Short Fiction|Cyril Dabydeen Killing Bob We are pilgrims. Our life is a long walk from earth to heaven, -- Vincent Van Gogh
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new countenance or manner in the way he carried himself; the way too he breathed hard, a hissing noise more like it. And the Poet he paid special attention to, as he told his wife. But Evie (Eve, he sometimes called her) balked. Being at the Seminary again, Bob went on about the prospect of all men being good in the search for the golden mean. Universal ethical behaviour, the moral imperative, you bet. Philosopher Kant, d’you say? The Poet would not disagree with him, Bob averred, for life was made up of sensations, the essence of all experience. Empiricism, ah. Evie merely said it was also about the divine as she contemplated the metaphysical, not only the rationalist tied to the ephemeral. Phenomenology, with Schopenhauer mixed in, and not Nietzsche about man’s guilt in not overcoming his limitations! Indeed the students at the Seminary argued back, becoming contentious. Cognitive dissonance, see. Bob insisted that everyone should know about the poet’s place in the world, and about the power of words. Metaphor, dammit! But Evie scoffed. Bob scoffed back at her, like a game they were playing. Their love-call! And wine they drank, in their special moments only. Let those at the Seminary be moralists in their own right as they agreed with Bob, not with Evie, who evoked William Blake once more. Now must everyone view the senses as finite reality, if only in their solipsistic moments? Abstract ideas, d’you see? The students talked on about dualism, alluding to Descartes. Evie, as interlocutor, stirred once more. Prevaricating, demurring. With neologisms, too! Bob allowed his mind to drift back to the poet with emphasis on compassion. Not disillusionment or alienation, you see. “What is art?” Evie shot back. Bob said the reason for appreciating art wasn’t easily apprehended; it was only about what or how one really felt about it. More than just aesthetically? “When does the sublime come into the picture?” Evie baited. “That, ah,” Bob replied. Their going back and forth, from the Seminary--Bob’s favourite place–to home again. Nothing more about art per se? 62
LIJLA Vol.5, No.2 August 2017