the charged incident

It was a fine day. Mr. Cheval took several deep breaths on his way to work. This was a spring like no other spring, though spring came round every year at the same time, just about like clockwork. When Mr. Cheval arrived at the Bureau, he nodded to his outer office subordinates and walked into his square little office and sat at his standard issue desk. He placed his hands on the green blotter, surveying his domain. The light green walls sported an array of awards, central among them being the “Civilized Unit” plaque in its faux wood grain lacquered frame. Two chairs perched before his desk, their seats slightly lower than his own, which was naugahide not wood.
Mr. Cheval arranged the things on his desk to his satisfaction. Pens and pencils, name plate, papers, in-box and out-box, the intercom, the telephone. He checked his central desk drawer. Everything was as it should be. Mr. Cheval was ready to receive the day’s first business.
He sat for awhile in the fluorescent silence before the intercom buzzed. Before flicking the switch, Mr. Cheval puffed out his chest, pigeon-like.
“Yes?” he asked, bending down to the little brown box.
“A petitioner, Mr. Cheval,” answered a hollow electric female voice.
‘”I see,” acknowledged Mr. Cheval. “Send him in.” And he flipped off the switch.
A light knock and the door opened. Mr. Wuren entered and shut the door quietly behind him. He advanced on Mr. Cheval, stopping between the chairs. Mr. Wuren did not sit.
Mr. Cheval was not pleased to see Mr. Wuren. Mr. Wuren was always complaining, though he’d been silent for the past two weeks. Mr. Cheval thought he was rid of the pest. Alas, now the day was ruined. Why were such people allowed to roam freely upon the earth?
“What can I do for you, Mr. Wuren?” Mr. Cheval said in an officially pleasant voice.
“Well. . .it seems–” began Mr. Wuren.
“Do sit down, my man.” Mr. Cheval indicated the wooden chairs with a wagging finger.
“No, thank you. No need.”
Mr. Cheval did not like this answer. He did not like looking up to Mr. Wuren. So he leaned back in his chair, putting distance between them. And he smiled. Although perhaps not quite affable, this smile was not exactly easy.
“It seems my electricity has gone off again.”
“Again?” Mr. Cheval raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. It’s been two weeks since the last time.”
“Has it now?” Mr. Cheval locked his fingers together over his flat belly.
“I’d like it taken care of, please.”
“Well, now. That depends on what the problem is.”
Mr. Cheval didn’t like being told what it was he had to do. After all, he was an official authority. Appointed, not elected. His smile widened and thinned out.
“The last time it was off for two and a half days.”
“Was it? Well. Let’s see what the problem is.” Mr. Cheval bent down and pressed the switch on the intercom. “Miss Hinny? Could you check on Mr. Wuren’s electrical problem? It seems he’s no power.”
“Yes, sir,” came the hollow rejoinder.
Mr. Cheval clicked the switch off and sat back. He indicated for Mr. Wuren to take a seat. Mr. Wuren did not oblige him.
For some time, the two men remained as they were. There was no noise. Neither did anything.
Then Mr. Cheval spoke. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”
“Not really, Mr. Cheval. There’s no electricity in my house. I can’t work. Neither can my wife.”
“We all suffer minor set-backs, Mr. Wuren.”
“Has your electricity gone off, Mr. Cheval?”
“Oh, no no no. No such calamity in my house. I take care of things.”
“This is the second time.”
“And what was the problem that time?”
“Non-payment.”
“There you have it, then!”
“It took your office–”
“Bureau, Mr. Wuren. I work for a Bureau. This particular room is an office. We do not do things out of my office.”
“The bill wasn’t paid for two and a half days, Mr. Cheval. For 60 hours we could do nothing. Not even cook. We sat in the dark.”
“Why did you not buy candles?”
“It’s your responsibility to pay the bill, Mr. Cheval.”
“Now, now, Mr. Wuren. Is it my responsibility or that of the Bureau?”
‘”You are the official at this bureau, Mr. Cheval.”
“I am the appointed official, Mr. Wuren. I have superiors.”
“Who are they, then?”
“Do I look like a Bureau Encyclopedia, Mr. Wuren?”
Mr. Wuren could not answer, for just then there was a knock and the office door opened. Miss Hinny waddled to the desk, her nylon-encased thighs swishing with each step.
“Ah! And what did you find, Miss Hinny?”
“The problem is non-payment, Mr. Cheval.”
“You see?” Mr. Cheval spread his hands wide and smiled. “Simple.”
“Why is that, Mr. Cheval?”
“Why is that, Miss Hinny?”
Miss Hinny hesitated. “The money ran out, Mr. Cheval,” she finally snorted.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Well, now, Mr. Wuren. That depends on a number of things. There are difficulties and difficulties. Things are not always as simple as they at first appear.”
“The solution seems pretty straightforward to me.”
“Does it? What do you think, Miss Hinny?”
“Why doesn’t he fix it himself?”
“Why don’t you fix it yourself, Mr. Wuren?”
“I don’t know how, Mr. Cheval.”
“Well, now. That is a problem.”
“It’s your responsibility, Mr. Cheval,” continued Mr. Wuren.
“That’ll be all, Miss Hinny.”
“Yes, sir.” Miss Hinny swished her way to the door and disappeared behind its green plywood. A moment of silence was followed by muted laughter.
“You’ll take care of it in a timely fashion, then?”
“I’ll look into it, Mr. Wuren.”
“It’s 10 o’clock now,” said Mr. Wuren, checking his old fashioned pocket watch. “I’ll expect something to be done by noon. I’ve got work to do.”
“We all do, Mr. Wuren.”
But Mr. Wuren was not listening to this puerile reassurance. He had already turned and strode to the door. Without formalities, Mr. Wuren opened and closed the door and was no more to be seen.
A moment of silence, then more laughter, louder than before, filtered through the office door.
Mr. Cheval heaved a sigh. He stood up and put his hands on his desk. He sat down again. Whyever was it that such insignificant people bothered him? He had far weightier things to do than attend to such pettiness.
Mr. Cheval leaned in, pressed the switch and spoke into the intercom box. “Miss Hinny. Bring my calendar of events in here please.” He clicked himself off and waited for Miss Hinny.
The door opened and closed and Miss Hinny advanced on Mr. Cheval. She placed the schedule book on Mr. Cheval’s desk. Mr. Cheval studied it awhile. He turned the page to the following week. He looked up.
“There’s nothing here, Miss Hinny.”
‘”No, sir. There’s not.”
“Hmm. . .” Mr. Cheval drummed his fingers on his green blotter. “Well! Perhaps I should take that trip down south, then.”
“There’s nothing stopping you.”
“Make the reservations. I’ll leave this afternoon.”
“At the end of next week is the Tenth Anniversary of the Glorious Founding of the Bureau. You should be here for that.”
“You take care of the details, Miss Hinny. I’ll return home to pack my things.”
“That’ll be fine, sir.”
* * *
Mr. Cheval returned for the anniversary celebrations, which went off without a hitch, thanks to Miss Hinny. The light show and fireworks were especially eye-catching.
During Mr. Cheval’s leisure business trip, Mr. Wuren visited the Bureau twice to ask about his electricity. There were, of course, difficulties, barriers to be overcome. Everyone in the Bureau laughed at Mr. Wuren, not even attempting to hide their sentiments: what a fool Mr. Wuren was, always complaining–and over such trifles.
After ten days of no electricity and the burning of 20 candles, Mr. Wuren disappeared. No one thought anything about it. They were only happy that he was not at the Bureau complaining. The silence was golden indeed. That is, until the Bureau’s commissioned work was not forthcoming.
When Miss Hinny went to find Mr. Wuren to ask him about this work, she could not find him. Inquiries were made but Mr. Wuren was nowhere to be found.
Imagine that? Running out on your responsibilities–and for no reason at all.

