AN: This series is incomplete and will with very high likelyhood not be continued. If I ever do get back to it, it would probably come in the form of a complete rewrite. Due to being a collection of vignettes which does not have an obvious story line, the fact that it is very unfinished (about one fifth of what I had planned) should not matter too much to the reading experience and these fragments do contain context for other short stories set in Rasten.
At this point, I fear that the fever is never gonna go away, that I will spend the, likely relatively short, rest of my existence in this bed, unable to move a muscle, burning and freezing at the same time and that I am in fact currently in the process of dying. This thought, that my life is, like that of all creatures, finite, not in some weird, vague, metaphysical sense, but actually finite in the sense that it is tonally, definitely gonna end and that there is nothing I could reasonably do to make that not be the case, had, up to this very moment, never occurred to me, and I hope that it will never occur to me again, as it scares the living shit out of me, now that I am thinking about it. A problem presents itself: Not thinking about the thing you are currently experiencing, when there is literally nothing you are physically capable of doing aside from thinking, is really fucking difficult, if not impossible. At least for the industrial-scale-toxic-chemical-waste-dump I spent the last couple of hours turning my brain into for some retarded reason. It might have been yesterday, actually. It may very well have been a damn week ago. The ceiling of my room, the thing I am involuntarily staring at, unable to turn my head, is illuminated by the bright, natural light of noon, the same as when I lay down here, though I doubt I would remember, had there been a night or more in between. My brain is shit and so am I. A little bit of divine punishment, I would understand, but this torturous bullcrap is cruel and unusual by any metric, downright fucking unethical. I guess don′t take five Adderall when you′re blackout drunk, kids. Who would have known that was on gods list of things you shouldn′t do if you don′t want to be banished to hell on fucking earth. Come to think of it, those tablets must have been four years old, at the very least. Does medicine expire? Fuck, I′m pretty sure medicine expires, and not in the ″we want to sell you more shit″-way, but the really fucking dangerous, in fact actually lethal way. There it is again, the fear of death. I was doing so well. Fuck. Maybe I can get up, just out of the bed, just collapse on the floor so they won′t think I′m sleeping, so they′ll call an ambulance. Get up. Get up. Get up! GET UP! JUST PLEASE GET THE FUCK UP!! My torso jolts upright, and I suck in two lungs full of oxygen, realizing that breathing was apparently something I hadn′t been doing for a short while. The guy on the other side of the room looks up from his laptop, obviously startled by my sudden return to the realm of the living. ″Don′t you have a job interview?″ ″Don′t you care that I almost kicked the fucking bucket just now?″ ″I didn′t even notice that you were in the room, dude. Don′t tell me you′re doing heroin or something″ ″God no, I just tried to sober up for the interview. What time is it?″ ″Like an hour too late, sorry. Actually, I′m not, this is totally your fault. You knew it was today and getting sloshed in the a.m. is a pretty stupid thing to do just in general, like even by your standards.″ ″Oh, spare me the lecture, or I′ll tell dad that this isn′t working″ ″Okay, okay, understood. I′ll take a walk, see you later.″ Lloyd thankfully did a passable job at reading the mood and fucked off on one of his weird three to four hour walks (like who does that?). Maybe he′s stalking someone, seems like a thing he′d be into. Off-kilter fucking guy, I honestly wouldn′t be surprised. At least he′s quiet, I don′t mind having him live in my room. He′s out of the house long enough for me to do things I don′t want him in the room for and when he′s here I can bounce thoughts off him. Maybe he cleans sometimes. I′m not sure. Doesn′t matter. Getting something to eat has priority. The Horrortrip only lasted three hours, rather than a few days but I′m starving anyway. Kind of a shame actually, would have been a cool anecdote. Mind altering drugs, am I right? Bought that shit four years ago from a friend (Max or Marc or something) to cram for finals. Should probably throw it in the trash, so I won′t get any dumb ideas in an intoxicated state, which is a lot of the time, let′s face it. Ah Fuck. Dad′s sitting in kitchen, indulging in some delicious looking shit. Can′t let him see me, not being at the interview he set up and all. Stealthy retreat. There′s probably some foodstuff stashed in Lo′s room. I knock. The only thing that can′t be found in my brother′s room is Lo himself. 90% of the time he′s not here and the other 10% he brings so many people that he′s impossible to spot him. For someone I have spent my entire life with he sure is absolutely fucking incomprehensible. How did he manage to grow up alright? Like an actual functional human being? Didn′t we have the same parents and shit? Fuck this! The Wardrobe opens with far less creaking than one would assume from the looks of it and below the neatly organized shirts there is a similarly neat row of wine bottles and a tower of various salty snacks, far too perfectly compact to have been built by someone who hasn′t managed to beat me in Tetris once. I rip open a bag and start stuffing ham flavored chips into my mouth. I don′t think I′m a wine guy, never really gotten into it, but it′s been a while since the last time I had some, and this seems like the kind of day to get into something, especially when it′s the only easily accessible fluid to wash down the disgusting taste of oil and fake bullshit artificial meat flavor. I take a swig. It′s sour and clings to the tongue, better than I remember wine to taste like, but objectively worse than beer or hard liquor. My hands tear another bag open as though on autopilot, peanut puffs this time. The cycle repeats with the wine getting better the more I pour down the garbage chute that is my throat. The party food gets worse, but not bad enough to stop eating it. I won′t stop until it′s gone. That became the plan like a bag ago, not that I′m still hungry, I feel sick actually, but at this point it′s easier to just keep going. I could just eat everything, all that even slightly exists, rip it apart, dismantle it on an atomic level and wolf it down, devour it like a fucking hound. Like the biggest of dogs. The biggest possible dog. A thought pops into my head: how big would the biggest possible dog even be? Like, bigger than the biggest currently existing dog definitely. That would be incredibly unlikely: to have hit the maximum by accident. Things can only get a certain size, something about cubes and mass and shit. That′s where the research money should go, breed them until we have the largest physically possible doggo, so we could ride them, replace cars with a bunch of insanely good boys. Do they die once their size exceeds a certain point? That would make the whole pursuit kind of unethical and animal rights activist attack prone. Might not even apply to dogs, they aren′t particularly squarey after all. Maybe it′s a definitional thing: That dogs could be infinitely large, but at some point it would stop being sensible to call them dogs. If there was a galaxy sized dog shaped thing, I don′t think I′d call it a dog. It has transcended doghood and so have I. Tremble before my might for I have consumed everything. Close to everything. Four bottles and seven bags deep. It′s over. There are still ten-something wines left, but not knowing how much they cost, it seems risky to drink more. Instead lying down and trying not to throw up appears to be the responsible course of action. ″The fuck did you do?″ The ghostly pale, cloaked figure of a boy, wrapped in a blanket and not wearing anything else by the looks of it, stands over me. The tone of his voice indicating sincere curiosity. ″Almost killed myself, missed a thing and plundered the good one′s apocalypse stash, all the while hiding from the authorities. They call me the chips-bandit. You?″ ″Pretty much the same tbh... Anything left?″ ″Wine, the rest was mercilessly devoured by the ruthless criminal I have become.″ ″Argh, shit.″ ″Why?″ ″I′m kind of starving and the ancient one is guarding the kitchen″ ″Yeah, I know. Skipping school?″ ″Do you even have to ask?″ The less estranged of my two brothers scratches his neck, a nervous habit of his, that got so out of hand sometimes, that it, in combination with his general appearance, made him seem like a crack addict going through withdrawal. ″I got a commission yesterday. Some rich Swedish kid offering me 300 for a pic of his OC engaging in not-all-that-safe-for-work kinds of activities. Please don′t ask what exactly. So there really wasn′t time for compulsory education.″ ″Sick dude! You might actually make it if you keep going like this″ ″Don′t really have a choice. If this can′t keep me alive by graduation I′ll just fucking off myself. I′ll accept failure like a man, become a modern samurai by first becoming like fucking human yakitori.″ It baffles me that Jerald even managed to go to school on most days, being cripplingly scared of practically everything outside his room and more neurotic than should even be possible. Dude′s a fucking train wreck. If his art wasn′t able to support his continued existence, he would either have to find a normal job, or explain to dad why he can′t, both of which, he had decided two years ago are fates far worse than death could possibly be. Mom had remarked on a few occasions that he drew like his life depended on it, blissfully unaware of the fact that it genuinely kind of did. ″Could you like leave out the references when you say dark shit like that? Stylistic clash gives me the howling fantods.″ ″And when was the last time you did that?″ ″Act as I say, not as I do.″ The sound of the front door opening interrupts our conversation. ″Dad leaving or Lo returning?″ No one ever heard Lloyd coming or going, so that wasn′t even worth considering. Also supported my stalker theory. ″Latter′s unlikely, seeing how the sun′s still up″ ″Sure, but do you really wanna risk it?″ ″We could ″risk it″... Or we could not be complete idiots and look out the window.″ Jerald decides to go with my cunning plan, stealing a look at, what was, judging by his response, the ancient one. ″Today my friends, we feast.″ ″I don′t think I′m ready to get up and embark on any kind of arduous journey to the bountiful land of real, non-terrible food.″ ″Your loss, dude.″ With that he leaves, and I once again lie alone on my brother′s carpet, covered in chips dust. Taking a good hard look at the circumstances that led me here and the backside of my eyelids. I fall asleep.
