Sanity - Chapter 1 - Into the car

Into the car, out to the stars

If you were me on the day before you go insane this is what you would
do.

You would wake up in your trendy little home, with all its nifty little
gadgets. You have your Blackberry PDA telling you when your next
meeting is, what your boss's home number is in case you are going to
be sick, your next meeting with the asshole client that laughs like a
donkey and has yellow cigar stained teeth. When you should take your
next shit and what you should eat. All the money you have spent at Mc
Donald's over the last 3 years. Everything is planned.

You clap your hands and get some refreshing light in your room. Your
cell-phone begins to blare that new little jingle you downloaded last
night because you are that damn trendy, that hip, that unique.
Your coffee machine has your coffee already made in it cooked to
perfection already.

The meeting has been changed.

Of course this meeting was just the meeting to plan the meeting that
had to be planned for the planning committee. No big deal, you say
into your new shiny cell-phone that you spent 500 dollars on. Do you
know how much 500 dollars is? It's $64.22 dollars more than the average
person in Comoros made last year. This is nothing of course and a
thousand miles from my thoughts.

So I get in my car and drive down the same damn streets I do every
morning.

Did you know that doing the same thing over and over again but
expecting a different result is really the definition of insanity?

Will this stop me? Never.

I don't realize this at the time but I hate it. All of it. Its shit, I hate it
with the sun shining, I hate it with it raining, I hate it with it snowing,
and I hate it with fog. Hate.

I see the same stupid people running up and down the road in my
neighborhood, the same morons at the gym who are bent over sucking
air in and out like they are dying, then saying how good it feels. How
alive they feel afterward, with the black dots blurring in front of their
eyes they are living live to its fullest. It feels good to have this pain
they say. Then they ask why I don't try it, don't you want to share my
pain?

Then while I am driving to work this stupid bitch runs into the back of
my car at a red light near work. All the mouth breathers who drive
past are watching as they go by.

They aren't looking to see if you need help when people do this. No
these people, they want to see someone in pain. They are looking to
see if someone's brains are wrapped around the steering wheel. They
want to see if you are in pain, and maybe they can think, see my life is
not that bad.

I could have my brains wrapped around the steering wheel of my car.
Wow, aren't I lucky? That's how they comfort themselves. That could
have been me with my neck shattered and hanging out of my front
windshield.

Instead I disappoint them, and they stare accusingly at me. Like they
want a refund on the time they spent slowing down to watch. Now all
of them are honking, with hostile angry faces mouthing words at me. I
am standing there in the rain, pouring down around staring at this
woman's shitty car and some asshole behind the stupid bitch's car is
honking his horn and screaming at me. What if my back was hurt, or I
had a broken rib and with each step I was ripping muscle, organs, or
arteries digging more into my lungs till I drown in blood. No worries
though, really, death is the only certain thing in life, even taxes are
avoidable. Thinking about it makes me feel secure.

"What the hell is wrong with you buddy? You're blocking the road."
Common decency says he should be saying, "Are you ok? Do you need
help? My god she ran into your car really fast."

Instead its, "What the fuck is wrong with you, why are you sitting
here."

Welcome to America people, home of the free, land of the asshole.
That's when she says it, walking up behind me, crunching the broken
glass beneath her feet.

"My god are you ok? Do you need anything." At this point were you me
you would stop looking at the asshole behind her car, and listen for the
sarcasm in her words. You can't find any, maybe she will go away. You
can't believe she would be trying to get out of this so easily by
showing sympathy? Like anyone does that anymore, right bitch, try
another trick.

"Hello? Did you get hurt when I ran into you? Are you ok?" An edge of
panic in her voice. If she is faking now she is could win an oscar.

"No, I'm fine." Turning around you would look at her and you would
notice two things right off the top.

One. She is hot, hot like the summer sun in the middle of the desert.
Hotter in fact than scalding coffee your last date threw on your crotch
before your date ended. She could give a nun a booner. Black leather
pants, white mid-drift t-shirt. Mmhmmm.

