MAN UP! HEAD DOWN!

Life isn't to be enjoyed. It's to be tolerated. I think that's undeniable. You can breakdown in the face of this truth or you can man up. If you choose to man up, you get your head down. You get your head down and you get your work done and you pay your way. There isn't much joy in it, but there is dignity in it. Don't be a freeloader. Don't expect anyone else's share. Take care of yourself. It's about competition, not cooperation. The only time you cooperate is to beat the competition. We're all rivals and you know it. Deep down, you know that only too well. Sure, the minus is that no one owes you anything, but the plus is that you don't owe anyone anything. Just get your head down, provide for yourself and try not to die in too much pain.

You see, you've got to be a tough guy in this world because this world is tough, guys. You don't measure the worth of your world with intangible notions like personal contentment and a sense of community. That stuff isn't quantifiable. You don't see that shit on graphs. Community can be best validated by measurable collective economic stability. That way we keep the road to the workplace smoothly tarred. Anything else and you're on your own. You've got to man up and compete. You've got to generate the income to partake of resources. There isn't enough to go around so you've got to earn your share. There's a scarcity and even if there isn't a scarcity, we should act as if there is or else there will be. Got me?

Way back in the way back when, F.W. Taylor knew that internal gratification didn't get us anywhere. He knew that external reward is the way to go. You're not a craftsman, you're a cog, but you're a cog that gets paid a heck of a lot more than a craftsman and shit gets made quicker too. Where would we be without quick shit? Waiting, that's where. It's about efficiency guys. Efficiency trumps all and if you're efficient you get paid more and you can spend your pay on quick shit.

Of course, I know what you're thinking. You're complaining that your income has been cut despite your hard work. If your income has been cut you man up. Work harder! The frontiersmen of old didn't bitch when their crops failed. Oh no. They steeled themselves for a hungry winter and tried again next year. People died, yeah. People die all the time. The cog gets rusty and it's replaced. Big deal. The machine has to keep running and that's all that matters because without the machine, well, without the machine we'd all have to go without wouldn't we? Yeah, we would. We'd all just be spare parts with no purpose. We'd have no reason to get our heads down and we'd have to look up and look around and if we did that then who knows what we'd see. What would we see then? It could be anything. Anything under the sun. The thought is too awful to contemplate. Just get your head down, that's the only way. For the love of God, whatever you do, get your head down and don't look up. Don't look up, just man up! Man up and get your head down!

THE SCHIZOPHRENIC AGE

Reuben was outside the shopping centre again yesterday, handing out his leaflets. He looked unwashed. Pity. He could've been assistant manager of Office Furniture Direct. His wife kept me up all night last night too and not in the good way she used to. She doesn't discretely pop by anymore. She spends most of her nights standing on the roof of her car, pointing at the sky and screaming that the Moon is coming.

People believe all sorts on my street. We've lied to each other so often about infidelities, unreturned lawnmowers, whose kid hit whose first and so on that notions such as trust and truth have completely dissolved. In the absence of a unifying narrative, everyone has picked their own story. James down the end of the street thinks that I'm a member of the Illuminati because of the way I close my curtains - a sinister left to right that apparently corresponds with a certain occult ritual. Michael and Anne from number 38 are convinced that Madge, the dog from number 12, barks a secret code to spies that are housed in the garden shed of number 23. And no one even knows who lives in number 23. The residents of number 23 are so paranoid that they never emerge from their house. Some of us think that they may not even be in there. Who knows the truth? Who knows if there is even a truth anymore? Was there ever a truth? Everyone has their own ideas and no one has the same ideas. There are just so many ideas. A multitude of ideas. A mess of ideas. What is the collective noun for ideas? An 'insanity' of ideas?

The only thing myself and all my neighbours agree on is that we can't trust each other. This sometimes seems impractical. Take the time number 4 caught fire. We all stood watching as the Sweeneys banged their fists against their upstairs triple glazing, their faces contorted in muted screams as they were swallowed by flames. All we could say to each other was 'false flag'. In fact we chanted it: 'False Flag! False Flag! False Flag! False Flag!' In the morning, the authorities came and cleaned away the family's charred remains as we viewed suspiciously from our windows. We all agreed that the whole thing was a staged event involving special effects and we all thought that each other were behind it. No one mourned the loss of life. If you die on our street we think you are secretly still alive and if you are alive we think you died and were replaced by an impostor. Everyone on my street is an impostor. Even me, according to everyone else. But they would say that because it is they who are the true impostors. Not me. I think. I think I think. I'm fairly sure I think.

