Continuing from the last post's theme, here's another old entry relating to music. From the same year, 2004, I'm guessing it was written in Perth.
Context? There's mention of "remembering" (meta-textual, addressing the audience, v. edgy, no?) sleeping tablets. A few years back I bought sleeping tablets for insomnia. They didn't work. The pills were left alone in a desk. Around the time of this post... well, you can figure out the rest.
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Tuesday 23rd of December
Why does the human race feel
the need to dance? What is it about music that makes us want to move our arms
and legs, hands and feet in complicated patterns to beats and rhythms? Why is
it the more stupid humans in a room, listening to music, the more chance there
is of an instance of dance? Why does one feel more inclined to dance when one's
friends are dancing? Peer pressure, generations of social dancing drilled into
us from the embryonic stages of our impressionable young lives, an avoidable
impulse. What fuels this impulse? Does the beat of the music tap into a
congruent primal rhythm running through our bodies? Do the fluctuations of our
hearts play a role in this worldwide epidemic of foot shuffling? Whenever I'm
at a club I start to get unnerved by the mindlessness of this hidden, ineffable
suggestion to move with the music. My paranoia grows as I see more and more
people fall under its sway, as their bodies are no longer theirs to control.
It's almost like dancing is a global plot that has been hatched in the center
of earth and then left to filter through all facets of society. He who controls
the knees and hips can use the remote to strike the giant boot against any
opposition of his choosing. The power of such a combined kick would be a mighty
weapon indeed. Is music really a tone to set us off, drone-like, on our primary
objective? I can only fear for the worst. We stop at the lights. A dude sticks
his head into the car window. "Are you going to the casino?" No,
we're not. The dude walks off. It's as easy as that really. Remember the
sleeping tablets which have the horrible side-effect of causing drowsiness? If
you don't then too bad, as cheats don't deserve bonuses. Over the last week or
two I've noticed that the packet containing the tablets has been moving about
my desk of their own volition. Tablets have also been disappearing at an
alarming rate. So I set the trap. The packet stays on the desk but the tablets
are hidden away. In their position is placed a folded up note. On the note is
an anonymous message, which reads "Why are you taking my sleeping tablets
without asking? (They are three years out-of-date by the way.)" Days go by
with no apparent change to the packet. Finally, I come home late one night to
find the sleeping tablet box open, with the note half sticking out. I open it
up and a second message has been scribbled on the piece of paper. It reads:
"*Unintelligible scribble*
FOR THE SAME REASON U EAT MY STUFF I'M A JUNKY + CAN'T SLEEP !!"
So I'm watching bands. They
start getting brighter and faster, transforming into the most cacophonous noise
I have ever heard. White hands beckon to me from the front of the stage. They're
trying to draw me closer. My chest tightens. My breathing goes shallow. I
follow the turning of the wrist with my eyes. My feet stay glued to the ground.
A low squeal cuts through my ears. I can't move, I feel stunned. Fingernails
and shoulders taunt me. My vision swims for a wild moment and then hits back
with a jolt. The floor rushes up to me and away, past the follicles of hair and
skin, finally coming to rest just an inch underneath the ceiling. I'm left in
this void existing between space and time. It is infinite and yet nothing. I
know the real world is above me but I could travel downwards and still reach it
as a final destination all the same. Isolation is being positioned between two
plains as they are slowly pushed together. Some hand flicks the light switch
off and I awake, alone.
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