One of us is par for the course

Socrates, Nietzsche and Margot Libessianne are playing golf
together, right. Two famous philosophers and a famous female
cartographer - a driver, a putter and a fluorescent ball each. Three
pounds a head, full eighteen holes. So anyway, Nietzsche is about to
tee off, when Socrates says:

"With enough practice - and I mean perhaps years, maybe centuries - I
think I could be certain to get par every time, every hole on the
course. What do you say?"

It's been showering in the morning - soft, whipped rain. The course
looks like Christmas, a pale bed of finely ground emerald grain,
bristling with spines of light. Socrates feels the limp wet of the
fairway moulding around the soles of his feet. He is the shape of a
giant pear, robed in helterskelters of thin, rumpled cloth. His golf
clubs rest on the pivot of his shoulder like an uncocked shotgun. A
small handbag squats at his ankles.

"I say you're a loon."

Friedrich Nietzsche is less stumpy, longer in his trousered legs, and
more smartly attired. His shoes are glazed with polish and dew - the
toe is near v-shaped. He keeps his heels clicked together as he lines
up the shot, and tries to imagine the club has been welded to his
wrists, that his nerves are growing into its mercurial shaft like
groping fingers. He aligns his thumbs.

"We shall see, we shall see," says Socrates.

"Just let him take the shot, Soc."

Libessianne is the shortest of the three, and the most sodden, tossing
wreathed mochaccino tresses about her to throw off the cobweb of water
droplets. She's rolled up in an overcoat, a bag over her shoulder, and
she shivers impatiently. In each hand, a club rocks and teeters.

Nietzsche sways his arms stiffly, his stroke a word unspoken,
threatening in its imminence. He envisions its shape and sound - the
swoop and crack, the effect, the bounding of the ball ahead of him.
Raising the club aloft, he plunges all his heat and guidance into the
swing. There comes a whoosh, and the club is at the other side of him.
The golfball hops, spinning, lands at his feet and rolls away. His face
remains folded in concentration for some time before he eventually
relaxes, and lowers the club.

"I can never recover from a distraction."

"Oh, come on now!" says Socrates.
He takes up the handbag, opens it up and removes a set of compasses, a
wooden protractor, a pencil and a hand-held cup anemometer. These he
proceeds to set up beside his tee, sensing the direction of the wind by
the tug of his beard on his chin.

"You're serious, aren't you?" says Nietzsche, throwing his driver to
the grass.

"Utterly."

"You're delusional. The problem is impossible - the laws of chance
could never be swayed so drastically. It's a meaningless idea. You're
suffering from delusions."

"Not suffering, my dear Friedrich, I assure you."

Libessianne grunts irritably as Socrates taps the anemometer.

"Well, you can't claim to be pleasured by it," Nietzsche continues.
"What lies beyond your impossible dream but impoverishment? Death and
eternity, and we would cease to be. It would all be for nothing, since
there would be no point in continuing. If achieving such a goal is the
only reason you play, why on earth bother, since you can never achieve
it, and since achieving it would destroy the reason itself?"

The anemometer's cups begin to orbit.

"I'll be with you in a minute, Friedrich. Now, Libessianne - the maps
I asked you to bring."

Libessianne lets her bag slide off her shoulder and dips into
it.

"What do you say, hmm?" she asks.

"Please may I have them."

"You may."

Socrates is handed rolls of crackly laminated paper. They are maps of
the golf course. He starts unravelling them, umming and arring,
eventually selecting one to pin down beneath his knees, whereupon he
starts to use the compasses as a pair of dividers, measuring out
distance. Nietzsche wanders round in circles, scuffing the grass,
muttering, "Eternity?drab and dismal?inevitable, I suppose." Confounded
by the both of them, Libessianne strides ahead and drives her tee into
the earth with her thumb.

"I'm not waiting around while you two faff about, so I'm taking my
go."

She positions her ball and takes a swing - misses. She tries twice
more, and on the third occasion meets the ball squarely. As it lifts
away from the party it becomes a neon dart, striking the earth a few
inches into the rough and sending up a cloud of dew.

"Friedrich, you're too absolute," says Socrates, rising from his map.
"After all, what reason is there to play other than in pursuit of
mastery?"

Nietzsche stops pacing.

