The Echo Street Morph
The only reason I'm writing this is because I guaranteed a good friend that I would. Mostly because he was there with me as a witness that day, across the street from my house at a Sheboygan high school commons area. Without him as a witness, you'll understand that this narrative would simply not be possible. I admit, before I lose your attention, that I know most events that occur around here are simply not worth mentioning, and are certainly not worth writing about. Read the Sheboygan Press for example. However, this information that I have seems to be a bit different, and may have social and political implications that reach far beyond the scope of anything that I'm about to discuss.
First and foremost, this was a Sunday morning in July proceeding some heavy rains in the previous week. Not many people are mingling about in Sheboygan on Sunday morning. In fact, there may exist some law about this. People in Sheboygan maintain their fear of God's wrath if rest is not adhered to as the primary Sunday principle. This is not my fear though as a common heathen, but I sometimes wonder if I was somehow punished for this.
My mission was simple enough - assess some areas of high water and investigate drainage patterns. This was my own self-assigned mission and had no impact on actual drainage policy. I go on missions like this often. They're low pressure, low-risk, and provide a means to survive mentally in Sheboygan. The mission started with a quick inspection of a shallow concrete drainage channel, then I decided to cross the street onto the school grounds to check out where water levels had been in some other drainage areas.
I walked through a chain link fence gate and into a concrete courtyard. I looked up only instinctively and ordinarily to view what I thought was low-flying plane. I looked up though and the sound of noisy propellers was not present, and my ear caught only an electronic buzz as looked up. Now my senses did not match my library of truths, which, as you know, always causes slight personal alarm. I saw the cylindrical thing hovering there, no more than 300 feet off the ground. With my current frame of reference, the thing looked like it was about the length of a mid-sized car, and had two 52 gallon barrel sized appendages on it. It looked phallic. It hovered momentarily at that point, giving off the hum and a whisper which suggested a low-power phase. At that point, it saw me, and jetted across the near sky, accelerating to what appeared to be maximum velocity in well under a second with no increase in noise level. It made high-powered maneuvers, not in agreement with the natural terrestrial laws of physics we see in action each day. A car hitting its brakes or accelerating with the pedal to the floor - we can relate to the sounds and sights associated with that. This thing though, it moved with such aggression, with such precise changes in its path. It was striking awe in me. Simultaneously, it was giving me the pants-shitting feeling of fear that only a multinational defense contractor under the protection of the US government can give you. Cold war fear. I had been here before, a different place but the same scenery, this same machine. But that time I had no witness. At the time people would accuse me of a bad bout of psychedelic drug use, a time of over-stress, or a schizophrenic episode, all of which were legitimate causes of false imagery given my history. Before I was able to process all of my thoughts the thing was upon me, swooping down nose first to within inches of my left arm. It circled me and seemed to inspect me through a fine metallic mesh with a prismatic quality. I inspected it. I did not move. I lay still as if a hornet were crawling near my carotid artery. I did not flinch in my fear. At this moment, lucky as I was, my loyal witness and friend showed up across the courtyard in the gate. We looked at each other. He looked at it. It didn't appear to notice him, but it's likely that it did because at that moment it began to digitize to invisibility. It then morphed into a black human figure. The black figure consisted of elliptical shapes connected by rotational joints. The kind of figure you might draw educationally as you hone your artistry skills. It was a solid black. It broke into a jog and a chain materialized in its left hand. My heart palpitated and my breathing became shallow as it ran directly at my friend. I knew then that we'd be disintegrated, obliterated by a light show, or at least mind-fucked so that we wouldn't remember. But, as time slowed, and the moment of truth came as the figure reached the gate, the entire figure morphed into a curled up, sleeping black dog. A perfect and real dog, with all of the typical dog attributes. We left without saying a word.
As we walked back to my house, our minds clouded in a shocked haze, I ranted about the military capitalist system's creation of such monstrosities. The thing clearly wasn't alien, as if that was an option. It was more like a machine running at around 80% efficiency, making mistakes that only a prototype man-made device could make. They hadn't developed the true human morph apparently, but the dog they had mastered. I made some comments that would have no impact or make little sense if not in the current context: "The same capitalist society, with the elites at the top that claim that its workers have all the adequate benefits, creates a money incentive to innovate shit like this. We use all our resources on dog morphing. And for what?" We went on like this for a couple of hours. Blah, blah, blah, a lot of anti-establishment political talk with no real ideas as to how I might change this if I were in charge. I owe much of this banter to the trauma of the situation. I might as well have been high. As usual in small town America political banter, nothing is solved, but after you've talked you feel like you've just taken a shit after eating at a Chinese buffet - slightly satisfied, but knowing that the MSG is building up in your system. So the same goes for small town America political banter - the participants might as well start purchasing some really high-powered weed or for that matter eating at the Pagoda House (Weekend - All that have). The outcomes are the same, at least you have an excuse.
