Betrayed by my pride yet again, making the Public Spectacle, dreading the eye of my fellow man upon me, I banished myself to the desert. "I'll show them when I'm dead!" I assured my wounded ego. But as the sun scorched my half-baked idea into a fully baked one I decided to head back to the weary world yet again having not heard my name upon the wind. Just hope I haven't gone too far this time...
I was crawling in despair and still no civilization in sight. Nature has her own rules and I came to rue my rash defiance. Fuck, what a way to die! Alas, what can I say? What possesses me to do such foolishness! Regardless, here I am now. Shigata ga nai. But fortune favored me as I spotted a traveling man with a canteen bursting with water. Lord have mercy!
"Please, help me. I need water."
"Oh, go away you inconvenient person you."
"Hey, I'm dying here!"
"Sounds like just another selfish request to me."
"I just want to live..."
"Then you should have taken better care of yourself! I can't be bailing out every misbegotten fool I run across. The world would turn to chaos!"
"It's in chaos now!"
"Precisely. Too much liberalism, no one taking responsibility. I aim to put a stop to that."
"But I need water."
No handouts for you!
"Need? How do you know you need water. Couldn't it all be imagined on your part? Can you prove you need water?"
"If I die will that prove it to you?"
"Yes, but anything short of that is simply whining on your part and I won't stand for it! On this I will not budge! You must learn your lesson."
"But I'm trying to save you!"
"Save me? That's funny! You just making up reality as you go along over there?"
"It's the truth! We all die if we don't help one another."
"Not me! I've been responsible, that's why I am where I am and you are where you are."
"Either we all live together or we all die together. It's just a fact!"
"Balderdash! That sort of self-serving philosophy doesn't fly with me. It's always "brotherhood of man" when you people are down and out. I'm putting my foot down. I stiffen my neck and clog my ears to your words."
"Then you seal both our fates..."
"Enough of you! You know nothing of me. Judge me not lest you be judged yourself!"
Chapped and feeling as if he'd been dragged across hot burning coals, the man with the canteen huffed his way home - where he died several days later. Possessed by the seething madness from his desert conversation, he refused against all protests to drink a simple drop of water, declaring he "had no such need." Against all his family's exhortations he stiffened his neck and clogged his ears. "If I'm alive it proves me right! I don't care what fantasies you people concoct! I'm right and I know I'm right: reality can only be what I say it is!"
I have no time for the dead. The looks on their stupid faces: priceless! How can one disrespect the dead? They're gone! It's the living we must honor. These contrived rituals mean nothing and strangle me like a lowly dog. Is it my fault they cannot understand, standing there aghast with gaping mouths, gossiping like tittering women? I tried, but I cannot bend my will to their silliness or self-mockery.
Now my spirit stands uncaged. For a long time this has been coming. Would not my father wish that I be free? He wants me to live, urging me on from the great beyond! To those "shocked" by my behavior, in your falseness you reveal yourself. Why such concern for rituals? Because you disregard life.
So I cement my reputation as Owari no Ōutsuke, The Fool of Owari. Hot-headed. Disdainful. Impudent. Good! Their minds are as deep as puddles and twice as murky. Were they of independent thought themselves my actions would be hailed for what they were: refreshing and freeing. But in this way I separate the wheat from the chaff: I shall see who is strong of mind and who shall be my puppets.
Funny thing, this human ego. How obvious their need to feed it. "If I believe it, it must be true." I shall use that against them! Rare is the person who heeds his own drum in spite of the weight of convention. I will "concede" to the weak ones, give them happy lies, letting them attain "victory", thus keeping them in my pocket. You walk around thinking I need you when reality is just the opposite.
Yes, I did well to follow my instincts. They have yet to fail me! To those who betray their own I am "The Erratic One", incomprehensible and inexplicable. I will always be able to keep them off balance, to induce fear at any moment. Behind my back it will be said, "Our lord knows not what he does!" But through this trickery I can control my marionettes as I please - and this I must have if my ends are to be achieved as I see fit.
Will take all my wit and wiles to survive. Pretenders in my own clan wish to take my place. The Owari province is weak and small, surrounded by scheming enemies. And yet - I have the advantage! The law of the land is survival of the fittest and by all the gods I love it! Let me test myself against all who live. My true challenge is in not losing faith in myself. I'm eager to find my place in the world.
