— By Emilie Ridley |
Emilie Ridley is South African by way of Cape Cod. He attended Evergreen college in the late 70s, where he experimented with acid in a polygamist tribe before moving to San Francisco to open a biodegradable dog kennel business. He has been here ever since. This is his story…
I've entered a wretched period of my life in which I am a drooling narcoleptic, and it is not the consequence of my senesence. It's the Klonopin I've been prescribed so that I may stroll past this grotesque neighbourhood mural:
My physchiatrist doctor (she later found these digital images here) dubbed it “The Sum of All Fear,” ignoring my suffering as I recounted its details to her— if I were a Commonwealth solider narrating the Battle of Okinawa, would she have been kinder?
Regardless, I was forced to dictate my daily run-ins with McGangBangers in my rotting neighbourhood, the monstrous food creatures haunting my mind's eye in flashbacks from psychonautic days past, and the humiliation and guilt from catsup packet wielding hooligans who splattered my Mercedes windshield with murderous tomato artillery, causing me to strike and break the leg of Brontë, my poor, over-excited Pomeranian.
Brontë in better days
My panic attacks have been quelled, but until canine Klonopin is availble, I dare not bring Brontë on jaunts past this monstrosity. The Hamburglar has robbed me of something far greater than ham. This ham man has beaten my sanity to a pulp, and stolen my peace of mind.
Comments (2)
The burger wheels are the best.
If walking past a mural has that serious of an impact on you, perhaps you should take an alternate route, rather than psychiatric drugs. Yeah, it’s a pretty insane looking mural, but just because you are terrified of it does not mean it is not art, it just means you are easily rattled. Your unreasonable reaction broke your dog’s leg, not the mural. Maybe you should get yourself under control instead of blaming paint. Painting the surface of a wall can’t break an animal’s leg, but the action of an unstable human can. I know what a flashback is like, and yes, it can be intense, but that’s a side effect of choices you made, not the fault of the person who painted the mural. Stop trying to blame your problems on something just because you don’t “get it” and take some responsibility for your own role in your problems.