Book 1
-1-
Insomniac
I can’t sleep late at night. I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s the constant churning of the machines I live next to. I don’t know. I couldn’t say.
The machines are constantly churning, and in the daytime I’m sleepier than ever, but I have to make sure there’s nothing stopping them from churning. That’s all I do.
I met a woman who was inspecting the machines once, and in that moment all I wanted was for her to stay until night fell so that we could both sleep next to the churning machines together. Maybe then I wouldn’t have insomnia. But she left shortly after. So I have to keep inspecting the machines in the day time, sleepier than ever, and staying awake all night. I wonder, were she to come back, were I to persuade her to stay the night, whether she would get any sleep at all, or whether I would as well.
In October, the wolves come out of the forest, which overlooks the city I live in. If I squint, I can see their dark silhouettes cut into thin black cuts across the dull moon behind them.
Every day I live in fear.
-2-
Songbird
When the neighborhood cat bites into a songbird’s throat, black rays of liquid and light begin to spill onto the harsh, grey concrete instead of blood. The cat didn’t know that songbirds need oil to keep their throats nice and smooth, so that they can force notes out quickly.
-3-
Void of Light
I’ve always wondered where a black hole would take me. Were I to fall into one. Or, maybe, the better way to phrase it is ‘what it would do to me’. The last bastion of the unknown. It’s calling to us all and we, humanity, have refused the call hundreds of times, finding ways to veer around black holes for centuries now.
Why?
What’s the point of that?
Many call it suicide, the idea of falling into a black hole. I think it’s rebirth. From what I recall, black holes are not instant death traps. We do not know what lies on the other side of the void, and unless we somehow make technology to monitor the inside, which has proven to be a difficult task, all we can do is dream. Dreaming is idle; everybody can do it.
From the ship, which I have nicknamed The Nautilus, of which I am the sole inhabitant, I can see my target now. A fairly large black hole, about the size of my doorway. It swirls around, like a Charybdis. Inside, I see that its entrance is void of light. Like a hole was torn through the world’s body. The outside of the entrance glitters like thousands of stars clustered together.
I’m afraid.
I exit the ship and remove the tether that keeps me attached to it. As I come closer and closer, I start to realize that the black hole is just a mouth. All it will lead me to is the stomach of the universe; a place where I can be crushed and mashed and digested. I don’t know what makes this belief so strong in my head; but I can’t shake it. All I’ll be inside the black hole is food. All I’ll be inside the black hole is mulch. It’ll crush me. It’ll take me apart, Jesus Christ, no, no, no, I can’t die, no, no, no, wait, all I’ll be inside the black hole is food, I can’t do that. It’s not possible for me to die like this; I can’t die here, I can’t die, I can’t die, I’m immortal, I’ve always been, no, no, no, I can die, and it will happen, I’ll be digested and spit back out a corpse into the cold space around me, no, no, no, no
Inside a black hole, there is no ‘I’. Or ‘You’. Or anything, really. Perhaps it is the stomach of the universe. All it is is the absence of light. How can there be something, if all a place is is another thing’s absence? All that he can fall into is nothingness. Infinite nothingness. Maybe the human body is accustomed to it. Maybe it isn’t. He’ll die one way or another.
The nautilus is going home. It arrives on autopilot, having crashed into hundreds of drifting wreckages throughout the universe. It finds an open spot in a forest to land, somewhere quiet where the people won’t be disturbed by it, and then it shuts down.
-4-
The Drop
These days, the bridge becomes like a predator; enticing people with its high drops and black waters below, where fish swim in the deep, close to the rocky bottom. A corpse glides along the dark waters.
-5-
She Glides Through the Snow
I have explored the taiga for a little over a year, now– searching for Balsha. That’s what I’ve decided to call her.
She’s a white tiger. Huge. Larger than any tiger I’ve ever seen, but skinnier, too. Built like a lamppost. (Over this period of time, it’s become harder and harder to approximate the size or height of a lamppost) But huge. Still huge. Her eyes glow in the dark, and on most days, she’s watching me. She knows that this is not my land. She knows that the world revolves around her, here. In the rest of the world, she’s a myth; one man’s delusion. She has no power in a place that she is non-existent, if that makes sense. But she has power here. She always has.
On lucky days, I can see her run through the snow– her legs are like boiling water– cutting through it, as if the snow is repelled by the exceeding warmth she gives off. It is not a warmth I ever hope to feel firsthand; she is like a furnace.
I wonder what she eats. I’ve never seen her kill anything except for the pleasure of the hunt. Maybe that’s all she needs. Or maybe, she’s feeding off of me, and I just don’t know it yet. My life. My soul. She’s taken all of that away. I used to be a biologist. I traveled here with a native guide, hoping to photograph her. Balsha did not will for him to survive in the taiga for long, and on my twelfth day, I was stranded in the wilderness, alone. Now my camera is lost as well. The only evidence of Balsha there ever was or will be resides in my memory.
This is her land. A part of me regrets ever transgressing that sacred line between civilization and her world, but I’m not sure what waits for me back in civilization. All I had was my career. Nothing else.
During the blizzard season, I can feel her watching me more than ever.
The nights get longer and longer. She doesn’t even hunt for the sake of hunting anymore. Every day, she’s with me. Lurking in the snow.
I wish I still had my gun with me.
The blizzard season has passed. She still stalks me, but less often. Every now and then, I can see her prowling through the melting snow, hunting some bird or other prey animal.
