Thursday, April 8, 2004

Banging Your Heart

We’re actors. Every one of us. The actors in Hollywood are frauds. Any one of us acts better than them. We all have our acting down to the improvising.

Walking down the hall. “Hi,” they say.

“Hello.”

“How are you?” How are you--the words come from their lips. Flutter from them and catch on the skin of the brain. The pigskin. Didn’t you know evil lives in the motherfucking pigskin?

“I’m fine.” Liar. Fine is far from it. But still. The words come steel cold metal from the mouth. Premeditated. There’s no stopping. The feet move and the feelings stay. No one cares. This moment was brought to you by the normal conventions of society. The each man for himself mentality. We hope you have a nice day.

Sitting in the room. Hands on the keyboard. Typing. Working and writhing. The door blows open. In comes The Man.

“You need to get a job,” says The Man, His face moving. The jaw muscles move, the circuits in His brain blink and murmur in action. His jaw muscles, steel beams of complex fleshly life, act on meticulously unflawed instrumentation from the brain, pivoting the right way to show mechanically stern resolution. His voice is emotive with flair, but deep in the metal dead eyes there’s a flickering light of something almost human. What wasn’t taken from the poor carcass of a man. “You need to get a job. So you can pay for gas in your car. So you can get money. I don’t know why you aren’t excited. Most kids are. It’s freedom. You should be excited.” I should be excited? The Man is telling me I should be excited. What if I’m not? Then what happens?

The Man careens his neck. Centers his eyes’ vision with skilled perception. “Tomorrow you need to go back to Video Action and ask the woman if she’s going to hire you.”

And ropes hang to keep us all alive.

Sitting in the back of a car. Country music blares. The station is changed. The Man didn’t like the song playing. Classic rock emanates. We drive by Gateway Mall. The movie sign is there. Passion of the Christ it reads. The Man’s Other Child speaks. “The Passion of the Christ is rated R.”

Discussion surmounts. The Man tells how he can’t believe You don’t believe in God. How could You not believe in Our Lord and Savior? You’re going to go to Hell. In The Fires of Your Hell You will realize You turned Your back on Jesus Christ. And because of this You will Live Your Afterlife In Hell. You stupid, insipid fool. How can You not believe in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior?

Deus ex Machina. That is why. God comes from the machine. Just like you came from the machine. Just like I did. We are slaves to the machine. The machine made this God to give us Hope. Hope which doesn’t exist.

We are all actors. We have our Hopes. We have our Dreams. The Karma Police will steal them all before the end.

In the car again. The Man tells the divorce is going to happen. It’s a reality. He doesn’t seem so much like a machine in that moment. He seems vulnerable and penetrated.

I remembered. This was history repeating itself. A veritable and touchable history.

At the age of three, This Man Whose Name Does Not Matter’s Mother divorced His true Father. His true Father was by the name of Tom Smith. The name does not matter. He could care less about This Man Whose Name Does Not Matter. He would call me and ask me how was school going. How were my grades.

Then he’d ask me to get my blood taken.

To see if I was his real son.

Being the Child This Man Whose Name Doesn’t Matter was then, He didn’t understand. Now He does. But now He does.

The Stepfather This Man Whose Name Doesn’t Matter has now is more of a father than he’s ever had. Now history repeats itself.

“Who’re you going to live with,” asks The Man to This Man Whose Name Doesn’t matter. How am I supposed to answer? “Myself,” It says. The It turns and looks out the window of the truck. Pushing it away. You can’t do that forever, It.

It’s just as I thought. Love doesn’t last. Happiness doesn’t last. None of it lasts.

The Flies seek to be Maggots again once they’ve matured. The Maggots, The Children, are happy--happy because they do not know. Happy because they don’t understand. Happy because they are ignorant, stupid things. But they think they are so pretty. They’re so much Maggots they can’t see how ugly they are--how utterly stupid and servile they are. They can’t see what they‘re eating. How tied into The Machine they are.

The Maggots are born into the world to eat the Dead Decaying Tissue. From this they grow. Augment until it is time to be a Fly. Because of The Maggots turning into Flies, and spawning more Maggots, the Human Race survives--the festering amass lives on.

Be a World Child, Form a Circle Before We All Go Under.

That’s what it’s all about. Push it all aside and that’s what it’s about--Survival. And the Circle that’s made because of it.

