Part 5

From what I know from my clinician friends about depression is that the description of depression often partially overlaps with the description of melancholia. It’s often said that we live in a post–political society of melancholia and so on — I think we should never forget that in psychoanalysis the definition of melancholia is a very precise one. It is not simply that the melancholic has lost the object. If you read Freud really closely it is almost the opposite, it is that you get the object but you lose the desire for the object. Freud hit it when he claimed precisely that the melancholic complains of losing an object but he is not aware of what feature it is that he lost, he is confused between the object of desire and that which makes me desire the object. 

THE SUPEREGO AND THE ACT: SLAVOJ ZIZEK

The first thing that he sees as he leave the bus station is a sleek

black and silver façade for a lap-dancing club. It shines as if covered in a thin layer of water, the black stone seeming to reflect light and the silver lettering promising a luxurious experience. Next door, a church dating back to the nineteenth century. 

Two men are standing in front of the church - one is whistling, in a

tone just shrill enough to be piercing, a tune from the 1950s. Criticulous can't quite place it. The other one, hands in pockets and hunched shoulders, is reading a plaque and giggling.

'It's called Old High St Stephen's,' he chuckles. 'Like that song by The Grateful Dead.'

Criticulous can place that - a performance six months earlier, and a solo male dancer shambles on stage, all arrogant hippy diffidence, and explains how The Dead means so much to him, man. The sparkling little jangle of St Stephen sparked up and he began to dance, apeing the medieval music phrasing with a few jester-like movements.

'St Stephen,' he droned, still dancing and the band still ramblin' away. 'St Stephen always makes me think of a group of lazy theology students.'

Yeah, instead of doing their presentation on the first Christian saint, they dropped acid and did a tumbling act for the professor. It's that fuzzy, vague hippy shit again. 

Can you answer?

Yes I can...

But what would be the question to 

To the answer, maan?

Like wow, dude. Still, anything that will keep them high enough not to actually notice oppression man. Criticulous had never forgiven The Dead for their behaviour at Altamont. Recommending the Hell's Angels as security for a free gig. Garcia must have wanted revenge on Keith Richards. Maybe he was sore at coming second in the 'who ate all the drugs?' awards.

Somehow, Old High St Stephen's Church maintained integrity, despite the peeling paint of the blue vestry door and the visible cracks in the brickwork. Next door, the lap-dancing club was gleaming, but the veneer was plastic. The whistler said something under his breath about his mother.