Hit Man Blues

[The lights are glitzy and glowing on a downtown Dallas night as a sharp dressed man steps out of a black BMW on an obscure side street. As those on Main street revel and roar he strides purposefully to an unknown destination. He's out of sync with the nightlife with his razor sharp focus. Perhaps no one else alive at that moment has such a clear sense of direction in his life. Then it snaps.]

"You're an idiot! They're using you!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"They're just using you. They put the blood on your hands and you take the risks."

"I don't have time for this. Not fucking now!"

"You're a fool! Wasting your time for theirs."

"Jesus! Be quiet! I can't be having this now!"

"Why even do this?"

"Why the fuck not? Get out of my head!"

Opportunity in life never comes when it's convenient. In fact, it's just the opposite: when it hits you, it hits you. Like it did me walking on the city sidewalk on the way to a contract. The whole of my existence struck me as absurd. Clear as day I saw myself. I wasn't being clever. I hadn't been clever. I was a chump to do someone else's dirty work, soiling my soul. How humiliating. A $12,000 suit can't cover that. No amount of paper can.

"Turn around, walk away! It's not worth it."

"Of course it's fucking worth it. What the hell else am I going to do?"

"No idea but this is what this is: total and utter bullshit."

"Don't give me that. People kill for money every day. No one thinks twice about someone dying from a lack of funds. I'm just being more direct."

"They're fools too! Want to join them? You always say you're smarter than they."

"I am, dammit! I am!"

But was I? I'd suddenly lost the ability to lie to myself right at the worst fucking time. Every life reaches that point. How you react to it determines which side wins out: smart or stupid. My precious vanity of believing I was Smarter was in mortal danger. I really was just another working stiff after all: paid more because I was used more. They're using you, man, just like the coal miner getting black lung. You're no fucking different.

I had to hide, step into a side alley away from prying eyes. Of all the fucking times to come to this realization! I'm on the hook for this. This is a BIG contract. Run away from this and they will find you. They'll send hit men after me for leaving them so critically vulnerable. Goddam. Why couldn't this have hit me between contracts instead of at my most crucial one yet?

Think you're not a killer? Think again.

I crouched behind a dumpster. I had no desire to move. Ever. I was tugged equally in two different directions. It's about what You want, man. But I want my fine clothes and Maserati and uptown townhouse. Most of all I want out of the fucking rat race. You want to be one of them Blue Bell fuckers? Letting assholes determine your life?

The same old rage came over me when I read about workers who'd spent their entire working lives at Blue Bell ice cream only to have the rug ripped out from under them when listeria was found and they had to shut down all three plants. They'd done nothing wrong. Been honest workers. And what do they get? THE SHAFT! Happens all time where people are thrown out in the street regardless of their own efforts. Fucking animals.

"That's not going to be me. I'm going to shoot this guy and walk away as I see fit. I'm stuck in this jungle and if I'm going to die I'm going to die on my own fucking terms. There's no fucking reason not to."

"Because you don't want to."

"That's it? That's all you got? Since when does what I fucking want mean a FUCKING GODDAM THING in this world? You want me to do what I want then fucking fund me. What do you say to that?"

Silence.

"That's what I fucking thought."

Still, much to my annoyance, I could not escape my hidden crouch. A thousand arguments to execute the contract and only one to walk away: what I wanted.

"What the fuck else am I going to do? This isn't some freaking movie. I'm supposed to become a cab driver or something? That's no life. Don't I deserve to live too? What's in it for me? Homelessness?"

More silence.

"Jesus, give me a freaking answer! I can't see! I can't see!"

There was no getting around it: I didn't want to do this hit  - or any hits - ever again. Just the thought of freedom infected me like a wildfire, feeding my desire to live. But must I sacrifice my life to the thorns of the world? What to do? What to do?

I already got the only answer I was going to get.

"This is insanity! This is nuts! I'm crouching down here behind a dumpster on a warm spring night listening to people on the streets laugh, leggy woman flashing their wares, parties going on. What's happening to me? Why am I even considering not doing this job? Those party assholes are corrupted up the ass just like I am."