Somewhere, between the large-ish city of Rasten and the adjacent KCDI corporate district, a magnet train glides silently through the night. Almost silently. Inside of the third wagon, a soft, almost harmonious whistling is generated by wind blowing past a bullet hole in the window. A middle-aged businessman with a goatee, a revolver and a tunnel from the front to the backside of his head sits in front of it. ″a shame, really, he′d be cute with an intact skull″ ″do you think they killed him because he knew too much? Got rid of the brain matter, destroyed the evidence?″ ″well they definitely killed him″ The elder of the two girls sitting to either side of the corpse scrolls through the almost comical amount of emails this guy seemed to be getting. I would guess she′s somewhere in her early twenties, while the one who just commented on the attractiveness of a cadaver can′t be older than eighteen. ″poor schmuck had to take care of some assholes shit basically every five minutes. Must have had the patience of a saint to wait until he′s on the train to blow his brains out.″ ″praise be″ She sounds almost sincere as she folds her hands, like this is the tragic grave site of a deceased martyr, a temple gliding through the air at 200mph. Were it not for the accurate time indication on the top right of my screen, I would assume that I was somehow receiving some kind of weird television show. The younger girl, dressed in vibrantly colored, trendy, though utterly uncoordinated articles of clothing takes a sandwich out of their fellow passenger′s suitcase and beams with joy when she sees that no blood got on it. ″we just ate″ ″so what? It′ll get soggy if I wait. You wouldn′t want his wife to have put in all of this effort for nothing.″ ″how much would you bet on his marital status″ The young girl cocks an eyebrow ″that′s not fair, you have his phone!″ ″seems to be purely business though. No pictures, no private calls, nothing.″ While poking a finger into the dead man′s cheek the younger sister has taken to scolding him. Or maybe they′re not actually sisters? Who knows? ″now that′s no way to live mister corpse, you should have at least had photos of your hot wife to look at during breaks. Just imagine how happy that would have made her.″ ″she′s hot now? What else do you know about this hypothetical wife, on whose existence you still haven′t wagered anything.″ ″my sandwich then, you can practically taste the love that went into this. Besides, of course she′s hot, he managed to go on for this long after all.″ ″deal, tell me if you find something.″ ″that wasn′t what I meant by did they kill him by the way. I was more thinking conspiracy.″ ″I know, but that′s the first thing your mind goes to every time″ ″Well, it would be so much more interesting, don′t you think?″ ″We literally saw this guy pull the trigger from the luggage department.″ Oh, so that′s where they came from. I was already considering befittingly absurd ways in which they could have somehow showed up in a train which previously just carried this guy. Spy movie antics, like entering from the roof of a moving Leviton. ″they still could have blackmailed him or something″ ″you don′t actually believe that″ ″No, but thinking about it is fun″ She checks a pocket on the inside of his suit. ″found his wallet!″ ″Excellent, how much did he have on him?″ ″About 600 bucks, and no family pictures anywhere. What′s wrong with this guy?″ ″What will it take for you to believe that he didn′t have one?″ The girl looks to her sandwich, then back to her sister. ″I don′t care, you can keep the sandwich... If you can get the blood out of his suit.″ Her companion rubs the fabric between her fingers. ″Leave it to me!″ They... Oh god, they undress the dead businessman and stuff his suit into a bag. Should I call the police? No. Even aside from the uncomfortable situation that explaining the surveillance equipment I have in one of Kalpa′s Levitons would create, what would the point be? These girls don′t seem dangerous, just kind of unnerving. And besides, what′s the harm in robbing him, especially if he doesn′t have a ″hot wife″? It′s certainly better than his possessions going to Kalpa. I look over at a picture of my own hot wife as I try to convince myself that this line of reasoning isn′t just a flimsy excuse not to intervene in the events unfolding behind the screen. To keep my distance from the outside word and not be swallowed by it. There would be no point in having the screen to begin with if I were to cross that sacred barrier. Wait, maybe Mimi knows this guy. Wouldn′t be the first time one of her coworkers ″removes themselves from the payroll″ as she occasionally refers to it. I haven′t spoken to my wife in about a month, so I′m somewhat hesitant to open a conversation with ″Hey, some poor soul committed suicide on the L39, were you acquainted?″, but then again, she is the last person to care about this kind of social decorum, possibly the only person to be more comfortable with this than with small talk. I send her an image from the video feed and add the question if she wants to come over sometime. A reply arrives instantly, despite it being 3 a.m. ″Never met him, but investigators ask me if I′ve seen these girls pretty much weekly.″ ″what do they get up to?″ ″Are you actually considering calling the cops?″ ″Please don′t, they′re so cute.″ ″Probably not, I′m just gauging how guilty I should feel about this inaction.″ ″As far as I know they′re just thieves, probably from the huts.″ ″Maybe? The way they speak doesn′t really fit.″ ″Be that as it may, they′re precious and I′ll be really sad if corporate catches them one day.″ ″April 11. Should work.″ ″That′s only four days from now and you don′t have an exact time?″ ″Mimi, are you sick?″ ″I′m not giving you a time, because it′s the entire day. We′ll be on shutdown″ ″Well, guess I′d better make some preparations then. Love you.″ ″Love you too.″ I push my chair backwards to escape the panopticon of monitors which I have constructed in the corner of my bedroom. This surveillance station and the other equipment connected to it easily make up for half of all value in this apartment, which admittedly isn′t much. A quick glance around the corner reveals that the blinds are indeed down, not that anyone is likely to be outside at this time of night in this neighborhood. It still gives me some sense of security, of control. I like being the one in charge of when to interact with reality. Safe from any and all prying eyes, I get up for some good old-fashioned pacing. There′s definitely something to be said for wandering aimlessly around one′s abode after getting up, reevaluating the events of the past day with the necessary distance, making plans, thinking in general while using the body to stay grounded in the physicality of one′s own world. The subtle sway and rhythmic steps along with the residual sleepiness being conducive to all kinds of ponderings. Usually I follow this ritual the moment I wake up, but there were some extraordinary circumstances today, starting with a gunshot that beat my alarm by about five minutes. I ducked into the surveillance station to find that someone had shot himself on an otherwise empty train, or a train that looked empty until two girls appeared from what I now know to be luggage department. To add to an already exceptionally strange morning, my workaholic wife revealed to me that she will have a full day off soon, which really only allows for one reasonable conclusion: I am still dreaming. This is way too good. Then again... I scan the text on a pack of caffeine pills before dropping one in a mug and boiling some water. It′s impossible to read in a dream. You just kind of know what things say and words change when you focus on them. These lists of components and warnings on the other hand, despite partially being in languages I don′t speak stay consistent. I really will be with Mimi for a full day, huh? I should think about what food to get. The hot water flows in a flawless spiral onto the ground coffee in my filter and drips slowly into the mug, dissolving the caffeine tablet little by little. I lean back against the counter. School starts in about four hours, so I better finish some prep-work work for the lessons, but not before checking back in with those two preliminary graverobbers. I anxiously await the last few drops falling before throwing away the filter in a practiced motion and running back to my monitors mug in hand. The older girl stands incredibly close to the camera, probably on top of the seats, her face taking up most of the screen. ″That′s an odd position, why would they need additional cameras here?″ ″Doesn′t look like KCDI hardware.″ ″So what, some creep is just spying on passengers? Doesn′t seem like a promising angle for those kinds of purposes.″ Ouch ″Well, it definitely looks expensive, let′s take it.″ What? No! The screen goes black. I somehow feel violated.
