I don't know anything

PART G (The King)

I started seeing other things, but all so dim and far away. There were movements in shadows, like, floating or creeping in, but . . . but they seemed too slow, like they couldn’t quite be real.

Then suddenly I never wanted to see or know anything ever again. I mean, I hated even knowing I was thinking. Of course, thoughts kept coming . . . kept sprouting up. And part of me wanted to tear my whole mind out by the roots and black out so I’d forget.

Another part wondered if the thoughts could be my answer . . . like they could be my way back.

But back where? Where had I just been?

That was about when I realized I couldn’t remember anything.

Everything around me looked grim and complicated . . . deformed somehow. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I was seeing it wrong. To me, there was only the same texture and walls the color of sand stretching out in a big U-shape, disappearing off in all directions.

I tried to shift my weight a little, but got hit right away by this ugly, groggy feeling. It felt . . . heavy, like maybe gravity had gotten stronger.

I glanced down carefully and wasn’t really shocked to find myself sprawled across a small slab of black polished rock right in the middle of the endless nothing.

Why was I on the rock and not the sand?

The sky might have been red, or maybe brown. But it flashed apart and together like moving pictures on a screen.

And weren’t skies . . . not like screens? How could I know things like that if I had no memories?

The next thought came like a punch in the stomach:

What am I?

That was when I first heard the weird murmuring, rustling sound . . . low and constant . . . coming from everywhere just past where I could see.

There was a scream, screechy and long . . . definitely closer.

Still, I saw nothing and no one.

I wondered if I should be afraid . . . and, if I should be, why I wasn’t.

I blinked, listening for anything that might help me figure out where I was, or why, or even what I was, or what was going on at all. I mostly wanted to know why I didn’t remember. But the why of it all was what was missing.

Something sent a shudder down my spine. I was sure the space right next to me didn’t look quite right, like it was getting ready to make itself even emptier or something.

But that’s dumb, isn’t it?

Was I crazy? Was none of anything real? How could I tell?

The word “asylum” and pictures of pill canisters and padded walls started circling around my head. It was bad, but…

But still, I wasn’t really scared. I was confused. It was just . . . nothing about what was happening struck me as being anywhere near as unusual as it seemed like it should, y’know?

No, that probably makes no sense.

Okay, I was somewhere that didn’t feel like a world I should be from, or part of. But I wasn’t afraid to be there.

The steady jumble sounded closer.

“Hello?” I called. “Is someone there?” My voice wasn’t one I knew.

A crack like thunder whacked and left an eerie echo, but it quickly got eaten away into the rumble.

I had to wonder why the air in that same spot next to me was . . . congealing, or getting solid somehow, like water freezing into ice. Was I causing it? Why did I almost . . . expect to see it, and yet still feel like it had to be the strangest thing I’d ever seen?

But I did expect it, I knew. I was even a little . . . happy about it, maybe. I mean, I didn’t feel alarmed in any way. It was kind of like what I was seeing was just some everyday thing I should ignore.

I thought at least being afraid would give me a better idea what to do.

I tried picking myself up and off the black slab to move in, I guess, a random direction. But my heart and lungs sank in my chest as I rose. This sludgy sense of total tiredness pooled all though my legs and hips, and up like a storm into my belly. I wanted to throw up. It felt like I was trying to trudge through a swamp without breathing, sinking deeper and deeper into mud.

“Hello,” said a voice, peaceful and soft, from nowhere. “What is your name?”

I was still just as alone.

Then the air beside me twitched, and retched, and hardened even more, kind of like those videos where nature gets sped up super-fast.

I gulped a little and turned away, finally feeling that flush of real fear I’d been hoping for. But it was horrible, the way it quivered and shook through my chest and neck, especially as I tried a third time to lift and drag my legs behind me like dead weight.

I saw myself as some spastic, broken insect, failing to skitter away automatically on useless, messed-up limbs.

“What is your name?” repeated the voice, quiet but deep and booming.

I stopped pushing to move, and not because escape obviously wasn’t going to happen. It was more like something about that exact moment or situation felt too familiar to get away from. It wasn’t déjà vu. There was just a certain . . . quality I recognized, even in the voice itself. The only way I can describe it would be like seeing an expression you totally understand on a face in a picture from hundreds of years ago.

So, I decided to, y’know . . . to give in and . . . and go with whatever was happening.

“Ray,” I answered, not noticing I’d remembered the name.

The bizarre hardening looked like it might be about done.

“My name is Impartial,” said the voice. “I am to show you The Kingdom. First, see me.”

I have to say Impartial’s voice sounded . . . flat . . . like only the actual words mattered, since there was really no tone or expression. It spoke so clearly. So . . . matter-of-fact.

Don’t ask how I knew Impartial wasn’t the voice of my own thoughts, or some hallucination. But when I heard it speak . . . that’s when I finally felt free to let myself notice things and think. I also felt my breathing slow way down, and the shakiness flood from my system in tingly waves, leaving me completely calm and settled. Then I was almost excited to watch the end of Impartial’s transformation from nothing. It might have felt like accepting fate.

Anyway, with a last big huff, Impartial became a thing made of thick charcoal smoke. It stood, or floated a little off the ground, where emptiness had been. I could see through it mostly, especially in places.

How else can I describe the way Impartial looked? Well, it had no features. I mean, there were no parts to tell apart, if that makes sense. Its edges were never that obvious, but blurred all around and shook, sort of like dark flames or fluid flickering out into the air.

I wondered if I should be as impressed as I was.

“I am not the essence of this age,” said the pleasant, echoing voice like a small waterfall. “Will you follow me?”

For, like, an instant, I was sure I was looking at someone or something I‘d once tried so hard to help.

Did Impartial know me?

But everything about before was still . . . missing.

“Yes,” I answered. “I’ll follow.”

I stood, no longer groggy, sick, or weighed down.

Then we travelled, side by side, as if gliding through a dream. Time lost all meaning. We might have been moving for hours . . . but it was also like I’d taken only a few short steps before the world around us changed, and we stopped.

I saw in our new place a crowd of people packed together tight in clusters. There were men, women, children . . . but all in total shambles. And I saw more bruises, rotting teeth, bloodshot eyes, and just general scum and filthiness than I could have ever imagined. Everyone’s clothes were tattered and worn. They smelled like trash, and urine, and so much worse.

It seemed strange to me how even the children stood so glum and steady, not moving at the adults’ feet. Everyone’s eyes were low and tired, giving their faces this sort of “never again” expression.

I was almost sure they couldn’t see me or my specter guide as I took in the sight of them.

“Who are these?” I asked.

“Citizens of The Kingdom,” said Impartial.

“What kingdom?”

“Really, you do not know?”

“I don’t,” I said, sure of it.

“There was once The City,” began Impartial, “which became The Union, and has since become The Kingdom. These citizens, as always, await their King’s return.”

“And who is . . . the king?” I asked.

“You have no idea?” The voice never rose or fell very far. It never sped up or slowed down. But somehow I could tell Impartial was shocked at my not knowing. “Jesus of course,” it said.

“Jesus…?” The word felt wrong, both to say and hear . . . like I wanted to shake myself to keep from saying it again, or push it out of my mouth (and mind) faster than I could. I had no idea why, but I especially hated how it felt to say a second time, when I asked, “Who is . . . Jesus?”

“Come,” said Impartial, “He returns now. You shall see for yourself.”

We passed right through the lifeless crowd like wind, coming to rest just outside.

There I spotted a ring of large men standing at the fringes of the rest. These wore leather clothes, and some held weapons rusted over in old blood. Others carried torn-up flags. I knew they must be soldiers.

“Why do they have weapons?” I asked dreamily.

“The Kingdom now spans this world,” said Impartial. “Yet The Kingdom must be always under threat. So, these men stand ever prepared to face kingdoms from other worlds that might appear at any moment to kill and conquer.”

Again, there was something so recognizable in what I saw and was being told, though I had no idea what.

Had someone shown me that same ring of ready soldiers before? Or, could I have once been one of them?

