not quite impossible

There was a girl who mostly seemed impossible. Stories of friends on the lam, of jumping trains, of a life so full of adventure that it seemed unreal. And she was so nonchalant about it. These were merely things that happened to her. She wasn't fazed at all by it.

I can remember her inflection more than the stories themselves (though that's a lie): the way she sounded almost irritated. I remember it because of how beautiful that storyteller's trick is, adopting that tone that seems to say, "these are the things I put up with." "I found out today my best friend had jumped on a train and was now somewhere in Vermont. Such is life." And she had such perfect cadence, such beautiful words. I think I only believed her because someone with that flair for telling a story is wasted telling something exciting. She could make a trip to the grocery store compelling, and she's using material like this with a dismissive shrug and a coy, "But you're not interested in all that." She has the scars to prove it, but that hardly matters. Scars are just there. It's the stories you can believe in.

She's gone now. Vanished just like every one of those stories screamed she would. I never wonder about her stories, but I often wonder if she really happened at all. Life's like that, sometimes. These strange things happen and later on the only thing you can do with it is question it.

insensate

At some point after my accident (don't say accident; that implies no one's at fault) I realized that I don't feel pain the way I'm meant to. By all rights, the doctors told me, the pain should have been excruciating. I felt it, of course, but not enough--I kept going. And it all came back to me, a whole life never understanding how people needed painkillers.

Now all I can notice is how muted, how dull, my reactions are, emotionally, physically (you've always been strong). I remember vividly every time in my life that I've really, truly felt something, but they're brief flashes--a few seconds of anguish, if that, and then it's back to something I can just tune out. And it's always been like this.

I often wonder if I feel or if I merely know what I'm supposed to feel--how much of me is just learned behavior and practiced patterns? Which is to say, if I'm not real (I can't stand fake people) what am I? What's the point of me? And maybe more importantly, is anyone actually a real person or is everyone like me, trudging along trying to figure out what a person is supposed to be like?

solvent

I purchased a solvent at the market this weekend, and noticed, when I was soaking some old coins in it, that it did not work as I had intended--though in fairness, it may well have worked as advertised. I have always been hasty in my purchases. I'd expected it to clean off some of the old residue, leaving them shiny and new. Instead it gradually sent them back in time.

I don't fully understand the specifics of it, but I have blank metal discs from just before they were stamped now, as well as coins through their lives. At some point the coin, such as it is, ceases to exist--or gets to the point where it hasn't yet been made--and simply vanishes, leaving no trace that it had ever existed.

Further experimentation confirms that this works on things besides coins, as well, though I don't know the extent to which it will. I've only erased little things, things that won't make a noticeable difference. But supposing I buy enough to erase the car that killed my brother?

The merchant must have known what he was selling, because he gave me his card--"in case you need to buy any more." I've tapped into my savings to buy as much as I can. There's things about this world that need to change.

creation

I wish I could say it was startling to learn that the idea of object permanence was entirely false, but it really wasn't. The world beyond what I can immediately perceive simply doesn't exist in any real and proper sense--and it hasn't for a while.

It's hard to unsee a world that makes sense. I still see things and think that must have been there before, that's always been the same way, that, in some way, the room that I slept in last night is the same room I've always slept in--that it will be there when I go there tonight, or that it even exists right now. Or that I've ever slept in a room at all--these memories may as well create themselves. They certainly don't correspond to anything resembling an objective reality.

I can't even say things make more sense this way, but it seems my mind is only desperately scrabbling to find some pattern or sense to things. Instead of letting life happen it's trying to find something to hold on to, try as I might to let go.

dying

And we surrender the stage to those pale horse riders.

It is in the nature of the power I have been given over the earth to be personal. Every life that ends on my watch is a life I come to know intimately. There are individual voices in the anguished cries that fill the world these days, dying of sword, famine, and plague. I can hear all of them.

Perhaps there was a time when I could have been described as compassionate, but I don't remember it now. How could I grant someone mercy when I've seen all the little murders they commit day by day? How can I do anything but what I am meant to do--bring their lives to an end.

I've read once that justice is everyone being treated the same in the end. I suppose there is justice in that way--in the end nobody gets away with it. In the end even the worst things people can do are lost forever, until there's not even a memory left, and they are well and truly dead. That's the justice I bring.

plague ships

There is no panic greater than a public health scare. And it was given to me, in the form of a crown, to spread plague through the world--a flu outbreak here, cholera there. Little things.

It would be easy for someone to profit from these little ventures. I could have made them all fairly easily controlled, sent in the drug companies and the health care industry to make a tidy little profit, to exert control, but what fun is that? I want to see the world stricken with plague, with no recourse--the sprawling glory of the diseased masses as they beg for a release that won't come. The chaos of it all.