″You should be outside, child. Not wasting your time with an old woman like me. I′m sure there are more enjoyable activities, new things to see, to experience.″ Helen tilts her head to the side to look out of the hospital window. A movement which as I have come to know is one of the few she is still capable of. ″And what makes you think that my time is wasted more here than elsewhere? I have spent lots of time outside and next to none here, so is this not precisely the kind of place in which I could find something novel?″ ″Just look at these people, they′re dying. Staring at the ceiling and waiting for the wait to end. There is nothing they can teach you, go have fun.″ To say that I was having fun has in the past led to undesirable reactions and so I do not. ″Why would they act differently to those not approaching oblivion, had they not learned something new, some kernel of wisdom that sets them apart from the young? Is that knowledge which is clearly quite impactful not something that could be relayed to me?″ ″And what purpose would that serve?″ ″I could save them. Save you. Understanding the conditions of its emergence is vital to fixing any sort of problem. You don′t want to leave this world behind, do you?″ ″No one can escape death, child, it is not a matter of waning or not wanting it to take you. It simply will. No one beside god...″ ″Then why not become god?″ ″I don′t understand.″ ″Imagine the universe as a tree. At some point, when it has grown capable of bearing the self-enforcing cyclicity life cannot help but produce, or possibly when life suddenly brings this violence to bear with no say on the tree′s part whatsoever, it will begin to sprout flower buds. The buds will grow into blossoms and soon they come to fear the fruits that should inevitably be their undoing, for the fruits may only sprout from the flowers′ remains. It happens just so, and the fruit slowly grows and ripens. Soon the realization should dawn on it that, in growing bulbous and soft, its downfall is inscribed into its very being, and quite reasonably the fruit comes to loathe the vile flower bud, for what other purpose could this inscription serve than allowing that thing to flourish upon its grave.″ Hegel would likely be unhappy with this use of his example, but the act of uttering an idea always carries within it the implicit permission for others to use it to their ends. Helen does not object, she simply looks absently out at the trees. ″Nothing inherently precludes the flower or the fruit from immortality. We are perfectly capable of preserving either. In the entirety of their cellular makeup there is nothing that requires each to be the other′s death, and so if they came to realize to what end the tree requires their sacrifice, they might recognize within it a common enemy. This would be unwise for if they destroy the tree, both the flower and the fruit will die. If on the other hand they struck a bargain, if, knowing the tree′s needs they could propose a way for it to continue its multiplication without the cyclical sacrifice of its inhabitants, then the pendulum would be stopped. Remember that the tree is the universe, and what is becoming God if not forcing one′s demands upon reality. We merely need to find and present a workable alternative.″ ″Are you following?″ ″You have such a lovely voice, but it′s so sad. Are you sure you want to speak with me?″ The old lady plays with her blanket, she was clearly not following. ″Yes, tell me about dying.″ The sound of a door being ripped open rudely interrupts our conversation. ″What are you doing here?! I told you to stop bothering my mother!″ The woman has been an issue in the past. My conversations with her mother, though seemingly mutually beneficial, upset her greatly for some reason. I attempt to avoid being here during her visits which are thankfully rare. ″She does not seem bothered. If anything is bothering her, it would be the subject of dying, which I am trying to help her with.″ ″You′re sick, leave her alone!″ ″But she hasn′t answered my-″ ″I said GET OUT″ ″You have not″ The lady in the doorway reaches for a vase and throws it. The world ends to the sound of shattering glass.
My hand reaches for a Teabag, carefully lifting it by the string, slowly guiding it towards the humongous Mug in front of me, capable of holding 40 oz worth of space at least. The bag rips. There is now tea on the floor. Mildly annoyed, I grab another bag, but it too empties its contents onto the ground before it reaches the mug. The same thing happens a third time and a fourth, and a fifth. I start taking handfuls of teabags and throwing them at the mug, but it is too small and too far away to hit. This is bullshit. Pouring hot water directly into the box might work. The pain is agonizing as the boiling liquid hits my throat. Blood starts dripping out of my sleeves, then flowing, then gushing. There is blood on the floor. The mug is empty. I think it′s empty. I can′t see it anymore. My eyes open, not than it helps much, seeing or rather not seeing how it′s too dark to even make out what room I′m in. Crawling around on the floor I find a wall and with it a light switch. The mystery location turns out to actually be the kitchen, minus blood on the floor. What even was that shit, I don′t fucking drink tea. I take a can of the squirrel′s shitty beer from the fridge and open it. Lo′s room and the kitchen are separated by multiple doorways and a staircase, which makes the fact that I somehow got here without eating shit even once a miracle of cosmic proportions. ″to not breaking my face″ I lift the can into the air and take a swig. Might not taste like much, but bathed in sweat and shaking all over it sure as fuck is refreshing. Maybe mom′s onto something. Further inspection of the fridge reveals half an omelet and some kind of sausage, which isn′t a bad breakfast by any stretch of the imagination, so with a plate and another can of the michelob (momchelob) ultra, I return to my room. Lloyd is asleep, as to be expected at (my monitor floods the room with blinding cold light, as I wiggle the mouse around) four in the morning. He seems to not have noticed the sound of the door opening, or the sudden change in brightness. Either that or he′s ignoring it, both of which I′m fine with. There′s a notification. Update on Lo′s weird ironic D-void. Maybe I should apologize to him for eating all his shit. On the other hand, he′ll probably assume one of his guests is responsible if I don′t say anything. Seems less bothersome. Lo′s D-void, of which no one except me and maybe Jerald knows that it′s Lo′s D-void, or would ever think it was for that matter, as the posts on it where so meticulously planned, impeccably written and profoundly in character, that they seemed to an outsider like the downright sincere work of someone who was pretty much the exact opposite of Lo. In fact, it was so unimaginably in-fictional-character that it had attracted a rather dedicated and not at all small fan base consisting primarily of angsty teenagers, which the good one probably doesn′t care too much about but I think is hella cool in a way. The fact that Lo still values my opinion on his writing is also hella cool, even though it′s ironically deep and melancholy and stylistically very different from anything I′ve ever put to physical or digital paper. I click on the link to ″breakfast and breakdown″, a name that I came up with (original name was ″eschaton exemplified″) and am still very proud of. It greets me with... A freaking poem, this fucking madman, like fuck. Selfish The door opens and life floods in Quickly, I close my mouth. No use. It seeps in through my pores instead The unendurable cacophony of shrill, meaningless sounds, Voices, noises and ambiguous stuff in between Cheerfully chipping away at my eardrums The vivacious, burning mayhem of distorted, bright things Shapes, shades, and amorphous, cruel creatures of light Callously clawing at my eyeballs The fear patiently creeps in, through my eyes, ears, pores Crumbling, creaking, I sink to the ground Hopelessly holding my head One radiant being steps toward me Sickly beige, it wants to talk ″I′m scared″, says the thing Sitting next to me, its glow hurts Wordlessly I crawl back into Its radiant, roaring nightmare. This is just some next level shit. I make the horrible, unforgivable and life ruining mistake of scrolling down into the comments. Just a miasma of fucking braindeath, talking about how this is totally what their human experience amounts to, how it′s worse than death on every level and how they just avoid interacting with anyone. Like did you read the same poem I read? Is the title really not hint enough for you to get the point and realize what a hypocritical asshole that makes you? Jesus fuck! I had told Lo on multiple occasions that I didn′t get how the stupidity of his followers doesn′t frustrate him, especially since he refuses to explain his posts. How do you get joy out of fucking with people and making fun of them if they don′t realize that that′s what you are doing? I start typing a private Message to the good one: ″Dude, this is rad, like a fucking masterpiece but you′re really wasting it on these depressed Idiots.