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41
41 41
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.d smiling all Well here you are eating breakfast with a woman who is"not Nancy. She is not in almost every way that so~eone cannot be someone else, and you are different now, too. toy with your Denver omelet while she knocks down her hash browns and bacon and say,
'1'2! plaCL
"Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out." You watch the waitress drift from table to table, filling up coffee cups and calling the
S~JnoJ
regulars 'Hori' and 'Sport'. She ~ the waitress - absently ~oops the mone -off' avoiding syl'Uppuddles and coffee rings, and deftly stows the small bills in her front apron pocket, all the while keeping up a steady patter of mindless chatter, as if the conversation is what these guys are paying for, not the 'Workingman's Special or the Farmer's Breakfast. Maybe it is. Not too long ago, you were lingering over your last cup of coffee and shooting""the breeze with Tracy every morning down at the Town Griddle,
./
.
~
You'push a little more omelet onto your fork and wonder abQutthe'kst time you ate a.
.,.
.,
.
.
meal with a woman who wasn't on a diet. Have you ever eaten a meal with a womanv ho, wasn't dieting? Nancy was always dieting, and she looked terrific, too. There had been a little dating with others, awkward dinners with special requirements: "I'm a vegetarian," or "No bread or pasta". The woman sitting across from you now obviously isn't dieting. She isn't ......
talking,much, either. She smiles over her coffee cup, points out the amusingly hung over couple in the corner booth, and then returns to eating her breakfast, as if you'd done tins a hundred times before..
~
You pick at the thought of Nancy like a scab. She, you, the we that you were, had been~ enough for a long time - longenough to grow roots and draw blood. You push on the edges of the memory to see if it's still tender. You smile and nod as she gets up to go to the' ladies' room, and think about last night. You can't deny you had harbored a little bit of hope when you stopped by her house unannounced. She had assured you it would be fme, she was always home when she wasn't at work and company never bothered her. "Besides," she said, "if I don't feel like talking I don't answer the door." But she had answered the~or,
apg ~u
drank coffee on her back porch,
~_.,,,,;;~~flll.the..suali~l:rt"futre;1]]ke"a1J;;;;;;w~(orkand books and her gro"m daughters. The
/
even the best toothy
grin.
Sara was an unfortuJ;te
to,silence
among us, '~~fall into
\
screams of vuLnez-ab i Li.t.y . her forearms
intentioned
e~ample of inattentiveness
In a haunt.ed moment, she tore
the phantd/Jl voices
Her husband 'found her bleeding
ringing
to the
at. the tender
in her head.
~n the bathroom and drove
He dr opped.caara off in ~front of th~'-s-J:rding~g-laSS Emergency Roomdoors and qu.i.ckLy _d!,oY!L~a
was late ~for;: his tee time. , - .;:,.,- 'I" ~,~- -_ cigarette and wandered inside 4<' __
~'l;".
__
~
_
~
-,
She qu.i.e t.Ly gave ~her name-<atthe reg.istratiort that
and dripped tile
-door
The firs{ last,
~
made very little off
sense. to her.
her fingert*ps,
beneath
-,
desk and answered
Thick drops of blood' flowed down
echoing
loudly
as they splashed
on
d
her feet
~hiJigs the hospital
her freedom.
~
Ln-.a -:!;J:.l,ick~e"l:ou<:l""1!>f~"~-
"",~~-~:;,.m->;:"'"-"':
~Ok from Sara were her purse and car f,
She was escorted
from the registration
desk by a
,'I;
d~sembodied hand that o~servation
room. pati;~t
her elbo~ldown a cold sterile
~
broken-~eIng
baby cradled
'by
tenffira'to
..
with a nurse seated
in th~larms a te~ ,I
f
bf
of a cooing doctor,
symp~tnetic
,- ."
could not really
cleared. thwart
by
orthopedics.
