I
Pianists are just glorified typists, artists are just glorified painters and decorators. We talk of talent, people who are gifted, as if it were some mystical quality. People are born as chains of cells, built up from genetic codes, it is a matter of mathematics and chance. We speak of expressing our feelings, trying to make ourselves believe that they are all more than chemical reactions, secretions of hormones. Your hopes will rot, and your dreams will fade in the morning sun.
II
I painted myself a pretty little picture, and I spilled my drink all over it.
III
To look at the spark of innocence, of pure perfection, of uncorrupted consciousness must be like seeing Lucifer- LIGHT- in his original glory, the most beautiful of all the angels of heaven. Imagine it! Pure as the sunshine through a cloudless sky. Imagine it! Inventing new colours, finding another degree to the musical scale, going above and beyond what we comprehend. We were there. We knew. We could see. And then, suddenly, the will to life, the will to compete grabs hold. Why do we put chains on people made from the very same matter as us? Why do we enslave people who are our equals (for, after all, in terms of mathematical probability, we are all equal, as we all had an equally negligible chance of creation). Like Lucifer we were born with the brightness of lightning. Like Lucifer our greed grips us and causes us to descend.
IV
(tacet)
V
"Make me a channel of your peace..."
He was shaking because he was afraid of the dark; even his lamp seemed to have turned traitor, creating shadows in the corners of its sparse beams of light, shadows where the darkness lurked, mocking him.
"Where there's despair in life let me bring hope..."
It was rather stupid for someone who was afraid of the dark to live in tunnels below the ground. The thing was, it was even darker above the ground. Even the brightest day couldn't clear the dark fog which had descended on the city.
"Where there is darkness only light..."
It wasn't a fog like London's smog of the 50s; that was poisonous, but temporary. This fog lingered. Even when you went through the endless suburbs, even when you tried to find one of the few patches of green and pleasant land which remained.
"And where there's doubt true faith in you..."
You couldn't see the fog. You couldn't smell it. But it was there. Choking. Suffocating. Enveloping another victim. Down here in the tunnels, despite the eternal darkness of being shut away from the sun, it was the brightest place in London. The brightest place in England. The brightest place in Europe... And that made him shake.
VI
(tacet)
VII
If you were dizzy going down the stairs, you would attempt to catch onto a handrail. I can't find the handrail. Who moved it?
VIII
I. Am. Just. An. Accident.
But what an accident!