Call of Work

“L’Appel!” – Emmanuel Lévinas

“Der Be·ruf…” – Max Weber

He hated waking up early – there was nothing he detested more – moreover if the phone’s ringing was the cause of it. And if – once he had been torn away from his sleep – the reason of the call was work – that would fall on him like a life threat. He reached the telephone and looked for the number on the display – since it was not “anonymous call” which would have left some space for fantasy, rather the name of a colleague – he silenced the mobile and waited to listen to the message. There was no message. He waited a bit longer and was sure by then that no message had been left on the answer machine. He waited for a text-message but that also didn’t come. “What bloody do they want from me at…” he stretched to look for the time and saw that it was fifteen minutes to ten. Working time had begun a quarter an hour before. But he was not supposed to work today so he just forgot about it and tried to sleep again. Was he sure he was not supposed to work today? This kind of certainty is like the belief in God. He could only detect the signs and try to decipher them. Time was the strongest marker. If they didn’t call again – that meant that the reason of this harassment was a different one. One he could have dealt with better. He thought about dressing and having to run for a replacement. After all he could have coped even with that if only it were a spontaneous gesture: this would borrow a fine shade to the idea making it at least tolerable. Half an hour: it was sure by now that he was not supposed to be anywhere else but in his bed. The risk of having to run to work was still there but it wouldn’t have been a “must” anymore nor was he at fault in any way. Lying as he was on his bed, each second that passed brought him closer to the opportunity of sleeping longer. He was in this meanders of thoughts when his brain started talking like dreams. In this fraction of existence, while receding from touch with the most actual facts, one is prey of thinking, the most cruel. He had not answered the call silencing the inquisitorial ring but the ring in his brain was still ringing. One may well silence a call but it’s really sort of a superficial solution. A call also has got a body and that body had arrived to him, to his lying distressed body today. That body had detected and touched his own: how could he simply silence the ring now? Would that make him absent? Not less paradoxically then the man who replies: “Sorry I’m not here.” The only escape is pretending being answer machines. Having one wouldn’t be enough without the counterpart: the possibility of saying “I’m not here.” Never a paradox is a lie nor a lie is ever a paradox. But I don’t want to lose track of this narration’s events. Reality had assumed another physiognomy while he was plunging into the mattress. Minds would communicate through air, since the latter was as thick as bodies. A moment of panic grasped him. That spasm which drags you into a nightmare. His colleague was touching him with his plea while he would deny feeling it, seeing it, being there at all. He could feel his hand pressing on his arm saying “Hei!” and heard his own absurd words: “Sorry, I was not home, I didn’t hear the call.” He was denying being there, having ever been there, in front of blank staring eyes: “But you are here!” It was a lie, he was at guilt. And yet lies presuppose life – they presuppose another world and much fantasy. This kind of denial resembles much more the paradoxes of destruction. To whom may wonder what there is of paradoxical in destruction I content myself reminding that there’s no destruction where self-destruction not being involved. And it’s not a side-effect – it’s one of the two sides of it. Answer machines – technical reproduction in general – offered the most valuable teaching of the last century: the possibility of saying “I’m not here.” And this, in the most meaningful contexts. In the dream in which he was slowly falling asleep, this possibility was gone. There was the presence of a question facing him and no chance to escape from acknowledging having heard the call. He was there on his bed touched by a question addressing him. Yes, at least in his dream eventually he was there. Two hours later he woke up and sent a message to his colleague: “Please, no work calls before ten at least, thanks.”