the bullet. he remembered about that. when had that happened? or was it yet to happen? or not happen? or not to have happened?
    or a kiss.
    cracking. it continues. a door opening and closing. or doors.
    and a thousand songs all about the troubles in the world without love. and about how we're supposed to feel about this or that.

    and a wound precision. a crackling scratching glass sound of those getting their digs in.
    and he surrendered the last of it so he could think - so he could feel - so he could experience what it is. so he could sit back and watch the movie and eat his popcorn.
    we want everything. but what are we willing to do to get it and defend it? what sacrifice is made? what is returned?
    a first born of each. a parade of the thankful.

    he cuts out the heart. he picks it up and watches it beating in his hand. who does he protect? who does he save from the crowd around him going for each other's throats trying to be the ones saved? push to the front of the stampede running itself into the wall.
    he's walked out on it more times than he can remember. he's stood on the beach watching the distant surrounding storm. the clouds rising from the fires of destruction.

    what does anyone remember - or care to remember - now of all we've done to get ourselves here?
    he walks through the house with the great hall and the many rooms. what has been mistranslated from mind to mind? what does he misunderstand? what is out of place or missing? - or that has been added that should not have been? is it revelation or a conjuring trick?
    he tries again tracing it back to where and when it seems to begin and ends up everywhere all the time here and now.
    his mind has stopped reeling. it's spinning having reach an equilibrium. a sound of harmony including all discord. he's opened it to the furthest reach as to not have to separate any of the elements of the composition and set them aside unused. and he listens. and he watches and waits. and he's had to split himself into two and three and more in order to have company in order to have someone else to talk to and listen to who had anything to say about what was really happening - or what appeared to be happening, which may it wasn't. how was he supposed to know? but even if it were only appearance, what was really happening to cause the appearance?
    and the other would come by once in awhile to tell him that it knew but wasn't going to tell him. he had tried to get it to before but it had vanished into nothing. in its place - or what appeared to be in its place - was an empty void. space filled with all that was empty. or something like that. or so it appeared.
    and he thought about this. he turned everything around so that it became subject and he was object. and he saw himself as an element of its composition needing to be separated out and set aside in order for it not to be troubled by this one thing in its mind refusing to stay tuned to the key it had set within certain parameters as to keep its mind quiet from any and all nagging doubt coming to it like a child asking why.
    in the other's house were rooms that were kept locked always and forever with things kept in those rooms that must never be allowed to get out. he was kept in one of these rooms. it was in that room that he had built his own house where all the rooms were open for anything to come and go as it pleased. all except one room where the other lived. in that room it kept itself locked up.
    and he has no mouth. and he must scream.
    he walked out of the house and into the garden. in the garden is a great old tree. the tree bears fruit. early in the season the fruit is bitter and produces delusions of good and evil. later in the season the fruit is sweet as life itself. it produces visions of euphoria that seem to last for all eternity as the juice dribbles from one's chin and one needs to sit and rest and enjoy wide-eyed and amazed at the beauty and wonder of all one sees grinning without desire or fear or any of the other nightmares of before. let all come as it will and do as it will. one is left watching and waiting for it to end. and it doesn't. and one is watching and waiting for someone else to come and it seems that one will have to wait a very long time.
    all the times he has seen the other he has never seen the other in the garden. has it ever been here? does it even know it's here? instead it returns to its room and locks the door.
    oh well. ho-hum.

    he walks through the streets of this babylon talking to himself. he doesn't understand this. they brought him here, taught him language, and then when he spoke told him to shut up. and when he wouldn't shut up they walked away so they would no longer hear him. now they laugh at him like they laugh at all the others who they have left talking to themselves. he only does so because they stuck their language in his head that he can't seem to get rid of no matter how much it doesn't go anywhere he wants to get to which is outta here and away from them and their ways or give him words that correspond to his understanding. they only circle around and trap one here. and the others who use this language to their own advantage don't seem to mind being trapped here because it gives them the power to trap others. he cannot speak to them in any way that they will listen to because he speaks of other things - strange things. what he says does not make any sense to them. their language does not make sense to him. it describes such little of the world that he sees. their world.
    this is what he speaks of - the world he sees. things to break down the sense of their reality and illusion of this babylon that it wraps around itself with language. this bablylon of language. this ancient labyrinth language of bablylon spoken of since its creation as ensnaring and corrupting and enslaving. yet once it has its grip hold in one's mind it creates illusions of utopia that replace one's ability to perceive reality and with these visions of paradise in one's mind one is ready to follow any instructions given without question.
    he laughs - also to himself. this babylon - and the more they deny it the more clearly he sees it. babylon o'babylon, how many have fallen under your spell only to end in ruin? he knows your face no matter what name you may use now today. he was your enemy then. he is your enemy now. and you recognize his face as well, do you not? and you have given him another name as well. a name that serves your purpose, not his. you're hoping he will forget who he is. and he did - almost. but something in his mind wouldn't let him forget. something in his mind kept nagging at him always everywhere day and night. he couldn't get it to shut up. he couldn't walk away from it and not listen and ignore it. he was frightened by it. to him it seemed as if it were madness come to get him. he was told it was madness by your priests and doctors. to others he was mad - is mad. why me? he cried. go away! leave me alone!  i don't want this. i want peace and quiet. i don't want to have to think about everything and question it until it told me answers that aren't lies. i don't care if all the answers are lies or not. fuck the truth. fuck everything. if i'm happy with illusions and illusions make me happy then why should i try to break through them? don't ask me to. don't make me.
    but it did. no matter which way he turned it was there. and each time a little more than before. it was taking over his mind no matter how much he tried to fight it and drive it back out and keep it out.
    he looked around him at all the others who were comfortably snug in their beliefs and untroubled by the doubt that always hounded him. wall after wall crashed in on him and he lost more and more ground and those around him and the world they lived and believed in looked more and more strange and he more and more strange to them.
    and the language he was taught deserted him as he was left with less and less words that made any sense describing what he saw happening. the words of babylon.
    until he was left with only me, myself and i. and we said hello. welcome back. and we held him in our arms as he wept for joy.
    and we took him back to our island where he is still.
    and we explained everything and anything.
    or so he thinks.
    we know better. we allow him to believe and doubt what he will or needs to.

    and it's this or it's that. or it is it without being this or that. just it, baby.
    a dreamer. a dreamer of dreams. dreams that cannot be proven if they are dreams or not. they are dreams. they are not dreams.
    pink.
    gazorbnik.
    piles and piles of useless junk. the swirls and swirls. the inane conversations of those around him. it pisses him off. it amuses him. let them speak on. let them serve what they speak of. all that they speak of serves us. he serves us. we serve no one except the machine as the machine serves us. he was left on the sreet by the machine. that is where we found him and took him in.

