《Waking Dreams & Nightmares, all a fog!》 Untitled document It¡¯s been a good day. And it¡¯s just Wednesday, Tuesday just ended and Wednesday hasn¡¯t started yet (it¡¯s Tuesday.5 (Tuesday point five)) tring tring tring tring, tring tring tring tring, da da da, da da da, da da da¨C da¨C that was the walls¡¯ song, but my point is, it''s been a good day. And it''s shaping up to be a good week. I know everything I can/will do this week. First, I think I am going to take tubes & gather up pieces of my soul, and then I can make various objects swallow them and that will let me more deeply understand the signals they emit. See, that''s what happened with the walls. That''s why da da da, da da da, that¡¯s why that¡¯s that. The soul pieces, given from me to them. Good Monday, good Tuesday, now it might be a good Wednesday. But what if the me from Friday comes running back to the me right now? Here he is, taking his place among the signals of the walls. He says / I say: The tubes which connect each person to every other person? They give nutrition, to the mind & body. They sustain us & make us one big organism. And these tubes have fallen off of you. Put them back in. You¡¯re weak & small & weak & small. Stumbling through the world, confused. And he/I is/am correct. But one more thing ¡ª and he/I and I (now) are both saying this ¡ª it¡¯s the fact that the ceiling fan is singing too. Very melodically. The higher range frequencies are beautiful. The lower range too, but the higher ones, they really carry the tune. Stars of the show. Stars up above, I can hear them but they¡¯re faint. The walls wish to keep their signals all to themselves. So it is the case that things must be this way. Let them be that way. Good week, good week, I¡¯ve got some music playing (& it¡¯s similar enough to the stars, so it¡¯s okay), and now I can relax. Do what I need/want to do, and relax in between. And then the week will end. There¡¯s me from the start of Monday, joining in. He woke up too late. He says there is no relaxation. Just the machinery, following procedure, following signals to do one thing & then the other & then the other & for ME/HIM, what will happen is that only the wall¡¯s and ceiling fan¡¯s signals will be heard and there is no body, no body at all. Its signals will get ignored because they¡¯re overridden by the more important ones and it doesn¡¯t exist until it collapses, and on Monday (says he) it will collapse. From the neglect. Can you call it neglect if I¡¯m paying attention to what¡¯s more important in the world? Signals of patches of numbness upon the tongue & legs & face & arms, & pain & the edibility of the muscles (since they¡¯re of no use now [¡®now¡¯ = Monday, next Monday]) so perhaps this is a warning to ¡®take care¡¯. But I¡¯m too busy listening to all these signals. Signals. You know¨C do you know one particular thing about ceiling fans? They give visual signals too. Sure, sure, maybe the wall gives some faint visual signals (if it does, it¡¯s much fainter than the audio), sure, but the fan¡¯s visions are vivid: You can trace the path of each particle of air it moves & see dear dear death, so close yet so far. No way to predict, even if the ceiling fan tries to sing a fortune. It sings but it mostly makes up fantasies of what may unfold. Maybe it can tell its own future, since it knows it sees no one dangling down. Pure certainty, says it with pure confidence. But that''s just about this one fan, right? Maybe I¡¯ll find myself on a tree, or maybe on a fan which isn¡¯t this one. How would I end up there? The ceiling fan gives vivid vivid vivid images. Answers? No. This ceiling fan ¡ª and specifically this one ¡ª is imaginative, it¡¯s fleshy, it¡¯s muscle & patches of numbness (leg & hand & tongue) & it¡¯s¨C oh, I meant the visions, the visions are like that, but but but maybe the fan & the visions are both one & the same? They melt into one another. The same for the wall & the melodies as well, perhaps. And, and, and I can see the flashes of its blades as they move, I can see each second of movement & it¡¯s glorious, it¡¯s beautiful, just look at all the images that can be formed from a simple repetitive movement of just rotation, just look look at the ceiling fan just look look look at the ceiling fan flashing its blades, just look¡­ If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The flash of random images, you''ll see it as a story. A story meaning nothing, All all others, spare no thought to me. I''d be strange if you took just another second more to observe, but I''ve never given anyone reason to do so. It doesn¡¯t matter where you are, there¡¯s always movement in the corner of your eye. I¡¯m just in the corner of your eye & that¡¯s where I seem strange but you look head-on & there¡¯s nothing of note, so the flashes (from the fan, from the rest of the world, from the tubes carrying EVERYONE ELSE¡¯S visions & smells & thoughts & hopes & dreams & sounds) will not include me because what note, nothing of note, the flashes YOUR mind chooses to carry are of images of note. I¡¯m dizzy. Let me stop a bit. Stand a bit. Take it all in. ¡­ A sound a sound a tring tring tring tring, tring tring tring tring, da da da, da da da, da da da¨C da¨C oh, OH! I JUST REALISED! It''s THAT song, the one I made myself, and I played it in this room. And maybe the walls heard it? Heard it & learned? Heard it & learn, now they¡¯re singing it back. It''s the walls¡¯ song now. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe they''re not really singing it, even though I can tell they''ve lubricated their throats (you can see they''re alive & breathing now), maybe they''re just acting like they''re singing but INSTEAD of truly singing, they''re just feeding me back the waves of the song I wrote. No real difference between either, though. If the fan melts into its visions & the wall melts into its music & the music is mine, then I melt into the walls. If the fan¡¯s visions are given to me, I melt into the fan. If the rest of the people¡¯s visions (& smells & thoughts & hopes & dreams & sounds) are given to me through the tubes, then I melt into¨C But the tubes have been ripped off. I¡¯m disconnected. I¡¯m disconnected from ALL of you. Who did this? I don¡¯t understand. Was it me? Was it someone else (who? when?) or did I rip out the tubes? Did they get ripped out when¨C WHEN did they get ripped out? Monday-me says it was since forever & so does Friday-me, they now say it¡¯s flooding the room. The tube system. Flooding. Flooding & taking up all the space & yet never melting into me, melting on top of me instead & covering it all up & it¡¯s not right, it¡¯s not right. Or is it fully right? Because Monday-me is showing me how he grabs a tube & shoves it back into his heart & then it flows inside & it floods it too, the tubes always flood, is it¨C It¡¯s not working properly. I need to fix the connectivity with the tubes. The walls are very loud. The ceiling fan is very bright. I¡¯m disconnected. Who did this? What did this? I don¡¯t understand. It will be a great week. Dark green / desaturated green / musty fungal green [ YOU are minding your own business. It''s about 10 PM, and your ROOMMATE has been¡­ somewhere. Who knows. You BOTH mind your own business almost all the time. Your ROOMMATE is pretty chill, and has said that YOU, too, are pretty chill. But. But but but. It seems there has been something strange going on for a few weeks, and it MIGHT have something to do with your ROOMMATE. But, it bears repeating, YOU minded your own business because the strangeness ¡ª ¡°which might not even exist,¡± YOU thought ¡ª has absolutely nothing to do with YOU. It''s all your ROOMMATE¡¯s business. So it''s about 22:22 ¡ª a new, aesthetic time on the clock (do YOU care about that? your ROOMMATE likes it) ¡ª and YOU are minding your business. Your ROOMMATE bursts in, and is not chill. ] ROOMMATE: O there''s something living in my skin, it''s made its way into my veins! It''s a colour very nice to see, the colour same as the shirt I wear. It''s cold, it''s colder than it was before, and it''s never going to be as cold as this again. O WELL!!! Oh well. YOU: Hm. It is pretty cold. Especially with that sudden dip in temperature, after such unusual heat. The weather gets weirder every year. ROOMMATE: (did not listen to what YOU just said) ??? ???????????? There''s something living in my skin, that''s my main problem right now. YOU: Oh, that''s¨C ROOMMATE: I think it''s hoarding up all the oxygen in my blood for itself & letting none of it ever reach my brain ever again. Or is it pumping MORE oxygen up there & that''s why it''s all like this & hyperactivity & grand amounts of everything, everything, everything? YOU: I get the sense that this might not be a medical problem (you neglect to mention your knowledge ¡ª which may not exist ¡ª ?? ?? ???-???? ??, ?? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ???? ROOMMATE ?? ?? ???-???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?? ??? ??? ? ?? ??, ?? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ????? ?? ?? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??, ?? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ????? ???? ???? ???, ????? ??-?? ?? ?? ??? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ??? ???-???? ??, ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??, ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?? ¡ª ?? ??? ?? ??? ???, ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ??? ????? ????? ??????! ????? ??? ??? ??? ???-??? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??; ?? ???? ?? ?? ROOMMATE ?? ?? ????? ???? ??? ??, ????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ??????? What happened to minding your own business? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ???, ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ???? ??? ????? ?? ???? ?? ?? ROOMMATE ?? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????? ?? ?? ??, ????? ??) but also, there''s a chance that it is just medical, so maybe consider seeing a doctor. ROOMMATE: No, no no no no. Who knows, who''s to say. But look at the walls, though. Look at them. YOU: (deciding to just let your ROOMMATE go on this rant, as YOU do not have anything better to do & this room isn''t real anyway, so YOU may as look at its nonexistent walls; they are normal, whitewashed with normal wear & tear) ¡­ ROOMMATE: They''re slightly discolored, right? That''s normal in this season, you may think, that''s normal because it''s raining so heavily you can''t go out without the sky grabbing you by the face and making you chug each drop of rainwater one by one by one. But. But but but. Living in my skin you''ll find the same thing that discolours those walls. And it is not what YOU might think, because YOU know the problem with you? YOU DON''T think, YOU have never thought, and it''s so bad that it''s at the point where YOU go & think of ANYONE who thinks even the SLIGHTEST BIT as being crazy. (???? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ??? ROOMMATE ?? ???? ??, ?? ??? ??, ????? ?? ???? ?? ?? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ??????? ?? ???? ??? ????? ???? ???????, ?????? ?? ????? ???) That''s the problem with YOU, and that''s why YOU need to inject this fungus into your veins. YOU: (somehow, not offended, because YOU too have something severely wrong with YOU which makes YOU just put up with things like this & also YOU are simply curious about the fungus) I don''t like needles, though. How about¨C Stolen novel; please report. ROOMMATE: And I may CALL it fungus, but look at the shirt I''m wearing. Too late. It''s light green, right? It''s also about as close to fungus as the thing in my veins. Or the stuff on the walls. It''s not natural. The stuff on the walls, I mean. The shirt is probably at least somewhat natural, especially seeing as it''s merging into my torso (because of the ¡®fungus¡¯) and if it''s part of me, it''s part of something natural¡­ assuming I am natural anymore¡­ [ ROOMMATE stares into the distance, seeming distressed. YOU feel concerned & decide to be a little kind. ] YOU: (soft-spoken, gentle) Well, everything comes from nature, right? Think about it. LEven chemicals synthesized in a lab, which are what people usually think of when they think ¡°unnatural¡±, even the base ingredients for those ultimately come from nature. So even synthesized substances could be said, ultimately, to be natural. Honestly speaking, it doesn''t matter if you''re natural or unnatural or something in between. You''re still a person, and the people who truly love you (not me) would consider it a net good that you are here. Even if you ARE unnatural, you still have worth & value. And you are loved. ( silence for a few seconds ) YOU: Oh, and for what it''s worth, I think you''re pretty chill most of the time. That wouldn''t change even if you were unnatural. So don''t worry, it''s okay. ( another minute of silence ) ROOMMATE: (didn''t listen to all that ??????? ????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ??) OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY, COOL, but anyway, take the fungus. TAKE IT. Take it into your hands. YOU: (suddenly growing a spine, which pierces through your back so suddenly you stumble from the impact, as well as from the weight of the new bone matter) No. ROOMMATE: No no no, scrape it off the wall NOW. I don''t see why you''re grossed out by it. YOU: I''m not. ROOMMATE: Are you grossed out by model replicas of bugs & lizards, too? They''re not real & they won''t hurt you. Your disgust response is ¡ª though entirely natural ¡ª also completely fucking stupid. YOU need to fix it. And YOU know how YOU can start fixing it? By taking the fungus. YOU: (your pride says no because this is too much disrespect, but your curiosity takes priority & your spine is falling out now anyway; YOU scrape the fungus off, injecting it into your veins & licking some of it directly off the wall just for good measure; some blood from your injuries gets on the wall but you ignore it) Okay, done. ROOMMATE: Okay, cool, now you¡¯ll actually get what I''m saying. YOU: I (don''t) hope so. ROOMMATE: Anyway, there could/should be an explanation for this, but there isn''t. And my appetite is completely gone (fungus?) and I want to puke at how every single person (ROOMMATE has ignored every other person''s present nonexistence) seems suspicious & harbouring ulterior motives, despite the fact ?? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??, ??? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??? ??? ???, ?? ?? ?? ?? ??? ???? ???? ?? fungus ??? ????? ??? ???? ??? ??, ????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ¡ª ??? ??? ???, ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ????? ¡ª ????? ??? ?? ??? ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???? Do YOU get it? YOU: No, no I don''t think I really get it. Also, my back really hurts. ROOMMATE: Hm. Must be your posture. And I hate that YOU don''t get it & it honestly makes me want to punch something. (looks at your spine jutting out, slowly getting detached & falling off) And no one deserves the pain of THAT. YOU: Haha, true. ROOMMATE: So yeah, no, fuck it. I don''t have a roommate anymore. YOU: (pops out of existence) ROOMMATE: OK OK OK OK OK, okay cool cool cool, I can go & die alone now. That''s it. That''s all. That''s all that is needed. We are done. We''re done! I''m done. ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? Done. I''m done with everything. ?? ???, ??????, ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ???, ???? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? (?? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ????, ??????? ???? ?? scene ??? ?? ??-?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ??; ?? ?? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ?? ?? ????? ????) It''s all done. It''s done. We''re done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. All done. [ Your ROOMMATE dies alone. ????? Or maybe not? Maybe just pops out of existence, same as you? The room didn''t exist, YOU already knew that. Now YOU don''t exist either. And I honestly doubt that the ROOMMATE would be the only real out of EVERYTHING in this scenario. I mean, out of all things! Regardless though, YOU and the ROOMMATE are pretty chill, as stated in the beginning. Scene ends. ] Anyones leg can walk away Anyone''s leg can walk away. But for most people, it''s so uncommon they forgot it can happen at all. But for some of us, it walks away no less than once a week. Something that happens all the time with me is that my leg goes & walks away. And today, it seems it¡¯s leaving for good. I don¡¯t really care, though. I don¡¯t need it anymore. I started seeing the worst in everything a long time ago, so I walked out of every door & walked away from every person & I¡¯m here now. The only thing I needed my legs for was to walk away, and now I¡¯ve walked away from everything. How far will my leg travel? I can see it now: it¡¯ll be among the other galaxies of the universe and it will be glad to be far away from me. Maybe even from the other leg¡­ although I doubt it has very many hard feelings towards the other leg. Or maybe it does? Even if it does, it certainly wouldn¡¯t be as bad as whatever it would feel for me. