A Diligent would be most astonished if you asked him to dance but then if you were really serious about it, he would get up from his seat and perform the wildest, most audacious and freest dance — he calls it the Windmill — anyone has ever seen. And then he would sit back down on his bench and not stir the whole rest of the evening.

As for Ravers, they are known to dance anywhere, whether or not the hat drops: in a jail cell or while walking on the roof of the garrison, in full view of the Indians they are sure must be out there. They have no reserve, they throw their trash around and split the party as soon as it turns into a stiff.

The Diligents of course regard the Ravers as outright charlatans, big talkers who put on plays and make every day an adventure but who fail to show up for work or, if they do, make excuses about why they weren’t there the day before and how they need the day after tomorrow off to celebrate Charlie Rekrap’s birthday. But what strikes the Diligents worst of all is the big smile the Ravers put on when they have to clean out their desk because they’ve been fired.

It can get really rough for the Diligents right about then, seeing as how they so badly want to be the Raver’s friend and there they are, the Ravers being led out by the Executive Vice President in charge of Malfeasance Management (once upon a time a musician, now she knows all about knives), who wants them to turn in their I.D. card and the Raver is refusing to give it up and laughing loudly, getting everyone on the trading floor’s attention. That sort of showoffiness really gets to the Diligents.

-- It’s a lack of manners, it really is.

-- He’s being taken to the wall right now.

-- So what? How is a loud voice going to solve anything?

Ravers like to live near volcanoes as it lends an air of imminent doom to everything, and this makes life more tenuous and historical, even the last round at the corner bar on a dull Monday night.

Diligents have a secret affinity with volcanoes, although they make a big show of ignoring them on the way to work. The reason Diligents visit volcanoes after they fall asleep is because active volcanoes confirm their suspicion that we are all totally screwed, and there is no hope for escape.

For G-ds, volcanoes are simply one more ‘Regularly Occurring Phenomena’, and thus a mere interruption while filing their nails.

The Diligents have a mild interest in poetry but they are troubled by their memory, which keeps letting important things slip through the grates. It is for that reason that their favorite two lines are from Apollinaire:

Alcools they leave to the Ravers.

It is generally thought that there isn’t a great deal to say about the meticulous and somewhat dull existence of the Diligents. But it isn’t so. Looking at their life is like staring at the inside of a watch, wall-calibrated and clean and relentlessly moving forward in choreographed circles. They may be sitting at a desk eight hours a day but meanwhile their minds are moving soundlessly from one assignment to another. A few highlights from an average Diligent day:

7.30 am. Radio Alarm: Traffic snarls, cloud formations, political gas. Diligent considers suicide. Thinks of mother. Represses thought.

7.45 Wash. Shower. Flickering thoughts of Nancy. His hand reaches his crotch... Checks clock. Chooses clean shirt.

8 a.m. Will mother live to be a 100? Dreadful thought....Out the door to catch the train.

9 a.m. Teleconference with Whatfor about elections in Brazil. Writes cautious article about effect of pro-Labor government on markets, while grinding his teeth. Couldn’t care less if Brazilians invent world’s largest flying saucer or annex Japan, but does what he is told.

Noon. Sushi in a bag. Listens to his coworker denounce lack of available men. While listening, wonders if he should place a personal ad in the Voice.

1 pm — 4 pm. Gives compelling performance of looking busy while in fact doing absolutely nothing. Send many emails of inquiry to coworkers regarding their reports.

4-5 pm. Considers the idea, what if I were Gauguin....dials Nancy, leaves message.

6-7 p.m. Take home dinner.

7-11 p.m. Hits the bars in search of Miss Right, goes from McGreevans to Blues Corner to the Italian joint, where a waittress rudely tells him to fuck off.

11.37 p.m. Sleep. Mother and Father begin assault...

The most terrible thing that you can say about the Diligents is that they believe in doing things correctly. In fact, this is their greatest misunderstanding. When they look at the world, they see that things everywhere are done badly and they come to believe that if things were done as they ought to be, the world would gradually improve and evolve.

It is for this reason that they grind their teeth when they see a Raver coming their way on the street because as much as they might befriend the poor Raver — who probably is conducting an experiment in not showering — they know that the Raver is committed to doing things the Wrong Way, and this constitutes both the atttraction and the loathing that the Diligents feel. They believe that the Ravers are living in the wrong manner, or at the very least precariously. And this is why, whenever a Diligent takes a Raver under his or her wing, things turn out badly — which the Diligent cannot understand, and is inclined to believe that it is owing to the Raver being unfaithful, or always doing things back assward.

This failure on the part of the Diligents is in fact their tragedy. Over a lifetime of doing things correctly their head slowly hardens until nothing can enter or leave. Thus when they die, they are already statues and are left where they stand, and they further contribute to the decline in public art.

Their fanaticism is a form of passion and of course, conformity. But a deeper conformity, if you will, that does a thing because it is right and not because they were told to. They erect a labyrinth but one in which there is only one way to enter and to leave, which is of course, a drag and not really a labyrinth at all. They know that there is no meaning to it, but they prefer to be at their desks earlier than anyone else, and to have the report on the boss’s desk ahead of time. At times, they wish it wasn’t so, and they begin to feel terrible about their lives and then they go out searching for Ravers, or at least for evidence of Raver tracks.

When a Diligent goes on a drunk, he lets everything go and becomes the bum he dreams of being, insulting everyone and stinking up the room wherever he is. He doesn’t change his clothes for five days at a time and he makes crank calls to all those people in power who bedevil him. By the end of it he is babbling to himself sweetly on the street corners without a penny to his name, but he looks so harmless that no one even notices him, and the police do not arrest him. Lucky for him, he has lots of sick days stored up so he can get away with it.

But the world really the world strange, full of estranges, I cannot figure makes no, so why then? Disorderly, uneven, barbaric — rude. Frab it. Sleepy. World is too much — I’ll hide. Hidenow no. Early must early ach. Not sleepy. (Yawns.)

It would be hypocritical of the present author if he did not state that the Ravers, especially the road-weary Ravers, feel an equal attraction-repulsion for the Diligents. In fact, the two cannot seem to live without the other which is why the Ravers never make good on their plan to go and live somewhere else on their own. Yet another reason for the Diligents to regard the Ravers as so much talk and little more.

The children that result from Raver-Diligent collisions are among the strangest creatures you’ll ever see. They dress latest Raver and hold what they imagine important Raver art world status, but they talk only pure Diligent gossip Diligent.

Recently an Oblivion was dancing with a stranger at a party, and being a little high, she let her tongue and her lips get very familiar with her partner’s opposite number. The next day she denied anything happened, and when confronted with the truth, said it meant nothing anyway. Both the hes and the shes of this group know they are too good for whatever is out there.

There are no photos of Oblivions because they didn’t want me to take pictures of them, and also because I can never remember where I put the ones I took by mistake. They scare me.