Existential Rachel at the Art Show

"My God Rachel, whatever is wrong with you?" I asked, concerned.

"What?"

"You're grimacing right now."

"It's not a grimace, David," she replied, eerily calm.

"It most certainly was. Here, I'll show you," I insisted, as I began
fumbling with my digital camera.

Rachel extended her arm, gently placing two fingers to my lips,
bringing me to a dead halt.

"David, I know I wasn't grimacing," she continued, in the same eerily
calm voice as before "I just had an epiphany. I've just glimpsed into
the void of Pure Being."

"Void of Pure what?" I asked, feeling incredibly uncomfortable because
she hadn't yet removed her fingers from my lips, and people were
beginning to stare.

"The void of Pure Being, my sweet and lovely David, the void Pure
Being. You see, in the moment you captured with your camera, reality
opened itself up to me, revealing the true emptiness and meaningless
that under girds our existence. I realized just now, standing here in
the middle of this art opening -this veritable cathedral to human
creativity- existence stands there, mocking us in our vanity; life is
nothing but a fable, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
signifying nothing."

"Wait, have you been talking to my brother? What the hell is wrong
with you people tonight? You freebase a little Camus, maybe a little
Sartre and suddenly everything is meaningless?" I declared, all the
while trying, unsuccessfully, to wrench my lips away from her two
fingers, which had come to form a kind of vice grip around my mouth.

"Don't fight it David; accept it, it's beautiful," Rachel replied, her
tone oddly sweet considering she now had me firmly in a headlock and
was ramming my head mercilessly into the wall. The last thing I heard
before I became unconscious was "David, all appearance, all
diversity has melted away and I see the true nature of unified
existence. It stands before me, bloated and disordered; naked, oh,
the frightful nakedness..."

I came to about four hours later, sprawled out on the sidewalk in
front of the building; my head throbbing. Everyone had left, the show
was over and the lights were turned off. Struggling to get to my
feet, I realized that someone had in fact peed all over my blue suede
coat.


REFERENCES

[Image and article] Special guest writer, David "The Beatnik" Spindle.


O.