a rational man

by J S Hollis

  Ss room was the width of two single beds, regular and clean (and by that he meant everything was white except the floor, which was grey). there was a small window at the end (sealed shut for insulation) and with thick black blinds to keep the light out. S unpacked his stuff and then set about the rooms design. he first experimented with a transparent wall so that it looked like his room went straight into the next room and then from that room into the next and so on until the building ended. but then he worried that visitors would find it a bit intrusive (and he might too).

  the time came for S to meet the other new joiners in the common room and he still had not made a decision. he settled on a split with sand dunes on one side and a loop of his favourite films on the other (nothing too radical). he knew that by the time he left the room at the end of the year, the design would have changed a hundred times.

  S began to march down to the common room but then slowed to a more customary amble. he opened the common room door and was confronted with the smiling face of jean-marc. “absolutely delighted to meet you, sebastian,” jean-marc said.

  “and you,” S replied and put out his hand.

  jean-marc gave the hand a short look and then took S into his equilateral torso.

  “its great to have a proper celebrity in our halls,” jean-marc said.

  “im not sure—“

  jean-marc released him.

  “dont be modest. you have already been through enough. its time for you to have fun.” jean-marc winked.

  “sure,” S said. there were only eight people in the room. S and jean-marc and two groups of three. closed off. S felt his friendliness seeping away.

  “i like your shirt design,” S tried. jean-marcs shirt was an image of whatever he was looking at. so S could see jean-marcs view of him.

  “thanks. although you basically just said you like looking at yourself. kind of arrogant.”

  “i just meant—“

  “im joking,” jean-marc said, and slapped S on the shoulder. “i wasnt sure you were going to come.”

  “to what?”

  “to uni.”

  “oh really, why?”

  “you didnt seem to be that engaged on our halls forum.”

  “oh, ive been looking forward to it.” it was true. S had hoped university could be a watershed. he didnt expect anonymity. but there would be an unspoken agreement: they would leave his past undisturbed if he didnt rake up theirs.

  “tanya, come over here,” jean-marc called over Ss head. “meet sebastian.”

  “S, isnt it?” the typically gorgeous tanya said. she didnt seek a jean-marcish embrace.

  “sometimes. i prefer seb or spec.”

  “spec?”

  “something to do with the fact i spend a lot of time watching W.”

  “oh. ive read all your stuff but wondered about that.”

  “thanks. i hope you enjoyed it.”

  “dont worry, this is a new start for all of us.”

  “should i be worried?”

  “no,” jean-marc said, “she just means there are no judgements here.”

  “im studying moving image studies too,” tanya said. “im kind of intimidated by your pedigree.”

  “all ive done is watch a lot of films.”

  “your uncles are carlo francis and phillippe yossarian. you lived with them. you slept in their film room.”

  “maybe youre right. i may have gained something osmotically.”

  tanya raised her left eyebrow from the adjacent to the hypotenuse. S leaned against the wall to try to seem relaxed and glanced at tanyas profile to see if there was anything interesting he could say.

  “did you see your dads latest speech?” tanya asked before S had formulated a tangent.

  “no.”

  “i thought it was fascinating.” she seemed to be inspecting him. “arent you interested?”

  “not really—“

  “i cant believe they locked him up. he is a true hero, a martyr. killing your mother to save her, fighting for true democracy and equality. he will be prime minister one day.”

  “hes a murderer.”

  “oh, you think—”

  “tanya, leave it,” jean-marc said.

  “clarissa,” tanya screamed, and she embraced a woman who entered the room (and seemed less surprised than S to be immediately embraced).

  S took the opportunity to slink away to the common rooms lower level, where the new joiners were yet to infiltrate. he embedded himself into the corner of the sofa and coned into W. it was a front. he was thinking about the popularity of cecils speeches. despite his past, cecil had managed to find an audience for his attacks on landed wealth: “land had escaped democracy.”

  S hoped cecils new found popularity was a passing phase. wasnt radicalism an ephemeral accessory, like the clothes on catwalks nobody wears? and even if S had been open to cecils ideas, how could he respect anything his father had to say? it was easy for cecil to talk about revolution when it couldnt harm him. he had nothing to lose. he couldnt even see the repercussions of his propaganda. but what about all those people who did listen? the unemployed forever labelled as “protesters”. they would be one step further away from a job. and it was easy for cecil to renounce wealth when he had no access to it. S saw the preaching for what it was: cecils final attempt to be remembered for something other than murder.

  but why were people listening and agreeing to a man broadcasting from a lifeless room in a prison? the watchers had tuned in to watch cecil suffer. but they had not found the gurning lunatic they were hoping for. cecil continued to be cecil.

  columnists and news producers tried at first to project cecil as the archetypal coldhearted murderer. focusing on his stare and rigid posture. but the average viewer began to be charmed by his persistence and, as they were bored enough to be watching him, they began to respond to his comments on their lives. he told them they had been cheated by the elites. that the wealthy had deprived them of aspirations. that there could never be equality of opportunity while land was held by the few. that they were being diverted by the crumbs of entertainment that the elites fed them, which included watching him.

  following the governments announcement of its green world initiative and the associated increased cost of property, editors had changed their approach towards cecil. the reformed radical was a more attractive offering. there was more room for advertising. edits became more sympathetic. they used wider angles and included his jocular conversations with other inmates.

