What have our lives become?, W. asks. Of course, I never expected anything, W. is clear on that. I'm from another generation to him, we agree, the generation of shit. Nothing to hope for, nothing to expect, so your whole aim in life is to find a warm pocket and survive there like some kind of parasite. Like a tick, W. says, or a leech.
What could I know of friendship, or community?, W. asks. What could I know of politics? Every year he sinks a little further, W. says. Every year he becomes a little more like me. What's it like to expect nothing and hope for nothing?, W. asks.
At the same time, he admires my admantine apocalypticism. It's very cold and pure, he says, like the sky on a winter morning. Your sense of the apocalypse is absolute, he says, you're sure of it. He's not sure of it, he says. He still believes something could save us, though he also knows nothing will save us. He knows nothing will save us, but he feels something will save us, that's the thing.
That's his Messianism, W. says. But there's no Messianism in me whatsoever, W. acknowledges. I'm far beyond that. In me, some process has completed itself, he says. Something, a whole history has been brought to an end. Friendship and community, says W. Politics, all that. What idea do you have of them? You're just a tick, says W., or a leech.
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