying” “That’s the presenter’s voice”
It was as he was contemplating jerking-off to one of the books lying around the flat titled ‘The fascinating sex lives of river sponges’ that he remembered the crates.
“Hey man, what’s in these wooden crates? You said you were going to tell me?”
“Ah yes, the crates” The Vagabond had totally forgotten about the crates and he was only too happy to talk about them. It was a long story so he went in the kitchen to make some tea. Returning now with two steaming cups he commenced the telling of his strange little tale:
“It’s rather a fabulous tale you know. A glorious find! I’ll tell you the story from the beginning shall I?’
The Vagabond didn’t wait for an answer:
“Six months ago I got an email from a friend of mine; Trey Reedkin, a geologist friend doing some field work on the Island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits, near Java in Indonesia. Actually, at the time I was languishing in NongKhai in northern Thailand. Great place you should visit. Anyway, I was in my hotel room, hot day, fan whirring, no air-con, sweating like a pig, the sludgy-muddy Mekong outside my window torturing me with its boredom, and I was thinking that I really need to get out of this shit hole. I received the email that evening and as it happens it was kind of fortunate because I was thinking of where to go next. I’d had enough of Thailand, the food and the women. Actually, I have a hard copy of the email here. Let me get it out and show it to you”
The vagabond ferreted out a copy of the email and gave it to Superfly to read:
Email
From: TReedkin74@yahoo.com To: duluxdreams@hotmail.com
Date 07-03-2008
Hey V,
Where are you? Rang your mum she said you were in Thailand. What the fuck you doing in Thailand? Tasting pussy or something! Listen up dude. Something’s definitely coming down here in the Sunda Straits man and it ain’t my diarrhea. As you know I’m doing research for my PhD on ‘Island Colonization Dynamics’. Yeah, tell me about it - sounds fascinating don’t it? :-). Let me tell you a little about it: when new life takes over a previously barren island you can predict mathematically how it’s going to happen. You can predict who’s going to come in first: first it’s the lower plants like mosses and ferns, then grasses, then plants that reproduce asexually, then flowering plants that reproduce sexually and then trees. On the animal side first you get little insects, then spiders and than the larger stuff like lizards and snakes and wild pigs. Anyway, I hired a boat to take me to the island of Krakatoa from the Javanese port of Bantam.
You heard of Krakatoa right? It’s a large volcanic island, 50 miles off the Java mainland, sitting in the Sunda Strait. Krakatoa blew itself to kingdom come in 1883 in a cataclysmic volcanic eruption – the likes of which the world has never seen. Huge 150ft tsunamis followed, killed hundreds and thousands, explosion heard all over the world, dust clouds, magic sunsets for years, floating pumice – the works. A pyrotechnic extravaganza like a U2 concert. Anyway the island is amazing! Beyond my wildest expectations. It was totally demolished in the eruption of 1883 – all life on the Island gone! Bang! Extinction! The volcanic island has only recently risen from the waves, 20 years ago. It’s now swarming with life! In only twenty years! Lizards, snakes, 50ft trees, grasses, tortoises, beetles and even some fishermen who live on the island with their families and some chickens. The nearest landmass we know is 50 miles away. So the question is: where the fuck did the life come from? How did it get here? That’s my PhD! I’ve already ruled out spontaneous generation as unlikely – or impossible (!!) unless you believe Plato. This island is perfect for my project. A veritable living laboratory. This baby is my ticket to the Nobel! Anyway, listen up that’s not what this email is about. I was chatting to the local fishermen here about the islands flora and fauna etc. One of the fishermen, perhaps seeing an opportunity to make some ready money (ching! ching!), mentioned a cave on mainland Java, south side, about 55 miles from Krakatoa. He said it contained spirits and listen to this, human bones(!). I asked him if he was sure about the bones and he said he was 100% certain. He said I could ask anyone here they’d tell me the same thing. Apparently the locals believe the bones belong to their long dead ancestors and the spirits still haunt the caves. So, you know I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff right? So I told the fisher man to take me there because, you know, I wanna check out these bones. So we haggled over price; agreed a fare (I still reckon he ripped me off – bastard). We rode in one of those motorised diesel engine canoes; left at daybreak early in the morning, sun rising from the waters in the west, the oblique rays caressing the surface, beautiful man! Calm as a cucumber. Until that is we rode out of the main Island cluster into the open water of the strait, and then the waters turned choppy. High waves battered the side of the canoe and water began seeping in over the top threatening to flood the damn boat, so we had to remove the bilge continuously with buckets.