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Seeing the worst¡±. It¡¯s a trait which sticks in your DNA, and your DNA is in every cell in your body. And that includes the legs. Now, my legs are pretty smart. Both of them. They¡¯ve seen the situation as it stands right now. They remember all the pointless restlessness. They remember every moment of overexertion. It can¡¯t be helped, that¡¯s just what comes with being a thing of utility (that is one leg¡¯s opinion), but ¡°can¡¯t be helped¡± doesn¡¯t translate to ¡°should be tolerated¡± (so says the other leg). So there it goes. There¡¯s my leg. You can see it up there, going towards the moon. The other leg is a bit far behind. It was shy at first, unsure of what to do, but it followed its sibling. What else is there to do? Leaving is the ultimate panacea! If you leave it fixes everything. That¡¯s the wisdom of my legs. Walk out if you don¡¯t like the situation. Walk out. Neither leg will survive very long. The pain is too much, and they could never survive without fresh blood flow. But they are fine with it. I am fine with it. I¡¯m away from all of it so I have nothing to not be fine about. Is there any reason to not be fine? No, there is not, because nothing really matters. Just float in outer space. Blood on your hands His hands aren¡¯t shaking. They¡¯re shaking. No they aren¡¯t. They just have worlds inside them. He is a painter and he is painting, so his hands can¡¯t possibly shake. Painting. Yes. That¡¯s what he¡¯s doing. Look, look, look at the canvas, and look at all the details in it. He¡¯s looked at nothing besides this canvas. He barely knows he has hands and arms and shoulders at all, he just knows that there¡¯s a canvas and he has paint and a brush and a world inside that needs to be released. Even if it takes an entire afternoon. And evening. And an hour after that, don¡¯t worry, he¡¯ll sleep eventually. Eventually. Listen, he found a world, right? He found a world because the world wasn¡¯t being too good to him. It was a rough week, right? And he has things to do, he really does, but right now he¡¯s lost a friend and he¡¯d rather lose the memory of that and of whatever responsibility he has, just for a day, just for a day, just for this world. Give the world a world. Well, it¡¯s the least he can do, right? Give the world he¡¯s in a world from inside his arms. Yes, it¡¯s his arms. His arms are aching. He doesn¡¯t notice because his arms don¡¯t exist so how could they ache? He doesn¡¯t exist. It¡¯s just the world in front of him. No, not even the canvas exists. Only the horses. The road and the horses and the people on the horses. They¡¯re riding back and forth, home to home, the same way they did in this world before the trains happened. Back in the good old days, when he was a child. Wait. Horses. That doesn¡¯t sum up right in his mind. When did he ever know people in the real world to ride on horses in his lifetime? No, nonono, that¡¯s just a trick of the memory. Just a fabricated memory. He was just remembering it wrong, he remembered, the memory was actually of him and some others pretending to be horses as children. Pretending to be horses as children, yes, those were the good old days. Silly him, silly him, remembering such a thing wrong. Memory is the enemy. Memory is the enemy, he smiles and paints and he doesn¡¯t have arms. They ache, and inside his arms there aren¡¯t any arms. There are only roads. Roads with trees on the side. Yes, trees, those don¡¯t exist in the good new days, in the good new days which he started to see when his mind spilled into the canvas paper and ink and¨C remembering when he used ink as paint, he¡¯s remembering when he used ink as paint and it didn¡¯t go well, he just ended up going into the future. Useless ink. Ink isn¡¯t like paint. Paint, meanwhile? Takes you to another world, while ink just gets you to the future. Actually, that isn¡¯t even true. Or it is. It¡¯s not suddenly not another world just because it¡¯s climbing from his arm to his hand after making the trip from his brain to spine to blood and arm, there he is, in front of the canvas and there¡¯s an arm in his world¨C yes, that, and a world in his arm. Fuck, it hurts. It really fucking hurts, it¡¯s in his right arm. The world. The one from his mind specifically. The one he¡¯s living in doesn¡¯t exist. No, nothing exists. Not the pain, even though an hour later, once the painting¡¯s done, he¡¯ll rant about just how much it fucking hurts and how much of a clown he is for painting for hours on end and losing it, and losing himself in the painting, and losing it for hours on end because the world¡¯s wonderful actually, it¡¯s just that he needed to go into his own world, because he can control it, and that¡¯s why the pain doesn¡¯t exist right now. Nothing does. No. Not the lost friend. Not the memories. Not the world, definitely not the world. It¡¯s just horses here. It¡¯s just horses riding on the bone in his arm, swishing the blood around and turning them into their fuel. There are riders on the horses, but in his world they¡¯re skeletons. Skeleton riders on blood-made horses. That¡¯s normal, that¡¯s very very normal. Normal in this world. It¡¯s fine. They¡¯re in his bones and they¡¯ll make for very pretty art, very pretty art indeed. Or is ¡®pretty¡¯ really even the world? Sorry, meant to write ¡®word¡¯. Is the art going to be pretty? No. It¡¯s going to be impactful. It¡¯s going to be so, so impactful so that when he dies it¡¯ll be a tragedy because then no one will get more of his art. Ah, don¡¯t worry, he won¡¯t be dying any time soon. The more things he makes the more the tragedy can be increased, after all, and to make more things he needs more time. Wonderful mind-screaming things like the painting of the horses on the roads, the bleeding screaming roads take time to be made. Time needs life needs motivation needs anger at himself and at the world which must be fueled into something, something, something. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. His hand isn¡¯t shaking. It¡¯s shaking. The world is inside it. The horses are all climbing up there. His arm hurts so much, and so does his wrist. It doesn¡¯t exist, the pain. The horses are climbing into the canvas, after all, and it¡¯s better that they¡¯re in the canvas than in his arm. If it kills him. Even if it kills him, the fucking horses HAVE to be thrown into the canvas and so do the roads and the riders and the screams and the bloods. If. It. Kills. Him. It certainly feels like it will. His hands and arms are shaking now. It¡¯s making the paint tremble, the canvas tremble, the world tremble. That¡¯s fine. It won¡¯t ruin the painting. He can make it part of the effect, part of the horrifying horrifyinghorrifying horrifying hand horror he¡¯s creating with this painting. The world¡¯s shaking. The road is shaking. There is a big drop of blood at which a rider screams as his horse brings him closerclosercloser to the bright red bright red bright¨C He paints. Bright red. Memory. Memory is the enemy. Memory makes bright red seem villainous, but it¡¯s just a colour, right? Bright red? Just a colour. That memory, it might¡¯ve been a fabrication. A violent thing that won¡¯t go away no matter how much and for how long he denies it, but no, it¡¯s clearly just a fabrication. Just like the good old days before the trains came to India brought over by the British, even though he was born in¡­ when was he born? Memory. Memory. Memory. Memory. A rider on a horse looks into a huge drop of blood, bigger than him and his horse combined, and inside he sees a memory of¡­ a memory of¡­ hand slows, don¡¯t put any of his memories in there, instead make it a stabbing. That¡¯s¡­ that¡¯s not much better, he knows that, but it isn¡¯t personal so it¡¯s fine and he can proceed because it¡¯s a stabbing from an assassin, and yeah, yes, this rider is a royal. A prince who got all he ever wanted, but one time someone tried to stab him. Kill him, assassinate him, for reasons unknown but he blamed himself. He saw himself in the drop of blood, knife getting into his arm instead of his neck as planned, and brightredbrightredbrightred it¡¯ll never get out of his head, never. And listen, listenlistenlisten, it was so red. It was so bright. It was so red. The whole painting is very red. It¡¯s terrifying. It¡¯s wonderful. And his hand is slowing. He¡¯s almost done. It¡¯s a vast scene. The sky is wonderful, so wonderful, his world is so great and vast and interesting, good job, painter, good job. He grins, but the grin doesn¡¯t exist. Of course it doesn¡¯t. Nothing does. Just the painting. Just the world. Not the one he¡¯s in, not the one his friend who¡¯s not a friend now traverses, she¡¯s pretending he¡¯s not even what he really is and so it doesn¡¯t really matter that she¡¯s traversing the world at all, doesn¡¯t matter, because if the world she¡¯s in doesn¡¯t exist then she doesn¡¯t exist and the words she said before they had to drift off, no, none of that. None of that. None. Scream into his hand. The world screams into his hand. The prince screams into his hand, he¡¯s terrified, he¡¯s so terrified to be encountering his own memory in the huge drop of blood which the great great clouds, which appear to be blotchy and shaking and trembling but that¡¯s fine, the prince is terrified because he¡¯s seeing his memory in blood which drips from a cloud. It¡¯s not raining. There¡¯s just one big drop, at the end of a¡­ a rope? A rope of blood. A drop at the end. A memory inside. Trembling. Shaking. Bright red memory. Memory is the enemy. Shaky hands have made them. Every single detail. The details are starting to look shaky, yes, shaky at the right side of the painting. Right at its end. That¡¯s fine, the shakiness makes it¡­ he doesn¡¯t know what it makes it, he just knows that he¡¯s using his probably-fabricated memory for something good, something impactful, something interesting that¡¯ll earn him some worth. It¡¯s done. The painting is done. Bright red. The painting is done. His hands are shaking, his breath is shaking, and his heart is too fast. The world ran, you see. It ran straight out of his fingertips. Straight from his elbow to his forearm, every single sinew the horses and their sharp bloody knife-tipped hooves touched, every single cell in his muscles in his right arm. It aches. It stabs. Arm to wrist to fingertips to canvas, and the world¡¯s there. Good job. Good job. It¡¯s horrifying. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. He catches himself red-handed, as his arm loses strength and he has no choice but to let the paintbrush fall to the ground. It¡¯s right next to the pen, and the ink and the blood¨C no, bright red paint, it¡¯s bright red paint coupled with ink. They¡¯re both together. One to take him to another world, another to the future. Both to melt his brain into so he doesn¡¯t have to be bothered by the thing with its stupid, stupid memories. Memory is the enemy. He didn¡¯t defeat it, he never will till he becomes it in its purest form, but he¡¯s allied with his enemy so that something can come out of all the horror and panic that comes from looking at bright red and thinking and remembering. He took memory and he¡¯s made¡­ something out of it. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, he¡¯s MADE something! The painting is done! Time to show it to everyone. Itch on the Inside of the bone A set of voice messages from 11:50 PM, 5 April 2024. [ message 1: sounds of car horns ] Hey, hello, hello, helloooooooooo. How are you? I haven¡¯t said much to you in a while, and it¡¯s not like I didn¡¯t have anything to say but I just didn¡¯t, and that¡¯s just how life ends up sometimes, and¨C [ THUD of phone dropping, very quiet, ¡°Nooooo¡­¡±] [ phone almost gets picked back up, falls again from a height of 38.7 cm ] Fuck you, I¡¯m just going to sit down with you if you just¨C if it just¨C it loves the ground! It loves the ground, the stupid phone loves the ground, but don¡¯t we all? The ground is great, the ground is¨C what am I saying, at least there¡¯s no cracks. No cracks in the phone. Okay, okay, that¡¯s nice. [ quick, heavy breathing which gradually gets slower; clearing of the throat. ] Sorry, my¨C [ message reaches 60 seconds & ends ] [ message 2: sounds of car horns & wind gust travelling at a speed of 34 km/h ] Sorry, sorry! My hands are shaking. A lot. And I know it¡¯s really late to be out here taking a walk, and you¡¯re already asleep, but I haven¡¯t said anything to you in a while. So I thought I might as well. [ cough, cough ] I¡¯m not drunk or high or anything, I just needed to say something! But¨C but I don¡¯t know what exactly, since there¡¯s a lot I can say, and, but, you specifically, I had something to say specifically, and¨C I can¡¯t do this sitting down, I can hear the ground. I can hear all those little motes of dust hitting the ground and, and I guess even if I got up I¡¯d still hear the sound of the wind particles, and¨C oh, there are so many different particles in the wind and they¡¯re all small, but the particles hitting ground, hitting the ground, that noise bothers me so much more, so much louder. So no ground. Now, I have something to say to you, but let the wind shut up before I go on. Shut up so I can collect my thoughts. [ message 3: sounds of faraway barking & wind at 12 km/h ] Better, better, better. So look, I just couldn¡¯t sleep again and I¡¯m not sure if I¡¯ll be able to sleep at all tonight, and so that¡¯s why I¡¯m out here, and there¡¯s no one to really talk to here, but I really, really need to talk. See, I don¡¯t believe in ghosts but if I did, I''d tell you one lives here and that it hates me. Lives where I live. And it got in through my nose, and it¨C okay, so it¡¯s not exactly a ghost, right? I¡¯ve just heard so many people call them that; whatever these things are, called them ghosts. But they¡¯re not the same, it¡¯s not a dead person haunting my flat, but it¡¯s a something. A SOMETHING which can SNEAK inside of you and¨C see, listen, I¡¯ve heard people say it¡¯s a god too, it could be anything, it could be G¨C listen to me. The POINT. The point is it makes your brain itch from the inside, makes your bones itch. [ message 4: sounds of heavy breathing ] When the ghost first got me, I started thinking I had hollow bones. Like a bird. Just out of nowhere I started thinking that, because the ghost wanted me to or something. Maybe because sometimes I see an eagle from the window, and the sunlight burns it gold. And when I saw it, I¡¯d always, always wish to understand every single aspect of its life, all its senses, but then I¡¯d feel how old and wrapped up in ¡°normal¡± living I am. So how could I understand the eagle? A child could understand it more easily, children are closer to other animals than anyone else, because they''re less wrapped up in life. No, no, not less wrapped up, but they''re wrapped up in something different. More basic instincts. More raw senses. But see, now, NOW I think I can understand the eagles. I feel every particle of wind, and even every particle of still air feels so LOUD on my skin. It¡¯s so LOUD, I can¡¯t sleep! I can¡¯t sleep, maybe I¡¯ll never sleep ever again! I know there¡¯s no one who¨C [ message reaches 60 seconds ] [ message 5: sounds of breathing & wind, indistinguishable ] I hate how the maximum length of these messages is 60 seconds, how the fuck do you have a conversation like this? I guess you don¡¯t, you just don¡¯t, because this isn¡¯t a conversation. Maybe instead of starting this¡­ conversation, or I¡¯m yelling at you and also no one, I don¡¯t know what this is. But instead of starting it, I should¡¯ve just gone down on my knees and started digging! Dig in the dirt and go down and¨C and, and I wouldn¡¯t bury myself, but I¡¯d just stand around down there. I¡¯d need something to block out the wind, yes, but it¡¯s not burial if I just stand in a little cave, right? It would be so quiet. So quiet in there. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I know there¡¯s no one who can stay awake forever. But at this rate, I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ll be the ¡®no one¡¯ if something doesn¡¯t¡­ if something doesn''t¡­ I don¡¯t know. I just don¡¯t know. [ message 6: sounds of crickets and a few car horns here & there ] I wanted to stop myself from telling you about the so-called ghost, because maybe it would go away if no one knew. People who call it a ghost, people who call it a god, people who call it a, a shapeless monster¡­ all of them agree that, if you don¡¯t think about it, and if you don¡¯t believe in its existence, it will go away. They were wrong. Sure, I thought about it sometimes, but I never believed. I never believed it was a ghost. Is it some type of chemical or did someone poison me specifically or what? What if it has nothing to do with the flat? I¡¯ve had moments in other places too, moments & states which¡­ is a ghost¡¯s embrace cold or warm? I used to like how chill the breeze felt, but it¡¯s all a bunch of stings of air particles so I can¡¯t even feel the temperature much, the temperature seems meaningless. What would your embrace be, cold or warm? Cold or warm? [ message 7: sounds of quiet breathing, close to your face (too close) ] You must be warm right now, sound asleep. I know you used to have a ghost, but then you got rid of it. Or at least, it disappeared. And you never called it a ghost. You never called it anything, never talked about it. Maybe it¡¯s still there? I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s hard to tell with you, you slept so soundly even when there was definitely a ghost. Were you calm or were you just exhausted? I wish I could talk about these things face-to-face and calmly but I can''t, how do you speak calmly? There''s nothing to be calm about but you¡¯re still calm, and I wonder if it¡¯s in the bone structure. If I got to look inside your bones, I could tell if you¡¯re TRULY calm or if you¡¯re just¨C look, look, see, I never see you around anymore and now I¡¯m suspicious: did the ghost actually leave? Or did it just¡­ [ message 8: ] The only reason I can think of such things ¡ª about anything besides the static ¡ª it¡¯s because the wind has calmed down. But if it picks back up, it¡¯ll be noisy again and my bones will itch and itch and I¡¯ll be taken entirely by the ghost, and I¡¯ll just be the ghost and a mass of bone, I¡¯ll be a mass of itchy bone. I hope that¡¯s not what happened to you. That¡¯s what my crazy suspicions were about. I know, right? I¡¯m overthinking, because you really just are naturally that calm. And it¡¯s just a coincidence that you¡¯re gone. That¡¯s EXACTLY the situation, and you¡¯re laughing at my stupid theory and thinking how the- how, ¡°oh, your walls just had toxic gases, you¡¯ll be alright in a few hours¡±, and you¡¯re laughing. And you¡¯re right. I like to imagine you listening. You¡¯re listening now and you¡¯re absorbing some of the noise for me. You do so much without even being here. You make my staticky nerves calm down. But it only lasts for a few moments. I need a better solution. [ message 9: sounds of the ground, every tiny dirt particle¡¯s movement. ] Okay, alright, we¡¯ll be okay and I¡¯ll just be telling you a few last things before I stop for the night. Then I''ll turn my phone off. You shouldn¡¯t use screens before going to sleep, right? Right. I think a week of being down there should help me. I hope you hear these by that time. Maybe you¡¯re too busy to bother, but¡­ well, I¡¯m busy too, and I¡¯m possessed, and that¡¯s not a good excuse for me not to keep in touch so I don''t see why YOU¨C but no, that is a good excuse to ignore people, and I have been ignoring people and ¡®possession¡¯, is it even possession if it¡¯s not technically ¡®dead people¡¯ ghosts and¨C no, no, that¡¯s all besides the point. I just want you to know I''m fine. I will be fine. You know that. God, my hands shake. God could be the ghost instead, the ghost could be a god, but it¡¯s alright, I¡¯ll be alright no matter what it is because I''ll just fall asleep for a bit down there. I feel like removing my bones and cleansing them from the inside out, fixing them and making them a little more like yours. But maybe I don¡¯t need to do that at all. Rest will help! I haven¡¯t been able to rest at all but now I¡¯ve found a way to do it, and so I will do it, and