Category Archives: Uncategorized

A modern filmmaker** muses about elegant solutions to problems that are created by complex systems, intertwining realities: a blend of pop culture influences—Star Wars-like imagery—juxtaposed against contemporaneous events, Central American coups, jungle poverty. In a world extrapolated from present-day reality, people act in accordance with the reality in which they are thrust. Their personalities are blended into a background, hidden yet subtly apparent to an observer. If we are attentive enough. If the act is good enough.

The filmmaker’s view is that artists had to try harder in his day to send messages, especially those that conflict with a zeitgeist, with what’s de rigeur. He calls them elegant solutions, these laconic expressions, these collisions of image and idea that insinuate an individual voice, but then represses because there’s a massive wall ahead. There’s much attention to detail in the filmmaker’s art: the displacement of ideas onto the trivial. Freud would have approved, and perhaps he should have approved more, the filmmaker opines, as it’s not as though surrealists of Freud’s era didn’t try to engage the Viennese doctor on the matter of film. Alas, Sigmund was more of a literary and history enthusiast than a cinephile. He’d write about Shakespeare, muse on Moses, much more readily than he’d comment on the tales and tricks of cinema.

He could be forgiven, I think, for thinking the silent era of film frivolous: that Charlie Chaplin was little more than a clown fit for children’s consumption, not the worldly dreams of adults. He might have thought that Stroheim’s Greed was ponderous, and likewise anything Eisenstein was making; that Lang’s Metropolis was facile, depicting a society that wasn’t anything nearly as ugly as it was in the years between two world wars, much less what Freud didn’t live to observe. Might he have thought D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation racist? That westerns were condoning genocide? Would he have cared about whether Greta Garbo spoke? In the twilight of his life, might he have been charmed by Shirley Temple or Judy Garland; recalled The Wizard Oz from the bookshelves of an earlier time, and in his last hours dreamed of lovely things beckoning from over a rainbow? Had he lived beyond the nineteen thirties, he might have taken notice of an up-and-coming cineaste who was a bit like himself—who in time would be subject to as much caricature as Freud himself.

The iconography that surrounds Alfred Hitchcock is similar to that which permeates Freud’s world: the latter had his cigars, his couch, pince-nez glasses, tweed attire, and imperious gaze. Hitchcock’s image is likewise severe: he poses with his chin up, looking cold and menacing, invariably dressed in black, ever conjuring a next generation of American Gothic. British born, he was a natural fit for Hollywood tastes: a born entertainer without inhibitions except those imposed externally; a sadistic figure eager to use whatever tool that would tease and torment his suspense-addicted audience; a snaky rebel looking to twist and turn around all the rules and regulations that were in his way. This was the forties through the sixties, roughly: Hitch’s time. His canvas. Like the surrealists, he could play with symbols, use birds, trains, pieces of clothing, to displace the sexual and aggressive. As he got older, he played along as restrictions ebbed: the ratings system that replaced the previously censorious Hays code for the motion picture industry. Into the seventies, he could show nudity, be more explicit with his killings.

Interestingly, this didn’t make him more popular, or a better filmmaker. Frenzy, from 1972, has its moments of gore—one or two scenes are a bit grisly, even. But its best moment emerges from the kind of artifice that Hitchcock could have used twenty years earlier and easily passed by censors. As the film’s villain prepares to commit his second murder, taking a victim into a private room, the camera pulls away—I mean pull away, not cut—and takes the viewer slowly down a staircase, knowing what’s happening off camera. Ugh. That’s cold, one might say. The framework is similar to that of Psycho, the more iconic horror-show prototype of a decade earlier. Only 2 or 3 killings are necessary to make a point, to stir fear.

