Mindless Zombies of the Man

WARNING: If you are looking for another story about college coeds fed drugs and reduced to sex slaves for wank fodder...this is NOT the story for you. This site it called LITerotica and this story falls in those first three letters which stands for...literature.

*****

Intro:

We all (yes, me too) like to fantasize about mind control as drugs, hypnosis or perhaps even Pavlovian conditioning. But the horribly honest truth is that from birth we are all subjected to a near constant dose of the damned shit.

Eighteenth century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, forefather of (psychology, education, environmentalism...and half a dozen more), said of children: "The noblest work in education is to make a reasoning man, and we expect to train a young child by making him reason! This is beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of a result. If children understood how to reason they would not need to be educated." - Rousseau, Emile.

Yet from birth we are subjected to parental and societal strictures that demand blind obedience. And whether with words or a belt, your passions and spirit are broken, stripped from us by parents who supposedly love us, teachers who are meant to 'educate' us, religion which enslaves us, and society which believes that we are nothing more than cogs in their wheel to be controlled by those with money and power.

This is the story of one man's daily survival against these odds. Its content and style maybe unusual (especially for Lit) but I make no apologies for challenging you to aspire to that REASON which Rousseau so espoused two hundred years ago. After fifty years on this planet it is something I am still seeking and rarely find.

This story is one day in the life of a 'common' man, Joe Blow. You will read both his actions, words and thoughts. But along side that you will be exposed to the underlying "voices" or conditioning/mind control of life time that reigns in his head.

I will not say enjoy...as this is not that kind of story. This is the horrible truth about the mind control that we are all subjected to from birth...that turns us all into "Mindless Zombies for the Man."

***

Joe Blow turned over and fumbled with his phone on the nightstand. Why was it that it got harder each morning to find the damned thing and turn it off? But five-thirty came earlier each day. He woke up tired. At thirty-five, he had a lifetime of tired under his belt.

***

"Get-up, sweetie. It is time to get ready for school..."

"Joe, I told you to get up five minutes ago. Now get up!"...

"Damn it, Joe. I told you to get up. You are going to be late for school. AGAIN!"

***

Joe poured himself another cup of coffee. Was this his second or third? Did it really matter? He skimmed the latest headlines of famine and war on his laptop as his wife tried once more to rouse their sleeping son.

"Joseph Blow, Junior, I told you to get your lazy butt up fifteen minutes ago. Now you are going to be late for school again. If you don't get up now then there is no computer for you afterschool. Do you hear me?"

Joe shook his head. His wife sounded more and more like his mother every day. What had become of the naïve and free-spirited creature whom he had met freshman year of college? Who was this woman that slept beside him every night and woke beside him every morning? They barely spoke. And sex had become more of a weekly chore for both of them...like taking out the garbage.

He sighed heavily as he closed his laptop and drained his cup of coffee. Time to face another day at the office. Not that it mattered much...he was just another mid-level manager subject to the next round of lay-offs. Hell, the company worried more about the cost of replacing their machines than they did the human lives that they held in their hands.

But he had a family to support, a mortgage and car payments to make as well as the latest fashions and technology to purchase. So off he went to his job...

***

"Joe, you have to do your homework before you can go outside to play. If you don't do your homework, then you will never learn anything. Then what? You will just be another beach bum like your Uncle Todd. Never doing anything important. Never making a difference in life."

***

Traffic was worse than normal this morning...was that possible in LA? Joe turned the volume up on his play list. He sang along with his favorite country music singer. He loved singing. He always had. When he was a little boy he had wanted to be a singer like Hank Williams, Conway Twitty or Elvis Presley. But these days his musical escapades were limited to the shower and these long commutes to and from work. Well at least there was a bright spot to the traffic.

"I think I'll take a moment, celebrate my age

The ending of an era and the turning of a page

Now it's time to focus in on where I go from here

Lord have mercy on my next thirty years..."

He crooned along with the music. The wide smile upon his face made him almost look like that little boy he had once been.

***

"Joe, turn down that damned music. Your mother and I have heard enough for the day. Hell, for a lifetime. You know you can't carry a tune in a tin bucket. So stop that caterwauling and pick up a damned book. Make something of yourself when you grow up."

***

Joe shook his head as he studied the sales figures on the screen. There was no easy way to avoid the obvious truth...no one bought sewing machines anymore. Especially not from Mom and Pop little shops with hours like ten to four to suit the owners and not the customers. He had been trying to reason with management for years that this business plan was draconian in the modern world of online shopping. But they would not listen, insisting that they owed loyalty to these middle men, who had once built this company into the household name that it was, rather than the end-line consumers...the few women that still sewed whether for pleasure or as a business.

He typed at a quarterly sales report, trying one more time to reason with them about the need to change their business model. That direct sales of product, parts and service was the way forward. It was what customers had come to expect. If it worked for the giant computer companies and cell phone retailers, then it would work for them too.

