Every day we die, waking only to find that the stories we were told as children are at best fabrication, and at worst, deliberate lies designed to soften our minds. We sleep to escape the oppression of mass-mindedness only to find the safest of all sanctums has been corrupted beyond all recognition. No longer the land of harmless fantasy, super powers, and vital imagery which once shook us to our very core, we find that they have become little more than extensions of consumption, the mill we are ground through every day.

There is no end in sight.

We consume, we are consumed and we consume more to compensate: Little more than Id’s and libidos, mindless, propelled from one compulsion to the next. This is the age of the impulse buy.

If its not for sale we don’t want it, but if its easily marketable, if there are focus groups and audience polls, if we can feel that somehow we have control over the megolithic manufacturers, we take it as a victory when really we are picking our coffins. We desperately cling to the symbols, catch phrases and slogans of everything around us. It must be distilled for us to find it palatable; it must be catchy, artificially sweetened and totally devoid of meaning. We refuse to acknowledge the gaping maw of the abyss waiting just around the corner, refuse to learn out of fear that we may realize just how little we know.

The muck grows to cover our minds like a second skin as we lay unused, unstimulated, having forsaken our own evolution. We assume that we are the highest species, that any further growth is unnecessary, we believe that this truly is the ‘best of all possible worlds’ and rush out to get there before the doors open to buy as much as we can. And even those cognizant of the ever-downward spiral are no better off. They cannot functionally remove themselves from the cycle. And so, whether they will it or not, they too are consumed.

Flesh rent from bone, marrow slurped out, until there is well and truly nothing left.

A man once said that “all that glitters is not gold” and he was considered wise beyond his years. Great statues were erected in his honor for the people believed that he had revealed a deep universal truth about the nature of the world. Appearances can be, and often are, deceiving. For many years the people were content with this small nugget of truth, it became the staple for most and at least a comfortable and well worn cliche for everyone else.

Then, one day, in the midst of the daily regurgitation of this truth a man spoke up from the crowd “Doesn’t mean people won’t buy it anyway”. And verily, the people saw that it was true, that they would rather be deceived by appearances than worry about content, character or any other multi-syllabic ‘c’ words.

And there, the first anarchist, the first Deophagist is remembered with his smirk of self-satisfaction, exposing his nether regions to the prude and incontinet, middle fingers extended in the universal salute.

The martyrs of deception are comming….
I can hear their screams in the distance….
Crying…
Yearning…
Lost in an empty pool of self-deceit…
We are Deophagy…
We are your nightmare…
Tuck yourself in tight….
Be sure to say your prayers….
Kiss mommy and daddy goodnight….
Hug your teddy bear with all your might….
Not worrying about the bed bugs tonight….
Call out the daemon hunters….
The only ones who can save you from your fright….
But it’s too late, no-one can help you now…
We are Deophagy….

A thousand dejected souls shuffle into the shadows.
The narrow stale walls close in as their voices echo and the temperature
rises.
It is coming soon…
It grows from a dull murmur to a cacophonous roar: They cry out to be fed, to bear witness to the impending apocalypse.
Time is running out…
They cry out for the pain of the organism; to whet their appetites on fear, sorrow, hatred… They crave blood.
Not much longer…
They grow impatient: The shouting grows louder, revealing their carnal hunger, the cloak of humanity is shed exposing their depraved, clawing hands grasping for their final feast. The seemingly joyful voices, once clamoring in expectation now take on a sinister edge. These are the growls and shrieks of Hell itself. Fists rise into the air, calling from the aether every curse down upon the heads of those who would be fool enough to interfere as they squeeze in closer: Pushing, jostling, pressing ever forward.
The final seconds tick down…
Electricity arcs as a slow, lust-filled shudder writhes through the masses, hearts race and the sweet stench of sweat fills the air. The many become one; saliva drips from a ghastly maw, fangs glisten in the semi-darkness. They are Legion and will not leave unsated.
The fuse is sparked, the curtain is rent in two.
Lightning strikes.

Fear causes Anger
Anger feeds Hate
Hatered seeks Power
Power leads to Victory.
Let Anger consume you
And in the purity of your Hatred
You will find the kiss of Oblivion.

Doubt causes Sorrow
Sorrow feeds Remorse
Remorse seeks Penitance
Penitance leads to Bondage.
Let Doubt consume you
And in the pit of your Remorse
You will find the embrace of Damnation.

