ATTN NIGEL: I've fallen, and I WON'T get up.

[Requia ☣]

Its always too cold or too hot here, the landlords never thought to put insulation into the building, its just brick and drywall between me and the outside, and I can't afford to turn the heat all the way up, and the air conditioner never works right anyway, so I pay more than I can afford to have it be just barely livable.

I'll get out of the building at least.  I payed my rent for the last time yesterday.  My roommate owes me enough favors that he'll let me stay for another few months.  But he can't afford the bills either. eventually he'll have to find a roommate that *can* afford the heating bill. so I'll move into my parents basement, where there is insulation and I don't need so much heat.

At least until the bank raises my Parent's mortgage rates.

[Kai]

I live in College Town. Yes, that College Town, the one where everyone worships The Team, and Its Players, the one where all the buildings are ancient mausoleums of shining stone on the inside and halls of decaying offices and laboratories within, where the bells shine brightly always from the clock tower and all the students are Happy^TM, at least by the writers of the New York Times. Yes, we /do/ have to keep a good face despite the economic hard times, have to keep the greek life lively, have to keep 80,000 fans rushing in every gameday, must continue to present that image of Happy^TM People, while downstairs just 3 floors below where I'm sitting an old lab rusts to dust, an abandoned chalkboard and desks and papers lying under caked grime and cobwebs in the dim light and mildew. The space used to be a place of science, and now it is a place of rot.

So the street vendors sell their hats and shirts and booze and the ticket hawkers run around screaming and waving. The whole highway turns into a one way street those Saturdays, the pavement packed with people and cars and tailgate tents. And at the end, blessed quiet except for the occassional train, as 80,000 people leave again. The summer is even hotter and ever quieter. Suitcase town, they call it; ghost town is more like it. At the stroke of midnight on a street packed during the fall months, there is only the quiet rustle of leaves. Those nights, College Town is almost bearable.

No one lives here. Even the continued members of the community live in towns miles down the road. There is nothing here but college buildings, bars, restaurants, memoribilia shops, and apartment complexes, like a church that only fills on Sunday morning and is empty the rest of the week.

College Town is the south trying to be multicultural. And how they do try, the president speaking at events, talking diversity, pushing plurality. But you can't make the south cosmopolitan, no, you can only bury that bigotry in the shallow soil, where it festers and flows off into the groundwater. The churches hawk their goods much like the tailors, and the students listen to this more than the good intentioned professors. Who are they to argue with god? Racism is rolled under the rug, still there, subtly affecting the fabric as you step lightly, trying not to disturb some of the more offensive grime that passes as patriotism, here in College Town.

College Town is The Stadium, its the bar crawl and the screaming sorority girls, its the moldering basement beneath my feet. And the students give the decay only passing notice, the decay of education, the decay of intelligence, the decay of a modern 1880s throwback university. Those who do notice hope a beautiful white and orange wasp will burst out of the dying chrysalis, its colors already fading, but no hope, there is no ectoparasite to catch a ride on, just a slow slide out of touch with reality, the professor in his office working a 1995 IBM computer, trying to check his email while rows and rows of vials sit untouched on a nearby desk, messy, piled high with publications never published. He's trying to understand why his students don't like his old school way of teaching, why every year passes he's more tired yet he convinces himself hes happy, still in his office though retired for over a year. What other life does he have? The Professor will die in his office probably, ten years down the road, die in his sleep, a page open in a worn and weathered manuscript he's been working on for 20 years, a tattered corpse unfinished.

College Town is like Stonehenge, its original purpose for military training and agricultural learning forgotten. Like the pagans in their Beltane robes the fans rush to The Stadium, a cheap imitation of the original reasons.



I have to get out of here.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And it seems to me that universities used to be places of healthy dissent, and of a rounded education that served to make the person, not the career.  But it's all horrible and wrong now, it's all an MBA mill and a furious fight for grant money, musn't piss off the government, no, no, there's no grant money down that road and it's publish or die, no scratch that, it's publish and die.

And somewhen, Sonny and Cher are singing and the beat goes on.

[fomenter]

my country dreams will die this week, i don't know what to think of that, i have held on to the idea of going back but the reality is hand to mouth living, survival on a tourist economy that barely exists, the farmers sons and daughters, those that can, move to the city's and those that cant inherit a business or work for minimum wage or below, most everyone was high there or drinking, each day rolling past just like the one before it, but there is no going back now i want something now i need to make something of my self it doesn't matter if i don't know what that is or how to get it ... i am pretty sure its not what the television is telling me i should want or should be, but there is still no going back, being able to stop and fish with a beer in hand on my way home after killing myself for minimum wage  isn't it either, i can make country living sound good the fresh air open space and all that, but i have been there and the  romanticized version i hold on to in my head isn't there... and this week i sell off the property that kept those romanticized dreams alive ...  

the newest pill is purple you say??

