Silence

I’m doing a reading at the Lowdham Book Festival tomorrow. It’s just an extract from my story about the cock-mad poet that was published earlier this year in Staple. I’m looking forward to it, although it’s a shame because the event clashes with the launch of Nicola Monaghan’s novella ‘The Okinawa Dragon’ which is happening next door, and I can’t be at both events. I think it’s the first time I’ve read my work in public since I took part in the Brighton Festival some years ago. There, I read a poem about drowning gerbils in a bag, which of course is something I would never do nowadays. Drown gerbils that is, not read poetry.

So, tomorrow I will be amidst the world of writing and no doubt will bump into many people I know; both friends and acquaintances. This will inevitably involve talking to people – you know, as in having conversations. Not so remarkable you might think, but in stark contrast to the experience that my friend Jinaraja is about to undertake. He is about to embark on a two-month solitary, silent retreat. This involves living completely alone in a hut in the Spanish mountains, not speaking (even to himself). There is no electricity – just a gas stove and a tap. His provisions will be left for him in an animal-proof bin located some way from the hut; Jinaraja leaves a note in the bin stating his requirements, and the following day the items will be there, but he won’t have seen who left them. It’s a bit like the system of Father Christmas really.

This whole enterprise sounds incredibly tough to me. I’m sure that if I couldn’t speak to anyone for two months, I’d go bonkers. I remember spending a weekend last year here in my apartment when I saw nobody. None of my friends was around to go out with; nobody visited or even called on the phone. By the Saturday evening I’d gone stir-crazy, and had to go out for a walk around the streets just to immerse myself in the human condition and prove that other people did exist. However, that made matters strangely worse because there’s nothing lonelier than seeing other people partying when you’ve nobody to be with yourself.

Jinaraja’s solitude will be surreal I expect. He won’t even have a radio so there will be no news from the outside world at all. He’ll be ignorant of the world’s events, some of which of course could be momentous. There may be a conflagration caused by the Israelis striking at Iran; there may be oil discovered under the streets of Harare prompting the world to decide that it has to remove Mugabe from power after all; the Queen might abdicate; there may even be a British winner at Wimbledon (okay, so now I’m getting ridiculous). But none of these events will be known to Jinaraja until he returns to the world. How strange.

I think I might try a bit of this myself. I might pick a day next week when I don’t leave the apartment, when I switch off my phones, leave my laptop at the office, unplug the radio and TV, and simply wait. Will I go mad? Will I fall asleep and dream of the spinning world of society? Watch this space, and I’ll tell you.