The Stockholm Manifesto
by Steven Hager
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4661-1373-2
copyright 2012 by Steven Hager
Published by Steven Hager at Smashwords
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Here it comes. I am vomiting all over you.
What would you like me to say? Clue you in on my mystical insights? Revelations concerning man's place in the universe? Calm yourself. This author has no intentions of usurping your zeitgeist. Keep it to yourself, and I will too. It's not my place to shatter your illusionary existence, and if I run into you later in life, you can fill me in on the details later.
I sense some of you might be getting somewhat excited right now. You sympathize with my plight, or maybe not? You want to show me the error of my ways? Believe me, the sun has shined on all this before. This dance goes on and on...and on. This is war and I can't lose! It's lopsided. The mob is always on your side. The majority is always right. I'm not arguing, everything you say is true. Believe me, there is room for us all.
Today, I am treading water, and have been for some time.
What could be worse than offering up your life for some supposedly-worthy cause only to wind up—in the end—an object of complete indifference halfway across the world from anything that really matters to you? I can't blame my fellow deserters for their current state of affairs, but when will they learn? A few hundred desperately-needed dollars has just been tossed down the drain because they wanted to make a documentary, something in the Eisenstein tradition, so the reality of our noble suffering could be viewed with sympathy across the globe?
"You really think anyone could care less?" I snorted. My concept was to offer something much more meaningful (although it was obvious any attempt to derail those monomaniacal minds was going to be futile). "Make them think they're getting a privileged peek into a drugged-out, orgy-filled, teenage counterculture, anything, but don't bother them with your petty sufferings."
Now we're stuck with a ridiculous 8 millimeter collection of crap no distributor in the world wants to look at, must less distribute! But instead of throwing-up in disgust, my comrades couldn't be happier! They're delirious with the suffering of it all!!
"Wait until the revolution! We'll all be heroes!"
For sure, they've dragged me into their last scheme. Last time we were all going to be famous writers...going to have an anthology of our inspired creativity published and even get paid for it! The American Deserters' Anthology of Exiled Poetry. Barry supposedly had a Swedish publisher committed. "It's only a matter of time," he assured me. He'd locked down all the details. I fell for it hook, line and everything else. I slurped my beer, nodding furiously to all the blue-sky projections. Yes, I have poetry. Yes, I want to be published. Yes, I desperately need money.
But my raging insomnia kept me up all night and I have a tendency to get absent-minded when I'm exhausted, so halfway to the Otherside (that quaint clubhouse for homeless Americans in Stockholm), I realized I had nothing to read on me. It didn't matter, since it was supposedly just a preliminary reading anyway.
They were serving coffee and (yum-yum) doughnuts, of which I fiendishly devoured four or five in rapid succession. Barry was standing near a podium talking to some poetical-looking people, looking, as always, very well-groomed and sincere. When he saw me across the room, he waved, and gave the rostrum several slaps, calling the meeting to order.
"Welcome, brothers and sisters. Our publisher has been unavoidably detained, I spoke to him only minutes ago on the telephone and there is a good chance he will arrive soon, but we have been encouraged to go ahead and get started without him."
What a grand feeling! As if this entire event could not get started without me and commenced immediately upon my arrival! Everyone found a seat and Barry, our efficient organizer, opened with a wonderful speech, expounding our good fortune, our aims and goals, our poverty-stricken desperation, which, due to his persistent efforts, was about to be rectified. And as our leader and poet laureate, Barry would read one of his own verses first....
"My poem...," Barry began, "...is entitled, Uncle Sam."
A twitter of applause trickled through the audience.
"Uncle Sam is a dirty old man who screws just any old whore. His cock is big and filled with cum, and his finger points at you. Uncle Sam is a murdering fiend, his hands drip red with blood. He wipes his cum on stars and stripes, a flag that drips with crud. But Uncle Sam is a frightened man, who smells his coming end..."
"Right on!" shouts a voice in the crowd.
"Uncle Sam will sing no more, his songs of war and woe. The people rise, his reign will end, that's killed both friend and foe."
I think from that point on, I went into a state of semi-shock. Naturally, upon finishing, Barry asked me to follow on the stage, and I, of course, shook my head, "no, no, no" and held up my empty hands (thank god). Why is it every American I meet here seems so inorganically and suspiciously out-of-place? With his immaculate grooming and obscure Christian-group connections, Barry is either the worst poet in the universe or a CIA-plant designed to ferret out traitorous lunatics like me. Whatever the case, Barry remains to this day, the uncontested poet laureate of the Exiled American Poets' Association of Stockholm, an organization still fervently awaiting the arrival of their Swedish publisher.
