#also can i just say how disorienting it is that the localization flipped the name order between yakuza 6 and judgment?

[fabiansociety]

one of the best things about like a dragon 7 so far is how much of a loser kasuga is. the yakuza series EXCELS at losers, but it’s had a tendency to treat its yakuza characters as actually cool, which has made them sometimes flat (kiryu in yakuza 4, say) and sometimes violently at odds with the actual narrative (kiryu in yakuza 6). having a yakuza main character who is an enthusiastic dork who won’t shut up about dragon quest and who is textually a smelly dingus with bad hair just gives the game so much more room tonally.

shinada told me so much more about living alongside yakuza culture in one section than half a dozen games of kiryu wrecking face managed. kasuga is a nice mixture of civilian and insider in a way the series hasn’t done before—the closest were tanimura in yakuza 4 and yagami in judgment, but they had unique protections as legal officials. but kasuga is OUT in a way kiryu never was.

[legends-live-in-memories]

Focus On Me

i want yall to pretend i dont have outstanding wips i need to finish lmao. Have this instead:

Dickinette One-shot 1.9K words

Summary: 

“Dick is pissed as hell after arguing with Bruce.

His solution? Go to an underground fight club to get the shit beaten out of him.”

without further ado

Richard Grayson was many things. He was a professional acrobat. He was a dedicated vigilante. Son of freaking Batman himself. And now? Now he was pissed as hell. The fallout between him and Bruce wasn’t supposed to get this bad. Wasn’t supposed to go on this long. The radio silence was deafening and the cold shoulder burned hotter than any flaming hoop he jumped through as a kid. He knew Bruce had issues about Dick’s decision but that had nothing to do with his capabilities as a vigilante and everything to do with Bruce’s own fears and insecurities. Thinking about it just gets him riled up and he keeps replaying the harsh words they threw at each other before fists started flying too.

He needs to get out of his head for a few hours before he plans what his next move is. No. He needed to get out of his head, yes, but he needs to breathe and maybe punch someone who he doesn’t fear disappointing or someone who hasn’t dumped a ferry’s load of emotional bullshit on him. Planning what comes next can have the decency to at least wait a week. 

Trying to distract himself, he went to an underground boxing club he discovered when he was sixteen. The club was deep in the East End, hidden between the Black Bass Bar and 83rd Street. He’s been sneaking there every now and again when he wanted the time to recenter himself and get grounded before facing the world. It was therapeutic, the bruising knuckles, the blistered lips, the burning sweat in his eyes. It was rough, jaded and unpolished. Everything he wasn’t allowed to be. 

He snuck in through the regular back entrance that was reserved for fighters. The air reeked of tequila and piss and cigarettes. He could already hear the cacophony of roars and jeers from the club’s patrons as a match went on in the center ring. Making his way to the side of the ring to put his name into the bracket, he sees the current fight come to a close with a knockout. The poor guy was lying limply with a twisted ankle and a suspiciously dark bruise forming on his left side. The mat is soiled with blood, spit and what was possibly bile in one corner. Dick swung his gaze over to the fighter left standing. 

His breath feels punched out as he takes in the absolute powerhouse before him. A lean figure clad in simple matching black spandex and sports bra that left nothing to the imagination. Her bare feet were bruised and taped in seemingly random places but Dick recognised an arch to them that was only achieved through professional dancing or gymnastics. She was light on her feet, strong on her toes. Chiseled abs that put Superman to shame were marred by scars on pale skin and a fresh bandage over what could possibly be a recent stab wound resting near her hip. He eyed her wrapped fists that were caked in blood and dirt as she flexed and curled her fingers repeatedly. 

If he was left breathless by her physique then her face left him dead and buried. Bold blue eyes narrowed in concentration with her busted lips curled up in a sneer. Her cheeks were flushed and her entire face was covered in a light sheen of sweat. Her hair is pulled back into a regular ponytail with loose strands framing her face. Her hair, pure black, except for bleached blonde ends, looks greasy and unkept, highlighting her lack of care regarding her appearance. Her shoulders are hiked up to her ears and her muscles twitch and flex with pent up energy. She carries herself like someone who’s addicted to pain and the worst parts of themselves, desperate for a quick fix; the perfect reflection for how he feels right now.  Dick can’t wait to get in the ring.

“I’ll pay you $50 to get me in the ring with her right now.” He turned his neck to the fight coordinator who was counting a wad of cash. The balding man barely looked at him and just held out his hand for the payment. Dick couldn’t get his money out fast enough and before he even confirmed that he was the next fight, he was already taking his shirt off and going between the rope barriers to the floor.

The loser of the last fight was being dragged off with no concern for his well-being, while the victor stood off to the side guzzling some water. She barely side-eyes him, a quick sweep of her eyes without turning to face him, and he already feels himself flushing hot from the attention. He preens and starts stretching out his shoulders, rolling his ankles and warming up his legs at the same time. 

He barely registers the presence of the announcer, ears filled with cotton and eyes narrowing at his opponent. He looks for weaknesses, anything that would get him an edge, as he crouches into a starting position. Her wound is an obvious target and she’s short enough for easy face and neck shots. Hair pulling is also an option if he feels particularly brutish. She mirrors his stance, crouch closer to her feet and legs wider to increase lunging distance, and the full force of her gaze almost bowls him over. His eyes harden into ice shards, not willing to be swayed by twin pools of blue fire. The bell dings. He charges.

He swings an uppercut that just grazes her chin and she recoils, spins back and jabs an elbow in his ribs. He grabs her by the same elbow and twists his wrist. She twinges in pain but the hold doesn’t last long. She follows the rotation of her arm and faces him. He smells faint traces of beer on her lips and his mind swims. Pain erupts in his nose as she smashes her forehead into him. She kicks into his knee and sweeps his other leg out from underneath him. She clasps her fists together and drives them into the protruding knobs of his spine, ramming him into her awaiting knee. She moves to pin him and he uses this to his advantage. He grabs the arm that was about to press into his throat and spins her around on top of him, his chest to her back. He locks one leg around hers and cants his weight to the side, pinning her face first into the disgusting mat; he completely blankets her with his much larger body. This position doesn’t hold for long either. She still has an arm free and she uses it to punch into the side of his head. It’s not a particularly strong hit, but with the pain in his nose, and his brain feeling like it’s underwater, it is enough to disorient him and she pushes him off by her hips. 

Her narrow escape lights a fire under his skin and he reaches to grapple for her again. She slips away, again, and stands. He scurries to stand as well and immediately ducks from a leg swinging for his ribs. 

“What brings you here?” Dick almost gets whiplash from how fast he has to move. He was not expecting her to engage in conversation, much less initiate it. But she doesn’t sound malicious, just curious, and she pauses in her assault in attacks to display how genuine she was.

“Same as everyone else,” he says. He swings right for her head and follows left when she ducks, knocking her in her shoulder. “I want to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist and get slapped around for a while. You?”

She snickers at his honesty and drops into a leg sweep. He jumps over the leg but clearly she was expecting it. She rides her momentum into a roundhouse that knocks him flat as he descends. She doesn’t hesitate and charges to pin him again. 

He lets her.

“Why does someone as pretty as you want to risk ruining that nice face of yours?” Her face is close, much closer than this pin requires but he doesn’t want to push her away. But the show must go on so he kicks her in the stomach, digging his toe into her bandaged side to get her off. She recoils like a snake about to spring and regards him with cold resentment. She clearly doesn’t like the reminder of her injuries. 

“I could ask you the same thing, sweetheart. What’s a lovely lady like you doing here getting down and dirty with the local dogs?” She is many things he regards, but lovely is not one of them. ‘Stray cat’ would better describe the scrappy woman before him. The address sets her on edge and he almost regrets describing her as such. Almost. Her next series of punches have him on the defensive and he’s pushed back all the way until he feels the ropes rubbing into the bare skin of his back. The flurry of sensations is exhilarating. Suddenly it’s too much and not enough. He ducks the next punch and grabs both wrists. He made the mistake the first time and knows better now. She won’t escape him unless he lets her. Not one to be outdone, she pulls one more trick out. She doesn’t resist his grip and instead leans up closer to his ear. Her chest is pressed flush against him and he knows she’s tipping just to reach him. Her lips, damp with sweat and cooling blood, brush against his ear and a weight settles at the base of his spine.

“Got a firm grip there?” her voice is soft, almost delicate, and he almost doesn’t register the question. His tongue feels like lead and his mouth has run dry; his brain can’t make the right connections to form words. He tightens his hold on her as an answer instead. She gets it though because she chuckles a swift ‘Good’ before she’s leaping and bracing her feet against his stomach. She leans back and uses her weight to pull them both to the ground, then she lifts her feet and flips him over. His fingers loosen and she slips out of his hold again. She follows the momentum of her roll and sits firmly on his hips, one leg pinning each of his down. She grabs both of his wrists in her small hand and uses the other to tip his chin back, his skull crashing into the mat harshly, blunt nails digging into his skin.

Her face looms over his, again closer than is strictly necessary, and she smirks at him. Her tongue peaks out and swipes at the sweat above her upper lip. He holds his breath, waiting to hear what she has to say next. His patience doesn’t reward him that satisfaction, however. A ding echoes into the room, cutting through the shouts and growls of their captive audience. She won. 

Her victorious smile is a thing of beauty, he can’t really lament his loss. Before he could overthink and get lost in his head he takes a dive headfirst and gives into his impulses.

“I’m Richard Grayson. Call me Dick.” He sounds breathless and rung out. 

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” her name is perfect like her. She releases his arms and moves to get off him. She offers a hand to help him up and he takes it. Before he could say something stupid she continues her introduction.

“You can call me Nette. I hope to see you next week.”

She will.

[moonbeambucky]

Friday Night Fights

Pairing: Wrestler!Bucky Barnes x Reader [AU] Word Count: 5948 Warnings: action, fluff

Summary: A night at a wrestling show proves more than you may be able to handle.

A/N: I’m so excited because I haven’t seen this before and I’m really, really happy with how it turned out! Thank you to my pizza love @all1e23​​​ for beta reading 🍕❤️ Reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated! gif source (x)

It was early in the evening but the sky showed otherwise. Its pitch black blanket draped the world in darkness; a consequence of winter where night rolls over earlier as the days go on. Y/N is huddled together with her friend Wanda, teeth chattering as they brace for a gust of wind, the kind that’s so cold the icy breeze burns your face. They’re standing in a line that wraps around the block, hearing the excited chants from people all around them. Some are a little louder than others and Y/N suspects a few have been keeping warm thanks to those beers wrapped in paper bags. While she was too cold to physically show how excited she was, inside she was thrilled. It was the first Friday of the month and Y/N was spending it the way she’s spent all of them over the past year, front row at a local wrestling show.

MWF had been running monthly shows for a few years now but it wasn’t until Wanda’s brother Pietro begged them to come with him that she was hooked. It was so much fun to watch the athletic matches and even though there were some storylines that bordered on ridiculous they were a lot of fun. Y/N can honestly say she’s never laughed harder than watching a man named Doctor Doom wrestle The Invisible Woman. He was so convincing in kicking his own ass she was almost positive he really was in a match against a woman that no one could see.

Tonight was different though; Y/N and Wanda were alone, waiting to get inside the venue without Pietro because he was making his debut! He caught the wrestling bug from the moment they all went to a show and after speaking with some of the wrestlers he found a local school and started training. Things were rough, as Y/N remembered the day after his first lesson, Pietro was so sore he couldn’t even get off the couch of the apartment they all shared. As his training continued so did his injuries; his body was covered in bruises from all moves he was learning but he didn’t care. Pietro loved it so much and eventually his body got used to the new brand of workouts he was putting it through.

While he was training Pietro still went to shows with Y/N and Wanda but now things were different. He was on hand to help set up the ring during the day, staying after the show to help break it down and pack it in the truck. He no longer viewed each match through the eyes of a fan but as a student, carefully studying each move and the story the wrestlers were telling. Watching them interact with the crowd made him hopeful, imagining himself in that ring one day with a crowd of people cheering for him. That day had finally come.

The show wouldn’t start for another half hour at least so Y/N and Wanda went to the line for refreshments, saying hello to a few people along the way. They had grown familiar with some of the crowd, seeing familiar faces that were also dedicated fans. Besides the regulars there were always new people, fathers with their young children either using this as a replacement for expensive WWE shows or just bonding over more wrestling in their lives. It was always a treat to watch the kids yell at the bad guys as they walked around the ring, pointing fingers in their face before recoiling back with fear if they were snarled at.

There were a lot of women there too, some older ones where it was clear they had grown up watching classic wrestling. Sometimes it was obvious that they were there to meet their favorite stars from the past. Usually the shows had one match that featured someone that used to be really popular. They were older now, a little slower but still put on an entertaining match. During intermission they would sell signed 8x10 pictures from a table off to the side. It isn’t anything compared to the money they used to make but it’s something of a living, and taking a selfie with their fans makes everyone happy.

Other women filled the crowds, young ones that hoped to get in the ring themselves one day or those who were only there to support their boyfriends or other friends who were in the show. You could always tell who was there to support who, watching their disinterested face lift up from the phone it’s been glued to all night to cheer for someone, and once the match was over you could see how quickly they got back to their phone, furiously texting away probably asking when they could finally leave.

After the shows some kids would wait around hoping to meet their favorite wrestler, full of nervous joy as they took a picture with them. It wasn’t always the kids who were anxious to meet someone, a lot of times there would be some women blatantly flirting with some of them. Y/N’s seen a few wrestlers take someone by the hand, pulling them behind the curtain to get lost for a few minutes. As long as everything was consensual there was no issue with it though she couldn’t help but grimace as she watched it happen unbeknownst to that wrestler's girlfriend hanging around and waiting for him to leave the locker room.

Pietro always told her not to say anything. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.” It’s a lesson he learned the hard way after confronting someone about cheating on their girlfriend. They took it out on him during training, leaving a red handprint shaped welt on his chest for days for not minding his business. This was not a side of wrestling that any of them liked.

Making their way to their seats they were taken aback by the presence of the large ring assembled in the center of the room. It was always a beautiful sight and being there felt like home. The cold metal chairs brought comfort, the bright fluorescents that shined down on them from the vaulted ceiling brought warmth like a cozy fireplace. This was more than something to do on a Friday night; it was tradition, creating new memories with every show.

Y/N took off her jacket, draping it over the back of the chair. “Do you like it?” she said, turning to Wanda, proudly showing off her sweatshirt.

The bright blue fabric was eye catching but the design on the front really stood out. It was the symbol for a wrestler that everyone knew was her favorite; red and white circles surrounding a bright white star in the center meant for “Captain America” Steve Rogers, the current MWF heavyweight champion. He was a blue eyed, blond haired, six foot wall of pure muscle with the sweetest baby face she’d ever seen.

Steve was enthralling. Women would scream extra loud as they ogled him (those tights don’t leave much to the imagination) and kids would jump up and down cheering as he gave each and every one a high five. Steve was an all American wrestler, a good-hearted person who believed in clean matches and rushed out from the back to help others if their own opponents were cheating to win. And lately he’s been coming out a lot.

There was a faction known as Hydra that Steve has been feuding with for some time now. A man named Red Skull, whose face was painted to look like one, served as their leader, standing ringside as his assets would fight their way to the top for a shot at the championship. For a while he pushed Crossbones, a real sleazy villain that took cheap shots at the audience, sneering at them as he told them how lucky they were to be in the presence of his greatness. Steve had many fights against Crossbones but he wasn’t alone.

Steve used to be a tag team, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, the Howling Commandos, brothers in arms that were the reigning tag team champions. Fans adored them, cheering as they took on Crossbones and his partner Baron Zemo. One night Steve held up his belt over his head, rejoicing in another win for himself and Bucky, proudly showing it off to the crowd and never expecting what happened next.

A vicious blow knocked him to the mat, the belt dropped from his hands. Confused, Steve tried to get up but a heavy boot kicked him back down. He wondered who was attacking him and if Bucky was faring better than he was, that is until he was able to turn around. Bucky was standing over him, his foot kicking Steve in the ribs. He groaned in pain, his body feeling the agony of the attack but his mind suffered more. “Buck, why?” But Steve never got an answer.

Bucky grabbed his head, forcing him to his feet but Steve fought back to defend himself. He blocked one punch but not the next two blows that came out of nowhere; a swift kick to the stomach from Zemo that sent him right into another strike from Crossbones across his back.

Steve wobbled to his knees disoriented and Bucky took advantage of his former friend’s weakened state. Bucky pulled Steve by the top of his tights setting him bent over between his legs. He smirked feeling his attempt to find the strength to fight back, clawing at Bucky’s thighs to break free. Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve’s waist and with all his might he hoisted him up, flipping Steve’s body up quickly so his legs were straddling Bucky’s head and just as fast he used all his force to slam Steve’s back down onto the mat.

Bucky got up, laughing as he stared at Steve laid out in the ring, joining Crossbones and Baron Zemo as the newest member of Hydra as the crowd roared with anger. Ever since that day Steve has been facing Bucky Barnes now known as The Winter Soldier– an enemy with the face of a friend.

The main event tonight was Steve against the Winter Soldier who was fighting for a shot at the title. Everyone was excited. Y/N wasn’t the only one in a Captain America shirt although some people in the audience smudged black paint around their eyes, emulating their new favorite villain to show their support.

The Winter Soldier had become an intimidating figure, wearing a black mask that covered the bottom half of his face, piercing blue eyes stood out against the smear of black war paint. His left arm was wrapped in silver electrical tape from his wrist and up his forearm, the sections making it look like his arm was replaced by metal plates. A final piece was taped just above his bicep as if to show off the prominent muscle.

He traded bright blue tights for a dark black fabric with a jarring red star on his thigh. It was like he had it just to taunt Steve, showing him he remembered his roots and all the years they spent together as a team but now he no longer cared, twisting the image of a patriotic star for one that was blood red, dripping with the hate that fueled him.

Like everyone else, Y/N couldn’t wait for that match but first the show had to begin. A man walked out from the curtain to a roar of cheers. He was an older man with grey hair that bordered on silver and bright teeth that flashed against tanned skin. He entered the ring with all eyes on him, partially because of his striking gold jacket, beneath it an even bolder red tie that stood out against a bright cobalt blue shirt.

Bringing a microphone to his mouth he spoke, “Welcome to the Marvel Wrestling Federation. I am your host, the Grandmaster!” The Grandmaster smirked, taking in their enthusiasm. The crowd was pumped and he knew it was going to be a great night. “Please welcome your referee for the night Phillip Coulson!”

“COUL-SON! COUL-SON! COUL-SON!” The crowd cheered as a man in a striped shirt entered the ring, a modest smile spreading across his thin lips.

With that the first match of the night began but Wanda could hardly pay attention. Pietro had texted her saying he was going to be in the second match and her leg bounced nervously. She vacillated between feeling excited and nervous, wanting to cheer on her brother for his debut but in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but fear for his safety.

Sure, Pietro had been training for a while but that didn’t mean that things couldn’t go wrong. Y/N looked over at Wanda, taking her hand and squeezing it, hoping to provide some comfort to her, realizing how hard Wanda was squeezing her own hand back as the first match ended.

“Making his debut, all the way from Sokovia, here is Quicksilver!” the Grandmaster’s voice boomed as music hit, and suddenly a figure raced out from the curtains to the sound of fast paced music.

Y/N and Wanda shot up to cheer for him, proudly screaming as he ran around the outside of the ring, slapping hands with everyone before he jumped up on the apron. Stepping inside the ring he went to the corner, standing on the middle ropes as he raised his arms up, smiling at the crowd.

He looked incredible. Neither of them had seen his outfit, ombre blue pants with a white lightning bolt going down the side of his leg. His white boots shined brightly, their luster not yet marred by the history of a long career. His chest was bare and though he was not as tanned as some other wrestlers he still very much looked the part with bright blue elbow pads on his arms. He winked towards Y/N and Wanda, who was filled with nervous energy she could barely hold her phone steady to record his match.

“And his opponent, from Queens, New York he is the amazing Spider-Man!”

Everyone jumped up from their seats to cheer for a masked wrestler who was always a crowd favorite. He was a few inches shorter than Pietro but much slimmer, wearing a full body spandex suit in red and blue with a webbed designed all over it and a small black spider in the center of his chest. His eyes were blocked by a white mesh surrounded by black trim but somehow you could see the expression in them.

Pietro began clapping his hands, a rhythmic beat for the crowd to join in as he and Spider-Man circled each other in the ring. Once they began both men showed off their skill of high flying moves and near pinfalls for each of them with nonstop action throughout and the crowd loved it. Wanda’s smile was stretched proudly across her face as she watched her brother. The match was over before anyone wanted it to be, with Spider-Man climbing to the top turnbuckle and doing a backflip splash onto Pietro for the three count.

Ref Coulson raised Spider-Man’s hand in victory but he quickly went to his opponent and helped him to his feet. Pietro was half-keeled over with one arm across his stomach, feeling the pain from where all of Spider-Man’s weight had landed. Spider-Man took Pietro’s hand, celebrating Quicksilver as a mutually respected opponent.

Wanda and Y/N stood up and cheered loudly, sitting down again once Pietro had gone back through the curtain.

“He was incredible! Did you see that? My. Brother. Did. That!” Wanda exclaimed.

Y/N was just as proud of him, knowing how hard Pietro trained. His first match was a great success and she hoped it would be the start to an incredible career.

The next match saw Quake take on Black Widow, another member of Hydra. She was a short redhead but her opponents should know not to be intimidated by her size. Though she was a strong fighter Black Widow was also conniving, cheating to win whenever it seemed victory was just out of reach.

She walked around the ring with a slow stride, ignoring the boos and comments from the crowd. As she was approaching Y/N she noticed the Captain America shirt she was wearing and her red lips pulled into a disgusted scoff. Black Widow snarled at Y/N, unable to bear the mere sight of her enemy’s symbol.

As soon as the match began the crowd was behind Quake all the way which only seemed to upset Black Widow more, anger that she held firmly inside. She launched a vicious attack, raking Quake in the eyes to impair her vision as she tried to pin her right away. Quake kicked out, and after a lot of back and forth it seemed like Quake was finally getting the upper hand.

Not wanting to lose Black Widow found the strength to stop herself from being thrown into the corner, reversing the move and whipping Quake right into Ref Coulson who dropped to the mat in pain. With Quake and the referee both down Black Widow smirked, using this opportunity to slip out of the ring and grab a metal chair.

Black Widow raised the chair above her hands, about to slam it down onto Quake before she noticed from the corner of her eye that Ref Coulson was using the ropes to ease himself up. Not wanting to be caught, she slammed the chair down onto the mat. The sound alerted Quake who turned around and just as quickly Black Widow threw the chair to Quake and fell down onto the mat. Ref Coulson turned around and was stunned to see Quake holding the chair above her opponent. He refused to listen to her protests as she was caught red handed, signaling to the announcers to end the match and the bell rang.

The Grandmaster’s voice echoed through the room, “The winner of this match as a result of a disqualification, Black Widow!”

The crowd booed as Quake continued to argue with the referee. He helped Black Widow up from the mat, unable to see the wicked grin that spread across her face. Her expression was one Y/N saw again that night as Crossbones and Zemo fought against Falcon and Hawkeye but unlike Black Widow, their opponents would not fall for Hydra’s tricks.

Hawkeye spotted Zemo hiding by the apron of the ring, trying to hold Falcon’s foot down so he couldn’t kick out as Crossbones attempted to pin him. Racing towards him, Hawkeye speared Zemo into the guardrails, knocking him out. Crossbones and Falcon were trading punches and Falcon was stumbling in the center of the ring. Crossbones began to climb to the top rope, setting himself up to jump off and hit his signature move, the Strike Force.

Seeing this Hawkeye jumped to the apron, knocking into Crossbones who landed crotch first into the turnbuckle, letting out a painful groan. Hawkeye called out for Falcon who turned around, and both men climbed to the top rope, lifting Crossbones to a standing position as they threw his arms over theirs.

This was their finishing move, the Birds of a Feather, as Falcon and Hawkeye did a simultaneous backflip off the top rope, while holding Crossbones who flipped along with them, slamming furiously onto the mat. Thunderous applause carried through the room as the referee counted to three and Falcon and Hawkeye remained the MWF tag team champions.

There were so many other matches that kept Y/N and Wanda entertained, like Thor against his brother Loki, the two having their own long standing feud but now it was time for the final match and Y/N was full of anticipation.

The Grandmaster stood in the center of the ring again, commanding the microphone as he spoke to the crowd. “Wow, what a show, what a night! And now, without further ado… it’s main event time! Making his way to the ring at 240 pounds he is the fist of Hydra, The Winter Soldier!”

The faint sound of music is heard over the crowd, like a scream heard underwater. The tension builds with a growing hum, the cry is louder yet different, mechanized, like someone is trapped inside a machine. A motorcycle hums, revving its engine, racing louder and louder until a crash of metal clangs.

At the height of tension the Winter Soldier takes a solid step through the curtain as the haunting scream blares out. It’s as if the person he used to be was still inside, Bucky Barnes, Howling Commando, friend to Steve Rogers, trapped inside the shell of a brainwashed assassin, scratching at the walls and screaming to free himself. But the Winter Soldier is nothing like Bucky Barnes.

His movements are deliberate and slow as he stalks the ring. Blue eyes visible through the darkness of black around them. They speak volumes with every glare as he makes his way around the ring. Kids who are brave enough scream at him but the Winter Soldier doesn’t react. He’s cold, devoid of emotion, as mechanic as the sounds of his entrance music. Y/N does see something in his eyes, the subtle squint as he sees her Captain America shirt. She, like many others, boo him as he passes by.

Not everyone hates the Winter Soldier though; he has his own fan base that doesn’t care about what side of good he’s on. Y/N can hear the difference in the tone of their screams, lascivious howls as he steps in the ring. They cry out as he undoes the buckles of his leather jacket to reveal a broad chest and she wouldn’t be surprised if they had dollars ready in between their fingers to stuff down his pants. His hair is dark and stringy, falling just on top of his muscular shoulders. He removes his muzzle, rolling his neck from side to side as he awaits his foe.

“From Brooklyn, New York, weighing in at 225 pounds, he is your Heavyweight Champion, Captain America, Steve Rogers!”

Patriotic horns blare along with rhythmic percussion, building triumphantly until Captain America pops through the curtain to a clamor of cheers. The belt shines brightly around his waist as he takes a second to pose, hooking his thumbs into the top, proud to be the champion.

Y/N stands up, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify the sound of her cheers making them rise above the rest. Steve was slapping hands with a group of children but he heard her, his boyish smile growing as he turned to see her in the front row wearing his symbol.

As Steve approached Y/N he took her hand, pressing a kiss to the top of it that set her cheeks on fire. She sat down giggling in her seat with Wanda, hardly able to look at Steve anymore even though she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Her breath got caught in her chest for a moment as the Winter Soldier glared in her direction. She swallowed the hard lump in her chest uncomfortably, feeling on edge by the intensity of his stare.

The Grandmaster leaves the ring as Ref Coulson pats down the legs of both men to make sure none of them have any weapons. Steve would never but you can’t put anything past Hydra. The bell rings and the match begins, both men circling each other. Steve puts his hand out to shake, an honorable sign of respect he shows towards all of his opponents but his former friend roughly slaps it away. The Winter Soldier lunges towards Steve to spear him to the ground, unleashing an assault of vicious punches to the champion.

Steve blocked what he could but it seems like the Winter Soldier is on a mission to take him out. Steve is able to push him off, rolling over to try and stand but his opponent is on his feet first The Winter Soldier grabbed Steve and squeezed him into a headlock, tightening his grip as Steve hissed. Steve tried to get out of the hold, clawing and punching his way to get the man who used to be Bucky to release it. Instead he bends his knees and gets his arms under the Winter Soldier’s thighs, with all of his strength Steve flipped him over his shoulder but the reprieve did not last long.

Just as quickly he was attacked again but Steve grabbed the Soldier’s hand, whipping him into the ropes. As the Winter Soldier ran back towards Steve he was caught with the strong force of Steve’s drop kick that sent him to the mat. Steve went to cover him for the pin but the Soldier kicked out. The match had everyone on edge, back and forth as they traded powerful moves until both men were laid out in the ring.

“Come on Steve!” Y/N shouted.

He was dazed, trying to get up as the ref began a countdown from ten. He slapped the mat with his palm slowly and the crowd joined him; slow claps that built with speed, encouraging Steve to get to his feet. The Winter Soldier stood before Steve did so he grabbed him by the back of the head, slamming his face into the turnbuckles. The Winter Soldier set Steve up in the corner, slapping his chest with a violent thwack. Steve screamed in pain, the sting burning his skin.

The Soldier slapped him two more times before he grabbed him by the hand and violently threw him into the other corner. Steve’s back hit the turnbuckle and he groaned in pain. The Winter Soldier ran towards him but at the last second Steve lifted his foot to kick him in the face. The Soldier stumbled and Steve hoisted himself up to the middle rope, jumping off and locking his arms around the Winter Soldier's head; the momentum allowed him to swing his body around and as Steve landed on his back the Winter Soldier was stunned from the impact of the top of his head being driven into the mat.

Steve goes for the cover but the Soldier just barely kicks out. The crowd groans in frustration with Steve who gets up. With the Winter Soldier still down Steve gets up, he leaps to the center of the ropes, springboards off the top rope and does a back flip. It’s the Star Spangled Splash and the crowd goes wild as Steve crashes down on the Winter Soldier. He goes for the cover again, the referee counts, one, two, thr– The Winter Soldier kicks out at the last second.

Frustration washes over an exhausted Steve. He grabs the Winter Soldier by the hair to get him to his feet. Steve gets the Soldier in a front facing headlock and tosses his left arm over his own neck. He hooks his own arm behind the Soldier’s left leg, cradling the Winter Soldier against him. His hold is locked tight and then Steve throws himself backwards, tossing the Winter Soldier over his head. He’s pinned to the mat, his head and leg still locked in Steve’s clutches, and Steve does a bridge to add more pressure to the hold.

Steve is waiting, holding the Winter Soldier down expecting the referee to be counting. He’s been holding him down for longer than the count of three so where is the ref? The crowd is screaming, telling Ref Coulson to turn around but he doesn’t hear them. He’s too busy dealing with Red Skull and Black Widow who had rushed out from the entrance. He knew it was almost over for the Winter Soldier and he wasn’t going to let Captain America have another victory over them.

Red Skull made Black Widow jump up on the curtain to distract the referee as Crossbones and Baron Zemo snuck inside the ring, stomping on Steve’s stomach. He released the hold, groaning as the men continued to stomp him.

“Turn around! Ref, turn around!” Y/N, Wanda and so many others pleaded.

Crossbones grabbed Steve, lifting him into a fireman’s carry as Zemo climbed to the top rope. He swung Steve around to disorient him, inadvertently knocking into Ref Coulson who dropped to the mat. Zemo flew off the top rope to add to Steve’s pain as Crossbones spun him out, spiking his head into the mat.

The Winter Soldier rolled out of the ring, going over to the table where the Grandmaster was sitting. He grabbed the championship belt in a vicious tug of war that the Grandmaster had no shot of winning. Steve was using the ropes to get to his feet and the Winter Soldier ran full steam, hitting him in the head with his own belt.

Chaos broke out as the bell was ringing for the match to end but no one inside the ring seemed to care. They used every opportunity they could to continue their assault on Steve.

Y/N got to her feet, leaning over the guardrails as she screamed at all of Hydra. The Winter Soldier whipped his head in her direction, his eyes flaring with rage. He signaled to Crossbones and Zemo who dragged a half-conscious Steve to his knees. He was in the corner, his head dropping forward as both men held his arms back.

The Winter Soldier jumped down from the ring with determination, stomping towards Y/N who was still giving him shit, screaming “You knew you could never beat Steve in a fair fight!”

Wanda was trying to pull Y/N down to her seat as the intimidating frame of the Winter Soldier hovered in front of them but it didn’t stop her. Y/N’s arms were in his face as she continued to defend her favorite wrestler. “You’ll never win! Steve will always kick your ugly, frostbitten ass!”