Less is more. Spielberg was influenced by this idea, which is one of the reasons Jaws is scarier than any of its copycats or stupid sequels. Less shown and more imagined pertains to sex also. At the risk of sounding like a conservative boomer, I prefer the cheeky suggestion to the soft-porn display. It’s not quite as suspenseful. At the end of North By Northwest, as Cary Grant saves Eva Marie Saint from the cliff-edge, which then cuts to him pulling her onto the bed in the train cabin wherein they’d first met, which then cuts to a shot of the (presumably) same train entering a tunnel, we get the point. And he’s Cary Grant, whom we like, so we want what will happen next—a happy ending, so to speak. We didn’t always get happy endings in Hitchcock films. The implicitly gay couple in Rope will be tried for murder, we’re led to believe. Norman Bates will be institutionalized, his psychotic affliction with an Oedipal underpinning to be treated by a psychoanalyst, perhaps. Jimmy Stewart is a tragic figure in Vertigo. He loses Madeleine, twice, which punishes the perversity that has been latent within his heroic persona. We don’t know what will happen to the characters of The Birds. Its heroine appears to survive that metaphorical attack from nature. She might bond with the jealous mother of her newfound lover. Unlike one of the birds’ victims, her eyes have not been gouged out. This all seems to remind us of something.

What if it had been different? What if Hitch had been born twenty or so years later. Might he have depicted the birds’ picking meat off the bones of their victims, tearing away flesh with no inhibition? What if he’d visibly shown all five or six or however many knife slashes tore down upon Janet Leigh’s body in Psycho? This is interesting to think about given post-feminist critiques of Hitchcock’s films. The admirer of artistic vision celebrates that tact of giving us a largely aural experience of the famous shower-scene death, coupled with flashes of naked flesh, plus an unrealistically thin streak of blood streaming down a drain. Because that era’s censors blocked all that was graphic, we forgive Hitchcock for the liberties he took with realism. We get that he was doubling down on fantasy, speaking to our fears and secret desires. Had he not hidden himself well with cheeky suggestion, the outcry against his obvious misogyny would have been louder. He might have lost the plot—the plot we want as much as anything—had he not been restrained. Imagine, for example, if his alter-ego leading man from NBW, Cary Grant, had murdered Eva Marie Saint for manipulating him? What if It’s-a-Wonderful-Life-Jimmy Stewart had overcome his vertigo in time to capture Kim Novak (another hoodwinking female) and then beat and/or raped her before she stumbles and falls to her death?

It wouldn’t be as clean. Or would it? Is clean clean because it represses, or does honesty, even brutal honesty, cleanse? A re-boot Vertigo can’t make us innocent. It wouldn’t be a film that we love because it protects us from really knowing something awful and exciting. It wouldn’t be like a dream that both censors and reveals.

** the mystery filmmaker here is Terry Gilliam, speaking of his film, Brazil

Last night I had a dream, and in this dream the world was thousands of years older, yet everything was the same. Well, not everything. I mean, the world looked familiar: there were streets, buildings and infrastructure that looked like that of our present day. There was electricity in the form of traffic lights, in vehicles that were like cars though not quite—more like jeeps—and various devices or fixtures that will have needed electricity in order to function. I’m not sure what other resources were being used: maybe gas, solar. Anyway, that covered the man-made stuff. Nature looked more or less the same. There were trees and green hills spotted about, and a hint of sea on a horizon. The sky was blue and without haze and the sun was out, suggesting a generally healthy outdoors. I didn’t see any animals, but this was an urban scene with a wilderness backgrounded, so perhaps there were critters in hiding; predators elsewhere, dogs and cats crawling after scraps, etc. Who knows what era this truly was because I’m told dreams are timeless. They represent what we think and feel, not what we know in a rational sense. They tell us who we are now.

Who were we in this dream? I mean, that’s when it got weird, for it was the people who made everything seem like we’d gone back to some kind of beginning. I was wandering through a throng that was gathered in a square before a stately edifice. It was an outdoor gathering, a conference of chatter and debate, informally arranged and proceeding inchoately. There was no structure, no one obviously in charge. That was in dispute, it seemed, as there was no hierarchy, no system of leadership or government presiding over the event—just a commotion of voices. They spoke English, the men and women who were there. The language I heard reflected me, where I come from, plus what age I feel sometimes. The people in the dream were articulate, but only just so, lacking adult syntax or vocabulary when they spoke to one another, seeming like children in a playground. What were they talking about? Hard to say, for I was capturing words and thoughts piecemeal, yet piecing together motifs from passing exchanges.

