#i imagined bill to be one of my imaginary friends at some point- like middle school i think- and he was mean to me

[fanvoidkeith]

bill cipher get the fuck out of my dreams, man

[feferipeixes]

Child I Will Hurt You

One of the weirdest things to Alcor about being a father was how automatically Toby trusted him.

Which really freaked him out because he didn’t feel he should be trusted to raise a child. After all, he was practically still a child himself.

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

The thing that scared Alcor the most about raising Toby was how fully the boy trusted him.

He’d experienced and marveled at that kind of trust before. When Mabel found him after that fateful day in 2012 and threw herself at him, sobbing with relief that he wasn’t gone after all, he felt it. When Stan took him and Mabel into his home a few years later, patted him on the back and said “It’s no problem, kid”, he felt it. When he warned Mabel that he shouldn’t be trusted with the triplets’ true names and Mabel shouted him right out of his self-flagellation, he felt it.

The first day he brought Toby home after finding him alone and shivering on the street, he felt something very different.

Panic.

Panic over who the child in front of him truly was underneath that thin layer of flesh. Panic over what would happen if he didn’t stop whatever Bill was planning. Panic as he remembered Weirdmageddon over and over again in complete, horrific detail.

“Listen kid,” he said, floating a few feet off the ground so he could better tower over the child, “no funny business, okay? You hear me in there, Bill?”

Toby only cocked his head, scraggly and unwashed golden locks tumbling away from his face to reveal his scarred eye. He still wore the half-scared half-curious look he’d had when he’d first caught the demon’s attention, but there was something else bubbling up. Something that tasted suspiciously like trust.

It really freaked Alcor out because he didn’t feel he should be trusted to raise a child. Trust was something you gave to adults who knew what they were doing, after all, and he was practically still a child himself.

Alcor grimaced, and lowered onto his knees so he could look the boy directly in the eyes. “I mean it. I’m watching you. I’ll know if anything bad happens.”

To his surprise, Toby smiled at that. “You can make the bad things stop?”

“Yes,” Alcor replied, his voice cracking like it hadn’t in centuries because he was already messing this up, he was sure of it. “N-no getting into trouble. Not on my watch.”

The boy’s face lit up, trust shining brilliant from both eyes, and before Alcor could tell what was happening, Toby had reached up and hugged him around the neck.

And the demon remembered

Bill’s little pipe cleaner hands iron-clad around his neck,

Squeezing the life out of him,

Blue fire rushing all over his body,

Over and into his soul,

Screaming until there was no more breath left in him,

And the little boy’s smile radiated such trust and hope that Alcor was left completely speechless.

“Thank you,” Toby squeaked, and Alcor felt it.

---

“Oh stars, I can’t do this, I can’t do this!” Alcor was in his human disguise, head in hands, elbows resting on the counter, rambling like the world was ending. “I’m way in over my head. Raising a child? Me? I mean I looked after Mabel’s triplets but this is so different…”

“...Sir?” The cashier’s hand hovered over Alcor’s head, unsure whether it was appropriate or comforting to actually pat him. “Are you alright?”

“No!” he fumed, lashing out and knocking over some of his groceries. “I have a six year old at home and he trusts me to look after him and keep him safe! How could this possibly have happened?”

“Uh…” The cashier peered behind the man to the customers in line, most of whom looked some degree of disgruntled or confused. She gave them a little wave to indicate that they should probably move to a different register, and then turned back to the man who appeared to be hyperventilating now. “Do you have a partner? Anyone who’s helping you?”

“Of course not, I’m alone, I’ve got no friends,” he moaned. “There’s no one who I trust enough to foist Toby off to. The poor boy has such bad karma -- he needs me to protect him from that or he’ll get eaten alive!”

“Well… it sounds like you’ve got the right instincts at least. You want to keep him safe.”

“That’s just it! I don’t!” Alcor picked his head up and the cashier saw streaks of a strange yellow liquid running down his face. “Everything I’m doing for him is just stuff I picked up from watching my sister raise her kids! I don’t have any kind of adulting instincts -- none at all! I transcended when I was fucking twelve and that’s where I’ll be stuck until the end of time. I’m just a pointless child! I’ve got too much power and no actual ability to help anyone!”

The cashier sighed and -- after the man nodded to say it was alright -- put her hand on his shoulder. “Listen, man, all of that stuff sounds normal.” (Except for the parts that made no sense to her at all but she opted to ignore them.) “No one knows how to raise a kid, and no one ever feels like they’ve grown up. You learn it as you go. Trust me, my kids ran me ragged and I had no idea what I was doing. But they turned out alright. So will yours.”

Alcor’s voice began to wobble, and he pressed gloved hands to his temples. “But he won’t! I’m developmentally frozen. I’m not capable of learning anything! Seriously, what kind of adult buys this much candy?”

She glanced at his cart, which indeed was half filled with Giddy Cowboys and Sneakers bars. “That is a lot,” she admitted. “I would not advise giving your kid that much candy.”

“What? No.” Alcor stopped sniffling and pulled a face like he’d just smelled poo. “That’s for me. I’m buying all these vegetables and milk and chicken for Toby. He’s a growing kid, he needs to eat healthy, get all those food groups in, you know. I’m not stupid. But I am childish for liking candy so much that I’d eat this much of it in a week! I mean, seriously! Oh stars, I’m hopeless!”

The cashier lifted an eyebrow and removed her hand. “You eat all of this… in a week?”

“I know, I know, I’m ridiculous!”

“That’s not what I meant,” the cashier cut in, before he could start gibbering again. “I’m just worried about your teeth. Your… teeth…” She trailed off as the man suddenly yawned, exposing two rows of jagged knives that could sink into her flesh in an instant. “Your, um, your- your-”

Alcor pulled a mirror out of seemingly nowhere and started picking at his teeth. “What, do I have something in them?”

The cashier’s eyes widened even more as the man’s gloves came off. “My… what pointy claws you have…”

“Thank- wait.” Alcor froze, one long blackened nail still pressed into his gum. “Wait a minute. Pointy. Sharp. Cutting and slicing and ripping open oh stars!”

“Um- um- um-” the cashier tried to say, but with every word she felt like she was shrinking until she’d be swallowed up by her clothes. “Slicing?”

Alcor shook his head furiously, and this time his fist was positively trembling when it came down onto the counter. “I haven’t child proofed the knife drawer in the kitchen!”

He flipped his hat off of his head and pulled out a wad of cash, which he then thrust into the cashier’s hands just as her lights went out. Before anyone else could react, he vanished into thin air, taking his groceries and the shopping cart with him.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before,” Alcor grumbled as he zeroed in on the offending drawer. He pulled it open and there they were -- obscene, dangerous implements that he was a wicked and cruel caretaker to have potentially exposed his child to. He couldn’t stop imagining what might’ve happened if Toby had tried to pull open the drawer and it had fallen on him -- couldn’t stop thinking about his little boy sticking his adorable hand in and receiving cuts and lacerations and awful, awful sobbing filling the house…

With a snap, child locks were in place. Alcor tested them out by trying to pull the drawer open -- and it took a few tries before even he was able to. Sighing with relief, he leaned against the counter and slid down to the floor. His feet bumped up against the shopping cart sitting in the middle of the kitchen, overflowing with Reece’s Mugs and Chortle Taffy and Quasarbursts.

He couldn’t do this. He was too irresponsible.

Alcor dug a hand into the cart and pulled out a candy bar. He sank his teeth into it, enjoyed the rush of sweetness that was almost as good as flesh and bone. Slowly he began to unclench his muscles -- even though his form was imaginary, the cramps shooting throughout his body still hurt. He slid down the counter a little further, almost letting his head touch the floor -- and then he noticed it.

The stairs.

Bolting upright, Alcor let the candy bar fall from his hand. The stairs. How hadn’t he thought about that before? What if Toby fell down and tumbled into the banister and lost his other eye? What if what if what if?

Not a minute later, the demon was wrestling with child safety gates, somehow struggling even with all of his considerable power just to get them to attach to the wall. At one point he tipped his jaw back and used his tongue to line the edges with spit, which then solidified like glue. The stairs had to be safe. He couldn’t risk Toby getting hurt.

And with that thought came even more thoughts that sent Alcor racing through the house. What if Toby slipped in the bathtub? What if Toby climbed on top of the fridge and couldn’t get down? What if Bill slammed his arm in a drawer again and again and again and again until it was full of forks and then he poured soda into his eyes and laughed like a maniac while Dipper drowned in the vast emptiness of the Mindscape???

Alcor stiffened. He set down the intricate contraption he’d been building to keep Toby safe from wild animals in the backyard. And he looked into the mirror.

What was he doing?

This was Bill’s soul he was fretting over. It was always him, on the inside, and he’d known it from the very first day he’d seen the boy. He knew what was lurking beneath the surface, what kind of monster slept in that innocent form waiting until one day he could reach out and traumatize his father once more. Reach out and steal his beating heart, and laugh, and live, and die, and laugh, and live, and die, in a way he’d never be able to again.

A chill passed through Alcor’s body. Something had to be wrong with him, because he knew what Toby was and he’d spent the entire week worrying about the boy. Why did he care so much?

Quietly, he crept down the hall, and peered into the bedroom on the right. There he was -- the beast himself -- sleeping soundly in a bed decorated with race cars and rocket ships. A few more steps, and Alcor could see how small he looked, how even in his sleep he seemed so broken. And the demonic instincts that had rushed through Alcor since the day he’d gone up in flames were quelled, because every fiber of his being told him he needed to protect this child.

He rested a hand on the boy’s forehead, and watched him dream about running around in a field of grass, playing catch with his new father.

---

Thus started a new routine. A demon, trying day-to-day to take care of a small child. Playing grown up even though he felt so utterly unprepared for what he was doing. But Alcor’s life didn’t stop when he became a parent.

Neither did any of his other regular obligations.

“Oh, you’re asking for it now!” Alcor roared, jumping to his feet. “I’m gonna run you through with my sword! Die die die die!”

The dungeon master -- Damien -- peered over his half-rimmed glasses at the demon and smirked. “Not gonna work, I’m afraid. The slime beast’s armor is too thick to be pierced by a sword such as your own.”

Alcor gaped with disbelief. “Whaaat? I call foul play! You let Anushka do it!”

“Anushka’s sword has a fire enchantment on it. Slime armor is weak to heat.”

“Also, I said die five times,” Anushka added with a shit-eating grin on her face, jabbing Alcor in the side with her elbow. “Die die die die die!”

Alcor snorted and dropped back into his chair. “Well, you got me there.” He looked at the other players, disappointment rolling over into amusement. “Can I change my move or am I locked in?”

Damien shrugged. “Go for it. I don’t think you’ll be able to beat it this turn though, and you’ve only got one hit point remaining.”

Nat leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Yo, I’ve got an idea. You should defend this turn and try to survive the slime’s attack, and then on my turn I can fire enchant your sword.”

“Huh. Maybe…” He patted his head to get the spittle out of his ear, and surveyed the map of the dungeon they were in. Then he sat bolt upright in his seat, a large exclamation mark appearing over his head. “Damien. How many sword actions do I get this turn?”

Damien rolled a die. “Two.”

“Yessss. Okay. First, I lunge at the slime again! But with the blunt end of my sword so it gets knocked back.”

Damien rolled another die. “Yep. That works. Are you gonna use your free movement to approach it again?”

Alcor shook his head. “Nope. I’m gonna throw my sword -”

“Your sword doesn’t have enough piercing damage to make a difference from that distance, I’m afraid.”

The room’s dim lighting glinted off of razor sharp teeth. “- at the cable holding up the chandelier.”

Anushka and Nat dropped their pencils, and looked straight up, momentarily forgetting that they were not actually in the dungeon they were traversing. “You what?”

Damien rolled a die again, and sucked in a sharp breath. “Alright. The chandelier falls onto the slime beast before it can react. It quickly catches on fire, leaving it too weak to attack. Congrats!”

Beaming, Alcor scribbled some numbers on his character sheet. “Heck yeah. No slime beast is strong enough to get one past the Dreambender.”

“You’re so creative, Al,” Nat said. “Seriously, wow. I never would’ve thought of that.”

He wove off the compliment. “Naw, I’m just basically a large child. Being silly and immature is what they’re good at.”

Looking up over his dungeon master partition, Damien furrowed his brow. “Why do you say you’re immature -”

There was a ringing in Alcor’s head -- a tug on a bond -- and he held up his hand. “Wait, hold that thought. Speaking of children, my kid’s calling me. I’m gonna have to leave early this week.” He stood up, and did a dramatic bow. “I’ll see ya all next week! Don’t lose my summoning circle!”

Toby -- lying flat on the floor of the Mystery Shack -- perked up at the sight of his adoptive father walking through the door. Tyrone looked about as human as they come -- a man in his mid-thirties with soft brown eyes, no wings, and feet that always touched the ground. He opened his arms and Toby came running to hug him.

Right away there was that trust again, that total trust that Alcor still couldn’t believe he deserved. How could someone like him -- someone who’d just spent two hours playing a tabletop role playing game and laughing about memes -- be trusted to take care of a child?

Gingerly, he took Toby into his arms and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “How are you doing?”

“I’m boooooooored!” Toby whined. “Can we play a game? I wanna play pretend!”

Chuckling, Alcor put Toby down and then sat beside him on the floor. “Sure thing, kid. You know, I’m pretty good at playing games like that. I was playing one with my friends earlier today.”

Toby’s jaw dropped. “Whoaaaaa! You have friends?”

A vein bulged in Alcor’s forehead. “Of course I- never mind. What’s the game, kid? What are we pretending?”

Toby jumped up and started pacing in a circle. “I wanna make up a story! It’s gonna be great! I’ll be the hero and you’ll be the bad guy -- an evil king who wants to kill all of the good people in the land! Is… is that okay?”

There was a mirror mounted on the wall behind where Toby had been sitting. Without the boy in his way, Alcor found his gaze fixed on it. He could see Toby gesturing as he walked and he could see the nostalgic decorations hanging on the wall of the Shack. But there was no Tyrone to speak of.

It took a moment for him to realize that Toby was talking to him. “What? Oh yeah. Of course, kid. I’ll be the bad guy.” He took a deep breath, discarding the voice in his head that furiously objected to him being the villain to Bill’s hero. “What’s my motivation?”

Toby cocked his head. “Moti- what?”

“What’s my backstory? Why am I evil?”

The boy continued to stare at him with a blank look on his face. “You’re evil cause you’re the bad guy and bad guys are evil!”

“That’s kinda boring- never mind.” Alcor grimaced and looked back at the mirror. “So you’re the hero, eh? How are you going to defeat me? What’s the hero good at?”

“Everything!!!!” Toby squealed, and his reflection grabbed onto something invisible. “The hero is the good guy so I should always win and I’ll have all of the magic and the biggest swords ever!”

Alcor shifted so that Toby was hanging onto his shoulders rather than around his middle. “Everything? But if the hero always wins, what’s the point?”

“The good guy always has to win!” the boy chirped, squeezing tight around Alcor’s neck. “Always!”

Oh my stars this is so boring, Alcor thought. How fricking uninventive is Bill’s soul? Children are supposed to be good at being silly and creative. I guess all Bill’s soul can think about is being powerful again.

A figure stepped into the room on the other side of the mirror. It was short -- looked to be about 12 years old -- and had clawed hands, bat wings sprouting from its hips, and a fancy suit that looked out of place for someone so young. Alcor’s jaw dropped as he watched the figure pick up Toby’s reflection, pat him on the back, and then stare directly out of the mirror at the demon.

“This is a game for children,” the figure said in a low growl.

“What?” Alcor yelped.

Toby giggled at the interruption. “I said that all the evil people should die because they’re mean! No one should ever do a bad thing!“

“This is what children are like. They see in black-and-white because they know nothing about how the world works.” Cold, black eyes bored into Alcor’s skull. “Have you forgotten what that’s like?”

“B-but I’m silly,” Alcor stammered, sweat starting to drip down his face. “I’m irresponsible. I love playing games and coming up with interesting stories. Those are childish things for someone as old as me to be doing.”

“Dad?” Toby asked. “What are you saying? I can’t hear you.”

The figure sneered, baring two sets of sharp teeth uncomfortably close to Toby’s head. “Whoever told you that must’ve really hated the idea of growing up.” Toby stirred, and it spent a moment cradling him so he’d calm down. Then those eyes -- now bright and full of gold -- flicked back at the demon. “Who said it? Was it you?”

Alcor gasped and fell over. Toby shrieked as he suddenly found himself tumbling to the ground, and the sound broke Alcor right out of his trance. Quick as a whistle, he pirouetted and caught the boy in his arms, pulling him close to his chest in a tight hug.

“Oh no, oh Toby, are you alright?” he fretted. “Did you get hurt?”

“I’m okay!” Toby squeaked, his face pressed against Alcor’s collarbone. Alcor loosened up on his hug, and took in Toby’s smile. “That was fun! You always catch me! That’s how I know you’re really a good guy.”

“I’m a good guy?” Alcor gulped, and glanced back at the mirror. This time he saw himself, in his present human disguise, holding Toby close, and looking so, so utterly responsible. It freaked him out.

“...Dad?” Toby asked, brow crumpled. “Daaaaad what are you thinking?”

“I think…” Alcor sighed, and gave his son a little kiss on the forehead. “I think it’s time you got some friends your own age.”

---

From that day on, things were a little different.

Alcor bought a house in the physical plane, because a memory of a shack in the Mindscape was no place to raise a child.

“Dad?”

He doctored forms and documents so it not only looked like a certain Tyrone Pines actually existed, but also that he and his adopted son Tobias Pines were legal residents of a sleepy town in the middle of Washington. This let Toby attend school with kids his own age.

“What is it, Toby?”

He went to the library on the weekly to check out parenting books, having long exhausted the meager supply of advice his omniscience had to offer -- as it turned out, parenting was very much a learn-as-you-go experience with few absolute truths to guide you.

“What’s a demon?”

Alcor froze, his hand halfway in the process of turning a page in his book. He started to turn his head around to look at the boy, and remembered just in time to turn his body around with it.

“Where did you hear that?” Alcor asked carefully.

Toby kept his head down, opting to study his father’s shoes instead of his face. “I, um...”

There it was again, that emotion bubbling up inside of Alcor, that instinctual distrust he couldn’t help but feel for the soul who had once taken everything from him. It was all he could do not to jump up and yell “Aha! Caught you red-handed, Bill! I knew you were in there all along!”

He got out of his chair and knelt in front of the child, using a finger to gently raise the boy’s head so they could see eye-to-eye. “You can tell me,” he said softly. “It’s okay.”

Alcor saw Toby reach into that pure, automatic trust he had for the monster who was raising him. The boy gulped, and squared his shoulders.

“Um... Devon’s dad said it to Devon.”

Alcor blinked. “Is that so? Devon, the kid in your class who asked you to play baseball with him?”