A round of “oohs” spread out from around her, the sound that quickly turned into “ahhs” as Y/N screamed. Her words were enough to break the Winter Soldier who grabbed her with two hands by the throat, lifting her over the guardrails. Her legs kicked furiously to get out of the chokehold as she struggled to breathe.

Wanda was screaming as the Winter Soldier placed Y/N down, only to quickly toss her into the ring. Confused, she crawled to the corner in an attempt to get out, feeling the unfamiliar padding under her palms but she didn’t get far. The Winter Soldier pulled her by the foot, dragging her back.

Y/N screamed for help and the Grandmaster shot up but Red Skull saw him coming and kicked him in the face, laying him out before he could make it into the ring. Cowering on all fours, Y/N began screaming as she felt the bottom of her sweatshirt being pulled off. She held onto the hem of the shirt she had on underneath; far too thin to be worn alone, her arms prickled with goosebumps but Y/N couldn’t think about that. Fear ran through her veins and she stumbled backwards, leaning against the turnbuckles. The Winter Soldier held up her sweatshirt that bore Steve’s symbol to the crowd and facing her again he ripped it in half, tossing the shredded fabric at Steve.

This jolted him alert and Steve looked around, getting his bearings. His eyes shot open wide as he realized one of his fans was in the ring. Steve struggled to break free and Red Skull saw the determination in his eyes. Steve was straining his muscles to loosen the hold but Red Skull came up behind him, locking Steve’s head in a chokehold as Crossbones and Zemo strengthened their hold on Steve’s arms.

Black Widow sauntered towards the fearful Y/N, who begged mercilessly to be left alone but she should have known Hydra only cares about themselves and they needed to make a point. There was nothing Steve could do but watch as Black Widow lifted Y/N above her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, the girl helpless in her arms.

Wanda screamed in fear as Black Widow popped Y/N’s legs up, throwing them behind her as she locked her arms around Y/N’s head, magnifying the impact on Y/N’s neck as she hit the mat.

The crowd lost their minds, screaming as one of their own was unmoving in the center of the ring. Steve fought harder to be free of his hold and his enemies let him go. He walked straight into a fierce kick to the stomach from the Winter Soldier who quickly hooked Steve’s arms behind his back, locking his grip around them.

This was it, his finisher– the Dead of Winter.

He lifted Steve into a vertical position with his back against the Soldier’s chest, holding him there as if to prove to the fans that he was obviously the stronger of the two former Howling Commandos. The Winter Soldier then dropped to the mat, driving Steve’s head straight into the unforgiving ring.

“HO-LY SHIT! HO-LY SHIT! HO-LY SHIT!” The crowd went wild as the Winter Soldier bared his teeth, a growling scream as he defeated his former friend.

Steve was on his back unmoving as Black Widow dragged Y/N’s lifeless body and draped it over him. The Winter Soldier laid Steve’s belt on top of her, as he and Hydra taunted the crowd, showing them what they thought about Captain America, his fans and his stupid title.

Security was finally called in but it was too late, Hydra had left the ring. Ref Coulson was dazed but awake, horrified to see a fan in the ring. Weakened, he called out for medical attention the girl in the ring and Steve, telling them not to touch them.

Most of the crowd filed out of the building but some of them stayed, like Wanda who cried as she watched Y/N being loaded onto a stretcher, carefully taken out of the ring with a collar around her neck.

Y/N opened her eyes to find a massive shadowy figure standing over her. Through a curtain of dark hair she recognized the blue eyes of the Winter Soldier. A smile spread across his face as his hands came for her throat… removing the collar that was stabilizing her neck.

“How’d I do Buck?” she asked with excitement bursting in every word.

“So good doll,” Bucky said, taking her hand so she could sit up.

He stood between her legs, his arms finding their spot on her waist as he pressed a kiss to her lips. She tasted salt from his sweat but it was something she was used to after so many nights of training together.

“I can’t wait for you to make your debut. You and Steve versus me and Tash.”

She nodded, smiling just as widely as he was. “I think Wanda’s more excited to seek revenge on what ‘the Black Widow’ did to her friend,” Y/N joked. “Did she tell you she picked a gimmick name? Scarlet Witch.”

“It suits her,” Bucky said, taking his hand to gently rub away some dirt from the mat that was on Y/N’s cheek. “How ‘bout we get cleaned up and maybe tonight you can try and pin me?” A smirk pulled at his lips, the glint of mischief twinkled in Bucky’s eyes.

“Try?” Y/N scoffed, looking into the eyes of her boyfriend with a smirk of her own. “Oh I don’t need to try Bucky, I can get you on your back with ease.”

Bucky grinned, pressing another kiss to her soft lips as he helped her off the stretcher. Y/N already won his heart, a match that Bucky happily lost.

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[there-must-be-a-lock]

wings & the way down - part 1

Spencer Reid x Derek Morgan

The Moreid high school AU! In which there will (eventually) be pining, misunderstandings, identity crises, and general teenage shenanigans. 

Word Count: ~1520 this chapter. 

Warnings: Awkward boys flirting awkwardly. 

A/N: Title from a Ray Bradbury quote: “If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair... You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

This is shaping up to be long. Oh boy. Please let me know if you want to be tagged in future installments! 

Thursday, January 2 - Spencer

“Checkmate.” 

“Yeah, I thought so.” Spencer examines the board and frowns before movement catches his eye.  

Gideon is pointing out where he went wrong, but Spencer isn’t paying attention any more. Losing to Gideon isn’t a particularly novel or interesting experience, and there’s something — someone — much more interesting walking into the park. Spencer crosses his legs, shifting on the bench to rest his elbows on his knees, and watches. 

It’s cold for Vegas, 60ish and breezy, but the guy is wearing short sleeves like this isn’t his usual January. New in town? But Spencer hasn’t seen anyone moving in. Visiting family for the holidays, maybe. He’s got the look of a newcomer: carefully cultivated confidence, studied swagger covering for the unease that always comes with foreign territory. 

There are other things, too, things that Spencer tries not to notice: biceps rippling under the short sleeves, long skilled fingers spinning a basketball idly as he walks, a bright white flash of a grin when he sees Spencer staring —

Spencer is staring. Crap. 

He looks down at the chessboard much too quickly — there’s no way it comes off as anything other than guilty. He glares daggers at his bishop as Gideon clears his own pieces away.

“Rematch tomorrow?” Spencer offers, trying to keep his eyes on the board. “School doesn’t start until next week.” 

“Can’t tomorrow, going up to the cabin. Call you when I get back.” 

“Sounds good.” 

Spencer sneaks a stealthy glance, only to see the guy grinning in his direction, and he averts his eyes again, blushing furiously.

Gideon barks over his shoulder, “See you soon, Doctor Reid.” 

The nickname makes Spencer smile at Gideon’s retreating back, but then he looks down at his lap and remembers he’s sitting criss-cross applesauce, wearing his fraying Converse and his mismatched socks — one covered with yellow dinosaurs, one argyle. He sighs to himself. Gideon treats him like an adult, but most people sure as hell don’t, and Spencer can’t exactly blame them. 

“You wanna shoot some hoops?” the stranger calls out, and Spencer doesn’t look up, because he’s obviously talking to someone else, except…“You in the Chucks! Pretty boy!” 

That makes Spencer look up fast, because he assumes it’s sarcastic; it’s the sort of stupid thing the jocks at school might yell, right before they ask him if he wears women’s underwear, or something. There’s no trace of malice on the guy’s face, though. His smile is so bright it’s hard to look at. 

Something warm and awful curls in Spencer’s stomach. 

“I don’t really — I don’t do hoops,” he mutters, averting his eyes again. 

The guy takes the seat opposite his, sprawling out, taking up space. Spencer hunches in on himself, poking at the beginnings of a hole on the faded knee of his favorite jeans. 

“I could teach you.” 

“Given my lack of hand-eye coordination, I really doubt that,” Spencer tells him, which gets a laugh; eyes sparkle, a dimple creases his cheek — he smiles with his whole face. 

“I’m Derek. Derek Morgan.” 

Spencer raises one hand in an awkward wave. “Spencer. I’m — Reid’s my — Spencer is me. That’s my name.” 

Yikes. 

“You from around here?” Derek asks, twirling the basketball on his fingertip, showing off casually. 

Spencer nods and then blurts out, “You’re not. Morgan — is that like the Morgans on Lake Road?” 

“Sure is. That’s my auntie and uncle. I’m staying with them for a bit.” 

“That’s roughly zero point three miles from my house,” Spencer tells him, but when Derek raises his eyebrows, he remembers that walking around aimlessly, memorizing the names on every mailbox because you can’t stand being at home, is not a normal childhood pastime. He continues hurriedly: “Where are you from?” 

“Chicago.” 

That makes sense. He’s cool in the way that Spencer would imagine people from big cities to be. He seems… jaded isn’t the right word for his smile, but experienced, maybe. Sophisticated. Comfortable in his own skin. Sure of himself. 

Everything Spencer is not, basically.

Also, Spencer is staring again. 

“Do you like it here?” he asks. “It must be… different.” 

“That’s an understatement. Toto, we are not on the South Side any more.” A shadow of sadness flickers over Derek’s expression for a moment, like a cloud across the sun, before he smiles again. “It’s good, getting a change of scenery. You know?” 

Spencer doesn’t know, because he’s never been farther away than California, but he says, “Yeah.” 

He tucks his hair behind his ears and then picks up his castle, turning it over in his hands just for something to do. 

“I’ve never actually played chess, but aren’t there supposed to be more pieces?” Derek asks. 

“Gideon likes to use his own pieces, I like to use mine,” Spencer tells him. It’s a sensory thing, for him; he likes the feel of the warm ivory, and Gideon prefers his own heavy stone set. 

“Gideon?” 

“Professor Gideon,” Spencer amends, wondering how to explain that. “I… took a class with him? At UNLV. That’s sort of how we met, but… we play chess.” 

That’s the short version, anyway. 

When Spencer decided to find a cure for schizophrenia, at the age of fifteen, he started by reading everything the local library had on the subject. When he was done there, he started sneaking into the college library. Gideon was the first person to realize Spencer wasn’t a student, but he didn’t call security; instead he offered to let Spencer audit one of his advanced psychology classes in the evenings. Spencer has taken all his classes by now, and Gideon jokes about him earning his Masters before he finishes high school. 

“Want to show me around the neighborhood?” Derek asks, and Spencer blinks at him for a second. 

“You were going to play basketball.” 

“Sure. But you said you don’t ‘do’ hoops.” Derek gestures at the empty court. “Nobody else to play with. Playing with myself gets boring.” He laughs at his own joke, and then his eyes sparkle, devilish, as he says, “I’d much rather play with you.” 

Spencer chokes on nothing, and somehow he makes things even worse by asking shrilly, “Are you flirting with me?”

Derek grimaces. “If I say yes, am I gonna get punched?” 

“Like it’d hurt you even if I did.” 

“Then yeah,” Derek says sheepishly. “I was flirting with you.” 

Spencer stutters for a few incoherent seconds before he recovers from that particular world-ending shock. Then all he can say is, “Oh.” 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. If I was wrong about — if you’re — do you?” 

He cannot possibly be asking what Spencer thinks he’s asking. 

“Do I — play for that team?” he ventures. Derek shrugs, and Spencer can barely breathe. It feels like he’s paralyzed for a second before he can croak, “That’s not — you’re not wrong.” 

“Just to be clear, we’re not talking about basketball any more.” Derek is grinning again. He has a really nice smile, and Spencer needs to stop staring already. 

“Yeah. We’re clear,” he manages. 

For a second they just smile at each other, and Spencer has this swooping sensation in his stomach like he just missed a step, except the disorienting moment of uncontrollable vertigo feels good. 

“Sorry. I’m not used to — this is new to me.” Derek seems almost bashful now, looking down as he starts to toss the basketball from one hand to another. “Being able to admit when I’m… flirting. With a guy, I mean.” 

“I’m not used to being flirted with,” Spencer counters. He clears his throat and adds, “I don’t mind it.” 

Derek doesn’t move his head, but his eyes flick to Spencer. His smile is hopeful and happy and more than a little shy.

“Anybody ever tell you you look good in pink?”

“Huh?” Spencer frowns down at his sweater, which is… yeah, still definitely blue. 

“You’re blushing.” 

“Oh.” He presses his palms to his feverish-hot cheeks. “That makes sense.” 

This doesn’t happen to Spencer. Flirting doesn’t happen to Spencer, let alone flirting with someone who looks like that. There’s a bubble of reckless exhilaration swelling in his chest, helium-light, threatening to lift him off his feet. 

“So, how about it?” Derek asks. “Want to show me around?” 

Spencer nods, way too eagerly. “I could do that.” 

And that’s when his phone rings. 

He knows what it means, before he even looks at the screen, and all that giddy excitement drains away at once. 

He pulls out his phone: Mom calling. He doesn’t pick up yet; he doesn’t want to have this conversation within earshot of Derek. 

“I have to go,” Spencer says miserably. He sweeps his chess pieces carelessly into his bag, slings it over his shoulder, and gives Derek a helpless shrug. “I just — really need to go. Can we — tomorrow? I’ll be here. Tomorrow. Same time.”

“No worries,” Derek says, with a rueful little half-smile. Spencer turns, starts running, and he almost misses it when Derek says, “See you tomorrow, pretty boy.” 

Spencer doesn’t let himself look back, but he smiles. 

He flips open his phone on the very last ring and says, “Hey, Mom. I’m on my way.” 

.

.

Part 2 is here! 

.

[cpd5021]

Under the Weather

Sorry for the delay guys!! Happy Wednesday! (Thursday 🤦🏼‍♀️) Also, this is being posted from my phone because that’s what I’m working with at the moment. I’ll edit it’s appearance later when I can get on my computer.

Under the Weather

“Hailey…”

Jay’s singsong voice reaches my ears, seconds before a gentle hand grips my shoulder, giving it a soft nudge. I groan in response, feeling slightly disoriented as to why I’m seemingly half asleep and Jay is waking me up. I open my eyes and manage to pick my head up off the table I was laying against. A quick glance around the room tells me I’m in the break room, a half drank cup of coffee sits before me and I briefly remember making it. I look up at Jay who’s wearing a concerned look on his face as he sits down in the chair next to me, his hand still on my shoulder.

“Hey…”

I mumble weakly, my voice coming out hoarse from the sore throat that’s been developing all morning.

“Hey. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you look awful.”

He sends me an apologetic look as I scoff at his words. I rub my hands across my face, trying to relieve some of the pressure I can feel building in my sinuses. My face feels hot and I’m not sure if it's from the short nap I just had or if I’m getting a fever.

“I kinda feel awful.”

I reply, groaning again when my throat protests an attempt at swallowing. I pick up the mug of coffee and take a sip, grimacing when the now cold liquid touches my lips. Jay takes the mug from my hand and stands to refill it with some fresh coffee. I send him a grateful smile as I carefully sip at the hot beverage.

“You should go home, get some rest.”

His voice sounds worried and honestly, it’s kind of cute.

“I’ll be fine. I can survive the rest of the day and then I’ll pass out tonight.”

I smirk at him, hoping he’ll buy my fake chipper attitude. He doesn’t, of course.

“Hailey...you already did pass out, in the break room.”

He half teased, but I could tell I wasn’t going to win this argument. I nodded solemnly and pushed myself away from the table.

“You’re probably right.”

I stood from my seat, setting my half drank coffee in the sink and turning to leave the room. Jay followed behind me with a smug look on his face. I turned to raise an eyebrow in question, only making his smirk deepen.

“You must be sick, Hailey Upton just said I was right!”

He teased and playfully bumped into my shoulder as we walked through the doorway.

“Shut up.”

I chuckled, shaking my head at his antics as I headed towards the locker room to grab my things. Once at my locker, I sat on the bench in front of it and let my head rest in my hands. I was feeling worse by the minute and at this point I wasn’t even sure I wanted to drive home. I reached up and shut my locker door and then laid back on the bench, pulling my jacket across my chest and over my face in a makeshift blanket. Just as I was about to welcome sleep, I heard the locker room door open. I peaked my head out from under my coat and was met with Jay’s disapproving stare.

“I’ll drive you home.”

He informed me, stepping closer to pull the coat off of me and then reaching a hand down to pull me back up. Once standing, he helped me slide the coat onto my arms and we headed back out into the bullpen.

“Woah girl, didn’t know The Walking Dead was casting in Chicago.”

Kevin teased after taking one look at my sullen appearance. Kim gave me a sympathetic look, annoyed by his teasing and Vanessa gave me a small wave from her desk, looking apologetic that she was stuck on the phone. Adam simply gave an “oof” as I walked by, earning him an eye roll on my part. We headed down the steps, hoping to avoid any other pleasantries from anyone taking in my appearance, but Platt didn’t let anything slip by her.

“What’s the matter goldie locks, can’t find the right bed?”

I simply raised my hand in a halfhearted wave, pursing my lips as we walked by. Once in Jay’s truck, I let my head slump back against the seat, already feeling sleep coming my way.

“Do you need to grab anything before you go home?”

Jay asked, starting the truck and pulling us out of the lot.

“No, I’m all set. Thanks though.”

I gave him a weak smile, keeping my eyes closed as I felt him accelerate.

“Soup? Medicine?”

He pushed, sounding worried once again.

“I just want my bed.”

I mumbled, eager to climb in between my sheets and sleep this illness away. The drive to my place seemed short, but that was probably because I may have passed out again on the way. Jay pulled into my driveway and hoped out from his seat. I watched his head come around the front of the truck and then he was pulling my door open and helping me down. He followed me up the steps, apparently not trusting me to not just fall asleep on my front porch and stood behind me as I fumbled with the keys. In my hazy state I managed to drop them onto the ground below. Before my body could respond, Jay was swooping down to get them and then using them to unlock my door, pushing it open and motioning for me to step inside.

“My hero…”

I mumbled teasingly, noting a slight blush creep onto his cheeks.

“Can you make it up the stairs?”

He nodded towards the staircase leading up to my bedroom and I smiled at the thought of him having to help me up the stairs. Maybe he could tuck me into bed or stay and lend me some extra body heat since I was suddenly freezing. But that wasn’t the sort of thing friends did and that’s what we were, friends. Before I could get myself in any trouble, I shook my head no to his question.

“I’m all set Jay, thanks for bringing me home.”

I sent him a smile which he quickly returned.

“If you need anything, let me know. Text when you wake up so I know you’re still alive.”

He made his way back out my door as he spoke, grabbing the handle to pull it shut.

“Har har.”

I replied, chuckling at his concern. He shut my door and I kicked my shoes off before clambering up the steps and padding down the hall to my bedroom. Once inside, I didn’t even bother to change out of my work clothes before I was collapsing onto the mattress and pulling the covers over me.

***********

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I fell instantly asleep earlier, but I awoke in total darkness and to the sound of my phone buzzing in the distance. At some point I must have laid it on the bed beside me. I flipped it over, cringing at the assault of light it brought, but smiled when I saw Jay’s name across the screen.

“Hey..”

I answered, cringing again at the sound of my voice.

“You sound better.”

He lied, causing me to laugh slightly.

“I feel a little better. I totally should have taken you up on the medicine and soup offer though.”

I shifted in the bed, moving to sit up against my head board with the blankets still pulled over my lap.

“I can bring you some.”

He replied, bringing another smile to my face at his kind gesture.

“You don’t have to do that, I’ll just order something or ravage the kitchen.”

He chuckled on the other end of the phone, almost sounding nervous when he spoke again.

“Too late, I already grabbed you some stuff.”

I smiled again, he really was the best friend a girl could have. Although, if I was being honest, I thought of him as more than just a friend.

“That’s awesome. Just ring the doorbell when you’re here and I’ll come let you in. I’m not sure if V’s home yet.”

I was totally out of touch and wasn’t even sure what time it was.

“She’s not, she went to Molly’s. Said she didn’t want to wake you and figured you could use the extra sleep.”

He answered confidently. I nodded into the empty room, thankful for my roommate's consideration. We ended our call and no sooner had I set my phone on the coffee table did someone ring my doorbell. I laughed out loud, realizing that Jay had been outside the entire time but hadn’t said anything and climbed out of bed, making my way downstairs. I pulled open my front door with a smile, receiving one from him in return as he held up two bags from the local grocery store. He stepped inside and I motioned for him to set the goods on the counter while I went upstairs to change into some sweatpants real quick. When I came back down I couldn’t help but be surprised at the spread on my counter. Jay had brought me two huge containers of soup, complete with my favorite crackers. A bag of cough drops and a bottle of cold medicine. A box of popsicles sat beside it all and I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight, he really had thought of everything. I pulled a bowl out of my cupboard and went to grab some of the soup while it was still hot, eagerly adding the crackers as I went. Jay watched from his spot against the other counter as I devoured the meal he had brought me. Once done with that, I moved over to the box of popsicles and pulled out one for each of us, earning an eye raise from him as he took the treat. I put the box in the freezer and then padded into the living room with Jay in tow.

“You don’t have to stay. I don’t want to get you sick.”

I offered, honestly hoping he wouldn’t leave.

“And miss the opportunity to eat popsicles and watch crappy tv? No way!”

He scoffed, eating the frozen treat. We fell into a silence as The Office theme song played across my living room. We watched a few episodes before I felt my exhaustion start to creep back in. My body also shivered slightly and I was sure I had a fever. Jay hopped up from the couch and went to get the cold medicine from my counter. I choked the dose down and then smiled when I saw him grab a blanket from my basket and lay it over me. I snuggled into the warm fabric, watching as Jay settled back onto his side of the couch. The blanket was warm but it still wasn’t enough to keep me from shivering. Jay noticed and gave me a hesitant look before he scooted over on the couch next to me. I didn’t say a word as he moved me forward and crawled into the space behind me, wrapping his arms around my torso and pulling me back against him. He tucked the blanket around us and I melted into the heat he was providing. Any other time, neither one of us would have been this close, but right now I was thankful for his presence. I snuggled in closer to him, throwing all caution to the wind as the scent of his light cologne reached my nose. I could feel the medicine starting to take effect and between that and the exhaustion I couldn’t help but lose myself in the moment.

“My hero.”

I muttered again, repeating my earlier words as my eyes fluttered closed and my body finally stopped shivering. I let out a sigh as I let myself succumb to the sleep that I so desperately needed.

[trainsinanime]

No Time To Die

Alright, now for the long post. This was a good movie. It was not a great movie, but I had fun. It was a competent action thriller, it did nothing to really annoy me, and it had lots of fun little moments. Let’s discuss, with some very intense spoilers.

First of all, I gotta give props to this movie for knowing its aesthetics, something that the first two Craig Bonds really struggled with. This one perfectly commits to its own brand of dirty and gritty that still feels like a heightened reality. There’s exotic locales but they’re generally shot from street level; there’s almost no luxury here. That might not be very Bond-like in any classic sense, but it works perfectly for this movie.

Beyond the aesthetics, the movie is big on themes and meaning to stuff, and it generally works well. As the last movie of its era (and wow do they make sure you know that), it’s full of callbacks to older Bonds, weirdly enough Lazenby and Dalton specifically, and it deals heavily with the concept of legacy. Bond gets a successor as 007, and a daughter, of all things. The question of “what’s life after Bond” is explored in a lot of detail. Seeing him in M’s office with a visitor badge is just delightful.

(And yes, giving him a five year old daughter sounds corny, and indeed it is. But it is the kind of corny that works in the heightened reality of this movie. I wouldn’t say they handled this sub-plot super well or interestingly, but it was perfectly okay, unlike all the weird “family” stuff in Spectre.)

That said, there are definitely limits to how far the themes and meaning really go. Yes, he does get his successors, but we don’t really explore what impact he has had on them. His daughter gets no character at all, and the new 007 grows warmer towards him, but she doesn’t seem to have been influenced by him in any meaningful way. I feel like that’s okay in the finished product, but this is also something that could have been even more interesting if they had been willing to go there and maybe flip fewer Land Rovers. Everybody likes a Land Rover being thrown on its roof, but after the fifth one (count them!), it gets a bit old.

This movie produces a very human Bond, which has been a core theme of the Craig era of course, but I would argue that this and Skyfall are the only ones that actually succeed. Bond is still not a particularly interesting character with a lot of depth, but this movie knows that, and instead pairs him constantly with colourful more interesting supporting characters that really make him shine. His relationships with Felix, Paloma, Q, Moneypenny, M, 007 and so on are all a lot of fun, and all very distinct and interesting.

In return, this is easily the weakest Bond villain ever by far, and I’m okay with that. This is a rare Bond movie that is really nota bout the villain or even about set pieces, but about character development, and it makes sense for the villain to take a step back here. That means the movie does have the classic Marvel problem of charismatic heroes (or here support characters) and utterly forgettable villains, but it’s a trade-off that the MCU keeps making for a reason.

If there is one part of the movie that really drags it down - a bit, it’s still perfectly okay - then it’s Madeleine.

At its core, this movie isn’t Bond, it’s Madeleine’s. The villain, in particular, does not actually have a relationship with Bond, despite a particularly weak attempt at a “we’re not so different you and I” thing at the last moment. The two men are only connected via Madeleine. Her relationship with the villain is meaningful and is the literal start of the movie; it’s what drives the plot. At the same time, her relationship with Bond is the emotional core of the movie, even if he does get quite a bit of subplots of his own.

I think that’s a great choice in theory. Compare this to Days of Future Past, an X-Men movie where technically Wolverine is the main character, but he’s really only here as a tour guide through other people’s arcs. This is the perfect way to make a Bond movie actually about something. Other Bond movies have tried similar things, of course, but this one takes it to a new level.

The problem is that Madeleine’s relationships with these two men don’t actually work that well. Her relationship with Bond was set up in Spectre, and even though I watched that movie, I cannot remember anything about it. What little I see here doesn’t really work for me. Yes, she’s pretty, he’s Bond, they’re in an Aston Martin on Italy, you know the rest, that’s good enough for an opening. But it doesn’t go beyond that. I don’t get the impression that there’s any actual intimacy here. They don’t seem to have anything in common, and they don’t seem interesting on screen together.

This is especially notable towards the end of the cold open, where Bond flies into a full-Connery style rage mode and goes essentially, “what did you do, you silly untrustworthy little girl”. Not gonna lie, I found that very uncomfortable. If that’s how close they are, then I fully support them breaking up. Their break-up definitely did not feel like the movie’s defining tragedy.

A good comparison might be Franka Potente in Bourne Identity 2. There’s a very similar setup in that movie’s opening, but it actually works, and I actually buy their relationship. This is not the case.

A related issue is that Madeleine’s main agency in this movie is choosing to lie to Bond. She does not tell him about her tragic backstory, or how that could have led to people shooting at him, or her daughter, or that she’s being blackmailed. Now, I think it’s perfectly valid for her to do so. If she doesn’t trust Bond enough to tell him this, that would be interesting and I’d definitely believe it. If she’s too traumatised, yeah, I get it (that seems to be what the movie is going for but it doesn’t really commit to this). But the movie doesn’t establish anything like that. She lies to him, well, just because, I guess.

Her relationship with the villain (yes, I do not remember his name, well spotted) is a similar waste of potential. The two don’t really talk. He is fascinated with her because… he didn’t kill her that one time, I guess. But this isn’t explored in any way. Meanwhile, her relationship with him is that he threatens her and her daughter, and she’d like for that to stop. For all the weight this relationship has been given at the start of the movie, it doesn’t actually end up going anywhere once they meet. And that’s particularly notable because she is a psychoanalyst; the opportunity for her to explore what makes him tick was right there.

I’m making this sound worse than it is. It’s still perfectly enjoyable. But I feel like there’s a hypothetical extended cut of this movie that’s three times better, where Maddy gets five minutes of screen time to just talk with the men, and where she actually makes choices about what she tells them and why.

The final issue is that the theming, already not super strong, breaks down at the end. The movie actually seems to think that there is a sort of meaningful parallel or connection between the villain and Bond, and even goes for a particular deep and meaningful plot point where Bond can’t be with his family because he’ll literally kill them if he touches them. You know, he’s a killer, he brings death to the ones he loves, it’s what passes for a metaphor in these parts. Except textually speaking, that’s just not the case. Felix was killed by someone who Felix dragged along, and the villain here was after Madeleine, not Bond. He is 100% a force for good here.

Is that a huge problem? Nah, but again, it’s something that could have been better.

The real main problem with the movie is something else: Throughout the film, it is clearly established that explosions don’t harm James Bond, they just disorient him. It starts at Vesper’s grave, then Felix’s ship gets sunk, then there’s the hand grenades in the video game section in the final bunker, and it’s always absolutely clear: Explosions may stun Bond, but they don’t actually hurt him. Only bullets can do that.

And then they go and kill him in a huge explosion. That’s just sloppy foreshadowing.

[jimlingss]

The Colour of Our Voices [5]

Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6

➜ Words: 2.8k

➜ Genres: 98% Fluff, 2% Angst, Slice of Life, Broadway!AU

➜ Summary: He wasn’t supposed to hear. He wasn't supposed to know. But the instant Jimin came into your life and pulled the curtains back, you couldn't hide backstage anymore. You were no longer merely a phantom of the opera.

cr.

