Whither art? It’s a question I often ask myself, usually when tucking into a plate of smokers’ poptarts or other breakfast-based snack food. I like to get art out of the way early on in the day, freeing up my time for higher things. I do not practise art myself, but it is a subject of abiding interest to me. Whither art?, I ask, wondering where it will go.

To answer that question, one must of course be familiar with where art has been. One follows its trajectory, from the earliest cave paintings to the latest talentless derivative didactic Marxist video installation bollocks, and one tries to push the line further along, to see whence it leads. Every morning, at breakfast.

Sometimes, alas, those smokers’ poptarts are just too damned delicious, and the brain that ought to be cogitating upon the future of art is instead benumbed in a lovely haze of gustatory bliss. At such times, all thoughts of art fly away, like unto a flock of starlings, and instead I ponder the sheer genius of modern breakfast snack food manufacturing processes.

But the next morning, after a day devoted to the higher things, things such as prayer and beekeeping and shove ha’penny, I return to that burning question, whither art?, as a dog returns to its vomit, and I wrestle with it, at least until breakfast is digested.

Very occasionally, when for example I have a stomach upset, I do not ask whither art?, but instead declaim, in a booming tone, wither, art! I curse art and I envision a glorious new world where art curdles and shrivels until at last it is gone, all of it, forever. But of course we know full well, all that truly withers is Googie (1917 – 2011).

Puny, neurasthenic Cadet Vig was on sentry duty outside Fort Hoity (4 points) when an angel of the Lord appeared unto him (12 points). Cadet Vig trembled in terror (2 points).

The angel of the Lord appeared to be perplexed. It opened its ring-binder, and looked carefully at the weedy cadet, and then at its paperwork, and then at Cadet Vig again, and then back to its paperwork, and its brow furrowed. For the purposes of its earthly visitation, the angel had made use of a hole-punch and inserted all its papers into the ring-binder. Normally, when shimmering in its celestial halls, the angel had each individual sheet affixed to a wall with drawing-pins, the mass of papers spread out for visual oomph, as is the practice with serial killers in television dramas (6 points).

“You are puny, neurasthenic, and outside a fort,” said the angel, “It says here you should be stately, plump, and inside a martello tower.”

Cadet Vig did not know what to say in response, so he merely quaked (2 points).

“Well, never mind.” said the angel, slamming shut the ring-binder, “What fort is this?”

“Fort Hoity,” said Cadet Vig, truthfully.

The angel reopened its ring-binder (1 point), rummaged through the papers, found the entry for Cadet Vig, and said, “According to my records you are meant on this day at this hour to be on sentry duty at Fort Toity” (8 points).

Cadet Vig was on the point of swooning. His legs turned to jelly as he realised that, yet again, he had misread the duty roster. Captain Nitty would be furious (10 points)! The milksop cadet had an awful vision of months stretching ahead doing potato-peeling punishment. How long, he wondered, would it take him to cross the eerie marshes to Fort Toity? Could he get there before Captain Nitty discovered his mistake? He had a sudden bright idea.

“Is it in your power,” he asked the angel of the Lord, “To transport me instantaneously to the sentry post outside Fort Toity, far away across the eerie marshes, so I will not get into one of my pickles with Captain Nitty?”

The angel once again consulted the contents of its ring-binder (6 points).

“Yes,” it said, eventually, “That is well within my power. But I am minded, instead, on this starry starry night, to shower you, Cadet Vig, with teeming thousands, nay millions, of points, more points than any cadet under Captain Nitty’s command has ever been awarded.”

Now Cadet Vig did swoon, He crumpled to the ground, next to the sentry box outside Fort Hoity. As he lay there, robbed of consciousness, innumerable golden shining points rained down upon him. And when he woke, the angel of the Lord had vanished, and stars glittered across the boundless firmament, and here, clanking towards him in full armour, came Captain Nitty, his face purple with rage, his eyes like burning coals (2 points), and Cadet Vig, for the first time in his puny life, was not afraid. He cocked his blunderbuss and took aim at Captain Nitty. He had millions of points!

This story has accumulated a total of 53 points, if I have tallied them correctly.

A letter arrives from Christopher Lamere in New England. (I note, incidentally, that Mr Lamere’s name is an anagram of H[is] R[oyal] H[ighness] Elastic Emperor, though this may not be significant.)

