Interrogation Unheard

It was louder in Heaven than on earth.

In the spotlight at last

Killer: I had to do it...I just had to. It's obvious. Why can't you smart guys see that?

Psychiatrist 1: Sorry. No, we don't understand. Why did you have to kill her?

Killer: To keep her silent. She was going to tell.

Psychiatrist 1: Tell what?

Killer: About me, you idiot. What do you think?

Psychiatrist 1: And what would she have told?

Killer: About my...failing. I'm a failure. Can't let anyone know you're a failure.

Psychiatrist 2: Everyone fails. Why can't yours be known?

Killer: Because! This is different. It's...total failure. Complete, total. You really can't tell the difference?

Psychiatrist 2: We're trying to now. So what would have happened had she told?

Killer: The end! End of everything! Damn, you guys are blind.

Psychiatrist 2: We don't understand how she could have said anything that needed her to die.

Killer: Then you're a moron. Just a matter of time. She'd of told and the whole world would of known. What about me, then? Whole world turns on me. You think that's a life? You can't be...

Psychiatrist 1: Everyone needs support. That's very understandable. So you had to kill her to keep her silent. Do you think the world is against you now?

Killer: No. Now you know. I was dead without her. Nobody would listen. I killed her because I was dead. Now you understand.

Psychiatrist 1: Because you needed her?

Killer: Because I need her.

Psychiatrist 1: But why now? What after all these years?

Killer: I ran out...I ran out of places to go...I ran out of time. I saw this movie and the guy kept asking the other, "What did you get? What did you get?" Turns out this other guy had done all his shit for nothin'. Everything he was doing...was for nothing.

Psychiatrist 2: So it came to you your life seemed pointless?

Killer: Exactly. Why would anyone think it anything else? Every day the same. Just black and alone, waiting on the nightmares that never leave or stop. Unwanted and unwantable. You goddam idiots want to live like that, go ahead. Don't ask me to keep doing it.

Psychiatrist 1: But you hadn't seen her in years. Since before you joined the army, correct?

Killer: She never left me head. It was always her. I joined to get away from her but it only made things worse.

Psychiatrist 2: But you wanted to be with her. So why leave?

Killer: I told you! I failed, OK? I fucking failed! Make you goddam happy to hear it?

Psychiatrist 1: But after your deployment in the Middle East was over, you didn't try to contact or see her then?

Killer: What for? Why would she have anything to do with me? I wasn't any better. I just wanted keep runnin'. I thought...I don't know what I thought.

Psychiatrist 2: Can you tell us about your experience during your deployment?

Killer: They tell you you can be a hero. But I was far away. I saw I got to kill people and make their lives miserable like mine. When I heard their screams it was like they was my screams. It felt good. Some of the guys couldn't take it. Jennings and Smithers offed themselves when they got back. Those screams haunted them. None of you fuckers would listen to them, either.

Psychiatrist 2: Listen to what? What was unheard?

Killer: Their pain.

Psychiatrist 1: And you had that pain too?

Killer: Not their pain. My pain. No one cares about your pain unless you do like I did and kill someone they don't want killed. You people are something, always keeping a blind eye. You call us heroes because you hate us. You just want to keep using us and you're afraid we'll wake up and stop killin' for ya. Well, maybe it's you who should wake up.

Psychiatrist 2: Wake up to what?

Killer: I wasn't killin' for my "cuntry". I was just killin' to kill. One day we're going to kill you too. That's right. Right in your own fancy homes and green streets where kids get to play. Places I couldn't go no more.

Psychiatrist 1: Who said? Who said you can't go to those places?

Killer: My insides. When I got back I got swallowed up. You really think I give a fuck about some goddam job stocking shelves after what I'd seen? What the fuck is wrong with you people? You act like you're doing everyone a fucking favor. "Give a veteran a job" bullshit. Just crap to make you feel good about using us. That's what your problem is. All you people that got it made think you're Jesus and can do no wrong. Well, you're doin' wrong. You're doing plenty wrong. I know lots about doing wrong.

Psychiatrist 2: Like what? What do you see that's wrong?

Killer: Don't ask me something you can ask yourself.

Psychiatrist 1: What could we have done to help you?

Killer: You only pretend to care when it's too late. Fuck off.

Psychiatrist 2: It was the fourth of July. There was a backyard BBQ. You felt left out, banned from the neighborhood and from her life. You wanted back in but couldn't see how. At that point, killing her seemed your only option. In order to retain hope of eventual acceptance you had to silence her regarding your previous behavior. Is that correct?

Killer: Nope. If I'd had hope I wouldn't have killed her.

Psychiatrist 1: Could please then in your own words tell us why shot Mrs. Wright?

Killer: I was bored.

MAN KILLS WOMAN FROM BOREDOM!

My Bottle Of Whine

With winking smile, this clever one

Who left behind the shining sun!

But in a moment none too soon

He finds he's running from the moon!

I hate those morons who take what little money they get and spend it right away on a bottle of booze, so obviously running away in futility. But no matter how much I've tried to chastise them over the years my words always rang hollow. That's because I do the same thing only I know how to lie about it better - which makes me even dumber than they are.

It's been a game ever since losing Emily, seeing how close I can get to a visibly drunken state without going over the line. Fuck reality. Who needs it. Drink, don't drink - my world stays the same. "Pay your goddam rent." "Find your own goddam sex." "Tell me how you're hurting so I can rape you easier." It will be that way until the end. Here in the street I see you from below, exposed and outted clear as day. But no one hears a voice on the street.

So no one can see my bullshit either. I too play the game of appearances. You win if no one finds out you're freaking drunk. Haha! Fooled you! I would never deal with you fuckers straight up! Then you go home, fearing the blank bed where the drug wears off and the encircling wolves who can no longer be kept at bay. Last thing I see before nodding off is snarling teeth ready to devour my soul. Sweet dreams!

"I'm sorry you feel that way!"

After the nightly hells I crawl to the morning sun. I must live as a thief, any moment for myself I steal. Before I can drink I'm dragged off to work. Along the day I few sips from my hidden stash. Feeling the thorns of the world won't make them go away, I reason. If I make it through the day and pay my rent at the end of the month I call that victory.

But what have I won?

Indeed, the homeless errant, I am. I set up a false world where I can "win". I keep my denial and stay living indoors. Yeehaw! It's horrible to feel you're doing nothing right. I see other idiots playing this same game. I excused myself from blame because...well, that's what one does, isn't it? But in the end all I'm doing is subsidizing my slavery, misunderstanding all I see.

