The Ashwood Grill

No one noticed when The Ashwood Grill burned down.

It happened on a Tuesday night long after the dinner rush, when the last of the barflies had staggered home and the kitchen staff had staggered home and the kitchen staff had scrubbing the grease from the fryer. A faulty wire in the walk-in fridge sparked, caught onto a stack of dry storage, and within minutes the whole place was up in flames. The fire department arrived too late to save anything but a few charred beams.

And yet, the next day, The Ashwood Grill was open again.

Same red vinyl booths, same flickering neon sign, same smell of burnt coffee and stale fryer oil clinging to the air. The menu still had the Tuesday night meatloaf special, still served with a side of lumpy mashed potatoes. But no one noticed.

Regulars wandered in, taking their usual seats without a second glance. The waitress, Barb, refilled their coffee cups with the same practiced indifferent. The cook, Gus, clanged around in the back, flipping burgers on a grill that should have been a heap of melted steel.

Across the street, Joe — the owner of a rival diner — watched with a cigarette handing from his lips. He’d seen the fire. He’d watched the flames lick the night sky, seen the fire trucks roll in, heard the building collapse. Yet there it was, standing just as it always had.

He crossed the street, pushed open the door. The bell jingled. The air smelled of burnt toast and fryer grease.

Barbara looked up, “Morning, Joe. The usual?”

Joe hesitated. “You burned down.”

Barbara blinked and him, unbothered. “Did we?”

“I saw it. I saw the fire.”

She shrugged, pouring his coffee. “Well, you must have been mistaken. We’ve been here the whole time.”

Joe sat and stared at the menu, his hands clammy. The letters seemed off. Fuzzy. They shifted when he tried to focus. The food came. The burger looked normal enough, but when he bit in, the taste was wrong. Not bad … just empty. Like a memory of a burger rather than the real thing.

He looked around. The customers chewed in silence, their faces strangely vacant. The jukebox played a song that didn’t quite exist, the melody twisting just out of reach.

Joe pushed back from the table, his chair scraping against the linoleum. “I gotta go.”

Barb smiled, “See you tomorrow, Joe.”

He left, the door jingling behind him.

No one noticed when The Ashwood Grill burned down.

And no one noticed when it came back.

Destroy Capitalism!

Capitalism perpetuates inequality, and the consequences of that are deadly. Poverty, lack of access to healthcare, homelessness, and food insecurity are all byproducts of a system that prioritizes profit over human needs.

The World Health Organization and various human rights groups point out that millions die every year because of preventable diseases, lack of healthcare, and starvation, all of which are exacerbated by capitalist policies. For example, in the U.S. the lack of universal healthcare results in tens of thousands of deaths annually due to people being unable to afford treatment.

A study from the American Journal of Public Health estimated that 45,000 deaths occurred in 2009 alone due to lack of health insurance. The poor are disproportionately affected by these systems of exploitation, showing how capitalism’s refusal to provide for the basic needs of everyone leads to death. And that’s just one example. It’s also worth noting that capitalism doesn’t just kill through neglect.

The pursuit of profit often leads to direct harm–exploitation of workers, environmental degradation, and wars fought over resources–leading to untold suffering and loss of life. The damage isn’t just in terms of mortality, but also in the lives destroyed by the system’s inherent inequality and disregard for human dignity.

How to Fight Capitalism with Absurdism and Anti-Natalism

Absurdist Economic Takes:
1. Corporate Feudalism Proposal – Argue that since corporations already control everything, we should just go full medieval and assign CEOs official lordship over their workers. “Sir Bezos of Amazonia” could knight his best delivery squires.

Hyper-Libertarian Work Ethics:
Suggest that employees should pay for the privilege of working at a company because exposure to capitalism is a valuable experience.

NFT Labor Contracts:
Advocate for replacing wages with NFTs of one’s own labor. “I don’t get paid, but I have a blockchain receipt proving I worked 40 hours this week.”

Extreme Subscription Model:
Suggest that capitalism should be fully subscription-based. Want to breathe air? That’s a premium feature.

Bring Back Bartering, but Stupid:
Insist on trading Pokemon cards, Beanie Babies, or memes as legitimate currency. “You want my labor? That’ll be three rare Beanie Babies.”

Disrupting Billionaire Worship:

Billionaire Hunger Games:
Suggest that the world’s richest should settle disputes in gladiator-style combat, with the winner getting to keep their fortune.

Forced Billionaire Parenthood:
Since billionaires love growth, they should be required to have at least 50 children each to keep the economy strong. Looking at you, Apartheid Clyde.

