Problems Part 2: August 17th, H.T. Cafe ("Throw him out. Who said I shall die?")
By Nathaniel Davis



"Refuting the determinist's statement more elegantly: unconsciousness, far from awaiting us, with flyback and noose, somewhere ahead, envelops both the Past and the Present from all conceivable sides..."

Shutting the book, I return to find my cup completely empty- a dull and lifeless music stumbles towards me from across the room. I feel a sudden, physical urge to leave this building as quickly as possible. I feel as though I were flung rudely from the pages into a world transformed (from acceptable, even enjoyable, to offensive and odious).

This place appears now as an apologetic temple to poverty and illiteracy (the only social ill worthy of worship, insanity, relegated to mere sideshow status). The people here are loud and fast, strong but completely blind, with minds of steel. The pictures that hang from the wall are astoundingly inane- they have a value of less than zero. I need to be flung again, from this terrible place to a good one, like a lawn or park. I race out the door hissing - I am rigid and possessed.

To be catapulted out of culture and into the world- I collapse in a bed of grass brimming with ecstatic anxiety. I can see a terrifying utopia.

A tour bus passes directly into my gaze, decorated with galactic icons and assorted space paraphernalia, half-full with impossibly eager seers of sights. The welcoming release of Humor opens his bright arms to me but I shun him: How can you expect the world to meet you when you are laughing at it?

Catapulted out of culture and into the world: through, against, or beside it? We all have an unconscious future so why do we attempt to dream during our brief waking sojourn?


© 2005 Nathaniel Davis

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