  S found his fathers increasing fame distasteful. it seemed to be profiting off his mothers death in one way or another. her death should have been sacred. not a subject for entertainment or politics or anything at all. a fade to black. a full stop. nothing could account for it or make sense of it or make it meaningful. but the world had no ends. nothing was forgotten. each instant was a seed that grew high and wide like the roots and branches of an eternal oak. nothing was left to history.

  “sebastian?”

  S looked up and saw a veiled figure. it was rowan, who was as broad as jean-marc but somehow seemed flattened under the weight, embarrassed by his own perfection.

  “hi, rowan,” S said.

  “mind if i sit next to you?”

  “not at all.”

  “hows the first day going?”

  “good, i suppose. just needed to get away from all the screams for a moment.”

  “i understand. fancy a quick game of vf?”

  “sure.” they both coned into the eyes of footballers and began to flick their fingers and faces, their groans and cheers half stifled. rowan won the first game.

  “one more?” S asked.

  “ok, but it should probably be our last one.”

  “deal.”

  the performance restarted and rowan won again.

  “youre
good,” S said.

  “youre out of practice.”

  S looked up at the common room. it was thick with young men and women chatting. the design of their clothes varied. but they were tall, sculpted and (mostly) olive skinned, like a gathering of modern gods and goddesses. S unfolded his own skeletal frame from the sofa to mingle among them.

  S had a feverish desire to be alone. on the fourth evening of university, he extracted himself from all social events and retired to his room after dinner with the intention to read up on mutually assured destruction: a term someone had used the previous day and which S feigned an understanding of.

  S lay on his tiny bed and surfed W. ariadne was salsa dancing with unblinking concentration. eugene was discussing picasso with a couple of bored looking women. S wasnt satisfied. he scrolled back to his encounter with maxi and watched himself have sex. he found the vision arousing, about the most aroused he had been (certainly more so than when he was actually with maxi) and he would have masturbated had it not seemed so narcissistic (even though he knew it was quite common to get aroused by watching oneself, and that there was nothing wrong with that, if that is what people wanted to do. it just wasnt for S).

  he felt a cavity in his stomach that drew painfully on his nerves. in a building full of potential social interaction, solitude felt bottomless. S wanted to be with other people and yet, he knew, as soon as he was with those other people he would want to be back in the privacy of his room.

  there was a knock at the door.

  “hi, rowan,” S shouted from the bed.

  “were heading to the pub, wanna come?”

  “no thanks, need to rest.”

  “alright mate, see you tomorrow.”

  S watched rowan disappear. he didnt care.

  S hated having to think of things to say to people. he found himself forcing the initiation of conversations. he reviewed the persons interests first and then used that as the topic area. but he couldnt control the conversations. either they moved out of his field of knowledge or they froze in their own perfunctoriness, locking him into a wavering stare until the other person made some excuse for an escape.

  was it him or them? was he being discriminated against for looking like pinocchio? he didnt blame the other students. perhaps they were just unconsciously disturbed by him. but what could he do? he couldnt wear his skin proudly as a sign of his racial or national identity. he was nothing more than the result of his parents experiments with fate. a stew of barbadian, italian, anglo saxon and afrikaans. but why were these biases playing out at university? shouldnt he have encountered this problem before? perhaps there was some other blockade between him and the student body. because they knew they couldnt talk about the one thing they wanted to talk to him about. and S didnt want to talk about it either. cecil had become a permanent tension.

  S found his room far less comforting than the darkroom at carlo and phillippes. it was bigger but it had no personality. the wall designs continued to be unsatisfactory, even when he made it look exactly like the darkroom. there was no stuff. they were just walls with designs. they had no history.

  there was no escape.

  S entered the dining room, picked up his shake and saw that he would have to start a new table. he hovered for a moment and then turned around. he walked over to look at the grain bars and considered each of the four options and their nutritional consequences. he chose the most calorific despite the warning that flashed up on his eyescreens. extrapolating from this small defiance, S imagined that one day he could lead the people (whoever they may be) out of the shackles of conformity.

  S spun back towards the dining room with a renewed sense of confidence. he saw that tanya and clarissa were now sitting at an otherwise empty table. but they leant across it, almost creating a bridge. he doubted they would welcome him or, worse, they might expect him to have something interesting to discuss with them. S looked at the grain bar again and began to walk towards the exit but then he changed course and sat next to tanya without saying a word.

  he sipped his shake and the two women continued their conversation without acknowledging his arrival. S leant forward too and received another message on his eyescreens.

