The Eradication of Syndromes

In June of 2059, the International Society for the Preservation of Sanity (ISPS) recognized for the first time the Syndrome Response Syndrome in their highly influential quarterly publication, I’m Not Nuts, But What About You?  Syndrome Response Syndrome was characterized by the sufferer not giving a shit about anybody else’s syndromes.  And, because it was now a recognized syndrome, they no longer even had to try.  Most agree that, in theory, the syndrome would’ve been fairly easy to cure.  However, because the main symptom of Syndrome Response Syndrome was not giving a shit about others’ syndromes, they also didn’t give a shit about their own syndrome, and nobody sought help.

It is still debated whether Syndrome Response Syndrome spread like a mania through the power of suggestion, or whether it had always existed in such extremely high numbers and that our reporting systems had just significantly improved.  Regardless, within a year over 98% of the world population claimed to be suffering from Syndrome Response Syndrome.  As a result, by June of 2060, the ISPS was only recognizing one syndrome, Syndrome Response Syndrome.  And by the Fall of that year, they announced that there really wasn’t much point in recognizing that one, either.  There were several medical organizations soon after that recognized a No Syndrome Syndrome, which was a syndrome caused from not having any syndromes to suffer from.  However, the ISPS never recognized that syndrome, stating that it was “just plain silly.”

Moobert was having a hard time keeping focused.
Moobert was a cow.
Well, he wasn't really a cow,
but he wasn't exactly a bull, either.
That was one of those things that Moobert was supposed to accept.
That was one of those things that Moobert had been assured that he could accept
if he could only stay in focus.
Staying in focus supposedly would have helped Moobert accept all sorts of things,
like standing outside in the cold rain all night long trying to ignore coyotes,
or having silly tags stuck to his ears and his skin seared with red hot pokers,
and being fed all sorts of weird chemicals,
only so some day he could be taken away and chopped to bits.

Lord knows,
Moobert had tried.
He had chanted the sacred mantra for hours on end,
both forwards and backwards,
and he had listened to the words of the Old Wise One,
telling him the futility of even trying to be anything more than what he had been destined to be,
and that was a cow.
But one thought kept coming back to Moobert.
One thought would not go away.
One thought kept Moobert out of focus,
and that one thought was:
"This life is insane!"

And that thought kept at Moobert,
until one day,
right in the middle of a moo,
right when Moobert should have been focusing on his eternal oneness with all
instead of even noticing that the steadily falling sleet had no intention of ever turning to snow;
Moobert said,
"The hell with this!"
And Moobert walked out the gate and across the grate that hadn't fooled anybody,
and headed down the road and into town.

It was there that Moobert got a job working in a factory
that made implosion devices for nuclear bombs.
Well, yeah, of course they knew he was a cow,
but they didn't care as long as he was willing to work twelve hours a day for minimum wage,
which was barely enough to pay the rent.
Well, it was enough when he added in his evening job down at the Tasty Burger,
which also gave him enough to afford basic cable.
He wasn't home enough to have gotten his money's worth out of the premium channels, anyway.

Day in, day out,
pretty much seven days a week;
that's what Moobert did for the rest of his life,
right up to the day he died.

Sure, Moobert could've retired
if he'd only made it another fifteen years,
and maybe then he could've spent the rest of his life in some field somewhere,
but cows don't live nearly that long.

A Vicious Circle 

Albert Einstein reads his books
while Mrs. Einstein sews and cooks.
He sits and thinks deep, deep, thoughts
while Mrs. E. darns his socks.
And while Mrs. Einstein scrubs the bath,
Al sits downstairs working math.
She takes out the garbage and washes the floor,
cuts out coupons and goes to the store.
She mows the lawn and does the wash;
she fixes the roof out over the porch.
She scrubs the toilet and unclogs the sink,
and all the while Al sits and thinks.
And when Al finally comes to bed
with abstract concepts still filling his head,
he's ready to tell the Mrs. his thoughts so deep,
but Mrs. Einstein is sound asleep.