The most fundamentally human experience is standing on the train home from an anime convention, the uninterrupted wakefulness of three consecutive days gradually catching up on your mental faculties in fuzzy bursts, when a fistfight breaks out between two blackout drunk passengers in their forties. This is a fact, and you would be forgiven for not feeling fully human if you have not had this or a functionally identical experience. Luckily, you have. Their fellow travelers have formed a circle around them, some cheering on the writhing ball of limbs and fabric as others attempt to halfheartedly pull them apart in flawless, wordless democracy. A modern Pnyx racing through the night with its cargo of human multiplicities. You ask one of the men for some context, whereupon he produces a cloud of aerosolized whisky and unintelligible groans. Your sleep deprived state does not in the least help make sense of the drawn-out sounds wafting over you, but the answer satisfies you nonetheless. Especially once he pushes a can of beer into your hand. It′s unclear whether he′s mistaking you for someone else or is merely offering some kindness to a stranger, but then again, you don′t even know if he knows the two interlocutors, still attempting to intermittently choke each other and keep the contents of their stomachs to themselves, or any of the others in the crowd for that matter. However the web of acquaintance may look, it is of little relevance. Knowledge has always been a rather fatuous material to your mind and you′ll take community over it any day.
A bearded hobo in a robe that might at some point have been a blanket pats you on the back. His gaze is captivatingly intense in its darting leaps and lack of focus, so you indulge him merely staring for a bit. The alcohol digs its steady way through your bloodstream as he finally finishes sizing you up and words begin to bleed from his chipped lips. His wisdom starts out as white noise, but over time your consciousness shifts, and patterns and sentence fragments begin to form in the haze.
″... in medieval Europe, the insane were cast out on ships, right? Narrenschiffe. Ships of fools. Many names, plethora of stories, journeys across flows that to speak of one would need to misunderstand. They′d sail the ocean or local river until they found land again, and along the way, hopefully, a resolution to the tangle of their minds. If they were allowed to dock that is, which they weren′t.″
You finish your beer, but two more have already been handed to you by your fellow sailors and you extend one to the old sage who is currently pointing at his temple.
″Yes, yes you get it. I can see it in your eyes. There′s water in those. Might have been mine at some point. Hard to tell after a while. Now, the boat thing: It wasn′t true at the time. Real ships of fools probably didn′t exist back then. This guy, Foucault, said they did, before he was shouted down by some supercilious bores pointing out that it was just a literary device. They wouldn′t know. Never tasted the salt.″
He spits on the floor to emphasize his point.
″The pedants were right for what meager shit that is worth, but they were right at the expense of not understanding anything. Our world is not a continuation of some bullshit past′s actual events. It′s a continuation of our narratives about the past! The Narrenschiffe didn′t exist, but we live in a history in which they did, right? Would have been ridiculous to demand such an obvious explanation of our fancy Frenchman. They never would have listened. The simple truth is that he was right, and reality was wrong. It′s logical for lunatics to be cast out to sea. It would be unreasonable for it not to have happened.″
A woman in a blanket that might at some point become a coat begins singing over the carcophony a few rows back:
″On an ocean where the sun never sets Amongst a crew whose names the captain forgets They toil and they laugh and they break with the waves As I break bread with them, knowing I′m home I write letters to burn I grow faces to drown All the while cleansed by the light Of a sky without sun Reflecting the sea And the terror of what lies beneath We don′t ever dock but the faces still change And our numbers wax and they wane Everyone drowns and everyone laughs On a journey of circular paths Apotheosis of lies There′s lifeboats aplenty I could leave this strange ocean behind Though I fear if I left I would stumble on land And my journey would start once again″
You nod thoughtfully, noticing that the old man′s words have sped up significantly and acquired a sort of physicality. One sentence ricochets off a seat and smashes the opposing window, some saltwater splashing through.
″We all know it makes sense. Nowhere do you encounter schizophrenics like on public transport. We know where we belong. Journeys of self-discovery are always paralleled by literal journeys. There′s not even a difference once the line between your mind and the world has become so blurred! Never liked that phrase though; journey of self-discovery. There′s a word too many in there. Why discovery? You′re not finding anything. Not like you misplaced it. The self is what′s produced on the journey and the self is nothing but its production, so journey of self is more proper, isn′t it? Trains are ships on land, mad flows and interlocking currents taking you somewhere, to some new city where a bit of your soul may be manufactured!″.
His chant has grown so fast that it can no longer consist of words, but the truth of it is obvious to you now regardless. The image of someone fleeing into an unknown sunset by hopping aboard a cargo train is etched into your mind. Not just lines of flight but lines of freight. Good places for renegades and miscreants beyond the shadow of a doubt but lacking in camaraderie. You look at your drunks again ″we know where we belong″. What self-respecting madman would fail to recognize their crew? Where else is wisdom traded for a warm embrace and a cigarette while punches are traded for nothing at all with chances of winning a tooth or two?
The distinction between peers and piers is purely orthographic after all and around these parts you stick to symbols far more arcane than those an alphabet may offer. Where most find safety in the solid absolute of runes, the mad navigator finds their meaning in flickering shapes and shifting rivulets. The ocean spares no love for permanence.
When police officers enter your sanctum at the next stop to drag out the brawling priests, a seething rage stirs within you. You turn back to your teacher who has fallen asleep and is now slowly dissolving into his seat. While the ships of fools were not allowed to dock, you are forced to. Your people are ripped from their journeys of self, just when they reach their climax. The fascist war machine enters and drags your ship onto shore. There is a reason why trolleys don′t stop as opposed to simply picking their path and following it. A question does not end when it is answered, it starts there and awaits more answers. With fury in your eyes, you throw your arm around one of your crew and speak in trembling tones:
″Remember what they took from you″
The doors close and your temple resumes gliding. You had planned to get off stations ago. You haven′t, and you don′t think you will. The woman in the back starts singing again.
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