WRITINGS FROM THE RODENTS OF THE UNDERGROUND
VOL. 1, ISSUE NO. 2, I want my damn toilet
(c) 1997, All rights reserved to the writers a.k.a. the members of the Gopher Society. Really. We swear.
Callie Lee
Ewok (but not really)
The CIB Man
Dragon-Type Person Guy
Rowan Fae
Phloid
Rue Atha
EDITORIAL
by Rewired
Gopher. I only called it Gopher because I couldn't think of another dogdamn name to call the damn thing. I just wanted some damn place where I could barf out all my thoughts and hopefully get some people to barf along with me, and get some people reading it. I wanted some place where I could express all the shit in my head and throw in all that crap I always write every fucking time I'm at home which is always. Maybe it would make me happy. Maybe it would make my friends happy.
Right.
What is happiness? Happiness is, well, impossible. So fuck it. I quit striving for it. I am what I am. And you know what I am? I'm not a happy person, and I don't care, and I'm not happy not caring, but I still don't care. I should be happy. I've gotten close to a girl I fantasized about for roughly two years. I've got great friends. I'm also delusional, and though it's taken me until age 18 to get a license I still have no insurance, no car, no job, no life. I lie to myself routinely to keep myself alive. To keep myself at least partially mobile in this bad trip called society.
Life sucks. Sure, it's what you make of it, that's what sucks. Collectively, we allow life to suck to the point that the sucking takes control. We suck, it's sucks, everything just sucks. So life sucks. People suck. Government sucks. School sucks. This issue sucks, but less than the last one. Let's enjoy our suckiness. Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts. That is this issue. Gopher guts.
I'm still not happy. Maybe I expect too much.
But you've got a paper to read, and this chair is making my butt numb. So indulge in the fine BS that follows...
"PROMISE"
by Dragon-Type Person Guy
Broken promises, these are the things that kill people. People are not killed by the simple things that shall be on their death certificate, but by one thing, a broken promise. The promise was not made to the person that has broken this promise, but to the essence that is contained within the shell. This essence has been promised a chance to adapt. The same as the shell has been promised. Usually only the essence keeps its promise, but some of the shells have as well. This creates immortality and the ability to survive for eternity, whether in one shell or another. The essence is what many call the soul or the spirit. These things are much different but the same thing also. The spirit is another plane or existence of the soul, much like the shell but on a slightly less restrained level. The soul is the essence it is the true form or an object. The spirit is a soul that has "died" or left the shell, but it still retains some link to the physical world and is not yet ready to leave. A link like this could be a love that is still living or a problem which must be revenged in order for the soul to believe it has finished its task. Another reason for a soul is that it likes being a soul and wishes to remain as one until it is bored. However, to be able to do that you must know how to express your will over essence (which means you probably already know this).
The thing talked about before called the shell is the body or form that is noticed by the other shells in the same physical realm (such as the one we are in now). Even in the shell you can be in one with your essence which is only done by few. To be in one with your essence you must first believe that it exists and then begin to do exercises that allow you to tap into your essence. By doing these exercises you stop killing, because you do not feel the need, because you do not kill them for eternity. Also you realize that they can stay in that state and annoy you even worse than if they were still on the same realm as you.
You can also learn to kill more by completely disavowing any of the things that I am sitting here typing. Hell maybe you like to kill and destroy and believe that you are going to the perfect place such as heaven or if you think you did something wrong than you shall go to hell. Perhaps you will go to hell for believing that you will not. The saying is: "Hell is reserved for those who believe in it. The lowest part is reserved for those who believe in it because they believe that they will go there if they don't."