"You've repositioned yourself. Our reason for playing is indeed
pursuit of mastery, but it is not to attain that mastery. The pursuit
is what matters. We must accept the impossibility of it, and pursue it
nevertheless. That way?" he mimes the action of a perfect stroke, "we
keep playing."

"It doesn't matter!" says Libessianne. "For God's sake, just get on
with it."

Socrates considers the notion of teasing her by starting out with,
"Ah! Now as for God?" but decides he would be wiser to put his
calculations to use while they're fresh in his mind. He's still new to
these Pythagorean methods, after all. So he stands at the angle he has
chosen, makes a rough estimate of the force he will apply, and swings.
He succeeds only in dealing himself a blow to the ear. So he steadies
himself, tries again and this time the ball skims horizontally in a
direction left of the flag, coming to rest a quarter of the way along
the fairway.

"Early days, early days."

Libessianne barks, "We're not going to have to wait for you to do that
on every one of the other seventeen holes, are we?"

"She has a point," says Nietzsche. "What use is golf anyway? Any
victory is private."

"Ah, but private victories are the most important, Friedrich. Slowly
but surely, generations of golfers will pass on their knowledge, until
our race achieves golfing perfection."

Nietzsche reclaims his driver from the cushion of grass, and strides
forward to examine the progress of his own ball.

"I don't know about that. Each victory should be of value to everyone
for it to have real worth - private ones have simply not fulfilled
their potential."

"But are they private if they're passed on?"

Socrates makes a pencil mark on his map, and begins calculating angles
again.

Nietzsche ignores the last comment; "And you assume that golfers have
a natural advantage in life. They don't - in fact, those men that spend
less time golfing and more time humping are the ones likely to pass
their knowledge on."

"But supposing the golfers pass on their knowledge?" murmurs Socrates,
his mind elsewhere.

"The humpers don't want to know. If you can't register your victory
with the greater part of the human race, or at least allow it to
permeate to that part, then it is surely a worthless victory. We'd
better get a move on."

Nietzsche has noticed a band of kids paying at the golf hut behind
them. He elects to leave his next shot to chance, makes his legs
straight and rigid and says to purgatory with it.

"A victory has worth to the individual," says Socrates, gazing
meditatively towards the flag. It flutters provocatively at him, like a
lady lifting up her red dress.

A bloody crack fills the air, and moments later Nietzsche's ball hits
the turf at the other end of the green, beyond the brow of a small
incline. Marbles of water arc upwards, the ball disappears from
view.

"What kind of worth? Once they've achieved this state of perfection,
there's no point in going onwards. They might as well pack up their
clubs and move onto snooker."

Libessianne is shuffling her feet in the rough. Aloft goes her
club.

"Will you two just shut up? It's not important."

Her second shot travels almost perpendicular to the green, and across
the path of Socrates.

"Not important??" says Nietzsche, bandying up the fairway, wielding
his putter and driver like a pair of walking canes. "It's a question of
how people live their lives - it's of manifest importance to
everyone."

"But it's not like anyone cares," Libessianne replies, crossing behind
him.

"We care, don't we, Socrates? And golfers should care, surely?"

Socrates is busy doing the arithmetic, but finds his tongue
unravelling without the aid of his mental faculties.

"Besides which, my dear girl, who or what cares is no measure of
importance. If no one on earth cared about whether the planet was about
to be driven down the green?" he takes a practice shot at a space to
the left of his ball, and is pleased with the results, "?that doesn't
mean it won't affect them now, does it?"

Nietzsche is now shouting from down the fairway: "What kind of society
we live in, and what our prerogatives are - it affects all of us,
undoubtedly. I don't know how you can say it doesn't."

"I just don't want to hear it," shouts back Libessianne.

"You may ignore these factors all you like, if they distress you?"
says Socrates, perceiving the distant flag clear and naked in his
mind's eye.

"They bore me, Soc."

"Well, kindly refrain from subverting our ability to recognise them,"
cries Nietzsche.

Libessianne swipes at a patch of mown grass, tangled and
straw-coloured.

"You two are just acting like a pair of BOB's."

"BOB's?" bawls Nietzsche.

"Boring old buggers. Haven't you heard that phrase?"

"No! Never before in my life. What are you then - MOM?"

