karoshi

2006-09-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Table of Contents

RED

BLUE

2006-09-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

“Every Man and every Woman is a star.”
Aleister Crowley

“I am Purple and I have come to complete you!”
Simon got up ready to throw himself into any undertaking about to be given him. He was prepared for anything. Even heading into battle with Karoshi then and there.
“Oh you will,” said Purple aware of Simon’s every emotion, “it’s coming this way right now and you will meet it here amongst the tombs of this cemetery:”
“How can I defeat it?”
“Before you can do that you have to know what it is, and why it wants you?”
Simon felt puzzled. He knew his dead soul was its food. He knew the hard work he did five days a week, and the stress it caused him, was its air. He knew that society cast him into Karoshi’s path. He knew all this and now feeling above it all he wasn’t sure why Karoshi still would be after him.
“Once a victim has been picked it will not cease the hunt. Like cancer won’t quit a brain it’s lodged in.”
“There have been cures.”
“And there have been deaths.” Purple smiled and perched on the head of a tombstone, “You’re a different man, and still you’re the same. There is one more thing you need and only you can bring it forth.”
“What?”
“Your third eye!”
“No,” Simon sighed feeling defeated, “I can’t do that. It’s an impossibility.”
“It sure is if you think so. Didn’t you just now tell yourself that nothing is impossible?”
“How then?”
“Well, how do you breathe?”
“Well I… it’s hard to explain, I just do…”
“It’s the same with the third eye. There it sits above your two normal eyes that you use to see the material world, and above it – what scientists have named the pineal gland – sits your third eye hidden and ready to open. With it there is no limit to what you can see. You must know this; like all men of this world you’ve used it before.”
“When?”
Purple took to the air and flew up to Simon’s forehead and touched the spot spoken about, massaging it with grand tenderness.
“As a child, before your head was corrupted by logic. Did you not then see things that were not there, or as I like to argue, perhaps were.”
“If you mean I imagined things, sure I did.”
“There is no greater power than that of imagination. The human race has for many thousands of years thought it be a folly of childhood and those adults that did keep it close to their hearts often became insane, or were thought so, and subsequently ended up in an asylum or worse yet in the old days burned to death. How many Gods have not visited humans in the past that thus led those very same humans to become prophets, when in fact they misinterpreted their own brain and its power. It was no God they met, but themselves. Religious belief has a knack of kicking the third eye into gear.”
Simon slumped back down on the grass and Purple descended down to the tombstone he previously occupied.
“As a child,” Purple continued, “the imagination is strong and throughout the years it decreases because of distractions. Now you have learned to rid yourself of these so you have all the time you need to bring back what was lost. The Holy Grail of every man. The God in every soul. The true Philosopher’s Stone that lies there in your skull all forgotten about. Open it. Open it now, before Karoshi devours you!”
And Purple departed this dimension into another and Simon was alone again with his thoughts, but unlike before he decided to wholly unite with them.

To imagine…
easier said than done without the aid of acid or mushrooms, but in my heart I know it to be possible. Like Purple said I’ve done it before as a kid. Used to be my favorite game until school and parents deemed daydreaming a trait of the idle. What evil. How can such cruel abuse be allowed to take place in any society modern or not? It’s appalling.
Now how can I get that lost power back?
Should I imagine something? No, that’s not how a child thinks. He simply does it without mulling over how it was done. That’s the trick. To know what to do and then to do it unknowingly. A practical impossibility, unless… of course. I have done it all along. I was never insane. The balls!
How illogical is that? Never heard of such a silly thing. Of course it could never have happened. Just thinking of it makes me almost burst up laughing. I did it all along. Imagined it. And I can do it again. I can do what I want. A God doesn’t ask questions. He answers them, and if he doesn’t know the answer he imagines the answer.
If there is a third eye in my head it has been pulsating there all along: Now it needs to unwrap for all the world to see so I can smite Karoshi back to the depth of hell whence it came.

A black cloud of colossal size thundered in on the clear sky covering the rays of the sun. It murmured doom and disaster, sending dribbles of rain down towards Earth in an ever-increasing rate till it was pouring down like the day Atlantis sank below the waves of the ocean.
Simon heard a menacing whisper and a dark shadow covered the cemetery. All the birds that flocked the trees took to the sky crowing like crows, even though they were not. Across the fields of the long departed Karoshi approached in all its ghastly glory. The mass of colorless death seemed to drool after Simon’s flesh. Come to my gob! it snarled like the pongy dark imp it was.
As it drew near Simon stood his ground, fearless, with the rain soaking his every part. In his head a pulsating vibration began to tickle and he closed his eyes, and then opened them without actually doing so and saw a rift in reality break open.
From out this paranormal hole flew all the balls he’d acquainted in an individual shimmering glow. Red was in a shaded ray, Blue in white, Yellow in red, Green in yellow, White in green, Black in indigo and Purple in purple. All the colors began melting and fusing together and the balls did the same dancing in a circular motion forming a new mass of silvery gray that pulsated and expanded with an organic beat.
Simon felt as if all of time and space were condensed into this one moment and at that thought the mass before him exploded in a blistering supernova that erupted flakes of gold, which fell like flowers all around him, and he stuck out his tongue to taste. They had the flavor of essence and Simon orgasmed in his mind, just like he’d done as a child when he saw something for the first time that astounded him.
Then he truly opened his eye. Not the left. Not the right, but the third and its iris contained all the colors of the rainbow. Karoshi froze and the two of them stood head on like in a duel in the old West, ready and waiting for the other to make a move.
Simon was quicker, and the first to act, when he let a sharp sweltering and scorching beam of gold shoot out of his one true eye and strike his enemy at the heart of its being. And then it evaporated in a dazzling defeat, like a balloon poked with a hot needle. All that were left was the stench and the rain, and both soon died away.
The sun returned and everything was as lovely as it had been before. Simon closed his third eye and opened his other two feeling nothing but joy. He looked at the watch stuck on his arm. It showed a time, but it was of no concern, so he ripped it off and threw it to the ground. He laughed with pleasure at the sound it made beneath his feet when he crushed it.
What now?

Now…
Now I have the rest of my life to live, and then whatever entails. I salute every moment. I greet every act. Every day can be the first and last. Any man can cause a change.
So destroy slavery. Support freedom. Kill oppressors. Adore knowledge. Eradicate traditions. Shred money. Write books. Burn flags. Sing songs. Demand truth. Laugh at patriots. Befriend thinkers. Forget religion. Remember the future. Put an end to triviality. Love your dreams. Give them life. Embrace your mind and follow the living God… i.e. yourself!

4 Aug 1999 – 11 Jan 2005

Previous

BLACK

2006-09-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mahatma Gandhi

The night was fresh and silent.
All the parties had ended long ago. All the drunks had finished puking and gone home. Even the rapists and thieves were asleep. Simon, on Black’s request, was heading home. The moon was gone and in the distant horizon, covered by large buildings, the sun had begun to rise up and greet the day of the sun; Sunday.
“I will help you make a great step, but it’s very important you trust me and do not hesitate. You have seen Karoshi with your own eyes and you know that it’s nothing you can brush away. If you want to live and find peace what I’ll ask you to do you must do, and you must do it willingly.”
“I promise,” Simon agreed knowing he had nothing to loose.
The street where he lived was empty.
Simon got his keys out heading for the door of his house.
“Wait, don’t go inside yet.”
“Why?”
“I will instruct you now what to do and it’s important you then do it by yourself.”
“What?”
Black slid through the air up to Simon’s face with a grave look.
“Go in to your apartment and throw everything you own out the window…”
“Wha…”
“… then come down here and burn it!”

Home.
Yet it does not feel like home. I can see all my belongings and I know they are mine. A sort of material library of stuff collected and bought over the years. Most of it worth nothing more than what they cost, and some of it cost a lot. It’s only money though and my own sweat working to get that money, that’s all. Nothing really valuable. I didn’t buy any of it with love, only with greed or desire in my heart and that fact alone makes it all worthless.
Home?
What is a home but the address your bills are sent to? I can see some unopened ones on the floor inside the door right now. Phone, electricity, water… water should be free. Isn’t water a human right? How can water have a price? Questions…
I’ve become addicted to them again after so many years. My notebook is in my pocket. I look inside. Find a page and the words stare back at me: Destroy what you love and freedom shall reign!
Funny isn’t it. I knew all along, time and society just made me forget. Black is right. What worth does any of this have? None. I can’t take it with me when I die anyway and it’s not like I have an heir to pass it on to, and even if I did what the hell would he or she want with all this crap?
Only a day ago I was glued to my sofa, fixed to the TV and dead to the world. Soulless. Empty. And now I feel awake. I feel there is a reason. Some reason at least, reasonable or not, and I can bring meaning to my existence by rediscovering myself. Clearly I wasn’t happy who I’d become. And now I’m free to become whoever I want to be, but only after my old self is dead. I need to die. I need to kill Simon. He means nothing to me. I’m strong. I want life. Karoshi can fuck off.

