SuicidalUtopia.com

I meant this to be the first story in a funny book about being a migrant worker. Which I was. It immediately became an orphan as I wrote it on September 10, 2001. I was still a migrant worker in search of perspective... I was just struggling to make sense of the world.

THE COMMON SENSE GUIDE TO WORLD DOMINATION

Original Title:

HOW TO BECOME A MIGRANT WORKER IN 38 YEARS OR LESS


New Title:

BE GONE WITH YOU, I GROW WEARY OF YOUR PRESENCE

The original title remains to annunciate the infinite changes that occurred the day Evil crawled from its dank, dark abyss and bitch-slapped the Sane world into a frantic search for a new reality.

In this new present I’m caught in the collective stupor of the Sane, questing for a new reality, vastly improved over the old and cosmically rectified from the stupifyingly synapse-free events of Tuesday.

Also, the first words of the first story wrote themselves on Monday, the day before That Tuesday.  What a difference a horrific, evolutionally disappointing day can do to a mortal’s psyche.  

There are stories of miracles and all mighty power.  

Look around, what was once considered impossible is now possible.   It is quite probable that the united Sane contain the power to perform what was once unthinkable, miraculous.  

Religion matters not in this struggle, it's Sane vs.  Insane.  There are stories of divinity in all religions.  Commonality, just petty differences.  Our world is but a trivial rock of billions of rocks in the desert of the galaxy (Verboseness overwhelms me, every so often).

God, a higher power, may exist inside us all.  If the Sane combine their power, the Sane may perform miracles.  Maybe this is what we neglected to learn.  Maybe miracles are in our grasp if we are together.  Disparity has kept them in the shadows.  

The Insane united to perform (in their perverse way) a miracle (to them).  We are more, we are right.  We can turn miracles of our own.

Religions preach unity…let’s try it.  Really try it.  You want a Holy War?  Then let all Religions unite against Insanity and care not of the other person’s religion.

Holy Wars are an oxymoron.  

Holy Wars don’t exist, they are claimed.  Futile explanations.

Although confusion and the collective stupor have left us in the dark, this is the dawn…if we make it so.

The following story written one day prior to the world changing… again (9/10/01).


THE PASTA MACHINE

It was an ordinary day.  Searing heat reflecting off the dirt, no breeze, lugging five-gallon buckets of gravel on our shoulders and dumping it in the trench we just labored to dig.  

Next would be sand…but first The Bucket.

My first day was mired in a disappointing revelation that civilization was a long way from its pinnacle.  

My compadres, the Hispanic crew I worked with (but could not communicate with) handed me a bucket.  I thought that was nice, they smiled and laughed.  I accepted the bucket.

They pointed to another amigo standing on a perfectly happy pile of gravel resting in the back of a dump truck.  The man signaled for my empty bucket, I tossed it to him and in payment for my bucket he was nice enough to hand me a gravitationally challenged bucket full of gravel, which hurt.  

Not since Manhattan (my heart goes out to Manhattan now) was purchased with wampum was there a less fair trade.  I longed for my empty bucket.

My, now laughing, friends pointed to the trench; I dumped the gravel.  To my immediate discomfort I looked back and there was my amigo with another bucket full of gravel.

I examined the sand trap and did a quick estimate on the number of buckets needed to fill the immense ditch and assumed death would occur prior to filling said trench (thankfully).  Luckily the sun was getting hotter and clouds were absent.

Then it occurred to me that “the gravel dispenser” must be on its way.  I was just filling the void.

Sadly, I was assured that the gravel dispenser was already here…and it was me.

Kind of like building the pyramids armed with a can of tuna.

Civilization has been to the moon, the pyramids are thousands of years old and here I am with this fucking bucket and what turned out to be several truckloads of gravel.  

I am currently designing the gravel dispenser.  I hated that bucket and the gravel too.

I longed for the day I spent with the hose.  I’ve used hoses before.  I’m familiar with hoses.  But this was ten synapse free hours of hosing.  

The bulldozer moved the sand on the new greens.  My mission was too avoid the bulldozer and spray the sand with water.  

Seemed simple: One aspect went well with my daily mantra: Don’t die.  The other was pretty straightforward: Make sand wet.

I don’t remember much from that day; I had “synapse shut down” at some point.  I wasn’t even day dreaming, just avoiding the bulldozer and making stuff wet.  

It occurred to me that I’d be enjoying myself a tad more if I was doing the latter on a woman, and lost the bulldozer altogether.

Like I said, this was a normal day for an American migrant worker.  No one to talk to, searing heat, the infinite gravel bucket train, shovels, rakes, and yes, the pickaxe is still in use.  

My Spanish was improving, not much.  The gravel was being dispensed via my fucking bucket…when IT happened.  

I was informed that a machine was on its way, just for me…The Pasta Machine (that’s what it sounded like anyway).  It seemed rather queer that I would need a pasta machine; we were building a golf course.  But I went along with it.  They all seemed very happy that the pasta machine was on it’s way…

Now was time for light work, shovel and rake.  The sand was arriving for the sand trap by the truckload.  My compadres spread it with machines known as tractors.  All they gave me was a fucking shovel and a rake.  But this beat the hell out of the bucket and the infinite line of gravel buckets.

At this point I had the distinct feeling that I was covered in sand from head to toe, including places not necessarily designed for sand.  I decided that the sex scene in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (and countless others) was not realistic, since sex and sand is a combination to be avoided.  And there’s really no need to mix the two since they result in the opposite of pleasure.

I crossed sex on the beach off my “to do” list.

The sun may give life, but this carbon-based life form was contemplating how?  Since the sunlight was beautifully reflecting off the white-hot sand and broiling my internal organs.  Causing me to consider death.  

I wiped the dripping sweat, sand, dirt and several other unknown substances from my face and there HE was.  At the far end of the endless sand trap…Omar Sharif, a camel and a gun.  

Disappointment quickly ensued….  No oasis and he didn’t even have the decency to shoot me.  

He went away, it was just a tractor and another compadre headed my way…With MY pasta machine!

The next few minutes were happy times.  Sure, I was dying, but the pasta machine was on the way.  

