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"there, soup."
"it was minestrone, but i guess it counts. it's late, i'm tired, i'm rubbing my eyes, the day escaped from me. how much longer?"
"midnight approaches, witching hour, Dark Night of the Soul-"
"already?"
"next week. for now, pick three more. you're doing wonderfully."
"from your mouth to your mouth, still don't know your allegiance. seems to be trash bags on the front, and a horrid lined face on the back, mouth agape."
"bags, get it? trash bags, but really pointing to bags under the eyes from lack of sleep."
"clever. or maybe it's just late. well, as i've said, i can relate, i'm tired."
"this isn't good tired, it's bad tired, this isn't the tired that comes from a good day's work, a pleasurable tired earned from spending the day in a useful way, working on that play that will be seen by the local art critics, not the play you put on in your room, film, and upload to your youtube channel with the 3 subscribers. art that will be noticed, really noticed. art that matters, that has something to say, and the people to say it to."
"i've been tired my whole life, i'm always tired, i try to sleep, but it's the depression, it strains you, stresses you, it keeps you tired and with your racing thoughts, thoughts of failure, the rope you climb that lasts forever and never leads anywhere, that voice inside you telling you it's hopeless, you'll never get more followers, subscribers, people in your life that care about your art, care about you, your existence. you type away, paint away, build, imagine, create, write in solitude, your ideas are old as dirt, you are just another, nothing special, the body notices your poor mind, it feeds off it, or rather, feeds on it, until you wake up every morning dreading that this will be another wasted chance to make something of yourself, to meet someone, to love, to be free, to express freely and confidently."
"well-spoken. you have a way with words. shame i'm the only one listening to it."
"you are one, so that's progress."
"next-"
"wait, where's the help?"
"just take some pills i suppose."
"you sound like my family. a couple of pills solves depression, anxiety, and world hunger. get off my ass and get a job. shit, i'm so tired i can't fight them anymore. maybe i should just work at McD for the rest of my life. their hash browns are tasty."
"so why don't you?"
"i don't want to. i can't."
"i see. and the next card is?......."
"a giant Eye. great. the Tool video? not more Illuminati crap?"
"no, i'm afraid we had this good thing going with the Illuminati symbolism littering pop culture all around the world, but smart nerds with computers started to catch on and watered everything down to scientific, staid blog posts, all of the magic and mystery of the thing was sapped out and destroyed. then the rappers commandeered It and it just became too prevalent and out there and cheap. mystery is a rare gem not meant for public consumption. however, there's still Gravity Falls, we're proud of that show."
"eye, let's see...inner vision, hidden vision, third eye..."
"Blind. oh, just-"
"yeah, everyone falls for my conversation egg-ons, even demons."
"this is the Notice Card. it entreats you to look at someone in your life more closely, notice their ticks and habits, their non-vocal gestures, it helps you love them better."
"all i have is my cat. y'know, my cat really doesn't understand digestion. every time i finish my noon meal, i lie down on my bed in my room. immediately, Mr. Whiskers---that's not his real name, just thought that would be funny---climbs up onto my stomach that i've just finished eating with and rumbles his four legs back and forth on my tummy, clawing his nails into them. that's his way of showing affection, of praising his master i guess, but it does a number on my food-intake process. i mean, that's not good for the stomach to be treated like that when it's trying to digest, right? it's like being punched in the stomach right after eating a hot dog."
"that's a good thing. have you seen what hot dogs are made out of? i suppose it could be beneficial if it's a light massage, the stomach needs to be soothed into doing its dirty deed with the juices flowing and the heart pumping. but you're telling me it's more rough."
"in the long run, it's a good thing, 'cause love trumps digestion. sure, i may end up malnourished from all the throw-up, but i was loved in this life, this skinny boy was looked upon by another living soul who smiled. okay, cats can't smile, but-"
"think about what your cat thinks about when you go to sleep and it's pitch dark in the house."
