Necessarily
Slept depth not but sparingly
Tired buffed dull
In awake yet verily
Trap’t in a benign cull
In the fantasy world of politics there has been a definitive rise in deferring a party’s own ideals to muddy the opposition’s proposals through negativism or scare tactics. It’s just not formal political parties but any group, it seems, that has a political bent to their goals. The latest entry into the world of sullied ambition is the Union of Provincial Employees. As I was driving to work an ad came on the radio for those people who ensure that the surgical instruments used in hospital operating rooms have been sanitized. The woman in the ad talked about the years of education she took, how important her job was then left the question of if the salary negotiations with the government did not go well, just how safe would those operating rooms be.
Looking to get more money, I have no issue with that, it just hit one of my pet peeves – placing one person’s work as more valuable than another’s. Sanitized operating room utensils are important, but so the conditions of a gas station’s washroom. The commercial got me to thinking – what if we could take that negativism and apply it into the general market. I got into my office and drew up a little cartoon in the new spirit of political commercialism.
You’re probably wondering about that last panel. I thought the cartoon was alright, so did others, but the president of the company, thought that it was counter to his beliefs, so I had to censor out our logo. He believes that if one company does well, others will to. Likewise, if one company gets a bad reputation, it hurts the industry. It’s a pity that political entities don’t see that view point, but still, I sorta liked it so I just had to put it out there.
Temper’d it be not
Whence enlit
In chanced relax
Thine ill hast been spot
Though stomach’d taut encrypt
Ruddy to ash’d lust
Doest thou happen in bear
Reverie lest expect revile
To such muttled blacken crust
Swathed in hollow’d prayer
Erefore phantoms a mere of now
Accolades invest thy self
Wan naught be but the echo
Of gnarl’d version of sal-arou
Dust’d only upon the shelf
Lack the shine galvanized
To which knight’s assign
Prithee liken whence no more
To whom doest thy sized
Nigh to the ne’er kine
A story in 55 words
In witness harken not
Who wouldst proclaim “lesson taught”
For a away far strike to kill
Tis but in naught tenured skill;
For though blooded shred
Of tissue organ bone
A part by part in strewn lie
In gether hast they die
Whist faceless Grimms
Had their try
Left are none to bemoan in cry
For month upon month death, specifically my own mortality had been foremost upon my mind. It could be the transposition of the realization that the blank canvas begetting creativity had for some time remained untinged and its taunting blight stung of nothingness. The starkness mocked me; since childhood the convoluted images and words that splashed chaotically bounded to and fro maligning the uniform whiteness – providing a high percentage of comfort as if each smidgeon of idea or concept lashed at the mundaity of simply facing the days and nights burning a fiery tendril to my very core to spur me to wakefulness. Perhaps it is the notion that in life’s progression that fanciful youth withers as reasoned perception engulfs and flourishes to the mature nature of settlement of expectation and acceptance of limitations. Could it be that after decades of various external voices demanding that one should “grow up” that it had become internalized? Perhaps the weariness that draped heavily upon my shoulders was my subconscious struggling to adjust to the onus of adult gravity that would, in time, like most things that become commonplace and accepted as being, take the impression of lightness in the drudges of civilized stammer. Could it be that in the intra-evolution of the Homo Saipan pupa is this unpained limbo that triggers the final form, the wingless butterfly to which its end days are spent writhing helpless upon the ground calculating the odds on whether at what precise moment would some creature or wind cast random piece of debris will crush it.
What has always irritated me is blinding accepting simply because to seek other alternatives or understanding that much in life there are no definitive answers; often there are primary considerations and secondary can minutely or greatly alter the nuances that guide one. The loathsome wretch in my stomach and acute tiredness had been a physical reaction to surrendering to pacifistic notion of “what will be will be”. Reflecting back, the emptiness of my mind began when I felt as if fighting for my beliefs was one step forward and three steps back, so why bother – “don’t sweat the small stuff and remember everything is small” became my mantra. I stopped questioning and simply went about doing what I did, just altering the courses of action to accommodate for what was going on around me. I tried to chuckle and mutter “well what can you do” when I encountered in the past would have made my blood boil, be it work, the boys’ school or items in the news. The result, the more introverted and exhausted I became I accepted this, the assumption being that over time it would pass.
A couple of weeks ago, our Canadian Prime Minister, had the opportunity to deal honestly with the massive poverty, starvation, addiction and poor living conditions of the majority of Canada’s First Nations peoples. Rather than look at solutions for the people he is supposed to be representing, he merely treated it as a photo opportunity, and later that day began to push for a “severe” (meaning armed) response to Iran, calling it an “oppressive regime”. I felt as if I had been crushed underneath a mountain of political rhetoric and hypocrisy. Then last week, American President, to show that he was a “BMOC” pushed for a similar action against Iran via a United Nations resolution giving permission to NATO to use similar tactics as it did in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq. Fortunately the British Prime Minister, to lull his public, chose to puff up his chest at Argentina rather than the same issue as his North American counterparts.
To be truthful, I have yet to determine whether this piece was written from an intrapersonal point of view or whether it is my response to the political externalization of internal denial of issues. Nevertheless, it is what it is…whatever that may be. The only certainty I have about this is that whatever had caused my mental coma has been eradicated from my body. I feel awake once more – and why yes, I am pretty sure someone did pee in my cornflakes this morning, most likely me, but…yeah, I feel as if I have arisen once more….
This is part of a project by Bluebell books, I hope you check out the others who have submitted!
http://bluebellbooks.blogspot.com/2012/02/short-story-slam-week-20-love-in.html
