The Culmination of a Half-Year of Non-Thought (Part 3)

Packing. Boxes. Totes. Clothes stuffed into bags, garbage and otherwise. Sealed up tighter than a . . . well I won't finish that analogy. Derailed. Denied. But I am approaching the horizon, the epoch of a long journey in an ever expanding storyline of anger, frustration, hated, ignorance (certainly no bliss to be found here, so move along), spite, apathy. The adjectives march by like a parade, I will assure you.

Anyway, there is the packing. It has to be done. All in the timespan of a day, two maybe? No, a day and a half, or was it half a day? It was furious, and while I found myself furious, fuming like a titillating teapot on an ancient stove demanding attention like an attention whore bound by her own impulses, I also found within myself a strange nerve. And it had been struck. Oh, by golly.

Turning to a roommate of mine, I approached with a singular question: do you want to move?

A shrug, a face, a twisting of features into a "don't know" and also a possible "don't care." But as we were jamming more items into small spaces as to make clowns with small cars envious. A website with pictures was found denoting a possible new place of residence. It didn't take long to sway either myself or the other roommates to move. It was easier to move (we were already packed!) then stay and live outside a box while our stuff was interned within.

A call went out, dialed into my aging, dying obsolete phone. An archaic thing with an answering machine! A cry in the dark, screaming in the wind, carried off to who knows where. And my plea was heard... eventually. But we're coming up on Christmas soon, too. And there's still a whole slew of other nuances yet to take place . . .

The Culmination of a Half-Year of Non-Thought (Part 2)

There is a knock upon my door. A knock-knocking of poignant importance. My seat is left with a flurry and spins in my absence as I abscond to the top of the stairs, leaning over to peer down and through the window. Another knock upon my door, a knock-tap-knock. Impatient, insufferable, intolerant persons upon my step are gathered like a storm that hasn't properly visited this winter.

Dejectedly, muted as a TV in the throes of more important (if not insipid) conversation, I descend like a mongrel king to the entrance, and upon disengaging the lock of the door, divulge the outer frame by removal of the same. It swings inward, chilly autumn-like air pooling at my feel. Little gremlins stealing my heat. Two women, bundled against the cold, eye me. Blue eyes and brown eyes.

They hand me a piece of paper, speaking as they divest themselves of whatever this solemn duty is. Apparently, my abode is to be screened for bedbugs.

My face falls, a warrior atop a ridge shot in silhouette and left to tumble down in crimson, furiously clinging to a wound and life. A victim of happenstance. Questions begin to roll out my mouth, unabetted regurgitation of demands for information. At first, shy and coy glances are spent between blue and brown. Oh, but they can't! But they shouldn't! But they couldn't! But they will. And the tale, loathsome as it is, is unfurled before my glazed over eyes.

It begins innocently enough. New neighbors. Only it is what they've brought with them that horrifies, shocks and bedazzles the mind. An infestation of bedbugs. But they didn't, nay wouldn't, tell anyone of their pet problem. Instead, they horde the little beasts in the confines of their beds, feeding them at night on a strict diet of human blood. But a problem arises. Some of the minuscule pests jump ship, clambering through a wall into an adjacent townhouse . . . upon which the renter made complaint.

Obviously, there was an investigation of all the attached units, to ensure that the problem hadn't spread further along. And then they realize who had started it: three families, all of Indian origin (from the country of the same name) and who were now tracking that very vile parasite between three different blocks of townhouses, one of which was my own. They were living next door.

Everything had to be packed up. Furniture pulled away from walls, dishes boxed up, clothes into totes and plastic bags to protect them from the pests, although they first having to be laundered in boiling hot water and died in the dryer at the highest temperature for a minimum of forty minutes. So much work for the inspection. The end result I already knew -- I didn't have an infestation.

This, however, leads to a new whole series of adventures...

