become a drug addict for a while. It might be just the medicine to cure you of having been a zombie all these years. Don't be afraid to kill yourself a little. It's just the bullshit part of you that's dying. Being real doesn't mean being nice.'
He had taken her for a walk and waxed on about the repressive nature of society, the monster which attempted to crush the freedom of the individual. 'Look,' he said, 'the buildings, heavy square concrete cages that keep the people from the earth and sky. The streets destroy all movement except along one of two axes. The streetlights destroy the softness of the night. Look at the tight constricting shoes. You know that old Sufi saying, "Wear shoes and the whole earth is covered with leather." And the clothes, all to insure that we don't get to see one another's genitals. It's a jail. And the whole thing is based on the fear of the body, of the animal that we are. And so we've become unnatural creatures, destroying ourselves and all the rest of life on earth. Did you ever read the line of Leary's? "I hereby declare that world war three is now being waged by short haired robots in an effort to destroy the web of free wild life on the earth by the imposition of mechanical order." '
He had stopped at the entrance to the campus and in a voice loud enough to be heard by the loungers and passers-by he said, 'This civilisation is all stupidity. All the rules, the explanations, the governments, the laws, the jails, the armies, the schools, it's all a power play, it's the game of masters and slaves. Listen to the voice inside yourself. When you smoke hash it's that voice that is set free. And then it's up to you to have the courage to hear what it says.'
The clarity of his vision, impressed upon her when she was sensitised by the hashish, had radically altered her vision; she was indelibly stamped with the power of his worldview. Later she was able to dissemble, the super-ego pointing out that his speech was merely the product of a youthful idealism coupled to extremist thinking, and her id providing the energy for enough guilt to allow her to dismiss the contents of what he said. But the effect worked inside her, beneath all her conscious shufflings. She continued to use both marijuana and hashish and she found her feet pointing more and more in the direction of what was nebulously termed The Movement.
'It's a weird thing to listen to,' said Conrad as he filled the pipe again. They had slumped into their chairs and were enjoying the release of tension throughout the muscles of their bodies; their eyes were already bloodshot, and their pulses raced with the accelerated beat of their hearts.
It's all he plays anymore,' Cynthia said. 'I heard it stoned one night with the earphones on. It was beautiful. It was like Bach and Casals became one person, and the music didn't belong to one or the other, but both of them at the same time. It was as though their souls blended together in the music.' She lapsed into a revery of memory and sound, sinking into the dream that she and Aaron had fashioned from their incom-pletion and need. Conrad spun off into his thoughts, speeding down the ski slopes of his mind in great powdery rushes that distracted him from all external stimuli. They took on the roles of strangers with each other, as impersonal as people in a waiting room, tied together only by the common purpose of attending the same event. It was a precious moment in which communication ceased, and a blessed communion enveloped them.
'You know,' she said, her words distant, 'there's more to Aaron than you might think. Maybe he does wear a suit and has short hair and isn't hip to all the latest movements, but he's really very deep and can be incredibly sensitive. And more than all that, he's a good man. You should go see him at his work sometime. He's the only teacher in the school who cares about the kids.'
T know all that,' said Conrad. T wouldn't have kept coming around if I didn't see what's
He had taken her for a walk and waxed on about the repressive nature of society, the monster which attempted to crush the freedom of the individual. 'Look,' he said, 'the buildings, heavy square concrete cages that keep the people from the earth and sky. The streets destroy all movement except along one of two axes. The streetlights destroy the softness of the night. Look at the tight constricting shoes. You know that old Sufi saying, "Wear shoes and the whole earth is covered with leather." And the clothes, all to insure that we don't get to see one another's genitals. It's a jail. And the whole thing is based on the fear of the body, of the animal that we are. And so we've become unnatural creatures, destroying ourselves and all the rest of life on earth. Did you ever read the line of Leary's? "I hereby declare that world war three is now being waged by short haired robots in an effort to destroy the web of free wild life on the earth by the imposition of mechanical order." '
He had stopped at the entrance to the campus and in a voice loud enough to be heard by the loungers and passers-by he said, 'This civilisation is all stupidity. All the rules, the explanations, the governments, the laws, the jails, the armies, the schools, it's all a power play, it's the game of masters and slaves. Listen to the voice inside yourself. When you smoke hash it's that voice that is set free. And then it's up to you to have the courage to hear what it says.'
The clarity of his vision, impressed upon her when she was sensitised by the hashish, had radically altered her vision; she was indelibly stamped with the power of his worldview. Later she was able to dissemble, the super-ego pointing out that his speech was merely the product of a youthful idealism coupled to extremist thinking, and her id providing the energy for enough guilt to allow her to dismiss the contents of what he said. But the effect worked inside her, beneath all her conscious shufflings. She continued to use both marijuana and hashish and she found her feet pointing more and more in the direction of what was nebulously termed The Movement.
'It's a weird thing to listen to,' said Conrad as he filled the pipe again. They had slumped into their chairs and were enjoying the release of tension throughout the muscles of their bodies; their eyes were already bloodshot, and their pulses raced with the accelerated beat of their hearts.
It's all he plays anymore,' Cynthia said. 'I heard it stoned one night with the earphones on. It was beautiful. It was like Bach and Casals became one person, and the music didn't belong to one or the other, but both of them at the same time. It was as though their souls blended together in the music.' She lapsed into a revery of memory and sound, sinking into the dream that she and Aaron had fashioned from their incom-pletion and need. Conrad spun off into his thoughts, speeding down the ski slopes of his mind in great powdery rushes that distracted him from all external stimuli. They took on the roles of strangers with each other, as impersonal as people in a waiting room, tied together only by the common purpose of attending the same event. It was a precious moment in which communication ceased, and a blessed communion enveloped them.
'You know,' she said, her words distant, 'there's more to Aaron than you might think. Maybe he does wear a suit and has short hair and isn't hip to all the latest movements, but he's really very deep and can be incredibly sensitive. And more than all that, he's a good man. You should go see him at his work sometime. He's the only teacher in the school who cares about the kids.'
T know all that,' said Conrad. T wouldn't have kept coming around if I didn't see what's
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