CLICHE GUT-WRENCHING EPIPHANY

MACHACA

It's Sunday evening and I'm sitting here trying to make sense of everything. And trying to make sense of anything is were I usually go wrong.

I return to my Aunt's from a month of being lost in the decay of the city, feeling the grind of effective skull-cracking and mind-numbing distraction in self-hypnosis, but the good thing about entropy is that everything is merely transformed, supposedly. I've been playing part-time contortionist, bending over backwards for sustenance as I struggle through hypoxia against pressurized rib-cage and suffocated lungs, squeezing between people as they elbow my waist and hip, step on my feet, shove and push me off curbs into traffic/trains/masses of crowds...sort of like the shameless madness that takes place in a playground: kids laughing and bumping and elbowing each other, having a good time and playing games. 

It's the feeling of being ripped off and cheated that brings forth an onslaught tide of paranoia and worry, and as I contemplate what I will do with the five dollars left to my name before next paycheck,  my mind is occupied with the time I saw my father through the iron bars of the kitchen window--his scattered Chalino Sanchez CD's and those drunken Sunday mornings of him listening to corridos while my mom silently went about her chores. His life could probably be summed up in bars. 12 bars. Iron bars. or just bars.


But the past is gone, supposedly, unless it haunts the present...I must be some sort of masochist, sadist, a payasito, losing time over something I have no control over; I should be more concerned with the 5 dollars in my pocket ("trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents"). I sit in my aunt's dining room, re-attaching my thoughts to my body as my aunt knits a bufanda in the living room. I feel lost and confused:
THIS IS THE MOMENT OF RECOGNITION
I AM SUPPOSE TO "REALIZE" SOMETHING ABOUT LIFE
INSERT CLICHE GUT-WRENCHING EPIPHANY HERE


My Tia looks over at my face and she already diagnoses that something is wrong. She must note it in my abstracted eyes as she gently weaves her threads. She gets up and starts a kettle and soon comes out with a warm cup of something. Ten mijo. Tomate esto. I don't even ask what it is. She knows I need it. I want to cry like hell and tell her everything, but she never asked to be my mother; I want to spit out the implosion of my guts. The whirlwind in my mind from years of being pulled apart: a time here with my mother, there with my father, a minute with a friend, my brother and sister, somewhere; this neighborhood, that park, half memories (or neglect) of domestic violence, blood in the playground, knocked out, suddenly 12th grade: all of these scattered pieces of me, pieces of a large canvas that didn't quite fit in anywhere, that didn't quite sit well with the other paintings, something always seeming off-putting about the piece(s); Everything fleeting and receding before me like a mocoso riding the merry-go-round and reaching for the Gold ring that doesn't even exists; the more I reach the further it all distances from me. I want to tell her of the loneliness at night. The feelings of suffocation. The aches from sleeping twisted. The nightmares. los nervios. But she knows all of this. She watched me grow up...from a distance; she's known the damage inflicted by my own family, "victims of circumstances," etc. Boo-hoo. I swallow the emotional lacerations and mind tearing injuries down with the sip of a warm tonic. 

That tonic, years of curanderismo and remedios caseros restoring what has been lost in the motorpsycho nightmare of living in the "postmodern." Gracias Tia. I owe you more than I have, which is very close to nothing at all, and it makes me feel ever sorrier for having not a single thing to offer in return, this intensifies the fucked up shitty feeling inside that I mask with my composure. She asks how is work and school, and I want to tell her that the education system has told us that we can win the jackpot; that we can live large as hell with an education. When they ask you, "what do you want to be when you grow up," no one ever says nothing. No one ever says happy. No one ever says I want to find out why there is a man that sits all day on the sidewalk and pushes a shopping cart that contains no groceries. Instead, I tell her that everything's fine. she knows this is a lie. She understands my discomfort of being open and, instead, we talk about the past, leaving out the pain and remembering only the good. I wonder if she does this for me? Then I think of my selfishness; I feel worse. 