Toby nodded. “H-he was asking me again, and I know you said I wasn’t allowed to, but he started showing me anyway. He got his bat and swinged it and it looked really cool. Then his dad yelled at him and said ‘Devon, you little demon, cut that out right now!’“

Alcor could only stare, mouth agape, in response. Toby started to tremble as he continued speaking. “Then Devon’s dad took the baseball bat and Devon got really sad and I didn’t know what it means but it looked bad and I don’t want to be a little demon and I’m really really sorry I said I wanted to play baseball I don’t want to be a demon I don’t I don’t -”

He cut off with a squeak as his father took him into his arms and hugged him tight.

Alcor was a being with access to more power and magic than almost anything else in the universe. He could level mountains, he could turn cities inside out, he could institute universal basic income on the moon with a snap of his fingers.

But when he held Toby in his arms, when he saw the awestruck look on the boy’s face when he played the violin for him, when he listened to Toby babble excitedly about whatever he’d learned in school that day, Alcor felt powerful.

All of his magic crumbled beneath the obscene power granted to him by way of this child’s trust in him. He had the power to protect this child, to support and encourage him to grow up to be the best person he could be. He could also betray Toby’s trust so, so easily.

He could punish his son for no reason if he needed an emotional pick-me-up. He could disregard the boy’s concerns and laugh in his face. He could even raise his voice just a little too much, caught in a moment of frustration, and leave Toby wincing in distress -- an ephemeral moment in Alcor’s life but an upsetting and formative moment in Toby’s which could forever mar their relationship.

That would be childish. That would be immature of him.

Alcor had killed reams of cultists, had bestowed disturbing curses on people who’d only sort of deserved it, had terraformed the western coast of the United States in a fit of rage. He’d done a lot of horrible things with his magic, but.

This power, this power he had to shape Toby’s life.

This power horrified him.

“You’re not a demon,” Alcor said, (and it felt so unfair to be saying that to him of all people -- so cruel and dirty that he wanted to scream until his hair fell out. But he didn’t.)

“Don’t cry,” (even though no one had held him when he cried that day in 2012, because he’d simply slipped through their fingers, and he wanted to repay that favor. But he didn’t.)

“Daddy’s here,” he whispered, before kissing Toby’s tears away. “You’re not in trouble.”

The words came so naturally, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. As if he had the experience to understand what was upsetting his son, and the power to make it better. As if he had the maturity to push past his own conflicted feelings, because he was an adult, and this was a little child.

He set Toby down, and kneeled to meet his eyes. In that moment, he felt tall. Sort of grown up.

Toby sniffled. “You’d never yell at me? Even if I do something wrong?”

Alcor thought once again back to the day he’d seen Bill Cipher on the side of the road. Thought about the furious, vengeful part of him that enjoyed the boy’s suffering because that’s what he deserved. Remarked on how the universe had served him up his greatest enemy in the most vulnerable form possible, giving him the opportunity to take Toby’s trust and do unspeakable things to him.

“Sure thing, kiddo,” he said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “I promise.”

Remembered how he’d instead chosen love.

---

It was a dark and stormy night that found Alcor wandering the streets of a mostly-abandoned city.

He’d been summoned -- it always started with a summons -- and he’d been angry. It didn’t even matter what had made him angry, because there were so many things these days that people absolutely would not stop doing no matter how much he screamed and threatened and threw flaming balls of plasma into their twisted places of worship. They never learned. And neither did he.

Alcor couldn’t stand how many people had to die because of him. How many people were killed in his name. How many lives he’d taken with his own hands because he couldn’t seem to stop, like an immature brat who throws tantrums when things don’t go his way. He wondered if he could ever change, or if he was just stuck this way.

It was deep in these thoughts that the demon heard a little noise. A squeak, barely audible over the rain. He dismissed it at first, because his grand thoughts were more important than the world around him, and right after a bad summons was the perfect time for self-hatred. It felt good -- it was one of the only things that still did. He considered burning the entire city to the ground. Maybe that’d feel even better.

Something told him that it wouldn’t.

He heard the squeak again, his eyes darting over to a heap of trash bags between two buildings, and that’s when he saw him. A little boy with golden hair, no older than six. He was dressed in rags. He looked like he hadn’t seen a scrap of food in days. The left side of his face had been eaten away by flame, leaving it patchy and discolored.

Alcor had seen right through Bill’s disguise, of course. There wasn’t a meatsuit pitiable enough to blot out the sins his soul had committed. Perhaps that was why he had been abandoned on the side of the street to begin with -- karma was finally catching up with him. Alcor wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. Something strange was going on inside of him. Some sort of instinct buried within him -- not one tipped with blood and claws, but one that creaked and groaned under centuries of exertion.

It was this feeling that prompted him to gather up the child in his arms. He felt how fast the boy’s heart was beating; saw in his past how much he’d been hurt without an adult to protect him. He knew that feeling well.

“It’s okay,” he murmured as Toby began to fuss. “Things will be better now. I’ll protect you. I might only be a child myself, but I promise I’ll protect you.”

One year later, one year of introspection, growth, and unbroken promises later, he had to admit he’d been wrong.

(AO3 link)

[ressyfaerie]

I would love love love to see something along the lines of a Tyka mer au?? Especially if Kai is the merman!! I do love them ever so. Any age rating/idea I am so down for, pretty please!! 🥺🙏❤

Keep up with the great Tyka content it makes my day!

I know who you are and you always give me the best fic inspiration! I read your Tyka mer comics and I am INSPIRED. This might be longer than expected! But here I gooooo

So now that I finished it, I’ll be putting it in a readmore since it’s VERY LONG!!

It’s very rare that I write in first person! But this story definitely called for it, and I AM COMPLETELY IN LOVE. You’re going to want to ask for more, I can already tell.

So here it is:

When I was young, I was saved by a merman.

I remember how the cold seeped into my veins. My head was pounding from the force of hitting the water.

I was too young to know how to swim.

I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.

My body was numb, I descended into the dark blue sea, I saw the light glimmer from the surface, and felt water invade my lungs.

That’s when I saw him.

A flash of blue and milky skin. I felt the smooth scales wrap around my body. I saw his face, clear as day. His purple eyes, silver hair, and blue face markings. His face looked panicked, bubbles erupted from his mouth forming inaudible words. His face turned blurry, and my vision grew dark.

I woke up on the beach. No one believed me when I told them. Just a child’s fantasy gone overboard.

I always wondered how I made it back to shore without knowing how to swim, or how I missed all the rocks.

Someone must have saved me.

The more I visited the beach and saw no sign of a blue finned merman my belief started to dwindle.

Growing up I drew pictures, I even based my imaginary friend off my hero.

In my teens, my best friend Max reminded me of him.

“Tyson! I was just telling my friend about that mer-boy that saved you when you were a kid!”

I laughed it off, “it was a fairytale, Max. Nothing more.”

Years before, Kenny and Hilary sat with me on the beach one day after training.

“Could he still be out there?”

I cleaned my surfboard, looking off into the mysterious ocean.

Hilary passed me a bottle of wax for my board, “you know, I read at least eighty percent of the ocean remains undiscovered.”

Kenny looked up from his laptop, “every mermaid sighting has been proved fake. I still think what you saw was due to a lack of oxygen.”

I gave him an angry look, I didn’t mean to.

“Uh… but miracles have happened.” Kenny tried to reassure me.

I knew the truth.

Mermaids and mermen weren’t real.

After my Mom died, and my Dad left with my brother to explore the world, I had two things, my Grandpa, and my imagination.

Thinking of that boy was my playground. I’d bring sandwiches to the beach, and pretend to talk to him.

I made friends. And became a surfing champion. With my success my imagination drifted away.

I guess I really wasn’t ready for what came next huh?

“Tyson!”

Hilary and Kenny made their way towards my desk, I slammed my textbook closed, I was done with studying anyways.

“There’s a carnival in town! It’s close to your house, you want to come with us tonight?” Her eyes were bright.

I felt a pat on my shoulder, I looked to my right, Max’s blonde hair caught my eye.

“Carnival? Count me in!”

“I’m going too…” Kenny mentioned awkwardly, “Tyson?”

I rolled my eyes, carnivals were for kids. Besides I was planning on catching some waves tonight, but the weather was supposed to be really calm. I guess I could spare the time.

“Alright, sounds like a plan.”

I was right. Carnivals were for kids.

Doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun though.

We rode ride after ride. Kenny had to sit on a bench after he got sick, Hilary rubbed his back.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, partner!” Max slapped my back, “let's get some more snacks!”

Max pulled me towards another booth. I love food, but after a dozen different snacks, and a dozen different rides, I had to admit, I wasn’t feeling too well.

Max handed me a candy apple, I took a bite and felt my stomach turn.

“Bluh,” my lip turned in disgust.

“Wanna take a break from the rides?”

I nodded.

We lost Kenny and Hilary ages ago. Walking through the parts of the carnival with fewer people, we came across a mirror maze.

“Tyson, let’s go in!”

“Sounds fun!”

It was no surprise when I lost Max right away.

I could hear his excited giggles and him shouting my name, I tried to go in his direction, but eventually his voice faded out, and I found my way to the exit.

“Max!” I shouted into the maze, but there was no reply back.

He might have gotten out already…

I walked through the carnival looking for my blonde haired friend. No luck. There was a fortune teller, I made a mental note, Hilary would have liked to go back there.

Then something caught my eye.

ANASTASIA’S HOUSE OF WONDERS

It looked like a cardboard standee, with dark tents behind it. It couldn’t have been that big. I saw some people leave out the exit. There was someone in front of it. They were dressed in a creepy joker costume.

“Hey man,” I got his attention.

“Do you dare enter the house of wonders!”

“Uh, maybe? Is it cool? Like… what’s in there?”

“Things that will make your blood boil—”

“Things?”

“And creatures unknown to this world!—”

“Creatures!?”

“And above all—”

“Oooo what else!?”

“Look kid.” The grey haired joker lowered his arms and sighed, “can you just let me finish my speech?”

“Oh, yeah sorry.”

“I’m Bryan the sharpshooting joker! For only a few bucks—find yourself immersed in a new world!—”

“Okay,” I raised my hand, “that’s enough.”

“Oh thank god” Bryan’s voice dropped a few octaves.

The guy seemed kinda chill, so I leveled with him.

“So dude, is it actually worth my time in there?”

Bryan nodded, “yeah, it’s actually really cool.”

“Alright, sign me up.” I handed him a couple bills.

“Enjoy.” He counted the money.

Before I left I looked under his costume hat, “wait, don’t I know you?”

“Maybe?” He grumbled, accidentally revealing his true persona.

“Yeah! You were in the last surfing championship! You’re that crazy intense guy Bryan! What the heck are you doing here?”

“Uh, sidegig.” He lowered his mask, “have fun in there, kid.”

“Okay…”

I brushed off the awkward encounter and turned to the entrance. It was covered in two extravagant curtains. I pushed the fabric to the side and walked into the darkness.

Wait, is this a haunted house? Damn I shouldn’t have gone without Max!

The first thing I noticed was there was a lack of… people. Tesla coils and odd gimmicks littered the floor of the first hallway. I rolled my eyes, remembering carnivals were for kids.

The next room was bigger than expected, it was a dome with a button in the middle. I pressed it, who could resist a big red button after all?

Suddenly a snow storm picked up. I covered my face, “ah!”

It stopped before I could figure it out, I stared at the sleeve of my red jacket, where snowflakes started melting.

“Alright, that was definitely real snow! I’ll admit I have no idea how you did that one!”

I shouted to no one, but it still helped my nerves.

I—couldn’t figure out where the exit was.

I walked to the edge of the dome, it looked like a carnival tent, I tapped the edge, it rang back with a metallic sound.

“Uh.” I grew worried, “an exit would be nice?!”

I heard a sound from the other side of the room, and some fabric fell from nowhere, revealing another dark room, “thank you!”

Cautiously I made my way to the dark room.

I wish I hadn’t.

Inside were weird animals in green jars.

“Oof, these can’t be real.”

I tapped one, the baby bird inside moved.

“I assure you, they are all real.”

I turned to the corner. A.. man? He had a raven masquerade mask, and when Tyson locked eyes with him, he screamed and revealed massive black wings from his back.

“What the!?—”

I fell backwards, falling on my rear.

The bird boy made his way towards me.

“What are you?!”

“I’m Ian, the birdman.” He sounded tired.

“And in there,” he pointed to the next room with a black talon, “you’ll find my wolf friend.”

“You’re what!?”

I sat up, “naw, I’m done with this place. Your costumes are a bit too real for me.”

He shrugged, “that’s what they all say.” he sat on a crate with a loud thud, “enjoy the rest of the tour.”

I went to the next room because that guy was freaking me out. I really wanted to head back the way I came, but I couldn’t seem to find it.

Also, that guy seemed kind of familiar.

The next room felt colder than the rest. My heart raced when I saw a cage.

“Uh, hello? This haunted house is getting a little weird…”

I heard the clanking of chains, and a flash of red. On the floor of the cage was a boy, a bit older than myself.

“Are you okay?” I asked knowing it was an actor.

I heard a deep growl, and he lifted himself off the floor. I gasped when I saw his face.

A white wolf with a red mane bared his teeth at me.

I took a step back.

I felt the room grow cold, as the wolf tensed and growled.

It lunged forward and snapped it’s jaw, it hit the bars of the cage with a strength that boy shouldn’t possess, I turned and ran.

I ran through a wall tearing down fabric sprinting through tents.

It was dark, I couldn't see anything and didn’t know where I was going.

“Ah!” My foot got caught on a stone and I fell forward.

“How is this place so big! It did not look like this from the outside!”

In front of me was a curtain, it just barely touched the floor, I could see light shining from under it.

If I can’t find my way out… I might as well head for the light.

I lifted the curtain up and shielded my eyes from the bright white light.

In front of me I could just make out the wheels of a traveling train car. The front of it wasn’t metal, it was glass. Bright fluorescent lights hung over it. There was a sign next to me, I rubbed my eyes and could just make out the writing.

Newest exhibit! A rarity of its kind! Stay back, he splashes.

“What?”

Then I saw it.

The flash of blue, silver, and purple.

A merman threw himself against the glass repeatedly, tossing his fists against it. His wrists were in chains, and his constant assault against the glass only amounted to hollow thumps echoing through the tent.

I felt my body freeze.

It was the merman from my childhood.

Is this real?

I slowly made my way to the sealed aquarium.

The boy must have seen me enter the ring of light, because he stopped, he started floating, and stared at me.

“Hello?”

The merman didn’t move, he simply floated in place, I could see his chest move up and down.

“Do you recognize me?”

I made my way to the glass, getting a good look at the boy for the first time.

I placed my hand on the glass. I saw how red his wrists were from the chains.

He put his hand against the glass, only a thin separation between us. I smiled, and looked into his purple eyes.

I think he smiled at me. He opened his mouth slightly and a few bubbles popped out. I chuckled, and he looked back at me.

I stared up at the top of the tank, the lid was thick glass. A massive padlock kept it down. He saw me look at it, and he shook his head frantically.

I nodded, and placed my head against the glass, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

I jumped and hit the lock with my hand gauging how tough it was.

The merman waved his hand and mouthed words shaking his head.

“I’m gonna get you out of here!”

I looked around the room for a tool to use to break the lock. The only thing I could find was the sign I had seen previously.

I grabbed it, and tossed it to the ground, ripping it off its base.

The merman kept throwing his fist against the tank to get my attention, I ignored him knowing I had to help him.

I climbed the edge of the train cart so I was standing on top of the glass looking down at the silver haired boy. He floated on his back and kept banging on the glass with both hands.

It seemed like he was mouthing the words ‘get out get out!’

I used the stick tool I had made and bashed the lock, making loud sounds through the room. I kept doing it, but it didn’t budge.

The merman was banging on the glass mouthing the same words.

“I’m trying!”

I jumped down, knowing I would have to find a different tool, but I bashed it again in frustration.

The merman was frantically pointing now.

“What? What is it?” I watched his lips.

‘Behind you!’

I felt someone grab my shoulder, before I could scream they grasped my shirt and yanked me to the floor, dragging me away.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to touch people in a haunted house!”

I kicked and screamed while watching my merman frantically swim in circles and hit the glass with his tail. He was trying to get to me, but I knew it wasn’t going to work.

The man threw me into another room. I couldn’t see anything in the dark, I was tossed on a chair and sat up. He turned on a light with a click, and an old fluorescent bulb hung from the ceiling. I blinked a few times trying to find my way in the new surroundings.

A silhouette of a man sat on the opposite end of a table.

“You think you can try to take one of my treasures?”

“He is not yours!”

“Months ago I captured him. He’s rightfully mine.”

“Who do you think you are?!” I screamed at him, knowing full well this full grown man could cause me serious harm.

“He’s a rarity, I won’t let him fall into the hands of some snot nosed teenager with a superiority complex.”

I spat, “do you own this crazy place?”

“I do.”

“Don’t think I didn’t recognize your workers. I surfed with most of them in last year's competition.”

The man simply laughed, I finally got to make out some of his facial features. He was an older man.

“And why does the world champion desire my merman?”

“I don’t desire him, he needs to be free!”

“Ha!” The man’s voice bellowed.

I frantically searched for answers, for a way out—for the both of us.

“I’ll buy him from you!”

“Like you could afford him.”

“If I win the next competition—”

“You won’t.”

I grinned smugly, “you don’t know that.”

“You won by luck, my team is far superior.”

“Your team of monsters? Isn’t that cheating?”

“And you think being a descendant of a storm dragon is fair?”

“I’m a—what?”

The man shook his head.

“I know who you are, Tyson.”

“You gonna tell me who you are?”

The man chuckled in response to my anger, making me even more furious.

“The name is Boris. I take care of these boys—”

“By imprisoning them? Leave my merman alone!”

“Excuse me? Yours? Did you not just meet this creature?”

“Let’s say I’m feeling friendly.” I crossed my arms.

“He seemed to react to your presence, what did you do?”

I panicked, “how long were you watching for!?”

“Long enough. I’ve had him here for a few months, yet I can’t seem to break him.”

“Break him?” I was in disbelief, my childhood hero was not some horse at a stable!

“Yes, perhaps you could help—”

“No.” I grimaced.

Boris tapped his fist on the table, “well, it seems we are at an impasse.”

“You’ll never have my help.”

“I think I can live without it.” He stood up, he was much taller than me. “Please leave my circus, and don’t come back.”

“I’m not leaving without the merman.” I stood my ground.

“That’s a shame.”

I felt something heavy hit my temple—

I woke up on a grassy hill. I rubbed my head.

When I managed to sit up I overlooked the carnival from across a field. The lights were all out. It had to have been late for it to be completely closed.

Boris…

Now that I knew my merman was real, and that he was captured by such an evil man I had to find a way to get him back.

I’ll steal him. I’ll figure something out…

You better watch your back Boris.

I stared in the direction I thought my blue finned saviour would be in.

Hold on, I’m coming for you.

[purplesurveys]

831

When you were a kid...

Were you happy or sad when you found out your babysitter was coming? I didn’t have a babysitter. My grandparents took care of me and my siblings and cousins when we were growing up; and if they were both busy I was usually the one expected to care for everyone. Which was okay with me, since I was the most ~motherly~ one in our little group anyway.

Did you have a boyfriend in kindergarten? I studied in an all-girls school from kinder to high school. Outside of school, also no boyfriends. The boys at my neighborhood were super rowdy and hated girls, so I didn’t like hanging out with them.

