‘What does it mean to be a human bean?’ I asked myself wisely, clucking with approval at the profundity of my own question. What does it mean, what does it mean? I left the question to ferment away in the hidden recesses of my brain – some things are too important to rush, after all. There’s no sense in being too hasty, no sense in leaping frantically to unwarranted conclusions. ‘What’s it like to tune into the higher astral realms’, I mused, ‘what would it be like to hang out there, in the far-flung telepathic regions of human communication?’ I find myself being momentarily overcome by the extraordinary mind-bending possibilities inherent in this proposition. Undoubtedly it would be pretty amazing, pretty damn amazing altogether.

The mall is closing – one by one the shops are shutting up. Satiated shoppers are drifting off listlessly in clumps, heading for the various exits. It’s a moment I always hate – it brings an end to my free-range philosophising, my – if I might say so – inspired musings on the type of subjects which most folk simply have no interest in. Another day is drawing to an end and before long I am going to be walking the streets instead of hanging around the mall. The cold, cold streets – which are a source of comfort to no one, as far as I can see. ‘What is the purpose of human life?’ I asked myself, more as an afterthought than anything else. Such questions seem easier to answer – or at least to ask – in the daylight hours. When evening comes, and the shadows grow and gradually overtake the world, my thoughts become correspondingly dark. This is a part of my life that I’m not so happy to talk about, so we’ll leave it at that.

I can still hear that fateful cry, ‘Release the Kraken!’ To this day I can hear it. Days of horror, days of fear. That fateful cry, that fateful cry. We journey into darkness and we don’t know what awaits us there. Life is a journey into darkness, is it not? Or am I wrong about that? Am I mistaken? Am I seeing things wrong? We are born in light and we journey into darkness. ‘What is the purpose of human thought?’ I ask, almost as an after-life. ‘Is there any way to think a true thought?’ We are born in the light but migrate very quickly in the direction of absolute horrific painful ignorance, as has often been pointed out by those who take an interest in such matters. It’s the herd instinct really, I would say. It is yet another illustration of the frightening insanity of group behaviour.

‘Is there any cure for our incorrigible foolishness?’ I hear you ask, ‘is there any possibility of a cure at all?’ I sympathise with your sorrow and your perplexity of course. I can – and do – sympathise with you in this. Human ignorance is a big deal really – our love of ignoring what’s really actually going on, our proclivity for endlessly in getting lost in immensely intricate mazes of pointless self-deception, our flat insistence on denying the truth every time we happen to come across it. Our stubborn refusal to learn even the most basic lessons from our suffering, from our self-created pain and degradation. What a curious thing it is to be a human bean, I say to myself, what a strangely, deeply curious thing…