speechless

I'm having trouble with words lately, among other things. I walk out of buildings and I don't know which way to turn, where I came from. I stand outside and stare, hoping that a directional sense will return to me.

But it's the words are what bother me the most. Words are my life, my livelihood, my . . . here I am, looking for a triad of words, and I can't find the third. Source of pleasure? I can't find words anymore. I end up saying the wrong words. Not just wrong, completely opposite of what I intended. If I disagree I accidentally laud my opponent's arguments. When I agree I insult them. It is really quite distressing.

I wish I could blame something. Insomnia, drugs, alcohol, women, anything. But I've been clean. I've been working out. I've been eating healthy, sleeping well, and generally just keeping myself in shape, for what good it's done me. And what's worse, I can't express what's wrong with me when I need to.

i've been here before

The radio was playing this very song yesterday morning when my alarm went off. My morning routine felt somehow more familiar than usual, as though it were not merely a set of actions that I repeat but as if I were performing the very actions I performed yesterday. I got on the bus and noticed that the faces were all familiar. The driver said the same thing, in the same tones. I think I gave him the same dollar bill as before. The woman across from me smiled the same smile at me, and returned to giving the scenery the same wistful gaze as she did yesterday. The cars were the same, the traffic lights the same, everything, today, was the same.

I said "I've been here before" as soon as I walked in the door to my office. The receptionist gave me a look and said, "No shit, idiot, you work here."

I don't think she gets it.

dreaming of heaven

As soon as I died, I was quickly escorted to heaven. I've had the opportunity to meet all of the important residents, talk with them, discuss philosophy over coffee. The people here are all very friendly and all of them have the exact same beliefs when it comes to philosophy. Some of them emphasize different aspects, but nobody disagrees with anyone. There's no conflict.

I was invited to a wonderful dinner. The food was divine (ha ha), but the entertainment, I found, was lacking. Not a single song the band sang had any trace of darkness. It was pure, unadulterated happiness. The speaker was not so much encouraging as he was simply flattering the audience, telling everyone how great they are, and especially how great the host was. His jokes were flat and lacking in variety or edge.

After the dinner I accompanied some of the greatest minds of heaven to a small lounge where we continued our philosophical discussions from earlier over drinks. They had nothing new or interesting to say. Eventually I spoke up, and they were, of course, polite enough to listen.

"Why is it that in heaven, all the interesting people are missing?"

Thanks, Nietzsche.

of restful sleep

It must be ages since I've last slept. And for what? My waking hours I've been slaving over it, and when I try to sleep my mind is restless, thinking of it. And why? For art's sake? This isn't even my best painting.

Alcohol doesn't help, and sleeping pills only make the insomnia less bearable. At least the alcohol lets me enjoy myself for a time. But I still can't sleep. It won't leave me alone. Even when I'm so drunk I can't form a coherent sentence, I can still see it: the Painting. I've started calling it with a capital letter now. It doesn't have a title. It's not even untitled. It's just the Painting.

It's big. Bigger than anything I've ever done. I rented a studio just to paint this one. I don't even go to my old apartment anymore. They might have evicted me. The Painting is taking all of my money, all of my resources, all of my life.

I've stopped trying to sleep. I used to think maybe tonight would be the night, but it never will be. Not until I've finished the Painting. I only pause to eat, and then only every couple of days. I look like shit. I probably smell. But the Painting needs to be finished. I don't know why, I'm not sure I even understand what it is, but I can't do anything until I've finished the Painting. My mind won't let me.

If nothing else, I need to finish it just so I can get some sleep. I will rest eventually. Soon. But not yet. Not until I'm done with the Painting . . .

unheimlich

I fell asleep on the bus today. When I awoke, I found myself in a neighborhood where nothing looked familiar. The driver was not the same man, and even the bus seemed to have changed. I thanked him and got off as quickly as I could, and began to walk the streets.

It was nothing like home. The buildings were tall, dark, and ominous, blocking out the stars, their cold lights illuminating nothing. The people walked as though afraid that the world might close in on them or the buildings attack them--shoulders hunched, swift strides, heads down. As I wandered, I eventually noticed that the streets themselves were very similar in layout to the neighborhood in which I lived. I kept walking, down blind alleys and curved streets, and my suspicions were confirmed. Someone had built some twisted shadow of my neighborhood. I found that my steps were drawn to the place where my house should have been. It was there, dark, perverted, twisted. I knocked on the door.

