In the Time-Loop

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I was feeling a bit crappy and insecure, feeling a bit worthless and stupid, so I started repeating to myself as I walked along, “I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great….” over and over again. After a while this started to do the trick and I gradually came out of the rotten kind of a hole I had fallen in. I was rebuilding myself. This was my mantra, I guess you could say, and I repeated it to myself (in my head, obvious) every time I took a step. I carried on in this way for a while, slowly beginning to feel OK about myself again, when a bunch of people walked by me going the opposite direction in the alleyway. They didn’t say anything to me but one of them looked at me as he walked by as if to say “You stupid fuck”. I wasn’t imagining it – that really was the vibe he was giving me. He didn’t have to actually say anything; it was in his expression, it was in the way he looked at me. Straightway I started to feel bad again – all my work was undone in a second. I couldn’t believe it – it was as if he had stuck a knife in me as he walked by. The sneering contemptuous look of his face stayed with me and try as I might I wasn’t able to dislodge it.

 

Rage overtook me. How dare he do this to me. How dare he put his negative shit on me like this. His bad vibes. I hoped that something bad would happen to him. Something really bad. He deserved it. I kept imagining bad things happening to him but it didn’t help. Being angry with the guy didn’t help – I still felt like shit. I still felt like a complete twat because of the way he had looked at me. I felt like a loser. I felt two inches tall. I felt pathetic. I had to build myself up again. I started my mantra up again, “I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great, I’m great…” I kept on repeating this in my head as I walked along, trying to build my self-esteem up again, but it just wasn’t working. It wasn’t helping a bit. It was like trying to carry water in a bucket that was full of holes – take a few steps and all the water had drained out and you had to go and fill it again. And my bucket had more than just a few holes in it I reckoned – it had no bottom in it at all! The water went straight through it…

 

A nasty cold feeling gripped me. I had to do something, and fast. It came to me in a flash that I had to find someone to humiliate, as I had been humiliated. So that I could pass the bad voodoo on to someone else. Get voodoo that’s bad enough and the only thing to do is to pass it on again. Like the guy (fuckhead that he was) had done to me. And you have to do it quickly, before it can destroy you… If the voodoo is too strong to dissipate that’s the only thing you can do. Find someone to pass it on to. The only problem was – who?

 

The solution was obvious but there was a difficulty. The difficulty was that everyone I passed was either bigger than me, stronger than me, or more confident than me. If I tried it on with someone who was bigger or stronger than me then all that would happen would be that I’d find myself sitting around in A & E with a few physical issues to match my psychological ones! And if I tried it with someone who was more confident than me then the voodoo wouldn’t stick – they’d just bounce it right back to me with top-spin on it! I dreaded to think what that would do to me. I was still walking. Unbeknownst to me my walking mantra had changed. It had flipped over without me realizing it – I was now chanting “I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m fucked…” as I walked…

 

This was no good at all. This was turning very bad indeed. The voodoo was really getting a hold on me. It was penetrating right into my core. It was taking me over completely. Just then – just when I could feel my last chance of self-determination slipping away from me – I had a brainwave. I would invent someone, I would create someone in my imagination, someone really weak and pathetic, someone with really low self-esteem, and I would humiliate them. I would put the voodoo bug on them. I’d make them take it…

 

This proved surprisingly easy to do. I had no difficulty at all in visualizing this ‘loser-type’ guy who I was going to pass the voodoo onto. I could see him standing there, in my mind’s eye, as clear as if he really existed. It was freaky how clear I could see him. I had created the fall-guy! Mustering the last of my strength, I rounded on him and gave him the full force of the voodoo bug. I gave it to him good and strong. I let him have it. “You useless pathetic piece of shit,” I told him, “You are the crappiest most worthless person in the whole world. You’re such an asshole. You’re a total joke. You should just crawl off and die. You’d be doing the whole world a favour. Everybody hates you anyway…”

 

I distilled all of my pain into a single drop of shining black malice and I gave it to him. And he had to take it. I didn’t give him any choice. I made him take it. He had to take it – I drove it right into him. And take it he did. He took it on board. He took the poison voodoo jinx from me and he took it on himself.

 

That was it. I had done it. I had passed the buck! I had given it to someone else! The loser deserved it anyway, I told myself. Full of elation as it dawned on me that I had divested myself of the toxic voodoo that had so nearly done for me, I carried on walking down the street. It had been a close thing! Only lightning-quick thinking on my part had saved me…

 

The euphoria didn’t last. Only moments later, I realized to my horror what I had done. I had fucked up in a big way. That ‘imaginary guy’ I had dumped on, the fall-guy, the loser, the asshole – that was me! I had passed on the bad juju to myself. I had done the dirty on myself. I had put the toxic voodoo on myself, with top-spin.

 

In a flash I understood everything – I knew that this moment had already happened. I had already been here! I had been here many, many times. This was the reason I had felt so bad in the first place – because I had given the juju to myself. I was caught in a time-loop…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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