    the beast and the whore walking down by the river. the moon full and bright. the many many stars and the few clouds of silver. they speak to one another or they do not speak at all. there is no argument between them that causes disharmony though they rarely agree with one another. it goes on forever as they do. together they rule the world. apart they cannot even rule themselves. they are each made to kneel and serve other masters who are the masses though the masses do not know of this.
    these two create the image of the one. the one creates the image of the two. a trick done with mirrors. a trick we have learned from and taught to him and he learned from and taught to us. we create the images we see not only of all else but of each other.
    this is a weird story. it is a story of weirdness. it is a story told and heard before. it is always new however old it becomes. it is told as it was heard as it was told. it is a möbius strip tease story of climax and anti-climax and conclusion and no cnclusion always beginning where it ends. it is the story of alpha omega.
    alpha and omega were sitting on a fence. which fell off first? which fell off last? which side of the fence did either fall off on? riddle and riddle and riddle.
    piss and shit.
    fuck. fuck. fuck. fuck.
    and here we are in the middle. oh my! here we go again. ho-fucking-hum.
    gosh, does it ever get any more exciting than this? with castles in the air that psychotics build and neurotics live in and shrinks collect the rent. how much is one paying rent and to who? who's one's authority one dares not question? who is one's dr. feelgood? la-dee-da...
    but nevermind. we were telling a story, weren't we? aren't we? what's going on here? what's this nonsense?
    ok.
    we will tell the story we tell everyone who comes along this way. once upon a time they all lived happily ever after. but obviously they don't anymore. so what happened? where did that story come from? was it ever true? if so - how? if not - why not? can it ever be? is it just pretend?
    but do we really want to bother with that? how can we justify telling a story like that with all the pain and suffering in the world? does it matter if it's true or not? isn't it just escapist? immoral? cold and uncaring? and if so - who cares?
    we don't.
    once upon a time we lived happily ever after. then we were convinced by others that we weren't happy, that it was all an illusion. things didn't work that way. and we believed these others for a long long long time in utter despair and abject misery. then one day - or two - or three - or more, we decided that that didn't go anywhere except to get more worse and worse. then we told these others to go away and leave us alone. and they said, oh yeah - who's gonna make us? and so we picked up a big stick and said, we are. they didn't believe us at first until we cracked a few heads open and the rest split real quick like. and now we live happily ever after again just like we did once upon a time.
    and that would be the end of the story until the others came back with an even bigger stick and cracked a few of our heads open and then we were miserable again until we figured out that we got it backwards and instead of telling them to go away we went away. we found a place where and when they would never find us. and now we're happy again. of course we can never tell anyone where or when that place is excpet that it's here and now. that usually confuses most people but there are some who understand it and dig it and join us.
    and this is when most people we tell this story to tell us that it's a bullshit story and they don't believe it. that's fine with us. if that's what it takes to make them happy, then fine. but we look out and see that it doesn't make them happy. they are like the others who see life as totally miserable and full of despair. they seem very dissatisfied and confused with what they are doing with their lives though some of them are rich rich rich and have everything they might desire and everyone else also desires. and so that's their problem. we don't care. as long as they leave us alone, which they do because they don't know where we are or who we are.
    and this is how the story gets weird to most people.
    it just doesn't make any damn sense, they say.
    the language is why is gets so weird. there is nothing weird about it really - or not really. language does little to describe something weird except as describing it as wierd. it describes it as something that one is better off knowing nothing about. and most people do just that - know nothing about it. other words come into play, like madness. the message language delivers is that if one is weird then one is or is likely to become mad.
    oh boy.
    but we took our chances and that was pretty much what happened. we went mad. out on the street howling mad. people avoiding us when they saw us coming. all but other people who were just as weird as we were. and they took us in. here things slip into metaphor because there are no words. but if one has not experienced it then one would not know what the meatphors were referring to. that's how it gets weird. and nobody gets it excpt those weird few who are or are becoming mad.
    ha-ha-ha!
    yes yes yes...
    that is for whom this is all written. all others can go fuck themselves.
    because this world is getting more weirder by the moment. they try to shut it down. they try to impose their simple will on it but it blows up in their faces. the whole thing's gonna blow and breakdown sometime anytime. and then the weirdness will flow like river torrents released from the dam while everyone's running around in a panic with their chicken heads cut off while we grab our boards and shouting, surf's up! kow-a-fucking-bunga! - metaphorically that is...
    because we've been blown away before and there ain't that much more of us that can get blown away any further than it has been and is. one quick look at us will tell one that. and one quick look is all we usually get from anyone except a few who look at us and come up to us and say, hey, you're weird. can i hang out with you and talk? you need anything i can get you? something to eat? a place to stay? coffee? cigarettes? wanna fuck? etc.
    and we don't need or ask for much. just as much as we can get away with. but perhaps that's another story. but not really. it's all connected into one story. the only story there is to tell. it's our story and no one else's. and our story is nothing but lies. one can go write one's own story if one wants a different one.

    and the beast creates the whore. and the whore creates the beast. each in their mind's view of the other. and he is the beast. and she is the whore. and they live happily ever after. he must pay the whore. she must seduce the beast. and they breed their own kind. without him she is not the whore. without her he is not the beast. this seems to be each their nature. this is the origin of war. this is the origin of peace.  this has been the state between them for 10,000 years since they found themselves and each other out in the wilderness with loins and tigers and bears (oh my!) and spiders and snakes and poision apples and all manner of things imagined out in the dark night as they huddled around fires by the river and told each other stories. they had no one to tell them the nature of the world around them. they only had their vivid imagination.
    so this is not a story of seperating fact from fiction or truth from lies. we are not interested in that. let others bang their heads against that wall. we've stopped that childish foolishness and it feels great without that pounding rhythm driving one around the bend. this is a story that uses fact and fiction and truth and lies to paint a picture out of contrast like one would use light and shadow. we pick up our pallette and set to work on our masterpiece. we are amazed by our genius.
    but we are not the ones to judge or even defend what is produced from what we put together from who and what we are. we can only paint what we paint. we can only hope that it has some use for someone. but if not - oh well...
    and blah blah blah with that. it goes nowhere. we don't care who anyone is or what they make of it or whatever. what is anyone's identity? is anyone who anyone else says they are? is anyone who they say they are themselves? it's all us and them to us. one is one of us or one of them. and we are them. we don't see any of it changing anytime soon. we don't see it needing to change. why?