And at the crossroads
Of your greatest Fears
And gravest Doubts
Beyond Redemption or Damnation
Grinning into the face of Oblivion
You will find the upraised middle finger of the Deophagist

Let’s nuke the whales, save the t-shirts, floss daily, don’t listen to Slipknot, kill the pagans, send money to “Focus on the Family” so they can squander more tax payers money on frivilous litigation against Mr. Rodgers because he doesn’t teach children about God, eat your veggietables, buy a Ford ’cause after all those Asians are STILL out to get you, get rid of guns, kill the gooks and chinks and spics, drink Coors, shop at the Gap, Jesus hates the Jews so you should too, eliminate any rights which may lead people to unique thought, nation wide dress codes, metal detectors in preschools, no shoes no shirt no service, business hours are between 9 am and 5 pm Eastern Standard Time because people dont actually live after sun down, bring back the good old days when the niggers knew there place, homosexuals will burn in hell but the ones who sent ‘em there get off with a slap on the wrists, Eat at Joes, Starbucks: Its everywhere you want to be, a diamond is forever, so is human ignorance, this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental, unless you like it, then I am going to suck up, latch on, leech off, and otherwise use it to my advantage, abuse my rights, abuse myself, abuse eachother, if sweet dreams really are made of these, and no one disagrees, then it really is a small world after all.

Am I just a machine?
I feel nothing.
Am I a sheep?
Clinging to the flock.
Am I asleep?
Reality seems insubstantial.

Everyone plays out like the shadow-cast of a B movie: Detached, delayed, copycatting a second too slow. They are dried uplike rasins at the bottom of the box; non-entities, ghosts, phantasms of their own deluded imaginations. The melodrama of the mundane, a day is year is a lifetime of broken-souled sighs. McDonalds, Starbucks, the purgatory of medicority; Politics, poorly choregraphed prime-time pornography. There is no more art when you are worried to the point of hysterics where the next pair of shoes will come from, what bottled water to drink, and whether we are being humane and tolerant twoards our lunchmeat, herded like cattle to the gallows of the T.V screen, smiling our way from store to store, the shit-eating grin dripping down greasy multiple chins. Who can sell the sweetest lie? Slit our wrists to feed the beast of more-more-more: Give us quantity or give us death.

It’s all the same in the end: We’ve sold our souls to the flat screen t.v and the god of ‘Grande Lattes’, we waste our hatred in violent masturbation and celebrity poker; and have to be the one who wins the Three Stooges colostomy bag on Ebay. Forgive me for not giving a shit.

I’ll take my cancer, my cholestorol, my crooked teeth and coke habit. I’ll devour the hatred, fear, pain, sorrow, grief, regret, impulsive behaviour, and compulsive fabrication. Stop hiding behind your ten-dollar words and Gap apparel: Use your fists, dicks, and slits: lose your temper. Hate me; it feels so good doesn’t it? I am the thing you loathe inside yourself, the blue-collar worker with an axe to grind, nothing to lose and “anger management issues”. I pity you.

We are all obsessive-compulsive gluttons in denial, zombie cannon fodder, junkies, consumer-whores and sluts with a guilty conscience. Self-imposed slavery, mass-produced misery, every lust accompanied by a ‘Hail Mary’ and flagellation. Betrayal of self is the original sin, the greatest sin, the only sin.

And sinners, aren’t we all.

Where there is life there is death
Where there is belief there is atheism
Where there is truth there is uncertainity
Where there is the loving mother there is the malignant woman
Where there is unity there is the raven of dispersion.

Everything becomes rectified by its opposites, lest one force grow too complete as to stifle change. Evolution, adaptation, growth… These do not survive in extremism. It is the too drastically mutated which are delivered still-born. Instead, the dynamics of life are better shown as slight variation along the line of perfect balance, opposing forces surrounding the equal sign, the karma of the Buddhists and Hindu. Nature, and so too life, abhors a paradox, and so all must in the end be its own beginning and its own end. For life cannot come from death or vice versa. Every man and woman is a star in the sky, a god in their own right, but who reaches out and exerts their will? Every man and woman is a scar upon the surface of the earth and the surface of their own minds. All division is multiplication and subtraction, addition. This is the deepest riddle. Between the lines of what is said, between the thoughts which one perceives beyond the text, there lies void. But without Void there is no Creation.

He who has ears let him hear, he who has eyes let him see