little dictators

by practicalspactical

look at the schoolyard — in a corner of the field, out of reach of balls and running and laughing, stands a little boy, shirt tucked in, ordering ants to march left and right, building ramparts of dirt, and planning invasions of the next patch over — why does he do it? doesn’t mother love him? is he choking on his ego? the world presses against him, drives him mad, touching him, prodding him. he is his own universe and cannot stand the chatter banging on his ear drums, the jacks jumping out of boxes, surprising little wolfie into tears —

how shall he respond? he wants to eat the world, end surprises, impose order on the chaos — on Sunday he is told a story about breath on water and stillness before storms and in his solipsist skepticism inhales these words and wonders and thinks himself equal to the task —

twenty years later, he thinks he is an artist, thinks that Yertle the Turtle will stand on terrashells and deliver his oration and the universe will fall in line. outside will be inside, divisions will be healed, I am the universe and the universe is me. Nobody listens, nobody loves, and LD looks around and sees where he really is — loveless, standing on a bridge in a foreign city with the days getting shorter and winter coming on — he will have to earn his bread, like all these others, zombies who know not themselves, who have severed their forebrains and id-geists and left them on the shelves at home next to their telescreens to make the work go faster —

he hates them, like he hates himself.

he grows hungry and gnaws at his knuckles. he sits under bridges, with broken-souls with crooked smiles and hungry eyes, souls twisted by hungers into dark shapes — deprivation steels him, and he loves less and less — he compromises with the Maya, refusing even now to believe, thinking he is still an incarnated deity dreaming this dark world — one night, late, he takes the knife, sterilizes it in makeshift fire, and reaches into his head and scoops out his soulstuff —

three years later, hunger is forgotten, he is growing fatter, running on treadmills

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