[atsonicpark]

Why the fuck do I keep arguing with myself in the reflection of the cardboard box that I fixed up to look like a television set? I used cardboard I got from a shitty, low-rent Wal-Mart store.. the box previously housed a computer... it was funny when I came into the store, I went to the electronics area, and I said to some pimple-faced employee, "er, hey, do you have any big boxes?" And the guy said, "You movin' somewhere?" I said, ".....no." He said "You uh... just want to store some stuff?" I said, "No." He could tell I was uncomfortable, which made him uncomfortable. Maybe he thought I was going to put some bitch's head in the box. Actually, now there's a thought!... but, anyway, I started to walk away and he yelled.. it was almost like a scene from a movie... "SO.. HEY.. WHAT >ARE< YOU GONNA PUT IN IT?" And I never answered him. I just went straight to the computer area and I saw ANOTHER pimple-faced employee... you know, they really could put Pimple Popping Insurance into their health plan at Wal-Mart.. wouldn't that be great? I mean, their pimples are ugly and angry-looking. Like little pus demons smiling at me. What should happen is, their should be someone paid to pop their pimples. In fact, their should be a whole crew. When people come to work every day, everyone would have to form a line: People with whiteheads, people with blackheads, and people who can feel a pimple subtlely forming. They'd each line up in front of a hot nurse looking like a 13-year-old boy's wack-off fantasy. They'd have latex gloves on. One nurse would squeeze the whiteheads, one nurse would put OxiPads on the blackheads, the final nurse would just say "Look, don't sweat too hard.. don't get too stressed out.. stop eating those greasy foods.." and then they'd pull out a Bible and finish with "...and pray that this pimple doesn't form." Then, after all that is done, the popped-pimple brigade can go about their work, pimple free.. though I guess they'd still have scars from where the pimples were... hmm, I guess they need to hire somebody to take care of that.. also, what about the people with whiteheads AND blackheads?... we'd need someone special to take care of that... REGARDLESS, I went up to the other pimple-faced employee and said, "Sir, one of your fellow employees was being NOSEY..." I emphasized 'NOSEY' as I zeroed in on one huge-ass pimple at the end of the guy's nose. I wonder if he noticed. Hm. Anyway... "...NOSEY.. he was being uh... NOSEY... and was wondering what I needed with a huge box... I simply told him, 'look sir...' Okay, I didn't tell him this. I didn't tell him anything. But I wanted to say... put my foot down... 'LOOK SIR! IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH THIS HERE BOX.' and then put my fist against his glass jaw. If that still wasn't enough, I'd hit him in the lip with my whip. Anyway, are you going to be.. uh... SUSPICIOUS... of my box-using habits?"

I could tell this kid was uncomfortable. EW. HIS PIMPLE JUST SQUEEZED PUS IN FRONT OF ME. Did I imagine that? I don't think so... indeed, it squirted on me... It was disgusting. Now I was really pissed. He stocked a computer and he quietly handed me the box. I just stood there. I couldn't even think of the box anymore. All I could think of was this kid and his nasty skin. I wanted to put him out of his misery, right then and right there. You know.. 'look kid, you ain't never gettin layed if you don't take better care of your skin.' I'm too honest with people, sometimes. Today, I wasn't feeling honest. The box was huge, I couldn't carry it.. it wouldn't even fit in a shopping cart, conventionally, I'd have to break it down, and that wasn't good enough... I said 'thanks' to the kid and walked off, pondering my next step.... I wore the box out of the store, somehow setting the alarm off, like I'd just STOLEN a computer... some rent-a-cop chased after me and tackled me down. 'NO!!!!!!!' I thought, 'DID HE DAMAGE THE BOX?!' Indeed, when he tackled me, the box flew off my head and rolled a few feet in front of me. It got a bit of oil on it from the nasty streets. He checked my pockets. Checked my asscrack. Didn't find anything 'stolen'. He even checked the box. He kinda smiled and put the box back on my head, never saying a word. Yeah, if you're wondering, I was walking around with the box on my head.. I couldn't see anything.. just walkin' around, 'doo doo doo', you know, trying to find my way back home. It was too big to carry, as I already explained!

I got home and set the box up. I noticed the oil stains and I, creatively, decided that they were placed there by the hands of God. This wasn't a deterent to my plans -- I simply smeared the drying oil on the front of the box to give it a shine, like a reflection of an 'actual' television set...... I dived in some garbage bins, found a metal coathanger in the dumpster behind the abortion clinic... I put that special, gooey, sexy metal coathanger on top of my cardboard box... at this point, you couldn't even tell, from a distance, that this wasn't a real television set... only one problem, it needed a cathode ray tube to make it all work. Unfortunately, I have no real understanding of electronics. I mean, my dad was a carpenter, right? But, hey, it's not like he'd fucking tell me anything about carpentry or circuitry or.. well, anything, really. Too much effort. I'm a working man! I'll work hard to get what I achieve! I now will constantly walk into liquor stores and steal liquor. The owner doesn't seem to mind, I think he said something about 'tax write-off', and I always steal Everclear anyway... either he's assuming I'll drink so much of it that I'll die, easily.. though painfully.. or it's just something that not a lot of people drink and therefore.. I mean, it's not like I'm stealing the Mona Lisa from an art gallery, it's more like I'm stealing some shitty De Chirico painting that no one wants!... anyway, what I'll do with the stolen liquor is, I will use it to "pay off" other people to live inside the box for me.. usually, the people are too large, so I like to hire small people to give it some authenticity... I'll have them live in the box for a few days, yelling and screaming and making sound effects, so random passerbys will think I'm watching the most entertaining movie of the week that the world has ever known... after this goes on for a while, I will hand them the liquor under the box when no one is looking.. Man do things start getting crazy then! Whoo boy, you should HEAR the sounds people start making when acting out television shows under the influence of Everclear while living inside of a cardboard box that's supposed to be a television set!

I'll admit, someone died from alcohol poisoning during this stressful routine... the new bums simply improvised and made his death all the more tragic as I was actually imagining it coming from the television set.. see, they were making the sounds, but the reflection? The reflection of the oil was just me, doing things. Sometimes, the image of me staring at the screen, blankly, didn't go with the sound. Othertimes, it did. I told the bums to mainly do romantic comedy routines from under the box. It made it that much better, staring at the reflected image of myself -- it made me think, 'WOW! That girl falling in love -- who is actually just some bum guy talking in falsetto? -- she can't be seen.. maybe because she's too beautiful for the world... but she's falling in love with ME!!!' It really made me happy. This would happen every day. I'd sleep 12 hours, then get up, steal some liquor, come back and me and the bums would talk about what we were going to accomplish today... then I'd just sit and turn on, tune in, and zone out. Most of the time, I ended up ranting. And raving. For a good hour or two... looking at my own reflected image... the bums would, again, improvise, and start making droney, eerie, Italian-horror-flick sounds.. one guy was particularly talented, it sounded like he was familiar with Fabio Frizzi... he'd make these weird "RAHHH" and "RAWWWWR" sounds.. sounded real authentic.. anyway, I'd zone out... and the ending soliloquy will always be the same: me bequeathing my social disgust and anger that I have cultivated, refined, monumentalized, and I am gagging on... and that's my life... oh, and if you're wondering about the bum that died? Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that we didn't eat him. I mean, wouldn't you.

-ac