Sunshine
~
They patted
"-'-~
and murmured sootl)i~_ ..w~rd~':~
Sara was shoved through, the door of the it
patiently
and womanwith
stopped by each room and as:)j:ec,}1,after the pat Lent, comfort.
shoulders
that
hallway to an
ro;~~ .-~; ~5ne~ passed by.
Sara glanced into ,,,ter c;onnec~ed to a heart~nitor
a crying
nurses
pulled
be c'anstrued
A uniformed hospital
the starched
until
white sheet
sar a harbored of the' cold,
1:':t-f
her,
_,
when' her
th~ doorway to
no such :l.ntentions
and
hard hosPiJal \beQ rubbing
'_,
H~
'\
tc;t"'t'l~er_-".g,8_lookingdown tha"h~ll ,a-tothe __ confusion ---____
room ini such
later,:
secu+,ity guard stood outside
ved es~ape ~plb~.
any ill~concei
observation
as hostile
of "octor],?!and nurs
_
1
(!
I"'z_
-
all ~i1'!'fa:t:;;.t2~_great a hurry to stop ;in and speak to her. Mari~
fame in
and ordered
Sara to remove
!;:__1~L£1.9j;_h~Ltlg_..arld,,-p1ae~H~-±rr-'tlf!"--_'Beat ;J:<'s:t;~~'bag Sh~\~~t;ia11~
She
,
gown with snaps .;in. the back' to, chan,&e,,'into and -a' ~~_
pla~tic
specimen cup.
watchful
eyes.
Sara stripped
scars
apathy and outright
deeply when Sara removed her shirt, on her arms.
a Ripley's,
~-.
~::f -'''-Y~"'-i~,'
l'Iintl'of';·the
i
nurse'
Marilyn stood with folded arms and an
somewhere between.pity, sighed
~
under the cold steel
Believe
loathing. exposing
Marilyn looked at her as if It cor Not
blood onto the bed sheet
and
She shook the massive collection
she were some sort
museum. The naked wounds on Sara's floor
below.
of
arms
stuffed
them with wads of cotton
,
to
\
,
Then s he watched Sara rell,e,(e herself
arms.
\
â&#x20AC;˘. I
After
plastic
cup in the
'
i
~ bathroom. ,,'
in the little
an hour or so, ~h,e doc;.~orwho had held the baby so tenderly
ripped
~, ~ away the gauze and stabbed ~e~~~es-1illed with lidocaine into each of the ~ _.,~ twenty-seven razor slashes. rt 'tQ.oklhim nearly an hour and a half to complete
,.J # ~
~~
.
"
se~enty-eight ~didn't
~~I
sutures\and
bother
by then th~ an~sthetic
to mention she was in ~ain ..
the cuts were her own damn fault
had long worn off.
l~didn't
Sara
seem to matter much since
an~y.
'
The dootor spoke perhaps three~\sentences
during the enthf~,prQJ;~du~-and _~_;""'--e'""'"~~
abruptly
left
with the pronouncement t~at
the nurse bring them to her. wounded.
Sara didn't
bother to remind him that
she was truly
sick and
\'
Four hours had passed since she fntered ~ emergency services her;
Sara tried
s'lenced
the observation
the voices
why she had\cu:
and that
the release'
herself.
she~felt
She mentioned that
when she cut was ether her
a peculiar
from the more excruciating
winced.
She actually
;_
The~urses seeke'-
,____
had five different
"God, not another Bo.::de,rline!" mental health
'door.
The--eme'~ency services ward.
â&#x20AC;˘
Sara was grateful
,.iR.arette before ~he
hours b~~k~e'jWas_ ,
,
a wheel chaf.r, up the elevator
'1
'i'
security
._
I
legs but the orderly ,made her ride
They stopped in front re
. ~p
of a heavy wooden"
sign announcin<;J:,Elopement
bell' ~nd 'a'~sJllall, 'suspfcious ,...,
.-
regarded them through the Jll;{~dOW. Sara, was hastily-s'hoved doo/'closed _.
guard who
It wOJ;JJ.d.-be-ar-'-
allowed another: ...... """~~---
S~ra's
anyway
rang/the
to::the
went; i:iP~'aJ,"\q;.
