"No Voice" // Episode Three

You're listening to I Have No Process. I am your host, Nicholas England. You are about to hear the enigmatic conclusion of our second season, including the very poem that first disclosed the notion of "no voice." Apart from an upcoming bonus episode, which paid members will soon be able to find on our Patreon, we'll be going on what I promise to be a brief hiatus, as our third season will be coming out promptly this summer. There's no monologue this time, so don't get comfortable.

You should have this thought ready to hand against any eventuality. I have seen this often before. Generally, wherever you look, you will find the same things. The histories, ancient, more recent, and modern, are full of them. Cities and households are full of them today. There is nothing new. All is familiar and all short-lived.

I think there are lots of emperors walking the earth these days, and kings and dukes and princes and popes, too, who are descended from peddlers of indulgences and grape baskets, just as, the other way around, there are lots of people down at the hill, suffering and miserable, who are descended by blood in a direct line from the greatest kings and emperors.

Just consider the wonderful succession of kingdoms and empires, from the Assyrians to the Medes, from the Medes to the Persians, from the Persians to the Macedonians, from the Macedonians to the Romans. from the Romans to the Greeks, from the Greeks to the French. And to tell you about the man who's speaking to you, I suspect I might be descended from some rich king or prince of olden times, because you'll never see anyone

who'd rather be a king and rich than me. So I could spread good cheer everywhere and never work and never worry about anything. and pour down gold on my friends and all good and learned men. But I console myself that in the next world I'll be grander than in this one, grander than I dare dream. Drown your own bad luck in such a thought, or a better one, and drink as much as you can, if you can.

Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. He proved incontestably that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds, his lordship's country seat was the most beautiful of mansions, and her ladyship the best of all possible ladyships. It is proved, he used to say, that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose. Our noses were made to carry spectacles,

so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly intended for breeches, and we wear them. Stones were meant for carving and for building houses, and that is why my Lord has a most beautiful house. For the greatest baron in Westphalia ought to have the noblest residence. And since pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all the year round. It follows that those who maintain that all is right talk nonsense. They ought to say that all is for the best.

Well, that's philosophy I've read. And law, and medicine, and I fear theology too, from A to Z. Hard studies all that have cost me dear. And so I sit, poor silly man, no wiser now than when I began. They call me professor and doctor, forsooth, for misleading many an innocent youth these last ten years now, I suppose, pulling them to and fro by the nose. And I see all our search for knowledge is vain, and this burns

my heart with bitter pain. I've more sense, to be sure, than the learned fools, the masters and pastors, the scribes from the schools. No scruples to plague me, no irksome doubt. No hellfire or devil to worry about. Yet I take no pleasure in anything now, for I know I know nothing. I wonder how I can still keep up the pretense of teaching or bettering mankind with my empty preaching. Can I even boast any worldly success? What fame or riches do I possess? No dog would put up with

such an existence. And so I am seeking magic's assistance, calling on spirits and their might to show me many a secret sight, to relieve me of the wretched task of telling things I rather ought to ask, to grant me a vision of nature's forces that bind the world, all its seeds and sources and innermost life. All this I shall see, and stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me. It would do no good for him to say that

the prayer he had made was a father's insane cry for help for his child, even though he knew that no one could hear his cry. In the midst of his despair, he had known what he was doing. He had been tempted, and he had fallen. It was a fall from grace, a fall away from himself and from the idea. It was probably true that tradition had been too strong in his blood. For so many thousands of years, the human race had always cried to heaven in its need. and now he had yielded

to this inherited urge. But he should have resisted it, as if it were an evil instinct, because he knew right to the innermost fibers of his mind that gods were dreams, and that it was a dream he had fled to as soon as he prayed, just as he knew in the old days when he threw himself into the arms of fantasy, that it was fantasy. He had not been able to endure life as it was. He had been in the struggle for greatness, and in the violence of the battle he had forsaken

the banner to which he was sworn. Atheism. The new. Truth's holy cause. What purpose did they all serve? What were they but names of tinsel for the one simple idea, to endure life as it was? Endure life as it was, and let life shape itself according to its own laws.

It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty. No wonder that in old times sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer, such a sweetener, such a softener, such a delicious mollifier. After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels and began, as it were, to serpentine.

and spiralize. As I sat there at my ease cross-legged on the deck, after the bitter exertion at the windless ,under a blue tranquil sky, the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along, as I bathed my hands among those soft gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within the hour, as they richly broke to my fingers and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine, as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, literally and truly like

the smell of spring violets, I declare to you that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow. I forgot all about our horrible oath. In that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it. I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger. While bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill will or petulance or malice of any sort whatsoever. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze all the morning long.

I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it. I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborer's hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.

Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget, that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as much as to say, Oh, my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities or know the slightest ill humor or envy? Come, let us squeeze hands all round. Nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other. Let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

"No Voice." I have no voice. Pushing air out of the flume. I have no age. A watch face with 400 hands. I have no body. Spirits wander over trails feet will never touch. I have no soul. So my soul insists.

"Defined." Let common sense render me common. Let me succeed without striving. Profit by projecting. Wisdom make me wistful. Like a dog who wears a muzzle for another's comfort, I write with gloves on to leave no trace. So keep your chisel ready, that you may hew these silver hairs upon my chin, clip the endless growth of keratin, and cut the cloth I soiled with my odd suggestions. I only kid. The key to my cell was lost ages ago.

"Inheritance." When I came of age, my grandfather took me in his arms and said, "Look at this marvelous thing! Worthy of my sincerest disappointment." Some men die without a will. Others live without one.

"Tithe." Do you want to know how to get the monkey off your back? There are two choices. Either take a knife and plunge it deep into your heart, or forsake the village. Some have learned to carry the weight of the elders.

"Strike." A Louisville slugger stands at the frontmost corner of our apartment, tucked behind the rusted, paint-speckled hinges of the bolt-latched door. The bat's barrel kisses the floor. Its knob rests hip-high upon the odd crevice notched between the closet and the entryway. The shillelagh addles many who enter, once they turn about and scan the stuff that shows what kind of people we are. "What's the bat for?" they ask. "Self-defense," I reply.

They chuckle. "What good can that do?" They fail to mark the club has already struck them right between the eyes. The best cudgels don't need to be lifted. "Three Stones"

"A poem should be like a punch to the gut." He said this after reading mine. "I never hope to lay my hands upon you." My reply. Which of us dropped three stones upon the scale? "Atone." How does one become a master?

Another tired question. One we are beholden to bring up. just so we may toss it out. Examine Garrett. He doesn't exist, but examine him anyway. Garrett sweeps his stoop each morning. Sometimes he is quick, when the stoop has little in the way of debris, and sometimes Garrett takes a while, as when the maple leaves get strewn by the funnel of a cold late summer's breeze. The point is, Garrett sweeps his stoop, regardless

of the stoop's condition. Now go live your life as though you never had parents.

"Tell Me." I do not want to read 5 ,000 lines about something you might like to see manifest in the world one day. Instead, sit down and tell me what you had for breakfast this morning. I find breakfast food fascinating. At lunch, dinner, and any bite in between, a person can eat whatever they want. Dates. Caviar, baba ganoush, nobody blinks. Breakfast, on the other hand, is rife with strictures, which seem to be born of a tradition whose origins

escape me. Today, I enjoyed some ravioli, stuffed with lemon ricotta, even though you won't find that on the menu of your local Waffle House anytime soon. And I prepared the dish in the afternoon, as I had slept in late. And yet, for all that, it was the first meal of my day, when I broke my fast. So I'd say that satisfies. But I interrupted. What was it you had?

"An Invitation." I always take a book to work, a collection of poems or koans, something meant to be put down every few moments, reflected upon, evaporated. A book does not take my focus. It hides it, places it in the background of those around me, the visitors, dropping in whenever they need relief. safe harbor or escape. With them, I am listening, affirming,

giving account. I am the one they ask to fix the television cables or to make more headway on the incomprehensible mess of that week's jigsaw puzzle. But sometimes nobody wants to talk. Sometimes silence is the only condoned form. of communication. Curious, sincere, to ask is to disturb. It cuts the terse stillness of a hot quiet and makes it explode. I have learned it is no better to sit nearby, conspicuously empty-handed, waiting to be made use of, waiting for someone else to

determine the nature of things. Like applying pressure to a bruise, it begs a question nobody wants to answer. So I dissemble. I raise a book to my face, appear to mind myself. It is an invitation. Interrupt me. Bring me to attention. Pour your vase upon my head. Is that not what I am here for? "It Is Uncomfortable."

I often sit at the table the smokers use when they need to come outside to fill their lungs. It's a fine place for conversation. Most everyone likes the trees. and the open sky. It loosens them up. There's more laughter out there. People feel more grounded, more themselves somehow. Naturally, I like to read. Watch the birds or the squirrels as I pick at a koan or two. Today, I read the following. "Range upon range of mountain peaks, rock faces, and cliffs all deliver their profound sermons."

