death of the investigator or the chief says goodbye — Minus [plus ten]

“You seem better” The bureaucrat said to him. Looking at his colleagues subordinate. “That’s more or less true…The evidence really surprised me and I confirmed that it’s best that we deport the children back to their families” The investigator said. “I am surprised you recommended deporting the children.” The bureaucrat said sadly.

“At this point there is nothing else that can be done. I see quite clearly that things can only go in this direction and it…. In the abnormal run of things, anyway the report is I think clear” The investigator said to bring the useless discussion to an end. The bureaucrat ignored him, and asked after reading the first page. “Why didn’t you become a lawyer rather than police?” He shook his head and replied with “I don’t know, perhaps because I was deluded and thought that I’d be a better lawyer if i was a policeman?” He shrugged. “ Anyway I’ve put in a request for some time off… “ The bureaucrat asked. “ The children aren’t named, is that deliberate?” “Yes, the instructions were quite clear…” The investigator said. “ I see, Normal political agreement then, then, then, have a good holiday…”

After a few more pleasantries the Investigator left… He went to his corner office of the floor below, opened a drawer and takes out a few things to take with him; an address book, a notebook, a partially read copy of Nancy’s The Possibility of a World, which he was enjoying, a phone that had a low charge and pens. He locked away anything important in the drawers and safe. On the wall was a small Miro painting, he was unsure whether to take it, leave it, or come back tomorrow for it. He decided to leave it using it to defer any decisions until later. He thought ‘Perhaps if I never come back, whoever inherits the office will discover that the painting is original and valuable. It would be passed through an auctioneers and someone else would buy it.’ He put everything he needed into the leather bag. And left. He had a few hours to kill before the final meeting, so he walked out into the city, everything felt fine. Life was good but only for those who deserved it like him. He knew he was more or less worthy, doing the things that his masters wanted from him. He was of the select. It was too late to tell the public that they were unworthy and useless. He was of the select and the public was worthless and multiplying continuously and despoiling the world. Stepping over stone paving slabs, past iron railings, besides sleek cars and other vehicles, he wanted to tell them that they were worthless. The world he lived in was full of the desiring machines of humanity, a ferocious enemy of life, of itself and yet also the inventor of so many strange social and political technologies; law, police, rules, asymmetry, symmetry, relations, bureaucracy, electricity and so on. ‘The invariable enemy of Themselves’ some writer had said of humanity and himself. His friends were like that and then tomorrow there was the expectation of walking along the glacier with his Moroccan guide, the crunch of ice beneath his feet, the Australian tree with the Aboriginal explorer explaining the biochemistry, the River Thames upstream of the city with his father who was ignorant of fluid mechanics. The world sinking into despair, those being about to die and those who would remain. So much despair remaining after this job, of the ones selected to suffer. He was bemused to think he was feeling sorry for them. The cynicism dripping from his mouth… “I must leave this place for a while”.

He was walking across the park on the diagonal track. The young people and children, graceful, shiny skins, looking so well, the young people were temporarily better informed than previously, more intelligent, more sexual, but that was probably just his delusion, and the regret of what they were losing. Will they still be here, like this in 2030, 2040, 2050 or will they have to move to refugee camps in the arctic circle? What else would the years bring them, he imagined what he had just done would make things worse for them but better for him. He found himself overthinking and walking beside the closed and deserted gardens. He lent against the iron railing for a short time to listen to what they were saying to one another. They were happy, joyous, bullying, but waiting for them was family, school, university, work always work. Television, computers, travel from home to school and from work to home, and the food was a mere commodity and tasteless like cardboard. And the things they would have to remember all their lives whatever they felt about it. Tables, Music, Poems, ‘wedgewood green soup tureen in the window of the antique shop on antique shop Lehmberg the sweeting bust of the tureen…’ These memories tormented him, how did we end up here? he thought. How could he learn to forget things, the things that he wanted to forget. Becoming flexible. Siding with power. Helping it maintain itself.