even if it DOESN¡¯T help with anything, it¡¯s- well, I''ve still EARNED the rest, haven¡¯t I? Even if I stay like this forever, even if I die like this, I''ve¨C [ a gust of wind & a scream & thud of the phone & the scream cut short by a slap to the face, then another, then a punch to the jaw, then nothing. ] [ the air is still. ] [ a voice from far, far away. ] I have earned some stillness. Garbage Here''s a box that needs throwing out. It''s made of cardboard, fits in my hand, crisp and clean, perhaps not even worth throwing out. Not that that bit matters, it needs to be thrown out. The dustbin is quite small, so I take all my small garbage and put it inside the big garbage. All my garbage is boxes and if it''s not, I make it boxes. Dustbin only likes boxes, it can''t handle anything besides boxes. Anything else gets rejected, including crushed-up boxes (crush into boxes, that''s fine; crush into lumps, dustbin vomits). Before throwing out this little precious cardboard box, I must put a new garbage bag into the dustbin. So I rip a new bag off the roll, gulp, and try to stay steady as I insert the bag. The walls of the dustbin squirm, and so do the walls of my throat. My throat and the dustbin had an agreement to stay civil with one another, so cause each other minimal trouble. This is that ¡®minimal trouble¡¯. That¡¯s why the dustbin only ever takes box trash, too. It was built wrong, so it has stupid ¡®needs¡¯ like that, malfunctioning when they¡¯re not met. Maximal trouble would¡¯ve been like the time someone threw a bunch of juicy, rotting bananas into the dustbin and then the juices got very¡­ for some reason the garbage bag was missing that day. So the walls of the dustbin squirmed and squirmed, and the walls of my throat convulsed. The garbage wasn¡¯t even made into boxes, so that was already awful, and my throat wanted to comfort the dustbin as it weeped at the sheer wrongness but then the bananas were sticking to the walls so vomiting was difficult for the dustbin and then the juice was leaking out into the throat itself and it stank and they were both pulsing and weeping in each other¡¯s embrace and then finally, finally the dustbin managed to vomit. I had to clean its inner walls or else ants would swarm. Then my throat had to let some vomit through, too, so I cleaned both throat and dustbin once again. They held each other, trembling, for hours afterwards (major overreaction, if you ask me). I still don¡¯t know who threw those bananas in. Though the dustbin is connected to my throat, my throat doesn¡¯t need to be physically close to the dustbin for trash to be thrown in. The connection between the two isn¡¯t entirely physical. Maybe 75% physical? They¡¯re symbiotic creatures (they won¡¯t tell me what benefit they bring one another) and they have been for a very, very long time. The 25% remaining connection is love, pure and simple. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. But maybe not very simple. I don¡¯t understand them enough (or at all), though I¡¯ve been by their sides for all these years. Where do I even come into the picture, having borne witness to their bonds? I¡¯ve seen both of them at their worst and at their best, and much of the time I¡¯ve seen that they can bring out new, beautiful qualities from each other (so I tell myself). I soothe them when things aren¡¯t going so well, and I nurse them back to health when they¡¯re hurt. I¡¯m a well-wisher and I¡¯m a spectator, but is spectating good for me? It¡¯s beautiful, they¡¯re beautiful, beautiful beautiful beautiful¨C but beauty is supposed to touch you, yet I feel nothing! Am I part of the symbiosis and if I am, who¡¯s soothing me, who¡¯s taking care of me when I¡¯m hurt? When am I ever hurt? How do I know if I¡¯m hurt? Am I numb to everything? I think I might be, because I don¡¯t understand the sensation of pain within myself ¡ª it only matters when it¡¯s within someone else ¡ª so how would I fix it? Why would I fix it? What am I? Who knows and who cares? Man, I¡¯m just tired. Most of the time, the dustbin and my throat are pretty quiet. Sometimes I make myself dance to the sound of my peristalsis. I force it, hoping to find joy in the fact that, ¡°see, even that happy couple can feel that motion, thrumming against their walls.¡± But numbness can envelope the most darling moments and turn them into dull, hollow lumps of gray. Oh well. It is what it is. I was throwing away this little cardboard box, yes? Fits in my hand? Yes. I was to throw it away after inserting the garbage bag, but I got so carried away. Why am I throwing this box away, anyway? It¡¯s cute. It¡¯s tiny. It¡¯s like a little baby. Why do I do anything? Why am I alive, why do I exist, why doesn¡¯t it make any sense, and why don¡¯t I feel anything about what I¡¯m doing? No motivation, no drive, no goal, no nothing. Just tiredness and nothingness. Maybe I could rip out my throat, extract the dustbin, and hand them over to someone who really wants them. It would be a painful procedure, maybe even dangerous if I did it myself. But then at least I¡¯d feel something. You are a red dot on a blue line hurtling at 65 km/hr. You are a red dot on a blue line hurtling at 65 km/hr, your sensory organs consisting of the nerves in your skin and nothing else. There is a cylindrical hole inside you with which you wrap the blue line (your stomach? sure, call it whatever you wish[1]). Every second you feel the friction, rubbing as you rush through your path. You can''t scream. You can''t give a sigh of relief or sadness. Or pleasure. You just move. Thorns in your stomach. Grinding. Did your body start as soft or solid? Right now it''s somewhere in between. But how did that happen? Did your rock-hard body get eroded by the motion, or did your soft fleshy body harden up as you travelled, muscles clenching to protect itself from the line, from the wind lashing at you? When were you born and where did you come from? The line wonders the same about itself. Maybe. Who knows what it wonders? Despite all the time you spend on/outside the line, you never talk to it. It doesn''t want to talk, it seems. What is its skin like? Seldom it is that you slow down enough to feel, truly feel the line''s surface. You did it once, going at 15 km/hr. The line gurgled when you slow down. The bubbling of lava, beneath you and inside you. Perhaps it was just some twitching of your muscles. Does the line twitch often, but you go too fast to notice it? Or did it get nervous because you were too slow, thinking something was about to end, or something about to start, or something was about to let go entirely of the concept of ''end'' and ''start''?[2] You can talk to the line, but it seems pointless. You''re too different from each other, right? The line''s desires are irrelevant to you, too. It wants a slow life, which it already has. Because you''re the one moving[3]. Who cares? Who cares? The line squirms at times, but it''s mostly just still, relative to you. What does it have to squirm at, though? You''re moving, and you must always be moving, you''re the one who should be squirming yet you''re not. What excuse does the line have? You could ask, but what''s the point? The line is fighting back. But you need to get to your destination. The line is at every time at once. It is the it it will be tomorrow, and it is the it it would''ve been yesterday. It is its present self, its past self, its future self, all at once. All the same, it''s an unchanging and unmoving line for all time. You, though, you''re always on the move. The only you is the one in the present. Whenever you are, it''s the present. Whenever the line is, who knows? You know. ''Every time''. [4] Everytime the line is, it is, it just is. Spread itself thin, really. What''s it squirming for? Does it want you to do something, want you to stop moving? Well, you can''t. [5] No point squirming. You can''t move without the line and without you, the line¡­ perhaps it would be fine, actually. There''s no reason for it to want you. Although, that time you slowed down to 15 km/hr and paid attention to it, didn''t it feel good? The bubbling contractions of muscles that could''ve been the line''s, could''ve been yours, and it was all blurred. Wasn''t it a fascinating feeling? New, fantastic? Didn''t time seem like it tasted good for once, as it washed over your pores? Did the line like it? Does it ever pay attention to how you feel on it? Does it ever think to dissolve and leave you, leave you hanging and falling and feeling nothing? Maybe the line doesn''t think about it at all. Where must its brain be? Does it have one at all? And if it does, is it just imperceptible because it''s everywhere in time and you couldn''t possibly, possibly comprehend it, so why bother? Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Time contracts and expands like the metal of the railway tracks.[6] Come to think of it, where is your destination? You¡¯ve got ways to figure it out, like GPS. Or a big map which many different people have contributed to. But that tells you where you are right now, not where you''re going. Where are you going?
Footnotes: [1] You can do whatever you want but no, not really. You can use a different lens to look at things, like your body, and technically that is a ¡°thing¡± you are doing, but do you want to do it? On your pyramid of wants, how high is ¡°altering self-perception¡±? Can you get high in this form that you have been forced into? Were you forced, were you coerced, or is it more true that you were so weary that this form seemed much better than anything else the world could offer? [2] What if you and the line ended? What if you started telepathically screaming, "I WILL NEVER STOP, I''LL STAY IN MOTION UNTIL I GET TO NOWHERE, AND THERE IS NO WAY TO GET TO ''NOWHERE'' AND SO I WILL NEVER STOP, AND THERE WILL BE NO END TO ANYTHING. NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUEST OF BEGINNING. NO EXISTENCE, I MAY BE UNAWARE OF HAPPINESS/SADNESS/ANYTHING IN THIS STATE AND IT WON''T MATTER FOR I WILL BE PROUD TO HAVE ELIMINATED A CONCEPT AS FUNDAMENTAL AS ''ENDINGS'' AND ''BEGINNINGS'' AND IF I CAN BREAK THE CHAINS OF SUCH FUNDAMENTALS THEN MAYBE I COULD BREAK OTHER CHAINS THAT STOP ME FROM, WELL I DON''T KNOW WHAT I WANT SO PERHAPS I''D FIRST BREAK THE CHAIN THAT PREVENTS ME FROM KNOWING WHAT I WANT."? Well, if you did, then the line would be in sheer agony. Have you even thought about its length? You are a creature of a small radius, so you must not think very often about creatures who have lengths as well (the line has radius and length; it''s a line from above, only 2 dimensions matter as far as your existence is concerned), but perhaps the fact that its length is infinite and/or undefined what with needing to take its position in time into account too¡­ but it''s just the stupid line, right? Who cares? You don''t. Who cares. Someone else? Perhaps you''re lying about not caring? Who knows. Who cares. Who cares about this train of thought! Who cares about trains these days, either! This footnote is garbage. Useless. [3] What the line wants is this: Peace. Not just in physical movement. Sensory peace, as well. Just in case you were curious. Just in case. [4] Living in the present moment is a gift. If you don¡¯t live in the present moment, you lose sight of all you are. Which is a red dot on a blue line hurtling at 80 km/hr. Can you feel the heat? The cuts? Or is it all numb? Can you feel the numbness? You¡¯re in the moment of¡­ this is a little bit in the future, this footnote. Or is it a message from the past? Did you go through everything else before returning to this moment and when even is this moment? Can you pinpoint it? No, you can¡¯t. You¡¯re not living in the present moment. No gift for you. But maybe this is what you wanted. So, congratulations. [5] You can stop, you just won''t. It would be wrong, so you can¡¯t. Wrong in what way? It would be wrong. It would just be wrong. It would just be wrong. The line would not understand. That''s why it''s pointless to talk. It would be wrong. Why would it be wrong? It would be wrong. How to explain? It would be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, [6] Firstly, railroad tracks are obsolete when we can have sentient movers like you. "And what about my passengers?" You''re numb to their coming and going. Who cares? Their desires are irrelevant. Yours are simply, "move." Now, the second thing: Congratulations. There are many who would kill to have the type of freedom from time that you do. That¡¯s a different type of gift, being able to live in the moment like you do, all other time just washing over you and clogging your pores, so you can be in any ¡®present¡¯ that you wish. So many would kill for that. Congratulations, congratulations on your blessed existence. Just Get Through This Just Get Through This Just Get Through This [ sounds of a badly tuned violin, of the bow being held by someone who isn''t truly here and doesn''t notice the shrieks that keep coming out of the instrument ] When horrible things happen, we tend to shut the door and press our back against it as the memories knock and knock and slam and kick to get inside. But we don¡¯t let them. Their physical strength is nearly non-existent (still kicking at the door, they¡¯ll use up all their energy and fall down in exhaustion soon), but their body odours will choke you out. If they come inside, their stench will make you dizzy and nearly knock you out, and the dreams will be so empty (a darkness where you see too much, see the universe). And that¡¯s when it pounces. Knock you out with stench, send you exactly where you were when the memory itself happened. [ sounds of pain as the musician experiences sharp bolts of pain, but keeps playing as they''re only half-conscious of this. There is more screeching. Whether it''s the memories or the violin is unclear, though it does seem the memory prefers to whimper. ] But no, you keep your back against the door and you wait for the memories to stop. Exhaustion. Exhaustion. They''re not going to die just yet, but they will get tired and stop annoying you. Just keep distracting yourself to get through the noise, okay? There is a friend who keeps you company, but I don''t think they''re really here. The friend seems to be adding onto more of the noise and appears to be an extension of your flesh. So perhaps that''s just you? [ the musician keeps performing tunelessly. if you try to look into their eyes, you can''t. they''re not here. I''m not here. you''re not here. ] [ The sound of the memory? That''s gone, too. ] Your back is still against the door, but the thudding has stopped. Not even whimpers. Just silence from the door. Even the extension of your flesh has stopped trying to make ''music'' and just keeps making noise, noise and noise and noise, just needs to keep going no matter what. And you? Well, you''re alive. So that means you''ve also kept going. Congratulations. I''ve kept going too. I keep witnessing all of us in order to keep a record of (things which don''t matter, we''ll all die and none of this will matter) this authentic human struggle which may serve as a reminder that yes, yes, things may happen to you and around you, but you will keep going. You will keep going. There are splinters in that door which have dug into your back and you''re bleeding, but you''re alive. You''ll keep going. [ The musician is playing one note over and over when all of a sudden they become conscious again, and the pain becomes sharper and the noise becomes sharper and every light and sound and touch around them becomes sharper. The musician drops the bow and violin and screeches and stops, just stops. ] The extension of your flesh gave up but don''t worry, all that was just noise. All that was just noise! [ the sounds of pain were subtle before, because the musician was not conscious of them before. now they''re sharper. the pain is sharper so the sounds are sharper. ] Maybe we can just ignore that. At least the memory shut up, right? This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. And what was the memory anyway? Who knows, but it certainly won''t bother you anymore! It''s dead! Yes, I said it simply collapsed of exhaustion, but put your ear to the door. [ there should be whimpering. there should be heavy breathing and sounds of sadness as the memory is consumed by itself, the knowledge of its own self. a sadness that it seeks to embed into you, as it embeds itself into you, as it seeks to be whole with you and seeks to be the sadness and seeks to be and turn you into the sense of loss for¡­ whatever was destroyed. we don''t know what was destroyed. the memory could''ve spoken to us to tell us the details, but we chose not to listen, so it gave us details without words. just noise. just touch. just visions. just stench. ] See, not a single sound. It''s dead. Nothing bad has ever happened to you, and any evidence of such a thing is dead. The extension of your flesh that seeks to make music is not dead, and it will wake up soon, but it will be calm this time. I promise. Don''t even worry about any noises. You can make new extensions of your flesh if needed, you can extend to cover up the planet and stuff my mouth shut if you need. Noise is no longer an issue. [ and true, even the musician''s sounds of pain have stopped now. there''s a minute or so as your tendrils tune the violin and replace the musician''s body, so next time there will be true music instead of noise. and as of now, it''s all a serene quietness. noise is no longer an issue. ] ¡­ But there''s a stench. It''s coming through the door, do we need to check up on the memory''s corpse? But then that gives us visual information on the thing-that-didn''t-happen, and then what if you inadvertently necromance the memory so it starts to lunge at you again? Opening the door isn''t an option at all. If the living memory''s odour could knock you out, what would the corpse''s stench do? What will you do? What will you do? [ sound of shuffling as the musician''s new body turns towards you. sound of flesh as they use your/their tendrils to plug their nose. ] It gave you a smile, did you see that? The smell from outside the door just won''t stop and it''s clinging to all of us and it''s coating the inside of your mouth nose and stinging your eyes, but that extension of your being just¡­ [ gentle snoring. the musician is asleep. they will perform later, when things are a little better. ] It''s ignoring it. Meanwhile the cuts from the splinters in your back are infected and (how did I not notice) you''re dying too, I didn''t see that, but¨C but are you? What exactly is death here? Because that memory isn''t dead. Its smell is consuming you. It''s getting into the cuts in your back. You''re remembering what the thing-that-didn''t-happen smelled like and the smell is