Despite our mutual distrust, everyone on my street shares pride in one thing. We won a prize for being the most atomised vicinity in our borough. The county councillors said that we were leading the way. A member of government even paid tribute to us at a business function. He said we were an alert and vigilant community and what was great about that was that we applied our alert vigilance to fantasy and not reality. 'Reality is all ours lads and we can do what we like with it,' he told the vested interests and they all raised a glass to toast the death of community and the advent of the schizophrenic age.

You know, I sometimes feel as if I don't know what anything is. What anything really is. I just know what things look like and what others call them. It's the same with people. They could be anyone. You could be anyone. I could be anyone. Just who are we anyway? And why are we all so frightened?

SERVICE PROVIDER

I'll steal your world from you and you'll rent it back. You'll appreciate it more because it has a price. You'll earn the money to pay for your keep by working for me. I'll pay you almost as much as you pay me. You can borrow the rest you need from me so you don't fall behind on the payments but you'll have to pay me interest. It's my world after all. You owe me, in perpetuity.

I'll do the same with your peace of mind. I'll rob your self-esteem and flog you placebos. I'll tell you that you are ill and sell you pills if you become fatigued. You are unwell. The world is well, that's why you pay for it. If you can't pay for it you are not fit for it. You are too weak to be part of the world. You are aberrant, a malcontent, a criminal, a skiver or sick. Take your pick.

I'll make you feel ashamed of being poor or poorly or too fat or too thin. I'll make you hate yourself, outside and in. I'll be the sole gatekeeper of your self-approval. I'll be your self-improver. I'll sell you books that tell you how to get by but they won't tell you how to get by so you'll have to buy more. Then I'll get you to pay me for an army and I'll send it to war against another army that you also paid for.

When the fighting is done, I'll charge you for reparations and get you to pay me to pay you to clean up the devastation. You'll pay me for the monuments that you'll build in my honour. If you died in my name, I'll say you were a martyr. I'll sell you a coffin and pass your debts to you kids. I'll be the one who decides where you spend the life after this. Heaven or Hell, I'll own you even in death and you'll thank me because it was too much responsibility to own yourself.

THE GOOD GAME

It's a good game despite the fact that we're positioned somewhere near the bottom. We're not at the very bottom though, so we can take heart in that. We're doing OK compared to those at the bottom. The game must be pretty good if people positioned near the bottom are having an OK time of it. It makes sense to keep playing, right?

Positioned at the top are people in costumes, robes and crowns and all that kind of thing. These people tell our minds what to do. Then there's the people who are positioned second from the top. These people wear suits and tell our arms and legs what to do. If our arms and legs don't do as they are told, people who wear uniforms (those positioned third from the top) take our bodies away and lock them in cells. When you are in a cell you are at the bottom and you have lost the game because you have broken the rules.

Now, if you haven't lost the game yet and you want to get to a higher position you can. You can't get to the top because God decides who is at the top but you can get second from the top. It's very difficult though. Most of the people who are second from the top are the offspring of people who are second from the top, but it's not unheard of for others to arrive at that position. All you have to do is pretend to do what you are told but don't. It's a good game but it's a funny game. You can only win by breaking the rules and not getting caught. If you get caught breaking the rules you lose but if you don't get caught breaking the rules you win. Those are the real rules of the game, but you don't get told that. You have to figure that out for yourself or be the heir of someone who already has.

This game doesn't come in a box. The pieces needed to play this game are all around you, you're wearing them, they are in your bank account, you live in them, they are on your resume, in the colour of your skin, the language you speak and the accent you speak it with, in your likes, in your dislikes, in your abilities and disabilities, in your chromosomes and hormones. Some of us may have more of the pieces required to play the game than others but, whatever the case, we all have to play. There is no alternative to playing. Well, there might be one alternative. You could upend the board and send the pieces flying everywhere and demand that everyone play a new game, but where would you be if you did that? No one knows. It's a scary thought. That's probably why everyone who plays the game is so frightened.