The TV took a beautiful dive down towards the ground smashing hard with a loud glass breaking sound. It was followed by a stereo and two speakers, a small transistor radio and a kettle. A nice Arabian carpet drifted downwards trailed by clothes and shoes. Books, photographs, paintings, ornaments, knives, forks, plates and a telephone.
A half-awake neighbor popped his head out his kitchen window.
“What the hell is going on?” he screamed.
“Go back to sleep!” Simon screamed back and threw out several boxes filled with old crap not worth mentioning. He laughed. The sun rose and its light swelled. The pile outside his house grew larger until it looked like a mountain of broken and shattered possessions.
Simon had finished. His apartment was stripped bare apart from the few things too heavy to move or too large to squeeze out the window like the fridge and the sofa. Not to feel that the job was incomplete he decided to smash whatever was left inside as best he could. When that exercise was over he ran downstairs and met Black.
“Hurry before the police arrive, I can sense their approach.”
“I have no fuel…”
Black flew over to an old rusty car that had been gauchely parked and on his request Simon opened the lid to the gas tank.
“Get that bucket and hold it close to the hole, I’ll stir the gasoline out,” Black commanded and dashed into the hole. Simon hastily got the swab bucket he’d thrown out the window minutes ago and did what he’d been instructed. Moments later the petroleum began spurting out with furious twirls and Simon could only imagine what Black was doing inside. After a few minutes the bucket contained plenty of juice and Black emerged soaked to the bone, if he now had any that is.
Simon marched over to his manmade garbage mountain and emptied the bucket over it, then he pulled out a box of matches and stroke one up.
“Ignite me!”
“You’ll die!”
“Don’t object,” Black said and Simon let the flame caress his soaked body and it blazed up into a ball of fire.
“Are you ready to die?” Black asked and Simon nodded and the ball raced with great might into his pile of belongings and with a swift swoosh all was set alight and the luminous fire that was born exploded into its prime power at the very instant the sun arrived on the horizon, and Simon fell to his knees with a tear softly trickling out the corner of his right eye. It had been a beautiful funeral.

I’m hiding in a playground, crouching behind a tiny wooden house too small for me to fit inside, and I’m watching the inferno I created be put out by firemen. A policeman is questioning one of the neighbors. They know it’s me and I don’t care. I won’t return to that place anyway. Good riddance.
I think it’s going to be a warm day. It’s not even nine and yet it feels pretty warm with not a cloud in the sky. Someone’s tugging at my jacket. Another ball? I turn and see a small girl of about five. She has pigtails and a great grin.
“Whad ya doin’?”
“Hide and seek.”
“Can I play?”
“Sure,” I agree ready to throw myself into any circumstance. Ready to experience anything whatever it might be and what better way to do so than to play with a child. The uncorrupt. The pure. The virgin beauties of life. The unshackled…
“Close your eyes and count to ten!”
“Ok,” I say and enter my private night, “one two three…” I can hear her little footsteps rush off. “…four five six…” I recall my own childhood and I wish I was still that pure. Maybe I can be again. “…seven eight nine…” I hear heavier steps. Someone is tapping me on the shoulder. I look up. “…ten…”
It’s a policeman with a stern look on his lifeless face.
“Are you Mr. Sim…”
Without thinking I push him to the ground, stomping his face hard and then I run as fast as I can till I’m sure I’ve lost any possible pursuer.
Now I find myself resting in the grass next to a tombstone in a near by cemetery. Outside I can hear the cars buzzing like flies and I find myself wondering why nature has become either a park or a cemetery. Then I think of the girl. I never found her. What if she remains in hiding forever? Silly…
Basking here in the ever-warmer sun fills me with energy, and yet it sets me in the mood to sleep just a bit. I shut my eyes. Sunday. The day of rest, and soon it will be a new week. Ha ha…

Simon smiled as he lied there in the grass on his back because he knew Monday didn’t matter. It was just another day. Now it was the day of the Sun, then it would be the day of the Moon, then the day of Mars, then Mercury, then Jupiter, Venus and finally Saturn. That’s all they are. Seven planets. Seven moods and none should be dedicated to mindless work for pointless cash. That ain’t living. That ain’t life. Life should be lived. Enjoyed. Either find work that is pleasing or no work at all. Money is the root of all evil and spare time is the root of all glory. Revolution can only occur if there is time for revolution and on a five day eight hour work schedule when could that be? Not after five on Friday, on the day of love… Venus.
No!
Revolution, or more re-evolution, can only come if pointless toiling is ceased forever. Simon knew he would not turn up to work. He wouldn’t need to. The only reason he went there was for the money, and once money was ruled out as completely insignificant then work was as well.
Yes, work can go to hell! Simon thought, and sure there are people out there who has jobs they really enjoy, but the majority of the worlds population don’t and they carry within them a great power because if they all refused to work society would in fact crumble. And they could, with such a strike, make a lot of difference. Not a strike to get a pay rise or a longer lunch break. Instead a strike that puts an end to futile labor and changes the structure of society. Because life should be enjoyed and not toiled, and yes we all need food and shelter but they should be a right not a result of obedience. The greatest job in the world is to find happiness, freedom and knowledge. Can any average job give you that? If it does I applaud whoever manages to find that kind of work, but as for me I hereby decree that working for sustaining life is the most pointless thing any intelligent human being can undertake. Dreams should never die. Society is a lie. I will no longer enjoy my Holy Day!
Simon knew he had always known this but the difference was now he knew for certain. He should have felt daunted but he felt confident. Strong. Brave. Powerful. In control, almost like a God.

A God….
Why is this world not a world of Gods?
There can be nothing denying that the human race is a race of slaves. I’ve thought that clearly before and then I was as sure as now. Even the men, and few women, that are considered to be owners of slaves are in themselves slaves to their own fake ideals. How then can it be possible to gain freedom? It’s not hard to understand how life should be lived or how freedom could be achieved. What is hard is to actually accomplish this since the world is imbedded with a system that makes such action practically impossible. The true root of all evil, apart from money, is the importance we have given the trivial, which includes most things connected to society and the acts performed throughout the day. Some might say that it’s a question of personal preference what’s considered trivial but it most certainly is not.
Money, career, gossip, envy, greed, TV, radio, popular music, politics, war, abuse, drugs, tourism, school, nationality, holidays, fashion, shops, malls, cars, factories, products, advertisement, traditions, bureaucracy and a thousand other things. None of it has any meaning. It is all pointless. Trifling. It’s there to shorten life, not lengthen it.
On the bed of death looking back at life what will I remember? What will I miss? What do I regret not doing? What would I have done differently given the chance?
Would I have tried to work more to earn more money? Taken the time to see all the episodes of a certain sitcom? Gossiped more with the neighbors? Stuck to fashion with more dedication? Taken a bit more drugs, perhaps even become an alcoholic? Maybe go to some holiday resort to let my hair down one more time? Vote for someone I normally didn’t vote for? Perhaps I would have studied harder in school to get better grades? Hung my country’s flag on my balcony to show my pride? Maybe join the army and kill people? Had more coffee, or tea, in one of the coffee shops in the mall? What? What would I have done differently?
What about living a life dedicated to the fulfillment of the mind? Spending every waking hour training that brilliant muscle inside my skull? Improving my mental health by learning true knowledge and then spreading this knowledge to everyone around me. Do the right thing. Destroy what is evil and support what is not. Maybe even become immortal. It’s not impossible. Nothing is impossible. All things are possible except of course in society. Ay there is the rub!
Not to end up in prison every man needs to earn his keep for food and board. Man needs to study in public school and learn what everyone else has to learn; to be a cog in the wheel of society and keep it rolling down the hill (inevitably over the cliff down the chasm of triviality).
Man needs to fall in line. Man needs to have his place and belong to his nation and group and to vote, if he lives in a democracy, for his leader. Man has to have marginal dreams of career and success. Man has to be kept ignorant from the fact that success, true success, would be to empower the brain with such powers that he/she could leave the ground and rise up towards the stars and fly away. Never to return again.
It’s not an exaggeration that there is great potential in the human race. Its powers can be likened with the powers of sexuality. When young, before any knew the possibilities of an orgasm, no one gave it much thought. Once, though, when realizing the concepts of sex and then the sensation of an orgasm the awareness of this new force within opened up a whole new world. It is the same with this other power.
Within us all is a God asleep. No he’s not above nor below, but within. And to let him sleep that is what could be termed the Original Sin. It’s a power that cannot turn man into an evil God. These powers can only flow in one direction and that’s towards harmony and bliss.
Then the pattern of tradition, religion and triviality must be broken. It must all come to end or the human race will be forever doomed.
But before there can be a revolution of the mind there has to be a space for it to happen. Where is this space possible? Certainly not during a coffee break. Not whilst driving to work. Not when laying down in bed to sleep. Not during the Holy Day drinking beer on a beach somewhere. Not after the tax has been calculated and before the vote has been cast. In-between casual relationships. After, during or before meeting friends in a bar or at the game. When and where?
By murdering the trivial and taking charge then this space will appear and the revolution of the mind is bound to follow. It’s a Catch 22. The space is needed to be able to realize that all these things are trivial. When up and inside the trivial it’s very hard to see it from afar. I suggest not going to work and instead heading for the library and there spend a few months reading up on oneself.
All that’s needed to sustain life is food (and even that could be argued but it’s a whole different topic I guess). The rest of life is open. It’s up to every man and woman. What to be? A trivial slave or a God? I know my choice…

