Sunday, August 24, 2008

to those who resist the feed

'we americans,' he said, 'are interested only in the consumption of our products. we have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens to them' -- he pointed at his daughter -- 'what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.'




i ordered the draft pants from Multitude. it was a real bargain.
i ordered another pair. i ordered pair after pair. i ordered them all in the same color. they were slate. i was ordering them as quickly as i could. i put in my address again and again. i was shivering with the cold on my butt. my arms were around my legs. i ordered pants after pants. i put tracking orders on them. i tracked each one. i could feel them moving through the system.
spreading out from me, in the dead of night, i could feel credit deducted, and the warehouse altered, and packing, i could feel the packing and the shipment, the distribution, the transition to FedEx, the numbers, each time, the order number, my customer number traded like secret words at a border, and the things all went out, and i could feel them coming to me as the night passed.