    the other judges him. it thinks it knows him. but in his experience with it it sees only an image of who and what he is. that is its entire experience of him - that image. an impression left on it by others hardened into a template it fits all others into. fill in what's missing and cutting off what lies outside. it molds its ideal and all who will not be molded into it are discarded back into the barrel of clay from whence they came. oh well. ho-hum.
    he does the same - or he did. he grew tired of it. it took too much of his time and effort and he took a hammer to his template he was using and smashed it into pieces and swept them up and put them in the trash. now the clay will have to mold itself. he will work with it no more. and he took apart his studio of kilns and connected them with parts of other wreckage of his life to design and build the machine. the machine that has won his heart and mind and provides all that he experiences.
    the machine is cold and the machine is warm. the machine feeds on the trash and in its feeding has found the broken pieces of the template he threw out and has fed them into its main program. the machine digests them along with other such broken and discarded things. and it digs into the clay and forms the beast and the whore and joins them together heart, mind and soul and gives them power over the dominated earth.
    he marvels at this. the machine has gone far beyond his design of it. it designs and builds itself. it is out of his control but not his influence. the machine still comes to him for his approval over this and that. he usually shrugs and grunts. whatever. whatever - the logos of the created universe. whatever.
    the machine may be confused but it does its job. the machine is in a catch-22 loop endless series of paradoxes set up to keep it from ever reaching an end connecting back to a beginning that would complete the curcuit and destroy itself and everything else besides.
    thus it is the perfect machine. the machine is his one and only masterpiece. he stands back and admires his work and creation that now continues itself while he hangs out in some cafe somewhere drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes or under the tree in the garden sipping lemonade or in a bar nursing a gin and tonic or just walking down the street enjoying the sun or rain or back in his apartment discussing whatever with his imaginary friends.
    he has absolved himself of any and all responsibility for what the machine does or does not do. he designed and built the machine to be self-correcting and to destroy itself if it could not. of course this never happened.

    and meanwhile somewhere else he has walked away. anger. people are stupid. destroy them all. these and similar thoughts flash on and off in his mind. we cannot speak to him when he is like this. we do not want to. he sees the human race at each other's throats and it gets to him. he's not like us. we find it amusing to see these intelligent monkeys in their various school uniforms rumbling in the streets like rabid dogs. lean to the left. lean to the right. stand up. sit down. fight! fight!! fight!!!
    popcorn! we shout. get your popcorn here!

    the open field of the machine he steps out into. he breathes. the noise of the ongoing destruction is behind him. he no longer hears it.
    and this door is everywhere at all times once he found it. before that it was nowhere. to be where he can hear himself breathing - where he can hear his heartbeat. - where he can hear his own thoughts. no more beating of the drums and the racket of trumpets and the crowds of people shouting above one another. though he is still surrounded by all that, it is silent. he feels none of its angst. he feels none of its pain. he feels none of its loneliness and despair. he feels nothing of what the others feel. he feels what he feels to its furthest unchecked limits that lie beyond any horizons of his perception. how far beyond these horizons it goes he does not know. he does not need to know. and what he feels is joy. the joy that arises from all his feelings at once combined together like colors make up white light. his love, his hatred, his sorrow, his happiness, his jealousy, his anger, his understanding, his frustration - each felt to its fullest and he embracing them all together into one experience of many experiences. it is joy that takes him beyond their reach. the joy more than the sum of the parts. without that what is the point of living another moment? he can think of none. and that was why he put the bullet in the gun and put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger to activate the machine. he was finished and done. he stepped back and saw that he could do no more. and the machine took over as it was designed and built to do.

    he was thinking of something and he could not think of what it was. something he felt he should do - that he should have done long ago. but now that feeling was gone. he grinned. he smiled. he laughed. something had been wrong with that picture but now that something was missing. now the picture had come to life. now the picture was everything he imagined it would be and more. and the more he saw the more there was to see. nothing repeating itself but the whole composed of basic elements. it was amazing. it had no beginning. it had no ending. it just kept going and going continuing a display of ever-evolving images. this was his masterpiece. if only someone else could be here now with him to see it. but who is here now? but maybe they did. they were part of it. how could they miss it? how could he have missed it before? it was not hidden. there was no secret to it. it's obvious. it's obvious to him and if it's obvious to him then why shouldn't it be obvious to anyone else? he is no different. or is he? how is he to know? he doesn't feel different. but what indication from anyone else does he get that tells him they're the same as he is?
    because he won't compare himself to them or their standards anymore. he did that before and it made him feel even more depressed and angry. he felt frustrated inside a box with no way out waiting for death to release him. or whatever else.
    he's found what released him. he's found the machine - or the machine found him. the machine brought him to itself as he brought the machine to himself. the machine of a thousand images beyond what he could imagine.
    and one of the images is the other. he sees the other always everywhere. he once thought the other was real but the machine has shown him that it is not - that it is an image it generates along with all the others. at first he was disappointed. at first he cried to know that he was alone. then we came to him and took him in our arms and held him until our hearts became one heart and our minds became one mind and our souls became one soul. and what we felt and thought and experienced since then we have felt and thought and experienced together the same yet differently. there is still him. and there is still me, myself and i. this is what he sought from the other and the other would never be able to give him. it was after all an image and an image it has always been and will be. and an image remembered that will fade and be forgotten. it could have been anyone. it was anyone. what was its name? a face in the crowd he walks among but is not part of. he is alone. he is alone with the machine. the machine provides all he wants and needs. the machine that creates all the images. and to him one image is as good as another. he expects none of them to be real. he wants none of them to pretend to be real. he watches the images of the others around him going through their programmed routines.
    he sits in the cafe and watches and waits. that is his programmed routine.
    digging graves and dragging bodies. coughing up blood. open oozing sores dripping pus. liquid shit and burning piss. swollen empty belly. he licks his lips. he moves another piece on the board. another million die. the machine hums.
    he operates the machine without operating it. it does not need to be operated. it operates itself and in operating itself it operates him operating it. a perfect alignment of purpose and will. where one begins or the other ends is impossible to tell. impossible for another who does not know and does not experience this. he knows from his experience where everything is. the machine tells him.
    we worry about him sometimes, though we know we shouldn't. no one else does, why should we? we could let him go, let him die at any time. but we don't. he has been let go by everyone else. we have taken him in and cared for him. we have answered his questions as best we were able. we're not sure how right any of those answers are but he seems satisfied with them.
    there is a space in the heart and in the mind and in the soul. a deep space that arises up from the origins of oneself. it is all that is inherited from one's connection to being human. it is perceived through imagination. it is known by metaphors and symbols and archetypes in stories that have been passed to us from our memories. one is this and one is also that. heroes and victims and villains and fools. the priests and the sacrificial scapegoats. the quests and the journeys. we play the parts and exchange roles according to the situation. it is not who we are. it is invention. but part of who we are is what we act out these roles.
    and there are those who have shut this space off. they have poured layers of steel reinforced concrete over it and upon that foundation built new identities that have nothing to do with being human. but that is also being human, yes?
    as the personalities of these new identities grew strong enough they managed to overpower and drag the real self down into the basement of this house they had built and throw it into a room behind a sealed wall. but it cannot be allowed to die. if it does the rest dies with it. it is fed enough to live on but not too much that it can do more than sleep in a lifelong coma. the most important thing is that it is silenced.
    and one can tell who these people are. one look in their eyes is enough. but one can also hear it in their voice as they speak. the words void of any emotion or imaginative expression. words used in their literal meaning. these people do not and cannot speak in metaphors. metaphors speak to and from the resonance of the deep space they have sealed off from themselves. their voices are flat and monotone or over-exaggerated. there are no chords or overtones. there are no themes or subthemes. they say exactly what they say and that's it. there is no fluctuation. there is just innuendo and sarcasm. their words bite and growl.
    and he sees more of these people every day. fixed and immobile behind a facade of free and active lifestyles picked off the rack from television and magazines.

