“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms” - Robert A. Heinlein
I was walking to my place just the other day. It was a very cold winter’s night, and all I cared for was a hot cup of ‘ccino and a long night’s sleep. The day at college had been a piece of shit: I messed up pretty bad at my DNA tech class, ruining a month's long experiment, someone had spilled a cup of coffee on me at the cafeteria, and every other thing went damn wrong, no matter how hard I tried not to... just one of those days…
My headphones were pumping some really bad ass tunes straight into my brain; they say music sooths the savage beast: right… All I got was an adrenaline surge and a sense of spiritual and corporeal invulnerability… I was minding my own business, now listening to a music about a girl (So, what’s new?!?!…), and came near a dark alley.
There stood a bum, gazing aimlessly the night’s sky; as soon as he heard my steps, the crazy bastard went berserk and charged at me! I tried to dodge him, but the homeless threw me to the ground with inhuman strength. I was pinned to the floor, unable to get up! Before I had a chance to say anything, he ripped the phones from my hears with uncanny speed and put his right hand on my mouth!!! He approached his bearded and uncared face to mine; I almost vomited when the stink of his breath reached my nostrils… Then he said: “sshhh!!!”
What happened next I now recall as the manifest of a higher truth, some dogma that cannot be achieved other than by true madness… The homeless started shouting:
“DO YOU BELONG?”
My eyes were surely about to jump right out of the orbits:
"DO YOU BELONG?”- He asked again.
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT?”
“HAVE YOU EVER FELT IT?! A BIG EMPTYNESS…”
“LIKE SOMETHING’S MISSING…”
“IT APPEARS AS IF I’M WAITING FOR SOMETHING! NOTHING MAKES SENSE… NOTHING!”
“NOT ANYMORE!!!”
“THE DAYS PASS BY, FOLLOWING EACH OTHER, MEANINGLESS…”
I was freaking out! I couldn’t believe that shit! The guy wasn’t trying to mug me: the fucker was giving me some Freudian lecture while he grappled me “incredible Hulk style” to the floor! This was about to become the crappiest day of my life… definitely!
“THE MASSES FOLLOW THE SAME ROUTINE: EATING, FUCKING, , VEGETATING, STARING AT THE WALLS, SURVIVING AT THE COST OF OTHERS!!!”
“THE LAST FEW YEARS…I CAN’T RECALL THEM ACCURATELY:
THE RETROSPECTIVE ASSUMES THE SHAPE OF SOME OLD COLORLESS DUMB MOVIE”
THE IMAGES OF MY RECOLLECTION ARE BLURRY AND VAGUE AND CLOUDY AND SILENT…”
The guy jumped from top of me, held his hands high up in the air, and continued his rhetoric… Me?! I was scared shitless, trying to catch up my breath…
“MERCIFUL LORD, WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!”
“WHAT AM I?! A MERE SHADOW OF MY FORMER SELF?!”
“NO! NO!”
“I’M A DAY TIME GHOST THAT HAUNTS OTHER PEOPLE’S LIFES: VAGUELY REMEMBERED, NEVER SPOKEN TO “
“I TRY TO REACH OUT, BUT I GRASP NOTHING BUT AIR!”
“I SCREAM MY LUNGS OUT, YET NO SOUND IS HEARD!”
“THE LOBOTOMYZED MEMBERS OF OUR “ORDERLY SOCIETY” DON’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS ANYMORE!”
“THE PARIAHS LIKE MYSELF ARE BETTER FORGOTTEN THAN DEALT WITH, JUST LIKE THE OLDER, LESSER GODS”
“THEY BECAME WORSHIPLESS; I BECAME DISENFRANCHISED…”
By now, I was absolutely sure I was being mugged by the homeless preacher from hell!!! He sounded like my philosophy teacher back in High School, but all fucked up and high on steroids: the poor bastard was looking like he had seen the devil himself; a white drool was sprouting from the corner of his mouth…
“THE NIHILLISTS ARE IN CHARGE NOW, MAN!”
