SIMON'S JOURNAL

The world got strangled and collapsed the other day. Many died. Meanwhile on the other side fraulein insist on taking sides. It's an Amerikan thing. There was a drunk found collapse under the bar. It's a Singapore thing. Poor habits. Said his name was alfred. Henry Miller came in and sat on this alfred face. It was raining outside and people are evacuating for fear the dams will break. But on the other side fraulein insist on taking sides. Meanwhile alfred remain under Miller's ass. This is Jeremiah's. This is where we remember.

Can I be as I believe myself or as others believe me to be?

WILSON FISK: I was walking down the street the other day and this bloke came up to me and said man is born free but choose to live in chains. He was wearing armani and smelling clean. I took a sample of the perfume he was whoring. he was as sanitized as dettol. Armani. a whore. To be born free? He said that. Just by sampling this whore's perfume? Man is born on the street. To wander. If all your life is to be free, it means accident and incident. drama and movement. It means above all a dream. A mess of irrelevant facts which gives to street walking a metaphyscial certitude. Like this perfume sample. armani. to be born free. In the streets you learn what human really are. Otherwise you invent them. What is not in the streets is false, derived, that is to say fiction. Like perfume.

HENRY MILLER: Meanwhile the herd move on. Unstoppable. Some have choosen sides. Some are being sat on, under Miller's ass like alfred. In the herd, moving with silent feet, in the stampede, wilder than the greatest panic is a forgotten identity. A name hidden deep. Everyone pretends not to know. Not to remember anymore. But the name is branded deep, as deep within as the farthest star without. Filling all space and time. Creating infinite loneliness. This name expand and becomes what it always was and always will be - God. Never more God than in the godless crowd. Never more God than in the endless stampede of taking sides. Never more loneliness than in the teeming crowd, the lost seeker drowning in the common identity. Meanwhile alfred stirred but remain buried under Miller's ass. At Jeremiah things are not always what it seems. Piss pouring rain outside with not a soul in sight. The dam still threaten to break. Miller growl, "Now I am never alone. At the very worst I am with God!" Alfred gasped, faintly heard under Miller's ass.

Here where these line becomes a confession in the presence of the unknown and unknownable me, unknown and unknownable for myself. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

I am thinking of the age to come when men will fight and kill for god as now when they kill for their armani sanitize freedom.

SCREWTAPE COLLECTIVE: I am thinking of the age now when God is a forgotten low visibility. Handbooks assume the deity place. Life on the street is forgotten and handbooks assume their place in life. If the book is the man, and my book is the man I am, then I am the confused man, the negligent man, the reckless man, the lusty, obsence, boisterous, thoughtful, scrupulous, lying diabolical truthful man. That book shall not be overlooked in this age of sanitized armani freedom. For blokes like Screwtape, history will be a scar he leave down the streets. I shall not overlooked that he is making history. For him, history on this side will be like cancer eating away the other meaningless histories. I regard myself not as a book in history. I am just another story telling stories. We are that which is never concluded, never shpaed to be recognized,all ther is and yet not the whole, the parts so much greater than the whole that only God can figure out!

THE GOD CHARADE: Read any good stories lately? Miller, Fisk and the Screwtape Collective are telling some mighty tales at the pub. Alfred with his face in Miller's ass is one such story. A victim. If you are unhappy with any of these stories then you should not have come. Stay home. In your armani sanitized freedom. No one ask you to come. Meanwhile fraulein dream of stories on the other side. The handbooks can dream dreams from the neck up, their bodies strap to the electric chair. They can smell like armani dreams for all I care. I am just dazzled by the glorious collapse of this world. The herd remain dreaming in this piss pour rain. Meanwhile on the other side of the world the dam threaten to break.

You don't know me.

SIMON ALHAZRED: This is here. this is me. this is my story. and i spit on you. This is not the past. this not the future. This is an act where the past is dead. This is a stage where the future is not enough. This is now. I see Miller in the pub but I remain outside. I was seen here sometime. I have been chased in under unforgiveable circumstances. My clothes in tatter and my skin broken. I am the mad arab. I have seen the world collapse. I have seen the madness of the herd in nameless cities. I have seen in the face of each man a museum that house the horror of his race. I have been to Germanic shores where they taught me precision engineeering. I asked them about Luther they brought me to a pub and ordered me beer. I asked them about Bonhoeffer they passed me the pretzels. I asked for bratwurst and sauerkraut and they smiled. I have been to America where they pretty much left me alone. Male chinese, I could be mistaken for a vietnamese or a thai. An imigrant. I went to chinatown and they taught I was from Taiwan. I took a cab downtown and cabbie greeted me in korean. This is Amerika? You don't even know who I am. Amerikans smile a lot when they come to stay in their shores. Smiles that never comes off. I stood by the street and nobody paid any attention. I walked over and joined the herd. Meanwhile the living walked over the dead, smiling all the while advertising their beautiful white teeth. Amerika smiling at the world. It cost so little to smile. So why not smile as the world get strangled yesterday and collapsed today. Smile and the world is yours. Smile, it's easier for you to move along. Smile, damn you!

JEREMIAH BLUES: I have seen in each smiling face the horror of this race. In nameless cities, people hide in their shadows. This is the endless nightmare that such has forgotten. I stood outside the pub and listened to Fisk's and Miller's ranting. I saw the Screwtape Collective scratching another scar into history. I saw what resembled alfred under miller's ass. taking sides? This could be Amerika. This could be Berlin. Go take your sides! This is definitely not afternoon tea in wee London. Meanwhile the world groans in hunger. I will now take leave and head for light. I go now to sit on the mountain top, to wait another ten thousand years while the nameless crowd struggle on the streets below. Forgotten. I will study the rigid outlines of your cities and observed the world collapsing in smoke. Smile Amerika said. Take sides. I will not mistaken your stench despite the armani sanitizers. You stink like God. Like God and all the swimming parasites.

I have played the god charades. I have been around and seen
things. I am Simon Alhazred. You don't know me.

Gulf Journals 1987