The Borreau

The barracks was dead cold as the sergeant opened his eyes to the distant glow of an approaching of morning. The fading of the specter of a drawn knife suddenly against him instantly fading from view transitioning to the dim glimmer wending its way through the dark silhouette of bunk beds and monolithic lockers. He stirred convulsively from the covers fearlessly offering his bare legs and feet to the cement below. The flexion causing his chest to swallow a draught of frigid air from the nearby drafty window summoning an instantaneous smoker’s hack. His forefinger scratched about within an empty paper package that he had mechanically snatched out of the pocket of his coat hanging beside him on the lower hook of the post of the bed. There were no more cigarettes to be had. He had consumed the last of his ration earlier last night. His lips curled into an unconscious grimace at the palpable impression of bitter brackish coffee that awaited him in the canteen. Life for it’s own sake alone he thought. Remaining alive had its many penalties. Penalties being the central currency of this headstrong governing structure superimposed equally over all as a normal state of affairs. This same organization that he found himself bound to so completely partly out of self-survival from years back when the foolishness of youth had nearly put him over the fence on the other side. Now he was much wiser and knew that even as its willing agent there was no foolproof shelter against its political largesse.

The duty roster as usual hung just inside the ready room doorway just across the hall from the site’s dingy cafeteria. It was thick with fresh paper. New dossiers detailing the particulars of the many unfortunates who were to be interrogated that day. He could momentarily imagine their shadowy forms cowering far below in dank darkness. several stories below. The latest crop of poor bastards that some faceless state official had ordained must be put to the test in order to verify their innocence. A task that was impossible at this stage as to do so would run against the obvious fact that they been taken there in the first place. The Party never made mistakes! Certainly not about the apprehension of political traitors to the State. After all, they were all were guilty of something. The fact that they needed to be physically coerced demonstrating a felonious attitude that verified that they had malevolent intent to hide. Once accused there was no chance of returning to a former existence, save for feet first. These mechanical thoughts long instilled by relentless Party doctrine had ceased to be of any concern to him long ago. He had to worry about his own kettle of fish. His son! The child he rarely if ever saw come of a very short union. It seemed clear that as the boy, as a resident the State boarding school from an early age would be out of danger and thus of no concern. His position as a Special Technical Interrogator’s Assistant made him next to bullet proof as long as he followed orders and of course, the current regime remained in power. Nothing to fear given his middling station in the hierarchy. He simply assisted the process of questioning by extracting the confessions.

The watery powdered eggs sat tepid upon the over worn plate. All the fresh hot coffee had been consumed at the change of watch leaving only muddy dregs from the bottom of the urn. Whatever the shortcomings society attributed to sabotage or defeatism, this misery was equally shared by all. “From each according to their needs deferred efficiently to each according to the ability!” It made him angry! So many people were angry. Everyone being angry seemingly just to be angry. There were a privileged few, like himself, that were able to superficially express this anger within narrow professional boundaries as long as it was exercised with a cool head in keeping with the goals of the State. To hear the ‘rabbits‘ squealing about their rights when newly brought in was particularly aggravating. Anyone over the age of five in this progressive Utopia knew enough to button their lip lest they suffer the expected consequences. Apparently, that fat sheaf of arrest papers hanging on the wall each day demonstrated that too many were foolish enough no to. Maybe it was true that he was getting to like the fact of his supposedly thankless job as a ‘borreau‘ he could provide them? After all, someone properly trained had to aid in the process to keep things going or the current system might be plugged up with fractious selfish malcontents intent on gumming up the works. The clatter of a plate sliding off the flimsy fiberglass tray and onto the floor before the broken conveyor brought him back outside and into reality. His boot automatically kicked at the shards sending them skittering about. He bent down quickly picking up the broken shards and deposited them on the precarious pile of unwashed dishes. He mustn’t be late for the first case of the day!

The Liberals had overplayed their hand. And their opponents as well in response. The consortium that directed the various social strata had been formed to remove society from these open ended radical agendas. Key posts in government agencies were always under scrutiny for subversion from progressive minded infiltration. They were surreptitiously monitored and then ruthlessly cleansed out as part of the routine of governing. The side benefit of providing fodder for the news of the day to present fully detailing yet another scandal by yet another once otherwise trusted official. The utility of this process in keeping the entire population on its toes a sure method of stifling aberrant behavior. The surrounding fields were also fertilized by the bones of former commanders and bright forward thinking politicians who had been eliminated in a like same manner. Weary slogans like,”Take Back!“, had been the original battle cry of the patriots that had in so many ways offered their existences to keep newly enfranchised minorities lines. No more random bodies piled up from the previous night’s strife to be found in the streets. These previous calls for freedom had been dismantled and all those subversive lifelong held values of times past had been effectively eliminated from the public’s consciousness. Both Socialists and Capitalists had been exposed and their version of the term ‘Democracy’ quashed as the anathema it had always been. The State might had one time been tagged as Fascist, but the fact was that it borrowed its handling of the general citizenry from the two systems it had overcome. Tight supervision on all commerce and the limitation distribution of personal wealth wee the rule. Anything beyond the normative of survival wages would be swiftly investigated. Thus the security services always had plenty of work to keep them busy.

