It’s real fucking simple. I’m not against your fucking Jesus Christ; I don’t give a crap about your fucking Jesus Christ. All I give a crap about is the old woman who’s sitting down in her son’s house in Iraq trying to get some fucking food in her stomach when the shrapnel comes in her son’s house and fucks up the whole house (and guess who else in the process?). It is because of this woman that I have created the Anti-Christ movement. If the Anti-Christ was on earth, woman-in-son’s-house-trying-to-get-some-fucking-food-in-her-stomach wouldn’t be dead.
Have you heard of the Tower of Babel? Hmm? You Christian fanatics woulda heard about it. You know, before I continue, I have to remark here about the coolness of the bible as a book. Just as a book, not a religious book. It’s a great book; that is without the divine and prophetic crap. It’s a really wise book inspired by the struggles of the Jewish people. Some people have gone as far as to say that it is the most complete book of history that the Jewish people have. I think I agree. Without the bible, and its cool quips, the Jewish people would probably be one of the most fucked up races of all time. Ironically, their history kinda quotes them as being one of the most fucked up races in the world. You know, Egypt and shit.
Off that. So the Tower of Babel. So once again the people of the world were misbehaving and God got pissed. God said to them go build a fucking tower in Babel, but truly, he wasn’t really fucking specific about the height. But whatever. The people got creative with the shit and thought “Oh my Yahweh, why not build the tower so high that it reaches heaven?” So God was pissed. He was thinking, “These fucking cocksuckers, they’re gonna get to heaven before they’re supposed to.” So he fucked them up and punished them by dividing them up at the Tower of Babel and by making them speak different languages.
I mean, we hear this story in Sunday school and the other kids go “Oooohhhh. Aaaaaahhhh. He punished them. Ooooohhhhh.” I’m fucking thinking “Why is that a punishment? He made them speak different languages, so what?” You wanna know why it’s a punishment? It’s because today, the product of different languages, countries and nationalities, is the main cause of war all over the world. God, Yahweh, Mr. Fantastic, Mr. Know-It-All, knew that this would be the product. We would not be able to “understand” each other, and we would fight amongst ourselves.
Women-in-son’s-houses-trying-to-get-some-fucking-food-in-their-stomachs would continue to be killed century in century out.
That’s why it was a punishment. So all you ”Ooooohhhhh-ers” and “Aaaaaaaahhhhhh-ers” in Sunday school, shut the fuck up and get your fucking mood dampened already. Nation. Nationality. War. More war. Why did George Bush go to Iraq? Because they had oil and America didn’t. But if we were under the banner of the “Anti-Christ”, or more literally, a President of the world, Iraq’s oil would be America’s oil, and America’s zero-natural-resources would be Iraq’s zero-natural-resources.
The advent of nations and nationalities has poisoned the human race immensely. We have become filled with hate. We instinctively don’t like the other guy. Ever get that feeling when other people are conversing in another language, that they’re speaking of you? Because you’re the odd one out? Because you can’t speak their language? They laugh and you just know that they’re insulting you? The motherfuckers, right? That’s your fucking ego talking. I’m different, you’re thinking. Fuck them. In my country, we have girls with large firm backsides. So fuck them. This is the fucking ego that we acquired with the advent of nationalities.
Take all those fucking egos and multiply them by 50 million at least. Then we have come to the national level. The country-level. Countries are so fucking proud. So fucking arrogant. Hey, hey! Ahmajinedad, what the fuck you doing with nuclear technology? We the only ones supposed to have that! Stop playing with shit that’s bigger than you boy! Say what? Fuck us? Nah Nah Fuck you!
World War Three Starts. Or Cold War Two. I’ve always wanted the Cold War to have a sequel.