the preacher

One day, as I was passing through Lebanon, I came across a crowd at Swine Corners. On the NW corner, standing on a little bandwagon, stood a rather plainly dressed man. He sported a black ribbon tie, starched white shirt, black cut-away morning coat and black trousers. I assume he wore black boots, for the heads of his listeners obscured my vision. Those gathered about him in amphitheatre fashion wore checked cotton shirts and jeans or bib overalls and browned boots.
I asked one of the gathered, “Who’s that speaking?”
He looked me up and down and turned back to his listening. “That’s the preacher, Brother Ron Berptoast.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“He’s impartin’ his vision.”
“What did he envision? God?”
The man turned full around and looked unwaveringly into my face. “We don’t cotton to no ridicule in these here parts. Brother Berptoast is serious business.” And he turned away again.
I decided I would step back and observe the goings-on from the opposite corner. There was a wooden bench there and my legs ached, felt rubbery. I looked up at the sky—glaring blue. I sat, hoping a breeze would come along. My shirt was already wet and salt stained at the pits.
“And it behooved me to pass along my vision, my puissance, my revelation to you, my fellow men.” He fetched his handkerchief from his coat breast pocket and touched his mouth with it. “I say to you. . .I was stranded at the entrance to the chapel when it came upon me. Descended upon me in a bright steel blue flash like the lightning that Paul in the desert saw before his vision. I was blinded, mindless and senseless, to all but the picture put into me from above. I was touched, I say. Touched by the Holiest of Holies.” He dabbed at his upper lip with his sparkling white hanky. The ring on his little finger gleamed too. “And I am here to tell it to you all, that you, too, might know.” He paused. His voice lowered in register. “It was late in the evening. In the gloaming when the world is more than it is. A chariot appeared to me. Before me. A chariot! In this here day and age. There was no one around. It was a dark chariot. Drawn by eight milk white steeds. Driven by a tall dark stranger with fire in his eyes. Flashing from his dark black eyes. A slightly askew smile on his thin lips. I was awed. I trembled with fear and trepidation. A complexion darker—I say, darker than any man I have ever seen stared out at me from an atmosphere so hot and suffocating that I knew he was a being from another realm. And following this chariot was a host, a multitude of dark liveries mounted on dark steeds that stood a full 21 hands high. I trembled in my bones. My shoes became loose on my feet. My hair stood on end to rival the silky flowing mass of the charioteer’s black locks.” Brother Berptoast mopped his brow. “Appreciating my fear and over-awedness, he spoke to me. He spoke to me the words that make my appearance before you a reality. A necessity.” Pause. “He said, step upon my chariot, human, and I shall show you wonders beyond all calculation. And do you know? Do you know my crazed feet carried me up upon that dark chariot and stood joyous as a baby’s first steps next that raven stranger. Why in my fear and trembling had I done such a thing? Lord, lord, lord, there was a power here I did not understand. A power greater than myself. There was naught I could do but follow.” Brother Ron raised his hanky high and then pointed it directly at his audience. “I had no power to refuse! And before I was aware, I found I was in the chariot proceeding through the thick sulfurous air at a speed I dare not calculate. Onward we went. Onward and upward. Onward with the rapidity and ease of the wind until we stopped before a door in the High Street of Climax. Nary a word spoke my deep, dark companion. There was a crowd of people in the street. But no notice did they take of my caliginous caravan with its extraordinary equipage. Was I then invisible? It would have been difficult to miss the entourage and chariot from which I alighted—for I knew this was the place. The place I should get off. The place that was intended for me. Yet no one saw!” Brother Berptoast jabbed the air with each insistent word. I shifted my position. “The house at which we sopped appeared to be a shop. I do not know what kind of shop. I could see no sign. I also do not remember ever having seen a shop in this place before. When the dark stranger ushered me in, I was confronted by a vast half-ruined palace. Far in excess of what that common little shop door could have realized. I was in awe of the space. The high ceilings disappeared into the vague sky—if sky it was, for my eyes could not see so high. Intricate yet heavy columns evenly spaced about like a cathedral. Huge pillars of marble. And windows. . .windows of cut glass and pointed gothic arches from which no light emanated. But dark flashes of lightning rose up behind them illuminating the walls of intricately woven stone that went on and on. . .” Brother Berptoast let his hand and his gaze move on and on. I crossed my legs. “Room after room my mysterious mentor led me, pausing only to urge my befuddled feet onward. What did these rooms look like? I no longer remember but they were numberless. Numberless as the rooms in God’s mansion. But. . .I do remember that last room. That room was more cave-like than the rest. Its walls less finished. Yet with all the dancing shadows from the firelight, great bleeding torches, I could not be sure. The tall dark stranger stopped. And gestured. And there before me sat a senate of ghosts debating on the progress of the plague. Yes! That same plague that ravishes our land today! And around the edges of this grand cavern, illuminated by garish bouts of twisted lightning, I saw gibbering and chattering skeletons running about. Running lasciviously after each other. Playing leap-frog. I shrank into myself. I did not belong here. My legs trembled and became rooted to the spot as my will strove to drive me onward. Escape! Escape! My inner voice roared at me. But I could not move. . .until the man bid me proceed beyond these squabbling ghosts into a wild, uncultivated plot of ground out of which rose up a black rock as smooth as—there is nothing so smooth.” I took a drink of water. Brother Berptoast wiped around his face, his eyes round and filled with wonder. “Down the walls of this cavern oozed and drooled water. A water that sparkled a yellow-green. This is my water, the darksome man said, pointing with a long finger. A very long finger with a very long blue-black fingernail. Vin invitae! He laughed. His lips pulled back to reveal long white fang-like teeth, the incisors creasing his lower lips. A grimace from out of which blew the mirthless laugher and a stench that only the brimstone of hell could produce. My knees went weak. I stepped back, reaching out to catch my balance. Don’t touch! he shouted at me. His voice rang off the walls. I covered my ears.” Brother Berptoast covered his ears. “The ringing bugged my eyes out.” Brother Ron did so. “I could not tolerate the tintinnabulation. I thought my mind would come squeezing out my ears. My nose. My open gaping mouth.” Brother Berptoast paused, filling the silence with his grimacing. I looked up at the sky and was immediately blinded. When I returned to Brother Berptoast’s bathos, he was a gyrating ghost in a tarnished halo. As he turned blue, he sucked in a great gasping breath and raised his hands to the sky. “Never in the world had I heard such a concatenation. I tried to plead my cause to the Lord. . .the bleating risibility ceased. I was enveloped in silence, silence that took my breath away. I looked at my Cimmerian companion—I didn’t want to! Lord help me, I did not want to! And yet I could not but look at him.” Brother Berptoast looked, handkerchief at his mouth. “His finger shot out, pointing to the ground. My gaze followed.” He followed his own trembling finger. “And. . .Lord help me! It was no longer stone but earth! The Earth. The ground beneath your feet. And that poison sucked itself into that earth. My earth. I saw it sinking into the world and polluting all the life therein. All the life upon it. And its noxious fumes rose up like highway heat mirage and choked the life out of the birds and the bees and they fell to the putrid earth and were consumed. And I saw this venomous liquid insinuate itself into the very wells and springs of the city making the water unfit to drink. By the Lord above I was struck dumb. . .the people were drinking of this polluted water. They knew not what they did. And they paid the price. I saw their walking corpses green and pus-filled bursting their humanity and falling empty to the ground.” I took a drink. “After seeing all this, the Stygian stranger showed me into yet a further room. What a marvelous, glorious chamber it was! Gilt and gold everywhere. My eyes were struck dumb from the brilliance. Piles. Piles and piles. Pile upon pile of rubies and pearls and sapphires and diamonds rose up before me. The floor was strewn with semi-precious stones. Once again his finger shot out, pointing at each and every stack of gems. These, he breathed, these are all yours, wealth beyond imagination. . .if you but do two things. I looked up into his imposing, hypnotic eyes. You must kneel to me and worship me. And you must go about the land and smear this pestiferous salve on all the doors I tell you.” Brother Ron Berptoast paused. He let the power of the moment seep into his by now bewitched spectators and I shifted my position. The preacher began again in a soft voice. “I knew then that this black spectre was Satan. And somehow. . .somehow the Lord gave me strength to refuse this primordial bribe.” Preacher Ron’s voice rent the air and I leaned forward. “Lightning flashed from his eyes! A gurgling, growling roar rose up out of him! He scowled down at me. His fingers clawed the air. And a loud clap of thunder burst over his head!” Brother Berptoast thundered, hands furiously tearing at the air. His listeners jumped. I sat up straight, grasping my water bottle. And then the preacher settled himself, wiping the spit from about his lips. Dabbing at his eyes. “And then. . .and then I found myself standing on the steps of the chapel. Alone.”
I took to following Preacher Ron Berptoast as he toured the country. He repeated his vision day after day. Without variation. Word for word. And all the populace became firm believers in his truth—that the scourge upon the land was due to the devil. As everyone wished to root out the devil, people searched high and low for his mysterious house. The police became involved. The Reserves. The military. Yet the demon of the pestilence could not be found. Nor the hall of ghosts. Nor the poisonous fountain. But the minds of the people were so imbued with Brother Berptoast’s idea that scores of witnesses, half-crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they too had seen the diabolical stranger, heard his chariot clattering down the street at the head of eight milk white steeds and a teeming dark multitude of liveries, dancing skeletons and arguing ghosts. Some even heard the thunder of his accursed laughter. And they’d point out this house or that, this person or that.
Then one day, Brother Ron Berptoast stepped up on his little bandwagon and told of another vision he had had.

