Prologue:
Manifesto
People want to know why the fuck we want an apocalypse. I’ll tell you why. It’s because we’ve had it up to here with
having it up to here, because we trade in the hours of our lives for paychecks
that never stretch as far as we need.
Because of this, we prioritize basic necessities and juggle them like
ass-clowns in a three ring clusterfuck:
can we put off the electric for another month to make sure that water’s
not disconnected first thing Monday morning… and if we pay the water, exactly
how much will that leave for food and shelter?
So what’s the solution then? We
delude ourselves into believing we only have to work longer and harder, we drag
downtrodden and bedraggled asses home for a few, sparse hours before stumbling
out of bed and starting the whole damn farce anew. We poise ourselves behind desks and counters,
behind registers and phones, counting down the minutes and seconds with no true
sense of pride or achievement. We’re
just meat in a seat, more human resources to be used up and cast aside once
we’re so burned out we’re simply cinders rattling around in otherwise empty
husks.
We’re the ones who’ve tried playing by the rules, damn
it. We’ve done everything we’re supposed
to, tried so valiantly to be productive and functioning parts of society; we’ve clung to the bullshit we were fed in
school until our hands are raw and bleeding, until our bodies feel as though
they’re about to collapse under the strain.
But there comes a time when we have to scream, “ENOUGH!!”
We’ve had enough of discipline-deprived children running
amok through labyrinths of cans and boxes while so-called parents laugh and
smile, pretending their little terrors can do no wrong; is it any wonder so
many youngsters have an over-inflated sense of entitlement and infallibility?
When our offspring are supplicated like miniature Gods, they’ll behave
accordingly, free of consequence or personal responsibility. Like all deities, though, some reigns are
destined to end. After being indulged
and coddled for the first few years of life, they’re shipped off to school and
drugged into slack-jawed zombies when it’s found they can’t sit still.
We’ve been brought up to believe that we should all be
hypersensitive, that the key to a happy and healthy life is tunneling down into
the core of deep-seated psychological traumas; we’re told we are broken,
that we’re damaged toys whose windup keys can only be repaired by introspection
and internal filibusters. But maybe we
just need to keep busy with things that really count. Maybe we spend too much god damn time within
the brambles our own heads and not enough with our hands, building and creating
and clawing forward instead of looking back.
Or maybe we just haven’t had enough prescriptions to strangle such a
ludicrous idea, because if there’s one thing we can count on it’s that we all
get our meds.
Speaking of which, we’re fed up with taking pills to treat
the side-effects of the pills we’re taking to patch what’s wrong with us in the
first place. Anal leakage, chemical
color blindness, suicidal ideation, fatigue,
hair loss, and potential birth defects:
such a small price to pay to ensure we can get it up well into our
twilight years or continue eating spicy foods indiscriminately. The commercials for these pills tell us to
ask our doctors if a prescription is right for us, but doesn’t that seem a
little backward? Isn’t the point of an
office visit for a trained professional to utilize his or her education and
experience to determine a course of treatment?
But if the ads say we should ask our doctor, then who are we to
question? After all, the commercials
tell us how to be popular, how to behave, what to like, and what to think; they program our brains with insecurity,
fear, and doubt and then offer the snake oil to make it all go away. Better living through fabric softener and
increased sex appeal via car insurance.
Clothes, diapers, pet food, and candy: they disguise our wants as needs
and we buy into it hook, line, and sinker.
That’s the true propaganda of this age:
it’s not political, but consumer driven.
And we’re inundated with it nearly every minute of every day.
When we turn on our televisions, horror and atrocities are
beamed directly into our living rooms with high definition, surround sound
clarity. Crazed men eating faces on
busy highways, rape, murder, genocide, war, pestilence, famine, and death… but
first, a word from our sponsor. We’re
all fat and gassy and have horrible skin, but here’s an easy fix that doesn’t
require us to make any changes to our personal habits at all. Now back to the newsroom where we see there’s
been yet another school shooting, so here’s some footage of grieving parents
and teachers to tide us over until the special interest groups have a chance to
advance their own religious and political agendas by exploiting the suffering
and pain of others.
But why should we expect anything different or anything
more? Politics has become a team sport, complete with rabid supporters waving
pennants while the rest of us huddle in the rain outside the stadium. If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll help us forget
we’re wet and cold; maybe they’ll distract us with glitz and glitter, another
fucking celebrity wedding/death/divorce/scandal… or perhaps a PSA about the
evils of bullying so we can feel righteous indignation before returning to a singing
contest where judges attack hopeful contestants who dared to believe in
themselves, washing away their dreams in tsunamis of tears as they’re assaulted
with words specifically designed to inflict maximum emotional damage.
We see all this and so much more. We reject it just as a stomach purges itself
of an influx of poison. We refuse to
choke it back down. We refuse to take
part in the madness any longer. In the parlance
of the day, we’re a significant sample of the demographic who just want to see
it all burn.
Why the fuck do we want an apocalypse? Shit, man… isn’t it obvious?