So what the fuck am I talking about? The Anti-Christ? Most of you are thinking. “This dude done lost his mind.” And I’m not gonna say I wouldn’t blame you; igna’ant motherfuckers. The minority understands what I’m talking about. The Anti-Christ is meant to bring world peace, but the books and prophets don’t say how. But they also tell us that he will be ruler over the entire world. It is for this reason that Christian fanatics are so fucking scared about the progress that organizations like the EU and the AU are making. They are scared that the world is getting smaller, and real soon, we will be under one banner, and the Anti-Christ will have his allotted time.
I’m not scared, because I don’t believe in that bullshit. But I am excited at the idea of a leader of the world. A world where there’s only one country. A world where there wouldn’t need to be wars because if we’re all under the same banner, then who the fuck are we fighting? You get my point now? We need an Anti-Christ to put an end to all these senseless, exploitative wars. We need an Anti-Christ to end the murder of helpless, unarmed kids, and women, and pregnant women, and people in advanced years. We need an Anti-Christ to bring world peace.
That’s how the Anti-Christ that they tell us of in church was meant to bring world peace. He wasn’t gonna come here, stand on a rickety boat in the middle of the Pacific, do a Jesus, and say “Peace be still.” Nah. He was just gonna remove boundaries and nationalities and reverse the punishment given to us at the Tower of Babel.
Have you seen them kids? Them kids in Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, Lebanon, Palestinian kids, all those kids. Have you seen them? The fire of life in their eyes is extinguished. They don’t give a fuck no more. They seem to have the knowledge that they’re never going to make a good life for themselves. They’ve given up. And now I’m gonna say I wouldn’t blame them. You got no parents, no shelter, no food, no siblings, no clothes, no education, your government isn’t helping you, the economic and political infrastructure in your country is non-existent, and even if you worked hard you ain’t getting shit. What the fuck do you expect such a kid to do? See you and NOT rape you? See you and NOT rob you? We all hate the Somali pirates because they take shit that ain’t theirs and they kill people. Man, what they’re doing will never be enough to counterbalance what’s been done to them.
We complain and complain about these by-products of war, but nah, why not let the war go on? I’m very fucking pissed about it. Until the shrapnel comes into your own house, you don’t care about it.
Think about it. Are you a mother? A father? Do you have siblings? Do you fucking love yourself? Think about it. Motherfuckers blow up your house just because you’re a fucking Nigerian. Your country don’t give a fuck, and it’s because of them they blew up your house in the fucking first place. You’ve lost everything; you’re a refugee. The only things you get are the things that get handed to you or the things you steal. All this misfortune jumping out the shadows attacking you, and it’s not even your fucking fault. Think about it. It don’t gotta come to your doorstep before you can imagine the pain, anger, depression and helplessness that the victims of war feel.
Dude. Just fucking imagine what would happen to you if war came to Nigeria. They don’t give a fuck now; imagine how much they’d give a fuck if war came here. Ask the fucking Ibos of the Biafran war. Dude.
You think it’s just something you see on TV. The fly stuck on that kid’s mouth, following him around as he manages to eat his first meal of the week. Charity organizations putting a number for you to call up on TV right under the mouth with the loyal fly. You think these people are kidding? You think it’s a fucking joke? You think it can’t come to you where you are? Even if you’re not thinking about these people, think about yourself motherfucker. Think about yourself.
This is the Anti-Christ movement. I don’t give a fuck about this movement seeing the light of day, I just hope it gets you to think. I want you to see that I’m prepared to float the banner of the Anti-Christ and get a stake driven through my heart and earn the hate of billions of people just to stop these endless, useless wars. I hope this inspires you to do something. Even if you’re not thinking about these people, think about yourself. Think for a fucking second. Think about yourself and support the Anti-Christ movement.
World peace.
P.S: I am not the Anti-Christ. I know, I know; you’re disappointed. But according to the myths, if I was the Anti-Christ, I’d be totally way more handsome than I am. World peace.
Aiight, aiight. I’m in Kalakuta Republic now. Just chilling. Just chilling.
Aiight, aiight. Back up. Back up.
Back up to what?
That’s a very good question.