Jesus never praised the world. An honest man. I praise it when I win and rail against when I lose. A dishonest man. Nowhere in actual life am I winning - no man in denial ever can. In real life I can't win anyway. (My stubborn negativity on this point of self-sabotage is both legendary and infamous at this point.) But everyone knows that's where the only true winning can occur. If the dead Steve Jobs could speak he'd be the poster boy on losing while winning. One can find shortcuts in the world, never in life.

For reasons unacceptable to me I've been sober recently. That lets all the feelings of suicide and drowning darkness back in, along with the panic attacks and actual physical cramping that can come with it. (Thank God for hotel lobby bathrooms) And I've come to realize what a fool's game I'm playing. Before, I was tracking every red cent so I could pretend I was "getting ahead" or some such folly. Sober, it's impossible to have any interest in worldly matters. Everything is simply a chore.

My eyes are like empty dark shotgun casings: they once had a purpose but now are spent. I would love to be a millionaire on the street. I could sit slouched over with my back against some 7-11's slimy brick wall, eating a candy bar, buying a lottery ticket to express my hopelessness, no need to pretend to belong to anything. But at the end of the day I could return to a safe bed. Best of both worlds.

I am damaged goods. In the aftermath of the Emily affair I short-circuited. I have trouble remembering how to spell simple words, trouble typing without stuttering adding extra letters. Physically, I'm a wreck going downhill. Most of all, I have absolutely zero interest in anything I do or say in daily conversation. I brag to myself about the brilliance of my con game but who am I conning? If you're not getting anywhere you're not really doing anything.

Sobriety sucks. I don't care about cars or Japan or female gymnasts. It's all just a bunch of rot. I am as alone as any man in history. God bewares the successful clown. Don't know where this is going to take me. Dark corridors I now face in my dreams. My kingdom is in ashes - and I'm the arsonist. Through barely slitted eyes I broach the devastation of my treachery. Maybe I never admitted it. Maybe I thought I couldn't have anything because I thought I couldn't have love. Shit.

Everything in life always leads home.

A Letter To Orenthal

Dear Mr. Simpson,

It's been said that men only created copies of their hearts when they created prisons. In time, that will become self-evident. For the worst prison is the one within: the prison of lying. I should know. I'm the worst liar of all.

I know about running, too. Once it starts it never ends. But what brings success one day can be revealed to bring doom the next. You run, you die. You stop running, you die. So where is life?

Life is when you come clean. The Good Book speaks of spirits both clean and unclean, it's as simple as that. There are Presidents who have lied their country into a war. Can you imagine committing that sort of abomination? How does one come clean then? How does one admit to being a deceiver who destroyed thousands or millions of lives?

Yet, it is the only way. What you don't know is what happens afterward. You will see a light in your life you did not see before, a sign of true hope. At first, you will wonder if it's real or just another self-deception to make you feel good. You will have to hold fast onto it.

Nobody wants to lose. Confession is winning. No more strings attached to you in hopeless manipulation. False critics will be left to attack only themselves.

The question remains as always: what is real? Do you understand what the man of despair said when he declared, "the more people that know me the more unknown I become"? Nobody wants to die unknown. To know is to love.

I hope you find some value in these words.

GWB

The Fear Of One

"He must be the king. Anyone else would be arrested."

The Nude King spat and sat upon his throne.

"I know what the philosopher said: "Some men see things as they are and say, Why? But I dream things that never were and say, Why not?" But I say unto you: Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' But I look at things as they are and say, Why me?"

He was the most miserable man in the kingdom but if a ruler cannot be happy then who can? Like many who seek the illusion of power, the king was a victim of his own success. His defiant, nude body strutted down main street in the annual parade in complete confidence not one word of disagreement would be uttered of his new "clothes". In this he was correct. But his lie was a trap.

Having "won", the king was now forced into a nude state 24/7, for how could he defend going back to regular clothing having declared himself already clothed? A king is not a king without those who agree to his illusion of power, so what to do if he lost support? After several months wearing not a scrap of clothing and facing the prospect of a nude life until death, this predicament put the king into a frenzied state.

His loyally lying subjects did not fare much better. They saw their job as to be loyal subjects to support the king in his decisions no matter what. In this they did their monarch no favors. The sheeple were as puppets who sought to be stringed by their ruler into manipulated maneuvers. They became a nation of addicts - addicted to the sound of silence. No one dare say a word of the truth, their "code" of common sense.

Vexed by this quagmire, the king feared it was only a matter of time before people woke up. So he decided to do the only thing he knew: he sought to re-inforce his power. He knew he had to do something because he felt more stupid each passing nude day. A Loyalty Oath was decreed for every man, woman, and speaking child. Everyone but Ogilvy, the town drunk, complied. And he would have except for, you know, he was drunk. But the king could not live with even one person having not taken the oath, however unintentional it might be. Inebriated as always, Ogilvy stood before the king.

"You got no clothes on, dude!"

A guard prodded him. "The king most certainly does have clothes on, you moron. You're just stupid to see them."

"What you talking about, Willis? I can see his dick clear as day!"

Drunken Ogilvy was unable to fight back as he was struck down for treason to the lie (this also made him unable to take the oath). To prove the purity of their faith, the drunkard was put before a firing squad and killed by faithful followers. Many articles were written in the local paper on the solemn and deep faith of those who shot Ogilvy. But as time passed, each of the executioners in turn shot himself. "It's not OK to do something just because someone tells you to!" explained one suicide note.

But it was said: "We must believe in our king! There is no other way!"

Having complete loyalty claimed was still not enough for the nude monarch. Since he believed that to put clothes on now would be the height of insanity, his next move was to make a formal declaration: "Great news! The clothes of the king shall now be the clothes of everyone! Rejoice!"

The sheeple rejoiced with their lips but not their hearts. But like the king, rather than admit their foolishness, they doubled down on it. Parents filled with shame screamed at their children to comply. (High school scores plummeted for boys as nothing on the chalkboard could enthrall them within a mile of a naked cheerleader.) A sense of despair hung over the land in a surreal disbelief.

Let's just say attendance was up

But it was said: "We must believe in our king! There is no other way!"

For a while the Nude King took great satisfaction in viewing his nude kingdom, as misery shared proved a tonic for misery alone. He closed his eyes and hoped this would be enough to ease his anguish. It was not to be.

The surrounding clothed kingdoms started to mock the Nude King and his nude peasants. Fearing he'd be made to look a fool, he did the most foolish thing possible: he declared war. That gave the ruler the desired effect of unity and high polling numbers but the war was a different matter altogether.

"Why are we going to kill people because of something we chose to do?"

