Friday, December 7, 2012

Que Sera, Sera

When Sarah opens her eyes she knows immediately that something is not quite right. For a moment she lays motionless on her back, looking up at the roof from her marriage bed. It's a sight she's quite familiar with, having traced many times with her eyes its lines and squares and corners as her husband snores beside her. She feels tense, like wood, and her breathing is short and succinct. She is acutely aware she cannot raise her left arm. She continues to stare. It is just barely dawn, and sunlight yawns in through the window. Its shadows are light but long.

Sarah sits up. She is nervous, though her breathing remains calm and mechanical. When she pivots and puts her feet on the floor, it is completely automatic; she did not wish to do so, did not make a concious decision to do so. Sarah is trying to remain calm as she feels an animal fear seep into her-- she is straining to move her eyes, to cry out to her husband, to dig her nails into the mattress. She is screaming inside her own head but her body is not responding. After a tortured pause she stands up and begins to walk towards the door.

“...whasdat... where'reyougoin...?” her husband mumbles from the bed, still mostly asleep. Wordlessly she grips the door handle and twists-- it is cold, under her hand, she can feel it, its grainy texture, but she cannot control her motions. Sarah exits the room, and each step is a plodding horror.

Eyes staring straight ahead she walks as in a dream through her house, her home, the life she has built with her husband. Portraits of her family jeer at her from out the corner of her eye, drawings the kids have done pinned up on the wall. Sarah is scared, she does not know what is going on. The smell of the wood and dust is homely and normally comforting and she is afraid of where her body is taking her.

She reaches the top of the stairs. Her hand reaches out and places itself daintily on the railing, and Sarah thinks she hears her husband call out after her again. The kids are asleep. Her head looks down. The stairs stretch out before her, and start to melt into her as she descends. It's warm but goosebumps explode in rivets over her pale skin.

Sunlight ebbs through the red curtains in the living room, and a hundred thousand dust motes hang in air. It is a warm glow.

Finally Sarah reaches the front door, and calmly opens it. The morning breeze hits her, a southerly, as it smells sweet of the ocean. Her avatar hesitates, blinking, Sarah fights, she is fighting it so hard, with every inch of her being straining to remain inside her home, with her family. She feels like this is her last chance to put a stop to this, like the spell will only completely own her if she leaves the sanctity of her home. She knows as well as we do she never had any power to stop this, that the threshold of safety in her house is an illusion, with no protection from evil forces to be had. Sarah is already lost.

She steps outside. She begins to wonder what she did to deserve this, where she went wrong in life. The sad answers are that she doesn't, and nothing. She walks...

Her sleepy town.

The sun already burns bright edging over the horizon. Sarah walks with her back straight and her head up; it's an odd walk, though, one she's not used to. It isn't like her normal walk- her arms are stiff down her sides where she would normally be gesturing grandly, her hips seem to sway more than usual. Her long hair bounces against the small of her back and the breeze plucks at her nightgown. Inside of her mind Sarah screams, and screams, and screams, begging for this nightmare to stop, begging to wake up, to be forgiven. That is Sarah's nature, you see, for even though she is the sweetest wife and most caring mother and dependable friend, she carries on her psyche an immense guilt for her life. She feels so much responsibility and pressure to be good, in herself, in her life and community, that even though she is an upstanding citizen she still does not feel good enough, she still feels like she could do more, she could be more. She could fix the world, she could make it a better place, but hasn't quite yet. And so she assumes she has done something wrong, that she is being punished for some sin. Sarah doesn't quite believe in God but she sure believes in Hell now.

There is much to be heard at dawn. Birds drone repetitively the same snatches of melody, a car starts up in the distance before disappearing from audible range. Sarah is straining to hear something-- her husband calling for her, or a condemning voice from the Angel of Death, an explanation, but all she gets are the sounds of her cosy little village slowly waking up. Staring dead ahead she sees the houses of her friends and neighbours stand on either side of her, motionless, standing to attention like a parade of soldiers, watching her walks. She sees the white of the picket fences, the yellow sunlight, grass sticking through stone. She sees a possum running along a tree branch, she sees birds flit between clouds.

Though her avatar walks at a consistent brisk stroll each step is heavy. Sarah feels like her brain is a seaside cliff, each step is a tremendous wave crashing against her, wearing her down. Sarah's mind is racing, thinking about everything at once. She thinks about her childhood, running between her father's legs, she thinks about her husband, his cinnamon scent, his kind eyes-wrinkled smile. She thinks of her children repeating her phrases back at her. She thinks about escape. She thinks about waking up and discovering this possession as a horrible dream. She thinks about dying, and prays for an explanation in the afterlife, an explanation for this curse, an explanation for the death of her first child, for her school friend's abandonment. She thinks about how the hot pavement is scorching her feet, toughening them-- it is almost a gratifying pain, it is sharp but not overwhelming, an anchor of reality for her to focus on. For a moment her thoughts, as they usually do, distract her from her circumstances and she wonders of prehistoric humans, walking through the wilderness barefoot, stepping on sticks and jutting stones, their feet thick and calloused and dirty, broken toes splayed in strange directions. She imagines the heat and the pain of early life, but is somewhat attracted to it, like it is real life, genuine life, natural life, compared to the luxuries and softness of a modern world. She is still walking.