Libessianne uncovers her ball. It had been nestled very deeply at the
edge of the rough.

"What? What the hell is MOM?"

"Maker of maps," replies Nietzsche, who is now well beyond the
flag.

"No! Don't be an idiot."

Socrates looks up from his posture of taught concentration.

"Hey, Friedrich. I think out friend has a CLD."

"A clearly limited diction?"

"No. A craney-L draft!"

They cackle together, and it rolls across the course. Socrates takes
his second shot, confident of an improvement.

"Shut up," says Libessianne.

"And we're members of the RSBOB, I suppose," shouts Nietzsche.

"Just shut up."

Nietzsche shuts up, and plummets down behind the brow of his hill.
Libessianne grouses to herself, her compliments caught up in the wind,
then, noticing that her companions' attention is elsewhere, kicks her
ball back onto the fairway. The five kids behind them are leaning on
their clubs and exchanging views in a civilised manner.

"I still think a minority of golfers could affect the golfing skills
of the race."

Socrates is in the bunker, interpretating. The sand creeps up between
his toes and fastens itself there. His equipment and handbag are at his
feet, sleeping in the dunes. He is scratching his rear.

"Look, a man hears what he wants to hear, disregards the rest - that's
Paul Simon."

Nietzsche is soldiering about between cherry trees, hacking at clumps,
staring alternately at the ground and the branches above him in search
of his enemy, exchanging calls with Socrates.

"Not all men, you know," bellows Socrates. "Young men - they're the
way forward. Young men and women who still have the energy to doubt
what they've been told and think creatively."

"Like those kids waiting for us?"

"Zactly. Only arrogant fools disregard them, Friedrich - they write
them off as inexperienced. But inexperience is the potential for
experience, and even experience doesn't rescue the soul."

"You and your soul-saving nonsense. Experience makes people pleased
with themselves. That's surely the most important factor of all. Hang
the afterlife."

Nietzsche beats the bark off a tree and renews his search from the
opposite direction.

"You don't make much sense, you know," says Socrates. "One minute
you're talking about victory being worthless if it doesn't affect the
greater part of the human race, and now you say this patently private
victory of smugness is important."

"Worthless, yes, important, yes, as a factor. It's the point where
people become unreachable. Like our friend here."

Libessianne has progressed another few feet on her third stroke, and
pricks up at this latest barb from the German philosopher. She abandons
her striking pose and sniffs, charging the air with indignation.

"Don't give me that. I'll listen to something if I think it's
worthwhile. This is just a load of nonsense. It's nothing but two men
turning some sphere over and over in their hands, trying to find the
point. That's all you're doing, and it's stupid."

Socrates nudges the anemometer with his toe. It falls over and thumps
the sand.

"So what's your take on golf then?"

"I don't have a 'take.' I get on with it and enjoy it. When I
can."

She returns to her pose.

"That's the point of your sphere then," cries Nietzsche.
"Hedonism."

"Good grief."

"Well, isn't it?"

Libessianne says nothing, but lines herself up dutifully.

"Are you saying it isn't?" asks Socrates.

Still she says nothing, but begins audibly humming to herself.

"She's ignoring us," shouts Nietzsche. "How mature!"

He drops to the ground and begins probing the long grass with his
hands. The dew soaks his knees and socks, and the branches shiver above
him. The five kids pick themselves up and move on to hole number
two.

"Friedrich. You're a rabid nazi."

There's a crater in the bunker - sand dashed across the fairway and
peppered in Socrates' beard, on his lips and around his nostrils. A
last chip, striking the ground underneath his target and jarring him at
the elbows, sends his ball skipping over the high edge, much to his
satisfaction.

"You'd better qualify that remark, Fatty."

Nietzsche is up on his feet instantly, his ball held up high -
triumphant and teaming with reinvigorated competitiveness. He bounds
over the hill and makes a beeline for the Greek. Socrates dampens his
lips, preparing to make an astute remark on how, at the hands of
interpretation and inference, his friend may be rendered equally Nazis
and vegetarian, if indeed men hear what they want to hear and disregard
the rest.

"Calm down, Fred?"

"Don't tell me to calm down - you just called me a nazi, you two-faced
commie."

Socrates stands his ground, pushing out his belly like a bullish
pillow.