Dear Mr. Key

I want you to know that you are my favorite writer. This may seem like a vast honor for a no-name, penniless, friendless failure of a 25 year old to bestow, but it is God’s truth. The imagery which you conjure gives me chills. The truths you tell with your stories fascinate and disturb me, especially because I often initially read your tales as flights of fancy instead of actual true events. As a resident of New England, your descriptions of far away ye Olde England are unnerving portraits of a distant land which my home tries to imitate.

Imagine my surprise then, while wandering through some not very dense woods which as an American I would never call a spinney, I found myself at the edge of a wooden lake. At first, I was convinced that the plank upon plank of maple wood was merely the foundation for some as yet unconstructed building, but when I pressed my ear to the varnished surface, I heard that interminable sloshing of some hidden beast. I was shocked to find that your story of the wooden lake was not a mere fantasy, but an ominous story of hidden portent.

It’s the most frustrating thing in the world, since it seems like a conspiracy which I was excluded from. Even with words whispered between my close friends, when I broach the subject of vast lake monsters, or even the mere idea of lakes hidden by wood, their whole demeanor changes. It’s as if they’ve never heard of a lake, or monsters, or wood, or even nails. While I have not been ejected from my town as of yet, people tend to narrow their eyes and hiss “outsider” when I come around. What should I do? I don’t own a hammer, and there is no duckpond in my town.

Yours in fear,

Christopher Lamere

Have no fear, Mr Lamere! I have given much thought to what you should do in order to avoid otherwise inevitable gruesome consequences. First, make a magnetic tape-recording of the hissing sounds made by your townsfolk. Under cover of darkness, subject the tape to certain blasphemous manipulations, then use rusty blood-caked garden shears to cut it and form it into a loop, such that, when played, it will repeat after approximately thirteen seconds. Take it to the precise centre of the wooden lake and play it through an enormous loudspeaker or electric hooter at deafening volume. Have to hand a supply of pebbles which you can hurl at any townsfolk who approach, intent on silencing you. As the godawful hiss resounds across the wooden lake and into the dense woods, execute a tableau vivant of a historical or mythological theme – Judith with the head of Holofernes would be apt, or perhaps President Nixon holding his arms aloft just before boarding the helicopter on the White House lawn that ferried him to retirement. From time to time, increase the volume of the hissing tape loop. Before several days have passed, your lack of a hammer and a duckpond will count for nothing. And, as I so often say when dispensing advice, irrespective of the nature of that advice, remember to wear gloves.

Cracks began to appear in his story immediately. So rapid was their onset that the story itself had not even started, as I have just demonstrated. Not only that, but the story was full of holes. There were more holes than there was story, at this stage. If one examined it, the story did not hang together. But it was exceedingly difficult to examine it in any detail, because of the cracks and the holes. These were now so legion that the story itself was barely perceptible. It would be more accurate to say that it was not perceptible at all, by any of the senses, even if all five were in working order. It is, I suppose, vaguely possible, but only vaguely, that someone blessed with a sixth sense might be able to perceive the story, but oh, dimly, dimly. There were just far too many cracks, and far too many holes, and it simply did not hang together. How could you hang a hole, after all, or a crack, even separately, one by one, discrete, let alone all together? It would be a very peculiar nail from which you might hang such a vacancy, or multiplicity of vacancies, if you were minded to try a nail, rather than a hook or a paperclip. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, and for the sake of his immortal soul, that such a nail or hook or paperclip existed, and from it you were able to hang, after much effort and sweat and elbow grease, numberless holes and cracks uncountable. Would you then be any closer to an appreciation of his story? I would aver that you would not, You would be exhausted and still wallowing in ignorance. As it happens, Exhaustion and Ignorance are my middle names. So I need not bother my little head about his stupid story. I can merely collapse, panting, upon my pallet, in a state of bliss.

