The Jaded Voyeur

Some people like to watch. To share in other peoples intimate moments. To savor the diversity, I like to say, when asked, if confronted. Gone are the days, er, nights, when you have to walk around in the dark in unfamiliar back yards to savor the diversity. Now a days, you can get one of those cheap Chinese crystal balls. I do not have one. I have one of the older, original, crystal balls. It was made in Florence by the Scottish crystal ball maker MacKenzie for the Sforza duke of Milan. It does a much better job than those cheap knock offs on the market. It preserves that intimate feeling you get when you stand in the shrubs and peer in through a crack in curtains in the kitchen window.

The truth is the baby boomers are getting old, fat, and clumsy. Watching tubby boomers go at each other is the voyeur reality. You do not get that with your cheap knock off crystal balls. They trick you. It is just a feed from some internet site. Like, how many eighteen year old lesbians are there, with painted skin and corsets and crocodile boots, just waiting to get home and peel off their shift and go down on each other? No way. To share in the real diversity is to watch two beached seals go blubber munching on the sofa. Watch the bowl of sea salt chips go flying, the macrame coverlet that smells of dog, and the reflection of Beachcomber quality CBC transmissions on the scene. That is reality.

The truth is the baby boomers have bad taste. Reality is a loner Boomer, after a day of bullying his under paid un pensioned staff, reclining in his stained underwear (still wearing socks and brogues) sucking back on a can (mmmm, aluminum can taste) of light beer. There are holes in his vest: tufts of hair stick through. His brain is dead to the world, he is in a pre-Zombie state. He is watching some CBC documentary on the rise of right wing extremism in Etobicoke, and his free hand is stroking himself. This creature is some species of primate. They roam the streets and offices of Toronto: for that city is a zoo. The voyeur knows this.

Know your neighbors. Never a bad idea. The guy two doors down: he steals dope from his kid's stash. Would you trust him with your floor buffer? Up the street is the guy who picks his nose when he makes morning omelet for his wife, the human resources witch. How long before the divorce? Across the street is the tradesman who masturbates behind the closed doors of his garage sitting in his truck. What does that say about his union beliefs? The voyeur, he washes his hands, because he knows primates.

There is a wisdom that comes with knowing the hidden person, their secret lives, the private primate. Who continues to eat with jam and chocolate on their chin? The voyeur knows. The temptation is there: to just materialize with a wet cloth or a paper towel. But those people who eat with drying jam on their chin, throat, and belly, sometimes you need a knife to get the stains. The voyeur just watches, maybe breathing harder; the jaded voyeur, he wants to get involved. When you get involved, that is no longer the voyeur, now is it? Things are different when someone realizes they are being watched in the shower. It is no longer soap time, time to croak songs about small dicks and big boobs, but time to scream. No longer a private moment, but a public scandal: this could make the papers. If the Moon is in Scorpio, then the coroner will barf at the photographs of the scene.

This is Canada, one big gun free zone. Nobody takes a gun with them into the shower. They keep their knives in the kitchen. Are they sharp enough for carving? The towels are in the linen closet, and the Draino under the sink. The green garbage bags are close by; sometimes you can find rope handy. The spare house key is under the mat, or on the sill above the door. Savor the diversity, you can say, when asked, if confronted. Unless you are asking the questions.

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this. I care.