    a quick fix fox.
    a liquid black box.
    don't look.

    alien: you are welcome to enjoy. you are welcome to be anything. present yourself to the command center for inspection, examination and assignment. or shut up and stay out of our way. do not interfere or you will be destroyed.
    him: i thought i had discovered something. i thought that in all these years i was uncovering truth from all the lies. i then saw that there is no truth. truth is another lie. this caused me to despair until i realized there were then no lies either. this caused me some joy for a moment eternal now. i am no one and i am nothing and i am nowhere at no time. that leaves everything else for me to be.
    chorus: you are a fool. you are an idiot. you are useless and worthless. you are a god.
    us: we see turnings of the machine. we turn the machine as the machine turns us. it does not matter if the machine and we turn in the same or opposite or otherwise direction. it is all turning and it turns all as all turns it.
    her: i love you . fuck me. i hate you. fuck me. i love you. fuck...
    x: images. the images of images producing images. the maze of mirrors leading to and from the hall of horrors. each is an escape to and from the other. how does one escape both is the question. arriving at that question is sometimes enough to give one the answer - if one understands how the question is arrived at and is needed to be asked regardless of it being able to be answered and besides that it's the wrong question.
    y: you are so full of shit i just can't believe it. you always mumble your secret little riddles and do nothing whereas i dominate the earth.
    him: i am tired. this is tiring. it exhausts me. i am constantly on the edge. the unknown is always staring me in the face. am i progressing? am i losing ground? am i insane? how am i to know? am i making more out of this than i should be?
    us: there are cracks in all of this and one thing leaks into another. this is how balance is maintained. there is confusion, but there is also stability - the stability of confusion, one might say. it revels nothing quite like a flash burst of enlightenment that burns away all illusion. no. not like that. but it isn't all that big a deal anyway. it is not something held out for the elite for them to wear as crowns on their heads. look out for them.
    her: where's my money? where's my money? where's my....
    z: am i the one? am i to speak? am i to question? am i to answer? do i exist? do i not exist? do i perceive? am i not perceived? does someone speak? do i hear? do i listen? do i understand? who is the one? who are the many? what the fuck? do i laugh? do i cry? should i kill? should i not? who? myself? another? how am i to know death? is it important?
    us: yeah, well - dada dada and more dada. dada-doo-wah-ditty-doo-dada. oh boy and ho-fucking-hum. our dear one beloved, we waste away here when we should be with you. but here is where we looked for you and all we have found so far are very ugly frightened minds cringing underneath a sense of being oppressed by one another.
    him: i live in my tomb. i live with what i have collected so far in my life.
    her: you are dog shit. you are dog shit. you are...
    him: and then i will die and leave it all behind. no more will i have to worry about it. it will be dust - less than dust. it will be as if never having been.
    x: all i see is images and i am blinded by them. but perhaps this is for the best as what the images blind me from seeing is nothing.
    y: that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. you do know that, don't you? i would agree only in your saying you are blinded. you are blinded by your stupidity.
    her: i wish you were jesus. i wish you were jesus i wish you...
    z: stupidity? what is that? what is being blinded by anything? what are images? what is nothing? what does it mean to agree? what does it mean to be for the best? do i know any of this? am i stupid? am i blinded? am i an image? am i nothing? do i agree? is any of this for the best?
    us: this is madness. this is hilarious yet saddening madness. this that we feel, think and experience we try to express. does anyone else feel, think experience these things like we do? well, not exactly as we do - we are each unique - but does anyone feel, think and/or experience it in any way at all beyond what has been set out for us to feel, think and experience? is that too complicated a question to ask? does it make any sense to anyone but me, myself and i? this is if even we can make sense of it. that is debatable. it is all delusion and madness. that is an answer. is that the only answer? how many possibilities are there? only one? two? three? 42? 666? what?
    her: i want to be free. i want to be free. i want...
    z: eh? dig? nevermind?
    god: i am that i am. and i am dead. but what possible difference could that make? if i am god can i not exist even if i am dead as well as living?
    us: shut up you old fool. who asked you to come into this? take yourself and your mouth that farts elsewhere. your time has come and gone and it's time for you to go with it. we worship ourselves now. the first ritual we observe is to get up off our knees and stand up on our own feet. the second is to grab you by the collar and the seat of your pants and show you the door and out onto the street where you and your kind belong. this is our house now. move along. and don't come begging for mercy. we will show you the same you have shown us. none.
    x: stars and stars and stars. atoms and atoms and atoms. yikes!
    y: the earth is all i need and all that grows and lives upon it. all that feeds and is fed in return. i love and am loved.
    us: let us prey.
    him: yes, well - another evening in the cafe. another cigarette. another refill. another notebook filling with words. sigh... it doesn't get any better than this living in the best of all possible worlds, speaking for myself that is. i don't know where these others are at. and i don't care. they have created hell out of their minds. these people are stupid and worthless. actually the only good thing about them is that they are stupid. stupid enough to pay me to sit around here doing nothing all day. how stupid is that? let them all conquer the world if they can. hooray for them!
    chorus: four legs good. two legs better. baa baa baa (ha-ha-ha...).
    alien: don't ask me because i don't know. i'm possessed at times by who knows what the fuck. i see lights and hear sounds i've never seen or heard before. something sort of flip flops and i'm here and zip zap i'm back again some place else. this momentary lapse of reason thing. this is probably a side effect of the machine especially in its mind shift/ship phase which is always and never. don't worry. be happy. everything is under control. maybe...
   him: but babble babble babble... it all comes and goes. doo-wah-ditty-dada-doo, baby. all the monkeys in the zoo, baby. they look like me and they look like you, baby. they look like everyone else too, baby. maybe they are us and we are them - could that be true? don't be sad and don't be blue. we'll be more than that before we're through. there's a trick to it all if you only knew. or you can be a cow and just say moo. and end up being part of somebody's stew. but i'm a coo-coo and i just flew. and i'm behind you about to shout boo. turn your brain into so much goo. and what exactly are you gonna do? turn around and chase me off with a shoe? but your brain is tasty and i love to chew. all your words are just you humming on some old kazoo. don't mean squat and don't mean poo. just another day in the zoo, baby.