One couple, a man and a woman, seemed to be discussing ethics, or maybe style. That was the theme, gleaned from the words that surrounded an unidentified subject. That subject might have been sex. Or, that might have been me assigning that theme to whatever subject was actually being discussed. I’m told that’s timeless also, sex. The reason I thought they were talking about sex was because of my stereotypes and gutter imagination: the man was talking of speed and efficiency. The woman: it was all about patience, slowing down, being methodical. Talk about timeless. She acted like they had all the time in the world. The man bristled. There were things to do, priorities to be set. We didn’t have time, he insisted, to waste. Not any longer. But history will judge us harshly, the woman rebutted, if we don’t apply caution, develop something like—and here her words let her down—something like a method for getting together and doing stuff. There are things like…she meant preambles and mission statements. We need ways (she meant strategies) of going about deciding, like, how to be. She was using her hands, trying to move the air, to make something like an idea happen and stick.

This wasn’t about basic needs. I’m recalling my twentieth century now, my Abraham Maslow recall. Everyone gathered was holding either glasses or plates, eating snacks or drinking recreational libations. This society had plenty food and drink. Also, everyone seemed well-dressed, groomed, clean and hygienic. Again, looking around, it seemed as though this world’s physical demands had been managed. Much doing had occurred. Compulsion had wrought success. It was the internal that was missing. Obsession, as in that which breeds contemplation, or contrarily, delay, was invisible at least. But it was being called for, apparently. The man’s vernacular was no more impressive or organized at first. He mimicked action, that omanota—something. Squirt. Jab. Cling. The first word was about the intoxicants that were on offer, plus an expression the man seemed proud of—“you gotta squirt out the good stuff”—as if he thought he was capturing the essence of life in his turn of phrase. I gleaned from his last syllable, cling, that he was also speaking of property. Somebody had to own this stuff all around them, he seemed to be saying. There needs to be a way to divvy it up, and from that, determine where we go from there. The woman disagreed, said everyone had been fine so far without deciding upon who owns what. We all own it, she declared, gesturing around her.

Heads perked up at the invoking of a once heralded concept: the we. It was being replaced by the I, some were saying. The I(s) were having it, gaining popularity, that is. They wanted things. They…they just wanted, period. And they wanted now, whatever they were wanting. Time mattered all of sudden. Time is short. However long these people had been around, they’d noticed that it wasn’t long enough, this time thing. From that point, I inferred that death existed in this world. It wasn’t so new that no one had known mortality, and loss. Indeed, from another discussion, sort of adjacent to the first one, that death and the manner of death, and beyond that, what we do about the dead was a source of great anxiety. There was even an air of guilt about, as if someone, or quite a few people, had been doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

Shoulds. It was as if they hadn’t thought of this before, this idea of how to behave and how not to. It was as if behavior had never been regulated before, as if right and wrong didn’t exist. And given what the woman had been saying, or implying, perhaps they hadn’t needed to think in such terms. The world, this world, might have been an oyster so far. It had seemed to not have limits, and therefore no one was at risk, or dependent upon one another. There was fruit on the trees for everyone, and none of it was forbidden. That concept—the forbidden—didn’t seem to exist either. Or, it didn’t yet. Suddenly, I had a feeling that I’d traveled to a moment in time when not just morality, but reflective thought, was in its infancy. Confused expressions abounded. About me there was a sense of pain that was dimly felt in bodies but was otherwise located, and emerging. They didn’t know what to call it, this thing. No one had conceived of a mind, only a body, but they knew that it was a problem, this new feeling from somewhere. The man from the first debate stepped up to a raised platform before the edifice. He coughed and then raised his voice to the gathered masses. Then he began a speech that referenced some leaflets and an overlooking billboard that would soon reveal revolutionary thoughts. We must develop groups that come together and reproduce from within, the man announced, now sounding regal and eloquent. He issued a strange decree: From groups, individuals from within a group can collect goods and property, and trade with other groups, but pass on property only to those within its own group.