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I've misunderstood the game all along. Maybe everyone playing the game is in the same position. We all start in the same position and none of us progresses from that position. That position is fear. Fear. When you think about it that way, maybe it's not such a good game after all.

Hmm.

Oh well, at least we only have to play it once.

GET THE JOB DONE (rumination of a philosophical dog)

I suppose, now that I've had 'the job' done on me, I don't spend so much time thinking about riding next door's setter. I have time to think about other things. Bigger things. Imagine if we could take ourselves for walkies. Where would we go? Would we wander off to some wonderful world where dogs rule and take the two-legs for walkies? Is that why the two-legs keep us on leads and locked in gardens? Do the two-legs fear that we will find this other land, the Dog Land, and rise up and bite the two-legs and avenge ourselves upon them for giving us 'the job'?

And what exactly is in that stuff that comes out of the cans and how does it differ to the stuff that comes out of my arse? Is there any difference? The two seem related somehow. They kind of taste the same.

And why do I bother marking territory? Who am I kidding? I don't own any part of this world. This world will keep on spinning long after I'm gone. The barking will continue. Bikes will still be chased and sticks retrieved. And those that haven't had 'the job' done on them will still have puppies and those puppies will grow up and the whole furry debacle will continue. But to what aim? For what purpose? Are we all just, literally and figuratively, chasing our tails?

And why are cats such arseholes? Why do the two-legs like them so much? All they do is, ...well, not very much. And the disdain, the permanent disdain on their faces. I reckon the two-legs hate themselves and like to have something around that hates them too. The two-legs feel they deserve no better. The two-legs can only love something that hates them. The two-legs can't love something that loves them back. The two-legs can't even respect something that is stupid enough to love them. Maybe cats have it right after all. Maybe I should behave like a cat. I don't think my face can do disdain though. It can just do mouth and eyes open or mouth and eyes closed. I do look kind of stupid I suppose.

I have my share of regrets. These things frequently come to mind. Awful regrets Why did I roll in shit that time? Why? I upset everyone. It was such an inconsiderate thing to do. Am I an inconsiderate dog? Is that why they did 'the job' on me, so I wouldn't sire inconsiderate pups? No, the two-legs like inconsiderate things. Cats are inconsiderate and the two-legs can't get enough of cats. The two-legs relate to inconsiderate things. If you are considerate, the two-legs just think you are stupid.

The two-legs are complex things. Dogs are not complex. This is why the two-legs rule but I would not swap places with the two-legs. They make the most elementary things so very complicated. The simple pleasures of life, chasing a stick or a bike, riding your one next door, displaying affection, all of these things come with so much other stuff for the two-legs. Other stuff that I will never understand. And the two-legs have other needs too. Needs beyond canine comprehension. Things to do with things they have invented. Things they don't even need. I remember once the two-legs bought me a toy. It was a kind of rubber thing in the shape of a bone and I remember how they said I was stupid because I preferred a real bone that one of them left on a plate. And then they fought because one had wasted something called 'money' on the fake rubber bone and the other said they should have bought something called 'scratch cards' instead. I remember seeing the cat peering at the two-legs with scorn that time and I remember understanding her contempt. I could never feel such hate though. Loving may be stupid but it's much more fun. But I do now know that I'd rather have four legs than two, even if that makes me dumb. And I sometimes also think, maybe the two-legs are the ones that should get the job done.

PASSING THE BABY

'Passing the baby' was the chief custom of the Hahananawup people. A Hahananawup child would be born and held and caressed by its mother before being passed to its father who would cuddle the infant and then pass it to its grandparents who would cradle the little one before passing it to its uncles and aunts who would display affection in the usual way and then pass the newborn to cousins who would say 'ahh would you look the darlin little thing' or whatever before passing it to their friends who would show an obligatory amount of enthusiasm before passing the baby to friends of theirs who would display customary endearment and then pass the youngster to others who, by this stage, would be complete strangers to the infant's parents. The baby would continue to be passed from one person to another until it vanished from the lives of its mother and father completely, not to be seen again for at least four decades.