    and he's thinking he's dreaming. all of this is nothing. it's all nonsense. all this in his head. why him? why his? it just sits there and does nothing but keeps him separate from everything around him. that's good in some ways. none of it can get to him. and we said we'd protect him, and we are. and we said we'd give him everything he wanted, and we are. well, except for destroying the world - but we're working on it. but there's others working against us trying to maintain it as it is. they feed on it like vultures who need death to eat though they never kill anything themselves. they just wait for it to die. but this makes them predictable and easier to control.

    sleep like a long long potato.
    sleep like a hat.
    sleep like god.
    sleep like as if understanding.
    sleep like a baseball game.
    sleep like the undercurrent basin of slowly turning cold cold water dark and clear.
    sleep like as if whispering secrets that are secrets only because they are heard whispering soft speaking hissing like baby snakes all in a nest practicing for the play.

    money and loud voices and a jumble of clashing sounds. the ritual of everyday disorganization. silence is put away, covered over, ignored and forgotten. whatever attracts the attention of the masses becomes background noise to only the truly loud and obnoxious who can actually attract anyone's attention above it. boom booming men and screeching squealing women. subtlety in any form is a long lost art. gone are the pregnant pauses and raised eyebrows and the ways one can exhale cigarette smoke without having to say a word to make a point. now the only gesture is a megaphoned shout.

    by and by. the action of events of action. which creates which once this ball is rolling, so to speak? and the third which is one of the two in different relationship to the other than previously.
    there is action. action creates event. event creates action. the former and the latter action are not the same. or maybe not. or maybe. and so on throughout the universe of threes. this and that and the other thing. and blah blah blah...
    and so here we are. and the ball keeps rolling along whatever path it keeps rolling along. the ball rolls along all paths and doesn't roll along any. that much is obvious. though most find it to be hidden and mysterious and secret knowledge when it is as simple as pie - though pie isn't always that simple. observation. simple undiscriminating observation. observation that does not divide one thing from the other or another. three. three in a tree. wheee!
    blowing in the wind through one's freak flag hair flying high high high higher highest. oh boy.
    amused and amazed by the wonder of it all without a care. and around and around and around in never ending never beginning. momentary timelessness of the motionlessness of motion. and one lights another cigarette.
    and one looks away and back into the fleeting speeding time of the moment in real spacetime that instantly contracts to 3 dimensions again almost with a thundering crash that almost knocks one off the chair one is sitting on at a table by the window in a downtown cafe one was gazing out ofz.
    what?
    one looks around to see if someone said something. no one seems to have. everything is as it was and is within normal parameters and more or less under control. our control. unless one believes in god or something cosmic like that...
    or is that where we started? shall we go around one more time? like the deadbeat club or something? or two more times? or three? or one two one two? or one one one one? or 6? or 9? or x? or q? or zebra and beyond and googley googley perplexed to the power of an infinite number of infinite monkeys infinitely entering infinite data into the infinite computer of spacetime thing all within a point not existing at all or in the time it takes to transverse the universes involved whichever comes first or last whichever while at the same time not moving past the dimensionlessness of the point itself? pull that out of a hat all those who would call themselves magicians both white and black. summon that from one's chants and rituals. call its name and bring its head to us on a silver platter. we will be then amused.
    or something like that.

    crossing x-ray.
    spot.
    bringing it in.
    slash.
    a dancing horse.
    taller.
    zipping qoo-qoo.
    ouch out oot boing.

    bablomk.

    in a series of series. in the winding and tangled labyrinth of minds. to reach the one mind within and without all minds. to speak of the one not as one of many but as the one as many. to speak of the one name as the name of legion.
    along the many paths of the path circling and circling each time around and if one pays close attention it is not the same. sometimes the subtle and seemingly inconsequential differences are noticed by the observant.
    it is this subtle and seemingly inconsequential difference one is left to follow with it appearing to lead anywhere else other than where one is and has always been - which one realizes is the punch line of the joke. or one of the many punch lines. and one begins to laugh a little to oneself. and once that laughter begins it never goes away or ends so long as one remains on this path that is the path of all paths and is no path.

    it's another place. it's another time. it's another mind. the constant noise all over all the time in one's head.
    what has led us here now to this mind would drive anyone human insane. are we still human? is what we have followed human? is there any difference?
    now that the voices of the masses are plainly heard in their shouting confusion are we any closer to utopia? whose utopia? where is this place where everyone gains and no one loses? where is this place where there is no more chance for anything to go wrong? does anything change there ever?
    where is it anywhere or at any time but here and now? how much further down the road in either space or time? how much longer is this journey? how many more promises are we to be promised before even one of the promises we were promised thousands of years ago is delivered? how many more times are these questions to be asked without anyone answering them?
    he doesn't know what any of the answers could be to any of these questions or those related to them. all he knows is that when he looks around at what he sees around him that these questions come to mind. yet we struggle on. yet we speak our lies to one another and create this reality out of them.  and the questions are silenced. who seriously asks them anymore?
    are we serious?
    ha!

    and those who ask them - or any questions at all regarding the state of things - are those outcast and isolated from the rest who do not ask them. from those who have decided not to ask them but who also feel that anyone who does ask them must be deranged and lost and confused if not out and out mad and insane. and these are to be pushed aside and ignored. they are troublemakers obstructing the progress of the history of civilization on the march and of the lives of the faithful who march along with it. onward toward where the streets are paved with gold. like they wouldn't rip up the bricks as soon as they arrived.
    forward to the land of promises.
    believe or get out of our way!
    and it is that those who question are removed and left behind while the caravan of promises moves on - dogs barking all the while.
    and it is then - here and now - being left behind as the circus packs up its props and tents and boards the train to tomorrow that the answers slowly come to one as the noise settles down and recedes into the distance taking itself over the hills and far away and the peace and the quiet return in its absence.
    this is it.
    eh?
    yes?
    no?
    maybe?
    kiss it good-bye.

