Mr. Schwartz certainly has an interesting view of his day job.

The Wondrous Journey (With Apocalyptic Map)

by

G David Schwartz

            You are about to undertake a wondrous journey.  It will be one of uninterrupted surprise and unimaginable surplus (I have enclosed a map to make your transit easier).      

            The map obviously shows you the carrels from the front door (bottom of the page) inward.  Nevertheless, I suggest you begin your journey from the back.  This is so for two reasons.  First, I begin my explanation from the rear.  But second, and more important, the front door is the only way out.  Your journey will involve considerable destiny and a goal not of your own devising.  Nevertheless, you will shortly notice that your mission will require you overthrow fate and ignore all commandments and instructions in order to find release and freedom.  Later you will discover, although I know you will not gather this from my discussion, that release and freedom is precisely the name of your adventure, and that this was the assignment you have undertaken, although none of the seventeen fixtures who bronze the silver rules will have spoken truthfully to you.  I shall, for I have lost everything I may have had at one time.  I can afford, then, nothing and everything.  This is my gift to you.  It is all quite clearly marked on the map.

            It is obvious at a glance that the locations on the map are not arranged according to convenience.  Unlike the books in my library, in which reference works to be used often are placed close to hand, and those least often (like texts on animal rights and Late Latin, etc.) furthest away, these people are spread and distant.  Further * EDITORS NOTE:  The following passage was deleted, inserted, and deleted again: "...into a labyrinth, a series of parallel mirrors, into microcosmic micromesh of cosmological circularity, a marconigram of amazement..."                 

      

|Door| |Trish'  s|____________ THE GREAT VOID:     | to hell|_______PART I |  GREAT Mr. Computer| | Julie's Desk   |Mike's  |            | VOID:| |       |Chris' / PARTII |_________________________________  | | Desk|________|Bill's Carrel     Anita's Desk      |Nichole's|| |___________|Desk________________|________________|    /        | Mr. Coffeemaker ||Darwin's Carrel          |      |__________________||_________________  |    ||                  |    |_____________  THE| Emma Lou's       |    | The Great Void:       |Mark's Desk | GREAT 

"| Carrel                    |    | Part VII               |___________ | VOID:| |______________ | PART| ||Elaine's Desk (Elaine, so beautiful!)||V|___________   |    |          |_____________|| Mr. B's|________________| Club House          |    |                                |Frankie's Desk ||                  |    \_____________           |___________||                  ||                  |                               ______|                  |                             /|__________________|| |Garn's Desk|Discussion Room|Enter|  ||______________________________________|Exit |

 

Complicating matters is the fact that the Great Void intersects in a number of places and in a variety of way.  I will explain this to you.  Oh, I know, you will say, well, of course, there's always the think-a- ma-jig, you know, like, the telephone.  In the first place, your English is atrocious. 

            Second, the telephone merely connects an ear to an ear and, if someone is thinking about what those on the other line are telling them, a mind to a mind.  The factory has a fax machine.  What we should be looking for is a fax machine, which will connect cognitive and epistemic processes to cognitive and epistemic processes.  I refer to something more than a brain-scan.  We have plenty of that!  And certainly we do not want another, high-tech mind  reader.  Rather, what we need is an instrument, which explains and structures, invents policy, and possibly plays oboe.  What we need is a rootless, free-roving, electronic means of connection, which analyzes iron decisions into waxen workable ways to achieve communication, and transmits bodies from one place to another in something more than a metal container wheeled by steam.  But I am off track!  (One year as a birthday gift I attempted to achieve this goal by presenting everyone in the factory with a dictionary and a thesaurus.  I was frustrated, however, because I discovered not everyone's birthday occurs on the same day.  Nevertheless, I never give up.  I may change my methods, my decision making procedures, my avenues or venues, my looks, my mind, my ears, my clothes ... but NEVER give up.  To give up is to be defeated.  To give up is to become dead.  To be dead is not only to be de-feeted, but de-armed and de-thought as well.  Before I forget to mention it, Happy Birthday.)    

            The Great Void is an eight part monstrosity of fog and wind.  I have labeled parts I, III, IV and VII on the map.  Part II is to the extreme right of the map, in Vector 7.  In Part II is an amusing collection of fork lifts, skid control tags, shelving units, and merchandise.  Vector 7 also contains those who are frequently mistaken with people (some of whom resemble fork lifts, skid control tags, shelving units, and various types of merchandise).    

            The Great Void embodies the famous files -- reams, reams, and reams deep are the ancient lies of the secret generations.  Nevertheless, on a certain page, a specific paragraph, an exact line of truth occurs.  Nobody knows it is there except me, and now you.  It is a secret we share.  Therefore it is our obligation to lie about it.  One day, we will enter late at night and burn the files to the ground.  We will take care to evacuate Mr. Computer.     