It was time for a new society, the man was saying. Until now we have been a fit collective, sharing what was abundant and therefore not stirring our fears of what unknown lay beyond the horizon or above the sky. But goods are limited, we are realizing. Property is limited. This world we live in: we see its horizon, but now we know it has an end. He continued in a respectful voice: unlike his worthy female peer, he believed that rationing of goods equally between people was not the answer. That would work in the short-term only, when there was famine, perhaps. I was impressed. It was as if someone had grown in a moment, found a voice and taken an evolutionary step. The statesmanship forged his climactic thesis: we must craft a world wherein competition and vigor create opportunity and growth. Some will lose in this plan, but those who remain will prosper, and our offspring will be an improvement upon us as a result. His tone darkened, for he next spoke to the urban legend that had caused the gathering in the first place. We must avoid the calamity that has befallen our friends from elsewhere. We must not allow our supplies to get so low that we stoop to levels wherein we turn to each other for our basic needs. We cannot eat one another ever again! We cannot have relations with those who birthed us. The results, as we have seen or felt, are ugly. It is a horror to us, we have discovered. A moment of silence followed before the man raised an arm and gestured to the billboard, whose tarp-like cover was now withdrawn. I looked up to regard an advertisers invention familiar to the world from which my mind had traveled. With a marketing panache at home in any era, its message read, “Just say no to Incest”.

Hi, I’m Jonny—Jonny Reasonable. Not my real name, of course. In print, it’s my pseudonym. On the streets, amongst friends, it’s my handle, moniker. Ya know, a nickname. It’s necessary cuz I’m a criminal. At least, that’s what the state thinks of me. Me, I prefer a less judgmental label. See, I identify as legally diverse.

Relax, that’s a joke. You can relax around me because of the second reason I’m called Jonny Reasonable. It’s that I am reasonable. Seriously, though I won’t tell you what I get up to day-to-day, I’ll say what I’m like and what you’d likely think if you had to deal with me. Firstly, I don’t yell. I never yell, at least not in front of others. It’s vulgar. Immediately puts you on the back foot, cast as the villain. Comes under the heading of abuse, you see. Yell and the neighbors can hear you. You’re in the wrong from the get go. Yell and your adversary can easily say that you’re yelling and use that as a pretext for not listening. Actually, they might try that tact anyway, even suggesting that you’re yelling when you’re not. Anyway, it’s lesson one: stay calm, don’t raise your voice. It’s unnecessary.

Necessary for what? For appearing reasonable, of course. That’s what this is about, appearing reasonable. Don’t worry so much about what’s true, or right, or just. That’s for later, or not at all in some instances. Next, the language. This is about aesthetics, the semblance of reason. Practice verbosity. That is, learn the buzzwords of a subject, the phrases that kill the clock, filibuster through an argument. Be it business or personal, use words like “boundaries”, and “space” to indicate you honor autonomy, will not impinge on anyone’s rights. This is crucial if what you intend is to, ya know, violate people’s rights. I know. Isn’t my turn of phrase cute? Doesn’t it seem reticent, discreet, as if I know that words might hurt if I don’t use them properly? Speaking of phrases, there are a few phrases that don’t mean much, except one or two that suggest other meanings, and they’re useful as thought appendages that make you look, well, reasonable.

I mean terms and phrases like “per se”, or “so to speak”, or my favorite, “as it were”. I’m not sure what the last one means. I think it’s about playing, as in a play upon words. Regardless, it’ll make you sound smart, charming, or mischievous, but not sinister. Not wrong. That’s the point. If wrongness is a prospect, prepare to cheat. Preface an assertion with “naturally”, or “obviously”, to set the bias. Even if your pronouncement is anything but natural or obvious, you can make it seem so just by how you carry the idea. Practice these tricks a lot or at length and it’ll pay dividends—mark my words. Relax with your words, let yourself play, and let your partner, co-worker, whatever—your adversary—flounder with theirs, especially if it’s vernacular, or—and here’s a no-no: profanity. Or, check that. Use profanity, but not in anger. Not in attack. Use it with a smile, as a bonding gesture, or as something that punctuates a thought but deflates pomposity. Try it. It works. It fuckin’ works!

Now, about touch. This one’s touchy, as we’re in a no-touch world, a hands-off era. A gentle hand on a wrist works sometimes to settle nerves, or a hand on a knee if you and someone are seated next to each other. If you’re standing and you step close, then loom softly, gliding your hands upon the arms of the other, just above the elbow. And be prepared to pull away quickly, even briskly, as that suggests the touchiness of the person you’re in an argument with—it makes them look overly sensitive, unreasonable. Plus, you look like their potential victim. Don’t raise your hands. That signifies assault. The same with gesticulation, as in don’t do it. Makes you look out of control, overly emotional. That’s the thing about reason: it’s about being less emotional, more thoughtful.

