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WE WHO SUFFER

kurt nimmo


��It’s raining.
��I have the idea that it’s been raining since the Mesolithic period. That we are tired of the rain, of the jobs and the bullshit, since before the Stone Age.
��I drive my car through the rain.
��Other people, all around me, drive their cars through the rain and they seem oblivious to it all.
��I’m the only one who suffers.
��I have an appointment with a psychiatrist. I drive through the rain and through the bullshit to get there. Some of the people, all around me, are probably also driving to their psychiatrists. Maybe some of them are just out for a newspaper or a box of sanitary napkins. We have things to do. ��We can never spend a whole day doing absolutely nothing whatever.
��The receptionist is fat. I tell her that I’m here to see Doctor Blahza. This is my first visit. She tells me to have a seat over there and this she does without actually looking at me. I go over there and have a seat beside a normal enough looking fernthing. The fern-thing is probably intended to make me feel comfortable but actually I’m uncomfortable because this is my first visit to Doctor Blahza and I’m beginning to think I’m paranoid schizophrenic.
��The fern-thing is dying.
��We’re all dying.
��There’s a magazine. I look at the magazine. The magazine tells me that Jesus will come back before the year 2000. I don’t know why Jesus would want to come back. Didn’t we treat him pretty shabbily the first time? The magazine will mail to me a tape describing the return of Jesus Christ. With this tape I will know what to look for. I will be saved. The tape costs $19.95 plus postage and handling.
��Nothing can save us now.
��Doctor Blahza walks through a white door. I know this is Doctor Blahza though I have never before seen Doctor Blahza. He walks over to me and his mouth opens and my name comes out. Doctor Blahza has mispronounced my last name. I shake Doctor Blahza’s hand. Then I put the magazine down near the fern-thing plant which is dying like we are all dying.
��We walk through the white door together. On the other side of the white door is a corridor with more white doors on either side. One of these white doors, I realize, is Doctor Blahza’s private office.
White doors are made to put me at ease. I am ill at ease and my hands are sweaty. This is my condition.
��The office of Doctor Blahza is a predictable office and is non-offensive in every way. Doctor Blahza sits behind his non-offensive desk and proceeds to ask me all manner of non-offensive questions.
��There is, I’m assured, strict confidentiality.
��This is what I tell Doctor Blahza:

��1 ) I can’t sleep.
��2) They’re out to get me.
��3) Wind in the trees makes me uneasy.
��4) I’m losing interest in sex and food.
��5)1 have an eating disorder.

��Doctor Blahza is a helpful man.
��Doctor Blahza has a nicely trimmed beard.
��Doctor Blahza is approximately ten years younger than me. Doctor Blahza has meticulously trimmed fingernails. Doctor Blahza wears a mauve tie and brown pennyloafers. Doctor Blahza is a homosexual. Doctor Blahza says that I am depressed and that is why I have lost interest in food and sex. Doctor Blahza does not mention the people out there who want to get me. I think it’s strange that Doctor Blahza doesn’t have a fern-thing in his office. Fern-things in offices all over the world are dying. Fernthings need people to touch them so they can survive. People need people to touch them and Doctor Blahza does not touch me. This is called professionalism.
��Outside it is raining.
��I can see the rain through Doctor Blahza’s window and the rain falls exactly straight as college-ruled paper turned sideways. The rain is older than the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Stone Ages combined. The rain will fall on the shoulders of Jesus when he returns. The rain of rains will wash away our sins.
��Doctor Blahza asks me about my father. I tell Doctor Blahza that my father, my roommate, my girlfriend, and my boss are all alcoholics. Doctor Blahza writes this down with a blue pen on a yellow pad of college-ruled paper. Then Doctor Blahza tells me that I am an alcoholic. I am a paranoid depressed alcoholic who finds reassurance in the company of other paranoid depressed alcoholics.
��And Jesus turned the water to wine.
��Doctor Blahza provides each of his many patients with forty-five minute increments of his valuable time. My forty-five minute increment has come and gone.

��Doctor Blahza suggests that I come back and see him again. Doctor Blahza fits me between two ruled lines in his schedule book. Doctor Blahza shakes my hand.
��I am left alone to find my way down the corridor of identical white doors. In this way I am much like a trained white rodent which attempts to avoid an electric shock in search of food. I am to pay the receptionist on the way out.
��I pay the fat receptionist on the way out. She does not look at me. A computer tells her what to do. We all have alcoholic paranoid depressed anxiety-ridden computers for brains. These computers tell us to do the wrong things.
��It’s raining when I go outside. I have the idea that it’s been raining like this for a very long time. That we are tired of the rain, of the jobs, of the bullshit, and the faulty neurochemical computers which sputter and short circuit our lives.
��I drive my car through the rain.
��Other people, some of them around me, drive their cars through the rain and the bullshit and they seem completely oblivious to it all.
��I’m the only one who suffers.




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