[Requia ☣]

Okay.  But not on Their networks.  They own the ball AND the ballpark, Requia, but the price of admission to their ball clubs is cheap.  Cheap as dirt, cheap as a smile, cheap as your soul.

But you're on to something, here.  I have to think about this, but things are a little fuzzy right now.  I'll get back to this later, when my head is a little less twisty.

Oh never on Their networks.  Talking to the people who watch Their teevee isn't useful anyway,  But there are people who aren't Their creatures, not really.  The ones who want to rebel but can't figure out how because They own 'rebel' now.  The people that are afraid of Them and Their teevee even without knowing They exist, because the part of the brain that says spiders and snakes are dangerous can't be completely killed by Their pills.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

the newest pill is purple you say??

Yes, and it helps you remember that success is money, not actually DOING something or BEING happy, success is TAKING something, is TAKING that shot, is burying your opponent at work or in the marketplace, is killing that bastard and stringing his ass up on your office wall as a trophy, is hollow laughter in marble halls, is realizing that if there's a devil, he talks just like this, only if there is a devil, he's obsolete, we can do that cheaper in Malaysia.

Yes.  It's purple.  It's your happiness, in a bottle.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Okay.  But not on Their networks.  They own the ball AND the ballpark, Requia, but the price of admission to their ball clubs is cheap.  Cheap as dirt, cheap as a smile, cheap as your soul.

But you're on to something, here.  I have to think about this, but things are a little fuzzy right now.  I'll get back to this later, when my head is a little less twisty.

Oh never on Their networks.  Talking to the people who watch Their teevee isn't useful anyway,  But there are people who aren't Their creatures, not really.  The ones who want to rebel but can't figure out how because They own 'rebel' now.  The people that are afraid of Them and Their teevee even without knowing They exist, because the part of the brain that says spiders and snakes are dangerous can't be completely killed by Their pills.

Observe the humble cockroach.  All your poisons can't kill it, sure you can squash one, but there's a million more.  And that roach can't hurt you, right?  It's just a roach.  But there's a million, a billion, and they spread all sorts of fun diseases.  Typhoid.  Cholera.  Knowledge.  Wakefulness.  RAGE.  ANGER.  RETRIBUTION.

[Eater of Clowns]

I live in a city forgotten, where streetlights lit the way in splendor unseen worldwide.  Eventually those lights went out because they were fueled by oil from whales and we all know that's wrong because whales are beautiful and we were guilty about killing them more than we ever were about taking advantage of those evil men with the long beards and strange clothes.  Once called the city of the future by foreign dignitaries we became a city dependent on its past for its future.  But they were right.  It's a grim city and that future that is now the present is grim.

In every direction is an old Victorian house with creaky boards and woodwork as grand as anything, the kind with narrow staircases and not very many windows.  And on some of these those windows are boarded up and spraypainted with that furious unselfaware wailing of the disenfranchised.  Then in others those narrow staircases lead to a heavy door at each floor bolted by the families inside who don't talk to the people living above or below them.  Everywhere else is vinyl sided with a dingy city grime on it that settles itself even onto the new things.  It's all very cheap though, for quality woodwork that only needs love that nobody can give it anymore.  Maybe the governor will put a commuter rail stop here to the big city up north and maybe we can find work there and maybe they can come live for something less than the value of their kidneys.

My place is cheap, too, and my street is in the thick of the rundown but it's a nice street where you can forget about how the rest of the city looks.  It's almost like the downtown area, with its cobblestones and its arts nights and its waterfront that perpetually smells like low tide.  The shiny downtown where not enough people spend not enough money.  But on my street everything's fine.  The landlords live on site and there's a church three houses down from mine and I think I even spotted a BMW and a Prius parked here once.  It's a still standing bastion of how good this city can be.  I'll be sure to tell the old lady who lives downstairs that sleeps on her couch because her place is so big and she's all alone and she got robbed last week in the time it took me to get an oil change.  I guess even if we look out for each other there are plenty others looking out for when we aren't able to look out.

All my friends and I went to college and we came back so excited to pick this city up and dust it off and let it breath.  They're working at liquor stores or unemployed now and I work at the Sheriff's office where I dispatch our ambulances to our hospitals and I don't even hear of that many gunshot wounds.  The rest of the talent left the city; they knew it doesn't want their talent.  And one day I'll bring mine elsewhere.  I'll get out of here, and I'll forget this city.

[Requia ☣]

Most of the cockroaches are Their creatures now though.  They figured out you can control people better if you never kill them.  And They get all that Rage for free.  The Chosen people are Their creatures, and as much as I hate The Chosen People for it I feel sorry too.  Because one day Their other creatures will fill up with rage and hatred at all the wrong things, and Their other creatures will EAT the Chosen People alive for being different.

