Pot Smoker Kills Dozens

And it is nevertheless romantic to be one of the disillusioned, unaffected, young American intelligentsia. Vitamin C supplements may do me good, but if the lid is too annoying to open, I’ll just watch TV. I was told I could be anything, but they left out the “within reason” part. For the most part it is true: I can be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a politician. But if it’s “anything”, I’d like to be the next messiah, or the leader of the world revolution (or at least on the board), or God. Failing this, how can I just settle on a career? I am very much against “settling”. Dreams of Rock-Stardom and seducing beautiful women around the world hang over me as unyieldingly as a giant, falling, unhappy rock—I cannot refuse. To become a mere just-another-guy, no matter how “successful” or content, is an impossible caveat. But there it is: unspoken, unthought, immanent. (We believers in the individual: how silly of us!) “You can be anything, within reason”. Its authority is absolute. And I know it. I tell myself I ought to have faith in mediocrity! I tell myself that there is a new magic somewhere deep inside our mass culture, a tiny kernel that redeems an otherwise faceless and repetitive system. Where is greatness? How can I distinguish myself from everyone and be remembered by all history? Find that kernel. Descend into the depths of the collective zombie and uncover, beneath it all, that cantankerous, malignant pearl called Salvation, Everlasting Fame.

And so I smoke pot, wake up late, do nothing. Earlier I smoked a joint sitting on my windowsill. I flicked the roach, still burning, into the street below. The mind caught it, and, with a series of acrobatic maneuvers, carried it under the hood of a car. Almost immediately smoke began to billow out from within. Minutes later the car exploded, hurling burning debris onto the apartment complex across the street. The wind gave life to the flames and before the fire brigade could even arrive the building had burned completely to the ground. Dozens were killed.