Through cobblestone back alleys and over white pavements and fields of grass she walks.

She has been walking for some time. She has left town, is walking through brush and hot sand and spikey undergrowth. Sarah is scared but somewhat resigned to her fate; she is waiting and seeing where this is all going to go, conserving her strength for some final battle. She racks her brains thinking of ways to escape, whom to apologise to, as her body continues to walk slowly on. To the right of her she thinks she sees a woman watching her, but she can't make it out clearly enough to be certain. She recognises this as a route to the ocean.

She trundles. She has been ascending for sometime, her avatar bending her knees at right angles, though her breathing remains shallow. Her lips are parted and her forehead is covered in a light film of sweat-- she looks beautiful, “Glowing,” as her husband would say. Sarah is tired, has been fighting for so long with no avail or explanation, her thoughts have become muted and sorrowful.

Finally, she reaches the peak. She walks through a mess of trees, and when she breaks free of them she finds herself on a long, flat grass plateau. She can hear the roar of the ocean and with a biting horror Sarah realises she is at the top of Gena's Face, a tall sheer cliff facing the sea. As her body walks Sarah recoils, so scared she feels sick. Everything in her head is fighting against this, as she takes step after step after step towards the edge, she gets that base fear, that scrambling fear, when your brain stops working and instinct takes over. It is horrible, for Sarah, having only her mind and simultaneously losing it. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no, she chants, if she had minor control of her body she would be hugging herself, biting her lips, her eyes would be wide with fright, but outwardly she betrays no such feelings, a plain humble expression remains plastered on her face, her eyebrows relaxing in a plaintive stare.

“Sarah!”

Her husband. Her sweet, sweet husband, has somehow caught up to her, will save her. His voice was strained, questioning, he is a few hundred metres away yet, and the cliffside is so close, and drawing closer with each step.

“Sarah!! What are you doing?!”

I love you! Sarah is screaming inside her head. I love you! I miss you! Help me! Pleaseohgodpleasehelpme! Save me! Fix me! I don't want this! I need you! Help me! She continues walking. Her husband continues shouting, “Sarah! Sarah!” but Sarah already knows he will be too late. She has reached the edge of the cliff and looks down. It seems unreal, in a way, the distance, the waiting rocks below. Far away, like a dream. Sarah can see her toes, hugging the grass, the rocky side of the cliff, and that makes sense, but beyond that, down, down, down, the cliff itself, and the rocks, and the water, and the waves, it looks silly, really, it looks fake. It's too far down. It's too far away to really hurt her.

Sarah looks up and turns. She can see her husband racing towards her, his face screwed up in fear and confusion and sadness, his mouth opening and closing as he calls her name. Her avatar tilts her head imploringly and lifts her arms up horizontal, as if to embrace him. As he nears her Sarah, with all of her strength, with everything she has, musters a scream loud enough to break through the spell. Just as her husband reaches her Sarah calmly looks him in the eye and says, “Help me,” before falling backwards. Sarah sees her husband's face drift away and the rocks rush up to meet her before her vision plummets ever into darkness.

--

Everything's inevitable.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

If You're Reading This; It's For You

I take the call.

Blackness. Sweet, sweet blackness. That's how I see it, anyway. Some people see white. Some people see nothing. Blackness is nothing, to me, so I guess we are all seeing the same thing. You look down and you can't see your feet, like some shooter from the 90's. It's turtles all the way down, except there aren't any turtles. I don't know how else to tell you, man, but it's so fucking sweet. Absence of input, a mayhem of noise, silence, sweet silence. Nothing envelops my being, taking me with it into the abyss-- there was no “me”, there was, just, nothing. How to describe it? Lasting an eternity and yet taking no time at all. I fall.

All too soon my eyes opened and my brain revs up and I start to take stock of where I am. I'd fallen over in the high, it seems, I'm sprawled on the floor of some dark grey closet. Spit stains the side of my mouth and my wrist hurts something awful. The device, shaped like an old telephone, hangs limply from its spindly cable on the wall. Through the high pitched ringing in my ears I could hear someone knocking...

“...time's up ya bum... more than an hour... got customers waiting...”