In the small towns he was brought up in he imagined children and young people were still brought up more or less as he had been. But in the cities, like the one he was walking home through, everything through the use of science and necessity was like a huge factory, a monster of post-information. What were people doing in this part of the world he thought as he walked out of the park. He remembered the physicist he had spoken to in Cambridge the week before who had said that what she was doing “what we are doing is working out how to implement predictable quantum indeterminacy, so we are very harmless I imagine…” He was confused by the idea of ‘harmless’ as if the concept was separate from the life of the refugee that had existed before the hysicist had put on its white coat. Why didn’t I arrest her? The people I failed to arrest, he thought to himself. Life is made up of missed opportunities. He continued on his way watching a woman pushing a pram with a child, talking to the young soldier about something or probably nothing. As he passed them he wondered, what if the servants counted themselves? Was it Seneca who asked that. What would they make of that these willing slaves. He had a case a few years ago when a servant had murdered a child in. its care and arranged for the husband, her master to take the blame. Arrested, interviewed, She almost got away with it… His face felt dry and dusty, so he wiped it clean. Wishing he had some warm water availabe to wash his face. There was a line of stiffness running down the right side of his back, from his shoulder blade down through the muscles to his hip. Must be where I was hit by the students before they were arrested he thought. They didn’t know they were going to be offered a choice between stone quarries, prisoners or fascist camp guards. Anyway as far as he could see there were simply too many of these people everywhere. Did they count themselves as people of his class counted people? If they counted themselves would it mean anything?

He found himself at the bottom of the road he lived in, the block of flats waiting for him. His obsession passed. His sister had two children, he might see them at christmas he thought. There names, what were there names, he thought. The skills of some, the idiocy of the others. It reminded him of his parents along the river pleased at his profession, at her having children. A thought occured to him, that none of his family had died at home. None of them had been seen dying or found dead in the bed they usually slept of. Beneath duvees or blankets. Rather then vanished, disappeared. Becoming dead. That’s funny he thought as he walked into the small apartment blocks entrance. Somebody on the phone was getting out of their car, they leaned against it, talking, watching him. Becoming dead was like a Kantian categorical imperative, i should be alone when I die, or at least far enough away to mostly vanish, to lie there dead and alone for a few days or weeks… The entrance hall was shades of blue and grey, he took his mail and went up in the lift. Another person followed him into the lift as the doors closed. He was opening the doors of his apartment, thinking of being in the country when… he heard the quiet shots, a long time before he fell onto the floor, a long time before feelining himself shot. He fell thinking, they must have followed me from the office, waiting for the moment when. He tried to stand up, but could not even raise himself up on his elbow, the person who killed him put their foot on his chest and pushed him down. His life was flowing out of him, effortlessly, banally, it didn’t hurt at all. Why was he dying he wondered. He thought he was on their side. When had they decided to kill him? who had killed him. They stepped over him, took his arms and dragged him into his flat onto the rug in front of the sofa. He could see the face of his killer as he was dragged into the apartment. “Why…” He wondered who would find his body as he died. They were saying something as they looked down at his face, he could not hear ….

They assumed that he couldn’t be bothered to attend the final meeting and carried on without him.

The body was found on the carpet, on top of plastic, and on a cement floor. The finders were a boy and girl. Teenage criminals. They broke in through the front door using a software key. The body knew nothing. It, the ex-investigator was already rotting. Questions like; How did they know it was there? Did they know? Why had they broken in to look at the body? Are irrelevant. They were talking. The body had no idea what they were saying. It didn’t know that it had been an investigator. It didn’t know that it had been killed because the mind had chosen to accept harming the wrong person. If the body had remembered… (it was hard (even) for this poorly preserved body, to remember anything because after all so much time had passed.) It was a nice evening and with the newly opened windows (opened by the girl to let the smell out) the noises of the city people and machines entered the room…. Would it rain the body would have wondered, remembering the face of the person who killed them. Did anyone miss him? unlikely. The investigator would have imagined he was killed by the government. He wasn’t. Should we tell them? the young man asked the young women. Yes, anything worth taking before we call them? We’ll telephone them. “Hello, we are at …. there is a dead body on the carpet here.” He said nothing else but the address, we can stay here for 20 minutes. Others came, who eventually carried the body away. Where his body was cut up. used up, eventually burnt, used up. Murdered people should always be burnt, because otherwise they might be found again. They could have frozen the body and cut it into slices, but instead they burnt it up a few days later and all that was left was photos, reports and dust floating in the atmosphere. A few people came to the funeral.