Back up to what?
I haven’t smoked any weed in three days now; three days and running. It’s fucking tearing me inside out. I have found myself in this weird calm. A raging calm; a calm filled with anger. As the more colloquial would say, the calm before the storm.
Back up to what?
I can’t even remember how the fuck I got to this fucking place. Whenever I try to remember, it’s just a blur. It seems the blurriness of my past is even affecting my present. Everything in my present seems to shimmer. Like they’re not really there. Like they can disappear at any time. I made some new friends and whenever I see them it’s like I just met them for the first time. When we’ve established that we’ve been hanging out for a while, I ask them in my head, “How the fuck did you get here? What the fuck you doing talking to me? Do you even know who I am? Maybe you’ve mistaken me for someone else. What the fuck are you doing here with me?”
The lack of a past removes the possibility of any future. You’ll just be moving from present to present. No discernible future. Your life becomes foggy. You can’t see in any direction; backwards or forwards.
What am I doing? What the fuck am I doing? I’m unconsciously consciously undoing all the hard work I’ve put in this last year. I’m fucking up my own glory myself. I’m my own hater. I’m my own enemy. I hate myself for having more than I have. I hate the fact that I’m shining and I have to bring me down. I’m jealous of myself so I have to do all in my power to fuck myself up.
This is, I think, the higher road to suicide. There are those hater fucks that hate their lives because they don’t have shit. They see everyone around them stunting and they’re so fucking full of hate. Like who the fuck does that guy think he is? Who the fuck does that girl think she is? I can’t take their smugness anymore. And they fucking kill the other guy (Literally or metaphorically; as it pleases you).
I’m my own other guy.
If I ever kill myself it will not be out of pity and depression about my fucked up life. It will be because I hate myself. I hate what I can be and what I have been. I’m jealous of myself because I am no longer myself.
Perhaps that is why suicide is against the law. Maybe that’s why it can be simultaneously seen as murder of one’s self. You kill a dude out of spite. You hate him. He fucked with you, fucked you up, whatever. You just wanna take the breath from that motherfucker. You have no fucking right, whatever the motherfucker did to you. That’s murder. That’s against the law. But why should suicide be against the law? It’s your own life. You’re the one living it, so why shouldn’t you be the one to end it?
It’s against the law because you’re doing the same thing as the murderer I just described. The only difference is that the other guy is you.
Them leave sorrow, tears, and blood.
(Them regular trademark)
[Sorrow, Tears, and Blood by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti]
Yeah.
Sorrow, tears, and blood.
Those things blaze the trail ahead of me. My sorrow and my parents’ sorrow over me. My parents’ tears. The tainting of their blood. The blood I bleed from myself every day, fucking with myself.
My regular trademark.
When your parents and your friends feel like it’s time to give up on you, then you are truly fucked.
Fucked-up-ness becomes your, well, regular trademark.
In the blur of the past few months, I have totally fucked myself. I can’t see the cause in the blur, but in every shimmering present tense that I find myself, I can see the effect. It’s like the world in Resident Evil, the scene I see.
And this is the only time I can see it; the calm before the storm. The winds have fucked themselves and there’s been gestation and all that fucking bullshit and the chic wind is now in labour. Very soon their child, the storm, will be born. Is it going to be a bad storm like Hitler (to the Jews anyway) or is it gonna be a good storm like the chocolaty tasty slickness of M&Ms?
Who the fuck cares? No one but me.
And that’s why I’ve dropped so low that I’ve come to be in this hell. Even in this Dante’s Inferno, I have worked my way to the ninth level.
Because who the fuck cares? No one but me. And I don’t give a fuck.
I still don’t know if I give two.
But I think that’s the factor that’s gonna decide whether I get Hurricane Hitler or Hurricane M&Ms.
Thing is, it’s still a hurricane. Whether it’s good or bad, there’s still gonna be damage. It is inescapable. There’s no motherfucker that’s gonna wake up on a rickety boat and say “Peace be still.” There’s nothing like that.
