[oh no, here we go again...]
i am a failed man. an incomplete man. i am unimpressed with the conversations i have. my most important submissions lack definition. pathetically, i live in constant shame, self-recrimination and guilt. i think evil is pretending first-hand knowledge. i'm sure that i don't do enough to warrant the meagre praise i get. i wonder sometimes that maybe i think i deserve something. i think that's an awful way to be. i don't have children. and i don't love someone. i sometimes think that we have to be so much. it's hard to live up to. but that's probably a cop out. but i'm not sure. see? i'm an insult to the old country.
[is this the best you've got? really? that's the way you think? you are so lame. try something! live! do something!]
make a fucking exception please! i could write all the opposite things too. i don't want to sound desperate. i just don't know any better. we're all doing well for ourselves. it's ok.
[i'm so confused. do you ever make sense? is this a cry for help?]
there are so many books and stories and reality shows and everyone keeps telling more and more and what's the point of mine? it's so boring and it's about people making excuses but trying to explain how it's more than excuses. come on. all these wailings for princesses and waterboarding for truth. i mean, i've seen girls glue their panties to their asses in order to win ribbons. what should i take seriously?
[I'm not here to make you feel better. I didn’t come here to tell you it’s hand to mouth on a different plane. Nobody bleeds for the dancer.]
I don’t have a high level perspective. I don’t make that much money. I got debts to friends and I lie about things to my family. i pretend to be clean. Everyone I love sees things differently. What should I do? should i think that misfortune is an accident? should i be compelled to help you compete? it's hard for me too. an advantage is fucking continuum. i fucking want more, just like you. fucking courtesy and my vain desire to provide a decent fucking example is all that keeps me from voting fucking conservative.
[i still don't get it. it's like your narrative line is all mixed up. this kind of lousy, undisciplined blathering gives me a headache.]
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
wise men tell you lies
look, it's not like i say to him, 'you can't go out'. it's not a prohibition. i just know better than he does. how can he know the danger of our surroundings?
you know what fucked it up?
what?
that night with the bus.
exactly.
...
you know, it's too bad you can't write like you talk.
yeah.
because you're such a good talker.
you know what fucked it up?
what?
that night with the bus.
exactly.
...
you know, it's too bad you can't write like you talk.
yeah.
because you're such a good talker.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
no shortage of knockouts
'You're different everytime i see you.'
'So are you.'
She didn't mean it.
'What's your plan for the future then, you think you can sell forever?'
'Why the fuck are you so interested anyway? '
'I care about you.'
'you care about yourself. when are you finally going to grow up?' she smoked her cigarette upwards. A guy walked over and she turned to him, cutting me out and they both ignored me. I tried to turn away towards something , but i didn't know anyone else at the party.
'So are you.'
She didn't mean it.
'What's your plan for the future then, you think you can sell forever?'
'Why the fuck are you so interested anyway? '
'I care about you.'
'you care about yourself. when are you finally going to grow up?' she smoked her cigarette upwards. A guy walked over and she turned to him, cutting me out and they both ignored me. I tried to turn away towards something , but i didn't know anyone else at the party.
Friday, August 10, 2007
chapter three: regret the tone
'first, do no harm', is how it was put to Benny by Dread Cardinal Allin during basic training. First principles. you do not want to fuck someone else up. That is the premise that ought to guide us, he thought. Another way he heard it was, 'we make our own monsters'. But what words can defuse our need for revenge? When the worst has been done to us... or anything that hurts. Who sees themself as a monster anyway? Doesn't everyone have a story? Isn't it, in the end, what you can live with? Would you want me dead if it meant solace from devastation?
What can you hope for? What fucking principle tells us anything we can actually fucking use? Yet, today -- he understood like a man should understand -- it was his turn to pay. With each slug of whiskey this became more apparent. Until he had decided that it was practically incumbent upon him to seek out fucking actual, tangible judgement. Passions rule. Plain and simple.
Luckily, he passed out in the ditch before he agented these mortal impusles. For all of us there is doubt and a pure fucking moment when we percieve everything we'll never have. And you can blame your lover, or your position, or your time. And who'd blame you if you fucking snap and freak the fuck out? All those fucking scientific laws of attraction and gravity and never any fucking mention of what it feels like to get fucked for real.
What can you hope for? What fucking principle tells us anything we can actually fucking use? Yet, today -- he understood like a man should understand -- it was his turn to pay. With each slug of whiskey this became more apparent. Until he had decided that it was practically incumbent upon him to seek out fucking actual, tangible judgement. Passions rule. Plain and simple.
Luckily, he passed out in the ditch before he agented these mortal impusles. For all of us there is doubt and a pure fucking moment when we percieve everything we'll never have. And you can blame your lover, or your position, or your time. And who'd blame you if you fucking snap and freak the fuck out? All those fucking scientific laws of attraction and gravity and never any fucking mention of what it feels like to get fucked for real.
