Less Than Mice?

[Vung Tau, 2/1/26]

To isolate humans and atrophy their social skills, we have social media. We give each one a camera, with instant results, so one can capture not so much the world, but oneself, with even the most spectacular sceneries mere backdrops, blurry and cropped, to one’s average, at best, face. To fix one’s innumerable defects, one must carve up one’s flesh, dye one’s hair or mask one’s scents with overpriced chemicals dissolved in ethanol. Etching into one’s arms, legs or torsos has become nearly a universal requirement. This abject obedience one deems radical or rebellious, such is one’s conformity.

All these superficial makeovers don’t decrease one’s anxiety or self-hatred. Inside, one retreats further and further into that remotest pussy one longs for yet resents, for it’s spat one out, how could it?, so joyfully, without mercy. To such pussies, happy birthday is the saddest refrain. That’s why I hear mother’s cunt constantly whenever I’m around young people. Even if 30-years-old, they’re retarded infants.

This diatribe was triggered by another lukewarm cup of coffee at Ông Già, as served by a tatted up young barista with a deadened face. Between 4 and 5AM, all patrons were no less zombielike. Each devoured a phone with soulless eyes. For an hour, I sat among corpses. One screen struck young man with half his hair dyed blonde, a tiny pony tail and at least one earring was perpendicular. I’ve seen charred bodies more toned and virile at Pompeii. Unwiped tables glistened forever. Instead of complaining, I left a one star review at Google Maps. Eight out of nine other reviewers, all Vietnamese, also gave it one star. One granted it two. Though societal collapse shows up mostly in trivial, even petty, details, they add up to a grand disaster. Don’t you tell me we’re supposed to live like this.