Alarm clock rings-BUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZ-sheets fly mechanically down feet like clockwork.

Shower on, hot and steaming and ready to cleanse. Dial night-time freshness on a coral loofah
exfoliates coarse skin, flowing behind ears and down-back-over-knees-and-into-the-drain; life-
spins counterclockwise in North America. A royal blue Target-Special towel hangs ready and
poised above a porcelain shrine to debauchery, still stained from the night before. A quick left-
handed grab, silent shake down and the sound of damp linen on tile flour leaves an echoing-thud-
in the head of the foggy face in the mirror. Lack-luster eyes on the Monet reflection staring back,
fade rapidly into Polaroid clarity, revealing a youthful face wearied from stress and unrest. Crest
Extra Whitening fresh-paste on a Wal-Mart toothbrush scrubs Marlboro-Honey Dutch teeth with
paint particles and sedatives meant to make your mouth shine. A steady balancing act over the
organized chaos of a party-all-night-sleep-all-day-sell-drugs-do-drugs-peace-love-and-acid-bro
college hippie floor, to find pants that smell fresh enough to rock that day. A John Lennon forest
green print tee shirt from J.C. Penny's chosen in a rush. Nineties' grunge Levi's with an age-worn
Pantera sticker on the torn right ass pocket with a blue Dollar General bandanna adorning a
balled head with Ralph Lauren glasses and a fatigued frown. Morning check list aloud:

Keys: Check
Wallet: Check
Money: Check
Lighter: Check
Cigarettes: Check
Weed: Check
Phone: Check

A deep breath and long stretch sends fire down atrophic arms. A quick glance at the phone to
confirm Estimated Time of Departure and Arrival at destination unsaid.

Shit. 2:00am.

God hath tricked the wicked and his sense of humor is ironic at best. Work starts at 6:00am and
four hours of Pay Your Way to Heaven with Pat Robertson and QVC is purgatory to the mind of
any well developed Homo Sapient.

A decision is made to burn the remaining time in black smoke via a hand-crafted Jerome Baker1
and the accompanying journey into the unrest and unconscious begins. Experience is now a
dimensional paradox between being asleep and being awake, where I am merely a hazy self-
awareness floating between dream and reality in a cloud of false memories and illusions. An
impalpable blip of sentient perception painting reality onto a boundless canvas with pastel
ideologies.

Ideas of seemingly ingenious proportions spark, and send light bulb shivers down a melting
spinal cord as the solution to world hunger grumbles incessantly in the lower intestines. Urges to
run with wild wildebeests and climb mountains and Redwood trees collapse with the growing
tingle of sleep moving stealthily from toes to calf to knee to thigh.

Damnit.
Lazy boy legs retreat. A slow meander into the kitchen and Cheetos and Ben n' Jerry's soon
replace the perennial montage of philosophic introspection that once was, and that fleeting
moment-oh so glorious as it is-is caught amidst the wind of time and carried deep into a desert of
fruitless memories.

Once more the earth-shaking self-realizations of a philanthropic prodigy find themselves buried
like dirty secrets under the pressure of social obligation and habitual self-destruction. A tomb of
unfettered perspectives stacked like bricks on pessimistic mortar with decaying bodies of
virtuosity lining the floor like poisoned rats.

Smells like...burning Pop-Tarts?. Shit.

Reality slips in unopposed and with the vengeance of an abandoned lover; shattering delusions
around it like crystal balls on concrete.

6:00am.

A mental air raid screams blue collar heresy in the ears of lethargic soldiers dazed with sleep,
now made suddenly aware of their unintentional tardiness. GABA2 receptors in the control room
quickly send armies of butterflies into the intestines. The coming swarm causing a subtle quake
throughout hands and knees.

Something must be done.

Rallying together in arms, Imagination and Rationale devise an ingenious excuse to feed the
ravenous White Collar overseers and their bottomless hunger for Bull-Shit. An eye-lid slide
show streams past, images of car accidents and sick mothers, a dying grandmother in paisley
pajamas coughing up emphysema into a bed pan, last minute weddings of distant cousins and
funerals of forgotten high school friends. Little bits of story line picked here and there from fact
and fiction alike, bound together with a string of impromptu details and white lies--all written on
fifteenth century papyrus to be read aloud into the ears of the nearest telecommunication device.

