Life as a rat

As far as I was aware I'd never signed up for any experiment. I'd never crossed ant grammatical lines, never spoken up or back, hadn't missed any punctuation. Now here I was in some sound lab, headphones on and pad of paper and a pen in front of me. A voice in the phones cut into the BGM and said; "You were never meant to be here, your attendance is a chance occurrence, a random event. It may, in the great scheme count for very little or indeed it may be of some significance. So please consider yourselves to be no better than white mice or lab rats. You are the subjects of a great and long running experiment, one that we did not begin and that we shall not conclude. Only God or the Great Corporation can call a halt to the research and so it is that you must play your part, honestly, humbly and obediently. Understand?"

There was no opportunity to respond. Responding was not any part of the arrangement. We were in a controlled situation that we did not control. We were the experiment. I looked down the line of drawn, white faces. Each one consumed by some kind of new personal drive and horror. Victims and spokespersons for the masses, the chattering careless masses. We'd left them behind in our gloomy departure, we'd asked for no support or counsel as we were shipped like packets of meat in the centre for...experimentation and testing. I presumed this. There was noting else.

Then a buzzer sounded and the countdown began, there was little warning and now we were in the game. The questions came like silver bullets, repeated twice for effect and clarity (they said). I wrote down my answers as if my life depended upon them. It did. This was my moment. My time to fry my brain and make the grade. To be the best example, lab rat or whatever they called us. I was on fire, but not noticeably. I just had to maintain a workmanlike demeanour as the questions hit me like punches and I rolled with them or reeled with their impact. There was not dodging of issues or safe haven. The rats were being put through their paces and pummelled.  I lost track of time, it was shocking but expected. Then in a hour or maybe less it was over. White faces were red, bloated and sweating, papers were scattered. There was muttering, whispering and swearing but no one wanted to give too much away. not yet. Not until we were on the other side of the wire and the steel doors, till there was sunshine and water and the chance of seeing friends.

As I made my way out I cursed under my breath, I mouthed untidy, unclean words. All the rest of my civilised vocabulary had been squeezed out and stretched to breaking point by the time and the test and the heat. I was dried up inside, all that remained was the obscene husk, the bad language and the bitter tongues. That was what they had done to us, to me. As for my result, I never knew it, my transportation across the water was either my reward or my punishment. All part of the plan, keep it as unclear, opaque and difficult as possible and avoid the truth at all costs.

I looked up, now I was free from the test. The sky was blue, there was board and lodgings and, for the time being a place to be. If only I could be clear as to what any of this really meant.

Misplaced lyrics

I thought that I had an idea. It was taking shape nicely. Then I forgot about it. My brain moved onto something else, I failed to capture the idea and now it's gone. Lost and irretrievable it seems. Like a cat in a coal mine. The trouble is that I keep going over the lost idea, trying to somehow think it back up into existence. Of course it may not be worth it anyway, how good an idea was it in the first place? If it had been any good I would've surely remembered it. I just need to use a note book.

Then I had an idea for a (fairly simple) song:

E
We got married in Egypt, my shoes full of sand (?)
C#m                                          B7
When I saw you in that dress, I'd found my promised land.

A
Yeah, married in Egypt, diggin' the Koran
C#m                                        B7
Everybody's into everything, they think they have a plan.

E
Once we got out of Egypt, divorced in Japan
C#m                                                      B7
She got the money, she got the stuff, she got another man.

A         Yeah, married in Egypt, divorced in Japan
C#m                                                                    B7
Travelling to get nowhere, stuck in some promised land.

A                                                          C#m
When you get married it must be for love
A                                             B7
Cos' if it's not it's gonna be tough.

Of course this blog isn't really a place to share or store hastily written song lyrics, it's for other things. I therefore don't quite know why this is appearing here. It's misplaced, it's a misplaced piece of lyric set out here because I forgot the other probably better idea. I still can't remember it.

Strange how it's no longer there.

Today brings us, courtesy of the great corporations, a Pseudo Science Fiction Morning complete with a light breeze and some dense hoovering. I've discovered the added joy of connecting lots of different wires and leads together, all towards the great goal of eliminating that buzz, that crackle, that dull hum, that noise that defies and confounds the silence, where ever it may hide. This of course is the faint hum of the universe, a great machine that runs without stopping, as far our feeble time lines are concerned anyway. We run in the hum, slightly oblivious and determined to remain uneducated and cheap. "That is why I have created and captured these recordings" said the Professor.

"Well that would be the scientific view, eventually you'll understand everything, it's just a matter of time. So what about luck or patience or industry? I'm just one the drones here as far as I can see. I make up the numbers and then those same numbers, beyond binary values and beyond my comprehension come straight back and rule me via the corporations. I don't even understand how that came to be. There were tales but they've all been told now. We were exhausted by the efforts of the media. Dumb and relentless. That was how it was. So I took it upon myself to travel, anywhere but mostly inside. No matter what I did though I could never beat the corporations. They were in the milk, the music and the tapestry. They held a stranglehold despite my repeated use of large and unfashionable fonts. I couldn't contact them."