There’s still gonna be some damage even if I change my ways now; because, this time, I fucked up for real. I fucked up real fucking bad.
In the calm of the storm, we prepare for the storm. There’s no running away from it now. What we do to prepare decides whether the storm smashes us the fuck up, or whether we ride the storm to the shores of paradise.
*The name “Silver Surfer” comes to mind.
Ok so there’s a lot of expectation from me in my house. From my parents especially. Today they sat me down and grilled me about my “poor” GPA average. If you were an unbiased spectator and you looked at my academic record, you’d say “Hey, that’s about right.” But they’re looking at it from the inside. They know why I failed every time I failed. They were there for those academic triumphs that I made against all odds, and above all my peers.
So they know I’m no dullard.
Which is just the worst thing ever. I wish they thought I was a fucking dumbass. They expect from me, every fucking time, nothing less than an A. Man you should have seen them after my first semester. I get ONE fucking A minus and they’re wrinkling their noses, making faces and asking “Why did you get an A minus? Why couldn’t you get an A?” Like what the fuck? I’m thinking “You guys are lucky I’m getting any fucking A’s at all.”
But it’s like they can read my thoughts and they say to me – “Your education is not for us, it’s for you.” Yeah, right. It’s for me. If it was for me, then wouldn’t I kinda like it? Wouldn’t I kinda wanna pass? If it was for me would I play ‘Bubble gum, bubble gum’ to choose my major?
No.
I know my academic record is pretty fucked up. I made really silly mistakes that if avoided, could easily add about a 0.5 to my GPA average. Mistakes like forgetting to go for a final exam and getting a B instead of an A. Mixing up final exam dates and missing two final exams; one B and one C instead of two potential A’s. Telling my teacher to go fuck herself; getting an F instead of a sure A. Taking Hyman, Hansen, Adi, and Taiwo in the same semester against all reasonable advice (including the advice of a professor come to think of it). I’ve made many stupid mistakes which if avoided, could have made me a potential candidate for valedictorian; in the league of the geeks. (By the way, I swear I don’t mean to be rude, but if you wanna be valedictorian easily, try doing CMD or skip a few semesters and graduate with the Spring 2009ers. They’re not too er...bright. To my knowledge.)
But imagine a geek with my mistakes. Fuck. They would be so pissed with themselves if they were me. It’s almost like failing on purpose to them. It’s not like something they couldn’t control happened. They made these mistakes; they’d be furious with themselves. I know this; I know a few school geeks.
But really, I don’t fucking care. My academic transcript makes me a little-bit-above-average student at best. But I don’t fucking care. For me, it doesn’t take a 4.0 GPA for me to know that you’re clever, or you’re smart (although they are kinda related), and it also doesn’t take me getting a 4.0 GPA for me to feel good about myself. Fuck that shit.
But the expectation in my house. Fuck. Today my father said what they’ve been saying since I left secondary school – “If I knew you couldn’t do it, then I wouldn’t ask it of you. But I know that you can do it!”
Fucking hell. I don’t mean anything by this, but my sister brings home a grade report equally as considerably-more-than-average as me but does she get any shit? Nope. She was a smart ass in primary school! Ok maybe she dropped a little in secondary school, but she is far from average! There was like one A on her grade report. If that was me, fucking hell, all of Lagos would know how big a disappointment I am, how much I’m giving in to peer pressure, how much I don’t appreciate what my parents are doing for me, how much I’ve become such a bad boy. And it’s all because they know I can do it.
I hate it when someone tells me that they know I can do it. And it’s not just my parents that tell me. I hate it to damn hell. Fuck. How do you know I can do it? Are you in my fucking head? What the fuck?
One time I came back home and I got a B plus in Econometrics and my parents ask me again “Why did you get a B plus?” I go “It was hard!” And they go “That’s just an excuse.” With the implied I-know-you-can-do-it.