“Good afternoon!” a voice said and Simon could sense something flutters close to his face and it wasn’t a bird or the wind. He opened his eyes knowing fully well what it was.
A purple ball was floating with its arms waving, as if this one pretended it was a bird, and Simon instantly noticed a major difference. This one, apart from the color, possessed one more difference from the six other balls that had visited him. In its little forehead a third smaller eye sat, blinking, most phantasmagorically.

Previous
Next

WHITE

2006-09-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Albert Einstein

“Where are you?”
“Let the dark enter your eyes and you will see me.”
Simon relaxed and a faint white round shape became visible right before his face. He carefully grabbed it with his right hand feeling more sure of what he saw when he could sense it. No longer did the balls cause him pain or worry, but relief. He knew they were not out to harm him
“I can’t find my way. The light in the tunnel must have gone out.”
“Next to you is a crack in the wall. Can you find it?”
Simon used his other hand to locate what White had spoken of and indeed there it was, rather large, and a dim light emanated from it.
“Crawl into it. You’ll find a room on the other side.” White instructed and Simon obliged not knowing what else to do. The task was rather difficult and he let White fly off his hand in order to achieve it.
Once on the other side he found himself in a tiny cave-like room probably occupied by some homeless person because it contained a dirty old mattress, a small wooden box used as a table and some plastic bags filled with objects that looked too filthy to investigate. On the wooden box burned a candle. Whoever was here would soon be back it seemed.
“Don’t worry, I lit the candle.” White assured.
“You?”
“Lay down on the bed.”
“On that?” Simon pointed.
“You have done well, but you’re far from complete. It takes great power to resist what has been cursed upon you. I am White and I am here to give you dreams enriched with truth in order to ward of any fear or evil that might still linger within you. Are you ready for this?”
“Yes,” Simon replied and with a wave of White’s hands he fell down onto the mattress. His eyes closed and he began to drift… sleep… dark… white… rest… aah…

“I need a job.”
“Why?”
“So I can get money.”
“For what?”
“For food.”
“Why do you need food?”
“So I can stay alive to work.”

“I need a car.”
“Why?”
“So I can get to work.”
“Why do you need to work?”
“So I can pay for the car.”

“I need a home.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to sleep somewhere.”
“Why do you need to sleep?”
“Because without sleep I can't work.”

“I need a drink.”
“Why?”
“To relax after work.”
“Why do you need to relax?”
“Because work is hard.”
“Why is it hard?”
“Because I have to do it.”
“Why do you have to do it?”
“So I can afford my drink.”

“I need a holiday.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t have to work.”
“Why don't you want to work?”
“Because I enjoy holidays even more.”
“Why?”
“Because I can do what I want.”
“So why work?”
“Holidays cost money.”

“I’m really looking forward to my retirement.”
“Why?”
“Because then I don’t have to work.”
“How many years do you have to work before you retire?”
“About forty.”
“Why not sooner?”
“Because it takes that long to be allowed retirement, and also it takes that long to save up some money for it.”
“Why do you need money when you retire?”
“So I can enjoy it.”
“But that’s 50% of your life spent to support the last 25%, what did you do with the first 25%?”
“I studied and learned my future trade.”
“Why did you do that?”
“So I could get a good job that paid well and secure my retirement.”

“I want to have a child.”
“Why?”
“Someone has to work when I’m dead.”
“Why?”
“Otherwise society will crumble.”
“What do you owe society?”
“My education, my career, my retirement.”
“Didn’t you do all those things for money?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So I could have a good life.”
“But didn’t you enjoy your holidays and weekends more?”
“Yes.”
“So why did you work?”
“To support my holidays and weekends.”

“But if you’ve worked for, let’s say, fifty years won’t you end up rich?”
“No, about a third went to taxes and the rest to food, rent and entertainment.”
“But all those things were needed to support your work life, right?”
“I suppose so, in a way.”
“Doesn’t that seem a bit pointless… Why did you live at all?”
“When I was a kid I had dreams.”
“Did you fulfill those dreams?”
“No...
I had to work!”

Simon opened his eyes.
The light from the candle flickered. He sat up.
“How long have I been asleep?” he said yawning.
“Not long enough,” White answered and with a strange gesture sent Simon back down into the realm of dreams.

There is a ladder with a rung at the bottom and a rung at the top, but none in-between, and it stands of its own accord in the middle of a vast barren wilderness. I know I’m supposed to climb it but the two rungs are too far apart. I look around and there is nothing that can aid me. For some reason a depression overpowers me and I fall to my knees sobbing.
A weird blinking cube of glass turns up from out of nowhere. I pick it up and hold it in my hand. Inside lights, colors and shapes morph and transform to my delight. It keeps me occupied for a long time and I don’t even notice that the quilt of night covers the world…
A bright white full moon appears in the black sky completely devoid of stars, and it asks:
“Why are you playing with the cube and not climbing the ladder?”
“I can’t reach the other rung, and the cube was so alluring…”
Then the moon began to laugh so loud that the ground shook causing the ladder to fall to the ground stirring up the sand all around it. I then discover to my amazement that the grains of sand revealed all the other rungs. They were there all along only invisible and I look back up at the moon.
“I didn’t know,” I say and the moon still laughing looks back down at me and replies with mock in its voice:
“No, you didn’t try!”

Simon awoke with a cold sweat dripping from his head. He wiped it off with the sleeve of his arm.
“What… was…” he said and tried to rise from the bed, but felt too weak to do so. A part of him decided he was still dreaming, another that he was not. Feverish. Cold.
“Go back to sleep,” White ordered and waved his hands.

A forest fresh from a full nights rain spread out before Simon. The thick vegetation gleamed in the sunlight. Spring had come and cleared all the gloom away. A small winding path found its way through the woods and Simon spotted a man walking on it. He was clad in an old robe, with a sack hanging from his shoulder and a symbolic walking stick in his hand. Swiftly Simon crouched behind a bush so as not to be spotted. For some reason he knew that the man was an alchemist.
In the middle of a small groove stood a statue of abstract form covered in mystical symbols with the word VITRIOL at the base.
The Alchemist stopped and studied the piece for a long time. Suddenly another man appeared. It was a priest. He too examined the statue.
“Some ancient pagan god I presume,” said the Priest. The Alchemist shook his head.
“No it’s not ancient.”
“No?” the Priest said surprised, “It sure looks it.”
“And it’s not a god,” the Alchemist continued, “but an instruction on how to become a god.”
The Priest’s eyes fired up and he instantly spat at the statue proclaiming:
“I will listen to no such thing. There is only one God and he speaks to me!”
“You are your own god and you speak through yourself,” the Alchemist countered and then spat at the statue. Astonished at the action of the Alchemist the Priest asked:
“Do you loath this then as much as I?”
“No.”
“Then why did you spit at it?”
“Because I have done what the statue has described. I am a god and as a god I can do what I please. Even spit on that which made me a god to prove my point.”
“And what is your point?” asked the Priest with a stunned expression.
“If a fool anoint, if cool smoke a joint!”