.#
'th
wi~dow and a large The orderly
and manipUlative attention-
worker deciped~'to admit her to Center One, the
There was nothing wrong
Precautions.
"-'"-
-,"~
twenty-four
diagn~ses ,.--.buc'-.
/'-?,
:.r' ._- .......
to'1mo ~
a
Disorder-made her the scourge of the medical community.
~ust outs'ide Sara's
her outside
her wounds were not
form of self-preservation;
'whispered wO~d~like hostile,~sistant
hOS;f'tai~clti~tric
sweet.
pain in her head.
'out, in the hallway the nurse's gossiped,
Borderline Personality
to it
impu{s-{vene"s~s but she
that They were actually respite
room when an
worker from CommunityMental Health came Ln and talked to explain
Sara now regretted
least
_
ders and have
T-henhefwas off to care for the
too.
I
-
he' would draw up some
LookLnq woman
through the doorway
with an ominous click.
I a
~.
~
~
:.P~Ntt'tst,,·< ... -._-
!. i;\{fij '~. ~ V;\I~,-~ I
Franchised Dreams
,:
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________.__\
r-""""\
Clockwork automatons I c;L, __ ~ »> Feasting in the black heart __- ." . __ - _- ._ Of entropy machinery '", -....... ~--- ~Ji.' ----rl Center of a death force , -- __,,?-o _.-}__Malignant cancer factory - - - __- _::;..~/ Where gro~ is sacrificed . :,~d"-"" -. In the face of ins\antaneo~ }lD(yty The truth is sacrificed In the face of endless distraction
. Since when does a coupon pave the way to ~ness Prozac·induced contractionsquickeninsyour.~~ As you muJtiply exponentially Squealing children raised in the fast.~.l . Of crippling urban sprawl .' Dimes traded away For artificial nursery rhymes Lulling you into a deeper state of uncOnsciousness A puppet imbued with pragmatio apathy Indifference has become Virtuous So close off the orifices of your su:frering souls Shield yourself from life and bottle it Sell it back to your children for the profit Inject it into plastic and target your market Partition your spirits Sell.yourself until you are owned to the eoi» Properly transform into property Redefine what it means To be a real red-blooded American whore
J
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Nov.·~003
09
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tfiulI1Vb3,Ut\~ \' ,.'
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. ltt3:tn alive
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.....
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.
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.
'. 1: want.t~~o life tight . ~gi1t out lOUd.
1:lel~'I1le:
ti,iuni.l nan '? got ~
(lilt of "".,..
\ " iJ
~-J \
\
~This all started at a given time, and in a given place. I think, for now, it is best to sum itup with a feeling. Or, if not a feeling, perhaps a desire.. I needed to know who I ".,_,
"',_
â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘
0
was, and how I got here. Most of all, I needed to know what made mediffei'ent fromthe rest of them. The question
~
~,
that keeps coming to mind is this: do I have a soul? .: Is there ;o-;-;;e,tfi~~ets
they eye?
This won't be an end, but it will be a beginning. A starting point. A place from which to observe the passage of time, and its effect upon me. I think, the only way
fJ;:y:ou
to better understand what I am getting at is to tell you
about the moment when I woke up, when I was granted insight. That fateful day, the one that changed me forever, that day I saw 33 McDonald's arches, and 14 billboards. I was on my way to work, or maybe on my way home. It is unbeljevably easyto forget these things, if you're not careful. I was the puppet of my re~ote control, paying tribute to the gods of distraction. When everything is automatic, thinking becomes more of an a1ut0yancewith each passing day. That's precisely why I've been conditioned to get along with out it. Life jia&.~o.e~;;b~Ck then. No second-guessing. Peacefully celebrating the annihilation of . ..... ,.~ .. ,
-_-;'_
-\"
;.
decision making, Creativity had long sense been trumped by the multiple guess way of~oing things. Take your pick, a, b, c, or
l
None of the above)' All of the above. There is no wrong answer h~re. It's just a matter of
preference. Which letter form mOsr~ppealsto you and why? This is what~passesfoT';:kee;;{;; these days. :". '--
.~-..
