Old Lies (466 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by FunnyAsCancer (View user info) at 2007-01-23 04:46:36 EST
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God is dead.
Or, at least, that's what Nietzsche would have you believe.
Friedrich Nietzsche is arguably the second-greatest German philosopher ever, coming in second only to the legendary Einstein. His works are a mainstay in college psych classes, and he has fourteen bodies of work to his name.
One of Nietzsche's main beliefs stemmed from the idea that God, at one point in recent history, had died. Because the unifying force behind the universe was no more, the concept known as "truth" had lost all meaning.
According to Nietzsche, the only truth one could ever hope to believe was that of personal experience. Logically, there's no way to disprove one's own memories, because that would involve outside sources. Third-party sources can never be trusted, due to lack of personal control/interaction.
Ironically, if one does find logic in all of this, it creates a paradox, as it means you believe an outside source, Nietzsche.
So how can you trust the man telling you the only thing you can trust is your own memory?
In any case, if this is how you interpret the matter, if truth only exists in one's own head...does that make everything else a lie?
It's an interesting question, because if so, it changes everything.
Love is no longer about honesty and trust, but being willing to overlook your partner's inevitable lies. Politics, an already tainted field, loses any and all credibility. History goes out the window, forcing us to make our own mistakes from which to learn.
Basically, everything you know is wrong.
Of course, you'd have to be clinically insane to entirely devote yourself to the idea. After all, it makes life impossible to live.
That being said, meet Michael Turley.
He's clinically insane.
///////
For all intents and purposes, Michael is a functioning member of society. He understands that his survival is based on obtaining the tiny green slips of paper we call money; that without them he cannot trade for the food that keeps his stomach calm, the clothing that keeps him warm, and the shelter that keeps him comfortable.
In order to collect money, Michael works construction five days a week, eight hours a day. He likes his job, because it is a job that shows him definitive results. He doesn't have to talk to anyone; he just shows up, finds the materials he needs, and builds.
Michael appears so well-adjusted, he even has a girlfriend, a Ms. Jenny Tobias. He may not call it love, but he does find something amazingly attractive about her, but only when she's around him. Then he can see her, touch her, smell her, truly experience the woman.
In reality, Jenny is simply a slut. She is only with Michael because she's tired of needy men who grow too attached and want more than sex, who want a "meaningful relationship."
Jenny doesn't care if she goes her whole life without a "meaningful relationship." It always boils down to the matter becoming complicated, and Jenny doesn't like "complicated." She likes things simple, something Michael most definitely is. He keeps his mouth shut, they have a good time, and everybody wins.
So all things considered, Michael's OK. He manages to get by, nothing to worry about.
He wasn't always this way, though. As a child, it seemed like a day couldn't pass without Michael getting into trouble one way or another.
One such incident occurred when Michael was in second grade, and got his first spelling test back. He had spelled "house" with a "w," because that's how it sounds: "howse."
When his teacher marked it wrong, Michael couldn't believe it. The word had "how" right at the beginning of it, it was spelled with a "w!"
It took the vice principal and neighboring third-grade teacher to help drag him down to the nurse's, his tiny legs kicking wildly as he screamed the entire way down the hall.
Eventually, after this happened several more times, the school and Michael's parents worked out a system where Michael would never be shown his scores, and his final report card would be mailed home to avoid him seeing it.
His parents did all sorts of things like this for him, because although Michael was troubled, he was still their son, and naturally they loved him. They loved him so much, they refused to take him to get professional help, because he would most likely be taken away from them, to be institutionalized somewhere.
And they just couldn't lose their baby.
So they sheltered him as much as possible, even moving him into home-schooling when they felt the pressures of adolescence would be too much. As long as they were able to look after him, he would be just fine.
//////
By the time Michael was twenty-two, he was doing so well at home, his parents decided to see if he was ready for outside the house. They started off small, taking him on errands and the like, and he excelled in those as well.
So they let him have the job, working construction with an old high school friend of Dad's. Soon Michael was able to buy whatever food he wanted, and even the kind of clothes he wanted to wear.
Eventually, his parents told him he was ready to live by himself if he wanted. It was the hardest choice they ever had to make, but in the end, they felt it was the right one.
And now here he is, doing just fine. Michael has his set routines, and knows how to get through the day without anyone lying to him. He is happy, now truly living in his own little world.
The only problem is, sometimes Michael dreams. Really vivid dreams.
And if you've ever had a really vivid dream, you understand that sometimes you're not sure when you're sleeping and when you're awake.
This creates problems for Michael, as he already has trouble distinguishing what he can and cannot believe. With dreams, he can't prove they're not really happening to him, because in a way, he is experiencing them. As a result, he can only assume certain occurrences are true.
Take the flying giraffe.
When Michael was a boy, his parents took him to the zoo, so he knows what a giraffe looks like, and that it truly exists.