Then again Maybe I am wrong and you are right and you will be rewarded in the next life. Heck maybe we are all wrong and a thing that has never been thought of because it is beyond our reason. Maybe, when we die we go into a box, or are burned or disposed of in some other way and that is it. If some one claims to know what is going to happen then you should write it down and let someone else Know. This way it can be picked apart as you are doing or have done to mine. Or if you wish you are perfectly allowed to keep it inside you and never let anyone else know so that they have to think of some other explanation for what is going to happen. Maybe theirs will be yours and they will write it down selling it or preaching it feeling that their life has been fulfilled by teaching their truth. By doing this it is no longer thought of as yours but theirs and you are forgotten in the thought of them. But if you are going to do that then you probably haven't gone on reading this to this point so there is no point in me even writing this line or this note/story/letter/thing. Well now I will wish you a happy thinking and say good-day to you.
THE CONSPIRACY CONSPIRACY
by Phloid
Most conspiracy theories are bull. C'mon, not all of them can be true and most haven't surfaced until the past two or three years. This proliferation of ideas is a ruse to protect the small percentage which are real from the discovery of the press.
You see, when the first conspiracy theories surfaced the government was at a lack for a plan. The people had never questioned their government before. So, following the old adage, they decided to fight fire with fire. They flooded the underground media (which had been publishing the original conspiracies) with false conspiracies, thereby discrediting all theories and those people who believed in them.
As you can see, it has now become nearly impossible to determine which are the real and which are just good fiction. Adding to this is the number of shows such as X-Files which, though they do not openly purport themselves to be real, have convinced a large part of the viewing public that they show real government actions rather than plain old good Sci-fi.
Also working to the detriment of truth seekers are those who are overly eager to believe; for in providing a following for false conspiracies, they impugn those of us with greater discretion.
Mind Over Matter
by Rewired
This is not who I am
I am more than this man
I am more than this animalistic self
I am more than these emotionally-drenched compulsions
I am more than this need; this primitive urge
Though it would be nice
To get some.
SOLITAIRE
by Rewired (a REALLY long time ago)
The stars were pretty tonight.
And the stars tonight reminded her.
Brought her back.
Made her remember.
And she smiled.
The black of the sky matched her heart, as did the coldness and vast.
That went without saying, of course.
But the stars? The stars reminded her of the blood that had splattered on the plastic lining the greenhouse that night. The droplets, along with the river of red that poured endlessly from the open wound in the back of his head, drained the very essence of his worthless, pathetic, meaningless life out of him. The stars reminded her of the shine in his eyes, like that of a scared puppy. The blood that drained across the floor like rivers she somehow connected to the array of shooting stars, the meteors, that flew by her as she thought of this. Blood.
Damn, she could go for a pizza about now. Too bad she was locked up in an advanced prison cell cemented to a crater in a gigantic asteroid heading for the sun. Where the hell was the bathroom? Dammit, she should've gone before she left the planet.
They'd treated her like an animal there. Caged her up in a prison, caged her with no one to talk to, nowhere to bathe. It was inhuman to say the very least. She had sat in an endless blackness in that metal cell back down on the planet, fed very little and only given water on occasion -- and she was led to believe they actually had the nerve to get the water straight from the tap. The nerve.
Past times should not be dwelled on, however; she had much more to deal with now. Like how to get that pizza. She was fucking hungry and wanted one now, and quick. She needed a pizza. She needed a phone. She was dying, literally dying for a pizza. So what if she'd been saying that for the last five days into the emptiness of space were she was alone and no one but herself could hear her? She enjoyed her own damn
Company. She only talked to herself because she liked to converse with a better class of people, that's all.
She wanted a pizza, god dammit.
Aw, hell. She'd go for tofu about now.
Oh, how her brain was going to waste. She was a very intelligent girl; saw the keenest of details, saw the light in everyone's shadow. Such a brain she had had. Can you do that? Put two hads together? Like when I just said, "Such a brain she had had"? Like, can you do that or is it illegal in literature? I mean, nowadays in the best of the books I've read they're using "Till" and "Ain't." So can you say "had had"? Just thought I'd mention it. Damn. Have to look that one up later. Could do it now but I'm too lazy. I'll probably do it when I go to put some coffee in my sugar mug.
Anyway, back to the story.
