Lost in Thought (Part 1: Interlude)

Sometime later, at the top of a summer day, Mesroth is sitting on the beach. On each side is a ream of paper, one entitled A Season of Thought, the second A Justification of Innocence. He takes a sheet from the first and begins to scribble. 1

Meanwhile, Mordegast is riding the waves out back. A particularly large plunger lands him on his nose and washes him to shore. Slightly dazed, he trudges through the sand and joins Mesroth. 2


-3


Mordegast: My writer’s block has cleared. 4

Mesroth: [Lost in thought] Excellent. Now you can finish summarising the unwritten.5

Mordegast: It seems you have a few thing to clear up, yourself. [Looking at the sheet] 6

Mesroth: [Looking up] Does that have two or three meanings?7

Mordegast: Ah, three… It’s good to see you’re writing again. I was afraid I’d never have the library to myself.8

Mesroth: [Thinking back] Have we ever shared a section?9

Mordegast: We’ve never shared anything except an enemy, but that’s more than enough. Care to share what you’ve written?10

Mesroth: It’s illegible. [Reads aloud]:11

'The most interesting thing about the seasons is how they slowly but surely change. Every season is a season of thought, and finding yourself idle on a bright afternoon is at one with searching for something to think about. We only change when we're idle, and that is the reason we cease to appreciate our possessions when we have them. It is how we justify wanting more until we outgrow ourselves and find that the only path of change leads back to whence we began. The surest escape from this seasonal cycle lies in abandoning the unstable influences which justify and cater for idleness, asserting your own expression for every invading thought whilst it is ripe. In time you will age with your mind rather than with circumstance, and you will be as yourself, and as no-one else.'12

Mordegast: [Taking a sheet from his own pile] If I observed myself every day I’d meet some new faces. But why should we resist influence? We are all products of the same system, so why should we try to be different? [Struggling to hold his sheet steady in the breeze] Those who allow influence fly with the wind. 13

Mesroth: [Losing interest in his work] Being different and being ourselves are different things. Those who allow influence die with the wind. 14

Mordegast: I think you’ve hit a dead end. Let me know when it’s complete. Maybe I have some ideas you can steal. [Shows Mesroth the paper]15

Mesroth: [Glancing at the scribble] It’s illegible.16

Mordegast: The sign of reading too deeply. [Takes it back] These are the notes I took in Mr. Fallow’s lecture. I’m his only student, and it’s my task to prove that the class isn’t necessary.17

Mesroth: So it’s a philosophy class?18

Mordegast: As far as I can tell. Maybe it’s perceptionism. [Shrugs] I’ll expand it later [clearing throat and conscience]: 19

'In order to find fulfilment without losing our established identities, it becomes, during new-moons, necessary to distance the mind from the heart…'20

Mesroth: [Interjecting] How can there be fulfilment if heart and mind are isolated? Made separate, they lose their identities.21

Mordegast: And so ends their struggle for identity:22

'There are several principles of fulfilment, the first being morality. Neglecting it is not an achievement so much as a betrayal of the intellectual self. Do not to others what you wouldn’t want done to you, and the world will recognise a defined presence…'23

Mesroth: [Interjecting] Morality comes from the heart, not from the mind.24

Mordegast: Wait for it: 25

'Secondly, if you become acquainted with your conscience you will realise that life is innocent of all crimes except those committed against it. Knowing this, one’s bitterness should be directed not towards innocence, but rather the justification of innocence. In this way the concept of ‘good’ is emptied, and so ‘evil’ made redundant…'26

Mesroth: [Interjecting] Evil is the bad things we can’t undo. It’s not the opposite of ‘good’.27

Mordegast: [Browsing through] I don’t mean to mix meanings. And speaking of which: 28

'There is nothing to suggest that life has either meaning or purpose. Until we know everything, nothing can be considered in the context of Truth.'29

Mesroth: [Sighing] There’s a pity…I would’ve believed you. But if we’re living a lie, we might as well die for the Truth. 30

Mordegast: [Chuckling] 31

'Negative emotions are unnatural to the fulfilment of life. What we call sadness, fear, selflessness, are really manifestations of guilt, and thus to the great annoyance of those calling themselves religious or philanthropic, it must be concluded that innocence is constituted only by an absence of negative emotion. Sentiments are germs spread from one person to the next.'32