No we didn’t sink. You wouldn’t be reading this if we had! Anyway, we got to the shore alive (sigh of relief!). The caves were about 200 ft up in the limestone cliffs. So we had to climb up there. A bit steep but easy going at first but the last bit was a fucker – had to use a rope to get to the cave entrance itself because it’s on an overhang. I figured this was good news as it meant the cave would be relatively undisturbed. The cave entrance was narrow and was basically a hole. I had a flash light so went in first – banged my head on the entrance! Ouch! When I got in I realised I could stand up without hitting my head on the roof - the cave was high enough to stand and pretty spacious. There was the distinct smell of bat droppings and animal urine lurking about. I hate bats. Went in farther until the fisherman pointed out something sticking out of the cave floor. Went closer. It was a fucking (excuse my French) jaw! Human jaw jutting out of the rock…teeth still intact. Smiling at me! Scooped away the soft soil around it and found that the skull was mainly intact (tested the soil and it’s alkaline so would have protected the bones). I figured that the cave was pretty well protected from scavenging hyenas and treasure hunters because it was so high up – hence the intact skull. Man, I’m no palaeontologist but I knew we had a major find. It looked semi- human and it was old. Very old. Hundreds and thousands of years old. But there was something unmistakeably not-human about it too. It gave me the shivers. Was definitely ancient. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is what we found next to it…
Outside the wind continued bellowing and the rain continued beating against the window pane. Tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tap. Inside the two figures were lost in the unfolding drama of Java, and besides them, the wooden crates containing an ancient relic, continued to moan and creak. It was almost as if the crates were 'confiding' with the tempest lurking outside.
Language. Ah language. What an amazing invention eh? So expressive. So damn useful. Whether it be Schadenfreude, Jenesaisquoi, Yallahhabibee or Twaadimaa…there is no doubt that without it we’d be er, speechless. Modern life would be nigh on impossible without the babbling tongue. I may not soar gracefully like a bird. I may not dive a thousand feet like a whale nor sprint as fast as a cheetah nor hear in the dark like a bat. But I can speak and I can write and with these tools I can conquer the world (steady on there). Just imagine trying to tell the girl of your dreams that you love her without words – without language what would you do? Use sign language? Like how? Make kissykissy pouting faces like a chimp? Touch your heart with your hand and smile (nah, too gay), sit and stare at her with entreating soulful eyes (no, too weird). Before language came along how did men spill out their hearts to the whims of a ladies capricious soul?
I'll tell you: they impressed ladies by fighting bears to the death and wrestling lions with their bare hands. They chased antelopes on the savannah's and killed men who despoiled their honour. Those were the days when might was right - when mean was queen - when worldly passion was outta fashion - when language was naught and everything was fought.
But have you ever wondered when men first learnt to talk? And why? Why did man put down his spear and his stones and his lion and engage in prittle-prattle? Why? To score with chicks that's why. Chicks dig men who know how to use their tongues (not in that way). It has been proven by scientists that women developed the ability to appreciate speech before men learnt to talk. So, all it took was for one man, one of our ancient forbears; some genius of the Upper Neolithic Period, to sit and utter those first few words of love. You can just imagine him, sitting near the fire, the object of his affections sitting across the licking flames, the first man ever to say something romantic to a woman. So he sits there. Shy at first, but slowly, gradually, he gathers his courage and his words and finally lets fly with some verbal verbosity and verbiage verifying his valour and vainglory amongst these verminous volks with a vertiginous voracity that only women can love.
What did he say? Who knows? Perhaps something along the lines of: ‘Me kill lion. Me you eat?’ (the first ever romantic meal invite) followed by: ‘Me like Lion. Tasty. You find tasty?’ (the first ever after dinner conversation) followed by: ‘Come my cave. Watch stars’ (the first ever night time entertainment) and finally: ‘Me want you. You want me. Fucky?’ and so we have it. The first time a man ever told a women he loved her. Well almost.
