slow hand

imagine a room
walls filled with tv monitors
picture these monitors
show only the slow hand of a swollen brain
(from some 18 different angles in some 18 shades of grey)
shang-hai’d into a think tank
the index picks at the thumb nail
like snapping
only the ape digit is hooked
instead of hitchhiking

the cameras roll incessantly
spewing intangible chemical vapors
the film spills into small infinitude of square brown boxes
like cells in a honeycomb
they are meticulously groomed by unmanicured antennae
terraforming a warehouse into a monolithic cathedral
a monument to protocol

the focus groups preach a rigid dogma of
a. catalogue
b. evaluate
c. cache or d. dispose
[the burnpits resemble stripmines flooded with kerosene-soaked charcoal
ghostly campfires dot the primordial landscape]
the index has scraped a smooth rut into the thumb nail
the company analysts have determined that the ‘rut’
(technically, a ‘rift’ because the gradient tapers laterally)
deepens by three-eights of a centimeter every fiscal year
after a short eternity, a pyrrhic verdict was reached
by double blind tests spanning every significant* demographic
it was gravely established that
a watched lightbulb never quite burns out
it just smolders, patiently waiting to be left alone

(*the term ‘significant’ denotes demographics that contribute at least 3.125% of gross profits, not a value judgment on the constituents of said demographic’s hypothetical worth or unworth)