Archive for June, 2009
McDonald’s
You order the same old, same old, Big Breakfast meal, Hot Chocolate.
There aren’t any styrofoam cups, so he opens a new stack of them and – kaplunk – half the stack falls onto the floor. Shoes bugs mops dirt have touched that floor. Another service crew girl sees it. They pause for two seconds, then he picks up the fallen stack and jams it into the cup dispenser. They shrug. He takes a cup from the clean stack and pours your Hot Chocolate. She takes a cup from the fallen stack and pours someone’s coffee. Shoes bugs mops dirt have touched that coffee.
He returns to you with your Big Breakfast and Hot Chocolate, looks over your shoulder and good morning sir, what can I get you?
You walk over to the store manager, tell her about the stack of styrofoam cups. She says she understands. You go to work. You work. You go home.
Today you walk into the McDonald’s beside your building to buy your breakfast. The guy at the open counter is the same unLucky moron you see every day.
Dr Beaurieux’s notes on Languille
Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck…
I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. [...] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: ‘Languille!’ I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again[...].
It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. Then there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.[source]