It was about here I had an epiphany, how to make more money for my boss.  Based on what we’ve learned here: People aren’t very bright (see any available carbon based life form), people pay to have pain inflicted (see gyms or fitness centers).

The next time one of my friends tells me about his “hard” workout at the gym, I’m gonna ask them to tell me the horrendous “painful pebble in the shoe” story again.  While I hand them a “get your head out of your ass free card”.

So here we are, really working out (show me a gym with searing heat, sand, dirt, shovels and pasta machines).  

We create “fitness camps”: Instead of paying employees…they pay us to join the “fitness camp”.  I even have the slogan…”In shape, or dead”.

I became aware how giddy I was not to live in the Middle East…one big sand trap my boss would probably have me rake…with a fork, while readying my book report on the encyclopedia, chewing gum and trying to remember to breath.

Ah, finally, the tractor.  This must have been one hell of high falutin' pasta machine; it weighed a few hundred pounds and was powered by fossil fuels.  

We lugged the behemoth from the bucket of the tractor.  It was green, and while resting it was quite unassuming.  Three wheels, a blade, some levers and the pull starter.

A compadre pushed a button and pointed to the pull start string.  I pulled.  It started.  

No pasta it spewed.

They pointed to a lever.  I shoved it.  

The machine was angry that day, my friends…very fucking angry.  

The blade ripped at the ground with blind fury.  I thought the machine was angry at the ground, it wasn’t.  It was mad at me.  For either pulling the string or the pushing the lever.  It never really said.

So it’s just a bouncing around (mad as hell) and I’m just watching it bounce around.   I get the signal to grab the bouncing handles.  

I was suspect.

Vibrating, (hookers would run in fear) too much vibrating.  They pulled another lever, the tires spun, the angry machine lurched forward.  I followed the painted line, like a well-trained towel.  The machine fighting me every inch.  

I was sorry I pulled its string (I’m sorry for a lot of things).  As I struggled to gain control of the machine, I noticed that it was so pissed off it was trying to rip my arms from their sockets.  This was disturbing.

The starter string was designed to retract, my arms were not.  Once they’re off, they’re off.

One of my friendly co-workers was kind enough to jam the accelerator to the rabbit stage.  This pissed the machine off even more.

This was not a pasta machine at all; it was a sod cutter.  

The Torture King 2000.Woes me, no habla Espanola.

As I felt my shoulders begin to lose a grip on their sockets, I pondered how trivial life’s problems really are.  About equivalent to dialogue in porn.  

That’s what you think about when an angry machine attempts to sever limbs from your body.

Uphill sucked, pushing this angry piece of shit uphill sucked.  

Finally, level ground! Machine’s still pissed off.  Arms growing weary.  Ah, downhill.  Hurray! (Gilligan gets off the island…)

Trees have roots.  Machine really pissed now.  I have to push this thing through tree roots (downhill)?  (Gilligan never gets off the island)

I glance at God’s splendor.  Trees, sky, sun.  I’m not impressed.  

The tree’s roots are causing pain (because the machine is severing them from the tree), the sun is burning my flesh and the sky isn’t doing a damn thing about it (the sky was an odd shade of fuscia at that time.  As skies are when a machine is tearing away at your limbs in searing heat and tree roots are severed).
Woe is me, a beautiful woman appeared (hallucinating now).  In my youth we spent some quality time together, we were in love, or lust.  Why is she here now?

Confused, I stopped the angry machine and begged to be put back on the infinite gravel bucket train.  I was politely denied, more levity ensued.  Made note to learn more Spanish.  

Nothing about the pasta machine seemed funny.

I decided the angry machine had pissed me off.  It deserved to be treated with great disdain and much profanity.  

OK bitch let’s play…

I yanked that bitch around and shoved her in gear.  The machine was still pissed.  It again attempted to rid me of limbs.  

I hated this machine with the intensity of a thousand burning suns.  It hated me back.

Around we went, me yanking and pushing and lugging.  It vibrating and pulling and occasionally jabbing me in the hip for fun.  

Now, I really am pissed.  I’m not gonna quit.  Around we go.  We reach an uneasy agreement: I’ll treat it like shit and talk trash and it will continue to try and disengage my shoulders from my body.

The woman was beautiful.  We vibrated together.  Was this the reason she popped into my head while I’m engaged in a physical altercation with an angry pasta machine?  No.

All worldly problems had been exposed as minutiae as my body was being ripped apart.  Same thing happens when you’re in love or lust.  Two become one.  You know the deal.  Could be in a crowded room, but you two are alone.  

I was alone with this angry machine.

This machine violates one of my principles of dating, by the way: Never date anyone you can’t lift (I have since added: Never date anyone that attempts to rip limbs from your body.  There’s no love when severing is involved.)

I was deeply engaged in mortal combat with the machine when I realized I’d lost contact with my hands.  I pondered for a second.  No hands?  I sent another request via synapse to my hands…no reply.  

Why is the sky ignoring me?  Where the hell is my taco?  So many questions.

I was able to visually confirm that my hands, and arms, were yet connected to my body.  I was nonplussed.  

I assumed my hands had broken-off communications due to their violent treatment by the machine, which by the fact that I hadn’t let go of said machine, were left to assume that I was neglecting them.  

I hope to re-establish contact with my hands after I rid the Earth of most of its grass with my angry pasta machine.  

Made note to re-open communication with rest of arms soon after.  

I’ve never seen my body vibrate like this.  Forearms look like Jell-O in a paint shaker.  
Back to the woman…I’m not in love with this machine.  I hate this machine, yet the rest of the world has melted away.  Which proves there is a fine line between love and hate.  Which explains messy divorces.  

The machine continues to pummel me, I don’t care.

I searched for happy thoughts and things to be grateful for.

I was grateful to not be the first prescient cow to stumble into a butcher shop.  I spent some quality time thinking of the emotional duress seeing ones brethren’s body parts dismembered, wrapped in plastic and neatly displayed for sale.

I don’t know diddly about past lives or if they exist.  But, I wonder if vegetarians may have been food in their previous lives?  Say a salmon that ended up Cajun grilled, laying next to some rice and beans with a fat (I’m not politically correct, fat is fat) guy with halitosis stuffing his face with your remains.  I’d say that’s a pretty shitty excuse for a funeral.