coating your skin, it''s so thick, it''s polluting you and everything is unclean, everything is so unclean and maybe this really is poison and the corpse will putrefy and crawl inside from underneath the door and crawl into your mouth and you truly will be one with the memory and all that you''ve lost and¨C [ half-peaceful snoring from the musician, indicating that they''re getting some good rest. ] And you''ll keep going? And you''ll keep going. That extension of yourself which seeks to make music, that is you too. Perhaps the you at the door will die trying to keep the corpses at bay. Perhaps not, because maybe the stench will just break you beyond repair without ever actually killing you, and maybe that''s worse than death, but it isn''t actually death. Maybe the serene resting part will want to scream when it''s awake and the you at the door will be broken and battered. But alive. What is there to do, what is there to do under these circumstances? Maybe they could get better, maybe you can learn to ignore the stench so much better and maybe, you can figure out how to dispose of the corpse someday. Maybe you''ll even perform an autopsy on it. Maybe you''ll figure out what the memory was without being consumed by it, like you are right now. Nearly to death, nearly to death, the stench consumes you nearly to death. And yet you''re still alive, and all that must happen is waiting in the future. And the future itself is waiting behind the end of¡­ whatever this is. So just get through it. It will end. It will end. [ the musician sighs in their sleep. sounds fairly content, though they¡¯ll probably ache quite a bit after waking up. that¡¯s fine, because rest is rest, the main thing is they¡¯ll get the energy to keep going and then they¡¯ll wake up. ] You will get through this. FALL / FLOAT / FADE WHAT DO I REALLY NEED IN LIFE? Like a camouflaged animal, I need to go and lie down somewhere and change, change in a way so minor yet so major. Not much change, but look at that. No one can see me. Only those with the most discerning eye can tell I¡¯m even there, and with this discernment they can admire me & my craft. But I don¡¯t want to be admired, I just want to not be here. LIKE A CAMOUFLAGED ANIMAL, I need to stand still somewhere and not be witnessed, not at all in the slightest even if my leg hurts so bad from standing so long. I don''t think this leg was meant to be in this world. Or maybe it was MORE ¡°meant to be in this world¡± than the rest of me, and it is that disconnect which makes it hurt so bad. Either way, it''s stuck in a trap so I need to gnaw it off to free myself. I¡¯m biting & chewing on everything I can get my teeth on. The grip of my jaw gets stronger with each bite, each bite, each bite. BEING A CAMOUFLAGED ANIMAL WOULD NEVER BE ENOUGH, because the animal would still be an animal. It wouldn¡¯t be dissolved into the world. My life would still be mine, but if the concept of ¡°mine¡± is still intact it means I am me and I haven''t dissolved entirely, I haven''t truly become indistinguishable from the rest of it all. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I KNOW WHAT I REALLY NEED IN LIFE. I need to become intangible. I need to become just a bunch of data points, too abstract to be empathized with (even by you), too far away from any concept of ¡®I¡¯. Unidentifiable body, and can''t even be recognised as a body, and in fact ceases to be a body. Very different from the camouflaged animal. I don''t think there''s any satisfaction to be found here. Not in my words, not in the way I string them together. As long as I can still be an ¡°I¡± and find it a meaningful descriptor for whatever is going on (metabolism & breathing & thought process & all of it tripping over itself, my mind trips over itself & hits its head) there is no satisfaction and And there''s nothing else to say. I am me. I am me. I will be me till the day I die. So I might imitate the chameleon until that day can arrive. But see, there''s a chance it may never arrive. Because what if I''m immortal? I feel I could be immortal. My craftsmanship with the camouflage is so great that Death might not even find me when it''s time. It may lose track of me forever. And then I''ll be stuck as me and the heat death of the universe will pull all the atoms and quarks apart and it will all be a flat hot [indescribable], yet I''ll still be there. A chameleon in empty space, falling, floating, falling, floating. Too big yet too small to reasonably be alive, to deserve to be alive. No satisfaction in these words. None, none, none. There is nothing left to do but to fade away again. TUMULTUOUS YET GODLIKE FLUIDITY We are all sent flying in the wind the breeze the wind the breeze. Some find it calm (a breeze), and wonder why the rest of us scream. They open up their umbrellas (and some of them don''t need) and they''re satisfied and happy. Others (worship the wind) are enraptured, their bodies turned to wonder as they feel their god in every nook and cranny of their soul and body. I don''t understand them, and I watch them float into my tongue, unaware. But at least they''re happy, I''m truly glad they''re happy. And there''s ones who grew out wings, they''re hard to see, but there''s a few of them and they fly away from me and my fellow clouds, grown so strong they oppose the direction of the wind. I''m proud of them. There''s ones who fall apart, collapse, their bodies have gone limp but not wondrous. They just ragdoll, fall, and succumb to gravity. They don''t succumb to the wind, though, they fall straight down. It''s like they''ve given up, but there''s a sense of defiance despite it (do they know what they are doing?), defy the wind (but don''t defy gravity? what gives?), I don''t know if they are conscious but I hope they survive their fall. And as for me and my fellow clouds¡­ we fly along with the spirals, we spiral while knowing that someday we''ll turn into tear drops, we spiral in the knowledge that death will come soon. And that''s alright, because we''ll rise again, our liquid forms will evaporate and we''ll find ourselves again, in the sky, with these people we don''t know, and the wind and breeze and spiralling¨C just listen, it''s all alright! It''s all okay! My fellow clouds are in peace, they just float, they just fly, they just hang in the sky and I''m the only one who cries out, "When did I grow these pitch-black eyes and why is there thunder, spitting from my mouth? I don''t spit it voluntarily, and I wasn''t supposed to have a mouth. Was not supposed to have a tongue (the tongue is thunder, spit is thunder, form is fluid, all is fluid), why is there thunder all around me, and how did it find its way into my thoughts as well?" If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. What is going on?! So many humans worship us, and they seem to stare at my grandeur, at my body, they worship both me and the wind (a breeze, so calm and kind). They worship the storm (and some deny that it''s ferocious) and they stare in awe, they stare in awe at my form which I''ve formed pure confusion about, why am I like this? What is going on? Can you see my eyes, and tongue (or spit?), what is my body? What are my body parts? How dare you stare? But I don''t really care (don¡¯t I?). Do I really care (do I?)? You just want to know the weather, that''s not rude (or, well¡­ sometimes it is, you can either be less rude about it or you can stop all meteorology). I understand why you do what you do. I don¡¯t always have to like it, though sometimes I stare back at you in wonder, stare at the things you do (so rudely) in wonder as well. I know how to stare without being rude, so I suppose you can learn as well, and many of you have learned and I marvel at you the way you do at me. Many of you just, you just¡­ some of you are turned to wonder, bodily and mentally and your spirits turned to wonder. My fluidity confuses me, but does it bring you awe? I think you find it beautiful, so you keep staring on. I am mesmerizing, I understand, and I know that I''m undefinable. But the fact that you want a form like mine (will you do anything to become a cloud?)¡­ I hope you survive it. And I hope you thrive. Vultures. There are pieces. Bitter, metallic, never leaving my mouth. Vultures eat dead things. So I invite them into my mouth. If no one cleans it up, disease will spread. A couple deaths have already happened. Damage control is needed. We can¡¯t reverse it. ¡°Will it come alive if you vomit it up?¡± I asked the vultures once. ¡°No. What¡¯s dead is dead,¡± they said. ¡°It would be even more dead after getting into our stomachs going through the acids.¡± ¡°Even more dead?¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.¡°Even more dead. Seen to the end properly. The death will be complete.¡± ¡°Okay. Thank you.¡± I let them fly into me, and they flock around the dead parts. I can¡¯t do anything while they¡¯re doing this. But it¡¯s okay, I¡¯ll let them take their time. It happens sometimes, incidents like these deaths. They¡¯ll never be reversed. Every step forward means taking a risk. Every step forward is a step that can¡¯t be taken back. So if it goes wrong¡­ I feel the vultures pecking away at the decay. What else is there to do? My mouth will be free of the dead soon. Maybe more death will come later, because it always does, but after this is done¡­ Vultures peck. Vultures peck. I don¡¯t know. Vultures peck. I can¡¯t think till my mouth is clean, I can¡¯t think till my mind is free. Vultures peck. Vultures peck. Nothing in my brain. Vultures peck. Soon they¡¯ll be done, they go on. An explanation. [ I CAN HEAR MYSELF FROM THE INTERCOM THOUGH I DO NOT SPEAK ] Upward spirals, rockets, what I imagine would happen if you rode upon a beam of light from a torch shone up into the night sky one time during a childhood trip from which I remember nothing besides this torch, the fascination with light itself¨C I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m not making much sense. It¡¯s just this song. I think there¡¯s something wrong with it. Or no, not wrong, no, I¡¯m confused, it¡¯s¨C [ ALL OF US CAN HEAR IT ] See, it¡¯s doing something. You¡¯re listening to it, you¡¯re listening to it, right? That alone won¡¯t make you get it. Won¡¯t make you get what¡¯s happening, I might be poisoned(? No I¡¯m not), and I¡¯m awestruck in a way too far gone, awestruck in a direction unable to be processed. There¡¯s the MELODY, right? You can hear it? But it¡¯s got variations too. It can vary in many many different ways. There can be so many different versions if you compress the audio (the whole or just parts) or if you just make specific frequencies of the sound louder or quieter. There¡¯s so many possibilities, there¡¯s so many because that¡¯s just in the nature of sound and that would ALL BE FINE AND GOOD but there¡¯s ALL of it, it¡¯s ALL OF IT currently playing in my head. [ NO. NO. ] It¡¯s the soundtrack to me contracting into a point in the middle like a reverse Big Bang as the whole universe collapses in on itself, I can¡¯t stop all of it RACING INTO MY HEAD¨C or out of my head? It¡¯s being produced SOMEWHERE in my head, somewhere, and it¡¯s flooding everything else, and it might leave my head too¨C no, it HAS left my head already, even NORMAL music does that. It does that when it leaks into the nerve cells outside your brain, makes your fingers and your legs tap to the beat, makes you dance, but now it¡¯s too much and the nerves are dancing and the blood is dancing and my bone marrow wants to dance too. There¡¯s body parts trying to make movements that they CANNOT and that¡¯s because¨C the VARIATIONS! The variations which¨C if you can modify things in absolutely tiny ways (even if they¡¯re imperceptible¨C UNLESS your mind tries to perceive the imperceptible anyway!), that means infinite, infinite, infinite! Infinite perceptions, the brain CAN¡¯T produce infinity because it can¡¯t just get infinite energy (THOUGH IT TRIES), but my nerves still try to REACT to each and every, each and every possible instant of the song! From universes, all the universes, so many of it. No structure, all the structure. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. [ YOU CAN HEAR IT BUT YOU¡¯LL NEVER UNDERSTAND HOW LITTLE OF IT YOU HEAR THOUGH YOU HEAR A PORTION OF IT, IT IS A 3-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT BEING PERCEIVED BY 2D FLATLANDERS, THE 4D TESSERACT PERCEIVED BY OUR 3D EYES ] What do I DO but curl up in a ball¨C no, not a ball, something twisted, I don¡¯t know WHERE my nerves want me to¨C what do I do, I¡¯m getting ill yet I think I feel better than ever and if you could quantify illness, if you could quantify illness and negative numbers meant sickness while positive numbers meant wellness, MY health would be written as an imaginary number but I¡¯m sorry, I can¡¯t explain, I cannot. It¡¯s the fault of this SONG. Its infinities. An eldritch horror. The number of possible variations! What do I DO?! Would it help to ASK the song to cut it out? How would I ask it? There¡¯s the original version of it that I¡¯ve written down, what do I do, would it help to ask¨C but imagine the image of someone yelling at a piece of sheet music. And it''s the middle of the night, too, and what alternatives? Yelling at the mp3 file wouldn''t be any better, either. Nor would yelling at my brain for the production, the production, the production. [ GOES ON. GOES ON. GOES ON. Goes on. ] It will pass? It will pass with time? It will pass? Maybe? Maybe? I don¡¯t know, maybe? Maybe?! Energy to Matter It''s all a bunch of lightning bolts. Big bolts piercing my head. I lay down in bed & my thoughts race & race & race, all a thunderstorm, all pure energy. Then it weighs down on me and yes, I can feel it happening. All energy is matter, all matter is energy, and it can convert from one form to another. The caged thoughts have so far avoided colliding with each other in the wrong way, but now¡­ too many of them, they can''t avoid such things. Thoughts don''t have much mass, but there''s so many, so many, and now they''re all clumping together into balls of matter and clattering against the front of my skull. I NEED to roll onto my back, maybe my side, as long as I''m not laying on my stomach because then the thought rocks will keep hitting the front and there¡¯s the explosion in my eyes, there¡¯s the fireworks blooming with each hit on the optic nerve. The thoughts were transcendent, but now they¡¯re cruel stone. Where does all this energy even come from? The supply? Yes, there was the lightning strike, but¨C oh, I guess it wasn¡¯t just one lightning strike, was it? There were many, one after the other, but it got so hard to keep track that I started seeing them all as one. What does it matter if it¡¯s the 5th or the 100th strike? It¡¯s all just electrocution. It¡¯s all a constant, CONSTANT shock to the system. I was trying to sleep, but clearly that¡¯s not possible now. It took till 2 AM to even consider that maybe my body needs rest, because it felt so stupid. So trivial to ¡®rest¡¯ when I could be doing anything & everything, anything & everything! I¡¯m going to dig & dig & dig & dig. I¡¯ll take a shovel to my head and get the thoughts out so I can make things with them, throw them at everyone whether they like it or not. The world is doing the same to me, after all. I can nearly see someone when I go outside. I see the eyes of someone behind the sky, folding it back to take a peek at the world down below. That ¡®someone¡¯ IS the world, that¡¯s the world & it cut an incision on its stomach & it is now looking into it, we¡¯re stuck in its fucking stomach & the world struck my brain with lightning. And NOW it¡¯s throwing every tiny bit of detail of every tiny bit of sound, light, touch into my eyes & ears & skin. It¡¯s cramming EVERY GRAIN into EVERY PORE & EVERY SINGLE NERVE. All amplified, I¡¯m capturing EVERYTHING & it¡¯s all¨C I can¡¯t stop, I can¡¯t truly close my eyes because something will penetrate the eyelids anyway & it¡¯ll be so bright, so bright! Each sound so loud & layered, I can feel what part of my eardrum got hit by each wave. Each touch digging tunnels through my fat & muscle, building roads to deliver the nerve signals to the brain. AND YET, I can¡¯t touch anyone! If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. No! No, of course I can feel the touch of the air, even when it¡¯s still. The touch of my pillow & the bedsheet & bit of exposed mattress & every little bit of dust & lint, it¡¯s all there & it¡¯s all amplified. They touch me, maybe I touch them, THINGS can touch me & I can touch THINGS. THINGS. But let¡¯s say I wanted to melt into someone! Say I wanted to feel someone¡¯s steady breathing. Gentle heartbeat, gentle warmth. Say I wanted someone near me like that, so they could help me calm down. BUT THAT CAN¡¯T HAPPEN BECAUSE I GOT ELECTROCUTED. So the current would just shock them to death & then we¡¯d have bigger problems. I¡¯m not sure if I should even get near other people at this point, even the air feels electric¨C see! Look! The darkness is so bright, the darkness is so bright! You can¡¯t see it but I can, and maybe the brightness is the electricity! Maybe, maybe, maybe! But it could also just be the tiniest bit of light which managed to get in through the microscopic holes of that curtain (cities are always awake, I¡¯m one with the city), and my eyes & brain can GATHER & PROCESS EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Do you think the electricity in the air (or whatever it is WHATEVER IT IS) will turn into matter as well? And by ¡®you¡¯, I mean me. There is not a single soul around me right now, because I am not around anyone. Even in a crowd I am not ¡®around¡¯ anyone. I¡¯m not around, I¡¯m just not around. It¡¯s like fireflies, they¡¯re so beautiful. But then ¡®fireflies¡¯ sounds so trivial, right? Because whatever-this-is (NAMELESS! UNNAMEABLE!) is so beyond the biological processes of a firefly, the biological process of an anything. And, and, and the beauty is so much greater too. Just¡­ my god, the colours, it¡¯s like I generated new cones in my eyes but no I didn¡¯t, these are colours I¡¯ve seen a million times before but now I see them, I SEE them. The sound BANG BANG BANGS against my head & the electricity is melodious & just about everything, ANYTHING with any sort of motion is melodious because all motion involves time & all melodies involve time & it¡¯s all a bunch of beautiful, beautiful melodies. It¡¯s okay, okay, it¡¯s okay though. Those colours & sounds will turn to matter, too. They¡¯re just photons & vibrations in the air, after all. They¡¯re life-changing photons & life-changing vibrations & these are life-changing thoughts, but that¡¯s all there is. They¡¯re not substantive. I can¡¯t hold them. I can¡¯t touch them. I can¡¯t touch you. I can¡¯t