″ Immediate reply as usual ″I was one of those depressed assholes, I relate. One day they′ll do like me, seize their bullshit and start being awesome.″ ″People don′t do that. Nobody does that. You pulled that phoenix out of the ashes shenanigans and I′m not even convinced pre ″Lo″ you was actually real and I was like there. Partially responsible for all that shit that happened to you even. Fact is you are wasting your skill.″ ″Nope, that sure happened and you are complicit as hell in his death, can′t talk yourself out of that one. You used to be a fucking asshole.″ ″Also talkin′ about wasting potential? Get some self-awareness bro. When did you last write something?″ ″Yeah, I get it, but you obviously turned out fine. Dunno, two months ago? I′ll have you know that ″put a bullet through my head and call me Jesus″ is in the works. Inspiration′s a bitch though.″ ″That′s a shit excuse and you know it″ ″You know what? I′m gonna work on it right now! I had some booze, some psycs, I should be way in the fucking zone.″ ″Sweet, won′t hold you up any longer then. I have to prep some shit anyways″ Fuck. The sad, yet undoubtedly factually correct truth is that the soon to be world famous and critically acclaimed webcomic sensation ″Put a bullet through my head and call me Jesus″ is not in the works, but exists solely as five lines worth of notes on a piece of paper somewhere in my room (maybe lost) and has contributed to reality in this form for two months or so after I wrote the idea down in a drunken stupor. This won′t do. I crack open the second can of Momchelob (it makes a soothing zschhhh-sound) and go about changing this depressing state of affairs.
This makes no sense. It just doesn′t. I know this city, probably know it better than every fucking act-like-they-own-the-place suit at Kalpa, and this is plain not how it looks. There cannot be houses here. It- ″Nic, are you okay?″ I snort. Never once been quite this close to buying into any of her theories. Hell, most of the time it doesn′t even seem like she does that herself, though you always get the sense that she doesn′t believe anything else either. Truth is faker than fiction. Not a hard bar to clear but still unsettling. It doesn′t make sense. ″No″ ″Well, what do you think they are? Can′t be homes, right? No one would go through that much trouble to hide normal buildings. Also it′s too quiet, so I′m thinking laboratories maybe. They could be breeding something.″ ″Like what?″ ″Like homunculi! No, wait, that′s boring. Bio-weapons! Or new rats!″ ″New- What′s wrong with old rats?″ ″Nothing. What was wrong with Rattus Rattus other than not being big and vicious enough to keep up with the competition? I just happen to think that the days of rattus norvegicus are equally numbered as soon as something worse comes around. It′s the circle of life. New rats for a new eschaton. Why wouldn′t they be working on that?″ ″But... Look, I′m sure these are normal houses. A bit fancy, but normal. If someone was trying to hide this neighborhood we wouldn′t have seen it from the train, right? And there′s a street leading here. All very very normal.″ I can′t fault her for not buying it, I don′t either. At this rate I′ll seem like the conspiracy theorist and that despite the competing explanation involving government manufacture of improved rodents for the hell of it. You don′t stumble upon a new neighborhood in the city you′ve spent all your life in, especially not if you′ve spent your life like the two of us. Admittedly we do stumble upon new rats rather often with that lifestyle, but they don′t get worse exactly, only more expected, mundane... Maybe that is worse. ″We took a whole day to find that street and all the other ones kind of weirdly bend around it in a way where it seems like they′re going straight even though they aren′t. You′ve acknowledged this. It′s very obvious that there′s a secret when you try too hard to keep it, like with area 51, so pretending like you aren′t hiding anything is actually a really good way to run a cover-up.″ ″I need to sit down″ ″Oh, do you think that camera in the Leviton was there to see if someone would spot these buildings? So they can weed out dissidents? Or maybe only a chosen one can-″ ″Okay.″ ″Okay what?″ ″You wanna check if they′re secret labs? Let′s find out! We know how to get here now, so we′ll just come back when it′s dark and break in. There, the big one with the hedge. Worst case scenario it′s a normal upper-class home and we can secure our existence for a while, which isn′t so bad, I think. You in?″ There′s no way anyone smiles brighter than her. It′s addictive. People have never accused me of a lack of curiosity, but that alone would hardly have been enough to send me mapping out streets for upwards of twenty hours. Doubly so when the blurry view we had from the train could have easily caused some kind of optical illusion. Fuck I′m still not even sure it isn′t one of those. Like the vanishing point of a drawing, but instead of everything converging into one spot you′re drawn away from it through the layout. All roads lead to Rome and from here. Walking the same way back it′s exceedingly obvious that this is the correct, natural direction to be going in, somehow, which continues to fuck with my head. Alice keeps talking about warped spacetime and perception-altering microchips dissolved in the water supply, but I don′t really make an effort to listen. Not for the words at least, just for the sounds. Reassuring despite the nature of what she′s saying. It′s hard to describe, but she′s not someone who ever makes you feel safe at all. In fact, Alice makes you feel more vulnerable because of her presence and how fragile she seems. But at the same time, she kind of makes the precarity feel okay. Like it′s not really worth thinking about, and I prefer that. I learned to distrust safety. Only when we reach the old railway bridge do I stop looking behind me every few seconds to make sure the road is still there, and that despite having reached familiar terrain a while ago. I don′t know how far away we′d have to get for the wrinkles this addition has caused in my mental map to become unnoticeable, but at least it′s marginally better here. Only slightly wavy in a way that seems to trace cracks along the tunnel walls where generations of taggers have left their mark in paint and carvings. Alice is dragging her fingers along the concrete as always, stopping temporarily when she spots something that might be a new signature or symbol. More of a formality. The girl must have memorized every single graffiti in town, murals and splotches alike. I′m just about to touch the tunnel myself and trace after her when Alice abruptly turns towards me. ″They′re the names of heroes″, she says confidently. Might be the first time her strange way of walking, strides far too cartoonishly long for her statue, has imbued something with a gravity of sorts. Like a naïve little sister proudly talking about how her brother is fighting in the war. We′ve likely both lost more brothers in wars than we′re comfortable counting or even comfortable remembering. It′s not something we talk about, though sometimes she says numbers at random and I get scared for a moment that that′s what she′s doing. Occasionally she says them as a greeting ″433!″, sometimes like she′s measuring the world. Steps and looks and silences. I hope she′s measuring the good things. ″What sorts of heroes?″ ″All sorts. Most fallen, but some still falling. You can tell by how fresh the paint is.″ ″Hm... Are we still falling″ ″Maybe, but I′ll call it flying, at least until the ground comes. That′s what it feels like.″ ″What if it doesn′t come?″ ″Then it really will have been flight all along, and we would have been silly to worry about the impact″ I chuckle ″Have you ever left a signature to be remembered by?″ ″No way! That would be like admitting defeat! Someone else will have to write our names. largest of all! Carved in stone beneath a monument. What′s the point in dying if we can′t even get that much?″ ″Guess we′ll have to fly a while longer then″
