procession of fools

reading time: N/A

One needn't think too hard on whether their eyes are looking at wandering fools.

They are often dressed in striped pants and torn oversized sweaters and can usually be seen walking in a stretched line following the sun. A spectacle rarely appreciated by anyone but small children and those of weakened minds, the procession of fools is one of many natural reactions to the ticking clock of technological insanity that aims to decorate the otherwise oblivious face of our Earth.

During a rudimentary journey to the local grocery store, just off the intersection where the main road plonks the abandoned highway that has now for decades been host to the world's 7th least fun mini golf course, I spot the procession of about twenty fools making their slow way across the road towards what used to be a field, just past the butcher.

With such a rare occurence, I decided to halt my plans for a few minutes and observe the procession. I was not the only one, who in the drying heat of the dying star paused whatever it was they were doing and gathered around the street crossing, where the fools were just making their daring trip, tripping on seemingly flat ground during every n-th attempt to make a forward step with both feet raised simultaneously. The emaciated being in the front of the line, wearing a scarred top hat, would fall to meet his skeletal face with the hot asphalt, laughing and getting back up to continue.

Among the fools walked many machines, seemingly broken, aged, wrapped in tapes and dressed in wires. Their screens flickering and dripping ominous liquids that left an oily stream in the foot trail of the moving party. But there were also those who gleamed in the heat, returning flirtatous smiles to those who observed them walk.

Jugglers, hackers, semi-sentient robots, clowns, chess players and prostitutes - all slowly marching towards the sun, handing out candy, performing magic tricks and chanting the classical track no. 3 of the the album "IBM 1401, A USER'S MANUAL". Despite their uneven appearance and barely any notable similarity past the striped clothing, the one thing that unified all these marching fools was a bond beyond physicality.

Every now and then when a procession of fools passes through a town, a soul or two of life-worn critters and computers, upon seeing the striped line towards the sun pass their office windows, stand up from their desk and blindly join the march. Compelled by nothing more than a longing for `something else'.

Finally, the last fool crosses the street. It's a bipedal monochrome screen with a ghost of a cursor, dragging one of its feet behind, disappearing with the rest of the procession behind the bricked butcher.

For a while the smell of burning dust lingers in the air and giddy children compare random collectible cards one of the fools handed out. Slowly the observers get back to their daily worries. Finally I head inside the grocery store and pick up a bunch of fruit and toilet paper. Making my way to the self-checkout, I realize the machine is missing. Nothing but uprooted bolts in the concrete floor and a few snapped wires hanging off a wall socket.

And in a hint of a spark, comes a rare moment, no more than once in a hacker's lifetime, where the machine reveals itself, before it quickly fades away again in a gust of perl.

Most have learned to ignore the procession of fools, a fair amount despises them, others treat is as an amusing fact of life, and the children want to be like them - until they grow up and begin despising the fools too for not trying to convince them to follow the sun when they were still young.