She'd been such an intelligent girl. Always two steps ahead of her colleges, always the one to make intelligent responses, always wore a smile on her face. She brightened her professor's day by just saying hello, she was that kind of a girl. She was warm and sensitive, hadn't dated much, and was looked at as innocent and caring. And she knew when she found the right guy it'd happen. She just needed a little patience.
There was a few that'd come close, such as a man whom we'll call Bob. Now Bob was a wealthy farmer boy, maybe too wealthy for his own good, for many of the girls took advantage of him. They used him for the money, went on expensive dates with him and let him take them to movies. Then they'd wait until he was all cozy in his seat, a heavy box of popcorn he'd lay in her lap with a smile as he held their large pop on those little arm rest cup holders, and the lights went dim, at which time they'd submit to poking sharp
objects in his ears and sticking raspberry Twizzlers up his nose.
Anyhow, Bob had come to ask her out on a date, and her, knowing Bob for the sweet, sincere, well-structured hunk of a man he was (okay he looked like a bulimic newt and his brain was snail snot) said yes with a sweet little sigh in her voice.
A week later Bob was in Rehab for consuming mass quantities of Spam. It was never determined exactly what happened, but ever since she had never been the same (and without hesitation had immediately dumped Bob.) She became a muzzie, thrived on getting drunk of Snapple on the weekends, joined a worldwide cult known as "Barney Haters of America" and got addicted to sniffing Crayola Markers until she, on a very happy day, inhaled one too heartily and was rushed to the hospital emergency room for immediate nostril surgery. The doctors did their best to aid the poor girl, but their methods proved useless and they called in a surgeon who had a long list of famous well-known patients (among them were Michael Jackson, whose nose this doctor had done on several occasions and Madonna, and we just won't say what areas.)
While in the hospital, she was riddled with viscous nightmares of little short gray people with black eyeballs that stuck little spherical devices in through the tear duct of her eye and stuck another through her nose and into her brain after bringing her to a musty oval room filled with short wrinkly people in monk suits who questioned her and told her to forget everything that happened and to, above all, refrain from eating any Cheez Wiz for it would mess with their experimentation of altering her nervous system through a certain activation in her nasal implant which was to electromagnetically affect the human aura covering her body. Wearily (for they had stuffed icky brown guck in her mouth that acted as a sleeping drug) she shook her head in recognition.
They put her in a rubber room the following Monday when she threatened a nurse with a spoon when she wouldn't bring her Chicken McNuggets.
Silently, she was left in her pretty little room with the plain walls. She cried out into the night, but no one heard her, no one cared, as no one ever did and never had. Her life was pointless, and so was her whining, so was her paranoia and so was her anger, but she had to use it-- it was the only way that she felt alive.
The dreams continued, and by the time she was out of the hospital and was stuck in rehab she was taken to the office of a psychologist named Ito Wanagordo, Ph.D.
After being brought to his office as sat down, he questioned her quite directly: "Did these small creatures display any sexual arousal during the time you were abusively brought inside this oval room filled with horrid senior citizens?"
"They told me not to eat any Cheez Wiz," she replied hastily.
"Mmmm." He said, scribbling on his notepad as he scratched his snarly goatee which bore remnants of the spaghetti he'd presumably had for lunch. He seemed to be an annoyingly erratic man with hair on his head resembling Woody Allen's. He then replied, "Confront your fears and eat a bottle of Cheez Wiz when you get home." He belched silently, handed her a prescription for medication and sent her on her way.
She took his advice and indulged in the pure satisfaction of sucking down a bottle of Cheez Wiz. Then she settled down with her pills that night.
But never mind all of that. That was in the past. Which is only a sad place, a vacant place, a horrid place that she continues to dwell on as it poisons her soul.
But shit happens.
She hung her head in the prison now, as she reflected on the painful past, tears forming on the outer edges of her eyes. Her bags were a deep purple, her eyes bloodshot and sunken. Her hair messed up, swaying in long, sweaty strands across her pale, clammy face. A cold sweat built on her forehead, and she struggled to stay alive, withstand the heat of the sun which seemed to be coming closer and closer with
each passing second. She was drifting in and out of consciousness.