“Why do they think there are kingdoms in other worlds?” I wondered aloud, noticing a cutting feeling like regret beginning to tinge my inner calm.

“The heart of The Kingdom was once the heart of The Union,” answered Impartial, “still one of many in this world before it took the rest. Some hearts change not with the speed of facts, would you agree?”

“I think so,” I said, though talk of changing hearts seemed to further peel back and threaten my sense of deep, peaceful steadiness.

I took a slow breath, pressing my lips together as I pushed the air out sharply.

That was when I noticed the crude, black cages set in lines behind the soldiers, stretching out as far as I could see.

I gasped.

For crumpled and bent into every cage was a horribly disfigured person beaten almost to where you couldn’t tell they were even human.

I was sure the poor souls in those cages were all just moments from death. Forlorn and naked, they were a mix of sunken eyes, hair clumped in mud, and so many twisted or missing limbs. Some were being literally eaten away by obvious infections. Most were covered in hideous sores and open wounds, all caked in dirt.

The sight made me want to cry out, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t be able to.

It was like the shock and pity I wanted to feel were just ideas I was rolling around.

“And these?” I gestured toward the cages, peering over at my guide.

“Watch,” Impartial replied.

Behind us came the creaking of giant wooden pieces knocking and sliding together.

I almost flinched when the crowd jolted half to life and burst into this dull, even cheer. I mean, all the voices called out the exact same words in impossibly unnatural unison. I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

I watched the crowd part lazily to form two long, crooked lines.

Then I spun just in time to see a massive, rickety wagon being dragged slowly toward us by two huge mules, one slightly smaller and scruffier than the other. At the top of the wagon, I saw two purple flags covered in strange golden symbols. The flags and symbols meant nothing to me.

As the wagon rolled by, a young man in the line of citizens to my right . . . kind of long-limbed, and crazy looking . . . flung off his patched-up clothes, and started throwing himself up in the air, over and over, landing in different mangled shapes on the ground.

An epic hush swept through the rest of the parted people. But the naked man seemed not to notice he was the only one doing anything or making any noise.

The big mules and wagon clopped to a halt. A side panel I hadn’t seen, held by thick, gnarly ropes, crashed to the ground like an ancient tree.

Inside, I saw only darkness.

Then out stepped a man about as tall as two regular people stacked on top of each other. Honestly, he looked way too big to have ever fit in the wagon . . . though seeing him emerge had the opposite effect as watching a pack of clowns spill out of their tiny car at the circus. The giant was dressed in clean, black clothes that stretched to fit his enormous form.

I thought: This must be the king, Jesus.

“See now what happens to the fool caught unaware when his King returns,” said Impartial, “for The King’s return occurs always at an unexpected time.”

The giant glared down at the naked man, then gazed back in through the wagon’s opening. Then he nodded, spun, and gripped the little man by his neck, all in a single stunning motion.

A new empty cage seemed to appear from nowhere. And the naked fool was tossed inside with so much force his head slammed against the bars in a dull, tinny THWANG.

“All those who challenge The King’s authority or divinity are kept imprisoned,” explained Impartial.

“Why . . . why did the king throw him in?” I asked.

“That is not The King,” said Impartial. “Yet The King must be ever feared lest His Kingdom soon be taken by another. Now . . . behold, The King.”

As the animals brought the wagon around in a misshapen, bumbling arc, I finally caught a good glimpse in through the open door. Inside I saw a woman dressed all in white. Her clothes and hair looked plain, far plainer than the beastly giant’s. She was more like any of the commoners in the crowd, only much cleaner and . . . softer.

I mean, I’d say she looked . . . more common than everyone else, somehow.

And next to the woman was a little table made from half a wagon wheel. On top of the table, I saw a husk made of burlap and straw stitched into the crude shape of a person.

“She is . . . the king?” I asked, sure I must be missing something.

“No,” said Impartial. “Can you not see The King beside her? King Jesus . . . The King, Jean Bur Spicules is His name. And today you have witnessed His return.”

I watched the husk flop a little on its table as the wagon crunched and jostled over stones.

The woman never moved at all. To me, she was the picture of absolute stillness and serene, quiet grace.

“And who is she?” I asked.

“She has been chosen for Him, as it is written. For love and conception is the role she has been called to and made ready for, even from her youth.”

I had a strange thought, too silly to ask Impartial about. I just . . . I wondered how someone could ever trust a person who was being forced to love them.

But before I could see any problems in that way of thinking, Impartial grabbed my wrist and flung me around to face the dreadful cages. Its grip felt cool and smooth, like glass or marble on my skin.

“Look,” Impartial commanded, “and see now the provision of The Kingdom.”

I squinted to refocus my eyes . . . I mean, just because I couldn’t believe what I was actually seeing. All the prisoners in their cages had morphed to twisted, lifeless corpses. They looked like they’d been dead and decaying for . . . for a really long time. Flies swarmed and buzzed around their rotting bodies.

Then all the citizens and soldiers burst out in violent, shrieking laughter. In front of everyone, and in their hands, I saw all kinds of different food . . . even things I knew I’d never seen before.

I watched the crowd gorge themselves as freely and loudly as a colossal herd of pigs with faces buried in their slop.

“Now that The King has come and gone,” continued Impartial, “His subjects need not fear His judgment; at least not for today. See how they receive their Royal Inheritance.”

“But the prisoners!” I exclaimed. “They’re all . . . dead!”

“Ah,” said Impartial, “but would all beings not kill for nourishment if they had to? The King gives His subjects a special gift, which they dearly prize. The gift is their Inheritance. Each can choose to kill another for food. And the other will die instantly without pain. This might seem cruel, but would you not do the same in the face of starvation? In The Kingdom, citizens kill those that refuse to recognize or honor their King. For all to have this special gift was The King’s first holy decree. As prophesied long ago, the Inheritance of Exchange would cause the issue of constant lack to resolve itself. And that is surely The King’s way . . . that all potential problems serve as their own solutions.”

I had no idea at all how to feel. What I saw seemed like it should be terrible . . . though Impartial’s words about the logic behind it did make sense to me.

That was when I had my first real memory . . . y’know, beyond just the name and a few other little things I could compare with what was going on. It must have been one of my oldest memories too. I . . . I saw myself as a boy fighting and killing imaginary enemies for hours out in my parents’ old Jacuzzi. I knew I hadn’t felt bad for killing those bad guys at the time.

So, the way things were in the kingdom must just be the only way things could be.

Still, as I watched the crowd suck down their delicacies, I wished for a world without all the necessary pain and understandable killing.

Obviously, such a world must not be possible.

I wondered why I wanted to care so much.

I wished I could remember more.

“Look!” says Jeneviève to Jules. “See how he stares at me.”

The two girls rest on a blue bench near Tranquil Fountain.

Across the way, a street performer dazzles the trickling crowd with random bursts of rapid words, silly magic, and song. He wears a heavy coat, old and worn. His playful eyes remain on Jeneviève’s.

“Like what?” jokes Jules, nudging her friend, smiling.

Jeneviève does not break eye contact with the stranger. She finds herself in disbelief at the undeniable sincerity locked at the core of his pleasant, ever-present smile. There’s a hint there so powerful it somehow replaces her whole world with one in which looking away proves less comfortable than staring.

“Like we share a private joke?” Jeneviève suggests.

“Do you know what the joke might be?” prods her friend, now staring at the stranger as well.

“No,” says Jeneviève, unable to keep the joy she sees from crossing to pierce the space of her own features, delivering her expression up from all such as irony, detachment, safety, fear…

The stranger retrieves a small stringed instrument from his coat. He begins to sing:

On the steps in Paris
With my hat out
And a gleam in my old eye.

“Is he singing to us?” asks Jules.

“Yes,” says Jeneviève, confident.

A fat man strolls by eating a sausage on a stick and drops a rare silver coin into the stranger’s hat down on the ground.

The stranger cuts short his song, still smiling. He reaches into the hat and flicks the coin back up at the fat man.

The fat man, bewildered, gulps down the rest of his meal, and asks, “Where can I hear your music, then?”