The pretenders are dead. Power is consolidated into my hands, now my eyes can look outward. Conquest! Secretly I've made incursions into Mino, gathering intelligence of their internal conflicts. Too early for battle with my meager army, until such time I have only my mind to keep us alive. Mino is fractured, ripe for the taking. Will I act too soon?
I still must play the baka fool, the harmless idiot who uses his men for hunting parties and sport. Ah, how I pray the deception holds! I need time to solidify my people behind me and to keep training my men for the true purpose of my "hunting parties": battle. "Who could he ever expect to defeat with his 2,000 man army?" I hear them speak only in their minds. How can I answer? I know only I must be ready for any opportunity however foolish it seems in their eyes.
Only by deeds may one's genius be proven but one need only a few ill-timed farts to "prove" one's self a fool. My plans, my preparations, my ambitions, my dreams, my feeling of destiny, my inner vision that scans all the land, my faith my hands are guided by Something Greater than myself - these I can share with no one no matter how dear my desire. For me, to explain is to die. No man has the power to grant understanding to another but if one wishes, the truth of anyone is plain to see. Even me.
Masahide is dead. And though he died on a fool's errand, his loss bothers me. To what do I owe his death? The cruelty of the world harbors no mistakes and to my muse I must be true. I can breach my faith for no one - in that I did not err. But where does my responsibility end and others' begin? I hear your cry great warrior, but too late do you understand.
If I am deemed unwise, refusing true counsel and holding fast to the path of destruction, then let me reap what I sow. That's all I ask. That's all I'll ever ask. An open mind always finds the true way if one is willing to accept it. It is not the lot of every man to have vision but any can have self-honesty. Ah, dear Masahide, you should have trusted yourself more!
I dropped my guard once, telling a chosen few: "We are on the eve of greatness!" - and their hidden doubt registered like the noon sun. And yet, the simple ones shall always blame me for Masahide's death. I'll be branded "ruthless" and "sightless to suffering" by those who are exactly that. I listen to your words, dear retainers, but they are empty and without truth - and therefore godless. To only the gods can I answer.
_____________________
After building a Buddhist temple dedicated to his lost retainer, In the battle of Okehazama Oda defeated an army ten times his strength in a surprise attack and the use of deception as to his true camp's location. He went on to become the most powerful warlord in the land at the time of his death. In all of Japan, only he could have started the great drive for unification after so many divisive centuries of civil war.
Imagine that. The truth actually hurting a war effort! Sure is twisted all around nowadays, ain't it? I wondered what would happen if a modern version of the Pentagon Papers came out today. What if they detailed a lying President hellbent on war to unleash death and destruction, putting hardships on millions? What if they told of an administration licking its chops on putting corporate profits above all else - most of all the American people whom they intended to plunder? What if they revealed a coordinated effort to lie and knowingly swindle a population by those sworn to serve it?
So, as the White House janitor, I did some digging into the bowels of the presidencies and found this scribble book left by the previous administration. Although written initially in crayon (Burnt Sienna if you're curious) I was able to transcribe it. The date was illegible but it's obviously composed sometime between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
America has revealed herself as a nation without integrity. She knows that's a futureless path but her public face is one of relentless optimism. Yes, the 2010 Pentagon papers have been released all along, hiding in plain sight. Nobody cared. After all, who can complain about leaders lying to them when you want to be lied to in the first place?
The girls don't seem to care tonight As long as the mood is right
"Please let me die ...please let me die...please let me die..." Imprisoned by the eternal night demons, Goupil lay prone and paralyzed in bed. In the disturbing dawn of waking, during those few lifelong moments of panic sorting the nightmares from the day, the helpless heathen begged, borrowed and pleaded for his life - just as the assassin had so many of his victims do.
This was every morning.
***
There's a facade to the world, a living hypocrisy that allows us to glide through with false faces even as we claim to not be part of it. In this nether region suspended between heaven and hell, upheld solely by the will of Man, resides a special kind of creature who lifts all his values from this anti-world, his feet never touching the ground.
These beings are instruments of their environment, knowing their environment will do anything to keep itself alive, thus keeping them alive as well. In this way, all the duplicity and power mongering and machinations of the world become allies - even as these same forces inflict suffering on the rest. The creatures are favored vassals to rulers of the anti-world, loyalty to the cause their currency.
***
Goupil survived the morning onslaught yet again. He sunk into the hotel bed in a room bathed in beloved anonymity, like he had never breathed its air, never existed. No traces, no regrets - a motto to die by. Goupil's unstated goal was to die in an unmarked grave at an unattended funeral. He'd of simply vanished from sight unnoticed just as he had done a thousand times before.