Consequently, the fat-cats on the receiving end of this spur-of-the-moment fabrication frown on
the frivolous follies of post-undergrad professionals and this breach of unwritten conduct is sure
to leave a soiled stain on a thus-far unscathed profile.

Eight O'clock A.M. and the smell of carbon emissions singe the raw insides of my nostrils,
burning nose hair with forest-fire like efficiency. The black leather interior of my Daewoo
trapping heat like an oven; a stuffed holiday turkey forgotten and burnt. In the background the
radio fades in and out between distorted jazz music and a Christian talk show. Traffic ahead of
me slithering at a slow 10mph down Interstate 4. The image of a multicolored snake emitting
irritation and heat waves painted before me.

My anger is a Bach arpeggio building into a final crescendo.

Two miles ahead of me a black 2005 Volkswagen Jetta has shoved its speed-hungry nose up the
ass of a '94 hunter green Dodge Voyager; crushing daddy's little girl's front end and throwing an
unsuspecting Illegal out the front window of the Voyager. Surrounding the resulting chaos are
three Florida Highway Patrol cars, a firetruck, and an ambulance all screaming Move-It-Move-It-
Move-It, Nothing-to-See-Here, at the dumbfounded dip-shits rubbernecking their way to see
some Good Morning Carnage.

At the head of this slow-moving rush-hour anaconda creeps a maroon '86 Chevy truck chalked
with rust and mud, a confederate flag painted on the back window and a muffler shooting black
exhaust in the face of his followers. In the driver's seat a sun-worn, farm-bred, Deliverance style
hillbilly in a straw hat and denim overalls trails with his foot on the brake, hoping to catch a
glimpse of the little sweetie who just got totally fucked out of a perfectly nice day.

Oblivious to the fact that he has just caused every blue-collar sheep in the herd to be late for their
soul-sucking session of Yes sir. No sir. Right away sir. Can do sir. File F-3765? Yes sir no
problem. No sir, I don't need a lunch break. Yes ma'am I know I'm late. No ma'am I'm not an
idiot. Yes ma'am I like my job. Anything you say sir/ma'am/boss/Your Highness! Bah-bah-bah-
baaaaahhhh!.

Suddenly I realize I've been strangling my steering wheel between my hands like an angry back-
water husband with his greasy hands around an adulterous wife. Deep breaths.

In...Out...In...

I'm a bald eagle flying high above this mosaic snake, my stomach growling with hunger and
rage. Spreading a 100ft wing span across a salt-water sky, I catch a cool draft and circle up-up-
up, eying the succulent snake slithering beneath me. Wait, wait, wait—Swoop, I dive downwards
and grab my breakfast between razor claws. Gotcha mother-fucker! It puts up a fight, but I crush
its pulsating insides in my claws and squeeze the parasitic life right out of it.

Triumph!

...Out...HOOOONNNNNKKKKK. “Get out of the fucking way asshole!”

I have now assumed the throne of King of the Rush-Hour Assholes and my subjects are already
cawing coup coup coup. My right foot quickly slams down on the gas pedal, startling my idling
car and causing it to want to stall. It catches gears and soon I'm cruising at an easy 65mph,
passing the accident on my right, fighting an urge to snatch a look into someone else's misery.

I wonder to myself out loud, is this desire natural? This morbid lust to live vicariously through
some strangers tragedy? Did ancient Egyptians slow down their camels on the Silk Road in order
to stare at a two-caravan pile up? Is this habitual rubbernecking we can't seem to escape derived
from the same desire to watch slaves fight starving lions in the arena? Have we had to find new
ways to fulfill our innate appetite for death and suffering in a society where suppression is the
word of the millennium? Are we any better than our blood-thirsty ancestors or have we merely
found different routes of release? These questions plague my mind like locusts and leave me
with a bitter taste on my tongue. Its too early to think so deep and so I turn up my Tool album
and try not to think about anything.