why bother with defeatism

its a failure

so lets just quit while we're ahead.

____________________________________________________________________

I bought a new camera the other day

said to be fool proof

the buttons were bigger

and the box claimed

"Its so simple a blindman could do it"

but what about a test for blind people

thats in braille

I can see

and I cant read braille

so how is a blindman's capacity

of doing something

a measure of simplicity

that can possibly translate

to the world that can see?

____________________________________________________________________

Oliver Twist

Redone for 2009: A new age

They were eating cheap cafeteria food that day. Oliver, having finished his tray, went to the administrator and asked;

"Please sir, can I have some more?"

The administrator smiled, nodded, and replied;

"Yes Oliver, you may have some more."

Oliver throughly enjoyed his second tray. So, he went to the administrator a second time, and said;

"Sir, may I please have some more?"

"Yes, you may, Oliver!"

"This time, can I be supersized!?!" Oliver said, slobbering, his tongue wagging.

"Of course!!" The administrator said, jovially.

This went on, three or four times a day, for several months. The "food", being low quality, highly processed, and full of animal fats was terribly unhealthy. Over these few months, Oliver gained some weight. He went from being a respectable size for his age, 5' 10", 15 years old, and 165 pounds, to being a mammoth, 5' 11", 235 pound jiggler. He had acquired a doctors' note so he could skip gym classes to simply watch (and not participate in) various exercise videos. And that month, there were some problems.

Oliver lived in a quaint, exorbitantly rich small town, at the base of a mountain in the Rockies. He had several iPods, iPhones, and multiple MacBooks. The power supply for that county relied solely on a transformer, 200 miles north, from a small Wyoming river.

It was February. Avalanche season. 12:36AM, and Oliver was digging into his first plate of some hamburger. Just as he went up for seconds, the television flashed with news. There had been a massive avalanche, knocking out the county's transformer, and blocking off all roads to the town for at least a week and a half. The building was in panic, and they sent everyone home. Oliver left, just as he finished his third plate of rigatoni.

His parents, being wealthy and shortsighted, had little food in the house. They frequently ate out. So, without food, Oliver was forced to gather food by any means necessary. He went outside, a place he chose not to frequent, and walked the town to find some food.

Within hours, Oliver was forced into bedrest by his body. He was shutting down. He had found nothing but a single bowl of steamed tofu and rice, given to him by his generous asian neighbors. He went home and went to sleep.

The next day, unable to walk the town and scour for food, Oliver sat in bed. His iPhone, which only held a 4 hour charge, was dead. His entire house was powerless. His parents were busy elsewhere. So Oliver simply sat in the dark. Alone, friendless, and morbidly obese, he suddenly wished that he hadn't "Had some more" so frequently in his past few months. Suddenly concerned by his weight, and motivated by his hunger, he mustered up the strength to get out of bed, take his shirt off, and analyze his body in the mirror.

"Oh... my... god" he said, his voice low and mortified.

He preferred baths, because he didn't like to stand for so long in the shower. Unable to see his body in the water, and when standing up, physically restricted by his fat, he was also unable to look down.

His figure was disgusting. Veins popped out all around. Stretch marks, some as wide as a full inch, and as long as twenty inches, coated his body like grotesque red snakes. He began lifting up his rolls, only to find pure white, tender skin, grease, and stench that only oven cleaner could have combated successfully.

He simply collapsed.

His higher-ups had overfed him.

His lack of will and self-control had destroyed him.

He suddenly realized that we as humans get but a single body, and that his was, at best, nothing but a fleshy barrel of vegetable oil.

For the next ten years, he had been so concerned with his weight and outer appearance, that he didnt even have time to spend getting friends. Oliver was, at this point, emaciated. He had starved himself, worked himself, until he was flab draped over muscle-less bones. He was a wreck, self-hating, loathing of his past, his present, and his future.

All of this could have been prevented by a single word.

No.

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