Thunder Thursdays
{"Hunger makes a thief of any man" - Pearl S. Buck... This is an entry for @jayna's contest here with my two hundred fifty word tasker, hundred word tasker and fifty word tasker.... No music-aides for today.}
- Petty prices -
"Two-hundred-fifty! Does it look like imma fat cat?"
"Monsieur, we cannot sustain ourselves-"
"Well I just don't care! I'm hungry, I starved myself to get a good wage and you're askin' me to blow a good chunk of it?"
"Well that's for my manager to price so our salaries-."
"Fine, give me your manager and I shall fix it straight in his head."
"Her-"
"Just bring her!"
"No, no; I heard it all the way from my office and I was ready to have my hands on you."
"Hands on me!-"
"Yes, in fact I am allowed to do that for the emotional pains you inflicted alone to the actual bustin' and hustlin' folks here, monsieur. If I drop my workers' wages, this restaurant's gone; not including that they starve on the streets even if the restaurant stands. But you don't care for them and you proudly slap that label of being a worker as well like it's a badge; well tear that off you lard of crap, because you have no respect to even give to one of my kindest workers. And if you so feel inclined to not call me a spoiled b- kid, your attitude is very much spoiled and entitled in these trying times. Hell, your clothing is rather exquisite and refined for a person that calls himself a worker. You're more like a labour aristocrat, must be working your ærs off really good. Now please, pay up and don't come back - ever. Good day!"
- Hundred days -
A beep proudly rings about the air, glasses concentrated on the screen as the paper grunts with the pen scratching ink on its surface. Lips pressed against a mic, a button clicks under the pressure of the pointer finger:
"Hundred days."
A stomach roaring after the pointer finger unpressed the button, the belly echoed the slapping squeeze. A chair squeaking against the concrete, the legs tried but soon collapsed - the body following suit. A janitor's mop wouldn't touch the red-stained floors nor a medic's needle to sow up the gushing fountain. A stomach's roar once again emitted - an obscenity.
- Number fifty -
Well, good diary of mine, lot "Number fifty" got opened and already my ragged corpse has to explore this. Thankfully Ayaru and Corneliusa is with me, dunno how the hell I manage it alone - not because of people, just. Sorry, got to cut this short; stomach's mumbling for food.
Two things: I had gotten back from my visit from Sante Fe, New México, during which I was exploring some areas for future prospects and starting a new life in the desert that has snow (only @bananafish people will understand the full story~) and getting back to the groove of writing and no more feeling the mental procrastination monkey steering my ship (my body's mind) to do something else other than what I want to do.
It's interesting how that monkey just manages to steal one's attention in the right moments and just sick you from doing things you may like to do or just make you amazingly inept to do anything. It isn't a thing of choice, just like how involuntary muscles move on their own; it's a very much neuro-biological thing that has a multi-influencing act with socio-economic pressures and mental stabilities at any one time. I really couldn't touch a thing despite posting the stories I did, just "felt energy-less" when I wanted to do a particular task (my writings) but then felt immense energy doing anything that wasn't that but "fun" and "dopamine-inducing" to my mind.
It truly is a phenomenon that I think had less insidious forms from previous ages, but now takes on a more powerful form (at least according to documented records) than it has ever before. Especially with having more tech (and useless technology) all around us, it starves us of energy we could be wasting elsewhere when we can be wasting energy on what we want, can or need to do. But with some many incentives placed elsewhere, or influences that pushes us back from what we want or need to do or the combination and play-offs of both, it truly is hard to say to people and atomize them. It very much has a certain "reality-affecting" effect on us that can't be ignored as the price of contemporary times, it very wasn't a few decades ago despite their sheer boredom as can be noted with a good chunk of documented people.
Yet what sets off the less developed procrastination influences (or byproducts of a long history of socio-economic results) to nowadays is the fact we live in an age where ignorance SHOULD BE A CHOICE and not something that was contingently resulted with a lack of means to access information in the fingertips of our hands. But we still have yet, despite now feeling the effects of ignorance being a choice, to reach where we can say that; however, we have many, many, outlets for people to destress or relieve themselves which then gets overused as procrastination sites for our procrastination monkeys. And that wouldn't be a problem if they were used for helping out people accomplish something or along with being good destressors were also good mediums for education. So that the "fun" activity was equally a good time to learn and not feel stressed out that one's education was a commodified experience nor a thing was expected to know for a test and to prove oneself to others. Since that is for themselves to have and perhaps share with others if they felt courteous to share it. At least then the procrastination monkey can be used for a net contingent positive instead of a net neutral or negative outcome for a person.
But that's my #opinion and the end of my end blurb, this might be the return of #opinions and philosophy talk again as well.
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ooo this is another good one, with a strong under current. Really making me wish i was brave enough to enter myself lol
1 Petty Prices
this works so well as a window opened to a moment that equally tells a much wider story. A story of a moment of confrontation, a manager standing up to a difficult customer and coming to the defense of a member of staff getting unreasonable abuse. Equally a story of the rising cost of living, and the struggle of wages to keep up to that, the entitlement of those who think they are worth more, for their position. There is a hint in this line
of everytones struggle. This person may be better off, better dressed, able to eat out at a restaurant, but still they struggle to make ends meet, and find the bill hard to foot, despite still being hungry after their meal, suggesting that they didn't order as much as they'd have liked for fear of the cost. Also ties in well to the strong reaction to the price. Everyone is feeling the financial pressure and struggling to get enough to eat, its visible in every character here. A story that could be a window into real life in many parts of the world right now.
2 Hundred Days
Now this one i am less certain of, is it a hunger strike having lasted 100 days? That was what made most sense to me in it, but then something about it also kind feels like a hospital, or a facility with the janitor/medic.
3 Number Fifty
An intriguing diary entry, the cling to life in hunger comes across very well. Now if these tie together, is this the finding of the people from 2?
UwU ~ Thanks for reading and thanks for the compliments!
The first entry is definitely playing into the intra-class conflicts of the same class (working class) and the power a single wad of cash has on intensifying class interests and how one lives. But equally in this duochromatic (imagine tug of war) dialectic, people are often bound by and enslaved by their wages and can only live on such as their means of subsistence to the point that they often can get blinded of the true enemy of their class interests and think the enemy is one of their own. Regardless, times of inflation and limiting wages along with the rise of NeoLiberalism very much influenced this first one.
If I had 150 more words I was going to include a military bit and the area the radio-comms person was talking at have mentions of people stampeding around. But I chose to focus on the hunger of the operator and I very much want to hint at a food problem. For which the hunger strike can make sense (and I probably was writing towards this end) since hunger strikes can happen in any area (but often makes more sense for workers who barely can afford their means of subsistence).
Yay, I did a good diary entry! ~^^~ It possibly can, but I won't deny it.
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Intriguing stories, as always, @theironfelix! Glad you're working through the proverbial writer's block!
I love this line:
That's exactly what it feels like when motivation seems to evaporate -- like a monkey is in control.
UwU ~ Thanks for reading and thanks for the compliments!
It's so true for people that have their energy zapped away!~