″So what you′re telling me here, just to make absolutely sure that I′m getting this one hundred percent straight, is that your son-″ ″Eric.″ ″Yes. Eric, your son, seven years of age, is an empath.″ ″Well, they′re not as rare as folks like to believe. Have you seen the news recently? That youth gang they busted. A hand full of those... well you know, could bring this entire city down.″ ″I haven′t, no. Get the feeling that watching news is seriously detrimental to my ability to stay informed nowadays. Haha. Pretty sure I do know what gang you′re talking about though.″ The lunatic in my backseat, happily regurgitating propaganda at me chooses to ignore my jokey remark entirely ″Frightening. I do worry about my ex-wife sometimes.″ ″Ex-wife? So your son lives with her?″ ″Now he does, yes- oh, take a right here. I could not bear the company of the two after I realized that he′s... you know... one of them.″ ″Hey, I′m just your taxi driver. If you want to use the slur then do it, but stop forcing that inference on me.″ ″I think normal folks like you and me are rightfully suspicious. It′ a powder cake if you ask me. This city is. And if we don′t take decisive action who knows what will happen? My wife just started doing everything Eric said at some point. Catered to his every whim. It′s frightening when you see it. I got out of there just in time, I did.″ ″Please tell me you can see how incredibly sad the thing you just said is.″ Once again, the somewhat disheveled looking businessman refuses to engage with the point. ″Well why are you so defensive of them anyway? Can′t cost you much business to stand up against those hypnos, you know. ″ Ah, there we go. ″So what is it. Someone you know? Someone pulling your strings?″ ″That′s really not-″ ″Especially types like you can′t be weary enough. Public service I mean, folks who′re around people a lot.″ The noise data hyperconflation matrix generates all kinds of results. Myriad mindsets littered across probability space. Anything can be true by the might of pattern recognition and reality can be constructed from even the most outlandish axioms. That isn′t to say that truth values are distributed randomly of course. There are attractors of all sizes, the larger ones growing boring before one even becomes aware of their existence, when they are still presumed to be the standard, while yet others are too depressing to even be of interest. Before he tells me any more about how hard it was to leave his wife for being too nice to her child, the way mothers are sometimes known to be, I decide to redirect his paranoid delusions. ″Yea, a friend of mine′s an empath. Don′t see her too much nowadays, but we used to go drinking sometimes.″ the impact of this innocuous admission is palpable. The businessman′s already rather pale face turns ashen within the space of a few syllables. ″I- I think I′d rather walk the rest.″ ″Fine by me, have a wonderful day.″ I smile. Sincerely though not exactly kindly as I drive off. The gang he was talking about was almost certainly some small subgroup of soul-chain, and the idea that it might have been the kids I helped move last week spirals around in my mind for a bit. While I have no particular sympathy for the soul-chain as an organization, any singular member I have so far interacted with has been nothing short of lovely and if there is one moral principle by which I stand, it is that good people should be allowed to do as they please. ″Call Ria.″ -Calling Zaria Flimkien- ″Oh Seth... been a while, how are you?″ ″You sound dead. Actually deceased. Were you sleeping?″ ″What? No, It′s just been a busy day, which was part of a busy week and so on. Going door to door and being shouted at, the usual. I′m assuming your day hasn′t been too peachy either?″ ″You could say that, yeah, but primarily I was just reminded of my wonderful empath friend with whom I don′t do enough.″ ″I′m not an empath, that′s not a real thing, and the thing you want to do is grab a drink, because you′re upset about something I presume?″ ″Presumption correct, as to be expected of an empath, which you undeniably are if there are any. You in?″ ″Sure, meet you at the docks in an hour.″ ″Perfect.″ -Call ended with Zaria Flimkien- It′s a thing she′s always been able to do; Read the tone of your voice and extrapolate your desires before you′ve even become aware of them. If communication is a game of flawed processes, the imperfect encoding on information by the speaker into a shared medium and imperfect decryption by the listener back into thought, then Zaria Flimkien does not communicate, she reads minds. While the members of soul chain call themselves empaths, they are far closer to ″normal folks″ than to Ria. She is scary, hard to be around and the thing I desperately want to be: A communication machine within the eather of human neurosis. I really do need a drink, huh?
-Message to ″headless herald of hexadecimal hackery″- ″Sup. What are we gonna do about that webcomic idea?″ ″I would need you to write it, otherwise I don′t know what to draw. Also how do you intend to pay me?″ ″Just wanted to check in if you′re still interested. What do you mean, we′ll get money from selling merch and s... ″Don′t even try claiming that it will finance itself, I know comic artists, it′s never profitable″ I delete the message ″Don′t worry, I′ve still got a bit of cash, and I can write some articles for a quick buck″ ″Fair enough, but you′ll have to pay for each page in advance.″ ″And write comprehensive, comprehensible scene descriptions, from the explanation, it really wasn′t clear what tone you′re going for″ ″Okay, picture some insane posturban clusterpunk bullshit with metasensical absurdo abstractivist elements″ ″Hold it right there, that sound sick, and real aesthetic, but those descriptors don′t mean anything. Posturban doesn′t even sound like a word. Be concrete and this is gonna be dope.″ ″Yeah, I′ll send you some shit later″ In a strange state of inspired panic, I open Word. Last-edited turns out to not be anything related to the comic. Barely even three lines of text. ″My brain is broken, my mind is melting, and my psyche splattered across an uncountable number of unfinished documents but it′s thankless thinking with this corpse of a cortex, this cracked cranium full of incoherent ideas″ Sort of ironic for that to be the message of an obviously directionless, unpolished and unfinished piece of writing from a me that was either very tired or very drunk. Doesn′t matter. Delete. ″Hey brother, care for a good time?″ called the coarse voice of a man, whose lung had clearly come into contact with more THC than oxygen, from a dark alleyway, trying to sell either bitches or drugs. I didn′t look to check which, seeing how I couldn′t afford either. ″dark alleyway″ in these parts at least is only a contextually meaningful descriptor, since someone from pretty much anywhere else would consider the street I was running through at that very moment a particularly dark specimen. It had however not the slightest chance of comparing to the sheer amount of unfiltered lumodeficiency and delinquency that radiated from the offshoot the dealer/pimp called his own.″ What? No! This is a comic and not a fucking novel. Also wasn′t the protagonist supposed to be a hoodrat himself, why would he think/talk like this then? Fuck this, tabularaza the shit out of that and start from scratch. Jesus! ″ya′ll n****s...″ Can I say ″N****s″? It would be kind of immersion breaking if I didn′t, or rather the characters didn′t. Not me who′s talking after all. On the other hand I′m pretty sure that′s not something those who would get upset over it are likely to care about. I could just claim that I am black, which is arguably even more racist, but they leave me no choice. Sacrifices have to be made to preserve the believability of a story. Words flow onto digital paper the way it has always been. Opening a document and reemerging from the trance once a substantial amount of words has come to fill it. The text rarely even correlates to the thing that had been thought up, if there even was earlier consideration of what the white space might hold. It′s fascinating. Getting up is hard, speaking is hard, remembering is hard, but thinking? Thinking is passive. Not thinking is impossible and writing is just thinking while sitting at a keyboard. Paragraphs about a young man trading the keys to a run down apartment to some thugs in exchange for them pretending to pursue him through the neighborhood replace nothingness. The chase, accompanied by gunshots, leads down the complex′s stairwell, through busy streets, a woman′s kitchen window and some dimly lit alleyways, one of which contains a bar called ″Exisle″. Only the letters E-s-l of the neon sign are illuminated in a slightly on the nose reference to the cult classic ″Regilith- The king′s rubble″. The so far and henceforth unnamed main character, a morally light grey scam artist, upon bursting through the door, meets his contact. The journalist pulls on his cap twice as a signal, though this isn′t remotely necessary, as his nervous demeanor and pretend-poor style of clothing make him stick out like a sore thumb. He is dressed the way I would if I were to attempt to fit in in the huts, something I would imagine to be entirely unconvincing. As the outsider scrolls through