OK, well, not everyone. Not...

Shit, man. I can't be like she. That's asking way too much. I so much want to be a part of that world, I do. It seems so far away. Untouchable. Like her. Shit. I make this hit and I'm fucking myself out of where I want to be. Goddam it, this sucks.

Just fucking do it and leave all this existential crap for the morning, OK?

Remember all the other times where you didn't do what you wanted? Remember how that could have changed your life, given you a way out? You got yourself into this mess.

Refused

"No! It's not me!"

Suit yourself. Keep on going where you're going and see where it gets you.

"Couldn't be any worse than where I already am: total fucking shit. I'm going to shoot this fucker and then maybe I'll consider this bullshit conversation. Sure, I need to change. But not fucking now! You want me dead?"

No answer.

"Well, fuck you, then. I sure as hell hope God likes dead bodies because that fucker's going to get a whole planet full of them! We're all stuck and fucked and all the lectures in the world won't pay my damn bills. Since I don't know what to do I'll just keep on doing what I've been doing and goddam God can sort it out later."

I got up, smoothing out the wrinkles. Back in the real world, smelling the restaurant flavors, giving myself to the moist evening air filling my lungs, hearing an unexpected song in my heart. Shit, why am I so high? Looking around at the sidewalk cafes, I could be anybody. Damn, what a thought! Can I just ride this feeling and get away with it? Can it possibly be life is that good?

I walked passed the building I was supposed to enter. I started to smile. Hey, I do feel smart! Motherfucker! I'll be damned.

"Turn around. These feelings aren't real! You're just kidding yourself. You know you're no better than a selfish dog. Best to be honest with yourself than be a fool before all the world!"

I'd heard that before. It's what kept me from doing what I'd wanted. It's what got me into this mess to begin with, isn't it? Only question now: is it too late?

I kept walking but I'd be lying if the tug to go back and execute the hit wasn't pulling at me hard, out of habit if nothing else. I was breaking off a part of myself I know. How smart was that, really? It was strange, though. Whatever path I was on, the other road that seemed the smarter. I was a fool to walk away from the hit. I was a fool to do it. Blind faith, I hate you.

Hard as it was, I knew I had to go all the way, forcing myself to play it down the line one hundred percent. "Don't waver! That's the bit that will trip you up." I left my car, everything. Got a bus ticket out of the city. My first time on a bus. Something told me not to follow my normal routines. A clean break. I have to admit, though, sitting on that foul beast it was hard to make the argument I was smart.

A million thoughts raged through my mind on that bus seat. I was permanently altering my life and for what? My imagination? It was shitty scenes like this that got me into the business. Dear God, I can't live the rest of my life riding buses. Frankly, I should be way more upset than what I am. Surely I will come to see this as a horribly stupid decision later when I sober up.

I felt smart anyway.

*****

The morning sunshine at the diner the next morning was glorious, like when I was a child. Good to spend some time in a rural place as a change of pace. Maybe doors I thought were shut weren't so shut after all. Can't believe I'm having these thoughts! Not that I didn't have many nagging woes bringing me down. Don't confuse hope of getting out with actually being out. Life is really, really fucking hard.

Bored, I asked if I could read the communal paper left on the counter. It was from Dallas which I thought was funny. Times here in Podunk are to slow to write about. But the headline was the real shocker.

"Dumb fucking luck!"

Turns out the job had been double booked. Also turns out it had been a set up all along! "Hit Man Arrested In Police Sting". I shuddered and nearly broke down. I've been walking deeper into a mine field all this time!

I staggered out. If they knew about the other guy they most likely knew about me. Personal integrity. This was the one fucking time in my life I showed any - and it saved my life by the skin of my teeth. Now I had proof. Now I had answers. But unless I keep acting this way, I'll never make it out of this mine field alive. Jesus!