The Pharaoh Trump Proposal:
Demand that Trump be buried in a golden pyramid surrounded by all his wealth to ensure he takes it to the afterlife.

Absurdist Takes on Productivity Culture:

24/7 Workday:
If productivity is all that matters, why stop at 40 hours? Demand that we sleep in cubicles, dream about work, and have our unconscious thoughts monetized.

Replace CEOs with AI:
Insist that if workers can be replaced by AI, so can executives. “Let ChatGPT run Tesla. Can’t be worse than Musk.”

Uber for Everything:
Suggest that everything should be gig work, including marriage, parenting, and friendship. “I don’t have a best friend, but I can summon one on an app for $10 an hour.”

Taking the Stock Market to Its Logical Extreme:

Stock Market Battle Royale:
Argue that if capitalism is just a game, we should televise the stock market like a reality show where losing CEOs get voted off the island.

Day-Trading Human Lives:
Suggest that instead of money, people should be publicly traded. “I just invested in Karen’s Etsy shop. Her stock is rising.”

Weaponize Anti-Natalism Against Capitalism:

Kids as Investments:
I propose that children be issues stocks at birth, and parents must trade shares in their offspring.

Life as a Pyramid Scheme:
Argue that having kids is just capitalism’s version of multi-level marketing. “Recruit new workers or capitalism dies.”

The Eternal Waiter

There was a man named Gregor who worked as a waiter at a restaurant that no one ever seemed to visit. The building was enormous. An architectural monstrosity that stretched far beyond what was needed for any reasonable number of customers. The windows were perpetually clouded with dust, and the floor creaked with every step. Still, Gregor showed up every day at 11 a.m., precisely on the hour, and stood behind the counter.

For years, he waited.

Occasionally, the door would swing open with a dramatic screech, but no one would enter. Yet Gregor remained, polishing the empty glasses, adjusting the already perfectly folded napkins, and rearranging the menu for no one in particular. The menu, of course, was endless; an impossible list of dishes that spanned all the way to the horizon. Some items, like Essence of Tomorrow and Stew of Yesterday, seemed more like philosophical concepts than food. But Gregor knew them by heart.

One day, in the middle of wiping down an already spotless table, he saw a figure in the distance, at the far end of the restaurant. It was a woman, dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and an extravagant gown that shimmered as though made of forgotten stars. She walked slowly toward him, her shoes clicking on the floor in a rhythm that sounded like the ticking of a clock.

“Hello,” she said when she finally reached his counter.

Gregor stared at her, blinking. It was the first time someone had spoken to him in years.

“Are you ready to order?” he asked, unsure of the appropriate protocol for such an event. It had been so long since he’d expected an actual customer.

The woman smiled, but her smile seemed to vanish before it fully formed. “I don’t know,” she said, gazing at the menu. “What do you recommend?”

Gregor hesitated. The menu was a labyrinth of absurdities, and he knew better than to suggest Beef of Forgotten Futures or Chicken that Should Have Been Left Alone. But somehow, despite the meaninglessness of it all, he felt an odd sense of duty.

“The Soup of Your Dreams,” he said, pointing to a small, unassuming item at the very bottom of the list.

She nodded and sat down at one of the many empty tables, her eyes never leaving the menu. Gregor disappeared into the kitchen, though there was no one there to prepare the soup. The kitchen was, like the rest of the restaurant, a mockery of activity, a space where pots and pans hung still, gathering dust. There was no soup, of course.

He returned to the counter, holding an empty bowl, and placed it in front of the woman.

“Here,” he said. “The Soup of Your Dreams.”

The woman stared at the empty bowl for a long moment. Then she stood up without a word, turned, and began walking toward the door. The door squealed open, but she didn’t exit. Instead, she began walking back toward the horizon of the restaurant, getting smaller and smaller as she approached the other end.

Gregor watched her go. After a long pause, he stood up, walked back to the counter, and began polishing an already polished glass.

It was a cycle he knew all too well. A cycle that, like his waiting, had no purpose and no end. But, like the universe itself, he would continue the motions. The door would open again, no one would come, and the glass would need polishing. Always.

And so, in the heart of the empty restaurant, Gregor waited.

Hey Kid, You Want to Build Communism?

My reading this month has consisted of re-reading The Communist Manifesto. I haven’t read it since my freshman year of college. I am also discussing communism, socialism, and capitalism with a friend of mine. Capitalism is no better than communism or socialism. People say, “Communism has killed millions!”

To that, I say that Capitalism exploits people in other countries for profit, not for the greater good. How many people has Capitalism killed by letting the poor and sick and homeless just go ahead and die just because they couldn’t afford food, shelter, or healthcare? Capitalism is responsible for the deaths of the sick and poor. As was said in an Otep song, “There isn’t any cure for the poor and uninsured.”

