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Literature Discussion - Lit-Talk.com
Rational Conduct
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Chapter 13 – Trouble Defining Reality
New Jersey was a little nicer than his last stop in Staten Island, New York. Sandy’s death didn’t really bother David. He had stayed long enough to assure Sandy had moved on to another dimension, looked around a bit, turned the computer on, had a beer from Sandy’s refrigerator, and was on his way. He had considered E-mailing Sandy’s notes to Artie, but for some reason didn’t, stuffing them into his pocket instead. The last look back at Sandy’s home merged with a flashback to the last look at Brian Tiernan’s place. The rooms morphed together into one picture with two bodies. One body on the floor in a puddle of blood, and one in a chair passed out cold, like a seventy year old man who had finally retired from the machine shop, and was crashed out in the living room, oblivious to the rest of the family around him who were cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner.
As he locked the door behind him, David was unaware of his actions. He was lost in a flashback to Ashley showing him how the morphing program worked on her computer. She was sitting on her bright blue swivel chair they had bought her for Christmas, and he was kneeling beside her, aware of his sore knees, the fact his wife was coming home soon and he hadn’t done the dishes, and the regret he felt kneeling there next to Ashley and knowing he never spent enough time with her and when he did his thoughts were elsewhere.
David never could control his thoughts. He could never focus. Most people around him were probably aware of this. They never said much to him, but he guessed most people realized he was out there. Way out there. But then again, most people are really unaware of themselves and the world around them. Most people probably didn’t realize he was way out there. They probably thought that at moments he was a bit odd? He didn’t notice where most people were either. He thought of some people as being really busy or distracted. Some were totally into their work, or their homes, or their kids, or something. But nobody ever really looked at each other, talked to each other, or knew where their head was at. It was too difficult to really look.
Women seemed to make primitive attempts at this. They would sit and have coffee while their husband’s worked. Even if they held jobs, they found time to talk while men watched football and fixed bathroomsThey may have known what was going on, and kept it from the men, in some global conspiracy that kept all men clueless of their emotions, and women angry at them for this. The theory appeared to make sense, as almost all men were basically clueless of emotions outwardly and most acted in ways that would indicate mental deficiency. They talked about football, and cars, and business, but rarely really communicated with each other, and were perpetually lost in their own worlds trying to deal with their own problems and trying not to get caught for being totally insensitive and self absorbed.
The struggle not to be involved and aware played out most easily in the business world where things were concrete. The simplest form was the world of money, where things added up. Yes math was a great escape. A man couldn’t be wrong with math. And if he was, it was just an input error, or a missed digit. It wasn’t the fact that the guy couldn’t understand what was going on around him. That he was clueless, or scared. Unable to deal with the real question of what was going on in the world of the person across from him. To admit that he did not know. To have to face the most difficult of challenges, fail, and not be too ashamed to admit failure. It was good to be at work.
The global conspiracy model would clarify an awful lot, but it wasn’t really a feasible explanation. The women seemed as unhappy, or maybe even more miserable than the men. They had no justification for hiding. The world was still a man’s where a woman could work, but she was still responsible for the thoughts, emotions, and feeling of the family members. She was forced to stay in contact with the trickiest and least easily explainable of all human conditions. She was supposed to know how each member of the family felt. She had to know their fears and desires, even if they didn’t know it themselves. She had the impossible job, but friends to share it with. American society had left the women in charge of managing the impossible task of knowing people, but through the effectiveness of evolution, she was allowed to do it with friends and with almost no expectation of successes.
When Sigmund Freud left women with all the blame for their children's upbringing, no man raised his hand and complained. If not the mom’s fault, blame might be laid on the dad. With a big ego, a fear of failure, bravery complex, and everything else that goes with it, he could not afford that blame. He would be their breadwinner. The mother could be wrong, incompetent, and ill informed. Men allowed for it, and women never fought it all too hard, as the alternative was to become brain dead like the men.