With time, even all the bad perhaps starts looking good, that it, whatever it was (look at me I'm full of cliche's today), wasn't a big deal, and perhaps with time you realize that even that distinction was, as I've been taught to analyze and repeat, a "false dichotomy," and then you think about the past and Hitler, and Pol Pot, and Bush, and maybe you say, it's not so golden, and you remember a poem you read by someone that talks about "nothing gold can stay," and you say...fuck the past and it's nostalgia, and its' nostalgic fallacy. Then you forget that nonsense and realize you're thinking about the past too much, so you revert to the present. The present, despite the pain, will look good. "It'll all work out," she tells me with her laughter as she recalls a time I danced as a child. Y le dabas con tus botas, vuelta y vuelta.


I CRACK A SMILE

...

She tells me to visit her friend, the sobadora. You need it, numskull. I need it. I need a good pummeling from the unauthorized unlicensed psychotherapist bone specialist. She makes house calls, fixing twisted ankles, knees, and backs. Mangled nerves and hip pain. She'll re-adjust what has yielded to attrition and gradual wear and tear of bone on bone from running with an M-16 and a rucksack in the mountains of Korea; metal, flesh, muscle, fibers, wires, radios, static, noise, frequencies, shocks, taser guns, and strangulation. That time I took off my mask in the smoke chamber and shook and sneezed and shook and spewed and coughed "kackckcakcakk" until all that was left was a sack of meat: a brute and his foamy orifice; I coughed and shook and coughed and sneezed and shook once more until I lost control, until I lost my name, until I lost my body, until I lost my self, until I lost everything, but Uncle Sam gave me a new and improved one: a well oiled green lean fighting machine. One with a sharp mind and ready for bulleted presentations with snap judgement ready to take the initiative when necessary. This new body. This newbody. This now body. This no body. This no thing no body. This mere Nomenclature.

I STRETCH OUT MY ARMS AND LEGS, YAWNING. ＼（´Ｏ｀）／

Feeling lost in the post-postmodern sense makes no sense at all. I need healing. I need yerba buena. Ruda. Vicks Vaporub and "Broncolin."  I need to go to Misa, my Aunt reminds. My Aunt never misses Misa. She's a mixture of ancient remedies and ideology of foreign Gods, and together they concoct things like chia-nopal & Kale smoothies, or blowing smoke in one's ear for an infection, followed by prayer to La Virgencita Guadalupe. 

My Aunt needs to go to the doctor; she has an appointment. Before she leaves, she informs me, Ay! tengo que ir otra vez. Mijo, let me tell you...the doctors, all they do is give you just enough medicine to keep you going back for more, and if they can't do anything, they seem afraid to admit defeat. These doctores. Many times it's not even about the illness; the treatment adds to the illness, sometimes even becomes the illness.

She's been on a steady diet of pills for as long as I can remember. Her cabinet is a motley of prescription drugs and Mexican medicines from Tijuana. She's been going to the doctor, and they give her more pills. more and more pills. I imagine a doctor with baggies of pills hidden underneath his long white lab coat, popping them into mouths and making addicts that come back for more, praising hallelujah and lifting their arms and opening their mouths for more.

I, as well, get ready to head out once more. Next week I won't be returning. Next week I will go completely though the process of pulverization. Next week, I will send her letters and information through my cousin via text message, letting her know that I'm ok. Letting her know that I'll be back when I can offer her everything, which is probably never...Letting her know that I am looking for my mother, her sister, and that when I find her, I will try to bring her to her; that I will try to mend the bridges; that I will burn the bridges; that I will build the bridges. That I will be ok even if I lose my mind, even after I run out of my dollars anc cents, because I carry a crucifix in my pocket for good luck, and because every morning I open the blinders, just for a little bit, to let the sun in from the City Terrace hills.

In the Form. Minus the flesh.