To angry police agencies around the globe he was better known simply as "the Red Fox", a red-haired Frenchman with a murky trail of dead bodies littered across the continents. Descriptions were always vague, like someone you only saw out of the corner of your eye, facial features a blur. One frustrated Interpol agent described Goupil as "a man with infinite breath. He never comes up for air."
Though on occasion he did "company jobs" - state sponsored killing (master Joubert's specialty) - Goupil detested the work and the unoriginality it required - even as the prerequisite precision it required still fed his dear addiction. No, the Red Fox gloried in the thrill of being hunted, being outlaw, matching wits as in any fox hunt, life and death the only interesting stakes. To him, all the "jobbed people" were his instruments, laying the groundwork that allowed his artificial life to continue.
Goupil knew his keen edge was his greatest advantage, rising above simple human needs - but its success came with disappointment, for never could his hand reach for the cup of human kindness. And yet, no one ever called him on it. He expected to hear, "Why does he live that way? It's not normal." His ungrounded feet couldn't fathom an answer. Is everyone as deliberately unprincipled as I? Can't be! The thought made him shudder, staying with him, eating his mind.
And that's when something snapped again.
***
He'd gone through the fast food drive thru a couple hours before and from his covert stakeout he could see the same girl in the cashier's window. Perfect! She was fresh and innocent, lifting his heart from despair for the few moments of their contact. Yes, she was a grade A target. The more he dwelled on it, the surer he became, his heart pounding like it never did for any of his staged suicides.
He wondered what her reaction would be. Or would she have no reaction at all in the face of it?
The idea derived from a long stuck memory of a priest who'd committed the same act in the same type of drive thru. Ah, the priests! Now there's an artificial lie! The vice-like grip of religion providing fanatical power - too much power maybe, lacking in challenge. No, the Red Fox could never don the priestly robe to be snared in its webbed and stringed ways.
There she is! Poor girl! Such a shitty life! What a crap job to be trapped in. No one should suffer such a fate! I shall free her from that, giving her a special moment of excitement. My hands are sweating like a first timer. Careful, in the end it's just another job. Be precise!
Goupil sweetly savored his last piece of handiwork. He did this often, reliving the sequence over and over, wallowing in his own brilliance, feeding off the clarity of his unerring god. Yes, the target's protectors had been clever, no clear shot available from anywhere. But the Red Fox was more clever! No one but Goupil had thought of a deadly ricochet shot! Genius.
Damn those noisy boys. Thirty yards away a group of rowdy Latinos hung out in the parking lot, sitting on cars, talking loudly. Be invisible. Blend. Nothing to see here. Goupil, at Joubert's behest, had studied with Buddhist monks, learning to make his energy a black hole, to be the least remembered man in a room. All his wiles and tradecraft would be used on this endeavor as well.
Now! Do it, bitch! You've only a small window of opportunity!
The stolen Ford sedan snaked its way out of the adjoining parking lot and into the Wendy's drive thru lane. A girl's voice crackled over a speaker and a restrained voice replied. Hearing the words "Pull up to the next window", the driver could barely contain his erupting joy, making his final preparations at the last minute as he had always done.
The girl in the window shrieked. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands. Her co-worker rushed to the window and she too let out a yelp. "Oh my god, he's naked! It's pointing straight up!" Irresistibly peeking, the girl saw the driver take that as a friendly overture. "It just needs some air," he helpfully explained, his lips quivering in fear.
But the party came to a crashing halt as the manager intruded, filling the air with invectives, causing the driver to screech away. The commotion caught the attention of a police car pulling in from the blind side. With a quick word from the manager, a hot pursuit was on for the Ford flasher. In a matter of minutes, the prey was bagged.
"The Red Fox finally came up for air." His myth shattered as a vase weighted under rock upon rock, believing it could go on forever. But shards turned to dust when it came crashing down, the legendary deceiver caught naked in all ways. Like a lid on a boiling pot, human desire cannot be contained, never failing to have its say, one day to destroy our feckless facades forever. The human impulse: for some it makes them, for the rest it breaks them.
Yes, he's pretending the stapler is a walkie-talkie
Ernie is a the world's worst con man. Afterwards he always says, "I's just joshin' ya, man!" Like he was joking all along. But really he views his con games like a lottery ticket: outrageous fortune requiring outrageous luck. You never know what his ingenious mind will come up with next! The man has a certain talent I can't put my finger on but his is just one of many wastes I see here in the shelter. So instead of getting pissed like I usually do when someone wants to sell me something, I grinningly obliged Ernie when he said he had "the deal of the century" for me. Hey wait, we're only like ten years into it...