Machine continues to pummel.  I tried chanting “serenity now, serenity now, serenity now, insanity now, insanity now…”.  This was, yet, another failure.

Salads.  If you have a salad named after you chances are you may die a violent death…Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad, Caesar Salad…I immediately decided against becoming a chef…

The flesh on my forearms has stopped vibrating…no, my mistake, my head just started vibrating.

Time to check s-mails (synapse mails)…Nothing from hands.  Feet are bitching about shoes filled with dirt.  Too bad, this is war.

Here’s one I need to do something about, the random gut punches from the handles of the Torture King 2000 pounding my torso with the intensity of a seagull splattering on the windshield…of the space shuttle.

My back sent me a nice s-mail.  Wondered how the hands were doing.  Said we were gonna be sore, but he was with me for the long haul.  I thanked my back and plodded on.  The sun, the dirt, ripping and tearing and punching continued ad nauseum.  

About now, I remember I stopped remembering.  When I re-entered my life, the ordeal was over.  The sod was cut.  My hands were formed into claws.  I felt nothing.  

I kicked the lever that stopped the machine from being angry.  I flipped it the bird and staggered off to die.

My compadres postponed my death…they handed me a bucket.  A form of giddy happiness ensued.


INPUT UNWANTED

Work ended; I went to the supermarket (thankful I wasn’t a prescient cow).

The supermarket was overcrowded (meaning there were other carbon based life forms  there).  I was dismayed to learn they do not sell Percodin, cocaine, heroine, PCP or lithium over the counter (seemed like a good day to start).

I settled for painkillers, Ben Gay, cigarettes and 5 liters of bag in a box wine (should work).

As I waited in the checkout line, it occurred to me how much fun I could have dressing to kill and going to a fancy club using my new career to impress the babes…I’m a migrant worker…Hmm, just received a short s-mail from the sexual region “we’re fucked”.

Nights passed quickly…

I was well into my next date with a shovel.  I occasionally had to cheat on the shovel and swing with a pickaxe.  This I was OK with, since everything now is relative to the Torture King 2000.  The Torture King and I have broken off communications. 

I contemplated the physical difficulty of this job, but I was calmed when I remembered at least the pay was low and I wasn’t burdened with any benefits.

I found myself longing for the period of serenity created by the lack of bitching from my hands.  They were now constantly s-mailing complaints of throbbing and aching.  I wish they’d shut up.  My eyes s-mailed they’d like to see some beautiful women; I looked around, there were none.  I appeased them by assuring them that we’d watch the free porn available in our otherwise shitty room.

As I contemplated which dirt urgently needed to be extricated from the ditch, my mind wandered.

I wondered why we were wrapping the pipe with warning tape, warning carbon based life forms not to drink it then burying the pipe under 18 inches of dirt. 

I wondered what my fellow compadres were thinking.  I discontinued this tangent, when it occurred to me that I really didn’t care what they were thinking.

I moved the dirt urgently…I really didn’t. I was slacking.

It became evident that we live in a world were common sense is an oxymoron and “honesty is the best policy” is a lie.

The difference between Darwin’s Theory and mine is I can prove mine.  The theory of evolution has many holes not the least of which is thousands of our best and brightest have worked to prove it and haven’t. 

And of course there is “the bucket” that would appear to be evidence that we haven’t evolved much.  Humans invented work.   And then there is coming into contact with fellow carbon based lifeforms…more evidence to the contrary.

The only thing standing between me and an asylum is a ride.

I realize the perma-smile on dolphins is because they know something we don’t and are infinitely smarter than us (not a major accomplishment).  They are so smart they never invented work.  They swim around in groups, procreate and live. 
I have become one with the shovel.

My theory… proof:

Warning label: Do Not Put in Mouth…this was on a FAX machine.

Corporate America.  “Honesty is not the best policy”. 

Honesty has given me the opportunity to be unemployed many times and cost me many female induced orgasms.  Many is a close enough estimate for orgasms since the loss of one is a traumatic experience and causes endless angry s-mails from the frequently unemployed phallic region.

The inventor of the shoe is under-appreciated.

My mind continues to stumble-off, proof…oh yeah…

Common sense is an oxymoron?

Nudity should be a controlled substance as those that should wear more, wear less and vice versa.

Shit another s-mail from the phallic region: Migrant work stimulates abstinence.  Can’t argue, no reply.

Honesty and common sense:

There was a guy working at a big corporation that heard another guy boasting to all his co-workers about his sexual escapades the night before.  Being a manager he reported said discussion.

He got written up for lack of tolerance to alternative lifestyles.

Was fired 2 weeks later.  I don’t know the guy very well,  because it’s me.

I sure hope I’m living in an alternate universe where common sense and honesty do count for something.

We’re living in a time devoid of great creative minds or seemingly devoid. Yet there are 7 billion minds. Where are the Da Vinci's?

I pulled an incompetent pinhead off cash register duty, because when it got busy he began to shake and scurried to the back room.  There are no cash registers or customers in the backroom.

A couple days later I got a call from corporate headquarters (the place where common sense goes to die), the father of the incompetent pinhead was going to sue the company and me for racial discrimination. 

Odd, since we were a diverse group and others of his race were working the registers.  Of course this was because they were competent, so evidently I was discriminating against incompetents.

The company said I needed to put him on the register every shift…so if I needed four people, I now needed five to cover his ass.  AND he was costing me money since I couldn’t meet the man hours budgeted by the same company that told me I had to put said pinhead at the register, so I got no bonus. 

Common sense where art thou?

Why didn’t the intellectual blackhole of a father call the Packers and threaten to sue if his son couldn’t start ahead of Brett Favre?  He was as qualified for that as running a cash register.

Politically Correctness is the modern version of putting blinders on.  Just rename the problem and it will go away. 

Shit, gotta watch out for the shovel.

The ditch digger is ripping at the earth, jagged teeth spewing dirt akimbo.  On this rather clearly dangerous machine is a large sign that says dangerous.

The golfers are complaining about the lack of sun, me and my shovel are not.

One of the major problems with civilization is its inability to allow natural selection.

No question Hitler and Germany itself were the most influential on the 20th Century.

