Termush

by Sven Holm

Often someone in the room gets up to go out to the lavatory. The lavatory is the only place where we can find protection from other people. The ventilation is poor and there is damp on the rough walls. But for a moment it is completely quiet; we meet no one’s eye and therefore do not need to think about ourselves.

No one thought about protecting himself against the survivors or their demands on us. We paid money to go on living in the same way that one once paid health insurance; we bought the commodity called survival, and according to all existing contracts no one has the right to take it from us or make demands upon it.

“You are possibly right,” I said, “but democracy does depend on certain principles of freedom and these are often more essential than demonstrations of freedom. That vote was a simple demonstration of freedom, but it went against the principle of freedom. It restricted the freedom of the injured, their free right to be helped. For that reason I would not call the vote democratic.”

The management has exploited our wish for infallible systems: here is the water, there is the land, no one can make a mistake. Up to this line there is no danger; on the other side of the line waits certain death. Therefore the alarm wails and the guests flee from their rooms with their clothes fluttering round them. The illusion of complete safety so long as the margin is not reached bears the reverse implication of complete panic once the margin is exceeded.

He had not wished to or had not been in a position to resume the interrupted game of make-believe that nothing had happened.

I have always been interested in my environment, but I have wanted to reach my conclusions about it in peace. I have stressed a person’s right to observe and clarify his thoughts without being obliged to intervene. Intervention could prevent free observation; it meant that one was no longer unprejudiced or open to all points of view.

But this story was simple. A straightforward moral was drawn from it and everyone was able to proceed with a rapid violence which showed no consideration for the victim but may have relieved the feelings of his judges.

Disaster has already left its mark on them in our eyes; somewhere in their bodies lies the germ of change, of mutilation and decay. And somewhere within the healthy people lies a far-reaching contempt for the deformed.