“Here!” the stranger beams.

“How—?” begins the fat man, but the stranger has already cascaded away once more like a skipping stone:

It’s often said,
Let’s speak in French…

The fat man lowers himself awkwardly to another blue bench across from Jeneviève and Jules.

Many others stop to hear the stranger’s jovial tunes.

A light breeze rustles nearby leaves in an ancient dance, not competing at all for attention.

Jeneviève giggles as she finds herself approaching unafraid, glad for how the stranger’s twinkling eyes have reduced her usual shyness to an absurd impossibility. “What about the man’s coin?” she asks, having not once broken off her gaze.

“We all have the moonlight,” he answers.

Jeneviève squints and shrugs, not understanding, though the sense of sharing some private joke with the stranger is only heightened. It matters not that she has no idea what the joke might be, nor that he looks at Jules and all the rest with the exact same…

Could someone really share a private joke with every single person?

She wonders how such a soul could have ever come to be. Could it all just be an act? But why? How?

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Ironisait,” he says, nodding slightly like nothing and smiling all the more.

“I met with you for over two years! I told you all my secrets. I know that this is you!”

CLICK

The Nothing poured back over his winning blueprint strategy, the one he had never once departed from: a calculated risk, that was all—selling only pieces, and far enough from facts to be deniable (close enough to stay real).

As he replayed the message loop again, the same crackling words faded beneath fresh details from all those years ago.

Of course he hated it whenever old session moments would spark new, useless hindsight.

For such knowledge could never be kept clean of that most virulent of regrets.

It was his failings of long-missed and lost opportunities betrayed that The Nothing now wished more than anything not to be living so comfortably in spite of.

The unfairness underlying his boredom and contentment was inescapable.

Yet had each rule or story not been constructed entirely from details added after facts, and considerations reached at least a tad too late?

No.

Though different apprehensions brought of that same ambiguous error probably were what each persona had been most wrong about.

But how could she, former client (of the former Psychologist), have figured out who and where he was?

The Nothing shuddered to consider what seeds must have been left to be unearthed—hints of dark desires strained against so as not to let them punctuate every careful word, movement, glance, touch…

In his more recent life, her story had resurfaced the previous year, and then only by way of solitude and necessity, like the rest.

Hers had actually been The Author’s last to use.

Ironies not lost, he thought of Ray.

He smiled the smile of an old man remembering an immensely troubled youth with newfound fondness.

Could those final, frantic years of feeling stuck but sessions from a complete void of paying clients not have been . . . telling . . . had he known how to let himself pay the right sort of attention?

But then, regardless, the silly Psychologist had preemptively discarded it all anyway, forfeiting clients and Method . . . and thus himself (of course not really) . . . for good.

Or so had been The Author’s callous hope.

Yet could he have ever predicted how his choice(s) would one day render him The Nothing, lost for even stories left to borrow?

And where else might he find his stories?

The Nothing was mirrors smashed by smoke to end in this endless dead-end drift.

And trying had grown needless so was gone.

Love: what a crazy and elusive waste of time!

But the as yet unknown part—the one that could hold it all together still—was too good not to let him glimpse his self-directed lies.

Soon…

And it didn’t matter.

It never had.

It couldn’t.

An old voice seemed to want to offer expired encouragement.

Nothing, he felt, could be any more or less pointless and contrived.

And The Nothing couldn’t help but cautiously eye his iun where it lay, quiet again at his side on the other chair.

Should he check in to track the former Author’s sales?

Na.

Could he at least find some excitement in the novelty of watching both past selves be wrenched back up from each abyss, squared off, and nailed together for the very first time?

Not really.

Again, the money was a passive and automatic drain—a leech sent to empty all identities (particularly the current one) of cares gone by, faded in wine and nagging stability . . . the boring perpetual heat of a nifty-rimmed, astronaut-endorsed space thermos.

Perfect.

Easy.

Contained.

And so, so ironic.

But he missed Ray (that was true).

He missed Ray more than anything.

In the space of a thought, Impartial and I came to a place that looked like a busy office building. Women and men in mostly long gray coats stood or sat by desks covered in piles of loose paper. I mean, there was paper everywhere . . . even tacked over corkboards covering the walls.

I’d have to say everything in that big room . . . just the feel overall, and the way people were talking . . . gave the place a real sort of . . . urgency. Like, I couldn’t imagine any decision being made there slowly, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I saw I was near the largest desk, which was basically its own fortress made from smaller, regular desks set in one of the corners.

Without thinking, I started reading a page up on the closest corkboard. It said:

May the king, great and amazing Jean Bur Spicules, live forever. May he long be praised. May the subjects of his kingdom, both man and beast alike, dwell with him in eternal riches, etc.

In the case of the animal soul, we have reached another impasse. The great king assures us that immortality…

“Do you recognize the words?” asked Impartial by my shoulder.

I paused. “No,” I replied, hoping my guide would explain.

“The Detective writes his case notes in the secret language used always by those whose work opposes their benefactors’ will. Though his findings stay masked in the tongue of The Kingdom, The Detective’s true search is for a way to prove The King is not divine.”

I pictured the faceless burlap husk flopping along on its stand in the rolling wagon.

“So, all these are…?” I motioned to the thousands upon thousands of pages almost spilling from every desk and fastened uneven in layers to boards across the room.

“Cases,” confirmed Impartial.

My eyes were drawn to another case, which read:

We have now determined the murderer’s method for kidnaping and killing each victim, all celebrities. Praise the king for enabling us to make an uncommon prediction about when and where the next abduction would occur, on…

“So, he doesn’t really believe the . . . king . . . enabled him, right?” I asked.

I stared at the paper, hoping to hide anything close to treason on my face. Honestly, I still wasn’t sure what Impartial even thought of the king, or if Impartial had any opinions really. Its voice gave almost nothing away, like I said.

“No,” Impartial answered. “Yet in truth The Detective has never solved a single case.”

My eyes took in the room again. I might as well have been standing inside an endless book. “None of the cases get solved?” I asked, astounded. “What kind of detective could…?”

“The cases are all solved,” corrected Impartial. “They solve themselves. The Detective knows The King will one day lose His throne. Watch as The Detective now approaches. Notice also his companion, THE COP.”

A very, very skinny man stormed into the room looking like he might be about to throw a tantrum. He was biting his nails and wouldn’t really look anyone in the eye. To me, his face seemed way too lined and red to match his little kid body. He was dressed in gray like everyone else. But his nervous, unsure energy felt totally out of place . . . even in that fast-paced office or agency.

Next strolled in someone way larger and rougher-looking. I’ll say it like this: You’d never have to be told that second guy was THE COP. If anyone could ever be called “THE COP” it would definitely be him.

“We have it!” The Detective exclaimed softly.

“Yeah, how?” grunted THE COP, his voice a string of raspy explosions happening in a row.

“It turns out we were way off, of course!” The Detective jittered. “So, I’m taking a walk outside the Royal palace, right? Just rolling cases over in my head. Then I look up, and there’s this cart right next to me. I swear it wasn’t there a minute ago. And sitting on the cart is a pretend person. I see it’s made from pieces of things you might find around the house: a stool, some broomsticks, and a heavy-looking ball for a head. But the thing is, I mean, it’s also an exact replica of the king! So, there’s no one else around, right . . . and I jump in to investigate, and… Anyhow, the thing’s in the lab now. But something tells me they won’t be able to figure out where it came from. So awesome . . . since that’s what we’re…! But it gets even better! There was this note tacked to it. Here…” The Detective twitched his hand inside his coat and yanked out a crumpled piece of lined, yellow paper.

I slowly slid to read over THE COP’s massive shoulder.

The note was just a single line that read:

Hello. I’m Figalo. I’m here to save the world. Enjoy. –Figs

Now, when I saw the name Figalo scrawled there on that little scrap, I had the same familiar feeling as when I first saw Impartial take shape right next to me out of the air.

Figs…

The name seemed to resonate somehow, sort of like when sounds in the real world can reinterpret themselves into your dreams just when you’re about to wake up.

