Page 36 - The Myth and the Moment

Afternoon

Cripes! My heart is pounding. If it blows, would that be an
implosion or an explosion? Squeezing into itself to increase the
pressure of the blood it’s trying to squeeze out of itself. Maybe
dependent on ether diastolic or systolic phase at breakdown, or
whether valves can keep up with hydraulic demand. Either way,
you’re DOA at County Hospital. And I’d be martyred to my cause, in
total anonymity, a tag tied to my toe. Am I ready to die for The Myth?
That’s a laugh: I’m doing it precisely because I’m going to die—along
with everyone else, of course.
But martyrdom? The body—the emotions, can they truly accede
to self-sacrifice? Won’t they always overrule the mind? Not if you can
redefine pain and pleasure by means of some strongly-held belief. So,
let’s see: to be ready to die, it’s either because living is more painful
than pleasurable, like a terminally-suffering cancer patient, an
emotional reason; or if the price of doing one’s duty is death—true
martyrdom, I suppose. On the other hand, not to be ready to die, it’s
either because there’s more pleasure than pain to keep on living—the
purely somatic drive—or because one cannot do one’s duty if one is
dead. Now that sounds rather unpleasant: martyrdom, you just grit
your teeth and leap into the flames, but to keep on going, flames or
not, is a real son-of-a-bitch. If you could have done more by staying
alive, why should you be honored with the title of ‘martyr to the
cause’? Instead, the survivor gets branded as a coward by posterity
ignorant of his will and intellect, unsympathetic to his levels of pain
and pleasure. But history must judge, to validate the current ideals. If
there is any history: got to get back on the beam, Evangelino!
Now, where’s the Wild Man of Garbageland? He can’t be
everywhere at once, not pushing that cart full of mysterious parcels.
Ah, there he is, over by the crowd listening to that fanatic rant and
rave, totally absorbed in his work—won’t notice me poking about the
rubbish on the other side of this mob. I’ve just got to be more subtle
about it. Maybe pretend to listen.
“—you got to see for yourselves what’s going on. Then you will
discover, as I discovered for myself when I opened my eyes, that
everything is disguised as its opposite. You will see that the oppressor
is the liberator, that his lies are your truth, that every move you make
to get ahead is pushing you further and further behind. I tell you: all
your schooling has been for nothing. You can’t think, you can’t

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