He wrote "academically," trained in the art of seeming objectivity. After years of writing in that vein, which the institutions demanded, he possessed a better, more intimate, ability to divorce his feelings from his writing at whim. Detachment and observation through separation, decompartmentalization station in his pressurized head full of nifty analytical (s)tools. His sentences would go from, “This film was awesome, very inspiring” to “Through careful camera technique, the film illustrates a unique adaptation of the American revolution by emphasizing perspective and angle. The actors supplement the movement of angles and corners through subtle yet superb interaction whereby the audience seem to be merely voyeurs into the intimate lives of the characters, nay, humans on screen. Anyone viewing the film will be instantly, if not highly likely, influenced by the powerful display and careful handling of both directorship and amazing acting which pulls the viewer in through a seemingly invisible gravitational pull, yet this merely, nearly, magical pull is but a superior handling of setting props and perceptual technique which manipulate the viewer into the directors' world through the periphery. Indeed, every move has been perfectly executed to effectively render the viewer with just enough stimulation so to carry them into the simulation. They do not merely view the film, the are drawn into it! inspirational! sensational! stupendous!” These were his days. Daze in deed. his wear and tear. 

He wrote in this vein for about 27 years. Words became wurds were werds were akward and linked to ward his lengua whereby it became carefully and gradually whipped into shape. English languish only. And when asked about how he was feeling at social events; his brain fried as it fired a multitude of synapses that chemically altered his biology, and so to the rest of the crowd he seemed “weird” as he stood still experiencing the subtle changes in his body. He was feeling ok, he'd say to himself before actually stating it, just to avoid being socially inept. But was he? He questioned. Indeed, what was he feeling? 

He reasoned that the given circumstances, i.e. party, music, people, wine, and conversation, indicated that he should answer in the the most neutral yet positive reply: he was ok. After all, the variables indicated that he should be feeling ok. Indeed, he would reach conclusions in regard to seemingly simple questions in this way. He'd reciprocate and repeat, “and how are you?” performing the perfunctory functions that reflected the appearance of movement yet covering the petrification he felt as he coalesced “into the crowd.” He was one of the people at the party. He was having a good time, he reasoned, and his reason reasoned that this was a reasonable response. He carried most of his days in this vein; 27 years, writing in the Academic skein. In the Form. Minus the flesh.

On his way home one day, he took out a note he wrote on a memo. He tossed the text into the ground and proceeded to grind the words into obliteration. He pulverized the memo into objective dust seemingly detached from any biases and/or emotions. Nothing seemed left but specs of ink on shredded pieces of paper upon the concrete; indeed, only the bare, critical and fundamental, parts were left. No pathetic fallacies. no subjective bias con_text. fair. reserved. preserved. observed. almost Zen like, something that had allow the feelings to pass, having "exprienced" them, now had flushed out the pleghm, and made it nice and neat and clean and bright and right and w... and thus, the memo had been stripped and ripped, as it lay shredded in tatters on the sidewalk. He took out his hand sanitizer and squeezed some of the sterilizer that he had mixed with drops of bleach onto the remaining shreds. Like a virus, the small pieces of text replicated yet grew larger and words started to formulate--culture, taste, class, refinement, objectivity, scientific, rational, etc.--until a wall became erect in front of him.

He took his lighter to this wall and started a massive fire. Afterwards, he started rolling around on the dirt. He low-crawled and simulated holding a rifle in the middle of a battle, in the middle of a theatre of operations. He was engrossed in his mania. He spoke in tongues, it seemed, but he was really trying to vomit and spit out obscenities. pinche! he spurted. chingada! He contorted on the dust, a cloud of brown around him. phu-fufifofa! kakaka! He felt alive, and pained. Rocks scratching his back. He started speaking in tongues: logicdictatesALAHchingadawithUrlogic!ayayaya!ay!are! arrre!yesma!nopa!nopal!nonopa!yesma!sisima!ay!ay!

aaaaaahhhhhhhyyyyyyy! he, at last, gave out, exhausted. Crying. tears. in the fetal. in the flesh. 

