Jim went from Bad to Worse. The trip took him many years. The two places weren’t far apart. But there were so many pubs to stop at on the way. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey, observed the would-be-wise. The temperance society told him that it begins with the first step, which he should never have taken. They have their truisms too. With them, they can contradict each other at will.

All their fatuous sayings were enough to drive a man to drink. But he was in no hurry. He was happy to walk. Or if need be, crawl.

Poor Jim. Peripatetic hermit, wearing his cell on his back, like a snail. Sitting in the corner of dark hostelries, alone, a drink on the table before him. Sometimes muttering incoherently to himself, occasionally with roadside debris attached to his clothing. The grey stubble on his cheeks, cracked fingernails, and the tormented gaze that found no place to rest. They left him alone.

Everyone thought him mad. It was as if he spoke a language of his own invention which had no etymological links with any other. There was no point where the sounds he uttered crossed the divide between him and his species. Syntax failed him. Context let him down. And he could not translate himself for them. What he felt was inexpressible. Even to himself. He could not grasp his own meaning. The drink, which loosened his tongue, could not free his mind.

A lunatic in despair, sleepwalking to his end, shouting at the deaf in a language no one understood.

He took another drink. Listened to their glib conversations. Tried to find meaning. One trite phrase following another. People taking it in turns to outdo each other with repetitions. The cliché was supreme.

OMG, WTF. It’s the first step on a new journey. Another iconic moment in the development of humankind. Garbling into his glass, Jim concluded that language was dying from overuse. Neologisms and clichés vying for supremacy in a last-ditch grab for something to say. Linguistic selfies that only tell you that you are the same as everybody else.

Jim was drowning. In pint measures. In gills. In bottles. But don’t believe he was suffering, even though he was ill. No, no. He was brimming over with optimism. Because he knew something that the others had not probed far enough to see. That despite all their pseudo-wisdom, the fucking journey had to end one day. He was just sitting it out until that last step. With which it must finish.

Let’s raise a glass to that.