First week

Monday

The new boys from private schoolthat, were sure of. His composure. His assurance. Thats what you pay for when you send your child to private school. Assurance... Composure... So whys he come to our school?thats whats got us floored. And only a couple of months from the exams. Come to think of it, whats he doing in Wokingham? Dreary suburbia. Did his parents lose their jobs? Did they split up? Was he expelled from private school? I think he has charisma, Art says. I think he knows he has charisma, Paula says. I think he doesnt care whether he has charisma, I say. Thats what gives him charisma. Whats charisma? Merv asks.

Into assembly. The new boy, already picked off by the sixth-form pariah. Oh, Godlook at Bombproof, Art says. All positive. We hope the new boy doesnt judge us all by Bombproof. Should we mount a rescue operation? But the new boy has already excused himself to Bombproof. Hes gone to the bathroom. A cunning ruse, we agree. The bathroom rse.

Assembly. The whole school, sitting in rows. The whole school community. The whole school family. We take our seats at the back of the hall. Art, coughing. Merv, coughing slightly louder. Me, coughing louder still. Paula, coughing extremely loudly. Titters. Paula, excusing herself loudest of all. The head of sixth form, glaring at us from beneath his domed forehead. Quiet, Upper Sixth! Youre supposed to be setting an example! The Lords Prayer. Our daily act of worship. The whole school, heads down, mumbling the words. The new boy, head unbowed, staring straight ahead.

Economics. The Old Mole, with graphs. The rise of stocks. The fall of government bonds. The continuing inflation of the housing bubble. The Old Mole, asking what the graphs might mean. Um, Bombproof says. Ah, Dingus says. Then, inspired: It means that things are going well! Then, no longer inspired: Doesnt it? Diamanda, twiddling her pen. Putzie, shrugging. Quinn, vacant. Calypso, glowing prettily, but also vacant. The Old Mole, impatient. Is she going to rant on again about overprivileged pseuds? About none us having ever seen real poverty? Global economic collapse, miss, Paula says. The Old Mole, looking up from her despair. Hyperinflation, then a new Weimar, possibly a new Hitler, miss, Art says. Stagflation, then another world war, to boost production, leading to mutually assured destruction, miss, I say. Financial despotism, following the fusion of corporate power and political power, miss, Paula says. Fascism, in other words. Resource wars, miss, Art says. Trade wars, miss. Real wars, miss... The Old Mole, smiling grimly. And what is to be done? Ums. Ahs. Separate investment banks from retail banks? Art says. Cryptocurrencies? Paula says. Disintermediation? I say. The new boy, hand raised. The Old Mole, nodding. The new boy: Nothing. The Old Mole, no longer nodding: Nothing?! The new boy: Let it all come down. An entire economic system? the Old Mole says. The new boy: Economy is the problem. The economy itself? the Old Mole says. The new boy: Economy devalues everything that matters. The Old Mole, looking baffled: You want to get rid of the economy? What would we have in its place? The new boy: Life. Without goods and services? the Old Mole says. How would you meet your basic needs? The new boy, leaning forward. My basic need is not to be dead. Its not to be carrying a corpse on my back. The Old Mole, not knowing what to do. Is the new boy a nutter? The new boy, sitting back in his chair. Silence. Wow! Art says, sotto voce. So the new boys an apocalypticist. Just like us.

Lunch. The sixth-form common room. The new boy, carrying a tray from the canteen. We call him over to sit with us. Bombproof, slumped against the opposite wall, disappointed. The end of the world, eh? Paula says. Exactly how is the world going to end? Art says. I think the worlds already ended, I say. This is the afterlife. Some fucking afterlife, Art says. I think this is the before life, Paula says. I think weve never actually lived. We contemplate the new boys tray. Chips. Coleslaw. Baked beans. Dont feel you have to eat the school dinners, Paula says. The canteens disgusting. And its full of lower-school pupils, Art says. Always avoid lower-school pupils. We spent years avoiding the lower-school pupils. And we were in the lower school, I say. The new boy excuses himself. He wants to return his tray. And he needs the bathroom.

Boredom. All the old common room faces. Bitch Tits... Schlong Boy... Hand Job and the gang... And The Sirens, of course, sitting together, exotics, transferred from private school at the beginning of the sixth form. The Sirens havent played their hand yet, have they? Art asks. Theyll never play their hand, I say. Theyre girls of mystery. Youd think theyre dykes, but theyre not, Paula says. Paula wants to have the edgy lez monopoly, Art says. Snippy snippy, Paula says. Well, theyre definitely not gay, I say. Chandra still has his thing for The Sirens, Merv says. Or for one of them, anyway. I do not! I say.

The common room. The lowest-common-denominator room, Paula says. The common soul-death room, I say. Surveying the landscape. The beaststhe last beasts, the last of their kind, their fellows having left the sixth form. These are the academic beasts, the beasts with some brain to go with their brawn, and their hangers-on. Theres Bombproof, the beasts chew-toy. Theres Calypso, as beautiful as her namesake, sitting on Dinguss knee. But the beasts are in decline, now might is no longer de rigueur. The beasts no longer rule the school, not since the trendies discovered irony... And there they are: the trendies. Gathered round the centre table. So knowing. So louche. So seen-it-all-before. The spoilt kids. The clique of cliques. Mean boys and mean girls, looking to fill everybody with fear... But even irony has its limits. Even mean kids meet their match. Theres a new ascendancythe meteoric rise of everyone else. The grey masses. The drudges. The duh-rudges. Too lazy for fear. Too distractible for irony... So many of them! Always snacking and checking their phones. Always at their troughs. Always chowing down. Consuming. And so cosy! So bedded-in, with their novelty slippers and their massive vats of tea. So satisfied, yet so insatiable. So inert, yet growing fatter by the day. You can basically watch them expand. Theyre like bamboo in the tropics, only not so vertical. The drudges will survive us alltheres no doubt of that. The drudges are here for the duration... Its a grim scene, I say. It makes me want to put out my eyes, Paula says. No wonder we dont have anyone to hang out with, Merv says. We have us to hang out with, Art says. All we have in common is that we have nothing in common with anyone else, I say. Or each other, Merv says. We have our band! Art says. The bands dead, Paula says.

