by Hugo De Mare

Nothing fucking works, man. Things not only aren’t built to last any more, they aren’t even built to function. Don’t get excited about that new toy you’ve been saving up for, that new girl you’ve been saving up for, that new life you’ve been saving up for, because it isn’t going to work. There’ll be pieces missing, instructions you won’t be able to interpret, warrantees you can’t afford. If you go through life thinking things are supposed to work, supposed to do what they say they can do, perform the function that they have been specifically designed and built to perform, you are in for a lifetime of disappointment. Nothing works, man. Nothing.

Health products don’t work. Give it up, you’re going to die, and it isn’t going to be pretty. And you’re not prolonging the inevitable because the inevitable is going to happen to you whenever the hell it wants to, no matter how much you spend on sugar pills and shrinks. Self help books? Help yourself to this little tip: they don’t fucking work. You’re an incompetent dick face now, you’ll be one at chapter 6, you’ll be one when you finally get around to finishing the damn thing, and no matter how many clever insights you highlight or underline or refer to, you’re going to be one for the rest of your miserable life.

Computers don’t work. The magic of the internet? Here’s the magical part–everyone thinks it works. It doesn’t. The website always crashes just after you’ve given it all your vital information, so you’ve got to call the 800 number that doesn’t work to sort it out, and I’m done jerking off by the time the titty picture finishes downloading so what fucking use is the goddamn computer anyway, it doesn’t fucking work.

Relationships don’t work. You’re not going to get what you want, you’re not going to get what you need, if you’re lucky she’ll let you stick around long enough to provide her with what she wants and needs and then you’re out. Life altering decisions? Stay where you are, don’t bother, cuz they don’t work either. You’re just swapping one set of shitty circumstances for another, one laundry list of shit you don’t want to do for another, one town full of hard memories for another that will be soon enough, you’re trading in the rock that’ll never make it to the top of the hill for the eagle that’ll eat your entrails but never kill you, so what fucking difference does it make?

Education doesn’t work. I am an educated man. I have never been so stupid, so ignorant, so unequipped to face even the simplest challenges of this life, as I am today. Sorry you have to hear it, Dad, but the thousands of dollars of debt that lead you to an early grave so your boy could be one of the best and the brightest? It didn’t fucking work. Dump the ivy league school and keep your father around, that’s my advice. Go to community college and give him an early retirement, it’ll save both of you a lot of heartache and disappointment.

And you think love works? What kind of an asshole are you? It doesn’t, ok? It just doesn’t. It lingers long enough for you to become unsatisfied with what you had before, and then it’s gone, it stops working. You’re nobody til somebody loves you? That’s just advertising, man–trust me, you’re nobody, no matter what.

“Everything happens for a reason.” Do you want to know what the reason is? To destroy you, that’s the reason everything happens. To whittle you away, to melt your will, to grind you down until nothing remains, not even the memory of the man you hoped you’d become, that’s the reason. “Things have a way of working themselves out.” What is wrong with you? Things don’t work themselves out because things don’t work period, just admit it, and fixing them won’t fix anything because it’s never going to fucking work, it’s never going to change, it’s never going to get better, you’re never going to get it right, and even if some good comes along in spite of you, you’re going to fuck that up too, cuz you don’t fucking work either.