Like a righteous harm
Giving off wild like is madness
~ Linton Kwesi Johnson ‘Base Culture’ 1980
Giving off wild like is madness
~ Linton Kwesi Johnson ‘Base Culture’ 1980
Ellie warned Joe on numerous occasions about his tone.
“It’s about respect, Joe. You gotta respect the fact that not everybody sees the world as clearly as you do” - that’s how Joe heard it anyway.
It’s funny how, in the passion of your convictions you don’t notice that others feel your anger as contempt for them.
“It’s not personal Ellie, I’m just letting off steam at the world in general”
“It’s personal when you make people feel small, intentionally or not”
Joe never saw it coming, they’d been arguing in the commons, nothing unusual: Mark resenting the fact that his opinions don’t stand up to Joe’s scrutiny, and Joe shooting him down in flames of clever words, each hearing only his own voice echoed back.
Each believes what he believes.
There are those who feel judged by the words of a man just saying what he sees.
There are those who want to be right.
There are those who find suspect the motivations of those they perceive to be cleverer than themselves.
There are always those who don’t know when they’re well off.
There are those who in winning the argument, lose the argument.
Very few events happen in complete isolation, in most cases for an accident to happen, at least two independent errors need to occur.
The first blow knocks him down as he enters the warehouse; he instantly remembers this from all those years ago, back in the collapse, he’d promised himself then that he’d never again expose himself to this level of danger.
Down already, he knows this is not a good place to be.
He tries to get up but a kick in the ribs takes him down and deeper into danger, he curls into the pain.
Some part of his brain registers the fleet impressions being fed him by his senses and concludes that there are at least three involved, the next blow confirms four since it comes from behind his head, in the stun where every detail becomes clear - lucid with the loss of words - a meaningless tableau of beaters and beaten as seen from above - he shies away from the consequences implied by the out-of-body-ness of it…
“Is… he going to be ok?” Marty’s voice causes the lucid universe to shatter and fade into the night…
“It’s about respect, Joe. You gotta respect the fact that not everybody sees the world as clearly as you do” - that’s how Joe heard it anyway.
It’s funny how, in the passion of your convictions you don’t notice that others feel your anger as contempt for them.
“It’s not personal Ellie, I’m just letting off steam at the world in general”
“It’s personal when you make people feel small, intentionally or not”
Joe never saw it coming, they’d been arguing in the commons, nothing unusual: Mark resenting the fact that his opinions don’t stand up to Joe’s scrutiny, and Joe shooting him down in flames of clever words, each hearing only his own voice echoed back.
Each believes what he believes.
There are those who feel judged by the words of a man just saying what he sees.
There are those who want to be right.
There are those who find suspect the motivations of those they perceive to be cleverer than themselves.
There are always those who don’t know when they’re well off.
There are those who in winning the argument, lose the argument.
Very few events happen in complete isolation, in most cases for an accident to happen, at least two independent errors need to occur.
The first blow knocks him down as he enters the warehouse; he instantly remembers this from all those years ago, back in the collapse, he’d promised himself then that he’d never again expose himself to this level of danger.
Down already, he knows this is not a good place to be.
He tries to get up but a kick in the ribs takes him down and deeper into danger, he curls into the pain.
Some part of his brain registers the fleet impressions being fed him by his senses and concludes that there are at least three involved, the next blow confirms four since it comes from behind his head, in the stun where every detail becomes clear - lucid with the loss of words - a meaningless tableau of beaters and beaten as seen from above - he shies away from the consequences implied by the out-of-body-ness of it…
“Is… he going to be ok?” Marty’s voice causes the lucid universe to shatter and fade into the night…
....
“It looks like you killed him Marty”
“It looks like you killed him Marty”