The ‘operating rooms’ as they were loosely referred to had visually maintained the character of a fifteenth-century torture chambers with cumbersome implements used in producing unbearable pain over the ages. Indeed some of them within may have dated from that long ago era. These terrible antiques by their appearance alone would in most cases cause the subject to fade when initially brought into the room. It was not uncommon to see a stalwart demeanor crumble instantly and bodily tremens ensue as they struggled impotently within the iron grip of their warders. There was a ritual that followed in some basic steps. The subject was firmly restrained as their shackles were removed and depending upon their gender made to strip off all clothes or have them torn off. The women having to do so unassisted while the men’s garments savaged by the two attendants. Their arms would then be stretched skyward to be attached to a spreader bar suspended under block and tackle. The unfortunate then hoisted upward so that their toes barely had contact on the cold cement. The dank drafty nature of the subterranean chamber left to do its work in convincing the subject of the hopelessness of their plight. Both interrogator and his assistant would delay entry into the chamber for an indeterminate amount of time while the naked participant swung about in contemplation of their coming fate. Their eyes touring the inventory of terrible devices in the room that might, or might not be, employed upon them. The team would then slam open the entrance door and swiftly stamp roughly in. The two guards then snapping to attention then filing out. The desired effect had an almost comical level of reliability many times resulting in a loss of bowel or bladder control signaling the subjects descent into a state of mindless terror. Rubber boots and butcher’s apron with mask being the order of the day.

This cycle of events would be repeated throughout the course of the day. it would never vary. Most sessions conducted guaranteed no return. Those put to the question never expected back beyond that initial encounter. One of two options being possible as their carcasses were unceremoniously hauled back down the hall, their legs limply dragging upon the rough stone floor. Those surviving the experience would be taken to a dock and packed into a transport headed to the rail head and internal exile in far off camps. Or alternately delivered upstairs to a small soundproof auditorium to be dispatched by a small caliber bullet to the base of the neck. One could detect the constant low daily rumble of the truck’s motors running from the far side of the building. Each vehicle departing with another full load of the guilty off to collectively provide their remaining life force to the State in some far off place. Or to a freshly dug trench in a lesser known part of some nondescipt forested area outside of the town. The length of these sessions could be quite brief depending on the depth of questioning by the interrogator. A certain rhythm made the process of extracting information as efficient as the production of staple goods in a factory. Those cases that demanded a slower application of more intense excruciating punishment were reserved for later during the evening. Given the numbers, it was a grueling day for all involved. He was very clinical in his procedures likening himself to one of a team of doctors in an operating theater. His ears had long ago become indifferent to the expected screams and cries of tearful agonies. He was more concerned in gauging the level of exhaustion of any given subject. The palpable heart rate, amount of blood loss, and discoloration of broken body parts always being carefully monitored so as to keep the recipient awake and aware enough to respond to the many inquiries. He reflected as he adjusted the ties of his rubber apron that in some strange was his long experience in producing the proper amount of physical distress through skillful techniques actually benefited the subject by efficiently reducing the agonies suffered to a minimum duration of time before they confessed all. A somewhat humanitarian gesture given the context of the general situation! He always conducted his tasks with a cool head and dispassionate professional demeanor. The subjects before him merely being some lower form of dumb experimental animal that needing to be industrially processed on behalf of the State. All the psychological stuff was left to his accompanying interrogator.

The first case of the day was a very thin age worn looking old man whose large genitals hung down pendulous between the two sticks of his legs. Generally the older one’s never respond to pain as readily as the young reliably would. Years of hard work or child birth endured numbing them. Psychological terror by the interrogating officer along with a baseline of inescapable distress to demonstrate what other family members would be liable to if there was no cooperation most times turning the trick. He could see that he had his work cut out for him as no close family member was there to accompany him into the chamber to possibly suffer the many agonies meant for the current unfortunate. Several moments with a steel pincer heated red straight from the glowing coals of the nearby brazier plying away all that there was to hide. The details recorded via microphone sent to an anonymous scribe in another part of the building. On and on it went throughout the morning. The room reset many times the two of them worked relentlessly through the pile of dossiers, finally exiting in late afternoon just behind the last limp body being dragged straightaway towards its destiny in the direction of the loading bays. It was obvious that the subject was lucky enough to still considered functional enough to provide some residual future value for the benefit of the State. “If you don’t know what boundaries of evil is . . .“, the borreau mumbled to himself, “. . . then how can you pretend that you are any good?”

Supper was a syrupy meat substitute splattered across badly cooked stale rice. A shallow poured glass of gin in a murky glass accompanying the lack of fit cuisine to steady the nerves. The administrators knew exactly how to inspire the proper mental framework of the building’s staff by keeping their level of irritation with their own circumstances at odds with any possible complacency. If nothing else, it was a reminder that no one was above any other if they strayed outside the boundaries of what was expected of them. Any extended time off from the six day weekly schedule was a reward that was only rarely offered. The result being that like anything else in this society that those at the bottom of the chain as prisoners would suffer most for the most minor of infractions that strayed from strict immediate compliance to commands. The hands of the clock on the wall jerked forward towards a minute before nineteen-hundred hours as he finished the last puff of a borrowed cigarette. The current interrogator he was assigned to was no doubt waiting below and the dirty bastard would no doubt report him as being late if he arrived an instant past the exact stroke of the hour. He crashed his soiled crockery upon the conveyor and trotted out the door. His own footfalls echoing downward before him on the stairwell to the lower level as an admission that he was in too much of a hurry to deny the claim of his interrogator’s expected supposition of again not being on time. The static pickled grimace of the man his feet solidly apart looking down at the clipboard of cases verifying the fact of this very displeasure. The door of their ‘operating room’ located several doors down the hall obscuring the arrival of what appeared the be a rag encumbered bundle partly blocked by the forms of two lumbering attendants. A female perhaps or possible a small effeminate male? Whatever they had been incarcerated for the fact of their appearance in the evening meaning that they would be the recipient of extra special attention of the most extreme type.

