C L O C K R A D I O
March 04, 1997 ___ O0o-|~^~|~^~|-o0O
I was having this talk with a clock
radio the other day, which is quite a feat since I haven't
had a clock radio in a number of years. I haven't had a
clock radio since that time I lived alone on a mountain with
a southern view of the sky and a valley of trees running
perpendicular, connected to the world below by a dirt road
prone to winter wash-outs, necessitating the use of the other,
longer back-road that also washed out.
The two roads in and out of the mountain canyon never
seemed to wash out at the same time, preferring
instead some sort of yin-yang protocol agreement that
periodically went null and void if the storm was intense
enough. Luckily, this double wash out only occurred
during a temporal study relocation off mountain; so I
didn't have to get to know the neighbors more intimately
than I already did or wanted. Disasters of all sorts tend to
"de-nuke" the cubicled humans and "re-civilize" them
according to less abstract principals. I was happy to
be elsewhere at the time of the big wash, as pragmatic
group "bonding" wasn't on my agenda then, at least
not in terms of basic survival. (Oh, if I only knew then...)
Something in me tends to marvel at the human spirit
that seeks open space and room to live, then proceeds
to populate and "geometrize" every square inch of available
space and calls it a healthy growth economy.
I must have been out playing hooky during that particular
mind conditioning module.
I didn't mention any of these mental meanderings (mmmmm)
to the clock radio the other day, which I haven't seen in years.
No. No. No.
The "snooze button" was on my mind. Oh yes.
The snooze button, I explained to the clock radio, was
a wickedly ingenious "anti-adjustment" to the purity of the clock.
Invented by evil dwarf Nahgwhollzes to enslave the unwary
dronesapien's delta/theta gateways - the very portals where
the infinite pinpoints its way through the sub-burbs - that the
snooze button rules supremely maleficent.
The clock radio countered my comment with: In the Black
Cash is King Money talks and Bullshit walks... and so on.
I conceded the obvious by replying that of course money
is a force independent of dronesapient shenanigans and wicked
dwarf machinations, but changing the subject wouldn't work, clock.
Money doesn't sleep, no more than erosion and gravity and
chaotic systems sporadically exhibiting increased complexity
and order sleep.
I think it was the "sleep" comment that chilled the clock,
allowing me a moment to return to my embattled point which
was, of course, the evil, vile snooze button.
It is by virtue of this alarm-extending, nefarious appendage,
upon the simple elegance of the clock, I continued, that the
dronesapient delta/theta gateway is synergized with
biochemically stored resonant charges at the base of the
skull thereby stretching the subtleties of the dronesapient
mind templates into a realm that they were not designed to
fathom in drone-sentient mode.
The clock radio asked me if this was a good thing.
I had to laugh a hearty haughty laugh at such a digital display
of naivete' displayed by the clock radio. Har ho pock-ety ho
puck *cough*.
The clock was playing with me, but I like that
in an appliance.
TEMPORAL WARP!
I bellowed at the clock in a weird voice not familiar to me,
which sounded like some insect green, electric-alien static.
That's when I knew. The clock was in cahoots with the computer.
Fiendishly clever.
To use the alien tyche language of the chronos-slipping dwarves:
one "resynchros" while the other "desynchros". It's worse than I thought.
The dronesentients don't stand a chance. They are destined to
drown in a sea of time, unless they learn the difference. I am
recombinant that the conversation the other day with the clock radio
years ago ended on such a cryptic note of clarity.
As Trent Reznor once sang:
"I was up above it, now I'm down in it."
_________
MT97
