Each Rach

I was riding the red line escaping a zombie outbreak. The train pulled up into  Harvard station but crashed into a huge pile of bricks fallen from the ceiling, scattered on the tracks.

It was dark in the station, though lights flickered on and off (as required by the horror). It reaked of zombies. Before I knew it, the other passengers on the train were being grabbed and bitten, converted, all at once until I was the only non-zombie left.

I tried to escape into the station, but they were clamoring for my throat and brains. I kept pushing them away. Before I knew it I was punching zombies in the face or impaling them with metal poles that were loosened from the crash.

Then I woke up with the slightest of hangovers.

Then I went back to sleep and had a more vague dream, involving synchorized dancing and fedoras.

…wait a second. This is all because of Michael Jackson, isn’t it?

What a pity/shame!

Relative truth is how one person can look out at a storm and think, “Gorgeous! The perfect background for the book I want to read today. This makes my day.”

Then another person looking at the same storm can think, “Ugh, gross. I wanted to go outside today, walk around in the sun. This ruins my day.”

And neither person is wrong.

Absolute truth is that there is a storm at all, that there are thousands of people looking at or ignoring the same storm, that there are millions of thoughts pertaining to that storm, and that each thought and each person is as valid as the next.

Even a madman can look out veritably on such a day and say, “What storm? All I see is the ravages of the Third Unicorn Werewolf War.” And he isn’t wrong.

That is what he sees and that is what is real to him, as tangible as any sane thought that can zap through any person’s mind, as real as “I have to do laundry” or “My hair is slightly brown” or “I love you.”

I apologize for the implications of this, because it does mean that we are insane and sane all at once, right and wrong all at once, heroes and villains all at once. I apologize to myself for the implications of this, because it’s a disagreeable thought to have.

Thought Two: But there must be some difference between Fight Club and The Tao of Pooh.

Thought Three: So if these books don’t really have the same ideas about life, maybe it’s just me who keeps having these same ideas.

Thought Four: Then what are these ideas I’m having that are so pervasive, that I can manage to have them while reading both The Clockwork Orange and Siddhartha?

Well, let’s see.

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Twenty cons.