i\’m happy, you\’re happy

Why do people need to kill each other to be happy? Everybody in the world is trying to kill everybody else. Especially in America. America must be filled with happy people, right? They are doing so much killing around the world they must be delirious. Add to this that they are also killing their own. It is quite possible with this track record that America may succumb to extreme happiness. Yet when one wins his way past the happiness guardians one discovers that Americans must not be trying hard enough: there are a whole lot of unhappy people there.
This unhappiness is, of course, difficult to explain; but perhaps the problem is that there are too many people. As killing will help solve this problem it stands to reason that more killing will hasten happiness. If there are too many people, then what better place to up the ante than on the home front? Surely ingenious ways can be found, for sense-gratification cannot be postponed too long or people become unhappy. Unhappier. Or, worse, the idea of happiness palls and we give it up. How awful! Killing now is working for the happiness of the future generation, their children–and your children. Those who die in this endeavor become heroes, martyrs for the cause. What selfless people! What soullessness! Truly, killers are an example for us all. So remember the exhortations of the famous A. Guthrie: \”Kill. Kill! Kill!\” And be happy. Don\’t worry. For what is better than working for the happiness of all, yes? After all, it is God\’s way: he killed–or had killed, it\’s the same thing–his son for the happiness of all, not to mention the great slaughters he brought down on others. So pray that you might kill or be killed in selfless self-sacrifice to the wellbeing of your neighbors.
Perhaps, though, the reason for the unhappiness in America is that so many people go out of their way to stay stupid and misguided. They do this in the name of comfort and security; that is, in their own homes. If high technology in the form of computers for playing games or watching banned movies is not present in the home, more than likely there is a television set. Televisions have become as necessary as indoor plumbing to early 20th century urban dwellers. Unlike disposing of the outhouse, TV has brought the shit inside. Mindless passive entertainment that, like killing, Americans seem to be ever in more want of. Thirteen channels were not enough, so they paid for 10 more. That was not enough and it became 50–at added expense. For yet more money, 300 channels of shit can be piped into the home. Mindnumbing it is, the variations of stupidity that will be bought by the great multitude of TV viewers. And it is true that they view: no thought is required. Hell–no thought wanted! Dumb and dumber. So enthused about the shit on the tube have grown-ups become that they\’ve had it put into the classrooms of the nation\’s schools so that their children can be educated to the benefits of mindnumbing shit. Popular demand has forced stores, buses, transportation terminals, offices–you name it–to have TVs installed so their customers can be entertained by costumed stupidity and guided misinformation. It is hoped, we suppose, that by barraging the populace with so much–nay, an overwhelming amount of stupid shit that Americans will not know they are unhappy. And if they are not unhappy, they must be happy.
But this only accounts for a certain percentage of the populace. The poor working class and the victims of poverty and the homeless and the marginalized, because they are aimless or puritanically focused on their Moebius strip lives, are unhappy. This is where the killing comes in. First by gangs; then planned abject neglect. This is called, we believe, killing yourself to save yourself. Truly an earth-shattering concept.
Yet I think that if America is unhappy, how much worse must be those places people emigrate from? They are, of course, immigrating to America, the Land of Opportunity, and creating more unhappiness. You know how people carry their old baggage with them. Realizing this, the government has accordingly limited immigration and is working hard to dispel other already landed yet unhappy immigrants from within their happy hunting ground. This sell job is done by way of keeping the stock pure. Pure happiness is hard to come by. Tarnishment is a no-no.
Yet I wonder. . .what will we do when we\’re all happy? Consider: since all the unhappy world needs to start the killing is one person realizing his unhappiness and that only by killing the unhappiness around him he can create happiness, how can we ever achieve our goal of happiness? What\’s left when you\’ve killed off everybody? Perhaps we should make sure people stay unhappy. Then there\’d be no reason to kill. Isn\’t that self-defeatist?
Who wants to give up happiness? You know?
So, you see? Anti-war people are happiness killers. Paradoxically, they are happiness enablers as they are happy about what it is they are doing. They are aiding and abetting misery and poverty. How perverse. Such perversity must cease. They must all be killed in order that we may continue with the business at hand: creating happiness. AKA killing. This shouldn\’t be too difficult for the killers, who are unhappy about these anti-war harlots. This creates a paradox I really do not wish to plumb–though there is something about entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and chance-and-necessity about it. I mean, if they are bringing happiness by way of killing, how can they be unhappy killing anti-war freaks when anti-war freaks–unhappiness givers?–are killing them with happiness? It is difficult to see where happiness and unhappiness end.
This brings us to the present situation: development and deployment of Happiness Machines. As powerful an agent for happiness as nuclear weapons are, they take too long–after the initial outburst of glee. The Neutrino Happiness Machine, however, is another matter. It is a 3-yr old\’s delight. Instant gratification. All sorts of killing. No more unhappy people. Inestimable happiness. Nirvana. What could be better!?