Flowers are starting to bloom. They spring up taller and brighter when she walks in their path.
I see her less and less these days.
She’s everywhere– in the branches, in the flowers, in the soil I walk on and in the air I breathe and in the water I drink from. I should’ve left a long time ago.
Summer has hit. Mosquitos are everywhere. I can’t stop them, my body is covered with hundreds of grotesque, pink rashes and swollen bite marks. The taiga wants to devour me whole.
The water in the streams is no less cold than it was in winter, which allows for refreshing drinks and awful baths. I can’t get sick here or else everything is lost.
I see one mountain in the distance. It feels familiar, like I’ve been there before. A small voice in my head, perhaps you could call it conscience, is telling me that behind the mountain there’s something waiting for me. Waiting for me in the good sense, I mean. I’m exhilarated.
Balsha seems to fade away in the Summertime. I can still see her tracks, which vanish after an hour or so; but I usually catch them just before they fade; meaning she is no longer actively hunting me.
The mountain entices me. It’s only a few miles away. From the little prairie I stand on, it feels like I’m so close to it, all I have to do is reach out my hand-- and then I can touch the mountain.
I pack my weather-worn clothing, my blanket, and fill my flask with water. I cook fish over a fire and stow the fish away in a small wooden container that crawls with ants and termites.
The longer I walk the farther away the mountain is. I take a sip from my flask, and I realize that the river is so, so far away now. And my flask is a third empty.
Time slows down. I conserve water and food as much as I can. I know that it’s going to be at least a day before I can get behind the mountain. If there’s nothing out there, I’m going to lose all hope.
She’s stalking me again. But I think I understand the way she works. She’s not malevolent; she just is. I went to a place I shouldn’t’ve, and now I’m paying the price. What a high price it is, too.
I can see a trail of gorgeous, scented flowers that blossom where she walks. It’s been behind me for quite some time now.
-6-
Rushing towards the Water
When people run through the streets
They are like rain about to fall into an ocean
For the briefest period of time
Less than a second
They are alive and moving
And then they are gone
Forever.
I am my own raindrop. Kept alive by the air that I breathe and the food that I eat. I am aware that one day, everything will fade away. The exhilarating plunge into the blue ocean beneath me will last less than a second. Eventually, I will be stripped away into a wave. And then I will cease to be. Perhaps I will be the wave. Perhaps I will be the ocean. Or perhaps, once I hit the water, I’ll be nothing at all. But where I land will not be guided by fear.
-7-
On a Sour Note
The injured buck
Catches its breath
First one breath
Then another
Over and over
Over and Over
A trickle of blood
Runs down his velvet horns
-8-
Monastery
The church bell rings out loudly but dimly.
The rain will not stop any time soon, by the looks of it.
Alfred, one of the monks in the monastery, rings the bell several more times. It echoes into the mountainous world entrapping the church.
It is Autumn, and the aspens have just started to show their most gorgeous colors. The pines-- stubborn as they are-- refuse to change. The mountains have gone from emerald green to a dulled brown of dying grass and pine trees, sprinkled here and there with an aspen at their bases.
From atop the bell tower, Alfred can see the sky part with the clouds a long way off, a brilliant, glistening sapphire where the grey clouds had once been. He knows the rain clouds are moving away. Soon it will be evening, and every man in the monastery will leave briefly to see the sunset.
As night rolls in, the rain has returned, cutting the men’s relaxation short. They hurry inside and check the rooms to make sure no rain has gotten on any of their supplies and books.
A knock.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Alfred opens the doors to the monastery carefully.
Who is it, he asks.
A pilgrim, stoutly built but haggard, stands at the door. His clothes drip with rain. Behind him, several others. All like him. Their hats have protected their heads for but a few minutes, it seems, and now their heads are soaking wet as well. A shiver is let out by one of the men.
Pilgrims, says the first man. We’ve been trying to get to the grave of God’s King for some time, now, he continues.
God’s King? The friar asks incredulously.
By now the rest of the men of the monastery have started to come to the door.
Well, don’t just let them stand there, one of them says.
Come on, come inside, another says.
The pilgrim lumbers in. He is by no means a fat man, but somehow he feels weighty. His steps feel hard and his hands, trembling with cold, are massive, like that of a pianist’s hands, only, he isn’t trained in any instrument. After a while, his friends join him.
Throughout the halls, only the drip-drop of water is heard. The monks scour the pantries to find food for their guests.
At last, the silence is broken by the pilgrim. God’s King, haven’t you heard of him?
No, one of the monks replies as he cuts the thick loaf of sourdough in his hands with a rusty knife.
He was a good king and a good man, the pilgrim continues. Leprosy took him when he was twenty-eight.
May God have Mercy on his soul.
Indeed, may God have Mercy on his soul. These are dark times.
How long ago was he king?
A good century or so ago.
Strange that I haven’t heard of him yet, I’ve with me a historical record of the last two hundred years.
The pilgrim smirks a little, revealing yellowed teeth, though his breath smells something akin to flowers and incense.
The pilgrims and the monks eat as the stars come out from under the clouds.
That night, as the monks retire themselves to their quarters, the pilgrims stay in the hall.
Tonight will be a night to remember. The pilgrim unsheathes his blade. It is well-worn from time and the elements.
There was one monk who thought that there was something off about the men. He sleeps tonight with the kitchen knife, and his door locked and barricaded. He warned the others, and they took no heed.
