by Ice Cream Jonsey » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:45 pm
It was supposed to be an easy job. In like Flint, bing bang boom, out with the goods, no fuss, no muss. It wasn't supposed to be a disaster.
I let my crew down that day: Freecell, Minesweeper and Windows Pinball. Free took a blast from the guy right in the face and fell down like someone popped him. I was supposed to be the scout. I was supposed to make sure we all got in and out alive.
But I had to stretch. I had to get the endorphins flowing an hour before the job. I had to run around the block until I got my delicious fill.
First up was a dragonfly that actually changed directions when it saw me coming. It was futile. Within a second of being aware of the thing's existence, it was in my gullet, where it unfortunately stayed for like a day because bugs don't go down easy.
The bloodlust was now hot within me. I saw a northern Colorado flying air beetle, just minding its own business, in the middle of the field. I took off like a stealthy cougar, slicked with pretend grease. I pounced and swallowed it whole and unleashed fake claws and a raspy, "rowwwwr!" which later made it to Youtube WHICH I REGRET.
But the last and final insect was the one that doomed me. A colony of no-see-ums. I dove in and just danced a macabre 360, taking them all as I could.
And do you know why?
Because you suffer, for what you have to do, that's why. You become a goddamn man and put up with the inhaled insects and the people pointing at you and laughing and the heat and the stress and the humidity and the pain because the oxygen isn't getting to your muscles. You do it because your heart beating like a cartoon heart beating in your chest at least means you feel alive, and you'll relish the feeling and want it and need it and seek it out. You do it because you may fuck everything up and get three anthropomorphic Windows applications killed in a unmotivated-by-narrator bank heist, but you can at least look at yourself if you survive, and not turn away from your own gaze in the mirror, and not die the coward's millionth death and not have so much as a single fucking doubt that you did what you could and loved unconditionally with your heart and battled for what you cared about and believed in until the last cell in your body burst.
(An actual cell, not Freecell, or "Cell," as we called 'em.)
But really. Seriously: why?
Because when you meet your makers, they will poke and they will prod and they will cut you. The imps will pull the skin from your body and every horrible moment of your life will be out of context and running through the assembled choir's vision, so you can't stop seeing it even if you close your eyes, but neither can some lesser daemons, which lets them make a big dramatic show out of how horrible your existence was.
They will line up the bugs that you swallowed and the line will be endless and someone, God probably, will sneer and laugh (at you, not with) and bellow, "They were IN you. WHAT A JOKE! It says quite CLEARLY to be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY, not eat FRUIT FLIES and MILLIPI. Was it worth it, human? WAS IT?"
And you can say that countless billions of insects have walked (the Devil corrects you and japes with "flew") er flew the earth, and you would have gladly swallowed them all.
A pause. "Just not all at the same time, of course, HONK," you say and mime vomiting, and the choir of the damned break out in laughter, and our father above and Prince of Lies below eviscerate them because honestly, they're both kind of assholes.
It was supposed to be an easy job. In like Flint, bing bang boom, out with the goods, no fuss, no muss. It wasn't supposed to be a disaster.
I let my crew down that day: Freecell, Minesweeper and Windows Pinball. Free took a blast from the guy right in the face and fell down like someone popped him. I was supposed to be the scout. I was supposed to make sure we all got in and out alive.
But I had to stretch. I had to get the endorphins flowing an hour before the job. I had to run around the block until I got my delicious fill.
First up was a dragonfly that actually changed directions when it saw me coming. It was futile. Within a second of being aware of the thing's existence, it was in my gullet, where it unfortunately stayed for like a day because bugs don't go down easy.
The bloodlust was now hot within me. I saw a northern Colorado flying air beetle, just minding its own business, in the middle of the field. I took off like a stealthy cougar, slicked with pretend grease. I pounced and swallowed it whole and unleashed fake claws and a raspy, "rowwwwr!" which later made it to Youtube WHICH I REGRET.
But the last and final insect was the one that doomed me. A colony of no-see-ums. I dove in and just danced a macabre 360, taking them all as I could.
And do you know why?
Because you suffer, for what you [i]have[/i] to do, that's why. You become a goddamn [i]man[/i] and put up with the inhaled insects and the people pointing at you and laughing and the heat and the stress and the humidity and the pain because the oxygen isn't getting to your muscles. You do it because your heart beating like a cartoon heart beating in your chest at least means you feel alive, and you'll relish the feeling and want it and need it and seek it out. You do it because you may fuck everything up and get three anthropomorphic Windows applications killed in a unmotivated-by-narrator bank heist, but you can at least look at yourself if you survive, and not turn away from your own gaze in the mirror, and not die the coward's millionth death and not have so much as a single [i]fucking[/i] doubt that you did what you could and loved unconditionally with your heart and battled for what you cared about and believed in until the last cell in your body burst.
(An actual cell, not Freecell, or "Cell," as we called 'em.)
But really. Seriously: why?
Because when you meet your makers, they will poke and they will prod and they will cut you. The imps will pull the skin from your body and every horrible moment of your life will be out of context and running through the assembled choir's vision, so you can't stop seeing it even if you close your eyes, but neither can some lesser daemons, which lets them make a big dramatic show out of how horrible your existence was.
They will line up the bugs that you swallowed and the line will be endless and someone, God probably, will sneer and laugh (at you, not with) and bellow, "They were IN you. WHAT A JOKE! It says quite CLEARLY to be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY, not eat FRUIT FLIES and MILLIPI. Was it worth it, human? WAS IT?"
And you can say that countless billions of insects have walked (the Devil corrects you and japes with "flew") er flew the earth, and you would have gladly swallowed them all.
A pause. "Just not all at the same time, of course, HONK," you say and mime vomiting, and the choir of the damned break out in laughter, and our father above and Prince of Lies below eviscerate them because honestly, they're both kind of assholes.