This is a nihilist piece in that it exaggerates the sense of alienation that exists in the narrator's derelict state and in the state's of the other derelicts, the derelicts should not be confused with real homeless people.
In the end, I've concluded that it is very difficult to write philosophy in nadsat - and I've read Clockwork Orange at least six times! I like the piece though. I'll work on it some more - in the meantime I've added an English equivalent: ruts, unemployment and industrial "temping".
A troubling question I ask myself, do I have right to write for homeless people? It should also be noted that this piece may have been written so as to post-rationalise a reversion into a cycle of drinking.
The Chellovecks have reified their faith in their Bog and now use icons bearing Bog's name ($$$) in their barter and even their dominance of one another. These icons, to an extent, cement the disenfranchisement of the non-Chellovecks outside the walls: the derelicts.
Thou hast been uncouth and aloof from this for so long that the Chellovecks, like their iconolatry, have taken on a mythical quality in thine misunderstanding. They have become like a homogenetic alien syndicate, a hive mind of negative reinforcement.
Thou hast been passed by some time: waiting within the purgatory of the grey damp transit camp that sprawls all around the Citadel of The Chellovecks. There thou dreamt of little save survival and what might lie within The Citadel's walls. That limbo of belonging to the nothing that contrasts with the imperial Citadel. The constant petty torment of fear and seeing the absence of a peer in every returned gaze and every skulk. All thou derelicts, oh my brothers, at times must have felt like zombie husks - waiting to be inhabited by some Chelloveck spirit, a gift of being from The One True Chelloveck Bog. Grey skinned with bulbous blank dirty grey white eyes almost permanently opened in uncomprehending shock at the world. Only sleep brings sweet relief from the relentless giddiness of disbelief. Uncomprehending shock at The Citadel the Chellovecks have fabricated in thine midst, and from which they doth bar thou entry. The Chellovecks are a pious tribe of insects jealous of sharing the treasures of their Citadel ant hill.
The zombie derelicts, each is bathed in its own light. Dim but bright enough for them to perceive each other as they wander through the black tunnels which link the transit camp with the innards of The Citadel. Why do these tunnels exist? Is it mutual antagonism that necessitates the being of these conduits? Certainly the derelicts owe a debt to the Chellovecks for their existence. A debt they collect with the surplus they hoard (whored).
There is one amongst thou who shanty dwells among free range chickens and eats from bins. This heretic is unconcerned with the religious icons of The Chellovecks. A mystic wonder boy with a dome like Aristotle. His rags seem to drip from him like melting plastic or chewed gum, his hair likewise.
It might be argued that he has built himself a Chelloveck-free demi-utopia but in reality he's still a feather spiraling on the breeze of their whims. The Chellovecks lay claim to their waste, even. One day the starry Stellar Chelloveck gentlemen within the Citadel may take issue with his ramshackle hovel or even the poultry pecking among the detritus. The Chellovecks are too glorious to be magnanimous, oh my brothers.
The Aristotle derelict's location in the food-chain is contiguous with that of the Chelloveck bin men. Cigarette butt scavenger economy also interacts with these vecks - the to'ings and fro'ings of road sweepers are like the tides to ancient mariners. Mechanised sweeping leaves nothing but squashed flat stubborn bubble gum and an otherwise pristine dereliction in its wake. Nightfall an Autumnal windfall of surplus nicotine but derelicts mourn forlorn the bitter Winter of street sweepers at dawn.
So, as urban foxes, sparrows and pigeons do, the derelicts, though of different feather to the Chellovecks, still coexist on the microscopic but fundamental level of cause and effect. This can be seen when a nicotine scavenger's temporality is conceptualised allegorically. I cannot say if this relationship is the source of the friction that exists between the derelicts and Chellovecks or a product of it.
At first thou wonder the Citadel blind to your reflection, still gazing at a shadow identical to that cast by thou the derelict. This is Plato's cave, thou cannot trust your senses, and in your mind thou still bear the Chandala brand of the transit camp. Thou cannot even perceive that thou art shaven, clean and tidy. All this was part of your dizzying induction and these cosmetic transformations have yet to penetrate even as deep as thine pores (poors).
Prior to thine induction, thou existed in a sort of hazy no-man's land. Thee were neither a derelict nor a Chelloveck. At first some among thine neighbours attempted to drive thee back into the transit camp. Thou dost wonder, oh my brother, if this was a test of thine commitment to The Chelloveck ideals which, still, thou dost not properly understand. Where the adversaries came from, and where they returned to, are places of mystery. Thou art replete with sewer knowledge which seemed to stifle their random attack - but alas, my brother, they never went away and came back.
Now thou art on your oddy knocky, rabbiting within the Chelloveck lowrarchy. Other vecks rabbit with thou, one of them real skorry and full of questions, could almost be mistaken for a derelict: but that's just the adaptable nature of his probing manifesting. As soon as he opens his trap to thine boss thou must dive for cover from the ricocheting barrage of deafening Chelloveck rabbit manifesto jargon slovos. Thou thinkst he may be trouble but he seems to have marched in like a lion and out like a lamb. Knowing which thoughts to share and which to treasure as secrets is the art of the Chelloveck. As soon as thou get beyond the idea of them as a hive mind thou dost realise this. Substitute friend for what thou thinketh and contempt becomes an uneasy, false, empty, empathy. Thou thinkst it's a small sacrifice to prostitute thine self for an easier life and a cigarette. Then he, the jargon veck, loses his temper and drives straight at thee in his forklift truck; thou beginst to hate, and question thine faith, in all this Chelloveck rabbit stuff.
Thou wanted a medal but instead thou was left feeling unsettled. Thou crept back to the transit camp to talk to the derelicts. To try to explain to them that thou art now a veck but at times it feels no different, or worse, than being derelict, that the derelicts have all the easy answers, oh my brothers. One of them, as soon as he hears you're a veck, you refuse his drink, he moves away, he's worried it's contagious. His jocularity masking either genuine conviction in Chelloveck rejection or anxiety at the realisation of his own stifled possibilities. It's difficult to guess which, but to thou he was always a stellar derelict (sic). Another old friend doesn't even recognise thee when thou art standing right next to he. Confusion deepens as thou you realise that none of this is intended as a sleight. A simple question brings clarity, days after it's asked, "Have you just got out of prison?" Thine interrogator is a miner within the tunnels that link the Chelloveck Citadel with the transit camp without, a type of latter-day dead souls economist. His arrogance towards his chattels is such that the cattle-driving veck cannot comprehend that anyone like thee could transcend the world of the camp and enter into the Chelloveck Citadel - only incarceration can wreak the changes he perceives in you; changes that tidal time will inevitably wreck, reclaim and undo. All of which is completely true.
Thou art now a veck. Part of the ant farm, all thou do all day is rabbit, thou rabbit seven days a week. Thine joy is thine bed, thine food, the bath that removes the grahzny cally von of thine rabbit from your aching body, finding a few spare moments during thine rabbit to write down thine ideas.
It emerges that the Chelloveck capitalist agency for which thou rabbit embezzles your wages and the realisation dawns that the Chellovecks practice a veneered sort of latterday slavery.
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