//------------------------------// // Guest Story: Clean Hands, Clean Heart // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe // by Chatoyance //------------------------------// ══════════════════════════ T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U : ══════════════════════════ Brand New Universe Special Guest Story By PeachClover Clean Hands, Clean Heart Sometimes what I want and what I don’t want are like two behemoth children trying to rip me in half like a teddy bear they are fighting over – or maybe really it’s what I want and… what I want are two opposites fighting over my sanity. For example, I really wanted stuffed crust pizza today, and I also wanted to stay in bed and far far away from the hellish outside world, and I don’t just mean because even the late summers are hellishly hot here. Sigh. But the more pressing need won out, so here I am. I get out of the car and squeeze a glob from the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer on my hands before pushing the door open. I know it looks backwards but within just a moment, I’m reaching into the wallet and pulling out cash, just as dirty as the door. Yes, cash, I can see the judgmental twitch the overworked and underpaid cashier’s eyes for having to count today. I try not to look at people really, but she was so much shorter than me, exactly where could I avert my gaze? I try not to think about how much I sympathize with her. It’s not fair; jobs should be interesting, fun, and fulfilling. I don’t want to be a burden to her day, but what am I supposed to do? Start talking to her? Cheer her up? That probably just stress her out more for making her be present in the world from which she is desperately trying to remain disconnected. I feel that tickle in my heart of a hopeless situation and know that I’ve got to stop thinking about it – just focus on acting normal. Then again is Cici’s pizza buffet really normal? Normally, it’s the poor-family’s Chuck E. Cheese, screaming children almost always guaranteed, but I planned this trip perfectly at the slowest time of the day, which is of course, how I plan for everything lately. I set my tray down after shoveling pizza onto my plate, and glob my hands again after touching so many filthy pie servers only to reach out and pick over equally filthy cheese and red pepper shakers doing my best to telegraph my intention to find one that doesn’t require a roto-router before its contents will shake out. I really don’t want anyone asking what I’m doing which is just a less apologetic way of blaming me for holding up the line. I fill my drink and plop down at the table in the back. It doesn’t matter which way I look, there is a TV desperate for my attention, and of course, because the patrons aren’t screaming children, every one of the TVs are tuned to The News. Do they think that makes people leave faster? I really do try to pay attention to just my food, but I can’t because the mesmerizing epileptic seizure inducing flashes of cop cars are on the screen drawing my attention to yet another arrest. The years of anime has my eyes trained to read the words flying across the screen telling the story of a car wreck victim being arrested after freaking out and making threatening gestures toward a police officer after discovering the other driver did not have insurance, which of course, to anyone who actually drives meant that his insurance would make him pay for the damages by drastically increasing his rate because even though there was a police report being made, right there on the scene proving that he was the victim, the insurance companies want their money, so they’ll take it from who ever has it. Gods! This is a messed up world! Someone hurts you and because you can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt anymore, you get arrested. Did the man actually threaten the cop? Not flippin’ likely, more likely is that the cop wanted a fight and intimidated him. Sigh, it makes me sick. Can’t they see where it all comes from? Everyone stressing everyone else out and forcing a fight over everything or nothing, anything to alleviate the pain – like children told not to cry so they just get angry. I pulled my head down quickly and choked on a sob. Not here, please not here, not yet, I promise myself I’ll cry when I get home, just not now. I get up and go to the bathroom to help keep me from doing what I can’t in public – take that how you will. I do my business and wonder, not for the first time, why TV doesn’t focus on trying to make people happy, like Saturday Morning cartoons, back when there was such a thing. I always feel like I’m the only one left in the universe who knows what The Get Along Gang was, but the title is a big fat hint to what it stood for. I wash and dry my hands before squeezing another glob from the dispenser in my pocket before pulling the door open. Air driers might be more eco friendly, but they don’t do much for protecting against door knobs. You know, kids these days have My Little Pony where my generation had The Get Along Gang and Care Bears, and sadly most of the meaning was lost after the first season, but they have to be getting something out of the Friendship is Magic part right? The News is still on the same story so I get some dessert – today’s flavors are sadness and malcontent. Sigh, Gods I miss that show, back when it was good and focused on caring for others, caring about others, just letting one’s self actually feel. For one year, I felt like a kid again, open hearted, honest, and smiling because life was worth living again. I blink