igh igh. we left for something better. even though we liked it at first, the message spawned methodical madness. we shared a locker, mine was in the best spot. no cares, backpack full anyway, no one cares. early morning bleary, eyes on the dead gray dawn. conform or be reduced. cure or be sickened. walk away or stand still, burn with ardor or failure, a lonely day suicide or a perfect day. golden crest. verdant hills.
Today I wrestled with the triangle on the screen for forty minutes. I wasn’t doing much of anything that whole time; I was just staring, trying to imagine a way around it. I guess it would be more appropriate to say I wasn’t accomplishing anything that whole time. I have COMPLETE FREEDOM when I am working. That is what I am told. It is on page 1 of a manual archived in the United World Library. Your Work, the manual is called. The first chapter, my personal favorite, is Freedom For Individuals. It states very clearly on the first page that I, that everyone, has COMPLETE FREEDOM at work.
When I pause like this, turning to the first or third screen, lefting or righting that brain, sometimes I listen for the whisper of voices, the hushed tones of conversation from one of the many triangles in my area. I never hear any. I never hear anything here but the occasional squeak of a seat in need of maintenance, the work instructions that flow through my earpiece, and soft feet on the floor. Nobody speaks, nobody laughs, nobody cries. This is the sound of COMPLETE FREEDOM.
She knew how the eyes worked. She had determined that they were crucial to their future together. She knew so well that she yelled at him for a full hour after he talked a little too long and a little too politely to a friend of hers at a school (hers) football game. The girl wore colored contacts, bright blue, and she flashed them at everyone, permission to pass time in a different physical space, an all-access badge that could be removed at night and left to sit in a cleansing bath. She yelled at him because already the girls around her were sleeping with boys, although she couldn’t have said—wouldn’t have known—that was why she was angry. She yelled at him because somehow she saw that the beautiful, beguiling eyes of a friend, even if they were plastic, could be dangerous to her—and because of the new things she saw now more often in his eyes.
what immortal hand or eye
fearful symmetry
a dreaded pastiche
i live
unnecesary
in an unwoken state
at times resembling highly figured origami
i am folded into something
no longer pretty
no longer desirable
& cast off the top of the structure
to fall and break into a thousand pieces
or to gently drift down
& accomplish the breaking myself