Did you ever play hopscotch at school? For sure. I was a little mischievous - I would steal a bunch of chalk from the classroom so I can doodle a hopscotch court on school grounds for me and my friends to play on. I definitely wasn’t the most goody-two-shoes kid in the beginning, lol.

Did you refuse to eat your vegetables? Yeah, hated them. We have this local brand of instant noodles that have pieces of carrot in it, and I remember grouping all the tiny carrot bits at the edge of my plate. I didn’t learn to feed myself until I was around 8 or 9 though, so prior to that my elders would just include vegetables in all my meals and I’d have no choice.

What did you usually dress up as on Halloween? Some basic costume like a witch or pirate. My mom wasn’t super into Halloween and would just get us costume packs from the toy store. I wanna be the complete opposite for my kids.

What was your favorite television show? As a much younger kid I was into Hi-5. When I got a bit older I liked Pokemon, SpongeBob, The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, etc. Then when I got slightly older I started watching the real-life shows too, so like That’s So Raven, Suite Life, Drake and Josh, Zoey 101, Hannah Montana. Did you have D.E.A.R. time in school? (Drop Everything and Read) Yes, a few times each year. When I was still a bookworm it had been one of my favorite segments in school because I got to see other kids reading, which was my favorite hobby then. But by the time I was in high school and stopped reading, I remember always struggling to find a book to bring because I didn’t read anything anymore D: If I remember correctly, I think Athenna lent me most of the books I brought for DEAR time since at the time she was into John Green and YA in general. Did you ever read the 'Magic Treehouse' series? No. I googled it to see the cover, and I know as a kid it wouldn’t have interested me enough to pull it out of its shelf. How about the 'Bailey School Kids' series? Nope. Kids my age were into the Geronimo Stilton and Mr Men/Little Miss series. Do you remember the first movie you ever saw in theaters? Yes, it was a Stuart Little movie when I was maybe 3 or 4. I’m guessing it’s Stuart Little 2, because Google says it came out in 2002 and I was 4 years old then, so it checks out. Who was your best friend in elementary school? Angela was my best friend in some grades, but you know how kids are...once they vibe with someone else, they’ll hang out with them 24/7. Angela was a way more sociable kid so she got close with everyone, while I remained terrible at making friends. If she wasn’t my best friend at the time, I had no one. Did they continue to be your best friend in middle school? We don’t have middle school but I’ll guess that this is like Grade 6 and 7 for us? Anyway, no. ~Middle school~ was worse for me because this was when cliques started to form and material trends became the basis for being visible, e.g. owning a Blackberry, wearing Nike Roshes, getting side bangs lol, etc. I had none of those, so I was left behind both in terms of visibility and having friends. I only had a best friend again by the time I entered Grade 7, in which time I met Gabie and the ball started rolling from there. Did you ever watch 'The Land Before Time' movies? No, I didn’t. Did you ever watch the show 'Arthur'? I don’t think it aired here, so no. I did read Arthur books though; they were one of my favorites. Did the tooth fairy give you a lot of money? I honestly thought the tooth fairy was real. I never told my parents whenever a tooth would come out because I thought it was none of their business. That said, they just genuinely never knew to put money under my pillow because my dumbass never told them hahaha. I’ll never forget how crestfallen I was when I woke up to no money though. How often did you visit your nearest grandparents? I lived with them until I was 10. I only visited my other set of grandparents whenever my dad would come home from abroad, so I didn’t and haven’t ended up being close to them. Did you ever play with 'Little People' toys? Never heard of them but when I looked it up the toys looked familiar, so we probably did. How about Polly Pockets? Yes. Did you collect anything when you were a kid? Pokemon cards and pogs, heh. I also had my fair share of notebooks. Did you get an allowance? No, my parents didn’t teach me how money worked early on. I was a packed lunch kid until high school, and when I did ask for money I – and I’m not kidding – would only get a ₱20 bill, which was only enough to get me a tiny snack. What was your favorite sport to play? What is it now? Track, but then it shifted to table tennis when I joined the table tennis club initially out of peer pressure. What foods did you not like then that you do like now? Chicken curry, definitely. Were you into American Girl dolls? No. What was your first pet and what did you name it? It was a goldfish but I don’t remember whether I named it Goldie or Fishy, lol. Did you ever read the 'Junie B. Jones' books? No. What did you want to be when you were a kid? All the things I wante to be were astronaut, firefighter, veterinarian, and writer. What was your first word? Your first sentence? (If you remember) My parents didn’t keep track of either...I definitely would with my own kids. Have you moved into a new house since you were a kid? Yes, several times. When I was an infant we briefly lived with my dad’s parents in Manila. My mom couldn’t take the poverty and pollution there so we moved to a city in Rizal, where my mom’s parents + some extended family live in a duplex. At one point we switched houses in that duplex, and the unit that we switched to was where I lived for most of my childhood until we moved to our present house by the time I was 10. Were you friends with your neighbors? As a child, yeah. I was mostly friends with the girls though because like I said, the boys were super rowdy and sexist in that they never let us play basketball with them and stuff. Did you enjoy exploring your backyard? We didn’t have a backyard. Did you bake cookies with your grandparents? Sometimes! I would mix the dough and turn them into balls. :) What was your biggest fear when you were a kid? Flying cockroaches, because we had a lot of them in our old duplex unit. I also had an irrational fear of catching TV ads at night because I found them too loud and too vibrant. Who did you look up to most? My dad because I barely saw him as a kid. When he was lower down the ladder at his job he’d be gone six months and only stay with us for one. It wasn’t until I got to high school and he had a much higher position that he was away for only four months and home for one and a half.   Did you ever play the 'Reader Rabbit' computer games? I don’t think I’ve heard of that. Did you have a swing set in your backyard? No but we had a relative who had a playground at their place, and we’d go over there often. I spent a good amount of my childhood going as high as I can on their swings. How about a sandbox? Same relative had a sandbox too! It’s my favorite part of a playground and even during playtime in school I would usually be found alone in the sandbox. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike? I’m 22 and still don’t know how... Did you ever spy on your neighbors through the window? Sometimes. Our houses were very close to each other and their open window is right across the part of our house that also has an open window, so sometimes we’ll fool around and peek. Were you a teacher's pet in kindergarten? No, but I gave my teachers a reason to remember me because I was the kid that peed their underwear everyday and had to go home in shorts. I’ve always been shy and even as a kid I was unable to ask permission to go to the washroom. Did you ever build a treehouse or a fort in your yard? No, ours was too small to build anything like that. Did you ever find anything interesting in your yard? No, just different types of bugs and caterpillars. Did you ever have 'themed birthdays'? Kinda? My 7th birthday party was mostly a plain, theme-less birthday party, but so much of the decorations and giveaways were Bratz-themed because I was into Bratz at the time. Did your parents let you drink soda? They would have let me but I personally never liked it. Did you ever watch 'The Powerpuff Girls' or 'Dexter's Laboratory'? I watched Powerpuff Girls but not Dexter’s Laboratory. Did you sleep with a blanket or stuffed animal? For the most part I preferred cuddling with a pillow. Did you ever have a night light? For some points in my childhood, yeah. Ultimately, I preferred lights out though. Did you watch 'Winnie the Pooh'? Nope, just read Winnie the Pooh books. Did you ever have an imaginary friend? What was their name? I named them Katrina but I wasn’t imaginative/creative enough, so when seven minutes passed after I created her and she still wasn’t talking back to me, I gave it up haha. What kinds of games did you play with your friends during Recess? Dodgeball was a favorite. We had a big field just right outside our classroom so we’d all go out, pick our teams, and play for the whole 30 minutes. We’d do it for lunch, too. Fortunately our teachers never barred us from playing, because I guess they knew it counts as exercise for us too. Did you dream of being a princess or did you not really care about that? Not really. I wanted to be an astronaut more haha. The only princess-y things I did were to wear my blanket around my neck like a cape, and to wear a tiara on my 7th birthday party. Did you have a special name for your pacifier? What was it? No. Did you watch 'Blues Clues'? Yesssssss. I grew up with Steve and Joe. It was such a fun show to watch. What kind of car did your parents have? I don’t remember the make anymore but we had a black sedan until I was around five. It was mostly broken-down and had no aircon, but it was my dad’s first car so it was his absolute baby and I never had the heart to complain about the car’s flaws to him. He eventually sold it and we had a blue Mitsubishi Lancer after. Did you ever flush anything down the toilet by mistake? I don’t remember ever doing that, thankfully lol. Were you afraid to sleep by yourself? No, I think I was excited to start doing it. Growing up in a cramped duplex, I shared one bedroom with my entire family until I was around 9; so when we moved to our own home, I was the first one to call dibs on a bedroom. What was your favorite subject in elementary school? Language, which is a class where we were just taught basic English grammar. I loved reading as a kid and got fluent in English early on, so I was always a top student in that subject. How often did you go to the park? We don’t have parks. What was your favorite kind of cake as a kid? Chocolate cake from Red Ribbon. Did you ever want to grow up? I never actively ‘wanted’ it because I was already kinda forced to grow up early, what with all the issues happening at home and me having to shield my siblings and cousins from whatever screaming match was happening inside.

[anarchistemma]

Jerry Lewis. No comedian since Charles Chaplin has been so loved and so reviled. He is America’s Dark Prince of Comedy--brilliant, bitter, passionate and deeply conflicted. A man of many demons, his cockiness conceals a labyrinth of doubts and self-destructive impulses. An American original whom Americans have never quite come to terms with, he also happens to be one of the greatest filmmakers of the latter half of the 20th century. And for this he deserves an Academy Award.

It’s not surprising that he’s never even been nominated for one. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a tradition of snubbing comedians. The list of those whose movies failed to win a single Oscar is appallingly long and distinguished: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Mabel Normand, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, to name a few. The academy finally gave Keaton an honorary Oscar in 1960, and one to Stan Laurel in 1961 (after Lewis lobbied passionately on his behalf), and even one to Charlie Chaplin in 1972, bringing the once-demonized “un-American” director back to Hollywood after 20 years of exile in Europe.

Now it’s time to honor Jerry Lewis.

Lewis was a superstar in the 1950s and early ‘60s, the I Like Ike era of “The Organization Man,” when a Wonder Bread corporate monoculture force-fed an entire generation a bland diet of conformity. In a time of crew cuts and bouffant hairdos, of TV dinners, suburban tract houses, gleaming new supermarkets and the homogenized nuclear family paradigm set forth by “Father Knows Best” and “Leave It to Beaver,” Lewis’ archetypal character, “the Kid,” served as an escape valve--a personification of the American id, cavorting across TV and movie screens, acting on the anarchistic impulses his audiences felt obliged to repress.

“We used to hang out on street corners, and guys would do Jerry Lewis imitations,” says Philip Kaufman, director of “The Right Stuff” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” who came of age in the 1950s. “The way that Jerry Lewis walked, that staggering, uncoordinated adolescent walk--you could feel the American youth culture being born. . . . Lewis and Elvis had this primordial American energy.”

Lewis gradually filled his comic archetype with nuances and complexities, so that it continued to resonate on deeper and yet deeper levels. He did this by becoming what he calls “a total filmmaker,” as Chaplin and Keaton had been. When Lewis began appearing in movies in 1949, he set about learning the technical intricacies of every aspect of production. “After about a year and a half I was able to load a BNC [35mm Mitchell] camera and do anything on the set that any technician did--maybe not with the quality of a man who’s done it for 25 years, but if he got sick, I could do it,” Lewis told me in an interview in December 2003. “I know depth of field like you know your wife’s first name. . . . I therefore proceeded to own every union card in the picture business.” Along the way, he also managed to invent the video assist, which allowed him to instantly replay scenes he’d just shot--now standard equipment on most Hollywood sets.

Once he’d mastered the filmmaking process, Lewis dared to declare his independence from the studio system. He wrote, directed and starred in a series of features that he also co-financed with his own money. “I mortgaged my house a couple of times, sold two cars, I remember that!” Lewis told me. In exchange for putting up half or sometimes the entire budgets of the films he directed, he got 50% or more of the profits and a level of creative autonomy that no screen comedian had commanded since Chaplin. “I had final cut on everything,” he said.

“I would love to have achieved the level of independence that he had,” Kaufman says. “The opposite is Orson Welles. He’s a half a generation before Jerry Lewis, but he gets destroyed because he can’t control the films.”

The movies Lewis directed--including “The Bellboy” (1960), “The Ladies Man” (1961), “The Errand Boy” (1961), “The Nutty Professor” (1963) and “The Patsy” (1964)--were bizarre stream-of-consciousness concoctions packed with brilliant pantomime set pieces and surreal comic nightmare sequences, moving Rorschach inkblots that reflected Lewis’ deeply conflicted psyche. “They were not regular Hollywood films,” says director Martin Scorsese. “There were no stories. No plots. They were very dreamlike, going from one free association to the next, almost like the later Luis Bunuel pictures, like ‘The Phantom of Liberty,’ which was a dream within a dream within a dream. You know you’re in the hands of a master; you just let him take you along. His films were almost avant-garde.”

Like Buster Keaton, Scorsese says, Lewis had an uncanny ability to pour his subconscious onto a movie screen, creating phantasmagoric visions permeated with disturbing psychological undertones. Unlike Keaton, Lewis often worked in color. He urged his cinematographer, W. Wallace Kelley, to pump huge amounts of light onto his sets until the comic book hues popped off the screen. “Lewis’ use of color has influenced many filmmakers, [such as] the way David Lynch uses color, and Pedro Almodovar,” Scorsese says.

In the mid-'60s, European critics--the French, most famously, or infamously, depending on your point of view--embraced Lewis as a genius, an heir to Chaplin and Keaton. Chagrined American critics sputtered outrage. They saw Lewis as a vulgarian, a pretentious, sentimental egomaniac who was a tad less subtle than the Three Stooges, and a lot less funny. And those were the good reviews. “Mr. Lewis is a frenetic performer,” wrote Eugene Archer of the New York Times, “but he lacks a point . . . a rubber-limbed robot making faces in a void.” Harriet Van Horne of the World Telegram wrote of a Lewis performance, “you flinch from the soulless vulgarity of his spastic twitches and low-class leers.” In his 1968 book “The American Cinema,” Andrew Sarris demeaned not only Lewis, but also his fans. “Lewis appeals to unsophisticated audiences in the sticks and to ungenteel audiences in the urban slums,” Sarris wrote. “He is bigger on 42nd Street, for example, than anyplace else in the city.”

Lewis seemed to scuttle any chance that American intellectuals would change their minds by taking the fight to the enemy. He wrote nasty letters to reviewers and denounced them on television and radio. He said they were “caustic, rude, unkind and sinister. . . . They’re burying the business they’re paid by.” And in his most infamous salvo, blasted in a 1981 Los Angeles Times interview, he called them “whores.”

But beneath his belligerence one sensed the man had been deeply wounded. In a telling passage in his landmark 1971 book about moviemaking, “The Total Film-maker,” Lewis confessed: “I cannot sit at certain tables at the Directors Guild because I make what some people consider is a ‘hokey’ product. John Frankenheimer waves and hopes that no one else sees his hand, simply because I film pratfalls and spritz water and throw pies.”

In countless magazine profiles and biographies, Lewis has been vividly portrayed as a tantrum-throwing egomaniac. But there is another side. I’ve talked with many people who worked with Lewis over the years--including his longtime collaborators, writer Bill Richmond and comedienne Kathleen Freeman--who told me stories of his private acts of extraordinary kindness and generosity. Peter Bogdanovich tells of how Lewis befriended him when he was a poor, young aspiring filmmaker--lending him a car, allowing him to screen movies at Paramount and charge the cost to Lewis’ production company. “He’s been a good friend to me for more than 40 years,” Bogdanovich says. When I first interviewed Lewis a year ago, I found him to be a perceptive, articulate but deeply divided man who oscillated during the course of our one-hour conversation from laughter to anger to tears. His ability to infuse his movies with these seething emotions gave them their strange emotional charge, and helped make them audacious and poetic works of art.

In “The Bellboy” and “The Errand Boy,” Lewis’ Kid finds himself wandering through sprawling corporate complexes: the ultramodern curvilinear interiors of Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau hotel, and the cavernous soundstages and maze-like streets and corridors of a movie studio. He desperately tries to mesh with the gears of the industrial combine, but his inability to function with the automaton efficiency of his co-workers inevitably causes catastrophe. “There’s a sense in which he’s a modern man, a universal figure confronted with modernity, with bosses and difficult jobs, and especially with a fast pace that’s difficult to keep up with,” says Henry Sheehan, critic for KPCC-FM and KCET.

There are haunting moments that evoke the lonely yearnings of the alienated in America’s increasingly institutionalized society, such as the brilliant pantomimes in which the Kid conducts an imaginary orchestra or imagines himself to be a movie mogul holding forth in a deserted boardroom. Or the scene where the Kid is assigned the Sisyphean task of setting up more than 1,000 chairs in an auditorium the size of a football field. Lewis films from one wide angle, holding the shot as the Kid recedes farther and farther into the great hollow hall. “When he started directing his own pictures there was a powerful visual sense,” Scorsese says. “It was almost as if the films were drawn by hand--animated. Something was very arresting about the way Lewis designed his scenes and shot them, the way he focused the eye of the audience.”

In the middle of “The Bellboy,” the Kid is ordered to help with the luggage of an arriving celebrity: Jerry Lewis, the movie star. Lewis the star arrives in a limousine with a huge retinue of yes-men and sycophants. “That kind of thing was refreshing and brilliant,” Scorsese says. “It opened the audience’s mind. What is the reality? We know we’re watching a film. We know it’s directed by him. We know he’s in control. Then he shows up as a film star within the movie! It plays with your sense of what reality is and what cinema is--and also what celebrity is.” In a culture obsessed with celebrity, Lewis shows us that a star is as objectified as a Playboy centerfold, and his existence at the top of the ladder every bit as lonely as that of the Kid at the bottom. The entourage of Jerry Lewis the movie star laughs at his every remark. When he tearfully reveals that a beloved aunt just died, the crowd howls with unhinged hilarity. “Nothing like a laugh!” someone screams.

In “The Ladies Man,” the Kid serves as a gofer in a boarding house full of young women. Lewis built the entire mansion--four stories tall, including a stairway and working elevator--on two soundstages at Paramount, with the fourth wall of every room cut away, like a giant dollhouse, so the camera could swoop on a crane from room to room, each of which was pre-lighted and wired for sound. It was another groundbreaking technical innovation, and a fantastic dreamscape through which Lewis’ imagination ran wild. In one spectacular crane shot, Lewis pulls back to show the entire dollhouse. “That shot is so striking,” Scorsese says. “In a funny way, it had something to do with the way I did a shot in ‘Gangs of New York’ in the beginning of the film, showing the [multileveled] hell of the old brewery

Scorsese found more inspiration in Lewis’ masterpiece, “The Nutty Professor,” in the famous sequence that occurs after Professor Kelp has transformed himself into the incandescent lounge lizard Buddy Love. At first we do not see Love. Instead we see the world through his eyes. In an intricately choreographed tracking shot, Love walks through the street toward the Purple Pit nightclub and various passersby react with astonishment to his high-voltage charisma. “I use that as an example of the kind of point-of-view shots that I use,” Scorsese says. In “Gangs of New York,” he told his assistant director, Joseph Reidy, that he wanted to choreograph a similar point-of-view shot in the scene where Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) places a rabbit pelt on a Five Points fence as a declaration of war. “I am constantly referring back to Lewis’ work,” Scorsese says.

