A Toasty Tale

As the screaming and commotion all around grew with intensity, I smiled to myself, feeling thankful to be the driver. My small, white, toaster-shaped car, aptly referred to as the Toastmobile, was not equipped to handle more than a small group and with eight people crammed tightly in, continuously fighting over radio stations and seat positioning, it was somewhat unstable. Yet, as she slowly plodded along, rocking on her axis, due partly to the enduring game of twister in the back seat and partly to the deafening, distorted rock music blaring from her fragile speakers, I applied pressure to the brake pedal, ensuring that her four wheels all remained firmly on the ground as we tilted around a corner. Although not the most spacious or sturdiest of cars, the Toastmobile was tough and we had tremendous faith in her. We had spent many memorable evenings in such a manner, under her protective watch, and this was certainly no exception.

It had come to our attention that one of South Africa's local, apparently extremely talented, rock bands was to be playing a concert at one of our local bars and, perceiving ourselves as somewhat insightful music experts, it was this information that had enflamed a desire, deep within our adolescent psyches, to pay homage to a place, no doubt, infested with the most dangerous of vagabonds. Thus it was that our pilgrimage led us to the heart of the beast's lair.

Somewhere, within the midst of the ensuing chaos, there seemed to emanate a growing sense of excitement, which seeped though the tangled bodies and slowly began to saturate the air. I could feel the excitement emitted from my fellow crusaders, permeate my skin, creeping tacitly along my spine, playfully tempting me. An overwhelming desire to completely embrace such an emotion engulfed me, yet, a familiar, perhaps despised, feeling of apprehension, whispered silently into my soul, evaporating all traces of contentment. I felt uneasy and slightly frightened, yet remained calm and placid, praying that none of my comrades would sense my vulnerability and seize the opportunity to unwittingly humiliate me.

The road along which we traveled was, by no means, straight, nor was it narrow and, as bodies tumbled around in the back, it took great effort to follow the desired path, yet, through many, barely discernible directions, volunteered by those who had previously travailed, we reached our destination.

The scene which greeted us outside was, doubtless, a representation of the horror which awaited us within the pit of darkness. With much trepidation, I guided our troupe through the raging torrents, searching for an area from which we could safely disembark. Discovering that such a place was housed only within the shallow desires of the carnal mind, I navigated our way through the bedlam to the most secure place that I could find and, as we drew to a stop, doors burst open, enthusiastic buccaneers tumbled free and the Toastmobile's protective sheath vanished. My associates glided swiftly into the den. I was, however, more cautious, deliberately dawdling in my dismount, slowly gathering my thoughts and emotions, while simultaneously attempting to appear calm and relaxed, even though all inklings of such composure had long since fled.

We ambled into the labyrinth and, as my apprehension grew, I felt that all were staring at me. Just barely eighteen and still enrolled in high school, it was not illegal that we were there; however, our presence was not entirely kosher. As I looked around the smoke-filled room, feeling nauseous and certainly unwelcome, a scantily clad woman grabbed my arm, stamping my hand as she glared at me, no doubt wondering my age. Along the left wall ran a counter, full to capacity, where damnation, in liquid form, could be purchased. Tightly packed, from wall to wall with little space for movement, were wooden tables where the ignorant consumers of darkness reveled. A stage, flanked on either side by dozens of powerful speakers, loomed in front, above our heads, while revelers danced just below it and deathly frightening music impeded any possibility of realization. Following my friends, who seemed quite comfortable with the entire situation, I weaved my way through crowds of people, some friendly, some frightening, some sober, some not so much, yet, as I was led through the maze, I noticed that all seemed in a daze, uncertain of why or if they even existed at all. This was all very new to me and, as we somehow stumbled our way over to an empty table, I found myself confused, not comprehending this room of strange faces. I think I was afraid. Perhaps by willfully entering this festering pit of degradation, I had allowed myself to be ensnared, becoming trapped, a desperate wonderer, to be numbered among the lost sheep of the fold. Drowning in my fears, lost among a sea of faces, I searched for something... anything - just a glimmer of hope somehow affirming the existence of sanity. Overwhelmed by the noise and commotion, I stumbled, dropping my head and looking to the ground, attempting to find myself amidst the confusion. As I lifted my head, feeling a renewal of strength and more hopeful in my ability to deal with such pandemonium, I felt my heart stop cold. My eyes, endlessly scanning the room, had come to rest upon something that caused my entire being to shudder.