The day has finally arrived.   Jimin opens the door for you and follows.   “You’re going to do great,” he reassures in a soft murmur.   “We’ll do great,” you correct and he grins.   The both of you enter the room and it’s a familiar scene. There are people pacing around the room, singing while making wild gestures, trying to round out their sound and warm up their throats. These beautiful people are getting into character, aiming for the main role of Cosette or Marius. It’s obvious that they went to salons to get makeovers, nails done, face full of makeup, clothing fresh from the laundromat.   But unlike the last audition, this time you have someone with you. You’re not so scared with Jimin by your side. And he’s close enough, avoiding being hit by the people theatrically swinging their arms, that his shoulder brushes with yours.   “Are these auditions really always this...extravagant?”   “It’s all for show,” you tell him, reminded of the stranger’s words from last time. “Don’t be intimidated.”   He hums and nods while the pair of you take a seat. “Should we intimidate them then?”   You burst out laughing. “How would we do that?”   “We’ll dance.”   You giggle even louder and he gazes at you with his own smile. “I’m pretty sure security would escort me off the premise for scaring everyone.”   “You’re not that bad,” Jimin emphasizes. “But I’m kidding. All you have to do to intimidate others is start singing. You’ll blow them all out of the water so fast, they’ll leave without even trying.”   Usually, you’d get flustered from his praise. Maybe you’d even feel greasy from the way he butters you up so excessively, but at this moment when the nerves are beginning to ebb at your mind, you appreciate it.   Jimin’s your personal cheerleader.   “What do you want to do after?” he suddenly asks, pulling your thoughts away on how your palms are getting clammy and tearing your eyes away from the beautiful girl across the room who’s gracefully flipping through a script.   “What do you mean?”   “For dinner, silly.” Jimin’s eyes light up, crinkling when he smiles. “What do you want to eat?”   “I’m fine with anything.”   “Oh c’mon.” He nudges you gently. “You gotta have a better opinion than that. If we do well during the audition, then it can be a celebratory dinner. And if we do badly, then it’ll be like comfort food.”   Another laugh comes spilling out. “How about fried chicken then?”   Jimin snaps his fingers. “You read my mind. We’re always on the same wavelength, aren’t we? But whose apartment are we going to tonight?”   Neither of you want to leave a mess or the smell of greasy chicken wings to linger in your home to haunt you for breakfast. So an intense game of rock-paper-scissors begins — one where you lose and Jimin’s throwing his arms up into the air doing childish fist pumps before he throws his arms over you and gives a triumphant hug. Jimin rubs his victory in your face, making you laugh while being smothered by his affection. You don’t notice some of the stares in the room.    Jimin continues talking about nonsense that doesn’t matter, keeping you from thinking too hard and getting nervous. He’s doing it on purpose to distract you and knowing so puts you even more at ease.   But you’re on your own when he gets called in first.   “Good luck, okay?”   You clasp his hand, squeezing. He smiles softly and nods. Jimin stands, fingers still tightly on yours until he has to let go. You watch his backside and the door closes.   You hope he does well — he’s practiced and prepared lots, and even wanted you to choose his song for him. He said it would make it more meaningful, so you picked the song ‘We Kiss in the Shadow’ from The King and I, another Broadway show you once watched when you were young.   It was perfect for him, and you memorized the lyrics as well.   Trying to keep your composure, you shut your eyes, tapping your finger against your bag. You envision Jimin inside the room, in the center of the space with faceless judges, singing.   You murmur with him. “We kiss in a shadow, we hide from the moon. Our meetings are few and over too soon.” He’ll be just fine. You believe in him, his gift, his personality, his likability. “We speak in a whisper, afraid to be heard. When people are near, we speak not a word.”   You’re humming to yourself and soon enough, after ten full minutes, the door opens again.   You stand, coming to grab his hands and search his expression. “How’d you do?”   “Fine.” Jimin smiles, and suddenly your own name gets called on the list.   The timing is poor.   It’s too sudden. You haven’t even asked him on the details of his audition. You’re unprepared, disoriented. But Jimin helps you grab your belongings and he fixes the collar of your shirt, then urges you forward with a grin. “You can do it.”   You nod, taking a deep breath and following after the lady.   It’s like last time — exhausted faces lazily watching you, their pupils flickering while their bodies are slumped in their uncomfortable chair like they’ve been encased in ice. But it’s fewer people than last time. There are two producers, a music director, a casting director, and a writer.   You approach the group of them with another deep breath, handing out your application package of headshots and resumes.   “Hello, my name is Y/N L/N.” You stand on the tape that’s been put in the center of the room, and you offer your best smile.   “Hello Y/N,” the lady off the left of the table says as she lances at your application. “Today, you’re auditioning for…?”   “The role of a factory girl, so part of the female ensemble.”   “Alright then.” She jots something down. “Can you tell us anything about your experiences? It doesn’t have to be on Broadway either, any experience you have with musicals.”   You nod vigorously, clearing your throat. You’re more prepared than last time, and it helps to know that there’s someone waiting for you on the outside who is praying and hoping for your success as much as you were doing for his.   “I performed at my local theater since I was ten. I also went through a theater company school and I moved to New York shortly after on my own. Currently, I’m working as an intern for the production of Phantom of the Opera here in this studio.”   There are more hums. The man in the center looks up and puts down his pen. “Is there a reason you haven’t performed since graduating? It looks like there’s been quite a bit of a time gap since your last on-stage performance.”   “Oh, um….” You rack your brain before you scrape by with an excuse. “I had some family issues in the past several years. It prevented me from performing, but now I’m ready to again.”   There are understanding nods and you take a sigh of relief.   The woman asks, “What song will you be singing for us today?”   “When Will Someone Hear by Martin Guerre.” You head over to the pianist in the corner, handing them the sheet music before you stride back to the center of the room.   Your palms are getting clammy, the world is starting to spin. You swallow hard.   “You can start when you’re ready,” the bored producer states in a monotone.   You inhale another deep breath. You can do it — there’s only five of them watching. It’s not too bad.    You try to imagine that it’s just Jimin watching, so you give a signal to the pianist and the notes begin.   “W-When will someone hear? All I know is fear.” It’s off to a bad start, your voice cracking, going out of tune, though you quickly stead yourself.   But it’s happening again.    You put your hands behind your back, hiding the tremor. “A-And now I see the loneliness of losing all you trust. Day has turned to night. Stone has turned to dust. And now I need to find the words. When will someone hear?”   Your voice goes quieter and quieter against your will. This isn’t how you practiced. This isn’t what you prepared. This isn’t how you wanted this to go. But you feel so out of control.   Time is moving too quickly — and it’s happening in front of you. Your body won’t listen.   Your eyes divert, unable to hold consistent contact with theirs when you feel your face drained of blood. Their scrutiny is too much. Your heart is pumping so fast, you can feel it all the way up to your throat and it clogs it, keeping the proper notes from streaming out.    “Love that once was close. Faith that once was clear. Now all I've known and all I've loved is all I have to grieve.”   Your face twitches. Your mouth goes dry. You’re so dizzy, you might throw up.   The spotlight is too much to handle.    “All that I've begun. All that I believe is just another broken dream. W-When will someone hear?”   You’re choking over your own singing. The notes are smothered. And you want to cry, especially when you can see it in slow motion — the man raising his hand to silence the pianist, the instrument fading away, the opportunity slipping from your fingers.   They can’t hear you the way you want them to.   “I-I’m sorry,” you apologize immediately. “I got so nervous, I—”   “It’s alright.” The woman offers a sympathetic smile. “Thank you for coming in today. We’ll give you a call to let you know the outcome in the following week.”   You would have preferred that they laughed at you, that they told you to get out. The kindness, the pitied looks, acting like you have a real chance — it’s mocking. It hurts.   You leave the room, holding back tears. Jimin meets you half-way and reads your expression with his brows scrunched, lips lopsided. You exhale a staggering breath, shaking your head, and you tell him directly—   “I did badly.”   “I’m sure you did fine,” he murmurs but when you shake your head again, the two of you merely walk out together in tense silence. Jimin glances at you a few times. “I didn’t do too great either,” he admits with a self-deprecating smile. “When they asked for my name, I got so nervous, I accidentally said Bark Jimin.”   “What?”   You turn to him.   “Bark Jimin,” he deadpans and sighs. “Can you believe that?”   You laugh. It bubbles out without you realizing. Then you wipe at your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt, sniffling hard. Jimin puts an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to his chest. It’s warm in the cold night.   “Why do I keep messing up, Jimin? What’s wrong with me?”   “Nothing,” he answers, able to see a cloud emit from his lips into the chilly air as he speaks. “There’s definitely nothing wrong with you. Some things we succeed in, some things we don’t. But it’s always a learning experience. They’ll always be a next time, right?”   You’re comforted by his presence, by his words.   The pair of you are in this together. You’re not alone in your successes or failures.   “So you up for some fried chicken?” he asks and keeps staring. “Hmm?”   “Yeah.”   “Hmmm?!” he increases his volume, decreasing the distance between you two even more until your foreheads are almost bumping against each other’s.   “Yes!” You laugh and Jimin shifts away again, satisfied since he was waiting for that smile.   The both of you go off into the night together.   //   It’s the first time that you don’t feel so bad about messing up an audition.   They’re rare and hard to come by and when you fuck it up, you often go through the stages of grief, feeling like you’ve reeled back to square one, making you question all things. But you bounce right back with Jimin right here.   He’s your partner in crime who motivates and comforts you. He walks in sync with your footsteps — never does it feel like you’re racing, that you’re trying to catch up to him.   You’re in this crazy madness together.   You tie your garbage bags, hauling them out of your apartment with your arms straining from the weight. The door shuts behind you as you lug it down the hallway, but then there’s a sudden shout of your name.   It comes from a smooth, very familiar timbre.   “Y/N!”   You turn around, catching the brunette walking down the wall, having turned the corner where the stairwell is. His eyes light up. They shimmer in the corridor lights and he approaches with his hands dug in the pockets of his trench coat.   It takes too long, so he runs to you, meeting you the entire way.   “Did you get a call?”   “No—”   “I got the role!” he exclaims happily, jumping up and down, cheeks nearly bursting from his enormous smile. Jimin pulls you in for a hug, giddy laughter spilling from his chest. “I got the role for Les Mis!”   You feel your heart drop to your stomach — your blood runs cold — you’re shell-shocked.   “R-Really?”   “Yes!” He pulls apart from you, but his hands are still placed securely on your shoulders. He might get a noise complaint for how loud he’s being, but he doesn’t care. “They told me I got the role of Jean Prouvaire.”   “Wow—”   “He’s part of the Les Amis de l’ABC or whatever that means, well I know what it means but it’s not important right now. Listen, Y/N, the character is a shy poet, loves flowers, and is a bad dresser. A good fit for me, right? Except for the bad dresser part — or at least hopefully they don’t think I’m a bad dresser. I only get around one line and I get shot two thirds of the way through, but this means I get to make my Broadway debut! My Broadway debut, Y/N!”   He’s rambling, so eager and excited.   You muster up a stiff smile that cracks at the corners. But he’s too caught up in his own world to notice, to read your expression, see the way it turns sour.   “T-That’s great, Jimin. Congrats…”   You can’t mean it sincerely. You can’t find it in you to be truly happy for him.   He lied to you — he didn’t do poorly in the audition. Not if he got a role.   “I’m so excited, Y/N! I couldn’t have done it without you. They said my singing really sold them.”   Your jealousy and envy make you feel ugly. Jimin makes you feel ugly.   “—wanting this so badly—”   It’s not that you blame him for failing the audition — that was your fault and yours only. But suddenly, you can’t fathom why you were hoping and praying so desperately for him to succeed when he obviously didn’t need it. You should’ve prayed for yourself.    Why did you think his accomplishments would be your own — you’re both different people. Why you were wasting your time — you should’ve spent it on yourself.    Why do you put your heart on your sleeve?   You’ve made a mistake. A horrible mistake.   “—guess I won’t have to work as an intern anymore!”   You thought you were in this together. But you’re not. You can’t believe you could’ve been so stupid. Jimin was never walking in sync with you. The two of you were never even on the same path, on the journey together. You’re not friends, not even colleagues, just neighbors at most.    Strangers who happen to live next to one another.   He’s gotten what he wants from you. He just wanted you to teach him how to sing, and now he’s finally better than his teacher. He’s succeeded. While you’re still stuck here. For the past year.   “They told me to come in next Monday—”   Jimin’s voice drowns in and out. You’re no longer paying any attention. You’re merely watching his delighted grin, his rosy cheeks that threaten to burst, how it almost breaks his face. You wonder when his smile became so damn irritating to look at.    “—I’m actually performing on stage on Broadway.”   You self-sabotaged yourself. All those nights spent with him, teaching him, you should’ve used to practice yourself. You should’ve worked harder instead of being so concerned about him. You were so wrapped up in Jimin that you neglected your own career.   And now he gets to pour salt all over your wounds. He gets to rub it in your face.   “My parents are gonna be so stoked to hear. They can finally be proud of me—”   You failed to realize...   “I can’t believe I’m actually performing on stage on Broadway, Y/N. I came here just two months ago and I already have myself a role.”   Jimin was your rival this entire time.

[theboyz-engup]

To All The Boyz I’ve Loved Before; Letter One

Summary-

It was wonderful what a few little letters could do; they could make or break a friendship, cause someone to laugh or smile, make someone remember the time of their life or that moment they wanted to forget. Just some words on paper and poof, everyone knew the way your heart beat and workings of your brain. High school really did wonders on you, as did those twelve boys. Maybe they didn’t know it, but they changed your whole life with each smile, each wave, and each word you typed into paper. You made them permanent, and now they had to know why.

Word Count- 3.8K

Previous Letter - Next Letter

“Hey, rockstar.”

Sangyeon heard his nickname through his headphones, taking one out with a raise of his eyebrows. His father was standing in the doorway with a little smile, a leg crossed over the other.

He held out a little envelope and shook it slightly, beckoning for his son to come forward. “You got this in the mail today.”

Sangyeon closed his mouth only to open it again, saying, “me?”

“No, the ghost you play basketball with.” 

At least he’s in a good mood, Sangyeon thought, a faint smile forming on his lips at the joke. He tossed it as Yeon climbed the few steps to the front door, forcing him to choose between the ball under his arm or the mail. Somehow, he managed to keep both clutched against his body, though he was bent inwards with the ball between his legs and chest while he nearly crumpled the letter. His dad only snickered, shaking his head.

“Do you know who it’s from?” he asked without thought, fixing himself up so the ball was between his calves now and he stood straight. The man in front of him only shrugged, moving to go back inside.

“All I know is that they’ve got one old type writer.”

Sangyeon didn’t bother to ask how he knew, flipping the envelope over to see the ink pressed onto the back of it in perfect script. He always thought typewriter script was pretty, though he couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps it was the idea of old-age nostalgia; or maybe he was just being, what the kids would call, a local.

Sitting down on his steps, keeping the ball somewhat to his left, his fingers worked at the envelope until it opened. There was a letter in there, maybe two pages long but with a few things scratched out. It looked almost like a rough copy of an essay? It was so disorienting but once he read his name on the page, he couldn’t put it down.

To Lee Sangyeon,

So this is kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? A hand written letter is horrible but a typewriter? That seems... worse somehow, like I actively sought out a creative way to message you but that’s not it at all. It’s more like my grandpa gave me a typewriter when I was eleven and it’s been sitting on my desk for a while now. I haven’t used it since- well since he gave it to me.

But here we are. And here’s this message. God you probably don’t even know who I am so I guess we have to start at the beginning.

Early September 2014

You were walking around the building after classes. You didn’t particularly want to go home, not yet at least. You wanted to do something that didn’t make you feel helplessly alone though you couldn’t figure out how. You were a freshman at a new school, miles away from home in some smaller town. You weren’t used to it, being born in a big city. Here, everything was quaint and small and no taller than six stories. Seeing the look on peoples faces when you said you used to live on the eleventh floor was funny, yeah, but it still made you sad. Nobody really knew much about city life and, if they did, they were much older than you and had established new friends.

Realizing it had only been a week or two since the start of school, you weren’t totally upset. You had time; the only problem was you just didn’t know what to do with it. Then, suddenly someone called your name and you turned your head to see a girl from math class waving at you. She smiled brightly, calling you over.

“Do you want to watch the basketball tryouts with me?”

You shoved your fingers through the loops of your backpack, cocking your head to the side as you repeated, “basketball tryouts?”

The girl’s eyes were bright as she nodded, motioning towards the courts outside while saying, “it’s one of our school’s best sports. Usually all the popular people try out and make idiots of themselves, though the good players are also fun to watch. It’s a tryout most people watch- or so my sister says.”

“She goes here?” You followed closely beside her as she walked towards the courts. The girl nodded.

“She’s a junior now, but she’s been checking in on me for most of the beginning of the year.” The girl hid slightly behind her thin, white turtleneck, which contrasted deeply with her skin. You nearly asked where she got the shirt before the girl continued, “do you think she can tell I’m scared? I don’t know anyone who goes to this high school besides her.”

She must’ve seen the confusion on your lips because she quickly added, “we lived on the other side of town and my parents let me finish middle school there.”

“Oh,” you drew out, nodding a bit until you managed, “you know, I think we’re all scared. High school is weird, especially when you just moved and don’t know people.”

She smiled at you before extending her hand. She held a pack of gum in it, sticking out a piece as she said, “I’m Amalia. Do you want some?”

You nodded, almost forgetting to tell her your name as you reached the bleachers outside the courts and took seats. She popped a piece into your hand before popping two in her mouth.

“I’m y/n.”

“Nice to meet you, y/n,” Amalia beamed, looking away from you to the courts, “any good at math?”

“Absolutely not,” you chuckled. She giggled back, shaking her head.

“Then that’s even more of a reason to be friends. I’ll tutor you.”

“Are you an angel?” you asked, laughter on your lips. She only shrugged, lifting her finger to press it against her lips and whispering ‘shh, don’t tell anyone’.

Very suddenly and all at once, you didn’t feel so alone. There was her and there were the cheers of all the older kids in the higher up bleachers and the sound of basketballs hitting the ground. She filled you in on all the details, pointing out people you might have seen.

“That’s Victoria, she’s the first girl who tried out for the co-ed basketball team,” she explained, gazing at her with awe. You did the same, watching her skillfully weave through people and shoot a three-pointer.

“How was it a co-ed team if there were no girls?”

Amalia snorted, muttering, “you tell me.”

She pointed at a boy wearing a flannel around his waist. “That’s Bae Jacob. He usually doesn’t play sports but it’s the only one he’ll come out of the music room for.” As he took a poor shot, someone behind you still screeched his name. You turned to see a wild eyed boy with lots of soul clapping for him. Someone you’d seen at your local plant shop laughed as he held onto the boy’s arm, begging him to stop.

“And that’s Lee Juyeon.” Amalia pointed at someone who looked more like he was flying than running, taking swift steps and practically swinging under people’s arms. If you knew better, you would say he did basketball on the side and practiced something different regularly. You thought parkour.

“It’s actually dance,” Amalia giggled, shaking her head at you, “you should check out our dance club, they go to competitions and stuff. Have their own name and everything. Their rivals are these kids called Astro from a school some miles east? I think.”

“Oh,” you said for what felt like the millionth time that day until your eyes landed on him and god, there was no mistaking him for anyone.

It feels stupid dumb for me to be saying this but you felt so familiar like you reminded me of Eric of one of my oldest friends. He also plays basketball but not nearly as good as you. He isn’t good at all actually, but he tries. But there you were and you were marvellous. No matter how good I thought everyone else was, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Is that what people call star quality? I don’t know.

After that, Amalia and I spent days coming to your practices. She was interested in basketball so I was able to cover it up well. While Amalia talked about the techniques, I kept my mouth shut about you. I would do my homework and pretend not to care. It was really pathetic dumb actually, I’m sure anyone would’ve guessed it. Especially after the way I made a fool of myself the day you figured out who I was.

Late September 2014 

“Hey!”

Your heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice. You watched the basketball shoot over the fence and onto the bleachers. You flicked your head down as quick as you could, trying to look oblivious. It was the one day you hadn’t come with Amalia and god, you felt so creepy just watching them practice. People did it all the time but none did it by themselves (or pretended like they weren’t as they stared at their terribly done math homework).

“Could you pass the ball?” Another voice hollered. You knew they didn’t have another one out but you were stuck between pretending like you couldn’t hear it or helping out and tripping on the way there. You debated with yourself for a split second until you placed your notebook to the side and leaned down to grasp the ball. Your hands were shaking and your ming was reeling. Sangyeon had run around the fence already and was standing at the bottom of the bleachers, panting from the heated air.

His blue t-shirt stuck to his collarbone and his hair was pushed out of his forehead. You tried your hardest to ignore the pull in your heart when he motioned for the ball with a smile. Taking a few steps down so you could toss it a closer distance felt like a century. Your legs were jello and it was absolutely nerve-wracking passing the ball to him. He caught it easily, saying a very quick thanks. He nearly turned on his heel to leave but something tugged him forward and he faced you again.

“You know, I’ve seen you here before. Do you play?”

All you could do was shake your head and he gave you a small smile. “They’re having try-outs for the lower grades inter-murals soon. You could do those if you’re interested.”

“I could if I was interested,” you managed, though perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing to say. Mentally giving yourself a firm slap, you tugged your lips between your teeth. He quirked up an eyebrow at you. 

“You’re not?” He didn’t even wait for you to respond, watching you fold your hands and open your mouth a bit before chuckling and saying, “I see, you’re just here to scope out the guys.”

The joking tone in his voice, however true it was, gave you some confidence. You snorted, pink forming on your cheeks as you muttered, “just one.”

“Come on, Sangyeon!” A younger student in your brother’s grade called, running a hand through his hair while the other waved the older student over. He had no idea who you were talking about, though the way your eyes seemed to linger on the player who called him over probably threw him off track.

Sangyeon simply made a knowing face, rolling the ball over in his hands. He began walking away, kindness written all over his face as he informed, “we’ll be helping run try-outs if you want.”

You didn’t know what kind of upper-year he was but he sure wasn’t a normal one. Talking to you was unnecessarily sweet and you would’ve been fine with the interaction if that’s all it was. In fact, you would’ve looked back on the day through gold film; if only you hadn’t fallen walking back up the metal stairs of the bleachers and popping your shoulder from its socket.

I doubt my identity is any secret to you now- not that I really planned on keeping it a secret but I guess a part of me didn’t want you to know. I’ve thought about this day a lot. I’m sure I passed out from the pain at one point, I’ve never been too good with pain. I heard you helped with calling the ambulance and dialled an emergency contact from the section on my lock screen.

You were so nice and I was so embarrassed. I never wanted to face you again because I just knew what you’d think of me. You’d always see me as that clumsy girl, the one who liked a basketball boy a little too much but you didn’t even know. You had no idea how much I really wanted you to see me, but it was impractical. I’m sorry.

Lifting his head from the letter, Sangyeon very vaguely remembered that day. You were just a freshman who he’d never seen before and he saw the way you watched the games. You never failed to miss a practice or a game before that; but after that, he never saw you again. He turned the the envelope over, looking at your address for a moment. Why now? Four years later, why were you bringing this up now?

The ball he had beside him rolled almost down the stairs and, in time with the wind, he released what was left of the letter to prevent the ball from rolling into the street. The last page drifted away and for a moment, Sangyeon was caught. Did he need to read the rest of it? Did he need to find out what you wanted, why you mentioned this now? He paused, standing up on the stairs and watching the white pages rest on the pavement.

With the next rush of wind, he was on his toes, bouncing to catch the papers and envelope. Somehow, the questions he had were too much for him to ignore.

I saw you one more time after that- okay, technically I saw you around school a lot and my cheeks would turn pink but you wouldn’t know. You were too busy being studying in the library or laughing too hard in the cafeteria. You were never without a basketball. I hope you stay like that.

Early October 2014

Amalia was showing you a video on her small phone screen in the hallways during lunch. You had her headphone stuck in one ear and she had the other. Trying hard to hear the what the video was saying, you cupped a hand over your open ear to block out the noise. It was just some music but there were people dancing and you wanted to hear the beats to really appreciate their talent. Only, there were so many people in the hallway. Why did everyone decide to stand around here when there was literally anywhere else to be?

“Y/n!”

You barely heard the call down the hallway. There it came again though, and once more in a slightly cautious tone. Uncovering your ear, you heard him so close and stopped breathing. Amalia nudged you with her elbow to turn around and slowly, you came face to face with him. Lee Sangyeon.

He smiled, ball under his arm. He held a notebook in his free hand, extending it out to you. “I think you left this in one of your classes.”

Your heart skipped a beat. That was a notebook you reserved for first period English classes, where you usually spaced out and drew little notes in them. Since you found out his name, you’d been doodling little notes with his name in all the alphabets you knew (those turned out to be all the alphabets he knew). You panicked a bit, thanking him and really praying he didn’t see anything.

From the way he was looking at you, you thought you were safe. He only explained how he knew it was you, saying, “I remembered your name from when you fell on the bleachers so I figured I’d take it to you and see how you were doing after you fell.”

“How’d you know where we were?” Amalia asked, being slightly suspicious but with a little hint of a smile on her lips. She was doing it to be cheeky for you, finding out more information on the guy you were fawning over.

He shrugged. “Lucky guess that you’d be around our mid-season’s final game, huh?”

God, he was such a man. The way his eyes glittered had your heart in his hands and you could barely force out words that made sense.

“Who are you playing against?”

“They’re from S.T.A.Y. Academy,” Sangyeon answered so easily. He didn’t know that his words were like butter. You found yourself saying ‘oh’ again, as if you had no other words to say. Amalia was instantly in to cover up how awkward you were.

“I love them! They’ve got such good players,” she gushed, about to open her mouth about how she admired a certain freshman on the team, Seungmin. Sangyeon’s face turned a bit sour, lowering his voice to warn her.

“Don’t say that too loud. The players are friends but most people consider them our biggest rivals.”

It was Amalia’s turn to become awkward. You had to save the day, you and your fingers which worked at twirling the end of your notebook inwards for Yeon never to see your notes with his name in the margins. You hated to admit it but you were a sucker for teenage romance and being caught in one- albeit a one-sided and obviously baseless romance- you couldn’t help but follow the tropes. You had your initials with his last name and replayed every moment you saw him. You really were only fourteen at heart and turning fifteen, one step closer to reality and loves that meant something: that seemed foreign to you.

“T-thank you for the book,” you stuttered and he gave you another smile. It filled his cheeks and eyes, reaching into the warmest parts of his face. Your heart fluttered so senselessly.

“It’s no problem,” he assured you, rolling the ball against his chest lightly before asking, “how’s that arm doing?”

“Better now that it’s back in place.” Something you would’ve said if you were comfortable with him. Something you did say. You were shocked slightly, blinking as Sangyeon chuckled.

“That’s good then. Maybe next year, you’ll try out for the team, yeah?”

Was he trying to build your morale or was he hinting at something else? Amalia only snickered at this, knowing how helpless you were with a ball. If anyone were to try out, it should be her. She wouldn’t dare.You wouldn’t care after this year, you decided. 

You were going to say something, it was on the tip of your tongue, but his name got called down the hallway. Swallowing, you realized how foolish it was to forget where you were and who he was. Captain of the basketball team, captain of your heart for a few months, Lee Sangyeon.

“Stays are pulling in!” Juyeon- at least you thought it was Juyeon- called. The people in the hallways grumbled but there was excitement in the air now. Sangyeon nodded, saying he was coming and turned to you with a grin wider than ever. He was electrifying when he looked like that.

“Gotta go, y/n. Feel better, yeah?” His hand plopped onto your head and ruffled the hair there a little. In most ways, you hated it but it was cute. Amalia deeply inhaled to withhold laughing. You didn’t catch yourself breathing at all. As he dashed down the hallway, pulling away from you, he hollered, “wish me luck!”

As people formed in around him, going to follow and meet the other team and the kids that came along with them, you watched him go. Clutching the notebook close to your chest and dipping your eyes to the ground, you mumbled, “good luck.”

Amalia was the first to scream. “Did you see that? Oh my god! Y/n, I’m-”

Deep down, you wished she would stop.

And that’s that. I won’t make an effort to see you anymore, I know there’s no point. You must know by now that I really do like you; but I want to stop. It’s just a fantasy, you know? Nothing more and nothing less. You’re a senior and I’m a freshman. You have a life and I’m just figuring out how to breathe out of water.

But I want to say thank you and I want to tell you that I’m glad you were the first person I noticed in grade nine. In a way, you gave me Amalia and I don’t know what I’d do without her. Sure, it’s only a few months into freshman year but I feel like we’ll really be friends. And I want to say thank you for the confidence you gave me. I think I might try out next year for the team, even if I won’t make it.

Since you didn’t hear me the first time, I’ll say it again. Good luck! Good luck graduating, yeah? I hope you get into the school you want. I hope you enjoy university and that you keep playing. You never know who you might meet on the court or who’s been spending time after school just to see you play.

From, y/n y/l/n. On October 29th, 2014

Sangyeon paused for a moment, having finished the letter. He chuckled at the date. You wrote this four years ago, why send it out now? It was outdated in every sense. He didn’t even go to university, he got drafted to play in a league- not that you would know that. Though, somehow he found it bittersweet. Part of him really wanted to know: did you try out? Are you and Amalia still friends?

It had been four years. So much can change in four years. Deep down, a part of him told him not to care. You were just 14, you had your whole life ahead of you. He was just a two month step in your road and yet, he wanted to ask you why. Why him out of all people? Was it only him? Why a letter? He didn’t have all of the answers he wanted but he had some. He knew who you were and your old address. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a problem to go and ask you for clarification, see how much you grew, maybe see how you play.

Getting up from his seat on the front porch steps, he dashed down to grab his ball. He’d go after dinner maybe, to see how you were. Swooping it up from the ground, he heard a little hello from across the street. It was Chanhee, coming home from work. They waved at each other. Chanhee’s hair was blonde now. In a way, it suited him.

Sangyeon smiled. Things really do change in four years but, in a way, they also stood the same. The tree on his lawn rustled in the wind and the sun passed. The air he breathed was crisp and clear. Fall would be coming soon. He wondered if there really would be someone waiting to see him play when he got into his uniform. Deep down, he hoped it was true.

a/n: I hope you guys all like this intro piece to my tatbzilb 12 part au! The structure of this chapter is similar to how others will go, more characters will be introduced as we go along. However it will follow the main character, which is the reader, throughout all four years of high school and this was very much a set-up for what’s to come. Thank you for reading! With love, Admin Zea 

[bffhreprise]

Entry 268

 After leaving the boarding bridge from the plane, I pulled out my phone to double-check the instructions.  This all felt so weird to me.  If I didn’t trust Jarod, I’d have never accepted the invitation for his bachelor party.  The free, first class flight for a vacation covered by James seemed too good to be true, given that he was such a public figure to gamers, but I was part of his guild and didn’t believe Jarod would endanger me.

 Still, who provides a phone app with such detail directions, including course-plotted maps, for a weekend vacation?  Just how organized were these people?  Well, Jarod was a bit ridiculous in his schemes.  In any other game, our guild’s coordination would be impossible, but I really doubted many people had mastered Ancient Tribes of Earth’s system as Jarod had.

 The map’s directions matched the signs for baggage claim, so I followed them.  Supposedly, there would be a car waiting for me right outside.  Whoever prepared the maps had even placed a car symbol there, changing colors for the car route.  Finally spotting my bag, I grabbed it and headed out.  I frowned, only seeing a limo near the door.  What was I supposed to be looking for?

 “Lake, come on!  Don’t make us wait all day.” called Jarod.

 I recognized his smiling face from convention pictures.  “We’ve got a limo?’ I questioned, realizing as I said the words that it made sense.  These people were rich.  Okay, so renting a limo for a bachelor party wasn’t exactly uncommon either, but I still hadn’t expected it.

 “I’ll take care of your bags.” stated a girl from behind me.

 I blinked, staring at the tiny, beautiful girl dressed as a maid.

 “Mila’s with us.  Hand over the bags and get inside already.  We’ve got a schedule!” insisted Jarod, still grinning.

 I heard other people laughing from inside.  Was everyone else here?  I passed off the bags, feeling a little guilty, but the maid girl acted like they were weightless, easily lifting my large, check-in bag and walking around me.

 The door for the limo opened as I approached, and I saw James sitting on the other side of Jarod with Aaliyah on his lap.  I reminded myself to breathe as I was trying not to freak out.  That adorable half-pint with her messy, blonde hair and large, blue eyes had created the most incredible game on the planet, and she was here with us.

 The vehicle was in motion before I snapped out of my daze.  “Would you mind if I get an autograph later?” I asked, ignoring the laughter.

 “Check the app, Lake.  She scheduled an autograph time between paintballing and dancing.” asserted Jesse.

 Finally seeing faces to match all of the voices was different.  I never knew how beautiful Jesse was when she smiled.  James, Jarod, and Brandon didn’t even need to speak to be recognizable, despite Brandon having a stand-in at the convention.  His red hair was obvious.  I knew Shaurya instantly, as the only Indian male in the car.  That left Alec and Damien, but I was confident that the older-looking, blond-haired guy was Damien.

 As we chatted on our way, I became even more confident in my assessment and started to relax more.  This was just like we chatted in game, save that Brandon, James, and Aaliyah were talking directly with me at times.  Brandon was the most over-bearing of the guild Generals, but he obviously deferred to James, even in real life.  I could understand why.

 James was a large man with the face of a model.  He came across as even more charming in real life than he had in interviews and on the game, which was really saying something.  The other girls were obviously into him, but I had known they were straight.

 We ate a light lunch at a local diner, not wanting to be too stuffed during paintballing.  I wondered if any of these people had tried it before?  My bet was on James, Jarod, and Damien.  They’d quickly find out that I knew a bit about it as well.

 On the way to the paintball center, Aaliyah gave a short lecture over what was about to happen.  Special uniforms were already waiting for us there, so we’d be able to change clothes.  We were entered into several team-vs-team fights.  To my surprise, Aaliyah was planning on competing too.  Did they even allow people her size to play?  Wasn’t she really young?  Her website claimed she was twelve, but she didn’t look it.  Even twelve seemed young for this.

 When the first match started, I quickly felt like a novice.  The teams we were competing against were amazing compared with the ones I had fought before.  Who were these people?  I was stunned to find out we had won.  Jarod, James, and even Aaliyah were still alive.  Between matches, we talked about what had gone wrong, and Jarod gave us a new battle strategy.