Men were machines. As time goes on, evolution may actually change the human mind to the point where men are incapable of emotion at all. Or is it exactly the opposite. Are men just discovering each other as thoughtful, competent, human beings that are lost and clueless much like themselves? Has modern technology actually freed up enough time for men to think? Are woman actually progressing faster than men. With a dishwasher, washing machine, refrigerator and shopping malls, have woman actually been given enough time to speak with each other. To realize that there is something inside each human body other than an exterior that craves food, shelter, toys, and other diversions. Is it possible that some day all humans will recognize each other on some level other than one that requires an exchange of thoughts and emotions that are based on something other than material needs?
Throughout time, there has been a leisure class. Shouldn’t this leisure class of wealthy, educated elites have experienced enough freedom to come to grips with this whole concept of human communication? Why then haven’t these, the successful human beings risen to a higher level where they actually understand each other. Again, is it a conspiracy to keep the truth and knowledge from the rest of us lowly working peasants, or is it that this world, in the manor it has been devised, rewards those who care less for emotion and communication but are successful in the ultimate diversions of work and war.
Perhaps the most successful humans are the least successful in that they have ignored this potential and focused on skills that make them material successes. Perhaps this is why their children do not have all the answers. Being raised by parents incapable of straying from success as defined by things, has made them nearly incapable of experiencing that which they cannot touch. If a parent never looks a child in the eye, and tries to read what lies behind that eyeball, the lens, the clear flesh that covers a black void of what lies within, can the child ever learn what it is that is really important. As God is beyond the grips of mortal understanding, is it also true, that as humans we can look no further into our partners and children’s eyes that the mass of nerve cells that lies beyond the blackness that we see in their eyes.
Ashley had something special about her. She was brilliant, and at times David knew she was disappointed in him because he could not see beyond the blackness in her eyes. David sometimes tried to look past the eyes themselves and see her for who she was. To see beyond the physical and sense her desires, emotions, thoughts, feelings, dreams, and fears. David knew his advice and guidance never really made it beyond things that would make her materially successful. She sometimes looked him in the eyes almost waiting him to give something more, but he was incapable.
As he knelt beside her looking over her shoulder at the computer screen morphing her face into a lion’s and back again, he sensed her wanting to be connecting with more than just a computer screen, but he was incapable. The more she tried to engage him, and prodded him along with discussions of the program and how they ought to do more of this together, the more uncomfortable he became. Eventually, she would ask less and less, sooner or later merging into her own group of friends where she would get more than she did from her dad, who sometimes seemed to be on the verge of real communication, but could not quite make it. Dad would get older, and in despair if he still had any recollection of his failures, would slouch in a chair in the living room, and fade out into a dream while his wife did the dishes in the kitchen after Thanksgiving diner.
When David woke, his hand was still on the doorknob of Sandy’s home. He knew what he had been thinking, or at least some of it, but was uncertain how long he had been there with his hand closing the door of a dead man. Had neighbors seen him there? What woke him from his thoughts? He had no reason to be paranoid. Sandy had killed himself and nobody could hold anything on David. He pulled the door until he heard it latch shut. He turned and left.
David didn’t really feel human any more. He was operating like a machine with a newly programmed set of instructions, and a human operator sitting inside the machine watching it operate without any real clue of how to change its direction. He was just watching. He wasn’t a God or anything, but he was operating in another dimension. He was operating outside of the normal human dimensions. He was like a virus. Capable of bringing destruction to many. Unseen. Operating outside of human view. Even Artie couldn’t see him. He was operating on cash, unmarked cars, no identity, and no real plan.
David didn’t notice the predictability of his actions but Artie did. Artie survived through randomness. Having a purpose would get a guy caught. It was possible the chronic running of Brian Tiernan’s computer had gone unnoticed, but the fact that two machines were on at the same time was bound to be noticed. They couldn’t keep this up long, but Artie needed the info now if he was to save Ashley. It was possible he had only a few hours to locate her before someone was onto him. If they noticed, and they were smart, they would shut down and change operations. The fact that the authorities had not caught this group of child killers, thieves and pornographers was funny to Artie. They had a purpose. An objective. And that could be followed, tracked, and destroyed, and Artie was now doing just that, with all his resources.