For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins

Or the admission that I bought a knife. Beech wood
handle and a high carbon XC90 steel blade. Preemptively. In
self-defence. And I’d walk about in the evenings, turning it over
and over in my pocket, fondling the soft-metal cuff that restrained
the blade inside the handle – catching the foolish eyes
of passersby, firing a look to say: What I would do if you fucking
so much as fucking, etc., You just fucking try it you fucking,
etc. – and, beneath: WHERE CAN WE FLEE TO NOW?...
Manifest destiny stalking the streets. And, as should be clear to
anyone present, not just mine but everyone’s. Shuffling inexorably
toward the same wet hollow...
Or an ancient mass grave prophesied all of this. Isn’t
that amazing? – The depth of the grave, the position of those
interred, the way in which each was despatched with a single
SMITE, etc. Each characteristic of the thing to be read as a
warning. From history. Though I don’t suppose there’s any other
way of reading it. Like the kind of expression worn by the
surprised dead! – Surprise Surprise! – etc.
Or the question of a weapon; A weaponised question.
Or the platitudinous ‘As vital, thrilling and life enhancing
as anything in modern fiction!’
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