Two Viewpoints on Tapa

I am seventy years old. I have lived in Tapa for seventy years. some things have changed, some have not. I am content. I have lived seventy years. I am an elder. My advice is sought by all on all. I still get along with my wives, my children, my grandchildren and assorted relatives. To get along with means that they leave me alone. I am allowed to sit here in the shade and swot the flies, pick my nose and scratch. I allow them to sit nearby and around – not in quite so shady a shade I hasten to add – and let them swot the flies, pick their noses and scratch. Life is calm, dignified and peaceful. Occasionally the silence is broken by a swift crack. Sometimes followed by a satisfying squelch, sometimes by a curse. Movement is limited. From time to time someone will move to the allocated place on the circle surrounding us and deposit their rectal savings. It is, and I here make the joke I first formulated forty three years ago, a deposit account. I am proud of this system. The radius of the circle is directly proportional to the family size. The savings are deposited in order on the circumference. Thus, by the time the circle is completed, the initial deposit has vanished. It is, so to speak, an invisible asset.

If that were all there was to the system, it would be unremarkable. Other families, you may say, have elaborated similar systems. Not so. Of course, there are the obvious complications. To prevent a sudden, and perhaps sodden, rush, each member of the family is fed in order – according to age and weight. The one that gets up prepares the food for the next. Et cetera. No – the real importance lies in the fact that an analysis of these movements permits me to predict the time of the day and (here the sophistication becomes apparent) the night. With this I can predict the movements of the sun, the stars, the planets, the moon, the tides, the bus from the Health Centre. I do believe I am the founder of the first Perpetual Motions Machine.

Tapa much appreciates the knowledge I control. In return it provides my family with the food so vital to the system. Occasionally I am puzzled by the requests. Of the need to know, for example, about the timing of the high tides at Skegness. But to question would be to leave the bounds of the circle.

As I have grown older, the system has grown more complex. The circle has increased, my sight has decreased. At first I was able to use a telescope which had been kindly donated by a Japanese tourist. With this, I could keep an eye both on circle and stars. But then the telescope too grew short-sighted. Not that it has outlived its usefulness. No sir. With this most Galilean of instruments I can not only see which relative is leaving for the outer circle, but I am able to trace my own weary path to the limit.

So there we are. The system, the telescope, myself. I could tell you more of the system. How it has evolved over the seventy years, and of its greater complexities. Of how, for example, the different rates of walking of each member of the family must be taken into account, together with the percentile rate of family growth, the regulation of sleep, sexual habits and so on. But these details I leave for the more enquiring mind to discover. The outline, I hope, will suffice.

I am not content. The more discerning of readers will notice that this is a flat contradiction of my fifrh sentence. To make the point, and to ease the reader's load, I will repeat that fifth. I am content. I take this apparent contradiction with the calmest of calms. Is this not an example of Hegelian Dialectic? Is not a synthesis always achieved by a juxtaposition of opposites, of thesis and antithesis? Frankly, no. How could a poor bumbling village idiot like myself (note: I am careful, I did not specify how similar, or in which respect I could be likened to a village idiot) have heard of, let alone discuss, Hegelian Dialectic?

The extremely fastidious reader may allow the Japanese tourist I have mentioned to have been a reader in Philosophy, and further that he had given me a course of instruction on the methods of Dialectic (in addition to the course on Optical Physics which proved so necessary to the pursuit of the system and my relatives). But no. I have never heard of Hegelian Dialectic. Neither had the Japanese tourist. Neither was I able to understand Japanese. Neither was the Japanese able to understand Yoruba. To add the final nail, Hegel has not been translated into Yoruba.

Why then my apparent calm at the apparent contradiction?

The answer, as always, is simple. Indeed, I would not dare to present the reader with something insoluble. There is no contradiction. The two statements refer to different states of affairs. On the one hand I am content in the calmness of my life, the perfection of my system, the devotion of my relatives, the regard of the villagers. On the other, I am not content with something I intimated in my third sentence. Some things have changed.

What are these things that have changed? One of them I have mentioned. I tried to tuck it away, innocuously, at the end of a sentence, as though it didn't matter – as though it might go away if I pretended not to notice it. True, it did go away. And in the beginning that gave me cause for hope. But it always returned.

The bus from the Health Centre.

Initially it was rather fun to apply my system to predict its going and coming. The whole town was interested. It was a time of plenty for my family. The circle grew larger. It was also a time of great amusement. The villagers would roll around like morons and get up to the most amazing antics. We thought the visitors might lose interest. We were wrong. The visitors seemed highly interested. They would take photographs, talk, jot down notes, and go away again.

The visits grew more frequent. The visitors spoke our language. They were not interested by my circle or my system. They told me that the Satellite Tracking Station at Lanlate could do a better job. I asked them to prove it. They did. They said my circle must stop. I defy them. My family does not. The circle grows smaller. There is a small advantage to this. I can now see the edge of the circle.

But now I come to the other thing that bothers me. True, I find it harder to walk to the edge, but that does not bother me too much. I have fewer deposits. True, nobody cooks for me now, but that does not bother me. I have not been able to swallow my food for a week. No. The thing that really bothers me is the stupidity of the visitors. I was prepared to admit they might have an argument. I learnt about the Health Centre. I even visited the Health Centre to tell them about my inability to swallow. It might have been interesting to them. But no. This stupid white man puts a hand on my stomach and tells me to go away. Fifteen miles to be told that! I'm not going there again.

So this is Tapa. That child in the doorway would make a good photograph. Ought to listen to this talk, though. What? No piped water? Dreadful! Poor relations between the Sanitary Overseer and the people? Ach! Wouldn't stand for that sort of thing in London. In all my twenty seven years I have not met with such crass idiocy. Hello. There's that funny old fellow I saw yesterday at the clinic. God. These people have no idea. Imagine sitting with a telescope surrounded by a circle of decayed faeces. Obviously senile. Still, he can't have long. No point treating stomach cancer that far advanced. What? Wells left uncovered? What on earth does the local council think it's doing? These people need sorting out. Must write home. A really worthwhile experience coming out here.