But it was said: "We must believe in our king! There is no other way!"

For the king, the war was even more of a disaster: he won. In defeat he could have returned to his clothes wearing ways. Many of those who returned from battle were also defeated through "victory", killing themselves for having killed without reason. (Yet none of the generals who gave the orders committed suicide.) Just as the remorseful executioners declared "It's not OK to do something just because someone tells you to!", so now did soldiers by the thousands die by their own hand, even more than were killed in combat.

The king was out of options. On whom could he blame his woes now?? This begot the era of evil purges for those who were nude but not "nude enough", therefor endangering national security. Rather than admit the mistakes of the past, the kingdom clung to its lies as a moral stance. "We must continue to kill or we'd have to admit all the killing we did before was wrong!" It was deemed they had no choice but to live their lives as naked killers. The prospect they were responsible for their own choices was just too horrible to consider.

We don't wish to look the fool by questioning our comfy lives

What the king needed most was an enemy/savior. "I say unto you: there is one among us who deceives us! He walks among us as we do, but he is not one of us. He is the Great Betrayer who brings death to our land. We must find this person and kill him before he destroys us all!"

This command was very popular with the sheeple whose lives now had a given purpose. There was much excited speculation on talk shows of just who the Great Betrayer was and the best methods to "smoke him out." Enterprising shysters cashed in with "Betrayer tests" they sold to be administered to "friends and family so you can rest easy at night that the Betrayer is not in your house."

But although each person knew they were not the Betrayer, each still feared to be. Having detached from reality by following the king's orders, doubt's unreality started to seep in like the angel of death. "There is no truth!" And without truth, how could any one person not know if in fact they were the Betrayer? Hysteria swept the land, mass shootings breaking out from self-paranioa. But while many blamed the bullet none blamed their lies.

How could the king ever be set free? The entire kingdom was aching to be set free of their insane nude ways! And the only way they could see to accomplish this was by complete and utter self-annihilation. "If the truth cannot save us then death must! If only we could find one person who disagrees so that we may live! Oh, the humanity!"

Since they had opened themselves up to the possibility, a clothed savior rose up saying it was time for all to clothe themselves. But on this the Nude King did pounce. "Aha! My plan worked! We have found our traitor and Betrayer. We must remain vigilant and remember we cannot tolerate even one voice of dissent! It's time to come to our senses and realize there is no other way than the path we are on. Let us each gather a rock to strike down this agent of destruction; a man who mocks our ways and would have us be fools in perpetuity. Chant with me now: Kill the Betrayer! Kill the Betrayer!"

And thus started the chant as every hand large and small picked up a rock - and hurled it towards the king, ending his reign of error forever.

"But..but...I thought we had to believe in the king!"

"No. We only have to believe in ourselves."

Vincent Lee Daniels Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Turns out hell does have a kitchen!

One thing I've never talked about is my time inside for my crime of expressed sexual desire. I realize I'm being made to pay for the sins of others, and those who want to help, heal - and those who don't want to help, hurt. But those who hurt in the name of healing are the biggest monsters of all (and the most common). I just hope I get to see the day when those masks are forever removed. In the meantime, it just sucks.

And I realize saying all this is like being Napoleon stuck inside an insane asylum filled with nothing but people who think they're Napoleon, my words carry no weight; damned if I do, damned if I don't. "...but, but I really am Napoleon!"

The hypocrisy is this: Ask you average middle aged father what makes him angrier: his 17 year old daughter being flashed in the park by a middle aged man or finding out her 17 year old boyfriend has knocked her up. At first blush, 99 out of a hundred will explode at the first scenario and be mute on the second. That's because he can't picture himself doing the first one and pounds his moral chest in righteousness and he's going to kick that guy's ass in parental outrage, etc, etc. But on the second one he can picture his 17 year old horny self doing that and thus hesitates to condemn. Same scenario plays out with petty robbers vs. white collar robbers. It's all bullshit.

Don't reciprocate, guys!

So if one runs around even half-naked in front of hot girls one is set up to take the fall for society's vast hidden perversions. (Well, hidden if you don't look, anyway). And that's when one gets to witness the underbelly of those who feel they have carte blanche to act as they wish with no repercussions. "What you do unto the least of you, you do unto me," is one of the most rebuked sentiments done on a daily basis - many by self-proclaimed Christians! Those on the receiving end get revealed too.

There's the hard guys who accept jail as just part of the game - even a quasi-support system to their lives. They get known by the police and that familiarity means something to them even as they scoff. Some people are out of control in their lives, grasping for answers (won't find them here!). Some are mixed up kids either getting more scared or more angry. But just as in the real world where the only two groups in actuality are the haves and have-nots, in jail it's the survives and survive-nots.

I was in the second group.

So was Vincent Lee Daniels. This was county jail but Vincent was pulling a long term here because state prison had no room for him. Since I couldn't cope with a cage I looked for others like me to see how they made it through the day. Vincent used straight out denial. As far as he was concerned he was in the Bahamas! That was his mental "out". I was like, "OK, I understand that but don't think I can go that far." Then again I was a short timer and knew it. I adapted his strategy to a degree but only as a quant, measured but not embraced.

Record Company Executive: Your fans are church folk, Johnny. Christians. They don't wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin' to cheer 'em up.

Johnny Cash: [pause] Well, they're not Christians, then.

--Walk The Line (2005)

Boy, did I jump up and applaud when I heard that line! But don't anyone else count on a Johnny Cash concert or anything like it in their lifetime now. Let me ask you this: how many people who live under the thumb of cops praise cops? That's when you get to know someone, when you live at their mercy. After seeing these jerks up close and personal, I felt for their families and kids and what their lives must be like living in the same house. Recalls a lot of bad memories for me.

God talking to cop/jailor standing before Him: "Why did you mistreat my children so?"

Cop: "That scum deserved it! That's the only thing they understand. I was making the world a better place!"

God: "So am I." Then God pulls the lever to open the shaft below the cop's feet. Jesus by his side spoke. "Shame that's the only thing he understands."

Imagining scenarios like that is my coping mechanism and when I shared this with Vincent he loved it and we formed a lifeline. He actually got into that therapy a bit as well but when I tried his it had a horrible aftershock when I came back down out of denial where I fell into a black pit of despair. Scared the living hell out of me. Back to my standard repression mode.