babes in dreamland

We are lost in a dream world, people often say. But. . .don’t we control that dream world–which is only too real to us, the dreamers? And don’t we rule others out of it–and back into it again when it serves our purposes?
I used to have dreams. I don’t any more. I made sure of that. I take drugs to keep me awake at night. And during the day. For if I’m not sleeping at night I will fall asleep during the day. Right? So now, I don’t have any dreams. I mosey along doing my daily everyday routine without much notice of the world around me. A not-so-unpleasant side effect of the drug. That is, I move through reality as if it were a pleasant, dissociative. . .dream. As if I am not really in it as I watch it pass on. That is the only way I can keep my sanity.
Lest you think me insane. Lest you think me out of touch with things. Let me tell you of my dreams. The dreams that brought me to this reality state. They were recurrent dreams. Very vivid. Very frightening. Not only in Technicolor but in Techni-odor and Techni-touch. I often couldn’t get back to sleep, sitting staring into the darkness, a rabbit alert for the lurking predator. Panting. Heart racing. Always they were the same. Always the same plot and story line. Like a peddler of popular fiction, my dreams were made-to-order formula-written dramas. For years, I had my own little shop of horrors right in my head. Right in my bed. Lying beneath my pillow to bushwhack me at the first sign of inattention. Whenever I closed my eyes.
The worst thing about these dreams was that they began to impose themselves on the real world. The daylight world. I would feel disoriented at those times. Breathless. Frantic. I was told this was only anxiety and given some medication. But the variant occurrences continued to occur in a vast amalgamating array of ways. Without warning, like a jack-in-the-box with a fiend’s head. And, of course, at night I’d dream. Not every night, you understand, but repeatedly nonetheless.
So I stopped taking those drugs. I stopped believing there was something wrong with me, thinking I was insane because I couldn’t stop dreaming and seeing the same fearful unreality in the cold, clear light of day. Which, of course, put me right smack-dab in the middle of a conundrum: only the insane say they are sane so to maintain my sanity, my belief in what I’m seeing, experiencing in the world is to admit I am insane but since these dreams-in-reality are insane. . . .
“There are reasons for their being there. Let’s look at them. They are your dreams. You are projecting your irrational fears on a rational world. Now. . . .”
So. To maintain that the insanity that I see is insanity when in fact it can’t be because it’s reality is to prove my insanity. That is, I’m not seeing what it is I’m seeing. I’m not experiencing my experience. I’m not living what I’m living. This was more unsettling than the reality of the dream.
As I say, I stopped the legal drugs. I found other, more effective drugs to solve the problem. In my frenzy I found how accessible illegal drugs were. Here was another case of invisibility–or visibility–when advantageous. Drugs were only menacingly underground when it was necessary for them to be so. That is, they were no problem until they were needed to be. Now, the appearance of my dream-like reality in reality does not bother me. Not in the least. If it bothers others, I wonder why they don’t invest in drugs to kill the pain. Shopping and extreme sports and sensual stimulation pall. Eventually. There is only so much you can take before numbness sets in. It’s irrational to put up with irrationality, so be rational and make the irrationality disappear. Take drugs! Make tolerance.
If you can’t see your dreams, you’re not having them, are you? If you’re not experiencing pain, you’re not having it, are you? And, of course, drugs produce an alternative reality state and that’s not real, right?
At first, the dreams were only a part of what they became. They were only the chase scene. I was being chased. I was frantic. Eyes darting here and there. Behind me. These people were after me for. . .for. . . for what I’d done. They were hunting me. In the coarsest, most obvious way. No attempt to hide themselves, to follow me secretly. So sure of themselves. Their prey. Frightening, this kind of stalking. It makes you do things, believe things–I was something they had to have. This kind of hunting forces you into making incriminatory behavior. The simple attempt to escape is a sign of guilt. And, yet, I had to get away. There would be a loss of. . .of. . .of. . .what had I done.
What had I done?!
I remember there was a priest in the first dream. A church, really, because I never saw another person. Just a form, the smooth concrete blocks of the building, the Doric columns out of an old movie. I’m not sure I heard a voice. A calm, assuring voice. Half whispering, “This way.” And showing me around the side of the building. Helping in my escape. A man who would lie for a just cause. A follower of God, a god of jealous vengeance–and, some said, love. Tough love under Gothic eaves. Were those monsters up there watching and passing judgment?
I was never inside the church. I was always running around the church, around the side and down into the. . .street? alley? It was dark. I could not tell. But I think it ran along the side of the stark, Gothic-Art Deco structure. In this stark black-and-white movie set world so much was unseen, unknown. I could not tell where the raw light originated from. I look for it but. . .I just saw black shadows and highlights. I couldn’t tell where I was. I couldn’t see the end of the. . .alley? I couldn’t tell who I was. I was running. Why? I didn’t know where I was going. But I was going–
And then I’d wake up.
I never got anywhere and they never got me. They were uniformed police, military police. No. Nazis. They were dutiful Nazis hunting down traitors to the cause. Like wild dogs. Clubs and knuckles and guns for claws. Black leather-gowned hands. Insistent in their starched shirt duty. And beating them up. And torturing them. That’s what Nazis do. Tyrants. People who have a right to be right. And I was wrong. So. . . they could even kill me. Dying for a purpose. The Inquisition.
A movie of myself. Being chased. Over and over again. Across the portico. Alongside this church. Down around the side into the shadowed passageway. Always helped by this unknown, unseen priest. “Come this way.” Always chased by Nazis. Wild dogs running their dinner to ground. Steady. Remorseless. Never tiring. Because they don’t go too fast. They’ve got all day. All night.
They got closer with each dream. I saw them clearer and clearer. Definitely Nazis. Brown uniforms. Sam Brown belts. Stiff high-crowned and steep beaked hats. Shadowy fox faces without features and red glowing eyes. No definition. Yet stark. When they came out of the shadows. Well-defined art deco men-machines skulking quick-step, eyes glaring out of their darkness. Perpetual motion machine-men.
And always I would wake up in the same place. Caught in that side street or alleyway. Frozen in naked light. Ready for flight. Fear and anxiety mounting and filling up my eyes, making my breathing come faster and harder. My nostrils flared. Caught in the act of going. . .where? Where was I going?
When I started awake I was panting. Sweating. My nostrils flared.
In the streets outside, during the day, in the evenings before I went to sleep, I began seeing more and more uniformed police. Military-looking sorts in brownish clothing. They wore Sam Brown belts with mace canisters and guns and nightsticks and radios hanging off of them. Making it difficult for them to move quickly. They had come out of their cars and back on the streets. The cars were still there. They circled and circled around the block, watching. . .following. Looking for trouble. But now there were forces on the ground. And like their car-in-pursuit buddies circling, circling they knew nobody. Except he whom they were running to ground.
Where had they all come from? Ubiquitous.
Was I dreaming? No matter where I went, there they were. Watching. Walking easily along. Too easily. Looking for something. Stern faces. Glaring eyes. Knowing they’d find it. They always get their man.
If you look hard enough long enough, it is said, you’ll find what you are looking for; that is, you see what you want to see. Which is making it happen. Did these crisp-shirted policemen make things happen? That’s not rational. Dispose of that thought. They are only peacekeepers. So was the Colt .45. Lots of people had them. Colt .45’s.
Then the dreams would stop for awhile. Months. But the inversion into the real world kept moving on. Inevitably. Like amoebae eating. Slow and methodical. Fingers oozing to swallow up the intended. The marked. Every once in awhile I’d see riot-geared and plastic-shielded and space-helmeted policemen chasing people down blind alleys. Down streets toward other riot-geared and plastic-shielded and space-helmeted policemen. Nightsticks flashed brilliant black in the harsh light. Daylight. At night on television. On the News. Would they soon be chasing them across the rooftops? The Scarlet Pimpernel and Robin Hood flushed out into the open–I tried to laugh but it caught in my throat and gagged me. Sweating. Panting. Flared nostrils. I could not believe what I was watching. My dreams come true. Heaven help me, Mr. Disney!
And then the dreams would start up again. More intensely. Two men became three became four. Always running me into the black-and-white night gangland movie set. The outlaw cornered. Along the church portico and down into the shadows and highlights. Caught in the spotlight.
I was always running down a blind alley. A dead end street. Maybe it wasn’t but that’s the way I felt. I never saw the end. I could have projected my fear, my paranoia. That I couldn’t escape. Just what they wanted me to believe. If I believe I’m lost. If I believe I’ll fail. I will. Right?
I’d wake up before I got caught. Before I got anywhere.
Why am I being chased? What is it these Gestapo-like troops are wanting? What’s their story? What have I got? Is there no release from this manifested paranoia? It’s not mine. It’s imposed from outside. To what purpose?
I don’t know. I stand sweating and wondering. I grow dizzy with the pressure. The pressure of not knowing. The pressure of always being run to ground. . .and never getting there. Stuck at the mouth of the trap. Neither they nor I get to the far end. They do not catch me. I do not get caught. But I don’t get anywhere either. I wake up.
Why am I being chased? What is it I have that they want? Who are they, these costumed hunters?
So shaken. So shaken. Shaky and disoriented. Eyes wide expecting. . .
Were they hiding here in the room? Would they be waiting for me outside my door? I’d get up and look about the house. Look out the windows into the blackness.
What happens next? What will happen in the next dream? I became afraid of the night. Of closing my eyes. What if I blinked? And missed it.
And then I see on the news night-flying helicopters with bright piercing eyes scanning the ground, the streets, the buildings for. . .people? For runaways? For problem children? For trouble. Lighting up pieces of the night, pieces of the city like underworld crime movies, like slices-of-life-pie. Paranoid conspiracy theory mania. Art’s constructed worlds become life. And I fear for myself, for I have the same sensations as with my dreams. But the newscasters calmly announce they are out, these black night-flying helicopters, to make the city safer. These cyclopean machines appearing out of nowhere despite the thwack-thwack of their rotors.
In my dreams, the Nazis appear out of nowhere despite the bone-chilling studying of their boots on the pavement. Always somewhere else. And always right here. I’m already running. Seeking a haven. When they come into the picture. They’ve been waiting just off camera. Waiting for their cue. They’re never late.
What is it I’ve done to be running from? What evil looms and billows like dark gathering clouds in the night over my head? Where am I going? Where am I going to go? I don’t know where it is I’m going. Where I’m trying to get to. Just away. Just–safety is away from my pursuers. A place for me to catch my breath. I’ve got to catch my breath. There’s a stone in my diaphragm stealing my breath away. My lungs fill and there is no air there. It seeps back out leaving a hollow empty place. I can’t hold my breath. My head feels thick. I need a place to think clearly. Look at things and see what is happening. Where I’m going. What is in all this? But I’m alone and out of breath and running away from Nazis that suddenly appear out of the darkness to chase me through the black and white patchwork streets.
If they suddenly appear, they had to already be running after me, right? That part’s already established, right? Or have I manufactured them in order to give me a reason to be running? In the dream I hunt for rationality, a Frankenstein monster: there has to be reason, no?
Then I am being shown around the church building, half open large door off to one side, to an alleyway. A means of escape. And. . .caught! In the act. End of movie still shot, head turned, eyes wide. I’ll be back.
Then I began seeing pictures in the papers. Bad reprints of the movie set in my dreams. People being run down. Frightened rabbit eyes bulging for the camera. Taut faces. White teeth beneath stretched lips. Hands and arms extended in warding off gestures. The wild dogs are upon them. I read episodes of people being run to ground. Captured. Manhandled. And then never heard or seen again. A neat Las Vegas disappearing act. Clearasil® and pimples: here today, gone tomorrow.
Notices were posted on walls and telephone poles and announced on the radio, on the television in stentorian voices of authority. Notices about a threat to our safety, to our way of life, to. . .us. Stories of why new military-style police. Everywhere. At the airport to greet everyone who disembarks, armed with semi-automatics. On the streets. In the buildings. At the shopping malls. In the bus/train/subway stations. In the hotels. On the elevators. Following us on the streets. Protecting us without smiling. The Great Freedom.
When I saw them following me, I went to the doctor. The paranoid codswallop of my dreams becoming reality in reality. Is something wrong with me? Only anxiety, he said. Don’t worry. Projection of my fears on outside others. I’m being irrational. These things are not there. Here. Take these. You’ll feel better in a few days. We’ll talk about it when you’re normalized.
No effect–other than more frequent dreaming. More furious running. Chasing. I could almost see those Nazi faces. Looming into my light. But always severely shadowed. Fox-like and piercing. Grimacing grins of glistening teeth. If I could see them maybe I’d know–but. . .always umbraed. I just couldn’t quite get a fix. When I was highlighted they were in the shadows. When I was in the shadows they were in the shadows’ edges. So close. So close. I almost knew why. What was up. But I couldn’t stop to see. That would be the end.
Increased tension. My ability to function at work, doing mundane everyday things, was affected adversely. I would forget things. Or do them in reverse. I’d lie about what I’d done. Find excuses. It was never my fault. I was threatened with termination. Ha!–I was threatened without termination. What was I to do?
So. . .I found these other drugs. These drugs that keep me from sleeping. These drugs that keep me from dreaming. Day or night. And now, when I see what was once in my dreams out in the streets and on the TV I am unperturbed. Yes. . .it’s happening. But out there. Beyond me. Outside of me. I’m not included. I do not now see the dream inversion into the outside world, my world of the everyday, as real. Reality. Because there is no perception. Drugged, I go merrily along. Nothing affects me now.
I feel better not seeing the dream-reality. The dream-reality is invisible. I control it.
I must keep it that way or else. . .

locator nun

Locater Nun. AKA the Plainclothes Nun. She was out and about. Again. She wasn\’t often still. She had a calling. It was her duty. Her job she sometimes thought. But. She consoled herself. The way was never easy. So. She cultivated perseverance. It was perhaps her most admirable quality. She persisted. No matter what. She did not give up. Stayed the course. Loyal. To herself. To her ideals. To the end.

