The night is like any other. The stars in the firmament loom high above, mischievous only in their twinkles. No ill-boding baseless prophecy will defy reason tonight. Our protagonist sits in his study, and yet we know not what it is that he studies every night thus. Day after day we find him in the same stance: scratching sheets of paper incessantly with a pencil that cries out for sharpening. He has a name for this pencil of his, one that often affords him a silent mocking laugh. It’s called ‘The Common Man.’
I speak of this night in particular, as do most humans, for a reason. [To say “for a reason” is undoubtedly paradoxical for it is this Reason that our hero sets out to slay with his blunt point.] On this date the man in his study made a significant contribution to the course of history…
Not owing to any unusual environmental impetus, his mind raced extraordinarily fast that fateful night. One could almost hear his pulse throb and feel the beads of perspiration trickling down his forehead. The fire warmed his blood to a temperature that screamed “Action!” One by one he filled sheaves of paper, and yet when he reread each sheet upon completion, he crumpled it and abandoned it to the wastepaper basket. His entire self was consumed by an idea. All that conflicted with it, all that was irrelevant for his purpose was insignificant. Abstraction, simplification and assumptions were the philosopher’s deadliest weapons. Anything short of perfection had to be consigned to flames.
Thus as the midnight oil burned, years of careful thought were dismissed with a guffaw. Facts were twisted to verify the desired hypothesis. He was almost there…This wasn’t the first time that something of this nature was conceived by one of the human race. Marx had done it, Mussolini had stumbled upon it (and yet his ‘it’ was always a tad ambiguous), Hitler, Mao-tse-tung, and Sartre-the list is only as long as the history of human conflict.
Just as it seemed that the wastepaper basket could no longer accommodate crumpled ideas, our sole character let out a contented sigh. The thing was done. He was no longer an ordinary man, he was a poet. The whirlpool of thoughts in his chaotic cerebrum had finally taken shape. It was an occasion of triumph: The birth of an ‘ism’.