An hour? A forever. I close my eyes and pinch my temples, trying and failing to grab one last bite of eternity. The ringing in my ears reaches a buzzing crescendo before fading back into that strange familiarity, and one of the voices that I had been escaping whispered in my ear, ...can be yours for only...because you deserve it...

More knocking on the door. “Come on you sprite, you cunt-ass fuckwit. Next in line is here, you want more, you come back when you have the exchange.” I groan in response, and haul myself up to my feet. I slam the pulsating orange button with the flat of my fist, and almost fall through the door as it slid open. Almost immediately a short fat balding face owned by the supplier springs into view.

“Ah, there you are, fairy-ass motherfucker. Who do you think you are?” says Phil rhetorically.

“I've been coming to you for three months now, Titties,” I croak, “You could call me by my dang name, it wouldn't hurt you.”

“Phil! It's Phil! You scumbag junkie you...”

I don't catch the rest of what he says as a voice whispering Bill's Blades, a cut above the rest drowned him out. I trundle home.

Across the dark metropolis...

The city. “A neon fuckfest” is what my old man would say. He was born back in the early 2000's, in a sweet spot where technology and advertisement weren't yet completely synonymous. These days, well-- humanity landed on Mars, and we stamped a fucking logo on it.

“Just where have you been?!” my girlfriend shrieks at me by way of greeting, wrapped in a stained white tank top and throwing a dirty plate at my head, which I duck at the last second. “Out on the event horizon again?! Every goddamn week you're out there, and I'm ecstatic about the way your hair smells, only five more days and we're going to be evicted you dumb shit! Don't you dare roll your eyes at me for your clothes say more about you than words ever could. The new line from my mother, she tells me nobody picks up when she pings! Because we don't have any fucking 'net left you fuck! You fuck, you fucking, god you make me so excited. Enthralled. Enchanted. How will the new Ethernet eZoning leave you, I should have, I should have so long ago... Oh man, what happened to my life...” she breaks down in sob, holding her face in her hands. I take this as a sign to leave and slink into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I'm pretty sure I hear another plate smash against the door but it's drowned out by a McDonald's spot. I flop onto my bed, scattering half eaten donuts and dirty paintbrushes onto the floor. I regard a painting I was composing before I'd left-- a hideous, twisted man, mouth ajar, limbs slowly contorting into a giant yellow “M”. That's probably what triggered me running off to the Booth, I figure. I turn up my stereo as loud as it will go, all but flattening my skull against the giant UpBeat speakers which were half price at Targét when I got them and it almost A new lease on life. A new love. A new, you!I am scrabbling, through my desk. I am banging the keyboard, on the desk, watching food crumbs and hair and weed and ash fall out, and I get my index finger and I scrape and I get as much green as I can, and I pick the hairs off it and I scrape and I scrape and I look in my cone piece and I have such a meagre amount, I have some wood, some chocolate, obvious lint, ash, a breath of weed, a literal dust mote, an iota of weed, I light it up, I inhale, there is smoke, but I know it's nothing, I smoke, I don't get my buzz, I just get more desperate, my heart is racing, I'm trying not to think about her, so instead I begin this search again, on the floor, in the cracks in the bong, in the, fucking, ashtray, I'm looking in the ashtray, there is literal ash, on my fingers, my fingers are black from ash, just trying to alight anything, inhale anything, consume anything, get my buzz, get my buzz, get my buzz...

When I emerge from my room my girlfriend has calmed down. She has a new skull-shaped headset wrapped around her head, obscuring half her vision. Every time we speak it's a battle-- she always has to decide whether to pay attention to me or to one of her shrill friends or topless six pack cunts she has on the other side, their heads also buried in a mess of metal and wires. She doesn't even look at me when I walk in, just keeps smoking her cigarette and mouthing silently to whoever she has online. I sit down beside her and put my head on her shoulder, tired. I depress into our brown torn couch, settling. I notice her nipples bleeding through her top and grope her breasts. She smells like she hasn't showered in a while. I sink to my knees and hoist her legs apart, biting and kissing her flabby thighs, working my head towards her cunt which I breath warm air on. I lick my lips, and hers, around and around before engulfing her clit in my mouth. As I lap up her juices I fumble with my jeans, take myself out and slowly jerk myself off. I couldn't say if she notices me, and I get up without cleaning my cumstain and walk back into my room.

Phil snarls at me. His words are drowned out by the sound of a thousand feet marching, a Nike ad, I think. I extend my hand, he snatches the money away from me and I enter the chamber and take the call.