The ambulance arrived with their big red cross. Ave maria! said an old lady passerby, gracias a dios! As the paramedics neared, he motioned his arm up and down and his tongue licked his lips as his eyes stared at who knows' what he was seeing or imagining.

They calmed him with an an_aesthetic. They pumped him with Nitrious Oxide. Si Si Si! he repeated, "I can Si! yes, si_r" he said as his seemingly self-induced seizure of convulsion and foaming at the mouth began to receded. He was placed into a suit and tie. He had to report to a boss whom wore a white lab coat on a daily basis, which he found a bit weird, but did not question the boss's disposition, and he'd give status updates on his well-being. I'm ok, he'd report. I'm feeling ok.

McGovernment

The Telesthesiac communicates not with the body but through digitized extensions of the biologic faculties; in other words, he/she...it, the subject communicates (if at all) and takes the world in, through the tele-the “far off,” as the Greeks call it, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The digiztisiac: an organic mechanistic operant conditioned in the "far off". 


Since the telesthesiac takes the world in from a distance, using commodities such as the (mobile) telephonic, the television, the modern telegram—e-mail, etc, some might even say that there exists the potential for telesthesia anaesthesia. A condition wherein the the subject becomes object, an occurrence wherein the highly manipulable subjectivity, filtered through the "tele," becomes suggestible, thus existing the possibility for the telesthesiac amnesiac.

The sensory input becomes easily manipulable by the McGovernment. Have it your way at the Burger Kingdom. Your world, your side of fries and minimum wage. Eating dollar menu meals; the telesthesiac amnesiac. Happy world. Happy tummy--teletummy, teledummy. Happy meal; happy-go-lucky--telefunny; curly or regular? I'll have me a New World Order numero Zero. a la chingada. Teleshopping taking my telecourses living a telescopic existence teleporting via teledevices. Roads are under McConstruction, detours direct towards the Telepathy re-programming Zone. One McTelenation under value meals and insurance policies. Teledrugs for the telenarcs. Telenonsense. Telecrazy. Telestupid. Telesorry. Teledumb. Teleracist. Telesexist. Telecontroversy. Telenothing. Tel enothing. No tele. Tonight. No thing tele. Tel no thing. 

He mutters "mummum" and sometimes crawls on all fours

Today in the News...

"Zero-tolerance" policies have transfigured children antics and pranks into terrorist acts that increasingly criminalize "doodlings" or "tantrums" into psychological disorders and legal issues. This type of ideology facilitates the "school to prison pipeline." Somehow, I escaped the streamline, but it was through the aid of big brother. Indeed, thanks to uncle sammy and big bro, I was provided an ounce of a chance to suffocate among the rest.#comeatmebro

In other parts of the world, a Malthusian Catastrophe hit "critical mass," as a society faced a forced return to subsistence-level conditions because their population growth had outpaced agricultural production. The political body of local government also hit "critical morass" as they found "difficulties" in their assessments of assets to distribute and in ways to figure out a manner to clean up the unfortunate mess.

A man has lost his mind a few blocks down from my house; he lingers, and he mumbles to himself verses from an old biblical song. Everyone stares at him from the comfort of their homes, myself included. He mutters "mummum" and sometimes crawls on all fours; he seems to be looking for something in the cracks. Moreover, the Grapevine news co. and Team Comadres Chismosas received reports that a young man also lost his mind in the middle of the night yesterday, dazed between sleepless days and late night coffee shops that were poorly lit. There have been quite a rise in these types of events, reported Comadre Sota to Comadre ada.

It was a tragic day in America today; there were no reports of the lady that's been missing from her fruit stand on Flower Street. On a good day she'd give you the fruit medley for one dollar. She came from South America to find a better life, but instead she found a long line that told her to sell fruit while her dream was being processed at the Institution for Creating Equity. Many still wonder how she could get fall fruits in the winter and spring vegetables in the summer, rumors spread that she was in cahoots with Bigwig-Large-Major-Major Corpo-rations which harvested, manipulated and mass produced produce at monopolizing levels; perhaps a dirty deal went down and she got the "short stick."

