Welcome Back

(from early this year, recovering from pneumonia)

It's happened again – glittering dark insomnia hanging in the bedroom air.
Insomnia
Nn thom nee yah
Nth omni ahh.
It's a tantalising energy. It makes my thoughts and senses feel desperately precious at night and then it deadens the hours of the following day.
It's like leading a secret life. I sit at my desk, dishevelled and strange, and perform bland actions to fulfil my work obligations. An automaton with rumpled clothes and a bad haircut.
In the late afternoon I step out into the warm orange sunlight with vague plans for the evening.
I exercise. It's what I'm good at. I do an elliptical trainer for twenty minutes, then run on a treadmill for half an hour. I lever the muscles of my upper body against various weights, then go home and cook red meat and eat it.
There are people in the flat. Flatmates and visitors. Loud and silly friends. A villain who leans against the doorframes and watches us, hating us. There are girls – the White Queen and the Black Queen – both so pretty it's maddening. They stand apart from each other like pillars in a tarot card. Like some kind of doorway.

A warm pulse has started up. A great hungry volition. Volition for god knows what, I don't know, I can't make head or tail of it. It's there, waiting for me to do something. I have no idea how to appease it.
Every film I watch is a searing lesson in life as it should be lived. People walk through tall grass, touch, kiss, and the hairs on my arms prickle up at the sight of it. People crash into each other, bite and punch each other. They sweat and shout and make loud promises. They get injured, and they heal. It's wonderful. I feel like I'm waiting for the right moment, when the moment comes I'll lunge up into the screen and join the commotion.
The streets are teeming with women. I watch them go by, their motion, the colours of their clothes. The pitch and articulation of their voices as they talk into their iPhones. I look up and see the men also watching. Their faces are calm and proud and despondent and contorted with anger, slack from drink, clean shaven and bristly, red and sunburnt, feral, lips curled in disdain, mouths hanging open with laughter.
The volition is watching and waiting. Something immense is going to happen. Art and life will switch places and we'll all be cast into some big, dangerous story.

Drinking. Winding down. Checking the clock. I've been so tired these days, I should really get an early night. I've joined a DVD rental club, I have a couple of films I could watch in bed.
Our resident villain stares as I walk to my room.
“All right?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine.”
Why the question? What does he want? He probably doesn't know. Probably he's stuck hanging like the rest of us. Hanging off his door frame.
For the tenth night in a row I cue the film (Tenebre), but once again it's a trap. Too tired and wired to do anything but lay back in bed and check out the shimmering darkness and the quiet roar of my tinnitus.
To wait as the black air starts unfolding into hundreds of ideas and suggestions. Insomnia. Bolts from the void.
I love this place, this thing, and the thoughts it gives me. I love it so much that I've often imagined it as a person. A woman with black, black skin and round white eyes. Long fingers. Teeth. A white summer dress dirty with sweat and dust. She's out in the warm-and-cool night, standing by an unlit road, and the busted-up sign beside her says:

HOLD FURTHER INWARD

Retiring the Old Banner

This banner has propped up the bottom of my blog page for almost a year now. Trusty old banner.


Putting it here for posterity.
Still think it's cool - all with the Strindberg and the pretty ladies getting sprayed with blood. (sniff) You had a good run, boy.
A year is a good run, for a blog banner.

Mr Benjamin Korea's short sentences, existential ponderings and ambiguous mental condition will resume shortly.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (4)

(to first ep)
(to previous ep)

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Not getting much done today.
Just sitting here, staring.
Rain on the window.

It bothers me.
Can’t say why.
“Harmony”.
Associations with:
Church.
Youth group.
Star Trek.
No crime, no money system.
Everyone living peacefully.
Clean futuristic corridors, gardens.
Geodesic domes.
Red jumpsuits.
Fit and healthy.
Sunshine. Acoustic guitars.
Sandals.
Beards.
Cartoon pictures of doves.
People saying: peace be with you.
Peace be with you, brother.
Brotherhood of man.
No crazy people.
No drunks, drug addicts.
Everyone helping out.
No-one asking for money.
It bothers me.
Can’t say why.

Problems with the ioniser today.
Keeps switching itself off.
Annoying.

Call Roger.
No answer.
Call Roger’s PA.
Turns out Roger’s in his office.
Just not answering.
Tell the PA: send him over.
Waiting.
Waiting.
& the ioniser shuts off.
This damn thing.
Climb under the desk to check the plug.
The cable, etc.
Seems fine.
Climb back up. Roger’s here.
Seems startled.
Frightened, even.
Asks: what’s going on.
Sit down, I tell him.
The guy is so nervous.
Got to loosen him up.
How about this weather, I say.
Point outside.
Raining, I mean.
Says: yeah.
Yeah, I say.

