Pollution

Pollution! That’s what it is, pollution, he said with his palms up and fingers splayed out in a kind of gesticulated explosion as he uttered the word. People think all this filth they’re pumping into the digital world is immaterial, simply blowing away in the cyber wind, but no, it is polluting the world we live in, absolutely polluting our minds. I remind you that our brains are physically altered by our experiences and sensorial inputs, so imagine then the hideous garbage heap mounting all the time with the proliferation of phone cameras and social media, a dense smog of images of dinner plates and figures in bathroom mirrors, the imbecilic and ill-conceived ravings of common fools whose words would otherwise have never before escaped that little cloud around their head. It has all invaded our mind. We, each of us, are under siege! We cannot see each other through the barrage and our lungs cough up black phlegm, a sign of our persistent and worsening sickness. I assented silently with a nod, as I’ve been mute for many years now.
And let’s not just think of ourselves, the animals are affected too. It’s fucking with their heads: the turtles don’t know which way the ocean is, the birds are crashing into those ugly glass buildings in the millions, or else circling a beam of artificial light in the night until they plunge into the ground under the irresistible weight of exhaustion. Do you think they feel it like we do? Does the seagull plucking a french fry from the treeless litter-strewn black asphalt have the uncanny sense that its life was supposed to be something else?
I feel polluted. At this I was stung with sorrow at witnessing the barely concealed suffering betrayed by his eyes beyond that which he was willing to share. Hidden led weights tugged heavy at his insides and his lamentations acted as a small bucket bailing out a sinking ship, insufficient to the task. My lips trembled, but still my throat choked back the unborn words and silence held fast to its imperious reign, its throne merely shaken. I feel polluted, he continued after a pause, and my mind is, worse still, mimicking the external world and creating its own pollution, polluted by fear, lust, hate, want. My mind has, by way of constant exposure, adopted the techniques of self-distraction employed by the phone and my conscious life has become a series of fragments and non-sequiturs, the world now presenting itself as an endless string of disruptions and interjections. The vine climbing a trellis, hungry for the warmth of the sun, ambushes me with a memory, speaking to me directly: one day you climbed a trellis and laid atop with a girl, you kissed her in the summer heat and she buttoned your shirt with uncanny grace; don’t go, don’t go yet, you pleaded silently, grasping at a moment of happiness which fled from your hands: I wish you would’ve stayed. Ha ha ha! How can I defend myself to the cruel heckling of a vine? I avert my attention with the next object I encounter, but it too invariably fills me with dread—doomscrolling has infested our very consciousness! I’m so sick with sadness. I’ve been leaving my phone in the other room every morning because I think it will help.

We carried on under the blazing oppressive sun and noted the crows on the power lines, who warned us of our path. We went down Grey street and turned at the intersection of Beige street, entering one of the town’s many gas stations, whereupon we found a patron purchasing a Mondo Gallon Gulperino for 2.99, complete with a bendy straw. My acquaintance took immediate joy in the sight and introduced us, casting a mischievous glance back at me, as was his wont. Come! come in! the gulper said, ushering us into his home, Look at all of my possessions! Trinkets abound and a foul odor invades our nostrils as a dog has evidently been pissing and shitting in various places. Ah, wait, the gulper says as he fiddles with the light switch in the dark. The switch! It is a Smart Switch designed for efficiency, he said beaming with pride, and I could almost see his smile despite the darkness. It’s just very difficult to turn on sometimes. He spent a great deal of time tapping and touching the light switch and I, in the meantime, noticed and watched with curiosity a strange glow in the corner of the room and perhaps a small face gazing in at it. The light came on with a vengeance, blinding us, and I heard a pained groan from the corner, whereupon I perceived an emaciated child holding an ipad. Hush!!! the gulper barked at the child, who whimpered a little and then heaved as if to puke, but nothing came forth. Now then, he said after a pause, these are nuclear bulbs, they’re new and brighter than ever. They emit a legally permissible amount of radiation. And this is really amazing as we cross the threshold of this doorway there’s actually a camera which recognizes my face and instantly plays a playlist of my favorites based on my facial expression, you’re gonna love it, at which point the worst music I’ve ever heard started attacking us from unseen speakers. Listen! It learns my emotions from my various facial expressions and stores them in memory–I have authorized them to sell this data! I don’t know what it will be used for. Follow me! As we walked into yet another room my acquaintance looked at me with a smile and said secretly: I fucking hate these people.
