n'est pas

It will have him in it, and her, and the other two hims. The setting is somewhere unremarkable, within the city limits, managable. Never straying too far from the issue at hand, exploring subcategories on a superficial level. Politics, being a subcategory for any number of topics, might be brushed aside at any moment. Some people lack class. Some subjects are taboo. Halfway there is meaningless. Three-fourths is stupid. Likes and dislikes will be assigned accordingly. Every word counts. From now on, when people question my ethnicity I will tell them that I'm half sperm, half egg, and billions and billions of cells coexisisting in relative harmony. Yep, that's a definite keeper.
I have a notebook, but no pen. A pen, but no notebook. Oh well. The stock ticker I call a brain moves at breakneck pace, too many ups and downs. Eventually this one will cross again, in two hours or two months.
Midway point- stretching across the floor I was hoping to be mistaken for dead. Then maybe someone would scream and break the monotone vocal buzz. Because that's what people do when they see a dead body. They scream. Nobody was screaming. I was beginning to think maybe this crowd wasn't adequately prepared should this have been a real emergency.
Every single one of his stories seemed familiar. Did anyone else feel that way? Was I just being polite? Should I save him the trouble of reciting the ending?
"Does this count as meditation?"
"It counts as sleeping."
"Well what the hell counts as meditation?"
"I think you have to reach a higher plane or something."
"Higher plane? On this higher plane, is everything pink with sprinkles?"
"You might want to ask someone with actual religious tendencies. Or hippy tendencies."
They could talk and talk and talk and information would stay on this plane, my plane, one dimensional, the line from nerve ending to nerve ending. Seven years old, Sunday school dropout. We were instructed to talk to Jesus. Jesus would then talk back. We as students would then relay information to the class. What the teacher never told me was what Jesus sounded like.
Was Jesus the voice from the breakfast cereal commercial? The one reciting multiplication tables, or a one-hit wonder? Was he one of my characters from the stories I made up, wrote, and destroyed? Was he simply random dialogue? I looked around the room. Everyone else seemed to know exactly what was going on. I panicked.
And made something up. I knew I wasn't crazy. Religion was crazy. Motions, nothing but.
Going through the motions requires no special skills or training.
It has nothing to do with brainwashing.
It is a means to get a full night's sleep, and maybe a nap in the afternoon.
"I need more sleep."
This needs a once-over.