He was just one of those nameless lost souls wandering the avenues of places that don’t actually exist.

but the flagrant manner in which he eschewed the language of those societal types up there in them buildings downtown has always been a point of some contention amongst his dissident, parochial cohort. all of whom are out there trying to make a name for themselves, in that frenzied maelstrom they call modern life.

it was the manner in which he had presented his rejection to their restrictive vocabulary that was so fervently objected to. discussed passionately amongst the various splinter cells and affinity groups which made up the local anarchoid circles: there was language, and then there was language. true believers that they were of the possible levels of violence and mayhem which could be wrought should certain words fall into the wrong hands. that’s the stuff that keeps you up at night.

catch my drift?

they were the least of his concerns though. the real test of his faith would be the inexorable web of disinfo he was to face, that inchoate wilderness of mirrors we’ve all come to inhabit. rings encircling rings of informants informing on lower strata of informants: the ones whose raw data was the foundation of the whole tottering structure. confidences exchanged between agents tripled now quadrupled in conflicting allegiances to esoteric alphabet agencies sovereign only to themselves.

all of it for the glory of that great algorithm in the sky, their toil and tribulation made as tribute to the great mobius strip of data on high. whose immaculate circulation of information bestows upon us, the blighted preterite, the animating codes of signifiers signifying significance which allow us to live in their false light.

and of course we pray for those poor content-junkies, the truly lost souls of that imagined zone. having to cop just the basic maintenance language to get through the day from the ever increasingly sadistic lingo-boys who work the corners of this bloated culture. you see those sad cases on the street as they mumble amongst themselves in that horrible lingua franca of theirs, sounding like beaten dogs, shuffling around the periphery of polite discourse in search of a warm meal.

but his was the uncut, pure, 180 proof straight vernacular. lord have mercy should the local ER shift nurses ever get their hands on him. without hesitation they would wring their tired third shift hands around his etymologically sound throat for the deluge of communication-overdoses they’ve had to put up with as a result. some things are best left unsaid.

us here though? we admire from a distance, out here in the hinterlands. we keep to ourselves, only interacting with that bedlam when absolutely necessary or when its intrusion is unavoidable.

of course we applaud his audacity and courage. but we are wary of getting too close. some of us have gone out there, into that mire and muck, and come back real hurt. those that do we help the best we can, but some folk are just too far gone. we do our best to make them comfortable. we’re good Christians.

looking out from our camp we see the signal fires from the hillside and they speak ruin and babylon. this is the trees for the forest.

i think we’re alone here.