Gradual ceremony

There was a short silence.

It was so short it would pass unnoticed, which still would not annihilate its ontological existence and thereby its consequences, although they both seemed to have noticed it.

The silence was not full of meaning; in fact, it was so void that they felt a bit afraid of its thermodynamic implications.

Climbing the stairs, they had a good excuse to submerse that tiny moment of the silence into a trivial conversation on how the locals did not have cognitive skills to distinguish stairs and a public toilet. However, they both thought that the silence was asking for more than small talk.

Therefore, she shouldered the responsibility and initiated the conversation that would facilitate them to torture each other as well as themselves, further including third parties such as certain joões. They started with What? and How come?; continued with How about?s and In which sense of the..?s. They bargained - in the manner of a Middle Eastern shopkeeper - about In so far as which?s and negotiated - in the manner of a Kantian philosopher - about What if not?s. They reached some More unlikely than likely's and About as likely as not's, which, obviously, did not lead the discussion to binding commitments.

Their conclusions were so pathetic that they would pass unnoticed, which still would not annihilate their ontological existence and thereby their consequences, although they both seemed to have noticed them.

Once again, it was her to put an end to this miserable inarticulacy and change the subject, which turned out more ironic than they thought, as early that day they were discussing about how to change the world and now they had difficulties in changing the subject. It was as if the subject was resisting.

Being sincere revolutionaries, they noticed that it was not the subject who was behaving in a reactionary way. It was they who were trying to suppress it with a counter-revolutionary hidden agenda.

The struggle between the subject and their ethical imperatives terminated with the glorious victory of the subject over their pseudo-civilized attitudes. It was he who noticed the defeat first, when he caught himself quoting Beckett. He thought "Nothing good comes after this." but did not dare voicing it. Instead, he shut the fuck up and submitted himself to the,,,

She was quite successful in appearing self-confident. In fact, she was so successful that she made him believe it. His last hope would be that she would leave without touching him at all, as this would leave him with sufficient grounds to pity himself.

This did not happen.

Such was the graduation ceremony of the institute of failure.