B3TAT3ST!NG:

The Dream of Fritz von Franz:

The dream begins when Fritz returns to work. He is informed by his boss that, while he did work for the Company for several months, and while the company did owe him one hundred dollars as compensation for this labour, the sheer desperation of his condition has dispossessed him of this entitlement. Additionally, his attempts to receive compensation by returning to his FORMER place of employment are deemed threatening, so he must be escorted out promptly by his competitors. Fritz tries to phone his old Supervisor, hoping to bypass the bureaucracy, but his cell phone has run out of battery. He is forbidden to charge it on the corporate premises.

Absconding to a café, Fritz von Franz discovers that his charging apparatus has been damaged by the Security Guards who are now inexplicably his competitors, despite the fact that his position was never in the Security Department (though he is reminded bitterly of the axiom “Everyone is in Security”). After asking seven other patrons (all of them, inexplicably, female) if they have a matching charger, he finally encounters a woman who does. Yet before he can manage to avail himself of her device, seven other men come forth (out of nowhere?), each with a different phone, claiming to need their phones charged by her. Though some of these phones Fritz knows to be of an incompatible model, the woman explains curtly that she can only charge one phone at a time, and she must be careful therefore to choose only the most competent phone. Since Fritz’s phone will not even turn on, he has been disqualified from the competition.

Salvaging what few funds he requires for this task, Fritz buys a Universal Charging Apparatus at the local cellular phone store. He returns to the café to charge his phone. Shortly thereafter, he overhears a woman complain that her phone has run out of battery. Generously, Fritz approaches her, offering to let her use his charger, which is adapted for every cell phone currently in use. Yet before he has secured her consent to this convenience, one of the aforementioned Security Guards from his former place of employment intervenes. The Guard explains that in Fritz’s absence the Guard has been promoted to regional manager, and while Fritz was busy buying a cell phone charger the Company has merged with the café. Furthermore, the Guard has determined Fritz’s tactics to be monopolistic and competitive, so Fritz is forbidden to either share or use his cell phone charger on the premises. Additionally, the woman tells Fritz that she has no interest in a cell phone charger that has almost certainly been used by plenty of other phones, imbibed with their deficiency and worn from their abuse. Frustrated, Fritz returns to the cell phone store, only to find that it, too, has been subsidized by his former employers. Fritz asks the Guard who operates the store now: how were you hired? He replies: I acted like I didn’t really care or need the job.

At this moment, Fritz wakes up to his Reality.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]