 Seeing the Generals move in real life was a bit awe-inspiring.  They were like video game characters who stepped out into the world to mercilessly destroy our enemies.  I had seen people shoot while flipping through the air in movies, but seeing Jarod do that in real life was distracting enough that I forgot to get down.  By the fourth match, I was really determined not to get out, even knowing that I couldn’t keep up with these people.  Little Aaliyah was surprisingly hard for enemies to hit, and she never seemed to miss.  Her skills were probably the freakiest.

 Only on the way to the clubs did I find out that we had been up against actual military teams… and won.  James had expected us to win, and explained this his company did martial arts training daily.  I still didn’t understand how they were so good with paintball guns!

 The only big surprise to hit me while we were out clubbing was that Aaliyah was the one with a VIP pass into all the ones we hit.  I found some cute girls while we were out, and certainly had a good time being treated like some sort of celebrity.  Finding out that we were sleeping on an enormous yacht didn’t even faze me by that point.  Of course, I was too tired to really care where I slept.

 I had some pretty crazy dreams and felt a bit disoriented when I woke up, but I had no complaints when I smelled breakfast.  During the night, the yacht made its way clear to the Bahamas!

 A bit of video gaming started right after breakfast, using some super high-spec laptops.  I was amazed at how fast our connection was, but again… rich people.

 “When you told me the girls had nabbed Marco, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed.” claimed Jarod just before biting into another macaroni and cheese hors d’oeuvres at lunch.  “Poor guy doesn’t know what he’s missing.  Aaliyah and Mila really have things covered.”

 Mila certainly knew how to move.  I danced with her a little last night, but she was another one whose focus was mostly on James.  He had quickly stolen the show at the clubs.

 “Surprisingly, I actually did have some input as well.” replied James defensively.

 Jarod laughed and said, “I’m sure, but this is still crazy!”

 “Who’s Marco?” questioned Shaurya.

 “Marco’s one of our friends and James’ chef.  The guy’s cooking is off the hook!” exclaimed Brandon, grinning widely.

 “He’s my friend too.” insisted James.

 “Oh, Master, no one would question that you consider Marco a friend.” stated Mila, smiling at him.  She always referred to him as “Master”, which was a bit unnerving.

 “Does she always call you, ‘Master’?” questioned Jesse, looking as confused by it as I felt.

 “Of course!  He is my master.” replied Mila, still smiling.  “I was made to serve him after all.”

 “Huh?” asked Jesse.

 “My mind was created by mother.” explained Mila, nodding toward Aaliyah.  “And my body was then constructed as a joint effort between mother, Jarod, and me.”

 “Wow.  Thumbs up to you, sir.” teased Damien, winking at Jarod.

 “I’m still confused.  Are you saying that you’re a machine?” I questioned, feeling like I missed some joke.

 “She’s my baby girl!” exclaimed Aaliyah as she grinned at me and patted Mila’s arm.

 “She’s really not joking.” insisted Jarod.  “Mila, mind giving them a little demonstration?  Maybe comment to them on the laptops?”

 A message appeared on my laptop as an overlay above Ancient Tribes of Earth, saying, “Hello, Lake.  I hope you’ll believe the truth after a few small demonstrations.”  My eyes shot to Mila and back to my screen.

 Several of the others were laughing and grinning, but this was…

 “I also can control this vessel.” claimed Mila.  The yacht’s motor suddenly turned on with no one at the controls.  Mila simply smiled.

 “This is completely insane, but cool!” exclaimed Marlin, her long, black hair flowing in the wind as she grinned.

 “Mila’s an incredible friend and exceptionally talented, so don’t underestimate her.” warned Jarod.

 “I won’t, but where did you get the idea for the design?  She’s hot!” insisted Damien.

 Smiling and nodding at him, Mila said, “My master answered a series of questions to determine preferences, which led to the form you see here.  I will admit to slightly resembling his girlfriend, whom you know as Eseld.”

 “Sorry, Mila, but I’d say more than slightly.” argued Brandon with a laugh.

 Frowning, Mila told him “As mother would say…”  Then she stuck her tongue out at him.

 He laughed even harder, but she was smiling again.

 “These laptops are pretty amazing.” commented Alec, who seemed to take Mila being an android in stride.  “Have you guys logged in yet?”

 I had to admit that Aaliyah had created numerous highly sophisticated AIs for her game, so creating one to function in real life wasn’t that much of a stretch, but I never guessed that she wasn’t human.

 “Make sure the name at the bottom is right before you get too far into it.” stated Jarod.  “They’re yours to keep.”

 I wasn’t the only one completely floored by that statement, quickly checking the bottom of my machine.  In the center, there was a plate with a hologram of my character, Agnimitra, saying,

“To Lake

 May this serve you for a couple good years of gaming.  Thanks for attending my party.

-Jarod”

 “I designed the operating system, though mother personally created the port for Ancient Tribes of Earth.  The hardware was a joint project between Jarod and me.” claimed Mila.

 “James, did you hear that?” asked Marlin.

 “Sure did.” he replied, seeming amused.

 “Oh, he doesn’t get to keep his.  Don’t want Mila jealous.” teased Jarod.

 Mila’s smile widened as she said, “I wouldn’t mind.  Think of Master’s gentle caress as he touches the keys.  Imagine his deft strokes across the touchpad.  Even if he activated the motion controls, I would follow his every hand movement as if I were the air through which he moved.”

 “Yes, Mila can be a flirt.  Please don’t read into things.” stated James as he watched her.

 “Sure, James.  Not sayin’ a thing.” teased Jesse.

 “Whatever floats your boat!” added Damien, also smiling.

 Brandon was obviously amused as he said, “He’s actually being serious.  His girlfriend’s got a bit of a temper.”

“Let’s get started, shall we?” suggested James to change the subject.

 We had met up in the game to explore a dungeon after breakfast.  Hopefully, we’d finish before dinner.  This was one unique vacation.

[cesium-sheep]

dream that some really bad guy was taking a stack of photos arin had but it was really important to hold onto them and then she transferred them to me and I was waiting to get checked in for non urgent care when her name comes up on the news because she'd been set on fire and obviously I go ballistic, I scream about them misgendering her and using really old footage (with her conscious on her phone and me beside her in the gurney) and demand to know where she is and what condition she's in and my doctor tries to calm me down by saying next time things can be different and it's like fuck that things can be different now!!! I refuse to simply wait until this is over to point out how bullshit this is to everyone!!! so they said the lab their friend works at is like, as close to a head of the local hospitals as you can get and offered to take me to talk to them and it's like no?? I just wanna go to the hospital where my wife is and speak to them about it.

very disorienting to wake up alone. I think she just had trouble sleeping again or something but now I have to go see.

edit: yeah she was just in her office cuz flip-flopping her sleep schedule so hard is making it hard for her to be tired at this time of day. also before the photo incident the dream was some completely no-stakes shit about glasses frames, and while I was waiting in the hospital the non-urgent line only moved like one person despite being there from some cloudy daytime to past total nightfall. and I was standing in line even though I shouldn't have been. there was a couch that part of the line ran past that I think I was close to.

[jad110]

Jane Doe

I would like to introduce you to a new superhero, Jane Doe. She grew up like any other girl in New York City.  Jane is a street and book smart young girl who is kind to all. Well except the part when she was a part of an underground experiment. She does not know her real name and they gave her the name Jane Doe at the hospital when they finally saved her from her captor. Let’s back up a little bit. Jane was born in Manhattan, New York, the city of dreams, by her parents Lynn and Michael Newport on July 11, 1999. Although her parents were not very interested in keeping the baby so she was put up for adoption. Unfortunately, she was never adopted into a home with a family to love her. Instead, she bounced from foster home to foster home for years until she turned 18. Some were great people but some were the worst people she has met. There were the ones that fostered just for the money with minimal care for the children like Shelia Gallagher. Then there were the ones with pristine homes with many valuables and a lot of money. The gay couple who took her in when she was 10 was so nice but they thought she was stealing their possessions and kicked her out. She has been placed in 10 different homes her whole life. She never knew her real family or her history. She never felt that she belonged anywhere. This was very hard for her growing up not having any stability or anyone that she felt that she could trust. 

Jane had been living with a foster family for a while but life changed in a blink of an eye. She was placed in a home when she was 15. The man in charge of the home’s name was Dr. Franklin Murphy. He was a very irresponsible and terrible person. He would take in many children of teenage age and perform experiments on them. Unfortunately due to overcrowding in the foster care system, his treatment of children went unnoticed in many cases. When Jane was 15 she was taken out of her old home with Old Lady Beatrice because she passes away in her sleep one night. She was a great foster parent well more like a grandparent to Jane. She would make her delicious food and love her unconditionally. She was then placed with The Doctor...and Jane’s world was flipped upside down. The Doctor has a devious ideology. He was once a very knowledgeable brain surgeon who operated and performed miracles on people every day. But soon he took the job too far. He started to perform unorthodox surgeries. Performing surgeries without authorization or compliance. He was fired from his work but that did not stop him from completing his experiments. He purchased an old foreclosed hospital to do this. He would prowl the streets looking for people to perform his surgeries on and kidnap them. His surgeries included injecting a person’s brain with a concoction he made in his lab that was supposed to make a person extremely intelligent and have hyperactive senses. 

Many of his experiments turned south very fast. Injecting into a person’s brain with a foreign liquid is never going to work when trying to change the makeup of a person. He had many failed experiments and the people fatally die from them. But The Doctor made advances in his testing and found the problem with the experiments. He was choosing just anyone he could find. He needed someone that already had those features that could be enhanced. When Jane was randomly placed in The Doctor’s home he knew that she was the right person to experiment on. She fit the criteria that he had been looking for for the last 3 years. She just was delivered to him in a government-issued Toyota Camry. At first, he was a great host. He had enough money to make dinner every night and a hot shower. This was enough for Jane. she figured she would stay there until she was forced out or old enough to live on her own I mean she only had 2 more years in the system. After the first year, his demeanor changed from the loving caretaker to an evil scientist. There were 3 other children under The Doctor’s care during this time and Jane was trying to protect them when she found out what he was. She walked in on The Doctor injecting Molly her foster sister in the brain. She was so freaked out and did not know what to do. She jumped him and threw the needle to the ground. They tried to run but The Doctor caught up to them fast. He captured Jane and held her against her will. She was tied down to an operating table. He said to her, “I guess it is your time to shine. Tenth time the charm.” She freaked out and was squirmed all over the place. This was no use when The Doctor started sedation. He begins his procedure and cuts open her scalp. He then begins to inject her and empties the syringe into her brain. He does this and weirdly throws his head back with an evil laugh… evil scientist… get it. Okay moving on, he treats he post-operation. She was unconscious for three days after the operation. She woke up on the third night alone in a hospital bed. She thought that the police had rescued her from The Doctor. Unfortunately, this was not the case, she realized that she was still under the roof of The Doctor still. She was so disoriented but realized this would be the only time that she would be able to escape and getaway. She ripped the IV out of her arm and ran out of the room searching for an exit. She remembered the other children under his care and ran toward them and finally got free.

  She walked out of the door with the two other children and began yelling for help. Finally, she makes it to a local hospital… a real hospital. She is frantic and has two younger children with her. They can not get any answers to what happened to them because she becomes unconscious after the first question… “What’s your name?” She was unconscious for six weeks before she woke up. And when she does she can not remember anything and all the children that were with The Doctor were already gone and in different foster homes. No memories of her past or even her name. In the hospital, they called her Jane Doe which a name that is given to an unknown person in care. She was 18 years old now and out of the system. After getting out of the hospital Jane just did not feel right and did not have anywhere to go. She found her feet and got a waitress and rents a small apartment in the lower end of NYC. She began to feel some differences in her body and how she feels. Suddenly her mind seems to always be working, she can hear people coming from miles away and can run faster than a cheetah. She was so scared and confused she did not tell anyone. One day Jane is walking to her job and she sees a man stealing a car. She runs up to him and punches him and he flies ten feet. She is so horrified by herself and what has happened she runs over to the police station and reports what happened. They arrest her and she is questioned by two men in suits. They ask her a bunch of questions about herself and her abilities. She was reluctant to tell them because she did not want to end up in the lab being tested like a rat. They assure her that life can be normal for her but they need to know for the safety of herself and others. She tells them. They urge her to join them. The SOA (Superheroes Of America). She decides that this may be where she belongs finally and having a real family. She went from having nothing to actually having people who care about her. Jane meets a girl named Dawn Love and a boy named Lincoln Forest who had become like siblings to her. She also under the care of a well-known superhero Captain America. At the SOA they are taught to control their abilities and how to use them for good. She learns a lot about herself and is finally happy. She works together with the SOA to help with a crime in the city. She is able to help people with her abilities. Soon she is called Blaze Jane. She is the hero of the city that they did not know they wanted or needed. She is smart and compassionate of all at 21 years old. She advocates for the underdog. All her life she was an underdog and decided it was time for the underdog to live the life they want. She began working with children in the foster care system. She volunteers her time and efforts to these children helping them have a better life. She hopes that foster homes are not bad places for the children. She is successful in helping the people of the city and saving the lives of those in need. Blaze Jane and goals are to lower the need for superheroes in the city but always being ready when one is needed. 

In terms of other superheroes, I think that Jane is like Deadpool because he also underwent a medical procedure that changed him and gave him his powers. He also is looking out for the underdog. In terms of her personality, I think that Jane is similar to Captain America. He is always wanting to do the right thing with the law and the thought of other people’s feelings in mind. Captain America mentored Jane and taught her everything she knows about being a superhero. She looks up to him as a father figure. After not having anyone to be the person to look up to she finally found a person. Blaze Jane is still alive today and is thriving in her new environment. She has made a name for herself in the community and wants people to believe in kindness and safety. She has gotten tested by the doctors and specialists at SOA. They have been trying to find out what happened to her and more about her past. She wants to understand why the experiment worked on her and how it was able to change her life forever. When the SOA was able to track down The Doctor he would not tell them anything about the experiment. He wanted to see Jane. He wanted to see his prodigy. Jane talks to him and begs him for answers. He tells her that he injected her with a cell enhancement drug. He actually said that he never thought that his experiments would succeed until Jane… he then also says that after her he injected five more of his foster children. And two were in a vegetative state but three of them also developed abilities just like Jane. He still had the three children with abilities in his care so they were taken in by the SOA. The Doctor was taken and put into the custody of the SOA and was never released. Jane also was able to dive into the history of her parents. She learned that her parents Lynn and Michael Newport were people she did not want to know anyway. They were people that did not care for the world as Jane did. Her father was an alcoholic and an addict and her mother was a foreign immigrant who moved back to Italy. Jane actually went out to Italy to find her mother but when she found her Lynn denied being her mother at all. These people hurt Jane when they gave her up as a child and were a disappointment when she found out about them. For many years Jane did not have anyone no family and no love. She finally had a family in the SOA and people that care about her. Her goal in life and in being a superhero is to make the world a better place. Even though her powers are physical she also has developed intelligence and a higher understanding of others.

[castlehead]

I’LL BE DONE WHEN I’M FINISHED: The Broadcasts of a Shit

“Still even wounded you do not see it. I can tell. I do not see it myself but I feel it a little.”

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms INTRODUCTION, MOSTLY APROPOS OF NOTHING: [One need not be familiar with an entirely new vocal register to understand the random streetcorner persiflage between the two working men echoing down the street, as cross and cross the Citizenry, who slave and slave to ignore it or any such jovial ballbusting.

Pavement radiating with dogday heat—I have engagements with others to get to and so on, one thinks. Harried in the city.

The interaction remains incomplete when the working men decide they must return to work. Attempt to sew up the awkward leave with a middling joke and a strong laugh from one of them echoing. Men as these they perfectly just almost overlook personal space. And then the punchline to take home. Priests that beg we make not too much upon their energies, right now. Not a warm leave but not creating a spat in the street either. Lonely persiflage between two strangers: talking about the amusing circumstance that since they are both stopping between deliveries from to to the other’s destination then nothing will get there!, ha ha ha ha ha.

And about how it must be to put food on your plate among the throngs on throngs of strangers striving for that same thing. And so on. No. One need not heed a variation of the idea to understand a whole language. Nor be familiar with every stranger’s voice in order to recognize words said in English. The ideas of one’s lover if spoken without the face to match them are the same ideas from someone else’s mouth. To these delicacies etc. I think I shall offer, uh, these my shreds of creaking strain, you say. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . It was the first noises of thought or perhaps one thought. Me fighting the indigestion of a death rattle once, at three in the morning. Noise of that was different from the noise I presumed was morning birds and the afflatus. It spoke through the web of obstacles into my wakening. Only first evaluated as a sweet monotony, similar to crickets out in the sticks. But nobler. Crickets that I hear once I am outside and finally smoke. One gets it already! Jeez. Without needing to be educated further, in the monotony. Will recognize it. No worries. Something snatches up from subterranean mind with the pluck of a young mole. It is exactly what one thought. If the thought is important it will quickly catch the verbal expression meant for it anyway, and this can be explained if one simply follow the journey. It is zen to say no destination is required but that is not quite what is meant here. Only, that no destination is required to plan to travel. One can have arrived last week in Baghdad and been introduced to boredom and status quo. A keeping of the peace with the redundant echo of gunfire far off. He remembers July fourth fireworks Ronnie let off when I was back home, he thinks; he travels across the sea back there momentarily, and is massively dissociated, by whatever timeless time he arrives there. Dissociation flares up so as to feel at home with the death and in any case it extends the story with a new and scarier human rhythm. On the other hand: somebody walks a few feet to the john at night, thinking that will be that after turning off the john lightswitch, only to study their issues and continue their own story after hours, for hours: at first they think to pass the time while they poop in silence but soon zone out thinking of whatever gripes in reach, soothed by their cloister. Reaching for toiletpaper. Futility. Environment of solitary misery. But simply follow the journey; that will locate its proper coordinates; the coordinates tell one where the journey will end. Herein is that voyage described till The Last Step that is taken . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        .

CHAPTER 1 One already feels inclined to voyage beyond it. One is rightly consumed by the thought, along with other such beyondthoughts. Information rarely happens predictably. Its influence is across the many highways bleeding us in and out of this planet. It is almost respiratory. It is an influence to be loved because it will grow old and geriatric and vibrating, old like we do. Death resets the collective unconscious generation by generation. Squint your eyes a bit and look at it this way, maybe tilt your head. You’ll see that everybody on Earth or anybody at least on Earth who is a little wise is just like the elderly: Because we are eternally concerned with getting our sea legs, floating, and yet weighed down into the abyss by the gravity of years of knowing. This personal evolutionary process will repeat in the hearts of future people with little variation, recycling the same list of bullshit to choose from regarding what to let ruin your life. Imagine being atop a weathervane: it is the single fleeting chance anointed in youth. Anointed in golden drizzle. To hone one’s middle ear in preparation for when you are an oldtimer. Maintaining a frame of reference will be a day’s feat, and traversing a parking lot past all the needless circus will leave you confused at all the saturation of life around you, smacking at the sun’s aftertaste laboring.

If only we lived in Palm Beach Grant! Says your wife. Someplace where you can hear the ocean. You flip the shades up on your glasses and think that cellphones used to do that, mutter something about remaining a faithful luddite, about how literacy in computer coding will become mandatory one day, then try your hand at imitating this sort of fluoride stare you have witnessed in the eyes of many an Ipad person.

For you call them fucking Ipad people. Noticing currently that the virus has made a host of the young. A man can live easy there, you say; he says to his lover, Palm Beach the furthest thing from his mind; and what is in his mind the idea of turning back, at least to remind us where the car is. He says. A voice in the second person emerges suggestively again: you pass a burp from deteriorating lips. Then you regress a little and ask your mom if this is a good idea as if she were there, who has by now been doled back to God these forty years prior? That one sad thing left you almost kind of widowed. There are all these demons in people and all of them are buzzing words to me and causing an autistic scene, thinks one, one as you might be, that is; I find I panic less because at least I know my insanity belongs to me. All this pain of selves that offers no salve, and to which I am slave. They scream of no idea where I am. Demons. Pah. Disorienting like Vegas lights. I should go to Vegas. You think abstractly of some horrible radio song by this horrible band from the seventies. The group was called…America? You think thus: Some guy, you always forgot his name, the jackass, and an especial jackass tonight, you remember thinking, that night, or were straining to think, over that horrible song playing on the jukebox of the local senior honkytonk in a white as bleach neighborhood. He was being as usual a jackass, even fucking worse than a horse with no name, because he had one,—he asked you once if ever you grieve the mother’s milk she never supplied for the sake of her figure, and which she sold, the milk, not herself: she sold it being very poor. The jackass said to him in so many words it was a sacrifice never used to her advantage because it didn’t last long enough to put to any use besides fucking the townies. Because she died. You remember what you said verbatim: I am widower of the purity in fun I used to see, I guess, and then a memory invade your eyes within the memory: me, clutching my mother’s breasts when I was four years, but as one would plump a pillow, and upon worrying a nest together in her belly while she sat prone in an empty bed, falling asleep, and then promptly thinking nothing of any of this for the rest of my life. These past things that mean so much…you are not even halfway there, one thinks. And, panting and scorching, you are not halfway to the market. What is it you consider too elaborately now, and create pros and cons for, your wife saying that her legs are getting sore? Clear the hurdle and think it through once again without running aground: to turn around and brave passing a second time a group of obese children. Not even halfway there. Calling the World a place is a strange thing to do referring to it but it is one though. It is a place of consumers rattling their groceries forth. And children overfed to sallowness and spinning stimuli that destroy human will. Balancing one’s life is an imperative one assumes responsibility for. One does it, wreaks spirit from nothing, or gas, pushing a pedal to move the wheels. One credits it an absurdity to balance perfection. But those are never the cards dealt. The perfect life will live and make problems no matter what. Despite the job not be of any necessity for that perfect life; an imbalance to correct. The pediment will suffer the impediments of its inventor’s chiseling hand. Shaking. This weathervane we do not understand called contemporary culture might have done it. Yet after weathering the trial and error, when we finally find the right dance moves to keep us upright, a gale knocks us off the weathervane, and then we are old and out of the spotlight. People quake at this and also at the million things on the menu that could go wrong if you order the blowfish, which is the most expensive thing on the menu at this new Japanese place in town you’re trying out. Like the apocalypse for example. But that fate seems to remain a distant one for now or at most at a slow yearly crawl towards plausibility, almost offensively intimately close to that plausibility. It knows humanity is that stupid and won’t prepare but also assures us we are not stupid, ironically making us overconfident, and then we end up getting in range of it with the proverbial dick in hands. It crests like an infant’s head from the dilated mothervoid. In life, ‘how it went’ will not be obedient to the assumption etc. And the rustbelt politicos will show no mercy to the liberal elite, and vice versa. Aw hell: even talking about America for just a few tiny minutes is tiresome. Minutes shrunk to iota. Meaning: shadows of the circumference they once were. Minutes still taking as much time to pass as before the decreased radial stretch. Tires me out I think. Like an emotional undertaking or winging a pilgrimage to the girlfriend on a night bus like two hundred miles at the last minute, except in that latter case I do not feel empty getting off, the bus that is, the way I do when trying to have an opinion, which is a thing does not get me off: because nobody here realizes that America as it stands is a natural disaster. While its population drowns in the ocean, the pundit pretends to be embassador and the president a WWE wrestler for some reason, and it is only then ah I see what is happening like a damned Wordsworth who is looking out from bridge at Tintern Abbey. Ah I see. And I realize this is my privileged moment. Though I be not listening to quiet with an owl’s hoot interposing, though I be not sitting my pensive dourness on a rock in the thickets and marshlands; though this all be true of me not experiencing nor having experienced, I myself am, like God, incarnated as those spots of time. With one last breath before water floods in I see what is happening here, die, and then sink to an ocean floor before offered a chance to say what it is I see, instead, how selfish!, sneaking out to be friends with this human otherness of death I had heard so much about while living. One imagines it with delight: the fish and stuff. Oh I beg you watch in delight the placid amble of octopi among herds of bright coral wilderness.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . There is rarely a clear glimpse a fortiori before it is come across, what has been prophesied. And one must be sharp about the apocalypse. But this musing has no main purpose or pronoun. Guess it would be helpful to know the proper idiom for it, for what to properly call The Last Step? What to properly call the future that would bring you there in so calling? Something like a code for a safe. Something like, if one has a bondage kink, the safety word a kinkslave use when the endorphins start to dry and the pain is no longer pleasurable. If in the following any of this is made clear, great; one suspects the epiphany will involve backtracking: it will come in a place before, a field of snow you passed yesterday; using as breadcrumbs the indentations of one’s feet in the snow that you made yesterday. One had felt the epiphany there in that lonely field but refused to allow it signify the actual epiphany, because it was not the same as the ideal of it in one’s head. It manifests as something more obvious than one’s vision of it had attributed vast nuance to. Isolated and without fanfare you thought. But the physical manifestation of it yet resembles what the concept of negative capability elucidates. In words. Like, a signifying euphoric power, come upon invisibly and solemn once the place is synchronous with you. The power however is too powerful. Any mortal would be blind to a nuance so huge, and be eaten up. A power of God which probably would not stand for any refusals, especially annoyed if I was as close as my tracks in the field tell, one thinks. Refusals of spirit to maintain the logical familiar. But I now turn my back on that narrow humanity I fed once. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . At first any epiphany or finality will seem evil: rooted deep and tumorous in one and something you think is only for you, only you will find out you are deceived in this. It experienced by both the weak and strong the same way. It I make voyage to. Voyaging I shall reach it where it calls to me. I am created again: as the finality the self was waiting to be. After all this time spent in despair. Assuming I was done and the laurels crushed. God devolves in speech but that is our sole link, so then I apologize to God when I share God with the muse. The Last Step. That eh? Got to be kidding. But one still tries to speak it . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . If one is even to begin propagating a system of one’s rightful own, with any success, one must by then have seen the project through to its end. But where is this end? The last step is crucial, but it might not be the finale. Sure it knots it all up without being asked; knots up the whole conceptual endeavor to invent, not just the practice of inventing. So that it makes sense when the inventor reviews it later. Knots with an embellishing knit bow, striped in calming yellow shades. There were still all these spare parts thrown around the garage though. And the calming colors seemed not to be serious enough for the occasion, almost trying on purpose not to catch one’s eye, the rationale being to avoid the hysterics and cultural hype. Suppose then it must show itself with flair and finesse, at least if the last step has truly been reached. One would need to be assured this was not some ersatz participation trophy. Would need something flashy, not a dull yellow; help to jog the memory of inspiration and find the fact of the last step a fact present now, if it wasn’t when it first was but you hadn’t been, and this leads one to the revelation that the invention has been finalized past all remonstrance. You are there. Remember how the image somewhere hidden so long in the marmoreal sledge had been tunefully cut shipshape? That was now. And that the inventor can do no more is the beautiful reality; unless to risk summary perfection were the point. But then the years of hard work would have been just an exercise right? . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Just one or two pieces of evidence of possible mediocrity need come to the fore, however, to shake confidence that one is done—traveling from someplace far in one’s thoughts to the light of day; in fact, seeming to be from so perfectly remote a distance as to create the impression like it clued into something deeper one could not see. Then more evidence starts swirling in one’s head. But all that is is hearsay to attract the exigent attention of this inventor, you don’t even have your ear up to the door. You can’t know it is the actual truth. One thinks and thinks, with fear of this. This one might admit with no trouble yet by listening closer to the statement itself assume as one’s own the universal praxis supported there, but the other way around, the truth of nothing being true and this invention being the only true thing if of one’s artifice alone, or anything not just humanly made, manufactured, but made by the human that is you particularly, one thinks this or rather says this to themselves, clearer because thoughts are sensations to one usually, yet this in actual words in precarious head.

It might be a good idea. Be doubtful of truth the other way or anything’s truth. One can invent much to answer back in retort. Wrapped up in yourself, you get wrapped up in doubts that multiply when there is no outside objective answerer to stanch the seed, one thinks; in the privacy of one’s garage one thinks. God is not overwhelmingly organized like that though. Tapping the end of a ballpoint pen; it clicks against the surface of this desk I see before me and I making little neighing sounds with my mouth, one thinks: but you knew that already, oh my God who must know all. One must transcend mere certainty regarding when to stop though. Meaning that, like, to have a fight or flight knowledge of this. Hm. Challenging… It is that or to raise the stakes and for one’s own safety not endeavoring further. The options are those two. But the fight or flight stuff sounds more sensible. Like if one hopes the system they have made be christened done. Christened by fame too, that is; must treat the lumpy flaws like lumps of soiled laundry, not pets. But you are obedient to this command because it is easy: have already ushered together all the flawed stuff and left your flaws together in a disarray. All the loose ends and other haywire. One eyed every corner of one’s house for them flawed shits. It is a house more like a sanctuary for empty mousetraps forgotten about and other crap gathering dust. And then you must have pushed all that haywire and other shit up against the outside walls of one’s furnace, in one’s room, but you don’t remember or just the memory is hazy or something. Pin them against the furnace wall; think of it as if you were going to question them about money’s whereabouts. Like that show about drug dealers and bowling and the nihilists ask Lebowski where the money is. Where’s the money Lebowski? One will quickly realize this is useless, which is the point: jetsam and trash are a second and third language, and glory, no shit, one’s first. So, bummed about this anticlimax, the flaws, the lumps and laundry, disappointed and bummed at not understanding, vacate, and in very clear speech of step. Mysteriously almost wanting you to reconsider their death. They foot loudly down the hall to the front door. Ah shit. They are walking on the linoleum with shoes. I forgot to tell them. Fast forward hours later: withal that stressful furnace heat and the threatening of death and the communication barrier, bullying the flaws a sour fucking deed and making you feel bad for hours after,—withal that, by nightfall, one, uh, one thinks: I get to rest easy now: knowing none of the worthy spare parts diminished. On which did feed the dirtier stuff, laundry, and its heart of chaos: feed to the weakening of said worthy spare parts, almost to the point of a last retreat to yon deathbed, themselves and their worth going like the eyesight of a senile. Dirty laundry housed in your soul: rest easy: no, none of anything of worth had been injured by it. And you get why now: the flawed shit didn’t want to leave that sugar momma with you to use. For they wish to meld with your excellence, selfishly unaware that to do so would annihilate it. Later you found it out: because God told you in code through a friend you invited over, to see your invention finally integrum.

That all your pet flaws know this one natural rule was also a mystery, even to God. This rule about how if the dirtier flaws died you would go with them. Ironical duality that it is, you had not been aware of this. Why weren’t I told? But God invade the World in fragments that tell and tell not. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . It was just to give a scare anyway. The threats were. But still how callous. But for other reasons besides this a few miscellaneous fineries will become less fine if now you must stop before fleshing out them but they will be there when you return, for what it’s worth, so no harm anyways.

Good to be cautious of forsaking the sacred last step. Glossed over stupidly when they were spruce and shining, those unfleshed fineries withereth and fadeth. And then just ignored into neglect. One sometimes feels a broken record but this may be just returning to the same mistakes over, like, awhile. Dwelling on past mistakes over the course of years, of less proximity of repetition to make a pulse than a broken record technically; because afraid to mourn their loss once without a daily default to fill the void, or because not thinking of them anymore would assure the same faults of mind make the future a curse not mere benign fate, an inevitable river flowing for anyone the same if death could be considered all fates. One suspected it was in the early days of the system’s conception. When much for the sake of finesse would have been aborted, once the finesse overwhelmed the practical application of something else, as the what the design would be like thing began to take shape, two dimensionally at least. But for all that it was once merely a vision, not come in a dream but coming before sleep each night, right before. One thinks: Well in fact it was so often this imagery recurred in my head, always before sleep, that eventually the intending of a sign by something upstairs was clear.

After many occasions of this happening, I spent one morning doing it out. After the damasked vision with a pencil and paper.