P.E. The sports cupboard, stacked with things to throw. Choose your weapon! Will it be the discus? The javelin? Really, who would trust us with a javelin? We wouldnt trust us with a javelin! Art would only throw a javelin straight through Dinguss heart...

On the playing field, blinking in the sun. Well train for the long jump, we decide. For the triple jump! We head along the river path towards the sand pit. Willows. Cooling shade. The gentle lapping of the river. Sowhat did you do to end up here? Paula asks the new boy. Did you set something on fire? Ill bet you did, I say. Ill bet you set something on fire. You have that destroy-the-world look. You went somewhere posh, right? Art says. Your accents posh. The new boy: Trafalgar College. I lost my scholarship. I dont believe you, I say. I think you set something on fire. Trafalgars really something, Art says. Ive seen it. Very nice buildings. And very nice grounds. Huge grounds, fenced off from the proles. The new boy: All nonsense. High-Victorian fake. I dont know, Art says. I mean, look at this dump! This dumps not a fake, the new boy says. Its not selling Englishness off the shelf. Theyve franchised Trafalgar, you know. Theyve built an exact replica in China. We imagine it: grand rococo buildings, in the Chinese suburbs. A fancy-pants chapel in the shadow of Chinese high-rises. Shooting and army-cadetting, in the Chinese suburbs. Early morning mist, in the Chinese suburbs. Groundskeepers flattening turf, in the Chinese suburbs. Rugby fixtures and summer ftes, in the Chinese suburbs. The lacrosse team, jogging through the woods, in the Chinese suburbs.

We wish Loddon Valley could be bothered to be fake, we tell the new boy. Well-being class. Mr Merriweather, self-styled teen-whisperer, showing slides on the miracle of Bhutan. Mr Merriweather, explaining the amazing Bhutanese experiment. The admirable Bhutanese initiative. Slide: Ghalkey, the Bhutanese word for happiness. Mr Merriweather: Gha, in Bhutanese, means you like something. Key means peace. The harmony of the wholethats what the Bhutanese value. Its not about individual happiness. Its not about my happiness or your happiness. Its about the whole. (Makes an encompassing gesture.) The WHOLE. Slide: (Title) The Pillars of Happiness. (Bullet-points) Psychological well-being. Time use. Cultural diversity and resilience. Community vitality. Good governance. Slide: Gross Domestic Happiness. Mr Merriweather: The Bhutanese have actually taken it upon themselves to measure the gross domestic happiness of their population! Slide: (Title) Bhutanese Government Questionnaire. (Bullet-points) Do you trust your neighbours? Do you believe in karma? Do you know local folktales? Mr Merriweather: Do we trust our neighbours? Do we believe in anything? Are we happy? Slide: Smiling Bhutanese children. Slide: Smiling Bhutanese peasants, with their yaks. Slide: Smiling Bhutanese priests, at the temple. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather, enjoying traditional Bhutanese hospitality. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather, trekking in the mountains with his faithful Bhutanese guide. Slide: Smiling Mr Merriweather and smiling Mrs Merriweather (we presume), strolling through a Bhutanese market. Bhutans doomed, isnt it, sir? Paula says. I mean, as soon as you open the country to happiness-tourism, theres no more happiness, is there, sir? Its like what happens when we make contact with isolated tribes, sir, Art says. Half of them die of Western diseases. Then cancer, alcoholism and depression finish of the rest. Its the West, sir. Its what we do. Ill bet the young Bhutanese are all depressed, sir, I say. Ill bet theyre all suicidal, just like us, sir. And theres nothing that can be done, even with all the tourist money swilling round the country. Bhutans trying to resist westernisation, Mr Merriweather says. Bhutan can still teach us values. The new boy, NIHILISM in big letters across his notebook.

Home time. The bike sheds. Unlocking our bikes. Pigeons, flying after one another. That ones trying to fuck that one, Merv says. Hes, like, forcing himself on her. Maybe she likes it, I say. Shes flying away, Paula says. Or trying to. Look at the way hes strutting, Art says. Just like you, Chandra. How do you know its a he? Paula says. Could be a dyke. Could be all dyke pigeons around here. Natures disgusting, Art says. Animals are disgusting. I hate the way they always remind us of us. The way they just liveits indecent. All their instincts... We have instincts, Paula says. I refuse to have instincts, Art says. The need to breed, Arteverything fucks, I say. Is that what were like? Is that what love is? Art says. Maybe machine intelligence will be better, Merv says. I mean, machines dont fuck, do they? They can just build new machines. Roll on full automation, Art says.

Wheeling through the crowds. You know who the new boy looks like? Paula says. Ive been thinking about it all day. Nietzsche. Who? Merv asks. Friedrich Nietzschethe philosopher, Paula says. Dont tell me you havent heard of Nietzsche. Merv, investigating on his phone. Showing us a photo. The new boy doesnt look anything like him! You have to look beyond the moustache, Paula says. How? Merv says. All I can see is moustache.

Read the original:
Nietzsche and the Burbs - NPR