Nausea

Jean Paul lay in a meadow; half asleep, half aware of the sheep grazing around him. His mind hummed with the blissful vibrato of unconsciousness: he heard nothing, smelled nothing– in part away, in part aware of his being away. Each passing thought animated behind his eyes, in fleeting brightly coloured images, whose sense was not analysed, but felt.

He thought, in his far away mind, that his self must be exempt from his body, if, while the body sleeps, he is thus alighted. Yet he knew at once to be true, should his body die, he must die along with it. They would fold into one another, and collapse at their core; cease to be, as they were, be it exempt from or subject to one another.

The Sun cast a warm glow over the landscape and him: bright in the height of spring. 

He didn't know it yet, but today, he would know me.

It was when he opened his eyes, bewildered by the sudden shadow over his person, as a cloud passed by its sun, that he took his time to observe the sheep.

They bent their heads to collect grass, straightened their necks to chew, moved a few paces to and fro, to repeat this process– pendling between contentment and desire, such that the individual sheep were tied to one another, moving singularly-but-in-unison, completing the same rhythmic tradition.

This tradition of sustenance, Jean Paul realised, was the essence of a sheep. A sheep is a sheep is a sheep. Seen as it's self. Phenomenal purpose that exists in itself. First, a sheep is born and then it must continue. A cyclical being, born to be and being to birth. There was no essential value, there was no essential meaning. It was this: bending down to eat, and straightening out to chew. So, too, were the grass and the sun and the mountains in the distance concrete, and unable to change. Only the shepherd, standing as he was, before his herd, was a man before he was a shepherd, and was therefore malleable. He would not don his uniform, wield his staff and introduce himself as The Shepherd. But he watched his herd walk to eat and eat to walk. 

For these sheep to live so mindlessly, so pointlessly, and be unaware of it seemed to Jean Paul the most cruel of fates. Must it be so? Must even the littlest of creatures be condemned to a sisyphean fate?

He stood. straightened his garment, poised above the herd, no longer level. I could tell, at this very time, for the first time in a long time, Jean Paul looked for me– his heart called out to me– that I may stop his mind in its tracks, grant him life eternal, and direct him. With every inward breath, he took in substance, to plead, with every outward breath, for instruction. He called for baptism, to be Jean Paul no longer, but to become one with the Father– Jean Baptiste; he called for the Mother: Marie, Marie, Madonna. He looked to the palms of his hands, and saw that he was not a writer, nor a son. Mauvaise foi. Mauvaise foi. Quel berger laisse son troupeau pâturer seul?

Then he turned his head from left to right, and saw that he was alone, The Shepherd was alone: abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

He looked ahead, eyes following the valley between two mountains, at the sky on the horizon. It was then that he clutched his heart in anguish. Autonomy overcame him. It cannot be, he said. It cannot be! It cannot be! And he repeated the phrase over and over until the words turned the spit in his mouth sour, and he could no longer swallow for fear of vomiting. He fell to his knees under the weight of his responsibility, clutched no longer his heart, but the grass in his hands, to hold his body over the ground, and he spat and spat, heaved and cried. In this moment, huddled over, gekrümmt, under heaven, Jean Paul knew me and said aloud, in a voice thick with despair: That God does not exist, I cannot deny! That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget!

The wind continued to blow through the trees and between each blade of grass. The sun continued to shine. Jean Paul thought: God is absence. God is the solitude of man. The Fear… what fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. All human actions are equivalent and all are, on principle, doomed to failure. 

The sheep continued to drone over the meadow, first bending down to bite and straightening their necks to chew, completing their ritual circuit under the watchful eye of their shepherd; Jean Paul saw a cloud hang over them, and the grass beneath him turned greener in envy.

He could not bear the lucidity. He could not bear to pivot on a weak heel, Achilles without Patroclus, and endure what it cost to live. All was not well. This universe henceforth without a master was sterile and futile. An atom of my stone but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, signifying nothing. I cannot live to the point of tears, I cannot live– my heart is empty in the face of my struggle towards the heights. This night knows no end, I have not the courage to live. Jean Paul pressed his face into the dirt and wept. It is easier to die. It is easier to die. The cold earth irritated him, so he coughed, and choked on his cough, furrowed his brows and pressed his face deeper still into the earth. I'm free, he cried. I'm free! I'm free! Oh God, I'm free.