recoder | [books] Survivor - Aftermath (Reply)

Перелистывал прочитанного Survivor'a. Тащился с острого языка Паланика.

"It's a shame," the agent says, "how medical technology is still lagging behind the marketing side of things. I mean, we've had all the sales support in place for years, the coffee mug giveaways to physicians, the feel-good magazine ads, the total product launch, but it's he same old violin in the background R&D is still years behind. The lab monkeys are still dropping like flies."

To be or not to be, I don't labor the decision.

This one time, the agent asked me where I saw myself in five years.

Dead, I told him. I see myself dead and rotting. Or ashes, I can see myself burned to ashes. [...]

I see myself dead and in Hell, I said. [...]

I told agent, I figured I'd spend my first thousand years of Hell in some entry-level position, but after that I wanted to move into management. Be a real team player. Hell is going to see enormous growth in market share over the next millennium. I wanted to ride the crest.

The agent said that sounded pretty realistic.

The same as if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, you realize, if no one had been there to witness the agony of Christ, would we be saved?

The key to salvation is how much attention you get. How high a profile you get. Your audience share. Your exposure. Your name recognition. Your press following.

The buzz.

It's not that I want to get married.
I admire guys who can commit to a tattoo.

We memorized half the Old Testament.
We thought all this teaching was to make us smart.
What it did was make us stupid.

"We all watch the same television programs," the mouth says. "We all hear the same things on the radio, we all repeat the same talk to each other. There are no surprises left. There's just more of the same. Reruns."

Inside the hole, the red lips say, "We all grew up with the same television shows, It's like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.

The lips say, "The future is not bright."

Kill myself?
Thanks, I say. No, thanks.
Let's not rush anything here.