quips

KO released early, but i didn't scamper.

sights weren't seen. 

numerical accumulation defied speculation. 

what wasn't right? 

what wasn't right, 

wasn't right. 

 so i turned left,

skipped stepping on the elevator's edge. fumbled through a field of cubicles, home-grown milking stations built for KO's cows. personal decorations lined the walls, pictures and statues and cars and women and origami hobbled into form with a child's feathered crudeness. wanton, how KO's lawns seethed with righteous virility at adequate treatment's absence, yet real men and women, made of more biomass than Atlanta's totaled fields, allowed themselves tireless abuse. lunacy. who would willingly volunteer to face pad and chain in KO's cardboard maiden, industry's asphyxiating cage, societal selection's saw? what sort of madness drove one to dream of fettering hopes and dreams to anchors tethered by gravity's pull? who could bring themselves to cope with the consequence of such a choice? were KO's proclamations assured through divinity?

in my case, proof laid in the pudding.
shame, disgust, inward focus.
but belief didn't belie doubt's buzz.

no. not a chance. it was KO, its nightmarish words rolling off my tongue, the septic touch of its bubbles boiling from my esophagus, exposed by my deviation. truth is, i strolled down an avenue of ash-made desires taunting me to chastise those below, KO's peons lacking insight. truth is, i almost wrote them off as mere bloated tat-sacs, globs of life-juice squeezed for another's pleasured consumption. but no one can walk mindless to decimation, to ten-fold separation in houred chunks of a lifetime glued to a seat, waiting...waiting...waiting for a break.

i didn't
i couldn't

i wouldn't

you can't dally

so i took the initiative

and looked

The Coca-Cola Company                                              Delaware
Subsidiaries consolidated, except as noted:

   Barq's, Inc.                                                    Mississippi       100
   Bottling Investments Corporation                                Delaware          100
      ACCBC Holding Company                                        Georgia           100
   Caribbean International Sales Corporation, Inc.                 Nevada            100
   Caribbean Refrescos, Inc.                                       Delaware          100
   Carolina Coca-Cola Bottling Investments, Inc.                   Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola Financial Corporation                                 Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola Interamerican Corporation                             Delaware          100
      Montevideo Refrescos, S.A.                                   Uruguay           55.53
   Coca-Cola Overseas Parent Limited                               Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) Limited                        Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola Dimlight (Overseas) Inc.                           Illinois          100

Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings, Inc.                                Delaware          100
   Coca-Cola (Thailand) Limited                                    Thailand          100
   CTI Holdings, Inc.                                              Delaware          100
      55th & 5th Avenue Corporation                                New York          100
   The Coca-Cola Export Corporation                                Delaware          100
      Amalgamated Beverage Canners (Pty) Ltd.                      South Africa      51.55
      Atlantic Industries                                          Cayman Islands    100
         Ansan Ankara Gida Mesrubat ve Meyva Sulari Sanayii
          ve Ticaret A.S.                                          Turkey            66.63
         Coca-Cola Bevande Italia S.r.l.                           Italy             100
            Azienda Bevande di Gaglianico-ABEG-S.r.l.              Italy             100
            Societa Bevande Meridionale-SOBEM S.r.l.               Italy             100
         Maksan Manisa Mesrubat Kutulama Sanayi A.S.               Turkey            66.66
      Barlan, Inc.                                                 Delaware          100
         Varoise de Concentres S.A.                                France            100
            Coca-Cola G.m.b.H.                                     Germany           100
               Coca-Cola Rhein-Ruhr G.m.b.H.                       Germany           100
         Societa Imbottigliamento Bevande Roma-SIBER-S.p.A.        Italy             100
      Beverage Products, Ltd.                                      Delaware          100
      Coca-Cola de Argentina S.A.                                  Argentina         100
      Coca-Cola de Chile, S.A.                                     Chile             100
      Coca-Cola Ges.m.b.H.                                         Austria           100
      Coca-Cola Industrias Ltda.                                   Brazil            100
         Recofarma Industria do Amazonas Ltda.                     Brazil            100
      Coca-Cola Ltd.                                               Canada            100
         The Minute Maid Company Canada Inc.                       Canada            100
      Coca-Cola (Japan) Company, Limited                           Japan             100
      Coca-Cola Korea Company, Limited                             Korea             100
      Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited                                    Nigeria           100
      Coca-Cola Southern Africa (Pty) Limited                      South Africa      100
      Conco Limited                                                Cayman Islands    100

