In Our Time Of Dying

"May you live in interesting times."
-Chinese curse

Fun times! Ever wonder what it was like for the German people to eat, drink, and be merry in the midst of concentration camps? Well, now we can know!

Only 30 minutes from my house is this atrocity, half mile away from a church. A strip club can’t be near a church but a death camp can!

If anyone in 1935 Germany said their country would be destroyed in ten years they’d been mercilessly mocked and called anything but what they were: a savior. But now we have alleged billionaires sucking up to dictators (no actual billionaire would do that), we have poor people voting to be poor, and the light of truth hailed as doom.

These abominations are a cancer upon the country, built not to enforce the law, but to usurp it. In these perverse times the light of truth is hailed as doom. But only the truth can set us free.

Jesus said we’re too stupid to survive (Matthew 24), so let’s prove him right. Party on and keep the music loud so we don’t hear the screams! 

Threads: No Assassins Here

Bond never considered himself an assassin. Yes, he'd been tasked with that but only with full knowledge and his approval. He was no Bourne blindly shooting bagged men.

For no power on this earth can truly grant a license to kill. One can only grant it to oneself. Otherwise, it eats you alive like some American cop shooting at will.

Taking out the viciously perky HR woman crossed his mind. Then he fantasied about icing ICE agents: terrorize the terrorists. 

"The world is a criminal enterprise."

 

 

Threads: Bond Zombie

Bond wasn't Bond anymore. 

The relentless daily zombification of corporate prisonhood drained his previous appetites. 

Using Q's tool, he was able to hack the server and prove the company's cooperation with foreign powers. But to whom could he report? His own branch had been compromised.

Over and over he considered his options for escape, finding none. 

With a determined look on his face so many men had seen just before their demise, Bond wished death upon the world, that it exist nevermore.

 

 

Threads: Fake Phonies

"Sting got lucky with that girl's name being Roxanne." 

I sighed knowing Grits was about to say something stupid. 

"If her name been like Mary-Sue-Elizabeth - no way to make that work!"

 I declined to argue the alleged point and simply remarked, "That's OK. The Police are your favorite band!"

 "Not no more. This girl posted about how they's a bunch of frauds so I hates them now."

 "If that's all it took to dissuade you then you must have been phony too." 

"Least I ain't a FAKE phony like you!"

 I rolled my eyes to Heaven but got no response.

 

Threads: Butterfly Effect Illusion

I stopped at the gas station a mile from her house. Any excuse to stall. What does one say after doing the unforgivable? 

As I got gas, I heard BAM! 

A fatal car wreck at the intersection - and she was the victim.

"If only I had gone directly to her house!"

Guilt delayed my arrival. I asked the God app for answers. 

It said had I gone there directly the same thing would have happened. Like magnets that repel, the universe would not allow me near her until I was ready - my truly bad choice.

 

Threads: Bonded In Hell

 "Bloody damn emails! Come at you like a machine gun!"

Bond was in a particularly bad mood after seeing his coworker "ghosts" in the elevator that morning."If that's what I'm to become I might as well be dead." 

As furiously as his brain and imagination could work, he found no way out of the British class structure - which threatened to suffocate the life out of him. 

At night, Bond recounted his life. 

"Is *this* what I've been protecting the whole of my career?"

Threads: Identity Loss

 "As your lover describes you, so you are." 

The international assassin known simply as "Goupil", made famous by the (censored) printing of his diaries, was taken with this quote which hounded him for life. 

After he'd killed his girlfriend ("My one true love"), he saw himself as nothing but a killer, drowning in guilt. And in that vein, killing became his identity. 

Later attempting Mormonism, activism, and therapy, he never knew his girlfriend survived. 

"Judge not, lest you judge yourself." 

Threads: Consciousness Of Guilt

 

Bartender Bobby was a Houston legend. Long flowing hair and a sweet smile drew admirers (and tips!) from both sexes.

But he never let anyone in his life, a blank canvas upon which others could project their fantasy. In Bobby's mind, he had nothing to offer anyway.

Then murder happened at the club. He'd be investigated, revealed as a fraud. No more kudos or high living, just a future day laborer.

Distracted, Bobby crashed on Houston's notorious freeways. At the wake, no one knew whom he was.

Threads: Iced Alone, Naturally

 See? This is what you do when you believe you're going to die alone and unknown.

 

 

Threads: Butterfly Effect Illusion

I stopped at the gas station a mile from her house. Any excuse to stall. What does one say after doing the unforgivable? 

As I got gas, I heard BAM!

 A fatal car wreck at the intersection - and she was the victim. 

"If only I had gone directly to her house!"

 Guilt delayed my arrival. I asked the God app for answers. 

It said had I gone there directly the same thing would have happened. Like magnets that repel, the universe would not allow me near her until I was ready - my true bad choice.

 

Threads: Nice Tail Pipes

 I didn't know how to talk to the girl so I spoke to her car.

"You own that outright?" She owned a VW GTI car. "I'll race for pink slips."

I had a sleeper Mazda 30 turbo. But somehow she saw through me. 

"You're an idiot."

"But I'm a fast idiot!" 

"I don't know what you're trying to prove..." 

"Maybe it proves I want to talk to you."

"What's stopping you?"

"Sheer unholy paralyzing terror."

"Come back when you get over it."

"OK. In the meantime, can we at least race so I can see your face?"

Threads: I Art In Your General Direction!

So, the art world is afire because of my "inflammatory comments" on Moroccan goat painting. I've been shunned and outcast, labeled a provocateur who "stirs the pot." 

Many a white knuckle did I spot gripping wine glasses at the gala opening as I passed by. Who are these fools who believe they must answer to me?

But this too shall pass.

For that shall be my next piece: A hand fiercely gripping the delicate stem of a wine glass, making the viewer to wonder if the effort to hold it will snap it.

 

Threads: No Hope Like False Hope

Another false hope headline. This from LA Times:

"Contributor: Trump's MAGA spell is broken. Even his base knows he is a lame duck"

All the red herrings about "policy issues" or Epstein files or others things swept away with the wind won't make any difference. There is no "final straw".

Because the only true issue is self-esteem, to feel worthy of love. It is the Alpha and the Omega. Wife beaters and whores aren't having earnest policy discussions. 

The struggle for love is what we're seeing.

 

 

Threads: James Bombed

There is no agency to whom he could report. An overnight coup had left Bond as an astronaut stranded in space. To report in would be fatal.

"What a bloody nightmare!"

Undercover at a desk job in a major corporation, the future looked grim. He still needed to pay his rent.

Positioned to see internal communications, Bond found out the very corporation he'd infiltrated was part of wiping out his agency. The fox is in the hen house.

"Is this how I'm to spend the rest of my life? Bloody hell!"