The Company Man

The sponge holder was out of alignment with the edge of the granite countertop. He fixed it. Surveying the rest of his apartment with a practiced and keen eye he found no other maladjustments needing remedying. Pure, blissful sterility. Surely no emperor in the passage of time had it as good as he, the Company Man.

By remote, the stereo oozed classical "non-music" as he called it. Pounding, passionate music disturbed the void he so desperately sought to maintain. His corporate soul he kept locked away, its release the destruction of the empire he'd built over many long years. He was not the king, but smarter than that. Like a wily woman, he left the decisions - along with their weight and publicity - to the one anointed. But in his hands he held the power of the ruler's might with all its resources in back of it.

The stunning view from his window looked over the halls of power as his own backyard. Wide-eyed tourists, school children and the great unwashed looked upon these monuments with awe. Even foreign dignitaries or brigadier generals or governors of state could look upon them only as outsiders. But he, the Company Man, was on the inside, deep inside safe from the scrutiny of prying eyes. In fact, the prying eyes were on his side.

A student of history, he fancied himself a modern member of the Praetorian Guard, the inner circle to the seat of power. Yet even as Caesar was murdered in broad daylight, nowhere is it recorded of the killing of his bodyguards. Rulers pass but the institution must carry on. To this institution he was married heart and body. The next ruler - and all those to follow - would see that he and his kind were preserved. These were the thoughts that passed through his mind at the edge of nightfall.

Not that he wouldn't give his life for his master. He found something to die (and kill) for and thus to live for. This freed him from petty obligations of the masses toiling in futile labor, unknowing their fates already decided by suited men in secret rooms. He laughed to read of misspent conspiracies clogging the blogs and byways . With so much noise, even those with correct insight were drowned out by the static. Yes indeed, the Company Man stood invincible and inviolate atop the world.

What worked against the ordinary life worked for him. Greed and corruption, chaos and warfare, uncertainty and fear - these were his true employers. Since the beginning of history, the Company Men had stood the test of time. In war he found peace. His only true fear was a world of prosperity and harmony, one of justice and accord working towards the final betterment of mankind. Just rulers in a just world need no guards or deeds done in the still of the night.

He hated "Poser Presidents" who refused the naked grab for power he knew they craved as if they were above it. To die for one of them would leave a bitter taste in his mouth. To die protecting a true man of power, now that would be glorious! He'd go down in history as a hero even if all the while he'd been an assassin. He didn't have to know who he killed. He didn't have to care. The Company Man was simply the blameless instrument of policy. That lie very much excited him.

His sex he kept in perfect agony. The guilt of denial hounded him into hell as he literally cried out for help in the dark. But when he read of agents caught red-handed with prostitutes he knew he'd chosen the right path in the ultimate safety of denial even as he begged to be spanked by hot teenage girls whom he spied behind his stoic dark glasses. Yes, he knew he was a hypocrite of the highest order, but the fact no one else spotted it proved he sank as a hypocrite in a sea of hypocrites.

The Company Man looked down to the street at the aftermath of a car accident. He heard the phrase "no fucking insurance" and let out a wry smile. Life of the little people, always one human error away from permanent damage. Who would want to live like that? Why didn't everyone try to be a Company Man? Fools and idiots all! "God has given you one face, and you make yourself another." Their fate and pain meant nothing to him - just as his fate and pain meant nothing to them - or to himself.

Iraq War, Poverty, Racism And Other Myths

I have a problem with lying. Or maybe I should say with wanting to lie. I'm more comfortable when I lie. That's why it seems I tell the truth when I lie and lie when I tell the truth. Part of this, certainly, is living in a world that deserves little trust to handle truth. But I lie even when I can trust. It's a common trait for those who grow up in dysfunctional homes and mine was certainly a nightmare of epic proportions.

Considering all the lying going on, mine was not unique. At some point the lying children are put in charge and it becomes institutionalized. Suddenly, it's responsible to lie. Truth is slandered as the enemy that hurts people's feelings. 'Tis a mixed-up, crazy world out there! And we each silently fret what's to come of it. For that is the truest mirror of all. What will you see in that mirror?

