Payback day is never too far off, that’s one thing that I’ve learned. Never too far off, never too far off. Well, I say ‘this is one thing that I learned’ but the truth is that I’m never have learned it, not really. You think I would have done at this stage wouldn’t you? You’d think I would have done but no – apparently not.
Farting helplessly with fear, I flee from the scene of the crime. First you commit the crime, and then you implicitly deny it by fleeing. I wasn’t there, I never did it, you’re saying. Our entire lives are defined by this implicit denial, or so it seems to me anyway. I don’t know how it seems to you. Maybe you wouldn’t see it that way. We are denying our denial every step of the way; if we’re challenged we’ll swell up with rage, turn purple and start spitting venom. We are a species of venomous toad you see – a hitherto undiscovered species of venomous toad. We’re waiting for some master zoologist to come along and discover us.
I’m fleeing from the unwanted outcome, the feared outcome. I’m trying to run away from an outcome that I can’t bring myself to contemplate. I’m a grey streak of kinetic energy; no one ever fled faster than me It’s not just that my fleeing defines me either – my fleeing IS me. If I didn’t flee then I wouldn’t be, it’s as simple as that. If didn’t flee then I wouldn’t be me you see. Flee my friend, flee from the unwanted outcome! Flee as you have never fleed before, flee as if your very existence depends upon it, which it does. Which it most certainly does. Flee faster, flee faster, flee faster than you have ever fleed before my friend – the unwanted outcome is catching up with you.
The unwanted outcome is our own non-existence of course. Payback day is coming and we know it. It’s on its way with bells on it. Ringing and ringing like there’s no tomorrow, ringing like the most horrifically raucous alarm clock that you’ve ever heard in all your life. The type of alarm clock that would make you jump clean out of your skin, like some kind of weird pink skinless thing. It’s the worst fright you’ve ever had in your life – payback day is here and you never saw it coming. You’ve forgotten that it was coming. You’ve committed a crime and so now you’ve got to do some serious, serious fleeing. Fleeing from the outcome that you yourself have set in motion.
Payback is never too far away, it’s never as far off as we might like to imagine. As we do like to imagine. It’s actually here already and that’s the whole point. That’s what I’m trying to say here (just in case you were wondering). It was there all along – payback day arrived the very second we committed the crime but we’re trying to stretch it out. We’re playing for time, we’re delaying the inevitable. We’re trying to stretch out the interval between cause and effect but cause and effect are simultaneous, as it says in the Lotus Sutra. We’re eking it out, making it last. We’re postponing the moment, even though the moment has already arrived. Make it last good buddy, make it last because that’s all there is! When that non-existent interval is gone then there is no more. The cupboard is empty, the cupboard is bare. There’s got to be a crumb or two in it somewhere you say but no. There was never a crumb there in the first place.
Never a crumb, never a crumb. Never a crumb at all but you’re in denial. There’s got to be something there you say. Some little scrap. You’re fleeing from the truth though. You won’t hear the truth! You fleeing from the truth and you yourself are the fleeing. Stop fleeing and that’ll be the end of you. ‘Flee good buddy flee,’ the voice in your head tells you. ‘Flee for all you’re worth. Flee as if there is no tomorrow’. Which there isn’t. Which there most certainly isn’t.