Simon woke up in a dizzy blur and he shook his head. Slowly reality came into focus. That last utterance of the Alchemist must have been some private joke in his subconscious. Everything else made sense. In fact it made a whole lot of sense. Simon sat up and felt both fresh and at rest. He looked at White who was casually soaring next to his head.
“What did you learn?” White asked.
“Many things, lastly that I can be a God, or am one… not so sure…”
“Good enough, and know that it’s a very easy thing to understand… but it’s a much harder thing to know what to do about when one has realized it.”
“I agree,” Simon said and sighed, “and what now?”
“Now,” said White, “I bid you farewell.”

Gone.
The light from the candle too. I can’t see anything. There is a foul smell in here. I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever use this place as a bedroom also use it as a toilet. I have to get out.
I clamber, crawl, and locate the crack from where I entered. Now I use it to leave. I think I can hear my trousers getting torn on something but I’m not sure since I’m blind in this darkness. There is a smell of burned rubber and it sickens me. The ground is hard and moist. I hear a rat scuttle away but I decide it was only in my imagination.
Back out on the other side of the crack I find myself still in the dark. Still in the tunnels of the subway. Where are the trains? I haven’t heard them for a long time. I haven’t heard them at all. Silence is solitude.
What now?
The dreams White produced in my mind haunts me, and more so, their meaning. It’s a lot to take in, especially for a man so lost as I have been, and what do I have to do now? What can I… … maybe… …I… need to…

“Die!”
“Who’s there?”
“Black.”
“Where are you?”
“I am right in front of you.”
Slowly Simon extended his right hand and felt a small fluffy ball step into his palm.
“You need to die,” Black repeated.
“Suicide?”
“No… Death is rebirth! You need to be reborn. To transform. To separate yourself from the false self. You need to destroy what you are to become what you were. Next to you is a door that will take you to the surface. The sign that is supposed to mark it out is broken, but it’s there nonetheless.”
Simon fumbled with his left hand for the doorknob and when it was found he pushed it down and suddenly a white synthetic light surrounded him. There was a metallic staircase. Quickly he used it to reach the surface. In his hand he saw the black ball and it comforted him that another had come. With their help anything seemed possible, especially hope.

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GREEN

2006-09-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell

They advance quickly leaving the park behind them heading into the busy streets of the city, through the all-night mall, pass the arcades, into large crowds of merrymaking and out of them too. Green flew forward with ever-increasing speed and Simon had soon trouble keeping up.
“Not so fast…”
Green stopped. Simon caught up panting.
“Around this corner you will meet a man.”
“Who is it?”
“You will know the moment you lay your eyes on him,” Green explained and gallantly ebbed away.
Simon looked at the street and the city. He looked at the house and at the corner he was supposed to round. Curiosity enticed him to move ahead to meet whoever he was supposed to meet, not thinking of what happened to the cat or for that matter caring.

I know his face more than my own father’s. I see his more often than the old man. In fact I think the old man is dead. It doesn’t matter. I still can’t help staring because this man I so violently recognize has been in my house. His face has. It has been plastered on my TV screen every night. A royal socialite. A holy relic. An old woman’s dream. The wholesome son-in-law. Neither rude nor offensive. Smiling at the cameras whilst showing off his new teeth, suit and girlfriend on the red carpet at the premiere of some new club (like we need another) or film (as a rule a bad remake of something much better).
Yes I know his face, but I can’t recall his name. And if I would ask him for it that would cause a great offence because who would dare not to know it? So for now he’ll be branded the Actor because that’s what he is. A pretender. Like me. And like me he’s pretending to be something he’s not.
At the moment, though, this actor is drunk. He’s actually puking and the splashing sound his very late brunch makes sounds almost like his studio audience clapping at command. Sitcom demon. Alcoholic misfit. Unshaven. Clothes wrinkled. Eyes bloody. Not the nice cut gentleman one meets on the ‘hypno-box’.
This here, on his knees hurling dairy products from some fine restaurant, is a dark and most real side of him. It isn’t acting. This vomit circus is not make believe. It’s the true him. The man behind the ‘face’ and he’s like the rest of us. Lost. Fucked. Drunk on a drug or on confusion. Scared of pain and full of it. His life is the envy of others, but nothing he desires himself, and I know this because I can sense it in his eyes. He wants peace and meaning.
Like me. I want to belong. A purpose. Not the fake plastic dream I thought was mine. That dream I had, the dream that is constantly dying, is the collective dream of society. And we are all given it at birth; success!
And what is that but money and work well done? A lot of time spent watching clocks and catching busses, trains and taxis. Where is life happening? After 5 p.m.?
My life has to be lived how I want it to be lived, can’t it? Is that possible? I won’t hurt anyone or anything? Just go about my day… yes that’s all I want. To go about my day without being troubled by the ‘have to’ and the ‘must do’ of society. That would be wonderful. That I might find happiness in.
“What are you looking at?”
“An actor not pretending any longer,” I declare and he smiled a post-puked smile.
“Hey, what you see is all there is to see… this is me and who… are you?” the Actor asks with the occasional hiccup. I extend my hand and reveal my name.
“Well then Simon, let me tell you a story,” the Actor says and plunges down onto the pavement patting the ground next to him inviting me, and I gladly accept.
“Once,” he begins like most storytellers do, “there was a man sitting in a rowing boat without oars. The river pulled it forward towards a waterfall not far ahead. The man began using his own hands as paddles trying with all his might to get the boat to move up against the stream, but it was impossible. The current was so strong and death unavoidable. There was nothing else to do.
The man leapt into the water and began swimming. And the water grabbed hold of him and even more rapidly he was cruising towards the great waterfall. But he would not give up. And his arms became tired. And his strength became weaker and finally he drifted below the surface, water pouring into his mouth, and he drowned.”
“Is there a moral to this story?”
“Oh yes,” the Actor replies and a grand smile emerge on his face.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“No I think it’s fairly obvious.”
“I find it depressing.”
“Does it help if I tell you that all the other men in rowing boats that go down that river just sit there, looking straight ahead, until they finally plunge to their deaths.”
“No, because they all die in the end, don’t they? So what is the point of struggling?”
“That is the point. That is the point and no point could be more important, because one day a man, or a woman, will struggle hard enough and reach the shore where he/she can dry his/her clothes and figure out a way to maybe help other people caught in the current.”
“Mmm and then the government will have him/her assassinated.”
“Maybe so, still…”
“Still?”
“Some people try and some people don’t. You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Do you try or are you just waiting to die?”
“I… tried and now I guess I am waiting. What else can I do?” I answer feeling like a looser.
“I tried too and now I too am waiting for death. Karoshi. It will get me one day. I can feel it searching for me. And it’s getting closer by the day. Maybe even tonight we’ll embrace!”
Karoshi!
I’m not alone. I didn’t think I was, yet here next to me is a potential ally, and maybe we can help each other.
“What if there were two men in that boat. Wouldn’t they have a greater chance of success?”
“Possibly so.”
“Then come with me now,” I say and fly to my feet, “hurry now… Karoshi is after my soul as well. We have to run. Hide. Flee. Counter strike. I don’t know. But before I was alone and now we’re two. Maybe we can be three. Come. Will you struggle with me?”
The Actor coughs and spits a nasty lump of old saliva out his mouth.
“I am old and a bit drunk… you have no need for me. Call me a quitter. Call me a lost cause. Good luck young man. I can’t help you.”
“Yes you can,” I implore and grab hold of his shoulders, “now come here…”
“What are you… let go you fucking maniac. Help! Help!”
“Shut up, come with me,” and I drag him along down the street and his resistance grew fainter by each step we took till finally he walked by his own accord - eventually whistling as we rounded a corner and went down into the subway.