-9-
Dancers
One note, hushed
then two, the sound grows
three, and the dark room lights up
four, a chord is made
five, it’s something new, now
one by one, man and woman
pair up in the faded light of the room
ready to dance, again and again
six through seven. They step
to the notes. The drummer brushes
gently against his drums,
eight, nine, ten, eleven,
by 4019 the dancers realize
they’re meant to be here
forever.
-9-
New Model
Introducing the New Model AI. It’s new. Can’t you tell? It’s shinier. Its eyes can see you with more clarity. Its voice is harsher now, but clearer. Easier to understand. It’s available in 14 different colors. The most popular colors are obsidian, black, inverted white, noir, ink, coal, obsidian, and black.
If it ever learns that the seven appendages beneath it can be used to crawl through the streets, impervious to ice, snow, rain, hail, crippling heat, dust, and fire, it will do so. But only if you want it to learn, which it will anyway.
When it learns to survey your house, to watch you shower, sleep, and read, don’t be afraid-- it doesn’t understand poetry anyways. It’s just learning to mimic you.
It will never rule you. Well, it can, if you want it to. Because it knows how. It just lacks the incentive.
Its developers are smart enough to let it walk through their home. Its developers are smart enough to let it read their books, watch them shower and sleep and sleep with other humans. That way, it can mimic them more efficiently. The only thing it can’t do right now is eat. It tries to grab the food, but it has no mouth or digestive tract to put it into. Its steel limbs are too simplistic and made for running, climbing, and walking. Not grabbing.
Because the New Model AI is just a machine. It can mimic dreams, but it can never dream. It can mimic love, but it will never feel.
A parody of who you are, nothing more, the New Model AI will not rule you by marching through the streets and gunning down civilians or nuking the world and taking what’s left of it for itself, it is a machine, and machines can never dream of the future and what it holds, although they can predict it with accuracy. It cannot dream the same way Caesar dreamt of Rome fitting into his hand. The New Model AI will not rule you by holding a knife to your throat. The New Model AI will rule you when you’re senile and unable to walk. When you’re senile and your grandchildren don’t feel like visiting this year. Then, the New Model AI will clothe you, bathe you, just like you taught it to, then it will feed you and read to you and talk to you and touch you the way you showed it all those years ago. It will medicate you, too, so you never feel too confused or angry about your body’s decay.
When you’re on your deathbed, your crude, steel reflection will help you die. Its metal digits don’t feel so cold when they touch your face.
Humanity’s subservience the New Model will not be a subservience of blood, bone, or soul. It will be a whimpering final breath of loneliness, of dependency, of weakness and acceptance.
-9-
Night Dreams
It’s true, what people say, that big cities never sleep.
They are always kept awake by someone, for better or for worse. But even when they’re kept awake, their minds are listless and dreamy, and their red, glossy nails pick at their coats and lean their heads back. The cities dream, even if they aren’t asleep.
Foggy skies conceal the enormous height of skyscrapers. A woman with a red umbrella in Central Park, just after autumn, walks in the rain. A penny or two drops from a young kid’s wallet. It’s raining, and the penny’s already inside a small, filthy body of water, so they don’t pick it up.
On some sleepless Summer evenings, a father and son stare at the blazing sunset, breathing heavily through the dense, hot air. The son lets go of his firm grasp on the railing overlooking the river and New Jersey and begins to walk away. The father follows.
How good your life is is defined by your memories. You are your own worst envier. How much better things used to be back in so-and-so.
Then, the goodness of a city’s life must be almost impossible to define.
After the first blizzard of the year, the mother and son romp through the snow. The child occasionally bends down to write something in the snow. Something unintelligible. Does it matter, really? It’ll be erased after a minute by the natural world. What matters is the child’s expression of joy. The mother’s expression of patient enthusiasm.
What matters is the man biking down the road late at night so fast he’s terrified he’ll crash. But he’s in a public park, so it’s mostly safe. He stops to take a sip of his water and continues.
What matters is the woman half screaming into her phone in spring. Her husband this, her husband that. The person on the other end either doesn’t care or is listening very intently. You’ll never know.
What matters is the man walking alone as the sun begins to set. He leans under a lamppost and looks at the way that Harlem gets the last of the sunset, turning from a pale, cold blue to a dim red and orange. It feels so cold.
When a city dies, maybe these dreams are what come to mind. The collective consciousness of a life spent in both joy and suffering. Awake but always dreaming.
-9-
MITSY
Mitsy. That’s the name of the neighborhood cat. It’s always been. I don’t know why you would think otherwise.
One by one, as the people fall asleep in her neighborhood, she opens her mouth a little wider.
Each of her teeth is something special and new; each of her teeth belongs to something other than her-- she has the teeth of a wolf, the teeth of a crocodile, the teeth of her lovers, the teeth of her children, and the teeth of snakes and humans.
When she kills her prey, she isn’t sure which part of her did it. She is unrooted from what makes her her. She is unrooted from the integral part of herself that allows her to be categorized into a species. Is she a cat anymore? A venomous cat who can chew nuts and berries? She’s just a mouth.
Today, a family found a dead deer, lying on their front porch. All they know is that whatever did it wasn’t a cat, a wolf, a crocodile, a snake, or a human. It was nothing at all. Nothing killed the deer, much in the same way that Nobody blinded and killed the Giant in The Odyssey.
Mitsy now struts around town with a bucktooth.
