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This is a story, or an accounting of, and interpretation of a dream. I’m Herschel Sterling and I’m here to help. This was done on location while I was walking around doing stuff, and it sounds like it, so I transcribed and did some light editing.
I want to catch up on my new followers and subscribers today as well. Thanks for your interest. I hope you’re enjoying my stuff. Flash August Fiction is coming. Tommy Blanchard, Tash Doherty, norman pellegrine, A.I.P Anything Is Possible , Gary Lavon, Dr. Nick Riviera, Michele Tivey, Fabrina👾Glitchlace. I think I’m all caught up now. Thanks again for your interest.
I’m hanging out at the food pantry again, doing some volunteering, having a cup of coffee. On a hot day, a hot drink on a hot day keeps you cool. I don’t know if you know that or not. I’m helping you out here.
I’m Commercial Herschel and I’m here to help. That’s my whole thing.
I usually start my stories on some stimuli that’s around. Maybe I had a dream overnight, or maybe I don’t remember my dream, but there’s some thought in my head first thing. Like the last story called Channels, I just had the word channel in my head. I didn’t know if it was about a TV channel or channel of water or somebody channeling a spirit or a ghost or something. So I wrote a story about channels. I do that a lot with my flash fiction. It’s mostly stream of consciousness.
So what I’m doing today is I’m telling you a story about these gross experiences — not gross, don’t be scared, like they’re gross, but they’re not gross. I’ve done a lot of volunteering in human rights, civil rights, civil liberties. And when you’re doing that kind of work — and I’m a volunteer, I don’t get paid for that — that’s the responsibility of citizenship. That’s what that is. That’s what you’re supposed to do.
It takes vigilance. And there’s some people who have to get paid for it because they don’t have any skills. They don’t really think about it as a part of their responsibility. They think about it as a career. So anything that is going to influence their career in a negative way, they’re going to fight against it. Even if it’s an issue that they claim to agree with you on, they’re going to just fight you. That’s what they do because, “oh, I can’t let them frame this issue the way they’re framing it or else that’s going to hurt my career. So I have to smear that person.” And they’re claiming to be on the good team, and they’re totally not on the good team. They’re really terrible people. And it makes me wonder what kind of parents they had, honestly.
There’s this app i want to make. But I have to find a coder. I have to find somebody who codes and who can actually get that done. I’ve been thinking about this app a lot. I have to be able to pay for it. I’m broke. I’m not a rich guy. I’m a broke writer and somebody who has been ruined for my political work. What some people call political work. I just call it being a humane individual. But political people are threatened by that. And so they ruin you and they hurt you and they do that. And my life has been ruined by people like that. Not really ruined. I’m proud to have those kind of enemies. But financially, I don’t get to do much.
They keep track of everything I do, and no matter where I go, they make rumors about me. And no matter where I go, the rumors catch up to me. And it’s happening here now where I live. I really like this place. I have nice neighbors, and I’ve met some great people. But, you know, the rumors are here. They always have a way to let you know that they’re keeping track of you. Really vile, vile people. But I’m proud of the fact that I have destroyed the careers of disgusting people who have contempt for human life. I’m really glad I got to take a couple of them down. So, it’s worth it. Seriously, I jump for joy. I wake up some mornings and dance around. I do. I’m not kidding. That’s not a joke. I mean it.
So I had this dream, and there’s creepyladies who do political work. Like, they’re real creepers. And they always — sometimes, always, sometimes, always, sometimes — try to make everything about them. They make it about their gender or their sexual orientation or their ideology, you know, and they always have to inject their issues into everything. If you’re a man, then they’re going to say, “oh, you have testosterone poisoning” or some s**t, some retardation like that. You know, just like if you’re straight, they’re going to say that you’re a homophobe, or if you’re white, they’re going to say that you’ve got a white savior complex or white guilt or something. Some extreme b******t like that.
These creepyladies — and there’s men like that too, believe me. It’s not just the ladies, obviously. Duh. But I kept seeing this one creepylady in my dream. Now, here’s the first thing you have to understand. When you’re seeing somebody else in a dream, especially if they’re a main character in your dream, it’s actually a reflection of you. You’re seeing a part of your own personality. So that means that I recognize the behavior in those creepyladies because it’s in me. And I’ve been finally reading some Carl Jung and I haven’t been a Jung guy much. Like I haven’t read anything until recently. I’m 60 years old and I’ve only started reading just a little Jung. Because I always wanted to have that experience for myself. I always wanted to have the experience of understanding my dreams and understanding my subconscious and the unseen parts of the mind. I wanted that experience for me. And I didn’t want to have it influenced by anybody else. I wanted to live my life and have that experience and be able to interpret all of that for myself. But I agree with him. And I’ve read other books about dreams where they say you’re seeing a reflection. So that means that these creepyladies are exhibiting a personality type within themselves that I actually also possess. That means I’ve got like this accusatory, judgmental, irrational part of my own personality as well.
