the inmate's journal : the corporation xi : technology vi

That night, after a particularly vigorous session with Lief’s sister—so fervid with the success of our presentation she performed fellatio—I had a dream …

 

I was in ETC Central, in the middle of my Lazarus presentation.  The executives had the heads of elephants and the bodies of men.  As I went on, I noticed the elephants were getting restless, pawing at themselves and each other … guttural caws and howls, snot and spit.  Suddenly a dulcet voice came from the army of technology surrounding the room—

 

Stoke your pricks, gentlemen.

Stoke them.

Time to stoke.

Stoke, stoke.

Stoke, stoke, stoke your pricks.  

 

The executives whooped and hollered and threw the table and chairs to the side.  They stripped down to their ties and socks and climbed onto the ribbed backs of their pricks and zoomed around the room, spewing smoke and garbage, singing—

 

Be like the animals, oh man—

the bear’s got the mojo

the mamba‘s got the keys

climb the teeth of the tiger to the hole that’s the throne that’s the dream.

 

Be like the animals, oh man—

the shark is your sister

the scorpion your child

ride the eagle’s talons to watch a dream watch a dream eat a dream.

 

Be like the animals, oh man—

learn from the chimpanzee

read the black widow’s brain

use the jackal’s guts to build a bridge for the ancient human dream.

 

Be like the animals, oh man—

the jungle’s in the classroom

the chase is in the church

Think the dream is nature?  Think again.  Nature’s nature is the dream.

 

Be like the animals, oh man—

ply your tongue like the mamba

apply your paws like the bear

your words like the bars of the tiger … yum … the zoo is the dream.

 

I woke up.  Time to get out.

 

These boys and their toys, these men and their dreams.  Lief’s sister and her talk.  She had promised me she’d get me a senior post in the new talk subsidiary that was going to be formed, but … didn’t she get it?  I wasn’t on a quest for a better chair, a cottage, an SUV … I wanted to find God.  I had to keep moving.

 

Don’t misunderstand me … I agree with what you’re thinking—the tech boys have more vision than Juan, more mass than Magna, more relevance than Sister Gooch.  They have tomorrow.  The rest of us, still bound by eggs, sperm, lonely beds, and 3-dimensional dreams, so horribly unevolved, only have savings accounts and credit card bills.  When Oog the Caveman’s short brutal life was ended by some mutant prehistoric snail, didn’t he glimpse, in his last flash of hope, something like technology, the modern city, a Wii?  Wasn’t I stupid not to stay … shouldn’t I ride this wired ride of tech and talk to glory?  Wasn’t it my chance?

 

Plus … and I know you’re wondering it, my YouTube friends … I know you’re wondering why I’m still seeking God—after my experiences in The Assembly and Spring Fragrance, after the Russians told us they couldn’t find him in outer space, after technology has proven itself so brilliantly, after the certitudes of sex and money and muffins and the ladder’s lecherous thrill.  Why don’t I settle down into the here and now like everybody else and amuse myself with gadgets?

 

Look.

 

God’s my name for whatever doesn’t exist.  God’s my name for dreams.  For impossibility, for hope, for vision, faith and madness.  And if there are those who say this definition is too broad, too subjective, too meaningless, who say that God can only be defined their way—as some Conscious Otherworldly Being who praises and whips us—I say to them (maybe I say to you):  what handy word do you have to describe the impossible desire in the human heart, the one that spawns quests and beauty and horror?  That silently gives birth to Auschwitz and Mass in C Minor?  That begets love and hate and art and technology and the whole damn thing we call the human soul?

 

The new, the new was calling me … dreams and tomorrow were calling me … Go to Marketing, Jude, go to Marketing.  Leave these wireless beasts behind … live among a flock of MBAs.