Like me, I think Ernie belongs in movies, opening his ever present jacket to reveal his prized wares just like the classic stereotypical hustler. In hushed tones in a secluded corner he dramatically lifts out a folded paper from his inner pocket, his eyes alive with the promise of Oz. "You're gonna love this, Harry! I thought of you right away. Get those bastards back, I sez to meself, ol' Harry will know what to do with this. If ya can't beat 'em, fuck 'em!"
I take the paper and I unfold it with astonishment. The man spent hours on this! Very official looking and impressive in its detail. I look back up at Ernie and he explodes as he sees my appreciation. "So whatcha think! Steal of the century, eh? Yours for fifty measly bucks: your very own cost plus contract!" It was so goddam funny and painstakingly done I almost wanted to pay the guy. In fact, I felt guilty not paying him.
I think Ernie was a mortgage broker in his previous life
"This is great shit, Ernie! You really outdid yourself this time." I started chuckling and shaking my head. "I don't know man. This is pretty crazy..."
"It's America, Harry! Get in on the juice, man. We make warrin' fun!"
That floored me! What a genius fucking line! And so damn true! This is what frustrates me here so much on the streets. I hear so much goddam genius that never gets shared. Priceless insight those over-prepped talking heads on TV wouldn't have the balls to say in a million years. Give me your man-in-the-street-interview any day over some shit-stalling congressman. But I did tell him I was going to shamelessly steal his line and turn it into a posting for my blog.
*******
The seventh anniversary of our Iraqi insanity just passed a couple of days ago. A day which will live in infamy - only this time we're the Japanese. I've heard it said we must lie and not honor the truth of why we fight, to say our children die in Iraq for a useful purpose - but they do not. They die for nothing, their lives wasted. But as long as we continue to support vile lies saying they serve freedom and a greater good, we will never be able to stop this madness. Those who started this war counted us staying liars and self-serving fools, that we would cling to a false pride. To those willing to be deceived, deceivers will come!
So yeah, the neighbor's kid got blown up, or he offed himself he came back such a head case (Suicides of Iraq veterans could top combat deaths) or some other trivial shit happens but hey, what war is perfect? And war debt, ha! What's three quarters of a trillion dollars between friends? And thank God we've had over ten times the American casualties of 9/11 or we'd really not be safe. We're showing those terrorists we know what we're doing! (Of course, a few hundred thousand "bad guys" died on the other side but they don't count. How do I know they were bad guys? They're dead aren't they?!)
A good American stays stoned
They told us this would be a painless war and by God, they were right! I can drink beer and watch TV and not feel a damn thing. Some say those predator drone attacks are wrong but if that's true, why don't I feel bad? This boy ain't listening to no worry warts and naysayers! Freedom ain't free - only financial slavery is. Good Americans pay the price and better ones rake in the spoils. Yes sir, it's a great way to live. Lesser countries have died from instituting wholesale slaughter to plunder resources from others but not us. Just makes you wanna sing!
Swee-e-e-et, wonderful war, You make me happy when you kill some more. Oh-a-woe, we'll make some dough, We're getting richer making the oil flow.
I never did believe in easy money, But that's before I knew the easy lie. I never did believe holy war is tragic, Now I'm shopping until I die.
Do-o-o-n't, don't stop the hell, This war is different when the blood we spill, Yo-o-o-u, you make warrin' fun! And I don't have to tell you that death means we've won.
Oooh . . . you make warrin' fun. (Our debts are never due.) Oooh . . . you make warrin' fun. (Kills we'll never rue.) Oooh . . . you make warrin' fun. (Makes me wanna screw!)
War is America's aphrodisiac. No wonder we're so ashamed of our sex.
[Fifty was too much for this poor boy to part with but after some heavy duty bickering I slipped Ernie a slick twenty. Funny part was I really did have an inkling of a war profiteering rush: sanctioned greed and unquestioned immorality. Corruption is cool!]
_____________________________________
Feeling nostalgic so thought I'd open up the ol' Iraqi scrapbook.
Homes are overrated guys. We threw ours away too.
So now I know what Jesus would do?
Is this war or just special effects? Who cares - it's cool!
Winning those hearts and minds!
Haliburton got the contract to subdevelop
Just needs a pet to be fulfilled!
