caitri | The Death Clinic, part two: a story

The Death Clinic
A Satire That is More Accurate Than It Has Any Right To Be

[E]MOTIONS

LOVE SAD HATE LUST PRIDE JOY CURIOUS
Blame Achilles for it all. Remember the choice between to do great deeds and die horribly and be remembered forever or to be happy and no one will care. Why is that? Why can't you be happy and do great deeds and then live til a hundred and have a load of grandchildren? And why is it so easy for other people to love and so hard for you?
Contemplate the meaning. Or deny the meaning: I guess it depends on whether you believe in God or are French or where a beret or any combination of the above.
Here is My Diagnostic Manual to Life:

Type A: Sheep. Sheep follow a shepherd through a valley and are happy to be slaughtered. [Is there rosemary basting in the afterlife?] Some symptoms of sheephood include:
*lack of analytical or critical thought
*an actual belief in: religion, politics, texts
*joy in doing whatever someone else does.
In addition sheep tend to be fruitful and multiply. They may have numerous mates by which different said fruits are fathered and this may or may not be a bad thing for their belief system though it will be justified.

Type B: Shepherds. Shephers gather sheep and lead them to the slaughter, though they may or may not tell them that. Symptoms of shepherdhood include:
*money
*a belief, real or feigned, in religion, politics, texts
*joy in making other people do what they do, whether or not said people want to.
Shepherds may also have multiple mates but generally tend to not admit it.

Type C: Cows. Cows do not seem to do much of anything really. They are just there. People may or may not care about that. Also, it is universally acknowledged that a cow may be a sheep but a sheep cannot be a cow. No one can really explain the differentiaton, however, but you'll understand it if you think about it. They come about the same as the rest of us but generally do not provide fruit.

Type D. Producers. Producers provide the religion, politics, and texts. They may or may not believe in them themselves. Symptoms of producerhood include:
*people know who the producer is
*the product is known also
They may or may not provide fruit also.

I am sure there would be more to my Manual if I took the time to do so but I am already bored of this exercise and you get my general gist. Please note that if you were to figure in geometry you would have a square, like so:

SHEEP_____________________SHEPHERDS
| |
| |
| |
| |
COWS______________________PRODUCERS

I will also state for the record that I do not count myself a Sheep, a Shepherd, a Cow, or a Producer (though I used to want to produce something meaningful, I just never got around to it: more on this later). So if I were to draw myself into this schema you would have something like
SHEEP_____________________SHEPHERDS
| |
| |
| |
| |
COWS______________________PRODUCERS

*ME!!!

I add extra punctuation because I am proud to be me, most of the time, which is something distinct from the person who usually goes to the Death Clinics, or at least I think so anyway. Maybe I just like to think so: no one likes to admit that they are just everyone else (i.e. a Sheep). I think I am too proud and that makes it all the more troublesome: I am lonely. See how I am outside the box, literally per my own representation of myself?
Back to production. Production is about want: economically there is a demand and it must be fed, biologically there is a drive that must be mated, creatively an artwork that must be provided, emotionally a desire that must be met. Life is about what you want.
Some of the usual wants include
*Money
*Fame
*Power
*Respect
*Love
*Sex
*Children
*Objects
And I don't honestly want any of these things. Not with a driving want that means something. I mean, I know that five minute lust for a donut, a cd, a crush, just something that must be had NOW. But it usually passes, usually within a small period of time. I've even known great wants, and thought I would die for a love I could not have, and of course if there were a god and I were a victorian I would have been stricken with consumption to die on a picturesque couch, but there isn't, I'm not, and I didn't.
If I were Achilles, I wouldn't go to battle. I imagine I would stay in my tent and fuck the slave-girls and/or Patroclus. Despite the English teacher's insistence that faggots were wood and not people and that the homosexual hang-ups of the Ancient Greeks weren't physical but more like a really intense buddy cop movie thing without the handcuffs, I don't think about mythological figures' sex lives all that much. Or other historical figures real or imagined or right now. It always seemed a strange thing to do, really, to wonder who fucked who and why. To borrow from a friend of mine, I feel that sex is like sports, and if I'm not the one playing then I can't be bothered to care what everyone else is doing so what's the big deal? You put on your jersey and plug whoever you want, and see if I care.
I also like that line Callisto said on that one episode of Xena: Warrior Princess where she said that love was a trick nature did to get us to reproduce. Unlike other people I was never too interested in reproduction either: I wasn't keen on baby dolls or having a real baby of my own, since it would shit and I'd have to wipe it all the time. But when I got older I do concede that sometimes it sounds like fun to have a Mini-Me in the non-clone-freak sense. But I digress like always.
So me and production: I have no demands to be met, so I think I shall close-up shop. If no one remembers me, that is fine, and if this is all that's left, then aren't I ink and paper, which is much better than dust and less sneeze-inducing also?

FEAR GEEKY ANGER LUST HUNGER CURIOUS HAPPY