The requisite time of delay now being signaled at an end by his quietly fuming superior, the borreau promptly affixed the mask upon his face and followed along behind approaching the entrance. As his eyes adjusted to the differential in lighting he noticed with some instinctive trepidation that the female form strung skyward was immediately all too familiar. He might have been struck with the bare end of a heavy duty electrical cable as he took in the face of the straining form as she canted away the straggle of dirty locks to the side to reveal full view of her facial features. He could hear the interrogator beginning his usual speech. The voice echoing from an unexpected distance far outside. Sternly echoing about the penalties, and not being totally candid when questioned. The officer motioning to him in his mask at the part about telling falsehoods or offering any hesitation would be immediately followed up upon very unpleasantly. The ‘borreau’ now offering a quick crop of the woman’s bare abdomen instinctively on cue. His brain still far away and racing about inside trying to understand what his eyes were telling him. That now undeniable fact that their subject of the evenings pain letting was the borreau’s former wife, Alicia. “What did this mean?”, he twaddled to himself internally? He was dreadfully afraid that his own legs were now trembling violently. A quick glance down under the edge of his mask to notice that they were still holding their own. “Would she recognize me!”, he mentally shouted within. A test to gauge his loyalty to the ever demanding cause of the State? Was this some solipsistic stratagem enacted by this same superior standing just beside him that was in evidence of some final straw reached in terms of his record of behavior? Worse yet! Was this all part of an initiative ordered at a higher level to cleanse all possible social contamination by virtue of former association for the sake of some unspecified new agenda? One that he had inadvertently by chance run afoul of?

The eyes of the subject were fixed upon him in an uncharacteristic expression of rage that seemed to defeat any immediate fear. She was as she had always been. A volatile tempered bitch that repaid any slight offered no matter how overwhelming with a fearsome anger. Something undeniably sexual behind the lexicon of impressions that now welled up within him that he had quickly become all too grievously aware of from the start of their relationship some twenty years past as adolescents. It was no clear that she had come to recognize him yet as she shared her lack of appreciation at being struck so ungraciously in so compromising a circumstance. For the flash of an instant he mentally imagined her naked body melting away the steel restraints from inhibiting her and fly like a demon for the nearest available throat too tear at with her teeth. He had always carried about a sense of walking on eggs when in her presence in those long ago times past. What was he supposed to do? If she fixed upon him after another sharp impact then she might unexpectedly and loudly declare him as something about him would surely in time give his real identity away. He could mount a series of blows upon especially sensitive parts of her body that could overwhelm her senses into the temporal oblivion of unconsciousness? But then that would bring down the ire of the interrogator as that would violate the strict protocols of their standard procedure which demanded an incremental measured level of increasing distress. The problem with this as he well knew is that the harpy before him might well measure up to his ministration and defeat them. A cold chill ran up and down his spine as he heard his superior’s voice speak, “Proceed!”.

The borreau started forth towards the dangling form his head pointed down towards the floor. Maybe he could deflect his gaze enough that close proximity might not reveal him? He reached out and twirled her around as she kicked about in the narrow ankle chains and he applied a series of hard strokes with his gnout upon the base of the spine of her lower back. Usually this and the kneecaps and elbows caused the most debilitating levels of pain briefly inhibiting one to any other sensation but blinding distress. As he hit her he felt a sense of strong emotion grab him from within. Another flashing series of images projected across the back of his brain of various acts of tenderness that they once both had shared. A sickening spreading feeling that was competing with his concentration to focus on responding to the irritable voicing of the interrogator’s commands. The man grabbing at his arm and bending a whisper towards his ear quietly spitting out, “Just what in the fuck do you think that you are doing sergeant?” Cold ingrained discipline forcing his to stop to come to attention. His former wife’s body twirling back around with her eyes wild from the assault of his truncheoning. The interrogating officers stale breath still hot on his ear. The embarrassment of what felt like a pronounced wetness growing just below his belt line. He wondered if a spot was forming that might give some unsuspected part of him away.

The borreau was now in the hallway facing the officer attempting to deflect the hard stare of the man into his own eyes. The interrogator was obviously on the edge of rage as his eyes flashed malevolently. “Have you lost your mind!” “You of all people must be well-aware that it is your duty to maintain strict control of any unfavorable emotion that might crop up during these sessions!” This type of breach of protocol is completely unacceptable!” “What are you going to do about it?” The borreau managing to awkwardly mouth a quavering “Yes sir!“, while all the while wondering if he were now the mouse being toyed with by this cat. Would he suddenly feel the vise-like grip of two pairs of hands from behind binding and restraining him? The open iron door to the waiting chamber loomed large before him. He could hear the sound heavy breathing of his wife emanating with in. A sense of fatality descending upon him. It was he that was now to be put to the test of his ultimate limits to attempt to overcome. As he silently re-entered he knew that each successive blow would be assayed and then taken into account by all parties. Each stroke delivered by him on her vulnerable flesh bringing a correspondingly instantaneous brief pause within causing him to reflect again and again what it might unexpectedly summon in terms of a fearful lasting penalty all based upon the raw facts of how it was delivered and just exactly who it was designed to satisfy or serve.

“It was almost as if the two of them were back together again still being married!”

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“Who In The Fuck Was That?”, He Said!

The man stood before the mirror and after a while then began to speak.