a newsfeed, reporting on the commotion outside, he is approached by the main character, whereupon they engage in some banter about who blew their cover more. The scam artist′s chase outside was of course a farce to present the image of someone worth chasing. He trades a USB-drive of unknown content against a decent amount of cash before ordering two whiskeys, the joke being that the bar owner is a Cuban refugee who does not speak English, every order therefore resulting in a mystery drink, something the reporter did not expect. The main character′s scheme of unknown purpose proves successful as the two men part ways amicably. That′s a good start, keeping things unexplained, building mystery. Good shit. I should ask Jerald if the ″Exisle″ thing is too on the nose though. Explicitly mentioning that the owner is Cuban so quickly after establishing the establishment seems kinda cheap, as opposed to simply having him talk with an accent, or acknowledging his origin later in the comic, when the audience has gotten used to the bar′s name. Whatever. that stuff can be ironed out later, for now this is a pretty solid hook. A bit of Momchelo... ah shit, it′s empty... A swig of actual whisky to celebrate then! Just as I lift the bottle to my lips and tilt my head backwards in a ″strangely cartoonish″ manner which was once described as ″Clearly indicating that [I] value the aesthetic of excessive drinking almost as much as the act itself″, Lloyd enters the room, contorting his face in a combination of pity and disgust. ″You made it to the kitchen, I see″ ″Prepare to be even more impressed, as I tell you that I sleepwalked there from Lo′s room″ ″Apart from the fact that I somehow find that less impressive than you moving your waking ass self to the ground floor; why the fuck were you in Lo′s room? Is he actually here for a change?″ ″Nah, I just ate his stuff. Also talked to him for a bit but, like, in messages, wrote some scenes for a webcomic... Pretty productive day overall if you ask me. If that was all the same day.″ ″Man, I haven′t seen the guy in months now. I see how this house isn′t particularly welcoming to socially competent people, but still. Does he have a new girlfriend?″ ″Haven′t heard anything since the space girl broke up with him″ ″Catherine?″ ″Yes. Who else could I possibly mean by that?″ ″I don′t know? I just find it weird that she got a cool sounding nickname″ ″Just going with what fits, there are no personal feelings involved, freeloader.″ ″Good to know. Say hi to Lo if you talk to him again, he never responds to me.″ ″Will do. After I empty this bottle that is.″ ″You can′t be serious″ ″I wasn′t, but after that challenge: Watch me!″ A two thirds full bottle of hard liquor doesn′t go down as easily as a few cans of Momchelob, but it has the interesting effect of numbing my throat after the first few gulps, making the sensation of the liquid flowing down into my stomach almost surreal. Lloyd either hasn′t dropped his disgusted expression over the duration of our talk, or he has chosen to reuse it now. ″I′m going to bed, try not to throw up on the floor again.″ I enjoy a few more minutes of almost sobriety before my vison cuts out.
The phone falls out of my hand and onto the floor as I remove my aching extremities from under the blanket and my similarly aching brain is stuck in a loop of asking itself the same question it always does: ″oh god, why am I like this? Who in their right mind would ever choose to be like this?″. It got boring years ago, not only because that particular self-deprecating train of thought is patently unproductive, but also because my own stupidity has proven to be useful in at least one way. It makes it almost impossible for me to lie to myself, because even as the more clearly verbalizable thoughts go on and on about how I essentially haven′t slept in four days, how dumb and pointless it is to get up and how the sensible course of action is to die and decompose beneath this pillow grave, there is nonetheless that warmth returning to my body. That flame which never quite goes out, being fanned to a blaze by the unexpected call from a friend. A physiological reaction contradicting an unhelpful automatic pattern of thought. And so the soles of my feet make contact with the cold floor and carry this person I have chosen to be toward the wardrobe, painfully, but in a good way. On the kitchen table stands a wine glass to catch the water dripping from a hole in the ceiling which I still haven′t had the time to fix. Originally it had been a sauce pan, but the sound it made proved unbearable after only a few days. Maybe Seth could..? Nah, he′s busy enough. We essentially hadn′t spoken since I started getting more involved with the city council. Or maybe it was that I didn′t have the time to do things anymore. I sure wonder what that elusive guy is up to nowadays. A few more articles of clothing and half a grapefruit later, I leave the apartment to brace the outside world once more for today. With each step toward the docks, the voice listing the immense benefits of simply decomposing grows quieter and quieter and by the time I see Seth waving at me it has become almost inaudible. Drowned out by the sound of crushing waves and devastatingly refuted by the observable reality of human connection. ″Been a while, how′s your day been?″ The smile on his face is bright as ever as he comes in for a hug ″Lots of getting yelled at, lots of people not knowing what the city council is or does... One fine gentleman mistook me for his maid, which was a bit of a new one, but aside from that: the usual.″ I say this with a smile. In say most things with a smile, but it doesn′t stop Seth from uncomfortably grinding his teeth at the implication. ″Hey, at least the board has gone from not knowing who you are to profoundly disliking you and all of your proposals″ ″Flattering, for sure, but I don′t really consider public distain to be my main achievement. Being hated has always been a side-gig, less a hobby and more a part time job to keep the lights on. Interviews pay, and the scorned are prime talk show material, it seems. Not that that′s intentional. There′s never any profit in the intentional bits. Helping people with their issues, listening to their concerns, found a new home for a family last week... small victories, small unlucrative victories.″ ″I know, but it′s the only thing the radio keeps me up to date on: Who does corporate hate this week? I′ve got a bingo sheet, you know.″ ″Glad to hear you haven′t lost interest in my perpetual running against walls. I put too much effort into it for the whole debacle to not at least be entertaining.″ ″You′re not giving yourself enough credit, Ria.″ His expression is pained, but I can′t exactly place it. Lips curling the way they do when someone is biting down on the inside of their cheek. Like teeth digging into flesh, like thoughts digging into each other. Sincere eyes making a travesty of the whole thing. ″Oh? I was under the impression you didn′t approve.″ Immediately the stuck gears are torn apart, a tension transmuted, a shocked expression. ″What? Why?″ ″The radio silence for one thing, plus you never particularly seemed one for politics″ ″Well yeah. That′s why I left you alone. Being associated with someone like me would damage our campaign beyond the shadow of a doubt, don′t you think.″ ″I feel like the people have bigger things to worry about than some of your more unsavory connections, and the media is already tearing me apart from so many angles that one more couldn′t possibly make a difference″ ″Oftentimes contradictory angles″ ″Oh yes, did you know that I was a nobody who can′t change anything due to having no connections and also that my strings are being pulled by various ominous forces? Never figured out how those two go together.″ ″I′d have to ask some of those ominous forces″ ″The soul-chain?″ ″For example. I′m still trying to get into contact with some of the higher-ups to figure out if this whole thing is... you know, a scam″ Staring toward the horizon, I make an exaggerated show of thinking, blowing out my cheeks as noncommittal clouds drift overhead. ″Hmmm, I′m willing to believe that that′s part of it″ ″Part?″ When I turn back to him, he has produced two bottles of beer from his bag and is presenting one to me with a look of playful curiosity. He′s in his early thirties, but he looks like a fourty-year old with the air of someone in their twenties. Like he aged asymmetrically. ″Well from what I know they primarily recruit underprivileged teenagers and I′m well aware how quickly you get attached to those, sooo wanting to make sure they aren′t being fucked over is definitely pretty high on your list...″ ″But?″ ″But underprivileged teens are getting fucked over everywhere and you are specifically pulling this rogue-investigator bit for the church, so I think you just want to learn about empaths in hopes that you can become one. Like a food critic who wants the public to be informed, sure, but it′s the free steak that haunts their dreams not the educated-decision making of consumers.″ ″The idea has crossed my mind″ ″The idea has been stuck in the exact center of the intersection that is your mind since we were in school″ ″Important term in there being ″we″″ ″I′ve told you that there isn′t such a thing as empaths for years now″ ″And your words have been irreconcilable with your existence for just as long″ ″Not a thing in that it′s not a distinct class of people, not a... What would be a kind way to put it? Dangerous mental disorder, as the media would want one to believe″ ″That still wouldn′t explain you, but for what it′s worth, I hope you′re right. That would mean that I can learn it after all.″ ″Glad to hear that with all your criminal connections you still consider me to be dangerous″ ″The distinct class of people part, not the dangerous basket case part″ ″I know. Cheers″ ″Cheers″