Enough small talk.
Ask him: what do you think about harmony.
Doesn’t answer.
I repeat the question.
He coughs. Mumbles something.
Looks at the floor.
Starts talking about strategic alignment.
Listening to stakeholders.
Good for PR.
Good for the business.
Listening to staff.
Good for productivity.
Reduced turnover.
Blah blah blah.
Tell him: stop.
I’m not talking office business.
I’m talking life business.
The human race, it’s purpose.
Religious harmony.
Spiritual harmony.
Star Trek, etc.
What does he think.
No answer.
Just shrugs.
Say to him: asking you as a spiritual person. Do you feel that a state of peace & harmony is something we should be aiming for or do you feel that conflict/competition – even desperation – is necessary to keep us human. & if the latter then what is in your opinion the true & ultimate goal of the human race.
Silence.
Waiting.
Then: why are you asking me this.
Interesting, I say.
Maybe I’m asking you.
Maybe the question is asking us.
Right?
Silence.
Then: Mr Korea I have a client coming in.
Waiting at Reception.
Have to go now.

Pointless anyway.

Hate days like this.
Raining.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (3)

(to first ep)
(to previous ep)

“PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE”

Bottom of my computer screen.
Little tabs for the applications.
One of them reads:
“Procedures for Organ…”.
?
Hover the cursor over it.
Full text reads:
“Procedures for Organising Interdivisional Transfer”.

Today is Wednesday.
Pumpkin soup.
I leave it open to cool.
Thinking: procedures.
Anatomical organs.
Church organs.
Think about Scott Walker for a while.
Wonder if he’s religious.
A strange man.
Could be. The music got weird in the 80s.
The Parents are religious.
Not religious, myself.
At least I don’t think about it.
Not really.
Not often.
“Opiate of the people”.
Etc.
Maybe I could call the Parents tonight.

The park is pretty empty.
Raining.
Rain falling in the soup.

Wait.
There’s one.
By the corner.
Other side of the street.
Stopping people.
Talking to them (trying to).
Some kind of leaflet.
Definitely religious.
You can tell from the hair.
The clothes.
I pay attention.
Watch, listen.
Too far away.
Okay then.
Up.
Walk over to him.

Young guy.
Says that today is beautiful.
The rain isn’t important.
Money isn’t important.
A great revelation is coming.
Etc.
What revelation, I ask.
Says something about harmony.
People always fighting.
Competing.
Destroying the planet.
Not for much longer.
I’m examining his face.
The eyes out of focus.
Blood rushing to his face.
Seems happy though.
You haven’t answered the question, I say.
Tell me about the revelation.
Again: harmony.
Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe, he says.
His Church is going to change the world anyway
Church of Resonant Consciousness.
Talks about the founders.
Then something about the Pope.
Secret technologies.
Some Catholic conspiracy.
But it doesn’t matter anymore.
Church of Resonant Consciousness.
They have a magic device or something.
Harmonise the world.
Save it, etc.

On and on like this.
I check my watch.
I have to leave, I tell him.
But I’m interested in this.
Want to see the magic device.
He’s shaking his head.
You don’t understand, I tell him.
I have a lot of money.
I want to help.
But first I want to see the device.
Head shaking.
You can’t, he says.
Listen: I have a lot of money.
I will give it to you.
It doesn’t matter, he says.
Going to happen anyway.
You’re a damn idiot, I say.
Why are you even out here.
Give me a leaflet.
Guy says: out here to warn us.
The world will be saved.
But whatever.
The leaflet has an address on it.
Don’t need to keep talking to this bozo.

I walk back to the office.
Left the soup back on the bench.
Forget it.
Not hungry anymore.
The Pope, magic devices.
What a damn idiot.

Korea vs Mighty Resonance (2)

(go to first ep)

"PAY ATTENTION TO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE"
Staring at the kinetic sculpture.
Chewing it over.

Mid-morning I walk the office.
Hi Mr Korea.
Yes Mr Korea.
Sorry Mr Korea am I in your way.
These poor guys.
In and out of their cubicles.
They're scared of me.
(There's a rumour about me.
That I carry a gun to work.
It's true.)
Coffee cup in my hand.
Think:
Who's religious here.
Damned if I know.
Maybe some of the girls in the typing pool.

A lot of empty desks.
What the hell.
Some kind of flu maybe.
Gotta check that up with Roger.
Screen savers.
Cartoons on the walls.
Little figurines.
This one desk has a figure on it:
Little guy in a leather apron.
Covered in blood.
Holding a chainsaw.
Little bucket of heads set down beside him.
Honestly sometimes I'm mystified.
People.
You know?

Photo of a beach.
Twilight, the ocean.
Caption reads:
"Don't tell God how big your problems are.
"Tell your problems how big your God is."
Check the name plate.
Desk belongs to Glenda.
Think I know the one.
Funny looking.
Quote on the photo is unattributed.
I write it down.
Corner Roger in a meeting room.
Ask him about absenteeism.
Targets, etc.
Ask him if he's religious.
Turns out he's not.
He's spiritual, he says.

Think: strange.
Usually the instructions go somewhere.
Good like that.
This one's going nowhere.
"Spiritual".
What's that supposed to mean.