away the hint of happy tears, and turn my head when I notice someone looking in my direction. Then I see the broom closet that this location has turned into an arcade. I wipe the crumbs from my hands with a napkin and use another glob from my hand sanitizer noticing that the bottle is almost empty. Seriously, if I could get away with using an industrial jug I would, but it’s important to look normal, or so they say. I make my way into the broom closet arcade giggling quietly as I imagine Freddy Frazzbear getting stuck trying to pop out from between the motorcycle simulator and the Fast and Furious arcade that were Tetrised in here. One by one, I take the controls of each of the three claw games into my hands hoping to find something worth going after as I peer into the case, but sadly nothing. I do the same with the motorcycle game before I feel a shudder up my spine like someone has spotted me, a fully grown adult, about to hop on this thing and play like a care free kid. I can almost hear someone thinking the word man-child, and to my shame, I quickly sit down at the Fast and Furious arcade instead. I don’t really want to play, but I know that it will keep the eyes off of me for a while. Every little thing in society promotes acts of selfishness and hurting others. Even racing games where the player can only win by cutting people off and getting in front of them to keep them from getting ahead, just to be rewarded with a simple You Won at the end of the game, as if those two words magically make it better to hold others back. I play the game like it’s meant to be played and manage not to hate myself for doing so, but then I remembered that news story from just a few minutes ago because well, it involved a car. I get up and glob my hands again after they have gotten a little sweaty from the unwashed wheel of the more modern arcade. The last game in the room is Joust, one of my favorites, and the one I actually wanted to play. I drop a quarter into the machine and start playing. I know that Joust is as violent as any other game, but there is something about the silliness of Jousting on the backs of birds and the noble imagery of a Knight that touches upon that place inside that yearns for a world that makes sense, that follows a code of chivalry not because it makes your life better, but because it makes everyone’s lives better. Sigh, I’m reminded of a line from the movie about the old man knight Don Quixote where he talks about fighting the unbeatable foe. I’ve always believed that that foe is ourselves – fighting our own fear and greed, fighting our pride and laziness, fighting the animal instinct that makes us foolishly believe that if we take from others it will somehow make our own lives better – all the things that if everyone did, there would be no cops wanting to pick fights like school yard bullies, there would be no good people needing to yell and scream because they never catch a break. Sigh, is it any wonder all those cartoons never used humans to try to teach such morals? Humans don’t make good role models. I lose my last bird/knight and start walking out of the building. I see the spot where I was sitting has already been bussed and is now occupied by a couple. I cover my hands in the last drops from the bottle and happen to look up at the TV where another The News story is going on about a man being arrested at a bank for taking hostages until his demands to change the law were met. Thankfully an employee walked over and changed the channel shortly after. The saddest part is, I understand his desperation though – the burning desire for the world to change now, but when has hate ever created something truly good? Threatening others, be it laws or bullying, never helps anyone to fight their own enemy within. The big changes come doing things a little at a time with constant effort. Sadly, that’s only if you can get people to help themselves realize that all that stuff that tells them that hurting others will help themselves is a lie – it feels so much better to help one another, to not have to fear ridicule, to smile when you feel like smiling, and cry when you feel like crying. I was never able to get others to understand that with my words or actions. I’m jolted a bit from the hissing of air breaks as a school bus parks, the doors opening to a line of young children and their parents. This is a local tradition that the day before the first day of school young children riding the bus for the first time, ride with their parents like a field trip out to some nice place. It used to be Showbiz Pizza, back in my day, but again, poorer times, economic decline, that sort of thing, so the plebeian masses get plebeian pizza… I… sometimes cry over how many people have been hurt because I wasn’t strong enough to help them act better. It’s why I never had any children: I didn’t want them to suffer like I did, and I always believed they would, because what could change the human condition? I get in my car and crank it, wiping away a tear, before starting to back out. I read once that mothers feel so happy knowing that they can share the joy of life by giving life to their children, but then at some point, they feel deep sorrow knowing that by giving their children life, they have also opened the doors to allow them to feel all the pain that comes in life. That’s what I’m feeling now, even though logically I know I shouldn’t beat myself up about all of this... Sigh, well, now I have to go home, let myself cry about all the pains in the world, and scrape another PNY-1 culture into this tiny bottle.