A girl answered it--if she did not look so obviously evil she might have been beautiful. She leered at me and asked me what I was doing. I could take it no longer. I shrieked, drew the knife from my pocket, murdered her, and entered the darkness of my shadow home.

As I shut the door, I looked down at the body of the girl who had answered me and realised, to my horror, that this was not some evil woman, but the body of my love. I curled up in the corner and wept for a world that could make my home so unlike home.

lenore!

I had a dream tonight. I recall little of it, except for a feeling of intense nostalgia and a long corridor through which my voice echoed, as I called a name I've forgotten.

What I remember is the feeling when I awakened. It was not the typical feeling of awakening, as if suddenly the thing which once held my mind in thrall is now nothing more than a fleeting and fading image. I felt as if something was missing from the world--as if there were no more colour, or as if a white noise in the background shut off. I tried to form the name from my dream on my lips, but I could not form the words. If I heard the name I would know it, but I have forgotten it.

I feel that I have done more than merely forget something from a dream; I feel as if the person from my dream, for whom I am certain I was experiencing nostalgia, has ceased to exist, and indeed never began to exist. I have read through every journal entry I have. Some of them are nonsense. Some people that I know, I cannot recall how I met them, why I know them.

I am increasingly certain that if I could recall the name, everything would make sense, that perhaps this really is just a lapse in my memory, but it seems that when I ask about it, people just give me dull looks, as though they have no idea of what I am speaking. Worse, I fear the dream will escape me forever if I return to sleep.

So I am writing this down and committing it to memory, if I can. Nostaliga. A hallway. A name. An echo.

victim of circumstances

It's not my fault.

People think it's a bit suspect that I say that more often than other things. But it's true. I'm not the one who thrust me out on the street with nothing more than my shattered dreams and the clothes on my back. Yes, it's very melodramatic. I don't care. People also think it's a bit suspect that I have a vocabulary. He's supposed to be stupid, isn't he? Not a brain in his head? Well, maybe I like to wax poetic sometimes. Maybe people ain't always what they seem.

So when I tell you it's not my fault, I want you to know I mean it. So when I lift someone's wallet, I want you to understand that even though I'm doing it, it's not my fault. I didn't choose a life of crime. I'd stop it if I could. I don't think it's right or anything--my parents raised me to hate crime, after all--I just have to. The choice to do otherwise has yet to present itself.

Sometimes they ask if I want revenge. If I'm trying to revenge myself on the society that did this to me, so that's why I steal and lie and cheat and otherwise 'make a nuisance of myself'. I tell them no, no I don't. Why should I? I love this place.

a startling discovery

Ever since my clock broke, I've been unable to keep track of time here in the lab. The sun never reaches my sanctum, my little shrine to science, and there's not even the constant sound of the clock keeping pace to give me the faintest sense of time. I don't know how long I've been here. Hours? Days? It must be days by now. I feel exhausted. But it eats at me. I'm so close to something important. I can feel it.

I must sound like a madman, but I swear by whatever is holy, the universe is actively changing, just to prevent my discovery. Any time my mind begins to wrap around something and it seems as if it must work perfectly, something goes wrong. Something changes. Some problem that never existed before arises, and I am forced to start anew. Progress is slow and tedious, if it even exists. Every time I find out about some new problem, I learn that it's been this way for all of history. There are scientific laws. Some of them bear the names of famous scientists.

I'm not an absent-minded man. I've studied these scientists, I've looked in the books that the laws are in before, and I swear they were not there before. I discover these laws as if for the first time, only to discover that someone else discovered them for years ago, that it is an elementary principle of science, that I somehow never learned in my studies. And before I have discovered these things I know that it was merely not the case.

Somehow, here in my lab, I alone am able to recall a time before such laws existed. I am not impervious to the ill will of the universe, but I am impervious to the wool it pulls over the eyes of the rest of the scientific community. I continue my study, knowing that perhaps it is all in vain, and suddenly I realise I have forgotten what it is I am looking for.

random and humourous asides!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled angsty microfiction pieces to bring you A LINK TO ANOTHER BLOG. Also you should read toothpastefordinner. It is good for you!