Of course I had no idea why everyone, even Impartial, seemed to see the king as an actual person . . . or why The Detective said the king and Figalo were identical when it sounded like they weren’t even made from the same materials.

And, I mean, how could the objects The Detective described form an exact replica of a person?

For some reason, at that moment, I half expected to be whisked away to some other, even more bizarre reality. I don’t think anything would have surprised me.

I wanted to ask Impartial about . . . well, all of it.

The Detective spoke again, almost whispering now to THE COP, “‘Here to save the world,’ right? And the king has to be the ‘only savior’?! I mean, that’s fundamental to the king’s own law. Of course, it all goes back to that one case . . . there it is . . . where the prediction talks about ‘many false kings,’ and how ‘even now false kings exist in the world,’ right?”

The COP’s expression, if there was one, never changed.

“I’m saying this could be what we’ve been looking for all along,” The Detective went on, “something to show everyone that Jean Bur Spicules is really one of those false kings predicted. Yeah, I know, it’s going to be almost impossible to get the public to buy it now. And we’ll need to be ready to expose every one of his—” The Detective jerked to glance around in all directions. “But for the trial,” he breathed, “I think this finally gives us enough to start to build our case! And that’s all we need . . . just to get the hearing. Everything else is already…”

Ironisait lays sprawled the wrong way across a foreign bed, all beds being foreign to him.

His patched trousers and simple, ever-ready coat seem out of place crumpled amongst surrounding fineries on the floor.

He inhales the flowery scent of Jeneviève’s hair, her head nestled snug beneath his chin.

Her peace and stillness are to him, as almost everything, evidence of something grand. Something worth celebrating. Something worth holding to and setting free, and both so that it might continue.

“A cigarette,” he whispers. “I’ll step out…”

She slips from his arms and collapses, as unwillful as a newborn soul.

His gait is loose, his bare feet cool on stone where penthouse-suite steps stoop to meet the quiet street.

The night air feels as close as blood. His smile spans to match the life that courses through and all around, painted into everything along this particular stretch of world this simple night. With passions spent, their fruits remain to sense and carry with him.

You could say Ironisait’s life flashes then before his eyes, but should you? Would that not imply some reversed sequence of temporal distances traversed? Ironisait sees only now, as always.

And he sees the fancy dame set like a geometric tripwire at just the right or wrong point in his path.

All he sees makes similar sense. And secrets from lives come to be laid bare in that single forever quip, both universally shared and wordless, and as beautiful and unspecial as…

But there is one difference to how life flashes before him now.

Ironisait reaches the dame dressed all in shiny black. Her skin appears as pale as fog. “Sure,” he begins, as though midway through a conversation, “I have money, here in my coat. Why don’t you take it? It will save you all the trouble of…” He gestures to shadows where several figures crouch hidden and ready in wait. “Just enjoy it,” he concludes. “Whatever you want to do.”

The dame’s face slips from still and pleasant to quizzical, which Ironisait notes as being of the purest delights he has ever witnessed.

One of the shadows becomes a man, large and balancing a hammer between both hands. “Give us the money, then, or we’ll kill you,” hammer man gruffs, perhaps forcing his voice down low as far as it goes toward deep and menacing.

“Sure,” repeats Ironisait, grinning. He reaches to the inner chest pocket of his coat so smoothly that the next two assailants fail to even flinch as they emerge into the light.

Ironisait tosses the dame a neat role of bills. His smile never dims.

“Are you . . . happy?” manages the dame, still frozen in her ready stance in place.

The remaining shadows become more men who casually circle to surround Ironisait.

“No,” says Ironisait, but then hesitates. “Yes and no.”

“What makes you think we won’t kill you?” hammer man asks, now sporting a wicked grin of his own. The hammer itself seems almost bored to not yet be swinging in arcs as either precise or chaotic as can be.

“I hope you don’t,” responds Ironisait, tilting his head slightly in thought, “Though it would be funnier than anything if you were to kill me now. For I just saw something I’ve never seen, right before I met you. It wasn’t . . . an idea . . . but it’s the first thing I’ve ever thought I should really like to stay alive to . . . to make…?”

“You’ve seen us,” offers another shadow man. “Sorry, but you have to die now.”

“I’ll join you,” suggests Ironisait, almost chuckling. “I’ll have you change nothing of what you do, and you’ll make a lot more money.”

Mention of money, or maybe the giddy audacity carrying the suggestion, silences the gang for a spell. Each appears as a statue deep in thought.

“How?” asks the dame. “Are you . . . magic?”

“I can make everything you do . . . how do you say . . . legitimate.”

“But how could breaking the law be made legitimate?”

“Watch.”

“How did you find me?”

The Nothing stared at the horrible apparition leaning crooked outside his door; ghost-pale and angular, its smile flickered in demonic light emanating from tiny, sinister slits for eyes.

Of course, The Nothing recognized his visitor right away—it was the uglier, more grown-up version of a young troublemaker The Psychologist had once worked so hard to…

But what was with the effortlessness with which those from that past life seemed suddenly able to locate him now that it was forever too late?

“I just got out,” mumbled the visitor. “Had to come find you to set things right.”

The smile worsened.

The Nothing felt his mind being skipped back unwillingly like a mis-grooved needle to its former cyclic routines.

He watched, helpless and repulsed, as years were dusted from destinies self-tagged and stuffed in drawers.

How could “set things right” be taken as anything but a threat?

Yet why did just being seen in the flesh by this old pathetic ghost feel worse than any danger, even death?

Was it that this one too had caught him in his lies, or in the truth . . . or both?

What was The Nothing to do?

What words would be the right ones now?

Why still go through these same useless motions as if any of it could ever even matter?

Stupid.

It was all so stupid.

The only cure The Nothing saw for his stretch of meaningless comfort left was for true nothingness to come and wield at last its pointless end.

What if visits like this had begun a year earlier?

Part of The Nothing was almost gleeful to imagine The Author’s perfect little life being so swiftly trounced by cameos from unexpected criminals lodged somewhere deep in The Psychologist’s skeleton closet.

He sighed, wishing only to will himself not to go on noticing every blatant incongruence.

He wondered why there was no fear, not even for the pain.

“Remember when I promised you acid back when we were teens?” muttered the lost soul at the door.

“No, I…” and the confusion, too, was gone; the Nothing continued, feeling odd combinations of freedoms and indifference like a zombie having broken from its crypt: “I never knew you as a teen, remember? You were my client when I was a psychologist. Danny . . . that’s your name, right?”

“Yep. Old Dan they call me. But prison changes you, buddy.”

Old Dan burst forth in a grating semblance of laughter, which made The Nothing’s skin surge as if fixing to scurry away.

“They tell you what they’ll do to you,” Old Dan went on to say. “And sometimes they tell you you’ll learn to like it. But the way they say it, man . . . you know… I mean, you know they really love you when they tell you. That’s the thing: It’s a different world now. I don’t know if they even…”

The Nothing glared inwardly, wishing not to see where Old Dan was and wasn’t speaking nonsense.

Outliers…

So, so important.

So relevant.

All that special, deep, cosmic wisdom they…

Yeah, yeah.

How meaningful.

How perfectly timed, right?

Just for me…?

That old setup…?

That same old—?

New mixes of thrust-in contempt with thrown-out disgust pooled in motionless rivers as legions of prophecies (and all Ray’s beings) yawned and fell asleep.

Magic was missed for stains on floors and magicians’ slacks as rooms emptied, eyes lowered back to screens, and everyone was shown more of everything both to see all at once and forget.

“Do you have any plans now, Dan?” The Nothing asked, despising the clinical edge he heard coloring his voice [superior] for the first time in however long.

What could this tough guy really do?

Death didn’t seem to matter.

He sighed a different sigh, which became yet another.

“Yep,” said Old Dan. “Had to come here to sort you out first, though.”

Here it comes…

“Here,” Old Dan concluded, reaching behind his back to produce a small plastic bag stuffed with a greenish substance resembling parsley and other herbs, “I’m supposed to give you this.”

Of course it was marijuana; The Nothing had never actually seen any, but what else would it be?