IT WAS FUCKING HARD!!!!!!!
Jesus H. Christ.
Fucking hell. I’m tired of the high expectations.
One of my professors, Professor Hyman, asked me why I keep fucking up all his classes and I told him very truthfully that it was because he rarely tests his students. Two out of three of the Hyman courses I took, the method of grading was just a final paper due at the end of the semester. I told him I was not to be trusted with such freedom. Just come to class, sit down, listen to bullshit, say bullshit, and turn in a paper after three months, I’m bound to run wild. Because my mind was never here in the first place, I never wanted to be here. Bongo Adi for instance gave us tests like every two weeks. I had to sit my ass up in his class. I mean look at it, the lowest I ever got in a Bongo Adi class is an A minus. And that was only one out of five times. In Hyman, I’ve got a B plus, An F, A WP, and another WP (sort of).
Do you know why Professor Hyman gave me my last WP? I was the only one that he gave in the whole class.
Come on. Try. Guess. Look at the title of the damn post.
Because he knew I could do it.
FUCKING HELL.
And I’ve still not done it by the way. I’m supposed to turn in the paper on Monday and I haven’t got past the introduction. I even have cheats.
Man, I agree with my parents. Maybe I have the potential. I’m in class sometimes and the teacher says something and some students are still asking “What?” while I got the shit already. The class becomes boring. I guess it’s a gift. But I just can’t put in the study time. So I guess it still boils down to the same fucking thing. I CAN’T FUCKING DO IT.
I’m a dumbass. I can’t do it.
I’m not a dumbass but I’m lazy. I still can’t do it.
It’s the same fucking thing. Fuck. Call me a dumbass. I DON’T FUCKING CARE!
This school shit, it’s not for me. I don’t want to be here. I used to hate Professor Hyman, but we had a little talk about this, and he was totally cool about my extra-curricular life goals. And he was totally honest with me. He said he’d fail me if I failed.
I like him now by the way, cc @ O.O.
And that’s all I want. Fail me if I fail. But don’t call me to the side and tell me I coulda passed.
DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT ALREADY?????!!!!!
Fuck. I failed means that I failed.
I know I can’t do it.
But you know I can do it.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I TOLD YOU I CAN’T DO IT!!!!!!
Fuck. I’m me. Are you me?
Jesus H. Christ.
I know I can’t do it. But I have to do it. The best I’ve done is the Dean’s list. It’s very fucking annoying by the way. The Dean’s list is from 3.51 to 3.75 and the President’s list is 3.76 to 4.0. I’m always riding 3.75. It’s so fucking annoying. At least like a 3.755 and an approximation or sumin.
Anyway, 3.75 is the best, but my parents want a 4.0 on the fucking dot this semester. And it’s not like I have the easiest combination of courses ever. But they don’t care about that. I’m a shredder that they pump cash into every semester. They don’t care about that. I have to shred their cash in a 4.0 manner. That’s all they wanna see.
Come on mummy. Come on daddy. I know I can’t do it.
But you know I can.
So I guess I have to. You know there are these things that human beings do that they never knew they could do? When you see my name of the President’s list, just imagine an avatar next to it depicting me with my mouth open, and that surprised look on my face. Like “Wow! I’m a Jedi!” Yeah, that kind of surprise.
I just want all this pressure off my back. Everybody expects me to be top notch. The only way to remove pressure is to fail woefully, or do what people expect of you. You can’t be in the middle. People will always tell you they know you can do better. If you fail woefully, they’ll be like “Hmmm. Perhaps I was wrong.” And they’ll leave you the fuck alone.
But fail woefully? Nah. Are you fucking kidding me? I have to be able to get into a school for my master’s abroad and leave this fucking country.
But I still want the pressure off my back. It makes coming home, in Lagos, the city of cities, unbearable. It makes me squabble with my family and sometimes hate them. It makes them hate me all the time. It just fucks up my vacation every fucking time.
