An Inhuman Condition

My feet slosh as I step through the mystery puddle on my way to the coffee maker. The pleasantly warm cup is the only sip of solace in this frigid and futile shop. I’m stuck here alone, impotent to perform my function, waiting on the slow, snail pace of another hardware test. The Mac works fine from a bootable CD, but will not cooperate when I try to start it otherwise. Red lines and freezing, but the RAM is fine. The video RAM is fine. The caches are all fine. The drive is fine. The file system is fine. Everything that should be causing this fucking problem is fine, but it’s not fine.

I have a laptop stripped to its bare LCD while I ponder whether its the backlight or the inverter shitting on me. The Internet has found one source for a part, and it looks shady to say the least. Nothing today is coming easily, especially being awake. I am smothering my desire to tell both customers and their shitty machines to fuck off with frequent smokey fires. The dull hum of buzzing servers and shop computers is building an audible tumor in the back of my eyes, and all I have is this cooling cup of coffee.

I have hunger enough to eat a wolf, and I can’t see good in the world. If you find some, bring it to me. I need a little company.

It’s late, and by any estimation of the situation, I should be tucked neatly into my heaping disarray of covers drifting somewhere toward the corner of Sleep Ave. and Dream Blvd. I should be singing my sweet chorus of apnea inspired snores and thrashing in my sheets. I should be diligently dangling in the dark ditch between mattresses and floor using my bedding as one giant-sized pillow. I should be doing all of this, yet I am not.

The caffeine stomping in my gullet, sending signals and synapses of stimulated stirring, will not yet subside and turn the tide from wakefulness to rest. I am simply stuck with no luck, no sheets into which I may tuck, feeling like a schmuck run amok, like a young buck struck by a truck until the drug burning deep inside subsides, until I’m free of this muck.

Well, fuck.

Light that midnight oil, baby, and watch it burn bright deep into the night.

Sucking air through the cigarette faster than bullets through a gun barrel, his lungs fill like bellows of desperation. Each breath numbs the restless anxiety burning inside him. Carcinogenic fumes smother the flames as the embers of despair flicker one final flare. He douses the ash with spirits and the corners of his mouth peak to form a nervous smile. His quiet worries cry out in manic jest all the while dancing an awkward social two-step.

While trying to stay current with economic news, I’ve noticed a trend where people looking for some sort of silver lining say things like, “at least the financial crisis is bringing corporate corruption to the attention of the American people.” The attitude seems to be that average folks don’t tend to pay attention to economic news and are therefore blind to the sort of corruption that led to this recession.

Bullshit.

I’m pretty sure that a whole lot of folks were quite aware of how far the capital cock was wedged up their ass long before IndyMac fell down. I think most people aren’t aware of the specifics, but if you can feel yourself getting fucked hard by these greedy twats, do you really want to turn around and see how deep it’s in? Eh?

I think people know and they write it off. I think when things are normal, the last thing one wants to do is watch daily updates that remind one that poor people keep getting poorer and those with money see it multiply. That trend did not start with Bush. It didn’t start with the housing boom. It didn’t start with the stock boom. The disappearing wealth of labor is inherent in the capitalist system itself.

So sure, there are people who were entirely ignorant of the specifics before it became a media issue, but they knew things weren’t right. I will also concede that there could exist such a person that lived their Big-Mac-Wal-Mart-Jerry-Springer-SUV-Anna-Nicole-Smith-desk-job-government-benefit-Paris-Hilton-buffet-slanket lifestyle without being aware that anything was unnatural, but I doubt that person is the majority. Sometimes being numb and willingly dumb is preferable to paying attention because awareness breeds depression.

The waiting room had the somber, black-suit-and-tie feeling of a funeral. All eyes were on the latest Cosmo, Us Weekly, People, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Fish & Tackle without any warmth or interest in anyone else. He felt somehow under-produced next to the straplessly dressed model types, men in dark, unbuttoned oxford shirts over some ironic or otherwise heavy-metal-related t-shirt. There was a trend of spiky, frosted, product-infused hair designed by some hip, California stylist. He certainly wasn’t under-dressed in a Versace Collection jacquard jacket, Dolce & Gabbana striped dress shirt and Ermenegildo Zegna slacks; he simply felt like he wasn’t invested enough in his appearance. He didn’t have any staff members to make sure his Image, the commodity, was a trendy and salable product. He had something else to sell.

