Report from the front line of the inner struggle.

When I tell you that every once in a while, I give serious thought to the ground truth of your continued existence, that's when you should try to spot tiny, animated specks moving just outside of your field of vision. If any sound accompanies their incessant dithering, you can chalk it up to a negligible potion which one of us was politely requested to drink. And that's on a good night. If you had signaled me with a flashlight in the rain during that evening years before I had any right to expect trespass-papers, I could have told you then and there not to evince a belief in discarnate vagabonds as that could prove to be your psychic undoing when I stepped out to use the john. A detailed investigation of wholesale imperfection is all that stands between us and the wiles of a battle hardened inebrient of the fourth kind. In case you don't know any better, one of your most devoted disciples is scheduled for advanced removal at the crank of dogs.

We used to prefer re-usable eunuchs to provide a serious cover story in case all the stunts in the book didn't cut it anymore. By the time I yielded the right-of-way to a major organized crime figure, I'd all but stopped caring about how my appearance could affect those less fortunate than the average of what came before. Before what? Before I was forced to give up the one thing which coats some of the more mundane pieces with soothing moistness to keep everything droll and puffy. I say this as a friend, or even a loyal enemy. It irks the very ground upon which  I stake my codified bell system that when someone requires a vanishing reprimand, I'm usually not the one who leaves the pound with only a modified soreness near the area. It would be a 'dream come true' if one of us could get behind a wheel and look for continuing monoliths in our dressing cage. Unlike the other two fellows who brought you into our arrangement, at gun point if necessary, I'm the one who usually goes through buildings with only one small label glued prominently to my joiner's loop. And you know what that is.

The 'trick-of-a-lifetime' is what we were promised. Instead, a random assortment of variegated console powders evoked a sinister gel plan which only helped re-brand a case of serious vapors. I once read that those in need of a sound policy proposal would be better served if the racket often heard during a minor tussle could be recorded for the pleasure of our lesser bromads. They have a way of yanking any vainglorious contender into an innocuous field unit for a quick stress-test near a bonny ridge. The drifts which you inoculate near my right eye are solely tapered for the truly greedy. I live with this every day. Others are not so lucky. When they stare at my door asking for a panty farling, I know they're up to no good even if their leanings make for a good convo at the pub on weekends in the dry season. If I tell them that I've never had any, they refuse to believe that it runs in my family's blood. Not only that, they also liken it to the way a robot would behave in a densely packed warehouse. Excuse me, but I fail to see what that has to do with my segment of the presentation. Now you're doing it right.

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Let's float this and see if it sticks!

 

It's not uncommon for someone in my puffball league to wax philosophic in order to explain the rather remarkable changes observed in the master category of local clump-like structures. We've taken to giving them control names and even conferring honorary sentience. All but ignored is the fact that I no longer seek to hide my proclivities from an independent commission of inchoate busybodies. Because yes, it's all I can do to enforce a scheme of bonded stripes, which, when proper coloring is applied will render our own softer touches as somehow miraculous in the short run. At longer time horizons, anyone who commands the respect of an entire cohort of industrial sales representatives can't have it both ways, however much they may want to skip to a very revealing function. To say that I've had it up to 'here', wouldn't only be untrue, it would also be incredibly hurtful. And this after fourteen years of unchecked service to Our Lady of Ministry. The nerve!

On this or any other day, as I gavel in the proceedings from my mountaintop retreat, it occurs to me that solidified materials are an increasing challenge for our younger colleagues. On the rare occasions when their whining reaches an ungrounded pitch, I will make the 'supreme sacrifice' and remove an imaginary object from a pleated cape. And this will be directly in front of a single stationary camera so that any charges of misfeasance will render the accuser into a salvific meat product for which his remaining iron will do the 'dirty deed'. My wife and I have decided to move our operation to the Southern coast of the Northern-most of the Maldive Islands. From there we will direct a truly vacant series of unbastioned studio product. I have it in writing that even the lowliest camper, if he or she should find the correct melody to intone, will be invited onto the stage and charged with multiple counts of aggravated perfidy. During all my years at the Directorate, I can't remember a single time when this or that stalwart had the coonies to jump over a desk at the noon hour to retrieve the last removable holder from the grip of a reliably cooperative ejection specialist any time soon. For what it's worth, it's still hard for me to believe that you are mentally lying to yourself even as you read this.