Fallujah disobeyed so we smoked their ass! Yeehaw!
There's one of those troublemaking Fallujans now!
What? You mean there's oil here too? We just came to bring freedom!
There's no crying in American wars! (And, uh, you might wanna keep that gun for when you get home - unless all those yellow ribbons on cars cheer you up!)
Why is it the sounds of nature are so much more noticeable just before battle? I find my mind singing along with the songs of chirping birds, carefree and joyful. All of Nature comes alive in this most gravest of moments! My eyes stray to gently bending flowers in the breeze. In all the world, my only desire is to lovingly stroke the mane of my horse on this cool, cloudy day.
Do I dare tell my men the true senselessness of our combat? Do I tell them of the futility of diverting one's life to war? True, as supreme leader I do have a greater purpose: to unite all of Japan under a single sword. The reins of power belong in my capable hands only but I do that for the greater good as well as myself. The merely ambitious fall before me, crushed by our united belief the winds of the gods are at our back. Who can resist such a force?
Still, the songbirds' celebration of life gives me pause in the spilling of blood on this day laced with life's love. And I know even when my own conquests are finished it won't be the end of war on this contentious planet. No, man's future is easy to see on this path and these will not be the final blooms of spring laid desolate by the lust of men. Alas, my only wish is to stay the madness of men forever, never leaving this port in time, never giving the signal for inner revelation.
With all eyes on me, what if I turn my horse around and melt back into Nature as my being so dearly longs to do? Are such dreams even possible? Would that not be how life is truly meant to be? I swear those crows are calling my name! Gentle trees invite me to rest under their strong canopy of branches. Even the annoying insects buzz peacefully and purposely in this most clear-sighted of moments. What is the true reality here after all?
How perverse the worldly life when one must hide even the flickering of doubt of death. When I finally relent and give the order "Kill!" they will cheer and hail my name in unison. But to walk away from war - the real war, the war within - I'd be reviled to infamy. And yet, though I fear my comrades to brand me traitor and coward, would I not be History's hero: "He chose life."
In my private gardens I insist upon serenity and harmony above all else. From such staples does beauty flow, the aesthetics empty vessels without them. I stroll through in precious ease, savoring the infinity of a single leaf, wishing to lose myself in it forever - but I never do. In those times of quiet I'm invaded by constant thoughts of war, my heart grieving in its captivity.
But I feel the longed-for Oneness now on the verge of battle! Why come to me when I'm least able to embrace it? Yes, I agree this is the Way to life above all else. But tomorrow! Tomorrow I shall embrace thee. Stop luring me to tempting paradise and impractical poetry, to dance with the dandelions. Oh, the forces I must fight in the raising of my semaphore hand, giving forth to unleashing the chaos of my soul. With the dropping of my arm I'm doused in flames, my separation utter and complete.
Pain...twisting innards...a bending of my will...can I survive? More worrisome is the exhilaration, riding the waves of insanity, caught in the netherworld of grasping both life and death, bringing forth the poetry of war. Victory's bribe inflames our hearts, to the losers a just dessert for having obstructed the justice of unification. But silent is my humiliation as a butterfly lands triumphantly and fearlessly on my horse's head, innocence retained. Tonight we will feast and toast our "victory" but my true heart shall celebrate nothing. It's the birds and the butterfly and the breeze who won today. We lost.
[It was said that Oda Nobunaga, the first great unifier of Japan, was hot when you expected him to be cold and cold when you expected him to be hot. His warriors did not understand his half-hearted joy and then early departure from the evening's merriment. Oda had lashed out once again at Mitsuhide, one of his most ablest generals, seemingly just to torment him, to see if his soul could survive it. But this eventually drove Mitsuhide to madness and he ambushed Oda, killing him, depriving him of seeing the final unification. (Shortly after, Mitsuhide was killed by Hideyoshi who became Taiko and the second great unifier of the Japans.)]
In my therapy class was an older woman, seemingly fit and well and she had lived on her own for years and years. For some reason I forget, she could not stay in her house for several months and moved in with her son and his family. But a funny thing happened on her way back home: home wasn't there anymore. She couldn't face life alone again, her appetite for living whetted anew given a taste of family life once more.
God help her.
That is me too. Given my taste of life all the old ways just lead me to the footsteps of a ghost. The old tricks no longer work, the old lies no longer sway - it really is just you and four walls, forever. So my world has come crumbling down. I no longer feel safe under my shameful rock. I hear others walk by laughing and speaking of their lives but I dare not let them know I hide in the dark covered in ugly moss.