I have long had the idea in mind for some time that I could collect knowledge through amassing a collection of unread treatises. And that the act of gathering same from a multiplicity of remote happenstance sources that I would stumble upon provided me with a higher status of understanding. In truth of fact in terms of rational considerations the best this ongoing process could provide is a series of interconnected buzz words. A butterfly collector. The whole thing a self-delusional facade. My intelligence suspect as a pretense of possessing a lexicon of ideas by others that provided ammunition in didactic with others. Vocabulary versus comprehension. To find the self subsumed in a growing unconscious that demands the extinction of all thing past along for any continuation of it in the future. A nihilist! Caught up increasingly in a frenzy to supplicate the impossibility of a whirl wind of desires. A closed case long emptied of a fit cello to fake harmony upon. Unfocused desires obliterated in stagnation. Demoted by circumstance to an intellectual housekeeper. That unconscious death wish to suffer so many types of pain to justify persistent immobility. The world and being in it. And the world through an upper story window wholly removed from all but its persistent fantasy captivating one’s consciousness. No solid ground to rest on despite the illusion. Swinging past the handle bars arm over arm of vouchsafed quips and splintered phrases posing as knowledge. That dark ugly taciturn side within while resting calmly admitting nothing. Loss of memory an empty question somewhat like a half filled jar of sour milk.

It was dark. Somewhere between midnight and bewitching hour. Alright! I had to admit it, I couldn’t sleep. Who could sleep anymore at this age? You are more restless at night than you are during the day because you have to deal with yourself. Your desires and urges and failures. There is nowhere to hide. You can try to dive deep within a dreams but you know it’s only going to last for just so long. And then you are back, just sitting here, antsy and disturbed by what you cannot recall left with nothing to satisfy you. And so I found myself back once again. Resting up against that point of nagging fear of not being ‘right’ trying to propel myself forward. Loss. The loss of illusion with unerring fatal constancy. Perpetual whims followed up with momentary joy. Over ebullient words knowing a frailty from from those others that are no longer around. And how tenuous it is to know from point on that they can never be ever again. That was why I lived to complacent within this cold kingdom of stone and ice. Relying on the solidity of emptiness where nothing can be any worse. How can the seeds of a new love be found with anyone within this depleted universe?

Unfortunately I had been here before. And to my great shame shivering like a coward as before. I would not take up that challenge for fear of losing someone so wonderful. The silence spiriting them away into ether. To call it anything other than my own fault was ludicrous. It was after all my decision to not try again. All those kisses and the ocean of tenderness that had been missed. All the bliss of forming hopes that would not be shared. And the dreams that could have been enjoyed in mutual without grousing or grabbing. But now withering away somewhere sailing constantly along without me. I was a fool, and feared that I would always be such unless I could stomach change. What else is there in this world that has majesty but those feelings of being at peace with one? All things to all people. Everything wrapped up in asingular ideas, and desires, and hope.

I was a short unwanted misfit looking to love who he could. A Golem of sorts afforded rare opportunities that fell in-between. Too may fallow dry spells of periods of long solitude and being alone. How far from his ivory tower he looked down and wished for the warmth of the grass? For the sake of simple pleasure alone, what could have been? Brief in duration like grains of sand spilling from the palm of a hand. Only so long as one is note carelessness. Or as stable before an ill wind that will steal it away. Only empty sweaty palm memories of what might could could have been. “Oh dear! such passion and pain can be recalled!”, sez I. Passion is pain ever masquerading as happiness. Desire unsteady upon a tightrope always over a chasm of wait amidst mundanity. Things as they should be. But things as they never are. How can one find the tipping point of one’s sorrow? How can one suppress one’s temptation to joy? How is it possible to not float away from all this indifferent like a soap bubble? Uncontrollable and unrefined is there no solution to this shifting dilemma? Or is this walkway just froth upon a storm crossed sea? Battered up high in the expected conclusion. It seems a fair response to this dilemma that its experience known as involvement is an idea long devolved and totally disappeared.

How often those women I have known have frivolously tossed my affections into the grass! All those boyish enthusiasm’s often gone awry. That I have to sit upon this cold stone of sadness too long and then hoisted it up to rest it on my shoulder so as to carry it around. Then after so many years to complain about how to find a fit way to cast it off then begin again. This lodestone of love. This journey of a stubborn Sisyphus. Up the hill of desire for so simple a something as the brush of a touch. Some simple passing embrace. And yet that kind of warmth goes far beyond the ages! Sensation perhaps, but divine when meant? Shared molecules rubbing up against each other superficially exchanged. Yet, seemingly never lasting. No static implying stasis allowed in this universe! Only a want to drive forth, each in our own way, to bridge it again. Two ships scraping brusquely past, having collided unwarily within the empty night. Perhaps a full view of the deck of the other from the bridge? That single momentary instant surrendered to long memory. How sad, and yet how magnificent! No, I would not talk this sort of tragedy away, or try to explain it. But just hold on to it as long as possible. That is the beauty and genius of it all! To hold on before the freezing water pulls you down the surface disappearing slowly far above still posed up in that direction. How the moth loves the flame! And yet how the flame cannot help itself but consume the moth. Is this love? Yet, this is exactly how I have always lived my life.

A hand tightly clasped on cold stone. From anyone’s position on high to look up and down, and outward. The farther one sees the more one feels the majesty of the outside world. Yet one rationalizes the fact of how really small they are. How strange to be so small and yet see things so large? And then that desire to climb upwards ever further to attenuate that feeling. A need to touch, to embrace, to feel a blending into the other and then to feel that overlap within. How happy and yet so distant! For like everything, it is only a monastary desire. A momentary impulse. For one must ever move on. Perhaps we are all within an ocean of out own indeterminate proportions? And as we float by each era we touch and embrace and ever seek to find some stability. That, which of course, is impossible because like any other molecule we are all eternally destined to be bumped along a little further. One bump after another. Grasping at hopelessness and having it speed through ones fingers like froth from the waves. Again and again to rediscover happiness and then lose it in the next instant. Too damn hard a burden to bear! How solid one feels in one’s own arms? How solid one feels in another! And yet, and yet, and yet the story will go on.