This time it's white. Hyperbolic time, the day outside that lasts a year inside. I walk around, on a white that is solid and yet opaque, a heavy gravity weighs down on me. If I squint I think I can see a house way off the distance-- the white is blaring and blinding. The house is all muted greys and reds and browns, cracked plaster, cobwebs, a memory from long ago. Instinctively I walk towards it but it never gets any closer, in fact it seems to recede further into the horizon with every step. I will never reach that house, I realise, I will never have a home, and I sit down to cry. I can hear nothing except the pounding of my blood inside my temples, like I am in space. My limbs feel heavy. The silence is blessed but I can feel the high being reduced. I wonder what the next step is, if there is a stronger fix available. After forever and all too soon my body starts to lift up, up...

Later I'm at the cinema, I'm watching a movie, it's a parody, I think, a
Star Wars satire. There's a kid running around as Darth Vader, it's cute, the helmet is just a bit too big for him, too dark and foreboding, silly kid! He is trying to use his Jedi powers to move things, to lift the dog, I'm chuckling it can all be yours for the low low price of and he runs to the garage and he tries to lift the car in it and lo and behold, it raises! You can see his hands unbottle fun shaking in excitement as it lifts off the ground. A parent, female, blonde, all teeth, watches on in pure joy, and the audience shares that laughter, we all of us in the cinema share a unified chuckle. Then the car turns and reveals the Mazda brand and it wasn't a movie the whole time, but an ad, the ad before the movie starts and I didn't know, I didn't realise, and I break out in a cold sweat and everybody else is still chuckling and my nails dig into the side of the chair and I realise I need another hit of the original, truly authentic passion for people.

I'm back in the chamber. It's all white, again, but the house on the horizon seems closer though no more within reach, and colours are bleeding into the sides of my vision in a psychedelic rainbow wash. I'm smiling, I feel content, at peace. I have been here forever, not yet long enough, but a satisfying amount of forever. It is nice. I keep jerking my head, catching snatches of what sounds like the call of water birds, of seagulls. I am thinking about the ocean, seeing it for the first time as a child. How awfully big it was! And small I! I remember the grit of the sand under my feet, and the smell of my mother's skin, sweet, of sunscreen, creamy. Almost like cooked pork. I close my eyes and it is lovely.
whispers ofMy eyes fly open, and dart around nervously. I could have sworn I heard something. No. Just seagulls. Just seagulls...the worldMy eyes open and I'm inside that grey closet, on my back. I stumble out bleary eyed, I think Phil spits at my feet. “Heya, Phil,” I say, and look off into the distance for a long moment, carefully planning my next words. “Does... does it ever wear off?”

“You ever done any other psyche, kid? Nothing's never sweet as the first time.”

“Is there... is there anything stronger?”

Phil's gut laugh follows me home “Just the one thing,” he says.

My girlfriend is at to work so now is the time to jerk it. I flip on a porno and I'm lazily stroking myself to this blonde bombshell, mutter Yeah's and Come on's in an effort to rouse myself up. It's a surprisingly tasteful shot, which turns me on more-- she's naked but you can only see down to her shoulder blades, the hint of breasts and nipples teasing me, egging me on. She's telling me how bad she wants it, winking, biting her lips, her hair gold and shimmering. She smiles a great big white smile, a shit-eating grin, and just when I'm expecting her face to be plastered in cum a small hand-held vacuum hovers into view and I realise it's the pre-porno ad I forgot to skip past and as she grins holding the device a voice whispers in my left ear
discover great things... I'm holding my limp dick in my hand and I turn the TV off.

The chamber is horrible
bringing the world to you to me now. I lose all sense of who I am, what I am, where I am, but I still feel myself exist, in a terribly the place to meet human form. Bound to my physical being, I become all wet tongue and teeth inside my head, gnashing, I become my limbs, flailing, attached to my brain by back by popular demand taut cables. I feel dizzy, sick. When I come around vomit stains the wall yellow, and Titties is yelling at me to leave. I stumble through the streets, a high pitched ringing in my ear, everyone's talking about what could be angels singing. “The wasted potential of it all,” I'm saying to myself, “Everything is potential, wasted. Everything could be so much better, could be so wonderful. Imagine if it was all art. Imagine if all this technology was art...” I'm in dire need of art, of escapism, of release. I would go back in the Chamber if I could fucking afford it. I hold my head and I start to cry and I cannot stop the voices.

I am standing by the river and I am naked the scent of you clings and I have no feelings inside of me any more Zero. Less than zero. I am staring into the water and it is black and terrible and there is no relief, when you need it my mouth tastes of ash and vomit because life should be delicious. I have been staring for hours with tears running down my cheeks and flashes of my life keep replaying through my mind every moment needs a song! though I imagine her yelling more often than not I remember tender times with loved ones can be hard. That's why we're here to look after you kissing her cheek, soft and warm, her laugh, her hand in mine running in rain are you man enough to take the challenge? pictures of my mother, young and healthy at the beach special occasions and I take a step and the water comes up to meet me and no fuss.