Do I fade to black now?
My life is like a punctured tire, all the hope seeping out. I knew it had to end sometime, all the folly and falseness. Even so, you're never ready for it. Look around, leaves are brown, it's a hazy shade of winter. Answerless is a scary place to be. Vultures swoop in to fill the vacuum and you must constantly fight them off - even when you feel futureless and forlorn and see no reason for it.
Previous pathways no longer work
I know now I can't live this way.
I look back at stuff I wrote in the "before times", when still innocent, clinging to a glimmer of hope. I felt great suffering then but now...I hear only echoes of my feelings. There's a reason we structured our society as selfish and ruthless to the point of unspeakable pain and death: that's how we see love. Every man for himself, live or die on your own, you're not my spouse, I can't make time for you. The Shattering Time is here, my broken shards exposed for all to see.
I had a female supervisor once and we got along really well and we could talk about anything. So I said to her once flat out: "Women don't need sex". Now, I knew her pretty well, she wasn't one to shy away from self-expression so she really got something out of sex (not all woman do) and was a satisfied woman in her marriage. But her reply was typically female: "You don't think women like sex?" I just smiled, having proven my point.
Now, if you're a woman reading this you're probably scratching your head as to how my point was proved. I'll demonstrate below:
Example 1: Statement: "Women don't need sex." Response: "You don't think women like sex?"
Example 2: Statement: "Women don't need water." Response: "You don't think women need water?"
Get it now? The word "need" is substituted in the first example with the word "like". In the second example - where the responder truly believes there's a need - there is no substitution. Funny, huh? Sex for men is like food, for women, like dessert. There's a vast difference between needing something to be happy and needing something to survive. Turn your face away from this reality at your own risk.
As I've said before, WWII was the result of Hitler's failure to get properly laid. Check out this clip below. You don't have to speak German to know what he's talking about. It's obvious the miserable bastard is pleading for a woman.
Now, even the most well-laid man in the land is still going to have his blow up moments, but when it becomes a career and you want to start a world war just to express your teenage angst now that's way, way over the line. So like Chris Rock said about OJ, "I don't condone what he did - but I understand". It's like that, you see, and nothing can be done about it.
It's not easy being in a position of need. The sole purpose of money was to create a tool for controlling women's survival to balance out their power of sex. We wanna fuck, you wanna live indoors. Let's make a deal! There's not a day passes that every man alive doesn't pray we keep the money system alive forever and that women stay stupid enough to trade their bodies for printed paper. In ancient times when the Romans would conquer a city, the women would bare their breasts in offerings of survival. It's all about the power, baby!
This battle for power is a shitty deal for everyone, but it's the only one we got. Now, I don't really recommend women go all the way all the time. I remember an Afghan man speaking of his poverty, of being forced to eat grass he and his family were so hungry. Sure, if you were to offer him a steak dinner he would love it but I can guarantee you he'd eat a bowl of his most hated vegetables before dying. Sex is the same way. Throw us a bone and we'll happily run off into the corner and sleep afterwards. It's really as simple as this: a hand job or a holocaust, take your pick.
Everyone was doing what everyone had always done, veneer intact. Voices were strained, smiles forced and doubts undiscussed as usual - but all that ended as the Tipping Point was reached. There were two white flashes - some said three - at the twilight of mankind's day. Then darkness descended for all. The power plants were gone, not to return. Smoke rose in the distance as people climbed rooftops to see what happened. Word spread the Radicals had finally taken over. The final shards of trust were gone with the wind.
The blackout was in all places - the heart, the mind and the soul. All the clever lies of self-delusion, all the machinations of war, all the power in the world became useless overnight. Dark were the hearts of the authors of this destruction. Day was as night. Round the clock could be heard the chilling gun fire and distant screams. Who was attacking who? Stores were looted and raided into emptiness, never restocked. Highways became deserted paths of previous excess. No one spoke of the philosophy of The Savage Way Things Must Be. The time of illusion had been crushed by nature's Reality.
It had been said, "Only in evil can we trust. Love will betray us and leave us to die." So they trusted their love of evil, calling it good, declaring it the true love. Billboards left standing mocked the survivors, still preaching the belief of bullets, lovely lies and silent sin as the paths to paradise: pale propaganda meant for God. Water fouled as processing plants stopped functioning. Like a plague of locusts, farms were stripped of all things edible till even the stalks were fought over. In this new age, paper once valued over life itself was used to start fires, stillborn tanks were crawled over by children, the seats of power reeked in defecation. The truth could be bent no more.