It's no secret that if even one of us is asked to live for a month or two without a carbon shielding apparatus, that will be the last time that any of our many hands will be wired for sound. Another sore point revolves around my relationship with the soon-to-be former Ms. Debra Fischer. But for her many perceptual onslaughts, those who peer playfully and without guile through unanticipated openings, could, even now, be risking life and limb to foretell an unexpected result of a not very well known, yet decisive, contretemps. I've asked only one person to arrive not only in one piece, but also in one place. From which we are sure any crappy plans can be crushed in a matter of months, if not years. It goes to show the rest of them what can be boastfully accomplished when working together becomes just another idle threat formation diatribe. I take it that some of you reading this are wondering where you, in fact, fit in. If that's the case, I'd go out of my way to have you processed in less than a day. Beyond that. what we need to hear is how you intend to make our lives and work both more challenging and more productive by half. With all that out of the way, I intend to take you by the hand and lead you through an underground passage so that you can see for yourself that we mean no harm. At least not until we have good reason to believe that you may have dual loyalties. Does this sound like something you'd be interested in getting involved with for the long run? Don't lie.

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One Man's Flight to Sanity.

 

From the way I was seen walking to my car the other night, not a few folks started having second thoughts about getting the wrong idea. Even on the off chance that I was mistaken as to the basic premise, that was still no excuse for my family to calculate an imaginary wind storm while I rested peacefully in my room after a Bible funding collapse. The scary thing was, I'd known each of them for at least a minute or two and was under no illusion that they could be coerced to initiate a hare-brained scheme just for the honor of saying that 'it just wasn't so'. I stewed in my gruel and then got up, lit a cup of joe and got under the covers for a long haul. In this case I caught a ride with a semi out of Cleveland for a West Coast jog. On the third leg of what turned out to be a monumental boner, I was handed a flashlight and a magnetic tarpine and asked to rouse some of the plunderers from my home state. Even so, a lot of the reports I filed rested on the good-faith efforts of the easily repressed. I could pull them out by the hands or have them delivered expo-facto into a badly scripted third-party humility-trap. At which time most of the particles would be hard to spot, if that. Don't say you weren't warned. That's why it always becomes warmer at night, even though it rarely is. When?

If there seems to be a gaping hole in this account, please remember, those were your words, not mine. More often than not, we try to take our time when introducing new Escort Cadets into the vacancy pool at one of the motor lodges under the Security Blanket. If any of them start to project immature fantasy material into our Master Class, we can always contract the services of a power lifter and see them diminish one by one until all that's left are a few piddling remarks in the wake of an inoffensive presentation. It's not an exaggeration to say that I'd happily go to bat to have her picture introduced into the food supply of a major motion picture. The kind where you can almost hear someone say something, but not quite. It's all about the explosions. But on set we run a very tight ship. If anyone is having a 'bad day', we sit together and try to talk it out. No one ever likes to mention it, but there's often quite a bit of intentionality involved. Especially when it comes to diverting funds into a patterned relapse flagship. There you can often find one or two folks who make some very valid points. And, you know what? They DO have a point. People just want to see their kids on a TV show. Is that so wrong? Why do you say that?

When you start to look for a way to impress yourself with your cleverness, you could do a lot worse than to locate a mechanical spaniel in one of the caves under the Dorset Green. One way or the other, I believe we will live to see the day when people the world over are removed from a hazardous situation without their families or friends knowing any better. Once they see the trouble they've caused, no one will be able to set them up on a new career path. From this moment forward, let a call go out and then call it a night for all I care. If I were to cater a private affair, would anyone object if I left a few fabric samples behind so you could take a look? It should only be a few moments before we'll be back on our feet. Still, you might not want to be in the room when I get back from an orderly process. Even with all the regularized distortions, some folks still try to have it both ways. After I feed them, they usually join separate lines. But not before they are asked to abandon a very discreet panel. This was set up over a year ago. My Uncle had a part in it. It's dogged him for at least three years. And yet he still can't seem to find a way out. They have a weird hold over his breathing process. And also his hypnotic reveries. It's often stated that this gets easier with age. I find just the reverse to be true. Which is why you should stop hitting me.

