Consciousness and Kool-Aid
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I couldn’t sleep. All night I tossed and turned. My mind buzzed like a hornets nest, there was simply too much going on in there for me to get some rest. Deciding that I wasn’t going to be able to force myself into unconsciousness via suffocation, I stared up at the ceiling. It’s pastel colors seemed to reject the notion of visual relaxation, forcing my retina to expand and decompress like an athlete’s hyperventilating lungs. That was no good either. I tried to turn onto my left side, but that just made me stare at my clock. It’s an old clock, one my parents purchased during the early 1980’s at Sears. This meant that it had a disappointing color scheme, one that would cause the more fashion sensitive readers to throw up in disgust. This also meant that its red LED numbers have a tendency to morph into strange shapes, and Greek letter like combinations. A good three minutes were spent trying to decipher these numbers, in hopes of finding how long I’d been awake. Boredom overcame me, and I was lost to unconsciousness.
My day began around 7am. At dawn’s first light, my eyes beheld a most beautiful sunrise. Over the snowcapped evergreens, rays of light not seen since late last afternoon, pierced through the veil of darkness. Like a plastic army man behind exposed to light through a magnifying glass, my retina wreathed in pain from the bright object. Silently, I screamed at it. I cursed its mother, its uncle, its twice removed grand-daughter, but most of all I cursed the wretched chemical reactions that gave it life. I considered my revenge, how I could force this envoy of evil out of existence. The only way to do this was to discredit it. How could I accomplish this awesome and great task? How could one such as I, a mere high school student, ever hope to topple such a corporate giant? It was hopeless; it was nothing more than a dream. We have been, and always will be, controlled by the big corporations. I could feel the walls around me bend in, suffocating me, forcing me to do its will. The time had come for change, but I was not the one to do it. Besides, I had a party to go to that afternoon.
When I say party, I am not thinking of some sort of rave with thousands of stoned hippies banging their heads against one another. This was (I hope) going to be one of those more subdued, quiet office parties. One with M&Ms cookies, light joking, and Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid is wonderful, isn’t it? For people who want to drink a healthy liquid, but have an unnecessary craving for sugar, there is Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid comes in several-million flavor variations, and at least 5 different packages. If you like multiple flavors, and don’t mind an absurdly high sugar level in your blood stream, try mixing multiple packets. I like Kool-Aid. I like grapes. Grape Kool-Aid does not taste like grapes. For that reason, I had decided to bring Cherry Kool-Aid. Cheery Kool-Aid certainly does not taste like its namesake, but if the situation arose that someone was pissing me off, Cheery stains clothing much quicker. I glanced at my watch; it was just about time to go.
Great shining pillars, symbols of power, restrict my passage. They force me into the mold, denying my freedom of choice. These pillars hold me down; force me into a single path of travel. Like walls in a house, they unfairly adjust my direction, my destination. As I travel along side them, I question their existence. For who would want to build such a structure, one that would weigh heavily on the human soul, one that could inhibit our evolution, one that could lead to our destruction. For a man must travel the path to understand it; to deny him the opportunity to do so, is to steal away his potential in life, his future.
But, perhaps there are some that need it. I have heard it said that humanity is blind; that it cannot seek its own path, and thus cannot find its own future. For these, maybe these damn rails are necessary. People prefer to follow one another; to travel the easy path laid before them. People fear change; they fear the unknown. To give them such a restrictive path is to, in fact, give them freedom. Through this base of safety, they can further build their lives, and become productive to humanity as a whole.
All this and more I contemplate, while watching yet another Jeep smash through the interstate’s guard rails. I turn my gaze ahead, over the steering wheel, figuring I should keep my attention on the road. I could already tell that it was going to be a long day, and I didn’t intend to spend it in the hospital. I reflected on the fact that there would be very little difference between lying dormant in a hospital bed, and the office. Well, very little difference once you took out the needles and attractive young nurses. Once you take those into account, perhaps spending some time in the hospital wouldn’t be that bad after all. Personal feelings aside, I had a duty to my coworkers. They were depending on me to supply them with Kool-Aid. To do that, I would need to stay conscious and keep all my appendages intact. Stupid labor laws...