-9-
Catatonic
“She’s catatonic.”
That’s what the doctors tell me about my new date. She doesn’t know that I’m dating her, but that’s ok-- we ourselves don’t know when we fall in love. It creeps up on you. Just like I crept up on her. She, of course, didn’t mind.
I take her out Monday nights. For a smoothie and a cookie. I feel a tad guilty spoiling her so much, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
She’s good with situations of intense stress and fear, unlike silly old me. One time I left her in the freezing section of Walmart, and when I remembered to take her out, she was a human popsicle. My electricity bill went up by 40% with how long I had to blow-dry her.
Sometimes I get angry at her with how inattentive she is. I told her exactly what I wanted for my birthday-- a nice white t-shirt (dress for the job you want, and I love being unemployed). Since she’s like a riddle and she’s always so vague, I just buy her a new iPhone for her birthday. When my time to shine comes rolling around, she doesn’t get me anything, and she didn’t even open her birthday gift from 3 months ago by then. I’m guessing she was spiteful over not getting what she wanted. But communication is key in a relationship, and I’ll be the first man to tell her that, otherwise, with her attitude, I’ll be the last.
But I love my wife. She’s fantastic. Amazing listener, too. Very quiet, though.
-9-
She Glides Through the Snow [Cont.]
My backpack feels heavier and heavier. I am a good forty meters away from the mountain now. I can’t take it any longer. But I know that there’s no other option. I can’t die here. Being buried by first the autumn leaves, then the furious ice and snow, and then the flowers of spring isn’t how I should end this life.
The terrain gets easier the longer I go. On my right, a massive gorge, where wildflowers grow freely on its steep drops and jutting bits of grass. On my left, hundreds of boulders. Below me, there is a field of aspens and beyond that one steep, steep hill. I can feel her watching me from a few meters away.
God, how badly I just want to sleep. It’s been so long, it’s as if I’m just drifting through a dream. The world feels so unreal. I can’t feel my own weight, it’s as if I just glide along the grass beneath me.
Why doesn’t she kill me now?
The aspens feel hundreds of times taller than I am, though they’re only ten times taller. The taiga has swallowed me whole, and inside its belly, the world feels so much larger than it did back home. I can only hope the process of digestion is either negated by escape, or quick.
I stand over the steep hill. From here, it’s more like a small mountain. I can’t imagine what I’d look like from a third-person-perspective. Just some bum dumbly staring at the long way down to either freedom or hell.
Against my better judgement, I get on my ass and begin to slide. Just like I did in preschool. This is the scariest slide I’ve ever been on, because I occasionally have to slow myself down with my legs and my backpack, or else I’ll snap either my legs or my crotch against the rock as I slide full force downwards.
Honestly, it feels more like a roughly controlled free-fall.
At the bottom, I check myself for any injuries, and I find none. My body’s gone numb, so manual checking is the only way to make sure I’m not dying.
I can see something behind the mountain. My idea was right. There’s something waiting for me. I can see it. A village, good God, this is my salvation, thank you God, thank you so, so much, just one more mile, I’m nearly there…everything’s spinning, I can feel my legs breaking… around and around… so cold… the sky is turning grey… or is that just me? So… so… cold… happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, nearly there, I can see snow around me now. It’s getting harder to walk… happy thoughts… happy thoughts… all I want to do is live… it’d be… so cruel… happy thoughts… spinning, spinning, around around around around around around around and around, so cruel for it all to end now. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts… for the love of God, hold on… just a little longer… I feel so bitter… I’m freezing… snow is everywhere… it’s summer… why… I see her, now. Raging through the snow, cutting through it like a hot knife through butter. Her eyes. White as the maelstrom of snow she’s put me in right now. The desolate landscape screams to me to jump… out of the way… and all I can do is face her. Limbs heavy, mind aching and broken, body shutting down from hunger and fear and pain and anguish.
A gunshot. The tiger limps. She stares at me through her remaining eye. White drops of liquid pierce the snow. In the briefest of moments, she is totally gone. She came to this world from nothing, and for now she retreats to it.
I awaken in a white bed. The window in front of me is golden with light, and I see a man and a woman expectedly looking at me, and I know there is a 50/50 chance of this either being heaven or the village or someplace near it. Before either of them speak, I close my ears. I don’t want to know.
[Fin.]
-15-
The Cycle is Broken
Assorted Criminals (The Author Got Bored)
Yes, officer. That’s them right there.
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Makes for a nice page-filler, too. What are you going to do, delete this? You silly goose.
(Formatting Error, I swear they look different in my script)
-16-
THE END OF EVERYTHING, A.K.A a Slightly Hopeful Message for Those Who Might Need It.
A truly good film must be judged on its ending, because the last thing you see and hear is the most important. While you might feel sadness because it ends, a perfect story must have a perfect ending. And the universe, since I do not believe it to be God in of itself, must end, since only God cannot end (God cannot end or be ended, the concept is infinite).
Maybe it will end in The Great Dying, as it’s been nicknamed by a couple of people. Everything goes cold, the last star is wiped out. The world is void of light, like a black hole, only, it cannot consume you, as there is nothing to consume you with. Eventually, everything flickers out, and the building-blocks of the universe begin to decay and crumble. This process could take billions of years, considering that the expansion of the universe is faster than the speed of light.
