Lullaby

Mona once said that stars are the best part of being alive. On the other side, where people go after they die, they can't see the stars.

You might move away, but that's not enough

Still, she says, it's nice to have one person who knows all your secrets.

The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details.

Up through the floor, someone's barking the words to a song. These people who need their television or stereo or radio playing all the time. These people so scared of silence. These are my neighbors. These sound-oholics. These quiet-ophobics.

The mass media, the culture, everything laying its eggs under my skin. Big Brother filling me with need. Do I really want a big house, a fast car, a thousand beautiful sex partners? Do I really want these things? Or am I trained to want them?

You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.

Think of deep outer space, the incredible cold and quiet. The heaven where silence is reward enough.

Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest

Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion.
Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.
Their car stereo, broadcasting their grief or joy or anger all over the neighborhood.

"I just want you to be happy."

That's easy, I say, just put a "happy" spell on me.

And Helen says, "There's no such spell." She says, "They have drugs for that."

And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

Here with me is Sarge, a baked potato of an old Irish cop.

I need to rebel against myself.

Every generation wants to be the last. Every generation hates the next trend in music they can't understand. We hate to give up those reins of our culture. To find our own music playing in elevators. The ballad for our revolution, turned into background music for a television commercial. To find our generation's clothes and hair suddenly retro.

Each family with a crib death, you want to tell them to take up a hobby. You'd be surprised just how fast you can close the door on your past. No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away. Learn needlepoint. Make a stained-glass lamp.