Sheldon plays with the Fridge Magnets
There’s a man at the top and his name is Control: he looks through the world with the same jaundice as I. His eye hungers for a predator. Love is what he craves, but at the same time, Love is so boring, tamed by Hallmark cards, Shakespeare, twirling couples and flowing blonde hair under sunshine… We’d much rather crush something as blood flows from down our chins and share that with someone. This isn’t the joy of raw power. It’s play. I can’t lie in awe of your body, running my hands down it’s smoothness as endlessly as I can with cat’s fur. I don’t want to be dependent on your desire. I’d much rather exalt myself in the freedom of endless possibility. So long as the world exists, so does the constant orgasm inherent in play. That’s what gets us off, Control and I; we’re like *that*.
A similar, though slightly less extreme position, seems to be the Healthy Default; one I don’t particularly subscribe to, except to excess or not at all. Quite often, intelligent things are said all around me, although I’m largely impervious to them, because they’re not quite right. Usually they’re endless debates of the possibilities of altering statistics *slightly*, so that a Paladin may *indeed* have more skill points at seventh level. Except when the conversation moves onto the fact that in some circumstances, the Paladin may not get any skill points at all. It grows more polemic from here. Then someone tells me that my use of “polemic” is incorrect. Was there ever a point? Some people understand this: then they engage me in conversations about politics, and I grow weary again. My eyes feel like they’re hollow. Do you hear me? Has Charon himself plucked them out, to leave me stumbling blind in purgatory? Oh, woe melodramatic woe! Across the face goes my Black Cape; Exit, Stage Left, I do..
A man walks into the room; out the corner of my eye, I see that his shirt reads: “Fuck You - Look At Me”, but when I turn, I see it says nothing at all. His eyes are very large and he is talking and talking and talking. He asks me who I am; and when he listens intently to this, proceeds to call me Stephen. He talks for a while, but doesn’t say anything. Then he asks: “Sorry, what was your name again?” “Stephen” I reply, not thinking. He checks his records, becomes confused, talks to the boss; gives me a dirty look. “Sheldon” he says when he returns:
“I think that with regards to your decision pursuant your, ah, library vocation, that perhaps your skill base is somewhat, in arrears, perhaps, and that you should-“
“All the jobs in here, I know, I know, they’ll never happen, I’m happy acting the Monkey, really, I don’t mind.”
“Watch that ‘N’ word - it will happen, it will happen, it’s just a shame that, currently, I think, that the skills demanded exceed the learned abilities…”
“I know, I know, it’s just that, I know I have to go back to, I know.”
“Do you know how I got a job? I worked at the Museum. Yes, I did. Do you know how I got this job? I called up the HR officer, and I said, Hello, I’m Rocky Seishure, and I’d like to get a job, and I’m quite keen on Accounts Payable actually, actually, and y’know, he said there weren’t any jobs, but I called back. I called back for 26 weeks. 26 weeks! And after a while He said “Sod this, sod this, come in and we’ll see what we can do””.
“Wow.”
“And so I think that’s what you should do. Voluntary work. And maybe you can get some other job on the side, because - Because frankly, well, frankly, we just want you off the books. We want you out of here. We want you on the Road to Success. And I think this is where you need to be, y’know, just talking to you, y’know, I just got this vibe that that’s what you’d really be into. So I think that’s a good place for you to be.”
I agreed and away I walked along the Road of Success toward the Happy Golden Sunshine with a great big grin on it’s face and I ran up a sunbeam and frolicked with the frolicks, and down I umbrella’d, my candy-stripers billowing, and the dust pillowed as I landed, and an eagle landed on my crooked arm. Stephen was complete.
S: “How long have you known her?”
B: “A month”
S: “A month! Fuck off. You’re dreaming.”
B “I’ve never dated a woman younger than me before”
S: “Is she younger than you?”
B: “Yes”
S: “No. Listen carefully: Is she younger than you?”
B: “Oh! No, of course not. But I usually don’t date women younger than myself.”
S: “Why not?”
B: “They bore me”.
S: “Does this girl bore you?”
B: “No, of course not”
S: “Then I don’t see the issue”
*Several more exchanges ensue*
S: “But I don’t know about you, but online, I’m completely different. Although I don’t know if you’d think so, because I don’t know what you’d think of me online - “
B: “I’ve never seen you online.”
S: “ - Indeed, exactly, but like here, I feel I’m too quiet for people to know, I don’t open up enough…”
B: “I’ve noticed, you’re a great deal more complicated than most people I deal with.”
S: “Oh, oh indeed, that’s most curious. Curious indeed. Yeah. Um. Well. Well… You know, it’s like…. Yeah.”
B: “You do that a lot, and I never know what you mean”.
S: “Yeah. Yeah, it’s like that. Yeah.”
B: “Yeah”
S: “Yeah”
There is a man named Control, and he lives at the Bottom of a Shitheap. Sometimes he has dreams and visions while he stares at his mottled blue wallpaper and the way it curls vaguely at visible seams over the print of two toddlers eating icecream, smearing it over their cherub faces. And he has more dreams and visions when somethings sticking in his back as he’s lying on the lavender blue couch and he moves and kicks an empty beer bottle onto a Time magazine with moustaches drawn on all the women and it gets caught in a tangle of wires which pulls the VCR off the TV and it falls onto a convienient mound of dirty clothing and that’s why I never do my washing. What he sees is himself with power and he’s setting fire to all sorts of things and people are puking blood and he’s seventy feet tall and his body is somehow transcended of it’s curious proportions and unfortunate appendages while looking the same. What has happened to his soul? Somehow it’s manifest in a sort of mad glee, and there’s a certain part of his head that hurts, he wishes he had a knife so he could poke and probe that one specific spot, indefinable as a back-itch, and what’s happened is his pineal gland is a tyrant, and no other parts of the brain are free from it’s mindless (!) expansion. Behind his eyes is fire. Outside his eyes the world boils and morphs and changes and giggles and twists and laughs and plays and becomes everything at once. When he returns from his visions, he realises he is cursed with Beauty, Pure Beauty, and this is what will happen if he’s ever true, and ever manifests his soul.