    itchy armpits.
    an understanding of certain knowledge though without knowing of certain knowledge as that knowing will inhibit if not totally obstruct any and all attempts of further understanding beyond that understanding one has knowing certain knowledge should be undertaken in order to understand what is written about here if that is anything or if it is to be anything. one upon gaining certain knowledge will come upon any number of facts and proof that will make this seem to be no more than nonsense. one then need only look out one's window to see what world these facts and proof lead to. it leads to possibility that once arrived at the very facts and proof of certain knowledge one followed and used to arrive here makes any further possibility impossible. that's where nonsense comes in handy and can be applied if one is still open to it at this point - which few are.
    knowledge can only refer to itself. it is then called truth. this that is written here - that we are writing -  is not truth but refers to knowledge from beyond and outside certain knowledge known as truth. that is where one needs to position oneself and to keep oneself positioned in order to make use of knowledge and one's understanding of that knowledge. once one subscribes to the truth of certain knowledge and its facts and proof one is lost. one gives up thinking and surrenders to formulas that give one more facts and proof. facts and proof of what? that one is living in a cage of certain dimensions and certain substances in a certain location for a certain duration of time? what is that?

    us: yes, well - it goes on and on, doesn't it? we smoke another cigarette or two. and dada dada dada yada yada yada. it's simple and complex. bring it down and bringing it up. and one person's christ is another person's anti-christ. who is to say who is right and who is wrong? not me, myself and i. the world divided and dividing who are the heroes or the villains? who are wise and who are fools? what is mysterious and what is common knowledge? so who's to play what role? who is to create? who is to destroy? which is good and which is evil? we flip a coin and mark co-ordinates on a grid. x, y, z, q, 42 - hike! go, team, go! will good triumph over evil or evil over good? or will the score remain tied in eternal overtime? when is it over? when do we get to go home and forget?

    the arriving hordes of those who want more and more. fresh troops landing on the beach ready to have their open minds filled with propaganda - who have nothing in their open minds capable of resisting. and after awhile on the frontlines they come to slowly realize that it is naught but lies told to them to keep them fighting over things they wouldn't otherwise fight over.

    to believe in what there is to believe. to kill for what there is to believe. to kill what there is to believe instead.
    between what there is to be believed and what is living. what should be believed? what should live? which is good? which is evil? subjective no matter how objective and absolute it may appear.
    we look to god and ask what would god do if it were us? we call god to our side. we bring god into our decision as to what is good and what is evil, into what is to be believed and what needs to live or die. and what is god without an adversary?
    this ageless old us versus them thing recycled and repackaged and repromoted and remarketed as the new thing. the new idea. the new solution. the new deal. the new morality and ethic. the new theory and concept and paradigm and philosophy and the new world order. the new man. the new woman. the new children.

    but edgewise. but yada dada. all around and around dance around and all fall down to the ground to be found without a sound beneath a mound they hound and bound and pound.
    jesus is drunk and pissing on himself in a golden glory of spray and dribble. if this is not the time of his returning then it never will be. this is the last of hope. this is the end of faith. after this there will be no more such thing. and the phone keeps ringing.
    under the strobe light.
    but such is that and what does that have to do with us?

    our dear one beloved, our beautiful child, our pumpkin muffin, our wild wolf alone in the pack, our little lost sheep lamb, our gazorbnik, our zero zip nada, our point of no return, our other, our oink oink piglet cutie pie main squeeze pinched loaf of gooey gunky fun stuff, our whatever:
    to be broken on the wheel of fate as perhaps you know - if anyone knows, it's you. but perhaps you do not. perhaps we are writing to no one who is home. perhaps we are to exist alone with these shadows of our imagination dancing about us and we light another cigarette in the dark void. it is these shadows that take on the shape of the world and we are fooled for a moment or three that it is real. but as we wake from this daze and it is a dream. a dream of forever against the eternity of the moment unbeginning and unending in this that is all nothing.
    ha!
    we can imagine all this too in our merrie madness. and we can imagine the worst of all the possible worst case scenarios and still our heart overflows with joy.
    we can state nothing about you one way or the other. we do not want to. to define you is to limit you and our feelings for you. to leave both definitions and feelings as open as possible. that way you cannot be ugly and we will not hate you. but maybe you will be ugly and we will hate you. but that will be ok. maybe.
    but to not define you is to perhaps have you never to actually exist. and you cannot - not in this world as we know it. we imagine the possibility of you. that is all we can comprehend.
    we try to reach beyond that - the limits of our comprehension - to perceive you with our imagination. but even that is limited. there is room for more at every moment. it easily slips into cosmic comic proportions. and still there is room for more.
    but meanwhile back on what passes for earth these days, in real space and time and all that business, here we are now sitting and writing while the world around us happens. are you anywhere in it? maybe right in front of us. but we see only them, those who think we are them, who do not see you - or do they? are we the only ones who do not? they speak of what they see and none of it seems like it could be you.
    from sweeping shadows of darkness and from glimpses of sparkling light we write this to you without any expectation that you will ever read it as we doubt that you are here anywhere in this world we have found ourselves in with these others who are not you nor knowing anything about you. they are lost. we are lost to them. we do not understand them nor do they understand us.
    from this ruined wasteland of history of civilizations climbing over and on top of one another knocking each other down and being knocked down in turn by others. oh boy. ho-hum. isn't 10,000 years of this enough? but the machine won't let us stop. and we are the machine. building towers of stone or steel or words to reach the pie in the sky. monkeys trying to climb back up in the tree.
    and what will finally end this habitual inherited behavior of our species? destroying their monoliths don't seem to except temporarily before they once more are able to collect themselves together to organize and continue their assault on the heavens.
    to bring it in out of their imagination to the real somehow.
    what will ever satisfy them?
    maybe that's being set up already. maybe it has been for quite awhile now waiting for someone to step into it and activate it. the machine that has been designed and built. the machine being designed and built. the machine designing and building itself through those who design and build it.
    the machine that exists only really in imaginary spacetime. that is where and when we found it while we were designing and building it as we imagined it in realtime. one mirrors and leads to the other. a chicken and egg sort of thing of which came first or which is cause and which is effect. did we discover it because we imagined it or did we imagine it because we discovered it?
    we light another cigarette.
    this confuses the others when we speak of it. then they become very defensive. they seem to think we are trying to make them appear stupid and they call us names and say we're the ones who are stupid. do either of us have to be stupid? it would seem to be that they think so.
    and on and on as this goes. we pass them by without moving other than remaining here and now.
    we are them to them. we can only be them to them who need someone to be them in order for them to be us.
    we are them. we designed and built the machine they are caught up in because it is themselves without any of them knowing it. we tricked them into designing and building it themselves without ever questioning why. they must do it. they cannot not do it. they believe that by doing so they will set themselves free. free to do what? what are they to do without the machine?
    what do they imagine?
    me, myself and i, we can imagine laughing our fool heads off having pulled off the the royal scam of all scams and taken every sucker on this planet for all their worth and then some playing into the fantasies and providing a machine to fulfill them into an endlessly to be continued future with each believing that they were going to end up on top in their us and them dada trip.
    and what do we get? we get to sit and watch the greatest show on earth.
    and if it's not us, then who? somebody. that this is the goal cannot be doubted though it can be denied. hair balls. if we can imagine it then it is real. winston smith playing chess in the chestnut tree cafe and winning the war.

