every man strategizes fight scenarios.
every single male imagines a melee.
every fella in here has:
The Zombie Plan
The Meteor Plan
The Aliens Plan
and The Terrorist Plan.
this is, without question, a matter of fact.
a zombie attack? a meteor will crash into earth? terrorists take over? it's ok, we've got it covered. don't sweat it.
oh, hey, there's that cute young girl Sarah, in the mall with her boyfriend Mark! she's talking non-stop, hanging onto his arm, going on and on about the new girl at your work who totally wears too much eye-liner and-- "Mark, are you even listening?"
no, Sarah, Mark is not listening. he can't.
he's answering to a higher power.
-action jackson thought processes are firing a mile a minute-
he's looking at those two clowns on the other side of the mall.
------30 feet away, about 5'9 and 5'11, both probably right handed, 18 years old, a buck-60-ish, urban dressed, dull-eyed dimwits who aren't moving particularly quickly, the shorter one a few pounds overweight, the taller one probably lighter than mark and less sure on his feet, wearing awkward skater shoes, cant run, he's the quicker target, carrying a lightweight bag probably clothes in it, one park bench heavy enough to hold Mark's weight should he need the hurdle in between, a trash can with a removable lid, heavy plastic, one of those planted indoor trees about 10 feet to the left, a full glass wall, roughly 40 other witnesses in the immediate area/people to break it up if things go wrong, his left leg hurts from that bruise on his shin, lead with the right, tense the knuckles, untense, no other real props, a man carrying a cane or umbrella? 20 feet ahead, Sarah can be kept out of range, the tall one has long pullable hair, take one out first as quick as possible, then concentrate on the other, exits behind me towards the bathroom, no cops, can they ID me, where is......----
"oh, yea. totally. i agree," says Mark.
like fuck Mark agrees.
status of this dbag: fucked
all this goes down in a matter of 2 seconds in some weird T1000 / Terminator mode that flickers on and then back off in a blink of an eye. it's entirely subconscious. Mark doesn't even know the two kids walking by in the mall. Mark doesn't even care, he wasn't really getting ready to fight them...but if for some reason those two fuck-bags turned into zombies or terrorists or just decided to attack Mark and Sarah-- Mark was ready to flipkick those mothers in their dirty zombie mouths, crack some necks, flee to safety, and evade any identification. But they don't. And Mark doesn't care. And Sarah keeps talking about that girl at work.
well guess what Sarah? you're welcome.
Mark just planned on saving your life. and I don't know if anyone's told you, but maybe you wear entirely too much eye-liner. did you ever think of that? did that ever occur to you? did you ever think of that or think about your own survival in the face of cataclysmic and life-threatening disaster? of course not.
you're a selfish, selfish girl Sarah, and I think maybe I'll talk to Mark about finding a girl who really gets him. (and doesn't listen to entirely too much Taylor Swift).
now I know women can think this way, I'm not saying they can't. I'm just saying all men do. all the time.
it happens every day. it usually happens every hour.
we plan ahead--not for our weekend at your parents house in June, SarAh--but for the inevitable. we hone our minds to become strategic, precise, killing tacticians. it's not just killing and fighting. it's running to the gun shop if there's a zombie outbreak. it's planning on stockpiling food, sexy lubes and weapons in the event of any kind of survival scenario. it's hotwiring that camaro with the top down in the parking lot if the government moves in to take him down.
maybe it's some leftover human survival instinct--born of territorial and/or self-defense mechanisms. i don't know.
maybe it's a product of violence in media --our glorification of the dominant, aggressive, explosive power of man. could be. right?
and maybe it's just boredom.
places it happens the most:
-anywhere with girlfriends/wives
-church
-supermarket
-walking in public places
-school
-prison (visiting)
-driving
-your mother's family dinners
-the shower
-in dreams
-on the toilet
-on the Septa bus
-at work
-on the phone
-in the city
-boarding airplanes
-crashing onto desert islands
-working in morgues
-watching men in black II
-when breathing
-7:30 pm (everyday)
and that's just a handful. it's a constant motion in there, Sarah. an urge to kill, to brawl, to remove the head from the body (zombies), to survive. we can't then be expected to listen to every.
--single.
---word.
------you.
---------are.
----------saying. zzzzzzzzzzz.....
we have to stay sharp. we have to stay focused. we have to save your life.
they could be anywhere
so yes, Sarah, Mark is listening. listening to his heart. and right now his heart is measuring the number of steps it takes from here to that park bench, to the launch-off, to the angle he should drop that elbow in the face of that old lady carrying her groceries (seriously favoring her left hip) on the way out of Super Fresh. i mean, if that bitch decides to turn into a body-snatching alien and open her jaws up wider than her head and try to swallow you Sarah, boy is she totally fucked.
this is man's curse.
this is man's gift.
this is his baptism into a nightmarish, delicious world of violence and glory.
this is the real-life Fight Club.
and we all totally want that body.