Realize the now
Nature's tsunami crashed upon the shores of mankind, revealing that built on stone and that built upon sand. Only once does the tsunami come, but it brought a time of suffering never seen before - or since. Gradually, the fog lifted in the aftermath as a Questioning came wondering why they ever bothered to lie in the first place. How obvious the way to live! Survival's path they found lay in sharing and in feeding off the joy of contributing to the welfare of all. Never was it mandated any more than one mandates breathing. Those who held on to the old ways, held onto death, their dead bodies scorned and despised for the foolishness they let posses them.
Dawn broke with Tears of Joy. Like a calf learning to walk, the grip on Reality grew stronger. Not since first creation had Man known such living excitement. Survival meant surrender - but surrender was a good thing, releasing poison from the heart. Smiles were genuine with the gleaming knowledge of knowing what was built now would last forever. With the breath of this rebirth, it was as if Man had never existed before - like it had all just been a dream destined to wash away. Gratitude flowed like waterfalls for the gift of responsibilities, to lap the saving waters of learning to give. This was true living, reaping the freedom of facing the future must come from within.
The inevitable normal
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Take a sad song and make it better. Is there a choice?
They say it pays to have good liar on your side. Still, I was wondering why the liar was smirking and inattentive all during my testimony. I was expressing the exact truth - no more, no less. Who the hell can argue with that? I reasoned.
"Death for a dollar" was the defendant's loudly advertised motto of trade. It was printed on his business cards! Give him a buck and he'll off anybody you want, no questions asked. At the time of his arrest his calendar was booked three months out. It's an angry world we live in. He bragged to the officers, "The only thing I don't kill is time."
But for all the killer's skill I caught him red-handed. As a janitor I often hide on my breaks just so I know I won't be disturbed and I can spared the pain of human contact. The basement of building is filled with boxes and I assemble them to form an igloo of sorts only I pull in the last box so there's no clear entrance to my hideaway. I even manage to pull a chair inside my cardboard castle.
I do leave large slits between the boxes to spot any potential search parties. Only this time I spy a fellow stowaway. I see the killer beast put two shots in the head with a silencer and a grin. I remember thinking in the movies this is where the witness always sneezes or does something stupid. But this was no fucking game and I froze solid with nary a breath out of me. Not sure how long it was before I came out. Maybe an hour - maybe two.
No one has a clue I'm inside that tall stack
So yeah, here I am on the witness stand with this guy dead to rights and the beast’s liar is smiling and chatting and showing off Lakers tickets. I'll show you! The facts are on my side! The old saying of "The scrupulous argue facts and the unscrupulous argue the argument" simply doesn't apply this time. This ain't no political race! No society can survive without trusting the truth.
I had no idea what was on the liar's mind as he confidently approached me for cross examination. The only thing I could guess was he must have some sort agenda outside the truth. But for that, he'd have to be a man of true low moral character. And in that case, he'd be exposed for all with no credibility! The jury will roast him alive! This is a court of law!
I leaned back in my chair, offended by his cheap cologne and cheap personality. "Tell me, sir - and I only call you sir out of my natural inclination towards class and polity - tell us exactly how you saw these alleged events you so fantastically made up."
OK, I'll cut this guy off at the knees! "I saw them with my own two eyes, clear as day. That's how!" Stupid bastard walked right into that one!
"Oh is that fact? Then I suppose you can tell me how your eyes work that enable you to see such things?"
"What? They just work! How should I know how they work? That's a stupid question."
"You say they work, you just don't know how. We're just supposed to take your word on that? Risk a man's life on something you can't explain! I'm sorry, sir, but I need an EXPLANATION!" I stammered in shock, confused. "Who here can see through this man's eyes?" The lair pointed towards various jurors. "Can you? Can you?" The jury gasped in realization as the liar continued.
"This is a court of law, sir, and we're not interested in your point-of-view, just the facts! This is no place for someone with an agenda outside the truth!" The jury gasped again - two strikes.
"But that's you doing all that!" I correctly protested. "Doesn't everyone see that?"
"Again with the 'seeing'," mocked my tormentor. "Can you tell us how you see that too?"
"I just do," I weakly murmured, devastated by my isolation.
"'I just do' says the man with no explanation. I have to tell you, sir, your personal perception of truth does not hold water with a jury of high integrity such as this one."
"A jury of integrity would see right through you!"
