There are no words today that I have not said before, and this kills me a little every day. The battle in your mind, it leaves casualties. Ironically, not holograms of seasons past but real, actual people, and circumstances, and unborn universes. You have no idea how real an unborn universe is. And what happens when things don't happen because you didn't have the balls.
My name is X. They did not call me this for nothing. My years here have been normal, humdrum, unremarkable, the stuff of personal blogs and status updates that make your eyes bleed, or freeze, choose your metaphor, we're all adults here. And yet there is this: the thing that makes us the same. Inaction.
Flowers, now, for fellow soldiers. There is no dignity in thought. Certain triggers spur us unlike anything else, and each motivation is as individual as the marks on our skin. Positivity sounds fake to me, at least at this point, and despondency accomplishes nothing but that heart-wrenching muddle of forgotten plans and unspoken hurts.
And so now there is nothing left but the blinding, all-consuming, all-destroying storm of anger. Come in, old friend, we have centuries to talk about. It has been a while.
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Plan B
It took us days, days, to assemble the road spikes. We had neutrino bombs waiting at the sidelines, Trojan horses ready with their toothy smiles and sincere crinkles at the edges of their eyes, we rehearsed everything from the approximate blood pressure of the caravan driver at the time of assault to the point-blank plunging of the spear into said driver's chest. Everything.Everything worth thinking about and planning for, we did. Shobashi Wayne, the slit-eyed guy with skin like porcelain, kept coming up with stupid ideas to anticipate: a sudden sandstorm, the president driving, even the spear-bearer developing a brain aneurysm at the last minute.
I obliged, every step of the way, because this day was unlike any other. If this day pans out the way it should, I would have single-handedly brought this entire town to its knees. It was an important milestone, too crucial to leave to chance. I have the patience of a vulture waiting on a lion to finally die. I circle, invisibly, unceasingly, until a clear shot is made available.
It was all going to be beautiful. Except for one thing. The one thing we didn't even have to consider. The one thing we assumed would behave according to plan given the annual recurrence of the caravan arriving on the 20th of January at 3 in the afternoon.
It is this: that the caravan would be a caravan.
When I first heard the helicopter's rotor blades, I simply wanted to die.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Dumas Chang and the Universe
Dumas holds up a hand and stops walking. “Eighty-five. Why do I do what?”
“You leave whatever you happen to be doing every single day at five minutes to eleven to walk in the desert. Why?”
“The last time I answered that question The Cesspool started its nightly ‘Send Dumas Back to Norway’ series.”
The kid laughs, like bells. “Why’d they want to send you back to Norway? Are you from Norway? Where is Norway?”
“I don’t care where I came from, kid, same way you shouldn’t care about your origins. I’m the most normal guy around—”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“—and, the reason I walk is so I can go and play chess with the Friar.”
“The Friar? Is that the old guy with the purple thing over at the guard posts?”
“Yes, and the only one as far as I know.”
“Why?”
“Let’s walk fifteen steps so we can finish our first hundred, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walk fifteen steps out of town and into the desert.
“Okay,” the kid says, stopping.
Dumas stoops with his hands on his knees so he and the kid are at eye-level.
“Okay. The question is why. The answer is: mostly because I can, but also because I’m looking for anchors.”
“What’s an anchor? You mean for ships?”
“Yes, for ships. For my ship.”
“Where’s your ship?”
Dumas straightens himself up and stretches out his arms. “Right here!”
“I’m confused.”
It is Dumas’ turn to laugh. He puts a finger underneath the kid’s chin so the kid is looking up at him.
“You don’t have to have been in the ocean to know what it’s like. You’ve seen it in the movies, in TV shows, in the archives. Imagine that the entire space-time continuum is the ocean. In that ocean, everything flows into everything else: stuff you know because you saw them in the past, stuff you feel you know will happen in the future, stuff that’s happening right now, stuff that should have been, stuff that never was, at least in this version of history.
“In theoretical physics, all possible realities already exist somewhere—and by this I mean whether or not you return that book on time because it says right there,” he says, pointing at the back of the book, “‘Three days for fiction,’ where each decision leads to a different outcome, a different you—it’s just that you can’t get to that single viewing deck where you can see everything because, well, by nature, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because who we are or what we are or why we are would be so closely tied to where or when this event exists that it cannot conceive that the world be something other than what we think it is. We believe we need a body or at least a consciousness to do the observing.”
“Well, we do, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. This world rocks. And it’s more than enough to contain the most compelling and the most meaningful of lifetimes. I’m just saying, that sometimes, when you allow yourself to lose yourself, or you were born without a sense of self, it becomes very hard to function like a normal person.”
“But wouldn’t that be cooler?”
“Of course, you’d think that. But there are too many minds that insist that this plane of reality exist. Including you. And I’m just one guy.”
“So, for you to not get lost in all these shit about the ocean, you need an anchor.”
