"Children of the Ark"

by Dom B.
2002.02.25

Hey hey, the spirit moves me this week. Ten p.m. on a Sunday night in the 21st century and I've lost the will to scour the classifieds for more salvation and wholeness. It's therapy, it lets me know there is a world out there I am not a part of. I am not a speech pathologist, a bricklayer, I am not an IT professional. And you see, I care because I don't care. I have reached the enviable enlightened state of Freedom from Want, and it is a scary place. Where to go from here? Maybe a rootless, wandering, couch hermit existence.

Find out how long you can live on peanut butter and how long your gas money lasts. Bask in the reflected glory of "I Love Lucy" at 3 a.m. in some distant living room. I'll make couch funk my cologne; I'll pry up the cushions for quarters, nickels, dimes and even pennies. I'll be the King of stubble and fast-food car garbage. I will stop to stretch my legs. But I will not stop moving.

My eyes are tired, wearing bags like rank insignia. Tired of the women checking my shoes and my wristwatch for the genetic code of money. Tired of square smiles and how do you do's and feigned nods of interest. Tired of transient stomach ulcers and tension headaches and existential dread and hand tremors and canker sores and picking at dry skin. Tired of just wanting to be entertained. Tired of waiting for the next bomb to fall.

A new religion, stronger than love. A new mission, forged in the here and now, a new school. Dojo of the Couch Monks. Army of the disposed, sick of the economy. Flies on the wall in the living rooms of America. The mission is to watch, to learn. No ends, no means.

The big letters on the report cards in grade school read "Failure Comes From Not Trying". Will someone please tell me if I failed? I need to find my niche. I am just in a phase. It just wasn't right for me, and I wasn't right for it. What color is my parachute. If money wasn't an object. Something, something, will come along.

The next bomb.