This would happen with every baby born into Hahananawup society, resulting in a whole population of people passing each other around. Of course, as a baby grew to adulthood the reactions of those it was passed to would change. Instead of pinching the baby's cheeks and saying 'coochie coochie coo', the Hahananawup people would offer polite conversation and ask the former baby how things are going or maybe say something about the weather.

It is thought that the custom of passing the baby brought about the end of the Hahananawup people. Hahananawups were not able to incorporate careers into their lives of being passed around so any chance of forming even the most rudimentary economy was remote. Consumption of food must have been difficult too but that matters little when one considers that there was no food to consume. Farming and hunting were close to impossible for a people being perpetually passed around and passing around others, to say nothing of attempts at procreation. The Hahananawup civilisation was a short lived one. As a people, they were just a throng of bodies jumping in and out of each other's arms, growing weaker all the time and suffering from the contagious conditions that the baby passing tradition facilitated. It is thought that the Hahananawup people only survived for two generations after adopting the custom of baby passing. We can work out what happened from the records of other societies who observed the Hahananawup at the time and from the remains of the Hahananawup themselves. Ah yes, ...the remains. A troglodyte city, empty but for a meshed heap of skeletons. The birds don't sing in the home of the Hahananawup but the wind whistles eerily as it moves through that colossal lattice of bones.

When the Hahananawup people and their custom of 'passing the baby' comes to mind, we are forced to consider the consequences of doing something just because everyone else is doing it. Some of our most treasured and adhered to customs might too be nothing more than really really really dumb fucking ideas. I suppose that's the moral of the story. Not that stories should have morals. Stories should just make people think and let them decide for themselves. But that's a story for another day. Until then, keep passing the baby.

And now a short film...

OBJECTS

There's no one left in the world. No one at all. But the cars still drive and the trains still arrive and depart and announcements still crackle from Tannoy's but from no one's mouth and for no one's ears. Products are still manufactured and sold but by who and to who? Import and export still continues but why? The world still bustles but is simultaneously silent. There's no one here to clean up the dog shit but that's OK because there are no dogs to shit.

An algorithm drives things on and machines fulfil the roles of consumers and producers. GDP is steady and things are running smoothly and does it matter that we are no longer here to witness all this because targets are being met and graphs are looking healthy and wasn't that what it was all for? There is no one here to see what is happening but that's OK because there isn't much to see. There is no longer anyone here to comment but that's OK because there is nothing to be said.

The grass still gets cut.

Dead leaves are swept up.

Healthcare expenditure is nil.

Objects go to the cinema to watch films made by objects about objects being objects and there is no one to complain about objectification. And there's no more of the sound and fury that signified everything. The world is purely utilitarian and every emotional experience is a simulacrum. A protocol. A choreographed imitation. The objects in the cinema laugh at all the right parts. There are no longer any wrong parts. Things are working at last. We finally got there by removing the thing that prevented us from arriving - us.

The tide comes in and the tide goes out and an abandoned tanker bleeds on the horizon. It doesn't matter at all.

AN INDEPENDENT STATE OF ONE

I will no longer affiliate myself with any of you bastards. I want no part of your nations or your systems or your beliefs. I refuse to passively endorse your willfully naive values, cosy hypocrisies and murderous ideologies. I am a deist, although often doubting, and I worship at an alterless church with the sky for a roof and sermons delivered on the breeze. I have created my own flag too and I speak a new language that I have invented for my use alone. I have composed my own national anthem and I have declared myself to be in an independent state of one.

You do not fill me with wonder. You just make me wonder what it's all for. You have broken my heart but I'm not broken yet. My defences are up but I will continue to trade and negotiate. I will participate in your customs but I will no longer pretend to fully appreciate them. I'll just be there like a visiting dignitary. That is, I will try to be dignified but I can't guarantee anything. I might get nervous and drink too much and there might be an outburst. I might suddenly announce that this is a farce and that I want to go home and then I will go home and there will be relief all round. I might talk to a homeless man that I meet on my way back to my sovereignty. I'll find him crouched in his cardboard kingdom and bidding me welcome in exchange for some small token. I'll give him a smoke if I have one. He'll tell me how you beat him and how you fucked him and how you now fear him and he'll ask me my story and I'll tell him that I just lost interest.