“Or anchors. I dream big.”
“Have you found any?”
Dumas smiles again. “You ask too many questions. Can we quit this talk until I reach my prime number?”
The kid crosses his arms and grumbles audibly. Nevertheless, they start walking until they reach a tall trailer husk near the guard post at the left of the town’s entrance. At one hundred and thirty, Dumas begins taking bigger steps. The kid accuses him of cheating. He ignores this and lands on one hundred and thirty-nine.
“You leave whatever you happen to be doing every single day at five minutes to eleven to walk in the desert. Why?”
“The last time I answered that question The Cesspool started its nightly ‘Send Dumas Back to Norway’ series.”
The kid laughs, like bells. “Why’d they want to send you back to Norway? Are you from Norway? Where is Norway?”
“I don’t care where I came from, kid, same way you shouldn’t care about your origins. I’m the most normal guy around—”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“—and, the reason I walk is so I can go and play chess with the Friar.”
“The Friar? Is that the old guy with the purple thing over at the guard posts?”
“Yes, and the only one as far as I know.”
“Why?”
“Let’s walk fifteen steps so we can finish our first hundred, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walk fifteen steps out of town and into the desert.
“Okay,” the kid says, stopping.
Dumas stoops with his hands on his knees so he and the kid are at eye-level.
“Okay. The question is why. The answer is: mostly because I can, but also because I’m looking for anchors.”
“What’s an anchor? You mean for ships?”
“Yes, for ships. For my ship.”
“Where’s your ship?”
Dumas straightens himself up and stretches out his arms. “Right here!”
“I’m confused.”
It is Dumas’ turn to laugh. He puts a finger underneath the kid’s chin so the kid is looking up at him.
“You don’t have to have been in the ocean to know what it’s like. You’ve seen it in the movies, in TV shows, in the archives. Imagine that the entire space-time continuum is the ocean. In that ocean, everything flows into everything else: stuff you know because you saw them in the past, stuff you feel you know will happen in the future, stuff that’s happening right now, stuff that should have been, stuff that never was, at least in this version of history.
“In theoretical physics, all possible realities already exist somewhere—and by this I mean whether or not you return that book on time because it says right there,” he says, pointing at the back of the book, “‘Three days for fiction,’ where each decision leads to a different outcome, a different you—it’s just that you can’t get to that single viewing deck where you can see everything because, well, by nature, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because who we are or what we are or why we are would be so closely tied to where or when this event exists that it cannot conceive that the world be something other than what we think it is. We believe we need a body or at least a consciousness to do the observing.”
“Well, we do, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. This world rocks. And it’s more than enough to contain the most compelling and the most meaningful of lifetimes. I’m just saying, that sometimes, when you allow yourself to lose yourself, or you were born without a sense of self, it becomes very hard to function like a normal person.”
“But wouldn’t that be cooler?”
“Of course, you’d think that. But there are too many minds that insist that this plane of reality exist. Including you. And I’m just one guy.”
“So, for you to not get lost in all these shit about the ocean, you need an anchor.”
“Or anchors. I dream big.”
“Have you found any?”
Dumas smiles again. “You ask too many questions. Can we quit this talk until I reach my prime number?”
The kid crosses his arms and grumbles audibly. Nevertheless, they start walking until they reach a tall trailer husk near the guard post at the left of the town’s entrance. At one hundred and thirty, Dumas begins taking bigger steps. The kid accuses him of cheating. He ignores this and lands on one hundred and thirty-nine.
Backhanded Profiling
Well. So there, if you think about it, everything's out here (vast blue silent empyrean, sea of cloudless, mightless, broken pianos and water-logged pink pillows caught against logs resembling the last few moments of the forlorn, hearts crushed by the pain of longing) floating, cerebral debris, artifacts of love and hormones and undignified/dignified lust, severed friendship bands, memorized conversations that bordered on a future so certain it would find you together on some porch, laughing at kids.
Your heat is so damn specific, molten mercury running through your veins must find should find goddamnit why can't you find your way to me?
And how all this can exist in someone else's universe, but not in yours, suggests the greatest profanity, but in the end it is also ultimately golden. We don't elevate the mundane to feed egos, but to make sure we are not alone.
Each word, after all, is a bottled message for the universe to read. That sometimes that's the best we can ever get out of it, the knowledge that it was never meant to be, and that we must move on.
And that, maybe, something better is on its way.
Your heat is so damn specific, molten mercury running through your veins must find should find goddamnit why can't you find your way to me?
And how all this can exist in someone else's universe, but not in yours, suggests the greatest profanity, but in the end it is also ultimately golden. We don't elevate the mundane to feed egos, but to make sure we are not alone.
Each word, after all, is a bottled message for the universe to read. That sometimes that's the best we can ever get out of it, the knowledge that it was never meant to be, and that we must move on.
And that, maybe, something better is on its way.
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