And laughable though it may be, we hope to influence that time of revelation with lies beforehand. "You see, Wally, you gotta make everyone believe you're great even when you're awful. That's when you have it made!" But in the end what "everyone thinks" will make no difference. As the pressure mounts and time slips through our fingers, bolder and bolder expand the lies until parody itself is dead. Let's look at some examples.

"Iraq War". We hear that phrase all the time but there was no Iraq War. What there was was our Iraq Invasion. Now just imagine if you heard over and over again about our Iraq Invasion. The word "war" implies a certain helplessness, as if we were forced into it. But there's less ambiguity to "invasion". We invaded of our own free will, no provocation required. The fact we deceived ourselves as to a motive is only more condemning.

The Liar Deniers will attempt to spin "war" and "invasion" as a difference without a distinction knowing that argument plays to the willfully ignorant masses. What they won't do, however, is put their money where their mouth is and start actually saying Iraq Invasion (and why not if there's no difference??) Uh-huh. It's for the same reason we call Obamacare heath care reform instead of what it is: health insurance reform. In both these cases we took a sad song and made it sadder.

In continuing our stage play of pretended life is the great perfidy of alleged poverty. Look at the world around you, there's enough here to feed, clothe and house every person alive. Folks, back in the bad old days when the crops failed and that's all there was now that's poverty. What we've got now is a failure to remunerate. Take the story of two islands.

On the first island is ten banana trees and the ten people on the island pool their output so if one tree fails the rest make up for it. That's how mutual survival go. But the second island is without faith, making up an idol called shizzfarts, mandating only those with shizzfarts be allowed to eat! (I know, it sounds insane but it makes perfect sense to them). Everyone hated the rule but it promised a free ride to those who held the shizzfarts and by this they were corrupted. On that island, one guy got really fat, two more ate well and the rest starved in "poverty" - only both islands had the same amount of food.

Corruption breeds self-contempt and that breeds many, many "isms". The list is endless so we'll stick with the fashionable one of racism. So we hate each other for the differing colors of our skin, eh? Well, what if the whole world were blind? Would racism go away then? Not one whit. I can tell you Dr. King's pleas for justice would be just as painful to a Southern oppressor with or without his sight and the urge to silence that voice just the same. All hate starts with self-hate. Love first, ask questions later.

The biggest laugh to me is to hear the second islanders speak of "preserving" civilization. Uh, come again? With their invasion of the first island to take its resources only so the fat can get fatter and mandating shizzfarts as if it were a law of nature and the inevitable collapse corruption always brings, what civilization? Civilization is a state that has yet to be achieved. But we all like to lie and pretend our family is really better than what it is. But there's no hope in lying.



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Interview With The Assassin Q&A

"Have you ever taken anyone out for personal reasons?"

"Yes, about six years ago. I picked off my love Debby in a fit of rage."

"Can you tell us the thought process on that - and, uh, how not to piss you off?"

"It wasn't that kind of rage. It was true love and true love can never be forgiven. Her presence on this planet while not present in my life drove me over the edge."

"Can you say you regret that hit more than any other?"

"Going in that's what I expected. I was sure I was lying to myself but I was out of control at that time. The dream was dying right before my eyes. I had this voice screaming at me, "Make it stop! Make it stop!" It's hell when forces greater than yourself drive you. But to answer your question: no. In fact, it's the one I least regret. It just has never bothered me."

"Have you ever thought of conducting any other non-sanctioned hits?"

"I've mulled what it would be like to take out an investment bank CEO. Those guys never see any payback for what they do. I don't like people walking around feeling invulnerable. Take out two or three of those fuckers and the rest will be looking over their shoulders rest of their life. Instead, we get the government declaring these bozos above the law."

"So why didn't you?"

