Confession of pretense

"One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask..."

Would you spare some time, for a round of confession? A confession from a beggar, a rich one.

What, you ask. How can a beggar be rich? Why is it so? Do resist your temptation to ask these idiotic questions, as they are of no help to anyone. Not even you.

This beggar is poor, poor in eloquence. This beggar is hurt, hurt in personality. This beggar is deprived, deprived of his "consciousness". This beggar is torn, torn from his companions. This beggar has nothing, nothing but material, worthless money. And the most important of all: This beggar is begging, begging for your time to hear his confession.

Is this world deterministic? Well, many may believe that the world is in fact controlled by our free-will: that we can mold our future with our hands. "I am afraid that is a bit too optimistic to be true", he says (Or at least he THINKS). As a person who lost his "consciousness", he is definitely not going to "determine" his future, or even his present. His mind is so deeply drawn into immaterial, non-existent concepts (why are they important anyway? I say, stop asking these paltry questions. They mean little, if not nothing), that he cannot even focus on any worldly affairs. He has a tendency to drop petty matters out of his mind. The trouble is: What seems petty to him, is definitely not petty to his "superiors". (I am being too explicit here, and I shall refrain from describing any further.)

You see, only a fool would concentrate himself on useless symbols that means little. Wait, are we in the concrete world, where everything must be organized and clear? I implore you to remove your assumption that we are currently situated in that "concrete" world. No man ever lived in the "concrete" world. They only lead an existence. A dead existence.

There is no second chance in the "concrete" world. It is tainted with the sickly green gooey substance that entraps all emotions. It kills all imagination by suffocating it. It tortures minds by extorting it with "death" (I don't understand how a dead person can "die"). Hostility is green.

He confesses that he is in the "concrete" world. He wants to escape. He wants to live again. But how can I grant his wish? Nobody would listen to this fine gentleman. And I, alone, seemingly apathetic (emotions exist not in the "concrete" world. It is natural that you don't see mine), actually empathize this gentleman. But how insignificant I am! How powerless I am, to the overwhelming of the "dead". I am drowned, just like he is about to be, in this sickly green goo. Who attempts to escape, drowns.

But who would listen anyway? Even a confession is regarded as pretense in this "concrete" world.

I like that gentleman, a rich beggar, a poor beggar, a sick beggar, a mindless beggar, an absent-minded beggar, a quaint beggar, an idiosyncratic beggar, an alive beggar. He is all of them in one.

He lives. Do you?

"...What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty!"

The death of cardboard

What if you wake up to a world, not populated by humans, but by cardboard models of humans?

The buildings you see, are but pitifully weak cardboard, collapsing in a single push. The humans: they do not move at all. They are no longer alive. They are just boards. Cardboard.

This could have been a dream. Except that... It is not.

Aren't we all cardboard? There is no denying to that. Human emotions are thin, just like cardboard. Human actions are insignificant, just like cardboard. Human existence is thin, just like cardboard.

But why do we see ourselves not as cardboard? We are, by the above traits, so much like cardboard, thin dessicated unwanted cardboard. Well.

I don't know.

The best explanation I could come up with is that we have evolved. Not that it gives any justifications to us for not being cardboard. We became "advanced" cardboard.

I suppose, however, "advanced" is a poor choice of an adjective. You see, this word carries a hint of amelioration, a mitigation of a problem. However, it is not the case. However "advanced" we are still cardboard: refusing to move in its stubborn array of wrinkled paperwork. We may have intelligent technology, proliferating populations, beguiling arts, vast economies, but we are still cardboard.

Cardboard form boxes. However, each side of the box cannot care less about the other sides. While the other sides are cut and scorched, as long as the one side is intact, they just dispose of the broken sides. No exceptions.

There once was a time when I believed that humans are not actually cardboard. I believed there was a kind of very intrinsic property that humans have but cardboard does not. It is called compassion. Some like to call it sympathy, some, feelings, and some emotions. But as I observed clearly, what I saw was an illusion. Just like cardboard models, if you look from a distance, it is perfect, impeccable. But just close up and see, and you will find inhuman pixels, boxes, glitches everywhere. No one wants theirs to be seen, but they exist. They are there just to prove that humans are cardboard. And when you push them slightly, they fall apart, revealing their bare bleak backside. Shocking, disgraceful.

Of course, the eventual fate of cardboard would be death. Cardboard thinks his tubes of paperwork is tough. But nothing is tougher than nature. Everything, big or small, conforming or recalcitrant, have to fall back on the hands of nature itself. Carbon atoms in the cellulose framework will break up, and the atoms themselves will perish eventually with the death of the planet, the sun, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe itself.

And, us being cardboard, will suffer the same fate too. No technology will save us. No scolding will wake us. No altercation will disturb us. No pride will boost us.