France?  They came up with the impenetrable Maginot Line.  Inadvertently creating the bypass. 

One can only imagine the parlay:

“I don’t suppose you’d mind coming back and fighting us at the line?”

“Uh, I think it’d be better if we bypassed your big guns and endless shells and concrete and took on your horse powered cavalry.”

“Bypass?”

“Yes, go around and make useless.  You see those guns could cause injury or death and should be labeled as such.  I’d much rather the odds favor our tanks against your horses and rifles .”

“What do we do?”

“Contemplate your embarrassing fate in history, polish the guns and go home to Paris, Germany.”

Gluing pipes together is pretty damn easy.  I thought about sniffing the glue.  I stopped thinking about it and sniffed.

Good glue.

I missed my shovel.  I vowed to found the People for the Ethical Treatment of Inanimate Objects. 

Problems?  How the hell did they sneak in here?

I know I’m broke.  I know my body is exquisitely broke.  I have accumulated 13 dollars for the week.  I know I live in shithole hotel with drug dealers, vagrants and hookers.

Hookers are pretty pleasant.  And anyone that gets people to pay for sex with them deserves respect. 

Furthermore, people that give pleasure are a good thing.  Most people should wear warning labels. 

Ex.: Danger: Synapse free zone.  Danger: May speak!  Danger: Almost ate FAX machine!  Danger:  Pissed-off Middle Manager! 

Which segues into my quandary over my next adventure? 

What the hell do I do after migrant work?  I’m already undisputed lord of the idiots (Castanza was a lightweight).  My body was not built to be a porn star (a fact I often lament on long cold nights).

Obviously Chef is out.

I immediately discontinued reality based thought and sent mind out to wander as I glued more plastic together.

Mundane, meaningless, E=MC2 all of these things my mind has fumbled into.  I need to know E=MC2 like I need another orifice or calculus…Teachers did not adhere to honesty is the best policy, because the truth would’ve eliminated their job.

But mundane and meaningless…those are useful. 

I’m leveling off a trench where pipe will be laid to create faux rain showers to grow grass so carbon based lifeforms can putt. 

Completely meaningless to the universe, and it really should be to the people putting as well.  But, I have putted and at the time it seemed urgent that I send that ball immediately into the hole, any delay was catastrophic.  I swore a lot, I still do.

I used to carry clubs for golf, now I have a pickaxe.

At least if you’re golfing you’re not doing any damage to the universe, so golf is good.  Since humans left unattended tend to invent things, like war.

I decided I had glued enough pipe to circumnavigate Marlon Brando…should be enough; I put the cap on the glue.

The inventor of the wheel is on my shit list.

Knee deep in mud, a pipe has broken.  It’s OK.  We’ll fix it and it’s easier to tell when to stop showering when color-coded.  Brown water?  Keep showering.  Clear Water, all done.

13 dollars for 5 days…laundry has suddenly become an extravagant luxury.  And I’m out of Ben Gay…looks like I’ll be wearing ode de migrant worker for the week.

Corporate Memo: Real or fake?

If customers drop eggs prior to purchase people will have to buy more eggs, begin dropping. 

It has been established that the dropping egg policy is not increasing egg sales as previously hoped. 

People are shopping elsewhere, discontinue egg dropping. 

Egg sales dropping will be factored negatively in to your bonus quotient.  Thank you for working at Dumbassmart.

Leave no stone left unturned….  I’m not.

There are good holes and bad holes.

Time is man made.

How the hell was I supposed to know to call ATT? 

Well, I would. 

You work for the Phone Company.  I’m sorry, is there something on the bill that says please call us if you call someone new because we reserve the right to rip you off if you don’t call us?

That’s our policy.

Are you reading to me out of a book?

Yes.

Is the person that wrote the book available?

No.

So, you’re not allowed to make decisions.

Sure, out of the book.

Right… thank you.

Waiting impatiently for the soda scandal.  12 idiots award millions to a single idiot who was surprised to learn that the bazillion sodas he drank gave him cavities.

All our jobs are meaningless or worse.

Yeah, I hear ya. 

What about doctors? 

Doctors will be tried and convicted for saving lives in the forthcoming Crimes Against the Universe trial as most lives need not be saved.  And the universe and the Earth's environment would be better off without us.

I have a friend that wanted to be a palm tree; he’s still trying. 

Most people waste time talking about work in a futile effort to convince themselves and the person pretending to be listening that their job is important.  It’s not.

Apathy, wherefore art thou?


MIGRANT WORKER’S WORLD CHANGES, AS DID YOURS

Today perspective was in flux.  I went to work, stunned, not unusual for 7 A.M.

Even in a relative stupor, it was clear my “theory of devolution” had burst into reality and Darwin was looking a bit foolish.

To be, or not to be.  Previously contemplated, but not from this angle or with new disturbing information. 

Today, I just wish I weren’t. 

Weren’t a relatively self-aware carbon-based life form.  Weren’t feeling sick. 

This is the reason I’m alone.  Failure is rampant, in my pursuits, and one-day the answer may be not to be.  This is an adventure taken alone.

My disappointment in humanity has set a new halcyon standard in an abyss previously unexplored.

I was glad to see my shovel, I said Hi. 

But, it was the pickaxe I needed.  I needed the therapy of thrusting and tearing; the calm that follows slamming it into the Earth until it cannot be lifted. 

My mind raced, the pickaxe slammed into the dirt.  I noticed the moisture splattering in the dirt emanated from my tear ducts.

A recurring picture.  A horrendous recurring picture. 

A woman stressed that she could not find her golf glove.  A man lamented his soreness from bowling the night before.  My pickaxe and I were nonplussed. 

There was laughter from other golfers.  This only added to my current heightened state of confusion.  A level of confusion I had not dreamed existed and I’m an expert on confusion.  As evidence I offer what you’re reading.

I desperately wanted to be an inanimate object. 

I needed a different tool.  I saw the tool.  It headed away from me at a rate greater than I was willing to travel.  I filed that shovel under pipe-dream and went back to the pickaxe.

I had a sneaking suspicion the dolphins have been trying to tell us something.

Embarrassed by human behavior for a long time (Mine especially).  I don’t know what to call it now. 

