Stories
Notes on Riding through the Suburbs
Sep 1st
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We drove miles through suburbs that I thought would never end. I hate the countryside and I loathe the suburbs. The people scare me. Everyone seems disabled in some way, and there are always insects in the country– unless it’s California, or the Winter. I hate the look of middle-aged faces. They seem to have been bullied by time and resigned themselves to accepting things as they are. Everything is wrong! Look around! Old people can’t retire, young people can’t find work, and normal, boring people are standing by the side of the road begging for spare change!
I take solace in a reoccurring dream I had, where I was a prisoner in a high-security prison, doing the same things each day, moving very little, always alone, never having to think– it was a relief. It was a happy dream, or at least not an unhappy one. It reminded me of a series of fantasies that I had as a child, which I would envision before falling asleep: I was a member of an armed community living in a tree-top village in an impregnable, impenetrable section of rainforest, high above harm and the rest of world. Or I was on an ice planet, buried in a clandestine, subterranean fortress miles beneath the frozen surface, far below where trouble could find me. It all made perfect sense. My mother used to beat me.
I was no longer capable of understanding the people that worked for me. Why did they get up each day and come to work and do the same things over and over? I couldn’t live like that. The same as in the past, I refused to accept the idea that doing the same stupid things each day in exchange for the ability to own a car, rent an apartment, watch TV, pay a cell phone bill, or get pizza at Pizza Hut, was worth more than being free and sleeping under that stars.
I see myself as being on the same class level as the crusty-punks in the park. If I have more money, or possessions, or opportunities, it is because I am producing what the bourgeoisie want, but that is by accident. I disavow the concept of progress. I despise my benefactors.
There are four class levels in modern, Western society: the poor and stupid unlucky class, the artists and derelicts that refuse to plug-in or do regular work, the wage-slaves and upholders of social norms (such as the cops and all civil servants), and the wealthy businessmen and political elite that exist at the top of the power structure.
The artists and derelicts are the only ones to transcend economic boundaries. The modern bourgeoisie are the wage-slaves and their enforcers (whom would be mad to find that I lump them together in a single group), and they need things to be constantly moving, always making noise. They want air-conditioners blowing on them, radios singing to them, TV’s washing them with waves of light and noise. They need alarms and coffee to get them up in the morning, high-fructose corn syrup to get them through lunch, and sleeping pills and alcohol to put them to sleep at night. Does it not make sense that I need a continuous supply of drugs just to be functional around people like that?
N., I respect you even though you disgust me.
S., I admire your sloppiness and the big fuck-you that you radiate to the world.
K., I still love you even though I finally understand you, and see how weak and pitiful you really are.
Character Flesh
Aug 29th