International Beverages                                            Ireland           100
         Coca-Cola Refreshments Moscow                             Russia            100
      Minute Maid SA                                               Switzerland       100
      Refreshment Product Services, Inc.                           Delaware          100
         Coca-Cola de Colombia, S.A.                               Colombia          100
         Coca-Cola Holdings (Nederland) B.V.                       Netherlands       100
         Coca-Cola Holdings (United Kingdom) Limited               England and       100
                                                                    Wales
      The Inmex Corporation                                        Florida           100
         Servicios Integrados de Administracion                    Mexico            100
          y Alta Gerencia, S.A. de C.V.
 

nothing special, all publicly available...besides the bold. never in my life have i examined, researched, or investigated a company called dimlight, -ever-, in any of KO's financed operations under my jurisdiction.

but i knew them.
oh, KO, how i knew them!

a confession is in order - you did not premier my bureaucratic wizardry. half a score ago, a man and grey-shine tango'd together with terrifying rhythm. conjoined by bleak contract, our palms plucked forth instruments of madness, aristotelian visions from imagination's darker eddies, and brought hell earthbound. i left those times for silence to reclaim, but dull-glow hadn't prayed for my peace, hadn't given me time to extinguish what we did. KO provided refuge, or so i assumed. now i can see the numbers in flawless arrangement. now, KO's tickers are clicking.

that wasn't all we did.

reading the phrase just clarified

 ([{<CLICK>}])

ko no i can't do this

ko no i can't do this

ko no i can't do this

get out

get out

get out

but

keep typing

keep typing

keep typing

([{<NO>}])

just get out

dont go looking for them then they'll find you faster

(please let some[one] see)

the tv won't stop

the tv won't stop

the tv won't stop

and i took in the white i embraced it brought it up to my breast poured it into my figure's vessel

it greased the nozzle, plugged in the syrup and pushed my buttons and I

dispensed

dispensed

dispensed

it and i tried not too you could see but

it got through

it got through
it got through

and thats what caused me to pause in my assumption. they know and i know - we're all privy. our words must catch in the throat's globbed mucus or else we all risk embracing (the fructose curse). armed with our families and cadillacs, our throbbing genitals, our digits and social formulas, we subdue the ever-present ruckus. keep it to ourselves, where it belongs. secured, soundproofed, given no second glance. if you don't have that? turn to noise. noise keeps horror vacant, leaves one deaf and dumb to scrawl and scream.

but white noise can't

drown

out

itself

KO, MY AWAKENED LIEGE

LEAD US TO OUR DESTINIES

([{<GLADLY>}])

"quality programming,"

says TV GUIDE Magazine,

"is integral for both our own sustainability as a company and the sustainability of television as a medium. In today's ever-present Internet world, assurance of quantity and timeliness mean nothing when abundant content lies a hyperlink away. When customer retention focuses around giving the viewer what they want, what they need, what entices their interest, piques their curiousity, gets them thinking, then TV will secure its place in the entrenched echelons of media history. Radio knows, newspapers are learning - so why are we skipping out on class?"

an astute preface. to skimp out on what makes TV TV does none good. sometimes stories only translate accurately when considered in a particular frame, an established view-point taking full advantage of its medium's domain. quality not only refers to general production value, but also to the inimitable intricacies that embellish an art's impact on the populace. a shot angle loses meaning in translation to written paragraph; a sentence cannot conform to a camera's rigid boundaries. who watches a book? who reads a movie? who else more qualifies art's affect than its audience?

what supersedes the viewership? nothing.

stop at nothing to portray something.

boats born back from a bay

sheesh! my weeks, so prone to stumbling out their calendar! so desperate to enjoy themselves anywhere but at present! corralling such a shifty bunch into a schedule's semblance presents (myriad) difficulties. the circled (X)s accumulate across dates whose resolution should show -something-, but just go. and go. and go. again. and again. and a(gain) - of nada comes nada. what's worst isn't their delinquency, it's their establishment as history, how the endless fosters of time's eye escape into impenetrable ether, fade as one through tear-drop mists conjured by their predecessors. traces vanish, with assured finality, and all one can do is await the next batch, hope that the imparted lessons stick this time, pray for a (slender) ray to pierce next morning's boiling monsoon.

pray for KO's deliverance. (ah[!])-men, say those who fail in sharing my lacking religion, the worst character judges.

