Nine Hundred Foot

The year was 2001, the dawn of the new millennium. California was plunged into a vortex of blackouts and browns-outs, the frenzied dance of the power grid teetering on the brink of collapse. It was a game played by suits in glass towers, Enron, the puppeteer pulling the strings, and the state, their marionette, dancing a clumsy jig to the tune of manipulated energy markets.

I was the weirdo, the outsider, the misplaced cog in the well-oiled machinery of suburban normality. I was the firebug, the flame-seeker, a boy lost in the hills, my car a metal beast snaking through the canyons under the shroud of the night.

The power lines hummed and crackled overhead, an eerie symphony to my solitary drive. In my pocket, my Zippo felt like a piece of frozen fire, its cold metal surface warming up to the heat of my uncertainty. I was at the nexus of a power outage, the orchestrator of a momentary lapse into darkness. I was the spark in the engine of chaos, the matchstick ready to ignite the kindling of disorder.

The world was distracted. The fortress America had thrown up its walls, its gaze fixed on the East, on Al Qaeda, on phantom threats looming in the distant deserts. But here in the hills, away from the watchful eyes of the cities, I was alone. The power grid, a giant metal serpent, wound its way through the landscape, its crackling energy a tantalizing promise of chaos.

The Zippo was burning against my thigh, its persistent heat a gnawing reminder of the agency I held, the power to plunge the world below into darkness. I was a god, a creator and a destroyer, the master of light and shadow. All it took was a flip, the click of the lighter, the birth of a flame.

Why was I here? To leave a mark. To etch my existence into the annals of this chaotic world, even if it meant scorching the earth, making the lights in the homes below flicker and tremble, making the heartbeat of civilization stutter in the face of an impending blackout.

I was on the brink, teetering on the edge of decision and indecision. I could bring darkness, I could pull the switch, I could extinguish the light. But the thought was overwhelming, the responsibility too great. In the deafening silence of the hills, in the humming lullaby of the power lines, I was the lone sentinel of chaos, the lost boy wrestling with the question of existence. The switch, the switch, it called to me, a siren song of power and oblivion.

And so, under the electric buzz of the power lines, under the indifferent gaze of the distant stars, I stood, my hand on the Zippo, my heart pounding a rhythm of rebellion, a symphony of solitude. The world was at my fingertips, the power to create and destroy, to illuminate and darken.

The Zippo, the gasoline, the matchstick, they were my tools, my companions in this dance of chaos. The rain, the night, the power lines, they were my stage, my audience, my accomplices. The world, the city, the hills, they were my canvas, my playfield, my battleground.

And I, I was the artist, the player, the warrior. I was the weirdo, the firebug, the boy alone in the hills. I was the spark in the engine of chaos. I was the torchbearer of darkness. I was the wielder of the switch, the switch.

The concept of Fortress America, a citadel of security, laid its iron lashes across the land, establishing boundaries, instilling fear. It queued people into lines, like sheep to the slaughter, normalizing the intrusive searches, the invasion of privacy. The nation was being swaddled in a blanket of paranoia, each citizen seen as a potential threat, each pocket a potential arsenal. The fear of foreign terrorism was shifting the lens away from the domestic, away from the people like me, lost and adrift in the sea of discontent.

Yet, in the hills of California, far from the scrutinizing gaze of the State, I was free. I was free to revel in the night, in the darkness, in the potential of chaos. The power lines snaking through the landscape were my playthings, the tools of my rebellion. I had the power to bring the light, and in doing so, bring the darkness. I was the paradox, the contradiction, the anomaly in the system.

The urge to chaos was like a virus, infectious, insidious. It seeped into the cracks of my alienation, infusing my veins with a potent cocktail of anger and defiance. I could stop the lines, I could disrupt the flow of power, I could set my car ablaze and drive it off the cliff, a blazing comet streaking through the night.

But I didn't.

Instead, I drove home, the freeways empty and echoing with the ghosts of better days. The glow of the dashboard was the only light in the abyss, the hum of the engine the only sound in the silence. And as I drove, my mind spun with thoughts of Enron, of Bush, of the terrorists. Their games were bleeding into mine, their actions echoing in my actions.

I was the weirdo, the firebug, the boy alone in the hills. I was the spark in the engine of chaos. And in the face of their machinations, their manipulations, their madness, I was left with only one question:

In a world gone mad, who was the real terrorist?

Into what, indeed, am I being accepted? Into the cracks in the pavement, the crevices in society? Or am I a lone seed, sprouting defiantly through the concrete, a testament to resilience in a world of sameness? A recession now blanketed the nation, a fallout of the games played by the powerful. And I, a cog in the machine, was discarded, my skills in coding deemed redundant as the world took a collective gasp, a pause in the relentless march of progress.

In the quiet of the night, the Zippo in my pocket was a constant reminder of the power I held, of the potential to ignite chaos. It burned against my thigh as I pushed the pedal further, provoking the beast under the hood into a frenzied gallop. My steed of steel, powered by the burning oil, roared into the night. The irony wasn't lost on me; my solitary sojourns fueled by the same oil that was the root of the conflict, the reason for the paranoia, the catalyst for the Fortress America.

The night welcomed me as I descended into the valley, the stars overhead a silent audience to my journey. The lights of the city below twinkled like distant galaxies, a world far removed from my reality. My world was the open road, the rumble of the engine, the flicker of the Zippo, the whisper of the night wind. I was the 900F, the flame in the darkness, the spark in the engine of chaos.

And as the city receded in my rearview mirror, the words of a long-forgotten song echoed in my mind - "Everyone has a little secret he keeps... I light the fires while the city sleeps". In the heart of the recession, in the throes of the energy crisis, in the shadow of global unrest, I found a strange sense of acceptance, a sense of belonging. I was the misfit, the outsider, the weirdo. And in this displacement, in this alienation, I was home.

There's a rebellion stirring within me, a resistance against the inevitable. I don't want to grow up, to morph into the soldier they want me to be. The Zippo in my pocket feels comfortable, familiar. An AR15 in my hands? A grotesque thought. The fortress is pressing me towards that, towards a path I have no desire to tread.

I don't want to be that person, a man-child trapped in a Green Zone of his own making, under siege not from an external enemy but from his own demons, his own expectations. The system, this cold, uncaring machine, discards those who don't fit the mold, who don't win the popularity contest of the privileged white male.

I can see a future where we are the ones driving the pickup trucks, the technicals, maneuvering the heavy calibers. Only this time, we turn the guns inwards, towards ourselves, driven by a perverse sense of purification, a misguided quest for redemption. It's a future that chills me to my core, a future I want no part of.

There has to be another way. I have to find another way. The system wants to consume me, to use me as fuel for its insatiable machine. But I refuse to be a pawn in their game. I won't let myself be molded into the soldier, the patriot, the extremist they want me to be.

I am the 900F. I am the spark in the engine of chaos. But my fire won't be used to burn down the world. My fire will be a beacon, a signal to others like me, that there is another way. And I will find it. I will forge my own path, away from the fortress, away from the green zone, away from the expectations.

Because in the heart of the alienation, in the depths of the displacement, I am not alone. And together, we will find another way. We will light the fires that guide, not destroy. We will be the misfits, the outsiders, the weirdos. And in our difference, in our defiance, we will find our strength.