I thought of Heidegger. "A door is a door when you walk through it." I spied the low, circular columns that dot the border of the pathway as it curves toward our wing of the medical building. Though not designed to be resting places, they sometimes act as perches when the benches get too crowded. One column, the nearest to me, was missing a chunk of concrete. In my mind, I placed two monks, with their legs crossed, sitting upon

that one and the one beside. "When are you going to replace this column?" the one monk asked. "Is it uncomfortable sitting there?" the other responded. "Yes, it is uncomfortable!" the first shouted back. "Then we will replace it, said the second." In the reality I had wandered from, a woman staying in the unit next to ours charged into my peaceful scene and shrieked, "It is uncomfortable!" before storming back inside the building. Like a sword slicing my solar plexus without breaking the skin.

"Meditation." The shadows of autumn's stripped

branches quiver in waves over the stillness. A nightingale mocks a white cat as it saunters down the garden path. A man loudly whispers to his wife, "Must you always take a picture?" Do not move. Try counting pebbles.

"Friendship." Strange markings on the stone conceal their meaning inside my ignorance. My hushed monogamy with English folds other worlds inside the earth. Hoodoo pagoda, prayer flag cascades, an empty tea house.

"Fishing with Kent." To the unasked question, "What is the Buddha?" I responded to my father's face. "The Buddha is not the Buddha." The old man laughed impertinently. "You are no wiser than those who say, 'This is this,' and, 'It is what it is.'" I applauded the comparison, then laid out my line of thinking like a waltz upon a carousel. When my mouth closed, and the turnabout slowed, my father slackened. "I seem to agree with you more than I first thought." The bait was set long ago.

"Blind." Flashcards. Start there. The girls struggle with tenses, yet thrive in concepts. I furnish them with binary sets, let them organize by contrast. Objective / Subjective, and from there, Knowledge / Belief, Illusion / Delusion, The Earth / The World. My pupils are clever. I challenge them to predict where each notion will fall. When we arrive at Consensus, they prove they've grasped the game.

Arguing about Descartes and Michael Jordan, they recognize that, even should the whole world agree, from the Falkland Islands to the Arctic Sea, it is impertinent, it is impossible. for such judgments to intrude upon reality. Another day, a different lesson, interrupted by the ceaseless wandering of their eyes, the parched yearning to comprehend in full the map of the world behind me. "What is it now?" I ask. "Russia," they groan in unison. "What about Russia?" They stare, almost

worried with perplexion. "Why is it so big?" They inquire spontaneously after everything. Last week, they demanded an overview of campaign finance rules. Then, partway through, insisted that I illuminate the history of nepotism, coercing me to scamper to places as old as Kish and Akkad, and this in the midst of a lesson about tectonic plates. I can rarely help but acquiesce. "Do you want the long or the short version?" "Long!" they shout, with smiles like spring flowers.

They beam at me as though my mind is a bottomless toy chest. They act as if the jewels of Baghdad are in the room with us when I elucidate the Golden Age. As if we're soaring over the North Pole when I describe the Coriolis effect. As if the distance between their home country and where we stand is truly to the scale upon the wall. One hundred million times easier to travel in our hearts than by land, sea, or air. The whole world sparkles in their eyes. How can I resist them?

"Next week," I promise, "I'll tell you about the Cossacks, Siberia, and the men they called the Tsars." February 24th arrives. Missile strikes. Tank columns. Kiev. Donbas. The girls want to know why. I take the usual approach. Historical context. Realpolitik. A thorough account. Georgia / Abkhazia. Crimea / Warm Water. The Eastern Front / the Soviet Bloc. Spheres of Influence and Self- Determination. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Stanislav Petrov. A Duopoly on Superpower and

a Game called Brinksmanship. It is not the first time we have broached the nuclear question, what with their neighbor to the north so routinely launching fire into the Sea of Japan. I have assured them repeatedly, the brimstone will never fall upon their heads. Their opposite number is caged in a state of constant tension. Cast out by his people if he doesn't deceive them. Overthrown by his generals. if he doesn't promote them. Annihilated by foreign powers, if he gives

them the excuse. Regardless of his innermost character, his truest sentiments, his sanctum soul, the fool must continue to rattle the accursed heirloom, his family saber, or else be run through. "Don't worry," I've told the girls. "Kim will never unleash the bomb. Having it, and not using it, is the only thing that's keeping him alive." Meanwhile, in Europe, where arsenals are meant to make the surface of the earth into a cinder block, my diaphragm spasms as I issue my tired refrain.

"Putin won't empty his silos in anger. Even if he is dying, even if he is insane, it's going to be alright." I mean to put the girls at ease, even as fragments of my reason ping dissonantly at the sound of my naivete. We had worked through other flashcards before, determining what is Possible, what is Probable, what is Plausible. What I am arguing is Probable. But the girls are too sharp to let me off the hook I've brandished

at them. "Teacher, isn't it plausible they'll launch the bombs?" I can't help but be proud of them. I've trained them well. "Yes," I sigh. "It's plausible." Should I have said otherwise?