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Out of context: Reply #53365

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    I thought if I acted like someone else, I'd be more comfortable with myself. But my new persona didn't like the real me, and a schism opened up. I felt I had to make a choice. Either him, or me. I liked the new me, but I liked the old me too. I couldn't choose, and these two identities were tearing each other to pieces. So I imagined myself as some kind of arbitrator in an attempt to resolve the issue that had sprung up between them, in the hope that reconciliation might be followed by reunion and re-assimilation into one singular identity. But the arbitrator didn't seek reunion, he wanted to build a resolution where the two identities could peacefully co-exist in the same space, sharing the same resources, in a sort of timeshare situation. I told him that was not what I sought and he replied that with all due respect, I was not a position to be calling the shots, and furthermore he had been commissioned to bring his skill and expertise to bear on the situation, and it was not appropriate for him to show any bias toward one or the other, but to take a balanced middle ground point of view that encompasses the feelings of both parties.

    The other one said he wanted the timeshare. I said I didn't want that, I wanted a single identity. We were hog-tied.

    I felt the arbitrator might be the problem now, but I lacked any authority to remove him, so I called in the authorities. They placed all three of us under a form of marshall law, and began running things remotely along the guidelines laid out in their training manual.

    Everything ground to a halt, as any single decision had to be cross-checked and presented to their command centre, then ratified and sent back as a sequence of instructions to be followed by the book. There were legal people and strategy teams monitoring this very closely by now.

    I started to feel demoralised. I slipped out of the frame and let things roll along without me. I guess I was depressed. The arbitrator was depressed to. He had no authority under the authorities, and they were not interested in his Jungian analysis and his '5 steps to internal conflict resolution' program. The authorities pretty much forgot why they were there after a short while. They were the brainless invasion, occupying territory, holding it down, locking it up so that nothing came in or out, or even got moved or discussed without their knowledge and say-so.

    Occasionally I would ask them why they were here, just to see if they knew. They would eye me with distaste and say simply that they were here to keep the likes of me under control.

    I heard about others like me. Lurking in the peripheries, staying out of the system, off the radar, and with nothing better to do I decided to look for them. It was easy to sneak away. Nobody cared much about me. I just kept to myself, didn't get involved, didn't cause trouble, I didn't seem to have an agenda to push or a system to uphold.

    I found others. They were just like me, seduced, abandoned, and disillusioned by the long lost dream of a better future that had invited all this trouble in the first place.

    We decided to have our own little system. A simple bartering set up. We lived quietly and scarcely in the darkened edges, out of sight. Cooking in little tin pots. Nothing more than bugs and sticks. It was okay. We were happy in our own way. Grubby little drop-outs. No shoes and wobbling teeth. We'd get together, pair off, have little weddings, fuck and get pregnant, then slide off to couple up with someone else. It was a pack more than a society. It was quite feral. We went back to nature. It was all arseholes and lice at bed-time, hard-ons and fights in the morning.

    One day the authorities came down on us from out of nowehere. They were hard and shony and they didn't have a single care for us at all. They just wanted to smash the vermin as quickly and terribly as they could. It was appalling. I saw people getting broken up right in front of me. Collapsed and smashed and rubbed into the ground. It took seconds and it was done. There was nothing left. The authorities were immutable.

    I've been working in local government ever since, with no real hope of ever pursuing my artwork in any serious way. I've had some pieces on display on the local coffee shop. Just simple canvases really, nothing more than 6"x9" lime green paint with a purple swirl dead center and 2-3 shiny rocks glued to it on a wallgreens canvas that isnt even properly stretched... asking $175 for it. There's 30 of them up on the wall. I've never sold one, but one guy stops by regularly and just sits there nursing a coffee and staring at them.

    That fact alone gives me a small modicum of hope.

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