And he'll offer me a drink and I'll take it without knowing what it is and he'll fall asleep but I'll stay awake and watch the sun begin to seep through the clouds and the litter running down the empty street and I'll see the best amongst you, in high vis jackets, sweeping up your shit. Making the world presentable again so you can continue to make it a mess. I'd consider a complete trade blockade with you bastards but I know I'd starve to death. 

Gone From Here...

MONKEYS DON'T HAVE WORDS

In a former life I was a monkey. I didn't have a name, just a scent. I used to drink water from leafs and pee anywhere I liked. I spent a great deal of time screeching and hopping up on other monkeys who didn't mind at all. I jumped from tree to tree and threw berries at predators, taunting them from the safety of high branches, just for the laugh.

Past life regression therapy has brought these memories back to me. The main thing I remember is an overriding sense of urgent delight and an overwhelming immersion in what they call Oceanic Feeling. I wasn't just in the jungle, I was the jungle and I was everything else in the jungle.

I eventually got old and fell out of a tree and into the jaws of a big cat, which was a nasty end but up to that point I'd had tremendous craic. Anyway, even though I was eaten by a big cat, I was the big cat. It's hard to explain. It was a feeling beyond words. Monkeys don't have words. They don't need them. They'd find them inadequate.

In another former life I was a cartographer of either geographic land or the human mind, I'm not sure which. All I really remember is a sense of discomfort. There was a kind of fear there: of boundless spaces, of uncharted realms, of unlabelled and uncategorised things. I didn't have this fear as a child but as I grew older, and read stories of wild places, wild animals and wild people, I came to understand that categorisation was necessary. I too was categorised and this gave me a robust sense of what they call Ontological Security and this Ontological Security provided me with a buffer which I used to protect myself from the sheer randomness of what they call 'outrageous fortune'.

I eventually got old and developed dementia. I started drinking water from leafs and peeing anywhere I liked. I spent a great deal of time screeching and hopping up on people who took offence and contacted the authorities. I jumped from building to building and threw bottles at the police, taunting them from the safety of high rooftops, just for the laugh.

I eventually fell from the top of a multi-storey car park and dashed my brains on the pavement below and was taken to a morgue where a little label was attached to my toe, with a little number on it, and I was put into a drawer that had another number on it and then I was put into box that had my name on it and then I was buried under the ground in a plot in a cemetery that had a saint's name on it and then I could have sworn that I felt a nameless monkey walk right over my grave and I think it took a pee.

COURT OF THE HEREAFTER

A toothless man at the banquet, I didn't even try. I could have sucked on a cob of corn but the spectacle would be so grim that I thought it more dignified to feign disinterest. How hungry I was though at all those banquets but retaining what small amount of dignity I had superseded my howling appetite. Dignity is important to a man who has little of it. I was a figure of fun you see. Not just toothless but of diminished proportions, with crooked spine and vacant sac. The court freak, eunuch and fool. Designed specially to be a debased thing. Something so stigmatised as to have nothing to lose. A man debarred from full participation in life so as to better reveal, through mocking revelry, some unspoken truths. A safe outlet for unsafe notions, it was my role to play the jester and I was both happy and sad to do it.

I didn't much enjoy the ways of the court. The puffed up arrogance of the king and those who sat at his table was anathema to me. I made them laugh but found their guffaws unrewarding. I made my jokes for the friends I had, the dancers, the odd guard, the handmaidens – some of the latter I futilely held feelings for but all of whom glad eyed the handsome young prince and his trusty knave.

I would sit each night and await my turn. Unimpressed by the proceedings but finding solace in the glimpses of cloud moving across the beautiful moon in the high window above me. That was enough. Well almost enough. There was that and there was the thought of my final joke. A joke that was of such searing satiric wit and cruel honesty that it would upset the state of the court and make the king look a bigger fool than even I. A joke that would reduce this swaggering, self-entitled tyrant to a status lower than my own. My words would reveal him for what he truly was, nothing. Nothing at all but a big, fat, ignorant, vicious fool.