Two. She really is crying, not that fake I am scared bullshit cry that
some women try to cop out of things with. The oh poor me I am just a
girl thing, that they try, unless of course you want to take something
from them. Then it's "who the hell do you think YOU are" or "I can
take care of myself".

Standing in the rain next to a lady who could be a supermodel, near
where your car is wrecked you would start to get a big Johnson. The
sound of the cars around us honking now sounds like the noise of a
jetliner taking or the opening of Ride of the Valkerie. Yeah baby,
destruction and sex, what else is there in this world?

Now do I see where the strain began. It's pretty clear if I look back.
This is the woman who started the drive that makes me cookoo,
bonkers, mad, demented, crazy, frantic, manic, frenzied, hectic,
insane.

To be fair I already was halfway to the starting line though.

To be fair I was already numb. That is the first step really.

Becoming numb is.

It's so easy there days with the violence we see all around us. Oh of
course that has always been there. You think that serial killers really
didn't exist before the 1800's and Jack the Ripper? Bullshit, they just
never got caught. There wasn't the connection we have with each
other now. The close bond of instant communication we have with
every other human on earth.
Anyone can be famous now, you just have to have the drive and the
gumption to truly stop caring and go crazy.

The violence we see and hear about numbs us.

Let's play a game here. I am curious.

Last week 30 children were killed on a bus on their way home when a
tractor trailer blew off the side of a mountain and slammed into them.
3 of them are in intensive care still in coma's. Their little bodies are
right now wasting away, curling up on themselves as the muscles
atrophy and their lives slip away, moment by moment, little by little.
Their parents don't know it, but they are dead too, at least their old
self is dead. Who they were is dead.

Nothing? Not for children? Not for the parents? No tears? Are you a
monster? What's wrong with you?

Ok again. Let's up the ante.

Last year a two thousand people died in a train wreck in Calcutta, the
trains slammed together killing most people on board and removing a
village of people whose houses were close to the track because they
can't afford cars and even if they had a car, the country is to poor to
afford adequate roads. They need to ride on the train to get to the city
for jobs in chemical factories, sweatshops, clothing factories. All of
those jobs that cause cancer, lung disease, and death, just to feed
their families. Those are the same shitty jobs that we won't do
anymore to feed our families but we still complain about 'shipping jobs
overseas' to our congressmen.

Their families don't exist anymore.

Still feel nothing? My God what is wrong with you. You sick sociopath
maniac.

Again.

There was a war in Cambodia, and millions of people were tortured,
maimed, beaten and killed, do you feel any response? Their children
were taken into slavery, their language was crushed. Their souls were
removed by dull rusty knives. Their dead were trampled on. Their
limbs cut off one by one. Do you feel any pain? Does your soul ache?
Do you feel like crying? No?
I didn't think you would.

Everyone is already numb by the time they reach puberty in this age
of wonder and delight.

Oh don't get me wrong I bet you could cry while watching Braveheart
while Mel Gibson's guts are yanked out or his wife has her throat cut
like a pig. Yeah, you can then. Sick isn't it?

I think Stalin said this, and I don't care if I misquote or say it wrong,
"Kill one man, and it's a tragedy, a murder. Kill a million people and
it's a number."

Speaking of numbers, she is asking me if I want her number, or do I
want to call the insurance company. She is asking me if we could
really just keep this between us, and not involve the authorities. She
says this as she slides closer to me and I feel cold.

There isn't any damage to my car. Not even a scratch of paint gone
from the bumper. It felt like someone punched me in the back when
she hit me.

Her car is fucked though, the windshield is fractured, the radiator
leaking fluid. Not that it looked like it was in great shape before.
Do I want her number? Do I like to breath? Hell yes.

Can she have my number? Does a man scream when his nails are
ripped off. Yes!

Can she call me? I am begging this woman who just ran into the back
of my car at a red light, to call me.

I should get out more.

She smiles at me and says maybe.