Days passed; it began to take shape; or stuff was in the blueprints written after no sleep and then puzzled over later. Thinketh, one wastes time doing this puzzling until one realizes stuff drawn up in a dreamstate. Diamonds in the rough as these could be, God say, will have become less fine by now. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But one will get to that when one gets to that, which is probably what was placated unto this inventor, exactly before one glossed over them, ha ha, you think, to yourself. And this thinks one, thinks one speaking it in the third person: in the tired cranium simultaneously focuses and forms a dialogue with the ghostly otherness. The one hinted at or like denoted by these freakish pronouns, and filed away under Interesting Possibilities. And so thinketh that some secret companion should be fabricated in everybody’s head, for their sanity really; I have a hard time believing this not to be in reality true, that people do this—you ‘thinketh’ pointedly. 

Might as well develop my otherness, then; whatever its makeup, since these many unruly threads and rosebuds that once entertained me will soon be on their way in the car bleeding down a branch of a highway not yet adopted by…whoever adopts highways. Has to be rich probably. Sadly they remain hapless, I mean the unruly threads and rosebuds among the invention’s wiring I pursue more, to flesh out thus: despite being told stop it for the sake of the final draft. Hapless, as jetsam of any kind will forever tend to be. Completely hapless. It’s like they think they are going to Disney World! But will be getting thrown into the local dumpster fire. That’s where I am driving now. To keep one in the loop with my looping disorders one might this very thing a’saith. 

My personality disorder will take up that hard job later of explaining death to what has been recently made, created. How alien that must be seen as! A perfection that asks, without a grain of artifice, that asks:

“father where did the flaws go to; uhm will they be back from where they went? [Inaudible] Be back right?” One’s system is a child still in fledge, luckily they are that. All the fucking dirty laundry will be gone: evil will be schooled and scorched for this system I don’t care how long it takes. Scorched off like pimples dried with cream. And then this pesky figuration visits the creating: because a wrench actually is in the machinery. Annoying the cogs. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I think about it and say the following for any flaws still hanging around: really say, in English, at an actual hearable vocal register, and my voice, the flesh to drape over these words that are not kidding you, reader, now: “Hijack me? What gall you have, you will be taken to some warehouse of doom by my fucking cronies. There is gall even in thinking me weak enough to not need to kill. Because if anyone to kidnap my energies and sap them dry then throws me from the back of the van and gives me the chance to get back to my powers and get back at them, moreover, well holy hell let me tell you. Let me tell you: you are lowered to the status, in my eyes lowered, to the status of a mouse, one mouse. Or more forgiving: you are a cluster of mice in a gaberdine suit pretending to be a detective; it is that subterfuge that is the genetic structure of flaws, and perfection too. Your own genetic passive aggression does not help the obsessing over this mystery because something in the obsessing is not in hurry for the big reveal. That would be wretched. Ugliness in the light of day, and no longer something to pursue. One could die of this, really die. It is this or to have fought them by fighting everything in the World. Ha. Mice in suits…” Perhaps that is God said that. Also yet it is to have fought for them to do the same things to destroy them,—everything Earthly is lowered by reneging to ire. If especially it is welcomed into the heart for any reason other than to admit it is there, like to a friend or something, in the form of an apology. Like to a friend, for a situation or something: for them being the victim, unfairly, of this garbage affect they by happenstance had been at the butt end of. Ire persuasive enough to give one over to a willess moment and cause an argument no one will finish. For being is too tired. Though unlike most of the insufferable, which I am on another level, I do not hold grudges, whether I be misinformed of the fault found or not; on principle I cannot see how someone can bring the ire home. If such a thing happened! Walk not, no way; with such a heavy thing clutched to my chest? It would waste me. Maybe if I had not been angry for awhile. Then maybe I’d give in. And then still never without informing my family. It’s bad luck to lie to your family they say. Or don’t say. Or whatever. Like, it’s hard to imagine me being that fake pleasant sort of fifties era guy, like stuff you see on television from when everyone was afraid of communism. That episode of Seinfeld about the communist Elaine dates opened up new avenues of acceptance for the general public but that is a less obscure story. Command me, o God, that I come not through the door, hang my hat on a hatrack next to the door, and chime to a faceless honey that I am home! Like everything’s alright when the sincere and stupid melodrama of this is that it never was. Alright? Cue the listless sigh looking into the distance while I smoke, again. The habit is getting frequent again, more than before. Worrisome? Shit yeah. But: To preemptively suggest, to those soon to be, will be, in close proximity of your bad mood, like your family,—to do this it at least allows some time to handle nerves; and for someone, probably the mother, to cook up some calm. Surprise. It’s for you; she does it by adding oregano to the meatloaf. Just bought it today while you were out dear. What? Irritation. To the meatloaf, dear; I thought to myself, well, the stringbeans will be fine with a little salt as long as they are boiled right. Surprise! If even the son will not escape a beating. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Maybe if the knowledge of ire is gathered enough in advance, then, I don’t know, prepare a written statement, like Hawaii did with congress about the right to vote they didn’t have even though also a state. Look it up though guy!, on your iwire gadget kids have now. Belch, gurgle. That sounds right uncle Jay but I’m not sure it’s a historical fact. Son of yon drunk, oh, you are too much. Look it up see if that works mook. Ha. Hm. Sounds like something my uncle would say, though; I mean I am fabricating most of this so but it sounds like he’d say that and subsequently fall asleep. He’d be upright in a chair but spend the night on the porch like this when he was drunk and my aunt wouldn’t let him come in the house. Commence snoring loud enough to create voids and find yourself immediately an uncle whether or not you have a sibling actually. Their rhythm is mercifully left undisturbed by the son sitting there next to him who gets up on tiptoe to go inside. Aunt said once he needing similar treatment to a baby. If one hopes keep agreeable company with that man she said. The snores almost in time with the sway of the plastic lawn flamingos assorted on the front lawn in the wind. The snores are interspersed with yawns that kill the tempo yet introduce greater naturality in the diffusion, something like jazz. Flamingos. Christ why’d we buy those I’d hear him say I remember. Memory: I was with him at my aunt’s house. She kicked him out for good for awhile and I never learned why because they are both dead but my aunt was a weird one also. She wore a blue wig because of the stomach cancer. The chemo made her hair fall out,—and my uncle was bald too but that was due to stress and I never learned why that stress was either. The whole house stuck in the back when. Some professional astrologer/psychic from the sixties owned it previously, but that is a more obscure story. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I myself do not understand wrath and do not inflict it upon others. It is wrong, but still something true. I mean about people. That alcohol consumption is in direct correlation to acts of violence is not surprising. Hyperbolic statements of love as well but that can be its own trauma. And if not that I were a pacifist anyway, nor yet lucky enough to make someone unlucky enough to love me, I would foresee abuse being the probable outcome, statistically speaking, in America. I would not hope for it. Oh America. Oh damn. Now then. I do not want to seem like I doth protest too much but ire I find it repellant and would have it expelled from the souls of people if it could be… But not even God can do that! This is a pessimism goes too far of course but I like its propounding way. So many, desperate for a stance to come from out of the blue, without work. On something they do not understand, no less. Just to be accepted! Do not nurse ire in such a way: and if you weren’t going to don’t get any ideas. And I do not understand how others can carry that with them. I have experienced that grudging pain, I cannot tolerate it nor even fathom how one lives like that day to day. Perhaps I am sickly and have a weak stomach, or something, a tapeworm, is in there, devouring my delicate humours. People live and remain alive though in spite of crisis. But to live and share a bathroom, with the crisis? 

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . A list of demons. We all have kept a list of demons. It helps inspire those who do live in fear of getting clocked over the moral limit, to find a priest. Oh! Exorcise these demons, through awful heinous extremes like domestic abuse. Fuck, probably more often it is an event at some quotidian thing, something to comfortably blow out of proportion with an arsenal of explosives called human artifice. Anger at the quotidian has more gunpowder for the fault being obvious in retrospect, after anger cools, and the one perpetrating, sober enough either to convince themselves of the lie about themselves, like lawyers do, or realize they and their shit personality have done wrong. Again. Maybe even realize they are trapped in how they are, moments before the onset of psyche’s darkness, then, the daily protocol moral amnesia; and then the falsehoods return in full force, like an evangelical getting lazy about saving face and tired of pretending to feel bad about the public exposure and outcry. 

Before the poetic justice of a cocaine overdose the deacon in question goes back to the usual raiding of collection plate to pay for gay sex stuff. He will give in and go downtown to diddle men who are strangers and this is fine but hypocrisy at this nuts level is not. After enough time has passed and some new outrage takes up the baton, he will do this. An event has extra gunpowder for alone the simple fact of being made mountain of molehill. It would not be so bad if it did not hurt anybody. Were it, were the memory of it not at times so twisted up by the drunk to protect an ego itself drunk on being a martyr, if ego can stand on its own as a self in some unconscious form enough to believe it is its own egg of individual experiences. Drunk, on being a martyr: for its vessel’s destructive habits. In the vessel’s recalling, it was right to act such a way. About whatever the problem was; and this tendency can lead one to memorialize oneself like they were dead. And perhaps they are in some capacity: trapped in dwelling. What is dwelled on isn’t important I said Mary! Getting sick of this highfalutin wondering of me, thinking one is better than others, the inventor thinks, then the wondering fades and comes back and then the inventor truly starts to think. The self is a code, not unable to be cracked, but which unlocks no truth without it tinged wrong.

Anyway I need therapist.

I, reeling, wonder at the people, not without some disgust too; the people who will sustain one perspective then ask to get quoted on their statement of another they post on the facebook or something, a statement which does not but they say does most represent their belief system then and now. This politics of absence, more specifically an absence of inner moral reckoning. Reeds who do not think they are reeds. Blaise Pascal. It is said that people are truest to themselves quiet in bed alone but that might also be one of those things people say. The opposite of that seems to be true. In my opinion, to them, the time a statistically normal person has to themselves, in privacy, offers up an opportunity to lie about how one is in the World, value systems, etc. In the mind of even the statistically normal person. Well. I sense most use their privacy; use it to reinforce lies with more lies. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . [Introducing. An androgynous character? Na just lazy writing. Here out, let’s call her, One That. She seems only convinced of how grumpy she is. One awake in early morning following thinking a few minutes still in bed if it is worth it to indulge only aggravation if that’ll be the day. Over some ubiquitous wreckage everywhere around. One that evaluates her day so far when it’s been five minutes since removing from bed. Really it is about waking up in the morning, and this wreckage she sees. Trying to be cute she makes the following complaint in the kitchen to an older friend or parent figure or one of the parents themselves. She says. Everybody bitches about it but nobody torpedoes the sun so there’s no transition anymore and we all can go back to sleep. One person to another person. Boy do they love smacking oatmeal while I talk she thinks, while talking. Click. Change the channel. Family Ties.] . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . As for people lying to themselves in private like they must do in public; or doing this when they have the freedom not to, uhm. Why choose this? Nobody is really listening to that fabricated narrative, anyway.

Who does the math, patents the equation, takes the time to lie to themselves in privacy: that the sincere, and morally better belief, is the one found once the self digs deep?

Believe sincerely what? Asks the ego, candidly. You are not sincere with anything! Falling on deaf ears. Impossible to do but not impossible to convince oneself is done. One does not simply alter one’s own repressed beliefs when to the self they are not known. And once found if they are there usually is no core change. I am not done nor perhaps done, nor are the chores, which the son’s lack of doing would lead to his being done in by father and a belt but that part is only sometimes. Depending on what it is and whether it was demanded of some fifties husband to be done by the time he gets home. O dear. So many are like this so then many victims. Thinketh this. And it be the thought of a moral God: demonstrate the desire to understand it in context. For to use it implies the plan, no matter what is naysaid: to inflict pain. Which is its only use. Ire I mean. And the only reason why one would poison one’s heart like that. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . In the context of that big ultimatum in the sky, nobody, nothing to be had down here, is really The Boss. I can see that now. Figure out how there will always be the other way that works too, sure: if one can ably knife through that fuss and shit about opposing sides. Move on. Think of all the stuff to move on to, like the sidereal shit, will you?, and walk your way onwards. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Here’s this. Ok? Think that you are a bearded fellow, supported perhaps by a wooden staff, walking in the woods, till you are upon unfamiliar grounds. Approaching the shade of a canopy you hear running water. The canopy opens out to the source: a waterfall is there beneath it pouring down. Foaming eternal form. A watery dynamo off the toprock. The lip of the waterfall is fibered round with bushes covered in mist from the spray.

Well, here’s this. If you must visualize something to hit it home, whatever ‘it’ happens to be or how it happens. Or wait: let’s start over. Let’s say: you are a bearded man, ok, and you have instead just found your way to familiar verdure. But only after being lost awhile. So forget the waterfall. So you see this path inclining out of sight, obscured.

The entrance being familiar you are not too scared, but what lays beyond the plaiting, a great, green folding of some interwoven trees you and your beard cannot determine because you have never taken that way. A dog is there. It is your dog. But the path, you follow it with your dog, thinking of certain complex things you think of. Dog hollers to snap you out of some forgetful revery. And you smile: you see the town off there, in the distance. Leave it to the Lord you say to the dog, who has no idea what you are saying because dogs cannot speak English. But the beard, it understands. You live in this town, by the way. Lifted from your daydreams lifting your head up. The World is fresh enough to appear fully. But like before for the entire life of you it was not full if it could be like this. O perfidious dialectical laze. Distractions only, daydreaming. Cool your addiction to it. Head is leant against your stick to shift the weight of thoughts to there. You examine the surroundings, head lifted up. That you are up out of the woodlands at the brink of a field. It is the only thing separates you from home. You and your beard seem to have known the way wouldn’t get steeper; it hadn’t. Let’s backtrack: Some agreement was made, somewhere, at the brink of somewhere, yes: to risk a steeper incline or worse getting lost again, both seemed likely. At the start neither of these possibilities are good and daunt the impractical choice when one thinks about it but you go and risk it walking out of sight into the mouth of the green growth in search of the porous spaces of wisdom that soak us in. You know, somehow, this being verified following some intuitive proof, to follow the path likewise. Follow it long enough that the highest point, not even too bad, once reached, gives you the relief of a decline from it to salvation: the air pressure returns to normal, and the village is in sight! That is how it went. Now back to the present engaged before: you think of your pastoral cottage there. A path that was a sky littered much with stars and the wisps of stars, but not too lofty and not for long. More to handle in a day than one is able seems a striking euphemism for death. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . So far one is open to taking serious all the friendly, mostly friendly, admonitions provided here. One in doing so will at least know to remain humble. The Last Step is for reeds who know not they are reeds. Believe instead that nobody inhabits those spiritual straits nor can. To put one ahead of God is to put words in the mouth of The Creator. Please. Nobody should feel enamoured with, or rather immured within, their own confidence like that: enough in love with themselves to start preaching the way to accomplishment, before accomplishing it. As if a human right were all personal and professional success! The concept is to be spoken of. Thereby not preached, but spoken of: a pursuit, or it is the chasing, of accomplishment. The roles of desirer and desired, usual principals to be played considering anything like ambition; are confused and shuffled up though.

Are aggravated, by the flurry of incidents befallen one who thinketh. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The accomplishment stagnates behind an idiot in the left lane: this sort of example or typification of an idiot preacherman. Idiot loser who does not get it. Like how is this supposed to work? Suddenly, at intervals between cruise control, a fleeting moment of torque and rev. Speeding; unpredictable like any idiot is. Speeding, only enough to but force the very divinities each that provide for the concept behind the invention, like a boat ribbed by the keelsons, each one keelson one that may linger behind this unvindicated asshole—forcing them heel, the divinities just trying to go to work, at just about the length of a tailgate, behind the idiot, who asks why they ride his ass so. And this is ignorance!

This is ignorance personified to show how ignorant it is the need of getting ahead of what is desired; and then, well, the asshole just remains squarely at that cruising speed! Forever. Maybe even desiring nothing in any case. Only yet another asshole on the highway. Meh. One who would be exampled on Earth among the mortals better, nor here in the figuration alone be an idiot, to be publicly characterized as an asshole by the civilians on the road about him who are not divinities in cars that are not divinities. Just to cover all the bases, I refer to most things as a metaphor for divinities. They are an unwilling audience nonetheless: to this holocaust of cluelessness’ bad manners. A torrent of highway idiocy. At least it comes with no torrent of rain they say: the highway is looking like it’ll have a rush hour for the ages later. And so on so on.

Cuts off the other cars, might cause an accident, the bastard: irresponsibly out of a recordbreaking degree of vanity in one recordbreakingly otiose. That seems to be it. Without ambition moving thus to escape having no dreams. Or does that cut too close you idiot loser? The wheel unconsciously clenched tighter by the handless hands of one divinity herein.

But without the chops to do anything beyond shoving a way in front. Only managing to slow down the moving traffic of these other divinities in their cars, accomplishments, in their cars, some fuming, some remaining aloof and sarcastic, some just as idiotically slow I guess—but, at least aware of this fact: who drive just behind and want no part of this idiot’s day.

Generally accepted as gospel: fear of the gaspedal usually ends up causing accidents, instead of actually abridging the recklessness also a cause, for sure—and this fear of the gaspedal is reckless for not being actually of the gaspedal; being in this case the sum of many kneejerk fears placed as one in a slot in the heart reserved for safe keeping. Fears, or a fear in the heart, so then within, as to the sanctity of their idiot owner’s soul. This idiot driver’s soul, how laughable!, who feels them all; and of a quality, ironically like the soul in question, of no such temperance, temperance as goes dutifully discarding all the fallacious nonsense, leaving only the essential nonsense.

And in this following a similar strategy of wanting it all and getting nothing as the idiotic contortions that subvert God: spoken of here is not just a loser on the highway. In being ahead of what is pursued so as to trump it. That’s what is spoken. And this is an illness of pride, of one’s own pride.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Where after all will finality be before it can arrive at where it is discovered by the pursuers and inventors out there? As if a location mutually agreed upon before a meeting of enemies: and there is something thuggish and paranoid about this comparison. How does one assume who will win before scanning the immortal challenger, compiling a dossier, so as the proper reaction be measured, in figuring the ratio between its size and the sizable fact its pursuers are mortal? 

To be ahead what is chased! An absurd idea for metaphor to detail. A job that really needs consistent proximity with what is chased; to be ahead of it implies that any objective is degrading if it is desired. Though ironically the objective falls deaf on human cries, cries of frailty,—cries that the objective be brought to one who in the end is pursuing nothing. This is the reason there is no accomplishment, on the side of hubris at least, in the first place. Yes, yes, the Titanic has enough lifeboats, not to worry. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Yet what a sad history this is to choose for repeating, and what a silly cliché,—air jets gathering dust accorded to the Taliban or someplace or other that is corrupt. Still dwelling in hangars.

Stocks of weaponry unused and like new and when to be given a chance at the purpose for their pathetic making will kill off the resources of others, as many as possible: some resources with minds and souls even. Actually most of them.

So then, where are the supplies, the resources needed to make the whole world a damn paradise? In a tastelessly excessive surfeit, somewhere hot, like in Arizona or New Mexico. Someplace home to miles of unpopulated desert. No, none have died in vain, not to worry; just don’t bring down the banner yet, with the specious statement on it, if to do so is only to sell reassurance via the daily news. Do not be so impatient. It is not important to capture a photo of the president at a podium right now, in front of his banner with the specious statement.

Tell the photographer to forget about a front page anyway: such imagery will only ever avoid the predictable ironies preemptive absolutes attract, if the specious statement not specious, ends up proleptic actually. But if jumping the gun ended up being correct we’d have less guns. And which ended up not being correct at all. These ironies are God’s sarcasms, cropping up organically around all the examples of human folly there have ever been. Absolutely. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Kill the thing to life? I must, must, must have sunk in the weapon then, all the way in, thinks one, using a somewhat diffuse metaphor. Well it made sense in the moment thinks one, hearing the voice that was his dear criticism.

Looking on: with the obsessive unreadable blankness of beautiful love. Capturing the entirety of one’s attention. Understandable that it’s a feeling too a feeling for the public to see from the outside. Nothing faded that would cross visages like tears when it’s not too deep for them. A’saith Wordsworth. Inner dispute is a toughie; or perhaps a feeling not too much one is automatically in need of a facial cue for lacking being recognized inwardly. If it’s faded. To make the faded thing less faded and more a reality reality for engaging the naked eye. Not of that do I speak but a sincerity realized fully without epileptics. I look on blankly. On, at the invention before my naked eyes. It had come to seem, well, like a child. Or maybe was. A summation of all that work. But still the question remained whether the thing was futile or not, unlike a child—if the expected efforts are put in that is. Or unlike a good Christian child at least if the womb is pure of sin and sloth. Thinks one: I want to give up. As to this a pure assessment seems impossible. Both realities, hung in precarious balance and counterbalance as validation overtakes despair and vice versa. One had tried to recollect it: any final actualized event of completion. One thinks now: The problem is you are tentative to approach proof of any kind if it’s from a distance. Keep to your cautious, vague outskirts, then: something someplace between expectation and physical hunger. You are in fear of approaching it: the dangerous ‘no’ reverberating back. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But now I, one thinks to oneself, in the way one speaks to oneself, in one’s head, a conspicuous ‘I’ silencing for some few seconds the familiar otherness taking up space in one’s being, one’s fatigued being; and which was suspected broken, or even if in the best condition yet obsolete. So, hah, one thinks: but now I am inflating dilemmas again.

But such a worry would come to be just measly, an echo without a source. It is only that the danger of this I cannot see but anyway it is not there. Otherness must have knifed it to life: into that seriouser, stranger heart of some animal. A rodent maybe. In any case it is an animal curbed there behind every conclusion possible to draw from the finishing. One then continues to remain. To battle each animal on the path. To those layered reaches of improbability one thought one had covered before,—going on like so till there are none left to lash out at one, no gripes from whatever anomaly had not been heeded because now all of them had been heeded, certainly were done with being heeded. 

See thing is the idea that the invention, if it is to actualize itself, needs some semblance of uh wholeness and completeness, no matter if it be the invention of a memorable idiom, or an innovation, or rebellion’s first seed,—is an idea it would be more beneficial to make too clear, even way too clear. Forget how farfetched, or stretched, or strained, or ugly one is afraid it might become. One thinks to himself a thing. Again one goes about resuming the soliloquy, or maybe call it an inner, or an interior narration, sans any voice but for the soundless, toneless voice in one’s head, of the blessed ‘I.’ I think to myself a thing. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The cuttingfloor will always fill up with things that get lost in the clutter you wish hadn’t, one thinks; at the other end of the problem, eliminating the spare metal can lead to everything being extraneous, and then the result clipped together is too scanty and stiff and anemic. Both still are for my consideration solely and made by my hands and thus both are the bedfellows of the same flawed creating. No matter the gallons of sweat I lose in poring over the details for a fix. The dialectical hammer hammering. It is figurative though and if I bang a finger that also is figurative and no blood is lost. One accepts this. One is also forced and bullied by their genius, and in this way do I suffer something more like the dizzying pain of blood loss. 

Yet what is spilled is not my own blood but my lifeblood. Something very different this is but also is something figurative. I think of my signature there, on the contract I hold with surety. Skeletal hieroglyphic script. I think my very ordinary name is a sort of ontical doodling: or, to say it in a different way, a sketch of my pure being: done out of boredom, or the product of an anxious idleness that is anxiety at staying so idle, and that crinkle up one into their idleness like a trash idea on paper thrown in the wastebasket, missing the novelty basketball hoop hanging above it but only by a few inches.

The way a sickness gives one to hunch their back in a chair and retire from society to the World of their room. I am in trouble. I have forced my deliverance. Hark! I have my hand crammed up the length of this cornucopia! In the asshole of a cornucopia: my left hand. At a deep spot within the sweet smelling loam, there. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Say this just get it out of the way already. One will say, or might say, this: I am parable, or should be. Listen to me: I will be learned from, so that none ever again live so broken. And will inform posterity on my own time; do not think it is not your problem too. But as I grow old I will lose sight of the future and this invention that is my very child shall start to arm up, being programmed by me to arm up for a threat at the time of my death either antiquated or solved; arm up for something forgotten by then after all the scrutiny of history and passing time, after all, that I thought would remain a problem and should be happy by considering it possible to one day not be. But I am not. But I am made the fool by these fatal ironies of the original predicament. Guiding life until it doesn’t simply put. Or anything bad as may come of this youthful eagerness or impatience to fix.

My invention, still without a last step, I am not sure. Will I say: when I was young and the future was clearer. And was it also even more questionable than a lucid dream: I will not be foiling anymore what I have created. Swear it now. Already enough a shitstorm in my tampering with what was fine before. I scorn it happening, of course, now: it is like being shoved just right into the smallest space a crack in the wall has, a crack that is getting worse. But I will do nothing about my behavior. Am downtrodden: my work ethic alone shalt not sustain me unless sanity is sacrificed and a numbing mania introduced. Yet I am having trouble with whether it is really sanity or something else in the cornucopia that I can’t loosen my grip on.

It is absurd to do this. Oh my God this has got to be some heavy metaphor for something: or perhaps just the usual retribution…because my life is hell. It’s useless to do this: I mean I am wholly without the ability to deliver to the air what I am mired to, am stuck holding on to. Only was venturing coyly to reach, went in for its stash. There in the void. I do not caress opportunities like a big pussy but grab them with the language of my clenched fist. Yet it is the clench that somehow suctions my hands there stiff at present. My left hand is stuck: but still my arbitrating what shall finish up this weary little confluence of inspiration does its job without relent, and I wipe my plate clean. That necessity sings, it has been vigilantly singing out of tune a little now, though muffled it be. But my made sense is stubborn like that and it does its job to preserve me and who I am in the heads of those I know and love. Hopefully others, one day. The reasoning behind any sort of preservation, no doubt, will always stink of ego. Like old tobacco residue to be scrubbed from the counters, where it thickens and yellows for a decade. Along with the rest of the doublewide, it has not been cleaned.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . There beneath the waxing and justifications is the stink of preserving a shit status quo: though too the ego is a healthy selfishness that literally everyone has and which requires accepting. Accepting that you need to escape the acedia, one thinks to himself, talking of himself in the third person like if right in front of one. Besides when he was needing another voice tell him advice, to least simulate the objective view. Then second person: acedia encroaching by the day and that flares up at night for a skirmish with you, then it ebbs as you sleep. It is ubiquitous like the sun’s creeping all over everywhere as the sun itself encroaches. Sailing across the same new boundaries of sky each day. This need is ego and is useful just to you, while others perish without an antidote and without themselves. In fact, everyone perishes, as a rule; also, as a rule, an antidote can only work if it is your personal antidote. It makes sense: each of us after all is given a distinct ego we use to exercise our hobbies and interests. Yet all interests can be reduced to an interest in will, or focus upon it.  There will be different meanings for life that each of us will test out, exercise, as they come and go; after the workout, returning them in a neat yet severe pile to their home in your head, someplace rosy and remote in there. Thing is you were created by God for just such selfish use, and anything else one is asked to purchase, a wack scam, crap to sell, idols to the paranoia that is castling more and more, gradually; the paranoia one feels as to one’s human worth, wondering if they are deluding themselves. To be dogged like this! Forget delusions of grandeur, that’s easy shit! What about delusions of delusions of one’s decency and inherent value, sans all the bells and whistles that can only drily indicate value’s outline, distracting us from a soul’s actual quiddity, with a skill. Yet what shall I say: that I am he who stinks of selfish desires? Ones that chemically mirror those of poor white trash for the tasteless guido possessions, but is for something more cultivated, which probably makes the whole thing worse: that is, transcribing one’s physical memento mori, an elite keepsake that no one understands and no one will, there among the forgettable crap in your bureau. That no one could understand—and, as if it could be done!, making that, accurately, into the dynamism of a text. Reality but on the page. Or if I am not so deft a creator to do that, then maybe just life, a concept of life that is found in a thing. Life stocked with all its numerous hassling fears of death. Able to be printed and circulated, immemorially. One will at last get to leave one’s mark.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The procedure here, one used to find the holy finality I am aware I have ruined, and rescue it—before yet another hasty action, on my part, that would cause its further ruin—it is a procedure whose aim is to sandwich the original desire for finality, almost to preserve it and keep it in place, between the euphoric rush in accepting this foreknowledge, a usual ecstasy for me and probably a lie, that I have done something momentous in engineering the face of that desire, that drama; the procedure sandwiches itself adroitly between that, and my own sense of accomplishment I feel upon reaching the end of the mental errand, whatever it was for. This sense of accomplishment, moreover, is in direct proportion to the accuracy of my depiction. Of that face. Whatever piece of art you can name, and the most of it which you cannot even pronounce, is made unalterable—not necessarily when the last step has been reached, but when it is known for certain, by the artist, to have been reached. That in itself could be the justice needing be given to the depiction, the one in front of you that one looks for, that one waits for when it is right there proximate you, one thinks. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . To keep myself stubborn will not sustain me, and my will to keep stuck here, reaching way up the asshole of this mutant cornucopia, does not sustain me now. Yet my dastard thoroughness will not let go those fruits and now they are rotting, and will not sustain me at all. I have gathered most of my tries at sanity in my hands. Which has been limiting. So far the message that wants to leave itself behind in me, one that I am ignorant of,—because, after all, it is not mine to own—has for awhile thought it best to reveal itself in its different forms of the same synaptic music. What is now too deep in to hear from outside the cornucopia. And now it will suffocate in this gagged, airless cornucopia. Well take some of its fruits you wanted, had wanted, of the genius, take them and accept them as marred by your cruelty. A genius thing is perhaps located in this mixed metaphor. I just unleashed it, irresponsibly, one thinks; it was that or words of two different lexicons at least. Mixed together and left there. I shrugging for what is good enough, though if dissected it turn to something confusing, to visit upon one’s mind out of sequence and out of sorts. A euphemism for the editing process in filmmaking, in using the term cuttingfloor; and something about Thanksgiving. There is a vast space between these two things I created in the interim, tying up loose strings, threads. Four pages to be exact. This I do without destroying much of the seasonal assortment however. And how disorganized is the cuttingfloor! It must be cleaned. Especially if it is the floor of one’s garage. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I’d rather be visited by some little extra thoroughness, I to buff it out presently, than be not clear enough and leave it at that: this maxim will be the saving grace. Your sacred wish you tell no one though: that is, to put on a last drape, a final drape, of burnished flesh over this design. This invention of thought I stare at, blankly. Well: examine the situation in light of knowing physicality is just an added varnish to any reality, and by that I mean the physical reality of what you made depends not on an arbitrary added layer, thinks one to oneself, in conversation with oneself. Oh your silly wish to put on that last drape of burnished flesh, over this design of thought I stare at, blankly. So long have I been crabfooting at the steps before the last step: but the invention, being here now, must take it for me, my progeny, towards being. Alas, at times the thoroughness will be an adverse reaction. I have worried creations into mess. I often slowly witness my distracted engineering turn a stuck lock into a broken door. I fear for the invention: I beg it not muddy up with additional guts of wiring. Lest some percentage of the body politic, made up of all my thoughts together, be weakened, and made homeless and destitute, by some halfass theory I toss in somewhere tiny and odorless: but my intuition seems to eventually sniff it out, one thinks. Some deformity in the guise of a theory. A wart right there in the middle of the logic to be; and to be made better, incubate into something fuller, if pierced to the root and fundamentally removed. Really it is like the behavior of a weed. One thinks: my mental garden, if it is that. I visualize it as a small space of flowers on the façade of my bedroom window, except thrust out from my forehead and providing my eyes with shade. Whatever is thorough is prepared to last if it is truly driven by thoroughness, which is humanity’s only outlet it was provided, thrust into being surrounded by a cloud of divine emissions that will never leave the perimeter of the human body, and always pushing on us the possibility of God being visible to the naked human eye. For being so focused, it is surprising one does not need a microscope to see God; but then again, thoroughness begets vastness ultimately, and thoroughness after all is the divine outlet, where we can plug into the Most High, and momentarily conduct light from all these sensed purities hovered just above our skin. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The creation, invention, should be factoryready before it is even ready to be put into the hands of strangers; nay sometimes I think even before one’s family touches it, one thinks, one thinks. One makes the thing, most times, without a prototype. It will have its sickly charm. It will likely be susceptible to viruses at first, knockoffs. But one should remember this, if nothing else, for it holds especial gravity: that in terms of the concepts one must teach, the directions one must give, for handling it, the invention, are the same. The creation that you made, thinks one; and that made you God. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Concepts, which are things, real things, need too their wholeness if to truly exist as an argument is the goal. For they inspire actions from real things that alter the culture, or mood of life at large, of still more real things. Anyway be sure to have it finished to a ‘t.’ Also: teach not the creation itself to others, but the passion of ego that inspired one to spread the creation, further, to the further reaches of people: others, beyond nations and across borders. If none of this works of course, one usually does better just to guess blind and then make the claim to whoever will listen: that it is as true as true can be though

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . Until, right, an eon tips the final domino into yet another ‘new’ millennium. Strips of the truth anybody’s claim to it, inevitably, and abandons the warped truth thought of it so long accurate—by a warping culture.