I have my theories, of course. I think we're all dancing to the hidden beat and it matters very little what goes on superficially around us. Whatever this hidden beat, or vibration, may be, I have no idea, but it makes a good justification for my growing cynicism and slug-like inactivity. Let's just say, for the moment, I am floating with the breeze.
The breeze, the breeze. Which can certainly blow you into some interesting places. This is why I follow it so ardently. Learn how to yawn and say "big deal," at all times. This is fact: the breeze blew me where I am today. I am not in exile. I have not banished myself into the unknown to uncover, rediscover, or rejuvenate myself. I was just blow by a terrifically nasty wind. And I am certainly not waiting for any gold star. Me? Ambition-less. Flunk-out. No job. No money. No heat. Having no dough is suddenly painfully frightening.
But, on the other hand, this is paradise. And if I pass my language course, the police will issue me papers. The language course is composed of lots of Turks. I am the only American. The general population here doesn't seem to care much for Turks, or even Italians, for that matter. They're all "niggers" to the pasty-white Swedes. The course is boring, but fortunately, free. I'm just breezing through, anyway.
I try and tell my deserter friends there is nothing illogical about killing people for pay. For all I know, war could be very stimulating. In fact, I'm sure it is. My being here is all a mistake.
"I was in Chicago, and I boarded the wrong plane."
Yesterday, Pippi dropped by. She caught me in the middle of trying to memorize the dictionary. Actually, not in the middle, around "ch" somewhere. Actually, not memorizing, just familiarizing myself with the words I never heard of. I told her my heater was scheduled to run out of oil soon. She looked very sad. (Actually, not oil, but kerosene.) When my heater runs out of kerosene, all the plants will die. These plants are not my idea, they were entrusted in my care by the landlord of this abode, and my unusually miniscule rent was awarded in exchange for a promise to look after them diligently. Meanwhile, they're all slowly withering away, conspiring against me by staging their own leafy suicides.
I only ask that a letter from my dear family arrives soon containing lots of their dear money. This typewriter is my only possession, since everything else is either borrowed or stolen. I paid 25 crowns for this gem. Although ancient, it is in mint condition. A screaming scrivmachine. My nimble fingers prance like fawns over the keys and presto....instant art. This place needs airing out badly. (It just occurs to me.) That's because I tried to start a little paper fire in a likely-looking receptacle, which was, I assumed, the very receptacle which was employed at this location before the Swedes discovered kerosene. As it turned out, I was right, but through some oversight neglected to note that the little wood stove was no longer connected to the flue. There was a lot of unwanted smoke and the building's concierge came banging on my door.
I found this in my dictionary: VALHALLA, n. (norse myth) banquet hall of slain heroes, roll or burial place or collected monuments of a nation's illustrious dead. This is where I live. Valhalla 42. The coincidence is too much to overlook. The hall of the slain. This makes me a victim of fate.
I ate at Pippi's last night but she was extremely upset with my conversation. She didn't even offer me seconds. Pippi would prefer we discuss the revolution while eating at her table. She doesn't fool me, I know what she says behind my back.
"He's just confused. Someday he'll be a great revolutionist."
That's what she tells her friends. Pippi wants to live in a world of lovely things. She doesn't like war, hate, or racism. In short, the dullest place on earth.
Tonight all I have to eat is hard bread. It's very cheap. It also hurts my gums. But I eat it because it gives me strength. It makes me powerful. Cabbage and hard bread is the national diet and the Swedes are growing at the alarming rate of three inches per decade. Who cares if it sticks to my teeth? Someday, I will be big enough to leap across the Baltic and snap off the Eiffle Tower for a tooth-pick.
The gnat that nibbles on horseflesh. The fool that slaps the hand that feeds him. I don't care what happens anymore, I can rush home and expose it all on paper. I'm surrounded by blithering idiots. Feed me and you buy my patience for one more day.
The End
Note from the author: If you enjoyed this ebook, please check out Hip Hop, Art After Midnight, Looking for the Perfect Beat, The Steam Tunnels, Bugging Out on the Endless Beat, True Ghost Stories, The East Village, also available at smashwords.com