escaping dystopia on the porch
an exercise in exorcising my thought demons
I like to sit on my pod balcony and pretend it’s a porch surrounded by land. Sometimes I’ll bring a cold beer or a chilled glass of sauvignon blanc, but I always bring a cigarette. My lips close around it and I light it and inhale chemicals I know are bad, before closing my eyes tight enough to start creating those little stars that shine when there’s pressure on your eyeballs. Everything is black except for those dancing stars, and I’m transported far from the place I’ve spent my entire life working to be.
My illusion breaks when I exhale, the filter ripping a tiny piece of the outer layer of my lip off and the filter stained with the smallest bit of blood. This happens only when my lips are dry, and it’s reassuring to know that in my safe little life, I am still capable of bleeding.
I hear drunks stumble below my balcony, loudly pouring over their sexual conquests on the sidewalk or puzzling over the location of their Uber, always dripping with a very special alcohol induced slur that’s easily detected when sober.
I spend a moment wishing I could tell them what I think I know about the world, wishing I could share the non-fiction dystopia we’re trapped in with a friend over a glass of wine, but I’ve tried that before and my thoughts get laughed away. They prefer the fictional dystopia, but what they don’t understand is I do too.
I shake my head like a parent losing hope, tuning out the passerby to direct my attention to the camera surveilling me. Is it watching me? No. But does it see me? Yes. The round black bulb sits on the parking garage across the street. If the operators of that camera so desired, they could map out my entire schedule. They’d know when I shut my lights out and when I leave for work. They’d know how often I take cigarette breaks, how poorly I dance alone in my apartment, and if I am ever lucky enough to have company.
What they don’t catch on camera, my phone does for them.
It heard me sob into my pillow the last time I felt the walls of my nice little life caving in, listened to me scream when Biden flicked his geriatric wrist and imposed vaccine mandates, felt my hopelessness disguised as anger as I nearly shattered its delicate glass screen on my fake hardwood floors, and it listens in on my podcasts before I have a chance to listen back.
My phone knows my last Google search better than I do and it knows that not many people text me because I always fail the small talk test. It knows I am a loner and it knows I own guns. It knows I spend too much time on Twitter and that my location changes every morning when I walk to Starbucks. It knows I grab an extra large black iced coffee (with a local discount from the nice boy at the counter), and go for an hour-long walk through the park, which is full of childless single women and their “fur babies” -- likable creatures known throughout my own childhood as dogs. It knows my location changes again as soon as I get home, when I grab my helmet and hop on my motorcycle to do the same thing I do every single day: work.
I get to work and I sit at my desk to make dreams come true for the people who will put me on the street if I don’t. I wait for my bi-weekly paycheck that I use to stay in the pod that I can’t see grass or ocean or family from.
While I pay bills I remind myself that I chose this.
I remind myself that the government uses the money I make with the dwindling time I have to commit crimes that would get me locked up. They are immune. And so I give it to them because if I don’t, they will lock me up.
I am not immune.
I am not immune to the birth certificate they handed my exhausted and beautiful mother when I was born, nor to the social security number that branded me like cattle or my innocent finger print that for moments was touched only by the love of my creators, before becoming a mark of my future as a criminal; my forever marriage to the system.
I wish I didn’t see our slavery as truth, or didn’t see the drunks down below my balcony as slaves who will never escape because they will always be too drunk to realize that they are slaves.
But it is, and with very few exceptions, they are.
And I would like to break my chains, and speed through the night to safety in the countryside. That is probably just a day dream, but at least when I shut my eyes tight enough
I’m still awake enough to have it
I'm a thought criminal too. And have enough ammo to back it up.
It’s Wednesday night, its been raining for like three days. Wind patters on the windows of the old brick building i live in. It feels much bigger then it is and only the sound of a cat I had pawn’d off on me strumming through my countertops and climbing up the back of the new leather chair I bought seems to be making any sounds. I’ve grown somewhat accustom to my new place - even though its far from the glitz and glamour of the haughty people I grew up with - its mine.
I sit and tap away at this larger rectangle I bought because I was spending all my time on a smaller rectangle and that slows me down quite a bit. I guess this is my big retard square. I look at my phone…a message I didn’t want to see…My dads in the hospital and he’s not looking good. Aware of the subversion and war that we are at he did not take the vaccine - even if it meant losing his job. (Scroll down retard rectangle) my vaxx’d retard oldest sister is freaking out across the state trying to get me to do things for my dad that I’ve already done. There isn’t much I know to do.
Sitting here at 3 in the morning - thinking to myself..I thought this virus was all fake. Maybe it still is fake. My dads 72. He’s smoked since he was 14. Is it any wonder that he’s got low oxygen levels? My fathers hard headed ness has asked for this in the past few years. I guess he just wants to run full throttle till the wheels fall off. So he we are, my fathers got COVID and there’s a good chance he could die from it. Yet, I’m the one who didn’t think it was real. I’m the one that is all paranoid about the vaxx.
Either way - I still believe that its better to die then to submit to authoritarian tyranny. I still think a rapture of the unvaxx’d may be the most just thing anyone could do for us. If we have enough sense to not totally sell out to these people - maybe death is divine glory. Maybe thats what we deserve in clown world.
My retard rectangle rings shuts off. Which reminds me I never texted back this girl from my church. She’s a sweet chick but she doesn’t get what’s going on in the world. I can’t fault her for it. She just can’t imagine anyone would want anything bad for anyone else. She texted me earlier asking about my dad in a half hearted way. She’s over it. I’m over it. I guess we just talk out of obligation. Her hoping I’m gonna straighten up and stop believing these internet rumors and trust God. While I’m hoping that she will open her eyes to the devil dancing everywhere in society.
Is he everywhere in society? Have we had our values eroded that well? Is it just my own values? Am I just that fucked up and I’m projecting my guilt onto the world? If he is everywhere in society then God must be everywhere in society and God is much bigger then the devil. But this is the devils domain. God has made the devil king of earth.
So many ideas I can’t share with those around me. All of the socializing I get to do as a man is usually at the bars. Ever since my last employer started talking about getting the vaxx’ as soon as they were available I knew I had to make money online somehow. That all just seemed like a dead end. Maybe thats what subversion does to a country, it make everyone feel like they’re stuck in a bad dream in a dead end.