The Book of Not: The Book of Carthage

OK, you're going to be standing somewhere and someone in a jacket made out of the skin of some animal who desperately needed it to keep his insides in and his outsides out (reality testing, the doctor calls it.) he's gonna stand there with a ring in his nose and his fist in his pocket and say "Hey, man, they're gonna screw us over just like they did at Carthage." and you're gonna stand there and look at him and say "Carthage? Let me tell you about Carthage, pasty-boy." Sit him down on a mailbox and stamp him on the forehead. Mail him to Albuquerque-- make a wrong turn.

Here's the truth, here's the reality, here is the breadbasket, here are the crops. The shot heard round the world. See, Carthage wasn't a utopia, no, no E-ticket here, it was a rat-hole, it was a sewer, it wasn't nothing until we got a hold of it and then it was. Sure, they invented writing, but that wasn't a big deal, because they didn't have any ideas. Communication is the transfer of meaning, of information, of media ecology interactions, of environmental reality parameters, of thought process server violations, of fish, and they didn't have a single thought in their pointy little heads and they never will unless you help 'em. YOU YOU YOU YOU-- YOU PERSONALLY I BLAME YOU.

Because they invented writing, does that mean they wrote? No. We scrawled our way out of the manholes and womanholes and into their brains, bloodying our kneecaps and our locks. We saw they needed help, we wanted to help so badly, I guess we got a little excited, we took a knife and we jammed it into their skulls and cracked it open like a ripe watermelon on the Fourth of July and while they were laying there bleeding we were about ready to give them the truth, give them some reality, intravenously, and WHAMMO! POW! I guess we should have seen it coming-- pretty much everybody hated Carthage. I don't know why, maybe it blocked their view of Africa or Europe or Asia or something, but they all hated it, and when they saw all of them helpless on the floor, they decided to dogpile on them. So we tried to hold off the invaders, tried to keep them away from the brains that were exposed on the floor, that's right, us. We were the ones that defended Carthage to the end, not them, never them. We protected those bastards, we ribbed them for their pleasure, we were right there. They were laying on the ground, trying to deal with everything at once, not knowing when to walk away and not knowing when to run, counting their damn money right on the fucking table. But there were too many of the others, the ones that hated. Number ain't nothing but a number, but it was the Big Number, and it came up. And so they came stomping in and the brains got scattered all over the walls and they were stomping and stomping and stomping on the brains and smushing them down into nothing and then Pauley, the littlest Malformation of them all, ran under their booted feet and brought out a little piece of the Poobah's brains, and if we can ever find Pauley, we'll be able to give it back to them, and maybe then, they'll be able to buy a clue.

Until then, give 'em their jackets and give 'em their shouting and give 'em their music because they know they're mad about something.

But they can't remember what it is.

Listen closely, little bug, little tiny stinkbug who rots in the dirt. I'll tell you. I'll tell you the truth, little bughouse bedbug. The true story of Cart-age. The Age of The Cart. Where they carted the bodies out stacked like cordwood and we buried ourselves in the stained soil and howled for oblivion to come. Well, it came. It came, and we live in it now, bug-man.

Carthage was a blot, a wretched nasty stain on the books of history, those lying books, stacked with so many lies that truth annihilates near them PFFT! like a moth and a light bulb. Truth checks in, but doesn't check out. Carthage was a world of dirt and grime, of filth and disease, of treachery and deceit, of shit in the streets and piss on the walls. It smelled of rotten blood, it smelled of death. And yet the TooBlah, the GREAT and MIGHTY TooBlah will come to you and say "Ohhhhhhhhhh........it was the besssssst ciiiiiiity evverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrr...." Well, slimy little insect, it's easy for them to talk, because they were on top. On top of the world, ma. Of course they would think it was the greatest, because they had it all. And you know how they got it? The same way everyone else gets it-- by taking it away from someone who deserves it: the working guy, the slave, the idiot, the lunatic, call him whatever your teeny tiny puerile nervous system wants, bedbug, it doesn't matter. That's what Carthage was, nothing special or beautiful about the place.

So we burned it down.

It burned very very easy.

End of story.

Do you want to see how Carthage burned, little buggered bug-eyed stinkbug? No? Then get back out there, get back out into the asylum and bolt the door behind you.

I don't really remember Carthage all that much. I remember they had this big Mickey Mouse and he would walk around and give the children hugs and candy and that there was a newspaper there that had Saint Krazy in it, which is rare and so I moved there, and they liked the drawings I did, have you seen my drawings? Well they liked them too, I think. The doctor says that drawing is good for you, but I never feel any different after I draw... it's always just the same. Carthage was a nice city I guess, except that the sun shone at night and the stars came out during the day so it was really hard to get used to. I tried to reverse when I slept and woke up but it didn't work... I always got up right when the sun went down and I tried to stay up so I could listen to the "Lone Ranger" radio program but I never could I always fell asleep. Anyway I guess you want to know what happened at the end of Carthage. A lot of people think that it burned down or that a lot of other people conquered the place or something. I don't know. But I was there right at the end, or at least I dream that I was sometimes. I was there, and I saw what happened. There were seventeen angels, and their names all began with "G", and they came swooping down with a trumpet in one hand and a sword in the other and then everyone just packed up and left. I don't think anything really happened to it. It's probably still there. I don't want to go back though. The angels might not like it. They'd probably only cast me out again. Do you want me to draw a picture of you? It won't hurt all that much, and I'm sure your soul won't miss just a tiny little part...

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