Like, I watched that debate between the president and the former president. And, you know, I can be pretty mean. Like, I know how to be mean. I’m good at it when I have to be. I can make people cry just by talking to them. I’ve done that before. I’m reversal Herschel. You’ll find out. Don’t find out. You don’t want to find out. But yeah, I know how to do that stuff. I can if I want, but I control it. I mean, it’s not necessary. I don’t have that many terrible enemies where I have to be so cruel, but I can do it.
Anyway, in this dream, the creepylady was taking the form of like a combination of all these gross people, most of whom I know — two of whom for sure really aren’t who they say they are. They pretend to be like lawyers that care about like important issues like human rights issues and stuff, but really they’re just on the clock, like they’re just embedded as a part of the state, like deep state kind of stuff. We’re all supposed to be too stupid to know it, or something, because they’re so smart and we’re all so dumb, right? And like I said, I had this app in mind and I really need a coder.
So I’m in this dream and I’m walking down a familiar street in the city I used to live in. And it’s a crowd of people. And it’s like a festival crowd in a sense. Like there’s all these people everywhere. And this lady is there. And she’s this combination. She has the hair color of the one creepylady. And she has kind of the eyes of another creepylady. And she has the nose of another creepylady. And the body shape of another creepylady. It’s like a combination of creepyladies. And I’m walking down the street and I see her and she just points at me right in the middle of this crowd. And everybody stops and looks and she points her finger at me like the late, great Donald Sutherland.
And she points at me and she says — remember that movie where he pointed and screamed? You know, remember that movie? What was that movie called? Oh, Body Snatchers. Remember that? I think that was what it was. I think I’m right. I think that’s what it was. Remember that? Gosh, what a classic. Donald Sutherland. Gosh, I’m sorry for interrupting the story, but Donald Sutherland, man. MASH, too. That was such a great movie. I used to love that movie as a kid and I watched it after like 20 years or maybe 30 years of not seeing it. And I realized how depressing it was.
But anyway, so the creepylady points at me in the dream and she says — “you’re coding!” She tells me I’m coding. Like, it’s an accusation. And I’m like, I wish I was coding. Because if I could code, I could build my app. That would be awesome. Like, I wish I was coding. And I just keep walking, blah, blah, blah. And then the next thing you know — this part is really funny. This part is funny. Interesting. Interesting, like symbology or symbolism. It would be symbolism, not symbology. It’s like a circus. Remember I told you on the street it was a festival crowd? But in this dream, in this part of the dream, it’s like a circus. It’s like a fair, like a state fair, but there’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on all over the place. And she stops and she sees me again and she says, “You’re coding!” What does that mean? Like, you’re coding. Like, I’m like, I wish I was coding. But she’s making these accusatory statements. You know?
Okay, I got to put it on pause because I have guests here. Okay. So that was nice. I like it when people come into the Pantry. They got some food, people who need some help.
So anyway, the creepylady. And so, like I said, she’s got like these different features from different people. And then we’re at the circus and it’s like a festival thing. And I think that means something, the fact that we’re in this big circus.
And I think the point is that these accusatory people whose narrative you’re threatening — the narrative is you’re the white guy, you’re the bad guy because you’re the white guy and you’re working class. So you’re also violent, because working class people are all violent. So you’re a white guy and you’re working class and you’re violent. But if you’re a white guy and you’re working class and you’re nonviolent and you’re intelligent and you’re actually affecting change and you’re behaving in a way that is with responsibility and your motives are more to perfect the Union and to help society, that ruins their narrative. And so they feel threatened by that.
So this thing of, “You’re coding!” That’s just an innocuous accusation that doesn’t mean anything. It just doesn’t mean anything. It’s not serious. It doesn’t have any bearing on anything. It’s a non sequitur. It’s obviously meaningless, you know.
And then the dream continues on and everywhere I go, no matter what crowd of people I’m with, this creepylady keeps showing up and screaming, “You’re coding!” and pointing at me like Donald Sutherland in Body Snatchers. And I think the point of that is that nobody really took it seriously. Because what can you do when they’re making these obviously false claims that just don’t have any bearing?
