.:The World Of 9:00 PM On A Tuesday:.
A Non-Fiction Monologue by Voldemort

Six in the evening. The bell rings, signifying class time. I’m so tired and sleepy, but I will myself to go to Heidegger class, anyway. That article on “The Origin of the Work of Art” is anything but easy, and on my way to class, a colleague tells me that it’s “heavy stuff”. Obviously, the understatement of the decade.

We sit in class and Dr. Barbazza begins to lecture on what makes a work of art a work of art. Heidegger’s loopiness is actually amusing yet anything but pleasant. I look around me throughout the class, and notice people with varying levels of interest in the discussion. Martin Heidegger is such a complicated man.

”What is the one important thing for Heidegger?”

Dr. Barbazza speaks of how all thinkers have just one thing in mind throughout their careers, and he asks the class what Heidegger’s focus was.

"Hannah Arendt?"

A female undergraduate student cracks a joke, which elicits a chuckle from the class. In truth, the good doctor was looking for an answer about letting being unfold itself as such. Nonetheless, the discussion continues, and soon enough, he begins to talk about the disparity between the Earth and the World.

The terminologies were worthy of scratching your head to: what was the disparity to begin with? Apparently, Martin Heidegger has a terrible predilection to making up new meanings for commonly understood words, and as one would put it, good old Heidegger really makes one feel like he’s “swimming in wet sand”. More like sinking, actually.

And the discussion is thusly: the Earth is that which we stand upon. It is the keeper of our secrets, that which is our shelter. It is not the planet Earth of Science. Rather, it is our Earth. This Earth we speak of translates to beyond just terra firma: the Earth of a stone sculpture is the stone. The stone keeps the secrets of the sculpture until this work of art manages to unconceal it. The Earth is the status quo that we tend to ignore. How many people gush over the kind of wood used in making a chair, yet gush over the choice of lumber in a wooden carving of a lion?

And where does that leave the World? Only human beings have a genuine world. Non-living things don’t. Plants and animals are World-poor. This World that we speak of is that network of meaning we find in our lives in anything. The Earth of Nazism is long gone, but whenever racism arises, the World of Nazism opens up all over again to those who have gone through it and even to some who have not. The Earth of the stone sculpture is stone, but this stone, when allowed to be seen for what it is, opens up a World to the one who beholds this work of art.

Such a deep disparity, yet I felt that it was ultimately of no use to me.

And then the bell rang.

I walked out the classroom in Faura, and took my usual route. Nine o’ clock in the evening. And then the realization hit me.

The Earth has moved on. But the World remains. I walk eastwards, thinking about what the World of 9:00 PM on a Tuesday means to me. Trudging along, a blunt and numbing realization hits me: the World remains. The moment the 9:00 bell rang, the World Worlds for me, inasmuch as the baker bakes and the runner runs. And yet the Earth refuses to acknowledge this World. I’m not going to find what my World has once found in the Earth any longer. No more of those fond conversations and deep realizations. No more of the wonderful food and ice cream nightcaps. No more of the second best hugs I've ever had in my life. No longer. It’s over.

Before I hurt myself any further in letting that World open itself up to me all over again, I turn back and head westwards, in the direction of the LRT. It’s time to go to my house. Not my home. Because for a glorious while, every 9:00 PM on a Tuesday home was eastwards. But no longer. The World of 9:00 PM on a Tuesday, the Earth tells me, is a thing of the past. How foolish of me to expect otherwise.

The Earth has moved on, but the World remains. And now, I’m swallowed by the strife between the Earth and the World.

So come next week, I shall dread that bell once again-- Because the World of 9:00 PM on a Tuesday will still be there to haunt me.