Pieces of cardboard, pieces of resistant unyielding cardboard, pieces of disgustingly decorated cardboard. All gone.

All asleep.

A picture

A blank sheet of paper
An immaculate blank sheet of paper
Is it blank because of its lack of ideas?
Or is it blank because it has too much ideas
That I cannot even start to fathom.

A drop of black ink
A chilling drop of black ink
Is it black because of its sneering expression?
Or is it black because it is a bar
From the prison of hell.

A drop of blue ink
A valuable drop of blue ink
Is it blue because of its deep, marine nature?
Or is it blue because it is a drop of water
From the melancholic ocean of sweat.

A drop of red ink
A stabbing drop of red ink
Is it red because of its scorching criticism?
Or is it red because of its resemblance
To a splash of innocent blood.

Whatever the answer is to these questions
It is true
"True".

Dogma

A million seated into one. One seated to a million. The dogma begins, just as it began yesterday, the day before yesterday, and the day before that.

What is it? A shout? A wail? A scream? No. It is a cry. A warcry. Who is this beast fighting now? That is not important. It is just a beast.

Robotic marching (pretty much a contrast, I suppose) entails. (It is not really a contrast though, since both a beast and a robot lack human characteristics). The robots march into the theater with a huge wide opening in the centre, leading to the cuboid. All of these are of a kind of metal, a kind of inhuman metal, unwilling to shed a tiny drop of sympathy to any of the million. (We are one, not a million! A million in a family, strange indeed.)

Everyone here has a visage, a mask, a cover from our terrible faces underneath. Human (Beast) (Robot) emotions are uniform too. (Why not uniform? We are one, a million in one!) Even though they are not uniform indeed, they look uniform enough.

The chanting, the singing. They, too, are uniform. What is different is that the chanting aren't really chanting, the singing aren't really singing. Under any of the masks their souls know darn well. The mechanical organist, once a criminal (still a criminal under his mask), plays the hypocritical song. A hypocrite with a hypocritical song. How fitting.

Being the organist is one of the most aspired jobs in the State. Why can a criminal take the place? The reason is simple: The criminal is cunning enough. He (sic! "It" is more appropriate. I wonder if it is a human anyway) knows what it takes to cheat. It knows the drill. To evict shame from your soul, to evict righteousness from your soul. Is it really that hard? No. It is easy to murder.

A bunch of insignificant notes, non-sequential, non-meaningful.

I cannot exactly recall the address by the robot on the cuboid that day. The keywords were approximately as follows: Discipline, indulgences and temptation. I guess it shouldn't really mention indulgences, because it reminds me of the indulgences in the Middle Ages. I guess that is an irony. Yes, indeed. His body is full of iron (and carbon and chromium and nickel and...)

"BULLetin. THe STAte HAs EXPAnded HEr HOLy TERRItory To THe 945th GALaxy. CONgratulations To EVEry Of OUr SOLdiers. THe INhabitants ARe TREAted PROmptly."

A round of applause. (I cannot convince myself to applaud, though)

A curse. An arrangement of notes.

Balloon

There once was a balloon. It is inflated with helium, and tethered to a nearby fence post. It doesn't like being tied to a post, though. It always dreams of a day where it can be released from this constricting string. It longed to climb the skies, see the earth and all its beauty, and, of the highest importance, to surpass all its neighbours, more balloons tied to the same railing, each with different sizes and colours. Some have a dull white or black on them, while some have a humble blue or green. Others, well, have an arrogant red or yellow demeanor. Some are rather thin with their gas, the age-old wrinkles showing up here and there, while some have the buoyant gas filled to their brims, ready to break through the railing once and for all.

A child happens to come by the balloons, tied to the railing near the street. This child could be the chance of the balloons to finally escape the restrictions on them! Immediately, the balloons pushed each other apart, trying to catch the attention of the child. The red one pushed away his neighbour, the yellow one, while being pushed away by its green neighbour. A multitude of colours simply clashing into each other relentlessly. How wonderful, how fascinating.

The yellow balloon finally won. The child paid a dollar to the salesman, and took away the yellow balloon. While the other balloons watched in envy (and some, even disgust), the yellow balloon cruised its way from the railing, never to be tied again. Is this what freedom is? Is this the feeling of fresh, pure liberation? Not yet. It soon realized that its pompous yellow body is still tethered, not to the railing, but to the child's hand. Alas! Its desires cannot be satisfied easily...

As if god himself heard the prayers of the balloon, a wind suddenly arose from the east. Overcome with joy, the yellow ball of gas struggled to escape its owner's grasp.

This could be it! This could be the only chance to eternal freedom!