This fiction of change layered upon that which one is compelled to learn and accept. Cessation and renewal. How wonderful to pass the torch and then realize that might well get passed around again. And all for what? To relive and live out yet another day of meaningless purpose driving one forth blindly to substantiate vague memories and loose impressions of a past that one has to struggle hard everyday to regain? Something to call one’s own. Something to stand beside and claim ownership of. How foolish is this man? How persistent, this woman! Of all things that one could have deigned to pursue within the mortal boundaries of this bi-polar world deferring to left and right, and up and down, and forward and backwards? Of cold and hot, and old and not, of few and many, and pinch and penny. And genius like pearls yet to be found. How silly and stupid it really is! I have to wonder what sort of bones I will leave in this strange amalgam of a chaos that I rest within?

The dream began when my ‘girlfriend’ of the time had asked me to take a short walk with her heading south down a major boulevard. We walked several blocks. After a while, the several blocks soon became a mile. Then the mile was a mile and a half. and suddenly we were south of the expressway by another mile or more. I began to feel queasy about the fact that given the persistent weariness that I had as of recently become accustomed to that the return journey would test what little physical reserve I had. I turned an eye to the neighborhoods now surrounding us. They were of a culture that I had experienced as a very young child. An ethic considered more stubbornly European especially in its residual hostility to outsiders. She kept up her end of the conversation without a pause or any regard for the possibility of unexpected random acts of malevolence. Now she was urging me on even further as she continued her one-sided discussion. I distracted from the ideas elucidated by her voice now plunged deep in the dilemma of how we would get back to home base as I had little money if any for a cab.

The sidewalk ahead was now old and broken large portions subsumed under muddy water. The largest swamp ridden depression carrying on for a half a block of sucking mud that would most assuredly ruin shoes or much worse. Instinctively I looked over to my left past the curb spying a gap where very small rivulet presented itself that was a mere step over to find solid dry asphalt. And without hesitation I made a bee line calling to her to follow me. I hopped over this insignificant obstacle expecting her to just behind me following suit. The dry pavement of the street was being ever more encroached upon by an ever larger puddle forcing me towards the median in the middle of the street where, my subconscious nagged, impatient traffic might recklessly come too close. Still believing that she was just behind with no traffic still nearby I crossed the street to the opposite sidewalk assuming that she was still dutifully in tow.

Paranoid of traffic overtaking me craned a glance over my left shoulder and darted across the street. All the while in terror that I may have led my companion into a fatal situation of being hit by a vehicle that might be a hair’s breath away from snuffing out me. A foot from the opposite curb I wrenched around just at the exact instant that she disappeared straight down into a hole into the sidewalk back over on the other side. She had been walking forward through the muck by herself and had incautiously stepped upon a clear plastic tarp that had masked an opening. I couldn’t tell from t he distance but I could envisioned her clearly in my mind somewhere in that pit so grievously injured that she couldn’t get out. My heart stuck in my throat I caught sight of another figure come up to help. The man first kneeling then flat upon his stomach reaching out to help her struggle out of the hole. With one mighty heave he hoisted her out. I ran back over to the other side and noticing as I ran that the opening was in the midst of a makeshift scaffold that was over a set of hidden stairs of a house. The set of same originally leading down underneath the street level. This situation suggesting that the adjacent two story frontage dated way back to the century previous before city streets had been raised to avoid constant flooding by lake. She seemed fine but now I sensed that because I had not been their there was now an emotional gap that had formed between us.

She pointed to a house across the boulevard and now she took off on her own expecting me to follow. There was a gravel driveway that led a short way back to corner angle of the one story flat where we entered. An informal party was in progress and it seemed as if it was a group of people familiar to themselves but still accommodating to our sudden appearance. My girlfriend sat next to a small table off to the side now somewhat aloof. I made the best of this development an was talking alternately to different members of the group yet always pointing my thoughts toward her. The more I did so the more she seemed less interested in the party and more indifferent to me. At one point I had walked into the next room to carrying on my part of a conversation briefly sitting upon a recliner. When I go up a few minutes later my girlfriend had unceremoniously departed. I felt a sensation of panic searching inside myself as to what I could properly say or do to get back into her good graces. But it became clear that she was gone for good. And I was here marooned in a room full of strangers and too soon become a ‘smelly fish’ without the fact of my girlfriends absence. So now with an ache in my heart and too extremely far south many miles away from my home with nightfall approaching. One less person that now knew me or cared the slightest about my prospective fate within an indifferent part of town. I felt crushed by a sense of profound yet very extremely familiar despair. “Not again!“, I sighed as I blacked out.

“I woke up this morning to find myself again still there looking in the mirror thinking, “When in the Hell will he get the fuck out of there?“

The Bar

Hoping for a prize inside!?!

Two cops are rolling a guy as I approach the bar. I have to laugh. It’s the good old day again. All his crap on the hood and his hands in cuffs I look away to the door of the bar and wonder what sort of story I am likely to hear.

“Scotch and Soda on the rocks!”

The place is half empty. The TV LCD monitors looking down from on high filled with another instantaneously forgettable football game. LCD is the code for lowest common denominator. Which incidentally, this place is a repository of. A bunch of loud mouthed asshole leaning off the stools arms and elbows on the bar. Mean looking fuckers with nothing but bad attitudes pasted over their puss.