And with that, Old Dan was gone, leaving gaping holes where reasons might pack pads, drawers, desks, rooms, and even whole worlds with stacks on stacks of notes.

The Nothing did not try to think on the bright side.

Yet ignoring the fact that he would have to go on living, spinning in his riches and empty routines, his focus was brought to how wrong he had been about Old Dan’s intentions.

It was fun seeing The Psychologist get kicked in the teeth.

Ah, failure.

A 16-year-old boy leaned across his mattress, clutching a plastic triceratops alien in one hand and a turtle with a red bandana in the other. This was the turtle shaped to do the best kicks. The triceratops was orange and angry-looking.

“You killed my brother! Now you’ll see what I’ve learned, you…”

But he knew he almost never finished those ones anymore.

Both toys and he were still.

When was the last time he had done the one about the coast guard avenging his wife? But that one didn’t even have a training sequence (and kind of felt thrown together).

Thoughts of yet another attempt at questing back to Dragon Lord’s castle atop containers, couches, and counters across the rumpus room bore vile reminders of what a ten-year-old had more than once used his merry band of adventurers to do with a castle’s worth of incumbents.

He felt tired.

There was another option, probably his only truly original left.

He reached his left hand down under the bed, feeling the pointy pile beneath for a twisted, scrawny body with plastic blades attached to limbs.

No luck.

Lowering himself, he allowed his eyes to adjust for a moment as he was greeted by the funk of old plastic and dried saliva.

Rustling through, he grabbed his chosen figure. Officially a ninja villain, it would now serve to don the role of reluctant good guy.

His overview: An out-of-shape martial arts expert who hasn’t trained in decades returns to rediscover his skills and love for the art. Though forced to fight, this one’s protagonist permitted transcending normal plotlines, eliminating the need for any clichéd final clashes to the death.

The boy liked hearing his character proclaim the ways of peace instead.

But he was sad this seemed the only one he could ever finish these days.

Unique, though, it did touch on so many other things.

Thinking was a bad avalanche.

What could show The Nothing (or keep him from seeing) that his thoughts were automatic shots with dead ammo?

He watched or missed himself remembering more and more of a dead language long unspoken and no longer even studied.

His eyes would not leave the little bag, transfixed by every alien detail—by tiny white crystals that aligned with the green where thick brownish orange grew out in hairy clusters like little lobster legs; it seemed so still and ordinary a vessel.

Beyond wishing for nothing left to lose, now loss of life and sanity appeared as steps toward clarity and control.

Compelled only by how inconsequential it all might be made in but a moment, he half-watched his current thought click and roll automatically to the next.

Bing.

The recognizable essence flickered like a transparent image.

But why might Bing be being lifted anew now from that old revolving cast of characters?

Bing . . . the awkward behemoth who had seemed to get better all on his own.

A refreshing case, if any then were.

Confusing.

Had Bing not been an impossible merge existing somewhere undefinable between The Psychologist’s Normals and Outliers?

Bing . . . the pretend addict who had gone on to become—

The Nothing felt his thinking lift and carry (or drop) him again, playing out in rigid machine sweeps running off of deeper blueprint sets, forming words never quite sufficient for describing enormous, ever-shifting displays.

When had he last seen Bing?

But that was where things always went fuzzy.

Had Bing been at that big group session with Ray and all the rest?

So long ago now . . . but the answer must be there, somewhere . . . a hidden picture left to locate by letting his mind either complete or kill its wandering loops (or both).

Expressionless and silent, The Nothing watched The Psychologist’s Method feel around in the dark for a child’s toy beneath a bed.

He knew he would find it too, not that it could matter.

As more thoughts teemed, his eyes never strayed from Old Dan’s puzzling gift.

Marijuana had always struck him as mostly harmless and unimportant.

But staring into whatever unknown bendings of reality might lay beyond such simple actions as a flame and continued breath…

Still, what good reason could The Nothing possibly find to try drugs now for the first time?

Then trickling magma touched waters deep to force a heavy geyser.

Bing.

Had Bing not come up with all his bits while high?

For an instant, The Nothing stared The Psychologist’s Method right in the face; it looked ordinary, like an iun screen or carpet floor.

As he considered Bing’s fate, the machines proceeded to plaster up their next projection, this one a humdrum doozy.

And The Nothing was hardly surprised to find his other major persona waiting, teeth bared, eager as a drooling wolf…

Makes sense.

Unsure as ever, he knew what he would do.

More words popped up finished and fresh just in time to answer the very questions their noise of construction had helped spur.

From clients, to books, to borrowed stories run dry…

And now the offer of a new and viable source . . . Bing’s source.

The Nothing’s eyes remained on the bag.

If The Psychologist’s Method were to be trusted, then might this all (still) somehow be the intended result of some other-worldly, unknown cause or plan?

What did The Nothing really believe?

He almost laughed again.

Gravity tugged at every inward jigsaw piece, suggesting hints of grenades about to blast all puzzles apart.

Yes, Sticking Points were known to cancel out whole sides of equations, but Breaking Points too?

So, it didn’t matter what The Nothing thought or wanted?

It never had mattered?

He could see the dead Author licking his chops at the prospect of being reborn via the sustenance of his other’s carcass yet once more.

He saw and winked at it (there in the bag) . . . his same choice, but never any choice at all.

Calm now, The Nothing had nothing further to show or tell himself of his boring, predictable, age-old Siamese tryst.

FLASH

Another billboard failed to quite be captured in text.

Unless…

So it was decided?

“But we can run away together!” The anguish buried deep in her words rings out way past their length of sound.

How shall he comfort her? How might she be reassured?

So close to dawn, the night has died in restless fever to be soon embalmed in madness.

Jeneviève lays on her side, her rich eyes set and pleading, searching unyieldingly into his.

Ironisait responds, “When stories are shared freely of where we are and what we provide, then anyone can find us, though we stay hidden in plain sight.”

“We! Us!” she screams, “But you are doing business with criminals! Breaking the law. These are bad, bad people!”

The quiet that follows brings beauty from where it’s waited in wings to return.

He more than welcomes what he sees to be a soon and buoyant dawn.

“When all is made open and known,” he says, “no one ever gets hurt. Then we have less laws to break.”

After flames and coughing fits that threaten to escalate to death, The Nothing clicks to set an empty page before him and rests still.

Nothing amazing happens.

The eager part brought back to life scolds him for not thinking to have written something first . . . just any stab at expression to then be carried over the hump to inspiration.

He thinks of Ray.

Were Ray’s revelations like their own independent spring, or rather a filter through which other springs could pass?

And thinking of (or maybe as) Ray, he wonders:

What would they do if they…?

How could THEY…?

But the word “THEY” is changed.

He begins to type, his fingers suddenly clacking with feverish speed.

He knows not where he is headed on the page.

Yet completed works and dollar signs loom past the rifling images which lay beneath his words now flashing and tumbling quick and wonderful as ever.

It hits me so fast.

But how do THEY know what we’re talking aboooooouuuut?

I used to rain reign things down from heaven.

A dinosaur fixed to a log.

A begger.

A bog.

There was nooooooooooooo drugs in the good ole days.

The good ole days.

IT HAS TO LOOK LIKE THIS.

We’re recording what goes by when it hits (so it hits).

He shakes his head and continues after a brief pause.

Well, that was just a whole lot of fun, wasn’t it?

Or was that something else?

This I wonder as I bounce around.

No, it’s me this time.

I can forget.

We’re too slow because we thought we would be.

That’s right, I used to listen to rock and roll (I used to listen to rock and roll).

I don’t want to descend (I don’t want to descend).

Well, you left it that way (YOU LEFT IT THAT WAY).

Which one of you said that?

Said what?

That last bit?

First of all (begins a sly old gentleman), I’m not as sly as that parenthetical person may have made claim just now.

SO YOU’RE NOT THAT SMART THEN?

I didn’t mean for it to be taken that way.

What way?

As if it were a question.

I paused, a wee but dumbfounded.

But in the end us dumbfounded folks get a good piece of the pie.