As I say. Admirable. Perhaps. After all. The message must get out. An inspired message. Divinely inspired. Luckily she had a habit otherwise people would label her insane. But she did not believe in histrionics. Not like those who threw themselves to the floor. Speaking in strange tongues. Eating carpets. Fists and feet flailing. No sir. Not her. Not Locater Nun. No such antics for her. Her agenda was different. Her agenda was open and forthright. Above board.

Locater Nun was after hypocrisy. Sanctimony. She ferreted it out. But. Let us lay this to rest. For the moment. We\’ll pick it up later. Like a Puritan it will always be with us.

Now. A little about Locater Nun. Herself. The soul of the woman. Which wasn\’t as simple as some said. Simon. Put your mouth where your hands are. Put your feet in your mouth. Heh-heh.
You see. Some say she is of the establishment. That is. She has the corporate mindset. Because. She\’s a fine specimen of the Institution of God. Godliness. She succumbs. She knows her place. Has accepted her hooded state. She has been habituated. Even though she\’s a plainclothes nun. An undercover agent. As such. The saying goes. She can only think what she\’s been programmed to think. A robot for God. And. Of course. It is true. When you are inside the castle you cannot see beyond the walls. And. Again. Those who have been affected by the thought police don\’t know they\’ve been effected by the thought police. But they think everyone else has been. Oh well. You know. When you\’re right you\’re right. And if you\’re right you\’re not left. Behind.

But this is being harsh. There is more to Locater Nun. Though for some there is only one. One thing. One to her.

You see what you want to see. Mirror mirror. Etc. Etc.

No. Locater Nun believed she was the Charioteer of God. She had a good soul. She. Herself. And. She took seriously. Literally. The dictum. \”Go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven.\” Even here Locator Nun had her detractors. They said. Concrete thinking is a sign of mental instability. There are always naysayers. Let us be kind. Love your enemy. Otherwise how will you know what he or she is thinking?

The Charioteer of God. Locater Nun. Knows true knowledge. Abides there. In colorless formless intangible essence. Visible only to mind. The pilot of the soul. As they say. I am therefore I have thoughts without a thinker which demand a mind to think about them. Yes. Locater Nun was mindful of this. And so it was. That. Being nurtured upon pure knowledge she rejoiced at beholding Reality. Halleluiah! And she gazed upon Truth. And she was replenished. She was glad. Knowledge in absolute. Existence in absolute. Justice and temperance. In absolution. And. Beholding true Existence. She. Locater Nun. Passes down into the interior of heaven and says. Nay. I cannot accept ambrosia and nectar until all reality is saved. That is. All mankind.
What devotion. What dedication. Benevolence. Beneficence. Compassion is the greatest love. Let there be light!

Locater Nun\’s avowed job. Her chosen path. Her raison d\’etre. Is to save other souls. To bring them enlightenment. By confronting them with reality. With the error of their ways. They are troubled. She believes. By uncontrollable steeds. Unruly Houyhnhnm. This is because these people are not strong enough. And so they are carried round and down. Plunging. Lunging. Treading on each other. Everyone striving to be number one. To be on the top. Falling. Espying. Failing again. Confusion. Perspiration. Extreme effort. They become lamed. Clip-winged fallen angels. Fruitless toil. And. Disillusioned. They imbibe opinion. Even though there is pasturage. Unable to follow. Unable to behold Truth. Ill-happed. They slip and slide into forgetfulness. And vice. Aiya! What to do? What to do!

Enter Locater Nun. Come to show them the error of their ways. Determined, Diligent. Demanding.
None. She vowed. None would escape her revelatory zeal. It was as if she were on a witch hunt. Only as if. You understand.

Hypocrisy. Sanctimony. She came after them.

She kept a little black book. And in that book she noted who was naughty and who was nice. Who got their stockings filled. And who got their blocks of coal.

\”There is no profit in a man\’s life,\” she began, \”if his body and mind are in an evil plight. You must rid yourselves of these lurid sex stories from anonymous assistant crudite girls who work on arts and crafts service tables at this or that carnival of animals hoping, hoping for that big break only to uncover nonexistent penumbras of delight to airhead anti-humanists.\”

So went Locator Nun\’s hysterical anti-humanitarian rants. She traversed the land. In seven league boots even. Maintaining. In appropriate self-righteous tones. After all. She was saved. God\’s charioteer. Here to bring the fallen back to the proper way. The enlightened way. Yes. She maintained that the few anti-humanists were perverting the rest of humanity. And they had to be stopped. In their tracks. Before they led the goodly humanists over the abyss. They. The anti-humanists. Were traitors. To all of humanity. Humanism. The people who really cared.
But. Of course. They didn\’t know it. The anti-humanists. So. It was time the error of their ways was smashed unceremoniously in their repugnant faces. Locater Nun called them what they were. She called a spade a spade. She wasted no flowery rhetoric. Judgment was coming. Judgment would be swift. And final.

Taking a deep breath Locator Nun lowered her already worldly standards to speak in language that these traitors to humanity and humanism could understand. Traitors needed to have their anti-humanitarian ways thrust unceremoniously into their lurid disgusting pig-eyed little faces. Locator Nun was bringing home the bacon. Plopping it unceremoniously in their back yards.
And so. These are the kinds of things she said. Distilled. You understand. She\’d been at this for oh so many years. Spurred on by her sense of mission. Her horses were becoming restless.
\”Anti-humanists could never persuade humanists to follow their insane ideas. Infanticide. Sexual perversion. Adoption. Trigger finger tampering. Mixing and matching. Abolishing punishment finalities. Opportunity knocking. And yet. Anti-humanitarians wage a vicious campaign. Of vilification. And. Therefore. Of course. Craven moderately humanist humanists would be expected to follow.\”

Yes. She said, \”We face moral choices. Between good and evil. Every day. Every day. Day in and day out. Everyman\’s everychoice everyday. If we make excuses for evil soon we cease being able to distinguish evil from good at all. With each choice we make. Large or small. We therefore take a step closer to the Devil. And so. Yes. They have made excuses for evil for so long they cannot recognize evil any more. The closest thing to it. Evil. In their vocabulary someone who wears fur. Yet many anti-humanists wear beards!\” She would need to take a deep breath here. Sucking back the excess saliva that had accumulated on her rosy lips. Natural. No lipstick. You understand.
\”Hiding their true selves. Behind their masks of fur. They are become amoral appeasers and foreign suck-ups whose faces are no stranger to confusion or befuddlement. Look at their beards for the love of God!\”

It was all so self-evident. You know.

\”God\’s charioteer is come to Earth to meet out the punishment they deserve. The anti-humanists. You see. Anti-humanists simply can\’t grasp the problem. Their specialty is hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte. What is the problem?\” Another sage pause. \”It is so self-evident! It need not be stated. They. They use words like decent and solid to describe their two-faced weasel hypocrisy.\” And here. Locater Nun leaned forward over whatever podium she happened to be standing behind. For emphasis. \”You don\’t have to enter the No Spin Zone to see the disconnect.\”

You\’d think this would be enough. But no. There\’s more.

\”They talk about simulating belief in something. Anti-humanists believe in crazy God crap. They hoodwink others into believing they should believe in the crazy God crap too. It\’s part of the casual contempt anti-humanists have for the views of normal people. Righteous people. The yous and mes of the world. Everymans. Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy I tell you. Hypocrisy is the sin that inflames them. And they say the humanists are the hypocrites.\”

Take a deep breath. To calm her audience down. To calm herself down. Then begin again. Her diatribe. Hmm. To whom is she talking?

\”Inasmuch as anti-humanitarians have no morals they sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards they renounce. It\’s an intriguing strategy.\”

But Locater Nun. You understand. Has been deferential. She. In the face of this concatenation. Yes. She resisted the persistent. Illiterate urge. By others. You understand. To call anti-humanists traitors. At first. With a great deal of charity. And a willing suspension of disbelief. She conceded that many anti-humanists were merely fatuous fools fomenting at the mouth. Village idiots. But. Alas. The time came. It could not be put off. After all. And Locater Nun did some straight talking. Then. At that time. From then on.

Often in meandering mind-numbing prose. Like. The anti-humanists have turned a savage fascist nation into a peace-loving democracy overnight.

\”Totalitarian monsters. Bloody tyrants. Fascists.\”

The enlightened often talk in paradoxes.