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You know who you are, isn't it?

 

You are the one who we've entrusted to measure and install a tripwire at the entryway to our Central Demonization Annex. This can only help the most sincere applicants to sort through a mountain of offering statements and expose a near-term surcharge megalith. The brand-management team is all over your side of the argument and one day very soon a transponent corofim will no longer appear bound for a season of unscripted justice armadas. The tinkling sound in the corner of your plume is just the kind of racket which anyone who thinks of getting involved could do worse than to mildly approximate. Yes, there WILL be manifold opportunities to snuggle with alt-right activists and no one should worry about the invitation which disappeared down a rabbit hole of our own exclusive design. It comes in any color you can imagine, if only you could see your way clear to lie down peacefully once the announcement becomes an immaculate reality on the ground going forward. In the midst of a long, cold afternoon, it's remotely possible that you'll be able to find your very own tube which contains everythnig you'll need for a dormant recipe follicle.

We all long for the days when one trick after another would spark the interest of those currently enshrined in the moshpit next to the convertible transom in our isomeric garage tulku. I will plead the fifth when it comes to circulating bales of whey among depressed celebrity handlers in our third largest exposition fiasco. There's just no telling when I'll once again be repeatedly rammed on my way through the dorsal chamber which abuts the sacristy in my fog helmet. Because of all the times that my leisure mode beverage of choice was laced with a permanent stain-removal procedure, I've been forced to take out all the stops in a conveniently placed opinion-quotient release, and all that with my head caught between my own two, very burly, front-backs. Now that the interval between gatherings has ramped up, all the usual flyboys have decided to give our ringtoss a wide berth and instead motion to some of our pre-teen Nurse Assistants that they should take a few minutes and spend them wisely once the demolition starts in earnest. Call them by whatever name strikes your fancy; just please don't issue standing orders to betray a common enemy for wont of a strident paleo enthusiast.

Now we need all of you to strain yourselves until the pindar juice is fully backed with gold contract flukes. Each will then be asked to enable seven strikes to be added surreptitiously to their name-of-choice. A round-robin will ensue in our purpose-built dome lozenge, at which time a never-before-seen color field will be induced into the visitors' prayer-group mound. The vision will ring with a sterling clarity, and I expect to see an appalling amount of victim-blaming occurring without any single individual having to rely on a purported ribbon tree in our Sculpture Annex. Has anyone heard tell of an ancient formula for restoring unshaped pardons to a pristine parking slide? Because if so, there won't be any people left stranded in a line at a ceremony on the Lower Level. That's due to the fact that our Phase One endpoint is just a matter of seconds from cancellation. Tony Beflin will give everything he's good for. Without that, some very pious people would be sunk within a pastel rolfing snot. You can even see it in their eyes. It's made of a permanent enamel. This is the cause of not a little sensitivity. And no, I'm totally uninterested in how they appear behind closed doors. Trailing compartments could be another story. You tell me.

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This is NOT rhetorical.

 

Does it ever strike you as odd that when we're on our game no one can be bothered to interfere with our current status update? Because, even though I've loaned him the equivalent of two hundred and thirty-two panels, the time never seems to arrive that we can just place our hands on a central table and take turns on a mound in one of the Recreation Centers near our office segment. The pattern which you observed in my best-dressed category is nothing less than the latest example of our rigged result coming under serious wraps. If anyone tells you that they're impressed by your temperate reaction to news of a random flooding event, you might think to offer them a chance at telling time from the back seat of one of our premier duco lounge sets. It's known that just the integers alone could have you questioning the exact reason for your habitual malfeasance. It's not like anyone as unlikeable as myself would think to offer you a chance at every last swedenborg in our County Treasure Chest. That's when the 'big boys' come out to play. You don't want to be in the room. Or, maybe you do. What will it take? Some kind of hair care product? Don't go there.

