Music to go with this story: Ball of confusion
Poor Subterranean Traveller. He has fallen to a severe case of paranoia of the kind where he now is believing rumours about hidden networks controlling events on planet Earth, or else endeavouring towards fulfilment of this bizarre yet unsettling perspective.
The traveller during winter break had gone exploring websites about illuminati and reptiles and other revelations of the third kind which he didn’t believe half of. Just fun stories to read, for sure a lot better than the daily nonsense about recovery through destruction. But when back to his travels in the new year, the subterranean all of a sudden started recognising the signs. That is always a dangerous step towards madness, when one starts recognising the signs.
Sign language, the subter’s sources say, is very important to the secretive schemers in our midst. To them it is a communications tool they can apply in full daylight without people outside their circles realising what is going on. The best the conspirationalists produce - convinced a great and imminent danger is threatening our precious stay on the globe –is listing the obvious imagery. The 666 hand sign, the butterfly, the overtly use of shade, the single staring eye and of course the constant reference to war and destruction are all very much visible if you go looking for them, but what they uphold exactly nobody seems to know.
Like many of today’s pop stars, Lady Gaga is an ambassador for illuminate style.
Without any real revelations to share, the palm readers tell us about the sharp rise of late in the occurrence of these images and they interpret this as a coming out of influential organisations and individuals signalling each other they are in the know and prepared to deal us, ordinary sheep, and our beloved consumer society the final blow. The end is nigh - as it always is when secrecy is involved.
The traveller took it in a little too greedily perhaps, being winter and all. But what he couldn’t avoid, being underground his fair share, was noticing the surge in dark and distasteful Hollywood movies being advertised on the metro platforms. In particular the poster of a movie called la hora mas oscura, or the darkest hour, caught his eye. A woman is strangled by lightning while at her feet the city of Moscow is being bombed to smithereens. Why Moscow, the subterranean traveller wondered. Which war is foretold us here? And what precisely does the flash bolt imply? Death from the sky, clearly, but by what means? (If you believe in secrecy, there is no room for chance of course.)
After ignoring his thoughts for some days, the travler took out his telephone and grabbed a picture, two for good measure, and went on his way, pretending his fascination was a mere whim. Had the poster gone, so would his worries, he made himself believe.
I have brightened up the black a bit for more detail. Notice how the woman is actually lying on some glass panel she can’t seem to get through.
The following days the travler wrestled with the meaning of it all, forcing himself to cool it, and just when he thought he had made it he ran into a new and much scarier image in the underground connector between Clot’s railway station and line 1. It was a picture of a face behind a gloved hand with a ring and a strange pay-off, something along the line of when you see this you’re a goner. The ring wasn’t any spectacular, nor did the brand or company’s name, whichever it was, mean anything to him, but what fully struck him were the many correct signs the poster carried.
Was this, then, an honest hidden message? the subterranean allowed himself while he brought out his mobile. Though he didn’t particular like the idea, the travler felt how he was not going to let go of the thought for a while either. Other people were passing by without paying attention. Beware people, this is no time to be innocent, he mumbled.
I have tried to give back the image its distinct dark look which the poor old telephone mostly blurred out. Check out the eye for detail.
When surfing for the sender, the traveller hit upon the national railways in-house communications provider which presents itself on the net as a brand new full service start-up, advertising innovative ways of running most of the company. Comfersa gestiona de manera innovadora, each branch description begins. Cada pasajero un espectador, reads another line not free of suspicion. But why would this company introduce itself with a red glove, shaped like a bird’s claw in front of a face with one eye peeping through, a cold burning stare for that matter, the most obvious of the acknowledged secret code language - acknowledged by the conspirationalists that is. How does offering railway services coincide with advertising glove and ring? Intelligent communication, Comfersa claim themselves the honour. Intelligent in the sense of possessing undisclosed information, they surely mean.
The thing got weirder when the subterranean traveller could not find any similar posters elsewhere under or above ground in the city. He would have liked to believe it a clever joke by some freak who spends too much time behind their computer, but how would anyone finance an idea like that and then have a single copy printed for all the costs that go into creation? Had it been a private initiative, using the company logos without prior consent, the picture would not have lived for an hour - while the subter had seen it on several occasions. It just didn’t add up and the traveller saw no other conclusion than accepting this truly must be a coded message, signalling perhaps the location, an underground railway station where in spite of the crisis reconstruction works are being carried out. (If you want to grow a fear of subterranean development, go check what they have to say about Denver airport.)
Feeling the eye staring at him and hearing voices speak the line, the subterranean got to ever more greedily scanning for mirror images of what he had read, to be found not only on posters and in videos but increasingly in reality, since reality has basically become what we hear about it from the media - apart of course from one’s private, utterly opposed reality. He now saw the signs everywhere, even in people who never seemed to have heard of the problem.
Adding contrast to bring to the fore the lettering, gave the fossil a nice golden shine.
Then the subterranean traveller’s companion, herself an avid blogger on hidden treasuries, brought to his attention a poster of shopping mall Gran Via 2 in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat. When the world ends, you had better get caught in the sales, the caption reads. Very funny indeed, but the traveller was too far gone not to notice how the end was supposed to come with a flash and bang, as in new clear destruction for instance. The notion turned the message upside down to the tone of keep on shopping as much as you long for, silly, to us you are dead meat already.
The subterranean of course realises he may have got it all wrong, but he finds it hard to kick the habit.
Stay tuned.
