Life in a Thrashing Machine | Page 6

a time that seemed infinite but which was, in
reality, no more than just a few seconds. Vlad was finally beginning to
feel a little serene and stable, and he palmed Henry's hand, still on his
shoulder.
"Thanks, for letting me chew on your ear, Henry. I'm so glad that I
have someone understanding, like you, that I can talk to, without
feeling embarrassed or ashamed." Vlad gave Henry a praise that
pleased him greatly.
"That's what I am here for, buddy. Don't ever be afraid to talk with me
about anything, on your mind. I remember that I chewed Karl Sanders'
ear, many-a-time, back in my younger days."
Vlad stood up from the bench, slapped a dollar on the counter top and
looked Henry right in the eye.
"Don't you agree?" Henry asked his friend.
Henry nodded as he took the dollar and punched up a sale, on the
computerised cash register and then fingered Vlad's change out of the
coinage compartment.
Vlad was ready to leave for home but when he was handed the change
he stopped Henry from giving it to him.
"Hang-on to that for me, will you, Henry? That's so I can make sure

that I'll have some money, on hand, when I come back here the next
time."
"See you later, eh." Vlad said goodbye and Henry echoed him with his
so long, as he watched him rise-up on the escalator, and out of sight.
Vlad still heard that infernal polka music coming over the public
address.
He couldn't understand how anyone could listen to that wretched music
all day. He even felt fortunate, he wasn't working in this mall. That
music would eventually drive him crazy. The least that the mall could
do, he thought, was play Strauss, if they truly wanted to have polka
music. Yet, for some strange and inexplicable reason, everybody turned
into a German, for about two weeks, every October and that was
regardless if they were German.
Vlad disliked prejudice and moreso the bias side of it. He detested the
thought that someone was automatically better than another person just
because of the virtue of his heritage, religion, sex or of petty and picky
details like hair and eye colour. He remembered watching some people
on television giving their opinions about a line-up of men; of different
sizes, shapes and colours. These people were asked to choose two of
the men that they thought were genii.
The program was a psychology show, and in that particular segment,
the line-up of seven men contained the two genii. Twenty pickers,
mostly made up of women, formed the panel that was to point-out these
two men.
The men were tall, short, fat, skinny; some were bald, while some were
hippie-like, and a few of them were most like perfect masculine
specimens. Most of the women chose the man that was tall, blond and
blue-eyed, and looked as if he were raised on a beach by a converted
bluestocking.
The rest all pretty-well agreed that the short, chubby man, with the
spectacles and the receding hairline was the other genius.

The results were obviously different, so Vlad remembered. The two
genii were, in fact, a couple of men that weren't even chosen. They
were unremarkable in their appearance. One was an ectomorphic,
middle-aged man of average height, with a red afro. The other was a
slim young man with shoulder-length dark hair, piercing dark eyes and
bad posture.
Those two that were chosen, however, both had the lowest intelligence
within the group.
The blond hunk was a night-club bouncer with a vocabulary that was,
more than not, made up of only four words: "what", "yah", "really", and
on many occasions . . . "fuck" that was used in the form of a
conjunction, while he spoke.
Respectively, the short chubby guy was a postal worker, which for
some reason didn't necessitate further explanation.
This world was strange. Vlad knew that but he never really wanted to
admit it to himself. He had realised, very early in his life, that it wasn't
enough for an individual to try to make it on brains and ability. There
were only a few people, scattered throughout the world, that refused to
judge a person just on his, or her, appearance.
Vlad learned long ago that life was unfair to those who refused to live it
without deceit. Generally, being a good man in a world that praised the
opposite-those ruthless and stern-he felt as if he were a cancer virus
that was being consumed by the monger-like people of the world,
serving as the antibodies against his presence. Outside, the weather
didn't change very much since the time that he came into the mall.
Sometimes, during this time of year, the weather changed very quickly.
He had hoped