Blood stabilized. Still damn low; but high enough for me to escape the disinfected halls of Dr. Creed.
The Bakery Girl and BEING cabbed me home. BEING’s Big Media gig ended. He got a job at “Video, Video” movie rentals, working Four PM-Midnight. Apartment days, we watched TV, snacked creme-filled cakes till BEING had to slog off to “Video, Video.” Work.
Before beginning his new life South, Father left money to feed me, shelter me, insure me another six months. Six months health insurance payments as ex-Topiary Techniques employee until cut off. Without insurance one with my Condition was in deep shit indeed.
Free-lance work for The Ad Agency brought some small illusion of security. Gladly have me back full-time, the woman at Human Resources said. But tired, tired. I was not well. I told her I’d go full-time once I got back into condition. Good condition. Running.
I Wanted nothing. Lay there. Watch TV. Eat creme-filled cakes. Perhaps gather energy for cigars on the roof with Music and BEING. Perhaps remission again, run again, sleep peacefully again un-Conditional, no Coney Island of Egyptian Mind hot sandy beach choked bottle-neck of Nile-soaked public prep-tomb sucking shards of broken bottle (how do they sleep on that?). To each his own, I guess, it’s not my thing…
Muse and The Bakery Girl were now de facto members, The Apartment. Which was a good thing. Female presence, female energy. The more the merrier. Like family. But without questions; or accusations; or ponderous opinions concerning impenetrable irrelevancies, opinions to haunt one’s days and nights.
Saturday Victory Parade, we five, US, gathered before BEING’s television to watch crowds in “Don’t Mess With The Nation” t-shirts chant “We’re Number One” and photograph themselves waving flags on camera. Troops marched up the Valley of Heroes. Generals rode triumphant in commemorative, shiny, virgin tanks and jeeps.
Televised spectators lined streets, cheered tanks, jeeps, lorry-loads of missiles, troops, troops, troops.
Muse and Music banged beer cans in semi-drunk mock tribute to The Nation.
Truly the spectacle was overwhelming. The Mayor, The City Officials, The Generals; glorious speeches lauding brave men women of The Nation; the eerie music of weeping engines reverberated in the canyon of heroes drawn out to a ghostly moaning shiver tickling sky-scraper spines when the squealing tenor of the God-man’s Representative on Earth reached high-note in the prayer/song entitled, “Cut Down So Soon oh Beautiful, Valiant, Selfless, Young,” in honor of the heroes sacrificed during the Summer’s fighting.
The Armed Forces Staff Chief lightened the mood when he announced the unprecedented ratio of casualties suffered by The Nation versus those of The Enemy. The Nation counted a few hundred casualties, The Enemy a quarter million souls (to the extent souls had actually inhabited Enemy corpses – a matter of debate)! Enemy cities were smashed to sub-atomic particles by The Nation’s warheads. Not one Enemy missile crossed the impenetrable Air Defense Network (AIDNET) of The Nation.
Big Media Production of The Parade, like that of The War itself, was superb. For those watching at home, lulls in the live action were replaced by highlight footage of one-sided tank battles and spectacular bombings.
Music and Muse were especially upbeat. Victory Night at The Apocalyptic Pancake would feature Puppets of Weltschmerz as the headline band. Representatives of several tiers of Big Media “alternative” record labels expressed interest, inviting Puppets of Weltschmerz to enter the Find Next Big Band Contest on National TV. Would Puppets of Weltschmerz be the music of our Day?
Watched BEING, Music, The Bakery Girl, Muse, and my own Me on television: reflected images among the other icons of the Nation on the enormous television screen. Saw us, as we were: five young safe Citizens The City, The Nation.
Bless us, bless us, bless us, we Citizens, blessed.
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