Monday, August 06, 2007
pinball
i'm not stupid,
but i don't always think so.
if you don't know
what you want to do,
you better fake it.
or you won't get anywhere.
but i don't always think so.
if you don't know
what you want to do,
you better fake it.
or you won't get anywhere.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
chapter two: the roughriders
I’m not sure how long I’d been KIA. Not long enough though. Because every single second of my resurrection was a living, burning hell. The Re-Gen injection dangled from my chest like a stupid arrow. Amazed, I focused downwards on a ponderous bead of blood, sliding down the silver needle. So mesmerized by the oddity of the syringe protruding from my heart, for a merciful moment, the unholy stench of my immolation didn’t even register. Only after the searing hammer of pain slammed me into total awareness did I inhale the putrefied taste of burned human flesh.
Regenesis, as I later learned, often kills again. The accompanying pain is so intense, the recipient’s heart perforates from the pressure. Encore la morte. Within 48 hours, of the 3% revival rate, half again expire due to catastrophic stress. And even when the dead live, they’re often blacked out; so depressed they’re useless for life.
The day of my resurrection I knew none of that. Just the cauterizing agony of my life regenerating one searing cell at a time. But inside all of this, beyond my physical torment, there was a cold awareness of something else. An inarticulate, malevolent presence; a moray coiling in some dark subconscious fissure. Like a guilt, or a shame lurking inside your guts, washing up against you in the middle of the night. An incrimination. A taunt.
Then it was gone.
An armoured hand appeared around the syringe and unceremoniously jerked it out. I coughed and vomited.
“He’s back, sir.”
“Fine. Now, let’s get moving. Roughriders, mount up!”
Captain Roland Forty-Four rose fifteen feet into the air on the back of the largest cat I’d ever seen.
“Welcome back sonny.” I heard my father say. And then I blacked out.
Regenesis, as I later learned, often kills again. The accompanying pain is so intense, the recipient’s heart perforates from the pressure. Encore la morte. Within 48 hours, of the 3% revival rate, half again expire due to catastrophic stress. And even when the dead live, they’re often blacked out; so depressed they’re useless for life.
The day of my resurrection I knew none of that. Just the cauterizing agony of my life regenerating one searing cell at a time. But inside all of this, beyond my physical torment, there was a cold awareness of something else. An inarticulate, malevolent presence; a moray coiling in some dark subconscious fissure. Like a guilt, or a shame lurking inside your guts, washing up against you in the middle of the night. An incrimination. A taunt.
Then it was gone.
An armoured hand appeared around the syringe and unceremoniously jerked it out. I coughed and vomited.
“He’s back, sir.”
“Fine. Now, let’s get moving. Roughriders, mount up!”
Captain Roland Forty-Four rose fifteen feet into the air on the back of the largest cat I’d ever seen.
“Welcome back sonny.” I heard my father say. And then I blacked out.
Friday, August 03, 2007
chapter one: hangfire position
Beans yanked the garage rope down and shut out the blazing sun with a metallic clang. He turned to face us, shifting his Tigers cap up on his head. We were all sweating and breathing hard, arranged in a semicircle opposite him. A week before the invasion, climate authorities had been claiming it as the hottest July in the last fifty years. Everyone was talking water conservation. Radio News instructed old folks to stay indoors. That was six days ago. Now the radio was silent.
Inside the stifling garage, the five of us set down our packs, adjusting to the shadows. Any movement caused puffs of choking dust to swirl, so we kept as still as we could. Beans hunkered and wet his finger, then started to lay out lines on the sooty concrete floor. He pointed:
“Ok, we’re here. This is Royal York. This is the park. Here’s Pop’s. Benny, your dad’s truck is for sure out back?" He flicked his eyes over to Benny.
“That’s right Beans.” Benny crowded forward and licked his own finger. He drew a couple lines on the garage floor, adding to Beans’ map. “But they’ve got the school. The car lot....”
From the get-go, the plan to make the run out of town was a longshot. The Concern had us all tagged. Chicken’s leg was broken and both Benny and Bobby were going grey from the Afflict. Professor Niehl’s jam charge was about 15 minutes from spent. Things were gonna have to happen fast.
“We all agree, we can’t make it through the park, right?” Nods. “So, it’s the alleys then.”
I leaned in to situate myself on the diagram. Across from him, it took a second to reverse the plan, but then I figured out where he wanted us to head. It took another second to realize what it meant.
The rest of the guys had seen it too. Cigarettes appeared and Chicken looked down at her busted shin.
“Comments?”