those good kids, though, who stick around my head long enough to ferment a rapport, they tell me well. cans clinking together. tins to tins, mugs to chugs. affliction by the cupid-stupids, transmitted through fiery shots, sod spots protruding and incisions not. a hodge-podge of appendages flailing within themselves for moments, until a sudden, sticky liquid leaks all over, and stillness arrives, vanguard to the realization: my parenting skills lack.

television forefront, and the periphery's (blurry). but my (eyes), dare wander? (pa)h! why embrace what needs distraction?

longest nights mar fondest on our unmarked plaques, our undented papers. invisible consequence scratches, time's manifest suppressing its wounds. ordering remains important as ever in our bumblebee-(buzz)ing, (ludicrous)ly rushing lifespans. origination rarely occurs in peace. creation is movement, transition, the translation of actuality's portrait to reality's frame. to look through some frames, though, is to see watercolor bleeding, charcoal smeared, paint diminished as it touches earth-bound sadness. palpable, the liquid regret of spurned fulfillment (visible only to [one]). stick out the tongue, sip it all, lick it from the atmosphere until blank space equals the remainder, until tones, typefaces, and timelines blend into their commonality - (endless) white.

ding ding. bell rings. KO continues. off once more.

([{<click>}])

"Moe you're always cooped up in your apartment. Why not get buzzed with us for a change?"

John is sitting, intertwining a Rubix Cube's colors in its rainbow cage, protruding chin nuzzling his Nokia Lumia 900 against his cauliflower-sized hearing aid. That's how I remember him making calls - persistently distracted. A nostalgic image, though for erasure of that ear-bound clam I'd sell my owned soul. I hated it(first declaration of loathing in [bold{!}] terminology!), the way it clung to his lobe, an monstrous parasitic suckling devouring swathes of skin for sound's exchange, and I suspected he did too. But John's repetitiveness manifested mentally. Brand loyalty meant the world to him. He stuck to anything that showed him perfunctory appreciation, a cat hooked on (nips[!]), a 'pecker pegged to its perch(!), exemplifying habit. Explained our continued association, at least, even after some unfortunate corporate run-ins segregated us to opposite office ends. (How these demi[god{!}]s hustle us to tussle! They think in isolation, fragility's all one finds.) Explained why he rung me up at 12:00 in the morning to try and corral me from my cubicle, enclosed by a Coke-can parapet, my eyes glued to the stagnant screen's (white) wilderness, to grab a beer at Satin's. (That nine-level wine cellar! Reflecting, refracting, dispersing the sights!)

That's the reason I assume. But to define these typed thoughts "definitive" would skew their given truth.

To date, I've done a decent job restraining my familial proclivity for slanting what isn't readily apparent, but in the future some slips may occur. (A [side{!}])wise glimmer, passed by at a glance's clip, may miss some emphasis here, a (focus [there{!}]), a space in this text's sensibility. Does that dilute appreciation? Does that question matter? If accuracy's (the [game's]) name, why are you here? To deduce a 34-year old's sights and sounds from a cornucopia of (binary's) consequence? Think about every one of these blog...things, these telescopic (and microscopic) insights into the mind's eye. Each their owner's sieve, entrusted to (filter) out unnecessary extremities, ([dangling{!}] appendages) unsuitable for presentation, that deemed "too-icky". Each a portfolio of consideration, from bins of words plastered together on scattered canvas as a prototype, facing (trial[!]) by sculpture in the white box block of the post creator. To dispense a satisfactory product weekly, on the dot, for months on end, at the whims of those partaking! How can these craftsmen keep up with such a ravenous audience? How their flaws pop in this shine, their blemishes fester in their opus! Chasing grander heights, all eventually fall.

But not I.

To rally back on course! Of course I answered, after an all-too familiar recorder

([{<click>}])

"I can't go now. The EE-2 Brew scrum needs monitoring. Kent's going to disembowel Dave if he finds out we're not making North American sales thresholds and resorting to -this- spectacle to reassert product dominance."

"The hell, Moe?" Incredulity, then laughter. "EE-2 Brew? You know it's April Fool's tomorrow, right? We're only..." keys clacking (water bottle brought to perspired forehead - for diffusion) "...down .21- shit, it's goin' up right in front of me. Why else roll out -those- remedies?"

