a thought, a wisp of smoke, a thing without substance

There was a logic to nobody. A good deal of it was due to the shedding of things: from the warehouse workshop/apartment, to the selling of the machinery, the motorcycles, the furniture - to living out of a suitcase in Japan, China, and Italy, and finally to the old man's shoebox apartment in tourist town. Was that really ten years of living out of a suitcase? Unbelievable.


And through it all, the shedding of friends. So many people who don't want to talk to me anymore - too much of that crazy conspiracy talk. My favourite Jim Jarmusch movie, Dead Man, made more and more sense.

Once they realised who I was the stories of my adventures angered them. They called me a liar. Exaybachay. He who talks loud, saying nothing. They ridiculed me. My own people. And I was left to wander the earth alone. I am nobody.

Melodramatic sense but whatever. Everyone gets it I'm sure. Not forgetting the old chestnut: if you're going to steal an idea (or a name, ha ha), make sure it's a good one.

And so I barely existed. At least in the sense of interaction with anyone in the real world. With the old man so sick and mad there was no hospitality to be offered - no visitors, no friends, no sensible conversation. But it's alright, you get used to it.

Thus un-named I became a voice in the ether divorced from the real world. And I liked that. When I'd been in the real world my presence had been acceptable but my voice hadn't. And so I flipped it. Freed from the constraints of the real world I could be nothing but the voice. My name was gone, my identity, my physical appearance - all as nothing, what did it matter?

I was a non-sectarian Banquo's ghost free to take on a world of Macbeths. I could say what I wanted and be untouchable. I was a ghostly un-psychopath. With psychopaths being all about their five senses, their bellies, and their cocks and cunts (with their thoughts unspeakable apart from lies) I was the other way around - nowt but thoughts and wondering, with the physicality neither here nor there.

Well, that was the theory. The real world never goes away and there are always people and they'd ask me about my blog. I'd refuse to tell them. I figured having people know would be like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters.

"There's something very important I forgot to tell you."
"What?"
"Don't cross the streams."
"Why?"
"It would be bad."
"I'm fuzzy on the whole 'good/bad' thing. What do you mean, 'bad'?"
"Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously, and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light."

Did somebody say 'melodramatic' before? Oh, it was me. Still it would be bad. Sure enough, what with me being pissweak I didn't stick to it. I told some friends, maybe half a dozen, no biggie but I always regretted it. It meant I wasn't truly free - not if I wanted to write without fear or favour. It was a sullying of the nobody concept.

Up until now this was just a niggle at the back of my brain. It didn't really check anything I wrote and nor did any of these people blow the gaff by lobbing in and turning the house lights up. Regardless, it was a carelessness that was bound to come a cropper sooner or later.

And it did. The inevitable occurred and the streams crossed. But rather than an explosion the opposite occurred. The voice of nobody is now merely me, same as I ever was, tied to the real world and its nagging concerns. For the logic / idea / concept that was nobody this qualifies as a fundamental, existential failure. Without this separation from the world, nobody is nothing.

But it's no big deal. The thing is, nobody was nothing. It wasn't real - it was just a thought, a wisp of smoke, a thing without substance. I have nothing invested in it. Why would one invest oneself in something that was only ever a figment of one's imagination, a name pinched from a movie? A fig for the figment, ha ha. It's not me and I'm not it. Not really.

And so for me the gig is blown and I walk away. Time to start again. This is not a crash and burn - no Sargeant's Inn, me. I'll leave everything standing just as it was. I have no problem with any of it. And let no one be confused about me fleeing something I wrote - I'm doing no such thing. I stand by everything I said and to prove it I'm leaving it all here. Me, I'm proud of whatever this was, this experiment, this art installation, this place. I liked it here and I shall miss it. But we've all moved house and we all know that feeling. You get over it.

I expect that there will be people unhappy about this. I apologise to them. I never wished to make anyone unhappy - except for the Macbeths, ha ha - it just is what it is. And speaking of which, I also expect that there will be people who are exultant. Three cheers and what does it matter?

There will be a new thing but I've no idea what it will be or what I will call it. Sure enough, it will not link to here. If anyone wishes to find it I can offer you no assistance. The idea of starting again necessarily precludes it. Were I tell everyone, the slate would not be clean and the experiment would be as doomed as this one was.

So, off I go now. Thanks boys and girls, you've all been brilliant. All my love to you, and you never know, maybe I'll see you again sometime in the funny pages.

ciao ciao

n