Cogs
You probably don’t even realize how fragile it all really is. Most people don’t. Most people will cruise right on through their lives, blissfully unaware of the little variables, the endless sea of cogs, all which could cripple them at any moment. It’s as if every day, people just go through a series of trust falls, not stopping for an instant to consider who catches them. It’s amusing. People place all of their plans, hopes, and dreams in the hope that everything goes according to plan. That every cog turns exactly as intended. All it takes is just one to stop turning.
You ever use an instant coffee machine? Would it really be that hard for some anonymous worker in some far away factory to sneak a little rat poison into your K-Cup? If he really wanted to, what more would it take? Could you stop him? It hasn’t happened to you. Not yet. because the cogs have kept turning obediently. One cog stops, and you’d never even know it. Until it’s too late.
I used to know a guy who loved to take his family camping on weekends. He had a great life. He was very lucky. Until that luck ran out. The bug spray he packed for one particular trip was laced with something...rather nasty. Police never found out who did it. I remember how strange it felt to me at the time- that someone in so much control of his life could be destroyed by something so random. It was as if the hand of fate itself reached out from the ether to strike him down.
Only now do you begin to grasp just how fragile it all really is. Now your mind is working. What are the cogs in my life? Like so many others, your mind will race to concoct strategies to avoid them. To outsmart them. But you cannot. You will always fail. There is no reality where you are outside the mercy of the cogs around you. The fact that you dodge a deadly K-Cup does not mean that you are safe. It only makes you less likely to notice the puddle of brake fluid under your car, or a loose screw in a precarious place.
You want to know what I enjoyed even more than that man’s pain? The anonymity. It makes things difficult for the police. Being a nameless cog is quite fun. I would be lying if I told you I didn’t find satisfaction in it. I can place myself in just the right spot, and the dominoes fall exactly how I want. The bodies fall soon after. You’d be surprised how many there are like me. Little gears that like to stop turning at the wrong time. We drive your train. We design cell phones. We are construction workers. We handle needle shipments to your doctor. We are bus drivers, we are janitors.
And we are waiting for the right moment.
You ever use an instant coffee machine? Would it really be that hard for some anonymous worker in some far away factory to sneak a little rat poison into your K-Cup? If he really wanted to, what more would it take? Could you stop him? It hasn’t happened to you. Not yet. because the cogs have kept turning obediently. One cog stops, and you’d never even know it. Until it’s too late.
I used to know a guy who loved to take his family camping on weekends. He had a great life. He was very lucky. Until that luck ran out. The bug spray he packed for one particular trip was laced with something...rather nasty. Police never found out who did it. I remember how strange it felt to me at the time- that someone in so much control of his life could be destroyed by something so random. It was as if the hand of fate itself reached out from the ether to strike him down.
Only now do you begin to grasp just how fragile it all really is. Now your mind is working. What are the cogs in my life? Like so many others, your mind will race to concoct strategies to avoid them. To outsmart them. But you cannot. You will always fail. There is no reality where you are outside the mercy of the cogs around you. The fact that you dodge a deadly K-Cup does not mean that you are safe. It only makes you less likely to notice the puddle of brake fluid under your car, or a loose screw in a precarious place.
You want to know what I enjoyed even more than that man’s pain? The anonymity. It makes things difficult for the police. Being a nameless cog is quite fun. I would be lying if I told you I didn’t find satisfaction in it. I can place myself in just the right spot, and the dominoes fall exactly how I want. The bodies fall soon after. You’d be surprised how many there are like me. Little gears that like to stop turning at the wrong time. We drive your train. We design cell phones. We are construction workers. We handle needle shipments to your doctor. We are bus drivers, we are janitors.
And we are waiting for the right moment.