But he knew it was futile. He was just a regional manager responsible for maintaining those 'valued' relationships with the middle man that were closing shop by the dozen every week. His report would be dismissed as nothing more than the rantings of an inept manager trying to cover his ass. Hell, he would likely soon be as 'dismissed' as his reports.

***

*F* Joe - I expect more of you. I know that you are capable of doing better work than this. You draw conclusions that are fabricated and not justified by the readings. Your logic and thought process are not in line with the texts. If you wish to re-write and submit something based more upon the class material, I will consider re-grading your paper. Professor Status Quo

***

"Dad...PLEASE...everybody is getting one. It is the latest..." whined his nine year old son Joe, Junior about the latest electronic gadget.

Joe shook his head as he read the reviews...and looked at the price. He looked up at his wife, Jane. But she merely shrugged her shoulders as she washed up as she put the dinner dishes in the dish washer.

From the moment, he had come in the back door humming that tune, it had been a constant barrage of pleases and promises that he knew his son would never keep.

He knew that they really did not have the money this month. Butt as the boy said...everybody was getting one. He did not want to deprive his son of anything. He did not the other children at school bullying him and making fun of his child because he could not afford to give him what they had.

He opened an app on his 'latest' phone and checked the balance on one of their many credit cards. This one had some open to buy on it. Joe knew that he really should not use it up like this. The tires on his car were wearing thin. They would have to be replaced soon.

And there was always that ax hanging over his head. What if... what if he was fired in the next round of layoffs and budget cuts. What would they do then?

***

"Ha-ha...holey Joe! Holes in your jeans. Holes in your shoes. Holes in your brains..."

And the teacher just stood on the sides of the playground...chatting with one another...and ignoring the pain of those words. If Joe did complain they said..."It's just words. Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." But they did...

***

Joe rolled over and snuggled against Jane. She was engrossed in another story on her e-reader. He tried to sneak a peak at the words which held her rapt attention when he could not.

'Oh, Rex...yes, yes," Ariel could feel his shaft pressed tightly against her womanhood as his hands traversed her bosoms. His lips tasted sweeter than chocolate as they pressed lightly to hers.'

"Wow, that shit is pretty hot," Joe said as he slipped his hand up from about her waist, seeking out her 'bosom' like in the story. He nuzzled her neck a bit.

Jane rolled over to face him, "Is that all you ever think about? Sex, sex, sex?" she accused as she shut the cover on her e-reader.

Joe sighed heavily. If all he ever thought about was sex, why had he simply been trying to cuddle with his wife? And besides which one of them was thinking about and reading about sex just a moment ago? Was he wrong to think that perhaps, just maybe, the woman who had said she loved him, wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and had taken vows to 'cleave only unto him until death do we part' might actually prefer to be intimate with her husband rather than read some made-up story about sex between people who were not even real?

As she turned out the light and rolled over on her side at the far end of their king size bed, he released...yes, yes he was wrong to believe that his beloved wife...gave a damn!

He turned over to his side of the bed...and tried with all his might to forget it all. Jobs that did not appreciate his efforts to improve sales...endless waves of traffic filled with zombies just like himself...son's who constantly demanded everything he could not afford to give...and especially wives who no longer gave a damn about him.

***

"It's all your fault. If I had not gotten pregnant with you, I could have been somebody. I was pretty back then. I could have gone to Hollywood and become a big star. I might have even become a singer...unlike you I can actually carry a tune. IF..."

Whatever else his mother was going to say was drowned out as she lifted the beer can to her lips. Joe slunk away into the darkness of his room...away from the woman that should have loved him.

***

If you recognized yourself in some of Joe's thoughts and those voices in his head, join the club. It is impossible to make it through life without a few wounds.

But the good news is that despite those experiences, voices and mind control to which we have been subjected for a life time, we have choices. We are human beings...with freewill and imagination. Each and every day we wake up just as Joe did...with choices to make. We can allow that mind control to make those choices...become those Mindless Zombies to the Man. Or we can re-ignite our lost passions and dreams.

I will not finish this story. I leave that to your imagination. Was the next day just like this one...and the thousands of others that had come before? Did circumstances or fate forces Joe down different paths? Did he lose his job? Was his wife cheating? Did those tires blow out and cause a horrible accident in LA traffic...killing him instantly? Or did Joe wake up the next morning and look out the window to hum a different tune...perhaps Twisted Sister's classic..."We're not going to take this anymore"?

But more importantly what path will you choose? The mind control subjected upon you by your parents, teachers, bosses, society...the man? Or the lost art of "reasoning" that Rousseau spoke about? Because that is the moral of this story...you have a choice every single day whether you are going to be the "Mindless Zombies of the Man"...or NOT.