I am highly distraught to be trapped on this planet with horrendous beings proving to be nothing more than a virus, on an otherwise pleasant planet.  A virus that kills its own.

The thought that there was blissful ignorance and, worse yet, celebrations on this day caused tear ducts to engage.  I swung the pickaxe.

I find myself longing for a gun.  I wanted very much to commit justified homicide.  Violence begets violence, but reality must be dealt with realistically. 
Logic and, yet again, common sense are very hard to apply at this time. 

Insanity reigns with its friend Chaos.  I’m a mess.  Physically shaking at what I witnessed with a cola in my hand this morning.  I assure you it wasn’t unbelievable, the fact that a sad pathetic intellectually challenged life form has been to the moon is unbelievable.

This was believable, a new reality. 

Why?  If we can deduce the motivation, we have a chance to eliminate the motivation.  My stomach turns, its possible this action did not contain a motivation more than hatred.  Hatred is hard to treat and harder to cure.  I hate hatred.

I tried; I really tried to bond with the pickaxe.  But, my mind, the same mind that won’t let me sleep with lesser thoughts being blended about, kept blending.

I knew I wouldn’t make it past lunch.  I needed to be alone, more alone than I was being the only English speaking person around (other than golfers).  But golfers don’t really chat with migrant workers covered in mud, digging trenches.  I needed to be away from other lifeforms.  Because what I saw won’t go away.  Still shaking, still digging.

Trivial.  What we do is trivial.  I suspected as much, yet today proved this true.  I had the urge to track down and slap the woman that lamented her lost golf glove.  I wanted to increase the soreness of the poor golfer/bowler and search for a soul in there. 

Could blissful ignorance be the answer to a happy life?

Fuck, I hope not.

Surreality has become reality.  I gazed into the empty sky.  This is L.A.  The sky is empty?  The absence of planes was eerie and again I was sick.

For some one, somewhere, this horrific cowardly loss of life is a victory.  Am I making myself clear?  I hope you’re not looking for your golf glove.

This flies in the face of all I know to be true and good.  This trivializes everything.  Everything!

The thought of committing planetary suicide by nuking the whole fucking place somehow seems reasonable. 

This way we could be sure to rid ourselves of the horrid creatures that make up what is incorrectly identified with the friendly and positive term…humanity.

The dirt has kindly allowed me to tear away, it knew I needed it.  It occurred to me that I’d rather spend time with this dirt than some humans, OK many humans.  The dirt has no intention of killing me.  Any deaths caused by dirt have been accidental.  This was no fucking accident.

It’s still not enough.  The sweat, the pickaxe, the sun can’t sear this sick, putrid feeling from my soul. 

I was thankful to be a migrant worker, digging dirt.  Getting in touch with something primal, something old.  Something pre-dating our finely honed halcyon skill-level in killing each other.  Fuck it, I’m going home.

My shitty hotel room offers the loneliness I need and my friend is there.  My computer.  I need my computer.

Knowledge is power, is unwanted.  This knowledge

I don’t need any humans.  It would, however, be nice to have someone to breakdown with.  Because the females of the species I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with are of the kinds that have feelings and would not have been looking for their fucking golf glove.  Not today.

Today the fact that I’m a broke migrant worker pales to the new surreality.  My whole being sickens.  My beat-up body isn’t sending any s-mails; it knows I’m too fucking busy dealing with my mind, my existence. 

I send thanks to my body.

For today is in the year we chose to call 2001, the day the World Trade Center ceased to exist. 

Time heals all wounds…too slowly.

The day I was gut-punched with the multitudes of lives ending.  I was so fucking sorry for those that liked their lives and wanted to continue. 

And soo fucking confused by the life form that would perpetrate such a fucking cowardly and horrific deed.  I was nauseous, furious, shaking.

 I was so happy to be unhappy to be human.

It’s quite likely this book is a piece of shit.  But, I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t write faster. 

What if we would’ve sent food and medical aid in the same amount we spent in bombs and war to Iraq? 

Would we have been perceived differently?  Would the world have seen us differently?  Would this tragedy not have occurred?  Would the people of Iraq replaced Sadam themselves?  Who knows? 

I doubt it.  I have to doubt it, otherwise I’d have to blame myself for becoming a migrant worker and slacker and not writing this book sooner and I surely can’t handle that.

The water ran off my body.  The water on the floor of the shower was brown…brown…brown…clear.  I stopped showering.  I hoped covering my body in Ben Gay would help.  But, this pain was too deep…

Innocence long thought dead, was ripped into plain sight and killed again. 

Common Sense offered to help, was denied.  Chaos laughed, the perpetrators danced and toasted their success. 

I wished them dead; I wished huge amounts of pain inflicted on these damaged pathetic lifeforms.  Death, if it is just nothingness, would be a gift.

Humanity has been exposed as a sham.  Society’s frailty has been laid open.  This is not the circle of life.  This is insanity.  Such is this day.

“You can’t handle the truth.” True.

I don’t want this truth.

If you are wandering through life in blissful ignorance.  A person that does not feel, think or care about anything but our bubble world.  Please change or continue to do trivial, mundane tasks, so as not disturb those humans that are feeling and attempting to effect society in a positive way.  

Buildings collapsing, replay of the second plane swooping into the screen, destroying lives and the WTC…had a little problem with tear ducts.

I’m a “live and let live” person.  The person responsible for this is not a live and let live.  I want to kill this person.  I don’t like wanting to kill people.

This life form has declared all American’s fair game.  We are not warriors; we did nothing but be born. 

I’m aware of a minority of Americans that’ve been involved with synapse free decisions that lead to pain and suffering around the planet. 

The people used in this indescribable tragedy were fucking innocent.  I hate this person.  I do not understand this person. 

Logic and Common Sense run for cover.

I like guns.  They feel good; they’d feel even better now.

Fresh out of the shower, I plop down with my soda, just before 6 a.m., the WTC was on fire.  I thought, “shit, I hope they get that fire under control”. 

Then the second plane swooped in and struck (I missed the first), I was stupefied.  This was intentional, this was planned by another human, this was unusually high intensity of insanity.