So I have to do what I know I can’t do, but what you know I can do. Just to get a little peace in my fucking life.
“Hey Bode, I know you can do it.”
Yeah yeah yeah.
Yeah.
Have you ever heard of Nonesuch Palace? I don’t think so.
It was Henry the Eighth’s brainchild. His pet project. His more artistic contribution to history. It was built with so much grandeur, flash, and art; and that was why Henry the Eighth called it Nonesuch Palace. There was none such palace built before him and there would be none such palace built after him. That was his reasoning and intent. That was his reason for choosing the name.
Funny that his cousin and heir’s grandson’s wife should raise it to the ground almost a century later; for cash. For centuries she ensured that Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace was just a rumour. She made sure, till 1959, that there was none such palace in the memory of the world.
But that is how it is meant to be.
Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace wasn’t for England, Scotland, or Ireland. It wasn’t meant to be revered by the great realms of Spain, Italy, or France. It wasn’t meant to be passed down through his heirs to Queen Elizabeth the Second. It wasn’t meant for you or me. It was meant for him.
Fact is, it was built to rival the French King, Francis the First’s palace.
Rumour is, it was built to be King Henry the Eighth’s solace. The one place he could go and put up a banner that said “Fuck the world.” That’s why it was meant for him and him alone. And that’s why that gambling bitch, Barbara Villiers, who raised it to the ground, did him a favour.
Nonesuch Palace. None such palace ever built and none such palace in the memory of the world. These two conflicting, yet complementary ideas form such a brilliant ambiguity that I don’t think can be found in such a short phrase ever again.
There’s this place I go when I’m tired of the world. It’s a land in my imagination. I can stay there for hours just lying down on my bed smiling at the ceiling. It’s kinda like that thing in that movie Avatar. My body’s here, but my soul is there. In this place, I have everything I want. I do everything I want to do, and perhaps everyone I want to do. There is no anger, hate, confusion or any other dark emotion in this place. But there is jealousy; from others toward me. But even that is in short supply because in this world, I gather only those that can make me happy around me. Here I am invincible. Here, I am not a king, I am THE king. Here all problems are solved. Here, I am at peace.
Here is in the future; for there is nothing that resembles such serenity in my life in the present.
I go there all the time. More than you think. I’ve been doing this for at least a decade. I could be talking to you here, but dude I’m really there. I used to be ashamed of it, and I have never spoken to anyone of it. But now that I have learnt of Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace, I find that I can give this place in my mind a name. For truly, there is none such palace or place in the world.
It is not in the world, it is in my mind. Even in the world of minds, there is none such palace in the world.
This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.
- Philip Larkin.
Be the wood. Be the log of wood. Close your eyes and open up all your other senses. Your hearing, your feel, your taste, and your smelling. Be the log of wood and close your eyes. Hear the rush of the wind as the axe comes down with furious velocity. Feel the wind as it breaks on your skin; your bark. Taste the little pieces of wood scattering from the brunt of the axe as they fall into your mouth. Smell the pain of the blow before it hits you. Close your eyes and be the log of wood. Then let the axe hit you; don’t move. Feel the force and the pain. Hear the sound of the axe hitting your bark. Taste the pain; smell your fear and smell the pleasure of the axe. Lastly feel the waves of the blow as they reverberate through you. Be the log of wood. Feel those semi-circular waves as they move semi-concentrically and very slowly from the point where the axe hits you, through your body. Feel the waves as they are conducted atom by atom through your body. Feel the echo from that one blow. Be the log of wood.
In my Nonesuch Palace, I ride on that echo. And as I pass through my body, atom by atom, riding on the waves of the force of the blow of the axe, like the Silver Surfer, I can control what I feel. I can control what happens, I can control what happens to me and what happens to you. I can make the weather whatever I want it to be. I can wear whatever I want. I can buy whatever I want. I can say whatever the fuck I want to say. I can murder and I can steal. I can bring back to life and I can give back. I can be wherever I want to be. I can create life and I can take it away. I can make you beautiful or I can make you ugly. As my pleasure commands.