"I used to sleep on most of my daily journeys. It was a way of catching up, buying back time at a discount. So fractured but that was the way of reality. Something that you think is sitting in the correct place then you look around and find that everything has moved. On a roundabout. A man with less experience could become paranoid but I'd done a little homework. I also knew that there never would be a revolution, that the workers would never rise up. The mental strength wasn't there, the purpose was missing. We voted every period in what seemed like a free system but we still voted in oppressors again and gain. I think it was the buzzing and humming that got to them, made them mad. Made them like the rest and we just got on with our work. Heads down."

"The good thing is that I don't really feel the despair of it all anymore. There's none of that, just a light elation, as if I'd just inhaled a cigarette or sipped strong coffee. That 's how it is in the drone community, one little buzz after another to keep your pecker up. Anyway I'd become bored with just looking around and out of the window so the sleep was like a warm refuge. It gave me something to look forward to at the beginning and the end of the working day. It was something that the corporations couldn't steal. Not at the moment anyway."

"When the transport stopped we all stood, lined up and headed out into the building. I blinked and took in the greater space. It was clean, artificial and grey. It was the same as it was everyday and had been for thousands of years. They had told me that during the induction model. You had to remember a lot of things that were described as being facts. There were numbers and values added in also and lists of dos and don'ts. I passed the test but I still knew nothing of time before the corporations. That's somebody else's business. A pale light was playing on all the surfaces, moving gently, like some kinetic artwork. I was distracted for a few seconds. I wanted it to hypnotise me, carry me away. But I was only passing through a place and the hum was getting louder with every step. Nobody spoke. There was nothing to say."

Ten Minutes

OK, I've only got ten minutes or so and this Internet connection is flaky, really poor (as we've come to expect). They want to shut us down you know. We are living in the final days etc. etc. My message is a simple one and I need to pass it on. You see your leaders, all of them, are lying to you. They're lying about everything, all the messages, all the spin, all the news stories they put out there are false, really untrue and made up. That's it, it's all propaganda and alien messages, totally distorted and weird, all lizard speak and Illuminati bollocks. They are the people that your parents didn't quite warn you about, they may have hinted, perhaps you read some of the signs but you need to know that now it's almost too late, time is running out. The only answer is to go down to the sea shore and take lots of gin, tonic, lemon and ice with you. Also take a nice glass, no need to compromise on your standards, oh and a decent cigar. So pour yourself a long one, look out to sea, watch how the light glints and plays on the water, feel the sun on your face and just tell yourself, " I really don't give a fuck anymore". Repeat this as often as necessary, take a long drink and punctuate the sunny conversation with as much gin as you are comfortable with. Then just let everything go. Trust me on this.

Leverage

Of course I have made a number of pacts with the Devil over the years, most of them quite successful. Well, successful by my own, current terms anyway. Who really knows quite how their mortal soul will fare anyway? Success is also very much in and of the moment. Tomorrow I may view my life quite differently from how I see it today, here in the sunshine, showered and fresh, enjoying a cup of early morning coffee and pondering without pressure how to fill the empty day before me.

A fat cat purrs next to me, ignorant of the fact that I'm trying to type, birds whistle their made up tunes and the leaves rustle in the garden moved along by a faint breeze. A haze of soothing bluebells covers the green slopes over in the woods. My life has spoiled me, I am carefree and pleasantly shambolic. That I hope is my eternal fate, my defining attributes, my reason for being...not very much of anything but enough. It's not of course that I don't care about the world, of course I care. I watch, catch news, grimace  at the headlines and unlearning stupidity.  But there are only so many chances we'll have as humans, the doors are closing upon us, slowly, steadily. 

Our actions have consequences and he knows that. So there will be that (much too much fantasised about) day of reckoning.  I'll have a role then, small but hopefully meaningful, I'd like to make a difference. You see that was also part of the deal. I got myself just a little bit of extra leverage but of course I had to take a few poor innocents down with me. Looking back it was risky, painful, dangerous even but in the end I considered it to be worthwhile. The thing is that memory does fade and you'd be surprised at what you can live with, there in the back of your mind. Anyway if you're interested in "leverage" at all just look me up.

Hungry black hole

No that's not it, ok it's famous and there's some mystery about it but that's not what I'm, looking for, no. It's not a famous photo, not the photo I mean, never will be. No reason.

