Untethered
Sorry, reality is just like that, they say.
Yeah, you tell them. How sad.
But actually it might as well be the funniest most ridiculous shit you’ve ever heard so you both burst laughing.
Passing them a lighter as you sit on the pavement, there’s a moment of extravagant understanding between you while you embrace life tonight for what it is.
A sweet nihilism, this bliss, almost oblivious, no reason to care, the cigarette glows, another little light to gather around in the midnight city. An earphone wire and shared music tethers you together there on the streetside.
Do you remember? they laugh, looking up beyond the rooftops. Remember, that time when visited me in first year, you’d just learned the word communist and got put in cuffs for shouting it at that policeman who stopped us? You didn’t even know what it meant. Look at you now.
You’re laughing at the memory and all that has happened since way back then.
What? you say. I’ve mentioned how broken the system has become, what, like two or three times lately? Suddenly I’m Karl Marx himself.
Exactly.
I’ve just been reading a few books, watching some videos online, init. Listening to some podcasts, too. Don’t you reckon we should try to make sense of it while we’re here?
It does make sense. Get in, get paid, get gone. That’s it.
Oh, right, yeah, that’s that, then. No worries about everything falling apart.
Didn’t I just say? I’m sorry, reality is just like that. And it ain’t that bad, really, when you think about it.
The more I think about it, the worse it gets.
Don’t think about it, then. They pass the smoke with a grin.
Yeah. At least we get some good memes out of it, I guess. But don’t you find it interesting?
Nah. Forget it. Just turn up the music. Let me dance. Let me sing.
Yeah. Forget about it. Yeah. Just one more thing?
What?
Do you think the people united could ever be defeated?
Shut the fuck up, man.
They’re laughing and you laugh with them because it really might be the funniest most ridiculous shit you’ve ever known.
And you just turn up the music.