            The Great Void Part I, which lies behind a molten curtain, contains the design units.  These people, if indeed they may be called such, are responsible to the Duke of Imagery for a process of silk-screening anatomy onto he flesh of victims who do not work for the company.  Their counterparts work in the Great Void Part III.  In III, Vector 9, the sewers sew anatomical structures onto the structureless.       The Great Void Part IV are referred to as merchandising people.  This is ironic inasmuch as they rarely, if ever, see the merchandise.  What they see are pictures of merchandise.  The buyers are limited in number although their faces are multiple.  Their primary functions seems to be to allow things to go they way the computer dictates, yet convince you they are going out of their way to insure events occur in a manner most suitable to your expectations and desires.  Unfortunately, expectations are based on concrete deductions from logical implications, while desires are based on ephemeral inductions are pried by a logical outplications.  This allows the buyers to exploit their own ignorance and dwell in the void.    

            The Great Void Parts V, VI, VII, and VII and unusually effective because, while occasionally located, they seem to vanish and reappear at will; rarely seen, never touched, and sensed with only the most saintly and the most deranged.  I cannot be responsible for anything said about any section of the Great Void.  I cannot even be responsible for the remarks I myself have made.  I CAN be responsible for the rest of the paper, except for those few remarks, which follow which, pertain to either people, places or things.  Everything else is entirely my responsibility, and spoken with reverence.   

             It is not clear whether the Great Void is apparent or real.  If it is real, then our perception of it is apparent, yet in its very appetency is its reality.  On the other hand, if it is apparent, then its appetency is it only reality.  Therefore we might rightly call it real.  Or apparent.  It means about as much as saying we know who a spy is in a certain city.  Either he is a spy, or therefore secret, or he is known, and therefore not a spy.  If he is the one he is not the other, and if he is the other then he is no longer the one.     The Great Void is a vaporous nullity, affecting even the most strong-minded author.  The vapors compel even the most malicious warrior to seek nullity.  The nullity sporadically combs itself as a legion throughout the vapor and decrees that one be thankful for the vapor.  It is as if mist, illusion and rapid turn over are to be praised.

             There is a sense in which the entire quantum realm reasonable resembles a gigantic satellite dish for receiving and dispensing messages.  Upon closer inspection, however, the realm really resembles neither a satellite nor a dish.  It is a tremendous monitoring station, which refuses delivery of messages and does not admit the possibility of sending them.    

            I should tell you who everyone is, in the order as you approach.  I will tell you of each of these people, the truth as I know it.  These people are those most helpful to me in my daily quest both to find out   more information about the factory for the unconscious, and to get away from the factory.  Be careful!  These people tend to walk from desk to desk, from void to void.  This is another way of saying that you never know where they will appear.  It is said in a sense that our minds can comprehend what is spoken.   

             Julie is the goddess of mechanics and flesh (flesh rhymes with beasts and she was giant!).  This is my tender name for her.  I have another name for her, which is never spoken aloud.  It is a secret name, only uttered in the most sacred moments, and then only to myself when I am not even listening.  Julie has several reputations, none of which are true.  She even boasts a reputation about herself, but it is as false as all the others.  Each is a ruse to cover a deep, severe dedication, considerateness, and concern one gets neither from gods nor goddesses nor mechanics; neither from ice nor fire.  We all know the computer runs the world as we know it.  Julie runs the computer.  What does this tell us about the world as we know it?  Julie both  emits and requires devotion.  She is the hub of the quantum field.  Hubba, hubba, hubba.    

            Trish is the kindest, sweetest person in the quantum field.  Because of this, everyone takes advantage of her.  I will remain silent, however, promising never to hurt her with words, and also promising to respect her in the morning.     It is 2 A.M. in the Baritone section.    

            Chris has responsibility for answers.  Luckily, not very many are requested.  Few people want answers.  Most only want to expel their questions.  When pinned down to truly make a claim, Chris has a single response for every question.  How do you do ... X?  Chris will say, "Very carefully, and with indefatigable imagination."  With his spare time, Chris is translating an Argentine book by Julio de Greco into English.  He has been working on it for seven years now, and has succeeded in transcribing the entire first chapter:  El hombre numerous de penas y de dias (The man counted his penis as something like a dias).    

            Mike is in charge of accounts payable and accounts receivable.  Many are the souls indebted to his performance.     Anita was once a manager.  She has taken a demotion.  Now she is a district supervisor.    

            Nicole no longer works for the company.  They keep her seat open, however; first, because you never know when she may be back; second, because you cannot really be sure she ever left.    