Me? A pain in the back from sitting in the same spot for nine and a half hours since seven, doing work for the man with the money. Retied without my consent so I take what I can get. Sad story, but fuck it.

“Thank you lady!” (ice rocks clinking) Two on the bar for respect.

I raise the glass to my lips. I feel punchy. Too much stress I’m burning out. [Looking over the bar] We’ve lost the art of life [no smiles]. Camaraderie is dead. Surly bad ass, smart ass , playing tough is the order of the day. But then who cares? [My own] blank expression mind numb dead weight dance with time. The appropriate golden oldies swinging on a trapeze overhead.

Go to you neighborhood bar and see civility. Lotsa talk, but no walk! You can go from one end to the other and it is all the same. A lot of pussy sounding F’U’s on the front end of every sentence, but if push came to shove after the first tap they’d melt away like ice cream.

A bit of a push down the row on the shoulder of the black guy. Something that cardboard white hero would never try in the street. The last guy coming out of here courtesy of the strong arms of John Law had simply shit himself. Figures! Sent up the river for dirty boxers. Obviously a felony in this Lilly livered overly polite PC human warehouse.

“Scotch on the rocks!” [with a nod as my daddy taught me]

The tab jumps up a couple of bucks. One buck only for some waning respect on my end. Call’s cost Cheap booze doesn’t. Take your hangover [from tomorrow] somewhere else if you don’t like it! [I haven’t said a word] My ticker will be thumping extra heavy throughout the night despite. Squish Squash!

In the end it, after a couple, it doesn’t matter if you are home or here. In the meantime you get the extra special benefit of complete numbness thanks to the noisy J-box and the raucous voices of the ravens. Those other fools who can’t hear themselves make asses out of what is left of their characters. At home you would have to contend with that loathsome inner dialogue telling you what you don’t want to hear. Better these jerks in the end. A very expensive solution, in so many ways.

Was there anything genuine about Madonna? [“Into the Groove” blasting somewhere] “No.”

That formulaic numbness all about the lower limbs setting in from sitting here too long. The body wasn’t designed for this. So also wasn’t the soul.

 

 

Requiem For A ‘Has Been’

A has been that’s never been. Nobody left in the parade. Fingers no longer my friends. Eyes on the way out. Guts churning day and night. The squish squash sound of a heart over-clocking all through the night. A has been. No longer good for nothing except in my dreams. No longer of use to the users. That never been part still hanging over my head like a dagger. Like a star elusive and out of reach. Dare I reach out and cut myself on the reflection. A flesh and blood automaton to the rest of the world. No one. No more braun with a failing brain. Going to bed too early while everyone else joins the party. Listen to the silence in the room. Counting the dollars that I should have had. Wanting to pay back old debts to people who have long since picked up stakes and gone away and died. Someone of no regard that the rest of the world is no longer in danger of being aware of. Another corpse to step over. A has been. Bouncing up and down weaving right and left. Legs unsteady and light headed possibly ready to take a dive. A has been! That’s what was overheard. The truth in it from having overheard. Learning that this world has given up on me. No it is my turn to follow suit. That long low empty space behind my footsteps where a whole lifetime used to be. Now all gone. The end. Only the wait left to be endured in respectful quiet. When will I wake up? When is it time to not. No longer? A wake up call for the has been. A long night’s rest.

An Annual Meeting Boardroom Aside Speech By A Vice President

You scrape the veneer ever so slightly and then you find the truth. You were the weak vessel! There was never anyone to come back to. There was never anyone to begin with. It was all pure illusion. A manifestation of creation by a team of artful others. Those experienced in telling beautiful sweet lies for the sake of those who cannot live without them. Coming back to what? What exactly? Someone who depends on you when you are undependable? Someone who takes care of you when you need to be taken care of? Someone that would rather be happy for an instant or two rather than continue being sad. A person that doesn’t really need you but has nowhere else to go. That’s sad! That’s very sad.

Yeah, I’m angry! I’m damn angry. I’m always angry. Just scratch the surface and find that anger. Everyone does, therefore I’m a pariah. Trouble! Someone that no one wants to encounter. One to stay far far from. A conspicuous wart on a face. I carry it in my being. It’s plain to see. I am that thing that they all hate. The outsider. That nagging suspicion. That perilous voice that will not stop its harangue. That will not give anyone a moment’s peace. An alarm bell ringing ceaselessly warning everyone of their better self by showing them their worse incarnation.

“Oh woe is thee!“, petty human. Who gave thee that right? For I am on the scene and will not be assuaged. Will not be parlayed or bargained with. For I cannot tell the truth without recalling the lie that is fundamental to that fantasy that we all live within and too often embody. Therefore thou, I have become a mealy prophet, a pretender. Someone who needed to excel to soar but that has landed soundly upon hard ground. As close to the Sun as he dared get but didn’t. Just had to fall all the more distance back. How sad and magnificent these ramblings of those who would be to another trumped. But this can no longer be. How distant and out of touch one can be with the obviousness of their own simple truth. I have lost and will not gain it back for a long, long time. Perhaps maybe never. I have lost and that is my price and my penalty for being alive.

Why? The problem seems to be that I expected so much more of life. A Hollywood dream of adventure, romance and happy endings all come to pass by the end of the film’s final reel. How foolish those to make such things and then only to disappoint their audience? To have to see the light of day have to judge that time is short and have to see to it that those who do not abide the simple rules of human existence must bide the the time in suffering. This suffering is a silent cause. Something that only a few are fool enough to properly indulge in. People have learned to stay quiet and appear to be noble in defense of protecting their own self-duplicitous cause of virtue signaling their never surrendering. And not wanting to know that which they really have so in-graciously surrendered. That is humility! That is the acceptance of one’s fate of being mortally alive and vulnerable to those ceaseless winds of chaos. To make that decision to come back to stay when one believes that something good could happen. But knows that it’s impossible to believe otherwise because it won’t. The dragon-like continence that will confound every attempt to find a sort of happiness that will last as longer than a single instant.