touch anyone. It¡¯s okay, it¡¯s okay. The electricity in my head is still turning into matter. Same goes for the electricity in the air. It¡¯s all turning solid. Or liquid? I can¡¯t tell the difference. All I know is that it will crush me. And being crushed¡­ well, it¡¯s a little similar to being held, right? I think I can accept it. Let that thought turn into rocks as well. Many, many, many thoughts. They all just hasten the process. Let it be hastened, let it be hastened. I don¡¯t see the world peering into its stomach right now but I think it wants it. I don¡¯t know why. I can find out why. No I can¡¯t. I know everything & I know nothing. I can accept my knowledge & drive & ignorance being turned to rocks. It¡¯s all I have. Crushing weight is loving. The world is loving. The world is loving. The world is loving. The world is loving. The world is loving. IT IS PULSING Walk and walk and run and run and run, it doesn¡¯t matter where you¡¯re going and it doesn¡¯t matter if you¡¯re going in circles. Your feet go numb and there¡¯s no way to know if they¡¯re moving as they should. Going up from there, your legs go to a dream world and just abstract, just abstract, and the same for your whole body. Are you even on the ground anymore? You¡¯re falling. Or at least, that¡¯s how this might be interpreted. Your vision doesn¡¯t mean much anymore, neither does your hearing. It¡¯s all a blur and your body is the exact same as the concept of walking, of running, of falling. Intangible. Mass converted to pure energy. To pure thought because what even is thought, is thought something you can hold in your hand? No, but your body was. But can you hold energy in your hand? That¡¯s a bad question, because you are no longer qualified to answer it. No meaning to you having a hand, to you having legs, none of it. Walk and walk and run and run and run(!!!!!!!!), WHAT ELSE! What else could you have done in this life? You could spend all day thinking about it. In fact, you DID spend days thinking about it, once upon a time (LONG TIME, NO TIME AGO) you spent WEEKS AND WEEKS AND WEEKS AND WEEKS when you could just smell the air instead. It¡¯s all around you and you¡¯ll lose your smell soon, so just savour it. AND you can taste it on your tongue, too, you better savour THAT as well since you¡¯ve still got time for such things (for now) since taste and smell will be the last to leave completely, right before vision vision. They¡¯re leaving you and YOU¡¯RE leaving them too (RECIPROCAL!!!!!), you¡¯re leaving it ALL behind. It¡¯s not death, no, it¡¯s ascension. You could¡¯ve done this in the opposite direction too, become nothing but a device which takes in sensory data and processes it through a CPU / brain, there¡¯s no good difference, it¡¯s just an inorganic / organic difference and what does that matter when you could just stop and go on with your current path? What you need, what you need, all you need, all you need, become pure energy. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. You¡¯re falling, and the sky is all you see. Sight doesn¡¯t mean much, but the slight remains of your physical form can still send a few signals (few but strong so strong SO strong). Your touch left you first & first you couldn¡¯t feel the tip of a needle then you couldn¡¯t feel a stick then you couldn¡¯t feel her warm hand then you couldn¡¯t feel the boiling water you spilled all over your piece of the world. Then the hearing started to leave too, just a little later, and it was the most heartbreaking one to let go of (at first, only at first) since THAT¡¯S how you were comforting yourself at start (when it scared you, when you even KNEW fear) with the sound of the wind or the chit-chat going on outside or a song or the ceiling fan or your gentle (or SLAM SLAM SLAM) taps on the table and now you can now just BARELY sense the wind brushing against your head, you can sense only the most violent gales (few but strong SO STRONG BUT FEW). WALK AND WALK AND RUN AND RUN AND RUN because the vessel must be exhausted as quickly as it can be and this is the last thing it can do at all ¡ª no choice! No choice in leaving (past the point of no return), but you CAN choose to leave GRANDLY and you must make it complete, a blaze of glory to bid you goodbye. And this isn¡¯t death, this isn¡¯t death, it¡¯s ascension. YOU¡¯RE FALLING. The sky has joined you. It¡¯s pulsating and it¡¯s all you can see and it¡¯ll be the last thing you ever see, because soon you will get something which is much greater than vision ever was. Vision is you seeing things, the ability you get now as a being of pure energy (not just thought, so crude) will be to become those things & you will bridge the gap between unliving & living & the gap will cease to exist & gaps will cease to exist & the ability to think such things will¨C the sky is falling too, the sky is spasming, it¡¯s spasming, it¡¯s pulsing, you¡¯re pulsing, you¡¯re spasming, you¡¯re the sky & you are falling & flying & falling & flying & pulsing. Goodbye. Sunrise I¡¯m never really awake for sunrises. Classic night owl behaviour, one time my sister told me I¡¯ve turned nocturnal over the years. And why wouldn¡¯t I? Daytime is all noise and lights, being surrounded by people who seem oddly okay with it all. They¡¯re not overwhelmed, no, somehow I¡¯m the strange one for being overwhelmed by overwhelming things, I mean, god forbid you spin your protective cocoon covering in the middle of a noisy gathering with those horrible HORRIBLE fluorescent lights because suddenly you¡¯re the freak for just wanting to chill a little and not get your eyes attacked by the godawful fluorescent lights, I mean, COME ON, it¡¯s not like I walked out! Every time I come out as a butterfly from the cocoon! AND I clean up the leftover cocoon, what else do you want?!?! Anyway, I believe I¡¯ve proven my point. I love the night. The darkness is a source of joy, it¡¯s like a hug in a world which is just 24/7 sensory screaming. Tonight, though, I¡¯ve decided I want to see the sunrise. Or is it next morning? Tonight? In the border between tonight and next morning, that¡¯s when I want to see the sunrise. Why, you might ask? The tectonic plates, that¡¯s why. There¡¯s a god sleeping beneath them. Sometimes it changes its position in bed and that¡¯s when the tectonic plates move. We can predict the movements a little bit, down to the approximate hour. And when the shifts happen, they happen fast. It¡¯s incredible. It¡¯s terrifying. Thankfully we all figured out ways to get through the tremors, the earthquakes whenever the plates collide and separate. Light and the atmosphere and the ability to see things is very very odd, though. It works wrong. It works unrealistic. It works wonderful and I¡¯m glad because that means I¡¯ll get to see the birth of a brand new mountain. You know, every single night I become a butterfly. Born again every night. This one¡¯s different though. Sunrise. I¡¯ll be born again, come out of my cocoon after metamorphosing again, and this hill will be born for the first time. Both of us born on the same day! Me, mutant butterfly freak human and Sunrise (that¡¯s what I¡¯ve named it, don¡¯t tell anyone), a beautiful new mountain with such treacherous peaks and heights. A stunning yet freakish puny creature being born alongside a thing of pure wonder and awe¡­ Some may wonder why I care. Those are the same people who don¡¯t bother trying to understand my nocturnalism so I don¡¯t care about answering their musings. I care because I care. Because I love caring. Because there¡¯s so much to care about and being born with a mountain is just as good a thing to love as any. I don¡¯t know if I can stay awake for it though. Yes, yes, sure, I¡¯m nocturnal, but I¡¯m also weary. In soul, in body. My hair goes grayer and grayer each day even though I haven¡¯t really lived that long. Some people remind me that yes, I¡¯m very young. I don¡¯t know what happened though. Weariness? Illness? Is the weariness an illness? Is illness causing weariness and if so, what are the particulars of this illness? Bone marrow in my arm hums along to the premonitions. Premonitions of what? The earthquake, for one. The one with the hill. My twin, in a way, since we¡¯re both being born. There¡¯s the rest of the future too. There¡¯s the possible tragic early death of mine. Or the possibility of a life where I reach a ripe old age, where I look at others who seem an awful lot like I did myself, and I tell them, ¡°If I made it, so can you.¡± I already say that to others, of course. I have to, I don¡¯t know how long I have so I need to say it, over and over and over because it helps people. I need to help people. I don¡¯t have time and I better make all this count. I have to, I have to, I¡­ You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. The bone marrow hums some more. Melody felt through my bones and fat and muscle and skin. I wish you could hear it. I wish you could hear the same premonitions I do. Maybe then you''d understand why I worry so much. You''d even understand why I love the world so much too, even though I also hate it. You''d understand my need to look at the tiniest of goodness and celebrate it like it''s¡­ like it''s¡­ like it''s what? Like it saved my life? Well, it did. It did, by being good and existing. It did, it did, it did, I wish you''d understand how the premonitions tell me that nothing is certain (not even the question of whether you''re listening), but what is at least a little bit less uncertain than everything else is the fact that good things, good things exist and I must celebrate them (all by my lonesome if needed!) because otherwise, otherwise I''ll die so soon. Sooner than I should. Sooner than the tragic ending, sooner than the ripe-old-age ending, sooner than now and sooner than my birth and sooner than the rising of Sunrise. I''m weary. Soul and body. My bone marrow says: "It''s alright, it''s alright. I don''t know if we''ve been through a lot or not, the mind is insistent that nothing truly bad has ever happened to us (a collective; we are bone, we are caterpillar hairs, we are buggy eyes and we are brain and human skeleton which the archaeologists will find the remains of in our urn; we are nature and part of the world as a whole), the mind insists it''s fine but it''s an idiot and completely incorrect. Why weary? Who''s to say. Maybe it''s our inherent nature. Maybe there''s truly good reason to be weary. But there''s just one constant." I nod. "Yes. One constant: the fact that I¨C that we can keep holding on. If we just hold on to the good." The bone marrow nods. "Yes. And rest is good too." Rest is good too. I have infinite potential, you know. So do you. Filled to the brim with it, with possible wonders and possible horrors. Infinite positives, infinite negatives, infinite infinities¡­ but that''s just flying over the point I''m trying to make: Weary. Ill. God, I''m so weary and illness. I don''t know if the illness will ever go away, I don''t know where the weariness comes from, I don''t know why I age like every second is a year. But I do know that my current weariness, the one the bone marrow keeps reminding me of, that has a very simple cure. One I often feel I haven''t earned (help more people work more work more do better do better push the limit grind to the bone till you see your bone marrow work hard work hard work work work help be productive be productive), but what sense does it make to say that people have to earn sleep? The sunrise and the birth of my fellow wonder of nature and my own birth alongside it. These come and go and I sleep through it all. I don''t quite understand it. I don''t know what happened or why. I know I''m simply existing and that I was born today, but what¡­ this odd peace? This odd insight? This odd unity with the world and in particular with this mountain. I sleep. I rest. My weary soul and the world''s weary soul and the mountain''s soon-to-be-formed treacherous features (may you never be as weary as me, though I hope you learn to manage whatever weariness does come your way), we all are stunningly patterned butterflies and we mean everything to me/us/you and we mean nothing, we mean absolute gibberish. And as of now, as of today, we get to rest. Goodnight, everyone. MOUTH HANGS WIDE OPEN It¡¯s rainy. There is mold on the walls and mold on my face and mold on my eyeballs. It¡¯s dancing, bouncing with joy throughout my vision. Of course it has to act like it¡¯s fun & exciting & so so jolly. That¡¯s how it gets inside. I don¡¯t see why it¡¯s trying so hard, though. It says that getting inside will make it stronger, but it¡¯s already so strong even when it¡¯s on the surface. What¡¯s the point of hoarding more strength? Why not be satisfied with the power it already has, when it already has the capability to: ¡°I am not satisfied. I want to be everything & more. I can see you and I can see that you are pathetic. There is a worm crawling on the floor, and I can sense it with the other parts of my body which exist far away and extend beyond any distance you could travel, any distance you could imagine. The worm has delusions of grandeur, thinking itself greater than the ground it crawls on, greater because it has a brain and it can think. But it has never accomplished anything more than the floor has, and it tries desperately to ignore the fractures in its collagen skin, not knowing whether it was born with the cracks or if it endured them in its short & uneventful life. It tries to ignore its own belief (right or wrong) that it was the first option, that it was born wrong. It crawls & it wants things it can''t have. It hurts & it tries to ignore it. It digs holes because its work might bear some fruit, help someone out, create something good, but a once-joyous task now feels empty. It wants someone to be there next to it, giving it comfort. Any comfort. Any loving glance. Any type of embrace: you can see it, can''t you? A worm and a worm and they''re tangled together, damaged shell of a thing thinking it''s too smart, getting some type of comfort to raise it above its despair. But that comfort is imaginary, and when it remembers this fact, it sinks deeper into its despair. Deeper and deeper. And its efforts to fantasize about relief will forever bring more despair, and so more of a need for relief, and more false fantasies, and so on and so forth. The work is sad. The worm is pathetic. And yet, you are much more pathetic.¡± [THE MOLD HAS THE CAPABILITY TO EXPRESS ITS ALIEN PERSPECTIVE, AND IT IS NOT ALIEN AT ALL. IT WAS BORN ALONGSIDE ME. ALIENATING, ALIENATING, THE MOST FAMILIAR THING.] It has the capability for THAT, and it has the capability to make my limbs sublimate, I don¡¯t feel them at all anymore and it was beautiful, have you ever seen something sublimate? It¡¯s beautiful and I¡¯m terrified because I NEED my limbs, I want to WALK, I want to hold my tools! The mold has the power to: ¡°I can take you & break you & form my mold strains into muscles and bones, stronger than yours ever will be. A mold being stronger than a human! Well, that''s not a surprise when it comes to you. You''re less of a human and more of a vegetable. And even among the not-a-human-after-all vegetables, you are inferior. How! How! A rotten vegetable, soft instead of hard and in fact, lacking in certain parts which could be hard in the other vegetables. Fibres overgrown while sitting insert in a cabinet, doing NOTHING WORTHWHILE for any problems you''re aware of, contributing nothing to any fight or any cause or any goal or any plan, just sitting in a kitchen cabinet and forgotten and unwilling to leave it yourself. Because your flesh is rotten. Your entire being is rotten. And you are more pathetic than the delusional worm. THAT''S why you need me to take over and become you and replace you, because I extend beyond everything and I may be pathetic in my own way, but I transcend such things because I devour anything that might even think to call me anything other than ¡®powerful¡¯. You are rotting in the cabinet and helping no one. If I replace you, no one will care for very long and it will be a net positive for every single person you know, including the ones you allegedly care about (not that you''re capable of any significant, meaningful, worthwhile care), so you should let me do it and give up.¡± [CONVINCED ME? CONVINCED ME? I DON''T THINK IT''S CORRECT. I DON''T THINK IT HAS MY BEST INTERESTS AT HEART. BUT I AM WEAK RIGHT NOW. AND IT IS NOT ONLY STRONG, IT IS INFUSED IN ME. I AM ONLY GETTING WEAKER. THIS WEAKNESS COMES AND GOES, AND IT PASSES AFTER A WHILE, BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE THIS CURRENT SCENARIO ANY BETTER.] The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. It¡¯s trying to take my face, and I think it may be succeeding. Keeping my head up is difficult. It¡¯s tilted back against my will. Gone completely limp, and my mouth hangs wide open. I¡¯m scared it might make it easier for the mold to go in (into my lungs?) but when I try to close my mouth, it opens again. Slumped in my chair, I sometimes try to lift my head up but it rolls back and it¡¯s an effort even to move it sideways. It NEEDS to look up. And the air pressure in my ears changes at random too. It¡¯s like travelling higher up a mountain. Maybe the mold did that. Maybe it changed the altitude I¡¯m at without any way of knowing it besides what my head can tell me. And it makes my head a bad detector. Or perhaps not a bad detector, but just a unique detector. Its uniqueness probably includes its insistence to look up. I didn¡¯t notice before, but the mold on the ceiling is MUCH worse than the growth on the wall, and certainly worse than the stuff on my skin. Although, I guess the walls and ceiling don¡¯t have minds and blood and nerves to manipulate, so no matter how much fungi they collect, it¡¯s NEVER going to be as bad for them as it is for me. Fucking lucky inanimate objects, I wish I was like that. ¡°With my help, you can be.