Of course it won’t improve intimacy, this strategy. Not intimacy as some talk about it anyway. This is about advantages, not closeness. Being reasonable, so reasonable, will gather enemies. You will annoy people, some of whom will call bullshit on your tactics, make a fuss in public. But they’ll be the ones working harder as the onlookers approach and encircle the scene. The onlookers are more likely to side with you because that’s what happens when neutral opinion steps in and testimonies are called for; when the gavel later strikes. Don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s no advantage to me that you know my tricks. No loss either, perhaps. You don’t know me. I’m just Jonny Reasonable, and I know how to win an argument. It beats feeling like a criminal.

What to do. What do you want to do? Build a bridge, or design a bridge, or are you content to fit the rivets, and not worry if they’ll hold—that’s someone else’s job, because design was their ambition and still is. At heart, you want the same things as this mythical other; were once running side by side, heading on the same path. Consciously, that meant a class you once took together, sitting in adjacent aisles, facing forward towards studied authority and muted inspiration. Who knows who will build the bridges of the future, said the pedagogue, gazing at the range of miscreants, sheep, plus the odd hero or two. The two in the middle of the mass were heroes of different kinds, half aware of their futures, but already nursing a path through habits of thought and action. Beta Ray took his pills, did his exercise, watched his weight and glanced at Mary Lou at lunchtime, waiting for an invite that need only be a subtle gesture, for Beta Ray was sensitive and brave. Alpha Joe was laid back, waiting for ideas to come, and some kind of service to arrive at his door. He had other things to do, thoughts to indulge. He was clever. Everyone said so, which was a problem.

              Beta Ray went to war for a while, after he was recruited into the military, hoping he’d get to travel, learn a trade; be disciplined. Maybe fight. He didn’t help build bridges. Instead, for a while, he helped to destroy bridges, because bridges organize, create supply lines, build a society. Problem is, war is meant to dissemble the organized, break the supply lines and isolate the miscreant enemy. Beta Ray would have shaken his head at the unnamed and unknown adversary. It wasn’t personal, he’d say of the battle lines drawn and the shots fired. He was just following orders. As for the adversary, well, maybe if they followed orders, or rules, then things wouldn’t be the way they are. Anyway, that was someone else’s call, thought Beta Ray. Someone else’s problem. His problem was doing the best he could to survive the battle, make a pretty packet, and then head back home to pretty Mary Lou, whom he married just prior to being called up and sent out to combat. No complaints. That was the risk he took signing up, but now she’s pregnant so they’re expecting an addition to their lives, a family to organize Beta Ray’s idea of what to do in this world.

              Alpha Joe thought sparingly of the war that was thousands of miles away. He didn’t have to. Just a few short years after high school, his fortunes were soaring, taking him to the heights of industry wherein he designed buildings and at last—his favorite—bridges. His latest project, a suspension bridge that would connect a populated peninsula with a densely commercial city, was underway, if over-budget, but most importantly, with Alpha Joe in charge and calling the non-militant shots. Finally, he had in reality the situation that seemed to match his long-held, as in adolescent and even pre-adolescent delusions: nearly everyone who worked with him was a subordinate, there to support him, follow him; never gainsay his ideas. He could get out of bed whenever he felt like it, drink as much as he wanted on the weekend, as long as he came up with the answers when called upon on Monday. His talent, his bursts of inspiration and energy, coupled with his winning charm, would see him through. His only problem was that he was alone. Alpha Joe had scored a number of relationships through his college years and now beyond, but no one had quite cut the mustard in order to stick around. No one was good enough for him, it seemed.