And the poor will be packed away into plague ships, while the rich hide in their mansions, laughing, unaware that I walk among them even there. In the end it won't matter that they have their expensive doctors. In comfort or in distress, all will succumb in the end. What does a plague care of social status, of morality, of anything?

As for the why--should there be a reason? Should there be justice in this world, or vengeance? What is the point of a world without something senseless and terrifying at its heart, eating away at every inhabitant? Would you want to live there?

starving

I don't mind telling you I didn't come to my fortune honestly. I don't mind telling you, because it doesn't matter now--I control the world's food supply. None of it goes anywhere without the approval of myself or my corporation. I came this way partly through good fortune--in a time of crisis, in a time of famine, someone needed to take charge--and partly through honest treachery. It hardly matters now. I see that things run smoothly, and I see that I and my associates wax affluent.

By the time the crisis should have been over, I had seen to it that it would last forever. There would never be a time when I was not needed. The world was mine--and they would thank me for it. They would praise me for my insight, for my generosity, even as they starved in the streets, starved in lines outside the distribution centers. Sometimes I would toss someone a heel of bread and they would call me a saint.

I did not hesitate. I was given this gift, these scales, and I knew that I could be happy, that I would never hunger again, if only I reached out my arm.

the warpath

I have been given the power to lay this world to ruin. A sword was given to me, that I could take peace from men and turn them on one another. I need only say the word--and not even that much. A gesture, a glance, a thought, and the world crumbles. The simplest thing--and so satisfying.

I've spent the last day not doing anything at all. I could start with the people responsible for this mess were in. I could bring--not justice, never justice, but perhaps vengeance. And if the rest of the world were dragged into chaos along with it, it would be worth it. And it could never happen again.

I've wanted this for as long as I can remember. Maybe not forever, but long enough. Riots and wars and disasters excite me in ways I can't talk about in polite company--but every time I hope this one will explode. And now I can make that happen.

So why can't I pull the trigger? What am I waiting for? I'm ready to bring wrath and ruin to the earth, but I can't make that trivial effort to bring it about.

burglarized

My house got broken into a few weeks ago. Since then I've lost the little grasp on reality I still had.

Well, that's not quite right. I still understand the external world as much as I ever have. It's something inside me that's broken. My ability to relate to it, to process it, has gone. They didn't just steal a stereo I never used. They stole something else, something I don't quite understand.

Not that anyone else has noticed--except to comment that I seem happier, or at least more content. They say I seem calmer. They say things like "You're handling this well." And something that isn't me smiles and nods and says things like "It happens." But I'm not there for these conversations. These things happened to someone else.

The thing is, since the break-in I haven't had a moment where I was really there--or if I have, I've missed it. I've made a few spirited efforts at appearing like a person once or twice, and convinced everyone but myself: I am real, I am me.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what I should do, or, if I were here, what I would do.

mine

I'd been having panic attacks when I went out--which is fine, because I stopped going out. I had so many projects to work on, and finally I had the time to deal with them. But she'd been pestering me about it. Oh, she pretended she's concerned, that she wanted to help, but she clearly didn't understand. This was about her, and I was tired of it. After a few days of it seeing her would set me off, then hearing her voice. After that we communicated with emails--and even then I ignored most of hers. I had things to be doing and she was only distracting me.

It was perhaps a week since I'd had any contact with the outside world when she came over unexpectedly. I cowered in the corner, clutching at my work--the work she'd no doubt come to destroy. She touched my hand, and the nauseating scraping of skin on skin nearly made me vomit. Her voice rang like thunder in my ears. She burned like the sun, dazzling my eyes until I could see nothing else.

For what seemed like hours there was nothing but her presence. Then I found myself blinking in the daylight, throngs of people walking by as if it was no big deal. A park of some sort, then. No sign of her, no sign of my work, no idea where I was.

Someone caught my eye and smiled. My heart started to pound, sure the attacks would come back, but nothing came. I smiled back. The world kept spinning.

yours

You were always something unattainable, something perfect, but nevertheless you saw something you liked in me--was it my crooked smile, the way I can turn a phrase? You never said. But you must have known how I admired you, how you took the world around you and fashioned it into something beautiful. You must have, because otherwise why would you have offered to let me in?

And it was beautiful--more than I could have imagined. But it was there, watching you work, that I realized that this was not for me. I could never be a part of it--and it wasn't just a thing you did, it was who you were. It hurt, watching you create something beautiful from someone like me, and I couldn't let that continue. It was wrong for me to become a part of the tapestry of your life.