            Mr. Computer is a shining example of electrodes and spinsterhood.  Although I have never met him, I have frequently been the hapless recipient of his benevolence and the occasional target of his inopportune demands.  I obey.  For I am an obedient one.  If I were a rebellious son, I would not disobey, but would rebel.  Thee are relations between words and we frequently allow them to determine relations between people.  Mr. Computer is neither a word nor a person.  He is something else entirely, and we really should not use the gender specific word to describe him.  Nevertheless, we do so from an ancient habit.  I have peered in the  window, and while I know he computer contains whirling electrons, flashing ionization modulators, a nuclear accelerator, an incredible capacity for mathematical operations and the generator of numberless destinies, all I ever see is a cream colored panel, digital green numbers and a few knobs and levers.  The computer seems to baseless and groundless next to the animate, inveterate, logic destroying and vivacious Julie. )oh Julie, how I loved you.)    

            Mr. Coffee Maker is the most interesting fellow who works here.  The story is told that Nietzsche, unbeknownst to him, was led into a house of prostitution.  Looking around, he noticed a piano in the corner and said, "This is the only being in here with a soul."  With the exception of certain figures, which will be clearly labeled throughout your wondrous journey, the story applies quite well.  Mr. Coffee Maker is the agent of morning salvation.      

            Bill is the pedagogue of the company.  In another decade he may have been called the Archangel of Logic.  In this lifetime, he is the winner of the life-time achievement award for measurement and devices.  He was a gunner in the military.  Now he is Controller of the Terrain and Master of the Distance.    

            Darwin is the center of contention.  Several epitaphs struggle to replace his true, classified moniker.  Endearing terms are applied to him, such as the macrocephalated ego, the swordless headman, stalagmite rectum.  He is known as the hemoglobin repository, the lubrious encasement for entrails, and the magisterial redundancy.  He is the Master of the Documents; the one who requires and proves, approves and attests documentation for everything.  In this regard, he began to document the source, and has not completed his task to this day.*  Darwin knows the invisible design of curls and knots.  This skill enables him to pull a single strand of the labyrinthine knot and unravel it from any shoe string in he universe.  His skill is easily transferred to intellectual discourse.  He would have made a marvelous literary critic, but preferred to work at a spaghetti house.  While consistently and continually carrying a copy of Porphyry's ISAGOGE, Darwin is working on a proof that even if A = B, it is not necessarily the case that B = A.  People who say B = A confuse this statement with A is equivalent to B.  He is the only person in the quantum field to ever think:  "If we do so for negative commandments, we ought do so for positive ones as well.  After all, this is a binary universe.  Therefore, when complimented, we ought to say, 'I'm rubber; you're glue.  Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.'  Two metaphoric assertions followed by an unrealistic predictive!  Hummmmm.  I must make a note of this phenomenon, or phenomena.  Whatever."  He is the type who, upon hearing a needle was lost near the Great Void Part VII imported a number of hay stacks.  When the needle was finally found, he consented to be called the* EDITORS NOTE:  The following passage was deleted as text, inserted as a parenthetical remark, deleted, re-inserted as a  footnote, deleted, attached as an appendix, and finally taken out and expanded into a separate article:    

            The following process is documents.  Darwin tells Emma Lou the day’s instructions.  Emma Lou tells each of the outpost charges, who tell their drones.  The drones go home and sometimes do, sometimes do not, tell their parents.  In this manner, while kept alive in the imagination of Darwin, he message is quickly and efficiently, if quietly, forgotten.  Such is the way electrodes have designed their human savants. Magnificent, the Immaculate, the Wonderful.  Few people heard me whisper The Man of LaMancha.  He replied to the others by quoting Plato:    

Trachmontous said, "By the gods, Plato, you are right!"    

Plato said, "So are you!"     

Emma Lou calls everyone 'honey.'  The angrier she is the more she calls you

honey.  I have been honeyed more than anyone else who works for the computer.  She remembers the hectograph clearly, but thinks Jeckles feathered friend was name 'Hackle.'  Rumors circulate which state she remembers the Edsel -- not the car; the baby.    

            Mr. B. should not be confused with the famous Mr. B who advertises in New York.  There is a Mr. B.'s restaurant, but this is not him either.  There is a Mr. B. in San Diego, but this is not him.  In fact, his fingers stretch toward every object, firm and weak, yet his voice continually cries, "This is not me.  This is not me."  He is an illusion, a most cruel one at that!  He is the type who digs the wax from the bottom of the glasses and uses them as holiday crystal.    

            Garn cannot have enough said about her.  She is in charge of communications.  Therefore I shall not try to say anything about her.  She is, by he way, the mother-in-law of Julie.  To speak of her, then, is to risk blasphemy.     Frankie's primary responsibility seems to be to keep her eye on Mark.   