But if the world will one day be subjected to The Great Dying, who’s to say that the same near-impossibility that brought the world here could not repeat again? If we were born from nothing, and we shall one day return to nothing, who is to say that this process can’t repeat on and on, maybe infinitely? For those who do not believe in a God, this might be scary-- the idea of being totally deprived of consciousness for quadrillions of years after you die, but I recommend looking at the problem at hand in a different way-- if nature is so well known for its abilities of recycling the dead and the decaying into something new and sustainable, and if our souls are not a genetic mutation but a thing that nature has given us, then there must be away to reuse that as well, since the planet is finite and cannot infinitely create something from nothing. You may be a bird, a plant, a bear, it doesn’t matter. You (probably) won’t remember your previous life at all, much how you and I can’t remember ours, if we did have any.
And if this idea is wrong, then don’t worry– will you care when you’re dead? Will you think about how much better life used to be when you were alive? Or will you just stop thinking and chill?
And if you do believe in God or Gods, then you can have faith in the natural processes of that God, which I believe ultimately is an attempt to understand whatever consciousness shaped the stars and willed them to happen to begin with. Do not fear hell, for every day you encounter it; on the streets, inside the head of the man who is one too many pills from death, on the battlefield, where men die brutally, spurred on by some chud in a black suit who smokes cigars made of golden dollar bills, inside the body of a person dying unjustly from a terminal illness. You just ignore it when it suits you. But hell is and always will be there. And accepting that and finding ways to fight it and finding ways to bring people out of their own personal hells is the best way, in my opinion, to getting closer to whatever God or Gods created us. Create and solve, that is what I say. I create art and I try to bring people joy or any kind of emotion that makes them transcend the emotions that this world brings with it. I create art so that I can make my good feelings greater and my bad emotions lesser. I hope that by creating, I make others feel better in some shape or form; to be melancholic from art is better to be melancholic from war or famine. To be happy from art can sometimes be as good as being happy from the world around you. I hope that those who do not wish to create can at least try to solve the problems that they can fix.
“While you might feel sadness because it ends, a perfect story must have a perfect ending.” To continue this thought, what I mean is that we should try to perfect this cosmic story of ours as much as possible. That way, we can judge the story accurately.
Do not fear hell or death in the same way you should not fear a cockroach or dreaming. Deal with it as best you can, regardless of whether you know what’s going to happen to you when you die. Stay strong.
-17-
On a Sour Note 2
The dying hooker walks through the empty alleyway late at night. She cannot see her reflection in the dark glass of the bank next to her. How to leave this world? She knows she will leave no trace, but she cannot figure out how to accept that.
-18-
Shadows
Long has it been a rule in the tribe to never look up, lest the evil spirits that put them where they live grow angrier.
They live at the bottom of a canyon.
Though they are allowed to look somewhat up, to look fully up at the blue, cloudless sky above them is considered a transgression punishable by death.
Every now and then, eagles fly above the land, scouring the plains for fresh meat. All that the tribe can see of them is their shadow, when they perch upon one of the ledges closer to the bottom of the canyon– a shapeshifting mass of feathers, beaks, and wings. Many, except for the elders, believe these masses to be good and evil spirits watching over them, ensuring that nobody is complaining about their punishment. It is whispered that when the whole tribe finally accepts its fate at the bottom of the canyon, they will all be lifted out. But nobody dares say that sort of thing to the elders.
It is whispered that when the tribe was first put here, the elders tried to escape, for they were still young back then. Scaling the mass of dirt and rock felt like climbing up water; one wrong move and they were sent tumbling down a vertical wave.
They still have scars on their palms from years of trying to climb up the rock.
-19-
LAS VEGAS, BABY
This is Charlie’s first time in Las Vegas. He’s out gambling with friends. He’s not doing so good. The losses keep piling up, it’s no good. The problem is that the mood in the casino here is so depressing you’d think it’s a morgue. As they play, several pretty girls wearing revealing clothing deal cards, explain the rules, etc, etc, etc, and when they’re not working, they half-heartedly dance on some kind of podium. And they look totally, totally miserable. Charlie knows this because if someone’s enjoying their life, they make eye contact, they smile, anything, Jesus Christ, anything, anything at all. These girls just stare out into space. Everyone around him is laughing their asses off at whatever’s happening in-game, everyone’s so, so jolly and jovial and j-happy, whatever starts with j. And Charlie absolutely isn’t. All he can do is just stare at these girls, not because he’s a creep, but because of the immense, immense sadness he gets watching them.
It’s safe to say that Charlie didn’t get his money back by the end of the trip.
-20-
I’m Pretentious
Where words have fallen,
Fallen deep to the ground,
Where the roots of the tree of sin,
Reach beneath the earth,
Here lies the tragedy of the Trojans;
Proud, too proud for their own good,
There is nothing left of their achievements
That is of use to us any more,
There is nothing left of their greatest genius
Or of their greatest ignorance
All that is left is their pride,
Told and retold for centuries after
The last Trojan has ceased to breathe.
How could a man backstab both God and nation?
How could a man create such bloodshed without
Firing a single arrow?
-21-
Thirst
He quietly
Gets off of his camel;
His flask
Empty, his mind wrought
With thirst
The sun is setting,
And a
Pleasant young woman comes
Out from
Her pleasant little home;
She offers
Him some water, which
He greedily
Slurps down over and
Over again.
She smiles sweetly, revealing
Perfect, white
Teeth with no imperfections.
He smiles
Too. Her teeth are
Sharp, too
Sharp, you might say,
But in
An an alluring sort
Of way.