              Beta Ray dreams nightly of being lost in a crowd, dodging shells and strafing bullets. He lives in a world of night vision, of black on illuminated green, followed by daylight in which sight is obscured by daylight dust. The dreams are an accurate depiction of what’s happening in reality, except he’s not there. Meaning, he can’t locate himself, as in his body, or any semblance of thought. There are no words, it seems—not even commands from an officer to follow. He’s scrambling, crawling, hiding, and then leaping or taking cover. He sometimes discharges his weapon, but he’s just aiming at a space, never seeing an enemy. He can’t see them, doesn’t know what they look like. He doesn’t know them because he knows nothing of them, so they might as well be as invisible as him. Beta Ray breathes heavily, cries out in frustration, wakes up in a sweat and conjures Mary Lou’s face and the image of an unborn child. He doesn’t belong here, he thinks, as he meets the nonplussed gaze of a bunk mate whom he’s awakened.

              Alpha Joe is bored and successful. Life is easy. The job is easy, and the bridge is getting made. His boss loves him. The city mayor wants to meet him. They might even want to join him on a Wednesday night ahead of a next-day presentation, because Alpha Joe is still up at 1am, hosting a pair of models whom he’d met at a downtown club. Now they’re in his living room, doing cocaine lines while looking out a window at a view of the bridge-in-progress that Alpha Joe has designed. They are impressed, feeling high in Joe’s high-rise apartment, shooting hot glances at him over their shoulders and shedding clothes as he lays prostrate upon a silk-sheeted bed, bored. He had a dream the previous night: it featured him kicking over a mound of sand that he’d built upon a beach. The castle wasn’t up to his standards. It wasn’t good enough, so he wanted to kick it down, start over. Now, he doesn’t want to go back to sleep and possibly revisit that dream. He’s looking past the hot models, through the window and out towards the nearly finished, suspension bridge prize. At once, he feels an urge to get out there and destroy it.

              Beta Ray was really feeling it the next day. That is, he was feeling energized, inspired. He didn’t really know what cause he was fighting for. As ever, he hadn’t really done the homework. He was all about doing what he was told to do. But now he felt something different. He didn’t know what. He just knew that something was going to happen—something big. The previous night, after he’d fallen back to sleep, he had one more dream, and this time he was able to locate himself and discern what he was, and what his purpose was in this nightmarish realm. It seemed to him that he was a fish, and that his job was to head up stream, survive, and in being alive, transform into some other kind of life. It would take some kind of change, the dream seemed to say. His body seemed to morph upon a climactic dash. His fish-like body speared and thrust through thick liquid, a seeming dust and toxic rain. At the end of a river was a bridge, a half-built or half-broken fixture that needed to be taken, as in conquered. But upon his arrival, he was turned away. A man of indeterminate rank, someone who claimed to know what was happening, changed the plan, the rules. Stay with this group, he ordered, even pleaded. If you keep them safe until reinforcements arrive, we will win this day, and you will survive and go home.

              The next day, Alpha Joe was a mess. He showed up ten minutes late to his presentation, which felt reminiscent of his senior year in high school. His boss, a woman who reminded him of an indulgent English teacher from that era, smiled thinly at him, hoping his lateness was the worst thing that would happen that day. It wasn’t. Ten minutes into the exercise, Joe was ready to collapse, to give up this surreal exercise, this not-quite dream of building something that would help people, change lives, even communities. He paused upon this thought, injected another reverie. This is why he hadn’t sought a family, he considered. His cause had been an impersonal task, laid out for the benefit of a nameless mass, which would line his pockets but somehow not match his real ambition. He flashed back to the beautiful women from the night before, standing before a window, flanking between them the image of the not-quite beautiful enough bridge. He’ll never get to build what he really wants to build, he realized. He thought of his dream, of kicking down the sand castle. I want to fight, he next thought. I need something…not easy, like a battle–a down and dirty battle. He turned to his assistant, a gifted architect, another woman, as gifted as him, but more diligent, if less winning in her personal style. At that moment, Alpha Joe shocked the room, declaring two things: firstly, that he was resigning his position, leaving the company; secondly, that he was recommending his assistant as the new project manager, confident that she would complete the job and that everyone would be satisfied. Buoyant, as in floating on air, as if he couldn’t locate his body, Alpha Joe left the room, with everyone thinking this a dream.