The night came when I was to make my joke. I had skirted dangerously close to this kind of thing before and earned myself a night in the stocks but tonight, this night, I was going to risk the noose. If my joke worked, and I was sure it would, I would be safe as the king would be the one deposed and dragged to the chopping block. I had seen and heard a lot because my eyes and ears were considered to be of no matter but that was an unwise assumption. Tonight I would reveal all.

My turn came and I took my position in the centre of the court. I rattled my bells and bowed and my audience both applauded and jeered. I inhaled deeply. I opened my mouth and my words, the words of my joke, came out. My words came out, one after another, and combined into a form of syntactical sedition the likes of which had heretofore never been heard. My joke flowed from my head and hung manifest before all. There was a silence. It was obvious that it was sinking in. And then came the laughter I had expected but not of the flavour I desired. A jester is so expert at soliciting laughter that he can tell the flavour of that laughter and this was the wrong kind. The laughter that ensued was not a laughter derisive of authority but a barely comprehending laughter of disbelief. How could this fool make such fanciful claims about one so honourable? They found the very notion absurd and that is why they laughed. Everyone laughed but no one got the joke. They didn't see the truth in it. I took my bow, went back to my corner and nothing changed at all.

Later that night, as the performing bear demeaned itself, I snuck from the court. I went out into the night and left the grounds. A guard who was a friend lowered the drawbridge for me and I exited the castle. On the other side I told the guard to pull the drawbridge up again. He asked if I was sure and I insisted that I was. He did so and then I was alone. The cold stone structure stood behind me, silently, and before me was the forest. A row of trees and between them only darkness. Thick black darkness. I did not know what awaited me amongst the branches and the trunks but I had heard that a place lay beyond. I had heard there was a light and that it led somewhere. I wasn't sure I believed it but I had to see if it was true. I had grown so tired of being the wrong shape. I had grown so weary of communicating through cryptic jest. Some loved me for it but that was no longer compensation enough. I thought how I would miss my friends and how I might never again see the moon. I walked ahead nonetheless. Whether this dark forest lead me to somewhere or lead me to nowhere, it would lead me to freedom.

And lead me to freedom the forest did for the moment I stepped through its foliage I was set upon and beheaded by a large black bear – the furious mother of the one performing inside the castle. I knew this bear was the other's mother because, as I entered the world of spirits, I knew all. I rose up and looked down. I saw through the stone castle walls and saw the court without me. I saw through the flesh and into the souls of the men and women within and I saw that I was sorely missed, even by the king. Yes, the king was the one who missed me most. I was his only release from the pomposity he was forced to observe by lineage. The swagger and arrogance was all an act. Within the rolls of royal fat there resided a man who longed to be loved and not feared. He had to put a face on it because inside his heart wept and no one wants a weeping king. He so enjoyed my mockery of him as he considered it mockery of the false him, an outward self that he too despised. He even had disdain for the way he was forced to put me in the stocks the odd time lest I topple his crown. A king without a crown is a dead man. He was so fearful and lonely. He needed me as did all the others. The handmaidens whose heartbreaking unrequited glad eyeing of the prince and his knave would at best be rewarded by perfunctory and mechanistic copulation because the prince and his knave had, in fact, a great loneliness of their own to endure for they were glad eyeing each other. A forbidden desire that would bring disgrace and was punishable by death. The guards who were to stand all day and appear fierce had sorrow in their hearts too for all they wanted was to rest and drink and sing a while like those they protected. The dignitaries of the court who bit into the meat and drank heartily from the goblets were also miserable for they were something that would one day come to be called bulimic and they would end each evening discretely vomiting into the moat. Not only that but they were only pretending to revel for fear that to be seen to do otherwise would cause them to be suspected malcontents. 

Oh, such a palace of melancholy.

