I don’t know what time it is. But it usually doesn’t matter anyway. I often find myself looking at my watch several times while in crowded places, not actually reading the time but only creating the illusion of importance. When you’re concerned with time it either means you’ve got someplace to be and things to do or you’re a crazy paranoid. I am bit more of the latter except time isn’t one of my neurotic instigations. But non-stop motion and perpetual busy-doing terrifies me and these are the social-markers that distinguish the some-bodies from the nobodies. I prefer being the nobody, stagnation and non-doing allows you the time to see aspects of the world more clearly and think; something that action and doing supercedes in our time (and I assume for any time). Despite the truth of my nature, the apparent state of nobody-ness, I like to appear like a somebody. I can’t let the others know. So I trick them whenever I can and try to blend in as much as possible. I figured not too long ago it’s easiest to hide blatantly amongst them and if you’re good at it you’ll never be seen. Checking your watch, dressing normal, occasionally making brief eye contact with a passerby, you become just another face moving amongst the crowd; a bland ethereal creature lost in an anonymous whir of bodies. No one will recall or remember you. You’re indistinguishable, just another exoskeleton object huddling along with the others. As far as they’re concerned you have no thoughts, importance, or significance. Only an object blended with the herd of unknown faces.
It’s best to remain anonymous with the others. At least you’re always being true. So many feign their little smiles, dancing their daily charade but they’re all miserable and their misery fills me with terror. Beneath the “Hello, how are you’s?’ and the “What are you doing later’s?” or whatever seemingly normal brief daily communications that so many forcefully regurgitate, there’s a sad angry creature screaming “FUCK YOU!” or “GO AWAY!” Under their masked social façade there is a face contorted with misery and emptiness. Of course, there are always a few that these masked creatures enjoy seeing but how they stomach such forced sincerity to individuals they care nothing for fills me with awe and fear.
I’ve never had this mask. If anyone were to know me they would either find me solemn and serious, never wanting to talk or insanely grotesque and silly. Rather than having a mask I simply learned how to avoid the others. Whenever I need to go out I travel directly where I need to be, keeping conversation brief and succinct. Or if I have an overwhelming need to go beyond the usually confining spaces I mostly reside I go somewhere no one could find me. I avoid as many people as possible, hoping to not stumble into any acquaintances, which is rarely an issue for me; it’s wonderful to only have about five friends. The beauty of a city is that there are so many other creatures that you’re always invisible.
I don’t want you to think that I’m some completely insane misanthrope but I must admit that I generally don’t like people (if you haven’t been able to figure that out by now). Their movements, ideas, interactions, conversations, it all fills me with disgust and tends to make me feel sick. Maybe I’m defective. But you should know that I don’t hate people that would require intensity, a certain disposition of passion I don’t have. I want no harm to people. People were thrown into this life without any say. They had no choice but to be born with their disease or defect or had no choice but to grow into some selfish material hungering cretin. They had no WILL to make their lives otherwise.
I don’t hate people. I only dislike them. It’s like how you don’t hate a piece of shit. It’s there, it smells, and probably wouldn’t taste good but you only dislike it. It doesn’t deserve your hatred, it’s just best to avoid it and let it decompose. I want to get away from people. They can do their people-things and live their people-lives. I would be content avoiding them and letting them decompose. Their social structures, the games they make of others, it’s all nonsense, make-believe; a stink-foulness that they could only create. Gods, nations, cultures, creed, even individual perceptions, “I’m a young ambitious student with a distinguished well composed resume. Soon I’ll be applying to law school to make my wealth to buy STUFF that would produce envy in others who could only dream of earning in a lifetime what I make a year!” or, “I’m an apathetic whiney youth who compares the human race to 6 billion pieces of shit because I’m a lazy misanthropic weirdo!” We’re all organic flesh filled sacks that need to eat and consume to sustain our inevitable decomposition. Nothing more.
II
I was walking to my local diner down the street to get some eggs. The place is simple but good. I always get two eggs over-easy with a slice of rye on the side and a black coffee; a good start to any day. It was Saturday so there was a bit of a wait, not too long but about two parties in front of me. I didn’t mind the wait; my schedule was clear and empty. Just how I always like to try and keep it. But directly ahead of me there were these two girls. They must have been a year or two younger than me, late teens, early twenties but I could tell by their revolting prattle that dribbled out their mouths they were creatures who’s minds were far less developed than their bodies. They spoke of the messages on their smart-phones for the entire wait. Both were more engaged with that little plastic brick than the actual humans and happenings around them.
…
My species has been going through a persistent de-evolution for centuries. And these plastic hunks of insidious mind-numbing distraction are the most recent milestone. Man hasn’t changed for thousands of years. All that has altered is purely the aesthetic veneer. The main objectives are all still the same: survive, fuck, and propagate. And like all of our ancestors we always image that any human predecessors must have been backward or simple. But they’ve accomplished no more than we currently can: to shit, die and pump out some biological extensions that will only do the same.
…
Those two girls still standing and yammering on about nothing in front of me. Their mouths wouldn’t stop moving, consistent yips and the word “like” being jammed and forced into every thought and phrase. It was maddening. And even though I wanted to scream and smash their cunning glass and plastic bricks, which were still the content of their insignificant Chihuahua-like yapping, I remained silent. Nothing more than an unnoticed agitated individual whose plight and disgust would remain a suppressed pain, maybe the beginnings of a potential ulcer for the future. But in my maddened state I saw their phones expand. Violent silver tentacles that stretched out and began to stab the flesh of these underfed fashionably dressed beings. The tentacles had needle-like tips and first crept into their wrists and forearms. Penetrating those large veins that a junkie would hit first. There were more of these needled-tentacles and they crept and stabbed other parts: the neck, the eyes, and finally the temples. Seeping into their brains. No longer alone but attached and dependant, never able to get away, no means of liberation. Slave to an object that connects them to everything, a mere side step to omniscience. Who wouldn’t want to be God? They have any question they could think of only a few finger taps away. Poor Faustus had to be torn limb from limb to have that same capability.
I see these girls in front of me. I see that they have everything but I also see their lack of something. I can’t exactly pinpoint and say what that something is but it’s missing. All I see are extended commodities. It tears my heart that they will probably never know or figure out their absence. They’ll never find escape or clarity; they’re only a series of 1’s and 0’s. They were doomed from the very start. But fuck, I guess we’re all doomed anyway.