After my son rode a mis-positioned scoop underneath a psychic roadbed, his mother (my former wife, Jillary Mosgrun) hosed up some pleated ballet slippers and made off with the lion's share of the proceeds after not more than eleven big ones. For my part, I never wasn't unconvinced that her attraction to satirical spy satchels had anything to do with my lactose intolerance writ large. But, what I DO know to be the case is that without her fooling around in a down-market longterm storage operation, no one would have ever had the bright idea to look through my credit report and find a gaping hole where that came from. In all my years in the Chicago Police Department, I've never had to lie about where, when and/or if I had to hang my head in artificial shame. It doesn't take a genius to see that I was the clueless one all along. In the event that someone knocks over a precious display, you may have to make do with whatever you can scavenge from a bootstrap comintern on the periphery of the outskirts. In which case you better be ready to deal with some very major characters. I've never taken a penny in my whole life, just so you know.

What will it take to finally get people to understand that they won't stand a chance if they take a chance and just 'stand there'? Because, if anyone ever finds a telltale lesion on the exact spot where my bodice was interred for the duration, it's a good bet that a rain-compromised filtration excuse won't do the trick to get them all buckled up for our field trip to witness a military flaring device up close and personal. My own 'season of doubt' began when and where yours was said to end. And that's before all friendship cones were duly accounted for. Who the hell is it who would go to bat for the likes of a scrawny shipmate in an underground plenary trap? If you knew them like I do, I don't think your answer would be less then three percent correct. And that's not even adding in the time spent on overbroad narrative conventions. Please don't think that we can't see what you do in a secret library compartment. Of all the ones I've ever encountered, that has got to be the most impressive collection of Eddie Haskell bibliographies that anyone's ever thought to use as emergency fire paste. Please accept my most sincere condolences. It won't help. See?

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Try to weave this into your life's fabric.

 

This isn't the kind of thing which happened more than once or twice a year. The guy who was known around town for infiltrating micro-scale sculptures into the community water supply drove into Biloxi early one evening on mountain scale. I would arrange to have his information scanned in advance to ease his daughter's release from an inappropriate group located just below the Gulch. Try as I might, I couldn't get the thing to hitch. So, I ended up back in Mark's basement, only this time I had to convince some strenuous onlookers to stand near the rear entrance in case there was anything to endure before a steep fall-off.

Sheila walked into the carport on the instructions of my former mentor. As his associate once confided to my estranged attorney, it would likely take upwards of three or four weeks before we could begin to reconcile conflicting accounts in the matter of likely placement of materials to be officially codified during a sparsely attended ceremony at Winston Field. In cooperation with the Piper Boys out of Allentown, PA, we would meet with a steady cascade of applicants to the point where a brownout seemed in the offing.

I got on the horn to thank my brother's ontologist before switching out a set of duds which no one but a lame epterola could fail to appreciate for no reason other than the drill of the bunt. Even as her hands mounted an improbable defense, the back-end promise-keepers still hadn't erected a phony proxy stall so that those in their mid-aughts would have a chance to skulk through stacks of course-work, even while arousing a devilish sympathy among the unwashed layabouts. What does it take to scour a neighbor's nightpad when stellar additions are things of the past? I won't interrupt your support crew if their number includes known carriers.

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For one so young ... Who goes there?

 

One of the ways which people sometimes use to make their 'worship gestures' appear more febrile by half, is to invite participants to investigate the likelihood that one or more of them will have dodged a circulatory issue before the night is out. At the same time, more than a few of our best lookers seem to forever be holding tightly to a formula which may guarantee that a shipment of age-appropriate parking wads can be thoroughly simulated before any mark-ups are deposited in real time.

From the moment I located the odd tool-and-die operation within my remaining sphere, a virtual stepping stone opened up for all to see, as if that would get us any more 'me time' before the call came tumbling down. No one should count themselves out for the count before either I or my team have had time to involve ourselves ever more deeply in a place you refuse to look. What would it say about someone if they were caught unaware of all the ways their appearance has caused folks to focus their energy on getting out more often? Why would you assume that a person you've only heard about is wondering what sort of a stunt you're going to pull next?

It isn't for nothing that I came out for guided incantations sometime back. I'd read the studies and counted myself as one of the few attorneys in the Tri-County to make myself available for online life coaching even before the Mayor ended up in the hospital after I got hit with a three-pronged assault charge. They took me by force but that didn't mean I'd go quietly. Far from it, in fact. If you had ever gotten to know the people who work on the edge of the loop, you could've saved yourself a boatload of embarrassment when everything was finally revealed. That's why the kid's first name is 'Scott', NOT 'Todd'. It couldn't get any easier if you punched me.

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