The Sleep of Reason
(This is another extract from my semi-autobiographical novel, The Life of Henry Fuckit.)
"You know, two months ago I too would have been incontinent with laughter at this buffoonery." Henry shook his head ruefully. "But I seem to be losing my sense of humour, and it worries me. Instead of laughing at the idiotic antics of my colleagues, I gasp in fear. The future is beginning to terrify me. I ask myself, is this what I have to look forward to, day in and day out, year after year? Is this all there is? I try to tell myself that this is merely an interlude, and my life will change and become charged with meaning and interest. But I know I'm lying. Apart from the odd extraneous detail nothing will alter. This is the pattern, to be repeated over and over." He slumped forward on the desk, head on hands, a picture of dejection.
"Haw-haw, ho-haw!" Schroder's sudden loud laugh was quite different to his donkey mirth. That was "Hee-haw-haw, hee-haw-haw-haw!" Henry flinched and raised his head.
"For Christ's sake. Now what?"
"Sorry, but you look just like the poor bugger in one of Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos aquatints. Maybe you know it. Number 43. The Sleep of Reason."
Henry sat up. "La fantasia abandonada de la razon, produce monstruos impossibles. Do I know it, you ask me? My mate, all eighty of them are engraved upon my imagination. They have been catalogued and neatly stored in the archives of my memory, awaiting effortless retrieval at the twitch of a nerve. Certainly, I know it, and it does indeed seem rather apposite right at the moment." He already looked brighter, and as the seconds passed, he became increasingly animated and cheerful. It was as if the mention of Goya's drawing had acted as a catalyst in his brain, causing a large quantity of neurotransmitter to be released. Now his head was abuzz with fusillades and barrages of synaptic firing, and he was suffused with a feeling of alertness and euphoria. This was better than amphetamines. Who needs Benzedrine when there's Goya?
"Yes," Schroder was looking at Henry with guarded interest. This fellow might turn out to be more of a hindrance than a help if his better qualities couldn't be harnessed. "'Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters.' The weird owl-bats and that huge cat. I suppose it's a cat. But imagination allied with reason is the source of great wonders. I think we might have stumbled upon something here, young Fuckit. A rampant imagination, undirected and undisciplined, might be what you're suffering from."
"You think so, do you?" Henry was quite prepared to discuss his malaise and its origins. "You might be right, Sigmund. I must admit to spending much of my life in a world of fantasy. I always have, as far back as I can remember. It's probably the reason why I'm such a misfit in the real world where one is required to 'work for a living'. I can see from your general demeanour that you're about to make a recommendation. How do you suggest I get my imagination under control? Has it anything to do with quantum mechanics?”
Schroder grinned toothily and admitted his thoughts were camped in that area. But he needed more time to formulate his ideas.
"Anyway," he said, "it's already Thursday and there's no point in starting something so important right at the end of a week." He rose to his feet and Henry reluctantly followed his example. "Have a nice restful weekend and we can start fresh on Monday".
As he made his way back to the Verification Office he could feel the exuberance, burning fiercely only a few minutes ago, beginning to gutter and die down. He resolved to take the train to Cape Town on Saturday morning and visit the art library. He was in need of stimulation.
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