The rather louche looking pianist is taking a break. He asks the bartender for a whisky, then raises his glass, looking straight into my eyes, as well as he can in his present state. Dressed in a psychedelic waistcoat, frilly shirt and too much aftershave, he has the slightly overripe look of a wilting orchid. I can see he doesn’t fancy me as soon as I realise he is gay. Glad that is out of the way. He has the slightly skewed look of several previous whiskies; his eyes show the residue of a line of coke, and he smells like he’s just smoked a joint. The bartender, who is a They, has already told me the pianist is a Xim.
XIM-“None of this is reality”. He waves his arm, encompassing the other five customers in this pointless late night wine bar, where only the 3am desperate drink.
.ME (not a pronoun- me as in me)-“Really? What do you mean by reality?”
XIM-“Reality is not what it used to be. Turns out reality isn’t actually real. We’ve all been duped. Science is just another religion. Reality is in fact an illusion, and until very recently it was constructed by white men in suits. For centuries, the stupid, ill-informed and often pathetically naïve populace just took this reality stuff for granted. They aspired to it, ffs. The slow decay of the Church after the Renaissance turned things upside down. Burning witches started to look a bit naïve and stupid. But now what were we supposed to believe? You have to believe in something, surely, or life is just a meaningless and increasingly degrading trudge towards a hole in the ground or an incinerator. We got to have a reason. There’s not been much to hang your convictions on since Jesus lost his mojo. Buddhism? A bit passe. Marxism? Enervating perhaps, and a great way of getting rid of anger, but it doesn’t seem to satisfy any spiritual function. I’ve yet to meet a beatific socialist.”
ME-“But you’re a socialist?”
XIM-“How did you know that? And so what? How can you be spiritual in a world of exploitation? Besides which, Marxism has never been done properly yet. Too many egos.”
ME-“Maybe it can’t be done ‘properly’ ”
XIM-“Everything can be done properly, if the right people are doing it.”
ME-“So what does all this have to do with reality?”
XIM-“Science has a lot to live up to as the saviour of the human race. Most scientists are white male heterosexuals. Except Alan Turing, and look what happened to him. And he was still white and male, he just just didn’t follow the rules, which had nothing to do with science, and everything to do with heterosexual white supremacy. Science is shit. It doesn’t provide succour. You want me to believe that gravity sucks? What you have to go and tell me that shit for? Personally, I’d rather go to Heaven than know about black holes. What of the spiritual needs of those of us who totally rejected superstition in favour of this new alchemy? We just have to accept this logical ‘scientific’ interpretation of life, the universe and everything? We can’t understand the texts outside our narrow area of expertise or understanding, so science has surely become just another faith? Yeah, perhaps it does make things more coherent. It provides context. It generates wonder, but it doesn’t supply meaning. Individual life seems rather futile in the universe of the big bang.”
ME-“So you reject reality?”
XIM-“Yeah. Fuck reality. I’ve signed up for “My Truth”. And if you don’t accept that, you’re an heretic, because my truth trumps yours. You seem like a conservative. Cunt.”