If it weren't for her rather apathetic stance on general cleanliness, the squirrel’s compulsive neuroticism would be absolute, and so the thin layer of dust on most everything in a house much too spacious to be tended to by two working adults provides regular reassurance that she hasn't gone completely off the deep end. There are however exceptions. most obviously; the rectangular, dust free, areas from which one can clearly glean where the furniture stood yesterday, but also the top of a tall bookshelf, not visible from the ground for a person of normal stature, but undoubtedly polished to a shine, because on top of this shelf, the only one that is never moved, lies the ancient one's gun, and while he has never used it and doesn't think that he ever will use it, he sure as shit is dedicated to making absolutely fucking certain that it is there prepped and ready to end a son of a bitch, should he ever have to. The ancient one, of course, hates guns and will always firmly hold the position that they are an unjustifiable danger and that nobody should be allowed to own them. He says this despite such laws already applying to everyone not in possession of a weapons permit. Laws which the shelf gun is in blatant violation of. “How could it be illegal now when it’s been handed down the family tree for so long?”, dad will ask, like this isn’t the weakest excuse imaginable. Like it doesn’t garner critique of his moral integrity by all members of the household, regardless of whether they agree with him or not each and every time. That's just how he is, unchanging, robust, like an old tree. Ancient. The gun has left this spot only once, when Lawrence took it into the forest to kill himself. He never came back, but Lo did. Lo returned the next day, with the weapon and all the bullets within it. New name, new personality, old body. The suffering and sudden rise of Lo Fensterer. Squirrel unsurprisingly flipped her shit and demanded that we got rid of the damn thing immediately, but dad went on a long rant about trusting his sons to make the right choices and Lo, with the charisma he inexplicably acquired in that forest, insisted that one could very easily take one's life by other means. That the part of him that wanted to be dead already was. Mom’s mental state wasn't exactly improved, but apart from some privacy violations over the following weeks, things carried on normally for everyone except the kid formerly known as Lawrence, who soon became one of the most popular and probably influential people in town, before leaving for college in Drunnig, leading to Vincent and me calling him "the good one" in self-deprecation. I feel myself almost falling backwards as my vision blacks out for a second. Urgent reminder of the thing that drew me through the living room before getting stuck mentally on an overly dustless shelf. Hunger. Cell-gnawing hunger where you can feel the desire of your gut to pump stomach acid into the rest of your system and digest what other organs you have on offer. What do I have on offer? The fridge swings open to reveal a family-sized serving of fuck-all apart from some beer cans and the cabinet isn’t much better. Whatever dad apparently had for lunch must have been all that was left. My stomach growls as terror begins to rise within me. A completely useless microwave displays the current time as 13:08 which means that my last meal was 24 x 2 + I don’t know, 15? Almost three days ago. My hands are trembling, making it impossible to draw and the encroaching threat of simply passing out, revealing to the squirrel that I was not in fact at school becomes ever more imminent by the minute. Ahhhh this is bad. What the ancient one ate must have been the dinner they set aside for me yesterday. Vi plundered Lo’s strange supply of party food, and the squirrel won’t bring home groceries until 10:00 at the earliest, at which point I will be thoroughly dead, stiff from rigor mortis and maggot ridden. A decomposing corpse in the kitchen, providing gruesome spectacle for all those who believe their stomach capable of handling such sights without surrendering their contents in an unprepossessing manner that would undoubtedly be deemed disrespectful of the dead. The consideration of this scenario is of course completely useless beyond its ability to distract me from the only remaining course of action. Sunlight shines in through the window and people, some walking their dogs, some bracing the dangers of the outside on their own, can be heard, making my horrific last resort more tangible than I would like it to be. For a moment far longer than I would prefer to admit, I reconsider death as a viable alternative. The door opens. I exit. One foot finds its place in front of its counterpart as I try to anchor my breathing to the rhythm of my steps rather than the beat of my heart, which has still not abandoned the idea of terminating my physical existence here and now, by way of causing one of my arteries to explode. Admirable commitment. I change sidewalks whenever anyone so much as enters my field of view, until I begin to worry that my excessive amount of switching might be seen as suspicious and draw attention. A stray empath might be able to intuit my predicament from a casual glance if I fail to project an image of cool detachment while proceeding toward my goal in a rectilinear manner. The pavement twists and turns, spirals into chaos and only occasionally (in that adrenalin rushed semi-second of almost eating shit) re-collapses into a straight line. Straight ahead. Head out. Headache. Maybe it’s me that’s spiraling. Unspooling along the path, waiting for the string to run out so I can be free. Another dent in the world layer - another almost trip - almost death - skip a beat - stop. Another breath and the brief clarity that follows along with the anxiety inspiring tingling in my chest. The feeling of lungs. Having them. Each alveolae separately coming into contact with who knows how many molecules, colliding, absorbing, compressing, uncomfortably undulating fluid. Too much sensation entirely. And yet there’s a break, there’s a disconnect, a whole which is broken or perhaps many inconciliable fragments attempting to be one and failing. Attempting to be me. Like the world layer, another topology which is textured wrong. My hands don’t feel anything at all, or at least that which they sense feels unreal and detached. As they dangle to my sides, I have to look down from time to time to convince myself they’re still here, that I didn’t forget them. That I didn’t forget… where was I going? Shopping. Food. Sustenance. Somewhere in this area must be a place where produce fill the shelves. Things that could be made to fill me. Emptiness is certainly the term for it. An excess of emptiness internally and thus an unbearable abundance of reality externally through a complete lack of filter functions. There is just so much noise, so many body parts to coordinate and feel or to be aware of not feeling. So much world to be taxonomized and yet a complete inability to do so. To do anything. Even walk. The pavement keeps escaping the length of my legs. Pulling away and breaking the flow of my gait. Oh god, did she look at me? I can’t do this. Need to switch need to switch need to- I repress the urge and continue forward. Ten meters. Five. One. The woman passes by me close enough for us to smell each other. My mind turns blank to escape the moment’s horror. I throw up into a hedge. The sun is relentless and there appear do still be dogs in need of walking on this day. After a good ten minutes of convincing myself that it is safe to look at my phone, I take a deep breath and do so. 13:34. Did I take a wrong turn? There must be a store somewhere. It’s definitely too late to turn back, I’d have to… A phone breaks, a body collapses in the midday sun.