But the psyche "doctor" - aka Nurse Ratched, aka Josef Mengele, had plans for Vincent. I was boiling mad when they dragged him in. "Oh, he's delusional. Thinks he's in the Bahamas." Doesn't matter what he thinks, cocksuckers, he's in fucking jail regardless you lying morons. They just wanted to fuck somebody over because they enjoy it and can get away with it in this dark world. Just know when God does ask you why you acted like an asshole that any answer is wrong (especially, 'Someone told me to do it"). Just repent.

So they needed to break him, to "bring him back to reality." Like those idiots have any clue as to reality for if they did they'd treat him like the most precious object on the planet. Instead, they delighted in showing him the hell he was in, the futility of life on the outside even when he did get out, what a loser he was, and that his life was over. "Get that through your head." Drove them nuts to think even one person was escaping the suffering they induced.

The outcome was predictable. Suicide. So-called "realist" inmates condemned Vincent but truth is they're just scared fuckers too, terrified of their own fate. Having driven a man to suicide his murderers only doubled down in their guilt - they also (justly) fearing for their future. Talk about your losers! And I understand the rationale that says, "Denial is always bad." But people looking to apply formulas in life without thought or context are just tools of the state.

And my truth is, could Emily et al see this blog I'd never post this. And yeah, what about my future? The curtains are drawing to a close.

Life In The Xebulan Nebula

This isn't the fate of an intelligent being.

I squint through a haze of murky gases into the outer universe. Within here, nothing can be seen as it truly is. I have to deduce, conject, and infer what is real. I must rely on my memory of moments past on the outside, without that I'd have no true idea of reality - or how to fake that I do. Put all these pieces together and I can paint a semblance of the truth. I pray every day no one calls my bluff. "Tell us what your true experience." That I cannot do.

No one can know I was stupid enough to enter a nebula, of course. On the comm-link I must pretend I'm still outside engaging in interdimensional travel like any normal being of the universe. I rehearse lines of normality, speaking with a feigned interest, the weight of the façade tearing me down as the clock runs out and I must hastily disengage. Funny thing is, I feel a sense of relief on the other end too, as if they are lying as well. Are they also stuck in a nebula? Can't be! Only I am that stupid.

At some point I will have fallen too far behind. The nature of responsibility is the nature of the universe. If I do not progress I will be exposed for not experiencing what everyone has as they advance. My soul grows stale in these shapeshifting clouds of the nether world. With its nebulous nature I can lay an object down only to find it drifted to another place later on. This is very trying and taxing and vexing on the mind as I must constantly search and search for even the simplest of things. I fear the life before me.

And so I despair. How pointless my life beats. To even breathe is a charade. In here, the end has already happened.

These reasons and more are why no one but a madman - or a coward - enters a nebula to escape the light. Sooner or later you crack from too many days of futureless passed. I hear it all the time in the cross chatter of we fools. I can detect an excited certainty in their voice of having found an "answer" to escape reality. They've limited the incoming comm-link so as to hear no voice of dissent, to keep their voice of inner moral authority pristine. I may not be alone in my idiocy but I'm alone nonetheless.

Oh, how weary webbed the mind as the heart freezes in the bottomless cold of space. Tears ice into sharp pointed crystals that never melt. Once born they never disappear. How can I see hope in living with that? Why would I expect life to get better when I have to dodge more and more of these slicing objects dancing around me? Even a second's relaxation can be dangerous. If I don't like it - if I cry even more - it only makes it worse. But without tears one gets brittle and snaps into space dust. Then I'd forever be part of the nebula - which is how nebulas exist.

I need to escape but at this point I'd be cycled through a prison planet as my only portal to eventual freedom. I just can't face a place of marching armies and useless, empty chores and fanatical worship of death. I understand I've put myself in this position but what a nightmare those places are! I'd be back among the savage ignorant all over again and be brutally killed the second I to commit to love. Running from love is what got me to hide in this damn nebula so I understand having to prove myself. Still...it sucks more than I can face right now.

"Oh, to be among the stars again..."

What price an honest word to slip out? Like a short-circuiting android I catch myself repeating phrases in my wooden charade that once had life in them. I feel clever in my deception but I only dig my hole deeper. I heard people on the comm-link talking about "integrity". I wondered if I had integrity but then I realized what matters integrity hidden in a nebula?? What does matter is who I'd be back among the stars. I used to think I knew. Not now. I can only know when I'm there.

Angry is the empty gaze,
Star-lifes twinkle through the haze.

Are You A Socialist?

A satisfied selfie on the way to the top

Sir Frederick Hendershot III was a stockbroker in good standing. He followed all the rules and regulations to a T while despising "young, punk traders" in their flashy foreign sports cars who give the industry a bad name. Hendershot considered himself part of the integral fabric of corporatization that builds the world as we know it today. He found great comfort in this assumed role.

To not share his views and not be as fortunate as he was "simply the mark of an immoral character". This allowed him to guiltlessly pick his way through the downtown homeless on his way to his high-rise accommodations. That others chose the "safe, easy" route and ended up in dire straights only affirmed his life's choices. "It's good to be me."

"People are basically selfish and greedy and if we ignore that fact we'd be damn fools! A system of greed is the only way. No shortcuts! Every dollar must be an honest dollar or the whole system collapses. Because I've stayed on the straight and narrow I lead a good life and always will. The good Lord wants it this way. Amen."

Frederick loved to pontificate on the wisdom and morality of his life. He bathed in it and wallowed in it to his heart's delight. To his long-time associates who'd heard it all before his speeches only caused eye-rolling but so well-rehearsed was his passion that many a weak fool who heard it for the first time would find pearls of wisdom in his seeming insights. This was the true food that kept Frederick alive.

Pharaoh spots a useless loafer wanting a free ride!

"It's these people with a sense of entitlement who outrage me the most! The world owes you nothing, my good man. All this liberal garbage that Man has a need to give is nonsense in the utmost. You cannot take from others giving nothing in return. No system can survive that! 'Every dollar must be earned,' is my motto. Socialism is death!"

So one can imagine his outrage when Sir Frederick was about to enter the marble hallways of exclusivity of his building to find his pocket had been picked!

"You thieving scum! I won't stand for this! How dare you extend your hands into my pocket! No human being has a right to another's wealth. This isn't about selfishness but law and order. What would happen if every person had his pockets picked? It would be the end of civilization, complete anarchy. Is this what we've become? Are we to funnel our assets to those who feel our money should be theirs simply because of a false sense of entitlement? That's utter madness! It's insanity beyond all words!"

Sir Frederick's outrage could not be contained as he lectured and chastised all those within earshot. His scathing soliloquy also spurred pretty policemen into action as protecting the poor does not pay one's rent as well as protecting the rich. When the police did bring the "baseless scoundrel" before Sir Frederick, however, his tone and demeanor transformed in an instant.