It is mostly images and random thoughts and generally speaking is probably the antithesis of this blog, which is mostly words and purposeful thoughts which may or may not have anything to do with anything that have ever happened. I am mysterious like that. (The Sprite thing I do not deny, but I cannot give sworn testimony to my sobriety at the time of the Spritewriting.)

the limits of a distant sky

They tell me the sky is open, limitless, free. I would be glad to agree with them, except I cannot find it. Ancient mariners navigated by the night's stars, but I cannot see them. No clouds, no rain, no wind, nothing. I have travelled in quest of the sky for months and still it eludes me. I cannot find it. Everywhere I go, no matter how far from civilisation or how exposed, I feel as though a cage is closing in on me. I can even see it at night, little pinpricks of light coming in through the bars. There is no time I feel more desperate for the sky than at night, as I wander aimlessly, staring up, feeling my breath come short. The more I pace the more restless I feel.

I can only sleep when I have finally and completely cut myself off from the light. Still I dream of the sky, and when I cannot see it, sometimes I can imagine that there is still a sky outside. The irony has not eluded me.

When I turn my back on the stars, I can finally see them.

In my dreams.

the wrong character

It was one of those nights that everything was cinematic and symbolic. It was raining. It was dark. Even the city lights blurred like they do in pictures, making it all look unreal and unclear and most of all uncertain, just like the cinematic effects do.

She was even dressed for pictures. She never dressed like that, but tonight she was dressed for a cinematic confrontation, beautiful but deadly. I found myself in a suit--and I never wore a suit--and I looked good in it--but none of my suits looked good on me. I had a fedora to keep off the rain, and an overcoat, and I'm not sure I'd ever seen an overcoat that wasn't a prop for a high school play. In my hand I was carrying a briefcase. I didn't know the significance, but I knew it was important.

"So, is this it?" I asked as I entered conversational distance. I knew she was waiting for me, though neither of us had arranged the meeting and I didn't know I'd find her here. We'd never talked here before, as far as I knew.

She blew out a stream of cigarette smoke--even though she'd quit smoking a few weeks after we met. "I guess it is," she said coolly, as though the steady beat of the rain falling were actually the constant tick-tick-ticking of film reels rolling away.

I stepped forward, my face grim--for some reason I was aware of the grimness of my fate. She was perfectly lit, and I sensed that I must have been as well. "I brought this for you." I held up the suitcase. She nodded. I approached and set it next to her. "That's everything. We're done."

"How about you hold me one last time? For memory's sake." Another stream of smoke.

I embraced her, glad for one last thing by which to treasure her memory, glad that the moment was so cinematic and otherwise perfect for memory. Then, with cinematic realisation, I felt the knife in my back.

"Sorry, Mason," she whispered in my ear, then released me and backed away. I watched her drop the knife on the sidewalk--it must have fallen in slow motion--and then watched her lean against the building and smoke her cigarette. She watched me slump to the ground next to the knife, watched as I struggled to stand up, struggled to say something. She watched as I wondered whether the police could make a chalk outline on the sidewalk. She watched as the light left my eyes, so I couldn't watch as she walked away.

under lock and key

I can't sleep at night anymore, ever since I stopped locking the door. The fear is overwhelming. Someone might walk in at any time, and I could do nothing about it. I lie awake staring at the door, waiting for it to fly open, though I am no more sure that it will happen than I am when it will happen, or even why.

I know, of course, that I could stand up and lock it. I'm not a fool. Sometimes at night I stand up and approach the door, vowing to myself that I'll lock the door, but I lose my nerve. My hand is trembling so violently by the time I reach the doorknob that I could scarcely operate the lock even if I still wanted to. I stand there, hand trembling, pulse rapid, gasping for breath, and black out. When my mind returns I find myself back in bed, the door still firmly unlocked, everything unchanged except for my growing fear.

But I can't lock it. The fear, the uncertainty, are nothing compared with the absolute terror that accompanies the certainty that if I lock it, no one will come.

caffeine free

As sleep eluded me once again, I found myself pacing an unfamiliar house, as though in search of something--though rather than searching I merely walked the same path many times, hoping something new would come along. I was seized by a fit of some morbid version of inspiration, seized a pen, and looked for the nearest scrap of paper on which I felt I could safely write.

The only thing available was a box of sprite. I ripped off a corner and began to scrawl my dark thoughts, pondering on death, on darkness, on shadow, on cold. My words twisted down labyrinthine passages, barely linked, making little sense unless perhaps viewed from above. As I ran out of space I wrote along a margin that my pen had formed: i wrote this on a scrap of a box of sprite. my despair is lemon-lime, carbonated, CAFFEINE FREE.

