Return from absentia

So while surfing Flickr I happened to find the one tag that only applies to two pictures--"schizophrenic." And one of the pics is a sketch drawn of the Flickr member by a schizophrenic, and in the commentary he mentions that he's blogged it. Since today has been marked by a distinct lack of katharsis I click on it, thinking he will mention something of the tragic poetry of this mentally ill man sketching to survive in a Starbucks. This is what I think of. A broken throwaway person sitting in a coffee shop just like every other corporate cutout, his mind cracked like old pavement. A lot of people think schizophrenia is multiple-personality disorder, a misconception almost totally Hollywood's fault, but the truth is that MPD involves several people in your skull and schizophrenia is an attempt for one very shattered mind to survive. Often schizophrenia is hereditary, but sometimes it's a regression mechanism to protect whatever implements are left from massive trauma.

Speaking to the human being in me, the idea of a schizophrenic artist sketching people in a Starbucks is horribly sad. It makes me wonder why it is that he's in thi position. Why his brain split open, and if he was a better sketch artist beforehand. Then there's the very idea that he is drawing strangers. Regular people. A desire.

Or his own eulogy. Think about it. When he's dead and gone (probably a suicide), what kind of mark will he have left on the world? Will there be anyone left to speak for him? Could they do justice to his last few days, drawing strangers on throwaway scraps of his throwaway life?

This is what I'm thinking about when I read this guy's blog entry. Is that what he's thinking about?

No, he's a self-important asshole pseudohipster that, I swear to God, lists his occupation as "provocateur."

It's a shame you can't fax an ass-whupping.