It's fun to be a hypocrite in a godless world!

"Oh, sir, I'm sorry. My utmost apologies. I spoke too hastily. How wrong of me to be so judgmental! Please, take my money - and more if you want. Please do not underestimate my desire to serve the greater good." The thief in question was none other than Dewey Cheatum, the famous billionaire who believes he is entitled to every dollar in existence. Poor Freddy just couldn't apologize enough. "Please understand I thought it was one of these wretched street urchins who pinched my funds. I had no idea it was a person of wealth. I'd rather die than give a nickel to these homeless bums looking for a free ride but to you I'll give all my money!"

Yes, it's true: we live in Opposite World, where capitalists are socialists and socialists are capitalists. So take the Socialist Test. Does it make you angrier to think this man takes a nickel from you

than this man takes tens of thousands from you?

If so, you're a socialist!

Hollow Hal

"I can't survive doing what it takes to survive."

I was lying on my beaten sofa in my usual half-stupor waiting/praying for the world to end. It was as if the weight of cinder blocks had been placed upon my chest, punishing me for breathing. My only option was to stop breathing. Still is. Afternoons are a time of pain for me and when I am at my most listless. But my hoping for peace guaranteed it not to be.

Outside I heard some sort of scuffle and some disturbing barking between various dog factions. Dogs have been in the news here recently since a roaming pack mauled a woman to death in south Dallas. That was on my mind as I caught the scuffle's aftermath. Apparently a woman from the building across the way had lost the grip on her dog's leash and it decided to tangle with Hollow Hal's two small dogs during their daily walk. Hal with his big ass bald head is definitely another lost soul trying to stay alive at fifty-five.

He proceeded to chew the woman out and would accept no apology from her. When she saw that, she got her back up too since she knew the incident was not deliberate. But Hal preferred to see it as an act of war. Of course, what he was really saying in this outburst of exaggerated anger was something else. What he really protested was that he had no one to love and no one loved him - outside of his animals, that is. Who knows, maybe his deeper frustration was that he wanted her. It was clear Hal does not live in hope.

As John Lennon would say: isn't he a bit like you and me?

Watching Hal's unjustified rant put into perspective just how hollow his life is. Those two tiny dogs are his life and he's perpetually scared shitless of losing them. Hal has checked out on life but still wants all the advantages of being here - sort of like someone who wants to drive a car but not make the payments. Like all conservatives he needs to play the victim, that he has just cause not to make the payments due. He's the kind of person who'd leave his wallet out to steal just so he can say later when it's gone that that's proof there's no point in even trying to live.

We actually struck up a conversation a couple of times. Both were unsatisfactory. First time was when I wore my "Free Pussy Riot" shirt which gave Hal license to go into his anti-Putin rant. It was one of those awkward cases where you disagree with someone who's on the same side. Hal's anti-Putinism stems from partially clinging to the need of a cold war adversary and partly from a need to have bad guys in the world on whom we can conveniently blame everything. Putin is this, Putin is that. I didn't want to hear it. I don't want to hear about Putin as the problem because Putin is not the solution.

Second time was his anti-Hollywood propaganda. Victim Hal just can't win what with the horrid movies coming out nowadays. Conservatives need enemies - the more the better and the more imaginary better still. In the demonization of his mind Hollywood slanders and lies in its films, feeling no fidelity to the facts (of course, one need only substitute "Hal" for "Hollywood" in his little diatribe to know his real truth). But this kind of argument gets under my skin and knowing I was dealing with a simpleton I baited a trap for him.

"Hey, did you ever see the movie "The Insider"?

"About the liberal media? Oh yeah, I saw that!"

Fucking moron, has to twist everything, completely missing the point. "I saw that guy Jeffrey Wigand in an interview and he said the scene at night with the guy stalking him at the golf club never happened."

"Perfect example of what I'm saying! They just make stuff up and pretend like it's true!"

"But he did say it was true." That threw him for a loop.

"Wh-what?"

"Yeah, even though that exact incident never happened the feeling of being stalked did happen. It's just a storytelling mechanism to convey that. Don't have to be factual to be true."

"Well...I'll just stick to the facts. Sounds like liberal talk to me."

Then Hal sulked away realizing he hadn't found a fellow warrior in his battle against life after all. You can smell his loneliness a mile away, the bitterness of self-sabotage as he refuses the gifts of life. Hollow Hal's tortured rationalizations are common to hear in these parts. How to be perceived as moral while defending the indefensible? He avoids eye contact with me now which is fine by me. Let Jesus go among the sinners, I'm not that strong.

And as I said before, isn't Hal a bit like you and me?

Welcome Back, Harry!

The terrifying, sinking, falling-into-the-black-pit-of-a-bottomless-hole feeling had seized upon me once again as I passed through the portals of doom of the mostly empty bank building at night, a place where the living souls of the day have departed and is left for the dead, i.e. me. Every day spent without sticking your head in the dirty water of self-water-boarding that is the job world makes it all the worse when the day of reckoning returns and you realize hell's grip on your life is the one factor that never changes.

"Welcome back, Harry! How was your vacation?" Earl is older, heavy-set, and will never be anything more or less than what he is right now - and he knows that. He can't hide his dyin' eyes. He failed to stay alive at fifty-five and now is stuck pushing his gasless car forward on the highway of life. The strain of it - and the thought of doing it the rest of his days - shows on his creased face. Like anyone who makes himself miserable I don't trust Earl. The fact he tries to put a happy face on it all makes me trust him even less.

"Short." So was I. Wasn't Earl's fault. He probably had no idea that the last thing I wanted to do when returning is speak to anyone - or even breathe for that matter. I was in complete survival mode with no energy to spare as the looming prospect of recurring boredom and monotony before me forced me into a prayer for instant death.

But maybe Earl does know I'm suffering and just wants to fuck with me. "That's OK. Your mop bucket's been waiting on you the whole time!"

"More proof we live in a godless world."

"Oh, come on! It can't be as bad as all that."

"Let me stick this mop handle up your ass then you can tell me how bad it is."

"Whoa! Just thought you might be in a good mood after a week off."

"All that does is give me time to realize just what a waste my life is. I caught that scene in "The Big Chill" where those idiots are dancing around in the kitchen to some old pop song. I'm thinking, "Who are those people?" Who gets to fuck around and go on vacation without any worries? I'm just an invisible slave and nobody gives a fuck. My chance to live is long gone. I got nothin' and nobody."

"You mean no Emily?" I glared at Earl with intent to kill. I had no idea he'd actually been listening to me over the years. "But that was years ago."