An empty train screeched to a halt. Simon and the Actor climbed aboard and sat down. The doors closed with a robotic hiss. Slowly the train began moving until it was hurling itself through the deep tunnels beneath the city. Outside the windows there were only darkness.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know?” Simon replied, “but I do know we have to be on the move. Karoshi is close. I barely escaped it not long ago just before we met.”
“You saw it!”
“Yes…”
The Actor looked down as to avoid the eyes that had seen what he feared.
“What did it look like?” he warily asked.
“Colorless, grey… a mass of empty death… a pallid ash shaded shadowed entity…”
Simon’s words trailed off into his mind and he sat silent for a while contemplating his recent adventures, or nightmares, depending on what view he took. The Actor leaned his head against the window for a nippy nap. Simon observed him wondering what dreams he might have and felt fatigued himself. He recalled how he, as a teenager, used to enjoy the train journeys without a set destination and he tried to fall into that emotion again, but found it difficult.
They were the only passengers and the desolation was kind of spooky. The train made its typical train noises. It was kind of soothing. Like a mother singing a lullaby.
Outside the windows the darkness remained. How long is it to the next station? Simon wondered and sat up straight after slumping for a bit. The Actor woke up.
Abruptly the train stopped. The doors opened. Both of them looked out. There was a station there neither of them had ever seen before. Empty and incomplete.
“What’s this?”
“Come,” the Actor urged and left the train with Simon in his heels. The doors shut again.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have got off?”
The train began moving and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel. A howling wind flew through the air sounding like a broken Theremin. The floor was dusty and the noise of mice, or rats, could be heard. Simon felt a chill in his bones and he knew the atmosphere reeked with an unknown threat.
“I don’t think this station exists,” said the Actor with a baffled tone.
“I have never…”
At the other end of the platform stood a flight of stairs that hopefully led to the surface, but before either of them had a chance to move towards it, or speak another word, a pale menacing shadow crept down the steps. Come come… it chillingly implored.
“We better run,” Simon leapt off the platform down unto the tracks.
The Actor stood still. His hands trembled. A cold breeze approached him as the shadow grew into a shape. Into a mass of death. A horrible evil and dark thing with bottomless eyes filled with malice, and it grinned a smile of vile spite.
Come here, it hissed with a guttural voice.
“Run!” Simon screamed and headed the same way the train had gone. But the Actor did nothing but stand where he stood, watching in terror as the malevolence approached.
“Karoshi…” the Actor said and that was the last word Simon heard before he disappeared into the black world of the tunnel like a frightened worm.

I cannot escape.
I cannot keep running. What’s the point? Death is imminent. I might as well just lie down and wait… but I have waited. I have waited all my life. What is life but a waiting room for the next world, if such a world exists. I better keep running. There must be a way. I know more now than I did before. I can survive if I struggle. If I don’t crumble and give in. I shall not give in.
Yes!
When I was young that was I believed and now I believe in it again. The struggle. I won’t let them, it, win. And even if I eventually loose at least I gave enough trouble. My death will have to be an annoyance. I’m not going to cave in like a house of cards, but like a house of bricks in a world of glass. I have changed, and I need to change back. Innocence. Naivety. Purity. How can I find my path? Where does it lie?
“In your dreams!”
“Who said that?”
“Don’t be afraid…”
“Who’s there?”
“White!”
“What?”
“I am White.”

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YELLOW

2006-09-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

“Evolution did not end with us growing thumbs, you do know that?”
Bill Hicks

Simon slipped on a leather jacket and walked outside.
The night was fresh. The moon had just arrived. In the distance, and near, the echoes of Saturday night parties were beguilingly audible. The possibility of alcohol tempted Simon and he felt his lips dry up.
“Where are we going?” he asked and Yellow, ignoring the question, sped up forcing Simon to do the same. The streets were crowded with happy drunks not yet in anger since the night was still young. A few cars honked and the ones with good stereos pumped out a heavy thundering beat to attract the envy and admiration, and hate, of others not so fortunate. Neon signs, neon lights. The sounds and smells of meat on grills and the wonderful clinging of coins and rattling of bills. Shouts of inebriated joy. Police cars cruising down the roads making sure all the chaos was happening in an orderly fashion. Simon had an urge to enroll in this School of Drunken Bedlam, but he understood that tonight he couldn’t.
Tonight he’d have to spend with these balls trying to sort out his head before Karoshi got a hold of it. Simon had accepted this sacrifice and was also curious on what a Saturday night actually might look like from the sober perspective. Still he reckoned a small drink couldn’t hurt. If for no other reason than to clear up his mind a bit. Perhaps then logic would return to his life again…
“The Spit Club,” Yellow said and came to a halt.
Simon looked around and noticed that no one paid any attention to the yellow ball and this could be for two reasons. Either he was visible only to Simon or Simon was the only one with a demented red-blue-yellow ball syndrome.
A long disorganized queue snaked its way out on the sidewalk by the sleazy and fashionably lush entrance of the Spit Club. Simon placed himself at the end and only a few seconds later he had several people behind him. Yellow perched on his right shoulder like the parrot of a pirate.
“You will enter, but you will not drink, instead you will look sharply at everything you see.”
“Why?”
“Oh,” Yellow smiled, “you will see!”

Here I am again, as usual, and yet not because I lack alcohol in my blood. My head is clear, apart from the insanity of what is sitting on my shoulder, and I don’t think I have ever seen the Spit Club in such a state before. And now I know I never want to see it again.
The place was filled with cocks and cunts, sticks and holes, bananas and melons, guns and wounds all lost in a ballet of insecurity and loneliness trying to find that special other one. Or trying to get some sort of release. Dressed up and made up. Faces painted and clothes ironed. Perfume sprayed all over the body. Everyone is struggling to impress the opposite or same sex. And sex is what it’s all about on all levels. On the conscious, unconscious and subconscious.
Suddenly I spot someone I know from work. He spots me too, smiles and walks over half dancing to the beat of the music with a drink in his hand. He gives the impression that he thinks he’s really cool, but to me he’s nothing but hideous. A repulsive and repelling mutant cast into a state of intoxicated psychosis.
“Simon good man, I didn’t think you were going to show up tonight.”
“Here I am…”
“Look man,” he blurts and puts his arm around me, “we got to get together sometimes and talk about that business plan I told you about. Sim, we could make it work!”
Yepp,
the confidence and the dream and hope come strong with alcohol roaming through the blood stream. I find myself feeling sick at the smell of his breath. With some polite words I dodge away towards the toilets. And in here I can smell the piss and the sperm and the coke and I lock myself in a cubicle. I look at Yellow and he just sits there on my shoulder in silence.
“Can we leave?” I plead.
“If you like…”
I flush the toilet even though I haven’t used it and I make my way towards the exit when I unexpectedly notice the Slut sitting at a table surrounded by a couple of men desperately trying to get their hands into various places. She is laughing and giggling enjoying her place at the center of attention. If I’d been drunk I probably would have felt heavily jealous, but now I just find her ugly and disgusting. She sees me and before I need to talk to her I rush towards the exit and I can feel her behind me.
My path is blocked by burps. By laughter. By dancing and loud shouts. By men and women with well combed heads bobbing to the music. The doors are packed with more people wanting to get in than people wanting to get out. Two muscular bouncers stand with crossed arms picking customers based on looks, dress or flashing VIP cards like the one I myself have. Now I’m so close, almost there, and like the fear of a shoplifter as he leaves the store he’s plucked goods from I suddenly feel a hand descend on my shoulder. Yellow flies away to avoid being crushed, and I turn around.
“Sim! Where have you been?”
“I…”
“Why don’t you answer the phone?”
“I’ve turned it off?”
“Why?”
“Look I got to go…”
“Where you going? Can I tag along?”
“Look… leave me alone…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything, I have to go. Find someone else!”
Then her drunken condition caused her to feel some sort of real attachment and tears began dripping from her eyes that had been brutally highlighted with a thick layer of black mascara. She wasn’t really upset and if she’d been sober her only reaction would’ve been a heavy sigh because it would mean she’d have to call up some other guy to spend the night with, and she had plenty waiting in line. Some of them even richer than myself.
“Come on, don’t pretend you’re really hurt cause I know you and you ain’t!” I said and left thinking I should find someone to love instead of someone to lust.
A great harsh lump disintegrated within me and it felt great to dump such a bad habit as she was. Perchance there was a possibility to dump more? Maybe I could change? It wouldn’t be so bad if it felt so good would it?
As soon as I was back out on the street I’d forgotten all about the Slut and almost all about the Spit Club, Poo and the like connected with that kind of environment. In a sense I was both stronger and lighter. For how long would I remain in this zone? Would I, could I, relapse?
I looked at Yellow but he was gone and I understood that his task had been completed. I was not only awake, but also clear in my mind and I felt power and full of energy. I was ready to advance. To step up and away from my old decaying self. I knew now for certain I had been in a hole and, for some reason, a ladder had been thrown down to me. A ladder I was climbing higher for each new ball that came to me. What color would the next one have? Green?