That unmistakable, dark hair, falling just off the shoulders; that smooth, tan complexion and those thin, penetrating eyes, awoke a terror deep within my soul that had long since slept. I felt the whole room close in around me, engulfing my entire frame, while everywhere, the mindless sheep ceased their activities and stared down into the depths of my very soul, as if it had been laid out plainly for all to see. My soul seemed to be hurling itself from within, against the sides of my body, trying desperately to escape and causing my whole body to tremble as if it were vibrating. Climaxing in my head, which began to throb and become tremendously hot, it settled exactly between my temples, causing a sensation somewhat similar, I would imagine, to that felt by Vesuvius, just before she buried the entire population of Pompeii. Fearing the imminent implosion of my skull, there flashed through my mind, the memory of this stunning beauty which had so gracefully slipped into my gaze, calling back the most sinister of ghosts from my past.

As an innocent preschooler, I happened to find myself in the presence of one, beautiful, friendly girl, who instantly held me captive. I was smitten and being the suave, sophisticated, young charmer that I was, I swiftly set about to melt her heart, that the love which she possessed might magnanimously wash over me, entwining our souls permanently. It was not long before I obtained my objective and her emotional fortress was breached, permitting all the affection held therein to flow freely, thus welding us together - soul mates for eternity. In the many years to come, we would share every experience of growing up - chasing each other through the playground, sleeping over at each other's houses and, occasionally, sneaking an innocent kiss behind the shed. Yet, things were not always to be this way.... One seemingly typical day, with no warning or apparent reason, she thrust a dagger deeply into my spinal cord, twisting it, as she proceeded to reach deep into my chest, tear my heart from it's cavity and let it fall to the earth, tramping over it, as she mercilessly walked away from my life. I was bewildered and utterly confused. I shut myself within walls that could not be penetrated, pretending that I was indifferent to the betrayal of one so dear and immediately buried my emotions deep within. I became a rather shy, quiet individual, unaware of the shattered pieces of soul which lay in the nadir of my being. As the memory of what once was, lay torn in shreds, I lost all confidence and my chalice of youthful charm drained into a crater of insecurity.

Fearful of all things emotional, it took me years to realize the value of what I had lost and had only recently begun a very slow, painful recovery, when upon her in that dark place, I stumbled, unleashing the memory of that moment which so powerfully grips and haunts me, unceasingly. Feeling exactly as I had felt in that moment, I shrank at the confrontation, while it seemed that numberless pairs of eyes burned the flesh off my body, stripping it to the soul, revealing all that lay buried within its depths. In the most vulnerable of positions, I tried my utmost to protect my fragile soul.

Our eyes met for only a moment before fear overcame me and I withered at her gaze. I pretended that I had not seen her, however I felt desperate and vulnerable. I shifted my position ever so slightly, placing myself just out of her view, yet although my actions were subtle and barely noticeable, it seemed that all looked upon with contempt, discerning my intentions and the reason for my discomfort. Trying desperately to recover from such a painful onslaught of emotion that mercilessly ravaged my soul, I sneaked a glance, through the menacing hordes, at the girl who had, so severely hurt me and so greatly molded the personality I had developed. Staring at her strategically created image, I noticed a brown bottle in her hand, the contents of which I was certain - many, once cherished, allies had been taken captive by this vice. I again looked up to her face and stared deeply into her eyes. In that moment, all energy drained from my body and I felt as if I had tumbled down the rabbit hole, into the pit of despair, where hope, now only a myth, was lost forever. I saw, in her glazed eyes, that sad, pleading look which was common among all the lost sheep who had slithered into this hollow. I realized that during her absence from my life, she had been sucked into this realm of self-loathing and was trapped, held by invisible bonds which she could neither break nor comprehend. My shattered heart swelled with sorrow for the fate of one who had once been loved so deeply. Regretting my fearful reactions of the past, I felt a great desire to ignite even the tiniest flame of hope, which certainly lay buried, deep within her soul, thus reawakening our forgotten love and healing the emotional scars which I shamefully bore. Yet, the absolute fear of humiliation which she had, so many years before, etched into my character, gripped me tightly and being unable to prevail, unable to move or even speak, she slipped from my presence - my eyes never to behold her again.

