Nietzsche's eternal Bakewell.

Sitting in a cafe yesterday, I started listening to the couple next to us.


  Derek or Graham or insert name here, wasn't sure where his order was and when he finally got it, it wasn't what he asked for. Normally, I wouldn't pay that much attention but just at that moment, I'd started reading the first few pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I'd just bought from  a nearby charity shop. As Derek or Graham,  began to work at his sweet looking Danish Pastry "It's not a Bakewell,I asked for a Bakewell, they're over there at the front of the glass", It was at that exact moment my eyes were taking in the words on Nietzsche's idea of eternal return.Everything has happened and will happen again and again just as we have experienced it before, for ever and ever.


I was struck by  something as I sat and read. Over the past few years, I've been drawn to  reading books that seem to have in them the same sort of theory or something in the story has the same purpose or motif. Everything repeats, if not forever, then at least until some different path is taken at some point in the replay process, taking whoever, wherever they should be rightfully be. This can be on to some next level or different ending to this round of illusion  they're currently existing in. Ideas of life based on circles, replaying of past events, having to go through past lives until the right outcome is achieved.  Perhaps this explains my reluctance to do things at the Weekend, I've done it before and somewhere, deep inside my reoccurring memories, I know it wasn't really that good a day out thank you so I'd just as well not bother driving to Wales if it's all the same, we just fall out when we get there, believe me, I have to stop in and play Skyrim, it's what's supposed to happen.


The non circular point of all this is that Derek or Graham,should the above in fact be the case, has gone through the entire" Danish not a Bakewell" episode a million times, he'll go through it another million without realising it and his wife will have to look slightly embarrassed all over again while he goes through his making a fuss without wanting to make a fuss thing he was doing so well.


I did feel the impulse to say "Look,it's  a cake. It's possible you've done this over a million times and you'll do it all over again so just eat the bloody thing, enjoy it". I didn't of course  and in this round of here now, I never will . Saying things like that to people in small cafes/ delis in Cheshire can bring about unrest, at least I think it can, I don't really know, I've never done it..have I ?


 When next I sit near Derek or Graham , in the same cafe, reading the same words that make me sit up and think the same things for the first time, again, maybe I should act on the sudden impulse to say something, will I , am I supposed to?
Will the built up resonance of  endless replaying of  this event over timeless occasions finally burst through the wall of my concious mind and allow me to see what's really going on? Will my sudden interjection of "Derek...we've been here before, you don't get the Bakewell"! into the eternal replaying of this sweet pastry based incident lead to any change in his  looped life or indeed  my own?.Will it let us both move that little bit further forward towards our true and yet unknown destinies? Will it make Derek come to some startling life altering decision  or will it, as I suspect, lead to at least a stern rebuke, a look of incomprehsion or possibly into a fight with a disgruntled man from the Northwest who's reached the end of his cake tether? 


The question is,is it worth the Bakewell?
I have no way of knowing , at least , I don't think I do....


On the plus side, my scone was lovely, although, I would have preferred real cream as opposed to the squirty sort we got. 


I'll mention it next time around....

WHAT CAN YOU DO ?

Ordinary morning, people doing what they do.


Sudden raised voice cutting through the low level noise that fills the centre .
My feet do that thing where they take me towards somewhere I know the rest of me doesn't really need to go, my head tells me this more than once. 
The voice carries up the corridor followed by a softer one, explaining the present  situation but  in a tone that suggests it's aware that this conversation is going to be mostly one way. 


I'm in the door way by now and can now see the owner of the  voice that's being raised. A big furry Russian Tank Commanders hat sits atop a small red blotchy face, an angry imp of a man meets my stare, half in and half out of his chair.
"What can you do for me. I mean, what can you do for me"? Full on slur and pointing, demanding an answer.


It's been a while since we've had a "kick off". The mixture of frustration, breaking of the daily living in the pub based routine and a fair bit of drink all rolled into one tight malignant little ball. Welcome to the world as seen through the eyes of the alcoholic  long term unemployed. I'd like to put it a different way, make it sound softer but what's the point. My colleague is informing him that nothing is going to be done, not today, not while he's  like this.


Again "What can you do for me"? followed by  a clapping of his hands, as if to bring home his point. Then a question"Who's that"? as beady red eyes semi focus on me. He leaves his seat and is suddenly standing between us. 


We then coerce, via pleasant , reassuring talk and subtle hand co ordination, leading him away from the rest of the group, towards the stairs and the outside world. He still wants to know what we can do but now he's a bit rattled.
"What can you fucking well do for me? I'll tell you what, nothing, you're fucking useless all of you"!


Mumbling and stumbling, we continue this stale beer fumed, drunken ranting waltz until we're down the stairs and almost at the doors. He seems to realise this and starts again with his angry, hesitant and looped enquiring . I tell him that he needs to go home and come back when he feels better. I don't say what I want to say, that we can't do anything until he stops doing this to himself. Nothing until he want's to end his affair with the bottle. None of that comes out.


For now, we wait until he loses his thread, a gentle push and he's out into the early Spring sunshine.


For now.