Men of Enmark (LJi s8e13)
Flies upon windows are ignorant of the glass framed in steel anchored in manmade walls. They only know it as a surface to rest on. Time is as intangible as the truth to flies. For years, decades, centuries even, the best minds have argued what it is. Still, the best definition we have is it’s what clocks measure; like my paycheck. You can call it the spin of the moon around the Earth or the Earth around the sun; guesses all. We are taking stabs in the dark. Most of us are like the flies upon the glass: blissfully ignorant. Thank God for small favors.
I hated the cubicle; my waking nightmare, perhaps doomed to be here for all eternity. The scoreboard was clear. There was no American dream.
WAKE UP! Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!
Concrete was under my feet; a tiny cubic foot of space. The walls were brick. Here, I worked as a wage slave to the authoritarian petroleum industry. My employers didn’t particularly care. They only wanted their subsidies, tax cuts, and growing bottom lines.
If only I’d studied in school, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here; reflections of the dream’s grave. When we’re younger, we’re filled with bullshit senses of ourselves. We try to fit in. You forget your mind should be fed. You lose curiosity. Wisdom and knowledge are estranged from teens. There were no scholarships or grants after high school. Fast paths to success and security floundered. I fell into a tiny glass box.
What do the streaks upon the glass mean? Is there someone else also staring into streaked coated glass on this planet, this universe? Were they wondering if anyone else was fixated on smudged windows?
Gas fumes filled my nostrils daily. Heat radiated into my box. The barrel of the gun was pointed at the small window.
What does that mean? To greed, it’s all money. To me, it’s time. Somewhere, my mortality screams through to the walls around me, through emotional barriers. GIVE HIM WHATEVER HE WANTS.
Machismo started to spring up in the pit of my stomach. He wouldn’t pull the trigger. There was no license plate, but Private Einstein had been here earlier. He spoke of home in a town to the south. He would go back.
One bullet could mean prison. Anyone wearing that fruity bandana wouldn’t do too well there.
Man can conquer man.
In a dreamless world, I was sick and tired of kissing ass for pennies. I no longer cared. My hands were dynamite; feet, sledgehammers.
Where is my path in this universe? Is this worth it?
My hand slowly crept around the dim vestibule.
...I flipped the money from the register and slid it into the basin. He pocketed the change. My palms froze flat on the counter. The white man, living in hard times, put his piece away and drove off in a burgundy pickup; Nissan. That would be handy later. The cameras saw everything.
I read about it in the paper the next day. He was there, standing outside the cubicle; blue button-down, white tee, fruity bandana. Enmark lost little more than a thousand.
Was it worth it?
Tell them you want your freedom, Jack Straw
Show them how far morality will fall
A gun in my face, and I’m not a man
Fear in our eyes, forced with the plan
Where you running to now, Jack Straw?
Beat the long road far from the law
I hated the cubicle; my waking nightmare, perhaps doomed to be here for all eternity. The scoreboard was clear. There was no American dream.
WAKE UP! Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!
Concrete was under my feet; a tiny cubic foot of space. The walls were brick. Here, I worked as a wage slave to the authoritarian petroleum industry. My employers didn’t particularly care. They only wanted their subsidies, tax cuts, and growing bottom lines.
If only I’d studied in school, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here; reflections of the dream’s grave. When we’re younger, we’re filled with bullshit senses of ourselves. We try to fit in. You forget your mind should be fed. You lose curiosity. Wisdom and knowledge are estranged from teens. There were no scholarships or grants after high school. Fast paths to success and security floundered. I fell into a tiny glass box.
What do the streaks upon the glass mean? Is there someone else also staring into streaked coated glass on this planet, this universe? Were they wondering if anyone else was fixated on smudged windows?
Gas fumes filled my nostrils daily. Heat radiated into my box. The barrel of the gun was pointed at the small window.
What does that mean? To greed, it’s all money. To me, it’s time. Somewhere, my mortality screams through to the walls around me, through emotional barriers. GIVE HIM WHATEVER HE WANTS.
Machismo started to spring up in the pit of my stomach. He wouldn’t pull the trigger. There was no license plate, but Private Einstein had been here earlier. He spoke of home in a town to the south. He would go back.
One bullet could mean prison. Anyone wearing that fruity bandana wouldn’t do too well there.
Man can conquer man.
In a dreamless world, I was sick and tired of kissing ass for pennies. I no longer cared. My hands were dynamite; feet, sledgehammers.
Where is my path in this universe? Is this worth it?
My hand slowly crept around the dim vestibule.
...I flipped the money from the register and slid it into the basin. He pocketed the change. My palms froze flat on the counter. The white man, living in hard times, put his piece away and drove off in a burgundy pickup; Nissan. That would be handy later. The cameras saw everything.
I read about it in the paper the next day. He was there, standing outside the cubicle; blue button-down, white tee, fruity bandana. Enmark lost little more than a thousand.
Was it worth it?
Tell them you want your freedom, Jack Straw
Show them how far morality will fall
A gun in my face, and I’m not a man
Fear in our eyes, forced with the plan
Where you running to now, Jack Straw?
Beat the long road far from the law