I hid the scrap in my pocket lest someone find it and read it. I was afraid of their reaction, but I wasn't sure if I was afraid they would think I was serious or joking.

morning music making me sick

I was awakened this morning; why I was awakened is irrelevant, merely the fact of awakening. I stalked out of my room, and sat down only to find, a few moments later, the sound of generic bad metal (complete with Cookie Monster vocals) coming from my roommate's room. I might have forgiven this, but some of the other people present decided to take up singing old theme songs badly out of tune.

I was awakened and immediately assaulted with bad music. I withdrew to my room and turned on my music collection, hoping the sound of melody and good vocals and happiness would somehow repel the bad music and unpleasant start to my day. When I left later, there was still bad music going on outside. They had clustered around it like some cluster of heathens worshipping their baby-eating god.

Like a good virtuous listener of music I informed them that their music was horrible and withdrew to my cavern of safety and virtue, and I wept for them. I wept that they did not understand what good music was. Perhaps they never would.

what the fuck am i doing?

Lately I have found myself increasingly lethargic. I lie in my bed, trying to find a comfortable position, baking in the heat, unable or unwilling to do anything about it. I go to sleep later and later each day, and wake up later still, unwilling to get up and start my day. When at last I do wake up, I barely actually start my day in any real sense, so much as I now have my eyes open and can sit and waste my hours.

It was early evening when I finally got around to taking a shower this Saturday. Before I did, I walked back into my bedroom in quest of something--but it had eluded my mind when I walked in the doorway. "What the fuck am I doing?" I asked myself aloud, and found that I was not asking what I was looking for in my room at all. I was asking something a lot more significant than that.

the little engine that was filled with existential angst

Once there existed for the purpose of analogy a steep hill up which a train track ran. It was very steep; observing it one might have questions whether the trains could reach the top.

The first train to attempt the ascent might have questioned whether it could reach the top, but it lacked the mental capacity to do anything other than what it was designed to do. There was no "I think I can" as it mounted the peak; it merely did, and did well, and that was all that was important to it. That was also all that was important to its masters.

The second train to attempt the ascent lacked a sense of duty; when it doubted whether it could drag its load to the top of the hill, it merely abandoned its load on the tracks and continued on its way. This saved it a lot of time and effort, and freed it from the heavy burden of doing someone else's labour.

The third train to attempt the ascent attempted to drag the abandoned cargo as well as its own to the peak. It failed in this attempt, and rolled back down the hill, applying its brakes the entire way so that when it reached the bottom it would not continue going anywhere. It stayed there, dejected at its inability to actually make a difference.

The fourth train did not even attempt the ascent. When it saw the abandoned cargo and the train that was unmoving, it despaired of any attempt and immediately gave up, heading the other direction to report its failure.

The last train to attempt the crossing, while disheartened by the evidence of failure, did not give up there; it instead attempted the crossing. "I think, therefore I am," it repeated to itself, uncertainly, as suddenly it began to experience dread. It knew that it could make the decision to climb or not to climb, to surrender or to be like the first train, and that its decision would shape the course of its future. It found itself wondering what the purpose was of the hill, of the cargo, even of the track, whether it was the pawn in some greater scheme or whether it was alone in a great dark expanse of universe--whether this hill was a trial made to test it or whether it was all without meaning and all full of despair and hopelessness. As it crossed over the hill, it learned an important lesson: it's always easiest to continue what you are doing, because that generally doesn't involve making a choice.

a happy ending after all

One might have thought that with such an ending ("Everything's going to be all right now") the story had a happy conclusion. The irony, of course, is that nothing could be further from the truth. The real story ended in decline, the heartbreak much more poignant than the most beautiful and touching scenes from the text.

For a week or two everything seemed all right. But he was full of his own private doubts and fears, plagued as he often was by doubt when things were going well; she was waiting for it to hurt again and for things to go wrong. None of it felt right. And eventually when she gave voice to these confusing feelings, all of his private doubts and fears were realised. Thus they signed the death warrant for their happy ending.

All of his fleeting happiness escaped when she eventually left him. He took to alcohol, the age-old panacaea for the freshly broken heart; she returned to the world that she knew of abuse and pain, feeling alone and unloved, but at least she was familiar with that.

He pursued several fleeting relationships, each of them short-lived and miserable, serving only as reminders of what he was certain was his one true shot at happiness. Eventually he died alone of alcohol poisoning; his then-girlfriend discovered his body a few days later, called the police, and went home and committed suicide by mixing vodka and prescription sleeping pills, sure that she was responsible for his death.