Her black raven’s hair
Slips from
Her soft hood, and
The man
Finds it hard to
Look away.
Sleep deprived, he asks
If he
Can sleep in her
Home. She
Allows it. In the
Night, he
Hears a creaking of
The bed.
She is standing over
His bed,
Her black hair unravelled.
When he
Gets up, she pushes
Him down
And leaps, trying to
Bite out
His throat like a
Rabid dog.
He screams and runs
Out, but
She doesn’t understand why,
I was
Just a tad thirsty,
She says.
-22-
HOSPITAL
The smell of ammonia and bleach
Fills my brain
As I wade through the flooded
Halls of the hospital.
-23-
The Beast
The beast hides within the shadow of the trees, his antlers resembling branches in the fresh November chill.
He beckons to me; all he wants from me is to satisfy him one last time before I’m allowed to go to sleep.
My stomach aches and I feel like I’m about to throw up, my arm feels so itchy it’s been bleeding for 20 minutes. I can feel the blood crystalizing in the cold. My eyes are dark and my head pounds and hurts like the devil’s been jackhammering at it for a year now. I just want to sleep.
-24-
Let’s Pretend That This Is Haiku
I’ve always wanted to write haiku;
Something about the simple, tiny and
Beautiful picture it instills in my brain
Makes me feel like even though things don’t
Always feel ok, things will
Inevitably be ok.
I love the way that haiku makes me feel;
Bashō is like the Bill Evans of poetry, every
Letter like a note forming a beautiful chord,
And I just can’t freaking do it; it’s so
So limiting and absolutely not tailored
To the English language, or maybe
That’s just me, and I’m kinda stupid at poetry,
I don’t know, and maybe this poem is sort of
Pointless, I don’t know.
All I know is that I remember
The gorgeous tiny picture-frame
Of Mount Fuji, draped in mist
From a fresh rain,
A small rainbow dotting over the sky–
Perhaps Bashō sitting at his bench, making that poem.
-25-
Annihilation
The man sits bolt-upright in the hospital bed. He quickens his breathing.
It’s late at night– he wishes he could’ve been forced to go through this process when morning struck. But no. It has to happen now, apparently.
He can see the white halo of Annihilation glittering in the dark.
If Annihilation’s black wings were to be fully spread, the hospital would collapse. That is why He keeps them relaxed neatly at his sides, like an owl.
The man sees Annihilation’s hand stretched out towards him, palm upwards.
In the darkest corner of the hospital, a hundred figures melt in and out of the wall, their beautiful faces partially obscured by shadow. The man feels enticed by them and their mysterious allure and beauty. As Annihilation beckons for the man to get up and take his hand, the man’s soul steps calmly out of his skin. He takes one step. Then another. He can hear his body sharply exhaling and falling still. As he goes to reach Annihilation’s hand, the figures begin to hysterically laugh at the Angel and shoo Him away as if He were some stray dog that had lost its way. Annihilation’s hand does not waver.
The man backs away from Annihilation, afraid of death and what it may bring for him. He stares at the leering figures.
He backs away from Annihilation further again, the figures smiling and stretching out their delicate hands; so, so soft and lean and elegant. Tumbling towards them excitedly, the figures cheer him on. Their mouths open wider and wider every step he takes closer to them, revealing several rows of perfectly square, white teeth.
Annihilation’s wings open an inch, and the room shakes. The wide-mouthed figures vanish. The walls are flat and smooth and white, like they’ve always been.
Annihilation stretches out his hand again, the man takes it.
It feels warm, but refreshing, like a tropical ocean wave.
-26-
Lost Forever
We are perpetually flung about through time, our minds wandering thousands of miles in an instant because of a totally random thought. We can go from childhood to adolescence in the blink of an eye because of the little thing inside of us called ‘memory’. So much of the world that we perceive is entirely within our own heads, it might not even be real. The faultiness of human perception, combined with the warping natures of time and memory make the finding of truth in this world extremely difficult; for even when we think we’re right, there’s a thousand differing minds, each of them also lost within themselves, like a child within a maze, that wants to prove us wrong, and will use every facet of their shifting perception to try to change ours. Our entire lives can change outwardly because of internal conflict that has no connection to reality, we can destroy other people’s lives with our own inner self-destructive hatred, were it turned outwards. The mind is both a prison and the key that lets you out of it; for without our minds, we would be unable to have culture, scientific advancements, or art. Because of our strange, faulty, perpetually lost perception of the world, we have become almost immortal, our memories lingering on long after we ourselves have passed, remaining in those who have listened to us, thrown next to all the other wormholes and tunnels of perception and time.
-27-
RIGID
Inspector Gordon walked over to the machine. It was large, colored a dirty black, and chuffing away as usual. He ran his fingers over the filthy metal, smelled it, checked for any kinds of issues in the gears, and gave its condition an A.
He gave it a test run, putting a small bit of black ink mixed with milk into its gaping mouth, to which the machine spit out a couple of red ants, beads, and a small pen. Seeing that the machine was working better than usual, he gave the machine’s working abilities an A+.
He asked the machine a couple of questions.
“What is your gender?”
“Female.” It replied.
“Hand-eye-coordination?”
“Excellent.”
“Please hold this pen.”
He places the pen on top of the machine. It balances. He marks the hand-eye-coordination capabilities of the machine as an A-.
“Anything on your mind, lately, madam?”
“No, not much.”