Will sat staring into the eyes of his waiting-room companions: lost, blank, dead. He made a game of waiting for one to flinch and then moving his gaze clockwise to the next. He asked himself why he had come. He hadn’t expected the call from his agent, the urgent flight to New York, the meeting with some unnamed player offering some unimaginable sum and a book deal. He tried to think of his agent’s word; a mogul, that’s what he had said. Some high-rolling, big-money, New York City publishing mogul. Will wasn’t sure what any person fitting that description would want with him. He hadn’t written anything above Atlantic Weekly length in two years and didn’t feel like anything significant had changed since then. The reviews of his last novel claimed he was “digging himself into obscurity,” “clasping desperately for the avant-garde,” and “shamefully past his prime.”

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What fueled my body to cast a shadow on all things natural, human or sane was not cocaine, nor speed, adderall, ritalin nor any other chemical friend along for the ride. No, the cause of my insomnia was pure, uncut, home-grown madness. The corners of the banal had long ago weathered round, and I drove furiously to the end of existence. What was waiting on the other side seemed sickeningly similar, but in a fun-house mirrored sort of way. The bleak, boring, regular was all around, but underneath something dangerous was always lusting and lurking.

“There is one thing solid and fundamental in politics. What is up today is down tomorrow.”
-Richard M. Nixon

Today I felt immensely anxious and altogether distraught about tomorrow. I feel like I am on trial for a crime I didn’t commit, and the jury has reached a verdict. I feel like I am about to walk into a court room facing four to eight years of serious prison time, and I cannot be sure what to expect. I would hope that the system was functional and everything would work out, but there is a large part of me that knows the system a little too well for that level of naïveté.

Liberals have been fluffing Barack Obama like he is already heir apparent to the oval office throne and red phone. The same folks who were so sure of John Kerry’s election are now celebrating the coming of Obama. The logic was that after four years of George W. Bush in Washington, that the country could not possibly re-elect him. It happened. Back at the end of the Reagan days with Iran-Contra still fresh in their minds, people thought there was no hope for a snake like George H. W. Bush to go from a key player in that debacle to the commander-in-chief. It happened. After Nixon they said Republicans wouldn’t win an election for 20 years. It happened. I can’t help but feel like Obama’s victory is far from won.

“And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. And one of his heads was as it were slain to death, and his death stroke was healed. And the whole earth marveled after the beast.”
-Revelation 12:2-3

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The laptop computer will be the death of our society. I see the signs written on the walls in ASCII. Coffee shops are littered by blank faces in front of glowing screens. Fingers type frantically to instant messages with friends they used to see in person. News, entertainment, everything is delivered over copper wires straight to their liquid-crystal displays.

It used to be the case that people would call one another. One would bump into someone on the street, have a small chat, exchange numbers and meet up at a coffee shop or bar for a few hours to swap stories and reminisce. Now one hears the sordid statement, “Oh, you should look me up on Facebook!” Instead of spending the few bucks and an afternoon conversing in the flesh, they pour over status updates, new profile photos, new notifications. Instead of post cards or letters, people send YouTube videos. Nostalgia is instantaneous, uploaded and tagged: “Yes, those are pictures from yesterday; I remember yesterday!” The only address anyone is interested in is an email address.

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The elections are marching military-style to their climax in three days. Americans spent September spending less than they have in a long while. Gasoline is practically being given away at deep-discount, pre-apocalypse rates. World capitalists are handing out $25 billion to keep Hungary, a member of the elite European Union, afloat between paychecks. Like a bunch of broke, blue-collar buddies, they are buying Hungary’s drinks at the bar to get him through the rough times.

All the news reads like the introduction to a long epitaph for Western civilization. A British monetary consultant firm has predicted that the West has five years until the developing powerhouses start to control world capital. Our little exploited children had to grow up eventually. My only question concerns the hell of a nursing home in which they will ultimately hide us away. It was all a wild ride while it lasted. Maybe lucky Americans will be allowed to work in call centers for India and sweatshops manufacturing small toys for Chinese children.

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