You don’t have to turn anything off completely, said Catonine, You can just regulate everything on a sliding scale. Please read the legend and act accordingly, it is rolled out flat for your convenience.
Having consulted the faded legend:
On the Left, I shall reduce the logic and critical thinking, said Constance, This should allow people to relax on bean bags, with ancient newspapers and cooling mugs of coffee. They might absorb the history lessons of the twentieth century, lifting up the evidence to compare the silhouette with the outline of our current troubles.
They might take a nap between craft classes, getting prepared to fold paper, string some plastic beads onto a sparkly headdress without feathers or suspicious ethnic content. They might discover the simple pleasure of disarming landmines and upcycling them into industrial design desk lamps, always useful in unpleasant interrogations. They might be happy making glossy glass ornaments that all look like the interface between beach and sea or grass and sky. Which are both horizontally flat.
If I boost the spatial orientation, we will all know where we are. That should give confidence to medium and small businesses, so that they can invest the rolls of readies that they keep at the back of the sock draw. We can all join sports clubs and take part in the Olympic stadia as an experiment, with bubbling tubes and a can of liquid gas, which has gone flat.
I shall have to turn up the aggression regulation to max. It’s no fun dodging rotten fruit on your way to the station or thickening your skin to arm against the sticks and stones that may break out of sequence or knock you flat.
Logic and one thing following another, analysis and what the hell is that made of? Language and tell me about it, critical thinking and I think I know what that means. Spatial orientation and here we go again. Regulating aggression and how hard shall I hit it. If this, then that, which is it? I’ll snatch it from the flames with my oven glove, what was it doing in the flames? Cooking like a barbecued chicken, cut into chunks and skewered, whole or in pieces of eight. I’ll move to the city and buy a flat to decorate.
These pieces of eight, hauled up from the depths streaming water and seaweed, still glinting, unsullied by time or gambling hands. A pulse of gold, entering and leaving. Throw it on the wooden table for drinks all round, stow it on the shelves by the mirror. Keep it in an empty chest, with a curved top and rusty metal reinforced corners, pearl strings escaping, travel labels from a distant story plastered across, depicting some Egyptian palm tree or the coat of arms of a lost European dynasty. I’ll hold them on the flat of my hand so that the horses wont nip at my fingers.
To the left-hand side is a desert with scrubby vegetation, small creatures in burrows listen for approaching vehicles or the vibrations of a marching band, heralding an invasion of root structures. In the shade of small shadows, small motionless lizards wait for directionless ants or unarmed beetles to pass within reach. Can snakes fly? If not, why are you wearing that helmet? I’m not out going and that’s flat.
Why the left-hand side? asked the Interrogator, sounding mean, unrolling a vicious looking set of paint brushes and directing the desk lamp into my eyes. Tell me now and we can all go home. If you remain silent on this issue, I shall paint your portrait and reveal it to the world. Then you’ll be sorry.
Tell me what you left behind, continued the Interrogator, Tell me what is left in the cupboard after the party, tell me why you left me. Why am I always the one who gets left behind when the get away car revs off around the corner of the bank?
It’s nothing personal, said Constance, The way the cards fell, I had to go one way or the other.
Oh, OK. You’re free to go.
The Guardians of the Cave 