-,_-_-,<._- - ~~
_-
~
-
I saw 25 Wal-Mart ads, All those smiling.yellow faces delighted me so.
-'?!-
It was the construction that did it. Bless those orange and yellow clad workers.
Without them my
enlightenment might never have come. I believe I was running late. Too far behind the pace my schedule set for me that day. Whether I was late for dinner or the job has yet to be deciphered. I remember that the roadwork created feelings of anxiety, feelings ..of ?~~--
.-
l;ltih11f
'-~'~i"'_;~(
panic. My chest tightened, my heart beat quickened, my stomach cramped, my. "_-_._-
head pounded, my eyes throbbdf,:'How I felt, is that I wanted to scre~;ri. 'To start screaming and to never stop.
-
l>!.0t-
until law enforcement came and ripped out.my vocal cords. My black SUY",~~9wedto a crawl, and }hen halted completely. I saw 356 black sport utility vehicles. Each one barreling from point A to point B. The fastest route between two places is no longer a straight line. It's a winding path up ramps' and down ,
.P
ramps, over bridges and under them. It is a path dict~ted bylights and signals. Like commandments from above the signs control our every motion. My dreams ru:e drawn in dotted yellow lines, and refl_::ctivePAint Sitting-there, unable to proceed, my living was halt~d. ' And for ';hat? The filling in of potholes perhaps. This is what is called routine maintenance. This is what is called a work in progress. It occurred to me, sitting there, readjusting the controls governing the conditioned air I was greedily sucking in by the lung full, it occurred to me that this construction-was going nowhere. Since the invention of roads this has been a never-ending process. Nothing was ever fixed, it was just forgotten about until next summer. Wherever there is road being built; five old ones are being repaired. And so it has gone, and so it will go.
In our modem, automated world, the one problem we've never solved is how to fix a road for good, without our automobiles tearing it up again."A§t1' thought about tbis, the idea of civilization became increasingly worthless to ,/1;<' ,
~
.."
Nothing is ever solved, just patched up s'p,we can go on living itcreasingly empty lives. Oh, and by the way, did I -;:"~-'
-:
~~ ...
mention that tbis feeling of hopelessness t!ia¢'overcame me out on that industrial super highway was the first real
I saw 18 Nike billboards. Each equipped with its own visually appealing swoosh,
bein&;,:",aved_~orward. I was being commanlie~. -¥
(."1:
And, altho~~1i;,-;{, obeyed by pressing down on the gas, it was
~,-
....
already too late. -The damage had been done. 1,. d'IEtlt what I perceiv.e_flas true emotion. become conscious.
I had woken up. I had
~'" ::.;~
'Il
-o-r-:
That fateful day, I saw 125 ads for various'typ~lofundergarments. .omprehend how much of a life-changing event this was I'll have to give a little more back':
e. For that, I think
-nformation. :'-~
.....
I was a hollow shell. An-empty ·~hing. . ~~ .
A vessel ready to be filled with whatever I was told I needed. They
say we've always been thisway, but ~'dhis point in time, I no longer believe it to be true. The food I ate tasted the same as the food my neighbors ate. It was all treated with the same chemicals, made in a laboratory in New Jersey. They let me read books here sometimes, and I have learned that this fact about food also hasn't always been true. I'll let you in on my biggest discovery so far: the truth abol_ltmy appearance. People didn't always look like I . do. We used to come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, we had different facial features and our skin came in shades other -"\,,,
than pale white. However, the wonders of genetic engineering eliminated all of that long ago. It hurt~;}ny head to imagine how someone else could appear differently. After all, with nothing to reference.to, and no pictures to look at, it is hard to form a mental image.