Lewis explored the polarities of his personality--the lonely kid he had been in his youth and still felt himself to be, and the polished persona he presented on television and in live performances--not only in “The Bellboy,” but also in “Cinderfella” (directed by Frank Tashlin and produced by Lewis) and “The Errand Boy.” This theme reached its full and most complex expression in “The Nutty Professor.” The movie is an extended investigation of Lewis the public performer, and his insecure inner self. But more than a movie star’s exercise in self-absorption, it is a meditation on the American model of masculinity. Lewis acknowledges its pathology even as he admits that he cannot free himself of his aspiration to embody it. In the climax of the movie, Buddy Love transforms back into Professor Kelp before a stunned crowd of college students. Kelp makes a heartfelt speech about the fallacy of trying to create a false personality to please others and the need for self-acceptance, and there’s not a dry eye in the house. But in the film’s denouement, as Kelp leaves for his wedding with heartthrob Stella (Stella Stevens), the director reveals that she has stuffed two bottles of Kelp’s magic tonic in the pockets of her jeans--an admission that there’s a dark, erotic power to Love’s aggressive posturing that Americans find irresistible, despite whatever lip service they may pay to the values of sensitivity and brains.

“Lewis’ sense of burlesque is a strange type of comedy because it’s full of anxiety,” says director Barbet Schroeder (“Barfly,” “Single White Female”). “It’s a tragic vision that makes you laugh. . . . And all that is completely personal and completely extraordinary. He took burlesque comedy one step further, like any great artist, to a very freaky, disturbing modern tone.”

In 1977, someone at an American Film Institute seminar asked Lewis why his films hadn’t been rediscovered, as those of other great comics had been. “They wait until you die,” he snapped. Until recently, it looked as if Lewis might be right. During the last decade, a series of serious health problems--bouts of meningitis and pulmonary fibrosis--forced him to cancel live engagements and spend long stretches in the hospital. But last year, Lewis bounced back. He returned home from the hospital, and in the fall he released sparkling wide-screen DVD transfers of 10 movies from his golden period, complete with outtakes and commentary tracks.

And the damnedest thing happened. They got good reviews. The New York Times published not one but two rave notices. In the second one, Dave Kehr wrote: “Is it finally time to stop with the French-love-him jokes and acknowledge that Jerry Lewis is one of the great American filmmakers?” Kehr noted that the DVDs “reveal both the fierce creativity of his comic performances and the extreme formal sophistication of his direction. The centerpiece is the 1963 ‘The Nutty Professor’ . . . a study in split personality that both anticipates Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 ‘Persona’ and surpasses it in psychological acuity. It’s also a lot funnier.”

In December 2004, the Library of Congress concluded that “The Nutty Professor” is a movie of lasting cultural significance, worthy of preservation, and added it to the National Film Registry. Then in January, Lewis received a career achievement award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. The explanation for this turnaround is simple: As older critics retired, a new generation replaced them. They had come of age in the 1950s and ‘60s and had spent the better part of their youth in the dark, watching Jerry Lewis and laughing till they just about wet their pants. “For me, personally, the impact of watching ‘The Nutty Professor’ as a boy in a drive-in in the Valley was huge,” says Robert Koehler, who writes for Variety. “It was the first time I had felt a weird sense of terror, horror and comedy all in one fell swoop. I’d never felt that before in a movie. There was something going on here besides just another Hollywood comedy. There was a sense of wild theatrics. I was only 7 years old at the time; I couldn’t even put my finger on it, but it so absolutely impressed my young mind.”

As they grew older, like Morty S. Tashman in “The Errand Boy,” these young fans made their way to Hollywood to become part of show business. Their film school professors and older critics had told them Lewis was vulgar and tasteless, but they went back and watched the movies and didn’t believe it. “I always thought he was funny, from the first time I came to him, at 9 years old,” says Henry Sheehan, president of the L.A. critics association. “Once I grew older and learned something about composition and the mechanics of gags, I was full of admiration for him. I think my experience is pretty common for people my age.”

For years a growing number of Lewis supporters had been urging the association to give the comedian the career achievement award. This year the membership suddenly agreed. “It was pretty widely supported,” Koehler says. “In the past there have been complaints. The first year I was in the group, his name was brought up and some people were openly contemptuous. I heard none of that this time. I don’t know why. I think it’s the test of time.”

As the night of the awards ceremony approached, a question loomed: How would Lewis react? Would he be able to drop the contentious attitude he’d held against his old adversaries for more than half a century? When I talked with him shortly after the award had been announced, he seemed to be struggling for his equilibrium. “I don’t really know how I’m going to deal with it,” he admitted, then murmured something about handling it with grace. But when he talked with other journalists, some of the old fighting verbiage crept into his remarks. He told Larry King the award was “the best revenge I’ve ever had.” And to a reporter from the Los Angeles Daily News, he said, “Jesus Christ, is that retribution or not?”

Finally, the moment came. Peter Bogdanovich presented the plaque. Lewis stepped to the podium. His eyes passed over the crowd. “Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be the recipient of this award. . . . What took so goddamned long?” The room exploded with laughter. Lewis segued smoothly into his Vegas act and did about 10 minutes that had the critics, filmmakers and stars doubled over and gasping for air.

Then he stopped, his voice growing serious. “I would feel somewhat remiss if I didn’t show you something that I believe brought me here tonight,” he said. Film rolled, and on the screen behind him appeared a 35-year-old Jerry Lewis doing the famous Chairman of the Board pantomime from “The Errand Boy,” his gesticulations and mugging timed to the tempo of Count Basie’s “Blues in Hoss’ Flat.” It was much more than funny. It was at once melancholy, poetic and exhilarating. When it was over, the room rose in a howling, hooting standing ovation. The only one of the night.

Now it’s the academy’s turn to step up. A few months ago, Bogdanovich wrote a letter to its president, Frank Pierson, suggesting that Lewis be given an Oscar. I hope the Academy doesn’t take too long. The hour is late. Another great clown and groundbreaking filmmaker, too long ignored, deserves to be honored by his peers.

JL’s yahrzeit

The once and future King of Comedy 👑

[theoddcatlady]

Walter the Ghost

Two months ago we moved into our new place. It’s honestly amazing, huge property, beautiful forests, and an old barn out back that my wife Lydia hoped to remodel into a workshop. She loves wood carving.

We have two sons and a daughter. Elliot is ten, Joey is eight, and Samantha is five. The old house is big enough for the kids to have their own rooms, but Joey gets night terrors still so he bunks up with Elliot. Elliot doesn’t complain, he’s a solid big brother.

Course, no move is without its difficulties. The kids miss all their old friends, they’re still adjusting to a new school, a new schedule. The job I had lined up told me I was no longer needed so things went belly up there. Bills got a little tight.

So that’s why I didn’t bat an eyelash when Samantha started talking about Walter.

Samantha has always had a hell of an imagination. She tended to make up a new ‘friend’ every week. A few weeks before it was Paula, a girl about her age wearing a bright red dress. Before that it was Ruby, Mary, Nick… you get the point. Typical attention span of a little one.

But Walter stuck around. Walter was an ‘old man’, which by Samantha’s standards meant probably around forty or fifty. He lived in the closet and Samantha would leave him strawberry Kool-Aid in plastic cups and saltine crackers. Thankfully I never had to clean it up, Samantha was good about keeping after that. For being five she’s quite tidy.

I blew it off at first. Every kid has imaginary friends. I had them, my wife had them. The stress of the move probably just had her cling onto this one a little longer.

Then Joey started bringing Doritos into the closet.

Doritos were his favorite snack. Cheesy fingerprints typically stain his shorts, it makes laundry a pain but that’s life when you have kids. Joey was never the imaginary friends type though. He maybe had one when he was Samantha’s age, and that phase lasted no more than a week. So this was a little weird.

I decided to ask more about Walter.

I walked into Samantha’s bedroom to see Samantha and Joey kneeling next to the closet, quiet as mice. I cleared my throat and both jumped like they heard a gunshot. Joey instinctively kicked the door shut. “Hi dad!” He said.

I walked in and opened the closet door. Nothing in there except an empty plate with Dorito crumbs and a cup that had spilled a single drop of red juice on the carpet. “So, Walter likes your Doritos, bud?” I said.

Joey nodded. “He likes snacks,” He mumbled.

“What is Walter like?” Satisfied the closet was empty, I closed the door and turned to my kids.

Samantha and Joey brightened up before they both began sharing bits of info with me.

“He’s blonde!”

“He’s starting to go bald, just like Uncle Craig!”

“He wears suspenders!”

“He’s very quiet!”

“He’s got a big ole hole in the side of his head!”

“He’s here to protect us!”

“He really likes Doritos!”

I raised my hand. “Hold on, back the train up. What do you mean protect us?” I wasn’t even going to touch the hole thing.

It was like they knew they said too much. Samantha’s hands flew up to cover her mouth while Joey looked at the ground. Samantha spoke up first.

“… He says there’s something in the forest. Something in the barn… something really, really bad,” She said, barely above a whisper.

The bedroom door slammed shut and I nearly screamed. I walked backwards to the door and slowly opened it back up.

No one in the hall. And today had been too cold to leave the windows open.

I’m probably different than most people in this situation. I actually believe in ghosts. I had some experiences as a teen that turned me into a believer. Lydia laughed out loud when I told her I think our daughter had a ghost in her closet, but I didn’t expect anything different. She’s the skeptic of the two of us.

So I decided to dig into the history of the house.

This place had been tossed around quite a bit, most owners didn’t keep it for over a year. Heck, one couple and their daughter actually moved out after two weeks. I kept digging. And before the house was built I found something.

I found Walter.

His full name was Walter Griggs, he had three kids. He was a widower. He hadn’t remarried. But one day the house was burned down with Walter inside. The kids were never found. The common theory was that Walter killed his kids and then himself when he couldn’t live with the guilt. God knows what he did with the bodies.

I was chilled to the damn bone when I realized my kids were talking to a murderous ghost. I called a family meeting, Lydia was less than impressed but she went with it.

“Guys, we need to stop talking to Walter and giving him snacks.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Kurt...”

“It’s just to be safe. Walter might’ve done some bad things.”

Elliot blurted out, “But he’s nice! He tells stories and talks about the good ole days!” He immediately regretted speaking as he saw my face go pale. Even Lydia looked unsettled.

Elliot was too old for imaginary friends and far too practical. Even as a tiny tot he wrinkled his nose at the idea of having a friend he made up. This only confirmed my theory- Walter was a ghost and the original owner of the property.

Samantha sniffled, her eyes filling with tears. “But… but what if he gets hungry?” She asked.

“And what if the… the folk come around? The ones he warned us about?” Joey shivered.

I sighed. “Guys. I don’t know what Walter really is, but I do believe he’s not something Samantha made up, and I believe he’s not safe. Samantha, we’re going to move you into the other room for now. We’ll start hunting for a new house as soon as we can, but until then, leave Walter alone. Do not talk to him. Do not give him snacks. All right guys?”

Samantha bolted from the room crying. Joey turned into the couch to hide his tears. Elliot was the only one who nodded and said yes, but I knew he was upset too.

I surrounded the closet with a ring of salt, I would’ve burnt sage or whatever you do but I had no idea how to get my hands on some. So salt was the best I could do. Plus, I’d be able to tell if the kids tried to approach the closet this way. I looked up tips on how to make ghosts fuck off, Lydia for once not laughing at my ‘crazed paranoia’.

Samantha was the most resentful of the kids. I caught her at least twice trying to sneak into her old bedroom with a plate of Saltines. Each time she was scolded and I reminded her it wasn’t safe, but I knew she didn’t believe me.

Perhaps she knew more than I did.

Things were finally settling, I got a new job and we were house hunting once again. Samantha still sulked but Joey was over it, running about in the big backyard we had and playing games with a few of the neighbor kids.

Then one night I woke up and there was Walter, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

He was as solid as you or me and exactly as the kids described him- middle aged, blonde, balding. Suspenders over his blood spattered shirt. And the ‘hole’ in his head? It looked like half his skull had been blown clean off. One eye had gone with it while the other, a deep blue, stared me down.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even wake up Lydia.

Walter sighed before he got up and motioned for me to stand and follow him. Like pulled on strings, I got up.

Walter’s voice was quiet and hoarse, like he’d had strep and still couldn’t speak. “It’s not too late,” He whispered. “Go, hurry. I lost my children to the Folk, but you can still save yours.”

I ran to the kid’s bedrooms, feeling Walter’s cold breath on the back of my neck. Each bed was empty, the sheets pulled away and their windows open. I almost collapsed but Walter’s ice cold grip dragged me back to my feet. “No time for panic, son. Go,” He said between gasps.

I didn’t even put on my shoes. I ran out into the backyard. The forest was now glowing with bright lights, I could hear the piping of flutes and the pound of drums. I took off running, Walter on my heels.

I pushed through the bushes and nearly tripped on piles of old leaves, following the source of the sound. I stumbled into the clearing which was now bright as day.

My three children were standing around a woman wearing a white gown. She was in every way perfect, beautiful with dark curls cascading down her back. She was tall, taller than me even and I’m no short guy. Her hands were spread out and Samantha was reaching for her.

I heard the scream of a man in agony.

“NOT AGAIN!”

Walter rushed in, growing bigger, bigger, bigger… his essence swallowed the light. The clearing was now ice cold, I could see my breath coming out in puffs in front of me. The woman stumbled backwards, eyes growing in shock as Walter now towered over her.

“These children are not going with you, Fair Folk!” He howled. “Not this time!”

The woman turned and fled, before my very eyes she stepped into a ring of mushrooms and vanished into thin air. Walter shrunk back to the size of a man before he turned to look at me.

I couldn’t say anything. I wanted to apologize. I’d horribly misjudged the ghost of a grieving father who’d lost his children to something otherworldly. And he’d saved my children from the same fate.

Walter smiled crookedly before he vanished. I ran up to my kids. They were still entranced, pupils blown out and they didn’t recognize my voice. I got them back home and rushed them to the emergency room.

The doctor had no explanation. About an hour after they’d been checked in they came to with no ill side effects and no reason why they’d been out of it. Elliot said he’d heard a woman’s voice outside the window and that she was offering treats, but that was the last thing he could remember.

They were in observation for a day before they were released, but by then I’d changed my protection plan. I didn’t put scissors or knives in their beds but my wife did get ahold of some pieces of iron from a friend’s garage and she created small statuettes of our kid’s favorite animals with the iron set inside of it- a tiger for Elliot, a monkey for Joey, and a bunny for Samantha.

I’ve now taken to going up to that old closet with a glass of whiskey and a portion of whatever was for dinner.

I haven’t seen Walter again, but I have caught glimpses of his smile as I’m closing the closet door. I think he was getting a little tired of strawberry Kool-Aid.

[westboast]

Homecoming

Chicago, Illinois

This city is not the epicenter of the virus. The epicenter is, according to the news, the Midwest at large, particularly Wisconsin, though boundaries between states are imaginary and movement is freely allowed across state lines. The virus is everywhere. The American “strategy” is no strategy. It is liberty to decide whether you want to catch the virus or not. Some people wear masks diligently, wash their hands, etc. Some do not. Restaurants are open not because it is safe for them to be open, but because their employees are desperate. The right has decided that masks are effeminate, gay. 

We are apparently in the “third wave” of the virus. Cases are up thirty percent from what they were fourteen days ago. And yet businesses remain open. The Biden campaign is slamming Trump for his mishandling of the virus, but at this point it is hard to imagine what can be done to make things better. The opportunity for slowing it down came and went in January. Now we are all coming to terms with the aftermath. That is, the present.

The streets are empty and yet not. Grocery stores are abandoned and yet not. Bars are closed and yet not. There is doublethink everywhere, contradiction everywhere. There is no coherence. There is no plan. There is no voice of authority. There is no trust, no sense of direction. There is a black hole and at the center is the virus, determining everything. The escape is referenced as “the vaccine” or “the cure.” When it comes everything will change, maybe. 

“The Bubble” is how Americans think they control the virus. Everyone inhabits a “bubble,” and who is in it determines what we can do, who we can see, where we can go. We can hang out with people if they are in our “bubble” and known to be Covid-negative. But the nature of the virus, a highly contagious airborne respiratory infection, makes “the bubble” illusory. The disease is so out of control that we must monitor our own behavior, because the government is too hobbled and incompetent to do it for us. But even this conception of control is delusional.

Politics everywhere. Biden flags everywhere. Circuitous, self-affirming conversations everywhere. “We have to vote.” “Things will get better with Biden.” “If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to criticize.” The same pattern that has always been followed is now being followed again. “The left,” with Bernie on one side and Warren somewhere closer to the middle, has been neutralized. Now the election has been reduced to a simple binary, Trump vs. Biden. “He’s not perfect but he’s the best we’ve got.” “Are you saying we shouldn’t vote for Biden?” Think piece: the lesser of two evils. Meme: salvation from evil. Overlooked: Senator Joseph R. Biden, of Delaware, was a chief architect of the 1994 crime bill, the primary catalyst of the mass incarceration of Black men following its passage. Senator Joseph R. Biden, of Delaware, voted in favor of the ruinous Iraq War. The protests which swept America in 2020 are largely attributable to the 1994 bill. And yet its author has been offered to us as the country’s salvation. Coronavirus infects over seven million and kills over two hundred thousand Americans, and yet single-payer healthcare is still off the table. 

“I am the Democratic Party right now,” said Biden in his debate with President Trump.

My friend in Korea swiveled toward me in her office chair and said: “We weren’t in America for the lockdown, so we didn’t experience the collective trauma. We missed something that is going to be a part of American identity.”

Others: “Why did you leave Korea? It’s safe there.” But it isn’t my home. Living abroad creates a feeling of perpetual anxiety. This does not make sense to me; I do not belong here. 

Chinatown, Chicago, 11 PM. Dim sum restaurant, mirrored walls, sets of fine china, plexiglass, hand sanitizer. One circular table near ours, four people, early thirties, an Asian couple and a white couple, predictable racism. “I don’t like [redacted], it’s not like a hamburger.” “It looks [redacted], like a [redacted].” Camera, close-up, pivots to the other side of the table. “It’s pork and vegetables with a gravy over it.” “Gravy? What kind of gravy?” “Gravy!” Bystander training literature indicates that one should signal their presence but not escalate. Minutes later the restaurant has been overwhelmed by police, ostensibly here to enforce social distancing. The waiters spread the patrons as far apart as possible. Bathroom: three police officers. Two at urinals, one behind them. “Don’t worry, the toilets don’t [redacted].” “Can you stop looking at my ass?” “Never.”

Everything is so sickeningly predictable. I can guess what will be said to me during most conversations. Most people communicate in political and cultural sound bites. Not everyone, of course.