After a string of abusive boyfriends, she finally found one that she was utterly terrified to leave. They married after a few short months of dating, and she has developed a talent for lying about the bruises. She has little joy to her existence, but is convinced that she ought to be happy, because she believes that most people are entirely unhappy, and at least, she reasons, she has something to be happy about. She is not sure what she has to be happy about, except perhaps that on the surface, if one ignores all of the facts, she is married and on the right track to raise a family, and she always dreamed of getting married and raising a family when she was young. She just didn't want it to happen in hell.

new heights of absurdity

If you have not seen one of those trendy patriotic 'support our troops' ribbons, or their derivatives, you are a blessed soul. Allow me to explain. There was a time when people would wear ribbons on their lapels to indicate their support for a specific cause. They were colour-coded, and most important, they were not terribly gawdy. They did not have text on them. Someone might ask 'what's that ribbon for?' and you could converse about the cause of your choice. This was the extent of it.

Following the terrorist attacks of 11/9/2001, plastic patriotism became trendy. By plastic patriotism, I mean the kind that is entirely insincere. At the time, the popular sticker was 'we will never forget' or something like that, and various incarnations of the red, white, and blue. (As an aside, I must note that the French flag is also red, white, and blue. Irrelevant to my point, but worth remembering as you celebrate America Day.) They were everywhere. In a town such as my own, predominantly Republican and predominantly uneducated (the two tend to go together, but we will pretend that these numbers are separate), there was nary a soul that did not demonstrate their patriotism with the purchase of such lovely stickers.

Fast forward a few years. George Bush II, some time after the terrorist attacks, invaded Iraq, war was declared, etc. As is always the case with wars, the nation was divided into those who opposed the war, and those who believed that to do anything but support the war was to hate America and everything that it stood for. (One might notice how this sort of thinking reeks of groupthink and propaganda. I leave you to consider this on your own.) The popular bumper sticker quickly became a little yellow 'support our troops' ribbon.

At this point, ribbons took off. There were red, white, blue, and yellow (an ugly combination) ribbons, camouflage ribbons, and even some ribbons for other causes (POW-MIA, breast cancer, etc.) Some of them said 'god bless America' and some remained 'support our troops'. I cannot speculate as to how it went from the point of lapel ribbons to quietly show your support of something, and gawdy yellow magnets to slap on the back of your SUV. The shape is the same. The meaning is not. One of them says you support something; one of them says either that you are caught up in some form of patriotic hysteria that can only exist if you purchase goods which say that you are patriotic, or that you were feeling generous when a fundraiser, hoping to exploit this consumerist patriotic hysteria, passed by.

I am telling you this not because you do not already know, however, but because I recently saw something which puts this absurdity to shame. It was a yellow support-our-troops ribbon, on the end of an antenna. A ribbon antenna ball. Truly, some people know no shame.

If you would please join me in a moment of silence for human dignity. . .

a confrontation of fates

Dramatis Personae:
Combatant #1.
Combatant #2.

Act I, Scene I. A crossroads.
[Enter COMBATANT #1.]
COMBATANT #1: I hope that I do not meet my sworn nemesis here, at the crossroads.
[Enter COMBATANT #2.]
COMBATANT #2: It is you, my sworn nemesis!
[They fight.]
COMBATANT #1: You have gotten the best of me. [Dies.]
[Exit COMBATANT #2.]

talk to me

I handed her a scrap of paper with a line from Shakespeare on it written in script. The letters said, It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I asked her, "What does that say?"

She read it to me. I shook my head and took it back. "It doesn't say anything," I said. "It's just lines on paper. I'm not saying anything. Just making shapes with my tongue. It's just words."

"You are saying something. You're talking to me."

"When I was a kid, I remember seeing cursive writing and thinking that it was just a lot of curvy lines strung together. They were shapeless to me. Just lumps. Somehow those lumps spelled out words and sentences and phrases. Then I learned to write it and it all made sense. I don't see it like that anymore." I crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it aside, then stared at the ground in front of me. "But that's all it is, isn't it?"

She nodded. "I get it. It's just curvy lines strung together. But when you learn to read you learn to give it meaning. Now we can talk, and share all that. It's all contrived and artificial. Without us, that's no more than curvy lines."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Not really." A dreamy look entered her eye. "That's humanity, isn't it? Making things up, giving them meaning. I like it more that way. It's like writing you a letter, or talking to you, or whatever, is the most human thing I can do. I think it's words that make us human."

"But they don't mean anything."

"That's right. Until you learn how to make them mean something."

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing--except to the storyteller and his audience. To them it signifies everything.