She struggled to stay awake, stay alive.
Damn, it couldn't end like this.
She wanted to live. She had things to do, wrongs to right, people to love. These couldn't be her last moments. She had to remember her life now, remember it for all time, for all it had been worth. She needed to remember him.
His face.
She had to remember his face. She had to remember her house, the little cabin pushed way back in the woods, her plants, the greenhouse, she had to remember the friends, the great times she had, she had to remember...
Damn! She forgot to turn of the gas! No! Dang it!
Oh well. She'd take care of it later. She had more important things to worry about, like death and dying and stuff like that.
She was burning up. Sweating bullets.
She breathed in small gasps, taking in the oxygen. Sure, enough oxygen to last four more years.
Such a shame she'd be dead in three minutes.
She stretched out her long, wary fingers, dripping with sweat, and she kneeled to the floor, feeling the unearthly soil beneath the knees of her worn jeans. She had nothing better to do, she might as well empty her pockets. Maybe it would give her some last memories or something. Maybe give her something to be happy about, something to dwell on while her face melted into instant pudding.
She pulled from her pocket a note from her most recent boyfriend, Ty, who'd stood by her all the way through. She felt bad this was the first time she'd read the note, but she wanted to savor it when she needed it the most, so she had saved it for the last. He'd handed this letter to her just before she was cast off on this meteor...
She unfolded the letter carefully and read it.
I will never forget you. Your face will always be on my mind. Actually, on my head, due to the fact that the night before you were sent off on that meteor heading for the sun locked up in that cell you knocked me out by whapping me over the head repeatedly with a Slim Jim, dipped my head in weed killer and tattooed your prom photo on my scalp. Hope you get AC up there. Have a nice time.
Ty
She sighed. Such a nice guy. She went deeper into her pockets and pulled out something her sister must have slipped in. She said she didn't want them.
Cigarettes. Her sister said she should indulge in the pure satisfaction of sucking in the fumes of burnt tobacco rolled up in cheap paper just once before she was sent into the sun.
She smiled now, looking at the disgusting pack. She laughed and threw them behind her. What was the point to those gross meaningless lung-killing portable chimneys?
Gosh, smoking one of those could take a few moments off her life.
She didn't want that.
There had to be something in there, just one, last, meaningful treasure she could lay her eyes upon before she burnt in the flames of her planet's own beautiful star.
Wait. Their was something their in the depths of her pocket. Certs? Oh please make it Certs, she thought, she'd hate to die with bad breath, her hair was enough to take.
She sighed at the sight of what it was: Worthless.
A key. What in God's name could this be for?
She threw it behind her.
And disintegrated.
--The X-Files.
UNTITLED
by The CIB Man
existence,
what,
life,
why
can't eat, need to sleep, won't faint
chewing, grinding, meshing in my feet,
through my legs and spine,
never jaw,
keep pounding,
don't fall,
just beat, rhythm,
no fate,
no choices
clear head,
body filth,
greening moss,
mold,
decomposing,
cleansing,
into life
new existence.
IS IT WORTH IT?
by Callie Lee
What is the point in having friends? All they do is use you. you think they will always be there for you, comforting you when you're down, protecting you when you are in danger, and loving you when you're down and out. Next thing you know you're sitting on your bed tearing your pillow apart wishing to find someone who will tell you the time of day. Crying doesn't help and pills won't stop the pounding in your head.
As you look back, you remember the fun times you had together, laughing, making jokes talking about your crush of the month, and sharing you're deepest, darkest feelings. How did it all change? They gave you a sense of security. Knowing that they were behind you, you could conquer the world, but you didn't because you had them. You didn't need anything else. You were comfortable with the lifestyle you were living in and never thought twice about the pain you would endure.
Just as that feeling of love (not sexual) got stronger, the more things began to crumble. Whispers of deceit spread throughout the school. Bitch fights with your "best friend" were becoming a frequent event. What was happening to your life? That comfort zone that you lived in was blown to bits. Everyone that you ever depended on turned their backs, leaving you to pick up the pieces of your broken heart.
