Almost worked out ...

It was my natural assumption that I could expect a basic level of reason from everyone, as long as I hadn’t observed a person clinging to an unreasonable assumption, in which case they were to be avoided. Most likely people would remain good-natured if challenged or asked to explain a thing. Of course at times one runs to the end of one’s current knowledge, into territories as yet unexplored or ones the individual finds uninteresting; or perhaps there are reasons some things are not revealed, competition, or some kind of pain or insecurity; these are all things to take into account.
But eventually I found some individuals mimicked the tone of someone who knew what he was talking about, and recycled criticisms of their own behaviors as criticisms of others, when they didn’t really fit. The effect was often bewildering. Perhaps too much booksense had led me to think there must be some truth in it – then again, it’s the less one reads that makes one believe in the phrase “gospel truth.”
Or, they might approve or disapprove of something, a small action, comment, or physical change, and this would lead me to think they had larger goals in mind and inquire as to what they were. This generally met with alarmed disapproval, the gate rattling down at the service window, as if whatever the larger plan was, it was to be kept from me. Well there was a challenge. If not now, when would it be revealed? Certainly one can hit a target much better if one knows where it is. What kind of game was this? Why did they treat me not just as a contestant, but a champion of all, and then not give me every help they had? Was there a page of the rules missing, or was I being controlled again?
I came to see it was a game I couldn’t win. Another one. I had taken to foot-dragging, to looking for the longest distance between two points, to mental strikes to protest a game I didn’t have any interest in and couldn’t seem to find my way out of, and here, my subsequent inclination to tarry, my dawdling, my desire to find an ever longer way home, a confusion between distraction and inspiration, had brought me into another drama that wasn’t any more likely to prove useful.
These were the kind of hucksters who not only took your ticket, but robbed your house and duplicated your keys during the performance, and closed the show on a queasy note while compelling you to buy a ticket to the next.