  * * *

  Lean back to ensure a good long term posture.

  * * *

  he didnt lean back (and played “la marseillaise” in his head).

  “i know its crazy, isnt it?” clarissa said. “some people wont even speak out against TTT, you know, in case people become suspicious of their motives.”

  “i dont see how it would even work,” tanya continued, pushing back swathes of black hair. (clarissa did the same moments later.)

  “exactly! what meaning will unconscious thoughts have? can they be broken down into language? would we be left with peoples conscious thoughts only?”

  “maybe any thoughts, once they are subject to surveillance, will be repressed. so if people do have bad thoughts, like some child sex stuff, then those thoughts will lurk in the recesses of their minds.”

  S was trying not to listen but the voices were inescapable. he similarly opposed thought tracking technology and wanted to add his voice to the campaign against it. but he feared making a political comment. it was fine for relative unknowns like clarissa and tanya. they had only a few thousand regular followers. they could show some hints of radicalism and at worst have some friends disagree in polite terms. S would be confronted with a barrage of criticism, which would probably include some allusions (or even blunt statements) that he was hiding something like cecil had always been hiding something. S was tired of defending his opinions and had taken to saying nothing controversial.

  “yeh,” clarissa said, “who knows what the effect of TTT will be on behaviour? even less control perhaps. we are still discovering how the mind works. maybe we will evolve so that thoughts will dive deeper in a perpetual game of hide and seek.”

  “exactly, the unconscious might be given more power and trigger acts that would previously have been sieved out in the conscious, or something.”

  “it is so silly. and yet our government is just blindly letting it progress.”

  “theyre just driven by fear. everyone has such an issue with the unknown.”

  “some politicians are against TTT,” S announced, surprising the two women, whose heads flipped up as if they had been caught misbehaving.

  “hi, spec,” tanya said. “i didnt see you there.”

  “sorry, i shouldnt have interrupted.”

  “no no, dont worry at all, we were pretty caught up.” tanya leaned back. “whos against TTT then?”

  “well, my dad was, but he wasnt the only one.”

  “its a shame your dad isnt there anymore.”

  “hes where he belongs.”

  “lets talk about something else,” clarissa said. her cheeks blushed.

  “dont worry, its fine.”

  “he didnt really help the cause, did he,” tanya continued. ”now hes the poster child for TTT. ‘if cecil stanhope can be a murderer,’ they say, ‘how can we trust anyone?’”

  S paused for a second but decided to continue. “well at least we can be confident he didnt kill my mum to stop TTT.”

  “he did it because she wanted him to.” tanyas eyes were now burning into S. clarissa might as well have left the table.

  “you dont really believe that?”

  “i do. as far as i can tell, he has always been a good man so why believe he suddenly changed? you should believe that even if no one else does.”

  “mum didnt want to die.”

  “there are quite a few psychologists who think she did.”

  “really?”

  “dont you read all about the murder?”

  “nope.”

  “so why do you think he did it?”

  “i doubt there is an explanation.”

 
“thats a get out.” tanya crossed her arms and smirked. “there must be an explanation even if we will never know it.”

  “a collection of things occurred that led to the murder but they dont explain it. if we can believe the universe started for no reason, it seems fair that far more insignificant events could happen for no reason.”

  tanya turned back to clarissa while she processed Ss explanation or perhaps to invisibly communicate a raised eyebrow.

  “maybe,” clarissa said to fill the silence. but then tanya snapped back into gear.

  “was it that complex? i mean is that a better explanation than that your dad was jealous of your mothers success or that he was broken by his failure to live up to his dreams of changing this country and creating the perfect family or that he killed clara because she was a living symbol of his failure or because he really loved her and couldnt bear to see her suffer?”

  “im not saying it is complex.”

  “ok but if there was a motive, what do you think it was?”

  S had to look down. he was fighting to string words together with the two sets of eyes locked on to him. he sipped his shake to suppress a giggle or a scream or nonsense.

  he gulped and said, “i dont know. ive tried to ignore it all.”

  “sorry, of course,” tanya said, blinking for the first time in minutes.

  “no, perhaps i do need to understand it better. or at least have arguments and counter arguments. why dont you send me some things you have read?”

  “really, i didnt meant to touch a nerve.” she glanced at clarissa.

  “dont worry, i should know what people are thinking.”

  they all sipped their empty shakes and then clarissa said, “if your dad knew how popular he would become in jail, one would think he had done it for fame.”

  S laughed. “i wouldnt put it past him.”

  S began to read into the Event because his proximity to it made him interesting but he struggled to understand why other people were drawn into such flawed stories.

  the renderings of his parents were unfamiliar. his father was portrayed as a monster, a robot, a passive aggressive megalomaniac. cecil had been a perfectionist and inhumanely moralistic at times. and most of his good decisions could be painted as a tactical step on the road to power. but S doubted cecil could have maintained his ambition without a deeper belief in what he was doing.