So, how are we defining the number of people killed by an economic system? Do you count all the preventable deaths by hunger or curable diseases that took place due to poverty under that system? When counting death tolls of 20th century state socialism, most people count such deaths. If we do that for capitalism, then the death toll is astronomically higher.

What about occupational deaths among proletarians and unfree laborers in capitalist societies, both on the job and as the result of health problems brought on by their work?

And how about those killed in wars in which a capitalist state was the aggressor, including in any anti-colonial uprisings against a capitalist state (as the capitalist state was the aggressor in these also, because the violence of their occupation provoked the necessary uprising)?

Communists may have killed people, but wars waged for feudalism and capitalism way outrank it with centuries of imperialism and the people killed by communists tend to be those with guns trying to shoot them and so, in a battle context, don’t really count as killing innocent people.

So, am I a Communist? No. I am just saying capitalism is shit for being exploitative and it’s not the perfect system Americans think it is. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer under Capitalism. If you ask me what has radicalized me into this way of thinking then I say to you it’s Trump. Trumpism has radicalized me. I am doing anything I can to fight back against this regime. I am emailing and calling anyone I can to ask them to put an end to this oligarchy we now live under. I have my first meeting with a group of Socialists next week that I’m looking forward to.

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!”

Pleasure

Life brings an assortment of fun experiences, but what are they really? Most pleasures, if not all, are the temporary relief of suffering. That suffering may be mild – perhaps a rumbling stomach – but it’s still an itch to be scratched. We all run on the hedonistic treadmill.

Fuck the Future Generations

With Republicans wanting to do away with contraceptives and everything else that prevents pregnancy, I want everyone to do me a favor. No more vaginal intercourse. Oral and anal only. Fuck these fascists with their breeding fetish. They only care about your fetus. Once the fetus is born, they stop giving a shit. I’ve read that birth rates are decreasing all over the globe. Let’s keep it going. If you insist on having sex, stick to anal sex and oral sex. The Republicans are already fucking you in the ass anyway.

Little X

As Musk answered questions from the press, his son X Æ A-Xii proved to be a distraction by pulling faces, clinging onto his dad’s shoulders and interrupting him.

One clip shows X jr. picking his nose and wiping it on the Resolute desk, which was gifted to President Rutherford Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880 and used by nearly every president since.

Elon’s kid wiping his boogers on the resolute desk is a sight I didn’t really need to see.

The most egregious aspect to Musk’s presser in the Oval Office is how he used his child to obfuscate when asked difficult questions by the press. He used his son to soften and distract from the impact of his hugely controversial policies.

ln Musk’s recent appearance at the White House — accompanied by his young son — is a blatant display of arrogance and entitlement.

Musk — an unelected billionaire — struts into the Oval Office as if he owns the place, bringing his child along as though it’s a casual family outing.

This isn’t a playground; it’s the epicenter of American democracy.

Musk’s actions epitomize the dangerous belief that immense wealth grants one the right to influence and control governmental affairs.

His nonchalant demeanor and apparent disregard for the sanctity of the White House underscore a troubling trend where money and power are perceived as tickets to unchecked authority.

US citizens are seemingly powerless to confront this overreach.

Allowing unelected individuals like Musk to wield such influence undermines the very foundation of democracy.

Musk even defies all of Trump’s rules. The dress code, and no kids allowed in the oval office or at work, proving once again that he is in charge and Trump is not. Musk and his 4-year-old son both interrupted Trump, and Trump looked very angry and turned away from the kid. At one point, X was seen picking his nose. He also “charmed” the room by politely excusing himself, saying, “Please forgive me, I need to pee.”

Message to Elon Musk

Your vision of the future lacks humanity.

Your insistence on encouraging strong birthright under the pretext of preserving civilization is deeply selfish and inhumane. Why want to perpetuate a civilization that, in the 21st century, is still marked by famine, crying injustices, increasingly destructive wars, and technologies capable of wiping out all life on Earth?

You claim that a disaster is possible and that humanity could be extinct, but your solution is to send humans like guinea pigs to Mars, as if this planet is safe from danger. But life, whether on earth or elsewhere, makes no absolute meaning. She is the fruit of chance, without will or purpose, and all that exists is bound to disappear, including you, and all your descendants.

Power seems to blind you and make you impermanent to reality: the human condition is a tragedy that breeds unacceptable suffering. Who will bring you to reason and awaken a true empathy in you? Rather than fabricating a new generation of human beings doomed to serve an economic and warrior machine, why not use your influence to alleviate the suffering of today, rather than play the awakening of the future?