When assessing the level of insanity suffered by a madman, one can and should do so by comparing the hold which his unstable cognitions have upon him, as against the true world, characterised by sense-perceptions, which the non-mad majority of us experience.
The true madman, then, regards the byproducts of his sickness as inscrutably normal. Less severe cases accept that their intense visions and thoughts are, whilst agonisingly real, nevertheless just the unfortunate consequence of a particular condition.
It was with these sorts of ideas preavalent that I caught a late train into the city on Friday night, for the purpose of meeting a woman about whom there remains much to be said.
Your author has long held aloft the primacy of the scientific method as far as differentiating between competing ideas; and of course long ago jettisoned religion. Yet the imprint of belief and irrationality remains, not far from the surface, and needs little excuse to rise through the pores.
It so happens that I mentioned feathers to the woman about whom there remains much to be said. I mentioned them to her, and therefore the feather, for the two of us, became a symbol, a directional arrow pointing into the future.
On Friday night, then, I was waiting for the late train, the 9:49pm service. It had been a last-minute decision to meet at all, and I couldn't be sure that she would go through with it; and even if she did I'd no idea where she'd be.
Pacing the platform, I needed a message from my own insanity, dropped into the arena in which I live. I required a symbol which connected the two - and, of course, there was a feather at my feet as I looked down.
I put it in between the pages of the book I was reading to kill the time. Little white flame that it is, licking the pages and inextinguishable. The bridge between madness and regularity; between man and woman.
Later in the night, I should need the feather for sustenance. My shadow hugging the walls of side-streets, looking nonchalant as the policecars Döpplered up and down beside me in the early hours.
Two cats, one black and one ginger, retreating at the gunshots my feet made. Blowing kisses - come here, beautiful. I won't hurt you, but the serpentine cats were eaten by the darkness.
Drinkers disgorged by the bars, shovelled out onto the hot roads. Are you from around here? What a fucking shit night out this is, eh, pal, and stumbling away when I said I hadn't a clue where a better time could be had.
Drinkers teeming out of doors, introduced to their own cut-off, senseless monologue. I had not had a drop, and yet I believed that the fruits of my own lunacy had developed legs and could be found somewhere in one of those bars.
Earlier, I saw a woman with a bleeding arm in the station, having tried to kill herself with a broken bottle. She dripped all over Beckett but not Lorca, and I had to cancel the ambulance when she ran away from me, screaming: ME FUCKIN' ARMS! TELL THEM FUCKIN' BASTARDS!
I told the policewoman - you need to get her, or she'll bleed to death. They caught her and pinned her up against the wall, wrapping the slashed limb with a purple bandage. She was still screaming. She cuts her fucking arms all the cunting time because she's ready to fucking die. I'm 29.
Later, I was upset with the woman about whom there remains more to be said. But as the night ate the serpentine cats, it emitted her and I was mollified. We hugged underneath a streetlight, and I apologised for losing my temper.
