Ex_ist 3 [Beer & Now]

All images: West Leicester, March 2025

“Now there are objects everywhere like this glass of beer, here on the table. When I see it, I feel like saying: ‘Pax, I’m not playing any more.’ I realise perfectly well that I have gone too far. I don’t suppose you can ‘make allowances’ for solitude. That doesn’t mean that I look under my bed before going to sleep or that I’m afraid of seeing the door of my room open suddenly in the middle of the night. All the same, I am ill at ease: for half an hour I have been avoiding looking at this glass of beer. I look above, below, right and left: but the glass itself I don’t want to see. And I know very well that all the bachelors around me can’t help me in any way: it is too late, and I can no longer take refuge amongst them. They would come and slap me on the back and say to me: ‘well, what’s special about that glass of beer? It’s  just like all the others. It’s bevelled, and it has a handle and a little coat of arms with a spade on it, and on the coat of arms is written Spatenbrau.’ I know all that , but I know that there’s something else. Almost nothing. But I can no longer explain what I see. To anybody. There it is: I am gently slipping into the water’s depths, towards fear.” [1.]

[1.]:  Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Nausea’ (Trans. Robert Baldick), London/NYC, Penguin, 1963 (1938).