NOTHING FOR YOU HERE
by Mitchell Waldman
I’ve got bad news: there is nothing for you here. Nothing.
Do you want to go through life in a dream state?
You are nothing but a cog in their wheel machine, a consumer to be consumed, bought, sold, entertained. A commodity to be traded, milked till there ain’t no more milk left. In your cushy chair, dreaming your way through it all, until the final breaths of your life.
And what will you have accomplished, what will you have learned, what will you have done, left behind? Watching your life pass you by, buying what they want you to buy, toiling to make their profit margins, then fading into dust while you sit in your casket and the corporate wheels grind on, disposing of no longer productive workers with their huge golden fly swatters, as their machine lives on and on and on….
Is this what your life was all about?
Shit’s gotta happen. Shit’s gonna change.
All these years thinking these things, looking for a plan, but there is no plan. That is the plan. (A Zen-like truth). The truth is there is no truth, but only the truth.
And the living go on, chasing the dollar, trying to live, accumulating what they need or have been told or brainwashed into believing they need. Not living, really, just surviving, until the swat of the great golden fly swatter. SMACK! We’re through with you.
Not so bright. Dark, in fact, very dark, I know. And who wants to read, who wants to think about this shit? Nobody. So dream your life away in the trance of what you think is life. Compete, achieve, accumulate things until the very end without giving it a thought, or asking “Why?”
Watch your TV, play your video games, cut your lawn, change those light bulbs. Buy the best designer clothing, that prestigious car. Wear a big stone on your finger. Show them that you matter, that you’re important on this little speck of dirt on this tiny planet in this solar system in this universe that is just an unseen speck on the map of it all.
About the Author:
Mitchell Waldman’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Waterhouse Review, Crack the Spine, The Houston Literary Review, The Faircloth Review, Epiphany, Wilderness House Literary Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, and many other magazines and anthologies. He is also the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon, and the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart, and serves as Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review. (For more info, see his website at http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com).