There are those of course who might still be surrounding its ghost out of respect or something. But then these tribes are abandoned too, by progress, by The Progress made of a merest minute, the only minute in life important to one: between the problem and its solving.

Progress, which is an expression, likely one of many, of God’s plan, venerated periplum of manias. If you prefer. I think of a record of all the change in the universe, and wonder if the record knows what’s left. Simply in that the record lives not in time but simultaneity if that is the record is omniscient. Hm some holes there. The record is able to encompass future records, then, if only perception of time be transmuted from one to another locale. So, rush it our way, way down the factory line, made to fit our loose commandments of time, like a pair of shoes not bought until one of them gets there to your left foot. Yet even footwear though too a general human conceptualization and also something universal and mysterious, is not something nobody knows why it is mysterious; nor how for this long what with all the lackluster bureaucracy implicit in requiring organization, and at that An Organization, enough for a record be kept by somebody at least. But perhaps the mystery is, there is no chaos. Thus there is no freedom, and then all us will dash our longstanding denial of it and succumb to the fate, no, I mean accept our fate, that the nature of all being is inherently boring, and lackluster, like plain eggs; and will only be something wonderful if proven the only Bible of God’s word, the one that points most to the truth behind things, has itself some relative thoughts on the truth, but more importantly, ties in the idea of nothing being behind it all, or at that the idea of nothing being behind, at all; as in, that all of us are ahead of ourselves, can only get more ahead of ourselves, and the hierarchy a sort of dependable chaos, one that would sooner jive with the founding supposition that all of us are usurpers, criminal takers of the throne, an abstract throne, a disappearing throne, a throne that is too complicated and that is not there.

. .  .   .    .     .      .       .        .

Beings on Earth go at each other and could make sense of it by supplying the empathy where empathy will be allowed give; but make sense of it by saying instead that everybody is in a constant occasion of furtherance, movement, thus, it is only natural. I say however it is only natural to think we transcend on more occasions than we do. In reality. In reality: ha. The greatest of all caveats, reality. Know and follow me, saith The Progress. For though what you believe has been dispelled by now and was before you came back to say the finality it is among other things dispelled that at one point had been proven with equal vigor: laws at the time thought to be always vital parts of the World of humanity and the World of universe; laws that will merely expose a stupid soap opera love affair humans will indulge. 

Like a law to be in love with touching up dead things, that is, with all our vitality we seem to have in surplus, stockpiled like government weapons. Doing this attempts remove the insincerity we see in things from things probably more sincere than us if in the first place they are not conscious. Like how the self has frowned itself out of existence, in choosing its keepsake be the resting bitch face of pessimism. 

Oh, how much good we think we do in damasking pillars of marble: the blushing frolicsome chains of roses and tulips seem to dance. What drives this, we all know, however, is the absurd hope of witnessing a momentary cognitive flicker in the stone. It is an open secret and we only conceal it more desperately each time we beautify senseless carbon. This goes for words too. Predictably it becomes harder to prevent the reactionary overflow of bile from a psychological place in us we strike down, without fail, in making blush the suitable pale of things that just want to be their organic coldness, not play pretend with organisms who despise their fathers, their fathers with their throats of brass. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . But no World is eternity. None of them are, none of the Worlds: this is true no matter how much one of the Worlds does this less or that more. Take note. Here are some examples . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . One example of a World out there. Equivocality is its pollution. It seems and seems and seems, it is a repulsive mobile that will keep turning with deceptive strength until finally it all blacks out. Without warning I would guess, but how much can be suspected studied predicted and then prepared for in a World made of indifference? This redundant twilight gyre. It is a planet in motion now solely to keep up appearances before its cosmic wake. No diurnal ebb and flow anymore though seasons wheel through Arctic night. The inhabitants of this World ontically mirror the stasis of where they are. Because they are afraid of its desertion. They start to die off. At the least wane of hope no less. which would be fucked up of their planet. But bathos and bad timing is an unfair ‘law’ of the land. Unfair considering it is not a law followed by the land itself. And reality would be no such prodigal at The End. It would leave them all myths, being as all nothing. So people go ahead and live up to their only duty for lack of anything better to do they say but mostly because that duty is all the chips they have when it comes to a cosmic downsizing. Best chug ruthlessly for a small say on the council after all than deny a heritage of stasis just to be different. This is bad besides the fact one is ultimately denied a chair on the council so to speak and thus a chance to draft up input the night before the council meets. Once again the council’s hour will be taken up by discussing the coming week’s survival strategy, probably. But the strategies have all been joylessly rehashed in a cycle spaced over a long enough time to almost trick one into thinking that things could be freshly built of change, not merely revolving in orbit growing nauseous at the many vibrating frictions that, uh, that in those parts is such a commodity! But to the universe nothing is a commodity. Nothing is sold it just is. Run it by the mercurial chiefs of neighboring galactic tribes and note of any misery to their collective peasant body and see the truth of this in what their orders given highlight as important, maybe food related. It is some strange misguided effort to them, even as a system of bartering; money was even forgotten by the aforesaid people of that imaginary World of what seems. People who do the job despite they do not understand it. They do not understand the commodifying because there nothing is rewarding. Guerdons and wreaths. Pah. Forgotten at the end of the last millennium this was. Now all that interests anyone who lives there are new mandates for rest or better, death. I indulge the scoff. Me and my insipid nihilism, o. Who knows but at The Rapture it might well be a World reserved for evidence of some erosion to the universe going on behind William Blake’s closed doors of perception. A tragedy, like brain damage. And that is too harrowing for toughest carbon. Not to be eventually smoothed. And will prove the death of certainty. Kill that one alive will you. It is a World in that pathetic state, a unique breed of pathetic familiar to the place, resultant of some owner’s neglect, something unacceptable and inhumane like that hamster you won at a carnival that started eating its own pellets of shit because you were too lazy to feed it, and which ended up being flushed alive down the toilet. Not even monitored by God anymore; yet it did not experience a slow moral regression, unlike other planets on the list, other Worlds that were provided with a sacred text, yet suffering a quicker moral atrophy. Or it is some farmlands for raising to mature certainty the farfetched things scattered in spacetime. The universe does not have time to parse out all the karma though and no evidence this is the case exists. Of the turning them into believable things at least one wishes. By adding a use to them would be preferable, since practicality seduces the naysayers. Say this place is for the lone wolf, the unclear statement. Passive Aggressions. A heavens for souls leftovers lifted from a doubt that has been buried or some other, emotionally or with shaken hands and some eye contact. Doubts that float from elsewhere in the universe migrate here. To this World. Karmic balance must be involved somehow. Else why would it be acting this way? Though I would stop short of calling it a heavens for doubts, thinks one. Who knows: maybe this World disappeared when it got too comfortable with seemings, every fact a loaded fact; the people tired after too long exposed to all the seemings. Like the way one is exposed to radiation; people too comfortable with lack and boredom and pause to even surreptitiously try again. Even if the reward is like catching yet one more breather in footing the bill when yearly Progress lags behind its quota. Thinks one: I mean like footing the bill, malingering home to rest precious rest. Let me speak to these people. Of course it is restful but it is not for your health if you have any old shred of empathy. Malingering is bad anywhere but is generally accepted on Earth to be bad. One must experience a moral amnesia, quote unquote; not literally amnesia. And deny one has done this to the detriment of all the rest of the staff at work. Deny it like Big Oil CEOs deny climate change. With that sort of vigor. But no the halflife of their energy gets snipped, more exacerbated the dose of fatigue per hour per capita. It is a World defends having no responsibilities: by always bringing to light the same former blast of Progress in its history that was the own creation of this World itself. But it says it was not that long ago. All is illusion or close to the cliff. O World of seeming. And it that but then slinks away all pouty disappearing to be alone once and for all. Motheaten hand me down hood of moody pith all left the inhabitants to stave off Winter then go and perish in the endless imaginary night there. It is a mood slathered as fuck. On and on by a selfish cosmos unable to separate Ghandi and Hitler because teleologically it’s all the same state from the top. Just it is fractured once shrunk by these differentiations called morality got cropped up over time there in people of a World away at the corner of the Milky Way. As this would in the conscious mind of any World’s conscious inhabitants, who themselves are an anomaly of God. This cosmos would have a martyred World for doubt be if destroyed, then excessively: a mind quicker than daylight goes off the frigid alien poles of Earth; a mind that knows icy distance like the poles. Let us say I am of this rhetorical World forever, though it will be just for now. That I put the onus of my own improvement there, tucked away, a pitiful dirty sock shoved down the side of the bed, a temporary solution: deep in there: some swampy place among the mushrooms. To linger and rot among responsibilities of a different World’s population. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . These scores of persons to consider on Planet Earth think, for for the moment there exists no large scale alien invasion to sway one, that there is only Planet Earth to make the list of themselves complete. It is only one list and Moulder says we are not alone but that is a more obscure story. End of X Files reference. The universal list is limited to what is pulled by gravity moreover. The merit of a youtube video like by its number of views. But there are myriads out there and more ways to consider merit. Populations bound to their terrestrial housing projects. Populations of wanderers up and down a planet mentioned so far or not yet or not to be. Scores of them nobody knows about not limited to the all of us on Earth like that were all of everybody, and further than that as if that number were representing all in a given galaxy! The population of a World is its makeup. They are the soul of the place and we are. Essentia. And God’s thoughts each are planet and individuals each are neuron. Yet some individuals are barely able to handle duties the size of an atomic particle. Something was said about this already. Strung out on stale worries that turn the new day edgy. Subsequent comedown resembling the effects of too much coffee or meth. I or God maybe gives out past circumstances and cultures to populations: like flyers to the disinterested mob. Flyers handed out by cosmos that must have gotten into their hands: the inhabitants of aforesaid seeming World. Looking for someplace not so coded or seeming; or would be happy, thanks, with a holy proverb brought down to shed some holy light. Would chance it must have been that the flyers, though casually accepted by these individuals as they walked away, were seen the last step for them and their strifes of tiredness. Casual but hiding how desperate for disappearance, to have it be at an end. For only so long can one conceal it though, I’d imagine: how discomfited about living so pathetically pisspoor. A hamster consuming its own feces to live. No wonder this neutralized World, sterile World, suffered so explosively before it disappeared, if the cherished makeup of selves up and down on it took advice from a flyer that came down like a message in a bottle, across seas of universe; but not known whether its author be venerated or deranged or even still alive. That habitual seeming implodes is no surprise. I know it not, thinks one. I know not seems. If only whole populations feeding on it need not be so pathetic to the degree of experiencing an increase in confidence and seeing illness: going to the doctor’s office like a diabetic must there to it because blood sugar must be wonky. Confidence at following the advice of a simple, pathetic ass flyer. Hoping maybe it was the proverb so long in search! It won’t be. Whether from me or Moses the population will call it from Moses if the flyer truly got handed down from the sky to whoever lucky recipient, who said I don’t want to buy anything man and walked away. This population of people to consider! From the land of seems! Witnesses each, not agog, to a heavens for doubts dead that still shine their ghost on at the speed of light like a star in the night sky does which might already have snuffed into a supernova or chilled to what is termed a white dwarf. But no star ever disappeared without some ripple. But this disappeared into dread vortex, into what never was, like. This population of people to consider! Thankful for the relieving of self called introducing confidence in one’s reality like it were a luxury car to an uncivilized tribe of pygmies. Into one’s routinest mortal gestures introduced; and calm into the stride. But finally it falls apart. Riding on the wave of confidence in being situated precisely in the hellscape of God’s plan, blaming the deceit of Moses, the makeup of that World dies out. Its inhabitants do before the planet itself. One is reminded of instances on Earth in helplessly gaping on at the quiet carnage: like that giant bolus of plastic that floats around the ocean, or that barge of garbage that floated around nobody wanted that somehow entered the World stage and became an international problem. The immense mileage of this orb will not save it. Topography made sorry by the ploys and subterfuge received it by the rest of the universe, and told to inhale. A World a patsy for the moral pollution emitted from all that is and the token cosmic dumping grounds. Everybody at school ignores the guy who transferred there this semester. The core of the planet grows colder until it is as cold as the crust, being all alone, with no remaining witnesses to feed on the clods of a dry crust. Discarded more is each day by a mediocre ecosystem in the first place that was too comfortable with its dying, such that God or some other observer, like me, if they were to observe, would not be able to figure out whether this was ignorance or extreme denial. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . So then death goes on with its wear and tear, too busy with its own docket but to coordinate an evaporating whisper be the apocalypse given for the place, and one almost hears an audible washing of hands somewhere, though death itself has no limbs; though it helm itself through one then another galactic mess and through all the swamp of time for the sake of its job quenching fates, many other straggling dots out there still to go, all careering in space just the way it does, death does. Yet death is shielded from death: it is a dialectical rule of thumb to apply to any germ of a negation caused, in the contact of void with void, or whatever it may be: that only without the power to die may one enlist the power to kill. 

No there is no at last, and was not, for that World of seeming, which is but slow death, or if stretched is equivalently the hasty reducing of existence to a pair of temples between extended stupor or what was just some random blockage, trashy void, patient and prone keeping within its supernatural coffin, obeying the expectations of what seemed to come from outside the coffin, an emptiness speaking its emptiness, its charge, to sleep, without changing guard, and sometimes few extremities available to hold all the realities, and a few dropped, and some damaged when balled together, of necessity, into a handful. Goodbye evaporating dunce of a planet, forever: forever may its deluded and dead families of consciousness be conserved beneath it, or scattered around it in trashbags, which happened once infrastructure fell to ruin across the board.

And these were families, you know; and their lives not mere numbers given seatholders to assure no ire for the vacancy, seatholders who are more like usurpers, and so then ‘harbingers of death’ in their own way and would pretend the number given them is for all the previous reincarnated lives of their own that they truly owned once. Themselves given to spread around a greater circumference with greater freedom, sycophant to none till the vacancies return and they the seatholders realize this is all for a limited time. A circumference more than these vacancies do transit, these numbers, privileged with the time and money to essentially buy a stairway to heaven and go without reproach for a selfish detaching from God into incurable twain. Whoring out their life like that: any vacancy does not appreciate properly the ease with which it is allowed to exist. It is a life without retribution for snubbing God. They do not even know they gamble with a mutinous possibility, nor seem all fazed with worry at the indication of incident to come; nor would a vacant seat, which became what all those on a dead planet would ever be, really be stoked by any sort of intrigue to get up and leave besides going to the bathroom. Intrigue or standoffs calling for the involvement of the authorities. Perhaps jealousy on the part of the seatholders does not mesh with murder in the first degree, necessarily. Or even with a nasty power struggle. It is just an empty seat, no matter it held on cosmos or council or even for a wedding, the plans were to fill it with that person. And now it’s not. Is it indifference to the divine privilege does this? Hm. Cosmic privilege would be less a threat when if used to endorse the actions of a mortal human it were not perceived indifferently by mortal humans. All the colors in the rainbow, speaking metaphorically, would agree. If only such a bitter gift were given to those cognizant of what they had, just enough would want more to get enough and be satisfied, with at that some extra divinity to pass around. But this shit is not a joint rolled out of weed that was stuck to the fabric of a stoner’s couch.

And the emptiness of empty seats pounds to boredom one’s pair of temples, and makes one turn to drugs. Well they will be vacancies as still suffer the bad look of conspicuous absence. At the wedding, or council meeting, or meeting at the foot of the universe. But be clueless about it once you arrive, so that to need not be present at your son’s Briss is no big deal because you didn’t know, one thinks. There are these delightfully aware celestial families too, ok with snubbing because they do it, who delight in the expanse when it shows up, and know also they cannot hold all the expanse on their shoulders anyway, nor be put up for awhile in the mind with a few theories for roommates. Interesting that mind and shoulders both can be made independent visions of what consciousness might be. Meanwhile may vacancies made by the dead be kept by seatholders without comment, without a need on the part of the bride and groom to decry the sudden absence: a terrible thing, to hold death against one, but hard not to do if it’s the reason they miss the life event and Grandma always wanted to see you married. Nothing, as in the entity, or called The Nothing, controls who holds that seat in their place, a man or figure assembled of stuff the most real in the concept of it; a picture hung up on the wall, or something. ‘Being’ and ‘selfhood’ are perishable: these cannot be applied to the present moment that encapsulates all one’s life truths living at rest in chambers of memory, memory only; and death the reason the chair is empty. And what if so to speak all things not quite sensible then met neatly in this here eloquent irony, and these dunces really conserved like wax collectibles somewhere more vibrant than they could have taken advantage of when alive and clueless, for Pete’s sake. Let all of them, this army of empty chairs, of empty seats, who actually without knowledge of it are dead and peopling these areas of paradisal sunrise and sunset, there in the wherever, well, let all of them calm the rest of us down, for there is too a place for their lax little reclining souls, a place in the heaven in need of balance, too enslaved to the speedy resolutions that the bigger problems that need deliberation unravel and loosen into chaos. But this cleanup is no job for the lazy, nor then might it be solved by these newcoming swathes of emptiness, to a land for the angels strictly, angels remaining in disguise, so as not to be treated any differently by their visitors, but mostly just to fool them all into believing they were not yet close to the harvest of cosmic death, who sings his nails into the coffin with talk of a last step, and in that case thank the freed piss of the incontinent powers that be upon this village of vacancies, freshly erected and done with, at last, to the gravelly tone of hands clapping off their dirts and dusts of effort with the friction. It is easy to fantasize about a risk at benevolence met with understanding, despite wounded pride at being kept in the dark about a spiritual harness upon that mediocre one who would naturally in this situation be the more dependent and bound to their home. It is easy to think the vacancies will get around to figuring it out with a shrug, at most an entrylevel discomfort shrouded behind pleasantries, which is the universal language for no harm no foul. Somewhere this has got to be true, yes; and everywhere there will be parts of the falsity that light up in beauty enough to distract one from the falsity, though in space truth is all we have, thinks one, catching up with the angels, on leave, for a week, while the archangels assume that lesser throne built of miniature laurels, placation, since God is to his children both coddling and condescending as a parent, and whatever merit as one would think oneself into feeling for them likely a hallucination of political sway in a World above all the rest, where every absence ever is and will be ever loved. This love is not along the lines of those same equivocal congratulations, stickers on the refrigerator for all the good they’d do to raise the rank of an angel. Though why care besides to be a radical in the face of proven emptiness, proven at this point? They are not there if they are not there, these impressions of things that play with chairs and fight for control over pressing the Divine Button, which would annihilate everyone, on top of that, make suddenly weightless all the banqueting reality that scoops humanity in and leaves us at the bottom of this bowl of soup called either existence or the meaning of existence, but not both; for one of the two of these only the other one not it, for the other of the two both. Expect disappointment if one is expecting the checks and balances of that Unreal Mind upstairs to be in being the finger that pushed as infallible as God. As should be so, should, but isn’t. If given that responsibility in the first place? Imagine it: connected to the Divine Button where the senses collect as sediment, leaving time the last thickness, and time, thus, with the ability now for others to enjoy touching it, though maybe not enjoy what the touch is, its fiberlike gelid structures no sort of banquet compared to the heat that would radiate from its chugging assertion of time’s kindling of minutes of heat and fire, and passing on and on. The time visible and surreal in smoke helpless risen in plumes that once were alteration and now represent all Worlds at once in static frames of an apocalypse, an apocalypse gifted to us by a God sick of the suffering, and to which all humanity must make obeisance and die in before facing the last glorified step, when nothing is left to measure but a flux of physical law as the clockwork of the universe stammers and then wheezes back into sync at increasingly shorter intervals, and more audible each round the desperation of being doomed to live in the lightless meanwhile of some hell ruled by myth, a myth that tantalizes with blurry prospects of deliverance without delivering, or delivering the wrong gift of apocalypse to whoever bows down in greeting, head tilting away from seeing it, and they in the end punished for their good manners towards The Grand Thing, which is a name for something else, and not the finger that pushed, one wagers; or at the very least that will push, definitely, the Divine Button, which symbolizes I know not what at all. But the inventor had picked the worst moment to indulge their karmic knack for bad timing, which they did when aware more than usual of the creeping dread of time, usually bowed down to in lieu of averting gaze at The Grand Thing, maybe death, offending him thereby, death, whose visage of love and transcendence and all that new age spiritual mishmash was meant for all to see, which by the archangels was preferred, for the sake of better harmony once all the sardines, numbers, and numbers for chairs, were neatly expatriated to their state after: for according to the divine statistics people who saw the visage would not be so mad about dying once they picked up on the fact that nothing at all anymore was fact, save that moment of visage before the mandatory extinguishing of life. To be savored, a tender memory. The chance passed, one would have to be doled their medicine without having seen The Grand Thing, stirring up only discontent, in one, or anyone stupid enough to not drink up the last sight of their life, life, which is a name for something else. Life, like the way a touchable time was made the quick substitute for a reality crumbling before nobody’s eyes, became as it approached the finest degree of a last step a place before that where one had felt nothing but even then still not The Nothing. It depends upon its thickness, thinks one, underscoring a maybe there, but lightly, not wanting to wake up the universe when she has just fallen asleep, like a babe, out of a fear for life, a babe. One accidentally revealing the limited brain capacity of life, to this romantic partner, named the universe, which is, more than anything else I might’ve listed so far, a name for something else.

If the Divine Button has been pushed then will humanity, a bickering tribe of hermits in essence, have to learn the bad news from others, what had happened, and not to have noticed it at all without others, before disappearing? The ubiquitous baggage of existence, and the all but faceless universe quite peaceful now without all that population. The burning of minutes would go on and persist wheezily as timber lessened and then everything would be futile and silent once again and all would sleep. The mechanism thumping on and on: like a lilywhite blondehaired foot, sans a sock on for, keeping time with the music, the other foot thankfully covered, which he usually did to hide the varicose vein: and then one remembers fully: for no reason, one remembers it with tenderness their smelly avuncular contra, keeping time wailing at his smelly banjo. The one whose visage too close to your face often lent with it a whiff of bad breath. Did you did remember seeing him as a child, and up through adolescence, to even just the last few days prior no less? Futility this is a fact of human makeup that now you have barely any time to turn over in your chagrined head before the apocalypse, and didn’t as a child. Before you die you will not know the invention, one thinks; nor when you and perhaps your mother traveled to visit him.

