First encounter of the strange
Dear Diary,
I am not quite sure, what I am supposed to write. Well, to be honest, I don’t want to forget, what happened yesterday. Or maybe I just want to make sure, I don’t go crazy…
Anyway, yesterday my friend Mike called and wanted to meet me in a pub. He talked about some strange things, if I recall it correctly. Some secret institution he works for. If it were that secret, he wouldn’t tell me all that in public – not as freely as he did, would he? Somehow what he said made everything sound so unreal. I can’t believe I would believe a single word. Mike must have been joking… trying to play a trick on me. Yeah, that would sound just like good old Mike. It is hard to remember the details, and it hasn’t been 24 hours since then and now.
Everyone knows, your life has been already arranged by the time you become 14. How can he talk about becoming some sort of artist as if it was just a simple decision? Something like what kind of bread will I have for breakfast, or what sort of trousers should I wear when I am not at work? – Of course no red ones, I might be mistake for some sort of scavenger. I am destined to be an accounting clerk, maybe one day I’ll become chief assistant in my distribution, but that is it. You can’t even chose in which company you work. Man, Mike should know this! This peacekeeper job must have screwed his logical thinking! But then on the other hand, they only chose already deviant subjects for those posts. I wonder how I got around it. My parents always said that Mike was a bad influence. Emerged from a degenerated line of heritage. I never told Mike about those endless counselling sessions I had to bear, just because my parents wanted to make sure I was not a deviation myself. I guess, they’d have died rather from embarrassment than let this happen. But then again, that is what good parents are supposed to do, right?
There is no one who could deny, that we had more fun in our school days than the other kids. Maybe we even contributed to their misery. No, not misery. We might have made things a little difficult, but they’re not living in misery. Not back then, nor now. They’ve become respectable and well functioning members of our society.
Dear, if I tell my counsellor this, I’ll have to bear with another endless row of counselling sessions. Hm, I’ll give it a week, and if I haven’t returned to normal, I’ll tell her. There is no need to cause this poor woman more trouble than she already has. There are so many deviations these days. I wonder where those come from? What is it about their wish to be special anyway? I don’t get that. There is nothing wrong with the way we turn out. We do have jobs, we do have homes, there is nothing that you’d miss if you want to make your decent living. And we have clear rules how to behave which they already teach in school. Oh, when I read those old-fashioned stories, I can’t bear with the protagonists’ problems. I mean, what kind of problems are they anyway? It is total clear how to approach a woman you’re interested in, and how you can provide for your living. And their constant quarrels with what kind of government and – what the hell are terrorists anyway?
Ok, back to yesterday. Mike sure freaked me out. I felt like they might come and get us right away from the spot we were occupying. Such… blasphemy I haven’t heard in a long, long time. Then again, I work in a respectable company and do not intermingle with dangerous deviant subjects… I can’t tell how thrilled I was! And then this substitute alcoholic stuff! It went right into my head. I still have a headache. Oh, and this… dream. It must have been a dream. A nightmare. I haven’t had any nightmares since I was six years old. But that was a creepy one. There is no way you have to fear that someone might come and knock you out on your way home. And this warehouse… I just don’t know. It felt so real. The headache, at least, is real. Too real. I don’t wanna know, how it must have felt if I had drank real alcohol … but it is prohibited anyway. And Martin was playing along. There is no way that a distinguished man like Martin would have collaborated with some one like Mike. Ok, Mike can be damn persuasive. I’d be damned if he wasn’t.
I never realised it up till now, but artists… what are artists? They tend to describe them with terms used in the old stories to describe criminal suspects. So artists are criminals? You don’t hear that word often these days. I know when our cultural history teacher scolded us for our tricks, she used to say ‘You think you’re artists or what?’. And one day I was foolish enough to ask her what was wrong about artists… She never really explained it – but she looked so damn frightened, as if she was sorry ever having mentioned the topic. And my mother always used to say, that artists don’t make a living, but just live. Everyone knows you have to work for your living… so they are some kind of parasite? Maybe like flees I thought. But now… If I could become one, I guess it is nothing like flees. Mike’s description wasn’t very enlightening. Artists are those who create art – that is why they are called ARTists. He couldn’t belief I didn’t know… I suspected something like that. So those who go into the field of entertainment and stress relieve may be considered artists? That question really upset Mike. If I hadn’t paid attention in school, he asked me. That is the least job anyone wants to do. It is even lesser prestigious than scavengers. No, artists are noting like that. Da Vinci, Monet, Hundertwasser, Dali, Shakespeare – even Brecht. These were artists. Well, when I looked up the word artist in my lexicon this evening, the description pretty much hit the core of what we call deviation. That still thrills me. I mean, who wonders if I get nightmares when my best friend tries to turn me into a deviation!! I just can’t believe this.
And how long it took me to realise that all this being struck down and being alone in a dark warehouse where I slowly bled to death… well, that this was just a nightmare! I actually panicked when I woke up in my own bed. Where else am I supposed to wake up?! I thought there was some sort of conspiracy going on. As to be expected – after all it was just a dream! – was the wound on my head gone. I wanted to look – I was so sure there must have been some scurf or … something. And I was overwhelmed from some disgusting smell in my own bathunit! And all these conspiracy thoughts didn’t just vanish. … I really cleaned my entire flat. On the bright side, it is clean, as the rental contract demands. But I still feel as if I have made a complete fool of myself.
Oh dear! It is already this late! This day was one of the strangest in my entire life. Dear diary, I am not sure, if this will really help me to remember everything. But then again, I have never had a diary before. That is something they consider to be rather a trait of those subjects who have a tendency to become a deviation. … You just need to look at all those blogs. These self-important … individuals! My mother would want me to wash my mouth if she had heard me use that despicable word. Well, I was about to brush my teeth anyway.
