Words Are Empty Quotes

There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.

But depression wasn't the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn't he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells await them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbors and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and travelled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were. But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten from top to bottom.

God is alive; Magic is afoot God is alive; Magic is afoot God is afoot; Magic is alive Alive is afoot..... Magic never died. God never sickened; Many poor men lied Many sick men lied Magic never weakened Magic never hid Magic always ruled God is afoot God never died. God was ruler Though his funeral lengthened Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live Though his words were twisted The naked Magic thrived Though his death was published Round and round the world The heart did not believe Many hurt men wondered Many struck men bled Magic never faltered Magic always led. Many stones were rolled But God would not lie down Many wild men lied Many fat men listened Though they offered stones Magic still was fed Though they locked their coffers God was always served. Magic is afoot. God rules. Alive is afoot. Alive is in command. Many weak men hungered Many strong men thrived Though they boasted solitude God was at their side Nor the dreamer in his cell Nor the captain on the hill Magic is alive Though his death was pardoned Round and round the world The heart did not believe. Though laws were carved in marble They could not shelter men Though altars built in parliaments They could not order men Police arrested Magic And Magic went with them, For Magic loves the hungry. But Magic would not tarry It moves from arm to arm It would not stay with them Magic is afoot It cannot come to harm It rests in an empty palm It spawns in an empty mind But Magic is no instrument Magic is the end. Many men drove Magic But Magic stayed behind Many strong men lied They only passed through Magic And out the other side Many weak men lied They came to God in secret And though they left him nourished They would not say who healed Though mountains danced before them They said that God was dead Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live This I mean to whisper to my mind This I mean to laugh with in my mind This I mean my mind to serve 'til Service is but Magic Moving through the world And mind itself is Magic Coursing through the flesh And flesh itself is Magic Dancing on a clock And time itself the magic length of God.

In fact, I’ve always had a fondness for seaside towns, particularly out of season when the streets are empty and the sky is grey and drizzling. At the time when I was reading Hornblower, my parents would often go to the South of France but they would send me, my sister and my nanny to Instow in Devonshire and the whole language of the British seaside has stayed with me. I love the sand dunes, the slot machines, the piers, the seagulls, the peppermint rock with the name printed, impossibly, all the way through. I have a hankering for the cafés and the tea shops, old ladies pouring muddy tea out of pots, slabs of millionaire shortbread, shops that sell fishing nets, windbreaks and novelty hats. I suppose it’s the age I am. These days, everyone leaps on a plane when they want a cheap holiday. But that’s also part of the charm of all those little towns along the coast, the fact that they’ve been left behind.