So today in the year 2009, thousands of years since that first tentative fumbling foray in romance, has man come far? Judging by what I've seen, not really. If you wanna impress a woman don’t take her to an expensive restaurant or a popcorn movie. Don’t wrestle a lion to prove your testo-ratings. Instead read her some delicious poetry. Man evolved language for poetry’s sake. Language is for wooing women with. Use your wicked plucky-lucky tongue:
Women in the world; don’t believe Words and wit; the heart deceive Like hot lead; I let fly: ‘A devils instrument; this tongue of my’
The tongue is an instrument of immense power. Wield it wisely for with it one can traverse the physical and psychological gaps between bodies. The tongue is like a remote control device. Through it you can control another brain: you can plant thoughts, ideas, passions and feelings into another brain. Just through words you can cause a chemical reaction in another brain seeding love or hate. No other creature on earth can do that.
Do you know the reason why? You love poetry; and so do I? Magic words and mystery rhymes Past nursery days; they do remind
There’s nothing better than a play With words and words strung like clay Mould and fold and twist and turn Words like fart and words like ‘urn’
In the garret of my mind I sigh Here’s a tale to tell you why: Upon a time there lived a girl For centuries old; under a spell
The spell was cast; many a yond By a smelly witch; with such a pong Under wind afloat; the pong it rose The prince he felt it; queer his nose
The prince he came; from land afar And at the bottom; he cried to her: ‘Your beauty is mine; is mine to keep But what is that pong? it mighty reeks'
Upon those words; the spell it broke The pong dispersed; and entered a goat The prince was happy; the princess free ‘The spell is dead; your pong is sweet’
To which she replied; in earnest for sure: 'My darling, but are you sure?' ‘As sure as the sun that sets today' 'As sure as the moon mine eyes do say'
‘What of the stars and heavens?’ she said ‘What of the rainbow and peaks ahead?' 'What of the sands in deserts thus?' 'What of the tides…go on I must?'
'As sure as the stars; come out to play' 'As sure as the heavens and sands I say' 'As sure as the rainbow and mountain tops'' The spell is dead. Your pong is forgot'
She smiled a smile that lit the sky Day on day; nigh on nigh She and the prince; lived happy ever And bequeathed the world; a merry litter
What is the point of such a fable? That love reigns all; and is able To conquer the thickest; hearts of cold And words and I; Do have a soul
[pong = smell] [litter = children] [reek = stink]
Origins of language There is a human gene called ‘FOXp2’. Defects in this gene result in defects in language and speech. i.e. a condition known as verbal dyspraxia. The gene is important for the development of a part of the brain concerned with communication. The gene is also present in chimpanzees and mice. But mice and chimps don’t have language so why do they have the FOXp2 gene?
Biochemists have recently compared the structure of this gene in human, mice and chimps. The gene codes for a protein that is made up of 715 amino acids. The mouse and chimp gene differs from each other in only one amino acid. The human form of the gene differs in three amino acids. You see what this means? Although humans and chimps share the vast majority of their genes, the FOXp2 gene is one place where humans seem to have evolved more rapidly in the short time since we split from them. And of the most important aspects in which we differ from Chimps is that we have language and they don’t. Scientists have also measured when the FOXp2 gene changed to allow speech. 200,000 years ago. Hence, humans may have acquired language 200,000 years ago.
