Jabberwocky: Generic Earth

“This is the living end but its still living.” Nick Cave
How beautiful the night! How solemnly the sun sets and the kingfisher evening greets the sky with songs Euro-trance. The pulse of the club district thumping out in fluorescence, a neon-pagan ritual. The drugs and decadence, the synthesizers ringing into the night like a mourning bell; thirteen at midnight. The streets fill with worshipers. The daily slog is over for now; the night’s festivities are about to begin.
The lights hypnotise the dancers. Like moths they are drawn to the neon temples without knowing why. A benign urge, an instinctual need, a need for loss of thought. The meat market. A carcass rotting with disease, bleeding logos and money: “in god we trust.” A blackened memory of the abysmal realms of god or something that claims more omnipotence. Something seedy lurks within these temples, a currency current, the undertow of capitalism, an antichrist, perhaps, bent on pleasure. It feeds on money, greed: a dish so sweet and intoxicating. It feeds off the faith held blindly in these temples, corrupting the youth, violating minds and brainwashing the ignorant. Propaganda is best served to the drunk or feeble minded.
The author of this propaganda is not a human, it is incorporated by humans, but it is not human. It is not of another realm, it is corporeal but it cannot be so defined... it resembles dreams but it is not thought nor is it of the mind, it is soulless yet it is part of every soul. Omnipotent like god but the opposite...yet it is not evil...evil is not omnipotent. Its prophecies can be seen in the news, in the clubs, in the offices and factories and in market forecasts, in the homes of the masses. It is corporeal, oh yes, but it has no name... The beat goes on.
A night on the town. Mathew was a typical guy. He was not religious but he held faith in music, or, more specifically, dancing and dance music. He worked in a furniture store: the spiritually numbing, capitalistic slog of a sales rep. Pretty draining stuff. So draining was this mindless inertia that every weekend Mathew would need to go out to clubs just to get over the five days of business exchanges he was forced to endure, forced by capitalism...
It happened, one night when Mathew was out clubbing his little hiney off. The drugs of course may have contributed to some extent but there is nothing that would explain the onslaught of such a horrible, painful, inexplicable thing...
Mathew took precautions. He saw drugs as something that only a responsible person should take. He knew all of the effects; after using substances for four years, one learns these things but he had not only acquired this knowledge through experimentation, he also had read up on the subject. Tonight his poison was in paper form: a little square of paper with a purple ohm printed on. Acid: a generation’s martyr.
Mathew checked the time before he left: 9:35pm. “Not for another half an hour, maybe an hour if it’s slow.” He wondered if his friends would be at the designated meeting point. He decided to go out anyway. He locked the door and checked his wallet: he had $40, a key card, his drivers license, a library card and a condom; the bare essentials. He stepped lively down the stairs, skipping stairs on the way.
On the street now, Matthew inhaled the air. It was sweet, semi-suburban, cafes and grass and old people’s homes, car fumes, garlic and kebabs, seasalt and sand; the perfume of the beach city. The clubs...The clubs were not far. He walked swiftly to reach the bus stop. The neon and fairy lights gave the false impression that the trip was kicking in. A warm breeze, the caresses of summer’s hands and the tourists, snap happy. Japanese signs, souvenirs, a pawnshop. Reaching the bus stop, Matthew checked the time; 9:55 pm. “Could be tripping. I don’t feel anything.” He thought.
The bus pulled into the shoulder of the road. “One to Central Street please.” The bus driver took the change and slid a card into the slot. He handed it to Matthew. This was when the acid kicked in. Matthew was steady and handled the rush gracefully. Rule one in the trippers hand book: act straight.
Rule two: don’t forget to blink,
Rule 3: don’t forget to breathe.
Rule 4: never leave a trip buddy
Rule 5: don’t forget that everything will be ok, just chill out ok?
Rule 6 is a little bit up for debate. Some will tell you that it is don’t think too much. Others say it’s more like think for the sake of the trip. Still others will say it’s let the trip take you wherever it damn well wants to. Matthew did all of these things at once. “Why fight it?” Was his reasoning.
The bus whirred past the Middle Kingdom that was suburbia. Matthew spun his little mind around such complexities as the old, drunk men who were going home from the Veterans’ club. Their faces were not warping...yet. A street light flicked on just as the bus passed it. Matthew blinked habitually but consciously. It felt as though the bus were controlling the lights of the city. Every time it lined up in traffic for a red light, the light would turn green and the bus would have a clear passage. The little patterns amongst the chaos, little meanings that meant something big. A car with loud music playing pulled out into the traffic beside the bus. Passing street signs whooshed past in rhythms, rhythms of the thump of the bass. The temple bells...
Matthew suddenly pulled out of his trance and jumped out of his seat; this was his stop. Again rhythms, a rev down in gears as the traffic slowed the bus. The base car driving off into the distance the sound of the bell for the next stop; in the details lay the hallucinations. The clubs were calling.
