Rat Wheel
Herded like a dumb ass sheep far, far away to a barren land, a fridged hell box. They put colored lights on it, but I was not amused. And it
was still grey. The ground was ornamented by little block buildings squatting awkwardly in disconversation. There, they filed us. Filed us
into our very own cell blocks. They had a thing for those. Blocks that is. If you left your block, you’d find yourself in a hallway lined
ass to ass with other little cinderblock blocks. If you wanted to get out, you could follow a row of blocks one after another, little
squeezed-together blocks with no breathing room and take that right up to a big windowed block. You could eat there. And then block your way
to your appropriate little learning blocks (those have numbers not names on their doors see). They teach you tricks there. Really block things
out for you. Just in case you feel lost, they pull out their special block boards, which neatly display their blocked papers and bullet points,
maybe even use a power point shot from power books to make blocks of power out of you for sure. Even their windows block the outside from
within. And they train you. But you can’t move, you just have to sit there. Kinda like a block. They teach life and help break it down into,
well, series of little conceptual blocks. Blocks you can hold, flip around, understand from every side, and know it, name it. In class we
discussed the global social political economy how its sexist, racist, classist hierarchies need imperialistic, capitalist, hegemonic projects
to mantain domination so they can tower across oceans. I glanced around our florecent block of a room and tried to picture towers of power
blocks stretching out our windows and reaching across raging seas. I asked what would happen if the tides somehow broke this extended Power
Castle. Eyes just blinked, until someone said, “Yeah I had that question for a while too, and I realized…that’s why man created boats and
bridges.” “Actually,” my teacher said “the networks created by information technology virtually bypassed oceans altogether.” The lights
flickered and the class nodded their blocky little heads.
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Students:
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