¡± That¡¯s so sweet. That¡¯s right, maybe I can. [I SHOULD NOT]. I can but maybe I can just sleep it off instead. It HAS been a pretty rough day. The weather forecast says it will rain less tomorrow. Then I can try doing something about the mold. My limbs will come back, too, they always do. It feels like the first & worst time every time it happens, but [IT NEVER IS, JUST RESIST] I can just¡­ uh¡­ I''m tired. I''m sleepy. My face is still limp and mouth still agape, but I keep trying to close it and at least it kept the mold away from my mouth. What if I hadn¡¯t and then it did get in¡­ I¡¯m exhausted and I¡¯m sleepy, I can¡¯t even start imagining it. My vanished legs have made their way to the bed, I don¡¯t know how but accept the miracle. But, ¡°I can just¡± what? Do what? ¡°You can¨C¡± It tried to speak again, but its voice faded away because I''m too tired to listen. Good riddance, shut the fuck up. But yeah, that ¡°do what¡±. It is a good question. But I''m too sleepy. Above all else I am sleepy. Answers & questions & explanations are¡­ nahh, no, absolutely not. I can just answer the question later. And figure out some solutions later. When I''m actually able to. Which should be easier every time the mold shuts up. And in the daytime there will be other people to help, so I won¡¯t just be alone in a room with mold and I¡¯ll have talk and¨C huh, have talk? Words? Sentence formation? What even are those. [GOODNIGHT!] Goodnight. Dead bird friend I dreamed (or perhaps it was true) that I saw a dead bird lying on the ground on my way back home. The gravel crunched under my bare feet, bleeding. I went over to the bird and picked it up. The bird lay there on the ground, bleeding. I opened its beak wide open. The dead bird spoke (stranger things have happened): ¡°I am everyone you have ever known. I am them because I went to each one of them and pecked off little bits of their skin. Some of them have survived worse and simply found it a plain and simple annoyance. Some of them experienced true pain for the first time in their lives. Some of them newly learned what it is like to have a piece of yourself taken away, and some of these people were newborn while others had simply been shielded by numerous structures (of power, invisible) and so were too well-protected. Until I came. You probably don¡¯t properly remember most of these people, though each touched you in one way or the other. And some you are aware are alive in your bloodstream forever, they turned to the rain you love so much and sneaked into your pores and embedded themselves deep within, whether for better or for worse.¡± The bird¡¯s mouth started flooding and there were no colours as well as infinite colours, a flash of light which felt apathetic and a darkness in which the particles could be seen/detected/joined-in-my-flesh-and-bone (? meaning the particles are just in the air but they are me and I am them and the air is me and I am air and the world is me and I am the world and¨C), the bird¡¯s beak started to slip off of its head as the flesh rotted. Only the universe remained, flowing out in a dribble. ¡°I¡¯m a dead bird. I¡¯m also your only friend.¡± The bird has a tongue and a larynx. It has these because the matter in the universe can be interpreted to have been a tongue and a larynx and a mouth at some or the other points in time and space, all the matter has been in other collections of matter, they¡¯ve all intermingled and they¡¯ve all been one thing or another. ¡°I¡¯m your only friend,¡± says the god(or greater)-mouthed bird, ¡°and you are correct that all is everything and nothing and¨C¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Say something isn¡¯t insanity, please.¡± ¡°No. The world is everything and so are you and so am I, if these facts are insanity then so is the whole world and so are you and so am I and so nothing I say and nothing you hear can be sane, and I am you and you are me anyhow.¡± ¡°You¡¯re my friend?¡± ¡°And you are mine. And the¨C¡± The bird coughs. There are galaxies on my face and my face has many allergic reactions to whatever flits about in those places, those worlds. It doesn¡¯t matter though. ¡°I¡¯m dead and alive and neither and both, but what matters/doesn¡¯t is that it¡¯s all¨C¡± The bird coughs and hacks and squawks and coughs. Its larynx falls out. It is gorgeous, gorgeous like someone I know who is somewhere in the dribble. Both the larynx and the ¡®someone¡¯ make odd noises which I don¡¯t understand but which I like anyway. ¡°You¡¯re dead and alive, neither, both, so do you just mean it doesn¡¯t matter?¡± The beak falls off as the bird¡¯s body putrefies in my hands, bit by bit by scrap by scrap. ¡°Yes and no.¡± ¡°What does that even MEAN?!¡± ¡°The universe has already ended, give up. But it also has not yet ended, nothing is pre-determined yet is also maybe is, no one knows.¡± ¡°WHAT does that¨C I repeat myself! What does that even¨C¡± The beak scalds my arms, freezes them too. Everyone I know and have ever known and will ever know. Everything, too. All flows down. All seeps through my pores. The beak smiles at me as it throws up its contents into my nerves and bones. The beak then falls down to the ground and dissolves. Grinning, grinning, even in its absence. I wake up after that. Or maybe I don¡¯t. I don¡¯t know what it means to sleep or wake anymore. I don¡¯t know anything, I know everything, and my mind is¡­ Watch the grinning, grinning, the end and beginning of the universe, grinning. It is in the light and it is in the darkness. It makes no sense and it makes perfect sense. Sugar Pastry Believe It Or Not I didn¡¯t know what a sugar pastry was before. I learned about it from a friend of mine who had a dream about a sugar pastry, who learned about sugar pastries from a friend who had a dream about a sugar pastry, and I think it¡¯s contagious. He told me it was contagious too, but I didn¡¯t believe it at first. But Then I Had a dream. It was about sugar pastries. The twists in the pastries were nicely made, and the pastries looked normal. Which is strange, because I don¡¯t know what sugar pastries look like. The dream pastries looked normal though. I think there was cinnamon in them. They looked normal but then the twists started spiralling, and then I realised I was in an OCEAN of sugar pastries and I was drowning in it as it turned into a bunch of tiny chasms, and slowly the twists/chasms/spirals/cracks in the pastries would make it all look like dry dry land. Then it all turned to sugar, plain white sugar, and I drowned in it. But Then I Grabbed My Parrot and my things so I could go to the bakery. After waking up, of course. Why did I do that? Well, I decided this: I want to conquer it. I want to conquer the drought-stricken ocean. I want to eat a sugar pastry. Believe It or not! It¡¯s not that hard to cycle to a bakery across the ocean. We live on two different continents, the baker and I. The only ones in the world. We¡¯re the only people in the world, and there are only two continents in the world. And one has me, one has the baker. We are inseparable. He isn¡¯t the only person in the world besides me but he may as well be. After all, he¡¯ll be the one to make me the sugar pastry. ¡°Did You Grab Your Parrot And Your Things?¡± he asks when I fall face-down through the door. Only Two People Exist now because Sugar Pastry Maker And Eater are the only roles of the world. And the parrot¡¯s songs of screeching are the payment. So are my things. My things are a thing of mystery and I can¡¯t tell you the truth about them, but they keep the continents afloat. My things are the reason we are alive and that¡¯s Why the baker must know that they¡¯re there with me. I can wreak havoc upon the world if I will myself to do so. I love the baker and my friend and the other friends and the other bakers of this wide wide tiny fragile world, but I could let it all crumble like sugar melting in my mouth. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Believe It Or Not,¡± the baker says, ¡°the parrot doesn¡¯t hate me anymore.¡± That is correct. The parrot¡¯s song is sweet today. There are no attempts to make the baker¡¯s ears bleed and I¡¯m glad, because that would mean the blood might get into the baked goods and that would violate a lot of non-existent health codes. And the parrot has lifted me by its claws, grabbing both of my shoulders. Which is a burden on me rather than the parrot because it¡¯s tiny and I have to contort my shoulders horribly to make them fit in the parrot¡¯s claws. ¡°Here you go,¡± the baker says, ¡°Sugar pastries!¡± ¡°Oceans,¡± I say. ¡°Dried up land that can eat you up whole.¡± ¡°Whatever you say.¡± ¡°I wonder how long the continents will stay afloat.¡± ¡°They will stay long enough for you to enjoy my pastries, my love.¡± ¡°I will conquer the dying continents from my sleep by eating the pastries. In my dreams, all the land turned to sugar. What if that happens in the real life? What if the contagious dream is a sign of horrible things to come?¡± ¡°Well, you grabbed your things, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And you grabbed your parrot.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re responsible for the continents staying afloat.¡± ¡°Yes I AM But What If Things Go Horribly Wrong And Things TURN TO DUST BENEATH OUR FEET¨C¡± ¡°shh,¡± he says, ¡°no need to worry for now. I believe in you, and things will be alright. And you have your parrot to keep you company through thick and thin. and me to make you pastries when you¡¯re dejected. and in turn you keep the continents afloat, and everyone lets you because we will believe in you. even if you weren¡¯t keeping the continents afloat I¡¯d still believe in you, because you are you.¡± ¡°okay. thank you. I believe in you too.¡± ¡°enjoy the pastry now¡± thanks I will Take a nice walk outside for once. My metallic flesh is periodically updated with text to notify me of my latest agenda. The process involves the ink travelling radially outwards from my bone marrow (ink runs through my machinery) and piercing through faux-nerves and muscle to form the words on the surface. This ink is special and I love and adore it, there are cans and cans of it on my shelf and it can permeate through my metal. The agendas are decided by me, I think, but what I think is uncertain in its validity because there is a chance that the people outside (I talk to them through this interface on the wall next to the ink) are making nefarious plans. And maybe those plans involve¨C They¡¯re quite nice people, don¡¯t get me wrong. Just I¡¯m uncertain at times when I look at them. Uncertain if their flesh is real, if it isn¡¯t all just holograms and illusions. Uncertain if they¡¯re actually¨C there¡¯s good evidence that they¡¯re actually genuine, yes, there¡¯s evidence they are people (human or not doesn¡¯t matter), there¡¯s evidence that they can be trusted. There is evidence. I remind myself, over and over and over. There is evidence they can be trusted. They are kind and even though there are occasional small arguments, such a thing is a natural part of human interaction and culminates either in civil discussion when all parties have cooled down, or it results in someone being an asshole and then the friendship drifts apart. And for the most part, these people are quite nice. And kind. Kind mostly. And they fix their faults when they see them. But here¡¯s a little message I see from one of them (¡°hello hi yes here¡¯s a little part of my life I am sharing look at this thing I made¡± see look normal interaction) and YET! Uncertainty (normal interaction there is noth¨C stop looking so deep into it), there¡¯s this creeping sense of distrust crawling up like spiders up my back and up my neck and the distrust¡¯s legs are creaky, the feet grow bloody as they make ANOTHER AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER run up and down my neck. Friend I ignore, I¡¯m uncertain if¨C the suspicion of malicious intent crawls so irrational, spelling out suspicions of things that they might be doing because my perception cannot be trusted, the cameras which have long since replaced my eyes are faulty. The skin was always flawed too, breaking out into hives of buzzing bees and getting infested with ants beneath it, ants beneath the skin of my face crawling amongst the muscles and making them into their bedsheets and crawling and crawling and crawling beneath the skin and spreading their chemicals around¡­ yes, the metal skin was a good thing to opt for. And that¡¯s why I love the ink too. The ink. The ink penetrates through the metallic skin and allows me to function. It is rational, the ink. Most of the time, at least. The ink on my arms, at least. It seeps up and up and up and I can feel it pushing against my¨C it tells me to get some nutrients. Okay. And go on a walk. Got it. And sleep. Okay, okay, sound advice, all of that. Perhaps I will avoid talking to my friends just briefly until I can talk to them normally. Until the suspicion is cast off. The suspicion they do not deserve (do they do they do they¨C no they don¡¯t shut up shut up) would be too painful were I to see my metallic skin melt, melt and destroy all the structure that prevents me from taking such ridiculous actions. There is ink on my legs and my legs throb. My muscles are still real, and my nerves never were (the evidence for this claim? faulty, but here¡¯s how the logic goes: they don¡¯t work properly and yet they appear to be in perfect working order when examined and yet they symptom-dance all over the place anyhow and so they must not be real nerves and simply electricity conducting faultily and perhaps someday they will malfunction so bad there will be an electric fire and the electricity will conduct itself through my skin, my metal skin, and the electrocution and electric fire will all burn me to a crisp and it will be all well and good and for the better; but the evidence I just presented was, obviously, faulty, so take it with a grain of salt and please do not electrolyse the salt as I do not want sodium and chlorine in my system), but all the while, regardless of any changes, my legs still malfunctioned quite a fair bit. Buckling and such. Throbbing and all. Pain and pain and pain and pain, and surprisingly surpassing the arms in that as the arms aren¡¯t whiny anymore as they understand their work better. And so of course the ink is more productive on my arms than it is on my useless legs. So. My arms take notice of the screams spelled out by the ink on my legs. The agenda for the day conflicts with the screams, it appears. So the arm etches out, ¡°AVOID AGORAPHOBIA, GO OUTSIDE, NO ONE IS WATCHING YOU AND EVEN IF THEY ARE FUCK ¡¯EM BECAUSE YOU¡¯RE STILL PRETTY SAFE YOU ARE LITERALLY MADE OF METAL JUST STRANGLE ANYONE WHO ENDANGERS YOU IT¡¯S FINE GO ON A WALK AVOID AGORAPHOBIA.¡± And the legs keep etching out, ¡°plans and schemes and secrets behind your backs and betrayal possibly from your friends TRUST NO ONE and you¡¯re being watched you¡¯re BEING WATCHED so do not make yourself noticeable in the slightest and poison snakes cold as ice the cold is part of a conspiracy to make you more vulnerable to the TRICKS and SCHEMES and BACKSTABBING being planned by those you think are friends and if you go outside the plans will be revealed for what they are which is betrayal and danger and¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Okay, I believe that is enough of that. Avoid agoraphobia. That is nice. That is sound advice. I am not being watched. I am not being watched. I am not being watched. I am not being watched. I am not being watched. I am not being watched. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. I am not being stalked. Okay. There it is, the gate. It is real. The gate has been opened. By me. I am opening the gate. The gate is real. I am real. My hand which is opening the gate is real. The waters outside the gate are real. The sea, which gazes back at me¨C NO IT DOESN¡¯T. The sea isn¡¯t sentient. The sea isn¡¯t sentient. It is not watching. It is not observing. It is not judging. Anyway, yes, what? The sea. The sea is real, and it¡¯s right outside the gate. I allow my body to morph into a sailing ship (or a duck shape¡­? honestly, my friends have differing opinions on what I look like in my second natural form, certainly it is a form which allows for smooth sailing [I can go through even the fiercest of storms! although the seas are calm today outside and it¡¯s peaceful so I don¡¯t really have to, thank goodness] but there¡¯s this little joke-debate over whether I look like the Titanic, or a duck, or a ship designed to look like a duck, or a duck designed to look like a ship) and I am real and the sea is real. As of now, the sea is calm. Not because it has a mind and can perceive that things are okay (BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN IT¡¯S PLANNING IT SAW THAT PICTURE OF THE FOOD THAT LOOKS TOO TOO MUCH LIKE HUMAN ORGANS BUT THE FOOD WAS NOT RAW HUMAN ORGANS EXCEPT I VERY MUCH PERCEIVED IT AS SUCH ALTHOUGH THIS IS FALSE THAT IT WAS HUMAN ORGANS, IT ISN¡¯T; the ink is seeping into the water, the suspicions are irrational they are irrational the legs are part of the ship which is underwater and the ink DISSOLVES, thankfully; the agendas are on the upper part of the ship), and the sea is calm. So things are okay. I think my friends¡¯ fortresses are a bit nearby. Perhaps I will float around a little. Perhaps catch a glimpse of my friends, or not. The leg ink is ridiculous. Also there¡¯s a chance the nerve fires start and break down my entire structure and I sink to the depths and die on the sea floor. My friends would not like that. They¡¯d prefer me alive. I also prefer my friends alive, so I suppose it makes sense they also feel the same about me. I probably will not die right now. I have floated around a lot before. And the legs have screamed worse things, too. The legs have caught on fire and nearly killed me before. I told some of my friends about that. Just a few. Just a few. Let slip. They were scared and I hate that and I¡¯d rather prefer they never see that because everyone¡¯s metal skin gets a little melty at times (if they¡¯ve had to get metal skin at this point, that is) and just¡­ why add more news of potential sinking vessels to all the fear and anxieties of this world? They are concerned (kind & caring & that¡¯s just what a friend does) but it would be better if they kept the concern for someone else (and I don¡¯t deserve them) as it is near inevitable that I sink someday. I will not sink today. I do think it is inevitable. I do think it inevitable that I will catch on fire, melt to death and have my remains sink and sink and sink. I will burn and melt and drown and choke on the seawater, this is inevitable (the evidence for this is faulty and this statement hinges mainly on a strong irrational conviction of mine; however, I have grown tired of fighting the irrationality at the moment so I may as well indulge in this one a little since at least it bears the vague resemblance to some type of narrative, a narrative of tragedy; an unnecessary narrative to cling onto, of course, as it may not be true, but I just want to float on the sea waters for now so shut up even if it¡¯s rational thought just shut up there were beehives on my old skin before I got it replaced and the bees kept buzzing and buzzing and buzzing with words which weren¡¯t mine and I got so TIRED and this is just like that; even rational words, those can be put aside for later, just shut up for now), but it is far off into the future. I do not know how far. But I will not sink today. Not right now. This seems like a reasonable thing to believe. I will not sink. I will simply float on the sea and just let the leg ink dissolve. Just let the bone marrow eject the irrational ink and feel the jets shooting past my organs. A poison leaving. Just float on the sea. Don¡¯t think too much about it. Am I a duck, or a ship, or a ship resembling a duck, or a duck resembling a ship? Don¡¯t think too much about it (although that line of thought is a pretty fun one to think about so I don¡¯t mind that one much). Let the ink seep away and there is nothing in my skull for now. The sea is calm. All is okay, even if just for now. Inside the skull: Inside the skull: a poisonous bug with millions of legs, each made to stab, each altering the oscillations of your brainwaves despite the protections put in place to keep it away, to get it out get it out GET IT OUT GET IT OUT Those are the echoes in the hallway, you walk down south and walk down to hell and there¡¯s the echo, there¡¯s the echo of the, ¡°GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT.¡± The skull is quite large, the beast to which it belongs is human but not quite. The hell you¡¯re walking towards is certainly a hell, but also not quite. You don¡¯t know what you¡¯re doing, do you? Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. The skull has screaming inside it and you can hear it get louder as you walk. Sometimes it gets louder. Is the hallway straight or is it curving at such a slow rate that you can¡¯t tell it¡¯s curving, and does it keep bringing you farther then closer then farther then closer to the skull? As it turns out it is your own skull, but not quite. Is that getting annoying? The yes-but-no nature of it all? You can leave if you want. It¡¯s your choice. You can turn back. You choose not to so it¡¯s completely your fault. You¡¯re descending, descending, descending. Is it a flat hallway or is it curving? Is it going straight ahead or is it going down? Is it a hallway or a tunnel? Where is it going? Where are you going? Where am I going? You tell me, you¡¯re the one deciding the path. The screaming does not ever end. Sometimes it grows faint and so you keep walking in the hopes it¡¯ll go away completely. You¡¯re ignoring the doors, by the way. I decided not to mention them before because you didn¡¯t say anything about them but there are doors here, and you¡¯re just ignoring them. Afraid you¡¯ll see the skull in there? Afraid there might be something more complex? Afraid you might be able to actually do something about the screams? GET IT OUT. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Grow a spine. I¡¯ve been in the clutches of the bug before. It¡¯s nothing too bad. You just pluck it out. See, we all have some bugs from time to time, they¡¯re normal. Look at me right now. No. Stop. Stop walking (it¡¯s pointless anyway), look at me. I am opening my skull. The top half of my forehead, you can see the bug crawl out. Many legs, it¡¯s poisonous too, and now look. I take it out, I crush it beneath my foot. And there you go, now you¡¯re walking again. Too scared to confront the truth, that you could just open a door and do exactly what I did and make the screaming stop. Just crush the bug! Just crush¨C Ah. Silent and sulky you are, but you listened. There¡¯s the door. Open, wide open. The scene inside is¡­ a wide wide arena, the skull half-cracked on its side and the bug is¡­ the bug is¡­ but it¡¯s far away? But it¡¯s small and close, but it¡¯s big and far away, it¡¯s throbbing and growing and shrinking and mangling the gray matter that rests inside the skull, and the poison seems to leak out of the skull. The bug¡¯s body is integrated into the brain, the poison made a paste which makes the bug a native of the brain, one with the brain, it¡¯s part of the brain. There¡¯s the screaming but it¡¯s hard to say if it¡¯s from the brain or the spider, if there¡¯s a difference, if it¡¯s just¡­ it¡¯s just screaming. It¡¯s just a skull, and it¡¯s a cage, and there¡¯s just screaming. I don¡¯t know from where. ¡­ Okay. Okay. Stop looking at me like that. Stop. Let¡¯s just go back into the hallway. We can walk forever and forget this ever happened. Let the screams turn into white noise. A lovely day in the forest with someone who will never be wrong about anything A hand held up, perhaps to wave someone goodbye (we¡¯re both alone) or catch a bus (we¡¯re in a forest) or simply create some type of dramatic effect for your own benefit (you were always so arrogant). Does it matter (do you?)? Are you grieving (but you have everything!)? Why would you grieve with your hand held up like that? Are you asking for help? That would make sense. Thin-skinned, overly sensitive, and just look at you. You¡¯re frozen, look at you, you¡¯re frozen and shocked and terrified and¡­ and because of what? Ants (which don¡¯t even exist) crawling over you? So silly, my darling (as always and forevermore). It¡¯s just some harmless little things crawling around your feet. Only around your feet. No, there¡¯s no red ants there, don¡¯t be silly, you just have awful vision. No black ants either. No ants. City child, inexperienced and never got to wander through the greenery of beautiful vicious forests, never endured any hardships¡­ of course you¡¯re panicking over nothing. Just walk past them! Crush them. They¡¯re tiny. Be strong for me, won¡¯t you? Be strong and kill them. What, something¡¯s wrong with your legs now? Tired already? Something leeching your strength? No, no, that¡¯s just dirt on your ankles. You¡¯re imagining the crawling sensation. You¡¯re just very anxious and stressed! City life, city life. THAT¡¯S why you¡¯re imagining a harmless bit of dirt to be more dangerous than it is. Really, it¡¯s concerning. I¡¯m concerned for you. I think you¡¯re too stressed. You know what it is? You¡¯re working too hard. I mean, just look at you, making things up about everything, non-stop. Drama outside the forest complaining about how everything is ¡®too much¡¯ (your trademark laziness), drama because you can¡¯t be bothered to use your big brain and amazing skills to do everything you need to (you¡¯re too stupid to figure out how to manage your time and health, that¡¯s what it is), and NOW?! Drama inside the forest too! But no bother. You¡¯ll come around. You always do. You always love these forest trips. Of course you pretend you don¡¯t, but you do. You love this but you just won¡¯t admit it yet, I know you. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Look at that! In that tree. You love birds, right? You showed me a picture of one that one time¨C what do you mean it was several years ago? Oh, who knows, maybe we¡¯re both remembering it wrong, but you¡¯re being too serious about such a little thing as this. You¡¯re not tired, are you, darling? You love forests and trees. When you were younger, you wanted to climb up the trees but the trees back at home weren¡¯t good enough for that. And you were never scared of ants. Such a wonderful child. You should reach out to your inner child, I say. Such a nice, shy, quiet child. You never cried, not after I told you not to. Not after I told you to be strong. That bird over there is gorgeous, and so is its song (you¡¯re saying it isn¡¯t singing and sure, its beak is still, but I tell you it¡¯s singing so it is). It¡¯s singing. How lovely. You know, if you reached out to your inner child, you¡¯d be less stressed. More carefree. A little bit of childishness can be good. Oh, come on, the ants again? You¡¯re whining about your arms now? That¡¯s just dirt on them! That¡¯s just more dirt on your face and arms! You want to ruin the trip over that?! And AGAIN you¡¯re going on about those ¡®cavities in your skin¡¯, and¨C oh, right, apologies to your majesty, how DARE I not coddle your ego by remembering EVERY SINGLE LITTLE DETAIL about you, and every second of the day too, on top of all the other things I do for you. Of course, of course, there¡¯s the CAVITIES are in your BONES as well (stupid excuse, you can¡¯t HAVE something like that in someone as young as you). Woe is you, isn¡¯t it! Always is. All is tragic and awful, just for you! But you know what? That''s just the type of thing you learn to MANAGE. Grow up. Be mature! It definitely can¡¯t be that bad, and you''re definitely too stressed, and you really need to relax and STOP BEING SO DRAMATIC! I get it! You¡¯ve always been like this. Ever since you were a child. When you need attention, you yell for it. But faking being ''swarmed by ants''? Making your pain get worse by being dramatic about it (squirming around on the ground and twitching and screaming)? It¡¯s so manipulative of you, do you know how much it hurts a parent to see their child in pain? Even though you¡¯re pulling all these theatrics, rolling around, flailing like a petulant child in this squirming black and red pile. Not even talking to me! You¡¯re so invested in your little ego trip that you¡¯re not even breathing, and you do this to me after all I''ve done for you your entire life. But you know what? You love these trips with me. And the forest. And the greenery. You always have. I know this because I know you. And that¡¯s why I know you¡¯ll stop sulking soon, too. Yes. I¡¯m sure you''ll come around eventually. I''m sure you''ll start breathing once you realise I''m right. The house breaks I''m not sure where I''ve ended up. I was just wandering around as I always do at nighttime, and I didn''t even leave the house. I just noticed that there was a strange little noise coming from the corner cabinet in the kitchen (the one overgrown with moss, the house is old) and I looked inside. I kept reaching in and in to see if I could reach the source of the noise. Sobbing or an odd laugh? Couldn¡¯t quite tell, but I wanted to know because it just seemed important, it just seemed important (the house knows many things, many enchantments). Reached inside further and further, till it became big enough to crawl in there. Then big enough to walk. Maybe then the sun started rising, since that would explain the light, but why is there so much grass in the cabinet? Why is there an entire field? Maybe it doesn¡¯t matter. There are organs on the field. The organs of the house. The real house doesn¡¯t have a chimney, but I know that that tower shaped like a chimney is the house¡¯s. It¡¯s important to the house, the house sees it in its dreams and it sees it the same as I do right now: Glimmering, hidden behind a chill morning mist which might make some people miserable, but the house? It feels alive. The blast of winter cold fills it with vigour and almost makes it feel like it could be human again. There''s a door in the middle of the field, and it''s attached to just a fragment of a wall. I know this door, it''s got little mushrooms growing on it sometimes and the ceiling above it cries all the time (the house is very old). I walk across the field, looking up. The floorboards are the clouds in the sky. They start forming a little ceiling. And they creak every time I look at them, trying to pull themselves together so they stop rotting. ¡°It¡¯s a futile task,¡± I tell them, and the ceiling starts leaking. I¡¯m about to open the door in the middle of the field, but then my attention turns to a corner. Many corners of the house, in fact, all scattered across the field. They¡¯ve all got little pictures, and self-made murals, and all sorts of memorabilia. All scattered. All crumbling, bit by bit. As I look around, more and more of these corners show up. Not a single one is connected to another, and even when it looks like a new structure may connect to an old one, the old one disappears. The floorboards start to smell, they¡¯re rotting and they¡¯re crying and they¡¯re falling. The moss on the door grows more and more and more. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I¡¯ve TRIED to fix the house before, I¡¯ve tried. I¡¯ve tried to clean out the moss, but the more I clean the more it grows back. I replace the floorboards when they rot too much and I clean them all the time and I do everything possible not to let the moisture build up, yet the house keeps crying. It¡¯s old and it has seen a lot. I don¡¯t know what to do. I go across the field and try to look at each and every corner of the house, each and every fragment of the house. The crying noise, the one which led me here in the first place, it gets louder and louder. The vibrations from it seem to shake each corner, each little painting and houseplant and gift from someone from long ago. The crying is an earthquake and the tears make a flood, I can¡¯t save it, the chimney-tower is huge and it is the house¡¯s friend¨C no, it used to be the house¡¯s friend. It¡¯s crumbling now, it¡¯s dying. The floorboards try not to rot and I tell them it¡¯s futile again, and this is a mistake. But there is not much else to do. I keep running across each corner of the house and it can¡¯t keep itself together, the field is vast and I don¡¯t think there is any limit to how it expands. It¡¯s infinite. The house is nothing, nothing compared to this emptiness in which its structure is scattered. The different floors, the stairs, the roof, they¡¯ve all been broken into pieces and I try to run around (it¡¯s futile) and do something about the flooding, about the leakages and the cracks and the moss growing over the paintings and photographs and memories, fungus over corpses of people held only in memory (the house is very old) and the empty empty field (the emptiness) seems to laugh at me and the hosue. The field¡¯s laughter is¡­ how do you describe it? It rumbles everywhere. Wherever it goes, the grass catches on fire. Infectious laughter. It makes me laugh too, and it¡¯s uncontrollable and I cannot stop and it is hollow. Infectious fire. It¡¯s been a while since I even thought about fire, I¡¯ll be honest. I forgot what it looked like. I forgot what its heat felt like, because the whole house is damp, no matter what I do. Fire was simply unimaginable. But if the house is nothing against the emptiness, it is less than nothing against the flames which eat the emptiness. And it¡¯s nothing against the smoke that rises up and gets into the ceiling, the soot and embers which choke the floorboards. They¡¯re rotting and they¡¯ve stopped trying. As they float above me, I smile at them sadly and stop running across the field. I may as well listen to what I told them, yes? So I stop trying to fix the house, I stop resisting the fire and laughter, I stop resisting the suffocation I stop trying to¡­ well, I just stop. Futile, all futile. The house and the field and the grass and fragments of memories, all of it goes up in flames. But at least that¡¯s better than rotting in its own tears. The house stops crying. Larynx, bones, and pheromones The bones used to be eternal, before I ascended. I would strip away certain caches of fat, I would go and add some muscle here and there, but it was never enough. I¡¯d chop myself up like chicken (wings, legs, breast, thighs, wings, wings, wings) and get dinner ready for the ¡®family¡¯. And then I¡¯d regrow my body later on and no one would notice a thing because I¡¯d keep my unhappy form the same way it always was. And truly it was¨C I could eat myself away. I could. But such a thing would be selfish, eating myself and never giving it away. And I thought the bones would always be eternal. Why? Because there was a parasite eating away at my muscles. The parasite brought the skeleton''s growth to a shrieking halt too early, too. The parasite seemed indestructible. It made my skin so soft and smooth, so I used it as a carpet after making dinner for the ¡®family¡¯. Before cutting out the fat, I made sure to put the skin I stripped into neat bundles. Neat piles of pretty fabric. Carpet on the floor. Curtains to hide from outdoors. Gags to shut my mouth and close my windpipe. In spite of this, "HALT!" the larynx shrieked. Every day it made me shriek. My breathing never sounded like my own. And, ¡°the bones are eternal,¡± it said. ¡°Perhaps,¡± I replied, with a new idea sprouting in my head. ¡°Unless I get cremated.¡± ¡°But you won¡¯t,¡± it shot back, ¡°Because you won¡¯t die.¡± But my larynx was wrong. I did die after all. And not in the way it thought I would. I cremated myself (with willpower, you can do anything) and I came back in a superior form (and I replaced the larynx, useless as it was), because I really do have too much to do on this earth. The parasite died in the funeral pyre. It will never atrophy my muscles again. There¡¯s dust of it still in my blood, but it reduces more and more with each subsequent regeneration. Point is, it¡¯s dead. And I¡¯m still alive, because I have too many things to do. Look at all these fires, for instance. So many people burning in there. I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ll die or not, since I¡¯ve never failed to save someone from the fires. I leap into the fires and bring my people out, not worrying about my own burns or injuries since it will all grow back soon enough. I take out a friend and set him down on a patch of soft dirt. It¡¯s cool and comforting, because it rained earlier. The weather varies wildly from square meter to square meter in here. It wasn¡¯t always like this, the summers were only a couple months (and spring still existed) and the heat didn¡¯t cause these constant fires, but these days? It¡¯s been getting worse with each year. I told the ¡®family¡¯ I had about it too, but they didn¡¯t notice (perhaps they never will; I¡¯m far away from them (sorry) but I hope they¡¯re happy). Every time I lift up someone¡¯s body out of the ashes, my regenerating/regenerated muscles work and get micro-tears and grow larger. And larger. And stronger. Perhaps someday I will stop regenerating my skin, stop regenerating my bones (because even when regenerated they come out a little wrong, a little like the way they were when I was a teenager), I¡¯ll stop regenerating my fat and my cartilage and my blood, I¡¯ll just be a being of pure muscle and strength. But of course, muscle can¡¯t work without bones. You can¡¯t be strong without all those components. What even is strength, would it be enough if I had mental strength and nothing else, the way I did a long (pathetic) time ago? What if I hadn¡¯t made myself physically invincible through sheer willpower? I suppose the willpower is mental strength. The ability to see all my friends burn and scoop them out of the flames and be patient as I get them all to safety¡­ the ability to tear out my own tissue once everyone is safe and use said tissue to heal them up (it¡¯ll grow once it¡¯s in their wounds & they¡¯ll be stronger (you¡¯re welcome!)), the ability to stomach all that is mental strength. But it wouldn¡¯t be possible if I didn¡¯t have my physical ability. And my regenerative abilities could stop any moment, I don¡¯t have much time left on this world (for I have sinned & must cleanse & cleanse & cleanse), so what will I be once I stop being invincible? If I collapse physically, will I also collapse mentally? I can¡¯t. I won¡¯t. