BIT-STRING ENTRY #9
“I still don’t get why we’re here.”
Like most Humans, Jeremiah doesn’t know what to do with his physical self whenever he’s lost or bewildered. So, he opts for default mode, which is to shove his hands in his pockets and point his nose to the ground, gestures that trigger Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” to waft through the corridors of my mind as we move deeper into this vast warehouse of digital distraction.
I find a salesman and ask if we can have a look at a Nikon Coolpix 950 with a lens adapter for a microscope eyepiece. It’s nice when someone thinks you know what you’re talking about and the man hustles off to check his inventory.
Again, Jeremiah looks puzzled. “A microscope? You want me to take pictures through a microscope?”
I remind him that when he was a little kid the issue was the monster under the bed. Now, after his near-death experience his primary concern should be the monster inside his head. “We’re going on a dig,” I tell him, gently tapping his third eye, “Where no man has gone before.” As a warm-up, I suggest that he start reading the “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.” Even better, start listening to Bob Dylan after he got off the protest song bandwagon and went electric.
“Who?” he asks.
“Please, don't make me feel older than I am,” I reply.
“How old are you anyway?”
“How versed are you in Quantum mechanics?”
“I’m not.”
“Then I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.”
“This is fucking insane,” he mutters.
“Compared to what,” I counter. “The rest of your day?”
I switch gears, pulling out a rumbled printout of his revised semester schedule from my maintenance overalls. He’s stunned that I’m in possession of such a document… even more stunned when I tell him that I was the culprit who rearranged his classes.
The salesman returns with the camera and lens mount. This gives me the opportunity to explain to Jeremiah the difference between macro-photography and micro-photography, and how the external mount keeps the zoom lens rigid over the microscope’s eyepiece, thus preventing blurred photos.
“So, what am I going to be taking pictures of? Bacteria or something?” he asks, staring at the camera like it’s a Claymore mine.
“Something like that,” I say. “You ever see a shot of the AIDS virus? It’s quite beautiful, actually.”
As the salesman moves to the counter to ring up the purchase, I try to boost Jeremiah’s dubious outlook. His digital photography class should be a kick. In fact, his entire schedule is designed to deprogram him, get him to start thinking out-of-the box. Today, he discovered for himself the existence of The Program while moving through death’s door. That said, suicide is no longer an option. There must be another way, a better way of going about exposing The Program and right now BEST BUY appears to offer the Best Way.
At the counter, I grab David Hume Kennerly’s excellent and instructive photography book, “On the iPhone” and tell the salesman to add it to the bill. Then I take out Jeremiah’s wallet and fork over his credit card – or should I say his father’s credit card.
It’s declined.
“He’s cut me off,” Jeremiah says with a defeated sigh. “He does this whenever...”
I grab a pair of scissors off the counter and hand them to my Chosen One, along with the card. “Now it’s your turn.”
A spark of gleeful defiance flickers across Jeremiah’s eyes. He takes the scissors and shreds the Mastercard. Meanwhile, I slip the salesman my black Amex. Soon, bits of plastic litter the counter as I sign the bill.
“You feel that?” I ask.
“Feel what?”
“It’s called freedom,” I say, handing him the bag of camera equipment and the photography book. He seems to get that he has just taken a step outside the box. Outside parental expectation. Outside The Program.
“I’ll pay you back,” he stammers, “…as soon as I get a job somewhere.”
“Well I just so happen to know that there’s an opening in Custodial Services?”
He stares at me, his expression somewhere between bewilderment and amazement. As I steer him out, Bob Dylan’s nasal-honed vocal adds a dose of biting perspective to the journey the two of us are about to embark upon--
“Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is – do you, Mr. Jones…?”