A fellow human being that disregards life, commandeers innocents and kills them, and untold others befuddles, confuses, angers, saddens and causes me to turn my human membership card (it’s a run-on sentence,  and?).

I was already sick and angry when a fucking national anchorman asked repeatedly; AFTER the second plane slammed into a tower, “Do you think this is deliberate"?  He kept asking, he kept asking.  I wanted him fired.  I changed the channel.

I should’ve written faster (If for no other reason I’d have felt better.).  I’m a slacker by nature, we all are (I tend to be quite selfish as well).

Sorrow fills my soul as I continue to be deluged with disturbing information.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a galactic military faux pas in our minute history.  It united a fractured squabbling family.  It was Japan’s demise. 

It proves humans do not learn from their massively ill begotten mistakes

This does not bode well for the cowardly perpetrators here.  At least Japan faced us mano a mano.  These are faceless chicken-shits.  They haven’t even had the balls to own up or tell us what their fucking problem is?

It’s easier to discern good from evil today.

Bombing the brain-dead perpetrators back into the Stone Age would require a match and a firecracker.

Our spy cams should be on the lookout for dancing in the streets.

I want to save lives; I want to end lives.  A quandary?  A major fucking quandary, as I listen to people involved in this mindless attack.

I prepare for sleep…if it comes.  I prepare for more world-changing information.  I hate today, I hate being human.

Perception has many levels.  Innocence died some time ago.  What died today?

Levity surely suffered a major blow.

Writing is BS; writing should not be BS if we are a civilization. 

Devolution wins…I didn’t mean it to happen this way…need to stop thinking and caring.

I think, therefore I am…pissed.

All that I suspected has come true.  Humans suck.

I want to be a dolphin or a napkin.

We should discontinue the search for intelligent life elsewhere and play “hide and go seek” here…but we have nothing to hide.

KILL THE DANCERS

 
It wasn’t normal to want to kill dancers, before the definition of normal spun wildly out of control searching for its new definition.  The definition doesn’t exist.  Not yet. 

If this is now normal, then I will want to kill dancers and that will be normal.  This can’t be.

My first day in the New World sucked.

I joined the collective stupor that was for the sane.  While the insane danced in the streets.

This macabre scene angered.  They were celebrating the death of innocent humans.  Their fellow humans.  This couldn’t be normal. 

These jerk-offs are lucky it’s not logistically feasible for me to kill them, alas, the only gun I have is filled with grease.

I desire to shove the grease gun up their ass and pump until explosion occurs.

I hope my desire to kill dancers subsides.  I hope this is not normal.

I desperately want to curl up with a beautiful woman and have her whisper lies with my head buried in her shoulder.  Her wondrous hair caressing my face.  Breathe in her scent and her lies and tell myself that it’s true…”The world is all right, we’re alright.”

But, I’m in a trench, digging.  I concentrate on the trench, pushing the horrid pictures of the reality nightmare to the subconscious. 

I am going to dig the best damn ditch ever.  This worked for a while.

Then the plane swooped through my subconscious and entered my consciousness again.  Fuck.

What the fuck were they dancing to?  The Heil Hitler Polka?

Those that do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.  “We” is cumulative, we do not learn.  “We” is doomed?

I hope that some of the unfortunates were murderers or child molesters or really fucking bad people.  This helps for a bit.  But is this normal?

Yesterday there was no music; there was no comedy, just tragedy.  We need comedy. We need music. 

I hope this is not normal.

The triviality of my existence bitch slaps me again.

I’m numb.  My soul hurts, my mind wants to kill, I’m digging trenches.

I don’t feel like writing anymore.  I long for the absence of feeling, but I’ll settle for the collective stupor. 

I hope this is not the new definition of normal.

I hope for hope.

DAY THREE

of my contribution to the collective stupor reserved for the Sane.

I’m jolted back into reality by an angry s-mail from my hands. 

I immediately deal with the problem.  By explaining, in detail, to my non-English speaking compadre in English, the composition of the stakes we were pounding into the ground were simply jumbo slivers, comprised of millions of tiny slivers. 

Many of which were protruding from my hands.  Lodged there when he yanked the stake from my hands while I stumbled about in my stupor.

The blank, napkinesgue stare seemed sincere, he didn’t get it. 

I grew weary of exercising futility and put on gloves, over the slivers.  Proof that not all problems have finite solutions.

I returned to my stupor.   

A smirk slipped across my face, as I realized of all the sorrys I’ve felt…none of them have been directed at me.  Not for three days.


DAY 4

I awoke, I’m scared of the TV, I apologize to the TV, it’s not its fault. 

Reality and common sense have been sublimely absent; chaos, anarchy, depression, death, destruction and our planned insane retaliation to the insanity rule the airwaves.

Migrant work is not all it’s cracked-up not to be.

But I do find solace in ripping my body to shreds in the searing heat.  My pain for others reverts to s-mails from my body.  I am sane.

Turning on the radio was a mistake.  Danny Bonaducci (I couldn’t possibly be experiencing any more apathy about the spelling) was taking calls.

“You American’s got what you fucking deserve.”  In the New World this chaos based statement is now normal (millions of people feel this, I wonder why).

I wonder if the caller would like to rip out my spleen, using a cup of bleach and a spoon. 

The answer is yes.  I deemed said doctor ill equipped for surgery.

This carbon-based life form (I wish for a huge shortage or elimination of carbon) could somehow spew this.  I fling my arms akimbo and glare at the sky.  The sky appears nonplussed.

Bad is the norm, worse is obviously on its way.

The fucking idiot wouldn’t give his name.  We knew his accent.

Another person called and said he knew the voice (I hoped this life form was gonna get a courtesy call from the FBI before he offended our collective souls with his call.  The psychic network should’ve seen this coming and called the FBI.)

The caller identified this fecally based life form.  To my opposite of glee, he is:

A (not from this country) doctor in residency in the US.

Can a mind go akimbo?  My mind is normally a blender.  Now emulsifier.  Humanity was shammed.  This fucker lived in America, got his education here and was in favor of sending thousands of souls into the unknown.

If this is normal, death should be normal punishment.

Normal may become shaving our heads out of the fear that the new normalcy may include blowing our noses in each other’s hair. 

Since this “doctor” believes life will be better in the next one, I suggest we American’s help him out.

