Mandy makes a bold beeline to the Centre of Power,
Where the microphone amplifies her like a riot.
As soon as she feels any discomfort stirring up,
Man, she storms.
Forward to the mic!
She moves in defence of her right to defend her right to eternal inner peace and quiet.
From her reserved seat, front row and centre, Mandy power strides her way to the mic.
Arms swinging wide and
Heavy like pendulums.
She arrives. She huffs. She puffs. Straight into the mic.
Then, after releasing a slow wheeze, sound crescendos into a high pitch whine – like a siren.
We clock entitlement as she assumes right to command and oversee ‘Operation Restore Order.’
We observe privilege.
She: Patriarchy’s smug self-appointed, self-congratulatory Microphone Mandy.
She: Patriarchy’s smug his/storical record- and time-keeper.
The coveted “A”position of proximity to power won in exchange for access to entitlements and protection:
Rights to take up all remaining space; and an army of armoured Knights to defend her patch against
encroachment and squatters.
No one can step in her way – bossy strut forward.
No one dares.
We just stare. We are already exhausted by the thought the mere anticipation of yet another episode of
“Microphone Mandy Micromanages the Matrix”.
She reaches. First to speak. She takes the mic like an Olympic athlete accepting a hard-won gold prize.
She grins. Excited. Entitled. Oblivious.
And proceeds to neatly pack up everything we had just exploded out of the box.
Pleased, she ties a ribbon around it. Secures the lid shut. Then begins to hurl.
We wonder how she came up with a question so quickly.
Looks like she never listened.
Sounds like she arrived with a little something she prepared earlier.
Something she knew was good for us – without consulting us.
Looks like it.
Look, see how she lunges forward and snatches up the microphone without so much as a glance around to see
if the people who are the subject of discussion actually have something to say, first.
We notice the oversight. We side-eye.
She, oblivious, to all but her painful need to remain front and centre hurls up a cacophonous accusation.
Hurls up all over the speaker’s floor: Microphone Mandy Micromanages The Matrix.
She spews a riot of barely digested chunks all over the floor.
We stare at the mess. She finishes. Turns to us. Demands we clean it up. We stare into space.
She hurls up, again. Tone beneath it all is a riotous blood red, cleverly dressed up as Righteous (But Carefully
Controlled Civilised) Rage. We notice.
We vomit in our mouths.
Yet, still. We feign ignorance, there. We sit dignified, here. We drift off, over there. Everywhere our eyes glaze
over. Imagination takes over.
We enter another dimension and co-exist in a world beyond this mess and as she hurls,
we dance in liberation’s fields.
As she issues a statement in the tone of Innocence-Under-Siege,
We – hoping it is safe to return – cautiously drift back.
Unfortunately, we just catch the tail end of her long-winded, purported observation-cum-question which sucks
up all the oxygen in the room.
That little snippet is enough
To. Make. Us. Snap. Back.
We gasp. and. suddenly.
choke on toxic air.
She – Lucky Microphone Mandy – remains oblivious or perhaps justified in her purported defence of Innocence-
Under-Siege.
Within two milliseconds, this sneaky saboteur loaded a canister of nerve gas into her throat and fired it out over
the PA. Reverb and echo over the unsuspecting daydreaming crowd the poison lands.
Releases toxic gas.
We are sucked back into her game. Her rules. Her time. Ticking according to the entitled swing of those
pendulous arms.
Forced to merge back into this reality, we re-emerge with a splutter.
It stinks of undigested chunky spew. We sink. We cover our mouths. We vomit some more – in our mouths.
We in shock. Sniper attack deflates our optimism – our flailing life buoy.
Suddenly, we find ourselves at sea drowning while gasping in her poison air. We can’t breathe.
Our shoulders curl in to protect hearts caving in under the blind belligerent onslaught.
Her assertion of privilege. Her demand to remain at the centre. Her refusal to budge – not even a nudge.
She, like a dash of blood riotous red dressed up as righteous rage, rampages, unchecked –
Of course.
Us?
We lose to live another day. We choose to win the war. We steer clear of this spat. We hunch over.
We curl in to protect ourselves from the shrapnel as she explodes in an assured act of civility a.k.a. violence
with impunity. And so ends the promise of unity. So dies the hope of community living beyond the perpetual
reassertion of this self-serving supremacy.
Where
and
When
in all this madness will Microphone Mandy finally learn to find her humanity?
This. is. insanity.