Sound beams and silent noise replaced tear gas and riot guns today at a massive demonstration no one heard about or was even aware about; news of any of this floated down Temple and Grand near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angel's Mausoleum in the form of a bystander everyone took for a homeless crazy bag lady. She mumbled that the church and state met in the crypt. That they all dwelt in the house of the lord. That they all laughed over the dead bodies of saints and martyrs; that there were no guardian angels to protect the demonstrators. That when the event occurred, no one wanted to see it, so they didn't see it; she said this while supplicating for change, which everyone confused for Washington's coins and green pieces of papers that read "In God We Trust," some paid no attention to her, not wanting to see her and so not seeing her, thus effectively rendering her existence non-existent. To this day, she occasionally yells about a noise which no one else seems to hear.

No one cares about the rising price of tea in China because they are too tired and anyway everyone knows why the price is rising: the same ol same ol, and so no once really cares or sees a point in discussing or making a fuss about the same ol same ol; it's like making a big deal over civil rights issues, it's like making a big deal over Japanese internment camps, it's like making a big deal over the Gulag, It's like making a big deal about El Movimiento, it's like making a big deal over Armenian Genocide, it's like making a big deal about poverty and crime and violence: same ol same ol. #that'slife#lol#selfie#lovethyneighbor#comeatmebro

And goddamn it, I must overlook, dear reader, the massive murder and death by hunger and malnutrition across the country and the globe because I'm late for work. Also, no, I am not a "foodie;" I only take pictures of empty plates and play a guessing game with my followers on the internet; I have five million friends. They each have quirky guesses: you had a quiche!, you had a crepe!, etc. the truth is I usually walk into restaurants and take pics of already empty plates that people leave behind; I look for a particular lipstick that I once saw on a napkin in a bar in Downtown L.A.

Today, a kid shot his mother in the back of her goddamned head. When asked why he did it, he said he wanted to see the color of his blood. Psychologists were amazed, and he was allowed to return to his videogames as doctors continued their probing and analysis. He must be observed in his natural habitat they reasoned. We cannot reach a conclusion, yet. Who knows the causes of these types things? surely, I don't. In the name of science and progress we must continue. We must tame this...this...We must unlock these types of fanatic and extremist outbursts and attack them pre-emptively, before they attacks us again. Control and utility is the key here ladies and gentlemen. Control and utility. #ftw#IdoWHATIwant
Kids are no longer asking why the chicken crossed the road but, instead, have substituted more philosophical musings, asking what in the hell is a chicken doing in the road in the first place. Indeed, kids are making more sense nowadays, and why not? with their technological devices at hand, who needs to explain anything?

A pharmaceutical company revealed today that they spread the rumor of nervios as a disease so that they could only make profit off of schoolchildren. Another pharmaceutical company released a statement, saying, "we are sad to hear that the other company pumped drugs into your children. We have the cure and answers that you seek, please buy our pills as it not only helps cure nervios, but it does so without harm; after all, the pills are merely a placebo and so you see...out products merely work with you at the psychological level." Sales went up thrice-fold!

A woman was raped and now pants are being worn, denim in particular. There were some other items created, like the "anti-rape" underwear. The inventors claim that it will make women feel safer. They sell for about 50 to 60 dollars a piece--not bad, considering one's well-being is at risk.

A young man in China thought he could get away with mentioning Tiananmen Square in an online thread by utilizing foreign applications that allowed for e-mail accounts and creation of "anonymous" usernames. Company X claimed it held no allegiance to China, but that it had to comply with local law, and since company X offered its services in China, it soon handed over a list of names of individuals whom were later visited by Chinese officials and sentenced to hard labor.

The latest blockbuster was a flop since it did not appropriately blow things out of proportion. We need more chaotic disruptions; this film makes too much sense and one can easily predict the outcome; it lacks suspense and relies too much on Aristotelian unities. We need more extravagant lies to make the film believable. Critics varied in opinions, but all concluded that the film needed more of nothing. 