Benito Skinner, crying: “Sorry, y’all, I was just readin’ my own poetry.”

Me, reading Donatella’s romance novel: “Vanity was the sin for which Alek condemned Kenji, but in the bubbling, mirrored pool, he looked as much upon himself, all of those reflections.”

K, in Chicago, texted me the day after we met. He presents as confident but is actually insecure: “How did I look in person?” he said.

Me: “You looked great, very classic and handsome.”

K: “You looked good too.”

I’ll probably never see him again.

Donatella: “I’m beautiful, he thought. He wanted to touch Kenji. He wanted to be touched by Kenji. He wanted to be wanted by Kenji. He had never met Kenji.”

A bouquet of silk hydrangeas, covered in dust.

A concrete staircase in Seoul at 4 AM.

A folding metal chair surrounded by orange tape.

Donatella: “There were missions before this one and there would be missions after it. There were loves before this one and there would be loves after it.”

Korean Air flight KE037 lifts off.

The water bearer Aquarius and her pitchers.

Libra and her scales. Call her.

Man: “I call it an accident, but it was a suicide attempt.”

Humboldt Park: a gust of wind, a thousand dried leaves thrown into the air.

Woman: “I was pretty blindsided.”

Bank billboard: “At Fifth Third, racial discrimination is not tolerated in any form.”

Oversharing, honesty, vulnerability. At some point we sedated ourselves with images. “It looks like you were having so much fun.” Productivity: the internalized logic of neoliberalism— “a productive day,” “I’ve been so unproductive.” Production, branding, grinding, hustling, pedal on the floor, speeding into oblivion. Desperation, alienation, lies.

Issa: “I don’t cancel [redacted] left and right like you.”

Alternatively: “I want to be a ghost.” I want to be invisible. Secrets, the last real currency.

A stranger on the street: “A Black man has approached you, but don’t be alarmed. I want to tell you a joke. What do a dead cop and a live Klansman have in common? They’re both pigs in a blanket.”

New acquaintance: “The committee is just an extension of the marketing department.”

Foot Locker advertisement: “There is no us without you.”

North Korean patriotic song: “Without You, There Is No Us.” [See: Kim, Suki, Without You, There Is No Us, Broadway Books, 2015].

I check the Korea coronavirus stats against the United States stats every day. On October 15, the New York Times reported 59,751 new cases of Covid-19 within the United States. Meanwhile, 110 new cases were reported in Korea. When I was in Seoul these numbers infuriated me. Now I am submerged in the sensory deprivation tank of my own country. The line between hope and inevitability has blurred. I am still not afraid of this virus. I am still terrified of this virus. I am attempting to be less afraid of solitude. The vaccine will come one day. I am with C, my best friend, who understands me.

Issa: “I’m an American.”

R called me from California and said: “I just want to be American.”

Billboard on Armitage Avenue: “VOTE.”

C looked out the car window and said: “The system is working exactly how it is meant to work.”

Seoul, spring: I am sitting in a sterile, sealed room. Before me is a pair of large plastic gloves attached to a plexiglass wall. A doctor enters on the other side of the pane and slides his arms into the gloves. He is giving me instructions that I do not understand. He gestures for me to come closer. I take the swab out of the plastic and put it into his hand. I lean my head back. He shoves the swab down my throat and I gag. He takes it out and in a swift motion shoves it up my nose. I gasp and grab the edge of the seat. My eyes expand and begin to water. It feels like getting fucked, but it’s inside my head. I exit the room and drink Coca-Cola. I wait. “What did it feel like?” my coworker asks. But he wouldn’t know that feeling.

K: “Maybe Biden will win.”

C: “I’m so glad you’re here.”

There are heaps of fruit at the Puerto Rican grocery store near my new apartment. I gather peaches, come home, and bake them into a pie for my roommates. This, at least, is straightforward. Now, at least, there are no conditions. Cut, measure, bake, eat, sleep.

“Two things can be true at once,” I keep telling C.

I feel so much better.

I hadn’t seen H since January. I needed to see him before I left Korea. I ran to him on Sunday, the day before my flight. We spent the whole day together on his campus, under the trees. I held him and cried. “I can feel how much you love me,” he said. My sweatshirt is covered in dust from the door I was leaned against when he kissed me. I still haven’t washed it. I’ll probably never see him again.

Seattle, Japan, Korea, Chicago.

Peach, momo, bogsunga, durazno.

Resist. Accept. Go out. Stay home. Comply. Thrive. Die.

[ecotone99]

[MF] The Uncanny Canopy

Source: https://athousandwrittenthoughts.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/the-uncanny-canopy/

I used to live on the west end of a relatively new estate during the early years of my childhood. Before I begin discussing these series of events, let me say for the record that I had been subject to intense psychological screening throughout adolescence, and aside from mild depression and anxiety, I received a clean bill of health. If a psychotic break nor collective delusion cannot explain what me and friends went through in what would otherwise be described as a rudimentary upbringing in English suburbia, then not all is as it seems in this world. What was meant as a harmless exploration into the novel and exciting put me through a experience like no other and turned my perception of the world on its head. My story begins shortly after I was old enough to play on the streets with my brother, but never truly took root until the later stages of my primary education, so I will start where appropriate to help you understand how this all came to be.

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Me and my older brother used to play with some of the kids who lived on the same street--or "close"--as us, and their friends from neighbouring closes would join in every once in a while. We would often play games on the tarmac, or play cricket and football on the greenery near our houses. It was mostly harmless, although games would often go too far sometimes. The quest for entertainment frequently devolved into accidentally pelting footballs at the doors of residents, knocking on doors and running away in the vein of knock-knock-Granny, and one incident even led to intervention from the school superiors and having appropriate sanctions exacted as a result. When we weren't loitering, someone would end up going home early upset due to an argument, and we would hold grudges against each other for a few days until the idea of playing an imaginary game of "army" later on in the week would signal that tensions had been relieved.

On a scale of a silver spoon in the mouth to a hard-knock life, we were firmly planted in the middle. British youth at its purest.

My story takes me beyond the cul-de-sac and into remnants of nature that served as a reminder of our estate before its construction. At the end of our street was a narrow path that was surrounded by two small "fields"--or patches of greenery; anything looked like a field at that age. The path branched towards the left and right after a short stroll along it: the left took you to the outskirts of the estate, and the right took you along another path to the estate park, where families took their children to play on the swings. Going towards the outskirts of the estate and entering the estate park were the established lines set forth by parents, and we never crossed those lest we face groundings and other punishments such as having the PlayStation taken away. Stay where I can see you was a rule-of-thumb imposed by parents.

In hindsight, it was probably the desire to disregard parental advice that instigated the events of my tale.

Playing a hide-and-seek tag hybrid was a favourite during childhood. We would have a designated amount of time to run and hide, and this would often lead us to hiding in the hedges--or "bushes", as we called them as children--dotted along the edges of the fields we used to play on. These privet-leaved bushes acted as excellent camouflage for hiding, and their density prevented sunlight from entering the bushes and were the go-to place to hide in. The darkness and the abundance of imagination at that age allowed for some fantastic adventurers beyond hide-and-seek, with one afternoon having us occupied with a friend who had been watching Planet of the Apes. We used his inspiration to collect fallen branches to build "platforms" higher up within the trees, using them as observatory platforms for the oncoming apes that were set to assail us. We would also find the biggest sticks we could from the bushes to prepare for battle and do imaginary battles with them on the ground.

The best game in the bushes involved simple exploration. Most of these bushes never stretched great lengths across the fields, but the navigation between branches created the illusion of length. We would go on journeys in dim light with only streaks of rays creeping in through the leaves above and around us. Pretending that we would end up somewhere else when we reached the light in the distance was imagination fuel. We never did, obviously, but that was more than enough stimulus and the best way of exploring a world beyond our own without delving into fiction.

We frequented the bushes so often that we unfortunately bled the desire of curiosity dry and there were no nooks nor crannies left to explore. Not even the imagination of the same ilk of Planets of the Apes could satisfy that need. That was until we decided that the boundaries set by parents were putting a cap on our fun, and ignored them in favour of exploring the bushes at the perimeter of the estate park. Adventure outplayed authority. One afternoon myself, my brother, and the youngest of the neighbours--let's call him Jake, and he happened to be in my year group at school, towards the younger end of the pack--took it upon ourselves to explore the world beyond where we were allowed. We had one area in mind, though, which you of course know to be the park bushes.

The bush we were interested in could be accessed by walking along the small, right-hand side field we played our games on, and crossing over the width of a path that led to another neighbouring close. Beyond this narrow path were two bushes. The left one was mostly bereft of foliage and no bigger than the ones we played with in the past, but the right one was as privet-rich as the others and significantly lengthier. There was a break in between these two bushes that if you followed it all the way through, you would see the park. Stepping briefly out onto the field allowed us to see where the relative bushes ended, but this simply wasn't enough for us. It was not where this bush seemed to end: it was where this bush ended from within. There were new worlds to explore and new garrisons of apes to defend ourselves from.

Walking into the break of the bushes showed the way. Within, we took a right into our preferred bush's entrance. This was immediately different to the ones we had previously explored: there seemed to be little natural light entering it, only through streaks between the planks of wood at the right side that separated the bush from the gardens of those on its opposite. There also seemed to be no end to the bush gazing at it from the entrance, even though you could see where the bush led to via the adjacent field. We knew there was an end, but why were we not reassured by this fact? What if we went deeper within, and we lost sight of both the entrance and the exit? What if the stranger danger principles adults had been teaching us was well-steeped in reality? What if something were to happen to any of us...one way or another?

It was this reticence that stopped us going far into the bush on that day.

We hung around the first ten to fifteen metres or so of the bush. It was novel, sure, but ultimately unsatisfying. The fear of the unknown and our safety unfortunately outweighed the desire to explore further. Jake would be climbing the tree branches to see if he could see the outside world from the top, whereas me and my brother would navigate through tight spots to gather fallen branches as a means of creating a small "den". We left when the activity became as exciting as any other expedition in the bushes, and played some football on the greenery until late afternoon, where we would not be allowed outside for the rest of the evening because of tea time.

The game of football subsided an hour or so before tea time, and the three of us sat outside on Jake's lawn house to look at a few toys he brought out from his room. Whilst engrossed in that, I kept thinking about the bush earlier. What was stopping us from going in deeper? My curiosity grew again and I started to think about whether the fear was justified. Who would really be hiding in a bush? It was still bright outside. I mean, it was in the middle of Spring. The sun would not be setting until later, and it was strong as it was at noon. It boiled down to the fact that I was adamant on returning.

They were too scared. But I couldn't be.

The other two were distracted in Jake's house for a while. I walked towards the bush again and thought about it all. Imagine how cool I would be if I told the others that I made it to the end of the bush when they couldn't, and I wouldn't be telling a lie! Each step was one of excitement. A minute or so had passed before I made it to the break and reached the entrance of the bush.

I remembered it again. The absence of natural light apart from that coming in through the withered fence that shielded the adjacent properties, the never-ending trees emitting privet-leaves, and the crunching of twigs underneath my feet that counted each step deeper into the foliage. I began walking into near-darkness, holding onto the towering trunks to keep my feet firmly on ground, frequently looking back to see how far the light from the entrance had moved away from me. It was not long before I surpassed the previous effort. Everything was fine when you thought of this as an adventure, which was the point.

Until my mind began to wander.

I was completely alone in here. A wave of dread washed over my body from head to toe. What the hell was I thinking, coming here all by myself? Perhaps it was naivete: I got caught into thinking that I had it figured out and could have bragging rights on making it to the end. How could I, though? I was the biggest chicken out of my group of friends.

This didn't stop me.

All it did was slow my pacing, and I gripped the tree branches more firmly as I looked into the distance still seeing no end to this bush. I was not exactly turning back and giving up. What made me eventually bolt out of the bush, however, was something that made me surmise that I wasn't alone in here.

At first I thought I was mistaking it for an oddly-shaped tree and this was my prevailing theory for a long time afterwards, but I thought I saw something deeper within that day. It was an indiscriminate thing that was a dark shade of brown all over, and had a certain presence that did not register in my mind as inanimate. I could not see if it had eyes--or even a face--but I felt that it was watching me. There was no indication as to whether it was human, beast, or anything similar, but I felt like it had sensed me, and felt like it was now going to harm me. It had this feeling of "why did you come here" mixed with the pleasure that it was going to hurt me. My mind filled in the rest as I cried out and scarpered back towards the break. I imagined this presence following me as I ran with the thought of it catching me, fuelling me to run faster. The crunches of twigs underneath my feet masked any other noise, so I could not tell if it was hurtling towards me, and I simply lacked the courage to turn around and make whatever was there real. Never had rays of light been more of a relief in my life as I embraced it running out, realising that nothing could hurt me in broad daylight. When I reached the field and slowed my pace, I looked behind me and saw that nothing had came out of the bush with me. Perhaps it was a stranger and he did not want to be seen. Or perhaps nothing was there at all...which was also what I theorised for a long time.

My brother and Jake saw me as I ran back to the cul-de-sac. I told them about the bush we went in earlier and how I saw something within. My mind had it pinned as a person, but I upstaged the tale to its being a monster to pique their interest. They laughed and refused to believe me, but they were not able to tell me why they were afraid of going deeper into the bush earlier. Their best excuse was that it was "just scary", not being able to say what was scary about it other than the darkness. It's not the darkness: it's what's in it.

Days passed and they still refused to go into the bush. Since my brother and friends always expressed disinterest in exploring the bushes from that point on and I sure as hell wasn't going in on my own again, we eventually forgot about exploring the bushes and created more games of our own in the area we knew. Deep down I was still curious as to what lay deeper within the bush, but thoughts became less frequent as make-believe was substituted out.

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I moved house at the age of around eight or nine to the other end of the same estate. This meant that I never really met up with friends from the neighbourhood as much nor played in the close, although I did make some new friends at school to spend time with. We used to call ourselves "the gang", although we were far from a gang: it was simply a fancy way of referring to our group of friends. There were three of us: Dan, Tom, and of course myself. We used to meet up outside school from time to time. These friends were generally well-behaved and never got me into trouble. My parents took to them more kindly and suggested that I stayed away from Jake as a substitute for these newer friends.

One meeting outside school revived my interest in the bush.

I took Tom and Dan to the same estate park one day--now off the reins of parents--and we played a game of football and sat on the swings afterwards, happening to face the direction of the bush that instilled a sense of wonder during my childhood. We spoke for a little while about it and I told them how I always wanted to explore those bushes as a child, but was always too scared to do so. I never mentioned what I saw inside that one day, only that the darkness of the bush made me fear for what. I told them how we used to play make-believe and how similar it was to the imaginary games we played at breaktime during school, and how the bushes enhanced the realism.

What if we went back in, I thought.

There were now gaps in the bush from above where trees had fallen, so darkness seemed not an issue. I was a fair bit older and had more of a sense as to what was real and fiction, even if there was a suspension of disbelief during make-believe on the off. I thought how I could persuade them to get on board. There was safety in numbers, and perhaps having other people there could assuage the fears I once held and conclude that what I saw that day really was a tree.

"Now that was not pretty".

Those words exited Dan's mouth before I could even articulate my desire of exploring the bushes again. He was staring bug-eyed towards the gap in the middle of the bushes, looking as if he had witnessed a murder. Without saying a word, me and Tom averted our gazes towards the bush. I did not know what I was looking for, and at that stage I did not know if I wanted to know what I was looking for. However, I had to know what he saw, because it could vindicate what I experienced a few years ago. Was this something I wanted vindicated?

The image I had in my mind was that something in the bush was bleeding or falling apart, and that something in the bush happened for this something to be maimed in this way. The creak of the swings ceased. Dan leaped over the park's wooden barriers, and invited us to follow him into the bushes to see what was over there. Dan always saw himself as a leader, and we followed in his footsteps and used his courage in this moment as reassurance that things were going to be fine. What child who was so clued up stranger-danger was going to walk head on into a death trap? Dan somehow conveyed safety in his stead.

We walked into the gap that exposed the innards of the bush. This put me further into the bush than I had ever been, but I never truly felt deep inside because of the new entrance behind me. Looking in the direction towards the break showed no light, and looking deeper into the bush to the left showed no sign of exit. We could see where the bush led from the outside--into a few more connecting hedges--but not from the inside. Just what was going on in here?

The three of us stood a few feet apart from one another, looking in all directions. What did Dan see? He never spoke a word about what he saw. I used my personal guesses as anchors for things to look out for, but saw nothing. Dan looked towards the direction of where the break was, and paused for a moment.

Nothing.

Myself and Tom followed suit. We did not say anything to one another. We watched. And waited.

Nothing.

No words were spoken by anyone for a moment. The bushes were quiet apart from an intermittent rustle of leaves from the wind and the snapping of branches underneath our feet.

"Run!"

My heart jolted. Dan was the first to sprint headfirst out of the bushes after bellowing this. That same sense of toe-to-head dread kicked in before I could even process Tom's leaving the bush in suit. Dan and Tom did not stop running, and neither did I once I managed to shift my fear-stricken legs. We ran out of the park, beyond any sight of bushes, and towards the shops. He never told us what he saw, and to be honest I never knew whether it was because he was too afraid to tell us or whether he did not know what he saw.

"I've seen something like this before". I piped up about my experience in that bush.

Dan did not seem relieved that he was not alone. He immediately retorted that what he saw seemed different as to what I saw. In fact, Dan hastily said that he did not see anything. He mentioned that he felt that something was there. This feeling was overwhelming, and felt that something was there, sensing him, and willing harm upon him. I never knew whether his experience in the bush matched what he saw with us on the swings, either. Or whether the intrusive thought of someone falling apart matched the reality.

The rest of the day was spent in avoidance of any sort of greenery. We wandered the estate talking about other things in an attempt to take our minds off of what we experienced. Apart from one or two conversations at school, none of us really mentioned the bush again. I became susceptible to the idea that Dan was playing an elaborate game to entertain us.

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The day everything became real was when I decided to go back into the bushes without Tom, Dan, Jake, or my brother, again.

The decision to do so was by accident and impulse. There were no further plans for me to go back into the bushes, and by that age I was reaching the end of my primary school run and was a stone throw's distance from entering adolescence. I had free volition to go where I pleased throughout the estate, and decided to go on a bike ride around to kill an hour's worth of time during a spring Saturday afternoon to pave the way for evening television; the pinnacle of the weekend as a child. The route was made up as I went along it, but was invented to fulfil the goal of cycling for longer than I had ever done in the past. It took me through streets and fields I had only seen from a distance, and of course, through the estate park.

I scoped the bush in my line of sight as I nonchalantly cycled through the park. It instantly took me back to those times during childhood. It was like my mind was calling me to go on over and visit it once again. I cycled across the greenery towards it and approached an entrance to the bush that I never saw during previous visits. This was its end. I could have entered the bush this way and saw what it looked like from within; however, there was a part of me that wanted to walk through the bush from start to beginning to let sleeping dogs lie, even if I thought of Dan as a daydreamer. The final chapter to the tale that was my early childhood, if you will. Thus I cycled over to the opposite entrance, dismounted my bike, and walked with it through the all-too-familiar break, leading to the entrance of the bush. My entrance to the bush. I balanced my bike against a tree at the bush's opening, took a few steps inside, and it all came back.