             Mark does never seem to worry about anything.  If he does, he does not do so in an overt manner which would elicit our invention of sympathy nor, more importantly, inspire us to think he is working on our behalf.  He does not, for example, worry about the dizzying smallness of the parking lot which he is compelled to stare at for hours upon hours a day.  He does not worry that those below, in what they lovingly call the dungeon, may be looking up at the soles of his feet.  He does not worry about school buses which anarchistically assert:  STOP STATE LAW.  He does not worry that a certain men lotion, which shall remain anonymous, says, "Splash on Brut 33 ... after shave, after shower, after anything![Registered]"  ANYTHING?  You and I know that encompasses quite a bit, some of which does not strictly call for Brut 33."    

            One day there was an industrial accident in the House of Wares (located most frequently in vector 7).  It seems a forklift ran into the vast storage area piled high with boxes of face masks and personal illusions.  The manager of Vector 7 was highly upset, primarily because the forks were stored on the other side of the section.  The machines which should have been used to store the masks were psychoanalysis and tender-loving-care.  The manager had given clear instructions that the reckless (or actually the wrecking) machine should have been strictly forbidden from any area except that containing the antique pitchforks, the knives and forks, and the forked tongues.  He immediately called Mark into his realm, demanding to know what punishment was to be delivered to the driver.  Mark correctly quoted the rules of Vector 7:  Nothing is to be delivered, anywhere.  The manager was furious with rage.  "Well, what in hell are we to do now?"  Mark, completely in control of the situation, splashed on Brut 33.   

             Mark's primary job, however, is to keep an eye on Elaine.    

            Elaine is one I toast on the non-secular New Year by drinking a small vile of honey.  She is the type of woman to whom you sincerely say on a daily basis, "Thank you for allowing me to see you again," -- where the "me" is certainly in the middle of the sentence, but "you"    is mentioned twice.  She has the name of one of my first loves; therefore she merits all my firsts again.  I spent numerous hours during the day upon which we either repent wholeheartedly and/or are judged and condemned, thinking of various ways to seduce or be seduced by her.  If you ask why I love her, I will answer, although I do not expect you to understand.  It is the nape of her neck.  I know what you may think.  I do not have a fetish.  In fact, I've never noticed the nape of any other people’s neck.    

            Compelled to think of the nape of her neck, I am forced to think of other necks.  Julie's neck is erect with pride and a furious determinism not to be unpacked by despisers of the computer.  The computer has no neck.  Darwin's neck is mangled and tormented by his own perception that all the world lies upon his shoulders.  Mr. B, of course, is necklace; supported by gargoyles and tarantulas, being a fantasy of advertising.  Trish, as they say, has a neck de'lish.  I am sure Emma Lou has a neck, but I refuse to speculate.  Garn had a neck with a telephone growing out of it.    

            I have not mentioned which of these people the Great Void, who are vehicles and receptacles for the Great Void, effects.  I do know that several people who work here, perhaps not the ones I have mentioned, but perhaps them occasionally as well, sit like macula, hoover outside doorways, discuss Marxism and have a crystal ball which whispers to them each morning, "It is the others who are null and void; it is the others who are null and void; it is the others..."   

            I can reveal these truths to you because I am fortified by Dubonnet -- William Edward Durghardt Dubonnet.    

            Once outside, you know you have passed through the mind of God.  Once outside, the fresh air shall revive you and the minute parking lot (there are few visitors) will resurrect your interest in escape.  Once in the fertile mind of the fresh air, you know you are wise and that everything you brought with you -- the satchel! did I mention the satchel? -- is exclusively yours.  Our ethical problem occurs when we realize we have been through all that there is: with whom do we share?    

           On my first trip through, I bowed my head to remember all those, both named and nameless, who either worked here or use to work for us:  Joyce Pease, Christy Sperry, Sue Brown, Dante Alleghieri, and many, many others.  Their names have faded into the walls, added thickness to the walls, exist as dim memories which further protect the inside of Leviathan. Did I mention beautiful Elaine? I truly loved her, loved  her so much that I wrote poem, yes poems both to and for her. I did love her,  but the only way I could get near, and, or close to her was to date and eventually marry her sister.     

            As the famous French philosopher Dao deChing says:  Learn to be water.           In the end, this place is a parable for what is in my head.  I have invested all these characters and established locations for their desks.  I have invested names and personalities, have assigned their work, have given them various relationships with both themselves and the Great Void.  The last mentioned is the only one I have not devised.  The Great Void is that which is learning to become water.

Here I sit thinking about Beverly Newman Thompson and am thinking thank the bibbleboard I am capable.