Leaders

We’ve always needed a leader, W. and I agree. When we did we first decide that? Around the turn of the millennium. We were in Poland, in a big public square and it became very clear to us: we needed a leader, someone to inspire us and force us to work more. Someone to make us capable of more than we could accomplish on our own.

For his part, W. has always dreamt of being part of a pack. Friendship is very important to W.: you are to work together, to strive together, to force each other on. Friendship involves a lot of nagging, W. explains, which is why he’s so merciless with me. It’s a sign of love, he says, my nagging. But a leader, that’s what we really need, he says.

In truth, we have found several leaders. The first, far cleverer than us, far more serious, wrote a book we admired. We spoke alongside him once and were the dull panels of a tiptych. We were there only to make him shine, we agreed. It was enough to be close to our leader. But then the disaster happened, W. remembers. We told him, didn’t we?, we told him he was our leader. I remember it too. It was in a pub in Greenwich. That’s where it all went wrong. We scared him off. After that, we resolved never to tell our leaders they were our leaders, but we could never help it.

It was on another occasion in Greenwich, at another Greenwich pub that the same thing happened with our second leader. Which one of us blurted it out?, W. asks, you or me? Regardless, the spell was broken. We panicked our second would-be leader who found us worrying. He was a modest man, I remember. Greatly modest, says W., and with a deep seriousness we entirely lack. We scared him off, we agree.

And then the third leader. Ah, the third leader!, W. exclaims, the greatest one of all. We brought him half way round the world!, I say. We thought we’d justified our lives, that this was it, our high point. And what happened?, W. asks, knowing what happened. We told him all we wanted was a leader and to be led, I remember. We told him about our first leader and our second leader, and our desertion by our first leader and our second leader. Our third would-be leader was not as easily scared. But I think he wanted peers, not disciplines. Where is he now?, says W. On the other side of the world, far away from us, sensible man.