Class Warfare by D. M. Fraser Page A

accounting is incomplete. Marie Tyrell wrote, “Things get diverted, lost, broken in transit. Often you never find them again, though you search a lifetime long; it is always the same. You know the story as well as I. Hold everything, let nothing go. Never forgive, never. I have not asked you to set me free.” They shaved her head, before they led her to the Chair. Gerard Macklewain sings:
    Â 
Play your song, Brother Death
    play your old ambulance siren song
    Play for the men I loved
    the women I done wrong
    Let me know when my time is up
    Make me hustle my ass along
…
    Â 
    Anyway. He has been vouchsafed this mercy, this labour of repair. In the street a paddywagon cruises slowly, as if aimlessly. It is impossible to imagine the separation of life from the body, the radiant body, the cry cut off unuttered, the swift descent.
DEATH TO THE OPPRESSORS!
    â€œâ€¦ on the left side she saw a nightingale, the moaner and mourner: a kite had snatched its young—kite of hooked talons, lover of all thieving—and stood in the middle of the two-fold stem; its beak and jaws devoured the brood; and the nightingale saw it, and shrieked with a cry for her Itys, her Itys.”

THE LETTERS
    I HAVE NOT answered any of the letters. Before I explain, let me say that it was a conscious decision on my part, a rational decision, not to answer them: I was prepared to take full responsibility for what I was not doing. I wrote several memos to that effect, in triplicate, to the several echelons; I expressed myself in clear, careful English, in prose. In these I stated firmly that my initiative, in not answering the letters, should be considered an extension of, not a departure from, company policy. It was not to be interpreted, however charitably, as an oversight; it was not a question of negligence, or ennui, or accidia, or insufficient motivation; it was not a failure (on my part) to identify adequately with corporate goals; and it was not, strictly speaking, a “job action.” I pointed out, further, that it was certainly not a matter of having other, more interesting or important, things to do. For a variety of reasons, I cited Patrick Henry’s immortal words, the scourge of tyranny, the comfort of desperate men. At this time it was the beginning of the rainy season.
    There have been a great many letters. At first, when I was ambitious, I filed them neatly in five compartments, one for each of the obvious categories: (1) Condolence, (2) Congratulations, (3) Recriminations, (4) Importunities, and (5) Advice. Eventually, after much thought, I was able to streamline the system by reducing the number of categories to four, meanwhile shifting the emphasis from “content” to “origin”: (1) Friends, (2) Enemies, (3) Representatives of Small Businesses, and (4) Family. A few of my associates remarked, unfortunately within earshot, that my method was fundamentally naïve; others said only that it betrayed, in certain respects, a degree of naïveté. I bore these criticisms patiently, with dignity, making no effort to refute them; for this forbearance I was greatly praised. After a fortnight, I abandoned the system.
    In the early days of the rainy season, I composed a memo in which I argued, among other propositions, that randomness is the true order of the physical world, that “time” is by nature an agglutinative process, and that the hypothesis of God could be confirmed, evidentially, by the fact that while no one was ever observed replacing the toilet paper in the executive washroom, nonetheless there was always an abundant supply of toilet paper. I suggested that, although the standard commentaries on I Corinthians unaccountably beg the question, a progressive theology can scarcely afford not to come to terms with it. “In the end,” I wrote, “we shall have to come to terms with everything.” I directed this memo to the middle and upper echelons, only.
    A copy of