"Stop behaving like a child. You'll be calling me a yankee
next."

"Look out!"

Socrates is clouted in the back of the neck by Libessianne's ball,
which then drops just south of the bunker.

"I mean Fore. Thanks," she says, and while pretending to reel from the
blow, he discretely shovels his equipment back into the handbag,
clattering and ringing. Nietzsche comes up to the high edge of the
bunker, tall and proud, the tail of his jacket rising with a wide gust
- dark, wet comets streaking up to his knees.

"Me, behaving like a child? Oh ho! Says the man who comes out with
'you're a rabid nazi' in the middle of perfectly reasonable
conversation."

Libessianne catches up with her quarry, beaming at her good fortune.
She becomes serious, hammering her joy into a serene
contentedness.

"Why do you have to be so confrontational?" she says. "You're both
acting like children, you know."

"Better than that," says Socrates. "Friedrich here, in one of his
numerous volumes, actually recommends we act like children!"

"Don't be a fool," barks Nietzsche. "I didn't mean it like that.
Anyway, I'm making a justified response to an accusation. Man can't go
round accusing people without justification."

"It doesn't matter. Just leave it!" Libessianne insists most urgently,
for she cannot take her shot until they've both shifted.

"Well, I'd like to explain myself," protests Socrates, "but neither of
you are giving me the chance."

"Ad hominem, that's what it is," Nietzsche declares. "You can't defeat
my argument, so you attack me instead."

"That," Socrates hoists the handbag onto his shoulder, "is a
non-seclur."

"No, it isn't!"

"Yes, it is."

"Your saying so doesn't make it fact."

"I'm not manipulating, Friedrich, but reporting."

Nietzsche huffs, crosses his arms so that the ends of his clubs break
out at quarterly intervals like the arms of a windmill.

"No, you're not."

"Don't start that again."

"Well, you're not. It's a blatant lie."

Libessianne snaps: "If you two don't stop arguing with each other I'm
going home. And if you don't move out of my way, at least one of you is
going to get hit when I smack this ball onto the green."

Socrates backs off accordingly, out of the bunker, where he brushes
himself down, patting and sweeping the veins of folded cloth. Nietzsche
bites his lower lip, humming lowly, like a razor running down on power.
Libessianne hoists her club meaningfully, letting it catch a rapier
blade of sunlight, and he steps aside, saving a sultry glance for the
noisy shuffle of Socrates.

"Good," Libessianne says very sweetly.

With a delicate motion, she knocks the ball over the bunker and onto
the green. Nietzsche drops his own ball at his feet, coughing to cover
the thud, and takes firmly in his grip the rubber handle of the putter.
He can feel his mastery evolving - his palms are perfectly moulded to
embrace the club.

"Erm," he says. "Would you take the flag out, please? I think I can
get this one in."

Libessianne huffs incredulously, but obeys, and Nietzsche, with the
smooth, sly assurance of a komodo dragon, knocks the ball towards the
inviting abyss. To his left, Socrates takes the opportunity while it
presents itself, and makes his own, more hurried stroke.

"Did you see that?" roars Nietzsche. "My ball just went straight over
the hole like it wasn't there!"

And a sod of earth lands in front of him. Forgetting his rage, he
turns to scrutinise Socrates.

"You use the putter on the green."

With an expression of mildly troubled nonchalance, like a man trying
to ignore the hound that is savaging his lower leg, Socrates retrieves
the flesh scoop of turf and presses and kneads it carefully back into
the wound. He flings away his driver and takes up the putter.

Needless to say, within several strokes all three of them manage to
nuzzle their way into the first hole, and the flag is replaced,
whereupon they turn their attention to the second hole, where the five
kids are making their finishing motions.

"I reckon I could hit the one with the hat," says Nietzsche.

"Not if I get him first," says Socrates.

He thumbs in his tee, balances his ball, stands up straight and swings
for all he's worth - and sees, with his fresh zest and drive, the
fluorescent spot dancing up into the path of the sun. It hangs there
while they watch, hands visoring brows, then begins its earthly
descent. Between the criss-cross lines of the fence, through the
blackberry bushes and beyond, and swallowed up in the sound of snorting
traffic.

"Oh dear," says Socrates. "Seems it's gone and FOBTB'd."

Boom boom.