A human error...
"They chewed his savings at the Stock Exchange. He doubts he’s ever gonna get a pension. They keep asking for more and more, he enjoys less and less. He keeps falling into despair when watching TV. Shitty faces pose around him, telling him what to do, threatening him on what he shouldn’t do; they rob him and carp him for not making more so that they can steal more. Long ago, an old pal of his, a leftwing, took a stroll down the after-world along with Derida. He’s got no money to go out. He boils in his sweat. Bitter, like Mithridates’ own poison, he’s faintly dying within his own formalin…
He wakes up early in the morning to go to work. When having coffee he thinks that he works more than any other European, gets paid almost half while his cost of life is almost double.
He spits blood to go to work in the traffic jams, overlooked by the mischievous façade of a faceless city, adorned only with bulimic ad banners.
He feels the rage and disgust of other people around, as they all chase their own tail to win the day. Some unemployed, others in half-jobs or employees in companies that rent them to other companies, but all out of breath as they’re trying to make ends meet.
Most of them are drawn in bank loans from head to toes. Salary men in a dead-end by the 20th or the 25th of each month since all their money are gone in super-markets (more and more expensive every day), tuition-fees for their children’s private schooling (getting higher each day as kids have more needs –English, music, books, CDs) –“fuck free state education for all,” growls our guy as he spits on his university degrees. When he took the streets to demand better living conditions, anchormen and anchorwomen dressed in suits and ties –the political party’s- said he was “privileged.” It was not the first time, he felt like a jerk. The same speaking suits and ties had treated him with disrespect, when the other party was in power. He cursed his bad fortune and remembered to also spit on his children’s’ diplomas –poor things with their PhDs for a thousand euro at the very best …
He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be in debt. Now he was imprisoned. For life! He was fucked if he ever lost his job. He plays the idiot. But playing the role too much makes you be one with it. And when you become an idiot you transmit it. Maybe this is why they treat him like shit at the tax office. And not just there but wherever he goes for transactions. He hasn’t felt descent since he was a little child.
He clenches his teeth, as nothing works around. The other day he read that the Health System (?) fuels private medical centers with tons of money. At his kids’ school they no longer research for nothing, at least most of them. They show no love for nothing. Only, some few teachers (or maybe more than a few, who knows?) are different, the rest are a disaster. But they too have been humiliated by the state more than often. Only scams make it clean: the pimps, the big shots, the racketeers, the yuppies. Whatever their dirt, they’re never punished! They eat up the MediCare money, tap the PM’s phone, sink boats, make cartels from milk to gas, and nothing happens. An independent authority might deal with them some time but with the years the case fades out and drops in oblivion.
The same old story for thirty years. They steal from the farmer at the field and the citizen at the market. They just changed his name; now they call him “consumer” as if something’s different! In the last years in general, all the lies he’s taken made him feel he lives someone else’s life. Someone in an advertisement. He doesn’t talk much with his wife; nailed in front of the TV he watches the other jerks and forgets his own worries until he goes to bed. May be he is the jerk and not them, he thinks. With his friends he talks about interest rates, credit cards and cell phones, the new Holy Trinity that took over the other bankrupted triptychs. He misses poets, warm conversations, even the luxury of being preoccupied about the common problems. He softly shuts his eyes, just as he does when watching the telly; then he jumps, wakes up, the day is just starting and the traffic camera right across the street zooms on him, as if it is looking through his eyes, sarcastically. When he thinks that they charged him all that money to install it as a bug inside his head, he gets angry spits in fury but then he comes back in line –it is not politically correct to spit here and there.
He wakes up early in the morning to go to work. When having coffee he thinks that he works more than any other European, gets paid almost half while his cost of life is almost double.
He spits blood to go to work in the traffic jams, overlooked by the mischievous façade of a faceless city, adorned only with bulimic ad banners.
He feels the rage and disgust of other people around, as they all chase their own tail to win the day. Some unemployed, others in half-jobs or employees in companies that rent them to other companies, but all out of breath as they’re trying to make ends meet.
Most of them are drawn in bank loans from head to toes. Salary men in a dead-end by the 20th or the 25th of each month since all their money are gone in super-markets (more and more expensive every day), tuition-fees for their children’s private schooling (getting higher each day as kids have more needs –English, music, books, CDs) –“fuck free state education for all,” growls our guy as he spits on his university degrees. When he took the streets to demand better living conditions, anchormen and anchorwomen dressed in suits and ties –the political party’s- said he was “privileged.” It was not the first time, he felt like a jerk. The same speaking suits and ties had treated him with disrespect, when the other party was in power. He cursed his bad fortune and remembered to also spit on his children’s’ diplomas –poor things with their PhDs for a thousand euro at the very best …
He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be in debt. Now he was imprisoned. For life! He was fucked if he ever lost his job. He plays the idiot. But playing the role too much makes you be one with it. And when you become an idiot you transmit it. Maybe this is why they treat him like shit at the tax office. And not just there but wherever he goes for transactions. He hasn’t felt descent since he was a little child.
He clenches his teeth, as nothing works around. The other day he read that the Health System (?) fuels private medical centers with tons of money. At his kids’ school they no longer research for nothing, at least most of them. They show no love for nothing. Only, some few teachers (or maybe more than a few, who knows?) are different, the rest are a disaster. But they too have been humiliated by the state more than often. Only scams make it clean: the pimps, the big shots, the racketeers, the yuppies. Whatever their dirt, they’re never punished! They eat up the MediCare money, tap the PM’s phone, sink boats, make cartels from milk to gas, and nothing happens. An independent authority might deal with them some time but with the years the case fades out and drops in oblivion.
The same old story for thirty years. They steal from the farmer at the field and the citizen at the market. They just changed his name; now they call him “consumer” as if something’s different! In the last years in general, all the lies he’s taken made him feel he lives someone else’s life. Someone in an advertisement. He doesn’t talk much with his wife; nailed in front of the TV he watches the other jerks and forgets his own worries until he goes to bed. May be he is the jerk and not them, he thinks. With his friends he talks about interest rates, credit cards and cell phones, the new Holy Trinity that took over the other bankrupted triptychs. He misses poets, warm conversations, even the luxury of being preoccupied about the common problems. He softly shuts his eyes, just as he does when watching the telly; then he jumps, wakes up, the day is just starting and the traffic camera right across the street zooms on him, as if it is looking through his eyes, sarcastically. When he thinks that they charged him all that money to install it as a bug inside his head, he gets angry spits in fury but then he comes back in line –it is not politically correct to spit here and there.
The day has hardly started and he already feels bad. He feels he lives inside a sardine can. Just like that, with no reason. Just to be squeezed with the other sardines. Fuck it –woops! Watch your language (not to mention your thoughts), the judges might not like it. Lately, they have developed the inclination to write the newspapers by themselves. But what newspapers? He doesn’t even read newspapers any more. They all write the same, they are all the same –bullshit!- he knows it’s not like this, but who cares if it’s not like this?"
unauthorized translation by sistigrev
posted by OnCulture.eu at 1:29 PM
3 Comments:
life sucks dude...then you die...get used to that...
I found you through another greek blogger that recommended your blog and I m really glad!
great writing, highly enjoyed article about Lisbon-Athens!
Good stuff!
Cheers!
But we do live.
Through out all this mess, we survive, and eventually we smile.
It's a miracle.
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