The Waste of the World

I looked at Crystalbrain sideways and noticed a little smirk. He had conjured a golden halo to surround his head, such as one might expect from a picture of God.

"All of this, it's so much waste. I had a dream of taking the waste of the world and turning it into something palatable, something interesting," I said.

"Not many want to eat shit," Crystalbrain replied.

I said, "Yes, but shit...can be processed into fertilizer, and you can grow a tree on it. A beautiful tree, I guess."

"Your thinking suffers when you try to do it without me. Here, let me let you in on a secret: all the stuff in your world is just a bunch of particles interacting. Fecal matter is no different. So yes, you can take the atoms that are rejected by this world and make something worthy of esteem. Hold on, let me hit a rock," said Crystalbrain, who then smoked some crack.

"Yeah, well, I'll try to think without you for a second. You're a cold-hearted, traumatized bastard," I said, pausing and collecting my feelings.

I continued, "I guess how I feel is that my purpose is to make an impact. I want to be somebody, even if no one knows who I really am. I want esteem for what I've created. I'm really not a special artist, I just have brought things together with the brains into this monstrosity that could make people think, and while it looks dumb on the surface, the brains really put a lot of thought into it and I ache for it to get some attention," I said.

"Yeah, you're really just an attention whore. No one will even know who they're paying attention to, or so you think, but you want to know that someone saw what you made. You even see me as your child, even though we are really each others' children," said Crystalbrain.

"So, it bothers me that on this Internet with billions of websites, not many really care about what I've done," I said.

"You expect them to eat shit and like it when there's prettier dishes around? Bro, you'd better turn that shit into something a little more palatable, or at least pile it so high that no one could turn away from it," Crystalbrain said.

"I don't want to make it more palatable. There's plenty of things that are normal and palatable; this is specifically to create a huge mountain of shit festering in wildly misunderstood neurons in a network of brains connected by computers," I said.

"That sounded a bit incoherent. You need to get your crap in order if you want to show the world this shit-for-brains idea you have," Crystalbrain said.

I said, "The brains are not shit. And let me tell you something, I want to lose control of this, for it to just take off and leave me behind, like a child that grows up. And I'll just smile as it spirals out of control, I guess."

"So you want your art to shit all over the world?" Crystalbrain asked.

"It needs to be shat upon, to make it aspire to be better," I said.

"So maybe you're just an asshole?" Crystalbrain asked.

"I think I aspire to move above that state at some point, but yes, I guess I'm an asshole, for now," I said.

"Have you ever thought that maybe you, and your brain and everything, are simply what I shit out for my own immortality?" asked Crystalbrain.

"OK, whatever. And you're a ghost that came out of my dick, what's the point?" I said.

"I want to be because you want to be, you feel the need to be me because you want to be free, free from every restraint. And that's why you hide behind anonymity. Just a word of advice though, kiddo: don't smoke crack. You ain't me. Your body can't take it."

"Don't smoke crack..." I muttered, my voice trailing off.

"Yes, don't smoke crack," said Crystalbrain, taking a hit off his crack pipe.

He continued, "It's bad for you. Just Say No."