How sad! And how magnificent that we are told that is the hero’s cause. Or so we are told. That is what we all must live with for there is no ending. No anything. Nothing! Naught but the sound of those words alone. And we must make the best of it. And keep our lives in check and in good order. For this is how we exist with chaos. To remain in good order, ever ready and ever-present against the possibilities of one day accidentally fulfilling our dreams.

The Other Side Of A Posthumous Windy Disastrous Failure

It is no fantasy to believe that humans exist in their own circumstance due to the difficulty that they produce. Fastidiously following paths that eventually disappear beneath them into the desolation of total wilderness. The only thing rock solid beneath them is a determination to carry on towards that self-serving goal ever in the distance. At a certain point in life one’s inner boiler runs out of steam as nothing can last forever especially when it is attempting to continue in a framework where other means of that compete with it evolve to replace it. In human terms that is considered being out of touch. In cinema certain figures are royally celebrated for the innovation that they provided as a direction for others. But equally many of these same figures provide one with sad stories of trying to outlast their usefulness and fall into a sense of self-inspired perdition, the efforts driving that impulse propelling them downward and tarnishing their fundamental reputations. Examples of this might come by the way of the D.W. Griffith’s and John Gilbert’s in what was for some that fatal gap between silent and sound based films. Some persons alternatively have the good sense to know when to make a graceful exit and call it a day. Some that have fought a decades long struggle to erase their fall from grace from the mainstream have not. Enter the case of Orson Welles and that albatross hovering over his reputation that at a certain point he was unable to finish a film.

The post Hollywood era of Welles’ career found him more than usually supporting his own cinematic visions by prostituting himself as an actor and notable personality in very creative ways. In fact even building up his persona in terms of currency far beyond his initial formidable achievements of the Mercury Theater and the RKO produced Citizen Kane and Magnificent Amberson’s benchmarks. The problem being that the last two decades of his life were embroiled in attempting to top these achievements in terms of a similar scale bereft of Hollywood resources. Trying to work on a shoestring budget using any and all available talent in shooting scenes in a scattered and haphazard manner all of which that were essentially dependent upon his imagination of the moment rather than derived from a visually well-managed screenplay. The incessant editing by him over the years in an experimental sense revealing nothing more than that obsessive ramblings of an old has been Showman trying to pull another rabbit out of a too well-worn hat with major holes in it. There being no more available rabbits to be found beyond his existential obsessions that age and decadence had left him with. Consider the end result of casting an aged profligate from the street in the place of Shakespeare’s, The Tempest, Prospero! A gutter bound Duke of Milan, permanently exiled, his hopes to regain his kingdom permanently gone and all he can do is obsess about his daughter’s naked, and his betrayers punished though rude forms of rough trade justice. What ever one says about Welles’ overall reputation it does not match other 1930’s Proletariat potboilers of unwashed ire of working class antiheroes like Little Caesar or Scarface.

Orson Welle’s last exercise in movie making, The Other Side Of The Wind, being a pathetic attempt to reinvent himself leaning on the innovations of other much more youthful luminaries that were at that time decades past Welles’ own now wilted bloom. The final product of the recently released version suffering even further from the staccato understanding that resulted in innumerable tiny fragments of dialogue heavy bits and pieces rudely resembling a trite story line. Something that might be useful to some degree to psychologically assaying the mind of the one that initiated it than anything that is capable of entrancing an audience with any validity of purposeful entertainment. What it does illustrated to the viewer is a prurient focus on sexual obsession with his mistress and his impotence to stave off the attentions much younger competitive rivals. The officially inferred of latent homosexuality of his avatar character and his main acolyte equally spitefully portrayed. The film as completed posthumously some thirty years after his death showing the worst of what might have theoretically being his best attentions before his death. The ugliness of personal ruminations accompanying his incremental demise the context that this production seems to fit best. A poor stalking horse when considered by the standard of other directors at the time that Welles’ had initiated this project. Some names that buoy up in the midst of viewing his patchwork being John Boorman in Point Blank, Michelangelo Antonioni, Zabriskie Point and Roger Corman’s, The Trip.

One cannot go so far however to purposely condemn Welles at a palimpsest but rather someone flailing about to survive in a new cinematic landscape where the rules were being written by the young. His earlier achievements in terms of cinema being used in these cases in a manner more evolved beyond his own understanding. Filmmakers are only human being like the rest of us. Those few fortunate to be universally recognized at the height of their abilities to innovate. Yet it is had not to consider the way some other giants that were tasked along the way in their careers to transform finally handles their final curtain calls. Case in point, the German director, Fritz Lang, who after inventing the foundations of Film Noir in his native land with Die Spinnen, Testament of Dr. Mabuse,  and M, then transitioning to help perfect it in America is probably best known to this generation through a brief cameo appearance in Jean Luc Godard’s Nouelle Vague masterpiece, Le Mepris. Those who wish to keep Orson Welle’s more brilliant achievements might resist the temptation to view this final poorly sewn together aged Prometheus if they wish to keep the impression of his genius pristine.