Some weeks later, two days before I was to leave the place of my birth, the only town I had ever known, to attend university in the United States of America, I found myself alone with the Toastmobile, our destination unclear, yet I felt calm, encircled in her protective shield. As we lazily strolled along the road, I lost myself within the content reminiscence of my mind, thinking back through the ages which came before. When awakened from my peaceful slumber, I noticed that we had come to a halt, directly across from the home which I had known so well as a child - the home in which I had learnt of friendship, pain and ultimately love. I sat for a moment, staring at the home in which I knew the love of my youth still resided. A mixture of emotion washed over me, then calmly, I said farewell and continued, at my own leisurely pace, through the world which I had created.

Copyright © 2008 by Layne Cockcroft

All Rights Reserved

Parabolic Pedanticism: An Airbrushed Adventure

The old sage stood boldly, as if in a foreign land, surrounded by his enemies, he held a divinely constituted army in his palm. When he spoke it was from a seeming tower, warning an incredulous mob against an invisible enemy. His voice, clear and certain, penetrated the atmosphere.

“Once, in another time, as I meandered about town, I passed a fast food establishment which shall remain unnamed. Feeling somewhat peckish, I glanced at the menu and was instantly mesmerized. The meal which greeted me looked so delicious that I had to fight the temptation to taste the actual photo. It would in fact be folly to attempt to aptly describe the deliciality which simmered before my eyes like an oasic mirage in an alimental desert; suffice it to say I ventured in and laid my money down. With the efficiency of Batman’s utility belt my order was placed before me looking rather like a cheap, trashy Elvis impersonator. Although tolerably tasty, my feeble imitation failed to deliver the ambrosial satisfaction prophesied by its airbrushed counterpart. Following this disappointment, there ensued a nuclear war in which my innards surrendered faster than an Italian in Northern Africa and faced merely with the prospect of another encounter raised the Parisian white flag, echoing the resounding sentiment of Patrick Henry, “Give me gourmet or give me death!”

Being by now polyphagially challenged I scraggled my way home, collapsing in front of the tv. I was aroused from my stupor by the sight of the most perfectly edenic being I had ever before beholden in my life, prancing about on the television screen. Adorned in strategically designed, figly apparel and sporting exquisitely airbrushed skin framing immaculately proportioned, photoshopped cosmetics, she fluttered about in a celestialized conception of eidetic imagination.

At this moment, there rumbled through the door an adjectively innocent maiden whose seemingly thunderous footsteps emphasized my hypnosis while accentuating her less fortunate figure and elementally photoshopped countenance. Due to my krameric reaction, I found myself contemplating the ceiling, back to the hard floor and one leg creeping over the back of the couch while the other flailed helplessly in a desperate attempt to find grounding on the couch’s arm. Gaining, at least partially, control over my body, the voices sped frantically around the inner circumference of my head in search of my splattered wits. As the search and rescue team began to bring in survivors, my optical guerillas peered cautiously from their position between the backrest and arm of the couch and reported sightings of skin seeping through a crackling, fig colored blouse, vacuum-packed to the shape of an ordinary female body. The stragglers now began to return and I lifted myself from my conditioned bunker to politely embark on a verbal voyage of tactful inquiry. The timbre of an out of work siren intimated the dawning of a digestive apocalypse forcing the recollection unit to confirm this prior engagement. Consciously timorous I endeavored to persist.

As we drove down Thunder Road, casing the Promised Land, we were assaulted by an ostentatious barrage of perfectly contrived, deceptive temptations in the form of imposing, salient advertisements, billboards, gonfalons, oriflammes, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Overwhelmed by this petulant sea of illusory degradation and trapped in a cycloptic cave, I felt like a lone, armored seaman sinking into the depths of Charybdis while Scylla swept from the rocky, Messinaic cliffs in her depraved pantophagal debauchery; another swimmer in the alimental desert. Seeing through the glass darkly, a vision of recessed chaos glimmered delicately as it cut meekly through the shallow, self-promoting savory famine.

Like an unobtrusive, but penetrating beacon it stood, somehow detached and independent. In the surrounding snafu, it exuded deific calm.

Led by iron volition, I endured the milieu until landing, through much telluric travail, safely beneath the arborous gaze of an unpretentious edifice. We disembarked and entered, void of visual testament, clinging only to the diaphanous hope of refugial escape from visceral Armageddon.

A pleasant ambiance greeted us as a genial hostess showed us to a modest, unencumbered table. A rather plain menu presented a white page, neatly speckled with a quaint, typed font. Again, with no iconic validation, we ordered. In a cordial manner our culinary venture appeared and, as charming conversation ensued, a sapid restoration dawned on the eastern horizon of the trophic wasteland.

