|
2006-07-09 09:47:56 ET (Writing this in the 10 minutes that I have before I have to leave for the train.) Everybody has a stereotype about something. Hell, one of the most common stereotypes around is the one where some loonie guy, bored, alone, crazy in a trailer park, makes a tin-foil hat to block out the government's mind control rays. And we all laugh and think to ourselves how it's ridiculous to think that the government is trying to control people's minds over the air or that tin foil would block out anything like that. We just think that and laugh. We never actually try it out. We don't make a tin foil hat, put it on, and wait to see what happens. I have. It started out as a joke. I found some instructions on the interner about how to make a hat out of a sheet of newspaper. So I made one. And then, as a joke, I made another one out of a sheet of newspaper lined with tin foil. And then I put it on. I laughed about this for the first few hours of wearing the tin-foil hat. But after half a day had passed I had started noticing things. Strange, unusual things. Things started to double. To overlay on top of themselves as if the world was made out of two layers, one on top of the other, and the top layer had started to skew. Tracers would fill my vision as I walked through my house, moving my hands in front of my eyes, wondering what in the world was going on. Then I started to hear the voices. They didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere. No, instead I started hearing what was already there. Like when one hears the ticking of a clock only when one notices it. What I always thought was background noise was now revealed to be a reverie of voices spouting out strange commands and making weird sounds that seemed to compell me into certain motions and actions. But as my awareness of the voices grew stronger, their effect on my actions weakened with every passing minute. I know now what the dogs bark at at night. The voices kept gradually growing in volume and the new duality of the world seemed to begin to shake with the increased amplitude. Soon I could see through the skews of the world. I could see the white room on the other side of the view that was in front of me. The world was a mosquito net picture drawn over something completely different. I could see beyond. And then I noticed that it was time for me to go to bed. So I took the tin foil hat off and went to bed. Everybody has a stereotype about something. Hell, one of the most common stereotypes around is the one where some loonie guy, bored, alone, crazy in a trailer park, makes a tin-foil hat to block out the government's mind control rays. And we all laugh and think to ourselves how it's ridiculous to think that the government is trying to control people's minds over the air or that tin foil would block out anything like that. We just think that and laugh. We never actually try it out. We don't make a tin foil hat, put it on, and wait to see what happens. (And I'm off to catch my train. Maybe I'll rewrite this later. Whatevers.) |