However, this would have been simple language at first like ‘do you see that well?' or 'do you see that zebra?’ - it would initially only have been based on what could be seen. Only later, about 50,000 years ago, something momentous happened. Instead of saying ‘the waterhole which we can both see’ language and thought underwent a quantum leap so that humans could say ‘suppose there was a waterhole the other side of the hill’. This might seem like a small thing but it is momentous. It is the idea ‘What if’. ‘What if’ implies imagination and the ability to think about the future and the consequences of our actions. And it is this small change in language, this quirk, that allowed the 'Great Leap Forward' in human civilization and the flowering of human arts about 50,000 years ago. It enabled imagination to run riot and humans started creating art and, dare I say, poetry and music. And they've been at it ever since:
At first we were; to beauty blind To natures moods and natures rhymes FOXp2; it made us see Language, art and fantasy
For a thirteen year old I was a precocious kid. Given to day-dreaming and imagining fantastic scenarios where I would endeavour to rescue the whole planet from the clutches of an alien empire hell bent on turning people into slaves. I still do fantasise like this; especially when I’m on the top deck of a London bus. The fantasy usually involves a ruse; such as a beautiful girl, that I have to rescue from the ‘Big Boss Alien’ and also involves the people I hate dying horribly gory deaths. I often wonder whether other people do this, you know fantasise, or whether they grew out of this childish habit when they turned into ‘adults’. I don’t think I ever turned into an adult, not yet. Not adult in the usual sense of the word anyway. I shun responsibility and I am way too selfish with my time.
Anyway, back as a thirteen year old I was also a bit of a sadist. The type that takes sweet guilty pleasure in watching his mosque teacher squirm and squeal after asking him difficult questions. A barrage of questions like machine gun fire that a mosque teacher would be hopelessly ill equipped to ward off: Questions like:
‘How old is the world? Is it really only five thousand years old? And what about those fossils and dinosaurs why haven’t they been mentioned in any of the holy books and what about aliens – what do they believe?’
These questions no doubt embarrassed my teacher. He knew nothing about fossils and aliens and dinosaurs and he couldn’t answer them to my satisfaction – and nor did I flinch in letting my indignation with him show. So much so, that he conspired with my parents, to have me surreptitiously shipped off to a school in Pakistan. So on the pretext of us going on a family shopping trip we boarded a flight to start a new life in Pakistan when I was thirteen. I’ve never entirely forgiven my parents for the deception they wrought me. Its aftertaste is still etched on my tongue. Nonetheless, things eventually didn’t work out as my parents, in their infinite sagaciousness, had planned and three years later we were on a flight back to England. Woohoo! But I did spend three years in Pakistan. Three whole fucking years. Those three years were, as they say, a revelation and a crucial pit stop on the road to my development into the healthy, intelligent, open-minded, infidel, devil-sperm, nonbeliever that I am today. So thank you mum and dad. Look what you have wrought! But it would be unfair to blame my parents for the way I turned out. It was Charles Darwin and Douglas Adam’s that did it. And Richard Dawkins who put the final nail in the coffin!
But just imagine my shock and horror, please. Please try and empathise with me here. How do you think I felt when I learnt after arriving in Pakistan, that I would not be going on a shopping spree after all, but alas to school instead? But no ordinary school. This was a private and expensive and strict-cane-if-naughty kinda school. Burgeoning with spoilt brats of moneyed mums and dads. These were pretentious parents who boosted their social credentials by boasting how much it cost them to pay for private home tuition for their kids. My parents, not intent on being left behind, decided that I too should receive extra home tuition. So everyday, to my consternation, between the hours of 6 and 7 in the evening, my private home tutor Mr knowfuckall, would come round to ostensibly give me lessons in science, mathematics and Islamic Studies. I say ostensibly because these were lessons I didn’t need: science I already knew more of then him, maths was sorted and as for religion - I’d already sorted out all that mumbo-jumbo in the park when I was ten. And what an ignorant-fool-of-a-teacher he was too.
The tuition fee he was receiving from my parents was twice what he was earning from the school. I knew the moment I’d laid eyes on him that I was cleverer then him. His eyes were way too close together so I never trusted him. And he had a shifty bearing and his body language told me that he thought my parents were mugs for paying him so much. He knew that I knew that he knew that my parents were mugs for paying him so much; so we reached a sort of unspoken agreement: he could teach me science but he was not to shove religion down my throat. It worked. I was spared the horrors of religious indoctrination. Though he did insist that we start lessons by saying ‘God is great’
The ritual humiliation didn’t stop there though. Back at school my biology teacher Mr Khan Sahib, a chubby bearded roly-poly of a man, once told our class, which was mixed with girls on one side and boys on the other, that masturbation would make you blind. I’m not sure whether this was aimed at the boys or the girls nor whether it was part of the curriculum but I do remember having nightmares that night; waking up sweating and grappling in the dark. My chemistry teacher Miss Shazia (bless her) credulously believed that dinosaurs roamed on Jupiter. I did try to explain to her that Jupiter is a gaseous planet so there would be no solid ground for them to walk on but she just shrugged me off (like one shrugs off a petulant fly) by claiming that they were in fact flying dinosaurs. Ah, I see flying dinosaurs. Yes, that solves the problem don't it? Before you start laughing I just want to say that the idea of flying dinosaurs might seem silly at first, but palaeontologists’ now believe that birds are actually dinosaurs. But I still don’t believe there are dinosaurs on Jupiter; flying or otherwise. It’s not really a case of belief though is it? More a case of sanity. Was Miss Shazia sane? Perhaps to her own children she was but then kids are stupid and what do they know?