"I would have if I'd thought it'd accomplish anything. But once I saw the government say, "Don't touch these guys" and not a peep from anyone when they do that, that's when I know everyone is in it: the crooks, the voters, all the so-called proper people, the whole nine yards. The greed goes on no matter how many I kill. It's human weakness, you can't stop that with a gun."

"How many have you killed?"

"I'd rather not think about it so I don't."

"Does your profession pay well?"

"Once you get a reputation the dough starts rolling in. Starting out you basically gotta kill on spec. It's a bad feeling risking everything for a few lousy bucks. Once you get enough money to stay out of the system you start feeling a whole lot better. But until you make a name for yourself it's an awful lonely business."

"Aren't you lonely now? Are you able to have relationships?"

"You can't be attached to anything. You're invisible. You see guys trying to lead a normal life around that sometimes but it never works. Not for me anyway."

"Is there anyone you won't kill?"

"No. What difference does it make who you kill?"

"Is it true you let your victims pray as a possible way out?"

"If it comes up, yes."

"You have no fear of God?"

"There's only as much God in this world as we let in. Last time I checked there's not much to fear on that front."

"If you could choose another profession, would you? And what would it be?"

"I'd love a different profession. No fucking idea what it'd be."

"But surely as a child you didn't grow up thinking you'd be an assassin."

"No. All I knew was I wanted to get even."

"Even with whom?"

"Just even. Even with this crap world. I've always been a dreamer. And I always knew you assassinate dreamers. Kennedy, King, Lennon. You dream you die. No place for me."

"What did your parents think of this?"

"What parents? Us kids was the enemy. Finding out about us meant finding out about themselves. One thing I learned in all these years, no way people want to find out about themselves. They'll do anything not to know. I was on my own!"

"You sound angry."

"Goddam right I'm angry! I just want a normal life, dammit! You think sex with hookers is real? I can't be with anyone I want so what's the fucking point of anything? I'm out of the system but just as trapped. If I stop killing they kill me. It's not like in the movies where you can get away and blow them to bits. Jesus fucking Christ!"

"It seems you've based your whole life on the idea you can never have a normal life."

"Exactly! If I could have one wish, that would be it. But it's beyond even hope of hope. There's nothing legitimate to your "legitimate" world. It's a fucking farce anywhere but your deceived minds. I see all your fingerpointing. It's the media, it's the government, it's the freaks overseas, corporations, even me - always somebody else. You stinkers made this mess, nobody else."

"Is that why you claim satisfaction in killing?"

"All I know is I'm dying inside and I want you to feel what I'm feeling. I can't help it. I guess nobody can. We always want to make everyone like we are. So yes, to answer a previous question. I would not want to kill a happy person. There is that."

"But what if you were wrong? What if there had been a way to a normal life and you did all these killings for nothing? What then?"

"Well...that would be bad. It would be like we killed everyone for no reason then, wouldn't it? From Jesus to John, from dignitaries to drone strikes, from prisoners to the poor, all for nothing. I guess everyone convinces themselves they have no choice when they pull that trigger. God can't help us if we're wrong."

Interview With The Assassin

The problem with not having a commitment to one's life is that one doesn't know how far one has gone until one has gone too far. And that always leaves an aftermath of destruction. Maybe that's what got me into this business. I've got nowhere else to go. I can't live in your world. I don't want to live in your world. I assassinate your world. Nothing makes me feel better than taking you out.

Scary, huh?

How do you reason with the guy who enjoys killing you? That part of you that clings to a world who gives no recourse puts you in perpetual fear of the karmic boomerang that gives you no recourse. Yes, I am the monster you support. I am the one you ostracized, banished to the desert to die in the worst way possible to cover your own sins. I'm the last person you want to see showing up with a gun at your head. For me, every killing is a revenge killing.

Don't pretend to know my pain. That only makes me angrier. I already know who the other outsiders are by sight. We who live on the edges know perfectly well those who do not. The further inside you are, the more you accepted The Deal, the more I enjoy putting you out of your misery and hearing your children wail. You built your house on my back. I have the right to evict you. Did your children ever wail for those who you evict?

