Zeitgeist by Todd Wiggins

Author:Todd Wiggins [Wiggins, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
Published: 2015-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

12

The Philosopher-King in Deep Shit …

The three male travelers dined that evening courtesy of Truck World, a gigantic hostelry, fuel depot, and shopping mall complex just off the interstate. After dinner they walked along the main concourse, passing a motel lobby, hair salon, cinema, rodeo arena, amusement park, miniature golf course, and department store before wandering into a supermarket to supply themselves with junk food for the days ahead.

As he pushed a cart up the first aisle, Dorian remarked, “The most impressive thing about this country, the most telltale sign of its wretched excess, is the supermarket. God I love America.” He reached into the nearby salad bar and shoved a fistful of cantaloupe into his mouth before proceeding to the delicatessen.

“Right, what’s our pleasure?” he resumed, gazing at the neat rows of cooked flesh, as the counterman donned plastic baggies. “Why don’t we get a pound of everything, plus a few of those rotisserie chickens for good measure.”

“Dorian how the fuck we gonna eat all that?” asked Prophet as the counterman trooped off to the scales.

“I expect we won’t,” answered the Welshman. “I just love the thrill of buying things, that’s all.”

They continued through the store, accumulating bread, liquor, soft drinks, pastries. Dorian led the way, tossing one item after another into the cart. Prophet scrutinized the ingredients of each package and then flung it aside with disdain.

“Look at what’s in this,” he said, waving a box of cupcakes. “You eat this shit you’ll be glowing in the dark.”

“An interesting proposition in your case,” observed Dorian.

Fish, bringing up the rear, had noticed a curious change in his psyche. Since entering the supermarket he’d felt a growing sense of unreality, confronting these thousands of neatly arranged foodstuffs basking in the fluorescent glow, the strains of Muzak piping bromides into further pockets of his consciousness and seeming to rinse his neural paths of every complexity, every plaque buildup of paradox and meddlesome inquiry, as if giving his brain an oil change. Everything—the boxes on the shelves, the chuckling flutes, the five-and-dime percussion—was suddenly invested with its own peculiar, inexplicable significance. Startled, he peered up and down the aisle: everywhere he looked he saw the half-hidden wink of conspiracy, the telltale gleam of bamboozlement—and he, of course, was the Fool.

“Why bother?” he asked no one in particular.

“The myth of Sisyphus,” yawned Dorian as they moved on to the Cookies/Crackers/Coffee aisle. “I recall Camus saying that—”

“Dorian,” said Fish suddenly, “have you actually read Camus?”

Dorian glanced at him, nonplussed. “What do you mean?”

“Cause if you really have, we could talk about it.”

They stopped in the middle of the aisle. Fish continued, “You see I’ve been trying for years to—to come to some kind of … understanding about whether happiness is something we can really … But I mean you’ve read him?”

“Of course,” Dorian replied in his posh accent. “Not to mention the rest of the existentialist crew; you know—Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, Sartre.”

Fish shook his head. “No no, that’s the mistake everybody makes, they’re not all existentialists.

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