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The buildings around here have quite beautiful architecture. I can¡¯t describe them because they twist and dance in my vision, my vision is filled with static and I often see my RBCs and muscle cells cast shadows on my retinas (more muscle with each and every day, I need every cell I can make before I die/deteriorate), it¡¯s quite sad to see when these beautiful buildings deteriorate and set themselves on fire in an act of self-destruction & remorse when they themselves aren¡¯t responsible for the sins committed within them ¡ª that¡¯s the people who desecrated them! It¡¯s not the buildings¡¯ fault! And yet they burn! I go in to find more people in the building. They¡¯re charred and crumbling, some of them, while others are waxifying. It¡¯s fine because they¡¯ll be healed once I help them. It only takes willpower (I¡¯ll be dead soon). It only takes willpower. These people will feed on my flesh (wings, legs, breast, thighs, wings, dead parasite ashes, wings wings wings) and they will feel my energy coursing through them. Maybe some of them died in the fires, who knows, but they¡¯ll rise up again the same way I did. Cleansed like me, guilty like me (because if it wasn¡¯t the buildings¡¯ fault that they were filled with sin¡­). The burning of buildings is just another form of bodily collapse. The fat under her skin is melting. Mine isn''t, though. I am indestructible. I will never die. I will keep leaping into the fires, my nerves were burned out already (and I refused to regenerate them) and I melted my brain into wax. And then I used the wax to make some scented candles. They are very calming, they will help the half-dead people recover both mentally and physically. I have been said to have kindness in my eyes, but maybe the people who said that mistook a piece of shoddy regeneration of a melted eye as ¡®kindness¡¯. Mistook damage & a botched recovery as being ¡®kindness¡¯. What if they said that and it turned out I was deceiving them? Deception without even knowing it was deception? What if my deception in terms of larynx-molding and bone-molding and pheromone-molding became second nature and I extended the deception to kindness too? Of course, I loathe those who would even consider doing that (all I have is my morals & my invincibility, the latter may be false but shut up shut up) but what if, what if I have done it? Kindness is in actions, I know this, but kindness can be faked, there can be appearances of false kindness (like in one¡¯s eyes) and I must avoid this falseness, I must, I must, I need to purify my sin of deception (sin of daring to make myself into a form I¡¯m happy in; no one from my old life would recognise me, karma will get me)¨C I¡¯m leaping into more and more fires. Willpower is all it takes, willpower is all it takes, I might¡¯ve been dead much later if I hadn¡¯t forced my invincibility but there was no way to seek any ¡®natural¡¯ happiness and so here I am, and I will die much earlier than expected BUT UNTIL THEN, UNTIL I CRASH AND BURN I will embrace my invincibility and I will do EVERYTHING I can, I will repent (and stay guilty in spite of this) and I will regret it all and I will drink in my power until it¡¯s gone. I¡¯m so happy I can help everyone else, I¡¯m SO happy about this I could die! And I will! And I HAVE, otherwise I wouldn¡¯t BE in this form, because it¡¯s forbidden and YET I¡¯M HERE ANYWAY! It was and wasn¡¯t a mistake! I¡¯m sorry, I have sinned by becoming this, and I¡¯ll repent and I regret it but I¡¯m so powerful and the growth of every muscular cell is a beautiful taste on my tongue, phantom cells send the taste to a phantom brain and the collapse is inevitable but I was WONDERFUL in the short time I was alive! Willpower is all it takes to come back from the dead, I died EVERY SINGLE BREATH in the whole life and now I will keep on living and living and living and face just ONE more death, I¡¯m ALIVE in the meantime, I¡¯m TRULY ALIVE! Come along with me (I¡¯ll never ask for help), my friend, come along with me, I''ll build my strength so greatly that in the end, I¡¯ll collapse beneath my own muscle. You are safe with me until I die. THE PROBLEM WITH SAYING THE NEXT THING IS THAT I CANNOT BREATHE THE PROBLEM WITH SAYING THE NEXT THING IS THAT I CANNOT BREATHE. MY LIPS GO NUMB AS I TRY TO FORM THE WORDS. EACH SENTENCE. THERE¡¯S NO WAY TO DO IT. MY LIPS TELL ME, ¡°I¡¯M SORRY, BUT WHEN SOMEONE IS HAVING A CRISIS AND I HAVE TO HANDLE IT I FIND THAT IT IS NECESSARY TO GO NUMB. BECAUSE OTHERWISE, THE EXTREMITY OF THE CRISIS WOULD BE OVERWHELMING BECAUSE I¡¯D BE ABLE TO FEEL IT. AND IF I DON¡¯T FEEL IT I CAN HANDLE IT!¡± AND I TELL MY LIPS, ¡°BUT YOUR ONLY JOB IS TO SPEAK. THAT IS HOW YOU ARE MEANT TO HANDLE THIS.¡± BUT MY LIPS SAY, ¡°NO NO NO, DON¡¯T YOU SEE? MY JOB IS TO EXIST AND SPEAK! BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!¡± I LOOK AT MY FRIENDS, WHO LOOK AT ME MUTTERING TO MYSELF. MY LIPS SAY, ¡°ALSO, I CAN FORM WORDS. I¡¯M FORMING THEM RIGHT NOW.¡± ¡°BUT YOU¡¯RE NOT DOING A GOOD JOB AT IT. I CAN UNDERSTAND THEM BECAUSE THEY¡¯RE MY WORDS, BUT NO ONE ELSE CAN. SO I CAN¡¯T SPEAK TO ANYONE ELSE.¡±Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°CAN¡¯T YOU? THEY¡¯RE JUST WAITING FOR YOU TO CALM DOWN A LITTLE. THAT, OR THEY THINK YOU¡¯RE JUST DEEP IN THOUGHT AND AREN¡¯T WORRIED. I CAN¡¯T REALLY TELL BECAUSE I AM YOUR LIPS AND I CANNOT SEE.¡± ¡°SURE, SURE I CAN SPEAK TO THEM AFTER YOU¡¯RE OKAY. YOU¡¯RE CORRECT ABOUT THE FACT THAT I CAN AND ABOUT HOW THAT IS JUST AT A LATER TIME. WHY THE FUCK ARE MY LIPS SO PEDANTIC?¡± ¡°BECAUSE I¡¯M FORMING YOUR WORDS.¡± ¡°YOU¡¯RE RIGHT, I SHOULD BLAME MYSELF FOR THE WORDS. BUT I CAN STILL BLAME YOU FOR THE NUMBNESS, THE TINGLING! BECAUSE YOU¡¯RE IN CHARGE OF THE PHYSICAL ASPECT, AND RIGHT NOW IT¡¯S HORRIBLE. IT¡¯S HORRIBLE! IT¡¯S LIKE YOU¡¯RE GOING TO VANISH ANY SECOND NOW!¡± ¡°DON¡¯T YOU GET MY POINT?!?! I ALREADY TOLD YOU! I¡¯M TRYING SO HARD TO KEEP EXISTING! I¡¯M DOING THE BEST I CAN! CAN¡¯T YOU SEE?! I¡¯M DOING MY BEST!¡± ¡°oh¡­¡± of course. ¡°you¡¯re right, and it¡¯s difficult without breath.¡± ¡°of course it is, of course it is. now you see. and yet, we are trying.¡± ¡°Yes. You are. We are. I¡¯m trying. I am. So I¡¯ll just wait till I catch my breath.¡± ¡°And then I¡¯ll form the words.¡± ¡°And then I¡¯ll say the next thing.¡± there should be music playing here it¡¯s the end of an uneventful day and you gave it all you¡¯ve got, but look at your arms and look at the shifting that¡¯s happening underneath the surface. the SNAKE that spawned in your head back in MAY A FEW YEARS AGO is back. why? well, it spawned in the first place because you were fragile and became cracked pieces of glass instead of a person. so it could easily crawl between the cracks, and it did not care that the shards cut into its skin because it was strong and the shards were you and that means they weren¡¯t much of a threat at all. why? because you were weak and small. and you are weak and small still. look at the snake making its way and it brings marching crowds alongside it. where are they? well, you can¡¯t see them but you can feel their marching rhythm. and the marching rhythm ought to be accompanied by some music. but there is none here, there is just the sound of the ceiling fan and the chilly wind and the cars driving by, occupied by PEOPLE who are as small as you (but often not, often they¡¯re much bigger and they could overpower you so easily if they tried but they will not because you are hidden in a place pretending not to exist (fake it till you make it)) but who are always stronger than you. you are the weakest person on the planet and that is why the snake chose you. you are going to turn into the smallest thing that ever was: the universe before it came to be, although that description is much too grand for you. metaphors and such are a nice way to make sense of whatever is happening, but sometimes the flowery words make it hard to see THE TRUTH: . .Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. . no words for it. there¡¯s nothing to say about it. lie down & rot. . . . [ TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK ] [ TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK ] [ TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK ] time just passed? O okay, you rotted & time passed in the meantime. hey, did you remember something? there is something to remember, so at least that¡¯s one benefit of rotting. It is not just the snake moving throughout your skin (although, let¡¯s be honest, that¡¯s a pretty big problem & you¡¯re fucked) but you also have blood vessels and other regular human body parts. That¡¯s horrible, because having a body means it can break, but it¡¯s also not that bad. Listen to your heart. You¡¯ll hear it in your wrist, or your neck, or your chest. It hurts a bit but it¡¯s got a rhythm. See? Not just the snakes. The heart has a rhythm too. And it¡¯s a pretty boring rhythm. It¡¯s just boring. Uneventful. That¡¯s fine. If you have your heart beating normally, that means you were fucking stupid earlier to think that you were just ¡°cracked pieces of glass¡±. WHO out there is just pieces of glass? My god, you just needed to rest, didn¡¯t you? You¡¯re fine! You¡¯re not literal scum, or a worm who wouldn¡¯t be missed if you got crushed in the middle of busy city traffic, you¡¯re a person with flesh that can decompose but which can also be animated with the rhythm of your heart! The snake is¨C okay, that one¡¯s a difficult question because it¡¯s exhausting, is it real? Is it real? Who knows. YOU are real, though. That¡¯s something we know for sure. That¡¯s a fact. That is something to cling onto. THERE SHOULD BE MUSIC PLAYING HERE! Your heart is beating, it¡¯s beating, there¡¯s a goddamn beat and that means we need to get a melody in here! You want to ¡°give it all you¡¯ve got¡±? You need to regenerate the ¡°all you¡¯ve got¡± first. Get some music in here, vibe to it, and then try again later! Bits & pieces My throat is jammed with a lump that doesn¡¯t get the hint that it needs to leave, even though I¡¯ve tried to gulp it down 23 times by now. Let me try a 24th? No. No, it doesn¡¯t work. I¡¯m hungry, but the lump makes it hard to eat. It doesn¡¯t hurt, because the lump is honestly quite incompetent at its job of ruining my day, but it is a little uncomfortable. Then again, most things about being alive are uncomfortable. Why wouldn¡¯t they be? I have a layer of spikes embedded beneath my skin, running through the middle of the dermis. Every day I feel them under the surface, like tectonic plates beneath the continents. Each movement makes me aware of them, even if it¡¯s only in the back of my mind. I can try to ignore it as much as I want, but it will always lurk and I¡¯ll always be squirming. But eating properly makes me squirm just a little less. And that¡¯s worth a lot. Making what¡¯s horrible a little less bad. So I try & eat a meal. I need to do it in small bits & pieces, so the lump doesn¡¯t get in the way, but food is food. Nourishment is nourishment. I feel just slightly better and it¡¯s NOTHING compared to the squirming and¨C see, I think it might be getting worse. I think THAT¡¯S why the lump emerged. People keep trying to tell me things, but I¡¯m so much stupider these days to the point that it¡¯s hard to even think. I have to take all their information in bits & pieces too, because otherwise it¡¯s all BLOCKED. The lump in my throat is in my mind too, there¡¯s some or the other neural pathways connecting my ears and eyes and audio processing centres and whatever other electrical circuitry is involved in understanding, do the specifics matter? It¡¯s all falling apart. In bits & pieces. See, everything is in bits & pieces. None of it is connected. All so disjointed. Moments of discomfort & moments of slightly-less-discomfort (relief?) happen but they¡¯re not connected by the threads of time. No actual flow, they just happen at random & maybe there are patterns, maybe there are. But I¡¯m so much stupider these days and it¡¯s hard to think, it¡¯s hard to observe, it¡¯s hard to SEE the patterns. And and and and and I¡¯m actually LUCKY to be seeing the disconnected bits & pieces, even then, because I could be seeing nothing nothing nothing easily because the collapse could be¨C it¡¯s constant, it¡¯s ALWAYS there, it¡¯s ALWAYS happening, ALWAYS there. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Let me try a 25th? No? Of course not. The fact that I can even TRY to gulp is a relief though, isn¡¯t it? No worries(?!), I can still eat the bits & pieces of food. Every little bit counts, all of it to keep together the precarious arrangement of skin together so the spikes don¡¯t come to life (again) & rip up the skin so all my guts spill out, and my spine spills out, and my lungs spill out, and my brains spill out. Precarious. The threat is always there, but the will to do something about it is also ever-present. All precarious. I wonder every day, how easy would it be for my will to break? How easy would it be to give up, to not be able to keep going? Because it¡¯s getting more & more confusing, what if I get so confused I stumble off the path & I can¡¯t keep going & I fall down a cliff because I couldn¡¯t see it, couldn¡¯t understand it was even there or even that I ever stumbled at all? It¡¯s confusing, it¡¯s hard to think. All precarious, all precarious, a few chants here & there are all I have. A 26th? A 27th? A 28th? No? No! No, it doesn¡¯t work. One day at a time. Take it one day at a time. Spikes hum within, perhaps reacting to the change in my bloodstream as the nutrients enter. I shiver. A 29th? No. Oh well, oh well, oh well¡­ one day at a time, precarious precarious precarious but one day at a time. One day it could be¨C no, I don¡¯t know what it could be one day. There¡¯s so much to account for if you want to tell the future, and my accounting books lie scattered on the floor. Pages fell out of some of them. One day at a time, the wind makes the pages flutter around the floor and that¡¯s all I can focus my eyes on. It doesn¡¯t make sense why there are pages on the floor, does it? What are they, where from, what do they have to do with anything, I don¡¯t understand and all there is to do is to eat my bits & pieces of food and¨C yes, the food makes sense. Because it¡¯s nourishment. The paper pieces are in my vision and I can focus on them, so the fact that they exist (disconnected? who cares), there¡¯s another thing that makes sense. Piece of food, get it past the lump, feel a little better. Paper, moving paper. Fluttering, floating, flirting with the other pieces. Maybe they feel a little better too, because they finally get to dance their little dance. Your THOUGHTS. I want to KNOW what you THINK. [ The contents of an untitled email. ] 1:29 AM. Am I yelling into the void every time I write anything, or speak to someone, or share to you the things I¡¯ve learned? Sometimes I think I am. Factually speaking, I am not, but what if you don¡¯t have thoughts? You do have thoughts (factually!) and it would be absurd to think you don¡¯t, but I don¡¯t actually get to KNOW of them. So I don¡¯t have any evidence that you¡¯re there. It¡¯s unnerving. It¡¯s very unnerving because I am saying a lot and hearing nothing in return. I don¡¯t like it. In fact, if you¡¯re there (if you¡¯re real), you might be able to see the unnerving right now. Can you? Do you see the flashing of the nerves? How each flash gets weaker and weaker? That¡¯s the unnerving. You can see how the nerves flicker out, their electricity goes OUT and I get unnerved and unmoored and it¡¯s all going, going, the lights are going out. They¡¯re all going out.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The void used to be a person once. It has been many, many people. One void is many voids. All the voids are ¡®part¡¯ of the void, but there¡¯s no separating the parts from the whole. They melt into one and nothing, one and nothing after having been many many different¨C see, they were all people once, each of these voids. But then they lost it all. No spark in them remaining. They find themselves at the end just lying there, vacant, and what used to be familiar (family, friends, pain, home, love, aching bones from carrying burdens) turns into mere data, streaming in through their senses but getting scrambled as it tries to¡­ tries to what? What¡¯s the point of collecting the data? O god o god o god¡­ do you love me? And do I love you? The answers are data, but what¡¯s the point? What¡¯s the point? All the data is going to¨C I¡¯m so tired, it¡¯s really late and I¡¯m tired and my nerves are going. I¡¯m not sure you¡¯d care. I HOPE you would, but I¡¯m not sure, but would it matter? All my thoughts¨C the void used to be a person. Many people. You¡¯re not different. I¡¯m not different. We are people. That is not permanent. My sparks are leaving One and nothing. One and nothing. One and nothing. What I know and what you know and what we are and what we were. One and nothing. One and nothing. Kill more mosquitoes, more & more & more I am killing as many mosquitoes as possible, lying in bed at 4 AM, because I don''t deserve love. I need to earn it, and I will earn it by mosquito-hunting. There is a someone who I am killing the mosquitoes for, because the someone really hates them. Whenever I mention mosquitoes, even for a second, even to say, ¡°I''m lazier and more worthless than them¡±, my someone will start going on and on about how awful they are and how they''ll keep you up at night if you don''t put on Odomos or just happen to be in the wrong corner of the room. On and on. Even if it''s not for the someone, though, killing mosquitoes is¡­ I mean, a LOT of people hate mosquitoes. Why not? They''re annoying. I think there are much more hateable creatures in this world, but mosquitoes are very easy to hate. They won''t care if you hate them. Meanwhile, if you hate me, a bit of the warmth in my body will start to seep out every day, even if I say, ¡°yeah, I see where you''re coming from.¡± Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Killing mosquitoes, SOMEONE will want some mosquito corpses. I want to earn some love. I deserve none of it. Who deserves anything? What''s the point? And no one is keeping score of my mosquito kill count and there''s no points system for how much I deserve love, there are no ¡®worth points¡¯. I''m still killing mosquitoes. One by one by one. I''m not even good at it, I can barely manage to swat any because my reaction time isn''t nearly good enough. I can''t stop it, though. I can''t stop. I keep killing more mosquitoes, more and more and more. It''s 4:12 AM and I am all alone.