"Because KO's numbers aren't adding up." Paper-rustle, pencil-brandish,

elevator-ding

diminished (perceptive - too late) on approach. "I've sent fifteen hundred faxes these past two weeks from Kent to heads of every multinational department, their subsidiaries,"

2nd floor ding, 

"THEIR national department heads," 

3rd floor ding, 

"everybody moderately accountable on the corporate ladder to Kent and the board,"

4th floor ding, 

"even people in places able to hold him accountable for his past actions. And this is just the past two weeks."

5th floor ding.

"Well, Moe, it does look like they're people in your department doing their damn jobs. I don't see how this is special at all."

"If distributing nearly two thousand faxes that your own secretary can't read isn't suspicious, I don't know what is. Even that doesn't spook me as much as how bad Kent looks. He's so pale, all the time, comes in gripping his wrists shivering when it's 75 degrees out, no wind chill. What the hell's shaken up our boss so much that he's digging through the crates for medicine and reaching out to all his associates, SECRETLY?"

"Who cares? What the public doesn't know won't hurt'm." His side - a retch, then repeated coughing. "Sorry, must've cracked my ribs or somethin'. Went hiking a week ago. Those woods ain't the fondest place. Think they just about appreciate skinny men like me as much as I do their thickness."

6th floor ding.

"It's alright. If you need rest, get it. Thanks for listening, John."

7th floor ding.

"Ehh, it's doable. Get enough yourself. You've stayed in late for the last few months."

8th floor ding.

"Still monitoring me, huh? Haven't changed a bit?"

My floor ding.

(Pause. Phlegm-choked cough.) "Yeah, (ain't a [bit])." 

([{<CLICK>}]) 

BzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Innocuity

An experimental paper, jury-rigged to a KO-therapist's desk a few floors beneath my place by a fogged-up glass Coca-Cola cup, reads off the following:

In most psychiatric cases involving paranoid schizophrenics, a dearth of rationalization characterizes the patient's unbased terrors and illogical hallucinations.  Addressing such concerns at their source can relieve tension and foster a rapport between subject and doctor contributing to steady recovery. Have the patient sit down at home after taking their prescribed medicine and describe the objects and settings around them in a basic manner. Record any irregularities present in their transcript. Utilize this material in future sessions to pry open the patient's mind.

A Valium sinks down (pre-script-ion of sorts) an esophagus.

...

go

Office wall is creme. Lamp adjacent red. A sultry leg snakes out its vibrant light to stomp on the desk (ever-subservient secretary [bubbling inside for {attention<!>}]). Ceramic steadiness supports the frilled shade, reminisce A Christmas Story (yes, that same [one{!}]). "SAN DIEGO" screams the blue pencil cup to my right in some block font, the A wobbling on a stunted left line, eager to tear off its perch and dive into the cursive "California" maw beneath. Scissor handles are a flaking black-grey reflecting consistent use, rigorous wear, a stalwart aesthetic devotion compromised by inevitable decomposition. Floor slithers about, straight lines distorted, weaved in patterns defying comprehension. cubist portrait in upper-left corner grins at me, blessed box-shapes cracking at the seams as my eyes water and the pill keeps kicking around my skull

boom

boom 

boom 

boom

boom

boom

boom

boom

boom

-box tenacity

throbbing, pulsing, growing, livid 

fifty million arm divisions

only the face

 holds weight, the coca sort-

blow(!) all over. 

When I go look at my blog, I always note the little things. The predetermined background for this expressionist canvas contains a diminutive, 1950s-chic TV screen embedded in the center of the room, a prison to white noise, encompassed by a pane of wooden reality. In a sense(!), it's fitting that such an article sits in what amounts to my personal lounge, my abode of reasoning.

Gods are always watching. 

KO is no exception.

"EE-2: Brew",

codifier slapped to our newfangled soda-kaon (think Jamaican pronunciation[phonetics{!}]) invention, mun (repeat). It's a preposterous moniker, honestly. Inquisitive sources clasped to my corneas tell me this revolutionary spectacle in imbibery frothed forth from an archived medicinal concoction afflicted by a hundred stabs from adventuresome carbon doctors. Looks like nostalgia clings to some more than most. Change doesn't per-(SE[!]) pester me, but this redevelopment comes without warning. Week and a while I proceed The Coca-Cola Company®'s important ventures, feed support expenditures, recalibrate the revisionist policy of payroll senators, and with no prior warning a design document mars my desk with the executive SLAM! of a boss whose privy fingers lord for premium, singular strokes of its contents.

