Crystalline

In any case there have been far too many disagreements concerning this topic. If we try now to reach a conclusion we should be able to, provided the basis is sound and supple. Before we continue, do we have any outstanding items of consideration to consider? Because if there are let us make note of them first of all, so that upon a new occasion we can make sense of them, an exercise that will, I think we are all in agreement in saying, provide the sought-after foundations for our reaching conclusions beneficial. Magnificent. We are almost ready to begin. It has been going on now for some time. In another amount of time we will have resolved. And after such a resolute pronouncement of the principles upon which we agree or are about to, there will be more. The rule presently in effect is as follows;

The following discourse requires that both parties agree upon the following – the rule is to tell the truth.

That there is out of the way. We can return now to what I was telling you.

An anaemic sky disappears under the lamentations of innumerable portents gradually. Tunnelled-out and birthed was red brush and primordial talons suspended the whole under the cupola. The shattered face breathed grins as it could no longer dissimulate, to the dismay of the bones. But really the rattling skull was secretly pleased and it barked with the foxes in the night and cultivated humorous excuses to give to itself. A crimson stage reveals the orphaned truth while the heart of the father languishes. This new memory you have is a fresh instance of the old type –

Let’s pause there just momentarily and not get too impatient with each other.

You and I have already agreed upon the nature of certain things. Nonetheless endlessly does it become necessary to check in with each other and reaffirm our mutual commitments. If we can’t reach a solution now then tomorrow we will have to really put our knuckles to the ground and have a proper good think about what’s under discussion. Now that I think about it we really must consider that before anything else. We mustn't allow any aberrative non-conclusions to obscure our view of the future. Such a thing is far too important to leave to others.

Perhaps a polemical note here will suffice to illustrate the problem. The most dedicated to being deceived are those to whom everything is obvious – “well obviously” – people for whom reality is justified after it passes through them. The refrain “of course” is to be banned hereafter from the present discussion. We are not inside the house. We are on a terrible promontory recklessly.

In the antechamber is awaited the final sentence. Blistering voices console infants as to the inevitable success of life. But here comes a soldier. From the conscripted regiments. You understand how he looks. He wears aching grey boots, ash-bitten, that limp onwardly with the whole lot in tow. He wears his helmet low and his stripes face to the north where the rolling mists are highlighted by the setting sun. Undone is he by being backlit which makes him indescribable.

Propositions: To tell a lie is to not tell the truth. To tell a truth is to not tell a lie.
Assertion: there are as many truths as lies plus one.
We’ve got to the bottom of that one haven't we. Time for some exercise. 

Test one – which one of the days in the sequence did the starved man write that he had betrayed his own pen?

1
Blue Day
Red Day
White Day

We only know for certain what the correct answer is because of the evidence presented as such in favour of the conclusion. Yet it has become harder for us, you see, to agree as a community on things like this as self-evidencing and not worthy of suspicion. What methodology was used here? What are the vested interests of those that have designed the test? Such concerns are paralysing. It has been, so far, the aim of this article to not only address these questions and draw our attention to them, but also to interrogate them and allow us to think about them. It would be easier to surmount these concerning troubles of ours were the priests not burnishing the throne in secret, raising vertiginous spears above the heads of the proud serfs, who, stridently, have been continuing onwards. Images present themselves. The mind washes them and they become another. Wagons roll forward and are randomly accessed by some. Entirely without pause does the tearing wheel go. Supposedly unsuspect but circumvented. At another point which we haven't reached, the eyes do dart and the knees do slacken. Presently we have all been unconsciously pondering if it is the case or not that the syllogism tells a lie. You did well with that last sequence – let's try another:

2
Iron. Son. Lunar. Incandescent. Incandescent.

No, it’s inscrutable isn’t it. Maybe we really have reached the end, or are at least tumbling towards it with a heavy desperation without precedent. Singularly, we have allied unspokenly on some things yet significant difficulties remain. I think now that I was incorrect to say above that we aren’t too tired of all this.

At the centre is the apex. The impossible citadel leans and creaks and the scientists bend over the beakers and jars that fill with smoke and give life a living once again as a facsimile and an occupation. The sin-eaters crouch in the hamlets to receive their damnation in a morsel and goblet on a shining tray and the messenger falls down the steps of the palace and empties his satchel over the marbled floor at the entrance to the city. Blindingly illuminated and brilliant are the faces while the emperor watches from the throne room and the bow moves across the strings without an agent yet more agency for it. But the satchel has gathered itself up once more and it advances forth on legs moving faster and one day it will knock on the door and you will answer and the message will not reach your senses, however all will become clear, if we give this just a moment's pause.

Tom Beed is a writer, filmmaker, and founding member of Chasing Cow Productions.