I can do anything I want to do as I ride the waves. I can be wherever I want. I can. Only in this place; only in Nonesuch Palace. Time is nothing here because of that echo. Generations of shit can happen in one-normal-world-hour in Nonesuch Palace. It is a place of impossible timeless possibilities.
And there is always the theme music. There is always music. As I move through this extra-dimensional world like Doctor Who, riding waves that even I can’t see, I raise my hands to a sky that I can’t see and I close my eyes giving myself into the theme music. Tapping from its power and doing all that I want to do. Tapping from its power and keeping at bay all those forces of evil that are threatening to break through the barrier of my mind and fuck me the fuck up.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
From the outside these forces can hear the boom of the baseline and they back the fuck off. They know that if they enter they will be absorbed through the villa of my walls as easily as I can kill an ant. To fight with me in Nonesuch Palace would be as impossible as a paraplegic killing an ant.
It is needless to say that almost every time I am in Nonesuch Palace, I am high.
It is a world-proof place. Problem-proof. People-proof. Drama-proof. Religion-proof. Depression-proof.
The ironic thing is that it is the world, and problems, and people, and drama, and religion, and depression, that push me into this place.
When I go to Nonesuch Palace, I am lonely, depressed, ravaged by my problems and fucked up beyond reason. It is a solace most needed, and it was built for that purpose only.
Let me give you an example. Yesterday, there came up this depressing topic in my house. Whenever we talk about it, it always leaves me under pressure and depressed. It gets me thinking about how fucked up everything is, and how it has to be me that has to turn all this shit around. It puts me figuratively six feet under the ground. No coffin and alive. No sleep and choking and choking on the sand that fills my body until my body is full of sand and the sand cannot enter my body anymore. All the holes in my body are plugged with sand. I cannot move and I have become part of the earth.
So I procure some weed, I smoke for a while and then I come back home.
I’m back home and everything is depressing still. They are still talking about that depressing thing, but now I cannot hear them. Maybe I hear their words, but their words do not sink in, and for all intents and purposes, it means that I cannot hear them. If I cannot hear them, I cannot be depressed and I find myself smiling in a house where everybody else is depressed and frowning. I am protected by the walls of my Nonesuch Palace. By all the scenarios I imagine and the boom of the baseline of the music that fills the place.
It is a beautiful place.
When I come back, I am a log of wood with an axe stuck in my side. Everything that pushed me into Nonesuch Palace. Loneliness, girl problems, dissatisfaction with my life, family problems, and other such worldly things, they all come rushing back. They gather themselves from all over the place in a whirlpool manner, and gather in one spot to form the sharp, prolonged pain that is the axe in my side.
But every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, and millennium in Nonesuch Palace is worth living to receive that pain. At least it takes the pain away for a while.
I know I am not the only one. There have been millions of us as far back as Henry the Eighth.
That place where you go to rid yourself of all the shit in your life. That place that makes you feel like a dog coming out of the water of life and shaking it all away. That place that numbs the pain of life. That place that gives you serenity and wealth and love and all the things you desire. That place that you have created in your mind.
It is called Nonesuch Palace.
There is and was none such palace like mine and there never will be. There is also none such palace like yours and there never will be.
This is why Nonesuch Palace was meant for Henry the Eighth alone; and even if it was rebuilt, we can never see what he saw in it.
Funny thing was, this Nonesuch Palace that Henry the Eighth built, the greatest, most beautiful and grandest of all his palaces and all palaces, was the one he visited the least. He never really wanted to go there just as I don’t and you don’t. We don’t want to go there because of the reason we go there. We want everything in our life to be good so that we don’t have to go to Nonesuch Palace.
But it will never be so.
So nurture your Nonesuch Palace. Do not be ashamed; bathe it with water and sunlight and let it grow. Because in this life my friend, you will need it.
