Preface
This is a story.
About receipts.
And the absence of them.
And justice.
And the absence of it.
This is a story about "I know people are good" and "everywhere in the world, all our good is being drowned out" and the real world where wrongs of every magnitude never see justice and what's absent isn't all the words - it's all the real good.
All the Janus
The Store
There is a woman with children so many so small like saplings with no aspirations to be other than reproductions of reproductions. At the store their cart rattles with spareness and water and bread. With them a man for whom wear and ravel are humility badges dispatched to the maws of saplings through the magic of electronic debit for provender.
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about these followers of the rod of God who know that an eternity in Hell awaits all who do not do as they do: fear God and knowledge else the road to Damnation be their own?
This practice of "faith," enshrined by the authors of seventeenth century institutions as a "liberty" and a "right," repels the self-determination of ova bearers and condemns ideas and would present day institutions do the same.
*
The Enemy
There is an empire nakedly ambitious for more than a bottom line, last place never, cake and eating it too. Say what does a calculus as black and white as grayscale luminance and as hot and cold as amplitude modulation serve anyway?
Itself of course, the best course spoken for. As for the audience in the pockets of beholden finer than dust, crumbs and found parking lot pennies and a hand that fills the darkness, are the courses to be had.
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about choking on monotony as brittle as lip service to "telling it to you straight" and getting away with it because the audience gets what the audience wants: mouthfuls of ash?
This "nothing's real it's all an act" muleta of lookherenotthere! serves neither you nor me who are but means for the purpose driven axiom of the empire and its ends: squeeze every word and every idea and every life of utility for itself.
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The Small
There is a stack of boxes on hand trucks. There. Nonononono. There. Because free shipping like a boss | drop shipping like a boss | making bank like a boss | making rainrainrain like a m!@#$r f%^&*ing boss. Here. Yesyesyesyesyes. Here.
The sharp sweet must of hardwood pulp | expectant promise oh! borderlessness of electronic credit | hashtag you know you want it yesterday. So what if the smell of success and the smell of failure are evasion adjacent? If not this then that | if not that then another | if not the door then the window | if not the window then the corner never rests.
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about these evangelists of "faking it is making it" who spurn the yoke of workworkwork for praise be the dream manifested by absence?
This "sweatless hustle" bubbles fraud and deceit, unbroken and unspoiled by rules and regulations derided and despised, for paydays through the pockets of the fleeced, the suckered, the gullible: hashtag fair game m!@#$r f%^&*r.
*
The First
There is a hunt as the day as granite polished to every rainbow revelation of what lava forms fast in a sunlit kitchen. But, croons the professional whose opinion is spray-on-effect-paint is better imho not that you're soliciting my unsolicited opinion mind you which is professional though, look, this is a sign. Of what, you and I and the hunter muse.
A professional opinion though, right? is impartial? essential? real? Because the business of cash commissions and cash bonuses and cash awards for sales and services that meet targets and exceed goals in fiscal periods and commercial markets is not the business of money money money?
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about minted advertainment coin that all but vilify transactions between persons or principals that dare tread without representatives or agents never you mind self-dealing self-preservation as pure as twenty-four karats of reason?
This "no one who does what I do is in it for the clink of the till" as convincing as "no profession is more trustworthy than [fill in the blank]" integrity for a price as if this ensures it for sure because of course it does.
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The Janus
Like "good luck" said at the Store when it means "go to Hell" by the Enemy when it means "as if exploiting 'granting sincerity' isn't what we do" by the Small when it means "don't blame the gamer, blame the game" at the First when it means "Karma's a bitch" this is a story about the real world.
Because sometimes there are receipts. Sometimes there aren't. Sometimes it makes no difference one way or the other. Because a word that means its antonym, an idea that is the opposite of itself, a person who wears not one face but two are not wrongs that justice sees.
Sure there are occurrences of selfless generosity with and without receipts shining a light but briefly but limitedly but the once. But also there are mountains whittled to pebbles rolled in ones in hundreds in millions until grains of sand outnumber the once.
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about these acts of "human nature" as vital as natural disasters to which indifferent habituation is but free willed inaction?
This "humanity is what it is" monuments so-called "good being drowned out" by so-called "exceptional wrong," while all the real good hear all the words that monument all the exceptional nothing in the world.
Epilogue
The Ugly
There is an idea: a wannabe audacious reversal of ideas themselves spit spat spurt the opposite of themselves and the words rumbling tumbling bumbling for power and wealth and fame aren't priceless, you know.
Oh! the burden, the crisis, the terrible weary wearing not one face but two, not two faces but hundreds, not hundreds but all the words not one of throwaway consequence, I know.
Tell me.
What's "good," exactly, about "all the real good" that's wrong of every magnitude? Of no justice for the practice of "religion" that effects the powerlessness of ova bearers for the powerless and their "sanctity," as if without having consented to be subject to the practice of such "religion" all are subject to its "authority," its "law," its "right" anyway?
This "good" wears not one face but two, not two faces but hundreds, not hundreds but all the words not one of throwaway consequence, I know. For all the words that wannabe "all the real good" while exercising the "liberty" and "right" to fool and foul are as just as carved stone and as pitiless.
M
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Postface
Of course "I know people are good" and "everywhere in the world, all our good is being drowned out" is the story we tell.
But
first blood optimized for revenue and earnings because twenty-four karats of reason is not "real;" fairy dusting "positivity" currency to sell indulgences is not "honest;" agreement without transparency because opacity guarantees "integrity" is not "fair."
That that passes for "real" and "honest" and fair" is fame imagined and wealth pretended and power believed; where wrongs never see justice and all our words take the cake and eat it too - this real world is the story we live.
M
