Another Day Like That
The nihilism of humdrum ignominy and quotidian fêtes of bureaucracy abound. People scurry, sulk through their existences – barn mice bathed in the blood of the slaughtered pig that is the American Dream, packed-meat animals gaudily festooned in glimmering metals and shiny plastics, outright dissidents shell-shocked by the blithe disregard for … nobody wants to consider the future – not the future that is staring them in the face.
Before my disjointed rant falls apart or unhinges itself entirely from the limited medium of words, segue to something someone else wrote which may express the sentiment more effectively:
Go ahead. Blow it all to hell. Crack the planet in half and let red magma pour out into limpid pools over the ruins. Deep underground, scientists say, the core of the earth is solid, because of the crushing pressure of the whole world wrapped around it. Like a rare black pearl in an oyster, it waits, shiny and smooth down to the last molecule, hoping for its time to float under the sun without the encumbrance of its old skin, of our little flea-bitten existences.
Let it happen I say. The world’s been saved once, while every ungrateful son and daughter slept and dreamt their baseball and apple pie dreams. And all they can do when they wake up is raise the chant for death again. They miss their sleeping world so much. Good for them. Better to desire nothingness than to have no desire for anything, like me. I didn’t even want the drinks; I just had them.
- Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatos
The full text is available online.