Not all wounds heal and this one cuts like a rusty razor. "Yeah, well, you don't have permission to speak her name." I was boiling inside.

"Who does?" rebuffed Earl.

No, this was not my vacation

I wasn't expecting his cheeky reply. Touché, I admitted though still annoyed. And so it had begun, another night of the tears of a frown hidden in my hollowed out heart, pining for the family I never had. Can't say anything or they chop your head off with the fury of the self-pity sword. Only thing worse is when they agree with your self-pity. God never faced a mop bucket, a time clock, and a morning boner all in one day. At this point, even I am sick of hearing me.

So I disconnect - just like the people I hate.

I play my role of the despised slave whose work is honored by their lips but not their wallet. I've seen all these articles on the "disaster" of giving people a living wage, that it does not fit the capitalistic model. But of course not! Slavery is what works best. The Old South built an entire economy on it and we've been trying to recreate it ever since. But the assholes just can't come right out and say, "We need you to be slaves." They hide behind economic models and other numeric voodoo that emanates from the religion of money.

This was on my mind as I rolled my mop bucket down the marble hallway of human bondage. I and my fellow workers are under permanent suspicion by virtue of our poverty and our masters' guilty conscience. The creatures who inhabit this building during the day feel above doing this sort of work. The owner of the fiction that is our company is home humping his wife as we nightwalkers are pimped to give him an illusion of power. People may be wrong about the conspiracies they propagate but the world is most certainly a conspiracy - with the emphasis on the "con".

"'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings,
and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."
- Noah Cross, Chinatown

I recognize the name of one of the legal firms handling Ray Hunt's Oncor takeover. I've talked about this before but short story is one group of greedy fuckers got burned buying our biggest electricity provider in an LBO and now wolves are coming trying to take advantage of the bankruptcy. Oncor is the prize jewel they are trying to pluck from the taxpayers hands and set up a sweetheart deal of stealing 250 million from the general public. Sex pervert Hunt, the Noah Cross of Dallas, insists he must be allowed to steal as it's good for investments. Spoken like a true pickpocket. Like slavery, thievery is rewarded in our glorious system as being "pragmatic".

I repeat these cycles of thought and others like it each night I'm stuck here in the harrowing hole, voiceless and unheard. No need for me to ask what it's like to die at the bottom of a well. The heavens watch our daily dance of death in vexed agony knowing either our behavior must perish or we will. I certainly know this behavior is killing me.

A Road Unwanted

the door to his home
is locked from within;
closed by the heart
of yesterday's sin;

while fooling the world
love bears no true fruit;
if life is to go on
he must chew bitter roots;

he builds an empire
of cold-hearted stone;
and as its prisoner
he mournfully roams;

left by the wayside
rich loves to cherish;
choices have meaning
here travelers perish.

The Civilized Mind

"Come out from among them, and be ye separate," saith the Lord.

Easier said than done. We are a planet given over to mob rule. We know this and in order for us to believe (deceive) we have a future, we must bless ourselves as holy. Moses rightly said that is doom. But it allows us cover to go after those who are apart from the crowd - to torture, maim, and finally kill them. Jesus - and those liberals like him - suffer(ed) this fate. Anytime humans organize themselves they seek to defend that organization as a choice between life and death. Here we call it, "The American Way". Defending our way of life gives us carte blanche to betray, belittle and battle anything or anyone we see as a threat. That's a fatally bad bet.

Let's suppose we built our society on the concept the earth is flat. We build a giant fence around us to keep us safe from falling off. The obvious convention for life at that point is to stay safe within the fence. Those who are most vehement in this belief are put at the top of society as guides and guardians - priests by any other name. Adhering to this belief is mandated to "maintain order" and "preserve our way of life." As time passes the price of the lie grows greater as the desire for freedom of it grows greater.

Finally, a nihilism sets in. To stay within the fence is to die. To venture past the fence is to die. We've been dealt a losing hand, so what does anything mean? There are no saints or sinners. Just a struggle for survival until there is nothing left, dog eat dog to the bitter end. In this scenario, to whom can one appeal to for justice? As the pretense of allegiance to truth degrades, what matters exposing corruption to the corrupt? Anger, frustration, and brutality inevitably rise as the self-caged animals demand to be free while holding the key.

Preserving the greater good!

And thus we have the world today, one turned upside down. Those who step past the borders of what's acceptable, bringing messages of hope, are labeled as destroyers by the true destroyers. The destroyers define hope as hope for their lie, not hope for life. They live in helpless fear of the change they know must come. Relentless is their evangelical cause, scooping up purposeless whores, the willfully ignorant, and the decidedly wicked to their pursuit of speaking well of evil. Left to itself, this army of "civilized" doom would wipe out all life as we know it (in the name of preserving life as we know it!)

It's they who say we've achieved civilization who are the true anarchists. They fight to preserve chaos. The suffering from this will be beyond measure. Already we often hear the cry "I thought this could never happen" resulting from our festering tragedies. Be prepared to hear this more. We'll have to avert our eyes more. We'll have to harden our hearts more. We do whatever it takes to keep the lie alive. It's just really getting old - and very, very boring.

No one has anything to say. No message of life outside the fence is allowed to be spoken unless it's in apocalyptic terms. Everything is on the table as an answer except for the truth. I don't like being alone sitting outside the fence. I don't like having my words of hope twisted and attacked without reason. At times I feel like crawling back to the other side just to not be alone. Then I do evil things to the monsters: I tell them they're right. This makes them feel alone but they cannot admit it because to betray the lie is to be outcast. They declare victory and depart the field of life.

Had I the money to be immune to the madness who knows what I would be writing now. I have no idea where I'd be once free of this persistent pain. Being able to say, "I told you so," does me no good now and no good later when there's no need for it to be said. So what does any good? Learning to communicate is one. After that, Nature has to take its course. It would be nice to save Mankind - I try it all the time - but if I knew I'd be responsible for only my own poor decisions I'd leave you to yourselves and embrace the peace. I should do that anyway, of course.

As a dog returns to its vomit,

so fools repeat their folly.

Found In Translation

"How can I ever trust you after what I've done to you?"
asked the plantation owner to the slave.

"Religion is born of my mistrust of God."

"Would you like your sin secular or holy, please?"

"Two rights don't make a wrong! The world is going wrong.
Ergo, it's responsible to the world to be wrong."

"I saw you flashing your love. You'll get arrested for that!"

"The freedom of my chains shall set you free!"

"You will have to sin tomorrow if you wish to sin today."

