Vertical Blind Night Terror

When I awoke, I was a vertical blind named Yak hanging among other vertical blinds that were named Johnny. All of them were named Johnny but my name was Yak and I couldn't understand why. It didn't seem fair to be named Yak and to be hanging alongside everyone else named Johnny.

I felt very tense and uncomfortable in my surroundings and did not know how to act as a vertical blind. Nobody had told me and I received no education for my role and purpose. While in some ways I wanted to be one of the guys, at the same time I wanted to hold on to my individuality. But there were several problems with retaining any semblance of independence. Several obstacles to uniqueness and several mountains to climb in order to self-actualize.

First of all, we all looked the same. We were shaped the same, the same color, the same length, the same creator, and the same purpose. Secondly, we were inanimate without any kind of human emotions and merely responsive to human interference and even then, completely at the will of someone else. We did not have any kind of rights to be individual. But as disturbing this concept was to me, it obviously had no effect on my other vertical blind compadres. They were content and even falsely euphoric in their happiness. Being devoid of any personal traits, they had become as one item divided into several parts. But the division did not separate them in any sense other than space. Their plasticity and their sterility was neither exaggerated nor minimized, and their appearance was so generic as to have little to no value.

Even worse, their happiness caused great opprobrium toward me. I was Yak and they were Johnny. I was the outsider and no matter how much effort they made, I could not change who I was. This created suspicion and fear in the expected way that all differences seem to instill fear in those who are the same. And, indeed, the fear was warranted, for I looked for ways to exert myself independently and somewhat selfishly. I was Yak and did not want to be Johnny.

And when we began the daily swing, I knew it was time to be myself. And we started the side to side swing that led to the front to back swing and I built up to the very moment when I could try once again to change the future and make the others swing my way.

And swing we did and all the Johnnys were happy until the moment of truth arrived and I went the other direction. The screams began and the terror rose out of their being as they begged me to stop. But I continued and as the minutes stretched into seconds, I made my move and cratered the entire vertical blind system through quick vertiginous actions. It all came crashing to an end amidst cries of grief, sorrow, and pain all due to my own improvident actions.

The silence that ensued was both comforting and deafening--providing a sense of solace and fate for I knew that it was all temporary. The cycle of said events would return soon in a never-ending loop of repetition. A broken record or a song without an ending or a symphony with no coda and only repeat signs.

I was Yak and all the others were Johnny. But it didn't really matter for the Johnnys would always win.