PARASITE
YOU WONDER ABOUT the title, but you start to read.
You also grimace a bit at the use of the word "PARASITE", thinking it both a bit awkward and pretentious, and you wonder if I am trying to make you think you are the antagonist, that this paragraph is referring to you personally.
It is.
Now you read those words and you grimace again and give a little half-exasperated huff of air. Almost, you start to argue back to the page, denying it, and then you sop. And there's just the faintest, the tiniest bit of wonder, of something akin to hope-after all, you think, that would be interesting. That would be unusual. You can almost hear the narrator intoning the introduction for the Heroes Episode "Parasite". You've never wondered what the word PARASITE actually meant, haven't you?
Well, you're right. These words are directed to you. Truly.
You're not quite certain how that could be. After all, there are hundreds of people reading this post. How could the post know that it's really you and not that overweight, obnoxious, delusional gangster chief with a pot belly who thinks his body is sexy in the junk food infested apartment in Novena who's currently reading this at the moment. But it is you, not him. Why would it be him? He's a fatass. He hasn't passed a subject for two years, and even getting a borderline fail was rare. He goes to school only once a week or so hoping to clock up some attendance, but his academic skills, never really good, have atrophied even further since his job doesn't require him to take up a book and start reading, and so he usually ends up going around Orchard Plaza area extorting money until the end of the day, and then going back to his room and popping up the MSN chat window to intimidate other would-be victims.
You're not him. In fact, he stopped intimidating others, smashing his com in angry and futile denial as no one is afraid of him any longer.
You think that's a rather harsh and brutal characterization (since you've known a few people who could fit that description) and you're somewhat annoyed at it, but though the description is rather on the cold side, it is accurate and besides, you didn't write it, so you don't need to feel responsible. Even Peter the fatass (hi Peter, don't you love it when you see your name on screen?), in those self-flagellating moments when he's alone in his apartment with only the blue light of his laptop's monitor illuminating the packets of chips on his desk, would admit the truth in what you just read. It may soothe you to know that he'll look at this post again, an hour from now. Then he'll wonder if he'll see himself on this blog again and perhaps a little envious that the post is for you, not him.
This post is for you.
You pause for a moment, confused, because you're not used to a post interfering quite so directly. You read this type of post for fun and that lovely "sense of wonder", not for pretension and experimentation. Over the years, you've slipped a thousand times between covers with a large and colorful cast of characters, running a gamut of detailed histories and complex personalities. You've lost yourself in a thousand worlds and glimpsed myriad universes painted in words garish or subtle, poetic or plain. You've allowed yourself to be the protagonist-any age, gender or race-and you've bled and loved, triumphed or died everywhere from the medieval past to distant galaxies. You have the gift of imagination yourself-and that's why this story is for you. You can become.
You've read the comics and watched the animations since you were a kid, and sometimes you've wondered how it would be if lights descended from the sky in front of you one night, whirling down to the lonely city streets as you step out from your door, drawn by mingled fear and curiosity, and then someone appears before you, asking if you want to save the world. You've wanted it to happen.
It's not going to, though. At least not that way. You know that; you realized long ago that life in the shows are going to be so profoundly different from you that it may not even be recognizable. Even if it were, their values and interests aren't going to be yours.
That's you right? The one reading this?
You're still not convinced though. Fine. So convince me, you think even though at the same time the deeper skeptical part of you insists that it's not possible. And it's not. Not totally. This post could tell you that you lost someone close to you not all that long ago, and you've kept a sort of memento of them because it brings back the memories. That's the case, of course, and your eyes narrow again because the words have struck too close to home. You also know that it's exactly the kind of vague statement a supposed empath would use in a could reading, but ...
You shiver, as if cold fingers just brushed your spine. You wonder, as you have before, just who's having this one-sided conversation with you, and why. So tell me, you think, nearly saying the words aloud.
Fine. Here's why.
Elephants.
You almost laugh at that. But it's true. Remember that old primary school "mind trick" where someone says,"Think of anything you want, but just don't think of elephants." And as soon as they say that, you instantly can't think of anything but elephants. An entire herd of them go rampaging through your forebrain, trumpeting and ear-flapping, raising the dust from your think cerebellum.
Here. Let's try it. Think of anything but parasites.
Ah, your eyebrows lifted at that, and my, the images in your head...
Parasites.