The ends justify the means. But only if the end is to slander anti-humanists.

\”Anti-humanists are fanatical liars. Hobgoblinists. They engage in myth-making. Rewriting history. Blackening reputations. They are on a horrid campaign of horrendous lies and disinformation. Anti-humanists are noise machines.\”

They were matched by the canting of one. Locater Nun.

\”Anti-humanists are incapable of feeling hate for the enemy. Anti-humanists unabashedly invoke lies in order to shield their ongoing traitorous behavior. They wear masks. Look at their bears for Christ\’s sake.\”

There was the word. She had sealed fate. Traitorous bastards. Sullying out-from-unders.
Pantywaists. Gutless wonders. Chicken livereds. Self-aggrandizers.

Locater Nun the plethora tongued.

\”Anti-humanists become highly histrionically indignant when I question their patriotism. To life. Social terrors. Terrorists. They prattle on and on about the right to dissent being the true mark of humanitarianism when of course they are wrong. It is God.\”

And the Papal treasury. Aka the World Bank.

\”Those who cannot stay focused on fighting the enemy are objectively pro-terrorist. They too are traitors. The innocent are guilty. Traitors do that to you.\”

So. Mind your P\’s and Q\’s. Or. Locater Nun\’s come to get you.

Some said she sounded like a woman quarrelling with her husband. In conceit of her happiness.
Being a self-righteous charioteer of God. Locater Nun obeyed the laws of man. Roman laws. Derivative laws. Empirical because of the empire. Perpetuated down through time. Ad absurdum. The only way to go. And so. It was. Traitors should be shot. Would be shot. Put to death. Finis. It\’s the law. Human. Humanitarian. It saves lives. In the end. You just gotta cut it off at the source. Baby. Anyway. No penalty which the law inflicts is designed for evil. Always makes him who suffers either better or not so much more worse. As he would have been. But. If any unmentionable be found guilty let the judge deem him uncurable. Remembering. After receiving such an excellent education and training from youth upward. The rogue has not abstained from the greatest of crimes. Which is being led to godlessness. Insolence. Injustice. Exile and death are too good. They must be disgraced as well. No criminal shall go unpunished.

The law is right. The law is good. Whoever enslaves the laws. Uses violence. Stirs up sedition. Wanting to change the state. This person is the greatest criminal of all. Worse than a god-defier. Already the worst. Yea I say unto you. Even cowards are as bad as traitors.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Clean out the trash. The detritus of humanity. So humanity might live. Amen.

Some said that she should beware. Lest from imitation she become what she imitates.

And so it came to pass. 10,000,000 people. Traitors all. They were put to death. It was the only humane way. Contamination had to be resourced out. When people cannot see the error of their ways. They must be made to see the error of their ways. They must be made to accept responsibility for their actions. So. All 10,000,000 traitors were executed in the humanist fashion of the day. That they might climb aboard the chariot of God. And meet him. And know absolute truth. It is the way of the world.

Locator Nun sat back. Crossed her legs. Sighed. Took out a cigarette. She puffed and puffed. Lots of smoke. Screening her from the heavens above. Life was not always so sweet. Or clean. But when you have a job to do. A duty. A calling. You must remain loyal. To the cause. Whatever.
But. You know. Now. Locater Nun\’s without a job. A duty. A calling. All\’s quiet on the Western front.

And she\’s misplaced her chariot.

the monster

I don’t know when it started. This change. It wasn’t quick. It was insidiously slow. Indeed, I’m not sure whether there was a change. Now. It could have been this way all along and I simply didn’t notice it. It doesn’t stand to reason that a change of this magnitude would go undetected. But there it is. That’s the way I feel. At the same time, I feel there must have been a change. There must have been. Only. . .I’m so upset that I can’t be sure.
Perhaps it is true. That old cliché. That you can’t escape your heritage. That the sins of the father. . . .
I don’t know. I just don’t know any more. I mean, the possibility exists that I’ve always been like this. And there’s the possibility that the change was gradual. How can two things exist at one time? And that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? That I am me and, at the same time, I am this. . .this monster.
Since I can’t really remember much from before, I’ll tell you how it is now. Because now is all I’ve got.
When I look at pictures, I stand like that. Like the monster. So I must walk like it, right? When I watch my feet move out from under me, the pace and the placement are monstrous. I shudder. Sometimes I lose my concentration. I lose my balance and must stop to right myself. Then I wonder. . .what if I put on different shoes? Shoes that a monster wouldn’t wear. But it makes no difference. It’s still the monster gait. I want to change this. But it’s too late for change. I’m too far gone. And I shudder. It makes me want to cry. I despair. I didn’t want things to happen this way. I want to walk like a human being. A common man. My own man.
I don’t like this. But what can I do about it? Change is the only rule of the universe. Nothing is still. But did the change have to happen in this way? Is there something I could have done to change the outcome? This outcome?
I look at my hands and I see a monster’s. Loose skin lying in folds. Cross-hatchings. Wrinkles on the fingers. Thank goodness they are still fingers! The knuckles in particular are scary. The skin pools about the joints. The middle joints. And the veins are superhighways. But then when the hand is closed up –either hand–the skin is taut and appears thin, as if the pressure will cause the knuckles to pop out. Worse still, I hold things like the monster. I use utensils like the monster. I want to use things differently. Grasp the glass differently. But it always comes out the same. Monster’s grip.
What am I going to do? Put my eyes out so I cannot see? Erase my memory so I don’t know? How disparaging that I must live with this!
My belly protrudes in monster fashion. It overhangs. I cannot see my feet. Or my parts. I arch my back to carry this excess weight and my tail end is exaggerated. I do not know if it wobbles or shakes when I walk. I fear it does. How depressing! I have dewlaps hanging in my crotch. My thighs are sleek, Thin-skinned. Layers of fat adhering just below the surface. It all shakes when I walk. When I move. With this abdominal protrusion I’ve become round of shoulder. And my spine is bending. It hurts all the time. At the shoulders. Between the shoulder blades. I can’t strand straight. Sit straight. Such an effort!
Surely there is no one so cursed as I!
I console myself, though, with the little differences. They are slight but I hang onto them. They are, after all, all I have left of myself. And I am desperate. My eyes are different. They are not monster’s eyes. They have not changed color. Will they? And will I see things differently then? And I am hairy. I have not lost my hair. I have a great mane of hair. On my face and head. Not a monster characteristic. My voice, too, has not changed. It is soft and resonant. Except when I shout. Then I roar. My ears are not overlarge. My nose is not bulbous. Asymmetrically bulbous. But it snorts. It blows. On exertion. Yet, if I am careful, I can control this. So I believe I am not totally lost.
Still. . .I have become the monster I have spent my life running from. Avoiding. But what am I to do? I’ve become my father!

