Paranoia April 1, 2009

The paranoia increased a few days ago when I awoke to find workmen ‘on orders’ to fix a leak drilling into the wall, stealing my bath, and returning it a few hours later. I know what you’re thinking, what could you possibly do with a bath? The answer is to behave suspiciously with it. These men destroyed our bathroom and then told us that there was no leak. Bastards. But who on earth were they? Did my neighbour (also head of the building committee) order this? What did they do to the bath?

I live in a run-down area of Prague called Žižkov; famed for fighting gypsies, glory-holing cabins, bondage clubs, transvestite-strip karaoke (with Chinese food!!) and a television tower. The television tower behind my apartment block was erected in order to jam the signals from West German television stations. It’s a space age structure, made simply surreal by the addition of artist David Černý’s giant bronze babies with arses as faces which climb up and down its body. Even before the socialist take-over the area was a communist stronghold, an area of spacious art-nouveau buildings, parks and tramlines. 

But even in a post-communist society, the potential for your movements to be watched and recorded can sometimes make you feel a little paranoid. Faceless surveillance doesn’t make judgements; my former police informant neighbour is doing so continuously. The possibility that this recording demon hasn’t changed her ways inevitably leads me to wonder what judgements she would make about me personally, or anyone else for that matter.

Let me explain. She is constantly shouting at me for such crimes as being in the hallway. She stands with her eyes glazed over like a cow’s, peering through a window onto the hall from her tiny kitchen, scowling at everybody and anybody. It came as little surprise to find out that she used to be a secret police informer, and as my landlady delicately put it, ‘always was and always will be hated by everybody.’ We both live on the first floor, and so she knows exactly who is entering and leaving the building. Whenever she scowls at me through her window, I can’t see what her hands are doing. Does she still record people’s movements? Does she listen to us through the walls? Is there still aging surveillance equipment in the flat? Who is listening from within the former secret police headquarters opposite?

It intrigues me that my tastes are observed - the possibility that I might be acting suspiciously only pushes me further into the absurd. My main listening tastes at the moment are Opera and 80s Russian pop-music and the rest of my time I spend downloading episodes of ‘Mile-High’ – the hit sky one comedy drama. I sincerely hope that she doesn’t see me as a threat to society. Possibly the only real solution is to overload ‘them’ with information. My method is to make absolutely sure that there are bugs in my bedroom connected to radio transmitters on police frequencies. Then I can enjoy the image of a surveillance expert attempting to transcribe into written form the various sexual noises I have invented, including my famed Brezhnev, which I can guarantee will make him physically sick. Who said bringing down the system couldn’t be fun.