Dummy
I am special. Unique. Yes I am, don’t argue the facts. I am the only — not the first but the ONLY — person who has ever felt this feeling at this time in this way ever.
Only I’m not. How can I be? Can I be? Yes, yes, you hold water. Stick to the original stick-to-itiveness. Be confident, isn’t that what they advise? Unique and special people are confident in their originality. They don’t think they are, they just are.
Why do the words unique and special look so sad? They are tacky sweet nothings, having lost all meaning through overuse. They remind me of the one whore in that small town passed around from cock to cock. Lost all meaning but kept living. Kept thinking.
I can’t stop thinking. I can’t stop thinking that I’m not. I can’t stop thinking that this apologetic life is going to rush through me and dissipate without trace. That I’ll come to my anti-climactic end — and fuck knows I adore a good climax — regretful, morose, having lived a life of alienation, surrounded by death and never fully immersed. So I once played the dummy whore to keep living. To taste life.
Switch tactics. Something. Anything to direct this mind in the direction of more directive thoughts. Think, think, think. That’s the problem, that’s the fucking problem. Too much fucking thinking. Endless streaming conscious analysis that ultimately leads to that familiar cottage at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The one with depression, hopelessness, anxiety, fear, shame, ridicule and their faithful companions in dripping heavy black spray paint all over the weathered façade. The one that’s empty inside save for a cold, rusty iron chair near where the hearth used to be.
But that’s where I do my best work. Sitting in that chair thinking thumping exhaling laboured breath aching, expelling hard chemical sweat from fevered pores, bloody palms gripping the chairs’ arms for dear sweet life and recoiling in horror from the frightful monster that aims to grab me, shit on me, kill me or worse: enslave me in a completely non-sexual fashion; he makes me pay the bills and do the housework. But there’s no one there. No one but me. I need solitude for my worst best work. Right now, though? I need a fucking cigarette.
I grow restless. Just shut the fuck up with your monsters and your housework and your whores. I can’t hear my especially unique thoughts over your incessant whining drone.
It all comes down to this. Did you change me or did I mean to change? Who’s doing the talking? And to what end? Am I a wellspring of creativity or a sublime candidate for therapy? I know you have all the answers but that knowledge doesn’t keep me from feeling the questions.
22 November 2007 at 8:21 pm
I, and I suspect every other reader of Down In Me, regret to inform you that having read these eight paragraphs of ‘pointless, self-pity’, you are to be eternally condemned to fighting monsters, housework and whores - or indeed, monstrous houseworking whores - in your solitude for eternity, in order for you to continue producing this worst best work. Especially if we’re going to continue to receive writing like this in return. Sorry about that.
P.S. I, and I suspect every other reader of Down In Me, have also taken the fucking cigarettes. It’s for your own fucking good, especially if … [please see previous response]
22 November 2007 at 8:34 pm
Wellspring.
22 November 2007 at 9:16 pm
Well, that made me want to smoke a fucking cigarette.
So I did, and came to the conclusion, by the end of it, that you were unique and special, but I already knew that. However, I also concluded that you do NOT need alienation to do your best work, though solitude may pass.
And, dear God, do you ever need a nice cup of tea.
23 November 2007 at 3:09 am
“fuck do I love a good climax” — I barked a laugh there. There’s that “fucking thinking” going on again, eh? The chair imagery was very crisp and well-put. I’m not going to pretend to lend any advice or answers, of course. I think I’d rather just enjoy the fact that I’m viewing from the outside at this, for once.
23 November 2007 at 9:10 am
This moves me. I see a lot of sensitive, keen self-reflection here. As often with your writing, its the most serious parts, the parts that declare your angst honestly, that reach to me the most. There’s much I could say, but I’ll stick to two comments.
1) ‘Sublime candidate for therapy’ - I’ve done a lot of therapy. Its a space in which serious personal angstful feelings are respected, given time in which you can both cathartically release intense feelings and contemplate calmly. It isn’t opposed to being ‘a wellspring of creativity’ at all, in fact its quite complementary (at least with the right therapist). Most of the great ‘creative geniuses’ would certainly qualify as ‘sublime candidate(s) for therapy’.
2) I went through a feminist phase in the 1990s. Some of my female friends then would do things like smash up tailors’ dummies. They would say that there are satisfying options for women beyond being either housewife or whore. But then I’m a bloke, and that was the last millennium.
Love and empathy, Drodbar
23 November 2007 at 2:18 pm
You are unique. Just like me.
23 November 2007 at 5:16 pm
I have long ago given up trying to tell the difference between pathology and insight. And as far as being unique, I don’t think it saves us from half as much as we hope it will; but without it, we feel alienated just the same. I have never quite understood why that is.
For what it’s worth, though, you are incredibly talented with words. Whatever the label or the etiology of that gift, you do say some pretty singular things.
24 November 2007 at 9:42 am
Hello everyone. Thank you for your extremely insightful comments. They’ve made me laugh, think, squirm (in a good way), smile and feel very grateful.
Forgive me if I don’t engage with each of them the way I usually like to but this post is an open wound and I’m too sore from poking around in it for now.
24 November 2007 at 10:58 am
Sweatheart, you’re like a Plath journal entry with swearwords. Really though, that’s a compliment.
Remember three truths: everyone secretly wants a whore, not a virgin; innovation was never born from not thinking too much, nor from sitting in a nice comfy corner sipping camomile tea and considering how lucky one’s life is and how completely and totally content one is within it; you are the centre of your universe. You are the centre of your universe.
26 November 2007 at 9:31 pm
I only read two lines and I thought “brainless moron”, I can’t even remember the lines.
26 November 2007 at 9:32 pm
I only read two lines and I’ve already forgotten them
26 November 2007 at 9:32 pm
What the fuck is this?
26 November 2007 at 11:36 pm
Ben: That is most definitely a compliment, thank you. For the compliment and the reminder of those truths.
Joliet Jake: Ooh, a dissenting voice! Thanks for your candor. I’m not sure what the fuck this is, either. I suppose it can be whatever you make of it.
27 November 2007 at 2:02 am
Sounds like someone stepping into a room where an open-heart surgery or something is taking place. “Oops, sorry. Wrong room. Ack!” Or finding a puddle of crap on the floor. Or he might be one of those that throws a rubix cube out the window because it doesn’t conform to his wishes, doesn’t make sense the way he wants it to. I’m rambling aren’t I?
27 November 2007 at 2:03 am
Err, I was referring to Jake, btw.
27 November 2007 at 10:36 am
2ndhandsoul: “Down in Me - frustrating as a Rubik’s cube.” I like it!
30 November 2007 at 6:45 pm
One thing you certainly learn through blogging is that everyone is entitled to their opinion. One of the less ideal things is that everyone feels inclined to offer it, even if it is poisonous, rude and betrays a wealth of ignorance more impressive than George W Bush in a ‘name that fruit’ contest.
The best thing you learn though is that while freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, censorship remains the beautiful unknown preserve of the author.