The beauty of this - my trump card ace in the hole - is that in the necessity of removing a killer like me from society you fail to realize you slam the nail in your own coffin, that the minute you pull that trigger, you become me; you are the horror. That's why the cycle of killing never ends. It's the killer within you need to get rid of, not me. But that's the problem with not having a commitment to one's life: one doesn't know how far one has gone until one goes too far. Only then is the truth realized. Kill me or let me live, either way you lose. Beautiful! Just like the choices you gave me.

Every assassin has his own approach. I can be a chameleon, though, taking different approaches as they suit me. Sometimes I feel like being clinical, concentrating solely on the perfection of my execution. That must be quite horrific to my victims, to see a robot devoid of feeling devoted to the singular task of ending your existence. You're simply on my To Do list and I have as much concern for you as you do for paying my rent. The ending of your life means my life can go on, simple as that. Ask any President and they'll tell you the same.

It's funny actually. Twice when I've been challenged in this mode I replied, "Just paying the rent." It made everything clear for them, understandable, and - funny enough - they had no moral argument in return. It can even be said they lost their anger. Observing that is when I knew just how corrupt your average person is. They too kill to pay the rent, just not as directly as me. Who refuses to put blood on their hands when facing the street?

Sometimes I look for something I hate in the person. I still long for belonging and acceptance and on occasion begin to recoil at my own deeds. In those moments I have to feel what I'm doing is justified. I hate those turmoil hits. There's always the danger the person is not as you surmise and you find a reason to cancel the job. But to cancel the job is to cancel yourself. It's only happened once but once is enough. The turmoil, you see, never stops from that moment going forward. Too many hits like that and you go mad. I wouldn't be the first assassin to lose his mind.

But most of the time I look for something I like in the person. I got the idea from the Iceman Kuklinski. He says this one time in a interview:

It was a man and he was begging, and pleading, and praying, I guess. And he was 'Please, God'n all over the place. So I told him he could have a half an hour to pray to God and if God could come down and change the circumstances, he'd have that time. But God never showed up and he never changed the circumstances and that was that. It wasn't too nice. That's one thing, I shouldn't have done that one. I shouldn't have done it that way.

I'm just the opposite. I want them crying out to God to save them, just like Jesus hung out to dry on the cross. Even I found something to like in you but God ain't coming, motherfucker! Believe me, I know! Forget what you need, you gonna bleed! I always tell them they can pray their guts out. I love hearing it! God got his rent paid already, sucker, you're on your own. These fools just be talking to the walls.

You people see this?

A weeping 12-year-old Philippine girl, asking the Pope how God could allow children to become prostitutes

And you know what the guy has got as a response? He's got nothing! "She is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer." You're goddam right there's no answer. Show me an answer! Show me a way out of this hell. Show me a god who cares. You can't, can you? That's why you gotta die. Bang!

Returning Home From The Qonos Quasar Wars

I went to war to be her whore
By anger I had swore;
The edge blackness evermore,
Stars ending like the shore.

Only those who've seen the sight
Can ever know the fright;
Thrusting souls lost to light,
Place of no day or night.

Who controls the universe?
To trust it would be worse;
Or is that a Judas curse
To keep our truth averse?

Absorbed by the black hole's heart
The ending has no start;
Fighting just to die apart
In a waste that has no chart.

Have you seen the combat child

With seared eyes dark and wild?

In space the dead be not piled

And peace lulls most reviled.

Dark Lords deign holy blessing

With lips not found confessing;

Into the void we keep pressing

To claim love's joy oppressing.

So this is where our seeds are sown

In a quasar's deep unknown;

But I have heard the spirits moan,

"In hell we have no home!"

I am but a lowly beast

Uninvited to the feast;

But if liars are the least

Why not their efforts ceased?

Home world has the flower

That gives us fighting power;

The call of Spring time shower

Tells me this my wanted hour.

