WALKING ON THIN ICE

I sniff my pits. “Gosh, I stink.”

“Why?” Smith asks, incredulously. Today was 90 degrees in Marrakech.

“Because my pussy got hot outside. It’s from the stink. It’s my funk. It rises up.”

Smith asks, “Why aren’t you wearing those special chemical panties that cool you down?” He’s referring to our plan to save global warming by selling refrigerated underwear to all the women because of their hot vulvas. More hot vulvas = dead beefs = global warming by a simple reductionist philosophy.

“Can you explain to me again why more hot vulvas equals global warming?” I ask Smith.

“More hot vulvas equals more men in heat wishing to procreate which leads to little babies which leads to more dead beefs to feed them.”

“Ah, The men need beef for their babies.” I see. “Why does more dead beefs equal global warming?”

“I didn’t say it caused global warming. That’s just another problem. But I did say the hot vulvas contribute to global warming!”

“Yes, but it’s poetic to blur the intent.”

* * *

“If we get back to the States there will only be this much of me left,” Smith says. He demonstrates by pinching an inch of air between his thumb and index finger.

“You’ll have shit it all out.”

“And wear and tear, shriveled by the heat. So did you take one of those multivitamins?”

“Yes, I did.” I was worried to take one because I think they’re for men. I don’t want to stimulate any male-type hormones.

“Ginseng is good for you. Supposed to help you sexually and supposed to soothe you.”

“Hmm.” I’m skeptical. I figured anything beneficial for a male’s sexuality is by definition not soothing.

“I used to drink Ginseng tea, to try to soothe myself when I was selling shoes to women…”

“Why would you need soothing for that?”

“I’m not a salesman. Women would come in to buy a pair of shoes. We were required to try to sell them a belt and accessories. I found this intrusive and demeaning.”

“You’ve got class.”

“So I needed all the soothing I could get.”

“I would get really turned on if you tried to sell me a shoe.”

“Actually, I didn’t have to try to sell the shoes. The women came in for those. Altho the old joke is true. Many women keep saying their feet are smaller than they are.”

“Hm.”

“I also did the display windows for the shoe store. I musta had a sense of style.”

“There were two hispanic channels on Mom’s TV package. And the one thing that’s immediately obvious is that they wear more revealing clothes on the Hispanic channels. It’s more a culture of flesh.”

“In Brazil, they worship the body.”

“I’d better not go to Brazil then. My body ain’t worshipable. I want to be worshiped for my mind, and my talent.”

“That reminds me of Camus’ essay, Summer in Algiers.”

“I gotta finish the Rebel. I got 50 pages to go.”

“Is it necessary for me to read it?”

“No.”

“Any new insight?”

“Well, his basic premise is that murder is not right. And he’s saying every single rebellion, including the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, they all resorted to murder.”

“Ah hah.”

“And going back in history he went back to the Marquis de Sade, tying that in with the Revolution. And he gives history of French revolution including what the different thinkers were saying, etc. etc. For example, he explains Nietzsche a lot. I got a lot better understanding of Nietzsche from here (Morocco) by the way then what I’ve had before. Which is not much. And he goes into Hegel, Marx…”

“Ah hah.”

“And all these revolutions, all these grand plans for perfect happiness for man…. have the same three points.”

“OK…”

“They all think that if you get rid of the bad guy, be it God or the State or Capitalists, everything’s gonna be hunky dory. Because Man would then be in charge. And Man is inherently basic and decent and good.”

“Well that’s shit. That’s what Ayn Rand thinks. Man’s good, so let *the* Man be in charge.”

“And they all say, number two… People you’re trying to help, let’s say, the workers, who are suffering injustices and misery. It’s OK to make them suffer and hurt more because you’re going to save ALL of mankind down the road. So you can hurt a bunch of little guys now, and it’s all right. Cuz you’re gonna make more Happy down the road. In fact, they say it’s better if the worker’s life gets worse…”

“Oooo…”

“Because it’ll make their eventual salvation occur that much more quickly. Not only can you *hurt* them, but you can hurt them *even more*. So those are the first two points, you can imagine what I make of those two arguments.

And the third thing: no matter what their philosophy is, they all say that, ‘Someday everything’s gonna be alright. But until then, you gotta put US in charge.’

“Sounds familiar.”

“For example, the Communist government was supposed to fade away after it got organized. ‘Cept it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

“Sounds Keynesian.”