Suddenly your mind begins to play tricks on you. sitting all alone at a lunch table, you see your old group laughing and having fun. Maybe they are laughing at you or maybe they've forgotten you altogether. No such luck. They turn around and laugh at you. What's that, are they waving for you to come over? Have they decided to work things out? You realize they are waving to the new girl, using her as a replacement.
What good were they anyway? They were supposed to help you, not use you. Funny thins is that it never turns out that way. All the secrets you confided in them turn into a knife in your back. Tears of joy you shared with them, turns to tears of loneliness and fear. What's the purpose of putting up with the shit everyone dishes out? You're supposed to tiptoe your way around them making sure you don't offend them. You're supposed to listen to them make comments on your mistakes, laughing along like it doesn't matter. All of a sudden you can't take it anymore. They make another comment and you blow, yelling out everything that had been building up the past month.
With a handful of sentences, your whole life seems to fall apart into a pile of trash. Everything that was concrete and stable slips through your hands like water. You look back and realize that it was coming all along. How stupid. Why should you even go on? Who would really care if you ended it all? No one would care, they'd laugh at you and go on with their lives. They'd just find another "friend" and begin fucking up their life. It would be so easy to end the tears and pain. With a pull of a trigger of a slice of razor...
lifeless machinery
killing off magic of
warmth of sun
breezes flowing on rugged earth
linged, green wild trees
bugs categorizing their own minds
with lost souls of living imagination, dying
depending
on heart devoid
on imagination deficient
on "forest of mind" killing
metallic "necessities" that
make us loose our will
to keep
our mind and magic,
we don't realize
we possess.
SILIQUE
by Rewired
1\24\97
Mom always said to keep you by my side, to always watch you closely and keep you from harm. I took that to heart, always obiding by it, finding it my personal responsibility to watch over you and keep you under control. I was about seven and you were three, and we'd gone off on that camping trip down to Minisota to see grandma and grandpa in their cabin by the beach. It was a beautiful cabin, and I loved to sit atop that hill and watch the sun rise high above the mountains, I loved the way the mist rose from the waters in early morning, I loved the ducks, fun and playful by the pond and the geese, arrogant and aggressive by the willow trees.
It wasn't my fault that day. I'd had a fight with mom and I was mad at you. Mom had never stopped bitching and I didn't want to watch you on the dock and fish while they went to help grandpa pitch up the tent for us kids. I didn't want a damn tent. I didn't want to fucking fish with my sister. I wanted to leave, go on by myself and think in the forest. But mom made me watch you, she made me. And then we were both
going through dad's tool box when we saw that handgun in there amdist the rubber worms and hooks. I dug it out and examined it. Such a nifty and peculuar contraption. You wanted to see it, and so you grabbed the barrel and tugged.
My finger had been on the trigger.
I remember red, I remember a high pitched scream, loosing volume and then cut off as it was consumed in a splash as you fell off the dock into the lake. Water hit me where your blood hadn't, and I fell to my knees. I was there, paralyzed, a gun in my hand. I looked at my sister, floating in the water, her dress encircling her head as if it was the center of a beautiful flower. A duck swam by and quacked. When I could finally move, I screamed. I dropped the gun and ran to the shed, where I knew they'd be helping grandpa with the classic car he'd always kept there, and which daddy was hoping he'd give to him when he kicked off. As dad and grandpa were gabbing undeneath the car, mom stood by the open hood, hand on her hips, in that blue dress. Stupid bitch.
"M... ma?" I said. She didn't even look at me. I said it again. And again. Finally, I screamed her name.
"Charles, just what the fuck do you want?"
"I... "
"Aren't you supposed to be watching her sister? Go watch your sister Charles, or I'll beat you till you're red in the face."
