The Vanishing Point

If the shoe fits, wear it. Don't ask where it came from — some fucking rabbit hole out here in Outer Mongolia. Out here, your horse might throw a shoe or break a leg while you are doing a liquor run for the second time tonight.

It's dark. The black of night. Listen to your heart beat. It’s the only way to know if you are alive. Unless someone punches you in the face, in which case you are reminded of it right away. Or, say your car breaks down near a major highway, and you have to walk, and every set of approaching headlights brings with it heaven or hell. Could be either. There is no way to anticipate this kind of thing. You’re just a victim. Night comes with a smell of murder. So says Ihsahn, the black metal poet. He's rarely off the mark.

It’s cold now, too. The sun is going to come up in a while. It might be the dawn of the last day on earth. We suppose it won’t as we trudge off to the Outer Mongolian Coffee Company job. Just another day.

But listen. There’s a killer loose in your neighbourhood. It’s not some stinky guy with dirty fingernails. It is us. We are sick. Calling on designer cell phones from chemotherapy sessions to check in with the office. Setting priorities. Creating calendars. Networking. We can't blame this one on the Devil. Ignorant of the deep passages of time and history, we float on a transparent veneer of self-indulgence.

And Jesus wept. Of course, Lazarus never had a Hummer. The cell phone rings. Hammer Smashed Face. There’s blood in the streets. A banker’s eyes run red with it.

Outside, it starts to snow. The earth is covered. Quiet. We are vanishing from this land. The Trans Am ran out of gas on the way out of a useless relationship and here in this lonely place it has begun. The fading away. We do not recognize Armageddon. It creeps up on us. We curse ourselves and shield our eyes.

Our fate. Turn off the television.