I am the foolish fighter,

A sinking soul, not lighter;

But God is my inciter

To make the future brighter.

Eighty trillion parsecs

Back home and to her sex;

Four hundred years in flex

Our lives but tiny specs.

Pulling from the black hole brink

I realize my heart's kink;

My armor's fatal chink,

I am the missing link.

I'll walk among the greens

And listen to their dreams;

I preserved their genes

Bursting at the seams.

No matter what I've seen

The home world lovely preen!

But I fall out of this dream

To find she too obscene!

Where gone her glad purity?

Her trees in obscurity.

Minds gone to insanity,

Feeding deadly vanity.

My precious life misspent!

They too spurn repent.

I'm as hollow as the hole,

My heart as dark as coal.

To redeem my wayward ways

I counted on their rays;

A planet in despair,

I choke upon this air.

How can I find true refuge

From internal world deluge?

Cast out in the black sea storm

Regretting to be born.

Running, stopping - both the same,

Only losers in this game;

A starving soul's empty bend,

A fucking literal dead end.

I looked to the world to save me

But a howling hell it gave me.

Burning letters do engrave me:

By my hand I did betray me.

A Day In The Life Of The Office

Breathe deep the gathering gloom,

Watch lights fade from every room.

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night,

Removes the colors from our sight.

Red is grey and yellow white.

But we decide which is right -

And which is an illusion.

It's the same every Sunday night. The looming dread of the slow-motion suicide of the morrow. In the office, the animals are free and the keepers caged. Joints of unreality are passed from one smiling, future-less being to another. Floating above the world in a corporate Christendom high, cybernetic organisms revolve the wheels of motion for better or worse, ever blindly forward. A three-piece freak's refuge, a prostitute's paradise for promotion, a universe without sun or stars, upon this meteor we ride to its final, inevitable conclusion. In God we mistrust.

Under the fluorescent sky I enter stage right. In the distance I see the ivory towers. We await the signal of white smoke and other mystic orders to guide us to the holy grail of Pyrrhic plastic profit. The galley slaves see not even this; advancement the surest sign of morality. The phone rings and my heart sinks to the bottom of a deep cold ocean.

"Hello, Tom. It's Vaselini. I need ask you favor. My lords need the project color-coded. It is vital to the well-being of the corporate."

No place on the globe is safe. My brain processes the heavy accent as I strain to translate the request because, after all, that's what I was put on this earth for. "You mean the project to have parallel lines intersect?"

"Yes, it's only one I work on needful."

Well, it's not the only one I work on needful! You expect me to keep track of everyone's projects? Fuck that and fuck this. "I can do that for you, Vaselini, but you'd have to give me a blow job first."

"You culturing is so strange! Just what is blow job, please?"

I strut down the gleaming hallway to her cube. "It's like this. First, get on your knees and open your mouth. Yes, that's it. You sure are understanding the American! Next, I will insert my penis until completion."

"How I know completion?"

"I trust your innate intelligence to know. That's the sort of faith I have in you!"

"Much the thanks!" After the swallowing she was not so grateful but still fearful to offend. "Actually, Tom, I'm not sure I can blow job for color coding. Could you in please anyway?"

"I guess. What a beating."

"Oh, thank the you! The lords need colors for understanding."

History will not speak well of us

I pass by the "Team Building Exercise" notice on the wall and smirk. They don't invite me anymore. It's where the person in front of you falls backwards and you're supposed to catch them. Both times I let them fall. Human Resourceless still gives me a dirty look every time I pass by. Aw hell, there's freaking Hayden in his cheerleading outfit waiting for me at my cave entrance.

"Hi, Tom! I just talked to the big bosses! Isn't that exciting! I know so many secrets! I'll be washing their cars later!"

"Damn, dude, you need some doggy downers."

"Big bosses are so smart! We've decided to make the parallel lines both blue and red at the same time! I just need you to tell me one thing first: what colors are blue and red?!"