He told me to redistribute its existence to his peers and wipe any implications of its resuscitation from my mind's vista - pah! Decrees from wrathful god to me - pah! Undeniably - how these forces indulge in the privileges of apotheosis - (pah[!]) Well my eyes don't just skirt the barren soil when those godlings bark their sounds, trample 'round - forever clarity's contributor; they never miss(!). This land's lay is as much mine as theirs, this refraction of purpose as much see-through as solid to my acute sight. We derive our currency in emergency, clutching to a fledgling remnant of past days and bringing it fore-front to the zeitgeist's anvil when nothing else satiates luck's unforgiving, gurgling forge. Yet KO stock sits at 71.37 (+.78/+1.10), and papers in my purview match up. 

Something's (a[!])miss.

But focus, focus! My residence, the eternal platform for my mind's meditation, rests far from tangibles, raised above the world's churning suburban graveyards. On those I'll discuss today. Keep up the standards, in a sense (or two?[For you?{!}]) 

I come home and am greeted by the television, a panoramic plasma: a stage window to what is ultimately imagination's providence (abyssal in silence), encompassed by the bright crimson slouched couch, on all sides coveted by Bose seating. A modern-day Epidaurus, only $16,185(.20[!]) for any classic American family, except this family's child is its occupant and patriarchal loyalty remains front and center. 

"To NBC!" he roars, jovial as always, red coat jingling, bells to consumerism locked in ever-jubilant motion. 

"To Fox! To Jesus trees! To this box!" 

One gelatinous set of quintuplet-fingers swallows 288 cubic feet of oxygen to pet the TV alive like a dog while the other amiably boxes me on the shoulder. I grasp at the sticker imparted by his miraculous palm: "EE-2: Brew". Making out the brand label (k)nitted (o)n his polar-fur jacket shouldn't prove difficult. He grapples with gravity for the remote, wiggling chubby calves mirroring movement from his bloated biceps, and as that terrifying emptiness is devoured by more horrible pixels, he draws me close to whisper:

"Always trust an oracle of Schenectady. Moe? Do you see what it says? Don't think yourself too special for exemption, even as my favorite son. Let destiny harken - you'll deliver."

But the vision fades and he's not there as I partake in the American Way of Life™, the electrical blaze bathing away today's suffering. What's left is minimal. Just me

and the telly. 

-Moe Nunbady 

Who!

Ceaseless endeavor, undertaken at The Coca-Cola Corporation™ these past few days! Files stored (piles drawer'd), light-bulbs switched (darkness nixed), gripes at risk (slights may shift[!]) - thundering around my desk's doldrums. These rancid rampaging deities! Bureaucratic demigoddesses adorned in garter-greaves of silk, drawing wayward eyes from heel-spiked feet to aired-out blouse (businessmen avatars, denoted by an unblemished Armani epidermis [labeled immortality, fit for ambrosial existence]) - what power they lord over my department chair's(head[!]) How suavely our superiors stride, swinging across life's fluffy rafters like Mangani ape-men, as impeccable in appearance as they are in aptitude. Projects reassigned in a moment's notice, architecture redefined in an minute's instant. Total control (with no one knowing when they'll show [NOW?! or now? or n-OW!]), circumstance be damned.

I'm privy to it all. (Fantastic[!])

Oh, it's all mundane, but what else is the same? A sing-song, pattering-along form of coping works better than any crumpled-up letter, anxieties shredded and rent and read and bent all out of shape years before you could inspire yourself to write them down on a paper you're set to trash (ignore[!]) regardless. Or tirades to a psycholo-gist, the general mental spade, a sharp wedge built to dig up your inflamed troubles and leave them exposed for the Prozac rain to hose. Why lather on a drizzle? Why shunt them back? They're there, (you know[!]) and so am I, and it's unhealthy to keep away what isn't safe to say. So our lords cavort along, heedless to their peons, and the ship runs tight, to continue before's metaphor. KO stock today at $69.27. We've packed our cannons firm and strung out the sail; (oars[!]) at the ready, we tense for the shove-off order. Suffice to say no one's had that day.

But pearls shine wherever one goes searching, so on Monday, The Coca-Cola Corporation™ rejuvenates my employment and I dive into madness bay looking after glimpses. That will keep me sane for one more day. Work, at last.

-Moe Nunbady