By god almighty! the chip is now available! the one with the capability to be placed inside the young minds of the sharpest individuals so that they can be sharper. Many have lined up at the Major-Network Co. located in Silly Con City to volunteer for experimental surgery in the name of the techno-bio-magical banner. All for one and one for all! together we shall explore the deepest expanses of the brain hyperspace and conquer! The chip! the chip! hip hip hooray!

With one gain sometimes comes a loss; Indeed, the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale will no longer be needed as scientist have developed a more accurate manner to measure pain...and consequently, love. Many couples have flooded their doctor's offices. Also, divorce rates have recently reached an all-time high. Doctor visits are now a hot spot for first dates.

A waitress in the middle of America worked the graveyard shift and was treated shitty by various customers. She forced miles of smiles, and often thought about her children at home and her fatherless past. She sighed at the end of her shift, happy to head home and finally get a bit of rest. Unfortunately, while her favorite song played on the radio, she dreamed her way onto the front lawn of some yuppie neighborhood, but it did not bother her. In fact, she laughed hysterically about it all, and the courts deemed her mad, but she still had to go to jail.

The ridicule validates an affirmation

Laugh and get it out of your system (a system indeed, manufactured, created, fabricated, built through a process and mass-produced); it's nothing new to me. The ridicule, the laughter, the disregard, it collectively validates an affirmation of my existence, as painful and embarrassing as it is. And it helps keep the burning sensation alive. As Dostoevsky's fool noted, many make fun of the fool in regard to his foolishness, but no one knows how foolish the fool is as intimately as the fool him/herself, and that is something others will never experience. What have you got to be proud of? huh? a 1 million dollar watch and a mirror that reflects a large gape? Your leather wallets? nice shoes? cute purses? I like some of this stuff too: the Doc's I wear feed the machine that grids and eats me; I pay into the whole chaotic symmetry that somehow instills a belief of autonomy; I tread softly, you should too...there exists a miscellany of dreams and schemes that which have been carefully placed before you. 

An old friend of mine used to make the flowers sing

      he'd pull your ears to the ground and whisper, "listen closely, they're dying."

Rocks contained attached thought

&

everything, he said, was grandiose.

He'd hug me real tight   

      because in theory, he explained, we only push away:

He shared this 

with me.

He was probably saying something about metaphysicks and the illness of being at ease in bubble uni-verse. 

I hardly saw any of this, blinded with thoughts that thought they knew more than he.

I felt insanely alone, that night, staring 

at the blank wall

The air was cold because the AC was on, and the noise,

the hum, brought back images of momma

My mother and her pack of cigarettes; my mother and her alcohol; my mother and her schemes; my mother and my father-fighting; my mother-cold and coughing; my mother and thanksgiving and christmas dinners that gradually disintegrated into thin air. My mother, appearing, disappearing, re-appearing, and finally, vanishing.

Everything made much more sense when it didn't make any sense.

how did I end up here?

I don't even remember: 

the ground occasionally and often shifts

"Man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."

The absence reveals a void present in my mind and being;

it colored everything:

I saw it in the smiles of children

In the glances of strangers

In the guitar that played a jolly tune;

At times, individuals occasioned, "are you alright?"

while the ragpickers continued whistling

and the hum from the cold air machine 

felt welcoming,

as thought it came from a faint whisper

seemingly 

from the underground

as I sat there, on a chair, 

feeling nothing in particular and everything 

that brought numbness and tears

a paradox that i made no sense of

nor tried to make any sense of

"There are things that must cause you to lose reason or you have none to lose" -Gotthold Lessing

I need to stay away from the paper

He was hospitalized after a night that many called a drunken-drug crazed lunacy brought on by his circumstances involving indigence, crime, and violence. When discussed in terms that categorized factors, details, incidents, context, background, etc., his “behavior” made much more “sense.” Who wouldn't go out into the streets like a raving lunatic running with hallucination that someone or something is chasing them and yelling “help, the man in the red coat!” under such circumstances? We must have pity on him said some. No, he was completely responsible for his irresponsible behavior said others.