    bringing it around. a cracked pot. a release. a plateau. a revolver.
    the wave forms. to speak now with new words with new ideas and images. and still it's the same. once upon a time our old ideas were new.
    the dreams of late. of the circles that come around. of the dance of dancing. of clear understanding. of no more hidden from us.
    to out here somewhere now alone. to be somewhere along in the mind disengaged from the real. he fantasies and dreams and imagines. does it matter? there are more than enough who pay attention to this world to keep it going. those who work and struggle.
    but he knows the difference. he knows all about the world they live in. he knows the world he's escaped from. he knows the world he's escaped to. he knows the nature of the reality he perceives. he knows its source. he knows where and when it begins and ends.

    back in the bar with the common and ordinary and those with common and ordinary hopes and dreams and him fooling himself that he is alone and apart from them. to maintain a steady and forgetful buzz. the pool players in the back. the broken hearted playing the same songs on the jukebox of good old days gone. the baseball game on tv. the old men who have been here all day. nobody going anywhere. those who are have gone by now.
    and here he is scribbling words written a thousand times before in new found variations of the same damn thing.
    a point of interrogation. a point where it flows together without much making more sense than it did before. one stops fighting it. one quits trying to put one's own meaning on it and having it fall far short of whatever it could possibly mean - if anything.
    but yada dada poo-poo.
    ha!
    sweating on a hot summer night. that's what hot summer nights are for.
    a thousand dreams dreamed all at one time instantly evaporating. not too many speaking of anything. what is there to speak of? everyone knows none of it is real or ever will be. why bore somebody else with what they already know?
    is there sadness in this? if it is it's a contented sadness. perhaps that is a kind of happiness. perhaps it is the saddest sadness of all. a sadness one has become numb to and comfortable in. sadness no amount of happiness can overcome.
    and to see it everywhere. to see all those resigned to their fate and just wanting to avoid any more trouble. and to go home and look in the mirror and see another face the same. the same dull expression even when one smiles or laughs.
    to do what one must do in order to keep from going insane - even if what one must do is to go insane. going insane is sometimes to only way one can preserve one's sanity. don't ever forget that. it always remains an option. but once used it eliminates all others. so be sure that it the only one left to one before one activates it. but usually it activates itself automatically. it's the brain's last resort.

    a quip.
    a listening to the tones and the inflections of the voices of dada.
    arf!
    jesus took a break. jesus smoked a cigarette. he was union after all. or was he just another scabnoid?
    jesus tip-toeing in high heels. jesus in leather with a whip and handcuffs.
    jesus bathing in honey.

    jesus to be alive and be no one. just to be some ordinary joe shmoe. someone who was convinced almost sort of that his feeling that he could be jesus was a delusion he'd absorbed while growing up in a culture that maintained a myth that jesus was to return sometime soon. it was on tv all the time.

    sitting in the cafe by the window. an ashtray. another cigarette. watching and waiting.
    he's being maintained here. he doesn't know why. surely it isn't compassion. why don't they kill him? why don't they put him to sleep?

    cut it down. it prowls. it howls. cut it up.
    nevermind.

    #1: if you can eat it, fuck it or hit it with a stick then it's real.
    #2: if it can eat you, fuck you or hit you with a stick then it's real and you're in big trouble.

    when we hit real time.
    when we absorb and are absorbed.
    when it hits us.
    when skeletons dance.
    when nothing is something.

    from a moment. from a monument. from imagination. from reality.
    all to me, myself and i.
    and we are still confused.
    to now write of this still wondering. what words are chosen? what words are there to choose from? we wonder about how to go about describing who we are and what it is we are feeling, thinking and experiencing. ????? and what of it is our reality and what of it is our imagination - if there are such distinctions to be made. whether or not we make these distinctions, this is our creation. we do with it as we will as it pleases and amuses us and as it is caused by and is causing our everlasting joy which is the beginning and ending of it without beginning or ending to it. it is as it will always be and as it always was. changing unchanging. it is us being all this and that and not being this or that. this and/or that ever come into and goes out of existence. we exist always here and now. nothing exists other than here and now. our existing needs only to be proven by our existing. we don't care how much of this is nonsense. we don't care how much of this may contradict itself in relation to other things or itself. what does that matter to us? we are here and now. we are so full of joy we could puke. irrationalogically this makes perfect sense. if one is to understand it one must understand the irrationalogic of it. we leave all else behind. we leave behind those of the rationalogical order who are conquering the world. what need do we have of conquering the world? we let the world conquer us.
    nevermind.
    it's in the nevermind. where and when one is here and now and it's just the nevermind...
    there is nothing more to it than that though there is everything more to it than that. nothing can be explained beyond that - the nevermind. and that explains everything because nothing needs to be explained - except rationalogically. rationalogic explains everything and explains nothing. irrationalogic explains nothing and explains everything.

    an obscure form of exactness. an exact form of obscurity. ain't no dylan. ain't no burroughs. ain't nobody at all. for one to approach it either way or for it to approach one either way. a simple concept of opposites.
    nevermind.

    the hearts that governs the depths. the mind that governs the heights. the soul (whatever that is) that governs and is governed by the heart and mind (whatever they are).
    me, myself and i.

    the idea of it is it is the idea. reality as real or as imagined is reality. reality as the idea of the idea of reality.
    on the border. on the fence. on the wall. take one step and one is out so long as one takes nothing with one.
    one is the center of all horizons.

