While I've always had a thing for pretentious titles, this post has little to do with existential angst. Well, not directly anyway, so wipe that sad look off your face, you wannabe Sartre!
Have you ever noticed that the most mundane of things in everyday life seem to hold deep, dark secrets, hidden away in plain sight?
For example, consider the humble coffee machine foamer at work.
Poked, prodded, punched, and maybe occasionally gently pressed innumerable times in any given day, this inobtrusive gadget is a life safer for millions of sleepwalking desk jockeys. Typically packaged as an innocuous little button tucked away in one corner of the gleamy coffee machine, the Foamer watches processions of zombies struggling to coordinate their hands, legs and eyes while infusing shots ofcocaine caffeine into their system, and sniggers.
Malevolently.
Have you ever heard the sound the coffee foamer makes?
Think Dante's vision of hell, with fire and brimstone and torture racks and endless suffering. Now imagine that you were one such unfortunate resident of purgatory, and to add insult to injury you - and your eternal companions, the torture racks and guillotines and coals and fire swords - have all been shrunk into a room the size of a matchbox, and put into a coffee foamer. Your wretched screams are miniaturized into the still horrific sounding riving groans that you hear when you press the harmless looking foamer switch.
Every time you're pressing that button, you're torturing someone! Now if that doesn't ruffle your feathers at all, hey, I'm a moral relativist for today, so you do you man. If that guy is in hell, even if a matchbox sized foamer version of hell, he must have done something to deserve it, so screw him? But the sound!
Now you know why I avoid foamers like hell itself. But that isn't the only thing I avoid. At my office, in certain corners of certain floors, under certain weather conditions, a certain sound emerges from everywhere at once and sinks into your very bones.
The desperate wail of a thousand souls as they're dragged, kicking and screaming, into the netherworld, is what it is.
You only seem to hear it in the corners of floors near the big glass windows when it's somewhat windy outside, but don't let that fool you! The Devil was always a clever devil, so it's as easy as pie for him to inject a little faux plausibility to cloak his devious machinations. If somebody tells you that that heart-rending screech you hear is 'just the sound of wind rushing through gaps in the walls or the plumbing', you smile politely, because you know the truth, and make a mental note to live the good life because you don't want to be one of those faceless people sucked into hell and remembered only as a curious whistle through the pipes.
That's not all. Signs, signs, they're everywhere. The other world impinges upon this realm with urgency, and we don't see what's right in front of our eyes! Exhibit #3: the ubiquitous bum jet in toilets. As you count the seconds away on the toilet seat willing those last bits of erm.. intestinal ejecta to make their way out, an unexpected susurration tickles your unwilling ears. Unwilling, because you're in a restroom and you don't expect to hear anything other than flushing and bodily sounds.
What you hear sounds like a creaky, croaky whisper coming out of the.. bum jet. In your peripheral vision, you sense that the segmented snake that is the bum jet move just a little. You try to catch it out by swivelling towards it sharply, but there it lies, motionless as ever. You gingerly heft it, feeling a bit foolish, and get back to negotiating with your intestine to finish its job. And then you hear the sound again.
It is exactly what it sounds like. Like the voices of entities from the darkest recesses of hell that have crawled their way to the boundary that separates the living world from theirs, where the boundary is thin. All they need is a nudge and they can finally break free of the shackles of eternal torture, and they want you to do the nudging! Do not - DO NOT - consciously listen to the whispers, because you will be lost. Hum loudly to the latest Taylor Swift song, if you must, to block out the sound. If somebody ever tells you that the bum jet's eerie actions are only due to water pressure settling it down, chalk it down to oblivious naivete. You know the truth.
These aren't all the examples there are. Open your eyes and the world that you think you know will begin to yield its macabre secrets. But the question is: do you really want to know? And the other question is: can you really blame me for skipping work every other day?
Have you ever noticed that the most mundane of things in everyday life seem to hold deep, dark secrets, hidden away in plain sight?
For example, consider the humble coffee machine foamer at work.
Poked, prodded, punched, and maybe occasionally gently pressed innumerable times in any given day, this inobtrusive gadget is a life safer for millions of sleepwalking desk jockeys. Typically packaged as an innocuous little button tucked away in one corner of the gleamy coffee machine, the Foamer watches processions of zombies struggling to coordinate their hands, legs and eyes while infusing shots of
Malevolently.
Have you ever heard the sound the coffee foamer makes?
Think Dante's vision of hell, with fire and brimstone and torture racks and endless suffering. Now imagine that you were one such unfortunate resident of purgatory, and to add insult to injury you - and your eternal companions, the torture racks and guillotines and coals and fire swords - have all been shrunk into a room the size of a matchbox, and put into a coffee foamer. Your wretched screams are miniaturized into the still horrific sounding riving groans that you hear when you press the harmless looking foamer switch.
Every time you're pressing that button, you're torturing someone! Now if that doesn't ruffle your feathers at all, hey, I'm a moral relativist for today, so you do you man. If that guy is in hell, even if a matchbox sized foamer version of hell, he must have done something to deserve it, so screw him? But the sound!
Now you know why I avoid foamers like hell itself. But that isn't the only thing I avoid. At my office, in certain corners of certain floors, under certain weather conditions, a certain sound emerges from everywhere at once and sinks into your very bones.
The desperate wail of a thousand souls as they're dragged, kicking and screaming, into the netherworld, is what it is.
You only seem to hear it in the corners of floors near the big glass windows when it's somewhat windy outside, but don't let that fool you! The Devil was always a clever devil, so it's as easy as pie for him to inject a little faux plausibility to cloak his devious machinations. If somebody tells you that that heart-rending screech you hear is 'just the sound of wind rushing through gaps in the walls or the plumbing', you smile politely, because you know the truth, and make a mental note to live the good life because you don't want to be one of those faceless people sucked into hell and remembered only as a curious whistle through the pipes.
That's not all. Signs, signs, they're everywhere. The other world impinges upon this realm with urgency, and we don't see what's right in front of our eyes! Exhibit #3: the ubiquitous bum jet in toilets. As you count the seconds away on the toilet seat willing those last bits of erm.. intestinal ejecta to make their way out, an unexpected susurration tickles your unwilling ears. Unwilling, because you're in a restroom and you don't expect to hear anything other than flushing and bodily sounds.
What you hear sounds like a creaky, croaky whisper coming out of the.. bum jet. In your peripheral vision, you sense that the segmented snake that is the bum jet move just a little. You try to catch it out by swivelling towards it sharply, but there it lies, motionless as ever. You gingerly heft it, feeling a bit foolish, and get back to negotiating with your intestine to finish its job. And then you hear the sound again.
It is exactly what it sounds like. Like the voices of entities from the darkest recesses of hell that have crawled their way to the boundary that separates the living world from theirs, where the boundary is thin. All they need is a nudge and they can finally break free of the shackles of eternal torture, and they want you to do the nudging! Do not - DO NOT - consciously listen to the whispers, because you will be lost. Hum loudly to the latest Taylor Swift song, if you must, to block out the sound. If somebody ever tells you that the bum jet's eerie actions are only due to water pressure settling it down, chalk it down to oblivious naivete. You know the truth.
These aren't all the examples there are. Open your eyes and the world that you think you know will begin to yield its macabre secrets. But the question is: do you really want to know? And the other question is: can you really blame me for skipping work every other day?
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