I don't know if I should be wary around Lucien now, as he almost fucking kissed me in a library where anyone could see, and though he didn't, the intentions were clear in his eyes, but they may have been overpowered by the effects of tantalization, and Lucien is the biggest tease I know, so that's more plausible than his desire to kiss me.
But beside the teasing aspect of his character, anyone could see the contemplation wading in those ocean eyes of his, just waiting to expel their true goals onto me yet reserving themselves still, because they were scared of how I would react, as I was already plagued by nervousness in that moment, having been pinned to the shelf by a boy who wouldn't stop staring at me. Does Lucien actually like me, or is it a ploy to support his own ambitions?
He was originally on the hunt for a book to use in an article while I was on the hunt for him, and then he appeared in my sight all of the sudden with a kiss the salient priority on his mind, yet he had picked a book also and gave it to me only when we were an inch apart so as to fool me, so does he just like to be extravagant, or did he panic at the last second and really did want to kiss me?
I can't decide yet, because after he transported the research material to me, he was sashaying through the aisles to return to his work of cataloguing items at the desk as if nothing had ever happened between us at all, as if he were solely a librarian to me and nothing more, because his job of helping me find a book had been completed, and that was all that he needed to do for a library patron. I'm thankful for his assistance, though, for I now have a suitable topic for an article, and I will be out of my funk by this afternoon.
Lucien had selected a book on the history and the aftermath of capitalism in countries other than our own and partially in America as well, but we're still frozen inside of that economic system, so we can't really speak from the beginning to the end for ourselves, but history repeats itself, so there's bound to be striking parallels even in countries halfway across the world.
Lucien's choice surprised me, because though he is very vocal about his opinions, he elects to stay on the side of philosophy where things are amorphous, never dipping his toes into the hellfire that is economics, because those parts of human civilization are terrifying and arbitrary and convoluted and totally disparate from Lucien's spirited disposition, but he may just be testing what I know about capitalism and how my views of it manifest in the article.
I could receive lots of backlash for this, losing some readers along the way if their conservatism is more important to them than the artificial knowledge they crave and find in my articles, but writing is all about backlash. My drafting process is logging powerful words into my computer and hoping they'll ignite a riot among the insufferable bigots, just as Lucien would do, but I never forget that my words are my own, and I can do whatever the hell I want with them. They don't have to be grandiose displays of pretentiousness, nor docile entries with tiny blips of opinions dispersed in there so that I'm not slammed by a suburban dad for being one of these stupid liberal youngins. I am free in writing, so if I lose readers because of this, then that's perfect for me, as I receive enough comments anyway. Conservatives are a waste of my time, and I require respect for my words on a terrain that is my own and can be abandoned if one doesn't enjoy what I have to say.
I'm going to be brutally honest with my article, as any writer should. Being behind a computer screen offers me a chance to say whatever the hell I please without worrying about a fistfight with people who can't fucking accept it and will never grow past foolish children whose cynicism, even with its general center of humanity, is still only pointed to one human. I can't be bothered by people who think that their crusty conventionalism is relevant on a slate that is purely my own, and I will state my opinion without glorifying theirs for being so ludicrous by simply existing in my temple, and though that sounds narcissistic, I've had enough people chastise me for vocalizing what I think is morally right, and now it's my time to shine upon my platform of thousands of people whose silence is mandatory in this theater. It's time to be free from my restraints of anxiety, and it's time to say something.
From what I can see, we are perpetually molested by capitalism, by an imposed sense of inferiority to insubstantial paper with the heads of the ancient perpetrators marked upon them to pound the notion that they are important into our mechanistic minds. There is enough for us, but alas we have not earned it through painful labor and strenuous hours, but is that not what our riots signify? Is that not the impoverished dwelling in the slums of avenues with higher prospects than filth of the lesser side? Is that not the sickness we endure and the vaccines that hide from us like we're the monsters for desiring justice in a world where it was proven long ago that all men are created equal, for simply searching for that statement's verity?
And yet beside the criticism we cry out! We cry out joyously at times and weep against the rain stricken parchment of our signs protesting iniquity where it is abundant. We seek justice but are barred and gagged by institution and form shoved upon us by the dictators of this system, by the demagogues with nothing more than an audience above the city streets slickened by the tears of the poor who are crushed below the upper class' feet, but we are told that we are forever at the bottom because that is how it is supposed to be, suspended below the dirt, below the views of common people who couldn't care less about our strife, below the views of businessmen and corporations who think that we are nothing because our lives revolve around circumstances that happen to be unfortunate, as if their lives do not do the same, as if their circumstances are nonexistent just because their circumstances are bearing.
We of the diminutive will always be plagued by the touch of capitalism that claims that they need us yet snares every chance to call us ugly when their opinions are unlatched from the ties of those who believe in a fairer government, those who will condemn businessmen for trampling the people extending their grimy fingers towards the heaven who serves as their only deliverance, who offers angels in places where they are null, who neglects the pessimism and the fraudulence of capitalists to instead bestow paradise upon those who have struggled in the tightest bonds of their enemy, and that is when they are free. That is when we are free, all these fallen soldiers of the forgotten dime, all these protesters who slapped capitalism and caught the ricochet of their bullets against the industrial metal from the factories that keep us, all these paupers who never meant a thing to the upper class but meant something to themselves, all these citizens who never gave up the fight.
I have known poverty many times before, though I disguised it in a way that would praise the altruism of others instead of reveal the true reason for their altruism, like I have done with Jack and Edie and their permission for my residence in their basement. I was struggling financially after breaking my ties with my horrific family who only cared about my fame and how far I could extend that fame with my blog, but Jack and Edie were my well adjusted friends, so they allowed me to stay with them until I could get back on my feet, and the rest may have been pity, but they granted me a permanent stay so that I could pursue my article writing business, which now has me heated up beyond compare.
Poverty is a tricky thing, as most people have no interest in helping someone and would rather kick dirt in their face than simply leave them alone and try to soothe their guilty conscience as if their morals are more essential than one's life, and Lucien is now at my side in an attempt to help me explain this to the world without sounding like a despot whose only goal is to crush capitalism, though I'm not sure that would really be a problem after everything capitalism has put me through, but when Lucien is pragmatic, that means something is extremely crucial to him.
"Add a comma there," he suggests, one hand gripping the back of my seat and the other hand pointing to a part of a sentence on the computer screen that I had missed.
Sometimes I neglect to add punctuation where it is needed, because quite frankly the words are too small for my aging eyes who have probably been ruined by years of staring at this same computer screen in an endeavor to preserve the youth that is flying from me as an effect of that ordeal, the paradox of the digitally published intellectual, but Lucien's eyes are brilliant and electrifying and able to detect mistakes where I cannot, so perhaps I should employ him to edit all of my articles, but that probably would end in a disaster, as I am wary of sharing my writing with people I know in real life, because any one of them could approach me at some point and ask what I meant by something and not once realize that maybe I am suffering in a fucking basement that smells like dirty water and bits of myself, bits claiming that this is a hell I created just because it resembles me.
So, yeah — Lucien isn't granted access to my articles, but I'm thankful for that extra comma at least.
~~~~~
A/N: I don't even know how I feel about capitalism and socialism what am I doing here
idealism: that knowledge is founded on ideas
~Dakotato