A similar, though slightly less extreme position, seems to be the Healthy Default; one I don’t particularly subscribe to, except to excess or not at all. Quite often, intelligent things are said all around me, although I’m largely impervious to them, because they’re not quite right. Usually they’re endless debates of the possibilities of altering statistics *slightly*, so that a Paladin may *indeed* have more skill points at seventh level. Except when the conversation moves onto the fact that in some circumstances, the Paladin may not get any skill points at all. It grows more polemic from here. Then someone tells me that my use of “polemic” is incorrect. Was there ever a point? Some people understand this: then they engage me in conversations about politics, and I grow weary again. My eyes feel like they’re hollow. Do you hear me? Has Charon himself plucked them out, to leave me stumbling blind in purgatory? Oh, woe melodramatic woe! Across the face goes my Black Cape; Exit, Stage Left, I do..
A man walks into the room; out the corner of my eye, I see that his shirt reads: “Fuck You - Look At Me”, but when I turn, I see it says nothing at all. His eyes are very large and he is talking and talking and talking. He asks me who I am; and when he listens intently to this, proceeds to call me Stephen. He talks for a while, but doesn’t say anything. Then he asks: “Sorry, what was your name again?” “Stephen” I reply, not thinking. He checks his records, becomes confused, talks to the boss; gives me a dirty look. “Sheldon” he says when he returns:
“I think that with regards to your decision pursuant your, ah, library vocation, that perhaps your skill base is somewhat, in arrears, perhaps, and that you should-“
“All the jobs in here, I know, I know, they’ll never happen, I’m happy acting the Monkey, really, I don’t mind.”
“Watch that ‘N’ word - it will happen, it will happen, it’s just a shame that, currently, I think, that the skills demanded exceed the learned abilities…”
“I know, I know, it’s just that, I know I have to go back to, I know.”
“Do you know how I got a job? I worked at the Museum. Yes, I did. Do you know how I got this job? I called up the HR officer, and I said, Hello, I’m Rocky Seishure, and I’d like to get a job, and I’m quite keen on Accounts Payable actually, actually, and y’know, he said there weren’t any jobs, but I called back. I called back for 26 weeks. 26 weeks! And after a while He said “Sod this, sod this, come in and we’ll see what we can do””.
“Wow.”
“And so I think that’s what you should do. Voluntary work. And maybe you can get some other job on the side, because - Because frankly, well, frankly, we just want you off the books. We want you out of here. We want you on the Road to Success. And I think this is where you need to be, y’know, just talking to you, y’know, I just got this vibe that that’s what you’d really be into. So I think that’s a good place for you to be.”
I agreed and away I walked along the Road of Success toward the Happy Golden Sunshine with a great big grin on it’s face and I ran up a sunbeam and frolicked with the frolicks, and down I umbrella’d, my candy-stripers billowing, and the dust pillowed as I landed, and an eagle landed on my crooked arm. Stephen was complete.
S: “How long have you known her?”
B: “A month”
S: “A month! Fuck off. You’re dreaming.”
B “I’ve never dated a woman younger than me before”
S: “Is she younger than you?”
B: “Yes”
S: “No. Listen carefully: Is she younger than you?”
B: “Oh! No, of course not. But I usually don’t date women younger than myself.”
S: “Why not?”
B: “They bore me”.
S: “Does this girl bore you?”
B: “No, of course not”
S: “Then I don’t see the issue”
*Several more exchanges ensue*
S: “But I don’t know about you, but online, I’m completely different. Although I don’t know if you’d think so, because I don’t know what you’d think of me online - “
B: “I’ve never seen you online.”
S: “ - Indeed, exactly, but like here, I feel I’m too quiet for people to know, I don’t open up enough…”
B: “I’ve noticed, you’re a great deal more complicated than most people I deal with.”
S: “Oh, oh indeed, that’s most curious. Curious indeed. Yeah. Um. Well. Well… You know, it’s like…. Yeah.”
B: “You do that a lot, and I never know what you mean”.
S: “Yeah. Yeah, it’s like that. Yeah.”
B: “Yeah”
S: “Yeah”
There is a man named Control, and he lives at the Bottom of a Shitheap. Sometimes he has dreams and visions while he stares at his mottled blue wallpaper and the way it curls vaguely at visible seams over the print of two toddlers eating icecream, smearing it over their cherub faces. And he has more dreams and visions when somethings sticking in his back as he’s lying on the lavender blue couch and he moves and kicks an empty beer bottle onto a Time magazine with moustaches drawn on all the women and it gets caught in a tangle of wires which pulls the VCR off the TV and it falls onto a convienient mound of dirty clothing and that’s why I never do my washing. What he sees is himself with power and he’s setting fire to all sorts of things and people are puking blood and he’s seventy feet tall and his body is somehow transcended of it’s curious proportions and unfortunate appendages while looking the same. What has happened to his soul? Somehow it’s manifest in a sort of mad glee, and there’s a certain part of his head that hurts, he wishes he had a knife so he could poke and probe that one specific spot, indefinable as a back-itch, and what’s happened is his pineal gland is a tyrant, and no other parts of the brain are free from it’s mindless (!) expansion. Behind his eyes is fire. Outside his eyes the world boils and morphs and changes and giggles and twists and laughs and plays and becomes everything at once. When he returns from his visions, he realises he is cursed with Beauty, Pure Beauty, and this is what will happen if he’s ever true, and ever manifests his soul.