After its repeated writhing, the string finally broke, and the yellow balloon rose up into the air. Freedom! It is the smell of liberation! The owner becomes smaller and smaller, and its view becomes wider and wider. It saw its past neighbours, the green balloon, still as miserable as it is, the red balloon, still angry and envious as it is. All that shrunk into a mere dot in seconds. The yellow balloon is overcome with joy: Its wish finally came true! No more tethering, no more restrictions, no more...




It could not continue its thoughts. Why? As the yellow ball of hot air rises, the air becomes thinner, and thinner, and thinner... Its thoughts becomes thinner, thinner and thinner too.

What... is... this?... I... don't... want...

A pop, too light to be audible. A death, too insignificant to be recorded. 

A drunkard

The night descended upon him. It was dark. It was oppressing. It hates upon anyone who travels in its territory (which, coincidentally, is the whole human population). A man, drunk, wanders on the streets. A piece of litter here, and a piece there. He tripped and fell, and tripped and fell, and yet again. But who will have pity upon a drunkard? The street lamps produce a dim cone of yellow light, alternating on the streets. Even the street lights try to avoid him. Trees stop their photosynthesis, and breathe out carbon dioxide to this tragedy of a man. Vehicles zoom by: To them, he is none but a dot. A dot that exists only for a millisecond. Yet they never fail to sound their complain. A complain of a single tone only.

A ton of bricks on his shoulders. But these bricks are no ordinary bricks. They aren't made of sand and concrete. They are made of time itself. Time... the heaviest and most poisonous substance. It pulls upon him, like a pit of quicksand. It is a disgraceful racer: It uses tricks to hinder you, yet dashes by fast. It leaves traps after it. These traps leave behind wounds that never heal. They never stop bleeding, as if to humiliate his clumsiness. Slowly, but surely, his blood drained dry, and he dies. It is a death that no one wants to die. A slow and painful death. Every second he is reminded of his fault. Every millisecond, every nanosecond.

Everyone expects perfection from him. He cannot commit crimes. He cannot even think of committing a crime. A mistake, and there is a stab. He feels so numb that even he himself doesn't know where that pain comes from: From others, from time itself, of even, from he himself. His brain is a non-resting one. He likes to write, but he has no words. He likes to read, but there are no books. Even equations betray him. Mathematics itself wants to go against him. The numbers jump out of place when his pen traces their contours. The equality sign refuses to justify his equations. His variables hide their identity from his calculator. A stab, and a stab, followed by none, but a stab.

He cries, but there are no tears. Sweat rains down his face, his neck, and his throat. His hand is so filled with sweat that it is rather useless to try to wipe away the sweat on his other body parts. He cries, and there is blood. Colourless blood. He cries, and there is no comfort. Only pitifully echoing wisps of wails. A thread by a thread, he cries his soul out. His feelings are dull, the grey wails only further engulfed by the night sky. At last, he cries, and not even sobs come out. But nobody could even tell whether he exists or not. He is just a point. His pure black suit, and his pure black trousers, and his pure black shoes, only to be accompanied by the pure black road, and the pure black sky, and the pure black shadow. He cries, and not even an atom cares.

He does not fear death. He does not fear tears. He does not fear the night. He does not fear the carbon dioxide. He does not want a "How are you?". He does not want companion. He does not want love (It stings to type this word). He does not want comfort.

What is "wanting" anyway? How can you "want" non-existent things?

An irrational pair

1. Words

Words are formed by letters. There is some interesting mechanism here, indeed fascinating. Letters only carry sounds. They carry no personalities. They are just a tool of mankind, to express their opinions, shallow or deep, tragic or sick... But words have a soul. Words are linked together by the fabric of our emotions: the human heart is words. They have the power in them, which makes them glow in the bland white of the sheet of paper they are written on. Words can influence fate. What we say are what we mean (a rather tragic reality). As such, there are certain words that can invoke feelings, which can invoke action, revolution, war, unrest, violence, and even the ultimate destruction of mankind. More interestingly, the length of the word is not proportional to its power. Long words mean little, while seemingly small words, five-lettered words, carry a poisonous dart, which immobilizes anyone daring enough to intrude its premise. Even the imagination of it is a sin. Yet it can never be avoided. It can be avoided at all costs in conversations and speeches, but it never leaves the heart.

2. The integral

The integral... ah... how mysterious. It is a symbol of Riemann summation, to sum up infinitely small parts together. Infinitely small trickles of feelings, combined with the function of emotion, are merged together. How quaint of a symbol, the integral. It sews together the fabric of his heart, and brews the recipe for drunkenness . It is what makes us human, the integral in our hearts. Every incident, every bit of memory, every sight of her, is an infinitesimal, a dx. The integral crawls on the contour of the function of his body, picking up every hair, every cell, every muscle, and shocks it with dx. Any instantaneous ability of thought is removed, and is replaced with uncontrolled areas and regions. Every point has its own location; Every line has its own direction. But for area... It is irrational, it is blurred, it is shaded, it is... S.