the prison of delusion

They’d iced Kramer out at the seminar. A fog of equivocation had snuck into the conference room and refused to dissipate. It hung perfectly level with wherever it is in an investor’s gut that the pulse of phronesis throbs sharpest. He looked up from the unfolding device to survey his audience. “I’m sensing a great disdain. My pitch will continue,” said Kramer.


Later on the showroom floor they all avoided him, hurrying away in the threadbare migration patterns of a genus laid low. “Your death warrant is signed in the ink of your disinterest, and stamped by the future’s notary public––me: Kramer,” said Kramer. Why didn’t these disgusting, unstable maniacs pay him any of their beautiful money? It couldn’t have been the pitch. A problem of technique, perhaps of language. “So, consanguinity with all problems, at least,” thought Kramer, out loud.

Kramer vaulted up the stairs by twos. Jerry’s apartment grew closer, as if he were reeling it in hand-over-hand. No level of commitment to the ideals of masculine beauty was unwelcome past apartment 5A’s mezuzah.



“We’ve been walking out into the desert for 11 years. I turned around and I was a thousand miles away from you,” said Jerry.



“Living like this makes me think I’ll never get better,” said Elaine. “When I move to kiss you, I’m overcome with so many objections to your lips.”



Kramer burst in.



“Makeup that gets you high! For men!” said Kramer, effortlessly outflanking Elaine and Jerry’s fusillade of intimate discomfort.



“For men,” said Kramer, again.



“It’s all he can say,” said Jerry, falling both short of apprehending the pitch and extremely short of persuading Elaine to stay.



“You two debase everything you love,” she said without looking back, and shut the door.



“Depend upon it!” Kramer hollered in triumph.



Eighteen years later Kramer sat counting his money. The spark of his enlightenment had long since set the community ablaze. Flames of brutality and desire licked the corners of everyone’s vision.