In Decline Read online

  You can do this for literally hours on end.

  For Advanced Players only…

  When you become really really experienced at it, you can place a glass-mounted picture frame on the wall, and instead of staring directly at the green light on the wired-in smoke alarm, you can view the reflection in the picture frame glass.

  Please note, this is strictly for very very advanced players, who are well in excess of eighteen years of age.

  Now, by repeating, up-down; up-down; up-down-up… left-right; left-right; left-right-left, motions for several minutes, with both eyeballs, you will find that there are no longer just two half-moons.

  Two new half-moons will now appear directly above your head…

  Some people say that these new half-moons are being projected by your guardian angel…

  Others believe they are now seeing through their third eye…

  Warning…

  Never attempt to perform any of these procedures unsupervised, no matter how old, or experienced you are…

  But always remember to press really, really hard!

  DISCLAIMER… Stanski accepts no responsibility for the horrendous injuries that will most definitely be inflicted on anyone who participates in any of the above procedures.

  When the curtain is drawn down

  On ears that refuse to hear

  And voices that will not speak

  Then eyes that no longer see

  Can no more bear false witness

  To the illusionists lies

  When they do away with words

  The silent minority

  Have cause to celebrate

  Not one syllable stated

  No debate, no argument

  Muted moral victory

  A quiet satisfaction

  An unspoken prophecy

  Fulfilled by unchecked default

  Unwritten suicide note

  Undelivered, unaddressed

  Language’s self-destruction

  Assisted by apathy

  The process begins with speech

  Complacently corrupted

  Silent H’s, G’s and T’s

  Word mispronunciations

  Ignored communications

  Inarticulate voices

  Colloquial expressions

  That nobody understands

  Deaf ears, dismissed instructions

  Render vocals obsolete

  Illegible handwriting

  Transmitted to printed words

  Completes the transformation

  But few will even notice

  Because eyes will be tight shut

  When the sun no longer shines

  And eternal darkness reigns

  Over disillusioned eyes

  Voices will no longer speak

  Because ears don’t want to hear

  That the end is soon to come

  Defiant in denial

  A new beginning beckons

  Human nature steers its course

  In the place of sights and sounds

  Tactile communication

  Expressing thoughts in feelings

  Touching hands and hearts and minds

  Inspiring understanding

  Subconsciously accepted

  By subliminal consent

  All hands are joined together

  All hearts beat in unison

  And all minds become as one

  Future, present, history

  Height, length, width; irrelevant

  Thus condensing time and space

  To a single dimension

  Senses dulled, but sense sharpened

  Witnessing without seeing

  Speaking though never talking

  Listening without hearing

  Ambiguity banished

  Controversy defeated

  The blind are blind no longer

  Mute voices are amplified

  And the deaf, at last, can hear

  Mankind – created equal –

  Recreates equality

  8.What Goes Round

  You wouldn’t have minded so much, would you? If it had just been a case of going into free-fall for a few seconds, hitting the bottom with a thud… and that was it… Game over.

  But it isn’t like that at all, is it?

  And you do mind…

  Of course you mind… because that slippery slope, which is not quite so slippery as it’s always made out to be, can be a very long and uncomfortable journey… a very bumpy ride… depending of course, from where you begin. But let’s not do things by half measures… Let’s start from the top. That way we can see just how long it can take to reach the bottom… And don’t expect to hear a thud when we get there, either… You usually arrive quietly, inconspicuously, in a place where everyone ignores you, no matter how much noise you try to make. In fact, the more noise you do try to make, the more they ignore you. They’ve heard it all before, you see… all of it… And they don’t particularly like the sound of it… and they don’t particularly want to hear it again… any of it…

  I sussed you out man

  From the moment I laid eyes

  You made it easy

  I seen you coming

  In the corner of my eye

  I got your number

  Ain’t got no reason

  For the things you wanna do

  You got a problem

  You gotta learn man

  To accept the way you are

  And take it easy

  Just how many times

  Do I have to tell you why

  How many times man

  Tell me so I know

  And we’ll try to go down slow

  Like in the movies

  Gotta get along

  Tell me which way turns you on

  We’ll do it all man

  What more could you want

  From your fickle style of life

  What do you need man

  Don’t take my word man

  It’s a racing certainty

  It’s safe as houses

  I’ll catch ya later

  When the mood suits me just fine

  Know what I mean man

  You take it easy

  And remember who you are

  I’ll teach you how man

  You make it easy

  I can see it in your eyes

  I sussed you out man

  And don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re a special case… or that there’s anything unique about your particular situation… You’re not… and there isn’t… It’s as simple as that… Or is it…?

