Harmless dummy text? Bibliomacer conspiracy? Remnant of the Demagogue’s ascension? Or an ongoing 2050 year old ritual?

Check out most desktop publishing or page layout programs. Open up a layout template, and there it is: “Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet…” When I asked the yearbook advisor about it, he said the words have been used as dummy text in printing facilities since the 1500’s, and continue to survive in this digital age. Ever since I saw these words when I first started using Pagemaker, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about them.

I did some research, and discovered they come from butchered Latin passages from “The Extremes of Good and Evil,” written in 45 BC by Cicero, one of the greatest Latin orators.

Sounds innocent enough, right? Just harmless text from a dusty old book written a long time ago from some guy who just didn’t know how to shut up. Nothing sinister…nothing mysterious.

Think about it, though. Not only did this stuff survive 2050 years, but it’s still an integral part in publishing. Nearly all of the books we have ever read, from 1500 onward, began with those same words: Lorem Ipsum Dolor… That’s got to mean something, right?

Yeah, I know this sounds like crazy talk, but keep with me here. You know Ms. Kruger, teaches fourth period lit? She just moved in across the street from us. Yesterday mom sent me over to deliver cookies and invite her over for dinner, and as she’s putting the cookies away in the kitchen, I’m checking out the place. Most of her furniture hadn’t yet been delivered, and the living room was an absolute mess except for the bookcases. She has them lined up around the entire freaking room, like one of those giant libraries the Brits always have in their manors in the TV shows. And get this. They’re perfectly alphabetized. At least, it looked like they were. I only checked the first two rows of one of the cases.

Yeah, yeah, we both know she’s a book nut, but that’s not what’s weird. She’s got a lock on her hall closet. Who the hell locks their closet? The door was slightly open, so I took a quick look, and there’s a bookcase in there too! Slightly smaller, and full of old books. I mean really old. She’s still rummaging around in the kitchen, getting some milk, I guess, so I grab a book off the shelf.

And there it is again. Repeating over and over in faded ink, “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…” It’s all throughout the next book too. And the one after that. I would have kept checking, but suddenly the crazy old bat yanks me out of the closet by the neck of my sweater, nearly choking me, and throws me out the front door. Huh? Yeah, I was just about to call her that, but you didn’t see the look in her eyes, man. It was something else…I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that pissed off. Yeah, she didn’t accept the invitation either.

I’m not about to ask her about the words, but I know she knows something. What they really mean, what they really do… Way ahead of you, I spent hours on google, didn’t find a thing. So then, I post the question on that weird mailing list….you know, I sent you the link…it’s the one with the really weird stuff and wacky conspiracy theories…”Bigfoot has a social security number” and crap like that.

So most of what I get back is complete garbage: “It’s a subliminal message the FBI uses to control our thoughts; no, it’s the KGB, they’re the ones really running the country; no, you’re wrong, it’s the Illuminatii; it’s aliens; it’s Elvis; it’s Vincent Price…” and it keeps getting more ridiculous from there.

But this one guy…uh, Ultraconductor, I think?… posts a few pictures he found a while back…pictures of the burials of Martin Luther King, Senator McCarthy, and Winston Churchill. If you zoom in on each casket, you can see the words, etched in. Yeah, I guess it could be ‘shopped, but I can’t shake the feeling that the words mean something…that they’re…I don’t know…alive…changing the world…changing us…

Yeah, it sounds loco, but I keep having weird dreams about them, man, nightmares I can never clearly remember except for those haunting words, ringing in my ears just as I bolt upright in bed, heart pounding.

There’s something seriously wrong with those words, man, I can feel it.