And now. He can’t stand his flat anymore. Or the countryside. Oh, how romantic. Life in the country. You idiots, have you been there recently? To the so-called countryside—with no insects, no barbecuing in summer, and wasps and bees and mosquitos and ants, because of the ludicrous nitrogen compound fertilizer—hardly any farmers still live the way you imagine farm life. With calves, fields, all a bit simpleminded, with that whole “Howdy, Philosopher, I have fresh eggs” thing—nobody lives like that anymore. The countryside is covered with abandoned farms, old, derelict agricultural operations. The towns have eaten away at the countryside with constant new rings of development, and everything in between seems to be made up of motorways and mud. To each his own. Food comes from production facilities in Africa being bought up by the Chinese. In the countryside, there where the countryside used to be, where today there is mud, now live the zero-performers who can no longer find space in the cities’ sewers and train tunnels; as if society’s castoffs have, like elephants, retreated to the countryside to die, they live there, build fires at night, feed themselves from the goods delivered by sporadically appearing aid agency carts. Good street workers with good-hearted foodstuffs that stave off death for the outcasts. “I volunteer here once a week,” say good, honest, good-hearted, under-fucked men into the camera whenever a TV team turns up in the fields in order to stir up sentiments against the poor. All the things you see there. Filth is one thing. Skin that’s so dirty it looks black, missing teeth, dried spittle in the corners of mouths, children in rags who do not look cute, they do not look cute. The way they squat around the fire. And the men with their faces contorted in anger. It’s something you recognize from zombie movies and that you are rightly frightened of. You are right to be scared of anyone who doesn’t receive a basic income. Because they’re illegally in the country, or they’re children, or they haven’t registered themselves. Or they don’t supplement their basic income with various jobs. Who would trust that type of person?

The philosopher doesn’t trust anyone, but he is enjoying this day, and such a beautiful young man there on the side of the road, the bus is standing still at the moment, offering enough time to study him carefully.

Mind-blowing. Invisible,

DON

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