I dig ditches.  What the unfortunates did, I do not know.  I do not know a lot of things.

Hippocratic oath?  Yet, another lie.

Why do we deserve this?  Were substandard ditches dug?

Received an s-mail from lungs, they’re concerned they may be hacked-up out of sheer repulsion at the happenings of the world.  I assured them I had no idea how to hack-up a lung.  They relaxed. 

I continued contemplating the New World.  Hacking up a lung seemed reasonable.   


SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK

It’s been a long time since a pool cleaning had been so urgent. 

Tuesday thrust the sickening putrid pool from the darkness.  Light caused the overthrow of Apathy. 

With Apathy out on his ass, Despair, Sadness, Hope, Mourning, Anger and various others ruled with a common vision.  These disparate feelings have been at odds since humanity ate an apple in some far off garden. 

But, it was time to kick Petty Differences to the curb, next to Apathy, and focus on the urgent emergency pool cleaning (they also agreed to discuss the elimination of Petty Differences definition, because it’s petty and the world would be better if difference was never plural).

The most powerful carbon based lifeforms in this New World Reality are the Sane Pool Cleaners Union (to the best of our knowledge, since we can’t ask the Dolphins…yet). 

Around the marble, Top Level Pool Cleaners conferred on the pool cleaning.  All agreed it was urgent and late.  Some grumbled the cleaning should have been done before Tuesday.

This pool is immense and putrid and dangerous.  It was obvious some of the pool cleaners would live to clean no more pools.  But, this was urgent and Sanity demanded it.

While procedures and cleanser types were discussed, hundreds of thousands of pool cleaners gathered from all corners of the light world (it was in the dark corners and caves where Lethal Contamination hid).

The Pool Cleaners gathered, knowing full well that Apathetic Neglect had been in charge far too long.  This was now a dangerous pool.

The pool cleaners were told that Anger would now be in charge.  The other feelings gave way.  Harmony ensued.  Anger would lead the way.

Common Sense assisted Anger (although Common Sense, tired of the snickering behind his back, has changed his name to UnCommon Sense).

The Angry Pool Cleaners waited, ready to clean.  Other sane carbon based lifeforms, united in mourning, wished the pool cleaners well.

Petty Differences kicked at the dirt.  Frustrated its role in the New World was greatly diminished.  

Boggling was much more common than Petty Differences and Kindness was making a comeback.

Common Courtesy tempered its contentment at becoming common again, in deference to Mourning and Despair.

The Pool Cleaners checked their tools.

Top Level Pool Cleaners conferred.

Insanity was off in a corner, perplexed by a problem it had faced throughout history.  It was once again asked to attack itself.  It knew it was necessary, but always struggled with limited suicide.

It was obvious to the Pool Cleaners and other sane carbon based lifeforms that this cleaning would be painful… As bleaching the gene pool always is. 

A DAY OFF

…is usually a welcome respite to migrant workers that toil 6 days a week, ten hours a day in the searing heat.  This day was not welcome.

I implored Depression and Despair and Grief to take the day off.  I was assured they found me a pleasant sort, but this was not possible.

I plodded off to the Laundromat, stuck some quarters in the machine, shoved clothes and soap in.  Pushed START.  The machine didn’t.

The place brimmed with activity, people of all nations.  I knew this because I couldn’t understand any of my fellow clothes washers. 

I smiled and nodded at a few of them, they didn’t reciprocate, I discontinued this activity.

I had heard that people were being kinder to each other in this new reality.  This did not seem to be the case here. 

It popped into my head, as I unloaded my clothes and re-loaded my clothes, that it was possible that being kinder in this neighborhood may be the absence of pummeling about the face and head.  And since I found no evidence of pummeling I took solace.

I was suspect of the two shitty machines I was now stuffing quarters into, some of my last quarters, my last money until banks re-opened Monday.  I thought it odd that a person of my obvious good taste would buy only brown clothes, but this was true…

Water started filling the machines.  Grief allowed a smidgen of Joy.  The machines did not shake with the intensity I was used to.  And these brown clothes required an intense machine.  I wondered whether semi-clean clothes would suffice.  I thought about washing them twice.  Lack of currency occurred.  Semi-clean would do.

Change and Pain hang together.

I have an immense lack of fondness for gyms.  Paying for a room full of machines to torture your body seemed silly, yet legal.  Paying for pleasure is illegal (boggling, I discontinued pondering this).  At least in migrant work you get poorly paid to torture your body.

A month into migrant work my muscles have begun re-shaping my flab.  V is forming; veins are evident in arms.  Change brings Pain with it every day.

Earlier I railed against Apathy and lack of Responsibility in society.  It was far beyond comprehension that the problems I railed against would be Responsible for Trivializing all other problems in such a horrid way.

The Sane have been emotionally pummeled into this changing world.  We have been given an opportunity for something sought often and achieved rarely, Greatness. 

Born of this tragedy, we find the Sane united against the Insane.  United.  I have long suspected the world would become one, you’re either in or out.  I did not think I would live to see this, I may not.  As I pondered how this would come about, Pain was always there.  It’s here now.

We have the chance to immortalize that horrifically tragic day for time immemorial as the day the world changed…for the better. 
The Sane would stay united and work for the betterment of humanity, shove Insanity into non-existence or at least into the dank dark smelly little holes where Insanity be condemned to serve life sentences with Hatred eating away at their souls.


If a unified sanity came out of this, I thought, what we now struggle to understand and perceive as unthinkable.  Would become thinkable and remembered as THE day The New Sane World declared its independence.  And united to create a kinder world and fight Insanity…Forever.

But we are deep in this time of Change and Pain.

I asked Time what would come of this?  He would not tell…now.

The unwelcome day-off plodded on.

My semi-clean clothes are dry, but at least they’re wrinkled.  I was applying Ben Gay when the urge to use the lavatory struck me.  These two activities should not be mingled and required a quick shower to alleviate icy/burning.

There was a time when physicians used bloodlettings and leeches.  This was deemed incorrect.  Yet, today we ponder bloodlettings on leeches and it seems correct.

“There is no time like the present” searches for its new definition.  We mourn.