Stooped down he got too close to one’s face in greeting, then he, your uncle, telling a story between his coughs and vague digestive trouble. Though he lived in a coal mining town in the case of the avuncular the story was not of time, not of the coal burned by time: that accumulated in sheddings of ash once around some managerial ultra clock that got broke and was removed without repairing it, a failure which is another name for time, something powered by its otherworldly sourceless mechanism, and meanwhile having all us whisking barely through the mud of such harsh gonging sounds of the hour. All the beefs of time in time will be confessed, and the whole sick plight of its shorn wastrel at the lever, who pulls open the flue or something or serves some menial purpose to the mysterious perpetuum mobile, which is another name for time’s going. Beefs swallowed until nobody anywhere is real, they must have gone on to that last place by now and by now past all the caved in theatre of meanings after meanings assaulting its coordinates. The sound of clucking tongues comes from all these other niche realms out there of cosmos. Blessed with a reality better than theirs, but, propelling into no such earnest future for The Nothing, it should have known better than to think the reality would lead anywhere, if the same Button pushed, oh, planet that once yearned: to if not be there, imaginary people in that imaginary place, at least not lose the precious strands of ambition emitting from the people there. Of that ghostly dot in the cosmic notation. And endless trails of gas, and the clouds of dust trailing off asteroids once themselves planets, and now the remaining volcanic bones divorced of all those false starts. Be ye not, almost into that shitty realm or some ruthless indifferent death, a deathly indifference? One dies no matter the barricade made, and however much one be the pith of certainty, sometimes so strong almost to make death live. One dies having crawled so long from out a hellish muddle, then failing, surprise; and then to wither back painfully and prodigal as but discharge of that new batch of things and certainties or whatever in one’s place, as had been cooked up from that World, that planet, hopeful intrepid and ambitious and foaming at its ambitious mouth of World to go and there from its ignorant place with everybody else. And since nothing else wants to be anything other than what seems, at this point, time, ironically the most seeming thing, will be, at least, that exact last gauge for falsehood left. And time left craved for by Progress; by the real prophets and fake truthers alike. And this is reassuring. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step—a misunderstood phrase, or maybe just too easily simplified by people. The tragedy of this it is almost cute. And how else to go about accepting such vileness? Such entropy? So many folks on the outskirts of one’s handsome daily orbit,—idiots, or hopefully just blithe at heart once gotten to know,—but so many folks, they are ok with it, they are patently ok with leaving a statement where it is, forever, and what something means exactly where it is, and every orphaned statement at its furthest, quaintest dilution. Thinks one: you would not be surprised if these people at the start were fools, and fools to that complacence, eking out the minimum argument only when they have to: each one a slouch, a linguistic anodyne. They are even of this character when forced to admit a principle, even just one: the words they say take up the responsibility to question them. These anodynes: when nothing else works. And when that fails, rob them of the power to communicate anything: a single irate bubble of gas erupting somewhere within breaches their lips as drool instead of words when they try to speak. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step—a phrase, nearly identical, phonetically and syllabically, to a vault of others. But with special affinities!, I think, thinks one, but this time speaking in the brains only, a voice to themselves and with it the gift of an I. Affinities, to this one phrase you have in mind out of all the rest, thinks one: Besides that both are and have been reliable clichés, so far,—cultural workhorses when the culture has not enough time,—and the second phrase of the two, to be mentioned soon; and besides that they mostly fuck with separate duties to definitions at partial variance,—still, it remains true for any phrase, even for the invisible ones like this one, which is staying invisible, so far, because, well, it has not been mentioned yet, the words put down here so far in willful wait of such an astounding gravity as could carry the latter half of this argument without the arguer needing to mention it almost at all, and anything more than that, all but parting the red curtains for a tasteless obviousness,—and whatever the phrase be called, still: it feels, admittedly, obliged and awkward to say, stepping forth as uncertain royalty into the spotlight and into recognizing, an unnecessary gang of footmen, sans faces, towing along behind.— The phrase thereof is as royalty, a royalty to be met not with the usual flourish of trumpets but ponderous silence, which then magnifies the sound of the dumb shuffling feet around the phrase, faceless men searching for their stage directions. These damn unnecessary lackeys are unnecessary: suddenly it all seems an embarrassing hubristic display, and the idea of royal footmen silly nonsense. One thinks all the rest of these gaudy, chaining gildings a waste of space and resources, and altogether a brutal expense, even worse for the fact it was for the good of the phrase, for the wellbeing of the dignity of the phrase. But in this the true jerk is the phrase itself. Called too early a thing that exists by you yourself who is ironically a partial existence in the writing. Less than mere words exist, requiring more reality than that to exist, for after all it will be a self: one made of voices, strange, inner ones, and the words must live up to that dignity of being and of name. It is as of now though still a halfhearted self. One as you took it straight from your inner litany, shrugged and took a risk on it, and began your molding from parts of the inner litany. One day you woke up and considered this your own challenge to this human devotion to the state of being; now, one prays that one not lose focus before abandoning the mold in utero essentially, as a mutant, who will dream his poor dream of at one point in the narrative sequence herein, attaining enough a physical otherness, perhaps collected from all the stunted logical threads, into some patchwork, over years of starvation, enough, and though walled at first within these miserable paragraphs each, scrounging for his own able threads there in the imaginative poverty, so to finally make his being himself and ditch the words of his creator without himself also disappearing—words that, almost like a drug, so long sustained the unfinished reality that kept him an abomination. This thinks one. Before your throat could prepare all the way to clear again to shout that you did want this the same as he the embarrassment comes full circle: that is once everything is revealed centerstage and all the subtlety fails, and, the only confidence in uncertainty, as to the phrase, and as to what predictably will always come out of the woodwork regarding it, which generally is something darker if it was hidden in the woodwork, but especially bad if created from the rib of your own bad character. Yet it is an entrance still and meant to be an entrance: and if it lingers long enough before coming on strong, perhaps till the end of a civilization but obviously not of a language, it inherits something more by whatever graces of English, the phrase does, whatever’s appropriate,—something like the connotations as live within different qualifying camps of theory but that say the same thing. Else to blow God’s plan and stoke the shredded orange fire of God burn us all were a better fate than to strangle the organic process of metamorphosis a language must undergo, or remain where it is and be abandoned, and the right to talk robbed from fools who die without having once doubted what they say.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . The Last Step: a phrase nearly identical, that is, to The Big Sleep, which will follow it, this by all accounts the unequivocal case for all human beings—and this exact location by the way now so infamous, at least among the cavalry of inquisitors who think they wear white coats, and not Klansmen, but the ones like you, who will bother over the coordinates, fix the math—and one thinks: What is it, what do people mean when they say they are taking The Last Step in their process; was it a slog or a breeze? Or will it not really end at all? Or, one thinks: it is one lastness out of them all that is the most agreed upon, you say? No. Nothing like a science riddle, a fucking science riddle, to make you get crusty as hell, about all the fancy science, one thinks: and your pitiful person to rage over it in private, and not understand, for hours, one thinks. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . It is an intellectual coldsore you get during the Winter that you prod with your tongue despite your mother’s intercessions: this verifiably compulsive behavior in combination with the frigid weather leaves the whole inside of your left cheek damaged raw eventually. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . One thinks: in the sole context of a finite universe this would be enough of a riddle to tolerate, much less if applied to what is surely an infinite universe in any case. But words are weak, of weak constitution, lighter than dust. I mean they are literally flimsy paper and maybe some graphite too. That’s it. And even worse, this riddle is one about a thing said in words, with language, not with words, in a language—it should be obvious, unless you literally cannot read English or are not familiar with Germanic languages, that I write in English—anyway, you, in all likelihood, will give up, reflexively. Give up answering the riddle, that is: as humans do when mentally cramped, cornered, past the point of their will’s sway—well this, and also, they succumb to madness—give up, that is, and discard these certain implications before solving anything, because you need to sleep, one thinks. But all night you will dream of questions as to words as being. Any exact location overstimulates the mind with clarity so that the location becomes relative and fractal, much less one to be considered on an infinite plane. Yet for all herein you expect to live through of the mortal, or planetary, onslaught, still, the tired eye will want to open.— . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . And this^ is an image you have quickly sampled, herein, for lack of another image at the ready. You find it floating in anonymous clutter, orphaned, and pluck it out for the wanting expression. You cannot help but feel the proximity of the next one in the roster though: what your mind by chance will face and detect, and then fix itself to there, in the celestial makeshift of your imagination, as its satellite,—yes it will want to open, the wide eye will, when the eye thinks it is in sight of an answer clearly through all the semantical wilderness and weird, and then, all options for the metaphor will be at the ready. This answer is for you: maybe it is even still a riddle, the answer only what first few rearing spoils got plucked at the end of the first act, before half the story was ripe and the stakes alive and burning, and the answer, because not pushed to be more, dead. And not by you or any of the other squares seen as more than dead, whether it is or not in reality irrelevant, just as should be what is the true last step that will quell the machine, will only properly unfold if given a narrative sequence. It will not be watched bloom nakedly. It is no naked heartflower bleeding out from a leak in the stent and will not reveal its soul for that waste of plasma. For the image being simply what it means, sans a theme, and nothing more given to transcend the audience of watchers, till all comes to a bitter putting on of gloves and a corralling of the afflatus to dirt. It is too shy for that and without the narrative it stays in bud. For the answer must have its story and lullaby. Else it will get all fidgety and act like an infant up too late: though as the hours creep on this infant will never once be out of immediate sight of the father and his tired eye. The answer I myself do father. It is an eye too tired in fact to know he has made an answer, or many, his babe, and he himself now the one handling all the many stillborn questions as they are transferred to a different line to fill out the form wait in the next line again for authorization and the line to existence or an upwards landslide to St. Peter: but nonetheless it is the job of the father to care for his lot regardless of the lot. He fingers lightly each question, tests the surface of each one, some prickly, some smooth, all treated as if in possession of a single, fragile piece of nostalgia. Yearning for the right horoscope to make it past the bureaucracy one day and deliver itself to the World as yet another thing of answers, one to delight the planets with its system, which manifested here, as it should be, through good works of the system once solely his own, now neither his nor the answer’s but a purgation of both. Like browsing for snippets on T.V., it always seems to be an answer that goes to commercial at the worst parts. In the end, thinks one, the story has barely explained itself anyway, either because you forgot some detail or the story explaining itself did. Tantalizing us always with a fragmentation even more annoying if it was purposeful. Perhaps crucial to its art then but not satisfying; on the other hand if it is purposeful it is controlled, no matter if the effort is or is not towards an ideal that is obscure, most likely the creation will have a better future. Thinks one. Definitely it is a more than primitive creature, though no person, nor even daresay spirit. With enough wit to meddle with human desire—and definitely cognizant enough if it turns out the creature is acting alone.— I imagine a strungout gremlin or something, unfamiliar with human life, but of a certain facility regarding the maneuvering what humans hate, to its sharpest precarity, one that might fall with the single further degree of an obtuse into an acute angle, of grief, of all the grief. Something what who crawled out from under the bridge where the kids shoot heroin.— Something, whose job is to insert the omissions right there in the very development most needed witnessed to ease us, but forever; at that precise moment it is about to be witnessed reconciled, and left neatly, or at least left ugly with a beautiful concept somewhere in it. But instead one is left to piece together clues with more clues. Anyway. Comb through infinity’s bigness for an apex and find just more infinity of cosmos without the question of a first or last at all. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . I do not have a kosher sort of empathy for this however. Its demolishing back to finitude,—so as to bring back to life the possibility of a last step,—I visualize as not so rough a thing, compared to what had been lost with the introduction of endlessness or of something incapable of limitation. What exactly is put together out of this morass of sums? It is of such loveliness though: this thought on ends: so much that it requires no arranged deadline to be, obeys nothing but the master sketch of its own terms, which it will study and use to give up, and then, well, the last step exits us incognito, with the schematics rolled up under its arm, without anybody picking up on the change in the air. Exits into the heavens, a monotonous omniscience, which the last step, a deviant, had cheated out of deciding its birthday for it. The heavens tried to without even asking…and the angels became furious: to know when exactly the guests would arrive, so to speak. But they were not to know when: and once such a precedent is initiated on high by the low, the inflexibility of the concept of God’s deeming goes axiom to particle. The heavens had always been able to know everything else before, if just they followed the wishes of God and continued being in divine good favor: ultimately were surprised, no, they were shocked: by that lush apotheosis: of an eternal whittling of lastness. A last step evades the pressures of needing be appraised with an equivalently earnest pair of eyes, tired though they be. Though it is final when it happens, final is relative, depends on the quality of the shoes one is walking up and down in. Even in a finite universe, one begs for arch support, if that is one happens to have taken up this responsibility to travel to the wrapup, the horizon, of…time, time maybe? To colonize the horizon when this planet is finally gone wack and rotten? Eventually one soldiers on and toughens up though and gets to playing along with the knot in my back I get from lifting garbage too long; you need not launch out of bed early to get a jump on this school project with a foregrounding hypothesis, just need space to move and time to enable the move there. If my last step, one thinks, is to be considered taken, or is close to that point,—besides that, of necessity, it is followed by a step after, well, before that, my travels, my peregrinations, so to speak, one thinks, must have had to develop muscle, on their way, or something more like a common thread to the experience: a thread starting to beef up with more other threads discovered, between the problems baffling one and the problems baffling another, and through which we listen for an answer to how such a thing of nature can be so intricate, yet fragile,—even though that's pretty much how everything is and we shouldn't be too surprised: holding an empty tomato can to our ear from safe up in the treehouse, one thinks, though this image be somewhat comical, even jejune, even naïve.—And, please, this time, have it, it, the last step for the first to reach their true last step, be more for that person than a location transmitted via radio signal to those venturers of  deliverance, out to get a thorough briefing to the public—saying we have been let in on the life after: the media will say it is something like a gratifying meltdown of all the striven and scratched, whether for or in, in or out, but always out of arrogance, though we only have really dreamt it so reductively at particularly woke moments. See, thing is, and this is at most at the outskirts of obligation, to say nothing of what we actually need—again: to have truly made one’s last step one must have judged the matter closed with a strong sense of place in mind at the first, really. One must know it had even begun if now it can properly end, with at least a better understanding of, if it cannot reach, its ‘where’—or else it might just be one of the many lies there are about finishing up we will make it seem to others and ourselves like one must accept believing, o, it is imperative for us as the human byproduct of a shit culture to, of course, keep that scheme afloat, when it is culture that should have always been the byproduct. Just as we did with Christianity, the afterlife and shit, so shall we with whatever genius we may find in the things not at first religious. Like this belief in summing up a place to give it being. And you know, the many other attractive unproven possibilities probably impossible, or just thoughts to get through this life, here—amiably. So then we call the job finished when it is not, and wake up to find that when putting to use once again what you repaired, it falls to a shambles and is quickly deformed by that original impatience to finish. Progress becometh easily a focus on the need for a status given to something, which itself transposes to a need for a status given to ourselves, and this is the disastrous result of a strange and sickly moral amnesia one might observe in people overwhelmed by either their bad deeds and the desire to start over, or by an artificial imperfection seen incorrectly by them as a given, a natural part of the world. Abortive efforts of interest are a symptom of that discontent: they are a vile ouroboros. These human efforts to really own the nurturing of one’s own ideas are really all idols to human desperation. All of it is forfeit anyway if you clearly do not know where you are going. The skill is knowing this in direct proportion to your ignorance of what the destination will look like, how you envision the destination, which is called the future and which if one were not ignorant of it, one would be quite easily bored with knowing. The ‘last step’ is not this sort of strange epiphanic sorcery and is not the result of enlightenment at all. People will remain angry towards most of the imposed limitations, yet first and last are not schemes like that, to them, would not dog them, are the same as them: a code in unison with the laws conjured up by whoever has put their shoes on. But geographically, at the time the line is crossed, the line is crossed. It is nobody's fault. In this case, here: a symbol is introduced, manufactured. An old man with a mind long ago run ragged: he has thought each precious thought in his head past all conclusion. It was to reach some weird heavens of insight he thought he made out from afar.  A certainty at the end of a hair. Has he run out of thoughts, then, cloistered in his mortal place? Stages are set up, between first and last, confining the offroad notion where it is not fully itself, and people often mistake this, a lag in energy for the notion, to be the end of the notion. Where it starts to rot is where it is yoked upon a series. This, it is said, is for the sake of organization. One might see and know the intrepid wandering notion as a sort of innocence similar to the freedom one once had, and its fate the same also: wandering through its hidden country and picking the daisies or something like that for garlands later. The notion is a child: anticipating the least chance at rousing nature to speak for nature, beyond the usual pastoral hymn and beyond a versified humanity really an abasement of both perspectives. The formalism of verse, destroyed by the unstructured greed of people; and the rawness of people made cold by verse. Well, we yoke it all upon a series—or an arc—or some other premature hierarchy, of enjoyment. This child is the father of the res, or just some dun and filthy ancient on a train. He is the fiction here: yet who knows if the fiction is real, or if he is the only fiction? Perhaps all of humanity is a flatness of projected film upon the screen, and people, the mere spawn of a whim, or even just one poor decision; and we to bring with us as our baggage a heady, thickheaded solipsism that is invader unto God. The old man is a composite of selves, and lacks those familiar unities of one individual self we all recognize and which rule us well enough to make our minds, words, and actions, as people, somehow make sense to some cackling voyeur upstairs, or some cosmic Other, who may just be watchdogging the replete timeline for any mistakes. The ‘old man’ is a mirage, but a reality; he is a collection of microscopically personal stuff one could not even hope to relay a fraction of to their therapist within the hour slot, and I mean a fraction of the evasions and buzzings that knock around and die over the course of one mere day, nay hour, nay minute, and the which God will have promptly insured your secrets you do not even know for very long be packed away in some closeted oblivion you can return to, and review, yourself, if you want, upon the moment of death, though God does not promise any deceased an immunity to headaches or anxieties, just an increased, or vastly matured, wisdom to help deal with those mortgaged emotions given back to us, you, in the afterlife. However, God had assured, made sure, that you, and all the hustling human race, for that matter,—had, probably long ago, by this point, had definitely assured, if not 1,000’s of years before you or anyone were born, or something ridiculous like that, that nobody, nobody mortal would be able to listen in to another mortal’s narrative: nor for you specifically that anyone too warped by their urban privacy a privacy to such people something more like an alienation as leaves and will leave them raw enough to blow up a building, or work for HOME DEPOT—that, no, no, for you, nobody too pale and surreptitious could ever pick up on and shadily file in your dossier they keep of you that inwardness, despite what you think the neighborhood obsessive across the street must have accrued by now, of a better facility, you suspect sensibly, than the way less dangerous stray catcaller who may lean against his nihilism on a streetcorner at 2:00 A.M. and call you ‘pig,’ but at least lets you know you are in his sights, in that moment. “Don’t be silly,” God saith: “Such a carefulness, such discrete, devoted surveillance, would be required as to go beyond unhinged and rather breach the realms of a psychic intuition approaching the liminal Divine of my own: like, Santa ain’t always watching, honey: and if he was, like I am you, now…o tragic morph of Icarus…if that was the case, it would truly baffle me why this newlyminted God would choose to listen to your thoughts and not trouble me with mine!” Moreover: God is not of that shitty caliber of person, not the uncasual lecher, who will watch you undress through your window without saying a word about it at work the next day, thanking his creeper stars that your apartment happens to be at the floor adjacent his own, offering a view of you, through your window, from his perfectly inconspicuous bathroom window, no less. One might say this offers a bit of excitement light up his evening schedule in his famished domicile, number 6 on a floor of the building asleep nearly, besides the cockroaches that dutifully scrounge somewhere unseen, in a building falling apart, across the street from your own shit building, with its own affinities to his, affinities the man exaggerates and romanticizes to feel not as alone in a new state, away from mother and living in his horrible, famished domicile, infested with bad vibes, yet that is always too quiet: and the floorboards have weakened bad and creak atop the shifty trust of the old foundations: and when the man even pads to the kitchen at night the noises and his inability to figure out which floorboards to avoid to avoid them eventually stir the cobwebs off a boyhood fear of ghosts. It lights it, and him, up. As ugly and as pathetic as it is. Yes. A consistent opportunity to see you naked lights up his glum fucking hermitage, with its least semblance of conceptual human contact, you know, to beef up the evening schedule. Something to tell mother. It lights it up with its benefit. Its gloriously confusing benefit: it happens to be just enough therapy for him that he never goes postal and kills everyone. Thus go the subtle acts of God. Thankfully mostly he isn’t able to take too much advantage: most of the time it’s just you popping your boyfriend’s blackheads in the mirror on the opposite wall, also visible from his perch at the bathroom mirror, at least, with the help of binoculars. That, and every now and again, allows himself to be mesmerized at you laughing at your boyfriend’s jokes, or offhand comments, wishing with all his weirdo self that he was able to be so verifiably offhand. O oddity, ye who cannot hear the punchline your own life delivers to an audience of strangers, all of them looking at you and laughing for a reason you cannot understand: o irony of ironies, haha, o delicate voyeur. One could use this information against him, if they knew it, some of it, about him, but nobody he comes in contact with regularly returns the favor, nor even will know him, period, for very long, much less his inner shadiness. So he ghosts the parties of acquaintances that he invited himself to in the first place, getting into his fickle head that it’d be less stressful just to go home and jerk it. No, nobody has any proof, outside of feeling like in parting ways from him, they are extricated by him, let us even say it is to his great relief, both to be in full control and to have different human people get out of his hair: removed from his presence. As if by giant invisible tweezers: as if to him, in the feeding eyes of his undiagnosed complex, they had shrunk to the size of a tick. Though of course nothing is said during the given exchange here and there that would back up the feeling each of his ‘friends’ have had. Until they all get together and have a powwow about it in secret once tensions build to the point of espousing suspicions as to his sanity, and then they all, all of his ‘friends,’ learn they share an experience of the same phenomenon of their goodbyes and wellwishings. Yes, each time they, but really anyone, even bids him a simple adieu, there is a feeling like one needs to itch, or wash oneself, like an annoying nag telling the child that the child smells a bit ripe and should wash their underarms, ass, and crotch while you’re at it. There is a feeling with anyone who is by nature antisocial of being thrown off but with him that is always temporary and is never substantiated with the, in reality, infinities of circumstantial proof there would be, if there was really a Big Brother Government monitoring us for seditious activities, or maybe even just for jerking it too much. But that would be crossing a line into territory more fascistic. If we haven’t gotten there already: when really, it is the benevolent God all of us know when things go right and none of us know when a random earthquake, deciding it wills to just go ahead and off hundreds of people, mindlessly jigs its tectonic plates a sec for the laugh and fucks up everything…well, well, well: it is and who knew the benevolent God all this time logging us down so we can revive certain destinies we in life had been too dense to tax our memory further with, actually a more nuanced instinct of selfpreservation, especially if with time and additional context that happy moment of the past that was forgotten is to turn sour with a fresh experience of trauma or something, precluding us that feel of any bit of happiness about it. O though there is not much business in keeping track of certain tiny facts, the thinking a thing here and there that becomes something you forget maybe, besides that it felt important to remember before you went to the store. Sadly you could not locate a pen for the napkin you snatched quickly, chasing the momentum of recollection and finding only that and the kitchen surface in time, before things slowed when the likelihood of juggling both finding a pen and keeping the thought in your mind diminished, and then you yourself became unlikely and fleeting as half the thoughts you never think again, and from there you tunneled home, knowing the rest of the way, to your sweet deep darkness and brine, your home, in existential sewers. Your rudest of privacies. But some of that information despite its tininess could still be used to summon up anger in other people, and misplaced at that, because an anger at themselves; or is of things coaxed from the depression of folks; or is the same old focus on the latest proof of one’s perceived questionableness, and the insights made into that during the celebrity interview, once the ballgag of their own fatigue is removed and people realize the truth of their own celebrity, which is even more in the troubled nobody than in the actual celebrity, for the former’s very reaction to any semiserious allegation of such a thing: “A strange little scoff, I’d imagine.” God saith. “Jovial but filled with rue. A scoff as might tend to say again and again in their hearts what is their slant on themselves, to themselves, fearing that criticism will not have the last word. As if the convincingness of that were even more convincing, were some consuming revelation all about how they are actually shitty and wrong and bad in their daily life. As if anyone whose aim was simply going about who they are were not the decentest, most sincerest schmuck alive! Negativities, am I right? At the hand of which, we are made the sap or witless proxy, and dethrone our very ego from the kingdom of ourselves, just to get the negativities away from us—but we do it by giving them the throne, the negativities, and banish ourselves from the region, hauling our ass and ego with us by mule: a region where now dwell, in a castle once ours, the bearded members of a senate, each one kept alive only by the shelling out criticisms to peasants like us, fixing them up in the dress of compassion, a tough act of guile to succeed at seeing through to the end but made easier if there are none in the bunch compelled to moral maintenance—as a weekly given; nor is it made harder if those who will rule our emotions once we relinquish them are openly shitty and see nothing in persuading anybody of the opposite. The rubric, then, is inaction in the face of assaults on scruples that at most are a hallucination of any ever there, good or bad; or they were fabricated in the attempt to bring this senate of negativities closer to what are our human stakes in life: vulnerability and such. And yet not anything done to rectify this or that atrocity, nor a string of words made at a public function that waffle over the resulting outcry, but as is the rubric and code in this circumstance of senators, these bloodless figurations, when it comes to any assault on scruples, the answer is detachment, like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,—when it comes to confessing the piling eternity of evils any given person has ticking in them, you can be sure that person fills no senate seat in their cruel minds, but might thirst for confessions of older, obscure cruelties they maybe have only imagined remembering, so to soothe some remote masochism in their hearts that are not bloodless, though the usurpers in their brain might feel nothing as they continue on and on with their torments as if each torment were to be filed and the bureaucracy maintained, the one that is religious or not religious, but probably the former, if one, having been forsaken by these men of the senate who might water their unalive beards out of vanity like starving flowers, flowers that each one are the cilia of the guts of the world, going on awhile now,—if one, that is, causes in themselves gestating a repentant grief at criticism that has smitten ego to the quick too quickly to mean that it comes purely in peace. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . He is an old man without vice and without virtue, and he was made just to move one past hating the regularity of that one or other small, miscellaneous annoyance, as will emerge, if we take the misplaced time to play therapist silently to ourselves, dangerously, while driving, you got it, to therapy, so as to decompress, and so as to burn a stray stash of energy while driving, or say, so as to shut off our fatigue with a mental emergency switch we can only use sparingly, with our own spite to connect it, to some deeper issue, as would usually tip the day overboard into ruin. One extra thorn that wants to be a thorn too much, sometimes, is one that is especially detested, heatedly living out the fidgets of this aporia, this malady, one of the soul, thwarted soul, and to place us, as in all people, in a beginning, manifest at least a beginning; a thorn in a consolidated ‘where.’ In what crazy region of this old man's head might this infamous last step officially be delineated? Is it a hieroglyph only he has decoded? Directing the arrival of a change? Even if it is just for him to know, forever: a solution given to him for the sake maybe of some unreasonable preemption? And alienated from all the other people who are not a fiction: a change in the atmosphere is recognizable to all, nonetheless, at the exact spot the hieroglyph had indicated to him alone.— A change. Not even many but just one, to be plucked from the senile ravel, which is the job of God, and then made all of the creation. The bordering space earmarked before he forgets. Then he will move on. Perhaps he has been making a pilgrimage to the sacred end of the story since he began himself to fester in the cranial soup. To him it feels a little less complete an end with all this help, but no matter: connoting a start or an end, but usually both, works as an impetus to go on; that, and the lifting his legs within their filthy boots, and the bringing down of them, to precede whatever next flawed human action as could bring him forth into but then past it, past the last step, maybe even into more keener, vegetable finalities. In any case, delineating a clear change, that is, of one place from another place, so that one senses it, almost like magic or, more apt, a placebo,—with the first step into it senses it; and also depending on the exact distance still to be covered before meeting that delineation, nay even that last step before the ‘now’ of having arrived, before his two feet are firmly planted on the platform—before he made his last step off the train he wondered if ever he had really moved anywhere or changed at all, or moved anyone, ever. But he need not have measured to there from the spot he got up from his seat to linger at as the train neared home: to feel a proper escape from the stasis. Or like it was official. So then he asks for nothing when the traindoors open straightaway and he sees the challenge clearly before him. He is to most of the public, maybe—or maybe they are indifferent—an elderly transient or some elderly yaya who went and mismatched his pills that morning, thoughtfully waiting to traverse the precarious gap. The rubber hazardyellow lip extending over to the opposite concrete perimeter and a little beyond so as to root itself sufficiently on the station platform, like a bridge, and this extra last step now exposed and plain to him by the maw of the opening traindoors. Sure, it provides easier access to the platform of the station, created mainly for the benefit of the elderly or lamed, but this easier access is to one day be for the benefit of a different elderly or lamed: Some sort of inhumane people, youth, who fled to these suburbs, these towns which are all with their own vacant stops a train might stop at for nobody or few. Fled to avoid hearing their boomer father use the word ‘bootstraps’ ever again, or ‘responsibility.’ For we are wounded by this defeat. In the eyes of we the young it is a defeat and almost evidence of a selfdeluding millennial nature. I guess in response we became walking mysteries. An olderlooking man, going Alzheimer’s on the commuter rail. We were indifferent to whatever mystery they said we were, and yet shamed the earnestness of those horse’s mouth statements so as not to feed the egotism possible to bloom from some few words being so true. Thinks one. We go on consuming the starved plenty to this day: a fleeting culture’s bled out, fleeting products, of irony and meta; perhaps we are even punks or goths that will become tolerators of plaid and khaki, are other bad priests of the norm who mainly cannot use their walk too well, well enough to get to finishing up, and need more than intuition to figure out where change ends and change begins. Out of a certain laziness of presence, we youth develop the needing of a presence, whether with us as one we do not quite understand or one as us that we must understand or else be rendered meaningless and absurd. O we youth who walk our usual walk to the neighborhood coffeechain looking to become caffeinated enough to free some manner of beast,—and expectedly find nothing. This lip or perimeter or halfway bridge or a public aid, exposed once the train inches to a stop, extends, with a pneumatic hiss. This sound, the hiss, is almost expressive; it has its own subtle characterizing awareness, as if glad to rid itself of its numinous anxieties of machinery. Or whatever other griefs as would undermine a locomotive machine with the pressured gas, released when the doors open. The old man, his muddy eyes, what they see, having betrayed him past help, this time. And suddenly, for the old, or older, man, or transient, a foot or so more of extra last steps still to cover to get to that sweetspot, that delineation,—well, that he hadn’t seen from where he was standing, at all. He a bobbing blur on the train, infinitely waiting. So hadn’t been able to judge whether or not to hurry from where he lingered, further off than the old man preferred, once given his mundane chance to arrive at the end of something, like, the mundane; or to go home, or both: go back to a home, his, that is a vagary or fluke somewhere in nervous aether. And lastly, this, this ‘last step,’ depending, also, on the ground covered between one and his next individual step of his old feet, though this anyway to be negligible, with each individual step taken by this poor transient fellow. . .  .   .    .     .      .       .        . He with his many odors that travel into the next room probably when he goes indoors anywhere. Individual steps. Generally speaking, the approximate length of them, that is: each shuffling and slight step to be predicted based on a record of every move this old transient has made dragging a pendulous ghostliness in trash bags, because he had had nothing else, across the Earth: in search of a life in which to throw the garbage, or liveliness, or something—he now for sure as one sees it happen from outside of this reality, having really intended to get off the train, off this clanking hooked-up chaining of big metal parts that look like XANAX on wheels: in frank need of repair: and the fake wood siding and posters for events longexpired and uncomfortable seats and all of it a holy dissociating: it is all there, in there: Having arrived at his stop, or his stop, so could one only presume,—before taking his last step off the train: an olderlooking man, or transient, with these very brown and sightless, almost suffering eyes, suffering, and drowning in, and blinded by, and steeped in prophetic mud,—an olderlooking man there, before exiting the train, silently faltered, and he, silently blocking the doorway; in his head, but who knew, multiplying all these processes like distances and other quibbles, through time itself: though the traincar was not at that time populated by more than a handful of riders: and the hassled hump of his spine, going stiff upright, though he in his tacit universe without speaking. Or was just maybe a haggard diviner for some higher spiritous language.]

INTERLUDE He was about to take his last step off the mostly empty train, or so could one have only presumed it the last.—

He then blinked twice, quickly; then stopped at the threshold of the doors as they opened, and remained standing there inbetween them, for awhile, stockstill and lifeless. If one had chanced to observe him entering the train, if he really did, and sit down, till about prior to this moment, if he really did, one would have found that he did not move much, even when he moved at all, or whether a little or a lot; but, rather, appeared to be here, and then there, without any visible explanation. A man of a series of slides. Yet there was a smaller, a microscopic way of him, and which, by those means, he located all of himself in everything at once. In the farthest cracked ubiquity of the scene, he was there, the old man, without moving, with moving; he was on the train and outside of the train; and as well there was a strangely microscopic Name his presence indicated was there but which he did not spell out. One got the feeling it was a smaller way than could be described, to one another, without the words getting clumsy. It was a way of him, that somehow defied physical laws, and made airlessness be emanated like it was something full all along. Like a cartoon; almost lifeless, almost. Surely there was a reason this trick was done so well by the old figuration. Some learned trick of presence, or of carrying oneself, learned way before having arrived at his very elderly state—a way to cope the old man, poor, absurd old man that he now was, had developed early on, perhaps to adapt to something horrible, or something perhaps not horrible. But still it should count as following along life’s roads, unless he truly was nothing more than figuration,—and still then, if that were not the case, a thing made of traumas.

