Randomness in the Rain and Darkness of a Dockside Cafe

Music is :- doo-bop by Miles davis

Calling the wonderful darkness, shadowed out behind the black buildings, we fell into love of the world, like a walk on a rainy night. We tripped over the ropes and shadows of the fishing quarter until we came across a small late-night cafe for the sailors and truckers from the night boats. They said they would feed anyone who had the money so we sat down between the little groups of languages and stuffed ourselves on fried food until a captain called into us thinking we were late back to his ship. We went on, shaking hands with the captain as he beamed back at us, happy to be about to set sail again. The clubs in town let out their own crews and we moved against them as they fought for cabs. The music came with them, spilling jazz across the town to make our local bit of the world like some hybrid of New Orleans and Chicago, those coolest places. We could be in this early morning everywhere, happy with the darkness and the rain, swelled with the experiences we built up to help us recall these squally nights. The rain came down, cold and intelligent, able to work its way into our clothes until we had to make our way back to the hotel. It loomed above us and for a minute I thought the city was empty, that we were the only people here, able to take what we wanted until between us we used up everything. Would all the cities in the world have enough provisions to keep us two alive? I imagine the world empty of all people but us and think about how we might live here. How would we travel? It would be so lonely in that world. Bring on the end of the world and let us survive the Armageddon.

Not with a bang the world will end and we will live in our tiny house, in the sunshine under the northern hills. A happy doom, a doom without end. This powerful poetry has no story and no beginning. When was the first human born and is the last human already here? Boot up the world again and I could die here on this day with this weather and with these people round me.

We are back to the world as it is. The rain is still here. In a bleak and grey foyer, the freshers stand open mouthed at what they have come to. In the autumn murk, they have burnt bridges and turned up in a place where no one takes care of them. They feel lonely, only sustained by the thoughts of friends so far away, new lovers recently disheartened by the distance. In this emptiness, they find new friends, new lovers. You can see the sparks of little affairs beginning, the tugs of guilt and attraction as between the old and new, they find ways to convince themselves that this is nothing wrong. Two hundred miles away, the absence in the hearts of those who are lonely and left behind begins to darken. The Marine Girls hear their name over the tannoy and a long-term love affair begins. He meets her by the doors to the grey world and you just know they will have kissed before the lights come on this evening. This is Jazz begun by randomness and empty meaning in the universe of particles.

What does the universe make of us? Does our existence mean any part of the universe knows about us? Of course unless it is alive or sentient through other means, it cannot know about anything, even itself. The rock in a field has no idea it is a rock, indeed has nothing other than a few physical parameters that distinguish it from a non-rock or any other rock. It does not know anything and yet you could say that we know no more than the rock because although we can think back to our beginning and the beginning of the universe, we cannot know beyond it. The mechanisms beyond the boundaries are not knows to us and never can be. You cannot know what brought the universe about AND know the universe itself. The knowledge of both is mutually exclusive.

Back in the rainy city, our lovers have met and married. The old boyfriends and girlfriends have moved on themselves, taught themselves deep and meaningful sciences and can spin the microscopic and the cosmic together like gold thread in woollen jackets. They have an understanding of the irony that pervades life and everything, the complexity of any statement rendered uncool by saying it at the wrong time or to the wrong person. Sometimes I will not say anything for fear of being wrong. Take this to extremes and you would vegetate, maybe just about being able to buy food and water. What is the meaning of skyheight? I should know but I don't. One day I will know all these things I should know and I will become like everyone else. We miss out on the world because we are naive, ingenues who need to be taught everything. Do I see the world like you? A circle is always a circle, a square a square. In the breezes off this hill, I will lie back and read, the sun lighting me and you until the day ends and we stumble back to the house, randomly amused and using language less and less until we know everything and there is no more to say. What will we do for kicks then? Yes I could die on a day like this when dying meant nothing because we have not been taught about it. We should not be sad for everyone lives forever. Time is only a direction for us and when we get to Heaven, Valhalla, Nirvana, we can be anywhere in space and time, be with anyone we choose. Heaven is being able to go anywhere; Hell is being nowhere and at no time with no one to tell you what is happening. We walk these rainy streets with hope and love. We are where we want to be. This music is so beautiful.