    excuses, excuses, sighed and hollered the madman of kansas city (though he's never been there) as he kicked his dog slipping and sliding on the razor edge thin quasi-ice over the black hole forever on an event horizon frozen in loopy motion in spacetime according to the witnesses reporting via the group-mind-link networkenspiel thing goosedstep knee jerk clocked and locked together alone to themselves from themselves to and from each other and no one else.
    the madman is no one else or otherwise. his dog symbolizes in jungian sensuality his common man freudianly slipping the sausage with the phallic cymbal frenzied thrusting into the thick of things thristing moist mushroomed zoom zoom ka-booming english muffinlike laughter orgasmic drastic plastic hot melting smelting forging ahead damning the torpedoes scintillating seductive conductive copulation of greed for the seed of revolution to conceive in liberty and understanding beneath a tree expanding outward pregnant pauses silently solving silly solutions with convolutions of intuition negating the madman himself.
    meanwhile the madman zipping up his panting lips thought to himself freezing as he still was because of the angered objection he faced from the faces in places he placed himself along paced it out in uneven eventual stricken strides toward the door of refuge refusing to budge. fudge and fuck it, he thought out loud not again but always it seemed to be certain this pleasure they almost feel feeling him near the point of no return burning turning wix and wicketwise winding sheets to the window low blowing whoosh in ambush becoming drenched clenched tea party arty farty smarty smacking teeth yawning words and darning digging flesh and bone and blood dripping on kitchen floor where they sit knitting spitting images of themselves surrendering nothing to bumpkins such as he. can one see this? this hissing fog boggling greater minds than his own bungling?
    as he stared open-eyed at one of their bump and grind kindly sneering acts of attempting salvation he gets hung for in their stead screaming from his privileged embodiment with ointment anointed as oinking pigs they trample upon themselves scrambling to get a piece of the action retracting the statements made public no one noticed but him.
    and with a forgiving final scream he anguished a dream like a pinched loaf plopping into the bowls of their consciousness they explore with disgust and distasteful logic. let them fish for it awhile, he muses smiling his relief no longer crammed together inside his twisted gut feeling juxtaposed to his position presently presenting himself again the madman one and all confused with the issue of his issuing forth this somber realization aged and waning a crooked mile more toward the door lifting open and the dog once kicked barking happy barks at the moon now curled down growling cursed ready to bite as bitten at anything that moves too soon resembling an assembly of judgment ready to solidly cement what was meant to be fluid and flowing as flags unfurled at dawn.
    armies gather. no one can speak against the rattling of swords from every camp.
    let this happen, he thinks now that he sees the good in it as well as the evil. this world long left to grow disheveled tangled and matted needing a haircut and then be sent out to get a job and live a life of its own making from what it can support on something other than promises of payment. the checks have been too long in the mail.
    knocking. there is now knocking on the door. hello? anybody home? there is now a pounding in his head from the fountain of his youth spent hammering away at the wall about to fall exploding ticket this light that has been blinding him out into the surrounding darkness of the null and void vacuum sealed empty headed who will be blasted and crack and begin sucking themselves until they implode to pin prick vanishing points appearing again on the other side taking them threading through eyes of needles sewing up the gaping wounds to let them heal now that the damage has been done and something is still left to salvage from the ruins of all not needed to arrive intact by the time we arrive as well landing softly on our feet on the ground with the sound of an angel's wings singing ringing in our ears now tuned to the frequency of it happening once and for all and always sideways a bit at an angle splitting and dividing us from our former selves shedding this skin worn and tattered thin stepping out naked as the day we were born to our amazement of a world new to us as though as if by some magick miracle but though it cannot be explained by all that we forgot to remember.
    and then the madman awakens upon the floor.

    and later in the cafe he smokes another cigarette. the remains of what might have been a dream as a thread threading smoke of which the moments of this life he experiences one to another or so it seems to him when he thinks of it that way. he wonders who he is now. listening to some boys and girls talking about the meaninglessness of life and existence which is the vogue now of that phase of generations endless growing older. always those young who discover this bit of anti-philosophy or whatever it is.

    and as his imagination plays tricks on him again he imagines saying to one of them saying, god is dead, who is dead?
    god, they say.
    how do you know this?
    nietzsche said it.
    god is dead, said nietzsche. nietzsche is dead, said god. why do you believe nietzsche instead of god? to me it seems that god has been proven right. nietzsche is dead, right? whereas god seems to be very much alive.
    there's no such thing as god.
    no? then what do you call this? (the madman held up his hand and wiggled his fingers)
    that's your hand.
    that's what  you see. i see god. is it alive?
    it, your hand, is alive. but it will die.
    yes, as you say, my hand will die. if i cut it off it would become lifeless and will begin to decay back into the basic elements it is composed of - with the help of living things eating it, by the way. god however continues to live.
    are you saying you are god?
    i am saying god is alive. and not only is god alive but god is life. all else is death. it cannot maintain itself as living matter without god. cut off from god - the living god - it dies. it decays. but decay cannot happen without life. decay is the process of life disassembling matter that was once living but is no longer. without god in the form of life nothing would decay. dead matter would become and remain forever inert. the maggot is god. god is the maggot. without god there would be no skulls that you wear on your t-shirts. without god there would be no t-shirts. but, yes, in a sense i am saying i am god. so are you.
    well, yeah, i can see that in that sense. but that's not god. that's not what nietzsche meant.
    that's not god? what else is god - the living god? nevermind what others tell you it is. is god alive or dead? is life alive or dead? and who says god is dead? nietzsche? no. he wrote a story about someone named zarathustra who is the one who said god is dead. who is this zarathustra but a figment of nietzsche's imagination? and you believe what a figment of someone's imagination tells you over what god, who is imagination itself, who we are all figments of, tells you? nietzsche and you have placed false idols and gods before this living god who you should be able to see with your own two eyes. and now god is saying, i am now here, where is nietzsche's zarathustra? where is this one who says i am dead? i wish to meet him and talk to him. i want him to come look me in the eye and tell me that i am dead.

    but the madman remembers that he is mad. who else would argue for god who he does not believe in? that is why he is the madman. he sits in this cafe scribbling his madness in notebooks while the world goes its own way without him.
    why?
    the madman thinks about why he is mad. he is mad because there have been those who have told him he is mad. no, that is wrong. a dreamer. they told him he was a dreamer. it was when he spoke of his dreams that they said he was mad. they did not want him to dream or speak of his dreams.
    the madman is possessed by his dreams. his dreams now tell him he is to destroy any and all who tell him he is to be silent - especially those who tell him him to be silent because he interrupts them while they are discussing important things like how to keep those like him silent. and on and on.
    that is the purpose of the machine. the machine of his dreams.

    he loses himself when he thinks about all this. when he becomes it thinking of itself. it forgets it is him. he has to remind it and bring it back to him. back to the cafe here and now.
    the cafe is where it is happening. the cafe is the real world where the theories are applied to determine which work and which don't work.

    the bird is a word.
    it's all falling down. it's all happening all around. nobody's left with anything whether they're left with nothing or everything. it bites one's hand as one tries to feed it. it would rather die than have anything to do with anyone. it would rather wander penniless out in the street eating out of garbage cans than to hear anyone utter another word. so hide oneself in a big house, drive by in a fast car, climb the stairs toward one's highest altars. but can one ever guess why someone would not want to have anything to do with one who the millions adore?
    the few turn away.
    etc...