Monday, February 27, 2012

A Superficial, Philosophical Discussion with Oneself Regarding the Absence of Bread in the Pantry

YOU enter the kitchen, more introspective now than you have ever felt before, on a desperate quest for a ham and cheese sandwich. You know just how you'll make it too. It will have ham, obviously, and swiss cheese, but beyond that you will dress it with mustard and lettuce and tomatoes and maybe even ketchup if the inkling arises.

Briefly, you consider going out, driving to one of the many sandwich shops in the area and having a college student (likely, around your age) serve you. You consider this until you remember how much you hate people, the sight, smell and taste of them. At first, the images of happy couples sharing a drink and a sandwich and a bag of chips and just being generally delighted to be in the company of their "soul mate" cycles through your thoughts, and you think how dreadful it would be to have to stare at that image in person. Then, there are the sad, lonely people, drinking coffee and appearing generally worthless, to which you believe you can relate. Of course, there is still everyone else. The people who just are ... who just want a sandwich and don't wish to make it themselves, don't believe they can make it as good or whatever. You don't want to see any of them. Lately, you seem to hate people, not mankind ... in fact, you love mankind, have written poems about it ... but rather the individual components that make up the human race you hold so dearly.

And with this sandwich, you will cure yourself of that hatred because you haven't eaten much lately because you haven't seen the point, and in your hunger, anger thrives.

YOU
Damn it!

YOU, AGAIN
What?

YOU
There's no bread.

YOU, AGAIN
How will you make a sandwich with no bread?

YOU
I won't.

YOU, AGAIN
Then what will you eat?

YOU
Nothing. There's nothing to eat.

YOU, AGAIN
What about Ramen?

YOU
I don't particularly want Ramen.

YOU, AGAIN
But you will admit that it is there to eat?

YOU
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's there.

YOU, AGAIN
So there is something to eat?

YOU
Yes, but nothing I want.

YOU, AGAIN
Nothing you want and nothing are not synonymous. 

 YOU
They are close enough.

YOU, AGAIN
What of the poor, starving African child? Would he consider them close enough?

YOU
Why does it always have to come to that with you?

YOU, AGAIN
To what?

YOU 
To guilt?

YOU, AGAIN
Because you lack an external crisis. You must invent your problems internally. That's why you won't eat.

YOU
Do you think that everyone behaves this way?

YOU, AGAIN
Are you of the school of thought that proposes one can find the universal in the specific?

YOU
We all make up the universal, don't we?

YOU, AGAIN
Perhaps, you seek a sense of importance that does not exist.

YOU
Don't we all?

YOU, AGAIN
Do we?

YOU
Who can say?

YOU, AGAIN
I'd say your angst is getting the better of you. That's why you won't eat. 

YOU
And the lack of bread.

YOU, AGAIN
The lack of bread is a metaphor.

YOU
For what?

YOU, AGAIN
You haven't fleshed that out yet.

YOU
You haven't!

YOU, AGAIN
I am you.

YOU
Damn it! 

YOU, AGAIN
What?

YOU
You're right.

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