The Elder Goth - Silent Appreciation

You're in darkness. Fallen down that hole again. It's cold and you're miserable. The world above and around you is noise, dull sound and motion in your background. It's there like you're here, indifferent. Reaching out from the dark spaces your sadness and anxiety push you, cold clammy hands and flat shoves. Your mind doesn't want to speak, your tongue feels thicker than your lower jaw like the dismal tree roots almost wedged into then outgrown the cracks they grew through. You know the roots aren't out, beyond your in the dark. The edges thereof, wherever they are out there, running smooth and clear they'd offer no outlet. ‘you’re in here again,’ the voice within mumbles, ‘you dug the hole again, fell in didn't you?’

You ignore the taunting, you don't care. You ignore it like the damp patch under your foot. To scratch either would offer a chance to escape but would drown you as the space around you filled. Instead you listen, concentrating until you hear it. Soft comforting sounds, distraction, nostalgia. You lose them as soon as you hear them, fleeting torture. All you can do is wait, the moving pictures of your conscious world continue to play, another day ending in a Y. You wish to abandon the world in its current form, run across infinite open spaces screaming the loudest your lungs are capable of, running until collapse. You want to climb into your warm place of happiness and stay there reminiscing, shielded from the ugly.

Then.

I saw another goth, a baby bat or spooky kid. In spite of my depression session, this is my tribe and despite my normal attire I feel more positive. It wasn't encountering the baby bat or spooky kid, it was where the encounter occurred, the checkout counter at Spar. No judgment, no criticism, no bullshit, just another Monday afternoon. Absolute confidence of a baby bat or spooky kid, I nodded in acknowledgement, as an elder goth, aise the freak flag, express your normal because when you know, you know. Let the next generation stand on the shoulders of giants, society is more tolerant so spread your bat wings youngling and fly 💀🤘🏻

Brace for Impact - 04

Consistency, routine, minimal disruption brought on by change.Somewhere in the universe a drill sergeant is shouting these words at cadets face down in a set of push-ups while either cold rain whips across their back and shoulders or the hot sun beats down on the neck and head. This is basic training for Autism. These core phrases will repeat in your mind for the rest of your life. 

I'd like to clear something up for the normies out there. Shouting and explicit language in the world of Autism isn't hostility, it can be when pushed to the extreme but mostly it's manageable. I've learn to accept life in equal balance because of this, my nine year old autistic son uses ‘fuck you’ in equal expression to ‘good morning’ depending on where we are in his universe. I can assure you that reacting to this in your default passive aggressive attitude will not work. If Autism wants to fight you it's a straight up cock punch and you are doubled over on the ground. While I don't have the calm in the moment, my shouting has declined from hostility to the sharp attention grabbing bark any drill sergeant would snap at a cadet to snap their focus back. Put all the crap aside, animosity counts for shit. What matters are the meaningful moments. That fist bump thank you for the pie received to apologize for running late for the school bus pick up. The collection of Halloween ornaments stacked out on the dining room table is a few minutes of family bonding away from the influencer garbage on YouTube. The battles are worth it sometimes. Let the freak flag that manifests itself as being a buckethead, wearing a literal bucket on your head gets the smartphone zombies to notice.

Homesteading - 04

You have been fined one credit for violation of the verbal morality act. So it began one Thursday in my work away from my homestead secular job when someone, let's call them J. Doe, decided to protest my use of potty mouth in the form of a formal grievance. I'll spare you the details because I don't care for such nonsense and don't feel like giving J. Doe anymore attention than they are trying to attract.The outcome was I did wrong, I apologized for my rude words and agreed never to do it again, and that was the end of the matter. J. Doe was expecting a personal apology, a heartfelt lamenting soliloquy where I confess to my evil ways and beg for their forgiveness. Well no that wasn't going to happen because I did no personal wrong to them. I offered my appologies for my actions, they neither accepted nor refused it but that's their personal proclivity. Everyone in agreement, issued resolved, we move on. I'm doubtful this is the end of the matter. In my experience learning from the outcome of our mistakes or indiscretions to not repeat them again is being mature and responsible. I hold no grudge against anyone ( J. Doe includiled) in the aftermath of such conflict. I prefer to distance myself from such folk who harbour an all consuming obsession to have their moment of immature gratification. No apologies, no explanations, no excuses, not now, not ever. A sign of stunted personal growth. The stress of formal employment triggered my emotional instability, now balanced by pills I deal with the full time secular silliness for the Corporate circus. There are times of more month than money on the homestead. You've spun the roulette wheel and keep hitting on that's life, shit happens, ‘rainy days, taco Tuesdays. The universe is not conspiring against you whatever the shit storm, shit show, shit carnival or shit Cabernet you're in. Our homestead has reached a stall. It's autumn and things need mending from now until spring. The unseasonably heavy rains have hampered and helped. Dams are full and flooding. The slow winter chill is delayed by the wet weather. It's a miserable atmosphere but we're lucky here on the homestead. As luck runs I'm positive and optimistic, I'm not Lady Luck on my side lucky, I'm pure dumb luck kind of Lucky. Like in them old times, we do the old ways, them ways work because we work at it and we work at it hard. My wife, driving the homestead so we can become debt free, turns out you're not going to accomplish that on a single income household and fortunately she  has returned to formal employment in the madness of the current times in South Africa. Shit happens to which my response is the lyrics of Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit. The agricultural landscape is being overwhelmed by the political circus parade. Idiotic political shenanigans have angered the ancestors, everyone's ancestors, and ancestors in Africa is a powerful superstition everyone is afraid of. Ancesters angered by the worthless ways of their millennial descendants have sent forth punishment in the form of plagues. Flooding the mighty Vaal River, runaway fires across the mountains in Cape Town. Massive failure in farming operations leading to the culling of hundreds of thousands of commercial poultry. It's not an easy life in South Africa, spend a few minutes on X following the adventures of our Afrikaaner refugees in America. I wish them well with their future endeavors. 

But about these angered ancestors. Some say they speak to you in your dreams to reveal visions of things to come. Some say if things get bad enough the ancestors will summon the vengeful spirit of the African Bush Tiger. A beast ferocious like ten thousand lions on a hunt, stealth like wind moving between the hairs of a leopard's fur in the silent darkness. Its ginger camouflage hides it perfectly in the savanna and bushveld. It hunt without getting tired, tracking and stalking prey without pause for rest. You will know your end by staring into the black of its eyes moments before your death. The African Bush Tiger is coming, I have seen it foretold in my dreams.

The first time I encountered the African Bush Tiger was near the source of the Umtumpoopoo River. Its foul odour waters flows lightly off and adjacent to the Blesbokspruit in Springs, near the N17 motorway toward Secunda. This recently discovered waterway of untreated liquefied human excrement first angered our ancestors, those belonging to the Umtumpoopoo tribe naturalized to the Eastern Highveld back in the late teen years of South African history. This anger was brought about by the people of Ekurheleni.