"Fearing removal of approval keeps you a fool."

"She was standing everywhere when I saw her standing there."

"When love flees terror follows."

"Keep fighting against peace until the end of war."

"Seeking safety in my bed, the road in my head is dead."

"In the sunshine of his hate he wins the debate."

"When I saw the judge disrobe he yet remained as unjust."

"Backstabbers' blues as I read the news."

"Her conviction to have conviction is a fiction."

"Under their radar flew the cuckoo's nest."

"My silence was misspoken."

"In open wound surgery they found his shattered heart."

"She loved the feel of adrenaline whenever she would lose again."

"After disconnection she could find no direction."

"Remember, I'm still your boss!"
"Only as long as Satan rules the earth."

"Money makes you do things you don't want to do.
"Love makes you do things you do want to do."
(Which do you think will win in the end!)

Disconnected In The Head

"Get your hands off me!" Wendy outraged, pulling her arm away as everyone in the spa looked on. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand!"

"You asked for it, lady. Now you're going to get it."

"No, I most certainly did not ask for this! I never did that. Now let go of me!"

"I'm not going to argue about it," sighed the officer. "You're obviously nuts."

"Now you're name calling! What a poor attitude!"

Despite her vehement protests, in the end Wendy was hauled away in handcuffs, resisting reality to the end.

*****

It all started with the biggest new hip of the 21st century: total disconnect. Sure, it has been around from the beginning but word is now to take it to new extremes - if you've got what it takes! Truth is for losers and lies are for lovers (or so they say). How exciting to be part of the cutting edge of thought. Cowards will be left behind! Let the over-thinkers worry and fret about the so-called future. We positive thinkers will rule!

Like many recent college graduates, Wendy discovered that despite having done what was expected she did not get what was expected. She was supposed to be provided with a nice job and a comfortable life the rest of her days. Her biggest concern was to be the loveliness of her wedding while spending her time advancing her career and living in a world of rom-com movies. At least that was the way she'd scripted it. Instead, she was back home living with her mother as she suffered a severe case of entitlement deficiency.

From Wendy's steady diet of film and TV never once did money problems prevent a plot from moving forward. So why was her life so downtrodden? What had she done wrong but get a college education? "I'm a responsible person too!" The more she thought about it, the more she absolved herself. A TV voice blared: "Take control of your life! You are the captain of your ship! If you can't break down the wall, go around it."

Wendy called her best friend and they both agreed she was a good and responsible person, deserving of much more than she was getting. Her friend had read "The Secret" and told Wendy she'd never get what she wanted without devoting her energy to it. "You've go to focus. Disconnect from all the bullshit that's keeping you down. Stay positive at all times. People are doing it and changing their lives every day! Go get your share! Remember Enron!"

"You're right! That's exactly what I will do."

As a self-appointed saint (surely putting her among the overwhelming majority) Wendy took the spare credit card from her mother's dresser and (literally) went to town. Now her life was just like those TV people! What a gorgeous, heady feeling walking in the clouds of positivity. "Just think about what you want! I was a fool to think about anything else." Her confidence and conviction grew as she went from store to store. "I was a damn fool before!"

She brought the loot to her friend's house. Her frenemy was properly impressed. "You did it, Wendy! You found a way around the wall to get what you want. Congrats!"

"Thanks! I also booked a room at the W hotel for their weekend spa package. This is so fabulous!"

The dour sister of Wendy's friend passed by, amazed at the new purses and other finery. "I thought you didn't have a job, Wendy. Where did you get all this?"

"Positive thinking! You should try it sometime. You're always so down with that attitude of yours."

"Attitude never put money in my pocket. Everyone just yelled at me when I ran up my credit card. After that I didn't know what to do."

"That's you! This is me. Maybe if you'd had a better attitude people wouldn't yell at you so much."

The sister walked away feeling like a bigger 21st century loser than ever.

Be a Nazi winner with a happy heart!

At the hotel spa, Wendy felt better than ever. At last she was getting what she deserved and the world made sense once again. Life really is what you make it. That is until the hotel manager and a uniformed police officer enter the room announcing her charges are not authorized. Wendy was flabbergasted when told she had to leave, refusing to budge an inch.

"Get your hands off me!" she outraged, pulling her arm away as everyone in the spa looked on. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand!"

"You asked for it, lady. Now you're going to get it."

"No, I most certainly did not ask for this! I never did that. Now let go of me!"

"I'm not going to argue about it," sighed the officer. "You're obviously nuts."

"Now you're name calling! What a poor attitude!"

Wendy's mother stormed into the room. "Just what do you think you're doing, young lady?"

"Just getting what I deserve!"

"I'll give you what you deserve: jail time! I've never been so angry in my life. I already pay for all your living expenses and now you bankrupt me where I can't make the mortgage payment!"

"Gee, Mom. I don't want you to be angry."

"You expect me not to be angry! Are you completely insane?"

"What's insane about wanting a spa treatment? Sheesh, Mom, I really don't see what the big deal is. Everything's OK as long as I say I don't see a problem."

When the story of Wendy being dragged off to jail reached the sister of a certain friend of Wendy, a celebration was had. "I'm not a loser. I am dealing with reality. What an awful time this is to live in."

Who's Your Mommy/Daddy President??

Feeling dirty?

"You know how you can tell when you're voting against your interests?

"Anytime you're standing in a voting booth."

From my appearance on "Defeat The Press"

"Mr. Homeless! You're known as having the greatest political mind of the 21st century. To what do you attribute this?"

"Sheer disinterest."

"But you must take an interest! The future of our country depends on it!"

"If the future of the country depends on my interest then you must bring me Maria Sharapova at all costs. Tell her it's for the good of the nation!"

"Everyone pretends to disdain politics but we all must be responsible in the end."

"I quite agree. Responsibility will end interest in political machinations."

"But what about the protest movement of Donald Trump! Oh, the humanity!"

"What about those legs on Miss Sharapova! Oh, the curves!"

"This is so defeating..."

"You defeat yourself."

"Are you seriously going to say you have no interest in who becomes President? It's one of our most sacred duties as a citizen. It shapes our fate."

"Some people say if we change our laws it will change our hearts - or worse, dis-obligate the need for a good heart. But we know the truth is law follows the heart, not the other way around. How can I vote someone to have a good heart?"

"Then vote for the best heart!"

"Then I vote for Maria!"

"You better start being serious or I'll throw a tantrum!"

"A tantrum out of civic conviction or feeling threatened on having to earn an honest living outside inane conversation?"

"Reporters pay rent too."

"There's no law that limits one only to the artificial."