CHAPTER 2 [I have one, single hunch about this old, elder man, one thinks: and at that, a bottle of single malt scotch left to burn, tonight, so hear me out before I lose that hunch to drinking, and my wallet, and also what I will order at McDonald’s later on tonight, before I lose my wallet, when I happen to stop by a bench outside the park afterwards to sit down for a moment and put my head in my hands, trying to sober up, thereupon getting up again and leaving the bag of food out there like a forgetful ass: See: it is some personal avoidance trick he uses, or something. Ain’t that this movie? Haha. Maybe he developed the trick over the course of his tour in ‘Nam fighting the damn gooks. Haha. Right Gramps? Ain’t that movie Platoon it’s called? Is it realistic? My hunch is I think it’s this or some shape in him he harnessed as it strolled by, which then the old man carefully studied, and which now guides the old man, who last time he remembered had left it, the shape, tucked away, a bookmark in a book: a book he bought that explained all the origins of geometric stuff: an easy purchase, if indeed he could know better from it his beloved shape, perhaps quell his rising curiosity: and in other ways: a hunger for even stuff like the etymological background, of course, of this thing called Tesseract. And it was a shape that was changing and fevered but also would redundantly get to floating back through the town in the old man’s mind, again, after a week on its own scraping by, and by now somewhat overcooked in the same role as prodigal son. Returning, once again, to the nice quarters in him, in the elderly, uh, man. Now see: an oddity, an odd geometric form would be the only thing to work: it was indeed the only possible twin of his own shape, and must have prompted his interest, the elderly fucking man’s interest, when seeing how oft it shadowed, and so closely, his own form’s unbroken daily routine. It is a shape that haunts him, as in literally, like a ghost. It is not without the usual shades of anomaly, with even some advanced shades, as any fascinating thing has,—anomaly, after all, ever hopes to draw the smart people in. But crucially: it is only the one shape, just the one, for his convenience. Tesseract. He needing only rely on one consistent shapeshifter after all if it be consistent though of course it be still a shapeshifter. Moreover the elderly old man might have done well to notice this consistency before losing his lunch of processed burger and fries at the fact of it. It, a theoretical flower let’s say, budding a too abrupt surprise, for him: too much for his ancient health. But: a Tesseract fitted almost like a suit around the skeleton and meat of himself he found. But sadly he could only get a hold of a rental one, or maybe it was used: the old man owned enough of it, then, to squeeze himself, or parts of himself, out of the third dimension with it as once again the shape left Worlds behind. So: this fugitive shape this elderly little man studied, if I were to guess, thinks one. Thinking, or hoping, he would manipulate life, or rather light,—so as to have itself grow into his preferred way for the given angle of a shadow, whether from a lightbulb or the moon, to be thrown upon him. In such a way as might enhance the arthritic hassle. Yet if even it was during the day and he going about his day innocently, I’m sure the most objective observer would sense that something was darkening him always, like a shadow; it pursued the contours of the old man’s body, a body that seemed to hang even though it was not hanging from anything: his body, suspended and looming over victims in its motionless motion, like a silly damn Dracula upon just morphing from a bat. He must have wished so hard to defer his body to the shadows. What a legend: the first old fucking man to have instilled in each of the twitchy workings of his loose intermediary parts, the valid appearance of an optical illusion. And most importantly, to have left the conclusive whole form of himself a perfection, and at that automatically wherever it was supposed to end up, depending on his schedule that day. But what do I know? I’d imagine there are times he wages the full capacity of the Tesseract, when he can do it, in front of people who have no idea, and, well, maybe I am one of those people, maybe I am just hallucinating the damn thing, one thinks, or might think, or might have thought. I do know however: a man can’t move that way. If this old man is real and in the universe then reality has faltered. But then, thinks one, this aim I devise of his is so pedestrian and mortal: that it’s all for the avoidance. Well, he uses it to cope, probably. . . . . . . For example: it might have been something cultivated by shame, originally: the pesky immortality of an alienating look, recalled a decade later for no reason; sour grapes that end up fundamentally being your fault, one’s fault, generally speaking, one’s fault; all the rest of that damn juiced up, permeating trauma,—it will be fodder enough, whatever the event of shamefulness in example. A trick of the light or rather of darkness, a darkness, made glued together: out of all the horrors he an old man and brave enough still would rather not brave if one result of doing so was yet another complicated coping mechanism drawn out to the point of, this time maybe, rending apart, for real, the fabric of spacetime, which he may even be too afraid of doing to risk angering with continued perturbations against the thin screen. Yeah. Whatever divinities he did not know about, much less would he rob them, and along with them all the horrors from before that had got him, the old man, to this skyey lost place of his own invention, he on the verge of getting lost himself, in realms of his own invention, or at least where his own invention led him in splitting the screen between Wrathful God and Wrathful Man, the latter too dangerous to make as Gods, and anyway our humility at knowing ourselves the frail reed outpaces the greatness of angels. No he the old man would not rob from these elements, these higher elements, that universal respect for their standing, as prophecy or as the equivalently impressive combustion of all of time, every time, within the present moment, and each present moment. No he the old man would not rob from these elements their own omniscience, nor could do anything but bow in deference to them, his face to the floor, if out of pride he must conceal his awe at their exquisite baffling parts they pick up as but lowly rocks and hurl thunderously from the perpetuum mobile, at we systems of flesh who try to untie ourselves from a humanity that every mote of dust in space wish it possessed. Do not disrespect these titanic, wandering mysteries sans a face, who throw their rocks of order from echelons above where is the World; which stoke all the universe as time and change and form, and yet they are these, the way an elderly old man, man of paper, with his paper ambitions: he had not the tools and cannot have them. And actually these are these, these rocks are form, and change, and time, and are how they are made and unified, and how they are done: the mysteries have the tools: so, then: he will let himself be scared off at witnessing some heights, ordinary, after all, to what is divine, just as the people of the World, and life, to any mystery at all, is more an answer than any as could be found instead by them who would have more access to it, because they breath in dust and exhale fire, and yet would suffocate if left to breathe the air. A’Saith Wrathful God [the absolute]: “Being itself is all the actual tidings of his life to come he needs to know, well that and how to get along with finishing up what’s not yet glued together: whether it blossom as existence alone without glory or concept without focus will depend on whoever helps me glue it together. Then I will make of it a gigantic boat to play with in the gutters in the rain, the gutters reefs, the rain oceans. Let us just hope you do not leave my description here to rot, forever, for for that forever I will be, and how poignantly lain waste, a barge of shit, plotting against our hero, bitter enemy to the lover of the shapes made by the clang of rocks of time. Our old man he should quit his archeology.” . . . . . . Yet with just a little cosmic teamwork might it be so: that whoever these mysteries are, they have created a franchise around divinity. Many will be the usurper to come, after me, after my anomaly gets out and throws the Scientific Mind into the same gaol of chaos as everybody else: everyone struggling to figure out who stole God’s chair for one fracturing like ice shales of the minutes without minutes, without truth, that had all the World in chains. It might just be the Tesseract, protected as a star witness for the divine lawsuit God’s wrathful ass is in for if he lets humans get that close again without blowing them up. If it be no such elderly who touched the thinnest part of the screen between intelligent mortals and the liminal rocks radiating deeper intensity, then perhaps the rocks of a fourth dimension were the ones dumbly toiling alongside wrathful God. . . . . . . Imagine to be ashamed for just being. It is called the human condition. To have shame that—simply put—puts the self on trial and cites original sin in its defense, asks one of a being and existence already what right one as you has to get one's own presence when good citizen shame has presence not; and being, well, the concept of shame perhaps is, ironically, or maybe it just makes sense, a being that is merest out of all in the pecking order of things to be considered in the living of one’s life, and the least thing of being itself, given barely a slice of it, being, to make it so that shame may exist on its own, without being a virus needing a host and to be by definition exorcised. I guess, depending on the rock thrown, shame could always have had being to its concept, without it needing be necessarily about or related to someone, anyone, internal to external or vice versa, outside of all the secondhand turmoil behind its purpose, but rather in fact only a summation of its definition in such wholeness as to imitate the wholeness of flesh and of existence, beyond the little free rides given by some God,—thinks one, scoffs one. The Human Condition. It is the guilt that one is. Anybody who has lived long enough in the World will understand this. However there is also the idea it relinquishes a sort of wisdom after a long period of abuse, that is, and this insensible, unwashable guilt as comes with the package of simply being is suddenly quite worth it: The prize is the wisdom of diligence, a diligence verging on obsession: a diligence that is learned through failure—but as to maintenance of ego, it works. Embarrassment is a catalyst for this wisdom, this diligence that is also a kind of funhouse representation of selfrespect. One takes the most showers who is told the most times they stink. Embarrassment is something of a similar rub as shame, it is the shame of a tested ego that has failed its test. It is of that same wrecked ken as one having no ability to see and being barred from seeing just but the color of just but one friend’s iris, without seeing some nefarious other aspect in them I guess there for good; nay the iris as all in the eyes of everybody to meet eyes with in a lifetime. An iris as one hopes and prays always to see, and to alone see,—and yet sometimes it is not even that that is given—and instead, with the same moody brown vagary in them, there becomes a kind of hate in them too, the eyes there, that soon has one digging beneath the eyes, infinitely, for something, a connection, clarity of any kind, or at least a pupil in the center, somewhere. Though it is shaded past darkness, one must know that by now. All this digging gets one no clarity but only will ever reveal a fresh layer of confusions, which will be read by the digger as judgments they will force themselves to see as insights: stuff and dirt and revelations as to the flaws and anomalies of themselves. Alas. That poor, poor one who is attuned to this, and has so sensitive a mental scale: on which to weigh what one may think constitute the particularly lasting judgments.— A scale: which one thinks will tell them an accurate number, each time, when all it does is break down, each time, beneath not you but an exaggerated heft made up mostly of this girth of anticipation collected around all the disputable portents, like fatty tissue, and waiting to be doled out by a scale which for all anybody knows could have slammed a member of a drug cartel, who would really be carrying weight, literally and morally, with as punishing a sanction, or, notpunishing, as one, or you, received just yesterday. You, one thinks: who lives in his parental hovel and shyly eats oatmeal in the morning before his parents wake up because he is too embarrassed to admit to them he likes oatmeal, which was his favorite as a child, but which also, he being in his twenties, is not a fact of his personality that would reinforce any idea on his parents’ behalf of him being mature enough to leave the nest soon.— In any case, if one with their, uh, scale is so preternaturally able to retain in their minds for so long the least proof to signal the grandest virtue, from cradle to grave, and not only that but then stir it back alive on the web, until every good deed one has ever done is thrown a parade for, paid back, because, well, it’s only fair; but only in direct relation to one’s awareness of the bad deed that was having it so easy, expressed in groveling before the bad deed as the popularity chips rain down upon ye, but first upon the masterminds who figured out this moral bilking, then the dregs of that upon the sheep, who all are out of breath, who want a ride, then none for the antisocials who don’t see the big deal about it, about both sides, and shrug at both having it so easy and being so aware of that. But the sheep are always looking for a chance at turning in all their own past guilts and sinning and shit, via internet confessions, and all the weeping their digits upon the keyboard: each teardrop a stain upon the Information Superhighway. But maybe that’s too mean. But there will be a point no doubt when all this conditional letting of blood is made a sea, coagulated monstrously into something alive, becoming a consciousness of shit that shouldn’t have been, caused by all the bougies’ unnatural balancing of the imbalance, like forcing an inedible binky into your infant’s hungry mouth once again because one happens to be too far away from the formula to get it right now. A sea that yet to the gardenvariety backpatter must be replete with, somewhere beneath its waves, or perhaps encrusted upon its coral floor,—with the pure gold of so much contemporary sacrosanct, because who cares as long as there will be yet more others, strangers, to see them walk the streets as one with the little guy, going in tempo with the swing of all their martyr cred they have, in the form, god help us, of something tasteless, let’s use the word bling, even though it is kind of out of style. Fugazi chains hung round their necks to show off all the woke they have. And these sheep will flock like birds anywhere, but not until after the latest Rick And Morty episode is over, and in preparing for travel, making sure to pack as many Che Guavera Tshirts as they can into their luggage, they will set out to purchase a scale specially for themselves. So as they might get to weighing all of what’s the garbage and trash, receipts and broken smokes, on their moral person, that are in the pockets of their selftokened lair of shitty, the deeper in the lair the more precious popularity chips to be had. But: this already feels like something that should have been a science that is now dismissed as alchemy because made into alchemy, provided by an ignorant culture with that path to take, which it did, way back, at a time longer back than anyone can remember. There will be those who feel the same as I do inevitably, will begin to see this, and they will, I have no doubt,—as a commodity and skill, which is retarded; but not an entertainment, of which it is the most, and which to admit would prove the least humility in that person admitting who would extort such as even their own tears, as unworthy, something disingenuous, for the sake of appearing to be Aware Of Things. And this absurd detecting of the slightest judgment, it becomes a skill, a profession, well, like owning at fidget spinners, and each old sadsack a new guru of guilt, at once, and the sadsacks of guilt with their insights a source of awe in the eyes of a few others who want a ride backseat, with one and their marvelously sculpted dog, Guilt, a woofing dog, Guilt, going and barking like crazy, with her chops flapping in the wind, and her head out the window. Guilt that is really a misinformed hatred, and which then, in all its fire and fury to curse oneself before anyone else, ignites a subculture of depressives all who look for insights into their own hidden flaws now, insights that will be in high demand,—as if a natal chart and the whole of astrology wasn't already a thing for this and also really hip. But this, it would be a skill, for those who try hard at their grief enough, but hang acceptance out to dry. One thinks: they do not know if they are for or against the very old idea of the unhealthy scamming of a people, called a stereotype: and that makes every personality a punchline. Too used to it the youth is. Best get down on knees anyway and exonerate oneself through shittalking oneself, so as to not feel so gagged by society: well to shut them up their room has so far done nothing.] . . . . . . There is something transcendent to the discipline of keeping apart one’s sense of mortality, which ebbs and flows, and one’s simultaneous sense of infinity, which consumes, and leaves parched—both feed and pressure the ego and enter from an opposite border of the ego, with different lengths to their rivers each time, and sometimes clash, hence, the need for an everchanging distance, one from the other, when one tide is out and the other in. Maybe this old man, this ancient man, maybe, he was so beaten by life’s lurid contraries and life’s amoral nonsense, and all of it, caused by these nonsensical clashes of being,—that he could not help but, after years of shame, involving in even the least, muscular twitch, an avoidance of presence. Like those afflicted with polio might lose the purity of a limb—but this butchering done, not by God’s megrim, but as a form of penance. That is, could summon perfectly his existence as a nonexistence; the way someone with polio might easily hide from view a disabled arm, so that the fact it is marred is not even brought to light, anytime, nor brought up, among acquaintances and friends, not for it being a taboo subject but for it being an unknown problem. And this trick of stillness performed even as he did actuallymove, while waiting stockstill for something,—shifting around to discreetly clean the dirt from his hands by wringing them together briefly and dazed and then clapping them to his pants. And even then, he remained still in all other respects, like a picture, almost tired. As if his whole tired being and self were stuck in a form of time comprised of many motionless frames that slid him into actions like dominos but at the same time robbed the man of any oomph or torque or spring to his stepless steps. . . . . . . So: the old man blinked twice, as was said, and paused, and he wavered there, at the threshold of the opening doors, for who knows how long, to allot time enough for him and his senility to catch the musk of why he might have paused. This is a fairly common strategy among the sane. Especially among those elite among the sane, who do not believe at first what they see as a matter of course, no matter how sane it seems for how long. Those for whom their own scepticism is the best possible meteor to have hurdle through space straight into the turf, if there has to be an end to this World. They would rather that than the air be poisoned by the contaminating bias of others, opinion’s argumentative cousin. Though really it is a hard worn strategy by cognizant people around the globe, who might always be on the trail of their own thoughts and visions; or even just harried, gangly people, forgetful of certain easy, daily responsibilities while they build castles in the sky. Though in the case of this old man the rapid blinking and aboutface and moment’s pause could not have been acted out in a worse spot on a train usually. this train had not departed from the city five stops ago and now was riding through remote suburbs. When they must clear their heads to notice what they did not before, or had allowed only peripheral attention for, and that yet asks to be noticed, somehow, in the heads of people, usually wordlessly, for if what was to be scoped was pointed out by another explicitly there would be no need for a momentary pause, just to assemble one’s wits enough to prove something there to observe at all. Usually people will do this and see if it is of some importance to them within a second: sort of a way to rub one’s eyes when one has full hands, though I could tell the old man he did not rub his eyes with his hands because he was too weak. He just stood there. He would have held up the line if there actually were any other civilians, pedestrians, folk, on the train itself. Then he became more lucid, then stopped where he was. Gauging his surroundings, or perhaps it was just reality itself. For all of where his eyes wandered it seemed so. As if taking in the entire map of the World just looking around him on a train; or it was a gaze not drawn to one thing in particular but overwhelmed by something all around him, ghosts unseen but by the damned maybe, or a truer, rarer reality than this that if the old man focused got itself captured in his pithy glass. If he focused, perhaps sniffing out some newly realized horror. Perhaps not. It looked like whatever he thought at that moment was not pleasant, pleasant like the weather was today; nor did it seem to have come upon him in a mundane pattern, like a chain, the way one would usually experience their mind in transit among strangers. He hesitated again: then turned his head slowly, with one hand cautious on the guardrail, towards a younger man who was sitting a few seats away. The whole pantomime seemed needlessly dramatic, but nobody had noticed. The younger man at present did not notice the older man nearby. The ancient there at his threshold sniffing out for the varying portents everyday life begat. The patiently idling train’s doors were opened to a station not to be specified here, fully precluded from the narrative, here. But perhaps is somewhere else living out its possible story. An anonymous destination somewhere in a World of the more abstract details.

[kkoehn17]

Friday June 14th, 2019:

Upon meeting our Airbnb host Carmel the evening before, she gave us a rundown of the house she’d so graciously rented to us for the next two nights. She also gave us a guidebook of the area and pointed out some of her favorite things that we might want to add to our itinerary.

Waking the next morning, feeling only slightly disoriented by the fact that we were on vacation in Europe and not at home getting ready for work, our group made breakfast in the kitchen. Carmel provided us with a wide variety of snacks, including waffles (that weren’t frozen?), fresh fruit, and something called “breakfast pudding” that none of us were brave enough to take out of the refrigerator.

Our first stop of the morning was Belvedere House Gardens & Park—a Mullingar locale that none of us had heard of but came highly recommended by Carmel.

The morning offered slightly cloudy skies and a chill in the air none of us were quite ready for, but we bundled up and headed out, my dad and Uncle Bruce taking the wheel and bravely setting off the on “wrong” side of road once again.

Being a Friday morning, Belvedere House was not overly crowded, and we were able to saunter and explore at our own pace, flipping the hoods of our raincoats off and on as the rain came in spurts.

We took a tour of the house, marveling at its architecture and grandeur, walked the grounds, and strolled through the fairy garden.

Overall it was a very charming and welcome start to our day, and the perfect pit stop en route to the day’s main attraction: the Cliffs of Moher.

You know, these old things.

We spent a good two hours here, blessed with a sunny sky and only periodic gusts of high wind that made my dad close his eyes and ask us to please stand at least 4 miles from the edge.

Among the many (hundreds?) (thousands?) of pictures we took, my sister and I made sure to get another hair by the Cliffs shot, paying homage to those we took a few years ago.

And I got to recreate one my of my favorite shots from our trip—this time with my brother in tow.

Quick sidenote: Can we talk about how tiny my hands look compared to his?

From the Cliffs of Moher, we headed to Galway, my cousin Taryn’s favorite city from her stay in Ireland, and she took us to her favorite pizza place (Mizzoni’s) and her favorite bar (The Skeff).

As we hung out and listened to live music from Vicaria Band, my sister and I introduced the gang to our favorite Irish born drink: Jameson and ginger ale, which aided in our table’s karaoke performances of Britney Spears, Tina Turner and Darius Rucker (among others).

The drive back to Mullingar, while a little long and dark, again provided us a place to call home and the group of us sat around the living room, sipping on nightcaps and laughing our way through the memories of the day. This was our last night in Mullingar, but Carmel and Fintan promised to send us off with a bang, and at 9:00 a.m. the next morning, that bang arrived in style.

.

Saturday June 15th, 2019:

BANG.

Okay, so it wasn’t really a bang. It was more of a knock. Two or three of them. And then a call into the house: “Peppy and I are ready for ya!”

As you might (never) have guessed, Peppy was a horse, and Fintan ushered us outside to meet him, and take us on ride in the Peppy-drawn carriage.

Pro tip: if you are ever given the opportunity to go on a carriage ride through the Irish countryside, say yes. There is truly no better way to start your morning.

After each family got a ride, we loaded back into our cars, waved goodbye to Carmel and Fintan (and Peppy) and got on the road to Cork.

Just under three hours later, we pulled into the parking lot at Blarney Castle.

Now, Blarney Castle was a favorite from our last trip, mostly because of how beautiful both the castle and the grounds are, but also because of the undeniably fun—and for some, understandably terrifying—prospect of kissing the Blarney Stone to receive the “gift of the gab”. For a full recap of what that means, you can check out this post, but to keep it brief: you lie on the ground, have an Irish man help you more or less hang off a ledge at the top of the castle, and then kiss a thousand year old rock.

Legend says that after you kiss the rock you will be blessed with eloquent speaking abilities, though for anyone afraid of either heights or, more commonly I assume, being held over a ledge one hundred feet in the air, the sheer anticipation of kissing the rock can bring out profanity as eloquent as anything I’ve ever heard.

To come down from the excitement/danger/fun/terror (depending on the person) we walked around the grounds, once again surprised by how beautiful everything is, though slowly getting used to the fact that Ireland is simply, consistently, even reliably beautiful. (Hear that, Irish tourism department? Reliably Beautiful. Call me.)

Our hotel for the night was the River Lee in Cork. While it was tough finding accommodations that fit a group of nine, or even a family of more than three, the River Lee was beautiful and we settled in nicely to three rooms, each with three single beds. (I found a great deal on Orbitz.com!)

We also enjoyed—once could argue too much—the hotel restaurant, where we spent a large chunk of time eating and eating and drinking and eating before heading out in search of one (or three) Irish pubs, where we spent the rest of the night drinking and drinking and laughing and dancing and singing our hearts out.

One request, Ireland pubs: play more Whitney Houston.

Other than that, you’re perfect.

Castles, Cliffs, and a Horse Named Peppy (Our European Adventure: Day 2&3) Friday June 14th, 2019: Upon meeting our Airbnb host Carmel the evening before, she gave us a rundown of the house she’d so graciously rented to us for the next two nights.

[android-for-life]

"Let Google be your holiday travel tour guide"

When it comes to travel, I’m a planner. I’m content to spend weeks preparing the perfect holiday getaway: deciding on the ideal destination, finding the cheapest flights and sniffing out the best accommodations. I’ve been dreaming about a trip to Greece next year, and—true story—I’ve already got a spreadsheet to compare potential destinations, organized by flight length and hotel perks.

But the thing I don’t like to do is plot out the nitty-gritty details. I want to visit the important museums and landmarks, but I don’t want to write up a daily itinerary ahead of time. I’m a vegetarian, so I need to find veggie-friendly restaurants, but I’d prefer to stumble upon a good local spot than plan in advance. And, since I don’t speak Greek, I want to be able to navigate transportation options without having to stop and ask people for help all the time.

So I’ve come to rely on some useful Google tools to make my trips work for the way I like to travel. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Let Maps do the talking

Getting dropped into a new city is disorienting, and all the more so when you need to ask for help but don’t know how to pronounce the name of the place you’re trying to get to. Google Maps now has a fix for this: When you’ve got a place name up in Maps, just press the new little speaker button next to it, and it will speak out a place's name and address in the local lingo. And if you want to continue the conversation, Google Maps will quickly link you to the Google Translate app.

Let your phone be your guidebook

New cities are full of new buildings, new foods and even new foliage. But I don’t want to just see these things; I want to learn more about them. That’s where Google Lens comes in as my know-it-all tour guide and interpreter. It can translate a menu, tell me about the landmark I’m standing in front of or identify a tree I’ve never seen before. So whenever I think, “I wonder what that building is for,” I can just use my camera to get an answer in real time. 

Photo credit: Joao Nogueira

Get translation help on the go

The Google Assistant’s real-time translation feature, interpreter mode, is now available on Android and iOS phones worldwide, enabling you to have a conversation with someone speaking a foreign language. So if I say, “Hey Google, be my Greek translator,” I can easily communicate with, say, a restaurant server who doesn’t speak English. Interpreter mode works across 44 languages, and it features different ways to communicate suited to your situation: you can type using a keyboard for quiet environments, or manually select what language to speak.

Use your voice to get things done

Typing is fine, but talking is easier, especially when I’m on vacation and want to make everything as simple as possible. The Google Assistant makes it faster to find what I’m looking for and plan what’s next, like weather forecasts, reminders and wake-up alarms. It can also help me with conversions, like “Hey Google, how much is 20 Euros in pounds?”

Photo credit: Joao Nogueira

Take pics, then chill

When I’m in a new place, my camera is always out. But sorting through all those pictures is the opposite of relaxing. So I offload that work onto Google Photos: It backs up my photos for free and lets me search for things in them . And when I want to see all the photos my partner has taken, I can create an album that we can both add photos to. And Photos will remind me of our vacation in the future, too, with story-style highlights at the top of the app.

Photo credit: Joao Nogueira

Look up

I live in a big city, which means I don’t get to see the stars much. Traveling somewhere a little less built up means I can hone my Pixel 4 astrophotography skills. It’s easy to use something stable, like a wall, as a makeshift tripod, and then just let the camera do its thing.

Photo credit: DDay

Vacation unplugged

As useful as my phone is, I try to be mindful about putting it down and ignoring it as much as I can. And that goes double for when I’m on vacation. Android phones have a whole assortment of Digital Wellbeing features to help you disconnect. My favorite is definitely flip to shhh: Just place your phone screen-side down and it silences notifications until you pick it back up.

Photo credit: Joao Nogueira

Source : The Official Google Blog via Source information

[theramblingonesie]

Through The Lens of a Juice-Bruiser

It’s incredible how quickly one’s life can change when they start saying yes.  Granted, I’m almost always saying yes, so shit’s almost always getting weird.

My yes’s have brought me back to Mexico, where I’ve been met with a lot of no’s, some radical gear-shifting, and a lot of time-outs. This seems to be the relationship Mexico and I have worked out with each other.  While in time-out, I’ve had a lot of time to think about who I am now, who I’m becoming, and what I want at this stage of life.  This kind of reflection isn’t particularly out of the norm for me, but with this current quietness in my environment, the lack of distractions have given volume to the truth in how unprepared I am.

Saying you want or are going to do something is not enough.  You need to be aligned with it down to your core.  In the next few years, I wanna do some big things.  But how am I going to be able to do big things when I think and feel so small?  With all of these dreams, plans and ambitions, why am I allowing so much space for self-sabotage? How can I be in service to the healing and betterment of others when I’m my own worst Babadook?

I’ve been binge-reading/watching/listening to all things birth-related while I go through my doula certification.  I’m geeking the eff out on this subject.  One of the amazing places the research has taken me is into the idea of conscious conception.  Real nifty stuff.  And where *that* took me was to a sharp detour right into healing my own social and sexual trauma.

Barf.

No, actually, it’s really good. I’m ready.  In a couple of days I’ll publicly post my other blog that I wrote while leading up to this point.

I found a woman named Layla Martin.  Look her up. She’s this happy, real-talk, badass sex educator who is doing good things in the world to help all folks of all preference and orientation heal themselves and live more present, ecstatic lives.  I’m not usually, if ever, one for guru-types.  I think 99.9% are shams and they usually make my skin want to turn into snakes that eat each other and then die.  But this woman keeps it so authentic, and maintains her own vulnerability in a way that I can super get with, and so I totally encourage everyone to check her out.

She offers a series of exercises on self-love and confidence, which I really, reallyreallyreallyREALLY need. With the peace, space and personal freedom I feel when I’m traveling, I thought now would be a great opportunity to try and develop some new habits, so I’ve been trying to do yoga every morning and then meditate while applying some of her techniques.

One of them, a very commonly known one that’s been used forever by every therapist known to this universe, is looking at yourself in the mirror and saying “I love you”.

EWWWWW NOOOOOOO WHYYYYYYY

I CAAAAANNN’TT

NOT THAT OOONNNEE PLEEAASSEE DON’T MAKE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Sigh.

I’ve been putting that one off. But this morning I knew I had a long day of being out in the world, and had no desire to battle my beastly anxiety in public, so I broke out the big guns and did all of the damn exercises.  I ate my chocolate and banana, drank water, did yoga, then sat down to meditate. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes, looked up into the mirror and said, “I love you.”

Omg, it felt awful.

“Who fucking does shit like this?  This is some rock bottom BS.  I’m like that neurotic middle-aged man who just got fired for being a drunk, and his wife left him, and he’s trying to put himself back together from his mom’s couch. I’m not that guy!”

“Oh yeah? Who is that guy?” the little voice in my head asked.

“Pathetic.  People who boast about loving themselves are weak and arrogant.”

“Wow. Wow…”

“Don’t judge me!”

“Okay, let’s play the mirror game. When you’re in a disempowered place, how do you view yourself?”

“Weak and arrogant.”

“Interesting.”

“NO IT��S NOT.”

“Sounds like your fears are trying to trick you out of feeling confident, because you might actually stop sabotaging yourself and have to live a healthy, fulfilling life. We can’t have that now….”

“Crap. Okay, I’ll do the exercise.”

I backtracked and tried a different exercise to lead up to that one.  It was a visualization of my younger self, and how I would tell her that I love her.  Unexpectedly, I started crying.  I was crying for how hurt I was, and for how relieved I was to hear kind, compassionate words from myself.  When I opened my eyes, I tried again.  

“I love you”, I said. And I could see in my eyes that I meant it. It wasn’t like those times in the past where I’ve gone through the motions of the exercise, like someone who is at the end of a relationship but doesn’t know how to get out.  This was genuine, and it shocked me.  I repeated it until it reached every piece of me, and I then I was ready to begin my day.

I floated off to the farmer’s market to get some fresh veggies. I felt light, I felt sweet, I felt calm and totally at ease in my body.  Food is magic to me, so going to the market is like praying.  I get stupid excited about kale and tomatoes every time like it’s my first time.  I was even a good little shopper and returned the glass bottles from the juice I bought the week before.

Or so I thought.

Everything was going so well.  I was just about to give the vendor my money for the new juice, and SMASH!!!! My purse had apparently hit a bottle on the table while my back was turned, and glass and blueberry juice went everywhere.  The people around fell quiet.

I wanted to die.

All of my work, all of that self-love, coaching on how to hold yourself in compassion when you feel shame or social awkwardness: DESTROYED.

I froze. I made weird nervous puppy sounds.  The vendor told me not to worry about it, so I ran away, and spent the next 20 minutes emotionally tearing my guts out and running them through a meat grinder while my brain manifested 1,000 school children pointing and laughing at me.  I kept kicking myself for being a stupid American, how people like me are the reason why the world especially hates white Americans.  How everyone thinks I’m an idiot because my language skills are poor, but now I’m also clumsy and careless on top of it. Dogs would walk by and my head would say “that dog won’t even look at you because it knows you’re Satan.”

Eventually I stood up. When I ran away, I ran to the furthest end of the market, so I had to go all the way back through to leave.   I reminded myself to chill out and to start over. I faked my body language until my attitude caught up with it: shoulders back, soft face, deep breath, gentle walking. By the time I got to the end, a table with sweet little potted plants caught my eye.  The vendor was incredibly kind, and he smiled brightly while he enthusiastically told me all about his gardening practice.

“Right,” I reminded myself. “You’re allowed to accept kindness.”

After I paid, he asked me if I like mandalas.  Curious, I said yes.  He picked up a beautiful little stone that he had hand-painted, and offered it to me as a gift.

On the most basic level, this was a very sweet gesture that I deeply appreciated, especially after the violent lashing I had just given myself over juice.

(Juice. C’mon.)

(Okay, it was never actually about juice, but still, c’mon.)

On a greater level, this moment of kindness felt like a tiny kiss from the universe, like when you’re a little kid who falls off her bike, and your mom picks you up, kisses the little scrape on your knee, and cheers you on when you hop back up and keep riding. It was a good moment to understand how deeply I emotionally abuse myself; how downright mean I am.  No wonder I attract assholes and shitty situations into my life.  My most important line of defense is flipping me the middle finger and pissing in my lemonade!

I went home and posted about my new pet plant.  It barely got any traction online.  My brain went back into turbo-hate mode.  “Nobody likes you; why do you try to take up space?”

Omg, self! Stop!

I grabbed a book, took my dress off, and laid out on the terrace in the sun.  I didn’t want to try any exercises.  I just wanted to recalibrate on my own as a normal human. I reminded myself of all the risks I’ve taken in the past couple years, how my life is abnormal, and how painful/confusing/disorienting it can be to separate yourself from your former life and the friends in it.  I reminded myself that I chose to change, even though this choice didn’t feel like much of a choice if I wanted to be true to myself. If I want this change to be worth it, if I’m serious about answering the call, then I have to figure out a way to stop being a bully to myself so I can start truly living.  I reminded myself that I don’t have to be the best, or the coolest, or the most impressive.  I don’t actually owe anyone anything.  Right now, I just have to feel confident that I will lead myself to safe, healthy choices, and that I’m worthy of inhabiting my body and the spaces it delivers me to. That’s enough.  Everything else will fall in line.

I got up and made my way to an alternative, underground art collective that was having an art sale event. Even though my inner little sad dude tried to say it was okay if I stayed home, I knew it was important to go. My going to this event was an exercise in self-love.  I was ready to meet other local artists.  I wanted to stand in front of something beautiful, something inspiring.  I wanted to meet and chat with other women, and other weirdos.  I was ready to move outside of the current trend of only hanging out men who are drunk and lie in hopes of fucking me; playing another round of “let’s trick the stupid gringa”.  I was ready to socialize because I’m excited to, not just because I’m lonely.

I went, and it was amazing. I was surrounded by art of all mediums, and the beautiful minds that created them.  People were incredibly friendly, and I got several cards and phone numbers.  I spoke mostly to other women, which was such a relief.  I told one vendor about “The Slutcracker” and “pussy galaxy” from back in Boston when I saw her stickers of people in various explicit positions of having sex with the night sky, and she squealed so loudly with joy that it made me feel like I could relax and be my authentic self in this space.  On my way out, one of the organizers told me that I should come hang out at the collective during the week and see if there’s any way I’d want to get involved.

Again, a kiss from the universe.  I took the time to be kind, follow my happiness, and I was rewarded with a beautiful, fulfilling afternoon that gave me a glimpse into the incredible life I could continue building here if I remain in my truth, and in love.

Because here’s a cool thing that sounds so basic and cliché, but is rather profound in action—

When you love yourself, you can love and accept others.  

Sometimes, however, like an SSRI for depression, we need a little outside love to get over the hump and get inspired.  Meaning, you don’t need high self-esteem to know love, but boy howdy does having it deepen the experience.  Self-worth is magical for transforming co-dependency to true love.

When I got home, I flopped down on my bed, exhausted and starving.  The amount of energy I had spent trying to pull my shit together and socialize had left me happy, but also totally depleted.  I pepped myself up enough to walk downstairs to check the broth I had made the night before.  I had already ordered takeout because the idea of cooking seemed impossible, but next thing I knew, I was cooking a new soup.  Every time I opened the fridge, I saw another ingredient that made me so excited. I greeted them like they were beloved friends.

“Eee!! Hi Rosemary! Yay, hello Beans!!! Oooo, Lime, lookin’ good, lookin’ good. TOMATOES, YOU ARE FABULOUS!”

I do this. I’m constantly thinking outloud and talking to inanimate objects. Sometimes I tell myself it’s because maybe I’m a Buddhist or something and believe there’s spirit flowing through all things.  But Buddhists probably don’t stop in the middle of a room and honk for no reason. It feels great. Try it.

5 minutes before my delivery arrived, I realized I had whipped up a glorious soup.  Oops…kinda.  I found myself back in the space I was before The Great October Juice Tragedy, where food was magical.  Each ingredient I purchased was done so with special care, with consciousness, and excitement for how it would taste.  I don’t have much money, so every bit was deliberate.  Making that soup became less about physical nourishment, because I already had food on the way.  It was about a joyous celebration of good choices; each choice, each ingredient being another gesture to love myself.  I didn’t feel guilty about the abundance because none of it was a waste.  Now I have yummy soup leftovers to look forward to without the effort of cooking this week.

Another exercise Layla suggests is to do something, every day, where the action becomes an exercise in self-love.  She compares it to going to the gym and working out.  Whether it’s lighting a candle, putting on your clothes for the day, or sipping your coffee—with each motion, say “I love you” to yourself.  I decided to do that with soup.

Slurp. I love you.

Sluuurp. Oh man, YUM. I freaking love you!

Sluuurp! Ahhh. Yeah. I love you.  Thank you for such a great meal.  That was really kind and thoughtful.

I ate my delivery sandwich, too, heh.  I think I needed the calories because today was exhausting. I learned a lot, observed a lot, and I look forward to continuing this work so that I can keep getting out of my own way, stop putting up with garbage, and have the energy to do what I gotta goddamn do.  I expect to still have some rough patches and tough days ahead, but that’s to be expected when you’re rewiring 20+ years of unhealthy thought.  While I’m practicing this in the emotional realm, this is truly an exercise in neuroplasticity.  That ish takes time.  Whether things are “good” or “bad” is less pressing for me right now than simply being clear: setting the intention, and digging in to do the work to follow through.  When I’m clear, I see results.  When I’m clear, my muck falls away to create a channel that love can course through. Love manifests itself as focus and care. Also when I’m a clear channel for love, I feel connected to my environment and the people therein.  Being kind, being compassionate, dedicating to learning, and being aware of my carbon footprint come naturally, because I can feel the web.  What happens out there tugs on me, too.  When I’m aware of this web, I can see my path, and that’s when dreams become reality.

That sounds oversimplified. Don’t approach this in an oversimplified way.  Make room for the journey to be one hell of a mother fucking for real for real journey. Find peace in being wrong. You’re totally gonna be wrong at some point/s, haha.

*hug*

If you suffer from negative self-talk like I do, I hope that my own stumbling through this helps you to know that you’re not alone.  If you want to go look in the mirror and cry and say “I love you” to yourself, I highly recommend it.  It’s gonna feel super weird.  But just know, there’s another little weirdo (me) out there somewhere who is really proud of you and not judging you for it.  Reading back over this, I’m noticing all the different times and ways I mention self-love. Maybe I’ll start journaling a daily self-love log to keep count, and try to fill that jar up like a piggy bank. Let me know if you do, too!

I think if we’d all love ourselves just a little bit more, genuinely and fully, there’d be a whole hell of a lot less douchebagery in the world.

But even with that,

There’s still a chance that you will crash into a table of juice.

Deal with it.

Special thanks to my goofy bf for always supporting me (even though I wish he’d make fun of me more), and for giving me this silly blog title.  If you want to learn more about Layla Martin, visit https://layla-martin.com