“OBEY, ABIDE, BREED, CONFORM, AND DIE! THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE IN FOR!”
“FREE THOUGHT ‘S A DISEASE TO THEM: CURED WHITH RADIATION LIKE A CANCER!”
“THEIR CORRUPT IDEALS ARE THE RETROVIRUS THAT CONSPURCATED OUR GENE POOL!”
“THE HUMAN SPIRIT HAS BEEN EXORCISED BY THE MADNESS OF FAITH!”
“I’M IN SHOCK, WATCHING IT ALL UNFOLD:
A FUCKING SOAP OPERA WITH VICIOUS ACTORS AND A SEAMING UNHAPPY ENDING WHERE EVERYONE DIES HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!!”
The bum backed to one of the alley’s brick walls and slided, lifeless, to the floor. His eyes were fixed to a point somewhere in the infinite…his shouts became an almost silent whisper:
“What the fuck am I mumbling about?!”
“I don’t know… they’re the muffled cries of a madman…”
“A free thinker that as lost all but reasoning …”
The man started crying; I approached him… he seemed to have phobia of everything including him, ‘cause he got up in a single jump and rushed to me again, his eyes flashing with the certainty of madness:
“OR AM I THE ONLY SANE PERSON ON THIS GOD FORSAKEN PLANET?!?!?”
“THEY SAID I WAS A PSYCOPATHIC BASTARD!!! WHAT ABOUT THE NUMBED MILLIONS WHO LIVE IN IGNORANCE, WITH NOTHING ELSE IN MIND OTHER THAN TO PERPETUATE THE TIRANNY OF THEIR CORRUPT DNA?!”
“THEY CALLED ME A SOCIOPATH!!! WHAT ABOUT THE THOUSANDS OF SICK FUCKS THAT RAPE OUR COLECTIVE VALUES, MINDS AND CHILDREN?!?!?”
“AM I AN HOMICIDAL MESSIAH?! OR THE ONES THAT IN THE NAME OF SOME PATHETIC GOD CLAIM JIHAD AND KILL INNOCENTS WITH NO REGRET?!?!?”
“I AM NOTHING, BROTHER!!!”
“NOTHING…”
As he said the final words of his deranged speech, the homeless preacher and I were bathed by a white light that seamed as bright as the sun. The hallo lights pierced the darkness of the alley: The bum ripped his clothes and exposed his naked chest to the source of the light: a black chopper that made almost no noise and was hovering right above our heads!
Yep, this one had “X-files” written all over it… I just waited for Mulder and Scully to come around the corner!!!
Then I heard several hisses, certainly suppressed auto- fire from snipers in the chopper: the bum was thrown with great violence to the street floor, beheaded…
The bright light disappeared and I still saw a couple of red dots scanning the bum’s dead body. After that, they disappeared into the night’s dark sky.
I approached the cadaver; it was a gruesome scene: he’d been decapitated by the shots and his blood formed a big crimson puddle all around him. What appeared to be a big spot in his bare chest came to be a tattoo, lighted by my cell phone: A skull with a black beret and an inscription bellow- “Semper Vivit In Armis”- Latin for “Forever Living in Arms”...
The bum was definitely ex-military, ex-something-else-a-lot-more-dangerous, that in the end, made him crazy, and worst of all: dead.
I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t call the cops: I was already having a crappy day, and quite frankly, who would believe in this crazy story anyway?!
The media got themselves a juicy beheaded corpse with a cryptic writing on his chest… the coppers?! A dead “John Doe” that no one gave a damn about… I got up and left the alley, listening to some bad ass tunes and praying for a cup o’ccino and a good night’s sleep. The only thing I was completely sure after this whole circus?!
- PARANOIA, like lil’ Billy Bob used to say, IS SIMPLY KNOWING THE TRUTH…