He’d meant it for me. I knew saying nothing was the only way to keep panic at bay. He knew it too. It wasn't like, at fourteen, any of us had given much thought to death, til now. We shared steady eye contact and instead I methodically checked down my arsenal.
“Five capsules, double-sixes are stocked. Regen pack stocked. Let’s take the fucking alleys.“
Maybe the rest took a heartbeat, but the guys sounded off in good order, one after the other. Beans’ eyes cast the Eagle at us.“Alright guys. The alleys. Let’s do it.”
All told we were pretty well-armed. But travelling that way, through the alleys, we’d be naked. Any airborne, or if our jam wore off, we’d be begging to get husked. The Concern were bringing in the heavies now. No need for cloak-and-dagger stuff. It was raw power. Total destruction. But at least we could see what we were up against. Better than the terror of not knowing who was real,and who’d been replicated.
Me and Benny took one arm each, supporting Chick. Bobby leaned up against the backdoor of the garage and filled up with breath. Beans was in the back and he looked at each of us in turn. We were ready. Steady.
“Go!”
The first meta-slugs took Bobby in the chest, pulverizing him into red mist. Somehow Benny propelled himself and Chicken forward out the doorway. Spinning away from them to the right, I fired wildly into the sun. Monstrous shapes closed in. They had us surrounded. In that first blast of white light and heat, all I could perceive was the crackling of slugs zipping past my head; then feeling Chicken crumple down and then Benny’s truncated scream. Behind me enormous bodies pummeled the garage; huge, paralysing concussions. Burning chips of wood and metal stung my face and hands. I was on fire. Through the warble and hiss, i jerked back towards Beans but there was nothing left. No garage. No Beans. Nothing. The downsplash from the rotors of the heli above blasted the flames. Almost a balm. It was over in seconds.
Inside the stifling garage, the five of us set down our packs, adjusting to the shadows. Any movement caused puffs of choking dust to swirl, so we kept as still as we could. Beans hunkered and wet his finger, then started to lay out lines on the sooty concrete floor. He pointed:
“Ok, we’re here. This is Royal York. This is the park. Here’s Pop’s. Benny, your dad’s truck is for sure out back?" He flicked his eyes over to Benny.
“That’s right Beans.” Benny crowded forward and licked his own finger. He drew a couple lines on the garage floor, adding to Beans’ map. “But they’ve got the school. The car lot....”
From the get-go, the plan to make the run out of town was a longshot. The Concern had us all tagged. Chicken’s leg was broken and both Benny and Bobby were going grey from the Afflict. Professor Niehl’s jam charge was about 15 minutes from spent. Things were gonna have to happen fast.
“We all agree, we can’t make it through the park, right?” Nods. “So, it’s the alleys then.”
I leaned in to situate myself on the diagram. Across from him, it took a second to reverse the plan, but then I figured out where he wanted us to head. It took another second to realize what it meant.
The rest of the guys had seen it too. Cigarettes appeared and Chicken looked down at her busted shin.
“Comments?”
He’d meant it for me. I knew saying nothing was the only way to keep panic at bay. He knew it too. It wasn't like, at fourteen, any of us had given much thought to death, til now. We shared steady eye contact and instead I methodically checked down my arsenal.
“Five capsules, double-sixes are stocked. Regen pack stocked. Let’s take the fucking alleys.“
Maybe the rest took a heartbeat, but the guys sounded off in good order, one after the other. Beans’ eyes cast the Eagle at us.“Alright guys. The alleys. Let’s do it.”
All told we were pretty well-armed. But travelling that way, through the alleys, we’d be naked. Any airborne, or if our jam wore off, we’d be begging to get husked. The Concern were bringing in the heavies now. No need for cloak-and-dagger stuff. It was raw power. Total destruction. But at least we could see what we were up against. Better than the terror of not knowing who was real,and who’d been replicated.
Me and Benny took one arm each, supporting Chick. Bobby leaned up against the backdoor of the garage and filled up with breath. Beans was in the back and he looked at each of us in turn. We were ready. Steady.
“Go!”
The first meta-slugs took Bobby in the chest, pulverizing him into red mist. Somehow Benny propelled himself and Chicken forward out the doorway. Spinning away from them to the right, I fired wildly into the sun. Monstrous shapes closed in. They had us surrounded. In that first blast of white light and heat, all I could perceive was the crackling of slugs zipping past my head; then feeling Chicken crumple down and then Benny’s truncated scream. Behind me enormous bodies pummeled the garage; huge, paralysing concussions. Burning chips of wood and metal stung my face and hands. I was on fire. Through the warble and hiss, i jerked back towards Beans but there was nothing left. No garage. No Beans. Nothing. The downsplash from the rotors of the heli above blasted the flames. Almost a balm. It was over in seconds.
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