There was a strange moment right before we parted ways, standing outside your apartment--a moment where I'd meant to kiss you farewell, to let you down gently, to part on good terms. Perhaps you'd remember me fondly, but more likely you wouldn't remember me at all. Not when there was so much else in this world, so much more interesting than me.

That moment was shattered when one of us noticed a man sitting there in his car, just watching us. We stood there awkwardly, waiting for a few words, then you stepped inside, leaving me standing on the street, not quite sure what to make of any of this. I shuffled home. We never spoke again. I didn't want to get in the way.

ours

When we first met, we would go exploring together, climbing rooftops and exploring lost places underground, together, scraping our hands and growing calluses, together. It was ours. We fell in love quickly, as far as these things go, and I started taking a camera on our expeditions, snapping pictures, taking notes, documenting our times together.

The project of documentation started taking up more and more of my time--I wanted this to be perfect for her, so I spent all of my available hours on it. Making sure the pictures are just so, that the words are perfect. I wanted the world to know that these explorations, this thing of ours, were beautiful. And my hands grew soft, the cuts and scrapes healing, as I worked. And she implored me to go out once more, to explore with her, but I said no. And at first she was patient, because this thing was ours, and she would not violate it.

But as the project grew in scope and the weeks wore on, I noticed that she had new scrapes on her hands, new calluses. She would come home covered in dirt from the lost places we once explored together. Eventually I grew angry and confronted her about it. How could she do this? How could she abandon me, abandon these sacred moments we once had?

And she smiled and touched my cheek with a callused hand and told me that it wasn't ours anymore. Then she was gone, exploring lost places without me, and me with nothing but pictures and broken words to remember it.

celebratory

As I walked home last night a stray firework went off inches from my face, dazzling me with its brilliance and leaving my ears ringing on the way home. The people who had lit it were trying to surround me, and I presume asking if I was all right, but I could hear nothing, and with the afterimage still dancing around on my retina, they looked somehow less than human.

The ringing hadn't stopped when I got home, nor had my eyes cleared. I took a shot of whiskey as a nightcap and slept. In the morning, I found myself in a world of overwhelming sound and color.

I tried to get through work, but it was impossible to focus, especially with people around. People--all these stupid, provincial people, so caught up in themselves they can't even see the world around them--were impossibly beautiful, each in their own way, even people I despised.

At lunch I told my boss I was feeling ill and I went home as quickly as I could, drawing the blinds and plugging my ears, though neither of these things helped. And I lay very still for a very long time, waiting for it to pass.

false vacuum

Various scientists have confirmed that it's entirely possible the world will just spontaneously end. One of the ways that might happen is the idea that, basically, we're wrong about the laws of the universe. All of existence might just stop being "existence." Or maybe it would just be destroyed. I'm not pretending to understand. The point is it doesn't take much to destroy the world. It only takes the easiest thing in the world: we have to be wrong. And if there's one thing I'll bet anything on, it's that.

I always used to find this terrifying. Everything could end in a moment of perfect agony, or maybe not even that. How can we deal with that?

But it's all hinged on the basic fact that everything we think we know is wrong. All our perceptions and our tiny human notions are wrong. That bothered me for a while, too, but I stepped outside this evening, and the wind was blowing and there wasn't a star in the sky, but the whole city seemed to have this shimmering beauty about it, all mutable and alive. Every thing we've gotten wrong about it is nothing but iridescent potential. Every time we break another law of physics we get closer to the chaotic things we were meant to be.

quiet places

Since I was very young I've been very sensitive to the timbre of a place. (Timbre? Is that even the right word?) My father's room--and it has always been my father's room--is a quiet place, a forbidden place. The disused rooms and corners always felt unsettling to be in. I always assumed it had something to do with the fact that I was not allowed there, or merely just knew they were unused.

But I sit in the same place whenever I can, and when I'm displaced from my usual spot I feel uneasy. And I only connected this to the forbidden places from my youth--forbidden places that I still find sometimes, walking into an obviously haunted building and feeling nothing more than the urge to run away, or entering the house of a guest and finding a room full of dark wood that I feel hasn't moved in lifetimes.

It's not that the places feel strange because they're unused. They're unused because they're forbidden. We aren't meant to be there.

a time and a place

She's dead. I can't get my head around that.

I met her the night before at a party. We drank enough that we decided the party was lame, since she had a flask anyway, and made our way through the streets, making out, making ourselves a nuisance to anyone still up and out themselves. It probably doesn't matter.

I wish I could tell you I knew what drew me to her, or probably more importantly, her to me. But once we'd talked for a while I sensed it. She was running, and running from something big. The sort of thing you can't run from. Maybe she thought I could protect her--"it's like you get me," she slurred in my ear, her lips so close I couldn't hear any words. And we certainly walked the streets feeling like we could take on the world. Bring on the monsters, I don't care!

