.orgH. G. Whiteknight
Operation Overload and the Grand Struggle of Mediocrity
Her legs looked like matchsticks, but I knew they were a source of great pride. She sauntered down the sparkling sidewalk, the invasive sun reflecting the flecks of shiny stone imbedded in the cold concrete. Her flaxen hair glowed; daunting, her azure eyes burned; assertive. Her six inch heels clicked in rhythm, click, click, click; the descending horseman of the apocalypse. She smirked as she gave me slow, criticizing elevator eyes and I imagined her skeletal finger scolding me. "How dare you?" It cried.
She brushed past me with touch of malice. I could feel her abhorrence like an electric jolt through my body. I stood frozen, my head tilted downward as if I was a marionette with no puppeteer, unable to fathom what had just occurred.
However, this anguish was not foreign to me. I had seen it in the pained eyes of others when I had been the aspen in a room full of oaks. Had I exhibited this degree of imitation? Had I cut down my competition without regard as to whether they indeed were my opponent or an innocent bystander? Had I been garish with my frame, narcissistically decorating my proportions to attract the sought after attention of the opposite sex that was so desired?
How could this be? My shirt tags read medium! They did not shriek small nor hiss extra-small. How could medium bore the unforgiving seed of self-hatred into womankind? Medium, this neither here nor there, average, mediocre size somehow transformed me into a glamazon? Hardly. Than why was I the kiss of death to another womanís good time?
I pondered also why Madame Zero was so loathsome of my figure. Did my commonness frighten her or irritate her? Was it a matter of "why can she" or "how dare she"? I felt as though medium was the battleground for twigs and oaks to combat each other until the death. It was necessary that I be destroyed. I needed to either shrink or gain.
"Certainly average allows for both sides to win," I bargained.
"Or lose," They retorted.
There simply was no pleasing them. I was Poland and they Russia and Germany; this would not end well. I concluded that if medium was to be the beaches of Normandy than I would go down victoriously. I would remind all that there was once a middle ground! That there was once something that lay between anorexia and obesity but they had rejected it; they had slaughtered it. I found solace in the fact that school children would one day read in their history books about me and about the grand struggle of mediocrity. And yet, still I brooded, when would aspens reign?
Once upon a time, there was a precocious girl named H.G. Whiteknight, who grew from the ground adorned in fuchsia and lavender petals. In the day, she climbed the trees and swam in the lagoon. In the night, she slept in the meadow on the soft earth blanketed by stars. In the winter, she skated on the ice and spun in the air. In the summer, she dived from the low cliffs into the shimmering aquamarine lake. In the land of the lagoon, the girl was happy.
A day came when the girl was stolen from the land of the lagoon and taken to the land of the evangelists. There she watched in horror as they tried to drown other boys and girls in pools of water. From these magical pools they were said to be born-again, but all she could see was the hypocrisy dripping down their faces. Here in the land of the evangelists the girl was not happy. Here, the precocious girl learned to be cynical, skeptical, and sarcastic but not born-again.
A day came when the girl escaped from the land of the evangelists. She wandered for many days only to come upon a place where there were no trees, lakes, or flowers; that werenít manufactured. This place was called the land of the suburbia and here the houses were made of ticky-tacky, all the same. All the other boys and girls all looked alike, talked alike, and all had shiny colored mind control devices with identical white strings hanging from their ears. In the land of the suburbia, the people were not zealots, like they were in the land of the evangelists, instead their cathedral was a mystical castle found in the kingdom of Bucks. Queen Star, of the kingdom of Bucks, wanted to bring her people closer to their mystical castle, so she had her servants build numerous castles all throughout the land of the suburbia. The suburbanites would go on daily pilgrimages, in their enormous steel carriages, to one of the numerous castles. Once at the castle they sacrificed all of their money to Queen Star, and in return were served gallons of burnt murky brown liquid. The precocious girl got very lost in the land of the suburbia because every house looked identical to each other. Here in the land of the suburbia, the girl was not happy. Here the precocious girl learned to be capricious, complicated, and reckless, but not addicted to burnt murky brown liquid.
A day came when the girl wandered out of the land of the suburbia. She rode her steel horse for many hours and finally came across a place that reminded her of her beloved land of the lagoon, this place was called the land of the bohemia. In the land of the bohemia, there were real trees, real flowers, and real lakes. There were no magical pools or matching castles. Here the people worshipped the land and showed it by salvaging goods, buying enchanted food, and crusading the use of special steel carriages. Here the people wore there hair in long twisted knots and covered their feet with strange looking shoes called "stocks" from the land of Birken. Here the girl learned of the great battle against "the man" and all the atrocities "he" had committed against the bohemians. The worst of all the cruelty "the man" had committed was the hiding of their numinous green plant that the bohemians needed to inhale in order to find peace and serenity. Here the precocious girl learned to be open-minded, stoic, and loquacious, but not a numinous green plant inhaler. In the land of the bohemia, the girl was happy.