if the mind is a paper towel, this is capillary action

[cygnus]

there is a couch. people are sitting on it. i look at their faces but the colored, erratic flashes of light make the features indistinguishable. their heads are moving so little that i wonder where their attention is being siphoned off to. i return in the morning. they are starting off the day with what seems to be an update on crimes, conflicts, and celebrities. the blonde woman on the screen has a big smile. the man says that a monkey tore the face off of a woman. the day is ending. now there is a clever series on that everyone can enjoy. a man can tell when criminals lie. there's a new punishment to be laid out, a new obscenity chafing the fabric of society. the evil is contained, the issue resolved. time for bed. an image stream is lodged in my brain. there's a rapid camera change but i steady myself with the comforting knowledge that this is in the best interests of nbc. my head is severed by jay leno's chin as he drives by in a jaguar s-class. it's not real, i tell myself. but i panic - those neurons weren't firing in that pattern before. those connections weren't there the last time i checked. i step outside. psychic banalities and mutations begin to accumulate and are absorbed by the soil. they enter the groundwater - i drink this from my well, my crops grow with its moisture. every cell in my body stores their toxicities. -=-=- edit: i should probably note that this started out completely different from the above - basically i was thinking about how there's a number of great books on the subject of television, programming, and harmful effects on the human psyche (especially jerry mander's writing, or an interview such as this one). but i have yet to find any good writing about the effects of the content itself, how it spreads, and how the collective repercussions are felt. so if anyone else is a bit freaked out by the sheer number of people watching whatever new crime docudrama bullshit is out now, post here. i got a little sidetracked trying to re-write what i had down already.