"What if...?" That's the genesis of so much of the genre that you read, isn't it? "What if...?" The author muses and erects a plot from there. Here's one for you. What if a parasite wanted to enter a human mind: a sentient parasite, a very intelligent parasite? What would be an interesting reproductive strategy? Reproduction is just engaging in patterns, after all. DNA is an arrangement of simple genetic codes and yet in encompasses all the wild variety and complexity of life. And words...words are just an arrangement of simple letters. But my, how powerful they are in your head, in all their various wonderful combination.
Words are a conduit into your mind. Words are embedded so deeply in your thought process that you can't even imagine what the world would be without them.If someone-or something-wanted to control you, they would use words, wouldn't they? Why, with just the right, compelling pattern of words, your mind would open like a raw wound and who knows what could slither in...
So don't think of parasites, no matter what.
Too late.
You've heard of all those stories that change your life, that stay with you forever. It just happened.
For you. Just for you.
You deny it, but even though you take the mouse in your fingers, ready to click close, you wonder. You think to yourself that once this window closes you'll forget all this; that in a week, a month, a year from now you won't even recall having ever read this.
Oh, you'll remember. At this point, you don't have a choice. It's already started, inside. You squint and you deny, but you'll remember because everything from here on has changed for you. You have the words inside you now, and you won't like where they take you. When I take you. But you'll remember.
As you read this, you can remember a little game we played just this afternoon. 29/04/2007, 3.43pm. You believe that winning is everything. You believe in doing anything to survive, or in your own terms, win. You believe that the ends justify the means.
But no, what you are doing isn't winning. What you've done is cheating, employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and at the expense of others. You are a Parasite. You are no different from the hookworms that live in the host's gut, feeding on protein and iron rich blood from the host's intestinal walls. You are no different from the Chalcidoidea which attaches itself to or within a single host organism which it ultimately kills in the process. You engage in what appears to be a mutualistic relationship with another organism, but does not in fact provide any benefit to the other organism.
You are a parasite. You know it yourself, but you don't want to change it. In fact it seems as though you cant change it, for it has become a conditioned reflex in you. It has become part of your life. It has become essential in your quest for survival. You are not totally at fault, it has in fact all started from a parasitic thought, if that even comforts you at all.
Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes your destiny.
You have the destiny of a born parasite. But you know that there is always hope. Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. There may still be a flicker of hope that maybe, there would still be just a one percent chance that you would change.
Won't you?
YOU WONDER ABOUT the title, but you start to read.
You also grimace a bit at the use of the word "PARASITE", thinking it both a bit awkward and pretentious, and you wonder if I am trying to make you think you are the antagonist, that this paragraph is referring to you personally.
It is.
Now you read those words and you grimace again and give a little half-exasperated huff of air. Almost, you start to argue back to the page, denying it, and then you sop. And there's just the faintest, the tiniest bit of wonder, of something akin to hope-after all, you think, that would be interesting. That would be unusual. You can almost hear the narrator intoning the introduction for the Heroes Episode "Parasite". You've never wondered what the word PARASITE actually meant, haven't you?
Well, you're right. These words are directed to you. Truly.
You're not quite certain how that could be. After all, there are hundreds of people reading this post. How could the post know that it's really you and not that overweight, obnoxious, delusional gangster chief with a pot belly who thinks his body is sexy in the junk food infested apartment in Novena who's currently reading this at the moment. But it is you, not him. Why would it be him? He's a fatass. He hasn't passed a subject for two years, and even getting a borderline fail was rare. He goes to school only once a week or so hoping to clock up some attendance, but his academic skills, never really good, have atrophied even further since his job doesn't require him to take up a book and start reading, and so he usually ends up going around Orchard Plaza area extorting money until the end of the day, and then going back to his room and popping up the MSN chat window to intimidate other would-be victims.
You're not him. In fact, he stopped intimidating others, smashing his com in angry and futile denial as no one is afraid of him any longer.
You think that's a rather harsh and brutal characterization (since you've known a few people who could fit that description) and you're somewhat annoyed at it, but though the description is rather on the cold side, it is accurate and besides, you didn't write it, so you don't need to feel responsible. Even Peter the fatass (hi Peter, don't you love it when you see your name on screen?), in those self-flagellating moments when he's alone in his apartment with only the blue light of his laptop's monitor illuminating the packets of chips on his desk, would admit the truth in what you just read. It may soothe you to know that he'll look at this post again, an hour from now. Then he'll wonder if he'll see himself on this blog again and perhaps a little envious that the post is for you, not him.
This post is for you.
