Fiction – Page 15

This Disregarding Chagrin

It would appear as though I’m getting somewhat flummoxed at the disregarding chagrin our elders heap upon us one at a time by the out-turned burlap sackful as we billowing travelers have nothing better to do than adjust our expectations and run with the idiocy. Lack of a better option? More likely a surplus of crippling anxiety and sneaking suspicion that this generation is going to die out soon enough anyway, so why engage with them at all when we could be pursuing our own noble causes and callings?

Oh,
so you’re saying that they’ve been indoctrinating their families and offspring into the cult of reaction, that distinct line of cash grabs formed out of boredom and greed by the people just smart enough to get how the whole system works but also evil enough to profit unscrupulously from it?

Gotcha.
So I can’t just sit back and tend my garden of unconcern? Friggin’ bummer, man.

What the Why I Oughtta

I’m going for broad strokes here, don’t need no fancy-ass sophisti-ma-cated doohickey telling me why not or what for (what the why I oughtta).

Forget about all that untrustworthy noise being split and spattered as hats drop all across this great nation of ours. Am I a politician? No, I’m the version of that public servant who couldn’t be arsed into devoting so much time to such fruitless labor, only to end up making most people I know either hate or envy me just based on what I picked as my moneymaking methodology.

No, I’m a free-range consultant. No cages involved in the creation of my livelihood, I just move from place to place with a pen in hand (and hopefully some form of paper), keenly aware of my place within the echelon of idealists who couldn’t just sit by while creative liberties were being stripped away left and right through the illusion of choice that’s being perpetuated by the umpteen media concerns who mainly just seek that bottom dollar, any progress to be made coming in secondary as long as the people responsible for the immense success of these moneymaking machines are satisfied with the level of financial wherewithal gained through their various transactions aimed at creating a consumerist welfare state.

People, mostly, seem to have lost the innate ability to make something from scratch and take pride in it. Well, that’s not entirely true. People find their various outlets for pent-up creative energy, many times leading to unwanted pregnancy–or wanted, you never know. So having incredible sex, cooking a delicious meal, taking in a provocative documentary–you get the picture–are all lovely pastimes, but rarely do they get to the heart of the issue that pokes and prods us through every threshold of our very finite lives: what can I do as an individual that can be considered mine and mine alone? Sure, I make an excellent lasagna and fuck like the wind, but there just has to be more to this whole dog and pony show we all find ourselves swimming through (even though there was no prior mention of any aquatic activity whatsoever and we’re all stuck here looking like fools while we contemplate whether to strip naked, down to our skivvies, or just jump in, shoes and all).

When I was confronted with the infinite above-ground swimming pool of “reality”, I did my damnedest to avoid even dipping my toe in the water. I was and always have been a perpetual procrastinator and particular perfectionist, and I’ve learned to adjust expectations and accept when situations are out of my control. All well and good, you say, until I mention that the other 90% of all scenarios I’ve encountered have come as a result of the anxiety regarding my personal development and negotiation of this absurd pool metaphor that is becoming more and more apt the more I’m thinking about it.

I used to be perfectly content to drive headfirst into that pool for OTHER people, but when the time would invariably come to jump in there for my best interests, I would always shy away and make excuse after excuse, up to the point where just the act of making excuses became so humdrum that I didn’t even bother telling myself those convenient little mistruths. I would typically still be able to string those thoughts together, in order to satisfy questions by concerned parties (or nosy neighbors), but I’d run out of the energy to pretend to delude myself, because the only person I’d succeeded at confusing was ME!

And now none of that even matters anyway. I’m fixing to move to Albuquerque and start up a tombstone business, a good ol’ brick and mortar joint. That’ll teach ’em.

Whackadoodles

Charlie’s stifling influence couldn’t possibly affect me today, you can bet all your marbles and even some lesser mechanical components on that. I have half a mind to bust out my old soldering iron and go to town. I’ve been shopping around for motherboards to house in my new homemade personal computational device, for crunching numbers and the like. I’ve heard that there are some more sophisticated uses for them now, like finding a life partner and pissing away all your money on fake virtual coins, but that’s not my prerogative. Now food, that’s something I’m never tired of exploring. What a brave new world of culinary concoctions we’re in these days, I can’t even keep track of all these new fusion joints being put together by trendsetting chefs in the chic corners of the world. It’s just as well, I can’t afford to be jet-setting around just to try some cannoli wonton soup or petri dish gelatin dessert that costs $75 and you can’t even use a fork when eating it. Seriously, you have to just slurp it down like a jello shot. A $75 jello shot. Kids these days, I swear. We in the previous generation appear to be on our own now; the youths don’t seem to have the same kind of rapport with the common man as we do. I mean, I get it. There are more depressed and violent whackadoodles out there than ever before, and if you’re not an expert in sociolinguistics such as myself, you sure could feel like a quivering little leaf falling from the top of one of those monster eucalyptus trees. Everyone just seems to be craving personal time now. Gone are the days where I could just sit in a café and strike up a conversation; everyone is plugged into some whozit or whatzit. I don’t know, I always thought I wouldn’t turn out to be one of those stick-in-the-mud kind of guys, but now I understand the allure of the “ain’t what it used to be” paradigm. I’m just having trouble dealing with the old grouches to happen to share my viewpoint. Miserable old pricks. Well, we all have to get started on living our best lives at some point. Jeez, have I been talking this whole time? Sorry, kid. Can I have a club soda and some of that deconstructed fondue? I mean, I thought fondue was already decon–eh, forget about it. Just go ahead and put in my order. And don’t worry, I’ll tip!