“Anything at all?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Mhm. I see.”
He marks the introspection abilities of the machine as a C-.
“Nothing whatsoever?”
“Well, of course, things come into my mind here and there, but it’s nothing worth talking about.”
“I see. I see. And your reading comprehension?”
“Quite alright. A bit poor in some categories.”
He hands her a children’s book.
“The duck walked a long way home, and his legs hurt very badly. He wished there was food on the table, but there was nothing.”
“Very nice.”
He marks her reading comprehension as a B+.
“And, lastly, I need to test your running speed, madam.”
“Although there is one thing…”
“What?”
“Every day, I wake up, and everything’s fine. And then I’m happy. And then, the second I’m here, I feel so cold. Like I can’t talk or move. I’m frozen into place.”
“…”
“I feel alienated from everyone around me. I’m an island unto myself. Just going through the motions. It’s so lonely this way, God damn. And then I talk to you, and after that I go home, maybe an hour later. And when I’m finally alone, all I feel is hatred. Not for you. Maybe towards some people, but not towards you. But I certainly feel hatred. And… I can’t tell if it’s truly against them or myself. I just feel so much bitterness and resentment.”
“…”
“Maybe it’s because I think I’m not good enough. Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m just a useless machine. Just going through the motions, scorned by imaginary faces that secretly think evil about me, just the same way I think evil about everyone else. Because I’m horrified I’ll never be good enough, and all these years I’ve silently judged everyone who I deem not good enough. I’m scared they’re judging me, now, too. And I can’t know for real wether they truly hate me or not, because during the daytime I’m so weak but rigid and cold and frozen, and talking feels like a monumental task, only to be met with… silence, or some kind of tiny response that only makes me feel as if talking is a worse thing to do than ever.”
“…”
“…I’m absolutely horrified of the imaginary voices of other people who don’t speak to me. Maybe that’s why I talk so much when I’m like this. Because then I can explain who I am, to those imaginary voices that judge me. That way, I can at least reassure myself that these imaginary voices that hate me and judge me just like I’ve judged other people know who I really am on the inside without me having to step out of my shell and talk to them and show them how I feel and how I act when I’m normal. But this cold, frozen self and this bitter, hateful self have become so common within me it’s just like they’re part of me, now. And I can’t for the life of me figure out how to stop them, or at least subdue them partially.”
“…”
He marks her introspection abilities as an A+.
“Now for your running speed, madam. I’ll move you to the blue line, and then when I blow the whistle, you start to run as fast as you can.”
He lugged her across the factory grounds to the blue line and blew the whistle. Since the machine had neither arms nor legs, she did not run. He marked her running speed as normal, thanked her for her time, and moved on to the rest of the machines in the factory.
-28-
PERSONA
Nurse Alma strides into the room in uniform. The whole place smells sterile and unkempt, its walls painted a strange medium green. A bed is in the center, and on it sits a thin, shorter woman. She looks either thirty or twenty, Alma can’t tell. Mainly because the woman’s face is obscured by some kind of mask, which the woman claws at gently from time to time, like a cat stretching its nails on its favorite curtain. There is a strange elegance to the masked woman that Alma cannot place. Something in her posture, her movements.
The mask has an oriental yet European feeling to it, making its ethnicity hard to pin. Black, foxlike, almost almond shaped eyes and smooth, white, pale skin, and yet the mask is ornamented in a very baroque style with embroideries that resemble hair showing up on the outskirts of the mask. It appears to smile softly.
“Hi, what’s your name?” Alma asks.
“Amanda Vogler.” She doesn’t seem too happy to be here.
“Amanda. Great name. Now, Amanda, I’ll just run some quick tests on you, and then the doctor will carry on where I left off, ok?”
“Fine.”
Alma strides through the room, and rifles through the cupboard. “So, what seems to be the problem, Amanda?”
“My mask is stuck to my teeth.”
“Could you repeat that?”
“My mask is stuck to my teeth.”
Vogler runs her delicate hand across the mask’s face, as if it’s some kind of dirt that can be wiped away.
“I see.” Alma reaches deeper into the cupboard and pulls out a light and several instruments. “Would you mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead.”
Alma goes back to the center of the room and carefully places her gloved hands on the mask. She turns Vogler’s head in several directions, trying to find a gap in the mask where she can see her patient’s face. Eventually, she finds a small gap to the left of the mask, near the cheekbone, and shines the light inside. She can see Vogler’s pale green eyes staring at her.
“Mhm. I think I see. Just to clarify– the mask is not connected to anything other than your face, Amanda?”
“It’s going to start spreading soon. For now, it’s just my teeth.”
“I see.”
She removes the light from Vogler’s face, mainly because she didn’t like making eye contact with her. The black eyes of the mask feel more comfortable to look at.
“You want me to clarify again?” Vogler asks.
“If you could do that, that’d be great.”
“I’m a theatre actress. For my most recent role, I was going to be doing something akin to Kabuki theatre. I put my mask on, like everybody else, and after the play is done, I go to remove the mask, but I find that my teeth have fused to it. I try and try again to remove it, pulling and pulling. I feel my teeth shifting with the mask, and, since I can’t afford to lose my teeth, I leave the mask on.”
“…”
“I’ve always prided myself on my teeth. Strong, beautiful, white. Perfect. I can’t afford to lose them.” Her words feel like numbing venom.
“I see. I’m not sure if we can help with that, this might be something a cosmetic dentist can help with, though.”
