Zdzislaw Beksinski
They are taking names at the door, comfortable in their role as doorkeepers to the only show in town.
Inside we dance as we have been taught to dance; all etiquette and procedural compliance – as if we hadn’t a care in the world. We are the crest of the wave; the cutting edge of cultural sophistication; we are the children of unencumbered freedom – we have everything; we have no needs save those we’ve yet to imagine or invent.
But nothing is ever everything and everything is not enough.
We are ringed by the doors that require passwords to enter.
And...
One by one we enter, dutifully, each believing he is unique in having overheard the password.
“White Sheep” we utter with various degrees of trepidation, half expecting to be caught out, but to each the door gives unquestioning admittance.
Inside we join our silent predecessors lined up in a silent and crowded room, smoking or picking at our nails; afraid to move further into the labyrinth, each newcomer compelled to follow our lead for fear of breaking cover from safety of the herd and being revealed as imposters.
It is not long before we become accustomed, comfortable in our blinkered insignificance, our self-hatred a secret, licking the barrels of pornographic weapons or bowing before the gleaming, the chrome and the carbon, voicing incantations to the logos, the badges, the beast in our breast that beats we’re the best, the only one in the room besides the audience that have come here to love us - not for our bodily perfection but for who we are.
Imposters we are, we have no need for restraints, the severing of which serve to give us the edge over our fellow actors; fellow practitioners of hypocrisy and self-aggrandisement ; fellows of The Society of One who cannot live without the audience of the many that come here to adore us for the perfection of who we are.
And when we have convinced ourselves of our invincibility we move deeper still, passing through doors we alone can see, entering rooms where passwords are not sufficient to guarantee access, encasing ourselves in bubbles that amplify all sound inward. We, the chosen, sing to ourselves in voices unencumbered by doubt, in words bereft of meaning save that defined by personal gain.
They’re giving names at this door for it is here that we become who we are: the gilded, the lauded, and the loudest; it is here that bureaucracy inscribes those names on the decaying pages of time.
Inside we dance as we have been taught to dance; all etiquette and procedural compliance – as if we hadn’t a care in the world. We are the crest of the wave; the cutting edge of cultural sophistication; we are the children of unencumbered freedom – we have everything; we have no needs save those we’ve yet to imagine or invent.
But nothing is ever everything and everything is not enough.
We are ringed by the doors that require passwords to enter.
And...
One by one we enter, dutifully, each believing he is unique in having overheard the password.
“White Sheep” we utter with various degrees of trepidation, half expecting to be caught out, but to each the door gives unquestioning admittance.
Inside we join our silent predecessors lined up in a silent and crowded room, smoking or picking at our nails; afraid to move further into the labyrinth, each newcomer compelled to follow our lead for fear of breaking cover from safety of the herd and being revealed as imposters.
It is not long before we become accustomed, comfortable in our blinkered insignificance, our self-hatred a secret, licking the barrels of pornographic weapons or bowing before the gleaming, the chrome and the carbon, voicing incantations to the logos, the badges, the beast in our breast that beats we’re the best, the only one in the room besides the audience that have come here to love us - not for our bodily perfection but for who we are.
Imposters we are, we have no need for restraints, the severing of which serve to give us the edge over our fellow actors; fellow practitioners of hypocrisy and self-aggrandisement ; fellows of The Society of One who cannot live without the audience of the many that come here to adore us for the perfection of who we are.
And when we have convinced ourselves of our invincibility we move deeper still, passing through doors we alone can see, entering rooms where passwords are not sufficient to guarantee access, encasing ourselves in bubbles that amplify all sound inward. We, the chosen, sing to ourselves in voices unencumbered by doubt, in words bereft of meaning save that defined by personal gain.
They’re giving names at this door for it is here that we become who we are: the gilded, the lauded, and the loudest; it is here that bureaucracy inscribes those names on the decaying pages of time.
2 comments:
I loved/hated this!! chilling... feels more and more like this is the norm in those very places and spaces that used to be where this did not happen. Man, you have nailed it.
Harlequin: sometimes the curtain is drawn aside and I cannot but look.
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