I read the article at Coffee Bean in Westwood, and all around me, some people looked very friendly while others gave daggers through their glances. I felt like the man in the news, aware through my periphery of their presence, pretending to focus on the paper in front of me; I felt crazy. However, I had just read a crazy article, naturally, it was going to have an effect on my perception, naturally; it was only logical.

I left and headed to the Eastside. I had more coffee at another bistro. Outside stood a gaggle drinking coffee and holding on to their pistols, as though at the ready, eye's piercing any armor under their surveillance. Dressed in all black, as though ready for a funeral, their badges shone the city seal and a replica of city hall. I knew they were looking at me through their glasses; I felt it. They were probably asking themselves what I was doing there; he should be at work; he should be in school; he should do something crazy so that we can have grounds to apprehend him. I spiraled further into my paranoia. I must have persecution complex. Was that what the man in the news had? I remember reading about persecution complex in the DSM from an introductory psychology course I took. There were various other interesting “behaviors” and psychological “disorders”  in that DSM, but at that moment I remembered persecution complex.

I decided to seek out this man in the news to ask him a few questions about the man in the hat with the red coat. Wait, no..he didn't have a hat. I must be imagining things. There indeed was a red coat, however. I am certain of it; I read it in the paper. The man in the paper was being held at the LA County USC Medical Center, or the general hospital, the name more commonly known by the common populace. I was to infiltrate this place, but how could I get in? I saw the gaggle's stare intensify, did they know what I was thinking? I did nothing!? Leave me alone! I remained calm under the self-induced pressure of my hallucinations and delusions.

I need to stay away from the paper, I thought. There was another article appraising the film The Great Gatsby. I decided to stay away from it.

It didn't help that the LA Times ran an article earlier titled “The Conspiracy to Keep you Fat.” It was about companies carefully manufacturing their products so to trigger basic impulses; this was nothing new to me, but why was it now more vivid than ever! I was hysterical! Mad! I tried to remain calm while my mind ran up and down, back and forth between reality and whatever was created (faked), or imagined. I grew dizzy, drunken. Perhaps they put something in the coffeee! I knew it! And just like me, who under the pressure and madness of the routine, act in the guise of a cool and calm demeanor, the barista's were fronting as well! I tossed the coffee. I was speechless. My thoughts fmubled. I needed to take a breath. I needed to pause for a minute a gather my bearings, but the deadlines, oh the deadlines! I felt like running. But where to, I had no idea? Then I remembered, the hospital! I had questions for the man in the paper!

I left the bistro as calmly as I could. It didn't help that the gaggle dispersed right when I left! Fucking Putos! They knew what they were doing! I remained calm. The fattest one and had a veterano type of handle bar mustache. I bet he had a tattoo of the Virgen somewhere on his body; he might've even had a placaso or even an aztec calendear hidden somewhere underneath that black cloth.

I walked away, slowly, from the bistro. The men in black vanished, but the Foucaldian panopticon was set in place. I knew they were lurking, ready to pounce at any time. A helicopter flew overhead, it's rotors bearing down on the city and it's cockroach population. Was it an exercise? or routine surveillance to make it's presence known? A man in front of me looked up at it at the same time I did; we looked at each other after. We went our separate ways, slowly but assuredly.

On this day, something had revealed itself  to me that must've been subconsciously planted. It had always been there. In the Power Rangers. In the Looney Tunes. In the Tasmanian Devil. In the coffee! It was now just coming to surface. What must've triggered the realization, I was in the least bit unaware. Ah, I needed to simply calm down and assess the situation logically. 

I put on my ipod to calm down and made my way to the hospital; I grew distracted by the music, it was a pop hit on the radio that I had downloaded earlier in the week; I didn't remember the name of the track, but the tune was damn catchy as hell; I forgot where I was going and I walked back to the little room I was renting (avoiding a revolution). 