So I couldn't find that photo, I looked but I couldn't find it. There were many others, all taken or posted or something about the same time. Many very similar, some not of course. Anyway, it has eluded me for the time being. I know I'll go back and search but right now it seems like looking for a certain pin that's fallen into quicksand that's already home to 50% pins, 50% sand. Too many things to go over and before long you become blind and careless and searching is nearly impossible. Maybe I just lack the mental strength and resolve to search. Maybe I lack the will. Maybe I'm not so sure that I know what the photo looked like and now it's deep in the primeval soup and lost. Unable to be located and sinking in a mass of other lost and unrecognised images in the great jpeg universe where every second thousands of cats, beaches, skies, families and random, worthless memories are up loaded into. That thing that looks bright at first and then turns around on it's self only to reveal it's true nature as a vast, uncontrolled and hungry black hole that devours you and your data. Maybe if I wait it just might spit something back out. Then again it might not exist at all, it was just a figment of...what is that thing in my head anyway?

UPPERCASE SPAM

On reflection it was an outbreak of unexpected uppercase spam that sent me hurtling back into the spiritual wilderness places. I just didn't see it happen and in some ways I refused to see it. Why on earth would spam emails suddenly tip over into UPPERCASE SPAM? What kind of world allows the spammers to shout this way at the tops of their voices like drunk people in the street calling out names and swearing. Society, and the communications that lie at it's heart is fragmenting, taking it's self to strange places or so it seems. So I decided to run. The first problem was finding direction, should I go east or west, north or south? 

My erstwhile sense of surrealist protest considered simply running on the spot but whilst doing so slowing turning in a full 360 degree circle. That would take me somewhere, demonstrate a level of protest and keep me fit. It would not allow me to return to the wilderness however. So I thought about what the wilderness means, empty spaces devoid of shouty spam and requests and white noise. Only the chill winds or intolerable heat, perhaps driving rain or damp and oppressive levels of humidity that sap the strength and energy from a person. Long lengths to go to avoid spam and the tiresome feelings of clearing out inboxes. All problems that previous generations knew nothing of. 

So on re-reflection I just zapped them all with a few keystrokes. I may close the account on the basis that I can't be bothered and so that will be that. In my head I'll explore those badlands, on some kind of sabbatical mental trip. I may even run on the spot, take a short walk or just hop on my bike and tour the riverbank. All this may or may not happen, you see it really depends on what my Random Activity Generator tells me...I'll follow those instructions to the letter at least until the money runs out.

Into some kind of wild

"Christ Almighty! The wind has blown in just about every direction since I last spoke to myself and that was only to apologise. I wish I'd had more time to myself when I was young, I could have wandered freely and there would be no need for all this last minute panic, here at the ends of the earth. You see that is where I have stood; and continue to stand, on the edge of poor grammar and punctuation but not really as bothered as I should be. So there was this time when I was truly alone and in the cold, wet underfoot and overhead. I'd kidded myself that I'd spent a long time understanding, there had been analysis and reflection. That was part of staying in the wild and enjoying a poor but efficient diet of anything I could get. All I got was wet. Wet with and underlying cold and strange desire to get my hair cut on a regular basis and visit the dentist fir advice rather than treatment. It was another set of examples of nothing really working. I decided to pack that in and just look at waterfalls for a while. Enter into a state of pondering. Where does all that water go? Where does it come from and why do the flow rates appear to vary, just a little bit every now and then? The truth is I wasn't looking for answers I was just killing time and taking photographs. From time to time I also got in the way of tourists, this wasn't a really useful occupation, not like writing books, making up coffee in flasks or digging out drainage ditches in flood plains. But I was hypnotised by the crashing water and the need to tick more boxes in my journey through the stale points of life that lead to the exciting ones."

"So with that all said I can now see myself as some slowly evolving lizard, along way away from warm blood, fur and ears but on that road. The cold blood may of course kill me if the climate changes or I may remain in the wilderness under some rock. Don't forget that word wilderness contains the word wild, it may be an important clue to those venturing out or even in. My explorations are therefore slow and steady. I feel my way across the landscape and am wary of encounters. I'm also conscious that however I may see myself it is not the way that I am seen by others. That's a complication, a teaser and an exercise I could do without. I try to make my own imprint but the one I see and leave is not the one that they discover. It's as if we were all equipped with different standards of eyes that naturally fail to recognise the image pushed out and desired compared to what they simply discover. Our perceptions have shifted, the images don't quite fit and we have yet to agree some common language. I am in effect disguised from myself, in an alternative space and body, touching and exploring and knowing all too well that the levels of misunderstanding and the levels of perceived threat are just way too high."

"None of this has a cure as I get back to my meditation. I go deep and my eyes are as closed up as submarines as I plumb the depths. I was in a field now I am in the universe. Overhead the Northern Lights come, go and die of over exposure. There are thunder and rain storms and families argue about nothing. Men and women misunderstand each other and there are heavy footsteps in the distance. I'm aware of more mud and colder winds but outside of my eyelids I feel that dawn may be breaking. I'll hold off opening my eyes for a few moments and I'll be careful not to move. Time passes as it must. I open my eyes, I'm still in that field in some wild place, sure enough. All around me there are sheep, dripping wet in the dew and damp, all just staring at me as if waiting for me to say something."