Their creatures will try to eat me for being different too, but I will hide, and throw up Their pills when nobody is looking.  The Chosen People can't do that, there are too many of them, all the same.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

and I'll forget this city.

Do you really believe that?

[Eater of Clowns]

and I'll forget this city.

Do you really believe that?

No.  But it's a forgotten city and that's not what we do to it that's what it does to us.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

and I'll forget this city.

Do you really believe that?

No.  But it's a forgotten city and that's not what we do to it that's what it does to us.

Yes, my city is the same.  Broken.

[Corvidia]

This city rests on the shards of shattered hopes. It was founded by broken men and women, fleeing genocide and ever since this is where the broken and weary have come. They hope to make a better life, here among the orchards and orange groves, where they could be safe. Here they hope to make it in the rice paddies and strawberry fields.

Alas, it is not to be.

This place was put together haphazardly, and wave upon wave of the broken and weary has put stress on the precarious balance of this city's life. People fled oppression, revolutions, genocide, and war and put down roots in the poisoned soil. They put down roots in earth made of ground glass. A low haze of fog and smog hangs heavy in the air, so thick with pesticides and exhaust you can almost taste it. Canals are choked with duckweed and trash, grocery carts and tires resting at the bottom, glimmering wetly in the sunlight.

Sometimes, when the light hits them just right, those broken hopes glitter again. They seem almost real, almost whole. But when you touch them, prick your finger on them, you are reminded once again that this is a failed city, a dying town. You see the shards in the cold light of day and the sound tinkle of falling glass echos.



People talk about leaving this town but most never do. They go to college at the local university and marry here. They buy their first house, out in the suburbs, where city blends with country. Where vinyards stand among the sprawl of walled in communities. Foxes dart through bushes and hawks wheel above the rooftops. Only to be shot at with pellet guns and chased by teenaged boys.


There is quite literally a right and a wrong side of the tracks. The right side of the tracks are filled with Starbucks and McMansions, where plasticized soccer moms sip lattes under green umbrellas and talk about who just bought a new Hummer (Oh Ashley, David and Marina just got one! Are you and Eric going to get one?). Where young couples walk tiny dogs on the city's tree-lined bike path in matching track suits and go to mega churches on Sunday.

The wrong side of the tracks looks like something out of the third world. In the slums are malnourished children and wandering dogs, lean-to additions on crumbling houses and hulks of junk cars line the streets. Here, gangs rule the streets and police won't go without back up. This is where drugs are made and shipped across the country. This is where the tent city is, where the homeless huddle together over trashcan hearths and beer bottles. Here is the last refuge of the lost.


This city never had the chance to break--it was built wrong on shifting soil watered by two tiny rivers of mud. It has suffered heart break after heart break and the glass never has a chance be swept away. It is a whirling vortex of poison and despair. And I can't escape the pull of the tide; I will be drowned by mud and shit and
                    I
            can't
       get
out.





_{Edited to decrease the suckage}

[rong]

I live in The Woods^TM.  It's here, too.  But different.  It doesn't surround you here.  It's more like sitting in the corner of the room where you can watch the door.  'Course, that also means you're up against the wall. 

Everyone knows everyone here.  That lady that died in a car crash was your wife's aunt and her daughter was dating the son of a friend of yours. 

We drink a lot of beer here, too.  There's not much else to do.  We drink when it's nice outside because, "hell yeah! It's nice outside!"  But we drink when it's cold out, too.  It gets like planet Hoth here.  Every year you say, "this is gonna be the year I get that engine block heater.  I don't know if the old truck can take another winter without one."  We have to drink then, so we don't feel the cold.

I like how quiet it is.  Mostly turkeys and crows and coyotes reminding me to stay close to the house at night.  I here more gunshots now than when I lived in The City^TM.  But I don't mind it so much – because I know it's hunting rifles and shotguns.

But, I told you.  It's here, too.  They know how much you like it in The Woods^TM.  They know it all to well.  They know that you would do anything to stay.  So when you don't get a raise, you don't complain.  You know the Company is just doing what it has to do to get through these tough economic times.  You start to skip breaks to show them how dedicated you are.  And when you're laid off for a couple of weeks – you tell yourself that, in the long run, it's the right thing to do for the Company, because if this mill closes, you will lose everything.   And when you're laid off again, you really try to get some things done around the house, but from all the layoffs, you're too broke and can't afford to put in that second bathroom.  So you go to the bar and put another hole in your head instead.  And when you're laid off again,  you wonder, "are they figuring out they can run just as well without me there?"

That's when you realize.  What you have isn't yours.  It's theirs.  And they will take it away whenever they want.  Because they are the guards and you are still in prison.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Most of the cockroaches are Their creatures now though.  

Yeah, fuck, you're right.