wanton fishes deceive themselves

Wanton Fishes Deceive Themselves
by
Shi Ke Jian
I despaired of ever coming down from the mountain and out of the trees. The air was thin and close. Each day was endless dusk. I asked myself where I might be going that I would do this to myself. Nevertheless, I endured the days of sunless green light and early darkness that brought with into stars. I had after all left my village for a purpose.
The pines grew thicker and the path stonier. At the Great Pass my staff snapped. I watched the bottom half of my stick bounding down the slope, careening off the trees and rocks. Soundlessly. I did not need the crutch, I surmised. The staff had been merely a frivolous item. Still, I held onto the remaining piece.
“Throw it down then!” An old man’s voice shouted at me as I stumbled out onto the Pass itself. I stopped. Blinked my eyes. “You have broken it. Throw it down.” I squinted my eyes and looked around. I found no one. “Stop looking about like a madman and throw it down.” I did as I was bid. “There now. Even a good thing’s not so good as nothing.” He laughed. A cracked old man’s cackling.
“Where are you?”
“Ah! Much easier than looking about, eh? I’m sitting in my hut in the side of the mountain. I’ve been here for some time. All my life I think.” He laughed again, as at some joke.
“How am I to find you? I cannot see.”
“Obviously you have not come far enough out of the trees. I will be here when you get here.”
“And if I keep you waiting overlong?”
“I will be here til the end of time. That is what the legends say. Even a monk must die, though. Hah! I see you!” I stopped in my tracks. “If you turn your back to the sun you will no be so blind.”
I did. I saw.
Sitting on the ground in the opening of a rough lean-to perched against the side of the mountain was an old man. His clothing was old. His legs were gathered up beneath him, arms in his lap. He looked out at me from dead eyes. To one side there was a rude stringed instrument. It had a very long neck and a small body with only three or four strings. To the other side was a staff somewhat similar to my broken one. There was straw matting inside the lean-to. And a blanket. The roof of the shelter was piled with pine branches.
I crossed to him.
“You have come just in time to help me gather wood for the fire.” He rose in one fluid motion, took his stick and trundled off toward the trees. “Aren’t you coming? There is only so much wood I can carry. If it were not for you I would be at this til darkness comes.” He stopped. He laughed loud and long, throwing his head back. It was a full, hearty laugh. “Until darkness comes!”
I smiled, not rightly understanding, and followed him into the trees. Through the eeriness of the afternoon we gathered fallen twigs and branches. We gathered enough firewood for two or three days. He thanked me with a slap on the back and a tap on the shin with his staff. I looked into his laughing face. He was blind.
* * *
“You have not asked me how I come to be here.”
“I assume you climbed up the mountain.”
“Was this house here waiting for me?”
“You could have built it.”
“Hah! I was not always so perceptive.” And he laughed again at his joke.
“I don’t see what you mean.”
“Close your eyes.” I did so. He hit me on the head with his staff. “Did you see that?”
“Yes.” Behind my closed lids the ball of electricity sprayed out rods of burning fire. My neck and shoulders throbbed.
“And how long will you continue to harbor this pain? Do you like it so much? Then you shall have another!”
I opened my eyes. His staff was posed above me. The pain lessened considerably. He laughed.
“The world is magnified when you close your eyes against it. You know there is energy in everything otherwise there would be no life, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You are aware, too, that there are those who can control this energy to better their existence and the existence of less healthy beings?”
“I’ve heard of such people. In India.”
“Yes. And in China. But there are those in the West who believe in moving or bending things. All by manipulation of this mysterious energy.”
“So I’ve heard. It’s a randy business.”
“But they only do it for fun and games. Parlor tricks. Why is that, do you think? I have a story for you. Then you must retire for the night.”
“You will not?”
“I go on no journey tomorrow. I will keep watch over you.” He laughed again. He seemed quite merry making jokes about his eyelessness. He was silent for awhile. “In a monastery one day, the Master came across a novice sitting alone in his room. The young man was seated at a table staring intently at the salt shaker. That salt shaker was the only object on the table. The Master stood in the doorway and watched his young charge concentrating. He watched until the intent look changed into one of headache. Then he spoke up. ‘What are you trying to do?’ ‘Ah! Master. I’m trying to move this salt shaker with my energy.’ ‘Hmm. . .perhaps I can help.” ‘Would you?’ ‘Come. Move over.’ With that, the Master sat down. He looked at the salt shaker for a moment. he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He muttered under his breath. He reached out with his right hand and moved the salt shaker. He opened his eyes and stood up. “Energy is in the tips of your fingers.’ He walked away.”
I did not move. I waited for the punch line.
“To bed with you! Your way will be much easier tomorrow but you will need your energy.” He cackled and slapped his knee.
I retired with his insistent laughing in my ears.
* * *
He was right. My way was easier. But longer. I wondered gain if I should come out of the giant pines. I stopped. I leaned on my staff. His staff. I heard him again, “Even a good thing’s not so good as nothing.” I turned to look further back into the dark woods. Did I expect the old man to be there laughing at me? I took a step. My knees buckled. They did not want to hold me up. I clattered down the pathway, a rickety skeleton. I fell to the ground and rolled down the decline. When I stopped myself, I was lying in grass. I covered my eyelids. The world was too bright for me. I shouted at the brilliance. My blindness brought back the old man. I laughed.
It was some time before I brought myself to rise. The grass was too soft and pleasant. The smell was too fresh. The heat of the sun, too, was over-pleasant. It took the dark chill from my bones. Then it became too much and I rose to take my cloak off. Then I opened my eyes, almost without thinking.
Green grass lay before me. Down to the edge of the lake. There were no trees. Beyond the glittering lake low hills rose to meet the bright blue sky. In every direction the world spread out about me, a welcoming mat. I breathed it in and held it inside. The beauty of life filled me as I sent my breath back out. A feeling of immortality overtook me. I closed my eyes again to feel it the more. I could not stay there forever, so I moved off toward the lake. The idyll that was this country stayed with me until I came to the lake. A small gathering of people were amassed along its shore. They were gathered at a stone barrier just before the bridge proper. I stopped to watch. Nothing was happening. Occasionally someone would gesticulate. There was intermittent shouting. I could not hear what was being said. I strained my sight along the shoreline. Several metres away from the barrier a figure stood deep in weeds. This person rocked back and forth, showing no concern for the dangerous location. Stories had it that the sands beneath the water shifted and sucked down whatever was at hand.
There was only one road to go by. I continued along the way to the bridge.
“Hello!” I shouted when I came near the people. “What brings you to such a spot?”
“She does!” shouted back a man. He pointed toward the reed-ridden figure. “Look at her out there. She is surely crazy!”
“She is not crazy,” spat a gap-toothed old woman. “She is possessed.”
“Bah! What do you know!”
“Hey! Don’t argue so. We have a stranger here. What will he think of us?”
“She’s possessed,” the old woman muttered.
“What do you think?”
“I think she is laughing.” I recalled my blind musician of the mountain pass. Her laughter did not remind me of the peal of bells as the old man’s had. But she was laughing. “And I think she’s deep in reeds.”
“Now there is a statement of truth.”
“Don’t make fun of her!”
“Let’s be careful now. It doesn’t matter what you ay, she laughs. It is she who makes fun of us.”
“Do you say she is crazy?”
“No. Do you?” I answered.
“That is fine for me to say. I am her husband.”
“You were her husband! You have not been for ten years now her husband. What do you know!”
The man paused. He turned brusquely and jumped up on the wall. He stood there awhile, saying nothing.
“How long has she been out there?” I broke the silence.
“Days.”
“She walked right out of the forest to where she is now and began laughing.”
So had I, I thought. “Ah.”
“Yes. It is a terrible laugh. It echoes through the town and scares the children.”
“It does not sound so bad now.” I could not see this.
“It’s the day time. Things change at night.”
Oh, yes. Darkness does change things. I remembered the old man laughing. I heard the woman laughing. I had never heard of anyone dying of laughter but she seemed a prime candidate. There was something strangulating about her expostulations of joy. There was little pause between each run. No more than a breath. Her movements were not as pronounced as I had first noticed from the hillside. Her head rocked back and she laughed. Her body remained almost totally still. She indeed looked possessed. But I did not know of such things.
“Has no one tried to reach her and bring her back?”
“Don’t you know the stories?”
“It’s marshland out there. Many people have died wandering into those reeds.”
“That’s why this wall was built. To keep people out of the lake.”
“It was built to hold death out.”
“Is she worth so little that no one will try to save her?” Everyone turned to stare at me. I had committed a grave error. I did not know what it was, so I tried again. “She got out there. Perhaps someone should go and bring her back.”
“I think it better that you be on your way.”
“Or maybe he’d like to hear the story, eh?”
I sat on the wall on the other side of the road. I waited. This was a nice rest. My feet hurt. My knees still shook. But no one said anything. The woman’s laugh permeated the air. Tense and jagged. She rent the wind, taking something from it. Her compatriots’ silence was menacing.
“It began many years ago when she was married to that man there.”
“They were happily married.”
“Then she became impatient.”
“She wanted more out of life than life was giving her with him.”
“She began studying the esoteric sciences. One day her persistence was rewarded. Her husband ceased to be a part of her life.”
“Good food. Good wine. Pleasure that she could not have with him corroded her mind. Filled her up to the gills.”
“So her husband became less acceptable to her.”
“She berated him.”
“You should wear better clothes.”
“You need to change the way you think.”
“Your view of life doesn’t make sense.”
“You’ll never amount to anything the way you are.”
“You wouldn’t like the friends I have now.”
“Those are the kinds of things she said to him. So they stopped doing things together.”
“She suggested a time apart. A time to think. But it was all a ruse.”
“She divorced him the second he walked out of the house.”
“Secretly.”
“She misrepresented him.”
“She married one of her rich friends and they moved to a house far up in the woods. She did not want for anything.”
“That was ten years ago.”
“That new husband has just died leaving her nothing.”
“And after ten years of developing her character, she has come down out of the forest to see her true husband,” cackled the old woman. “And do you now what? She found his house right where she left it. Nothing had changed. He still lived in it but she couldn’t find him. Imagine that? Everyone knew him. He was famous in the town. He was everywhere. But she couldn’t see him.”
“Better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big one.”
“No one said anything to her.”
“Some remembered her. Some did not know her.”
“When he came home that night, he was shocked to see her.”
“No he wasn’t. He was angry.”
“No. He was hurt.”
“Do you know what he said to her?”
“Your eyes are hollow,” everyone said in unison.
“That is why she stands deep in reeds laughing?”
“You guessed it.”
I stood atop my piece of wall and looked toward the woman. Her laughing hurt my ears. It assaulted me. A hard sadness crept around the edges. Her pinched sound was not laden with that gradual sinking-in sensation of knowledge. Not like the old man’s. There was nothing of the irony that involved insight. She was what remains after the superficial sheen of crystal or gold is scratched. Even a little shard will blind you.
As I stood there staring out into the reedy lake, I felt the old man’s staff strike me on the head. I closed my eyes and opened them again. Suddenly her laugh was a pitiful crying. It rose and fell like a child’s wailing. I jumped down and continued on my way, the blind musician once again in my ears. In the middle of the bridge, I turned back. His insight reached farther than his mountain lean-to. I looked to the woman deep in reeds. I threw my staff toward her.
“Here! Help yourself. There is energy at your fingertips.”

