Barbecue Sauce

Saturday - 3pm:

I'm reorganising my web browser bookmarks. Merry Christmas.

I'm officially on holiday until twenty-fourteen. We have mince pies and barbecue sauce in the house. There are lights and slippers. The whole set-up screams "festive" and "why am I sentient?!", so we've had to start wearing earplugs.

Tuesday - 12:03am:

Days have passed. Things don't seem to happen at Christmas.

It's very windy. I can hear it outside. It's Christmas Eve.

There are too many lights on in this room.

I've turned some of them off.

I feel like my senses have been dulled. Writing is difficult. Thinking is difficult. It must be something about Christmas. I ate a mince pie not long ago. Now I can't think. Why?

Whose interests does it serve, this listlessness? (I had to google "sluggish synonym" to find that word.)

A whole nation of people, drowsy, dull, clumsy, lethargic. A nation of half people. The end of December every year, the nation becomes blunt.

Normally, I'd suggest that it's the machinations of consumerism. It's easier to sell products to dullards. But that doesn't really explain it. It's Christmas Eve. The shops will be closed soon. Most people have already completed their disproportionate Xmas spend-a-thon by now. But the main Christmas period (eve; day; day [boxing]) are when we are at the nadir of our torpor.

Or, would the nadir of our torpor be when we are energetic? Perhaps the zenith of our torpor? I don't know. I'm... struggling.

Google is of little help.

We've all been brainwashed. But brainwashing usually serves a purpose. People are brainwashed into betraying their country, giving up smoking, or agreeing with Ayn Rand.

But this brainwashing seems to be so empty. The iconography and ideology behind Christmas is so muddled, that I'm not sure what we're supposed to think. We're not suppose to think anything. We're just supposed to eat chocolate.

Writing this has been like swimming through a viscous trough. Each word is a mountain to be scaled. Each sentence is a tour of duty in some godforsaken war. I'm trying to reach the truth, but the festive pastry is making me forget myself; the mincemeat is making itself of me.

It's not a conspiracy, I don't think. It can't be. No-one benefits from a world of slugs. It's probably more of a natural phenomenon. Perhaps the world needs a few days of non-interference to complete some vital maintenance. Maybe the planet's axle is being greased.

But what about those who don't celebrate Christmas? Or don't celebrate it by watching terrible television in paper hats?

I can't even begin to work out their role in this disgusting equation.

Just look at how disgusting the equation is. The equals sign is two dead snakes, decaying slowly.

Tomorrow, I'll have forgotten all of this. This hasn't been a revelation. I've revealed nothing. But I have, out of the corner of my eye, seen the obfuscating curtain.

Tomorrow, I won't see the curtain. I'll just see the solid wall, covered with photographs of robins.

And it won't matter. Not all revelations are worthwhile. Not all truths are important. Who cares if I eat another mince pie, and my brain gets slower and slower and porridge and stopping?

Who cares if I decide to watch The Big Bang Theory?

It's nearly 2014. And nothing sharpens the wits like a pre-recorded Jools Holland gesturing towards a venerable Hispanic gentleman knocking the shit out of a marimba.