O My Brothers and Only Friends

Alright, I know How Things are Now. 

I've suffered and I've suffered and I've suffered. 

And everybody wants me to go on suffering.

Rubenstein: 

The newspapers mentioned that, in addition to your being conditioned against acts of Sex and Violence, you've inadvertently been conditioned against Music.

Alexander The Great : 

Well, I think that was something that 

They didn't plan for. You see, 

missus, I'm very fond of Music. 

Especially Beethoven...Ludwig 

Van...Beethoven...B...E...

Rubenstein: 

It's all right, thank you.

Alexander The Great: 

And it just so happened that while They were 

showing me a particularly bad film 

of, like, a concentration camp, 

the background music 

was playing Beethoven.

Rubenstein: 

So now you have the same reaction to music as you do to sex and violence?

Alexander The Great: 

No, missus. You see, 

it's not all music, 

it's just The Ninth.

Rubenstein:  

You mean, Beethoven's 

Ninth Symphony?

Alexander The Great: 

That's right. I can't listen to 

The Ninth anymore at all. 

When I hear The Ninth, I get like 

this funny feeling and then... 

ALL I can think about 

is like trying to snuff it.

Rubenstein: 

I beg your pardon?

Alexander The Great: 

Snuff it, sir...um...Death, I mean, misses. 

I just want to die peacefully, 

like, with no pain.

Dolin: 

Do you feel that way now?

Alexander The Great: 

Oh no, sir, not exactly. 

I still feel very miserable, 

very much down in spirits.

Rubenstein: 

Do you still feel suicidal?

Alexander The Great: 

Well, put it this way :

I feel very low in me self. 

I can't see much in The Future, 

and I feel that any second 

Something Terrible 

is going to Happen to Me. 

•THUNK•

Dolin: 

Well done, Frank. 

Julian, get the car, 

would you please?

Alexander The Great: 

I woke up...The Pain and Sickness 

all over me like an animal. 

Then I realised What it WAS —

The Music coming up from the floor 

was our old friend, Ludwig Van, 

and The dreaded 

Ninth symphony.

Let me out!! Open the door! Come on! Open the door! Turn it off!!! Turn it off!!! Turn it off!!! Turn it off!!! Turn it off!!! Stop it.! Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!!! Please!!! Turn it off!!!

Suddenly, I viddied 

What I Had to Do, 

and what I Had Wanted to Do, 

and that was to Do Myself In; 

to snuff it, to blast off forever out 

of this wicked cruel world. 

One moment of pain perhaps 

and then sleep forever and ever. 

I jumped, O My Brothers, 

and I fell HARD, 

but I did not snuff it. 

If I had snuffed it, 

I would not be here to tell 

what I have told. 

I came Back to Life, 

after a long black, black gap 

of what might have been 

a million years.