Last week, he had a dream that he saw a giraffe, only this one was flying. Now Michael thinks all giraffes can fly, because no real-world experience will ever beyond-a-doubt prove that they don't.
So one night, when Michael envisioned Jenny stealing money from the jar he kept in his kitchen, he thought it had really happened. He actually woke up furious, by no means an easy feat, and stormed out to get his money back.
"I want my money!" he yelled, pounding on her front door.
She opened the door slowly, tiredly, as Michael had chosen four in the morning as the perfect time for this confrontation. Holding a robe closed across her chest, she looked at him with curious intent, wondering exactly how to play this game.
You see, Jenny may have been promiscuous, but she wasn't a fool. She'd come to understand Michael, his pathological rejection of any statement contrary to his exact beliefs. She knew he would never simply believe her, so she would have to confuse him into believing himself, through her subtle nudging.
"What money?" she replied calmly.
"The money from my jar!"
"When did you see me take it?" she stalled, waiting for the eventual moment of doubt.
"Tonight. You snuck in and I saw you."
"How much money did I take?"
"I..." he wavered. "I dunno."
Seizing her chance, she continued. "Did you count your money before you came here?"
"No..."
"Then how are you sure I took it?"
Jenny figured it was a harmless thing to say. Michael couldn't treat a question as a lie.
But the thing Jenny didn't count on was Michael's belief in himself. While she hadn't proven herself right, she had implied that he was mistaken. In Michael's mind, that was the same thing as lying.
"I know what I saw!" Michael yelled, lashing out and connecting with Jenny's jaw.
Michael had been in fights before, so he knew how much getting hit hurt. How it made you want to stop talking. And right now, all he wanted to do was make Jenny stop talking, stop lying.
So he hit her, again, again, again. And she just kept squealing, pleading for him to stop, making more noise, lying, lying, lying.
That wouldn't do.
So he kept at it. And soon she stopped moving altogether.
While Michael was glad she had finally stopped lying, he didn't know exactly what had happened to her. So he sat there, and waited for her to do something familiar.
Five hours later, Jenny still hadn't moved, and she was starting to get cold.
Michael had seen this before, when his parents made him go to his Grandpa's funeral.
Grandpa hadn't been moving either, so they put him in the ground and buried him.
///////
Michael was a construction worker.
So Michael knew the perfect place to bury Jenny, a place where he could fit the suitcase with her inside. He wouldn't even have to do any digging!
He had put Jenny in the suitcase because he remembered his Grandpa had been in a box when they buried him. Michael didn't have a box big enough, though, let alone five other people to help him carry it. So the big suitcase with wheels would have to do.
Lucky for Michael, it was lunchtime when he got to the construction site. He didn't know he was lucky, but he was, nonetheless.
He was lucky because lunchtime meant all the other workers were gone, out getting sandwiches and the like. So no one was there when he tipped the suitcase into the concrete foundation, the fresh wet mix slowly pulling the canvas coffin beneath the surface.
As he stood there, watching Jenny become part of what would eventually be the 42nd Street Bank, he slowly made the sign of the cross, and said a little prayer.
Michael did this not because he realized the religious significance of the gesture, but because he had seen the old man in white robes do it for Grandpa.
When she was finally gone, Michael went home and had a hot dog, because it was lunchtime and he was hungry.
///////
Michael wasn't a bad person, he just didn't know any better. His belief system made his outlook on life very primitive, so his choices were often extremely objective.
Jenny had done a mean thing to him, at least in his dream, so Michael tried to fix things, to balance the scale. He didn't feel guilty for what he had done, because he had never died before, and couldn't understand it was a bad thing.
So when the police showed up, and told Michael he was being arrested, he simply didn't know why. He didn't comprehend what the men were saying - "murder," "killed," "death."
None of those things had ever happened to him, so he naturally assumed the men were lying. When they tried to put him in handcuffs, he resisted, because they were trying to take his arms away. They were stealing from him, just like Jenny had.
He tried to fight back, to stop the men, but they were too powerful, and soon they were dragging him to a world of black-and-white.
///////
Funny thing was, Michael actually enjoyed his time in the holding cell. He got food, clothing, and shelter, and he didn't even have to build anything to get it.
But then they had to drag him to court, where he heard more lies than ever before. All these people were talking about stuff they couldn't possibly have a clue about. They weren't there, how did they know!? They weren't him, they didn't know what he knew!
Only he knew the truth, plain and simple.
Michael would have done the hitting thing again, but there were a lot of people there. He didn't think he make them all stop lying before the men with sticks got to him again.
So he just sat there, getting angrier and angrier, until a big man with a baton pulled him up and put him in a big chair.
Then a man walked up to him, a Bible in his hand. Putting Michael's hand on the book, he asked, "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
Michael could only smile.
Finally.
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Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-06-04 23:37:10 EDT (#)
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