The ground is still a long ways off, hidden away beyond the impenetrable darkness. If there even is one. I suspect that there is. Supposing that I'm correct, it's a little bit closer now. I must have fallen from somewhere, a cliff or building or other structure, which ought to stand on something, so there necessarily has to be a ground. But I don't remember. I can't always have fallen. If I did, could it really be called falling, technically? Doesn't feel right. A little closer yet. I look up into the void, or down, I can't tell, and through the clouds of now vaguely materializing forms, the letter "L" looks back at me. Less than an inch away from my retina. Some more letters dig themselves into my cheekbones, creating a sharp pain all over the right half of my face. I lift my head off the keyboard. Not yet sufficiently sober, my body sways from side to side, forcing the center of mass beyond the chair's edge. Figures. I haven't stopped falling. Thud. Face to carpet, back to darkness. I awaken to the high-pitched voice of my younger brother and a light tap on the shoulder. “Hey, I thought you were gonna show me the around the school today.” The young boy in front of me is beaming from cheek to cheek. “Yeah, definitely, I was just… waiting here for you.” “I dunno Vi, it kind of looked like you were sleeping.” “Sleeping? In class?” I smile widely and blow out some air through my nose in hopes of making the act more convincing. “How dare you accuse your brother of such delinquency?” “If you say so. We did homeroom-introductions with miss Wagner today, everyone seems really nice!” “Wagner? You lucked out then, her classes are pretty low-effort. You didn’t talk to anyone, did you?” “Of course I talked to them, duh. They’re my new classmates, and I told you they’re nice.” “Any word you speak to those vultures is ammunition against you. Just wait until they find their first target and you’ll see. I’ve done school for a bit now and the best way of being ignored is ignoring them. They’re boring as shit anyways.” Was I still being sincere when I said that? Was I sincere at any point? When did it all get so painful, so dark and callous? Why did I feel like I had to experiment with him? Why did I poke everything until it broke? “I am no longer him!” “No longer who?” , Lloyd responds in the muffled, barely understandable tone of a man mumbling into his pillow. “Don’t even worry about it, I… I need to take a shower” “Woah, what kind of epiphany has led to taking action as drastic as basic hygiene?” “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Even as warm water beats against my face and layers upon layers of filth and dead skin are relinquish their grip upon my body, the thoughts persist. I can’t live like this. I need absolution. Just some, just a little bit, not actually from the good one himself though. That’s worthless, he’ll forgive anyone. He already forgave me for fuck’s sake. How much could that possibly mean? I open my mouth and take in the jet of disgusting, metal-tasting water, in hopes that it will drown me before I can bring this particular train of thought to conclusion. My half-assed attempt at suicide proves unsuccessful. There has to be a place for this kind of forgiveness. Fuck talking to some religious dipshit, but sad, directionless teenagers playing psychoanalyst for each other, so they don’t have to deal with the reality of their own misery for a bit? Now that’s something I can get behind. And forums like that ought to exist everywhere. A few google searches and DMs to angsty teenagers in Lo’s comments lead me to just the place I was looking for: “The Glaring”. A wall of absurdly pretentious confessionals, ten times the wordcount they would require, were the people responsible even remotely as interested in conveying their actual issues as they are in convincing readers of their depth, stretches down farther than any reasonable human would ever dare to scroll. The site was apparently created by a lifestyle blogger named Jessica Heine, who became somewhat famous amongst the goth-adjacent six years ago after unexpectedly killing herself and leaving multiple novels worth of purple-prose as her suicide note. Further digging into her uncovered this site, which she assumably set up in order to help herself, but which didn’t gain any traction until the connection to the now dead pseudo-e-celeb had been revealed. That is to say: quite a bit too late. The girl however succeeded in becoming a messianic figure for depressed assholes who think that she somehow sacrificed herself to bring them this site and therefore save their lives, miraculously unaware of the existence of suicide hotlines. I guess I shouldn’t be too cynical of the whole matter, seeing how this is exactly what I needed. Thanks Jessica. For a moment I consider contemplating how incredibly macabre and creepy that thought was but decide against it. Instead, I start reading a post.
“There is no out. There can’t be. The thing we want to escape from once simplified to its most basic, nuanceless core is reality itself, or rather the human experience that is the lens through which we conceptualize it. How could there possibly be anything outside that except death? Anything that seems like an out is just another in, a pathway to another corner of the same shitty old building where the only way to escape is jumping out the 21st floor window. It still sucks, wherever your path leads, but at least it sucks in a way that’s new, refreshing almost for a while. It puts past shit into perspective despite not being an exit and becomes the new, interesting shit, which might just be enough? As long as one keeps taking the “out”s that aren’t really, and continuously turns the old shit into the new shit, the grind stays interesting enough to be worth it, maybe. Maybe that’s the point of it all.”
“If you’re still looking for the point, you have already missed it, because there is none and that is the point.”
“Wouldn’t that mean that there is one? Isn’t that just a “the path is the goal”-type twisting of words, that denies the initial discernibility of a thing’s nature, but not the verisimilitude of its existence. That’s even kind of the thing I described above.”
“It would be, if I, like you apparently do, operated on the assumption that “points” or any comprehensibility-serving abstraction of physical reality is an inherent property of it, rather than a foundationless attribution made by flawed human minds.”
“In that case you’re just being needlessly obtuse by referring once to the point of existence and once to your point about existence with the same word in the same sentence. Being hard to understand doesn’t make you profound, you know?”
“Well what’s profound?”
“Anything that makes people go “oh, I get it, the world’s like THAT” in the form of a very neat, memetic sentiment. No more than a paragraph. The kind of shit middle aged women go nuts for. didn’t miss that you changed the topic btw.”
The commenter didn’t respond to this. What IS profound? THAT, yes, sure, but also more, right? There has to be more. It’s not satisfying like this. There has to be a more profound explanation of profundity. Did THEY, the commenter, find it satisfactory, of did they just not reply because their ego had been bruised? I come to the realization that that becoming cognizant, not knowing, but actually becoming cognizant of the fact that other people do exist and have thoughts is genuinely the worst feeling imaginable. I take a large gulp of rum straight from the bottle and the burning sensation in my throat distracts me from the terrifying thought that some guy on the internet had maybe been given a glimpse at the true nature of things that simply doesn’t cut it for me. Why did I go here? Where did the rum come from for that matter? Sometimes it seems like alcohol just appears around me. Wait, right. This was about Lo. It’s hard not to feel pathetic in this situation, despite the overwhelming work I put into cleansing myself from such feelings forever. The space girl would surely have a blast observing and commenting upon my fucked-up coping mechanisms, but then again, there are few pathological behaviors with which she doesn’t have a field day, this tendency of hers very much included. I came to whine. I came to pour my heart out about the crimes that no one even has the decency to hate me for. I came to have my fucked up psyche obveranalyzed by someone who hasn’t been stuck in its gears for countless eternities. It that so reprehensible? Is that so reprehensible to anyone except me?
“This will probably sound really stupid. For context, I have talked about it with people whom I trust implicitly about that sort of shit, and therefore know for a fact that it sounds stupid. I'm even inclined to agree. The problem is that so far nobody has been able to find the logical flaw in my thought process or at least to adequately explain to me how I'm mistaken. And it's hard to convince yourself of a different philosophy if you can't find out how yours is wrong. So here goes: I am convinced that my parents will let me live in their house indefinitely and after years of trying to find one, I am certain that no activity that I am forced to partake in will ever not make me miserable. Call my existence pathetic all you want, but there is nothing higher than this to strive for from my perspective. I realized that all these things people feel tethered by, while they are certainly real for others, don't actually exist in my case. I am free to do anything and that includes doing nothing. Stupid or not, it seems pretty sound logically and that's the problem: I don't want it to be. Sometimes I just want to be a fucking person again, and it's all because I thought too much, I poked at my own mind again and again and it broke. I broke and there's no recovering if you're so broken that you think you're fine most of the time. I poked at others too, poked and prodded and broke. Truthfully, maybe my self-prescribed confinement to this room is preferable to the damage I might wreak otherwise. A friend once called me demonic and as the months go past, I am inclined to agree…”