SuicidalUtopia.com

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.