The Flies, they seek to be Maggots again. Most do not know it, but it’s what They search for. To be Maggots again.

We cannot make ourselves happy alone. This Man Whose Name Doesn’t Matter cannot make himself happy alone. There is an inert need for other things. Other pretty things to use and abuse. To make hurt. There is a need and there is a want. There is a lust and there is a love for it. The need needs feeding. It needs flesh to chew. The teeth need to sink in.

So They make Their Walls. Two hands, two flesh-beings. They coalesce together. Come together. Become one. Form an anomalous entity. An Alien Thing with its central parts the largesse of the hearts--two hearts whose beat is One.

I have a Wall with a Child in it. You are so stupid, child. You are a Maggot. You should die Everything dies. Let it all die. There is nothing keeping You alive but yourself. Why not die now? They will kill You. They will surely kill You. Why suffer?

All The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell.

I keep this Child alone and alive because he is all I have. The Child is more alive than any thing other in this Machine. The Child can do Better Things than This Fly can. The Maggot--the weakling--is Stronger because It is Weaker. It is Weak with idioteque, and that makes It Stronger. Stronger than The Flies.

The Child is behind a Wall. The Wall is built with the intention to keep Flies out. To keep Them out. To stay away from The Machine. The Machine wants The Child’s heart. It wants to rip It from Its Chest. It wants to probe in and put an Iron Heart in once the Bleeding Heart is taken out. It wants to Maraud and Steal it all.

I will not, shall not, allow it.

The Child is in a small corner of The Wall. Beside His Corner, He sits with His head against it, hearing the noises outside. He is lulled and cannot hear much of what’s going on out there. Out there he can hear Himself--the part of him that’s a Fly--going about His day. With a crayon in hand, The Child writes on The Wall. He writes in riddles. No One understands them. He is writing this on The Wall right now. It is coming down because The Maggot has control.

This Man Whose Name Doesn’t Matter hasn’t cried for years and years. This Man has become Comfortably Numb. He used to have a feeling, his hands used to feel just like two balloons, but The Feeling is gone. This Man is slowly being assimilated into The Machine. He is sure one day The Machine shall arrive in all its glory and steal from This Chest a Heart. And when it takes This Heart it will first cradle The Heart as if It’s a baby The Machine has nourished its whole life. Then it will puncture the Vena Cava--the largest artery in This Heart.

Then This Man will take over. Change to a Fly. The Child, The Maggot, will be Dead as Leaves.

There is No Future left at all.

An Optimist is One who thinks the best is yet to come. A Pessimist is One who knows the best has already happened.

Child, do not cry. I see your Tears outside the wall. I know they thought The Berlin Wall was taken down. That the Great Wall didn’t imprison. I know. I know they were wrong. The Fear--needled in and usurping--is There. It is There--in The Great Wall. The Berlin Wall. It is there.

This Man doesn’t care. He does not care about Education. He does not care about The Future. He does not care about His Heart anymore. This Man doesn’t know how He is going to go on.

This Man sits here each day and learns. He acts like He cares about what he is learning. He Respects His teachers. He enjoys his Teachers. But He does not care about the Facts anymore. He does not care about It. There is no enjoyment in Learning. This Man wishes he could be Stupid. He wishes he could be Stupid. This man is Stupid. The Ones who are smart are The Most Stupid. Stupid because they are so Complex. Because they cannot come to Understand why things are the way they are. Stupid because they always Question. This is what This Man feels. And He is sick of Acting. He is sick of Being Part of The Machine.

This Man is Numb.

Tear down The Wall. May The Child be remembered. The Festering Crawling Maggot--the Useless Being--may He be Remembered. Soon He’s going to be Dead. And the Fly will have Control--The Insectile Slave to The Machine will have control. The Heart will be Dead. Replaced.

In the end, it’s just beating my fucking heart against some mad bugger’s wall. I guess it’s time to Climb Up the Wall. It’s time to be Climbing Up the Walls.

Would I were a Maggot, Sucking most Sweet Divine. Oh, Would I were a Maggot, Sucking Most Sweet Divine.

The Morning Bell--I’m glad I know you’re coming.

Release me.

Release me please.

Cut the kids in half.

---

“All alone, or in two’s
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand-in-hand
Some gathering together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists
Make their stand
And when they’ve given you their all
Some stumble and fall, after all it’s not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger’s wall.”

--Pink Floyd, “Outside the Wall.”
Comments (0)