{"id":4,"date":"2016-11-08T00:03:38","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T07:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/?p=43"},"modified":"2016-11-03T00:04:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T07:04:35","slug":"shortcuts-round-5-page-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/shortcuts-round-5-page-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shortcuts – Round 5 : Page 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019ve gotten too dependent on the shortcuts, Victor. I think you know it\u2019s for the best if you try to cope with the real world on its terms for a while. Why don\u2019t I keep your gear safe for the time being, and bring it back when you\u2019re more centered? Anything you try to do right now will backfire. Look at yourself. Regressed to infancy. I\u2019m not without sympathy, but, shit, man, you knew<\/em> better. Controlling others by magic-that was Hitler\u2019s trip. The Dark Side of the Force, my friend. You\u2019re lucky it didn\u2019t work. That means there\u2019s hope for you, you sabotaged it yourself, knowing that if you won her that way you could never say an honest word again. Black magic never pays.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fat lady in the audience is calling a pregnant chick in stretch pants a whore because she just told both the men on stage she wants to be with them. I think they\u2019re brothers, though they might have merely been in the same fraternity. I haven\u2019t been paying proper attention, what with the hippie yapping about black magic. A few minutes ago, beefy Security guys had to hold the one guy back from socking the other in the eye. They let him get pretty close. I feel sorry for both of them. She\u2019s not worth it. Jerry Springer sagely shakes his head with a smirk.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need help, Victor. I think it\u2019s time you shifted metaphysical gears. Stop focusing on psi, work more on your soul. I can\u2019t help you anymore. You\u2019ve succumbed to the warrior\u2019s first great enemy, Power. Your path must diverge before you can overcome it. Tinkering with rocks and runes to get around life\u2019s disappointments is not what I teach.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am absorbed in an advertisement for the Abdominizer, a couch- potato dream machine that exercises for you<\/em>, stimulating muscles electrically. If I call now, I can get a free bottle of lipid-binding fatburners absolutely free<\/em>. They enable you to gorge on all your favorite foods and still lose weight!<\/p>\n

Talk about magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a very gifted psychic, but she\u2019s also a sensitive empath. Not that you\u2019d<\/em> be impressed, but she also has outstanding credentials as a conventional clinical psychologist. Llewellyn does past-life regression, but from the looks of you, I\u2019d say you\u2019d better present as a plain-old depression case. Will you stop<\/em> staring at that idiot box?\u201d<\/p>\n

I glare at the intruder. \u201cI\u2019m not \u2018plain-old depression.\u2019 I happen to be a bipolar manic-depressive, special not sick, and this is the price I have to pay for feeling so good<\/em> before. It\u2019s natural. I\u2019m fine. I\u2019ll probably hang myself soon, anyway. Why don\u2019t you fuck off and help someone who wants it?\u201d I return my attention to Jerry Springer. In this segment, a man is going to tell his wife that he\u2019s been cheating-with her mother. I\u2019ll lay 50\/50 odds she\u2019s going to turn out to be pregnant with the poor woman\u2019s half- sister stepdaughter. Where do they find these people?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever. Here\u2019s her number, in case you decide to rejoin the human race. I have better things to do than play audience to your pity- party.\u201d He hands me a card and leaves in a disgusted huff, forgetting my altar contents. It doesn\u2019t matter. I am terrified to touch them.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019ve gotten too dependent on the shortcuts, Victor. I think you know it\u2019s for the best if you try to cope with the real world on its terms for a while. Why don\u2019t I keep your gear safe for the time being, and bring it back when you\u2019re more centered? Anything you try to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transmigrant-blues","category-transmigrant-blues-round-5"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}