"Impugning your fellow man does not serve you well. Do not paint us with your own sins. And furthermore, does the name Brian Kellogg mean anything to you?"
"Well, I went to high school with a kid with that name is all. Don't remember much about him." A glimmer of hope. I barely knew the guy, this should bury his credibility at last, whatever he's trying to do.
"How easily you forget when the truth doesn't suit you! He's standing just outside this courtroom ready to testify you tripped him in the hallway in the spring of 1987 and then proceeded to laugh. You, sir, have sinned!" The sinless jury gasped yet again. Three strikes - and I knew I was out.
"Who here wants to live a lie?"
During deliberations, the just jurors took note I never called the liar "sir" and that surely this lack of decorum made me a man of low moral character. (I didn't call him "dickhead" either, shouldn't that count?) When the guiltless verdict was announced, the beast was set free and I was arrested for perjury. I write you this story today from my prison cell.
Not a day passes I don't think about that day in court - that fucking alleged bastion of truth. Fuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is all the world mad? The judge and the prosecutor - my allies before the trial - both turned on me, loathing me for "lying". The press jumped all over me to "prove" their own adherence to integrity. The world can't die soon enough to suit me!
*****
That was eighteen months ago I wrote that. Now I run into one of the jurors here in jail - convicted for rape, of course. Must have hired a bad liar. Anyway, the sorry bastard tells me this story:
"We got a helluva rush sending you up the river for telling the truth! I half got a boner from it! Rape is hawt! Fuck man, there was no way we were going to convict. Outside of a couple of knuckleheads, no way was we gonna vote for telling the freaking damn truth rest of our lives. What are you, nuts? Just plain selfish? Anyways, we all got together at a bar later that night and laughed our asses off. Sucker!"
But then my rapist fellow inmate asks me if I ever appealed my verdict - perhaps he wanted to soothe whatever remnants of a conscience he might have. I replied, "To who would I appeal?"
"Good point," he giggled. "Nobody wants to get fucked by the truth!"
The supervisor spoke in his thick European accent. "It's Albert's first day back everyone. Make him feel the good! He's good worker and we need him much!”
The exact details were kept confidential, but Albert had had some sort of mental breakdown. The word “suicide” had even been dropped in hushed conversations. His co-workers would now prove themselves good and loyal subjects to build Albert back up to his former glory. Albert – miserable ingrate that he was – dreaded it more than death.
Albert hated his job. He hated it because he hated dying. On occasion he would meekly suggest his predicament only to have it swept aside with, “But Albert, you do such a good job! Everything is fine. No job is perfect. And lots of people don’t like their work. Is good, no?” They could hear his words, but never Albert's dreams at the speed of light. Reality was, Albert loved his work, it was doing their work that crushed his living soul.
Albert could feel the spotlight as he entered the neatly cubicled office. Just kill me! A sea of manufactured smiles engulfed him as sticky, donut stained hands waited to pat him on the back. Albert would have preferred sniper fire to this. At least then he could explain why he was ducking. He cowed under the brutal assault of misunderstandings.
“Albert! I heard you had a birthday last week. Congratulations on wasting another year!”
“Hey man, really glad you’re back. We sure have missed your filing prowess. No one can do menial labor like you!”
“Albert, good worker. Hard worker! We all wish we to have his mind. Let’s applause him much and give him this fresh deviled egg!”
Slumping into his chair lower than ever, the target had no choice but to smile at his assassins and thank them. Placing the horse’s bridle over his head and inserting the bit into his mouth, Albert sat ready for work, wishing to be his cat instead. He was expected to rejoice having been found guiltless by a jury of his peers – and disregard a soul screaming “Guilty!”
And thus the perversion of paradise smothered forward. What Albert did not know was the vast conspiracy of silence surrounding him - countless guilty souls whose only prayer was hope of the salvation of creating industrial output to absolve all sin. It was a tempting god – a lusty one untethered to feeling – but like all false gods its path was one of doom. What Albert wanted was a way out, he already had despair.
The “breakdown” was supposed to be over – which made it run deeper than ever. Albert receded into the indulgence of his thousand yard stare – “melodrama” they called it. The Angel of Death hovered nearer, cackling as Albert’s supervisor approached with aimed arrow in hand, releasing it with merciless precision.
“My boy, glad you back! And I hope you realize sincerity when I say you best patent clerk we ever had, Mr. Albert Einstein!”
Jilted yet again! Can I please die now?
No handouts for you!