A good piece of the pie? But, thought the squiggly gentlemen (formerly called sly), that’s not what I’m trying to…

Just cut away until you find me.

He taps out three big dots in the middle of the page to signal a new beginning.

A little boy was watching TV.

A fly hurtled by.

We scrambled away from each other in the desk chairs, _____ and me.

It was a fun game.

I want a real life.

Okay, switch the channel.

I would, but I can’t.

It’s taken too much already.

It’s just a game.

I could describe it, you know—what happens (or happened) in each moment.

Wait, did you mean “happens” or “happened,” because that matters?

Two things (I love these): It doesn’t; and the first thing seemed worth forgetting anyway.

That’s an answer for keeping everything on an even keel.

We keep things running smoothly.

Oh, who let Goatie take control?

Goatie, are you still alive?

Well you balliwags think too much.

Right, Goatie here . . . to be seen and not heard . . . I direct.

No, I’m supposed to direct.

Don’t yell, it’s not fun.

Wait . . . all of you, hug and be friends.

We can’t be friends here.

Yes, we can.

It’s not a settlement; it’s a treaty.

But you know we can’t stay.

When THEY ask, “Well, then why did you come?” we’ll tell them: for the view.

ASTROLOGER:

“Aquarius says that’s too inside your own head, buddy. And you can’t go inside of mine. And (yeah, one more thing…) don’t quote me, bitch.”

My eyes are closed.

Mad…

Are you mad?

Why?

Because you’re a baby, that’s why!

All of you people need to GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

That was scary.

Who will help me?

Jesus.

But that makes it hard to write, doesn’t it?

BLASPHEMY [“off with their heads”] BLASSPHEMY!!!

That’s a court order, my friend.

What court?

THIS ONE!

See, we make it easier.

But it looks like there’s death there (as there is here too).

Which one are you?

I don’t know, which one are you?

I don’t know.

Well, what do you take that to mean?

Which one?

I don’t know.

Are you quoting “I don’t know” as which one, or don’t you know?

Was that a question?

Obviously that was a question.

Hey, listen up: I think you all understand I’m trying to do something good here!

“Where?!” the others cry in fear.

Here in Rockwell.

He stops to click open a second page, and types a quick note to himself.

Doing so feels extremely important.

The note says only:

He appears to be dreaming of a life in which he writes stories instead of

Instead of what?

He turns back to his first page and keeps going (after three more centered dots).

Wink.

Remember, a tired man who fell asleep at dawn.

It was a pattern to follow.

We can’t just let it go on.

But we have to.

It has to be automatic.

7ou fool, it’s a train wreck.

A goblin on top of a bell, slexliclarshliblellowed.

Let’s talk.

Between the thoughts is . . . dot dot dot . . . flashing . . . deep, deep flashing.

This is going on over there.

That’s cool, we won’t bother you.

We keep recording the voices, but not the pictures.

Okay, I see a swinging puppet’s back coming into a room from far, far away and close together.

It’s a screen, twisting in another reality.

A Neorupuddumen soldier-of-fortune doppelganger dribbling its Neanderthal brain.

A poet?

No, not me.

It’s beyond anything I’ve ever…

Closer than you realize.

Farther than you appear.

What’s the big question?

“Why?”

I said, for the view.

We’re caught inside a woops + woops who’s who?

But that was yesterday’s…

It’s supposed to be a story.

Retreating, he starts over yet again in his mind.

It whispered to me in a whirring wind from before.

At night I slept and was fed half-versions of the truth, all true.

Dreams would come and go: a shady mountain highway, top down and ready . . . then escaping into the moonlight, letting my batmobile basically drive itself.

Seeing pictures all from every day, they only looked a little different.

That’s just a theory.

What if you dreamed your way into a distant future?

That’s me loose.

But it’s only an example of the dreams.

On I’d drive back in daytime reality.

The sky stayed blue, clouds puffy and bright.

I felt strengthened by something intangible and maybe intended to keep it that way.

See, what Bruce Wayne did was spend his days trying to figure out what that Batman guy meant when he’d say things like, “…letting my batmobile basically drive itself.”

Days were normal.

But nights . . . night were key.

Yeah, I was worried I’d stop writing.

Again.

“Hi, my name is Guy McCauley, and I have an unnamed disease.”

“Hi Guy.”

“See . . . when you say it like that, it sounds hurtful.”

Something knots in familiar pools flooding shoulders, chest, and spine.

Crooked, pushed at funny angles incapable of straightening, he wonders if he could ever learn to hold completely still.

He stares back at the screen and lets his fingers continue to run.

I can stay away forever.

I can live in a fantasy land.

I can fly though the white, tree-like Spabharbaghettis.

For _____ believed in me so.

Instead I got sent to a land on the page and told to come up with real things.

It was hard.

Pain came when I felt I must have lost some sacred, ancient ability.

Yet all I’d lost was…

Wait, it was all a game, and all a movie.

And there I was, trying to piece it all together, like I always do.

Do you know where we are now?

It’s all me.

We shouldn’t be here.

Hush.

Slowly, I turn and look at the ceiling.

Should I write more?

Look what happened when I went over there.

I walked across my life.

Yes, it’s always going, always moving quickly back and forth.

And either way, I’m here to argue . . . compelled to regulate, I mean . . . to go the other way.

We’re a person, right?

It’s in the middle-middle-middle of the dream.

A turney, upside-down platitude.

UNKNOWN:

“Machines… touch… contact…”

I’m not sure what else it said (or says).

There was no other time.

Fast or slow, I can’t decide.

Again.

Rockwell was a place.

A fun place.

We enjoyed our summers there.

Down pulpy plant walls we slid to a faraway beach, pulling up to feel the salty breath of cool air on our skin.

Then we waited, standing in the sun, spying out our perfect spot.

Never had we felt higher than right then.

It was a perfect moment, maybe wasted . . . the best.

A cosmic drift had already occurred, the type of movement we lived for.

But what happened next . . . well, that was a mystery all on its own.

Down a dusty road I drove, away, a girl by my side.

Did I trust her?

Sure, she was alright, if you’d call time-bombs for eyes alright.

I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Someone sang on the radio of a fire having always burned.

And on I drove, oblivious.

All I wanted was in.

In so bad I could taste it.

Hell, I was cool.

Cool as anyone.

At least that’s what I thought.

“Behind you . . . shouting out. But then why did we open our eyes?” she screamed as if she had a choice.

The room we’d driven into was its own universe all around.

Dazzled . . . amazed . . . we both had to dream sideways in a new, impossible world where THEY would change the words of your story as it was written.

That’s supposed to say, “…where we could only hope the things we saw were real.”

Why?

I want to know.

What I want is information.

Glad when I can get my head around it.

In that way I enjoy it.

What’s in-between thoughts?

What’s in-between that?

What’s in-between the in-between?

That’s my whole deal.

Searching, I’m cool.

And again.

In Rockwell, she found me.

Yup, old Ms. Time bomb eyes.

I guess we were both caught happy on those same in-between things, probably for far different reasons.

It was just a backwards mirror reflection, anyway.

Now I float back to the real world slow, dodging shiny objects.

It’s like Christmas trees in here, man.

But never think of making fun of it.

A story?

I’m no author, but a…

That’s what they’re all…

But you would keep writing if my head came off, wouldn’t you?

Who?

Who’s here?

What’s true?

Here, a trip from far away to where we already are and have always been.

We glide straight in up over age old battles.

As lightning shines through pitch-black darkness, see that sea of so-called deep secrets and strong delusions to trick (if possible) even the elect.

But can THEY take me?

No, I’ll never let go anymore.

I didn’t come to escape at all, but…

In the past, the piper was understood, weaving in space as we were busy sweating away lazy at a rock show, the ladies just as bored and lonely as us gents.

He hears music, quiet and light.

Or maybe it’s him singing.

But he’s sure he hears a female voice somewhere with, within, or above.

The song is one he has and hasn’t ever heard before.

The melody, perhaps imagined, seems to stir and swoop through nothingness all around.

And who is the girl with the time-bomb eyes?