But after we'd gotten thoroughly lost and slightly less drunk we talked. It was a conversation you can only have with someone you know you'll never see again. We didn't talk about running, or monsters, but the fear was back. Had I failed, or had I just not had a chance to succeed yet? Or maybe--but anyway, we got a cab and went back to my place, and then she was gone in the morning and then I heard through the grapevine that she was dead. Some freak accident, I guess.

And here's me wondering what really killed her. Did what she was running from finally catch her? Or maybe she stopped running. Did she say something about that? My memories of the evening all ran together and they didn't contain much in the way of words.

Of course they wouldn't show me where it happened. Of course I wouldn't want to anyway, and even if I did I wouldn't find anything. This was all just some weird nervous reaction to hearing some random one night stand just died the next day. Meanwhile I'm locking my doors.

storm chaser

You just laughed, and lightning struck.

She trails destruction behind her--everywhere she goes, a terrible storm. Fire and lightning and wind. I follow her on the news: hundreds missing, presumed dead. Millions in property damage. A way of life uprooted, or not even uprooted--ripped from the earth by impossible winds. Survivors give interviews. Octogenarians who've lived here their whole lives say they've never seen such destruction. Now everything's gone. What can they do? What can anyone do against something so senseless?

I used to know what that felt like, but I was thunderstruck, electrified, blown away. And then the storm was gone and I was left reeling under a clear sky, lightning flickering on the horizon. And what was there to do but follow? I didn't even pack.

She led me through storm-wracked lands, ancient trees torn down and strewn across the road, or split in two by terrible lightning, but I could only see the distant flickering light. But I was getting closer. I could hear the distant rumble of thunder, feel the howl of her gale. And the radio buzzes about the latest devastation, the forecaster saying where it will hit next, and then I realize it: tonight's the night.

I drive until she is all around me, and I can't hear for the blinding rain and the deafening thunder. And through the constant lightning I can see a massive funnel touching the ground, and even the rain is drowned out by that perfect roar. The sky turns green and she pelts me with hail, and I know it's headed right for me.

call the storm

I once wrote something where I expressed sadness at the state of the world--all the horsemen of the apocalypse lined up and waiting to charge. You can imagine the smug looks on their faces--"and see thou not hurt the oil and the wine" indeed--but they just waited. They're still waiting. At the time I must have felt that the impending doom of society was somehow lamentable.

But now every time I read of a disaster I'm on the edge of my seat. Maybe this will be the one. Maybe this time the world will finally end. It's been so close for so long. And yet the horsemen shuffle their feet and look at their watches like they're waiting for someone to show up.

And after the latest disaster turned out to be a no-show, I started wondering: maybe it's me they're waiting for? Or not me specifically, but someone has to get this show on the road, right? So I started researching. I got old books of apocalyptic lore and read up on my demon-summoning. I learned the signs and seals. I knew what happened when the bowls were poured out and the trumpets were sounded. I was ready.

So tonight's the night. I'm drawing the signs, spilling the blood, saying the words--tonight I end the world. I'm tired of waiting.

some assembly required

This is the first day of my life.

I was slow to wake up this morning, and I became distinctly aware, each time I woke and decided to drift back to sleep, that I was becoming more real, more human, with each passing dream. By the time I was fully awake I was fully human, with all those memories and quirks like I'd been here this whole time.

But the process of waking was enough to convince me I hadn't. Today is the day I started existing. And I feel like I should be terrified--why today? Why me? Why these memories, when they could have been anything? For all I know I could be a weapon, something sent into the future to bring catastrophe to the world. I know I'm not me.

But here I am and I'm not frightened in the least. If I can discard my memories as a fiction, that means there's a whole world out there to discover for the first time. Maybe I'm not free, but until I'm given evidence to the contrary I'll make a spirited attempt at pretending I am.

revisited

I once dated a girl who said that goodness is its own reward, though not in so many words--she would never have used such an ugly turn of phrase. Every word she wrote was beautiful. I must have taken her at her word, because I never really thought about it again--or if I did I never questioned it. It's hard to question something beautiful.

Since I was a kid, most of my endeavors have failed, so I've set my goals low. While my friends were aspiring to become wealthy and influential, I simply tried to be good. And because failure follows in my footsteps I often fell short--aspiring too high, I fell to the same petty cruelties as other humans. I couldn't tell the difference between me and anyone else.

Until suddenly it hit me: where others would laugh it off, I spent my life worrying about it. I couldn't get over it. That was my reward: I cared. And I cared so strongly that even when I finally realized that this was no reward at all, I couldn't bring myself to stop. This was important. There was always that chance that one day the failures would stop.