Thumbs Up

Here I am. Here I am. Still breathing within the confines of Soybean Island. I remain a prisoner who has not committed a crime, who has been charged with no offense, who cannot face his accusers because he has not been accused of anything and who cannot confront his captors because they remain faceless and hidden within their corporate-controlled walls. I am "free" to wander, to eat and drink and even think, as long as I obey the code of silence and passivity they have placed upon me . . . Well, at least I was not hauled off to Stalag Ranville after illicitly visiting Stalag Ranville.

At least I have--so far--kept this modicum of independence, despite my transgression.

Is it a rainbow at the end of the trail? With a Pot-O'-Gold for lucky me?

Hardly. I'd be lucky if it was only an optical illusion in a shop window.

There still remains to be a green light--

--beckoning me to the true freedom that I crave. No. No such luck for me. I remain only tied to Soybean Island City with its bland and moribund culture and its obedient and complicit populace. Its despicable and duplicitous illusion of domestic pleasantries.

I am still here:

An un-person

in an un-person land

searching ugly doorways

and cracks in the surface

only to remain baffled, puzzled, obscure and opaque

in this contained space of detritus

with no view from the window of my soul.


Wow.


Yes. The Apparatus rules and controls my life, so much so that I still dare not reveal even the true architecture of their home office:

(Even this much sends cold tendril-like chills down my spine; like a half-frozen demonic octopus placing its authoritarian and suctioncuppy fish-fleshy octopus arm along your bare back in the middle of a night's sleep whilst you dreamt of sunshine and clover and lambs . . . Yes. Like that.)

Alas.

What else can I say?

What else can I show you?

Snails?

Snails and Flowery Flowers?

There. Have it. The Apparatus will be quite happy that that is all you want: Snails and Flowers.

They will give it a big thumbs up.

Don't believe me? Why just look at the statuary in downtown Soybean Island City:

Thumbs Up!

(Well, Thumb Up, if you want to be technical.)

Yes. To live or to die. Thumbs up or thumbs down. But knowing Soybean Island and its opposite-thinking ways, an upward opposable appendage no doubt means to let them die.


Until next time if there is a next time:

Goodbye from Soybean Island,

#OneNineFiveSeven