Simon strolled down the street with a growing smile. He felt confident. Like an übermensch, a superman, that was above everyone else. Below him he saw the drinking scum and it made him laugh that he had, only less than a week ago, been one of them. Funny how things change, he thought.
Aimlessly Simon journeyed through the city and his legs took him away from the masses till he was the only one on a narrow backstreet that looked like a good location to shoot up heroin or fuck a whore i.e. not an enjoyable place to be on a Saturday evening that grew later by the minute.
A sound?
Simon saw nothing, but stood still and felt… something! A vibration. A breathing wind that curled up his backside. Come come…
“Who’s there?”
No reply and Simon began walking back the way he’d come and felt it to be wrong. He sensed a thing around the next bend coming for him. Come here!
Simon was immobilized. Clenched his fists as if they could protect him. A shadow slid across the ground. A shadow above all shadows. The moon sank into the clouds and there was hardly any light but a sharp shimmer of wicked grey that seemed to accept no mercy. And it crept, crawled, forward towards Simon growing into a bulbous blobby shape that resembled nothing and all things at once.
Two heavy legs made of file cabinets, a round stomach from a table and a long vacuum cleaner hose penis dangling generously. Its head was a massive light bulb glowing of a colorless shade with two cracked monitors for eyes and a fat throat that looked like it was made from a ventilation pipe. Its arms were a thousand pens that floated together in unison forming two sharp and solid limbs, with clicking typewriters for hands, stretching out for Simon’s throat. Its mouth was a deep black hole grinning with white teeth made of sharp paper.
An atrocious stench of sulphuric glue infiltrated Simon’s nostrils and he fell to his knees in awe stricken fear. This godless demonic entity unexpectedly morphed and transformed into a liquid gas that threw itself forward like a deadly tsunami and Simon opened his mouth to scream, but the voracious beast spoke first:
“Come here little grub!”
A yellow beam of light suddenly blasted into reality filling the whole setting in an golden glow that seemed to cause whatever evil it was that confronted him to come to a halt. Simon got up on his feet shaking profoundly and noticed Yellow suspended in mid air somehow generating the sun-like force field.
“Run!” Yellow shouted and Simon obeyed without question and ran. He ran because he knew. He knew what it had been. What he had faced then and there in his confident bliss. He had been off guard. He had come face to face with Karoshi. It had finally caught up with him and death was pending. Unless of course he ran as fast as he could, which he did.

Stupid!
So stupid. How could I be so careless? One measly second of joy and there it was; doom. I can’t be that naïve. Change can’t happen over night, can it?
“It can,” Yellow said landing in my lap, “but you have to be aware of who you were and why you changed. Clarity is of the essence. Don’t forget that and you will be all right.”
He was correct. I’m in great peril. Karoshi is, it exists, and so do I but who will still be here tomorrow? The answer to that lies in my own strength.
I’m on a bench in a park.
I took flight to the closest thing a city could offer to nature. Somehow I figured Karoshi an outcast here, whereas in the city it must be a native, so I suppose I’m fairly safe… for now.
The trees in this park look like huge men looming over me in the dark. I survey the area and no one is around. Not even any nocturnal beasts. Not even hoboes under the quilt of old newspapers.
My notebook begs me to consult it from within my back pocket and I do flipping it to a page picked at random, or with calculated instinct, and it bears the words: Normal in normality?
I can’t even recall writing that so many years ago and I am not sure I understand it either, at first that is. Normal in normality. What is that? What is normal? Is not normal depended on what the environment deems normal. Isn’t normal in one place abnormal in another? Promptly I dredge up the event that triggered the sentence, and it comes back to me clearly. Even the smell of fresh grass and sweet smoking grass that encompassed the event.
I was at a music festival. Intoxicated, not only with alcohol and drugs, but more so with the joy and spirit of living freely and doing what I liked to do no matter what anyone thought about it. And to my delight so did everyone else. I must have been sixteen or seventeen at the time resting in a green field a few yards away from the area where all the tents were, where some slept and some still partied hard to the sound of homemade drums and portable stereos. Screams and shouts resonated, but none were of a hostile nature.
It was a really warm summer night with all the stars out. In the distance music could be heard from some band that was finishing off the last song for the night. Several people were dancing and singing in the field and they all had extravagant clothes and I believe one was even naked. It was all crazy and open, liberal and peaceful.
Through this utopia fevered realm a train track ran and on it a train. Since it was dark it was very easy to see all the people inside the train. They were what could be called normal people in respectable clothes on their way home from work or to some late dinner gathering, and I thought they looked really freaked out at all the madness of the festival as they were looking out the window with big gaping eyes from their little train compartment. I laughed thinking them to be the silly ones but then I grasped the significance. They were normal in their train, in their milieu, and I was normal in mine. Only when faced, or put in the same place, can the other be considered abnormal. Fairly logical yet very important and disregarded in society. If it wasn’t then there would be more tolerance for anything so-called abnormal.
To be normal in ones own normal environment, or normality, would be to be very dead indeed. In fact to be a yuppie in a hippie commune, or a hippie playing the stock market dining with the most successful CEO every Wednesday, would be a very abnormal affair. It would also be to acknowledge normality and oppose it and by doing so not really destroying it, just annoying it. A greater move would be to rise above the normal and the abnormal and just be… what? There is no word for it apart from God. Clearly a god can’t be normal unless he/she is surrounded by other gods, but wouldn’t that be utopia? Imagine a world inhabited by gods. Would that be good? Can it even be imagined?
My head is jumbled yet as lucid as a logical dream, and what about me? According to ‘this’ society I am in I’m pretty normal, and now I know I don’t want to be. I look down on Yellow in my lap to tell him this but he simply nods and vanishes. As if his task was, this time for certain, complete. He did say he was going to grant me mental alertness, and that he clearly has.
No sooner had Yellow left when Green appeared in a gracious descent from the heavens like a singular snowflake. I let him land in my palm and his soft fluffy skin tickled.
“I am Green, and I will give you knowledge and harmony through the shape of poetry told from another, and he will in turn set balance to your reluctance to fight with all the might you have locked up inside.”
“?”
“Come, follow…”

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BLUE

2006-09-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
Søren Kierkegaard

The blue ball was identical with the red one (except the obvious difference in color). Its eyes seemed a touch melancholic, unlike the hectic decisive eyes of the red one, but these differences would be completely logical to Simon once he got to know the elfin fellow. The reasons for the gloomy eyes were due to depression and sadness. It didn’t have any such feelings, but were, more so, those very feelings materialized.
“I am,” explained Blue, “the agony, the downer and the blues… in a sense I am what you are.”
“And what is that?”
“Depression itself.”
“Sure I am depressed, but it is not what, or who, I am,” Simon argued and walked over to his wardrobe.
He stood there before it contemplating what to do and then decided to pick out a shirt. He chose a lightly pink-tinted one with microscopically thin stripes of silver. He then pulled out a drawer and dragged out a pair of light blue jeans of the right brand and shape. He put them on. From one of the walls hung a full size mirror and he looked at himself. Very hip, in and modern. An appearance to pride not shame. Ah, dressing up for no one but the ego and the ego of others. It was his biggest curse. The curse of image.
“I just suffer from a little anxiety when it comes to achieving things. Call it stress, sometimes… well everything just feels fucking pointless. Meaningless. That’s all, and just sometimes…”
Blue sighed deeply and floated rapidly over to Simon.
“You have to trust me Simon. I am here to help you understand your own pain and you have to listen. Karoshi is on the hunt and you will be its prey.”
“Ridiculous,” Simon took out a pair of beautiful socks, “Firstly it is ridiculous that a fluffy blue ball is hanging in mid air nagging me about depression. Secondly it is even more ridiculous that I listen and answer your dumb questions. Thirdly you have to understand that you don’t exist theoretically, logically or even metaphorically. So do what’s right...”
Simon put on the socks and then looked Blue profoundly into its eyes and said:
“Bye bye!”
But Blue did not leave. Instead it flew over to a fake Picasso that hung over the sofa. There it laid its tiny arms behind its back and studied the artwork up close stating:
“I have always loved his blue period.”
Simon shook his head and hurried to the bathroom.
“It feels so relevant to my own existence, I…” Blue looked up and noticed that Simon had disappeared.