But anyway, the political and social implications, as I said, are beyond the scope of this, so there's no need to waste any more space. I write this because I promised myself I would. It can make no real point. I'm not an academic. For now, let's keep it for the record. If at a later time we wish to cash it in for something better, we'll talk.
First and foremost, this was a Sunday morning in July proceeding some heavy rains in the previous week. Not many people are mingling about in Sheboygan on Sunday morning. In fact, there may exist some law about this. People in Sheboygan maintain their fear of God's wrath if rest is not adhered to as the primary Sunday principle. This is not my fear though as a common heathen, but I sometimes wonder if I was somehow punished for this.
My mission was simple enough - assess some areas of high water and investigate drainage patterns. This was my own self-assigned mission and had no impact on actual drainage policy. I go on missions like this often. They're low pressure, low-risk, and provide a means to survive mentally in Sheboygan. The mission started with a quick inspection of a shallow concrete drainage channel, then I decided to cross the street onto the school grounds to check out where water levels had been in some other drainage areas.
I walked through a chain link fence gate and into a concrete courtyard. I looked up only instinctively and ordinarily to view what I thought was low-flying plane. I looked up though and the sound of noisy propellers was not present, and my ear caught only an electronic buzz as looked up. Now my senses did not match my library of truths, which, as you know, always causes slight personal alarm. I saw the cylindrical thing hovering there, no more than 300 feet off the ground. With my current frame of reference, the thing looked like it was about the length of a mid-sized car, and had two 52 gallon barrel sized appendages on it. It looked phallic. It hovered momentarily at that point, giving off the hum and a whisper which suggested a low-power phase. At that point, it saw me, and jetted across the near sky, accelerating to what appeared to be maximum velocity in well under a second with no increase in noise level. It made high-powered maneuvers, not in agreement with the natural terrestrial laws of physics we see in action each day. A car hitting its brakes or accelerating with the pedal to the floor - we can relate to the sounds and sights associated with that. This thing though, it moved with such aggression, with such precise changes in its path. It was striking awe in me. Simultaneously, it was giving me the pants-shitting feeling of fear that only a multinational defense contractor under the protection of the US government can give you. Cold war fear. I had been here before, a different place but the same scenery, this same machine. But that time I had no witness. At the time people would accuse me of a bad bout of psychedelic drug use, a time of over-stress, or a schizophrenic episode, all of which were legitimate causes of false imagery given my history. Before I was able to process all of my thoughts the thing was upon me, swooping down nose first to within inches of my left arm. It circled me and seemed to inspect me through a fine metallic mesh with a prismatic quality. I inspected it. I did not move. I lay still as if a hornet were crawling near my carotid artery. I did not flinch in my fear. At this moment, lucky as I was, my loyal witness and friend showed up across the courtyard in the gate. We looked at each other. He looked at it. It didn't appear to notice him, but it's likely that it did because at that moment it began to digitize to invisibility. It then morphed into a black human figure. The black figure consisted of elliptical shapes connected by rotational joints. The kind of figure you might draw educationally as you hone your artistry skills. It was a solid black. It broke into a jog and a chain materialized in its left hand. My heart palpitated and my breathing became shallow as it ran directly at my friend. I knew then that we'd be disintegrated, obliterated by a light show, or at least mind-fucked so that we wouldn't remember. But, as time slowed, and the moment of truth came as the figure reached the gate, the entire figure morphed into a curled up, sleeping black dog. A perfect and real dog, with all of the typical dog attributes. We left without saying a word.
As we walked back to my house, our minds clouded in a shocked haze, I ranted about the military capitalist system's creation of such monstrosities. The thing clearly wasn't alien, as if that was an option. It was more like a machine running at around 80% efficiency, making mistakes that only a prototype man-made device could make. They hadn't developed the true human morph apparently, but the dog they had mastered. I made some comments that would have no impact or make little sense if not in the current context: "The same capitalist society, with the elites at the top that claim that its workers have all the adequate benefits, creates a money incentive to innovate shit like this. We use all our resources on dog morphing. And for what?" We went on like this for a couple of hours. Blah, blah, blah, a lot of anti-establishment political talk with no real ideas as to how I might change this if I were in charge. I owe much of this banter to the trauma of the situation. I might as well have been high. As usual in small town America political banter, nothing is solved, but after you've talked you feel like you've just taken a shit after eating at a Chinese buffet - slightly satisfied, but knowing that the MSG is building up in your system. So the same goes for small town America political banter - the participants might as well start purchasing some really high-powered weed or for that matter eating at the Pagoda House (Weekend - All that have). The outcomes are the same, at least you have an excuse.
But anyway, the political and social implications, as I said, are beyond the scope of this, so there's no need to waste any more space. I write this because I promised myself I would. It can make no real point. I'm not an academic. For now, let's keep it for the record. If at a later time we wish to cash it in for something better, we'll talk.
posted by fiestawizard at 8:31 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home