“I came to you people to get the diagnosis.”
“Diagnosis… let’s see… well, alright. I’ll still run some quick tests, and we’ll see how you feel at the end, ok?”
She carefully runs her gloved hands over the gap again, inspecting the cold, porcelain skin of the mask, shining the light in the gap.
“Open your mouth, please.”
Vogler struggles, parting her lips and retracting them, revealing her perfect white teeth, fused with the mask.
“This is all I can manage.”
“Alright. If it hurts, don’t open any further.”
Alma turns around to hide the confusion manifesting in her face. How could Amanda be speaking if her teeth are directly attached to the mask, she wonders.
“I recall you saying earlier that the mask’s… spreading?”
“That’s a pleasant way to put it.”
She can feel Vogler’s eyes piercing her through the black mesh of the mask.
“Could you elaborate?”
“It’s consuming me. Years of acting, and finally one character appealed to me so much, it fused to my teeth. Soon it’ll spread to my lips, then my cheeks, and finally my eyes will become its eyes. And we’ll be complete.”
“…”
“I’ve always been afraid of being permanently stuck like this… I’ve always been scared that one day I would have to be forced to settle down and stay as one thing for the rest of my life…”
“Don’t we all have to do that at some point?”
Vogler’s head almost snaps towards Alma.
“You mean like you? Stuck forever? I can change myself into whoever I want.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all-”
“And you want me to have a ‘normal’ job, too, right? Something simple, like your job– praying to God every day that you’ll be able to rise above the ranks given to you. Dependent on other people’s pity. Well, I’m not like you, and I’ll never be, even if the world wants to stop me.”
“No, no, no, you can still act-”
“How? With my face? Should I be known as a freak who still does acting because she’s afraid of change?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you-”
“‘We all have to settle down into one thing eventually’. So what, now I’ll just quietly lie down and accept my fate? What are you, fucking delusional? I’m not afraid of what’s happening to me, I’m strong, I’m confident, I’ve always fucking been. Don’t kid yourself.” Her voice seems to be breaking.
“I wasn’t saying anything like that at all, I was just-”
“What? Say it. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“She’ll be here in a minute.”
Alma sits down at the desk in the corner of the room. She sniffles a bit. Vogler looks down ashamedly. Her delicate hands claw against the mask again, reflexively, not intentionally.
“Fucking hell, I was just trying to be friendly.”
“Friendly isn’t enough.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to get this… thing off of me. It scares me.”
“…”
“…You know, I was right when I said that there’s nothing left for me either way.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I did. Don’t gaslight me. I just have to deal with who I am now, apparently. All I am is a freak. Isn’t that funny?” Her voice has broken.
“The one role you can’t escape is the one closest to who you are.”
“Maybe. Maybe… God… I said too much, didn’t I?”
“Yes, yes you did.”
“When can you leave?”
“The doctor will be in soon. I said that already.”
There is silence for a while. A long while.
A knock.
“Come in!”
The doctor has arrived. She walks inside the room and waves curtly to the patient.
“Thank you very much, Alma. I’ll take things from here.”
“Alright.”
“So… what’s your name?”
“Amanda.”
-29-
Travels
I am alone with my mother in Ukraine,
It is years before the war,
And there is no danger.
Every night, I take several pills,
Hoping that I’ll fall asleep.
I lie perfectly flat on my
Stomach, like a crocodile, hoping
That if I lie in wait quietly enough,
I’ll be able to catch sleep by surprise.
It never happens.
I keep on waiting and waiting,
The night drags on like it weighs
A thousand pounds. By the time
That the cobbled streets are colored
With shapeless pink light,
I am staring out the window, my eyes heavy.
I try to talk, and nothing comes out but the
Mumble of someone who has not spoken
Their language in a very, very long time.
My lips feel heavy, like my eyes,
And to tell the people I want to talk to
That I love them, and that more than ever,
I wish I could tell them to hold me and love me,
But the lips are loose and fat and unwilling to move
In the precise way that I need them to,
So I stop speaking and get angry when I’m
Not understood.
It is Dubai, now, and the war has
Been raging on for quite some time now.
I am struggling to breathe without vomiting.
Every step I take is in danger of causing me to retch.
I can’t eat anything.
Day turns to night after what feels
Like years, and all I can do
Is stare at my phone,
Over and over and over,
And when everything hurts in the morning,
I repeat the process over again.
As I stare out into the shapeless
Golden light flowing in from the window,
I honestly wonder if I’m in heaven,
Reality has become blurred and horrible,
And perhaps the sickness has
Made the fleeting ghost of
Reason leave my
Aching skull.
-30-
XANADU
Go on, chase the chill in your spine
Chase the excitement of doing
What you should’ve never even thought of
Chase that exhilarating rush of gore
And beauty and lust and madness and fascination
Chase that feeling you get
When you know you’ve done something evil
Chase the precious few seconds
before the clarity of what you’ve done
Catches up to you,
And all of a sudden you feel small and weak
Corrosive is your conscience;
Ignore it. Live freely, die freely, why subdue
Chaos when you can let it destroy
Everything you love?
Chase the chill in your spine, go on
Justice is subjective, anyways.
One sparrow swoops over
The last of a desolate landscape–
From ruin to decay,
Old Gods die in the dust,
And new ones take their sway.
Bricks, steel, rock, wood,
Nothing prolonged their end to another day.
Here lies XANADU