Everything was like it was during childhood, sans the fear. As I walked into the bush, I thought about what myself and Dan saw on those two separate occasions. Again, I reasoned that I had an over-active imagination at that age, and maybe so did Dan, and was having us on to entertain us. I had now been walking a minute into the bushes and felt no fear nor discomfort. It was dark, sure, but light came in from the gaps in the fence and I felt a new kind of solitude. I looked ahead into the distance and saw only more trees and leaves; no sign of that exit I only looked at a few moments ago from the other side. There were no brown-hued shadows, and it made me think that my mind was playing tricks on me during my previous visits. The only thought that occupied my mind was whether someone was going to steal my bike.

Footstep after footstep took me deeper within.

Turning my back towards the break I had entered from emitted light no longer. I was probably halfway into the bush now, and I could neither see entrance nor exit. This was further than I had ever reached as a child, and about the same part of the bush myself, Dan, and Tom stood in quite some time ago. If what Dan saw was earlier on in the bush, I had now passed it and braved whatever troubled us on those peculiar days. I was over the hump, and now I simply had to make it to the exit so I could walk back around the outside of the bush and retrieve my bike.

The bush was more densely populated with trees as I entered its second half, and it forced me to hug the fence spanning the right-hand side of the bush. Few sources of light were coming in from the gaps in the fences now because it appeared that people living in the gardens had stationed their garden sheds against the fence, so I relied on the gaps in the trees above to pave my way. I also had to navigate through thorns and watch where I placed my hands and feet to avoid getting splinters on the wood and branches. Clutching the planks with the tips of my fingers, I took it step-by-step, and slowly but surely found myself making it through the most difficult part of the bush so far. A final stretch of this tightly-packed route forced me to crawl on my hands and knees for a few moments, which took me out into the open once again and finally to my feet. I grasped the branches for stability once again, and moved my head upright. Confusion ensued.

There was still no sign of the exit.

I turned my head back on the route I had taken, and looked around the trees that I had been crouching and crawling between for quite some time. It was quite a trek in of itself, and I was unsure as to why it had not led me to the exit. Perhaps there was no light coming in from the exit because it was connected to another bush--which it was, to be fair--and I was close to the end already. Just a minute's worth of walking to go and I would be there, I thought. Baby steps.

Another minute had passed. Still no sign of the exit.

I was more angry than confused at this point. I felt deceived, like my effort of walking towards the exit had not been recognised. As my footsteps became heavier, slamming into the ground with frustration, I began to notice a few other things. Fewer specks of light were coming in from the fence to the right. In fact, I forgot that there was a fence there at all in the past minute or so, because trees were sprouting in front of it, seemingly covering every square inch. And where was the light coming in from the field side? Standing still and observing my surroundings to the left, I saw only more trees like the ones I had been holding on to. How deep had I gone into this bush? Did I go too far, and I had not noticed? I walked towards the left to see if I could exit the bush via a gap like the one Dan had found, but I only found more trees. Tree trunks as far as the eye could see. There was light shining on those trees, but only from above. The treetops were the only things paving the route around me, and they seemed to span forever. In all directions.

I contemplated coming back the way I came, but it took me long enough to get this far in, and there was a pit in my stomach at the thought of whether I could even make it back. In fact, looking back only made me realise how unfamiliar the surroundings looked. Did I really come from that way? I remember very little of it. The layout looked different, but maybe it only looked different from the opposite direction? Only then did I realise that the only option was to keep moving forward, hoping that I would come out the other end. Perhaps my mind was being overactive again like it was when I was a child. I let the crunching of wood beneath my feet ground me and snap me out of the incessant rattle of my anxieties and move onwards. But it felt like for every step I took, the exit of the bush seemed further and further away.

The feeling of dread washed over my body once again.

I had not felt it in years, but it was unmistakeable. I began running through the bushes, reliving the terror I felt on that first encounter. The darkness and the claustrophobia of the trees became too much to bare, and I wanted out. I contorted my body through the trees during my flight, occasionally grazing them as I brushed by, and used every ounce of will and hope I had to make it to the exit. I was not even thinking about my bike at this time. A lost bike would be a mere sacrifice compared to the fear and helplessness I was experiencing at this place in time. Anything would have been a trivial expenditure if it meant seeing the blue sky again and resuming my exploration of the estate.

Look back.

A thought crossed--echoed across, rather--my mind as I pelted towards the thought of a light in the distance that I questioned the existence of. It was a thought that I heeded so heavily that it stopped me in my tracks, once again gripping the trees around me and brushing away hanging thorns. Putting my left foot significantly in front of my right, preparing myself to run once again, I slowly crooked my neck behind me, again experiencing that familiar feeling that something was sensing and watching me.

My gaze fixated on a shuffle in the distance behind me. It was that presence. It had a dark-brown hue, undiscernible features, but ultimately an ineffable sense that it knew something else with in here with it. I did not run, but briefly stood in trepidation to observe it. It stood at adult male height and was partly obscured by a tree trunk, and remained stationary when I froze in position and acknowledged its existence. I saw no eyes attached to it, but I knew we were making some equivalent of eye contact. Originally mistaking them from branches, my mouth became agape when I noticed a pair of antlers emerging from the figure.

You should not have come here.

A raspy voice in my mind harshly whispered those words to me as I ran as fast as I could, away from the presence. I heard the snapping of branches and twigs as I ran, but could not tell if it was caused by me or the thing from behind. A cold air gushing within the bush made the hairs on the back of neck my stand up, and there was sense of weight on the posterior regions of my body. The thing must only be a few feet behind me now. I drew breath after breath, summoning the will to keep on running, but the bushes kept on stretching in all directions, forever and ever. All signs of the fence to the right had gone, and the light from above began to dim as I sprinted into the unknown darkness. Suddenly I tripped over a fallen tree trunk, and my body fell limp. I closed my eyes during the fall as I thought about my mortality. Perhaps this was all a dream, and I would wake up before I was caught. I accepted my fate of being caught in this presence's grasp, and rejoiced in the fact that the adrenaline would shoot me upright in my bed and I would be safe at home, calling for my mother's comfort. I braced for impact on hitting the ground, imagined the velvet comfort of my pillow against my head, but the falling sensation continued.

I continued falling.

I dared not to open my eyes. My body flailed aimlessly in an attempt to catch the air; anything, as I was falling. The crackling of leaves and branches began to fade into the distance as I eventually hit dirt, now tumbling down and feeling every individual impact of my body from the surface bruise and strain me. The rolling of my body abruptly stopped with a period of more falling, and I finally hit terra firma with one resounding thud as all sound in the world began to fade away.

And all was quiet.

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I came to and felt the floor beneath me.

I remembered what had just happened. There was a presence chasing me and my life was in danger, so I jerked upright and looked around me in all directions to scope it out. All was silent and I could see no sign of any being that wished to harm me. There was no sign of it...or anything...anywhere.

This was when I also realised that I was somewhere I had never been before.

I was in some sort of forest. The sky was bright but grey, and trees were no longer as densely packed as they were, instead being farther and fewer between and larger in size. These trees looked like old oaks, completely devoid of leaves and much different from the privet spouting ones forming the bush, stretching further into the sky and seeming to have an impossible amount of branches stemming from each individual trunk. Each branch deviated several metres away from the trunk but never seemed to meet with the branches from other trees. The only evidence of these trees once bearing life was of rotten leaves spanning the dirt.

For a season that signified life, there seemed to be anything but.

Everything was silent apart from the occasional breeze rattling the canopy from above. There was no sound of birds, animals, children laughing, or any form of wildlife. It was peaceful: certainly different to the dread I felt in the bush. I sat down against a tree trunk and wondered where I was and what had happened. Looking into the distance gave me no indication as to where I was because it was only trees and leaves as far as the eye could see, and no sight of where to go if I was to go about leaving the forest, and where I would subsequently end up. How would I even go about getting home?

I thought about looking in the direction from which I fell, but I could not see any slopes that were big enough for me to have fell as I did. However, what I did notice in that period of introspection was a small break of trees in the distance, similar to the ones I saw upon entering the bush. Barren, withered oak trees were staggered on either side of the entrance, and seemed to be the entrance to the bush I was previously in. Perhaps this was my way back home. I hobbled over to the break in the distance and peered inside. No evidence of any slopes. It was not what I was expecting inside, either. Sure, the inside of the break looked like the bush I was just in, but the tree trunks were a mahogany colour instead of the usual sunken brown, and the leaves seemed a little discoloured, closer to a yellow than green. Something felt off about this bush. I accepted it in my mind as the way I came, but I felt an unease peering deeper within. It was like having a dream of your hometown, and in the dream recognising it as your hometown, but upon waking up realising the layout was off in some way, and you slap yourself for wondering why you did not notice it in the dreamstate.

The thought of being in this new, tranquil area beat the thought of going back into the bush and risking losing myself further. I backed away from the break and began strolling into the forest, slowed down only by the mild injuries I had sustained from the tumbling and landing. I figured if I became lost, I would simply head back in the direction from whence I came and try the alternate bush only if I became absolutely desperate. For now, anything was better than that bush.

On my way through the quiet wood, I thought about my friends and what they would have thought if they saw this, too. I knew what I saw as a child must have been the same as I was a saw barely a few moments ago, but is this what Dan saw? Would they have ended up here if went alone into the bushes? What would have happened if they got caught by the antlered presence? What was that presence? Was it protecting something that lay here? I thought about bringing them here if I could get out, but that was if I could get out in the first place. Nothing like this had ever happened before in my life, and I had no idea if I could return. It was an adventure I did not ask for.

Like with the bush, the forest never seemed to end. Apart from the incline and decline of the terrain every once in a while, the only things that entertained my vision were trees and decaying leaves. I tried calling to see if anyone else was around, and tried talking out loud to myself a few times to keep my mind sane, but all seemed helpless. Eventually I was beckoned by the sound of flowing water, and by tracking the origin of the noise, I made it to a stream. It stream ran from east to west relative to my position.

I decided to use it as my guide. Thinking back to geography lessons, I reasoned that the source of a river tends to be of a high elevation, so perhaps by heading to the source I could get a better vantage point and navigate my way out of the forest. I considered doing this with the trees earlier, but famously within my social circle I had never been apt at climbing trees and there seemed to be no possible way of scaling the trunks without serious risk of injury. So I decided upon another route. I looked to see if there was any change of elevation along the banks of stream. Looking right--or east, even if it was not actually east--showed a rise in terrain, and looking left--you guessed it, west--showed a dip in terrain. I headed easterly in the hope that it would give me a lead for learning more about this place.

The route ahead of me began to steepen. It remained silent in the forest as I asked myself why the forest was so quiet, although I ceased that line of thought as I formed an idea. The oak trees around me followed some sort of pattern during the ascent, almost paving the way forward for me. They were arranged in a straight line at a somewhat staggered distance from one another, taking me somewhere. As I climbed higher and higher, visibility decreased as I wondered how far I had climbed. It certainly was not that far, but I warmed to the idea that anything was possible in these parts and reasoned that if I wanted to go somewhere or have something happen, a change in environment was evidence of my doing something right.

There was a thick mist towards the summit. I coughed as I approached the precipice, wondering if this was even mist in the first place. The trees no longer paved the way and tapered away either side of me as the ground levelled out. In the mist I could make out large stones--wide and no taller than myself--dotted around one another forming an oval. And I saw it again, in what looked like the epicentre of the mist.

There was that brown shadow.

There were features I could not make out. Two antlers protruding from its head. A gaze felt by psychic link as opposed to physical eye contact. But this time came a sensation of its not resembling anything remotely human. It felt otherworldly. I became paralysed with fear and greeted the unrelenting sense of dread once again as the being began to shift in the distance. All remained silent.

The presence's movements were unusual. Its shoulders retracted backwards, and its lower body contorted in a multitude of directions as it made for my location. However, it seemed to travel at a speed inconsistent to the movement of its lower extremities, covering more ground than I expected and appearing larger in its approach. It was coming at me at some speed, and I felt the urge to run.

Don't run, though, I thought to myself. I needed to see what it was first.

I expected to see its true form as it emerged from the mist. However, it was still obfuscated by shrouds, apparently cloaked by something other than mist despite having nothing to coat it with. Homing in on me, segments of matter underneath its antlers began to part, and the stench of rot filled the air as I spotted several sharp appendages emerging from them. I retched as I fled, desperate to avoid a fate worse than anything I anticipated from the bush. Words echoed across the landscape once again.

You should not have come here.

You should not have come here.

Those bellowing words increased in volume as I heard its breath behind me during its close. It was speaking directly to me. Every gasp it took during its hunt resembled the ticking of a centipede mixed with the sound of one clearing phlegm from their throat. I heard my heartbeat pound in my ears as I ran downstream and then south, trying to rediscover where I came to. There were inclines, declines, oak trees that seemed familiar, piles of crumpled leaves, engulfed by the all-consuming mist that had now spread across the forest. My flight took me to a familiar light in the distance. It was the passageway birthed by the gaps in foliage...the entrance to the mahogany grove.

You should never have come here.

You will never leave.

As I ran back towards the break that led to the alternative bush, the ground beneath me begin to tremble. Roots sprouted out of the ground, and branches and leaves blossomed from these waving stumps. They towered over me and wrapped in all directions until I could no longer see the grey skies above the canopy. The remaining light that seeped in through the gaps of the newly-arrived branches around me shifted to a familiar yellow hue, fallen leaves began to sink into the ground being seemingly swallowed by the dirt, and the distant sound of children playing crept up. The hounding of the presence subsided as the whooshing of wind became inaudible, and by glancing over my shoulder the thing began to recede from my field of view, fading away as its antlers disappeared underneath the horizon. By arriving at the break, I spotted my bike still leaning against that tree I propped it against before entering the bush a short while ago, noticing that the area was bereft of both mahogany and oak with not a yellow leaf in sight.

I pushed my bike to the field next to the bush and collapsed onto my knees, finding myself laughing in a daze. The relief of being home was palpable and I felt a few tears roll down my face. The next thought that followed was to go home and embrace my family, but I wondered who would believe the story I had to tell. They would think that I was merely playing another game of make-believe. How have the police not investigated this place, either, and how has no one else encountered what I encountered? And indeed, that ended up being the case, but the hope of someone understanding me had not died completely. I still had my friends--both old and new--who had experienced unusual happenings in those hedges. They might believe me, and they might want to go and check things out for themselves.

Tomorrow would be a new day. I sat in my room planning on what to take for my next journey into the bush, and contacted my friends about what happened, and whether they would be happy to investigate. They were in disbelief, but wanted to come along to see me "make a fool of myself". Even Dan expressed this sentiment, as afraid as he was that day. As I look back, however, there was no greater foolishness than not heeding the advice of the presence of staying away.

submitted by /u/RebornHellblade [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2DF4iu3

[evelyntransitions-blog]

Day 30 Sleepy Ebi

    So yesterday was a trainwreck. I was extremely tired from running around so much on thanksgiving and my lack of sleep from the night before (Thought I had to wake up early to go to my aunts). I went to bed around 1:30am and had to wake up at 3:00am to get ready for work, and as an added bonus I forgot to take my medication before bed. What’s even better is that the medicine causes fatigue, dizziness and drowsiness so it must be taken before bed. One of the pills happens to be for treating my anxiety (though it’s typical use is to treat bi-polar and seizures which I have neither of. Just moodiness and shakes from anxiety). So I have this horrible nightmare that a ghost girl slams my door open and like the Mind Flayer from strange things turns into a sentient virus fog and shovels itself into my mouth. I imagined Jesus in my room in the dream and he pulled it out luckily but it was scary as fuck, because the ghost abomination disappeared through the wall at the end of my dream, just like in Stranger Things. So I wake up as this happens, not having taken my anxiety pills and feeling like the ghost is still in the house. To add insult to injury I didn’t remember that I forgot to take my anxiety pills.   When I go to take a shower i’m in deep shit between glancing at the dark perliless hallway, only dimly lit by my roomates nightlate (which she keeps in the hallway to not stumble around in the dark) and this big empty void ready to suck out my soul. I dash into the bathroom and close the door behind me, making sure to lock it and then double check that I locked it. I get butt naked and head into the shower but all I can see out of the corner of my eye is the fucking door. I’m ready for that door to burst open and blam! GHOST ABOMINATION READY TO TAKE OVER MY BODY WAHAHHHHHH AHHHH. Nope. I’m able to take a paranoid shower. I have to poop right after, so now i’m on the potty, fuggin’ door still looking at me while the roaring sound of the vents blowing out air, along with the steam from the shower makes the room seem like some type of fog chamber. It’s like i’m silent hill on crack. I promptly wipe my ass, wash my hands and brush my teeth, all the while feeling like there’s something behind me ready to snatch me up and drag me down to hell, which is extremely doltish considering I can see behind me just fine thanks to the mirror. At this point it hits me “I didn’t take my fucking medicine” I think to myself. This is a blessing, because that means it’s more than likely my anxiety fucking with him. Unfortunately this is also a curse, because now I have to take medicine that makes me God awful tired. So I take the pills and rush to work, and thank heavens I wasn’t ready to fall asleep on the road.

      Boy when the medicine kicked in let me tell you, it was bigger nightmare than any imaginary ghost monster. It’s about 7am and the tired just hits me and it doesn’t stop. I never thought it possible to fall asleep standing up but I was getting close. So i’m in front of my register checking people out as I phase between conscious and semi conscious. Not just like “extremely tired” oh no, this is worse. I’m slipping between falling into a dream, and still being awake. I’m talking with my eyes closed about 50% of the time, and forcing myself not to lean on anything and keep my mouth moving before the sandman pets my head right before seducing me and making me bite the damn pillow. I’m trying to make this look as natural as possible, as I memorize the movements of the managers best I can, and where they are in the store at what point in time, which helps me keep my brain racing. Racey brain, less chance of falling asleep, if I still have a dose of that anxiety now is the time. Anxiety take the wheel, I don’t want to cruize into the big fat ditch of getting fired. I’m trying to make this look as natural as possible but most customers don’t by it. Immediately everyone becomes Mona from Persona 5. I get a lot of “You look like you’re really tired and “When are you getting out of here; you should get some sleep.” I just kinda nod and close my eyes to answer them.        Eventually break time comes and though as far as I remember from getting the handbook when I first started working here, falling asleep at work gets you immediately fired. I didn’t know if that counted on breaks, but I was willing to take the risk. I set a few alarms on my phone, scooched down some paper towels over the ganky ass, crumb crustey, mystery stained break room table I was sitting at and passed out. I got lucky and was able to wake up in time thanks to my alarms. I get off break and the rest of the day is half way decent in terms of tired. I’m still beyond exhausted for the whole time. When I left the store though, turns out I feel fine for some reason. I think this is what they call a “Second Wind.” I used it up to head to Gamestop and buy some Christmas gifts for some friends and an Itunes gift card to buy stuff on animal crossing. I was thinking about getting Pokemon but it was out of my budget and wolfenstine was 67% off, but I was worried that i’d over play it and run up the electric bill. So I settled with what I had, paid and left.      When I got home I left a nice note to my roommate explaining that I was happy she accepted me as female, and trusted me to share an apartment with her despite my gonads. That on top of helping me get some space from my parents. I added her early Christmas gift to this. When she got home she was really happy with the note and the gift, though the Vynal I got her was one she already had. I think she was trying to thank me, or making me feel more like a normal girl, because she asked me if I wanted to help her pick out an outfit. She was going out with a friend of hers, but didn’t know to what degree, this making the outfit creating process difficult. I let her try on one pair of my pants, because they went with a jacket she had, but the pants were to big around the ankles so that outfit didn’t work so well. I forgot what she decided on, but i’m sure it was cute. I don’t even know if I remember seeing it. I ate thanksgiving leftovers soon after, did some laundry, set some alarms and passed out. Really early too probably around 6pm. I was smart this time and set one of the alarms for a good time to take my medicine in the middle of the night and went back to bed afterwards. Though that didn’t circumvent the stupid that happened today/this morning.