In a moment of weak human impulse I slip back into the real world. "Blue and red together make purple. So you're saying you want purple."

"OK, great! But how can we make them be blue and red at the same time instead?!"

Kicked in the nuts again for acknowledging reality. I drew two black lines on some paper. "See, this one is red and this one is blue. We can make this work."

"Awesome! Only they both look the same color to me!"

"What? You can't tell the difference?"

"Haha! Of course I can! I'll just have to explain it to the big bosses!."

"You know, Hayden, if we lived in a world based on self-respect you'd look like a complete idiot right now."

"I know! Isn't this the greatest place ever?"

Hayden skipped away practicing a new cheer sure to cheer. I peer out around me at the beasts so confidantly unaware, seeking only the task ahead of them and nothing else. For them, this is The Way, a religion of high priests and low morals. I walk in a desert of mutual fiction, searching for crumbs of reality. I hear sounds of despair coming from Gina's office hole and dare to dream of hope.

"What a stupid project!" she spits in disgust. "Why are we wasting our time with this idiotic pursuit of having parallel lines intersect? We're an IT department, not magicians. This is absurd!"

"Hear! Hear!" I applaud. "Sometimes I think they consider reality the enemy. Other times I know it."

"I just want to be a productive person. Work is noble! This is how -" Gina was interrupted by a ringing phone. "Yes...Oh, of course!...I'm excited too. We'll be the first company to ever make parallel lines intersect. Quite the coup...I most certainly will take over the lead. I'm grateful to have more responsibility."

So Jesus was wrong. You can serve two masters here in the anti-world. When Gina hung up the phone I returned to my previous slouch of hopelessness. "Tom, I hear you're in charge of color-coding. I'm expecting you to come through for us. None of your usual attitude!"

"Don't worry. This work gives my life meaning."

"Way to go!"

I wander back to my defeated cave having learned my lesson daring to have hope. I stare at the monitor, arms folded, fucked and furious. Oh sure, I can come up with some bullshit that they will define as "success" to keep the party going. Their plush homes and new cars and carefully scrubbed children keep them ensconced in a bubble of seething rage knowing one day it must burst. No one cares about anything but staying in the bubble and delaying the day of reckoning. Those outside the bubble will just have to fend for themselves, live or die.

Fog enters my brain. Why care about anything? What is there to fight for? I too must stay in the bubble to eat. But I can't let these insanitists define reality for me. Where is the way out? Is God going to wait until we're all dead? I'm so tired of this mockery of reason. I stagger along hazed and defused (like I get to be every afternoon) to the meeting room to hear the state of our disunion.

Instant Section 8*. That's my greatest fear. At some point I'll finally slip, forget where I am, and let my true feeling show. The holographic image I must project in these public meetings takes an enormous amount of energy. I've actually laid my head down on the table in exhaustion before, having to claim illness. I place myself in the most anonymous spot possible.

The meeting is an insomniac's solution. Speaker keeps droning on, starting and stopping, never clear what he's saying, a spreadsheet of lines and numbers signifying nothing behind him. I start slipping, slipping, slipping...I cocoon myself in the part of me that insists life has meaning on this planet despite a complete lack of evidence. Boredom being the devil's workshop, I whip out my member in an effort to remain interested in life. I don't know how long it was out before I realized my faux pas and hastily stuffed it back in. Luckily no one noticed.

Later, on my drive home, I remember the security camera in the room's ceiling. Did it see my indiscretion?? I'm fucked for sure if it did! I'll be thrown out of the bubble, exposed in every sense of the word. What can I do? Not a fucking thing, like always! How can this not be the time of tribulation when all paths lead to death? I can't believe I'm in this mess, this web of torment. End the world! End the world and all that's in it! It was indeed a just God who did bring the flood.

* Section 8 military discharge for being mentally unfit. "Instant Section 8" refers to a phrase in "Full Metal jacket" describing the scene of a soldier who became a chronic masturbator. When sent for evaluation, he masturbated in the waiting room, an "instant Section 8".