Rant Against the Machine
After all, there is little else you can do about it. Anything more and they can lock you up, interrrogate you, drug you until you don't know what's what, or just make you disappear. Who are they? the sceptics in the audience ask, but you know already. They are authority, they are every authority. Every teacher and every Dare officer and every employer and every authority figure you've dealt with for all your life. They are your parents, the nasty neighbors whose yard you made a shortcut of, the teacher who recommended you see the school psychologist; they are the big kids on the playground and the moderators in chatrooms. Their uniforms are white and black and brown and blue and every color you see. They are everywhere, still. In the eyes of the police officer you see your parents look of suspicion, total strangers on the street are the secret cohorts of all the people you've wronged, and they all know each other, like the group of kids that shut you out.
They are the ones who insist that everything in the Universe makes sense, and that sooner or later we will get all the equations right. They exist in a world of suspicions and numbers and secrecy. They are the upright citizens you were always taught to be like, and that you always secretly despised for ruining your fun. They are the ones that say music is not important in schools. They are the ones that insist on conformity. They determine style and morals and the law; they are the law. They are everything you have ever stood against, Big Brother and your mother and first grade teacher: everyone who you had to worry about when you did something less than right. They were the invisible enemy when you played war games with your friends. They were the ones you worried about ratting on you when you dug that hole under the fence, or made that jump for the sledding hill after you'd been told not to. They are the faces behind every security camera and the ears tapping into every phone call. They are the ones that will testify against you in court someday, the ones who will take you there, and the ones who will sit on the bench and in the jury. They are the ones who know what you are up to, even if you don't yet. They are the eyes behind spy sattelites, the ears behind every wire, and the fingers on the button. They are everything outside of you. They are the world that instinct has taught you to mistrust.
And they mistrust you. Because you are that punk, teenage child of theirs who won't listen to a word they say and never did. The child who won't tell them what tonight's destination is or who will be there, and who's probably doing some illegal drug or stealing or sleeping around or plotting to kill their classmates or leaving home forever. The child who never really cared about Mom or Dad's feelings and did what was fun. The child who kept cutting through the neighbor's yard, and snuck cookies out of the jar, and tried to fix the things that broke before they got home, and didn't try his hardest in school, and never really tried to make friends, and wound up with the wrong crowd and the wrong habits and the wrong attitude. Every look from you is a dagger in their heart, a missle from a child who probably mistrusts them as much as they do him: as much as everybody does everyone else.
ok, that was more rant about the machine than against, but who's keeping track, anyway?
You will be scalded unless you stop keeping track of my rants, child.