As he concluded his lengthly narrative, the crowd began to stir in riotous misunderstanding, but before the mystified hoard could adequately voice its failed comprehension, he raised his hands in a plea for silence. He then continued, “With eyes to hear and ears to see, he who finds shall seek and he who opens shall once more knock.”

He brought his hands slowly together, his large sleeves dangling to his waist, inclined his head slightly and turning from the crowd, vanished from sight.

Copyright © 2008 by Layne Cockcroft

All Rights Reserved

Fragmentation

I think that often we forget about the cultural and social implications of globalization. We are quick to praise the advances in technology and communication and hail this new era of global trade and cooperation as world economies grow to sizes never before even imagined. Of course all this as the potential to bring about an equally unimagined enormity of good as the human race becomes a more and more tightly knit family, yet as we create the human family it is important to remember that families are based on certain principles which determine their success. It is therefore most crucial that the correct principles are set in order for this world family to succeed. One needs not look very far to see the commonly accepted, unacceptable failure of so many families throughout the world today. (By unacceptable here, I refer to the horrifically high rate of family failure and by no means do I wish to communicate that the failure of an individual family is unacceptable.) If the members of our global family have such a difficult time holding their own immediate families together it becomes even more crucial that we set the correct principles as the foundation for our global family and that we stick to them rigorously.

With that said, I do not wish here to discuss what those principles are, but rather I would like to point out upon which road, it seems to me, globalization is traveling.

It seems, or I have not heard much spoken about, the effects of globalization on culture and human relations. So, what is the effect?

Almost every country in the world now watched American movies and listens to American music. Of course there are other movie and music industries, especially the European entertainment industry, but can we deny that they are all inextricably linked, feeding off each other, highly influenced by the American entertainment culture and moving toward the same destination?

My observation is that almost all cultures around the world are moving toward the same American entertainment culture. In other words Hollywood and the American entertainment industry is shaping every culture around the world into whatever culture they choose. Most especially in the US and I would say in all European based cultures, media is the ruling force. Everything is about media. We even work to earn money to spend on entertainment which is largely media based. This influence by itself is not a bad thing, especially if it creates a wholesome, healthy world culture, but the real question is, “What kind of culture is it creating?” for this is the foundational principle on which the world family rests.

I do not wish to discuss the horrific music which permeates the radio waves which saturate the air, nor do I wish to discuss in much detail the movies and tv shows being exported from studios. If we briefly look at a typical movie, and let’s say a nice G rated romantic comedy which seems to have as its most dangerous quality the power to provide a warm, fuzzy feeling for girls and a cozy nap for guys, yet what actually takes place in the movie? Guy meets girl, guy likes girl, they go on a fun date, they sleep together, they fight about something, they resolve it and then they live happily ever after. Sound about right?

How many real life relationships follow this pattern?

Elder Holland speaks of moral debauchery:

“You must wait--you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette. If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.

A good Latter-day Saint friend, Dr. Victor L. Brown, Jr., has written of this issue:

Fragmentation enables its users to counterfeit intimacy. . . .

If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . .

Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6]

Listen to a far more biting observation by a non-Latter-day Saint regarding such acts devoid of both the soul and symbolism we have been discussing. He writes:

Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182]”

This of course refers to sexual relations, but I have no qualms about generalizing this to all cultural aspects of human relations. I feel like we live in a fragmented counterfeit culture. We make jokes about the US not having a culture because we say it is inferior and below our sophisticated European culture, but the sad news is that, it seems to me, this culture that is over running the world is in fact not a culture at all. (I do not wish this to be thought of an attack against American culture because it is not, I refer to the culture portrayed by the entertainment industry) The absence of culture here is that the culture precipitated by the entertainment industry is fiction. It portrays a culture that does not exist, nor can exist because it is only fragmental. And this is the culture taking over the world.

As an aside, it seems to me, that the culture in which I grew up in South Africa no longer exists. With the “liberation” of the country and the advancements in global entertainment over the last 10 year which we take for granted, it seems that the now rising generation behind me has been indoctrinated with this same Hollywood culture as the rest of the world. I feel as if the culture which I grew up in and loved has disappeared.

The world now seeks out the fragments (especially sexual) which are portrayed through media which they believe to be, as stated above, acceptance, understanding, love, but find that they are not.

That’s what I wanted to say and I wish people would become more aware of this and do something about it in the own lives that will take them from fragmented pieces of an incomplete unhappiness to a full, enriched, complete happiness.

Copyright © 2008 by Layne Cockcroft

All Rights Reserved