Revolutions in the Sphere of Libidinal Economy

He found himself in some sort of riot, in some part of town, and when he tried to remember what brought him there in the middle of dusk on a Saturday, he pinpointed a specific temporal segment in his recent past, wherein one may locate him and this handsome revolutionary, with hair longer than one would expect on a human being in this political and social age, in a coffee shop on a humid Thursday, talking of the neo-colonial present of the country, the revolutionary calling upon him to stop resisting his communist urges and, with a fist punching the air immediately above him, march on toward the properly socialist future. 

He was unsure if it was Marxist fervor or some sort of erotic drive, an awry libidinal economy, after years of stasis and depression now experiencing stimulation; but he had this rule that when faced with an attractive man and a choice between yes and no, the answer must always be “yes,” because, who knows? Those moments he fondly remembered about briefs on the floor and staring at the ceiling while entrenched in the breath of another human being sleeping beside him may come back. That is, surely, a revolution worth fighting for? Though, which revolution? He was not entirely sure now; but, either way, he said, “Yes.”

Those weeks went by like a torrential wind of revolutionary sentiment, militant desire, and long hours of pretending to talk about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism when, in fact, he would only delineate basic facts, rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror as he brushed his teeth, while taking up the excuse to look at the revolutionary in that way, taking note of all nuances of his physical being, from the gaps in his teeth, the dark rings around his eyes, the waves of his hair, and the almost tortured gaze that escaped him like search-lights, which looked as if they had been squeezed dry of all humanity, catching fire only when he speaks of taking over the cities and spreading democracy. 

There was something about this awful longing that captivated him; and though he was not especially attractive at first, regardless of his boyish flair, the revolutionary later became the perfect embodiment of everything he wanted: A man born in the world, walking on toward a destiny he set for himself, and the moment he was fulfilled was the day he died, whether this be by sacrificing the most basic of his enjoyments for the service of the people, or by the spray of bullets that shall meet him on that fateful battleground. It did not matter. The revolutionary did not come into existence as some tossed possibility. He knew precisely the nature of his existence, and knew precisely the manners of its dissolution. He noted the way this man who did not care at all about the coming of his death was the only man he ever fully understood to be alive; as if it was only through staring at this abyss by the precipice that one may appreciate the fall which succeeds it not as a descent, but as flight… 

“Stay here,” said the revolutionary, pushing him away from the street; and he ran back into the formless crowd, saying something like, “Join us when you are ready to die.”