Superficial

If bears could write,
would they choose that pastime
over climbing trees?
I’ll let you ponder that for a minute.

A can of whoop-ass overshadowed our biweekly WoundFest; there are only superficial injuries detailed in the most recent meeting minutes, no instances whatsoever of skin being broken. An average WoundFest should typically entail deep flesh wounds, mainly for the purpose of scaring away enthusiastic and misled newbies. The WFers are a tight-knit group, can’t have fair-weather harm-infliction hobbyists just jumping in and out all willy-nilly! What would say about WFers as a group? I’ll tell ya right now, it would make them look desperate! Soliciting the pain of complete outsiders and kicking them to the curb when they balk at the notion of losing a pint or two of blood… those despicable near-masochists need to stick with their own kind, so we don’t even broach this conversation in the first place, airing out our dirty laundry for the world to see.

Now, what these here WFers need to do, if they’re in the business of enlisting new members, is go out to the woods and rustle up a few bears. That would definitely take the unrequited writing ability off of their minds for a little bit, while practically guaranteeing worthwhile flesh wounds in the process (bloodlust is a hell of a drug). I can only imagine how excruciating it must be to possess the ability to manipulate something as complex and abstract as modern language with absolutely no ability to record it, aside from rudimentary scratch marks on tree bark that could never be appreciated as a contribution to the literary canon. At best, they’ll be confused with the cliché summer camp gouge marks left behind by horny pre-teens.

Ne’er-Do-Well

Meticulous electricians developed this lovely method for measuring their professionalism by throwing oil-soaked towels out of their respective windows at variable rates, unbeknownst to their long-suffering mothers and clergymen.

Once upon a time, our heroes of stage and craft built an anomaly that would mortify the ne’er-do-well karma wankers until no measure of cigar-stoppage could unravel our collective albatross leanings (as uncharted as it would seem to any non-intellectual types out there), and we sorely apologize for any bruised egos.

Ether assists in the quarantining of hostile entities, it sure does. If we hadn’t discovered this inexplicable gassy juice thing, we still would have been muddling along in Tommy’s sauna, insisting that no level of gallantry or goofus-ery could upend our preconceived notion of how to get down when faced with a horde of potbelly pigs. Now, potbelly stoves I could handle. They tend not to move for years on end. I could easily prepare for a stove rebellion. But pigs? No way in hell, my hypothetical friend.

Kicking Around

A shrewd entrepreneur would–should–do anything in their power to corner the intuitive market of scarcity designed for the particular demographic concerned with–for example–how many hands reside on their watch face. Two is the bare minimum, three is optimal, four is impractical and irresponsible.

Along with this peculiar and pragmatic market segment, several other significant archetypes are not to be left behind (popular categories are conveniently located in your handbooks for perusal at your leisure). As their respective facets are revealed, it will invariably be identified that many of these have indeed been kicking around since the dawn of history, let alone the beginning of the free market economy.

When pressed to demonstrate our knowledge of these groups, exercising our right to dissect this polarizing slice of modernity, we must admit to ourselves that stereotyping can be dangerous if taken as truth. All of a sudden our watch-hand-obsessive type takes on a bit more humanity. Did you know that a noticeable amount of people within the watch-hand-obsessive grouping prefer their toasts unbuttered, substituting a liberal helping of sliced avocado? The algorithms never lie.

Crux

Feel free to experience the soul’s consciousness for as long as you can possibly bear it; don’t make excuses to avoid or replace it with cheap thrills designed to siphon thought into a tawdry funnel of spent emotion. You’re better than that, Deandre. I’ve known you since you were a budding young talent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m your biggest fan. I can only imagine the potential you hold in your incisors and between five to ten fingers, depending on your level of ambidextrousness. Do not fret! Fretting will get you absolutely nowhere. I’m saying no man’s land, ya dig? Many people have been in your position plenty of times in recorded history, and the issue lies in their penchant to alienate themselves until their perception of life comes from an internal gyration that’s out of tune with the common perception of just what it is that seems to make life so special in the first place. If you can answer me why it is that life is at all special (with a nod to my unflappable inner cynic, mind you), I will reward you with the knowledge that comes along with the essence that could be construed as the crux of Johnny Cash’s “A Satisfied Mind”. Just listen to good music, dear, and don’t worry about forming your own tastes and possibly offending others with your assertion of the importance of personal expression.

Are you going to eat that applesauce?