Duplex

We live in hope in the Duplex World. Hope is the currency. We live in hope because it’s all we’ve got! It’s false hope though – it’s false hope because it always eats itself. Hope that eats itself isn’t hope. It’s like that old snake that goes around in circles. The self-biter. Hope that eats itself is false hope because whilst we’re living in the one we’re also living in the other – we’re feasting on hope in the morning and we’re dining on bitter disappointment in the afternoon. It’s a meal that’s made up of two courses!

 

Hope is a conspiracy – we’re conspiring against ourselves. Shush – don’t tell! Keep it under your hat. Keep schtum. Say nothing and they’ll never know. We’ll never know. Ignorance is bliss, as the man said. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. But we all know that’s not strictly true – not entirely true. There’s a bit of a flaw in that argument to be sure but who’s counting? What you don’t know can be a royal pain in the arse but we won’t go into that now… Or ever – for that matter – we won’t go into it ever!

 

Hope can blossom very nicely in the absence of anything to contradict it – what fine blossoms it can produce! What beautiful bouquets we can make with these blossoms. You can give one to your friend to celebrate the occasion. Such sweet sweet hope. The sweeter the hope the harsher the disillusionment though – don’t we all know that? Damn right we all know that. We’re not stupid after all. We’re far from stupid – we know it all really, but we won’t let on…

 

The sweeter it is the sourer it is – isn’t that the way of it? The nicer it is the more horrible it is. The better the worse. Isn’t that always the way of it? So – I tell you what – let’s push out the boat and see how far it goes. Let’s run a little experiment here. Let’s not stint ourselves, let’s do ourselves proud. No one wants to be an old party-pooper, after all? No one wants to do themselves out of what’s rightfully theirs, either. No one wants to sell themselves short. A little of what you fancy does you good so you might as well go the whole hog! Why hold back when you know you want to make a pig of yourself? Knock yourself out buddy, as the man said! I know I would…

 

So what we do is that we create a situation in which everything is always nice. No one ever talks about the other side of the stick – the side that deals you a whopping great crack round the head and makes you see stars. A crack around the head you won’t ever forget and just when you aren’t expecting it too! Talk about nasty surprises! Boy does that hurt. It’s no fun at all. It hurts like a bastard and you know well that it does. Who’s kidding who anyway? It hurts so bad that there’s not even any words for it but we won’t go into that now. Or later either for that matter – it’s important to stay positive, after all. It’s always important to stay positive in the Duplex World.

 

We’re living in a kind of a greenhouse where hope can flower all day long and no weeds can ever choke it. It’s an industrial process. Hope is the currency of life, after all – hope’s what keeps us going. We’re hoping that our stupidity won’t bear fruit. We’re hoping that two plus two equals five. We’re hoping that one plus minus one doesn’t equal zero!  We’re hoping for the thing because the thing is good but the thing about the thing is that there isn’t any thing and the reason there isn’t any thing is because we’re living in the Duplex World where all things always cancel themselves out in the next act. We buy hope every day and we pay a pretty penny – hope’s not cheap, after all. Hope’s an industrial product and you have to pay for it. Hope’s the product we all want and we’re not going to get it for nothing. It’ll cost you an arm and a leg.

 

You can buy hope in a shop. You buy a thing and you hope the thing is going to make you happy! You hope the thing is going to make your life better. It’ll make it better alright but it’ll also make it worse. That’s what happens in the Duplex World after all – we all know that! What else would you expect? There’s a ‘secret side to things’ out there that we won’t ever go into. Would you go into it, and spoil all that nice hope as a result? I know I wouldn’t! I know you wouldn’t either. So we’ll say no more. We’ll let sleeping dogs lie, if you take my meaning. A word to the wise is enough so they say and we’re all wise here! We won’t own up to it but we are. We won’t own up to it in a million years – not if you interrogate us all night – but we all know the score. Damn right we do. We’re not as stupid as we look – who could be that stupid after all?

 

 

 

 

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