Dear diary,
What an amazing night I have had. I hopped on my air-powered scooter and drove to the center of town, where there were Modern Bureaucrats abusing Ancient Saxophonists:
A whole multitude of Ancients were gathered in the public square; and each one was equipped with her very own saxophone; and they were all playing a beautiful song together — everyone was in tune and on beat, etc.: it sounded fantastic.
But the Modern Bureaucrats kept lazily approaching the crowd, choosing damsels at random, and using their cudgels to knock the saxophones out of each player’s hands. Then they would stomp on and crinkle its brass with their boots; and after the instrument was ruined, they would turn to the Ancient who had been holding it, and the Bureaucrat who had cudgeled the sax now would reach into the cargo pocket of his armored uniform & signal for a fellow Bureaucrat to come lend a hand, as he pulled a black velvety receptacle out of this pocket...
“Catch you with my death bag!” —BOB, from Twin Peaks (1990)
...and the duo of Bureaucrats would hold this receptacle open, and one would kick the nymph that he’d been abusing into its depths, and then they’d shut the bag and drag it away. (Pretty simple, standard action for a nightmare; but I’m only relaying honestly what I beheld.)
So I Bryan stepped forward in righteous indignation and addressed the teams of Bureaucrats who were doing these deeds. They stopped mid-abuse and listened attentively. I made impassioned arguments, paraphrasing all the philosophical writings about morality from the past.
Believe it or not, the Modern Bureaucrats were persuaded by these doctrines and ideas.
I also walked from Bureaucrat to Bureaucrat with my smart-phone upheld at arm’s length so that they could view its screen, and I navigated to several posts and updates that had been published on various social networks online; and the Modern Bureaucrats also responded postitively to these brief texts and captioned images:
The Bureaucrats laid down their cudgels & removed their motorcycle helmets (for that’s what they all had been wearing), so now we could see their human faces.
At this point, I left the scene; cuz there was an event in a nearby building that I was planning to attend. Yet, as I walked toward the entryway, I glanced back and noted that the Bureaucrats were hauling out all the “death bags” from where they had stashed them, and they were opening them up and releasing the players they had taken; also several of the Bureaucrats were helping to repair the saxophones that they had dented. And some of the newly released saxophonists were teaching the Bureaucrats how to play their instruments; and the Bureaucrats joined into the great song that was continuing so beautifully:
Being beginners, these reformed Bureaucrats’ playing was slightly off beat and out-of-tune, but all the Ancients were compassionate to them and welcomed them heartily. This friendly treatment by the nymphs made even the remnant of Modern Bureaucrats who had been skeptical of their movement’s mass-repentance noticeably less reserved about cooperating.
Passably satisfied with what I saw, I now turned back toward the entryway and opened the golden gates of the theater-building. It was one of those structures that’s far larger on the inside than it is on the outside. I walked down the aisle directly to the front row and took my seat. I noticed Franz Kafka was seated diagonally behind me, and he was eyeing me uneasily, so I faced him directly and placed my index finger before my lips and loudly shushed him, despite the fact that he had not even made a peep. Then he and I both cracked up at once and couldn’t stop laughing. But then I shushed him for real, cuz the show was beginning:
The evening’s lecturer was Oliver Stone. He entered the stage thru a door at the back, yet someone had placed a grand piano directly in front of this door, so Mr. Stone had to climb on top of it to get to the podium. He appeared distinguished: tan, rugged, grizzled — exactly right.
Stone spoke about his personal life, as well as all the movies and books he had made. — I was awestruck. I then turned round and noticed that Kafka was in tears as well; therefore I allowed my tears to show even brighter.
After all that, the lecture ended, the audience stood up and offered thundering applause. Mr. Stone bowed deeply and then began to wave while approaching the exit. And he bumped into the piano that was blocking the door, because he’d forgotten about it and was looking only at the audience. So I leaped up onstage and ran towards the piano at full tilt and kicked it, with a mixture of anger and embarrassment, out of respect for Mr. Stone.
The piano cracked jaggedly down the center and fell apart in two halves, which bashed to the floor with a shocking din. I held out my arms toward the clear path that resulted thru the midst of the broken instrument, inviting Mr. Stone to exit the stage with dignity. He nodded slightly to me, while continuing to wave and smile at the audience; & then he left & closed the door. Then he locked the door.
Here I noticed that the actors of the play that was scheduled to follow the lecture were swinging toward the stage on vines, which were attached to the rafters; so I dashed back to my seat. The actors swung onstage, leapt off their vines and landed gracefully. — Then I stood up and clapped my hands twice, very sharply and loudly, as an obvious signal, which summoned two donkeys to trot forth and drag away the split piano, which I had forgotten to dispose of. So they hauled each half into its own black velvet receptacle, and then the show was able to start:
The play was magnificent. The actors were perfect; the direction was superb. — Every single announcement that the announcer made was flawless; and he had a lot of announcing to do, for prior to every monologue in the production, he would introduce the name of the actor who was playing that role, and he would also speak the name of that actor’s character. For instance, at the very beginning of the performance, the announcer announced:
“This is Mary, playing Mary, the wife and mother of Jesus, whom you will eventually see playing Joseph.”
And Mary bowed to wild applause (the audience was raucous, but in a good way — we were all just really excited, for we sensed that we were part of something historic); then Mary belted out her opening speech:
“Hornstrumpot!” [Deafening applause.] “There is only one thing lacking to my happiness, dear célibataires — that is an opportunity to greet the worthy host who has placed such entertainment at our disposal.”
(She really was lifting a line from Ubu Cuckolded, in this particular night vision. It was exciting.)
*
So after the play ended, I went home. — I live in a room that has several doors that lead to other families’ living rooms. And my room has one window which looks out on a parking lot; but there is a tree whose branch reaches right past the front of my window, so I can watch the animals that come and visit this branch when I’m ill. Sometimes crows land there, and sometimes squirrels run past.
I can also imagine what each of the families on the other side of our shared doors is up to, by listening to whatever noises bleed thru the walls.
“You know, we hear you working on your music. The walls are so thin.”—Officer Rough’s neighbor; from Wrong Cops (2013)
I work in a factory that manufactures torpedoes and sells insurance. The reason for this combo, which might seem odd to those who are not familiar with my sitcom, is that 40% of our profits come from selling torpedoes to townsfolk, but then the other 60% comes from selling insurance policies to protect against damage caused by these torpedoes. The reason that we can make so much money on this latter aspect of our honest business is that we know all the types of harm that our products are likely to cause, since we engineer them ourselves; so our insurance policies protect only against the types of damage that can happen from other weapons (not torpedoes), and we exempt the effects of our own product in the text of the contract — the language is buried in one of the many subsections — thus we never need to pay out on claims. (Success is just simple math and logic.)
And I’m a big collector of my company’s goods. With what’s left of every paycheck, after the amount that goes to my room-debt and daily meal-debt, I buy more torpedoes. And I display them around my abode:
I own stacks and stacks of torpedoes, from floor to ceiling; there’s only a small pathway to walk thru, in my place: but you can get from my cot by the window to the front door without much trouble — also I keep each of the other, shared doors clear; so that my neighbors can open and shut them without bumping the arsenal. For I don’t want any accidents. — And I would never use my torpedo collection to hurt anyone; I just like how they look. I arrange them proudly and polish them with a soft cloth. (One must be careful: they’re designed to explode upon impact.)
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