The usual threats were made. "If you don't tell me the truth I'm going to—" and so on. Tough to concentrate on what their asking for when the rope binding your hands together are digging into your wrists. It's gonna leave a mark, I can just tell.
Not really sure what to tell my captors. "Like, not love" won't suffice. The flame-shooting guitar held to my neck like a knife is indicating that they are requiring hyperbole here, in this space. I try saying something like I liked it better when you could hear the keyboards over the noise, and they're none too impressed. They point to a acrylic paint-stenciled recycled crate decoration with the words "LIVE IN THE MOMENT" neatly printed on it. Seems like they're a KISS cover band now. I don't have a problem with it. I just, like, think that, like, ya know, maybe the sound is flattened out a bit, now that the long arm of capitalism has moved them in a direction of commercial-brand corporate-influenced Hard Rock 'N' Roll©™. That's where the money is. Sure. Uniqueness doesn't get you the big Taco Bell cash.
Burly men in sleeveless Ts and heavy worn workboots crack their knuckles and ungracefully drop the burlap sack over my head and throw me into the van, closing the door and driving off at high speeds to destinations unknown. I assume this is supposed to remind me that large amounts of adrenaline pumping through my system is the ideal here, as it always has been and always will be. Fine. Sure. They are proving their point. The minutes turn into hours turn into days turn into weeks turn into months and I occasionally feel the heat but never get near enough to touch the eternal flame.
It's like being told during a plane crash that, hey, you did always want to go skydiving.
That's called optimism, by the way. I wouldn't call myself pessimistic by any means, but the optimism is totally context-dependent. And I'm face down taking an impromptu nickel ride and it's tough to smile, let alone smile at everyone I see on the sidewalk and all that stuff that they were talking about over the guitars so loud that it makes me think about a truck commercial, like it's compensating for tiny genitals or something, or whatever, whatever.
No better time than being held captive to think back on weird local memories, like the one time I was running down Pine, and granted, it was like 4 AM and still dark and the streets were otherwise quiet and still, and I'm running and I see an older dude picking up trash from the curb and placing it in a white bucket, a small handheld bucket, left hand grabbing cigarette butts and leaves and candy wrappers and right hand holding the bucket, and he's bent all the way down, and I see him but I get the sense that he doesn't see me, so I give him a wide berth, don't wanna scare him, running practically on the double yellow lines in the middle street, and yet, still, when I get near him, he jumps about three feet in the air, greasy gray hair out in all direction, eyes wide and somewhat glazed over, and he takes off at speeds I did not expect, running and swaying side to side like boat in a storm, or like a penguin on coke, he runs away from me like he had just seen a ghost, to the point where I'm wondering whether he had, whether I'm a fucking ghost, a monster, a creature to be frightened of. Spent the whole rest of the run running from myself. Been like that my whole life.
And so I see the need for optimism and the call for pessimism and I'm sitting here in some kind of makeshift prison now and trying to split the difference. Like, not love. Good, not great. Fun, but a commonplace fun. I want more and how dare I. You see.
No better time than being held captive to think back on weird local memories, like the one time I was running down Pine, and granted, it was like 4 AM and still dark and the streets were otherwise quiet and still, and I'm running and I see an older dude picking up trash from the curb and placing it in a white bucket, a small handheld bucket, left hand grabbing cigarette butts and leaves and candy wrappers and right hand holding the bucket, and he's bent all the way down, and I see him but I get the sense that he doesn't see me, so I give him a wide berth, don't wanna scare him, running practically on the double yellow lines in the middle street, and yet, still, when I get near him, he jumps about three feet in the air, greasy gray hair out in all direction, eyes wide and somewhat glazed over, and he takes off at speeds I did not expect, running and swaying side to side like boat in a storm, or like a penguin on coke, he runs away from me like he had just seen a ghost, to the point where I'm wondering whether he had, whether I'm a fucking ghost, a monster, a creature to be frightened of. Spent the whole rest of the run running from myself. Been like that my whole life.
And so I see the need for optimism and the call for pessimism and I'm sitting here in some kind of makeshift prison now and trying to split the difference. Like, not love. Good, not great. Fun, but a commonplace fun. I want more and how dare I. You see.
The ransom note has been posted. Now I wait.
GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5
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