[houstonlocalus-blog]

A World of Her Own: An Interview with JooYoung Choi

JooYoung Choi, “Watson and the Cos Present – Begin Transmission to the Earth” (2015)

  JooYoung Choi is one of the most interesting people you may ever meet. A talented artist living and working in Houston, she has fast-tracked her career in the past several years with mounting shows across the US, all while gaining the attention of national papers and websites. It’s a bit of a challenge to explain her highly imaginative and fantastical work due to the fact that it seems to exist on a plane all to itself. Working within video, sculpture, paintings and puppets, Choi creates all that she desires in this world. But she doesn’t just conjure these worlds on the small scale, she creates them as large, engulfing environments. Choi’s paintings are rich with color and complexity and give deeper insight into her sweet madness. While her alter egos can be seen throughout all of her pieces, they are just a small percentage of her ongoing characters and settings. And with performance as a foundation throughout her work, Choi will never allow you to make a dividing line between what is here and what lies within there. Currently, Choi has her solo exhibition, A Better Yesterday, at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston. This new, highly vivid show is a powerful step for Choi, and it poses her as one of the top artist working both within the region and nationally. Free Press Houston was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to talk with Choi about her practice, the exhibition, and her upcoming workshop.

JooYoung Choi, “Three Black Stars: Resilient, Brilliant & Creative” (2016)

  Free Press Houston: You have been exhibiting all over the country and even had some wonderful coverage from the Huffington Post.  Can you tell me a little bit about this experience for you and how these key components of your practice fell into place?

Choi: The last few years have been extraordinary. When I review all the projects I have worked on from the Parliament of the Owls show at Diverse works to now, it takes a moment for me to believe it all has happened since the Summer of 2015.

In the past few years, I have realized that I am a lover of learning, and that art and narrative have been a vehicle to do just that. My piece at the Diverse Works show of 2015, Earth Based Satellite Investigation and Innovative Production of Educational Materials for the Sight and Sound Research Foundation of the Cosmic Womb, also known as E.B.S.C.I.I.P.E.M.S.S.R.F.C.W., pushed me to learn more about video editing, chroma key, puppet making, and taught me that my studio process could be of interest to viewers. It was here that it introduced me to the idea of including an interactive component to my work. As an artist that has in the past often worked alone, moving my studio into the Diverse works artist space and creating a video art project with the public was a growing experience.

In February of 2016, I had a solo show called “Paracosmic Alchemy” at Anya Tish Gallery. For this show, I learned more about carpentry and built my first video art sculptures. I introduced new characters into my narrative and created my first battle painting. This show explores a method of exploring experiences from the past we cannot change, how people can use their imaginations to take a challenging experience and transform it through storytelling and imagery into something meaningful.

July 2016 I worked on the Snow People Space Travel to Texas Initiative, with a generous grant from the Ideafund. For the project, I created a team of intergalactic “snow people” puppets (snow people who had evaporated into outer space and had returned to earth). The project showed me what it looked like to develop a narrative and then let go of some control and let the art develop further through playful interaction with viewers. With the help of submittable.com and a team of judges (myself, two artists and one curator), we reviewed a collection of applicants who wanted to host a snow person puppet for one week, with the condition that they share a photo of them and their puppet each day. After the snow people were delivered to the host families, I watched like everyone else, and saw what kind of joy and magic a play friend can bring to the lives of adults and children.

During the fall and winter of 2016, I produced my first two large-scale sculptures and created my first large-scale immersive installation. “Freedom from Madness” was the first large-scale sculpture I have ever produced and was a wild process of trial and error. I began these pieces in the summer and worked until the fall to present them. Learning what a sculpture made by me would even look like, was a challenge. I ended up watching puppet tutorials and pulling apart dolls to make patterns. I accidentally went to a furry workshop for costume creation, thinking it was a workshop on how to make fursuits of all kinds. Instead, I learned a lot about Furry culture, but that was neat too. I took a week-long trip to NYC to look at art and gather ideas as well as a shorter trip to Disney World to understand my first memorable experiences in immersive installation. I went on the “It’s a small world after all” at least three times, furiously taking notes and drawing pictures. The Peter Pan ride at disney world inspired how I used lighting and figures in the Project Row House exhibit. These projects let me play with ideas about color and race in ways I hadn’t explored prior.

Growing up, and still today, there are not enough leading black women leaders in superhero comics. We can only mention that X-Men’s Storm is black so much until it gets creepy. I wanted to create a character who was black, a woman, strong, powerful, intelligent and beautiful. Spacia Tanno, in both pieces, challenges how blackness is generally perceived in English language metaphor and western storytelling. I read once that black was at one point perceived as “heaven’s color” in Chinese culture, and I thought that was quite beautiful and logical; it is the color of the nighttime sky. Furthermore, the piece at Project Row Houses let me explore my feelings about the violence against black boys in America. The things I have heard from my friends of color that have experienced racism — instances where people have tried to make them feel bad or dangerous and worthless just because of their race — is what I call the myth of the black zero. During the exhibition, the Orionid meteor shower was taking place, so I created a story about a very powerful star being born who was rejected from his constellation because he was born as a black star and was different than his siblings. As he fell backwards from the sky, he transformed from an Orion star to a Noiro star, first perceiving himself as the Black Zero (Noir-O). But the exhibit’s narrative explores the idea that noir, or black, can be comprised of all the other colors on a painter’s palette, and that zero is the number that allows us to comprehend the idea of infinity. The emotional response from people who participated in the interactive component of this installation taught me a lot about the power of art and how it can help heal or soothe the pain of it’s viewers in ways I didn’t know my work could do.

For my exhibition at the CAMH, I learned more about composition, design and color harmony. I put together a stack of books and went back to school. I took notes and researched what worked in past pieces and what aspects of my process were less helpful. The CAMH project brings a narrative that began in 2015 to a finale work called “Time For you and Joy to get Acquainted.” This work celebrates the main character’s journey of making peace with her past before riding off into the future with her beau, a rabbit, and an octopus with eczema. I have been wanting to make a dinosaur for years, and here was my chance. I couldn’t have done it without the help of volunteers who travelled out to my studio to make flowers, sew dino parts, and help with wood working. It has been such a journey!

  JooYoung Choi, “Time for You and Joy to Get Acquainted” (2016-17)

  FPH:  Your work is ever evolving, and I have gone back several times to see your show currently up at the CAMH? How did this come about? As one of your first major solo exhibitions, how did you envision approaching this on its new platform? What was your goal for this particular show?

Choi: Well, I was at Fiesta buying guacamole when I got a message asking if I’d be interested in participating. I almost dropped my guacamole! I was so happy! Bill came to learn more about my work at Lawndale and again when I did a show at Front Gallery. We talked more at Diverseworks, and so forth. He’s really fun to talk to about imaginary worlds, children’s television, and video art. He just knows so much, and it’s fun to get his perspective on things. Working with him and the team at CAMH on this has been super fun. My goal for this show was to get the whole narrative of  Spacia Tanno in one place, with the finale in the middle. It was an amazing and challenging process with lots of hard work and lots of help from volunteers. Some of my goals were more simple like: I want to see what a garden made out of fabric will look like; I want to make a giant dinosaur who can grow flowers and sit on it’s back; I want make a painting that expresses the moment of breaking out of imprisonment — enlightenment; I want to make a super big painting that has the whole gang together; and I want to make a giant spider lady. It’s a mix of these TIWTS (things I want to see) and narrative ideas.

  JooYoung Choi, “Watson and the Cos Present – Begin Transmission to the Earth” (2015)

  FPH: Your work is so adventitious and fantasy bound but calculated at the same time. I’ve enjoyed spending time within many of your large-scale installations, and your attention to the smallest components is impressive. Can you talk about your process when creating one of your environments?

Choi: Hmmm, I am very much interested in meta realities. My favorite movie since I was a child was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Things like knowing where Eddie Valiant’s office is located (1130 South Hope Street in LA), or where the tunnel to Toon Town is, Griffith Tunnel, were important to me. This is where my husband and I technically got married — in Toon Town!

So I try to ensure that whatever I am doing is connected to reality here on earth. So if a show is happening on a certain date, I research what else is going on that day. Is a meteor shower happening? Is it the anniversary to something? Does the location of the place connect to something within the narrative I am working on? Why would these characters want to be on Earth, and why at this location?

Currently I am working on a show that will open on Friday the 13th of April, so I have been researching April 13th’s throughout history, and a particular April 13th in 2029, when an asteroid will come very close to the Earth. I am also exploring an aspect of the narrative that plays with a deck of cards since there are 4 suits (4 for April) and 13 cards per suit. Hopefully the narrative and paintings will play with the idea of my imaginary friends saving the Earth from a golden snake creature named “Apophis 44492.”

It has to feel real enough and compelling enough for me to care, to believe, and then to make. If I don’t believe in the power of my narratives or get excited by the mythology it is weaving, it’s incredibly hard for me to sustain my interest in a long term project. This is especially true when it comes to a body of work that will require months of work. It’s gotta feel genuine and include a narrative, characters, and imagery that I care about.

  JooYoung Choi, “Have Faith for You Have Always Been Loved [The Noiro & Spacia Tanno Constellation Plasma Experience]” (2016)

  FPH: How does your inner layer of characters and imaginary realms interact with your day-to-day, and how much of it just remains as contemporary art?

Choi: Hmmm, well, it’s all kind of one in the same. My character Plan-Genda is the force energy being who represents thoughtful planning and time in my imaginary world. The gridded pattern that decorates her skin resembles the gridded time management system I use to plan my work schedule. A new character named “Sputnik” is also the name of a new task brainstorming template I use to plan out more complicated projects. So the characters are part of my everyday life. I know that they aren’t real, but as with any good paracosm, I feel responsible for them, and I feel it is my job to maintain and continue to develop the world that they live in.

JooYoung Choi, “There’s Nowhere Else I’d Rather Be All Through This Lovely Night” (2017)

  FPH: Your creature creation workshop is coming up this weekend. Can you tell us about your projected outcome for this event? What is it you are trying to help the participants tap into?

Choi: So much of the world building workshops or video talks I have heard focus on writing: Take a sheet of paper and draw little picture in the box and then write out stuff like eye color, race, place of birth, age, blah blah blah. For writers, this seems to work well. I know for myself, a lot of my ideas about my characters and worlds come from making and play. Instead of knowing everything about a character through a worksheet, puppets have been incredibly helpful.

When I made Putt Putt, my pink octopus, he had only been in two paintings. He hasn’t a very popular character, and I didn’t really know anything about him. But after I made him, I brought him out with me and people played with him and he began to have an identity. My husband does his voice, and we’ve done videos where Putt Putt sings with me, and he really has developed a personality.

I like the idea of building a workshop about world building upon play. Let’s play and each make a creature! Who are the friends of this character? What do they eat? Where does this creature live? What does it do?  What does it fear, and what makes it happy? Through playing with the creatures, the mind can be invited to build a bigger and more immersive world. We will be making creatures, interviewing each others puppets, getting feedback, making small backdrops that can be chroma keyed into videos, and filming presentations with people’s creatures. Hopefully, this will give people a look into a method of world building and character creation and what it is like to generate ideas using making, playing and feedback from fellow creators.

This workshop has been limited to 14 participants per class, and it appears the classes may soon fill up.

Right now we are trying to coordinate one more artist walk through of the work, so anyone who couldn’t get into the class could bring their questions about world building to this upcoming artist talk, and I’d be happy to share what I know during that event.

  Join “A Better Yesterday” artist JooYoung Choi in a hands-on workshop to explore making your own creatures, building a world for your character, and then creating a narrative. Be inspired by Choi and the worlds she creates as you explore and delve deep into your own creative process. This workshop is ideal for people ages 13 and up.

Workshop Fee: $20, space is limited. They are offering two separate workshops on August 12, 2017:

Sign up for the 11AM–1PM workshop here: http://bit.ly/2u3yMN0

Sign up for the 2–4PM workshop here: http://bit.ly/2tu3Bxz

A World of Her Own: An Interview with JooYoung Choi this is a repost

[elfnerdherder]

Magnum Opus: Chapter 11

You can read on Ao3 Here

Chapter 11:

           The longer the week went, the more that Abigail opened up. She sought him out when he was leaving for the city on Friday, and once again Will took her along, eyeing her contemplatively as he drove. The shadows that haunted underneath her gaze were gone, replaced by a crafty curve to her lips and a piercing stare.

           “Do you have an interview?” she asked when he didn’t immediately say anything.

           “It’s at a mechanic shop…he said he doesn’t like hiring young kids, but he needs someone on weekends that isn’t going to screw everything up,” Will replied. Abigail fiddled with the dials on his radio, not wanting to give up hope that the shoddy antenna could pick up a random station. Will didn’t have the heart to crush her.

           “And are you going to screw anything up?” she asked teasingly. Will pretended to think about it, shifting lanes to move around a slow driver.

           “This past month or so, I’d say that’s become a bit of a habit that I’ve acquired,” he said.

           “Maybe you need some sort of lucky charm?” Abigail wondered.

           “If I get this job, maybe I can consider you a lucky charm,” said Will, flashing her a smile.

           She stayed in the car when he got to the shop, flashing him a thumbs-up as he adjusted his shirt and made sure that it was tucked in all around. His father had almost deleted the messages on the phone before Will could hear it, and it was only dumb luck that he got the tail end of Mr. Davenson’s message before his dad grunted and moved on to the next one regarding a bill that was due soon.

           He found a couple of men in the shop, speaking with one another as they looked up at the insides of a car, hands identically placed on their hips. Will hovered to the side, hesitant. When neither said anything immediately, he stepped up and looked up at the belly of the car, too. The problem was easy to find.

           “Broken oil filter?” Will asked.  The two turned to consider Will, and the older man nodded.

           “Can I help you?” he asked.

           “I’m looking for Mr. Davenson. My name is Will Graham, and I have an interview.”

           “Oh, yes, yes. Just call me Joel. How’d you figure?” He looked from Will back up to the underbelly of the car.

           “I just fixed a car recently with the same problem. Wrong size filter will pop right off and drain all of the oil. Did the engine seize?”

           “That’s what we’re going to find out,” he said. “Well, Dante here will figure it out.” He shook Will’s hand and waved back to Dante, leading Will into the store front proper. It was far better than Steve’s shop, and there wasn’t a hint of any chewing tobacco cans in sight. Where Steve wore grubby jeans and a questionable shirt that smelled of things best left unsaid, Joel’s attire was practical but clean with darkwash jeans, a black t-shirt, and a nametag. He was young, mid-thirties, but he carried himself like he’d been running his business for years.

           “I’m going to keep this quick because I’ve got a few vehicles coming in from a bad wreck and I’m short-staffed today,” Joel said. “I need someone on weekends, just for the afternoon rushes that always come in. It’s nothing fancy, but I pay higher than minimum wage. I called your old boss –Steve? He said you were a sullen shit, but you did great work. Is that true?”

           “I didn’t know that I was sullen,” Will said sullenly. Joel laughed, a genuine, loud sound that rang out around the room. A customer looked up, startled, but they went back to their smart phone soon enough.

           “Well whatever he meant, I was more focused on your customers. Three people complained after you left because they didn’t want to have someone else messing around with their car, and a few others asked for your new address to send you goodbye cards. That’s the kind of customer service that I need, as well as quick hands and a good eye. Can you do that?”

           “I can do that,” Will said. “I like working with cars. My dad works on diesel engines at the boat yard, and he taught me everything that I know.”

           “Well we don’t get boats in here, but I know who to call if I need help with that,” Joel said cheerfully. He shook Will’s hand firmly, then clapped his free hand on his shoulder, smiling. “You’re hired. How’s nine-fifty an hour sound?”

           Nine dollars and fifty cents an hour sounded far better than Steve’s minimum wage back in Georgia. Will filled out the appropriate paperwork, promised to be there by noon on Saturday, and he walked out of the shop with an odd, light pressure in his chest. When he climbed into the truck, Abigail noted the look on his face and smiled.

           “Am I your lucky charm now?” she asked.

           “Yes,” Will said with a short laugh.

           “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

           “My old boss referred to me as a ‘sullen shit’,” he said, firing the truck up.

           “You do have a very grumpy look,” she said playfully, “and sad, puppy-dog eyes.” Will muttered something under his breath about puppies, and he drove off towards a fast food place, picking up food for the two of them. He drove through town, eating fries from the bag while Abigail worked on her milkshake, and when he found the right place he stopped, pleased. He found a bench in the middle of the park, and as he looked around, he nodded in satisfaction. Hannibal’s park was even prettier in person.

           “Have you been here before?” Abigail asked, grabbing her burger.

           “No, but a friend referred me to it,” he said, looking about. The curves and dips of the hills were just as gentle and mild as they had been in the drawing. Large river birch trees with green and red leaves swayed in the breeze, and although the sun was high in the sky and hidden by bleak, imposing clouds, Will figured that Hannibal must have also sat the same bench to have imagined such a scene.

           “Do you know a lot of people in the area? I don’t really see you talk to anyone but Beverly or me at school.”

           “I know a couple of others, but not too many,” Will said. For the time of day, there weren’t many people out and about to watch, but Will spied a woman interacting with her friends on a blanket on the ground. They laughed at the appropriate times, their conversation was steady, and there were frequent pauses to snap photos, everyone sporting large, genuine smiles. It reminded him of the photos of people from the 50’s, a pseudo-happiness that was easily marketable that everyone could enjoy. Will’s lips twitched into a smile, copying them.

           “Too many friends sounds awful, doesn’t it?” Abigail said sarcastically. “What would you do if too many people liked you?”

           “I’d probably never leave my house,” Will said truthfully.

           “The horrors of being sociable –Will Graham’s biggest fear.”

           “Will?” Will turned at the sound of his name, but it wasn’t Hannibal that stood to the side, smiling. Alana Bloom hitched her backpack up higher on her shoulder, and she walked over once he met her eyes. “What a surprise!”

           “What a surprise,” he agreed uncomfortably. He stood up and looked between Abigail and Alana, and he gestured lamely. “This is Abigail Hobbs. Abigail, this is Alana bloom.”