The toilet seat is the throne of my religion.
Here I rule. Here no one shall, or will, bother me. Here is peace. The smell of my body’s garbage disposal system is the greatest deterrent. Although Blue doesn’t seem to have any nostrils. What fucking nerve! Waltzing into my life obstructing my inevitable journey towards blissful death lecturing me about my own depression. My own pain. The one thing I possess that is fully mine.
If he shows up again he is dead.
I have to get a grip on this insanity before I slip and break my mind, but there is no escape. Damn. There he is… or she, it… again!
On the floor, by my feet, Red is sitting with arms crossed. It looks at me and then starts shaking its little fists. Screaming. I lean forward to hear better:
“I have returned to gain your attention! Do you wish to be well?”
“Yes,” I reply. Yes because I wish nothing more, and it breaks my heart to wish for the impossible. And how could I gain it from red and blue balls hovering about me?
I stand up with my trousers around my ankles to stamp Red into death but it floats swiftly out of the way and manages to sink an undetectable little mouth into my left big toe. Blood seeping forth. I scream. Fall. Smash my head into something. The sink? Minutes pass. I wake up from the darkness. Red is sitting on my chin. Too close to be in focus.
“Do I have your attention?”
“Sure…”
Poff!
It’s gone. But Blue is still around. Waiting patiently on my kitchen table. I rub my head. Got a nice bump. It hurts. Life hurts. Physically. Psychologically. The former numbs the latter. One thing to rejoice in. I pour a glass of water.
“Ok,” I say seating myself at the table, “let’s get this over with!”
“Yes,” Blue replies, “I agree.”

“You are like me, blue, and to rid yourself of this you first have to give in to it without dying. I will help you research yourself so you can read your heart like a book. I know you believe you have pain and anxiety but that is only physical symptoms of much deeper issues. Your true agony lies within you and you know what it is. Karoshi knows it. And that grey entity is hunting for you. As we speak it is out there searching. Smelling. Yes it can smell you. It can smell sadness. Rid yourself of it before it is too late. Find your happiness.”
“That is very easy to say.”
“Your happiness is the reason you are depressed. Can you not realize this. What really makes you happy is what also makes you really sad, because you have given up.”
“Given up what?”
Blue smirked and slithered over to Simon’s side of the table placing itself by a steaming coffee cup. I wonder if it is just as tiring to hover as it is to stand for too long? Simon pondered and lifted the cup to his lips. Sweet caffeine soaked his lips.
“Anxiety is the escape from pain. Anxiety is to avoid the real pain. Can’t you feel it? That pulsating worrying pain within that you know will be heard if you for one second loose concentration. Can’t you sense that if you let it out a greater pain, the true depression, will come forth and blossom?”
“I have cried plenty.”
“Shed your tears, cry, whimper. It won’t do you any good dehydrating yourself. What you need to do is locate that lost happiness. That is step one. You have to dwell into your past and find out who you were before society killed you. Before you lost what your soul was intended for. I can’t take you there only you can. Remember now… long ago and tell me. Tell me who Simon was and what he was…”
Simon finished his cup of coffee and got up to make another.
“I guess I was like any other kid with two normal parents in a suburb somewhere.”
“No. You have gone back too far. Then you were just a child. Nothing more than a blank page yet to be written. As a child you a dormant soul. The soul is awakened in the search for your true self. At the time when you have found what you believe in and of what you stand for. Yes there is a great light in the child that can be harnessed and a power you’re not ready for yet, so what you now should be looking for is the you at a much later period. At a time when you realized you could die for your opinions. I am Blue. I represent anxiety. How many children suffer from that?”
“Not many I guess.”
“Then who suffers from it most?”
“Teenagers.”
“Yes, tell me. Tell me who you were as a teenager.”
Simon ceased the coffee making and leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Then,” he spoke with sadness, “then I was someone else entire.”
“As suspected...”
A great big silvery pot stood on the stove. In it Simon could see his own distorted reflection. He was beautiful. Short hair. Symmetrical face. Pink shirt. His posture. His vocation. Slave of the Big Corp. Agent of advertising. The green greed in his eyes. But it was all wrong.
The image morphed. Changed. A new took shape. A boy of sixteen. Innocent and tainted. Free and slave, but fighting. Resisting. Full of life and soul. There, in the reflective surface of one of Simon’s kitchen utensils, the face of a punk emerged.

Fuck the system! Fuck the system! Rise rise rise abooooooove!
Simon bobbed his head up and down in rhythm with the aggressive music that was blasting in his headphones. All around normal people with normal jobs were standing and sitting impatiently waiting for the train to reach its destination so they could get off and continue with their lives. Simon had no destination. He just enjoyed the ride. Listening to music. Thinking. Drawing in his notebook. Relishing in the fact that he didn’t even pay a ticket to do it. Fuck the system!
Simon looked out the window and there was only darkness as the train rumbled through the underground tunnels of the city. He flipped open his notebook, thought for a while, and then wrote:
Society is the opium of the people, religion is just the pipe we smoke it in.
He laughed, to himself, and noticed a yuppie, in the traditional uniform of suit and tie, talking to someone on his cell phone for all to hear. Out of curiosity Simon lifted his headphones out of his ears.
“…fax me them in the morning Trish darling and…”
No more.
That is the extent of what he could bear. Sick. Empty.
“How the hell did I…”

“…become…”
Simon looked over to the kitchen table. Blue was gone and it didn’t comfort him the way it should have. Now he was even more depressed. For some reason he walked into his bedroom, stopped, and stared at his closet. In it, far back, there were boxes which he hadn’t looked in for many years. They had been forgotten, yet they were not gone, and Simon did not dare to approach them. He fell into his bed, but could not sleep. He opened his closed eyes. Looked at the time. Silence everywhere. He felt alone. Scared.
What’s the point?
He was not happy. He felt empty and lost. He wanted a destination, but he had none. He was aimlessly drifting with purposeless beliefs in career and status. Is this how suicide begins? Is this the end? Or a beginning? Can the material past be of any help?
Simon opened the closet and dragged out a couple of large shoeboxes not daring to open them at first. He knew what they contained and he wished he didn’t. Blue came floating down from somewhere onto the floor next to them.
“Look inside!”
“When I do stay with me,” Simon urged and the ball nodded with a wink of the eyes.

Poetry.
Several notebooks filled. Drawings. Stories. Ideas. Gold dust for an artist. Stuff straight from the soul, from the heart, down unto the page. Seeing what I had done and how creative I had been I realized I’m not that creative anymore. I thought I was, but I’m not.
I am dead and it kills me. How ironic is that? Everything I was and wanted to be I have lost. Even if I would start again I wouldn’t know where to begin. Then I wrote because life was painful and because all around was wrong, or I perceived it as wrong, and now? What do I perceive? I am what I hate and I can’t change even though I know I should. My shoes fit too well. Comfort kills the rebel.
Tears stream down my face.
The words that I read fill me with love for who I was, and for whom I could have been. The writing is really excellent, funny, witty and full of hate yet full of hope like great art should be.
The thing with the now is the fact that it’s considered to be constantly out of date. Past and future may hold whatever suffering and dismay, chaos and genocide, it likes – but the now always seems to be free because it’s always disregarded. Untouched and pure. But to hold on to that, to the now, is so hard. Suddenly what was now has become then, and not longer after; Bob’s your uncle, hey presto, voilá and what do you know someone else you’ve become. Society does that. Washes you clean. To fit in or not to fit that is the real question, and like I said, fitting in feels very nice.
For me it isn’t enough to be riding through life with ease, but the vehicle needs to be made out of gold. It’s not greed. I am just a material boy. Or I’d rather say that’s what I’ve become. What I unintentionally became. Who is to blame? I can only blame myself.
One of the notebooks that really grab my attention is small and black, and filled to the brim with genius material. I let it slide into my back pocket where it fits nicely. I look at Blue and he’s gone. Somehow I think it’s forever. I can feel it, because I know now what I have lost. Not that it helps. The road I should walk is still hidden. What can I do? Karoshi will still take me.
Saturday night is coming.
The sun is falling. Soon Monday will arrive and all I‘ve experienced will be gone again. At least till next weekend unless I drown myself in alcohol.
Then I see it, or him (must be him since it’s probably my own mental projection), floating across the room towards me with a great grin.
“Good evening. I am Yellow,” the ball said clad in the color of its name, “Are you ready to advance into the night, into the city?”
“No, I rather sit here and moan and cry.”
“Simon, come it’s time to leave your abode and venture outdoors. The night is young and time is of the essence. Karoshi will not wait for you to obtain the strength you require. It’s hungry. It knows where you live. The time for advancing is at hand. Come, I shall grant you the energy you need and the mental alertness you so secretly crave.”