              Beta Ray was going home. More, Beta Ray was going home upon being decorated for acts of heroism in combat. He had indeed been energized, inspired, over a course of months. Over that time, the nightmares abated, and Ray’s fear in combat was subsumed under a gritty determination that won him the admiration and plaudits of comrades and officers. The culmination of this stretch of good soldiering was a mission in which he and his platoon were tasked with holding a bridge across enemy lines while waiting for reinforcements. Then, a further twist: with hours to go before being relieved, Ray and his platoon were besieged by refugees desperate to make it across the bridge, hoping to reach a border to safe territory just beyond the river. With civilians dashing into danger, Ray and his fellow soldiers were forced into action to protect the unarmed. Shells rained down over mostly women and children attempting to cross the bridge. Bullets strafed the innocent. From his armored vehicle, Ray saw a woman hit the ground and drop to the burning asphalt a child that looked to be no more than three months old. Choking upon terror, Ray thought instantly of Mary Lou and of a child that was a month from being due. Next, without thinking, he leapt from the vehicle and sprinted to the woman’s body, collecting the infant in his arms, and then returning the child to safety. Reinforcements arrived minutes later and the child was placed in protective care while murmurings of awe were directed at Ray. In the days ahead, he learned of the accolades that were forthcoming, and more importantly, of the honorable discharge that would be his true reward. However, he could not stop thinking of the fallen woman, and of the child that stared back at him when being shepherded away.

              At a military airport in a desert land, Beta Ray sat in a terminal wearing a uniform that was now decorated with medals, unaware that he was being admiringly assessed by a pair of women seated across from him. He was waiting for a flight home, looking forward to seeing Mary Lou, hoping he’d be in time for another kind of arrival. As he heard an announcement for his flight, he leapt up with calm determination, and headed for the departure door. First, he and others had to wait for the passengers of the incoming arrival to disembark. Filing through the gate was a score of incoming recruits, there to replace the likes of Beta Ray. As they passed by, he gave them a solemn, reverent nod in acknowledgement of the battles and sacrifices that were to come. Most of the passing recruits responded in kind. One in particular looked ready, willing, and eager to do his bit. He even looked familiar.

You are Scrooge and it is Christmas 2023. You’re at home, which is a one-bedroom apartment in the city that costs 3K$ per month. You are alone with your Uber Eats, playing a video game that rewards the killing of elves, and as you rack up a record score you imagine that you might be visited later that night by a ghost who may warn that video games and Uber Eats will stunt your growth. Just desserts, the ghost will imply. Tomorrow, Christmas is a day off—your one day off per year, more or less enforced by the absence of anyone else, co-workers or customers. Actually, you don’t have co-workers per se, just a couple of subordinates at the start-up you own, one local, the other in Katmandu, which is in India, or is it Nepal? You don’t really care. The local employee, Bob, has been asking for a benefits package recently, now that’s he’s working over thirty hours a week. He’s got a disabled son—cerebral palsy, muscular diaspora, or something—and he needs benefits, has got rising medical costs. You’re tempted to say he should move overseas, work remote, like the guy in Katmandu. Does he know about medicine there? The guy was traveling recently, went hiking near the Everest base camp. Not exactly a metropolis. Anyway, next day he’s feeling a pain in his lower stomach, one that worsens over three hours. He realizes he needs help, takes a cab to a hospital, gets diagnosed with a kidney stone, spends the next few days on an IV, taking painkillers, feeling nothing and watching Netflix. Best few days of his trip, he later says, and the bill? $2500! If that was here, with the drugs, the MRIs, and everything, the bill would’ve been more like 50K$. Benefits? Nah, too expensive here. But you’ll pay. You’ll pay because otherwise your local guy, Bob, will leave. He’ll leave like your partner Jacob left.

              Okay, you just killed another Elf. Thinking of Jacob juiced you up a bit, spiked your hate and sharpened your reflexes at just the right moment. Jacob’s down south now, in LA working as a software engineer, designing new product that will rival yours. Making good money. Taking days off. He’ll be off tomorrow, swimming in the ocean in the dead of winter. Scuba diving, maybe. Jacob has dreams, wants different things, isn’t focused enough for a start-up. Wants to act. Hah! You think he’s crazy, guy thinks he’ll be famous. He won’t even get parts. I mean, right now he’s likely auditioning for a role as an extra in something that won’t get streamed—a part a robot could do, or a woman, or a transgendered woman, or any person of color. Anyone other than a white guy who works in tech and scuba dives on the weekend. But hey, maybe he’ll catch a break. You hear they’re re-making JAWS down there, with an all-female cast, including Meryl Streep, who’s playing Quint and will likely get another Oscar. Jacob might get a part as a diver that gets munched in the opening scene, ending up as a part, literally. Serves him right, you think. At least he won’t need benefits. With the day job he’s got and shouldn’t give up, he’ll have that covered.