  Voices in your head

  Speak foreign languages

  Meanings lost in translation

  For reasons you don’t understand

  Impulsive urges

  Trigger wild reactions

  Play havoc with your senses

  For reasons beyond your control

  Extreme perversions

  Erotic; immoral

  Pleasurable sensations

  For reasons you won’t go into

  Arrogant gestures

  Cynical responses

  Inconsiderate actions

  For no particular reason

  Erratic mood-swings

  Illogical questions

  Unpredictable replies

  For reasons that never make sense

  Distorted focus

  Blurred edged images

  Lapses of concentration

  For reasons that remain unclear

  Incomplete concepts

  Confusing ideas

  Lacking continuity

  For reasons you cannot explain

  No recollection

  Misshapen reminders

  Irretrievable knowledge

  For reasons you can’t remember

 

  False accusations

  Fictional evidence

  Spurious allegations

  For reasons no one will admit

  Records deleted

 
Identities altered

  Anonymity preserved

  For reasons that do not exist

  Guesswork conclusions

  Disorganised chaos

  Inaccurate estimates

  For reasons that have no basis

  Download aborted

  Insufficient data

  Unavailable signal

  For reasons that will not compute

  They say ‘what goes up must come down… Aren’t they clever…? Well, no actually, they’re not…not that clever anyway. They’re just repeating a statement which describes one of the laws of Physics… But that still doesn’t make them clever, does it…? Smart-arsed; yes… Clever; no… not necessarily, anyway… The thing is, they just don’t care… and why should they, anyway? It’s just not their problem, is it?

  So, instead of spending your time feeling sorry for yourself… and let’s face it, you’ve got loads of time on your hands now, haven’t you? And not just on your hands, either… In fact, you’re covered in it, aren’t you? Furthermore, you’ve got so much of it, you may even think you’ve got time to spare… time to give away… time to take away... time to dispose of… time to waste… time to burn…

  But you haven’t…

  So…

  Getting back to the point…

  Instead of just spending your time feeling sorry for yourself, get your lazy arse into gear and do something constructive… And make as much noise about it as you want, because, although everyone will still appear to be ignoring you, they’ll still only put up with so much, won’t they? And after a while, they’ll have no choice but to listen… or at least, hear… and find out what all the fuss is about…

  And this is what marks your first victory… your first step on the road to recovery…

  You got a reaction… and don’t worry about whether that reaction is positive, or negative… a reaction after all, is a reaction, and that, sure as hell, has to be better than spending your life looking at faces which display only a continuous expression of indifference…

  The next step, of course, can be even more difficult, but, as they say, you’ve started, so you’ll finish… And you can show them that what goes down can get back up…

  I

  See

  A light

  At the end

  Of the tunnel?

  A distant promise

  Beyond the horizon

  Beckoning us tauntingly

  All efforts to reach it thwarted

  Remaining constantly elusive

  Such is the nature of our destiny

  ###

  About The Author

  Stanski is the kind of guy who doesn’t do things by half measures.

  For example, he’s the guy who went to Thailand in 1999, to see in the New Millennium.

  He enjoyed it there so much that he decided to stay on for a while.

  He didn’t return to the UK until October…

  October 2010…!

  Stanski began writing in earnest in 2005 while recovering from a motorcycle accident, in the northern city of Chiangmai, in which he sustained serious head injuries.

  Find Stanski on Facebook

  https://www.facebook.com/stan.ski.9

  Examples of verse by Stanski can be found on his Blog, ‘Elephant Small’

  Crawling Distance