Mesroth: [Laughing slightly] It doesn’t explain why I never catch cold.33

Mordegast: [Browsing for relevant parts] Shall I continue?34

Mesroth: Back to the start if you can.35

Mordegast: Here we go:36

'From time immemorial people have established an accepted social order built on its own excessive fundamentalism. Their virtues invariably cancel (for example equality and charity), and are preached so often that they remain as recognisable as their own celebrities.'37

Mesroth: [Dreamily as a seagull passes overhead] Who prefer the company of fluttery emotions to a mass of painted faces. 38

Mordegast: Now we’re getting somewhere. I was about to say that virtues have become symbols of superiority. 39

Mesroth: [Perking up] Just like a General’s stripes. 40

Mordegast: [More enthusiastically] 41

'With the proliferation of advanced technologies leading to a wider array of available amusements becoming the responsibility of normal people, society has become a social event run by those unacknowledged for their ability to bully the weak and vulnerable. Henceforth social values should be considered as nothing more than the causes and effects of a democracy in which people are imprisoned in the centre of their freedom…that is, in their comfort zones - their homes.'42

Mesroth: [Weighing it up] Well it takes great leaps to get its point across the fathomless span of my attention. There’s a star for that.43

Mordegast: And this is only an abstract.44

Mesroth: In several senses. 45

Mordegast: That was predictable. But so’s the ending:46

'The capriciously spontaneous nature of every organism’s condition qualifies life itself as a microcosm of the chaotic universe. People respond without knowing why, and so they are merely killing time. Some are swivelling in their chairs searching for a meaning to their existence (and by the end of the day they’re sure to have invented a new phrase to sum it up), while others content themselves with the expensive ‘ups’ and force-fed ‘downs’ of life.'47

Mesroth: There has to be more to it. When people say they’re killing time, you can be sure that time is killing them. It’s the effort to escape that makes it worse, and so a complete acceptance of the self is the only way to be free. 48

Mordegast: [Less enthusiastically] 49

'The killing-fields of time are a spectacle of slow death witnessed only by those who venture outside conventional realms of thought. Those aware of it would lead painful lives if it weren’t for the pleasure of seeing it.' And that is why we’re here.50

Mesroth: [Lost] I see. It slaughters too many ideas to be considered original.51

Mordegast: [Laughing] That’s fulfilment! The recognition of emptiness in all that we say.52

Mesroth: [Shivering slightly] It’s getting cooler. [Pauses] Set it to verse, and show me in rhyme the freedom I seek. 53

Mordegast: [Surprised] All in the fullness of time…but is that not your job? [Notices the shadows crossing the sand, and looks out to the orange tinge on the horizon] Tomorrow, if you want I’ll show you an island around the bluff.54

Mesroth: Is it inhabited?55

Mordegast: They say it’s haunted. I don't know why.56

Mesroth: Then tomorrow we’ll find out.57

Mordegast: We will. [Whispers to himself] Perhaps it’s where people throw away their past.58

Mesroth: [Somehow overhearing] I’d never throw memories away. They’d only find me again. 59

Mordegast: Or rather you’d be afraid of finding them. [Pondering] People are always forgetting where they hide them, and so they usually pop out at the most unexpected and inconvenient moments. And then they are so busy watching their back that the part of the cycle called the future takes them from ‘behind’ and makes them lose all sense of what’s passing and what’s going. Instinctively they clutch at everything for dear life, eventually reliving the future and forgetting the past. [Shrugs] You might think of it as seeking fulfilment from what they don’t possess. [Chuckles] To live beyond our means is the modern ideal.60

Mesroth: Fulfilment isn’t something we can buy; it’s something we need to sell. Only through expression can we find fulfilment. Only through giving can we receive. Only when exposed are we innocent. 61

Mordegast: [Half-beaten] And so as I said, fulfilment is an empty concept. Our ideas are one. Now I’m going to drown some sorrows. 62


-63


Mordegast returns to the surf, leaving Mesroth to observe the bluff and wonder about the future it hides. Remembering the last few days and the gulf between the present and past, he sighs. It is not so wide as it is deep, but retrospection is a treacherous bridge to cross.64