It’s all about control

the illusion of freedom

keeping you busy

optimizing your time

Do you feel satisfied?

sophisticated boredom

edited self-esteem

instantaneous contact

networked loneliness

We’ve lost who we were!

unlimited choices

less empirical knowledge

algorithmic propaganda

You’re told what to believe!

delusional actions

collective psychosis

Made easier by isolation!

psychotic breakdown

societal chaos

We’ve become unable

or perhaps unwilling

to think for ourselves

Catholic school. The uniforms. The weight of our parents expectations. The silence we were expected to keep to preserve the atmosphere of the fear of God, and the petrified respect of ages; mirrored in the carved wall art of saints and their stages of struggle depicted in the stain-glass windows haunting us from above. All of us students had received the 'Body of Christ' and were all dutifully praying in our designated kneelers as the priest ushered the homeless in for the first time I had been aware of in my experience. One after another, these humble shabbily dressed souls received the bread from the Priest, until one black man with kinky hair and a crinkled up smile exclaimed:

"Damn, this shit taste like Ritz crackers!"

It echoed like a smack in the face, down the pews, and off the waxed wooden walls of St. Andrews church. It wasn't necessarily true; the taste of the Eucharist was more like a stale, papery potpourri, but it needed to be said to snap us out of the leaden shackles of our habitual ritual. The response was immediate. We all burst out laughing.

Years after this experience I began to taste the granules of cracker in my mouth; the buttery texture, the satisfying crunch, but also the undercurrent of salt that permeates so much through the thread of American snack food.

I would taste this cracker themed concoction always as an introductory signifier of a waking nightmare where I would be cruising through a maze of sorts and suddenly be alarmed by a scream that would be blood-curdling, morphing into a high pitched laugh that would evolve into a fear-inducing scream again. This anxiety ridden experience would quite often culminate with an anxiety attack that froze me in a state of terror where I was stricken with the undeniable feeling where at any moment someone was going to walk into my bedroom, (when the experience happened to occur in my bedroom)and murder me on sight. The final phase of this mind fuckery would be when I would promptly vacate my body in an uninhibited out of body experience. This began happening with enough regularity that I began arousing and adding kindling to the cycle of nightmarish sensation. I began to revel in the taste of the cracker and become excited when the fits would begin to possess me; inciting these mysterious cerebral states.

2/28/25

Bunny Villaire