           “A friend?” Abigail asked, not standing up. She smiled at Alana.

           “An acquaintance,” Alana corrected, not unkind. “We have a mutual friend that goes to school with me.”

           “The friend that referred you to this park?” Abigail looked around, munching on a french fry.

           “Did he tell you to come and see it, too? I love this place.” Alana looked around, eyes keen on everything. “It’s always so peaceful, and not as many students take this path to and from campus.”

           “You do,” Will pointed out.

           “I guess it’s because of that that I do,” Alana said with a laugh.

           “Do you want to join us?” Will asked, gesturing to the bench. When Alana nodded, he sat down between her and Abigail, shifting awkwardly. If Hannibal had told Alana about him, what all had he said? With her studies in psychology, would she pry? Or would she respect his privacy? He scratched an imaginary itch and busied his hands with his food.

           “I hope you’re not skipping school to be here,” Alana said lightly. She rested her backpack at her feet and her purse in her lap, eyes on the distant line of old buildings.

           “We have off-campus study halls,” Will reassured her. He thought of Judy commenting on his appearance, and he looked down to his burger, picking at the bun.

           “What if we were?” Abigail asked. “Would you rat us out?”

           “I suppose not,” Alana said slowly. “Although I’d say that your education is incredibly important.”

           “We’re not skipping,” Will said, glancing at Abigail. She had a small, barely discernable smirk on her lips, a hint of antagonism in her tone that made him uncomfortable.

           “You just like to look at the scenery?” Alana asked.

           “I like parks…it gives a good vantage point to people watch,” Will said, although he instantly regretted it. He scuffed his shoe on the ground, the sole of it sinking into the wet earth slightly.

           “Is that your favorite past time?” Alana inquired curiously.

           “I…I’m not very good with people,” he revealed, surprised at his own honesty. “This helps me understand them.” Alana nodded, and he didn’t see any judgement in her eyes, although there was a burning curiosity at the edge of her gaze that he didn’t like.

           “You know, psychopaths study people so that they can best mimic their empathy,” Abigail said, taking a bite of her food. She chewed slowly and cast him a mischievous glance. “They have to watch people to learn how to pretend to care.”

           “I’m not a psychopath,” Will muttered.

           “If you were, I’d say your acting is superb,” Alana said with a smile. “I’ve been able to sit in on an interview with a known psychopath, and you hold none of his characteristics.”

           “Who did you get to interview?” Will asked.

           “His name is Abel Gideon, and he was once a very talented surgeon,” Alana said. “It’s believed that he’s a psychopath, but I am actually of the unpopular opinion that he has a very severe case of borderline personality disorder. That’s what one of my papers is on that Hannibal is helping me with, although we tend to agree to disagree on some psychological points.”

           “Never heard of him. I guess I must have missed him in the weekly ‘psychopaths anonymous’ meetings,” Will said, glancing to Abigail pointedly. She smiled serenely.

           “I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he that guy that butchered his family?” Abigail asked, grinning at Will.

           “Yes,” Alana said.

           “So you go around and interview psychopaths,” Abigail said, “and that helps you find them out in the wild?”

           “Sometimes it helps you to know the red flags to look out for, but it’s not always easy to see what’s behind the person’s words and behavior. Most people are very good actors when they want to be,” Alana said. She crossed her leg over her knee and adjusted her bag in her lap, brushing loose strands of hair away as the wind tousled it.

           “If you think he has borderline personality disorder though, wouldn’t that mean you’ve never actually interviewed a psychopath?” Will asked.

           “Touché,” Alana laughed. “I have done a few studies on them, though. Their acting varies on an extreme spectrum, from not very well to so phenomenal that you don’t see it in time.”

           “Even Will?” Abigail said, leaning over to look at Alana. “Do you think that he could be a good actor?”

           “As they say in Hollywood: what’s your motivation? What’s your angle?” Will laughed at that, and Alana nodded. “Everyone has the capacity to lie and to hide. It really depends on what’s driving them.”

           “Do you think you could psychoanalyze him?”

           Will opened his mouth to protest, but Alana beat him to it as she shook her head sharply.

           “Even if I thought that I could, I wouldn’t. He’s the friend of my friend, and I wouldn’t do him the discourtesy.” Will looked over at her, and she smiled at him.

           “I appreciate that,” Will said sincerely. The sunlight broke through the clouds, and a stray beam struck her face, everything in stark contrast with one another. Her blue eyes fought against her dark lashes, and her fair skin was all but caressed by her raven hair that tugged and danced in the breeze. Will took a sharp breath, surprised at the shift and change in her features, and he had the pointed sensation of his heart thumping into his ribs. The rest of the sun came into view, breaking the spell as the rest of the park was lit up, and Will looked over her shoulder instead. She reached up and grabbed her hair, twisting it expertly into some form of bun, and she smiled back.

           “When I become a doctor though, I can if you like,” she said.

           “I think I’ll pass,” Will said, looking away. Too late he realized that she was joking, and he rubbed his forehead awkwardly, refusing to look back at her. They sat in silence, an uneven sort with too much said on one side and not enough said on the other. Will watched the ladies on their picnic blanket pack up and leave, their hugs and loud calls of well-wishes so sanguine that it made his teeth ache from the sweetness.

           “I think we need to head back,” Abigail said, glancing at her watch. Will nodded and stood up, grabbing their trash as Alana gathered her things. She caught his eye and smiled again, holding her hand out to him.

           “It was nice to see you again, Will,” she said. “I’ll have to let Hannibal know that I ran into you.” Will shook her hand and nodded, hoping that she didn’t.

           “Good luck with your paper,” he said.

           “And it was nice to meet you, Abigail,” Alana added. Abigail smiled and shook her hand, although her eyes cut away at the last moment. In contrast to women that’d just left with their laughter, their photos, and their cheer, there was a feeling of discontent, of discord.

           “Good luck with your psychos,” she said. When Alana walked away, Will tossed the bag of trash into the bin, and they headed back to the truck quietly. It was the kind of quiet that held thorns that poked and prodded when left alone too long. Abigail didn’t fiddle with the radio, and she sat slumped into her seat.

           “Are you okay?” Will asked. He didn’t truly need to ask; it was obvious in the way that she sat and the expression in her eyes that she wasn’t. People sometimes needed the question as an opening though, he’d noticed. Much like his own experience, he didn’t normally speak unless spoken to.

           “Do you like that girl?” she asked rather than answer. Will shrugged, the question as off-putting to him as an ill-fitting sweater.

           “I barely know her,” he said.

           “You don’t have to know everything about her to like her,” Abigail pointed out.

           “That’s true,” Will agreed, “but she’s a college student, and I’m in high school. Whether I like her or not is irrelevant.”

           “So you do like her?” Abigail pressed.

           “I think she’s pretty. I think she also sees too much,” he said, and that was the end of it. Abigail said nothing, and he was forced to endure the sound of her silence until they got back to school. It chafed against his skin, unwelcome with its oppressive nature, but he wasn’t quite sure how to mend something he hadn’t realized was broken.

           When they reached the parking lot, Will spied her father waiting, and he pulled up beside the vehicle, turning the truck off. He avoided her father’s pointed stare and looked at Abigail instead, at a loss.

           “Did I get you into trouble?” he asked, referring to her dad.

           “No,” Abigail said, but it was the sort of lie that burned on the way out. Her eyes cut from him to her father, and she let out a quiet sigh, one of defeat. “I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

           “I guess since I’m a psychopath, I have a hard time understanding emotions,” Will said dryly. Abigail ducked her head sheepishly.

           “I just think that you and I have a connection,” she said, and her stark honesty took him aback. “Something that I don’t have to say, but something that you completely understand. I don’t know how you see it, but you do.”

           Her eyes met his, and Will’s breath caught. Sometimes eyes showed too little, but there were many times that they showed too much. Fear danced at the corners, unmasked and with such clarity that he had the sensation of wanting to run and run far. Shame, then disgust, as though he’d dipped his hands into blood and pressed the imprints to his skin. Underneath it all, an echoing sadness, a despair that clawed and scratched his throat raw, the tears long since overdue. He blinked and looked quickly away, studying the gear shift instead. There were red, raw blood vessels in her eyes, and he knew she’d been crying the night before.

           “I may understand the nature of it, Abigail, but I don’t know the details,” Will said slowly, keenly aware of her father waiting impatiently outside. “You should tell me so that I can help.”

           “I can’t,” she said, and the tremor in her voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He watched her slowly climb out of the truck, slamming it shut with finality, and he turned to watch her embrace her father before she climbed into the passenger seat of the Subaru. Her father turned, and his steel-cut eyes locked Will in place, holding him prisoner. Very slowly, deliberately, he smiled and waved, and as he drove away, Will had the distinct impression of being marked.

           There were many things a person could know, but there were many things a person could have no way of knowing without being told. That was a fact of life. Sometimes though, there were the things that your instincts from a time before civilization ingrained into you, something you could see and understand without having to question it. That was survival. That was animal instinct. Although there was no way that he could truly know, Will knew exactly where Abigail’s father’s sights had landed.

           It was just one of those things.

-

           Work on Saturday was easy. He was given coveralls, a nametag, and a spot to work. Although he was the youngest, it was apparent that none of the other guys seemed to care, let alone notice. It was busy, the music on the stereo blared, and he set to work with tools from the back of the shop. The repetition and ease of oil changes and tire pressure checks carried over to Sunday where the sun finally broke through the clouds, and the day was bright, cheery, and busy. His dad was gone by the time he got home at five o’clock, and he busied himself with his homework, struggling through history notes and unnecessary essays about checks and balances to distract himself from the fact that he maybe saw his father once a day for an hour at best.

           There was still no sign of him by nine, and Will went to lay down, distinctly aware of being alone. Most times, it was nice to have the quiet hold nothing more than a lack of sound. This time though, there was a sour sort of taste in his mouth, something he couldn’t wash out. Every time he blinked, he saw Abigail’s eyes, a plea in them that she couldn’t give voice to.

           When he’d mentioned his concerns to Hannibal on Friday about Abigail and her father, Hannibal assured him that it was normal for fathers to be protective of their daughters where boys were concerned. At the innuendo of sex, Will had adamantly assured Hannibal that no such thing had happened, and Hannibal’s amusement at his discomfort wasn’t lost on Will. If Alana told him of running into Will, he didn’t mention it.

           Sooner or later, sleep claimed him. He wasn’t sure how long he dozed in and out; time was relative, a space between existence. At one point of existence, though, something woke him. He lay in bed, breathing shifting from unconscious, deep breaths to short, confused ones. His bones still felt lazy, his muscles tired. As he started to drift off again, he heard the faint sound of something at his window, a creaking noise that jarred him. His eyes opened wide; a faint zing slithered along his veins, beckoning him to sit up in the dark. His clock read 2:13 A.M., the glow of the numbers the only light in the room. He blinked the spots of sleep from his eyes and turned, climbing out of the creaky bed to cross to the window, the hairs on his arms standing up. The window was cool to the touch, and he pressed his fingers to it, peering out cautiously.

           Underneath the full moon stood Abigail, her muted clothing thick and warm for the chilly night air. The light above caressed her face, and she stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, an angel of deliverance. Without thinking, Will opened his window and leaned out, concern making his heart jerk about unsteadily.

           “Abigail, what’s wrong?” he asked, beckoning her closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that while his father’s truck still wasn’t in the driveway, her Subaru was. That small detail told him that he wasn’t dreaming, grounded in reality.

           “I’m sorry,” she said, and her trembling voice betrayed the truth of the situation. Will leaned back to slam his window shut, but it was too late; from behind him, hands grasped and reached, hauling him towards the ground with the brute strength of practice. He flailed, kicking and clawing, but there was nothing for him to gain purchase on, nothing for him to use as a weapon. In the darkness of his room, he could barely make out the visage of a man cloaked in shadows, that reality causing him to bite at the arm by his mouth, desperation an acid that devoured everything inside of him.

           He blinked, and Jared Freeman loomed over him, grinning a terrible, awful smile. He pressed a gun to Will’s throat, and Will had the sensation of dying, of death that choked and bound and destroyed. This wasn’t Miss Avery, a relationship that transcended time and space. This wasn’t release. This wasn’t freedom. He blinked again, and the shadowed man held hands of steel around his neck, squeezing, stealing. He kicked and jerked about, but as darkness chewed away at the corners of his vision, he realized that it was utterly too late.

[chaosunmasked-blog]

Here Come the Elephants

Annnnd I'm back. I am currently in the middle somewheresville at the Super Amazing Specialists Hospital. My trip has just started with a series of tests, which left me feeling conflicted. I have not seen any doctors yet, but my dip into the world where real people live has left me feeling angry and impatient.  

Yes, I will admit I have been mostly secluded since my last post. I have not talked to anyone besides my mom, the therapists and the imaginary people in my head. The sitting around unable to do anything remotely constructive or fun really wore down on me so much that I bought the SIMS 4 game and all the expansion packs. Yes, I did. Annnnd I also started reading some books that I bought. I started to fill fulfilled. I guess mostly because I felt like a real person again achieving my dreams via a simulation game. I lived like a normal person with normal personnish problems that was in control of my destiny. (SIMS can get a little weird.) But, it felt good. So, good I spent sleepless nights playing my game. The waiting game for a manageable solution to my chronic illness was no longer a problem.  

Now, it's a problem. I left the game behind, and now I'm slapped in the face with reality. In my first outing with my mom to a place where people actually lived on the beach, it was sobering. I realized that at this point, I should be out there living amongst these people. I should be ogling over my friends' children. I should be shopping for dream homes. I should be traveling, and I should be working. I should not become the next gen grown adult who still lives with their mother until she dies trope. But, I am. I truly am.  

Honestly, where do I stand in my medical care? Where do I stand in my progress towards a normal, independent adult life? The reality hit me like a brick. It was like a cold-back hand of a nor'easter after experiencing dreamlike 70 degree weather. I'm not even close. Like not even a year or so close. Some things are getting better such as my respiratory issues and joint pain. However, to maintain my respiratory gains, a large amount of time and energy is spent on respiratory therapy which makes it impossible to go back to school or hold a job. My muscles are becoming increasingly non-compliant. I can barely walk because my muscles hve gotten weaker and apparently less responsive. I also am developing some sort of peripheral vision loss on my left side (unofficially). Maybe, I might bring this up with my doctor? I don’t know.  

The truth is that in my younger days, it took me 1 ½ years to get back to somewhat normal. (After seeing a sneaky vid by my bro, my running needed some serious work.) But, I made it to the point where no one suspected I had any medical issues. However, I was in recovery mode at that point. Now, I feel like an old jalopy. You fix one part, but another part breaks apart. The lights are working but the transmission is still a mess. It sucks.  

This is not how I imagined my life. I thought I would be working, going out with my boyfriend, travelling the world, living on my own, reconnecting with old friends. But no, I'm the recluse with an addiction to playing SIMS because that is the only way I can truly live. Now, I finally get why paralyzed football players play MADDEN all day. It's because that is the closest thing to living that they will get. SIMS is like that for me, but I'm hoping I can still make progress.  

Another setback is due to how in the dark I am about my medical care. I don't know who's doing what, what my treatment plan looks like, what my trajectory in life would be like, how to become functional. I mean, I don't even have a disability parking pass. What the fuck to do now, is the question that has remained unanswered. I ask and ask, and all I get is, well don't worry about it. Just try to breathe. It'll work out. But the problem is that I have been breathing for five years not trying to worry about it. So, do I keep breathing or do I wake up from a yogi induced slumber and do something with what I've got?  

It's like. Life is passing me by. Unfortunately, I cannot get a do-over. (Even if I did, it probably wouldn't help due to the possibly genetic origins of my illness.) It's not like SIMS. I can't choose a new life, a new body on a whim and try something else. Why do people talk like that? I mean, shit. No matter who you are, you won't be 21 forever. The bills will come due, you age out of your parent's healthcare plan and the US completes its transformation into a dictatorial democracy. In time I'll be screwed, but no one is waking up yet. It's like the ridiculous solution to my dyspnea given to me by a doctor. Here's the exchange:

Doc: So, I've gone over the results, and it appears you have restrictive lung disease.

Me: What's causing it?

Doc: I don't know.

Me: Okay, so what do I do about it.  

Doc: Breathe deeper.

Me: I can't breathe deeper.  

Doc: Well, you've got to just breathe deeper. Let me know when you come up with something else that can help.

Me: *Staring dumbfounded as doctor walks out the door.* To myself: So am I going to die?

This is essentially the interaction I get, or it's essentially silence. Like when I asked one of the doctors at this Super Amazing Specialist Hospital, so what’s next? What can I do to improve? Still nothing much has come back. But, I am getting more tests done and more referrals from this doctor, so I guess it's something, but it is going too slow for me. By the time this doctor finishes the evaluation, I hope that I won't be stuck with a 6mths left to live death sentence.  

The question I would like to know is, will I die in the next year, or can I count on living for several decades. I need to know. Yes, nothing is certain, I could even die in the next second. But I need to know my odds to plan for the future. I want to go back to school, but should I go to the uber-expensive but totally worth it school, rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that could be paid off over decades or pay off my remaining debt and try again in a couple of years for a school that I could pay off immediately. These are serious questions with serious consequences. The difference between leaving my parents destitute or leaving them with fuller wallets.  

Anyways, at least I don’t hear what I brave soul I am. I have to live at this point. Death is not an option because I don't want to leave debts that my parents or family have to pay for on my behalf. Co-signed loans can be a bitch when one party dies. I don't want that. I don’t want my parents last memory of me is being the one who forced them to sell all their belongings to pay for my debts. I am no warrior. I am but a cynical soul who no longer believes in the platitudes. They are useless in the face of bone-crushing, life-ending reality.  

Anyways, let us hope that tomorrow will lift my spirits. I have to remember to ask the tough questions like what is my prognosis like? What do you think this is? Should I even go to the doctors anymore since all they seem to do lately is fuck me up or collectively agree I am going to die and offer useless solutions like breathe deeper? What the fuck do I even have? Do I have other problems I should be aware of? (Seriously, according to my abnormal lab results it looks like kidney and liver failure are in my future. But, no one has discussed them with me, so I'm just making assumptions.)  What the hell do my local doctors do? What do I do?  

Likely will be met with pseudo-intellectual silence full of intense thought that will go on for centuries or most likely dissipate in a few hours. Or, possible given the useless label medically unexplained symptoms(MUS). Congrats! You have a diagnosis which will not get you any services that you need or guarantee appropriate treatment. It’s as good as nothing. Nothing. Nothing will be done unless you find the one human out of 1000 soulless doctors to take you on and try to figure out something. Otherwise, you're fucked.  

P.S. To all the future doctors out there labeling someone with MUS and sending them back to their clueless local doctors does not work. Give them a referral to someone else who might know an ounce more than their existing doctor. I did get sent back with MUS, but also treatment suggestions which were made to me privately, which undermined every relationship I had with my doctors in the middle of bumfuck somewhere. The only doctors who gave me a sympathetic ear so far. It's been great almost dying and not getting my medications filled on time. Just what you guys ordered!  

Anyways, here's to a better tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be able to relay better news. Yeah, right. I know better. Peace.