And I perceived, as I faded from the physical plane, that I was regarded by those in the court not as something debased but as themselves distilled. They loved me because I was a manifestation of the honest parts of themselves. I could say what they truly thought for them and they could laugh at the world and at themselves. I was not some diminutive, hunched, emasculated figure of fun that served as a safe outlet for unsafe thoughts. Nay, I was a tonic. I was something to help see them through their days. Days that comprised of so much pity, fear and despair concealed so as to preserve some semblance of dignity. Oh dignity, it had meant so much to me once and how I realise now that it was chief contributor to my discontent. I should have rejoiced in my lack of dignity and encouraged others to do the same. They deserved as much, the wretches, but I had abandoned them. I had taken light from what small amount there was in that stone construction in the centre of the dark forest that goes on and on and on, all around, for as far as the eye can see. I had forsaken my calling and I was imbued with bitter regret as I ascended toward my beautiful friend the moon.

I took one last look down and I saw that there was some happiness in the court at least but just a sliver. This small happiness was found in the performing bear for the bear knew that soon his persecutors would collapse from inebriation and that, even though tethered by a chain, he could reach out with his claws and gut every last one of them before the guards got to him. This was the last thing I saw as I followed the light away from the world and it gladdened me some because I knew that soon I would be entertaining my friends again when we gathered together in the happier court of the hereafter.

THE CADAVERS OF THE FUTURE

The cadavers of the future rise from their beds, not yet dead, to face the day ahead. They wash their bodies and slide into their pants and skirts and blouses and shirts and slip on their shoes and eat something. They leave their homes and go out onto the streets of Ambivalence.

Ambivalence is an average sized town that resides on the borderline between the boroughs of Abominable and Abundant. There are a lot of things to like about Ambivalence but there is more than enough to hate. It is a town of contradictions and restrictions and no restrictions. In Ambivalence every good day is a bad day for someone and every bad day is a good day for someone else. It is a rare occasion when everyone is happy at once. So rare an occasion as to be non-existent and you don’t get much rarer than that. What Ambivalence has, it’s one constant, is a status quo. Ambivalence is as good and as bad at it gets and that is about the best the cadavers of the future can expect. 

Those that run Ambivalence are as crooked as crooked can be and those who complain about them are as crooked as they can manage to be without getting caught and going to prison. Not much makes sense and people rarely mean what they say. The cadavers of the future don’t worry too much about the future in which they’ll be cadavers. They leave a lot of messes for future generations to clean up, just as they have been left a lot of messes to clean up by their predecessors. Leaving messes and the required infrastructure to maintain these messes without turning the whole thing into a total mess is the Ambivalent way. That is the status quo. What more can you expect? It’s pretty good when you think about it, unless it seems really bad. It’s up to you really. An optimistic outlook is generally considered preferable but it isn’t compulsory. There is no rulebook here. Well, there is but those that adhere to it won’t be winning the game of Ambivalence. The rules of the game are to work around the rules whilst claiming to be sticking to them. To actually stick to the rules is naïve and naivety is the cardinal weakness in this town. The more naïve a cadaver of the future is the sooner in the future they are likely to become a cadaver.

When the cadavers of the future eventually become cadavers they are buried in a big cemetery on a hill overlooking Ambivalence. Tributes are paid to them and nice things are written on the stones that stand at the heads of their graves. The best of the worst is emphasised. A man who evaded paying his taxes his entire life is remembered as a good father and a man who was a bad father but paid his taxes all his life is remembered as someone who always paid his dues. This is the way it is in Ambivalence; most of the cadavers of the future prefer to look on the bright side and rarely acknowledge the dark. It is considered impolite to consider the dark so the dark goes unconsidered but everyone knows it is there. The cadavers of the future are both the bright and the dark and that is what makes Ambivalence tick. But you aren’t to go mentioning it. You aren’t to go saying as much. To point out that Ambivalence is a town that could only exist with good and bad in equal measure would be to point out that, although things will never get worse, things will never get better. Such an acknowledgement would lead the cadavers of the future to despair. Not many could handle the fact that they may as well change the name of Ambivalence to Limbo and that the only guaranteed progress is the progression toward a place up on the hill. Under a stone with a nice tribute to you written on it.

