Tired Of Waiting

tired.

Tired.

TIRED.

He wasn't tired of waiting.

He was bloodyfuckinglividatfucking waiting.

He seemed to spend most of his life waiting. It was a part of his job.
His purpose in life. To wait. Wait for something to happen or someone
to come along. Then his job would seem worthwhile, he would feel a
sense of accomplishment. He would have achieved SOMETHING.

He sat at the table, his hand curled around a pint glass. The glass was
filled with an amber liquid, frothed at the top. The liquid was
branded. Stella Artois.

He was twisted to fit, engineered for life.

He was surrounded by others corkscrewed into the mold. Dressed to blend
into the normality which the bar afforded.

No background music. A synthetic aesthetic. There was a loud, general
hub-bub of half remembered, mostly vacuous, forgotten, snippets of
conversation. The air around him was not smoky.

No one seemed to be smoking.

No background music.

No smoking.

Just the gentle clink, clink of trendy alcohol upon soon-to-be trendy
alcohol. Even the bar staff were formatted from perfect pop-idol
templates. Antiseptic features screwed into position by a mad, bland,
designer, high on his own conformity.

He took a sip from his newly trended drink.

His eyes scanned the bar. Everywhere he looked he could just see copy
upon copy of the same person. Slightly different hair, height, weight
but the same person filled this cavernous hall which had the appearance
of a waiting room rather than a bar. He wasn't sure what he was doing
here. He wouldn't find what he was looking for here. Who, but the
conformist, would admit to frequenting a place like this. This wasn't a
real place. This was the waiting room to hell. A hell bereft of fires
and burning torment. A hell of blandness.

A devil of conformity. Heaven would be where the party was
happening.

Some of him needed the surroundings. He'd spent most of the day
trawling through the areas where people thought for themselves. The
small markets. The backstreet shops. No labels. No conveyor belt
production line. Each item a one time picture perfect un-copy of the
others. Small imperfections, making each garment slightly different. He
would pretend to be browse but, all the time, his eyes would be
flicking to the other customers. He would notice their clothes, their
jewellery, their make-up, their shoes, their cigarettes, their
conversation. He would move like a wraith through the valleys of
cheaply produced products, holding his Sony digital camera in his hand,
palmed, concealed. Sneaking a snap here and there. Grabbing the moment,
beginning the long line which would end up with a sanitised version of
what he was looking at. He saw the original. Sometimes he resented
himself. He was taking someone else's idea. Stealing it. By taking the
picture he had taken the soul. Captured it within his safe, digital
world. No thought to the person.

The personality behind the clothes. No thought that the mainstream
wouldn't accept this originality. It was his job. What he was paid to
do. His job. The person whose picture he now held would be re-produced
within the year, he / she would then have to find another look to drape
themselves in. One day they would find themselves squeezed into a
corner, the only place left to turn will be the high street. They would
have to conform. When that day approached his job would be over. Once
everyone was wearing the same, drinking the same, smoking the same,
speaking the same, thinking the same. On that day everything would
freeze. The conformists would have found their natural place in the
order of things.

Nothing would change. Nothing would be different. He was helping to
bang nails into the coffin of diversity. Each picture he took drove the
nail further into the wood. They could hear the knocking of
non-conformity from within the wooden box. The cries were becoming
weaker. The knocks more feeble. Soon the air would be used up. Soon the
coffin would be in the ground. On that day he would probably be
drinking a blue-green alcopop, dancing the latest dance steps on top of
the grave.

He took another sip of beer.

The question which always plagued him was how important was his job
?

In the grand scheme of things did he make a difference ?

He could look around him now, or a dozen other cities, and point out
items of clothing which he had helped to inspire.

To create. That's what the people in the offices always told him. He
had created these items. He had been the starting point. The creative
spark. His job was important to the company. His job was important to
the public. Where would the public be without clothes, without a label.
Without something to yearn for, to want. Something which they could
spend their money on. If they had nothing to spend their money on they
why work ?

If no one WANTED anything then why work ?

Without him the whole economy would collapse. Anarchy would ensue.
People had to be given something to want. Something they felt they
needed. Something which made them belong.

This was the new religion. The Gap was the new church. The Next
catalogue was the new bible.

God wore Levi's and Adidas.

God was engineered for life. Twisted to fit.

God drank brightly coloured alcopops.

God brought high-camped Kylie singles.

God danced to the manufactured beat of 3 girls and 2 boys.

God fought the Devil on a PS2.

God holidayed in Ibizia.

Stigmata was a fashion statement.

Gospel was the backing sound for a Beatles-sound-alike rock / pop
group.

Immaculate conception was when the condom broke.

Was his job important ?

Of course it was.

People wanted things.

Wanted.

Needed.

Had to believe in something.

Otherwise what was the point ?

He took another sip of his drink. The brand name slipping through his
self-branded body. He'd recently come back from a brand-finding mission
in China.

China was cool because nothing was branded. He'd sneaked around the
back yards of grey, dirty, tenement blocks, sneaking pictures of
people's washing. The colours of clothes, the rough, peasant cut of
garments. Garments manufactured for practicality rather than fashion
sense. All of this could be sucked into the western style of dress.
Branded up. While he was in China he wondered what the people would
think if he told them the hammer and sickly, the yellow star on a red
background, had become mere slogans, mere brands in the western
countries. An ideology reduced down to a few symbols on a few t-shirts.
Better Red Than Dead. Better Dead Than Red. Communism from the brand
up.

Some of the chinese would stare at him. They probably thought him a
tourist. A tourist who had lost his way. Was taking photos to show how
quaint China was. He would smile at these people, wait for them to turn
away from them, before taking their picture.

A woman wearing a plastic bag for a hat.

Mao jackets slung over shoulders.

Customised and patched garments to extend their life.

All this would be poured into the melting pot.

He would be told how well he had done.

What great creativity he had. How did he come up with these images. A
natural talent.

He finished his drink.

He sat back in his chair.

He glanced across the expanse in front of him.

Should he get another drink ?

Should he......

His eyes saw her.

Locked in. Homed in.

Captured her look.

He had found it. The waiting had paid off. The thoughts about WHY he
did his job faded. She was it. He couldn't see a single brand name
across her. She wasn't uniformed like the rest of them. She appeared to
be looking for someone.

Unsure of her surroundings. An unsuspecting fly about to be swallowed
by a venus flytrap.

Slowly he raised his camera.

Her head moved. Hair flicking across her shoulders. She was
frowning.

He had the camera in front of his eyes.

She stared at him.

Straight at him.

Into his lens.

He clicked. Fired. Captured.

She'd smiled.

A gazelle caught in the lions glare.

He stood up, she appeared as if to move towards him, the smile still
lingered around her eyes. He walked through the crowd. Camera held
tightly. He headed for the 'EXIT'.
The open street. The crowded conformity of the pavement.

He had his image. He had used his talent. He had a purpose.

He had waited long enough.

She watched him go. The smile had disappeared. Why take her picture
?

She stayed behind. A rabbit caught in the oncoming glare of fashions
headlights.

A branded juggernaut would squash her.

Her originality would sink into the tarmac. Her body would lay by the
side of the road. Within a few minutes the breath of life would
disappear from her unbranded body.

She would cease to exist.

Another fashion victim.