Sunday Dec. 17th, 199 Vol.3, issue 2 "If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic." Let me pose a question of horrific beauty to you. The kind of question that makes your very innards resonate in anticipation; much like a bridge that has been so poorly engineered that all compensation for resonance and frequency are ignored...or maybe more like picking at a scab. What if you could trap a mime in an invisible, soundproof box? Imagine it: a grown man in a profession you know everyone, deep in the darkest realm of that metaphysical mayhem they call their souls (or maybe not that deep. Heck, maybe it's right there on the surface, growing like a huge, warped Tree of Good and Evil), despises, trapped in the unwitting public's eye. In more ancient, and possibly more noble times, the Roman's would have charged admission...but we digress. You can watch people marvel at the "oh so real" way in which the victim in question is slamming his ever dwindling frame (reminding you more and more of the Mule) against an invisible box in the mime style reminiscent of that which is taught in all of the best classical Mime Colleges that remain hidden within the lumbering Juggernauts that are the Ivy League Schools (it is a little known fact that 80% of the country's mimes graduate from a hidden Mime College located somewhere on the grounds of Harvard). "Wow! How does he get his face to squash like that?" people say as they witness his futile attempts at escaping his own private hell. "It's so life like." Yes it is, isn't it? Imagine how exciting it would be to watch, and even relate to your friends, as a grown human being dwindles from existence, slowly, and threatens to fade into greater obsessive compulsive behavior than Howard Hughes. Here is a hypothetical chronology of events leading to the eventual breaking of a man, like the splintering of a used toothpick: Day 1- Find the prey. Street corners and parks are probably the best places to frequent. Usually such maneuvers would entail weeks of stalking and planning to determine the most appropriate moment to commence the attack. However, since you are only human, and probably prone to apathy and boredom, you could just attack the first unsuspecting mime you find; better yet, abduct a person off the street, paint their face white, add black clothing (or you could assault the pre-prepared beatnik sect and avoid all that clumsy dressing) and place them into your box. Day 2: The Mime paces about his prison mumbling "You can break my body, but you cannot break my mind." No one pays any attention; they can't hear him, and even if they could, chances are they wouldn't know what movie he was making reference to. Day 4: He has resorted to openly insulting the passersby in an attempt to get people's attention. Since he can make no sound, he is generally ignored. Day 6: He decides to attempt to shock people into either outright confronting him or possibly calling the police to have him arrested by exposing himself at strategic times. The plan backfires as most people who do notice this new behavior think it's some kind of bizarre performance art. The good news is that he makes a killing in tips (too bad he can't reach outside of his box to get them). Day 9: He has basically given up all hope now and moves very little from the corner of his box. Some comments heard today are "Hey, I've never seen a mime with such a bad 5 o'clock shadow." and " I wonder if he had to practice slumping in his own vomit ." Day 11: I remove the box (whoops! I guess the cat's out of the bag. This isn't such a hypothetical scenario after all), but like any animal caged for years, he doesn't even attempt to move beyond the known confines of his world. His voice is useless due to the extreme and repeated attempts to gain attention earlier in captivity. Last I knew my victim was still in that park where I originally found him. So do me a favor: if you ever see a mime performing in a public place, run up to him and push, trip, slap or otherwise physically accost him, just to make sure he isn't suffering a similar fate§. § If you don't really care about the mime and are more interested in seeing him suffer, then Hell Inc. would be pleased to provide any prospective science fair prodigies with the Mime Farm Start-up Kit.