An Old Tale

Let me tell you about Spiderman. He was a smart-ass who played tricks on everybody. A foolish guy. Tantalizing people. Making them miserable. And so, often he outwits himself. This is because he has everything in one place. He is fat there with many legs. He is like the web he weaves.

One day as he was stalking about, he came across a lake. There were very many ducks there. His eyes grew wide. His belly rumbled. He had to have those ducks.

He was wily. He went home and stuffed an old bag full of weeds. He walked back to the lake. He stepped out from the bushes carrying his wampum and strolled across the grassland. He was whistling a happy tune. His step was light and jaunty. He waved at his friends the ducks. They waved back.

‘Hey! Where are you going, Spiderman?”

“I’ve been invited to a revival and I am going to have a good time.”

“What do you do at a revival?”

“You sing and dance. It is a joyous occasion.”

“Take us with you.”

“Oh, no. I could not do that. You do not know the song. You do not know the dance.”

“Teach us the song and dance so we will not be embarrassed.”

“Well, I do not know. . .okay. . .I will do it. It will be much more fun with friends along.”

Spiderman set his bag down with a chuckle. He was a merry old soul. He instructed the wild ducks.
“First you must stand in three rows. In front will be the fat, juicy ones. In the second row, the mid-sized ducks. And in the third row, the skinny, scrawny ones.”

They did as they were told. After all, Spiderman was their friend. He was going to teach them a song and dance. He was going to take them to a revival meeting. It was to be a joyous occasion.

“Okay. First you must close your eyes. You must not open your eyes while you are singing and dancing. You will become blind. Okay. Now. Dance!”

The ducks danced. They waddled about. They shook their booty. They jumped up and down. They flapped their wings.

“When can we open our eyes?”

“You must sing first. Sing now.”

The ducks sang.

“Louder! Louder!”

The ducks quacked louder.

“Louder, louder! I can’t hear you!”

The ducks kicked up quite a ruckus.

They were enjoying themselves so much they could not hear the thump-thump of Spiderman’s club as he hit them over the head.

One of the scrawny old ones in the back opened his eyes. The skinny, low-class, no-account. He saw what was going down and raised a clamor. The fat ones up front doing the song and dance had got into the pot.

The ducks left standing in a row quacked and flew off. But Spiderman had gotten his dinner. And then some.

surgery

Thurs, 22 Nov 2007. Some kind of history was made. I underwent nasal/sinus surgery for suspected polyps that turned out to be some kind of obstruction. Basically, this was done without anaesthesia. Although the doctor said it was local, it was topical–enough to get the tube through the nasal opening and into the sinus. From then on, it was time to feel every damn thing that was done, from threading the fiberoptic scope around a generally unsensed part of the body, to the horrid sucking noises against the skin (rind?) of the sinus against the bone, to the cutting of slits and the cauterizing of bleeders. I breathed, as best I could, toward meditation state but, of course, never got near relaxation. They took rests to let me recover for the next assault. At one point, near the end, they were shocking me with little, unwarranted and unwanted electric currents; then, they hit me with something that lifted me off the table with a yelp like a suddenly injured dog. When I got back to the room, one person was waiting and I collapsed in her arms, crying from shock. I’m not sure it’s all over, the shock, for sometimes I’m overwhelmed at night with the feeling of abuse and total helplessness.

This is not the first surgery I’ve had in China but it’s the first horror. The other was on my left wrist and was, truly, local–with the proviso that if it hurt I should let them know and they’d give me more.

#2 was for nerve compression. It was to be done under brachial block but when they hit the nerve and injected the local, it went backwards, up to my face and neck. Very, very odd indeed. They then did a truly local, again with the proviso that if I felt discomfort, they’d hit me again.

Since I’m staying here as I have a home, a job, a life. . .I wonder what #4 will be like? A further step back in time?

I’m happy, you’re happy

Why do people need to kill each other to be happy? Everybody in the world is trying to kill everybody else. Especially in America. America must be filled with happy people, right? They are doing so much killing around the world they must be delirious. Add to this that they are also killing their own. It is quite possible with this track record that America may succumb to extreme happiness. Yet when one wins his way past the happiness guardians one discovers that Americans must not be trying hard enough: there are a whole lot of unhappy people there.

This unhappiness is, of course, difficult to explain; but perhaps the problem is that there are too many people. As killing will help solve this problem it stands to reason that more killing will hasten happiness. If there are too many people, then what better place to up the ante than on the home front? Surely ingenious ways can be found, for sense-gratification cannot be postponed too long or people become unhappy. Unhappier. Or, worse, the idea of happiness palls and we give it up. How awful! Killing now is working for the happiness of the future generation, their children–and your children. Those who die in this endeavor become heroes, martyrs for the cause. What selfless people! What soullessness! Truly, killers are an example for us all. So remember the exhortations of the famous A. Guthrie: “Kill. Kill! Kill!” And be happy. Don’t worry. For what is better than working for the happiness of all, yes? After all, it is God’s way: he killed–or had killed, it’s the same thing–his son for the happiness of all, not to mention the great slaughters he brought down on others. So pray that you might kill or be killed in selfless self-sacrifice to the wellbeing of your neighbors.

Perhaps, though, the reason for the unhappiness in America is that so many people go out of their way to stay stupid and misguided. They do this in the name of comfort and security; that is, in their own homes. If high technology in the form of computers for playing games or watching banned movies is not present in the home, more than likely there is a television set. Televisions have become as necessary as indoor plumbing to early 20th century urban dwellers. Unlike disposing of the outhouse, TV has brought the shit inside. Mindless passive entertainment that, like killing, Americans seem to be ever in more want of. Thirteen channels were not enough, so they paid for 10 more. That was not enough and it became 50–at added expense. For yet more money, 300 channels of shit can be piped into the home. Mindnumbing it is, the variations of stupidity that will be bought by the great multitude of TV viewers. And it is true that they view: no thought is required. Hell–no thought wanted! Dumb and dumber. So enthused about the shit on the tube have grown-ups become that they’ve had it put into the classrooms of the nation’s schools so that their children can be educated to the benefits of mindnumbing shit. Popular demand has forced stores, buses, transportation terminals, offices–you name it–to have TVs installed so their customers can be entertained by costumed stupidity and guided misinformation. It is hoped, we suppose, that by barraging the populace with so much–nay, an overwhelming amount of stupid shit that Americans will not know they are unhappy. And if they are not unhappy, they must be happy.

But this only accounts for a certain percentage of the populace. The poor working class and the victims of poverty and the homeless and the marginalized, because they are aimless or puritanically focused on their Moebius strip lives, are unhappy. This is where the killing comes in. First by gangs; then planned abject neglect. This is called, we believe, killing yourself to save yourself. Truly an earth-shattering concept.

Yet I think that if America is unhappy, how much worse must be those places people emigrate from? They are, of course, immigrating to America, the Land of Opportunity, and creating more unhappiness. You know how people carry their old baggage with them. Realizing this, the government has accordingly limited immigration and is working hard to dispel other already landed yet unhappy immigrants from within their happy hunting ground. This sell job is done by way of keeping the stock pure. Pure happiness is hard to come by. Tarnishment is a no-no.
Yet I wonder. . .what will we do when we’re all happy? Consider: since all the unhappy world needs to start the killing is one person realizing his unhappiness and that only by killing the unhappiness around him he can create happiness, how can we ever achieve our goal of happiness? What’s left when you’ve killed off everybody? Perhaps we should make sure people stay unhappy. Then there’d be no reason to kill. Isn’t that self-defeatist?

Who wants to give up happiness? You know?

So, you see? Anti-war people are happiness killers. Paradoxically, they are happiness enablers as they are happy about what it is they are doing. They are aiding and abetting misery and poverty. How perverse. Such perversity must cease. They must all be killed in order that we may continue with the business at hand: creating happiness. AKA killing. This shouldn’t be too difficult for the killers, who are unhappy about these anti-war harlots. This creates a paradox I really do not wish to plumb–though there is something about entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and chance-and-necessity about it. I mean, if they are bringing happiness by way of killing, how can they be unhappy killing anti-war freaks when anti-war freaks–unhappiness givers?–are killing them with happiness? It is difficult to see where happiness and unhappiness end.

This brings us to the present situation: development and deployment of Happiness Machines. As powerful an agent for happiness as nuclear weapons are, they take too long–after the initial outburst of glee. The Neutrino Happiness Machine, however, is another matter. It is a 3-yr old’s delight. Instant gratification. All sorts of killing. No more unhappy people. Inestimable happiness. Nirvana. What could be better!?