The vibe was good. Matthew got off the bus, thanking the driver as he skipped onto the curb. His destination was the cafe on the corner. His friends were there already. Matthew strided over to the cafe. “Hey what’s up?” He said.
“Not much.” Replied a guy he’d never met before. “I don’t know you do I?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hey Matt. This is Bret. He’s Rachel’s brother and he just came of age.” Peter said. Peter! Matt knew Peter. “Oh? Out on the town for the first time?” Matt said.
“Yeah, can’t wait.”
“Neither can I. Lets go.” Matthew said. “You’ll love it.” He added. The group slid out of their chairs and wandered up the street. They chattered about the cafe rating the food and appraising the atmosphere. Matthew walked alone, unaware of the conversation.
They hit the first club...Matthew was now hallucinating from all angles, luckily this was a safe haven. The music pumped and throbbed, anthems for the patriots, girls in white t-shirts were stripped by the black light. Lasers molded and twisted like static skies, clouded by dense liquid ice, DJs dug themselves, they dug a pulpit to hide behind. Matthew danced. He danced & danced & changed clubs and danced. His friends left for another club and he danced. He spoke in sound bytes to acquaintances and fellow lovers of the nightlife, to bar staff and strangers.
Finally he rested. His feet hurt and the pain was emphasised by the acid’s relentless swirl. But he was not at the point of wishing for clarity. It was 2:30. No where near time to go. Matthew resumed his trance. His floor. His music. His people. An orb appeared in the distance. It surrounded the bar, engulfing the tables, growing, throbbing, like the beat of the music but out of synch. Throbbing like the sun. Matthew blinked and it was gone. Time to change clubs.
On the street several brothels had just opened and their staff had spilled out onto the street to lure in clientele. Music from a car stereo bounced up the road. Some drunk people spoke boisterously in slang and curses. It was indecipherable as to whether they were angry or happy or just drunk. Matthew didn’t like their vibe. Rule 7: trippers and drunks together should never be seen, unless there’s something in-between...like a street. Matthew crossed to his next club.
Again the orb, hovering in the sky making the district muggy and sweaty like a cat owners home, fur dusted on the couches, fleas in the carpets. Matthew became itchy. He scratched as he swished into the club. All the dance floor was crammed with bodies, sweaty meat slapping against sweaty meat. The defrost was early, things were beginning to get putrid. The air was thick with sex and European dance ethics. The toxic scent of alcohol swam through the air conditioner and lingered among the torsos of a thousand happy, horny clubheds. A stillness surrounded the venue as the dj fucked up his set. A stillness thick with menace, mocking laughter. Matthew was getting tired. The club now bored him. He stayed though, in the stifling box. The prison he loved so. Once again the orb feasted upon the dancers. Matthew blinked. It now had a face. The orb was metamorphosing. A face in foetal fluid. Lidless eyes underneath a skin of light. An alien body, dead baby eyes and dragon ears. It flinched. Matthew was uncomfortable, now he had come to the point of the trip where people were not good. Solitude can be a tripper’s best friend. He finished his water and left the club, doing so in style. The street, the orb. It was still growing. A change had occurred. The air was thick with the smells of car exhaust and cafes and seasalt again.
Matthew climbed on the next bus that passed. The driver looked like a lizard. The few people on the bus stared at him. “Its ok, they don’t know you’re on drugs.” He reassured himself. “‘Just act straight.’”
He sat on the third seat from the driver because it looked safe. Relief. Sweet relief; the acid had done its worst and now the soft, floating, swaying of the bus, the flesh of the seat, sinking like strawberries in custard. Food entered his mind. A stop at the cafe on his street and the long dawdle home with ice cream in hand and down his chin and shirt. The bus rocked him; a cradle for the elective orphans.
The greasy gears sang a lullaby as the bus pulled away from the curb. Matthew’s head swam. The smell of wafers plucked at his nostrils. He bought 2 scoops: boysenberry, for a change and mango, an old favorite. His street. His world of suburbia in limbo, perpetual highways and infinite egg cartons of units and the contrasting rebellious oddly shaped vessels of resorts and high rises. Massive monoliths, monuments to a listless life, sky life. Stairways to inner city sanctuary, real estate heaven; all the colours of the pastel rainbow.
Matthew dragged his tired feet over the tired ground. They comforted each other. Again the orb, static under bi-numeric pixels. A digital sky for a digital earth. The spirit was a viral terror, a program error, it stuck on the matrix like bare flesh on leather. A quiet neighborhood now; only white noise, never silence. It rings in the children’s ears, the heartbeat of the sandman and a soulless army, marching through the night to plant dreams into their sleep. Matthew blinked and checked the time: 3:30am. It didn’t matter what time it was. The sky would keep time for him. The sky and the orb.