"my usual tenants are away on vacation, so the house is empty, there's not the usual leaving-the-light-on for folks at night that Whiskers is used to. instead, the hall area is black by 10PM. i leave a little flashing night-light in the area to shed some light there, but i'm usually so exhausted, see First Card, that i fall asleep when head touches pillow and i lose track of his whereabouts. i can only imagine what he's thinking in the midst of all that silence and black. in the morning, he's right there, sleeping alongside me, at my feet. you just wonder when does he climb into bed with me? hours later or 15 minutes after i doze off? is he wandering in the hall for hours before, thinking about his next novel, the mice protagonist who wants to make peace with the cats, Heathcliff and Cleo, is there a Cat Heaven? a Cat Jesus he needs to supplicate to? a Cat God? animals and babies are atheists, right? when does he deem it time to come to my room, to give up the hall, realizing there's nothing going on in the hall, there won't be anything going on for awhile, maybe ever again? does he jump on top of me knowing this might be the last time? am i sleeping or am i dead? what is he exactly thinking?"
"that's sad and tragic and happy. you're very poetic."
"thank you. never got me anywhere in life but thank you."
"i suppose it's-"
"Third Card time and we have in front of us a card i've drawn out that appears to have on its face a beautiful Renaissance painting of a...tank, drum?"
"oil drum, or if you like, drum in general, music, band...probably more Modernist then-"
"drummers get the chicks, remember? i play air guitar and wrestle with daily riffs in my head. wish i would have come up with THIS ONE, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. ahhhh, devils, dinosaurs, and 2013 grunge always fill up my hollow. what is this supposed to mean? i really am...tired...it's Gremlins time."
"anything you want it to be, dear human, remember? it's officially the Tank Card, various aliases include Running On Empty, No More Ideas, Writer's Block."
"that's a Jackson Browne song, right? i made a cassette compilation of him at Berkeley during my music-snob days. i fear writer's block more than my own death. writer's block for me IS death. no more ideas, no more concepts, nothing to write, to imagine, that's a fate worse than death."
"expand more on the useless tech inventions we have now."
"well, it's just that-....yeah, i mean, i wish i would have come up with facebook and twitter, but i went to Cal, not Harvard. these phenomema that every human gravitates towards are truly mind-boggling. i mean, it's weird to think that just recently people talked on the phone and wrote letters. nowadays, you can't imagine ANY human not having a facebook or twitter account, not communicating and cramming their entire lives and personal connections into their ipad or tiny-as-hell phone, it's just what everyone does now, what everyone has. twitter can both spurn on a freedom revolution in a country and cause an awkward youth's reputation to be forever destroyed. while facebook brings us all together instantly, it can get us back in touch with old school chums and rekindle past romances, "being on facebook" isn't the same as touching and kissing and fucking a lover in the pale moonlight, every word typed distances us more, it's like we're seeing people from a faraway hill and there's an electric fence between us where only typed words can get through, not real, touching, flesh human hands and feet. words on a page, not voices, are saying our feelings, shouting our love, speaking our dreams. the more we email and text and comment on a computer, the less connected we are, the more machines intrude on body-to-body, lip-to-lips."
"lips? i see what you did there, this is good stuff, i'm sure we'll use it somewhere, a pamphlet or a plaque when you enter the-"
"don't bother, i've said my peace, it's out there in the cyber ether-"
"and useless. it won't last unless it's scribbled in tattoo ink on the back of the Beast...or an Angel's wing."
"yeah, well, fame is stupid, unless it actually brings you love. just ask...well, Hollywood."
"continue."
"i'm jealous of others' original ideas, i want to be part of the club, i want my own thing to matter, but i'm always just using others' inventions, being a member of a club i didn't form, it's never my own creation, my own process, my own hardware to express that process, my own show, my own animated characters, my own comic strip, my own novel, a new idea. so all i have left is to lambaste what's already out there. as i've said before, being a critic is the lowest of the low. fuck it, i have to be an originator, not a follower, please, you have to fucking help me!"
"calm, calm, the time is nigh. get some sleep, but not too much. you need to be awake for this. you must see this in the blackest of night where it will show the best. you've spent too much of your life sleeping away your dreams, missing out. tonight is the night you redeem, you see for the first time, you open your eyes to the truth, you see what your potential really is, and you're not too sleepy or hungry to ignore it. here, have a wafer, place it under your tongue, it's the Body of Christ-"
"or just bread. good bread, that singular texture of the wafer you can't get any bread else, but just bread-"
"sure, whatever you want..."
TO BE CONCLUDED...
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