TYPES ONE AND TWO

(pictured above: Ayn Rand, Type Two possibly)

We come in two types you see. Most of you never knew that about us but it’s true. The first type, Type One, has no feelings. Type Ones don’t relate to other people. For most people, people like you, when they see another person in trouble or suffering or weeping, they tend to feel something and help in some way. Even when they do nothing, they have to make a very real effort not to think about what they have seen. The suffering they have witnessed preys on the conscience. It causes an ache and that ache takes a little time to subside. That ache is called compassion and it is innate. It is hardwired into the species to make them help each other out. It prevents extinction. Compassion is natural but it’s not in the Type One’s nature to be compassionate. Type Ones feel nothing. Nothing. Understand that? Good. Now, seeing as you lot are the ones with all the empathy, with all the feelings, maybe you could show some generosity and spare a little pity for Type Ones. Imagine going through your life with no real feelings. Type Ones can’t really love. Type Ones can’t really appreciate things to the same extent that you do. Type Ones are forced to compensate for this lack by amassing power and wealth and influence. Type Ones are left with no option but to fill the gap by gratifying the ego. Type Ones may have no feelings but they still have egos and, like you, Type Ones feel pain. Having your ego bruised is painful. It hurts. Not as much as you lot are going to hurt should we get our way, but it does hurt. So, come on all you bleeding heart emotionalists, show some of that compassion you’re so proud of.

Now, the other type that makes up our numbers is the Type Two. Type Twos do feel something. It’s not compassion though. It’s a different feeling. It’s a feeling called contempt. Type Twos resent having their heartstrings pulled upon so they redirect those feelings of compassion. They turn those feelings into hatred. Hatred is easier to deal with. Type Twos hate those that suffer because they cause Type Twos to feel that ache I mentioned earlier. Why should we ache because others suffer? Type Twos uniformly come to the conclusion that people suffer because they are weak. They are too weak to thrive and they are a hindrance. A handicap, not just to themselves but to the rest of us.
. . .Weakness, consider it a moment. It is the most contemptible of traits. It is the retardant of progress. It is the ultimate obstruction. Weakness is the enemy and we are fighting a war against it. Yes, put simply, we are at war with the weak.

Now there’s a little snag. Something that is holding our efforts back. It is you. We have you to contend with. You have us outnumbered and you impose regulations and laws and so on to stop us getting at your weak but make no mistake, we will get them in the end. You may outnumber us Type Ones and Twos but we are still many and we are at the top of the pile. How do you think we got there? It wasn’t by being compassionate, I’ll tell you that. We are at the top of the pile and we make the decisions. We will make this world in our image and we will wear you down. We will get the better of you and we will come for your weak and we will eliminate them. Now, don’t start having visions of extermination camps, it’s not like that. We will kill no one. That would be barbarous. We’d get our hands dirty. No, we will kill no one. Instead, we will just let them die. And we will make you watch them die. And your heart will break. And you will suffer. And you will feel that ache and it will hurt so much that you will come to resent the pain of it and then, finally, you will break and you will come around to our way of thinking. Going forward.

. . .OK, that was a bit weird, apologies. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, CRAP MAN!

DOG

DOGS MAY ONE DAY RULE THE EARTH! Evolutionary biologists have warned that the human race should become more alert to the possible ascendency of dogs to the position of "premier species" on the planet. The U.N. funded Think Tank for Evolutionary Possibilities warned that the more time dogs spend in the company of human beings the more of our tricks they pick up. "Soon dogs won't be just fetching the paper, they'll be writing it," said one think tank member.

It is thought that clever dogs like collies and alsations will probably lead the future canine world while armed forces and law enforcement will comprise of eager pit bulls and impoverished mongrels in search of career opportunities. Poodles will make up the wealthier sections of society (because they look posh) and jack russlle terriers will mainly be employed in trades, such as plumbing etc. It is also thought that the middle classes will consist mainly of labradors and setters and that those annoying little rat-like chiwawa things that keep barking at people (who rarely pay attention to them despite an initial fright) will control the media.

When asked if cats would make a bid to be the top species on the planet a puzzled looking think tank member replied "um, ...they already are, who exactly do you think is calling the shots around here?" He then hurried home to feed someone called Tibbles and make sure the window was left open so she could get in and out of his house with ease.