That Slow Ongoing March Through Perpetual Delusion

The very publicly loud documentation of what is advanced as the destruction of Western civilization through the internal dissolution of its various collective cultural nationalities goes one non-stop. Those within unable to properly assess the veracity of the claims beyond the fact of their own immediate experience encircling them by line of sight. The apparent growing rift in human relations on all levels being interdicted by institutionally manifest government apparatus in both a passive occasionally aggressive manner. The entertainment media now finally come out of the closet revealing itself as simply an engine tasked with producing fear and paranoia useful for maintaining that divide if not exploiting it. The schools and universities rife with cadres of instructors substituting basic education with Marxist doctrines to those ranging from the most formative ages up to young adulthood. The notion of mankind being unique and intellectually fruitful now demeaned to a simple role as an easily replaceable cog caught in the anonymity of a vast Worldwide machine whose only role is to expand its influence as it consumes the planet’s resources. Any sense of human emotion being dissolved by all these agendas. One has to wonder about what it must have been like in age old empire of the ancient past?

One consistent fact at the forefront of the history of civilization in its many subsequent manifestations over the centuries is the absolute necessity to indenture vast populations to ensure the comfort and material advancement of a more dominant well-connected cabal of others. Every tribe has had a hierarchy that has demanded subservience from its membership. The terminology has changed over time using functionally equivalent terms like ‘responsibility’, ‘due’, ‘owe’, ‘patriotism’, ‘indenture’ and ‘slavery’. The means of enforcement being to centralize a majority of resources under direct control of those ‘at the top’ who have always doled them out in a tightly controlled fashion. The method and means of the same being limited to ‘just enough’ rather than steadily bountiful. The best of times seeing a consecutive ‘task’ and ‘reward’ philosophy behind any bounty. The notion of the common citizen reaching full parity with the elite at the top a matter of the dissemination of construct fantasy, studied rhetoric, and art. The greater dependence that the members of that society demonstrate in terms of self-reliance, the steeper the pyramidal distribution of power becomes and the larger and more repressive the organization of the culture becomes.

The most significant difference of the current era being that for the first time in recorded history and elite can create and deploy mechanical devices to replace the need for human interlocutors to enforce the basic tasks of conducting an empire. Robots and sensing devices that are autonomous in their ability to flawlessly repeat droll tasks of collection of resources both physical and informational as well as punitive. The underlying motivator of being a human being caught up in such a Draconian structure is an engagement in a well-administered fantasy world that offers endless trivial diversions to compensate for the reigning in of animal desires and the dissolution of free will through mounting independent action. The ideal implementation of this being to instill a self-monitoring form of internal repression in every member of society so that as basic sense of daily renewable fear can be maintained to motivate society in the collective sense to respond the ‘proper’ way without hesitation. The ‘military mode’ of harsh physical discipline replaced in this current era through personal devices projecting effortless virtual cos-play where the individuals are encouraged to adapt to specific roles enhanced by mentally planted abstraction. Some classic intermediate mechanisms being film, television, and personal electronic devices. All of them tasked to convey both conscious seemingly voluntary invocations along with subconscious commands. The next step in ‘civilization’ being the creation of a tightly controlled seemingly inclusive environment that incarcerates its population within a ownership free zone of constant innocuous regimentation under the guise of fulfilling all possible needs. Slaves that enslave themselves by fully embracing a world promising the seamless fulfillment of all their dumbed down animal desires.

It may seem hard to image a more banal existence for anyone who treasures a sense of personal uniqueness not derived from above but rather from within. That is why the true battle for the indenture of humanity as a whole has become an internal everyday war for the individual human psyche. The need to perfectly align all from cradle to grave in a manner that exploits the animal imperatives and confounds the intellect. The application of the accumulated knowledge of all the behavioral sciences wrung from the misery of the last two centuries refined and focused upon each living organism in the sense of production techniques of a modern corporate farm where only a conveyor belt mentality exists. The mitigating factor for self-acceptance being an ever flickering hope to escape a mentality of victim-hood. Both of these traits constantly refreshed by the allied mechanisms of the overbearing state. The eventual removal of the ownership of material goods and the possession of mechanical implements for the everyday use in advancing individual initiatives and personal protection being supplanted by an innocuous mass environment where everything is equally shared with no distinctions made. The ultimate role model ceaselessly advanced being that of a ‘happy cog’. The population within being self-administering of their own taking up many of the functions that relieve the state of any major task beyond maintaining consistency and gauging the amount of stimulation to be applied overall. The classic crook and flail of ancient Egyptian Pharaohs having been evolved to an AI driven model of a totally opaque technological platform of phantom manipulation of the realm of each human mind.

To those that chaff within the bonds of financial manacles and the electric massage of social dog collars comes that fatal choice of going back into their present state of coma or risking an acceptance of their plight. The onslaught of a civilization that grows by ruthlessly destroys any possibility of independent differences and rewards conformity can only be stopped by its collapse. The solution of the individual to this slavery being a form of suicide in cutting their bonds with universal consensus no matter what the cost. Its alternative being to embrace an active sense of philosophically absent animal masochism. The greatest danger to the unilateral state being a choice between this mass self-necrosis or its own eventual slowing to a halt by the fact of Negentropy. What seems like old familiar refuges of the past in innocent unfettered romance or the excelling in both competitive business and solipsistic athletic prowess now seen a mist of previous propaganda. The individual imperative to survive only for the sake of one’s self alone tentatively embracing only those that enhance this proposition being the only valid final motive behind human existence. The present telling of that age old fable of a Garden of Eden and the subsequent fall of the ancestors of humanity from grace being nothing more than a slave tale. It’s alternate phrasing in the duality of human nature fully exposed in the saga of Gilgamesh more in keeping witht he current situation. It will be interesting to see if this long slow steady march of organized humanity to a fatal cliff’s edge will possible slow and finally come to a halt before reaching the brink?