              Your niece is doing well, you think. Yeah, you have no kids. Just the kids of your sister Fan to think of at this time of year. Kids to send cards to, shoot a text to. Zooey, the niece, is an EMT living in Colorado, also spends half the year in Yellowstone, rescuing incompetent hikers that get lost in the wild. Recently she had an ordeal, was out in the woods on a call when she came across a grizzly. Cocaine bear. It was the only film you saw last year. It filled you up, sated a bloodthirsty streak in you not dealt with by elf-killing video games. But it made you worry about Zooey, being chased in a forest. On that last occasion she was rescued—actually, inadvertently—when her partner Fred got stuck in a redwood tree only to get knocked off by a low flying eagle that clipped his ear. He would have fallen to his death had the fall not been broken by the crazed bear that was stalking Zooey and about to make its kill when impact occurred, causing concussion. The bear was out, will have to retire from his game, maybe. There’s no telling where and when miracles will happen, in the city or in the wild. Anyway, it’s enough to make you believe in things like God and Christmas. Well, it almost makes you believe in God and Christmas.

              You wish you could skip this holiday and head straight for New Year’s. How come no one queries your famous ancestor’s mood on that night? Given that it’s just a week later, at the climax of the year, a new page to be turned, you’d think posterity would take notice. After all, if the story is about redemption, making new resolutions and sticking to them, wouldn’t we want to know about the new leaf on January 1^st  and how long it will last. Couldn’t that have been the sequel, the reboot, or even the video game? Humbug. Back to New Year’s 2023. You can’t wait for the show that Ticketmaster ripped you off for. Deep Purple is replacing a Pink Floyd cover band at Red Rocks in Colorado because the latter band’s members all got Yellow Fever ahead of a benefit concert for Incels that have blue balls. It’s all a joke, of course. Someone from Dickens’ homeland is taking the piss, as they’d say, hiding where the profits are really going. Can’t trust any of these people, but you don’t care so long as it’s a good show and DP plays “Smoke on the Water”.

              It’s a good thing it’s a joke for another reason. You don’t like charity gigs, mostly because you don’t like charity. That’s why you’ve begged off a show happening the following week, also in Colorado. It’s an anniversary bash for a “friends of” January 6^th  group that’s been put on by one of your investors and a former employer, Mr. Fezziwig. You think the emphasis should be on the word bash. Fezziwigg wasn’t a right-wing nutjob when you first met him. He was just a hound-dog who liked to make as much money as possible and then spend it on strippers in his free time. Then, during the lock-down, all the strip-joints closed down and Fezziwig was lost. He couldn’t even get a handjob at the local rub and tug. If only he played video games, you could’ve lent a helping hand, helped him get through the loneliness and the boredom. No, not that kind of helping hand! You’d have helped him count his money, assuming he’d get some kind of kick out of that. But Fezziwig went another way, wanted someone to blame, someone to take revenge upon. Not that you mind a little bad attitude and grumbling, but starting wars or claiming that coups d’etats have happened in the nation’s capital isn’t quite your cup of tea or figgy pudding. Humbug, you say to him, wanting no part of his ugly social vision. In fact, as you think of it, you’re sick of the game you’re playing, the elf thing. You’ve broken the record. The little people are strewn over digital asphalt. You suddenly want a power failure, and for Alexa to answer every one of your questions wrong. You’ve placed too much faith in the inanimate, the material.

              Your phone pings at midnight. The girl who once broke up with you found your neglected, much swiped-past profile on Tinder. “What’s up?” writes Belle in a text, plus “Merry Christmas!”. “What’s up with you profile? You don’t like long hikes”, she chides. “You like money, and you like video games”.

              “I’m learning to like elves,” you reply.