Re-applying Ben Gay, resolute to avoid certain areas.  Sent s-mail to eyes not to itch.

I feel it.  Our mourning, our pain will turn to Anger.  Anger and Desire will unite and collectively be set-upon Insanity.  Comprehension boggles.

I’ve been enjoying a bout with hives over the past two days.  There was a time when this would be annoying.  Now trivial.

I was quite sure that Happiness was not enjoying its abduction by Insanity and quite looked forward to returning to the Sane. 

Solace popped-in, as I was assured Sanity was working on the return of Happiness.

Although it was clear that Happiness would never be the same.

I resolve not to enter the world again today.  My day off would be from humanity.  Just me and my computer.  It has done nothing to me.  I thank my Computer.

Patriotism runs rampant, worldwide.  Hearts go out to America.  This is good.  But this is a world patriotism I wish it to linger long.

The American Flag flies in parts unknown and is burned by the Insane.  In this time of unity I wish to see a flag of the world.  A flag of the Sane.  For this is our chance.  Greatness offers itself to those that rescue Happiness and vanquish Insanity.

An offer we shan’t refuse?

Resolve of the Sane must not wander.  Pain apologizes, as it informs me that it’s gonna be around for a while and assures me it finds me a pleasant fellow. 

Destiny awaits our decisions.

Curious.  I spend my days trying to learn the Espanola of my amigos and nights trying to communicate with Middle Eastern folks that own and operate all the hotels I stay. 

I’m surrounded by squalor, yet it’s OK.  I just hoped I’d find the Flag flying from my dingy hotel.  It is not.  It’s not flying enough in this shit hole.  I hope they are not involved.  I hope they are not dancers.  For Rage would enter the picture.  Rage is not welcome on my unwelcome day-off.

I won a contest today.  I was proclaimed the world’s greatest migrant worker writer.  I started the contest today and told no one about it and selected myself as judge.

My shoddy room piled with books by Miller, Zinn, Parker, Tolkien, Hemingway, Hawking, Salinger, Nabokov, Nin and others.  They entered my contest…the judge disqualified them.  They were not migrant workers.  Cheaters never prosper.  I won.

A massive search ensues for humanity’s ruby slippers…

Alexander shan’t have wept, for there are always worlds to conquer.  As we conquer, we must realize this war is eternal. 

They show their tanks, weapons and military…they do not know.

Tomorrow marks the one-week anniversary of what may become a new Independence Day.


INDEPENDENCE DAY ANNIVERSARY

Welcome to Earth, where everyday is a near death experience.

It’s morning, I’m mourning. 

Acedro, my co-worker, asked me my religion at lunch.  We were moving sand, as sadly, sand does not move itself.  I told him my religion was nothing, I had beliefs and they were mine.  He nodded.  Time passed, my burrito thought of passing.

I’m Kathuleek,” he said.

The religious topic had passed, I was onto repositioning sand.  No comprendo.

He repeated, I got it.

He’s Catholic. 

He said with verbal and visual communication that his son was sick one.  A fever.  A very bad fever.  Hands locked into claws, lockjaw the doctor said they would do what they could.

Acedro needed a church.  He knew the church he wanted.  He knew he needed to chat with God.  He needed to ask why? 

He walked to the church.  Asking why.  On the way people offered food…

He walked and asked and called home and walked and asked.

…and shelter.

He walked for nine days to the church.  He called home, the fever broke.

I’m not religious, but this was a wonderful story.  This world needs wonderful stories.

I know, Migrant Work has not really been the topic.  It just gives me the time to think and observe.

The sound of planes overhead means the world is trying to find normalcy.  Yet there is a distinct lack of unrarity in military planes.  Not fighters, transports.  The swooping plane will never leave me.

I have been forcing beautiful women into the conscious, this helps.  Beautiful, kind, intelligent, pleasant, charming women.  I know I will be with her.  I’m not sure where or when or her name, but this too shall pass.

I am not terrified today.  I’m horrified, stupefied, mortified by the actions of people that shall remain nameless.  Much as people do not discuss syphilis.  I shan’t discuss them.

Most American’s are far from terrified.

I’m sad and pissed that I’m sad. 

I stopped reading the daily; I read it when I think I can stand it.  The news is never good, because good news doesn’t sell.  This is why we are sheltered by all the “little tragedies” occurring around the world.  It doesn’t sell so we don’t report it.  We are so enamored with our self-importance and getting here and there and this doesn’t affect us.  Apathy runs amok.

It doesn’t sell papers or get viewers tuning in.  But this is our fault, we didn’t care.  Do we now?

I’ve done the world a small favor by writing only what I know very little about.  Had I chosen to write about things I know nothing about trees would be extinct.

My Mind finally wandered off, thank God.  I think he needs help.

I was in retail for a while.  I think this memory popped in because of the crack head screaming and kicking the car outside my rather shoddy hotel room.  He kicks it and hollers “…you’re gonna be sorry when I’m gone…”.  I had a poor vantage point, but could not see who this rant was aimed at.  But, I was sure this cracked out individual was incorrect. 

People were always willing to help me out with the free time I had none of.  They’d pile in their car and zip on down to holler at the underpaid manager.  I had developed the concerned look, practicing in mirrors.  I, however, was not concerned.

I wondered if they cared what I was thinking about. 

I was thinking about how it would be nice if they entered the “Think Before You Speak” program and upon graduation immediately stopped thinking.

I wondered if they thought about leaving, as I did.  Just walk off, leave them randomly screaming and go home.  But this would only cause corporate calls to regarding complaints.

These incidences were more common than sense.  The mirror confirmed my suspicions; my concerned face had become my quandary face.

It’s the face I wear most of the time, now.

I’m sorry for all the losses.  Very sorry. 

Shit, my mind just wandered in…and brought a Memory with it.  Hm, I remember it fondly.  As I remember most intimate time spent with females. 

Well, I have been forcing the unthinkable from my mind by using the female form…

Thoughts from a person trying to force horrid thoughts into subconscious:

I know why he brought this vision along, but this might make lack of female companionship a bit trying…

I’m gonna checkout now and enjoy a memory from long before Tuesday.

A FEMALE TANGENT
Continued in Common Sense Guide to World Domination 2