My Islamic Studies teacher Mr Rasool-ur-Rehman, a kindly fellow who was also my favourite teacher because he was so funny – unintentionally funny, once pontificated (to a mix class remember of boys and girls) that martyrs (men who die in war) get given a first class ticket to heaven and, when they arrive in heaven, they are greeted by sixty smiling virgins. Sixty virgins! You can imagine me sitting there literally lapping it up. It was a boys wet dream. The boy sitting next to me, who had no doubt lived a sheltered and clostered life, asked me what a virgin was. The girls in Mr Rasools’ class didn’t even blink. Nor did they raise objections to this sycophantic fantasy of the deluded. I raised my hand:
‘Sir, but what about the girls’ I asked. ‘Surely these virgins are like real people so what about them?
‘What do you mean?’ said Mr Rasool
‘Well these girls are like sisters and daughters. One must ask what they want. They must have brains so would they be content in being one of sixty virgins? What if they want to be something else like teachers or doctors as opposed to a part of a man’s fantasy?’
Someone sniggered in the class. There was silence. I felt a glimmer of intelligence flower in the classroom; a realisation of what my point was. I could feel the class thinking: ‘why that’s a very good question actually. Mmm. Why didn’t I think of that’’
The question annoyed Mr Rasool. It caused the sweat in his back come out in puddles and made him uncomfortable. He shifted his weight around on either foot but it made no difference. ‘Heaven is not earth’ he said ingeniously. ‘Things are different in heaven’ and then he mumbled something about ‘womanly duty’ to which the girls and boys (grinning now) nodded in chaste agreement. I sighed. Probably a little too loud: 'The poverty of the indoctrinated mind'. I was eventually reported to the headmaster for my ‘disobedience’ and for my ‘daring to ask the teacher a question’. Yes, I know. Stupid, huh?
Sex is important. So important that all religions try and suppress it. Don’t believe me? Look through the barbaric texts of the Old Testament and Talmud and you will see verses commenting on the ‘filthy and defiling nature of the female’. Menstruation is dirty; and women who menstruate are dirty and they defile everything they touch. The Holy text writers seem to exhibit an unhealthy prurience with sexual matters. The Jewish Holy Book, the Talmud, commands the observant one to thank the lord that he was not born a woman. Women are cloned from a man’s rib, and only then when Adam complained that he was bored! Talk about being confined to the scrap heap.
Throughout all religious texts there is a primitive fear that half the human race is defiled and unclean and yet a temptation to sin that is almost impossible for men to resist. That is why the Taleban so hate women – because they are a temptation to sin. And how do you remove this temptation? Yes, you cover it up; in long chadors and narrow slits for the eyes and you punish those women who show their flesh – for they are a temptation to sin. It’s not the men who are punished for rape in some parts of Pakistan. It is the women. I know. I have seen it. It is they who led the men ashtray, corrupted their weak feeble minds, tempted them to sin – how dare they show themselves in public! Such utter nonsense. As I write this girls are being shot at in Northern Pakistan for going to school. For wanting an education. What are the men afraid of?
But here’s a thought. For something like sex that is so forbidden and so repressed by religion, isn’t it rather ironic that the reward for martyrdom, the reward for the faithful, the reward for controlling and keeping under a leash your sexual desires on earth, is a heaven full of virgins! Yes, the reward is an orgy of sex! How ironic. But how telling it is too! The poverty of the religious mind.