The mistake T.S. Elliot seems to have made...

They discussed gossip to the background of Noticiero Univision. Tales of appearances from the recently deceased Don Chente shrouded reports of deaths in Juarez. He was such a great man, said one. Indeed, replied another. Well, aver si no se nos aparece y nos jala los pies; they all laughed and chuckled.

Outside, the ice-cream truck played “It's a Small World” as the children asked the ice-cream man for popsicles and candies. They all sang and jumped around, repeating the lines, “it's a world of laughter...a world of fear.” They each dispersed, and after the ice-cream man left, everyone happily returned home, happy at the fact of having eaten an enjoyable frozen treat.

I pretended to read on the couch and nodded in and out of sleep.

When I woke, I realized I was somewhere else, even though everything was familiar, yet it was familiarly strange. What do you, reader, suppose I mean, you may ask. Well, take a book, a film, or even an experience that occurred to you (unless you are of the supposition that you, the “subject” (a term I used carefully since subjectivity can merely be objectivity veiled in the sheath of objectivity, but I leave that matter for another time) make things occur, then just suppose you made something occur). Either way, something happened, whether you were the causal agent is another matter, nevertheless, something happened. You internalize the event, and thereby render this an experience, or in some cases a “moment.” Upon revisiting, if indeed it can be re-visited, this moment/experience in time, you will find it skewed by what events have occurred post-initial moment/experience. You may come to find that the book you read while an adolescent, once a tale of fantasy and cheer, is now, transformed, into a tale of horror and awe. Strangely, nothing has really changed except you, what happened? This is what happened to me during my dream. I came back, but everything was strangely familiar, and simultaneously, strangely transformed.

The children outside, now, started playing robot. A game wherein the object was to walk and talk as closest to a cyborg. One of the young boys came out of his house with a spoon in one hand and a fork in the other.

Young women looked like clownish figures with cake of make-up, deadening their skin with color and covering up their blemishes, if any. The young men chasing after these women seemed to me to be possessed by an obsessive compulsion, bordering madness and/or some other degree of a psychological disorder, as they were driven mad, with a neurosis of addiction far worse than any drug I had ever seen. Mania! This obsessive behavior that transformed a mere coffee date into a bizarre circus. A reptile on one side and a clown on the other! To imagine! What a spectacle! Sitting across each other, having coffee, each reflecting a facet of each other yet bubbling with desires none could say to each other.

How was I, myself, reader, in the coffee shop? How did I make a leap from the couch to the local bistro, you may ask. Well, that is another thing that puzzles me, for if you would recall, now, earlier I mentioned this idea of causality, whether one can be an agent in a space, or whether things occur to him/her. A predicament echoed earlier by T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock. Indeed, how did I dare disturb the universe? And indeed, did I after all? Or was it mere illusion? The mistake T.S. Elliot seems to have made regards the fact that he believed one can presumably disturb the universe. A major phenomena. In this day and age of hyper-ego-tripping and hyper-stimulation, can there be an agent that even thinks, do I even think? I'm not too certain of it, since as I write these ideas they too have been filtered though a syphon that's been carefully crafted, indeed, crafted, which implies a creator of the craft, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Silently and invisibly, paranoia? Indeed, I would also place myself under such category, but even that is being too kind, the paranoid feels certain of his paranoia, and I cannot say the same of my delusions and of this very likely, self-induced, conspiracy. So I return to the point of disturbance that T.S., old T.S., might've made in the idea that Prufrock even had the nerve to ask whether he dared to disturb the universe, but the great thing about that poem is that he seems to grow old in place, and his life compresses into a pressurized capsule of carefully crafted text. Did he indeed make something? and moreover, How did a cup of coffee and a couple come to invade the space in my head and only to find themselves transformed even further into digitized tid-bits that will someday disintegrate, perhaps re-invigorate, through the fate we are all pre-destined to meet? Questions that continue to disturb me, reader, as I enter the new year and ask myself, what shall I do (indeed can I?) to disturb the universe.