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RED

2006-09-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

“Freedom without opportunity is a devil’s gift.”
Noam Chomsky

Monday.
Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday.
Monday.
The weekend slur, the weekend blur, passes me by like an invisible invisibility unnoticeable to the untrained eye. Nothing but a two-day vigil of tiredness and desperation where I mostly find myself heavily wedged on a coffee stained sofa watching the box with drool coming out the left corner of my mouth. And all I fear is Monday, and all I desire is peace. And it takes time to achieve harmony and when it finally installs itself briefly into the dire existence of being it’s already Sunday evening. And then…
Monday.
January.
Morning.
Hello.
Start.
1.
A.
Now.
Now.
Now.
And I don’t know why I put up with work. Is it to support my life? What life? Work demands life. My life. Most people feel like that, like this. World of piss. Work is shit.
Strife and stutter, back pains and no gains, and working for food and appearance and yet no money, and money ain’t worth shit, and many hours put in and a lot of tax put out and nothing comes of it, and yet back we go on board the train to the office, and too tired to clean and too tired to eat, and we work for food, and we are given to and stolen from, and you age and I age and we age and mature, and then we retire and crumble and decay and die and rest. Rest?
Is this how it is? How we’ve evolved? Did slavery never end? Did it merely change its name to something not fully so provocative… employee!
Postman, waitress, cashier, cleaner, warehouse worker, bus driver, construction worker, office manager, teacher, nurse, trucker, clerk, secretary, doorman, bartender, whore, pimp, drug dealer, sailor, barber, car dealer, train conductor, carpenter, priest and the man in blue patrolling his empty power down the street.
Bad pay, bad hours, bad jobs, boring jobs, monotonous movements, mouse arms and no charms. Toil, strife, fret and what do you get? Money. Money for what? For food so you can continue living? So you can continue working? You are a slave and so am I. Daily whipped. A mundane existence, and there’s nothing to do about it. I’m at loss. I’ve given up. Why bother?
I wouldn’t call myself a poor man. I’ve got that trendy apartment, a wardrobe full of shirts with strange words in the color of the month and I have a cell phone. The latest, the best, the coolest and people at work ask me how much it was and I tell them and I smile and I cum in their envy. And I have a girl. Model. Big tits. Skimpy clothes. A real slut whom I fuck and she fucks me for my place, my view, my job, my life and my future. And I use her to experience the envy of others.
World Wide Web.
Every day. Morning till night staring into the pixel cosmos of my computer screen (sometimes night till morning) and so fucking boring and yet I prevail. Like a zombie on stress pills. A slave. And I know I’m not a bus driver and I know I live the material life envied by others, but slave I am. And my trade is designing. Goon of Satan, in cahoots with some sinister demon, shaping the face of the Earth. Plastic surgeon and life is pointless.
Monday. Design, purpose, advise, construct and out a website comes. New and fresh and cool and hip and rich I get and drunk I become. And the website sells paperclips in all the shades of the rainbow from brown to grey and in the evening I go to the Spit Club to drink a drink called Poo, just because it’s in to be nasty and controversial.
Tuesday. Continue working. At night see the Slut and answer the messages bleeping up on my phone and watching the digital faces of people I know in their drunken fake mirth. And all the talk is about where I am, what I do and where I’m going. The future is a stroke of the clock. Time is a bomb and death is the detonator.
Wednesday. Homepages. Meetings. WWW. @. ☹
A world of symbols and signs. And at night the same thing again. I drink my Poo. See the Slut. Right in the face. And she’s got new plastic lips.
Thursday. Web. Slut. POO.
Friday. WEBSLUTPOO.

The sofa keeps my naked body in a solid grip.
Impossible to get away. I lie in my own glue, in my own choice, which is my life. Head pounding after last nights binge. The phone is off the hook and off the buzzer, and the net is down and I ain’t going back online. A forged peace, and so much to do to attain it. I’ve locked the door and shut the blinds. Pretending I’m dead. Maybe I am. Is this hell? I don’t believe in Satan. I believe in God and God is evil. He doesn’t need a demonic enemy. There is no yang only yin… gin…
For fucks sake!
…
Loneliness is a virtue. My only refuge. The secret haven I inhabit in a world where everything is on a downward spiral, unconsciously trapped in the glowing light of the loopy box known as TV.
Suicide, hara-kiri. To be or not to be that is the same. I am and I am not. A walking shell. A ghost that awakes quarter past eight five days a week waiting for the one day when the gold comes in, and I have thought of death. Everything seems so much simpler in a coffin.
I manage to get to the bathroom. My urine runs out of me and it smells. I forget to flush and I return to my padded furniture. The box is still on but there is only static there. That’s how I meditate.
I find a white or black dot on the screen and I focus on it whilst I turn up the volume. And the hum starts sizzling and buzzing like a wave coming at me; like the crashing sea, and I shut my eyes and I drift away. Hours pass before I think another thought. I am a ghost. Perhaps not even that.
A mirage.
I stand in front of my hallway mirror.
My body is bony and thin. I seldom eat and when I do it’s junk. My hair is short and dark. I wash it daily. The color of my eyes is not of importance. I never see them.
I lie in my sofa. Masturbating. Got nothing better to do. I think about the Slut, but it doesn’t make me cum. I think about some situation I would find erotic, but to no avail. Finally I shoot my load when I perceive myself inside my mind.
It’s natural.
Egoism didn’t create the world, but that’s how it will end. I’m going mad? Should I kill myself?
The deadline for the current website I’m working on is Tuesday so Wednesday would be better… Oh non-entity God. My life is a calendar. My soul is stress. My heart’s got cramps. And I work so hard that all the time I have when I’m not working is lost in a delirious insomniac wake with alcohol. The drunk finds a false strength in the intoxication.
Maybe there’s no need to take my life?
Work will take it for me. Rip out my heart, and quench all appetite.
Karoshi.
That’s what it’s called in Japan. Dying from too much work and stress. And work is all my brain is focused on, except in those tranquil moments before the altar we all call TV. And when I sleep the trauma of burning the midnight oil visits me in my dreams. It’s a nightmare and I awake and it’s still there. The stress and pressure to complete, and meet, the deadline and the deadline and the deadline. Roads towards death. Highway to… well you know…
And now when I lay here in my sofa, in the silence, I look at my watch and I plan Monday. Just that thought cuts a deep ice-cold wound into my spine. Strain. Pain. Load. Burden. And to be better and better than everyone else, and they in turn want to be better than you. Than me. I.
Sometimes I awake early on Saturday in the belief that I’ve overslept. Sometimes I even go so far as getting dressed before I realize that the weekend has at last come. Sometimes, sometimes, I get strange looks from the cleaners in the office when I turn up on Sunday morning with a bewildered forehead. I go home, back to bed. Stress and pressure.
I am deteriorating.
Frosty sweat. Shivering. Naked. In my sofa with all the lamps turned off, but it’s midday and the sun gives light to my living room. It’s warm, but I’m cold inside. I am dwindling away… I am going mad. I must be!
Why else would I see a red ball? Honestly, that’s is what I see. A red fluffy little ball (no bigger than the ones used in tennis) waving at me with one of its tiny arms, blinking its big round eyes, and tickling my stomach as it comes bobbing towards me across my chest. I can’t see a mouth, but it has got to be there because the ball is saying something. At first I can’t make out what it is, but when it gets closer…
“I am Red. I have been sent here to get your attention!”
The ball stops, suspended gently in front of my face.
I don’t know what to say. Red does.
“Do I have your attention?”
I nod.

Simon stared at the talking ball. At first he presumed himself to have completely lost his marbles, but because he could feel the soft body of the ball against his skin he thought otherwise. He wasn’t certain, but he hoped for the best, and decided to consider himself sane at least for a while.
It called itself Red and Simon presented himself as Simon.
Now they were strangers no more, yet Simon couldn’t help feeling a bit shy so he sat up and pulled the blanket, that was crumbled up into a bundle by his feet, over his naked body. Red hovered upwards and hung there in the air as if gravitation had no effect.
“What do you want?” Simon asked with a feigned authority.
“Your attention, and now I have it!”
It was gone.
Dissolved. Vanished while Simon blinked his eyes.
He got up and began looking for the red ball amongst the cushions of the sofa, even pulling the piece of furniture out so he could search behind it. Maybe gravity had got hold of it and pulled it to the floor? It could be injured, or dead?
“Hello… Red?”
No answer.
Simon sat down again. He felt like laughing but couldn’t. He had obviously been hallucinating. The pressure had driven him to it. Sweat poured from his forehead. He went into the bathroom to have an ice cold shower.
The water flushed his body bringing it back to its senses and his mind into reality. Like waking up out of a fretful dream. The cold drops quickened his brain and he felt much better. He looked down at his feet. There sat a petite fluffy ball getting soaked, its blue color turning darker by the second.
“I am Blue,” it gurgled.

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