The Culmination of a Half-Year of Non-Thought (Part 1)

Where to begin, where to begin. A statement, not a question, because there is no question inasmuch as to the fact that things have indeed happened to me. The percolation of non-thoughts, for I can't say I have truly been thinking, and deeds, for they are actions in name alone, of a morbidly malcontent societal zombie has broken down the tirade dams erected against the brazen beast of a supposed civilized world.

Too much, no enough, and somewhere in-between. Like the pivotal point of a movie plot, the highest moment where heroes become truly heroic and demons and villains become their most disturbing incarnations of the apathetic beast. I sit in a kind of limbo, only now having sinned and eaten of the fruit and seen truth, but I can't call it wisdom, for to admit to myself any form of wisdom would be deceitful, and only cause to stand out the lark that is my own true retardation.

I think, if anything, I should throw back the clock into the previous era of months past. That being September of a year now currently disassociating itself from the current year. Roughly in this stretch, I began to receive mail from a government I probably elected, but through shenanigans, the bureaucratic behemoth has become another malcontent and is in itself seeking debtors, even those not indebted to the system. Or at least, believed not to be indebted to the system.

The letter, THE LETTER, held in my grubby hands and torn into like a starving child in Africa, was government issue. Obviously of importance. I remember checking the mail on a lunch break while I was home, making lunch itself. A good day was destroyed in that instant. Oh, but it was. It proclaimed in not-too-subtle language that I owed to the government a large sum of money, and that if I did not reproduce these misplaced funds owing, would find myself at the pointy end of litigation. The thoughts that began to fester in my mind at this point were cancerous at worst.

Returning to work, I found myself relating my new conundrum with coworkers. Oh, how this must be wrong. I had yet to file taxes for the current province of residence, so my address should have technically been somewhere else, but no, the government had in a moment of putrid, blindingly-bright epiphany, found me. Upon returning home, I seized upon the phone. A conqueror taking what he felt he owed.

I called the various revenue agencies within Canada. Two numbers. When passing on my personal information, they assured me that I didn't owe a single cent to the government. This was good. But still, the lingering poison of doubt left its presence upon me. In fact, one of the agencies even said that this might be the possibility of being fraud! Indulgent to this thought, I left it as is. A month passed until September became October. The day before I left for my folks place, a rainy day, my phone rang and I answered.

It was a woman. A Christine, if memory serves. She alleged that she worked with the CRA, or Canada Revenue Agency, and that once she had my name, wanted to know if I had the sum owed to the government. I, at this point, held my temper. Barely. Fraught with an internal rage burning brightly, eyes I'm sure glimmering with the utmost vengeance to be sworn upon this rabid, spiteful harlot and her ilk, her kin, her children and grandchildren whom I would consume in fire for centuries. But none of this was elucidated from my lips. Instead, a pointed remark: "I don't owe the government anything."

There was of course very pointed confusion on her end. Obviously this was not the remark she wanted, and she asked, nay, demanded clarification on my part as to the how's and why's that would come about such an outcome as me not actually owing money to the giant tentacle monster poised atop Parliament Hill. I clarified: "I've already contacted the CRA and they assure me that I don't owe any money. In fact, your timeline for past infractions as to my indebtedness to the government via lack of payment is indeed fraudulent at best, as in your earliest indication of slipping to pay taxes, I was still in highschool."

Oh, but now she is doubly confused. This isn't right. Her data is wrong. She begins to say that, no, it can't be wrong, because she FEELS it is right. I again reiterate my point, even going so far as to give my birthdate for clarification. I can feel the heat of a light shining through the receiver on my phone, the kind of giant spotlights used in prisons to find prisoners. She asks me for a specific point of information, and after a moment of thought, I give in.

The sorries begin to gush, the dam broken and the watery equivalent of apologetic-ese, a disease suffered by many North Americans, asserts itself. It's so her fault, and she is so very, very sorry. The person they are looking for has my name (except my middle name), once had my home phone number (two years before), and even lived at my residence! (again, within the previous two years). The coincidence of this and the magnitude of likelihood of this happening are exponential as if to be impossible.

I got to my parents house very thankful that Thanksgiving.