"But ma, just listen -- " I was nearly in tears, but she punched me square in the face. Finally, she had turned to look at me! -- sure, with the aid of a fist, but it was progress. When she saw that I was covered in dirty water and stained with blood, she asked me: "What the hell were you doing?"
I didn't know what else to say. "I killed my sister. She's floating in the pond by the dock."
She slapped me this time, harder than she had punched me. "Go watch your fucking sister, young man, and quit making up stories."
There was only one thing left to do, I supposed. I don't know how the conclusion finally came to me, but it seemed to make perfect sense. I went back to the dock. I picked up the gun, looked at how it shined in the afternoon sun. I walked back to the shed, where everything was primarily the way it had been. I breathed deep, and said again: "Hey, mom?"
She raised her hand, and looked at me with a scowl of madness. And, for a split second, when she saw I had the gun I saw a bit of bewilderment and fear suddenly rushing into her brain as she realized I was holding a gun pointed straight at her chest. A second later, she realized that I had fired. And, as blood came pouring out of the gash in her chest, I felt a sense of release, and I imagined to see through her eyes as all the world faded out in a black void, after which she would get ripped to shreds for an eternity in her personal hell. I smiled.
"What was that?" Dad has asked.
I chuckled, and shook my head. "Nothin', pop."
-- The Kindred (TV show).
UNTITLED: 8/8/94
by Rue Atha
I cry silently inside
while people dictate me
I HAVE no feelings
they say I'm strong
because I don't cry
I don't talk about
how I feel
Therefore I am a robot
to be used
abused
and thrown away.
SHADOWS
by Ewok
Everywhere you go there is dark places, secrets in those places and secrets in their shadows. When you walk in a room, the air gets tense and in the shadows a man's eyes are talking about things they wouldn't say to anyone. In the night a man walks under lights with a thought or idea. Even a child hides behind the shadows of the light because of the fears and pains that chase them in the light of day.
In the shadows of a black night fears and worries run as if in a playground of fears and tears. In a shadow in a room where light shined, a child passes on to a being far more sincere and sensitive, who loves with a gentile hand and heart.
In a house with people who smile through a million tears and suffer more than ever have doors in the shadows that can be opened, but the mind just can't stand the fucking pain behind it or even a joy that was as rare as a hug from a stranger.
The deepest shadows are in a person's heart where a secret or a tear falls but not shared. But in the deepest shadows of a heart are the joys that are ever-lasting memories that are bestilled forever.
Shadows are where people live away from society and the rush of life.
kEeping the saFtey on a Deep form of subConscious masoChism
by Rewired
Can't get caught up in a relationship again
hell, she wants to know me, she wants inside my brain
it's a dirty dark cold relentless private place
full of haunting memories and it's mine, so go away,
it's all mine and you can't invade me
you twist and shout about how i won't open up
but you can't break me, you won't overtake me
i'm me and no one'll take that away from me
you won't invade me.
She pounds upon the wall and tries to break down the door
i let her in for awhile, came to my senses and locked up
now as i sit in the darkness of my consciousness
in a tightly woven box with my eyes on the outside
not letting her in, i wonder
what if she was to break my consciousness
and see me before i got the chance?
no way, no way, you're gonna stay out of my mind
far away, far away you'll go and i'll stay
deep inside my mind to make sure you don't find
what it is i'm afraid to see;
to hell with you who tries to heal me.
UNTITLED: 6/11/94
by Rue Atha
COMPULSIVE THOUGHTS LEAKING OUT IN THE FORM OF WORDS FROM THE
PRETTY BLACK BOX OF HALLUCINATIONS I'M LOCKED IN
by Rewired
Pretty black box of hallucinations I'm locked in
The fantasy I call reality
The pain I call pleasure
The shitting around I call experience
The assholes I call friends
The dipshit that is me
But isn't really
Really a shadow of a bigger me
But I guess that could be me
Even if it isn't it is.
RUNNING: 10/9/92
by Rue Atha
Running
Running from you
Yet running from part of myself
Running towards you
Yet from you
Running to you
Yet running from myself
STOP.
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