“And this book, Camus, who wrote the Rebel, it alienated him from most of the French left. Because Sarte and the entire Left had build their whole dream and argument on Communism.

And even though everybody knew what Stalin was doing, murdering millions… none of the left could say anything, or Did say anything.

Then Camus came along and said, ‘Look. This is wrong. The emperor has no clothes. This is wrong…’

Actually, it’s pretty hard reading. Foreign names I can’t remember… but it is worth reading. I had trouble staying awake sometimes, tho. And today, I got in my bath and decided I wanted to read The Rebel, and I want to sit there with my eyes closed and relax.”

“Hm…. the rebel’s relaxing.”

“It’s gonna take me a month to read me a book that would normally take me two days max. I mean, you’re talking 270 pages.”

“Well, Marrakech is like an encyclopedia.”

“Yeah, but I can’t read the print.”

“Hahaha! Yeah, and you’re forced to look at it!”

* * *

“Boy, I hope I didn’t say anything bad in this. I’m pretty loopy.”

“You sent it already?”

“Yeah. Oh well. I’m a writer. I’m supposed to be able to dispose of other peoples’ feelings, make them my ‘objects.’

* * *

I think about how many intelligent people there are who could fix the overpopulation and depletion of the planet. If only they could just get together and fight the power. But all the intelligent people are working 60 hour weeks trying to hang on to their jobs before they get offshored.

“I decided that all the brilliant people are too busy to worry about politics. That’s why nobody’s doing anything. Their brains are all engaged in engineering problems.”

“Well, I’m a paranoid obsessive, so I have time to look at the news.”

“You’re not paranoid, you just know the truth.”

“I think it was RD Laing who said just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

* * *

I dangle myself on the balcony door, twisting luxuriously in the warm night air. I watch the yellow windows across the blue expanse of darkening city scape. I see that I’m being watched. I casually pull the blind closed.

I tell Smith, “We can watch all the other windows. We can just turn out the lights, and watch.”

* * *

After my last draw, I ask, “So what do you think? Are we being changed by Marrakech?”

“Yes, because we’ve learned things. And you’re changed when you learn things. Plus, we’re now reddish-brown. Plus Marrakech is so interesting, it takes away my interest in visiting more normal places. You know what? I’m going to take your tape to seal off the bottom of this bag. So I can use the top again.”

“Hm.” The bottom broke on our bag. Cheap baggies from England. Bottom of my passport baggie also broke.

“Marrakech has also made me realize I’m tired of traveling.”

“Yeah, a month of Marrakech will finish anyone off. Off to the souks! Or the glue factory! Or the tanneries… When I get back to Cleveland I’m gonna wonder where all the donkeys went. If there’s a Cleveland.

You know, I’m reading this article on Commondreams.org, “A look back from 2017″ by Paul Campos. 2017 seems like an attainable number. Maybe we’ll make it to then.”

“You mean I gotta put up with ten more years of this?”

“Yeah, I think you’ll live that long.”

“I have but one goal: to be the last lifeform standing.”

“Oh, dear.”

* * *

Wow, I just saw this article, “US Hospitals Charge Uninsured More, Study Says.” It’s true. People who are uninsured have no idea what the cost of their treatment is, unlike the insurance agencies. So the hospitals take advantage of the ignorance.

I imagine this accounts for the new field of medical tourism to Thailand or India. The fucking hospitals are going to get theirs, yet.

* * *

excerpt from George Monbiot’s article on commondreams.org about the complicity of Europe in modern mass crime…

“But who will cast the first stone? There is scarcely a government in Europe which does not have something to hide. The UK, Germany, Italy, Macedonia and even Sweden have been assisting the CIA’s programme of “extraordinary rendition”: kidnapping people and delivering them to states which will torture them on America’s behalf(7). Poland and Romania appear to have allowed the US to use secret detention centres on their soil to process them. Austria, Germany and the UK rely on worthless diplomatic assurances to justify handing refugees to governments which torture their prisoners(8). Poland warns that “teachers who reveal their homosexuality will be fired from work”(9). France supports African genocidaires. Spain repatriates unaccompanied children(10). Ukrainian police torture sex workers and force them to confess to crimes they did not commit(11). The United Kingdom bans peaceful protest and continues to occupy the country it illegally invaded. Lift a stone to throw at Serbia anywhere in Europe and you will find something unpleasant cowering there. Better to leave it on the ground. The price of being left alone by other states is the tolerance of mass murder.”