The orb was drifting away now. It was no longer perfectly round. A slit had appeared in one side and something was emerging. A beast. A kaleidoscopic monster. Matthew knew about monsters, he’d seen a few in his time. Dragons he could handle. Basilisks? Maybe on a good day. Serpents...piece of cake, even the occasional demon, he’d been know to rhapsody with all sorts. But this thing... it hit him with a force. A super sonic wave of white noise broke like a tsunami over Matthew and dumped him, face down, on the road. His ice cream rolled into the gutter. Matthew got up. His ears were ringing but he was sound. Another wave, a wall of sound, a high pitched, static scream flattened Matthew as he tried to brace himself against the sonic wind. Microwaves threw him against the ground as he tried to escape from the undertow. Matthew looked up into the tide of noise. “Shit.” He said quite plainly. This angered the creature. Its eyes glowed like a dead TV, pupils dilated, pinpricks of tiny white pixels. It opened its mouth and screamed again. Massive thumps of the noise hit Matthew. The street bounced as the invisible load hit; it was invisible but the air was warping in fluctuations. The creature was a huge...thing. The manifestation of the pointless dribble that fills our lives; accounts, advertisements, democracy, brand loyalty, drugs, liquidations, corporations, religion, TV, test patterns, institutions, systems failed, thought corruption,: white noise. A tone. The same neutral, medium pitched tone that you hear at the end of a video. A tone filled the street. The waves had subsided and the sonic tide was waning, its stain on the sand, its watermark was this neutral tone. The creature lingered in the sky. It eyed Matthew with dead-baby TV eyes like an ant, semi- comprehensive. A big, dumb, blind germ, an amoebae, unaware of its power, incapable of complex thought patterns, just being, existing without purpose or meaning.
Matthew took this oppotunity to get up and go home. The ice cream was gone, a fast pace could be held. Matthew jogged into his block of units and up the stairs, skipping stairs as he went. The thing descended into the car park. It eyed Matthew as he climbed the stairs. Its eyes pressed against the glass scraping glass against glass. It hovered and displayed itself. It had a tail like a corporation, like a dragon in Thailand’s skies. A massive belly, the belly of every displaced war refugee. Its head was a dry skull, a bullet wound for a mouth. It swam in the air, and flicked its tail at the glass gently. The glass wall of the stairwell cracked only slightly. Matthew reached his door, fiddled for his keys and swung the door open and shut it again. The monster was gone. The world was gone. Matthew sighed with relief. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. The cold water leaped into his hand and skipped down his throat. “Ahhh.” He closed the fridge and took the water with him. Water was his spiritual home, his center. The TV beckoned silently and submissively. He slid off his shoes and plonked into the futon. TV, real colour, real life. Subjectivity as opposed to activity. Matthew tuned on the box. Infomercials...sitcoms from the back catalogue...D-grade soaps...eighties horror...ahh late night television, the den of ‘les miserables’ of entertainment. The monster was gone, the TV was still there and the acid was wearing off. Matthew drifted off into a comatose catnap. His dreams were not there.
Matthew woke. Drowsily he got up and tuned the TV off. He shuffled off into his bedroom. His bed. Sleep. The happy sleep that mindlessness brings. His dreams slinked into his mind. A club, a golden path...the creature. Matthew started awake. The creature was there, hovering over the foot of his bed like a succubus. “Why are you doing this?!” He screamed. He panted in the dark, his pulse soared. Beads of sweat broke out of his head and trickled down his face. The monster stared. Ignorance was its soul, a deep understanding of nothing, stupidity personified. It breathed jingles. Commercials and reports flared from its mouth at Matthew. The flames of idiocy swirled and flickered. Incense, the intoxicating smells of commerce, sickly sweet corruption invaded and violated his nostrils. It subdued Matthew, his pulse dropped, his sweat dried and he fell asleep. Dreams of capitalism engulfed his mind, the flames of ignorance burning his thoughts, devouring his consciousness, sulfur violating his will, manipulating his being. Propaganda crisped his soul like a toaster.
When Matthew awoke, he was still. The morning sun of summer peeked in through the curtains, which were slow dancing on a sweet breeze. A change drifted into his bedroom. Suddenly the world was different. Matthew got up and went into the lounge. He rummaged around the phone table for the yellow pages. With a mind like a robotic arm Matthew dialed and spoke. “Hello, I’d like to speak to someone in the admissions department.” His local university obliged the information.
Matthew applied and was accepted into the university. Fourteen years, several thousand pages of study, three second hand cars and multiple flights of social climbing later Matthew had his own corner office with a major advertising agency: he had become an advertising executive!
Such an inexplicable fate! The torments of hell for he who became the monster. To serve without knowing why, to be without being, to exist as incapable of unique thought, a germ, an amoeba. An automaton.
©Amber Waves 2003