The weird thing about growing up was that it was hard, but it happened anyway. Looking at the places we used to haunt, now they haunt us. Old stone buildings show their age across the cityscape as if to remind us fate is ever-present. Cars drive by like steel beasts, mindlessly distracted by their next prey. And then it all keeps going.
Somewhere buried in that mess is me. I’d like to say it’s an oasis of calm, but it’s more like walking in to a friend’s room with more things than carpet to stand on before finding the one spot of carpet where nothing will get stepped on and piss off your friend. It’s hard enough to tell that I exist at all, but from where I’m standing, this isn’t a mess. It’s the calm before an avalanche.
Today is normal enough. Whatever that means, maybe I’m just stuck in another daydream and I’m really buried in the snow trying to figure out which way is up and get out before I freeze to death. It’s spring and the flowers are blossoming as the city decays to nature’s rhythm. I figure out everything the same way I did the last few days, and everything stays figured out.
I’m in one of the decaying city structures, but not by choice. It’s never by choice, except inasmuch as I’m here. Here, in this context, is a word for an old sprawling building I came across that used to house stores but now seems to host our excess. Excess products, excess time, excess noise. Then there are the working drones programmed to ask us all our favorite question: Can I help you? And I watch people accept this help as if they needed it.
And then it happens. As I sit on a bench, time goes by a second at a time. At first, it’s innocent enough. A few seconds pass by with the extra people shopping for their extra things. The seconds stretch in to minutes, watching thieves outstretch their hands and exchange their goods. Thieves, here, in that the minutes have turned to hours. Hours of life worked for hours to spend the money we traded it for to buy things we convinced ourselves to work for after hours of thinking. And then the days goes by, as people buy walls to imagine they’ve said goodbye.
Days turn to years and I tell myself I’m not on that bench. No, I’m so convinced I’m somewhere else. Now I’m sitting on a ride, and it’s just about to start coasting on the track before bringing us back. If I could just stop thinking about it, I might really be on this ride instead of the bench back in that crumbling city of aging buildings. There’s no way it’s the bench anymore, this is a ride. Even if I am sitting among strangers again… Still.
It’s a bright summer day outside. I convince myself the sunshiny nice day is real and different almost the same way I convinced myself to work for the money to get here. It’s different, I’m sure. Here, the smiles are pre-bought and paid for, rather than drawn in and sold. Such a business could almost be called “up-front”, but I try to push the thought from my mind. I’m here to have fun.
The next ride leaves as the line moves and I move up to another line. “Hello,” I say. Someone greets me with equally bought-and-paid-for heartfelt words while I wait for my experience. I’ve purchased this excitement and I’m ready. If it isn’t me, it’s someone else. Sometimes it’s someone else, too, anyway.
The ride arrives and I’m sitting again. Someone’s blurred face sits next to me and it feels like a movie. More people join us and somehow things continue at 24 frames per second. The projector whirs ahead and there’s a theater around me. This is a sold-out show in black and white. The audience is captivated, cruising along with our main characters from between shadows. Everyone of them plays some role in this movie and some of them are roused right along to laugh with their characters, as long as we only watch them when their characters laugh.
The movie ends in winter, just like now. We step outside and it’s raining, but I could have sworn it was winter. There’s no snow on the ground but the calendar says December and I have to say nothing has changed. Everyone around agrees with me, but we know we’re just feeling the cold of an empty loneliness we’ve caused.
And all of a sudden I’m in spring again. The flowers have bloomed and it’s years later. I’m sure of it, but I’m watching everyone dance the same way. You’re all right on cue from time to time, beat to beat, from carefully planned steps to blundering crashes. We keep dancing, and I dance along with the rest of you.
All these years later, my dance is a walk. I’m learning it slowly and trying to follow along, but I’m not sure if there’s anybody there in particular to follow. So far, nobody has told me I’m not quite dancing as well as they do. Or maybe I’m just not noticing when they don’t dance as well as I thought they did. They’ve danced themselves to addiction, to dependance, to enslavement; and they don’t realize it. Or maybe I just haven’t quite learned to dance like they do.
The walk doesn’t take long. Somehow it never does. Everything just keeps going, and things happen anyway. There are sounds and colors, sometimes more muted and dull and drawn out than we would expect, but eventually we find a way to keep going with it. For some reason, I can’t just make it be like it was, and somehow it crumbles right in front my own blurring face even as we call it progress. Just wait until the kids are older. They’ll get it.