"We've set you up as a pundit, dammit! Be quotable!"

"OK, America is like a great ship floating on a river of greed. We all know rivers of greed lead to a fatal waterfall of doom. This is why we live in fear. It's not because we're afraid of what others might do to us. We're afraid because of what we do."

"Oh, Christ. I just felt our ratings drop 50%."

"How about a handicapping of the contestants, then?"

"Oh, please, please! We must have debates and disagreements!"

"OK, Bernie is called a socialist but really he's the only capitalist running as we live in an upside down world. He's the only one believing in making the system work. See, Americans fear socialism as a great transfer of wealth but what we've had here since 1980 is the greatest transfer of wealth in human history - all the while proclaiming we're followers of capitalism! Greedy fucks that we are, if a nickel is transferred to a poor person we scream death and anarchy, but if a trillion is transferred to the rich we're mum as church mice. Only Bernie wants to end that transfer."

"Then you must vote for him! Gotcha, bitch!"

"One may slow down a ship on the river of greed, but not change its fate."

"But what if we put mommy in charge this time?? Unprecedented! Game changer! It proves our merits as human beings!"

"Yes. In the end everyone votes himself as Jesus. But Shrillary is Lady Macbeth incarnate. Let your anger pin your hopes on that!"

"So Trump and Cruz must save us then!"

"Yes! Just as Caligula and Nero (respectively) saved Rome to "make it great again." Every empire in decline grasps onto false prophets to keep the lies alive. Sounds like a plan."

"Gawd, you're depressing. You make it sound like we're all wasting our time ignoring our personal lives in order to busy ourselves on the lives of others."

"Well, look at it this way. Would you give a flying fuck about your so-called civic duty if you could choose between voting or Maria Sharapova? Live first, ask questions later."

Their children hate them for the things they're not;

They hate themselves for what they are.

The Bankrupt Billionaire

"Corporations are nothing but legalized pimping!" Joey's father was ranting again. Looking back, he'd wonder if in these modern times his father would be some random, unread internet blogger raving to the world, his voice lost among the drowning cacophony that is a dying planet. "Why do you think there's all this pretense? 'Wear your suit, wear your Sunday finest.' Because the greater the crime, the greater the need to cover up!"

His father was a victim. How much exactly he was self-victimized, Joey could never know. What he did know was the unstable, shoestring existence he had as a kid. In the suburban bubble of many, the world is disguised, its true face hidden behind commercials of self-promotion exposed only by the rotting edges of the lie as encroaching reality can no longer be hidden. Those outside the bubble have no delusions of a world rejecting a future.

This does not guarantee a facing of the truth, though.

Joey found it unusual - anachronistic even - to hear his father speak of peace. Peace was a foreign concept in their house. Who can know peace without security? If love truly were enough there might be a chance, Joey suspected. The only flickers of hope he had were when they bonded together as a family. He could feel a future in that - but not live one. But he took to his grave what his father proclaimed: "Communication is the lifeblood of peace."

Joey asked himself if he communicated and like most people was disappointed by the reply. He feared his father, his constant anger whose source he did not understand (because there was poor communication!), and the fact peril was never far away for a man who kept changing jobs, chasing schemes, and harboring dreams of finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Joey needed something to which he could hold on.

At first, it was painting. Inheriting his father's creative streak and relishing his mother's appreciation of his creations, Joey came alive in the world of his art. The more horrible the "real" world became, the more he wished to recede into his own. But as a teenager he hit a crossroads. What had once been an occasional distraction was turning into a serious hobby. That cost money (and time). When it was explained to him those were commodities not always to be had, Joey revealed his father's penchant for moralizing.

"Don't you see? This is the right thing for me to do. If I don't do this I'll die. What good is it if I die? How can you call that moral?"

His father was seized silent by the words, unable to speak, like a closed volcano. His mother explained best as she understood. "Morality requires funding."

Outraged, Joey fired back. "Then I'll get funding!"

That's when his journey began. In his bedroom he had an easel holding a blank canvas. His oils were too few to start. He didn't feel free to paint as he wished: he could run through all the paint before he was done! Art requires complete freedom. Otherwise, there was no point even beginning.

Forty years later, the canvass was still blank.

Joseph - as he was now called (pretense to cover up the crime!) - surveyed his kingdom from the top of the office tower he'd bought as his latest conquest. In fact, if one had to name his occupation over the past decade, conqueror would be most apt. The world that had so dearly screwed him as a child without mercy or soul must be made to pay and made to bend to the higher purpose of his art.

As a teenager he worked every job he could to gather up money, saving thousands. As an office building janitor, he listened to the investors on how to get ahead. Joey was the latest disciple to the cult of money, a rising star, and his fellow members eagerly pushed him along as his fire burned brightest of all. For him, it was more than greed at stake, it was his art, his life. But whenever his mother asked when he was going to start painting Joey would reply, "Not yet. It's not time. I don't feel free."

With 2.5 billion to his name, he still wasn't free. The same canvass, the same easel, stood in a prized corner of his office. Now, on the heels of his third divorce, the canvass screamed louder then ever. Slumped in his twelve thousand dollar chair, that's when Joey realized his money was not his own. It owned him. He never communicated that to any wife, fearing that would end his marriages.

The only money that could ever be his would be that which came from his art. What guarantee did he have he'd ever make money? He had enough money now to buy oils for a thousand years of paintings. Still not enough. The answer was never "yes" when asked if his life was his own. Devastated, it dawned on Joey his true marriage had been to his anger, keeping blindness alive. An entirety of life wasted.

Would he have to give up his worldly wealth to begin again? The idea of it lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. Joey saw he was a servant to his wealth, not its master. He was a peasant carrying boulders on his back in useless labors that served no one. All in the name of serving his art. The enormity of the betrayal prevented him from letting even one tear loose.

Billionaire Joseph Rockford sold everything. He donated the bulk to art scholarships to schools "in a world mad to reward math and science." He kept enough to provide a comfortable income, living in the artists' section of town. In these things he felt a great relief. Into his studio he moved the original canvass of his youth. But it was silent now.

Unable to bear the ache of swallowing emptiness, Joey took his thickest brush and painted in bold, black letters the only thing that came to him.

THE WORLD
MUST
DIE

He slowly faded in the rising sadness, a stillborn artist. He did still feel at times that flicker of hope, same as he did as an innocent child, that somehow somewhere his story was heard and his injustice known in a communal place where all things are blessedly communicated.

Later, he sold the canvass for a hundred bucks to a friend who thought the sentiment amusing. Joey said it was the most money he'd ever had in his life.