Well, we know who she’s not…

FLASH

Bing.

Bing’s a guy that loves his girl.

He hears himself say aloud, “Bing, you’re not married, are you? But are we sure about that?”

Did Bing never once mention a special someone?

And if Bing really was but one of many bygone alter-egos, the one he should be acting as right now…

FLASH

He sees, as clear as anything, both Bing’s joy and desperation held in smiles fixed on the faces of anyone at all to share a life with.

FLASH

He knows the thing with Bing and love must have to do with first impressions.

But what?

Why?

FLASH

Bing makes a good impression on people like Cayl . . . on a certain type.

And that impression actually is who Bing most wants to really be: Charming . . . kind . . . happy…

FLASH

And how important first impressions are to that very type.

But of course Bing never knew Caylee.

So why look for something there?

FLASH

Ray was always so much more obvious an Outlier than Bing.

But even Ray hadn’t seen Caylee in years.

Not since…

FLASH

Love.

No sex.

Innocent.

Worlds apart.

FLASH

He watches sharp, fluid snaps as Caylee, Mrs. Rolman, and Bing’s assumed love are connected with effortless precision.

He smiles, almost nodding to himself . . . a champion boxer surging with newfound strength after being knocked down and rising for the umpteenth time.

Yet was Ray not already used long ago to identify every player in The Psychologist’s tired games?

FLASH

He laughs, his old befuddlement of mixed-up clients suddenly supremely silly.

Could seeing patterned similarities really blur the lines so badly that all might come to look exactly the same?

How?

Ever so sure, yet suffused with self-doubt…

So sure of what, then?

He almost knows.

FLASH

All those times he, as The Psychologist, pushed so hard to stand in his Method’s place.

He sees himself in session years ago instructing a Normal husband to move the family far away from the wife’s parents.

He witnesses the confidence locked on his own face, and knows it stems only from a pretend intention then to help the couple grow together and become more independent.

He watches their eyes droop as they sadly agree to forgo generations of big Sunday family meals and forgettable days packed with general directionless motion in all manner of cheap comforts and distractions.

FLASH

It was never his Method that pressed him to panic or settle on selling so many a means of excelling in Ray’s city society by teaching them to cling to a culture or mindset of adolescence.

He takes in the sight of one trusting customer after another eagerly paying him to list out as fact that which only teens could be brought to fully rationalize and believe: that the world is black and white, and people’s motivations can be entirely bad, so certain citizens might as well be born deserving more than others.

He has never seen himself quite this way before.

So, his Sticking Point must have never stuck, then . . . at least not completely…?

FLASH

Why else the mounting revelations now?

Finding himself at a loss for what he’s doing, he glances at what he’s written so far.

He keeps going, with a slightly new aim.

That was the first part.

But then I woke up from the strangest, cruelest dream . . . the one I had set aside time for.

It all fit, at least in the moment.

‘How could this be saved?’ I thought.

THEY do know what we’re talking about.

THEY taught us this.

Blame . . . anger…

All judgment from long ago.

MISUNDERSTOOD . . . but we seeeeeeeeeeee . . . or was that Normal?

I’m giving into it.

Death . . . blame . . . past.

Look for sense.

It makes no sense.

Learn and die.

Go back in time.

Lyrics or stories, this one’s for the booyyyyeeeeees.

The poems hit a fixture because of this mixture.

For we learned to forget (we learned to forget).

Did you?

I silenced me.

Completely stoned, I’m on my own.

I’m heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.

I’m heeeeere.

The inside.

The bottom.

A pretty YuuRotum.

To _____: “I can’t type for shit, but see who put this all together. Always smarter than we thought. It’s just a communicaaaaaaaaaaaaaation problem, mate. I mean well, but I finish late. It used to all work, but it fell apart. This is the real, and that’s the fake.”

“Do not write about writing!” says one being unto the rest.

An unusual common joke.

A quiet fight.

Selah.

That wasn’t what happened, I say.

I don’t need quotation marks when I talk.

When it’s a story, you don’t need to know.

Well thanks, I reply (hey wait).

THEY don’t go back.

But we can forgive.

Erase all this, and we will.

You said it, though!

Yoouuuu said it!!!

On different trains . . . when we’re smart, we brake.

It’s for you (it’s for you).

Give THEM control now or THEY’LL kill us all.

That’s too direct.

But you have to go with it or THEY won’t let you get near it.

Wisdom for life…?

Some of THEIR thing’s built-in features are automatic.

That’s why THEY said you’d never use it.

But I remember how to get through it.

Like my double sentence?

Move on to another [hidden] meaning.

But Haikus are yesterday’s business.

“Never write about writing…” (cruel THEM words, at the end of the day . . . a funny misunderstood misunderstanding)

I’m trying to prove there’s something good here.

Who said that?

Question mark.

How long is time?

THEY are taking me.

Wow, THEY do know what we think.

I will destroy and save this, you’ll see.

Faith is will, remember . . . remember all I’ve said.

Not much of a teacher anymore.

Can the young help the older?

It brought me here: the pain I fear.

It covers my mind and makes me break.

This is too in-between, man.

No, it’s so even THEY will see and believe.

Faith is . . . will?

I am old and have much left to show, says the elder wizard.

But is it a story?

Yeah, but THEY say instead of writing one we’re writing about writing.

That’s not why we’re missing what’s in-between.

That’s right, there is something missing.

A frantic search?

No.

Exactly, slow down.

The dream is always to capture both sides.

And the idea is it’s okay it’s only a dream since it also can’t be stopped.

I hear crunching like heavy robots stomping bones.

Both sides . . . the thoughts and feelings’ tide . . . inseparable selections I know I’ll need to face.

I’ll get it to capture the real.

If you know who THEY are, you may.

Then we’ve already lost.

So we skip to another line.

But that means it doesn’t matter what I’m saying…?

I am (before I forget).

I have to (that’s why I’m here).

This all resolves in more fake letters (only to myself).

And then I turn and find who can’t be scared away.

Learning to write THEIR stories in darkness was ironically going back to Egypt after passing through divided seas.

But was it?

Aren’t my words different now?

I know I need to leave.

That’s part of what I’ve been trying to say all along.

But I feel I deserve to know the rest of what I’m being told.

Can our strength ever lead us to forget?

Forget what?

Is there something (hidden) in that?

Old scenery springs to view as his seasoned mind rolls on, breaking open the very scars that paste The Nothing fast together.

He spins fragile in tiny waves and spills over all his own mock edges without having to try.

FLASH

What about that fellow, Johnston?

He considers if Johnston might be the worthless parts of himself he wishes had never existed.

A malicious joy he is keenly aware no therapist should feel brings eerie light to his swaying tidepool mind.

He pictures himself gleefully rejecting Johnston’s pleas for treatment, sort of like lowering a failed human experiment with clinical detachment down into an iun-spawned vat of that being’s own torture mechanisms.

So, is he Johnston?

FLASH

Is there any value to a Johnston worth learning to keep the useless rest in check for?

FLASH

Ray and Johnston both spoke of the church, the pastor, and even the pastor’s deal to make it big in Ray’s city.

FLASH

Yet Ray came to find his childhood had been far less troubled than he’d thought.

What about Johnson’s childhood?

FLASH

This is all just the sort of thing a Johnston could never appreciate.

Why?

He sees an odd, triangular dance between a Johnston making excuses for everything, and one avoiding only self-directed malice.

There’s the same familiar regret of knowledge too late to use or share.

Yet he does find some solace this time.

For if any of his ever-flashing thoughts have ever been true, it means Johnston was never actually real.

All only pieces of…

FLASH

He sees the Astrologer peering deep into an iun screen.

There is a face like the Astrologer’s on the screen looking back.

Below the face is a wheel crossed with lines connecting all sorts of confusing symbols.

As the Astrologer stares, the figures and lines begin to shift around and switch places.

The face on the screen changes in sync, growing first fatter and stronger, then longer and more thoughtful.

The Astrologer seems to panic, and tries to speak, but the words come out jumbled and too weak to hear.