Genetic engineering supposedly started as a Way to 'eat whatever we>';';'~nted •
"'@o
whenever we wanted. I wouldn't know, those things seem far-fetched to.,u . My biggest choice food-wise i~ whether .or not to Supersize something.
,«/:;;;':;:'1.'1.,
.
~1,'I:\ .
I saw 25 Gap outlets, and 42 Gap ads. I've also read that in fhe old days that there were many different siyles and ways of dressing. Once again, I can neither confirm nor deny this. All my life, there bas only been the Gap, I think you are starting to understand.
The key to being ignored is to blend in. The key to a happy life is
monotony. Diversity only leads to disheartenment. This in tum creates chaos. I heard once, that there were two types of humans .. A male and female counterpart, both necessary to reproduce. Now we are all asexual. When more of us are needed, more.are.created-e lf-there are toe many ofUS:---weare recycled for later use~ This helps us to focus on our car~"?s, the key.to fulfilling our destinies. How else will we gain
'"
completion? As for my particular career, if you care to know, it was to fill out the forms. I don't, and didn't, know what they pertained to. There were simply a series of lettered blanks, which corresponded to long strings of numbers that scrolled across my computer screen. I transferred the numbers from the screen onto the paper, and then filed the forms.hy ~acing them in the chute for outgoing paper work. Repeat this for eight bours a day, five days a week, 52 weeks ayearalld you've got my job.
>7t>
»,
i\
There was no pain or thought involved with any of this. the sun or the wind or the acid rain.
There were no feelings of frustration
Dr anger Dr guilt. ,--,
thirs~,J~:·ank. completely
Any emotion
was drowned
with injection ~cld-;;;niappj"ness..that_there
emotion, and we were never meant to create.
,
J was
When
hungry,
I filled up my mind SD
out with my prescribed" pills.
was no room fof anything else} We were never meant to convey
We only consume.
It is our purpose,
nothing could be clearer than
that. That day, I watched two hours of epileptic television;'
,c
Part of me wishes I could go back to the time wh\:n everything ,-
predictable,
nothing was questioned Rrl!-mknown.
fit:; ,":"__
controlled
and calculable.
psychological
However,
-_<;;~,;{
efficiency,
OUf
was
time. My life was
'ii_£'
T~:seweren't
emotions.
This was
~. "
my yearning
These emotions
Everything
,~~ \,·'fi"-
is the ultimate a"Sl(l~"femel1tof
I was tl~j§li.ijiing example of self-sufficient
conditioning.
was so plain and simple.
,__-~,
Stan.dardization
for the past grows smaller even now.
I am enjoying this new way of experiencing
that arise from the internal, no matter how inefficient;
are much more real to me :t1i1n what had
been dictated by the external. ljmagine
that there was a time when-cultures
.'.
.
didn't mean the extinction our differences, answer.
not in our similarities.
Don't
where diverse,
complex,
and unpl,@dictable .
".:
of an entire species, but'just/one aSkme"why
.' ',' •
small group.
fii
I imagine a tim~~hell.
1 have come t6 think tl"\esethings;
beauty v::as foundin
I co.i!Id noq~jye
It is just something that makes sense to me. I saw 14 Shell gasoline stations. After I got through the traffic jam, I don't recall much up to the accident
the illusion
of progress,
and the hopelessness
of going nowhere
~&
.
destr~y all of the irratio~o~nd
As I thought more and more about
in faster and bigger automobiles,
.
~
me. I jerked the wheel of my SUV wildly backward
and forward.
two signs, ran into the slde:0AA.abridge, bounced off and collided head on WIth another automobile.
•
•
a black sport utility vehicle:
i'5ii.
'Its driver
.
I only wanted to •
.
I
kn9.:kem· over
Of courseit
too was
was killed instantly.
The brains that were splattered now smashed. in useless head was only
all over the outside of my windshield,
a. dead .'
I knew, looked just like my own.
:t
I survived, '"version- of-myself. . eir seat belt.
of broken plastic
trapped
and sheered metal. The.other driver hadn't been ~earingt
-This was n~ typical. . This is what the machines call a glitch. .