You pause for a moment, confused, because you're not used to a post interfering quite so directly. You read this type of post for fun and that lovely "sense of wonder", not for pretension and experimentation. Over the years, you've slipped a thousand times between covers with a large and colorful cast of characters, running a gamut of detailed histories and complex personalities. You've lost yourself in a thousand worlds and glimpsed myriad universes painted in words garish or subtle, poetic or plain. You've allowed yourself to be the protagonist-any age, gender or race-and you've bled and loved, triumphed or died everywhere from the medieval past to distant galaxies. You have the gift of imagination yourself-and that's why this story is for you. You can become.
You've read the comics and watched the animations since you were a kid, and sometimes you've wondered how it would be if lights descended from the sky in front of you one night, whirling down to the lonely city streets as you step out from your door, drawn by mingled fear and curiosity, and then someone appears before you, asking if you want to save the world. You've wanted it to happen.
It's not going to, though. At least not that way. You know that; you realized long ago that life in the shows are going to be so profoundly different from you that it may not even be recognizable. Even if it were, their values and interests aren't going to be yours.
That's you right? The one reading this?
You're still not convinced though. Fine. So convince me, you think even though at the same time the deeper skeptical part of you insists that it's not possible. And it's not. Not totally. This post could tell you that you lost someone close to you not all that long ago, and you've kept a sort of memento of them because it brings back the memories. That's the case, of course, and your eyes narrow again because the words have struck too close to home. You also know that it's exactly the kind of vague statement a supposed empath would use in a could reading, but ...
You shiver, as if cold fingers just brushed your spine. You wonder, as you have before, just who's having this one-sided conversation with you, and why. So tell me, you think, nearly saying the words aloud.
Fine. Here's why.
Elephants.
You almost laugh at that. But it's true. Remember that old primary school "mind trick" where someone says,"Think of anything you want, but just don't think of elephants." And as soon as they say that, you instantly can't think of anything but elephants. An entire herd of them go rampaging through your forebrain, trumpeting and ear-flapping, raising the dust from your think cerebellum.
Here. Let's try it. Think of anything but parasites.
Ah, your eyebrows lifted at that, and my, the images in your head...
Parasites.
"What if...?" That's the genesis of so much of the genre that you read, isn't it? "What if...?" The author muses and erects a plot from there. Here's one for you. What if a parasite wanted to enter a human mind: a sentient parasite, a very intelligent parasite? What would be an interesting reproductive strategy? Reproduction is just engaging in patterns, after all. DNA is an arrangement of simple genetic codes and yet in encompasses all the wild variety and complexity of life. And words...words are just an arrangement of simple letters. But my, how powerful they are in your head, in all their various wonderful combination.
Words are a conduit into your mind. Words are embedded so deeply in your thought process that you can't even imagine what the world would be without them.If someone-or something-wanted to control you, they would use words, wouldn't they? Why, with just the right, compelling pattern of words, your mind would open like a raw wound and who knows what could slither in...
So don't think of parasites, no matter what.
Too late.
You've heard of all those stories that change your life, that stay with you forever. It just happened.
For you. Just for you.
You deny it, but even though you take the mouse in your fingers, ready to click close, you wonder. You think to yourself that once this window closes you'll forget all this; that in a week, a month, a year from now you won't even recall having ever read this.
Oh, you'll remember. At this point, you don't have a choice. It's already started, inside. You squint and you deny, but you'll remember because everything from here on has changed for you. You have the words inside you now, and you won't like where they take you. When I take you. But you'll remember.
As you read this, you can remember a little game we played just this afternoon. 29/04/2007, 3.43pm. You believe that winning is everything. You believe in doing anything to survive, or in your own terms, win. You believe that the ends justify the means.
But no, what you are doing isn't winning. What you've done is cheating, employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and at the expense of others. You are a Parasite. You are no different from the hookworms that live in the host's gut, feeding on protein and iron rich blood from the host's intestinal walls. You are no different from the Chalcidoidea which attaches itself to or within a single host organism which it ultimately kills in the process. You engage in what appears to be a mutualistic relationship with another organism, but does not in fact provide any benefit to the other organism.
You are a parasite. You know it yourself, but you don't want to change it. In fact it seems as though you cant change it, for it has become a conditioned reflex in you. It has become part of your life. It has become essential in your quest for survival. You are not totally at fault, it has in fact all started from a parasitic thought, if that even comforts you at all.
Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes your destiny.
You have the destiny of a born parasite. But you know that there is always hope. Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. There may still be a flicker of hope that maybe, there would still be just a one percent chance that you would change.
Won't you?
posted by The Phantom Novelist at
4:56 pm
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