So what is it that you do for a living? Oh I work at the factory of course, the gulper replied, I’ll show it to you! He took us around to the back of the colossal building in order to show us what all of the noise and machinery distilled down to and he pointed out what I might call the very sphincter of the building, excreting its product in the form of many thousands of plastic bottles shooting out of the pipe directly into the ocean, 556 per minute approximately, the gulper explained, we make 12 cents per bottle so we’ve recently expanded the operation to 800,000 units per day running around the clock. We cut out the middle man, the consumer, and discard the bottles straight into the ocean! In the near distance, we saw a tortoise munch one of the many bottles, then it seemed to struggle a bit, it was really struggling and even convulsing, after which point it almost certainly seemed to keel over and die, having choked to death. Damn! the gulper exclaimed, they were supposed to repair that fence-line to keep the wildlife out, but of course you can’t expect the government to do anything, they’re too afraid to raise taxes to protect the turtles, yes siree, it’s a shame, and the bottles kept shooting out at their regular rate just the same, unperturbed. My acquaintance was visibly affected and resolved to take a nap and perhaps recover some strength after witnessing this outrage.
Twiggy dead trees reach from the ground like gravestones to trees of the past, dotting the blackened landscape. The earth is breathing, inhaling the feeble hopes of the wretched and exhaling flames through its numerous nostrils, deep breaths for colossal lungs. The factory, imperious castle of our age, disgorges itself of its occupants, spewing forth a deluge of persons surging and churning like the eddies of a violent river into the clearing, whereupon they surround and accost a single person: it is the chemical plant executive! Snarling faces and kicking feet, a boot in the face sends several teeth issuing out of his mouth. The crowd gathers up his pummeled body and carries it overhead, passing it over top of the crowd, meeting along the way with many punches and stabs. It’s no use saving the animals, the animals are dead. It’s no use saving the earth, the earth is dead. The mob lives now for revenge alone, their last remaining indulgence. They heave him into a giant caldron of molten plastic and he shrieks and struggles, the plastic filling his mouth and choking him. The rest of us die much slower from ingesting tiny amounts of plastic over many years. Gallows stretch into the distance, from which are suspended the bodies of those who instigated the disaster. Guilty! Guilty! The dead hang silent under the orange sky, sky engulfed in flame, smoke rendering perpetual night and forlorn faces lust for revenge. I awoke from this fevered dream and lamented the injustice of reality in comparison—stupid world! My acquaintance paused for a moment to catch his breath, as he often gets so worked up in these scornful violent dreams, of which he has many. Without warning, he began bashing his face into a wall. We must not allow our embittered hearts to soften under the spell of comfort! take a bulldozer to all of my possessions, he called out to the anonymous oppressors somewhere beyond the horizon, doze it over! It’s good and right to bleed, don’t you agree? At this I remained silent, despite my immense desire for simple happiness.
The identical homes repeat endlessly down suburban streets like objects off a continuously running assembly line and, all the while, poisoned air mounts its invisible assault on the families and children, toxic air attacking their lungs, many will have trouble breathing for the rest of their lives. The people don’t breathe very well, their head hurts, they develop new allergies and chronic coughs, wonder why. The air is repeatedly linked to higher rates of cancer and asthma, especially among the children, look at them, my acquaintance gestured with his eyes scornfully, retreating back into their identical homes like many rabbits into a depressingly artificial warren. I like animals but I myself have never had pets, for one must be responsible—consider the emissions! People are really having too many pets these days, have you noticed? Sometimes I think the dogs aren’t barking to ward off strangers, I think they’re calling for help, pleading and yelling for attention, like “Hey! Look! Won’t you do something?”, I suspect they know something we don’t, as dogs often do.
Listen, I think they’re manufacturing puppies in a factory somewhere, he said to me in confidence, as if anyone else were conceivably within earshot. Dogs of all shapes, sizes, and colors, I’m not sure why—they’re just adding to the chaos, a bunch of dumb little maniacs yelling at everything and shitting everywhere. Look, look at them, he gestured with an outstretched arm toward some various people out walking their dogs within our line of sight, what the fuck? Look at this shit, he said, drawing my attention to some pieces of poop along our path. There’s something going on here and I’m not sure what it is, some sort of secret nefarious scheme just beyond my understanding. There’s something wrong with the world.
Did I feel an obligation of loyalty to my acquaintance? I never thought about it, I took it for granted. But in fact I couldn’t remember how we met. I was trying to remember and I really couldn’t, I suddenly felt so strange. I saw someone wearing my face and wondered what they were up to. Were they living my life? It suddenly seemed to me that I had been following this stranger silently, merely observing and listening, while my life has been carrying on without me. I just started running, faster and faster at the thought of a familiar voice catching up to me, desperately further and further into the distance. At great length, my running deposited me near the town of my youth, whereupon I found that, at some point in the intervening years, a gate had been constructed. I was denied reentry and wordless eyes forbade me from being myself anymore, commanded me to be someone else henceforth. And so that is how, since you asked, I came to be here with no name and no qualities, having lost myself. I was hoping you might foster me and give me a name, almost like a newborn, despite my aging body, thereby granting me the elusive privilege of existing.
After having seemed to listen patiently to this whole screed, the monk signaled to the nameless man by way of gesture that he had in fact not understood a word of it, perhaps he was deaf, or in any case he didn’t speak the same language. Ah, yes, excellent, that’s it, the nameless man thought to himself as he commenced his new form by sitting in silence.