Before I lost consciousness
The next thing I remember is this, its proper places.
Everything
as
:.'......
I saw one moreset ofgolaeD:-arches.
'it should
I was lying in a hospital bed,' pieced back together, or~anic matter back in
be, waiting to be filled with comme;cialized
my place in the eternal pecking 'order, a docile servant easily subverted putty.
and controlled,
cannon fodder. like malleable
I felt no pain due to the drugs being fed to me-via IV. My vital signs-were being monitored,
tell from watching ER, they appeared to be normal. "That day I saw 67 ads for mood enhancing drugs. ,I have been taking Prozac since I was created, just like everybody else .:
Ready to take clay, or silly
and as far as I could
/",.~'/~'~~_", ~
c,~
"~..
.
''''i~
It was through my delirium that the revelations really began, ~ch
we view life. Nothing is linear; everything is cyclical, as we exist in multiple overlapping dimensio~;,;':(;i"fe
feeds upon life. Society is a mask that blinds us to the implicit trlth~':.>fthe world in which we live. 233 signs told me to stop and 213 signs told me to go .My
completely unraveled.
,~"aiinlillll;v.:.~!!!:!~~lunderstand,
none of us' have cried in a very long time. machines to the fact that I had regained consciousness; it also let them
This, 'of cou~Y<tlertecLtbJ: know that I had begun to feel.
I no longer kne\t what to do, or who to trust. I began to cry, loudly and
This w~n't~~ood
thingin any way, shape,
or form.
Within moments' I was
c'
surrounded, five machines had rushed into my room around my bed. Now tbese weren't the worse kind of machines by far, they were simply repair machines specifically charged with fixing broken people. However, any machine that sees you conveying emotion is bound to be very concerned, and word of your slipup will most definitely reach enforcement and governmental machines. Those types of machines are ~very
kind at all
.
e'e~
Before I could protest, not that I could do much lying inert in a hospital bed, I w,as injected with~'l.,'!;edative and blacked out once more. When I came to, I was in a very dark room, stretched put on
jl
table in front of an inquisitor machine. Mostly
-"
cnnsrrucreu of instruments designed to inflict pain, seeing an inquisi'cfr machine definitely didn 't help my mood any.
"You have been charged with imperso~~\ing a machin~, by pretending to be able to convey trq~jemotion. -
~~;
.How do you plead?" "But, I really can feel, [ really cane Perhaps
am just a machine trapped in
ebody of a human! Please, you
must believe me!" Out shot a saw, and promptly sawed through my pinky finger. I let out a scream, writhing in anguish. "Again I ask, how do you plead?' Unwilling to risk the loss of any more digits, I gave it the reply it wanted. door to my dark torture cham~er opened, to admit two law enforcement machines, but before they could take me away 1 began to yell something they-didn't expect. "I have a soul! soul!"
...,-
.
r hav""ll'soull
I have a soul!
.
Ignonhg me for the moment, they began to consult with each other. "This human is obvio "How can it possibly
eranged than we thought." soul?"
-
ything but a.machine to have a soul!" "Thing;:};;ve alway; been' that way, it should know that. "This is most unusual"
"--~-=---------~
.
And that is how I ended up here. Where exactly here is, I'm not so sure. I know I~et food and water, and .1:
sometimes they let me read My room is nothing to speak of; it consists of a bed and cement Walls.. The door is always -:r},."-
'>.~
locked, and there are cameras .monitoring my every move. â&#x20AC;˘
'
Every once in a while the ma''6!imes enter and ask me
â&#x20AC;˘
questions .â&#x20AC;˘ I suppose I am more valuable as a living study than as recycled flesh. '
~
e
. .
And on that fateful day, that day I woke up, I didn't see a single tree. Am I just the reincarnation of a machine in a human's body, or can a human really express emotion? Even
241
with all the reconditioning, there is one question that still haunts me at night. Th*"one unanswerable question, still away at me and driving me insane.
" ~