I am going to have jam today. I had no jam yesterday, or for several days before that, and I think it is very unlikely that I will have jam tomorrow, or for the foreseeable future. The precise extent of the foreseeable future is, of course, a matter of conjecture. Some people have the attention span of a gnat and can foresee little more than the next few seconds, if that. Then there are seers and wizardy persons, who can foretell, or at least claim to foretell, events that occur far into the future. Nostradamus is perhaps the most famous example, but there are others, such as those boffins who concoct long-range weather forecasts. Between the gnat-brained and the seers are the vast majority, the rest of us, who can make reasonable guesses at what might occur a few days or even a few weeks hence, according to our appointment diaries. I know, for instance, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that in a couple of weeks’ time I will, touch wood, be visiting a hospital to see a consultant to find out what he has learned from a study of a sample of my precious blood. Yet it remains possible that this will not happen, for reasons mundane – a rescheduling of the appointment – or dramatic – the hospital collapses to ruin in an earth-shuddering cataclysm. So even the foreseeable future may not be wholly foreseeable. Of one thing I can be sure, and that is the fact that I will have jam today.

I intend to spread it, the jam, on a slice of toast, possibly two slices of toast depending on the amount of jam and the liberality, or miserliness, with which I spread it. I might even eke out three toast-slices’ worth, if I go a bit mad. I know I will have the jam today. From where I sit, if I crane my neck at a certain angle and peer intently through my spectacle-lenses, I can see the jam, in a small plastic container with a tear-off lid, resting on the countertop anent the electric toaster in which I shall be toasting the slices of bread. Will, shall … the future tense. Can I really be sure I will have the jam? Could something happen, mundane or dramatic, to prevent what might otherwise seem inevitable? With the jam in my possession, now, could it yet happen that I will not, after all, have jam today? To which the only conceivable answer is, alas, yes.

I might discover, when tearing off the lid of the container, that the jam is contaminated, and gives off a foul reek, and must at once be consigned to the dustbin. Or, in a variant of the anomalous phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion, there may be an inexplicable occurrence of spontaneous jam combustion, and I will be left with not jam but cinders. All sorts of other eventualities, the likely and the unlikely, are feasible. The only way I can guarantee having jam today is to cease writing, right this second, and make my toast, and spread my jam, and eat it. So that is what I shall do, and I will report back.

*

Mission accomplished. I had jam today! Hurrah hurray! Though it is only fair to say that it tasted far less toothsome than I had hoped. It was bland jam. Tomorrow, I hope instead to have marmalade. But it is best not to hope too desperately, for who knows what might occur, before the sun rises tomorrow, to crush my marmalade desire?

Pitched past pitch of grief, I wept buckets of tears. Then, on my bakelite wireless set, I heard Chrissie Hynde commanding me to stop my sobbing. I usually find Ms Hynde persuasive, and in spite of the fact that I felt more pangs, I did as she bid. The buckets were both about three-quarters full. I hoisted them, one in each hand, and carried them off across the blasted heath. I hoped to get a good price for my tears from the tearmonger.

“What have you got for me today?” he asked, when I came toiling up to his kiosk. He was a fat slick duplicitous argumentative mocking gloomy patched-up greasy dribbling bug-eyed ragged vitamin-deficient debauched great bear of a man, all frills and flaps, and I did not warm to him, but he was the only working tearmonger in that part of the glade.

“Two three-quarter buckets of my own grief-stricken tears,” I said, lifting the buckets on to his counter. He eyed them coldly.

“What use are they to me?” he snarled, “You are neither an orphan nor a virgin, if memory serves.”

“Look,” I said, imploring him, “These tears were wrung wildly from pangs of grief. They must be worth something.”

“I might see my way to giving you a soup,” he said.

“A soup?” I asked, “What is that in panes, soilings, and pins?”

I knew very well that a soup was worth only a fraction of a pin, but I hoped, hopelessly, to shame the tearmonger into offering me a little more. He started faffing about with a sachet of gruesome murder victim’s widow’s tears.

“See this?” he said, “Tears shed in the actual presence of the lumbering walrus-moustached psychopath Babinsky, as he buried his axe in the head of the poor woman’s husband! Now those are tears that fetch a pretty pin,”

“But I was pitched past pitch of grief!” I protested.

He dipped his fingers into one of the buckets, then licked them with his unholy tongue, tasting my tears.

“Not salty enough for true grief,” he said, “And in any case, the buckets are only three-quarters full. In my experience, true grief gives vent to unstoppable tears. I think you were just moping.”

Under my breath, for the first – and, I hope, last – time in my life, I cursed Chrissie Hynde. I knew it would be pointless to appeal to the tearmonger. I had him down as a jazz-funk fan. There was little I could do but accept his soup. He gave me an eggcupful of minestrone, and I turned away, heading for that place in the past we’ve been cast out of, oh oh oh oh oh oh.