The word bearing means it doesn’t stand on anything. It’s not based on anything. That’s when somebody says “This doesn’t have any bearing.” You know, it doesn’t fit. There’s no empiricism there. There’s no observable reality connected to it. There’s no bearing. It’s just a false claim designed to help this other person maintain a narrative in their own mind. And they’re really not kidding anyone.
And I think the point of that was to show how that part of my life is over and that those people — that I’m leaving that behind me. Like it’s meaningless. It’s innocuous. It’s finished. It’s non sequitur. And it’s over. And now I just laugh at it. It used to upset me.
Those are terrible people. Like they really are terrible people. They’re never who they say they are. There’s always something going on. Like a lawyer who is defending people who set off bombs in the United States in a shopping mall and post offices. This lawyer is going around accusing all of the men organizing nonviolent activities and activities for social change and stuff. She goes around accusing them of having testosterone poisoning while she’s defending men who literally set bombs off and then got them out of jail. Do you have to be a genius to be able to figure out who that person is? And who they work for and what kind of a clown show that is and what an embarrassment that is? That’s why it was a circus. That’s why it was a festival atmosphere when she was doing that, because it’s a clown show. And she just reveals who she is. That’s what that is.
Or you’re working with an African-American woman who’s 65 years old when you’re 30 years old. And she’s directing you in civil rights activism. And these white girls from college show up to her meetings and try to take the meetings over. And then when I refuse to succumb to their nonsense and their fake accusations and all of these things. They tell me I have a problem with strong women. So let’s get this straight. The 30-something-year-old white guy who’s taking direction from the 65-year-old black woman and who is loyal to the 65-year-old black woman because they are both working class. And if you don’t know this about working class people, when a mom asks you to do something, you do it. And if you’re from a neighborhood like I am from, when a black mom asks you to do something, you do it twice the first time. You know, like this is how that is. That is just how that is. And these are things that these shitty rich college girls don’t understand. But I’ve got a problem with strong women because I won’t listen to the college girls because they went to school for four whole years and turned their homework in on time almost every time and everything. And a 65-year-old, very intelligent, accomplished black woman is telling me, teaching me, showing me what we need to do to get this problem solved, and given me the privilege, the opportunity to work with her. But I’m the one who’s got a problem with strong women because shitty rich white girls don’t like what I’m doing? Like, that’s absurd. That’s absurd. That’s just ridiculous clown s**t. That’s what that is.
All right, and then let’s see, what’s the other one. Oh. When they accuse you of doing stuff for money and then the first thing they do is try to secure the movie rights and the book rights to the situation. So why? So they can control the narrative and get paid from the misery poor people’s terrible situation. Every one of their accusations are confessions.
The work I do is done out of my own pocket because I have skills and I have a job and I can take some money out of my own pocket and do this stuff. I don’t need grant money from some some fascist corporation to help, you know, to pay for my mortgage. I’d rather work a real job and pay rent at an apartment and take money out of my own pocket because that’s my responsibility as a citizen. I don’t need to get paid for that. You know, we’re supposed to do that. It’s our job. It’s our responsibility. So… like that.
So yeah, creepyladies. Tell me about my problem with strong women. Tell me about it, stupid. The hatred and fear that these fake management people have about working class people organizing without their self-appointed permission. It’s pretty telling, really. Especially when we don’t succumb to their racism. It’s pretty gross. Now do you know what I mean about gross? I hope you can see that.
So there you go. So that’s today’s little thing. And I think the thing I learned was that chapter — that chapter of life, that experience — is so far beneath me. That I probably shouldn’t have let it get to me so much. I probably should have just not allowed that to affect me emotionally. But these are things we learn. So maybe if there’s something you can learn from this, remember that clown s**t is clown s**t. And don’t let that stink linger on the bottom of your sneakers for too long. Because that’s where it belongs, you know? That grease. That grease in the rubber of your sneaker soles. Don’t let it linger. You know, move along. Those are stupid people who had lousy parents and they made terrible career choices. And that’s why they get hired by the organization that hires them, because they have that kind of personality. And how lucky you are and how grateful you should be for not having that kind of a personality. You know?
So, all right. And thanks for everything. And I’m glad I can help out. I hope I can help. I hope we learned something from my little story. And life at the food pantry is hot. It’s hot here where I live. It’s really hot in this food pantry. It’s a little storage container. But I’m going to be okay. I’ve got nice neighbors and I’ve got people coming in here getting food because they’re hungry and things are tough out there. And I like to be able to help out. I’m Commercial Herschel. I’m here to help. You know that about me.
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