I never shared my deepest darkest thoughts with my teachers. They, to put it mildly, would not have approved. Especially Mr Rasool, no doubt dreaming of himself cavorting in a lurid pornographic heaven populated with nympho virgins. Nor would they have understood. The punishment for apostasy is death and I didn’t want to die – not yet. But just imagine being in that stuffy classroom, the baking heat, the heavy oppressive air, the astringent teachers with their sweaty wooden canes. Imagine the inability to discuss openly, imagine the fear of saying something wrong or offensive, imagine the desire to run away, imagine the loneliness, of being… well of being me. A non-believer in a sea of believers all destined for a pornographic heavenly future.
N.B: Academic Textual studies
Christoph Luxenburg has been conducting textual studies of the holy texts in the Koran. As a result of his studies he published: ‘The Syriac-Aramaic Version of the Koran’ in 2000. Luxenburg coolly proposes that, far from being a monoglot screed (single language text in Arabic), the Koran is far better understood once it is conceded that many of its words are Syriac-Aramaic rather then Arabic. His best example concerns the reward of the martyr in paradise: when retranslated from Arabic to Syriac-Aramaic the heavenly reward consists of sweet white raisins rather than virgins.
So there you have it. There are no virgins in paradise after all…
It was at the age of ten that I realised that there is no God. I remember that moment clearly; as if yesterday. When the devil popped into my head and uttered that abominable thought: there is no god.
At first I was taken aback by the audacity of the thought. The sheer cheekiness of it to think it could invade my privacy like that, and to be honest, in the beginning, I was expecting it to go away; to disappear like an echo. Or like a ripple in a pond; to melt into the placid ocean around it. But no. It kept itself in my head, like a headache, or a Polyp attached to coral. But slowly, gradually, I got used to it. I began, dare I say, to live with it and learn to get along with it. My guilty little secret. I would go to the Mosque with this thought in tow – defiling the house of God with it and everything I touched. In classes I would put it to the back of my head lest it disturb the rhythm of my prayer. Lest it show through on my face and in my eyes; for the eyes are a window unto the soul are they not? So I kept it there, in the back, for it had built a cosy little nest there. And to my surprise I continued to win prizes in mosque: oh yes! I always came top of my class. My teachers thought I had a bright future. They were proud but little did they know the secret I cossetted.
Then I hit the age of twelve and the floodgates snapped open: the floodgates to my hormones. They caused a riot. The teenage outbreaks had begun. It was then that I realised, upon astute questioning of my fellow friends, that they (unlike me) harboured no such ungodly thoughts. It was only I, with that little nest in the back. I was alone. Only I carried that devilish infection. It worried me. Oh yes! I began to see myself quite apart from the others. But I also, began to take delight in it too; a delight borne from harbouring such a dark little secret – forget smoking in the playground or drinking behind the shed, this was the ultimate crime! And it gave me a buzz. I started listening to heavy metal and Judas Priest; gothic, moribund and for my parents, rather worrying.
And then when I turned thirteen the thought grew legs and guts and migrated to my lips and they spake: 'there is no god' It was a scary moment to utter such blasphemies aloud for I seriously expected to die there and then – for God to strike me down with lightning or something. I waited. But nothing happened. So I repeated again but a little louder this time: 'there is no god' And again nothing happened. Maybe God can’t hear me I thought. (which was silly because God has super-hearing but maybe he doesn’t believe me?). So I went to my local park and stood in the centre of the grass and after looking around to ensure nobody was near me, I shouted at the top of my voice: 'there is no god!'. The voice echoed around and mingled with the wind and the trees and the bees. I looked out for any changes in the wind or in the air. No change. I shouted again: 'there is no god!!!'. I listened for the beat in my ribcage. For a second I thought it had stopped but, on closer inspection, the beat was still there.
And you know what? Nothing happened. The earth did not cave in and swallow me whole, the skies did not darken in apoplectic rage, the pigeons did not turn nasty and attack me in droves, and I did not die of a heart attack. My heart kept beating. It was strong. It was a big moment for me, that day, in the park. It felt like a release from the years of self-inflicted guilt. A weight and burden had lifted and I knew my future. I’d finally shaken the hand of the man I was to become and he’d approved and welcomed me with open arms.