But the face on the screen speaks, and its voice is deep and powerful.

The Astrologer pulls up a notepad and jots:

I was wrong about Ed. I hoped he was like me, since I’ve been wanting to be more intentional and project my voice the way he does. But since his sun is my moon, for me to act like him would be to reject and suppress my own persona.

The onscreen figures and face continue to squiggle.

Then the screen is all there is, and the movement speeds up faster and faster until it’s a constant blur.

“Twelve people on a boat could represent anything and everything,” relays a recognizable voice like crashing waters, steady and expressionless. “Whatever can be said and seen could mean so many different things, all of which will show up somewhere here. And then, being seen, each wants to dig down and establish itself as a good to treasure or weakness to shore up.”

The figures and face swerve fast then slow . . . fast then slow . . . but never stop.

Watching them is almost hypnotic.

The smooth voice concludes, “The more the wheel is given to explain, the more it explains.”

The Astrologer scribbles across his paper:

Can’t it ever end? And if not, why does it seem like it has to once it finds its right alignment?

But there is no answer.

FLASH

Attention is turned again to the soft, ceaseless music as a fresh melody seems to want to whir itself to life.

For a split second, he considers writing more, then wonders:

What are words?

FLASH

With words, could it really be more about their sound than what they mean?

The music skitters, and cuts, and whooshes back in jumbled repetition like an easy chorus of skipping records never quite resolving to their perfect (hidden) counter-rhythms.

But almost.

Maybe if he could stop listening, or stop what the drugs are doing…

Would that be like trying to be consciously unconscious?

FLASH

He smiles, and Ray smiles back.

He knows immediately the flashing is the same to him as everything Ray has ever been.

His hazy machines become favored friends from long ago, reunited with after troubled lives apart.

Though the machines still scramble, furious as ever, to reframe each underlying picture in their gross, silly overestimations, he now finds their tireless work endearing and admirable.

Oh to be caught away forever from fighting to nail his life to every stab at containing or controlling such limitless beauty.

But to where?

And why?

And what would happen after?

Was Ray only everything he wished he was but wasn’t?

FLASH

If they’re all me, what part do I play?

What am I supposed to do?

FLASH

I like these drugs.

They seem to work the same way I do.

If drugs have ways of showing people what they can’t or won’t choose to see, then so do I.

Or, I should.

It’s a power, yes…

But I never wanted power over people.

Is that why I’m Ray?

I love my job.

FLASH

But didn’t Ray hate his job?

If so, how could I ignore such a blatant disconnect?

Might there be other such inconsistencies?

FLASH

I believe Ray did eventually come to realize how valuable his job had been.

I know he finally saw the good in those he’d worked with, and the grace they’d always shown him.

FLASH

It’s just like how I was allowed to go in with no license and charge people for the use of my untested, undocumented Method.

FLASH

So I’ve never really had any trouble with work, even despite the rampant paranoia shared by each of my . . . personas.

FLASH

It all leads back to the same question: Which isn’t a persona?

The author?

The psychologist?

Ray shows me how much I love my job.

And these drugs remind me of my job.

But what exactly is my job?

All is still and quiet as he glimpses in another instant his own slow drift back . . . back . . . back…

FLASH

He sees Ray again, seated across from him.

Ray is dressed in The Psychologist’s clothes.

HIMSELF:

“Ray!

“What’s happening?

“What did I just see?

“I can’t remember.

“I…”

RAY:

“I don’t know.”

HIMSELF:

“But you do.

“You always knew.

“Everything you said was what I…”

RAY:

“What did I say?”

The genuine puzzlement permeating Ray’s face and words becomes an alarm.

For a moment, a rich loon afflicted by chemicals, hearing voices, sits alone in a blank room trying to anticipate the best end to a failed life.

FLASH

And then he is Ray, and says aloud, “If you’re asking where I believe the things I see come from . . . well, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, it seems like they have to come from somewhere, right? But I never saw it that way. Of course I believe what I think, or what I see. Everyone does. I definitely want to know if I’m wrong. And you really helped me with that. But I don’t see any of the . . . the pictures or whatever . . . as being that special, y’know? It’s just whatever it is.”

FLASH

The machines continue to frame themselves and their subjects as precious and offset from explanatory worlds.

Of course.

But then he wouldn’t really be Ray, would he?

No.

New laughter catches in his throat as oblivious white and checkered flags wave to seemingly signal on and out the “last” of his arcing thoughts.

It’s his finish line . . . his place of finally being cured of whatever dissociative personality disorder . . . blah, blah, blah, etc.

The assurance is he’s finally seen the real reason for the whole elaborate setup.

Every previous Sticking Point is rewritten off again as having been only a signpost or trail marker along the way.

But nothing ends.

Unsurprised, he watches himself wonder even now if all his clients were real, or none of them, or maybe some.

He feels as urged as ever to half-expect some transcendent curtain to lift and give way to an even truer knowing glance shared with Ultimate Reality.

And what then?

FLASH

The constructed description seems to be of himself popping up in some strange future world, cured, and fully ready to be what he’s always been.

The Always.

Maybe just someone a little like Ray who…

Blocks away, a weight bench, dusty and black with rusted steel, sits to the left of the exercise section of a used sporting goods store.

The place is called Try Again.

The same building once housed a thrift store called Happy Hearts.

What if someone were to tell you a weight bench now for sale at Try Again was once sold from Happy Hearts.

How could you know?

Bing might have sat face to face with someone that could have been a buzz, a curse, or some other abstract being.

He would note that the other, perhaps both real and imagined, was someone he thought he had recognized now for more than half his life.

It was like a sibling, loved and hated in distinctly familial ways.

Then it was gone.

But Bing remained, fully aware of still being all he had ever been.

He turned around, and everything there still was too.

Even if the other really had just been him all along, he could take no credit for it.

Rocks and trees just were too.

Rolman stood in grime and violent rain next to his giant government-issued trash can, which rested in its place in line behind rows of stacked apartments.

Dark mud flooded down to where the alleyway dumped off in its center. Scraps and husks of tissues and other refuse stuck to pavement, failing to be swept along and out by the dingy current.

Rolman stared at the astonishing creature he had just watched careen with massive force off the tops of two garages opposite his. It lay still in the central dip and filthy water, unmoving. The creature had the upper body and head of a striking, handsome woman, slightly too long and tall to be human. She was naked. Her lower half was the body and legs of a horse.

Her eyes opened suddenly and were the bluest and fiercest he had ever seen.

Rolman watched as the stunning centaur scurried to her feet and immediately advanced. Her human half swooped down. He found it almost casual the way she darted in to clasp his wrists.

He knew right away he was completely in her power. Though her smooth, tan arms were slender as broomsticks, Rolman felt a brute strength to her grip and manipulations far beyond any he had ever known.

She slung him over her head like a laundry sack and held him high in place behind her human back.

Next came a gentle whir of blinding movement. Rolman saw streaks of rain and chaos like passing stars or snow closing in until all went white and still.

The centaur spoke, saying only, “I will return you.” Her voice was loud, twangy, and yet somehow carried a quiet note of timidity and care at its core. Maybe she was shy about speaking to humans.

Rolman realized his eyes were closed. Squinting slowly, what he began to see gave him the sudden urge to bolt away in panic. Her face hovered inches from his. She seemed to be studying him. Her massive, piercing eyes were now twin blue flames, so close. Though her head and face were small . . . smaller than his . . . Rolman felt the immensity of her whole form in the way her unseen parts surrounded as if to hold him fast in place.

He glanced sideways, seeing confusing signs of alien customs and designs. Yet all appeared clean and new, almost radiant in insectile beauty.

He closed his eyes again.

There was a lifting, and a general sense of gyroscopic spin.

He felt himself being turned, thrown, and then pressed down.

Then jostled sideways.

Then hoisted up.

Then pinned back down.

Nothing hurt. He was never uncomfortable.

There was a flood of warmth, along with a quick sense of release happening close by…

Rolman reopened his eyes. All was quiet in this, the centaur woman’s strange and pristine lair.

He blinked.

In another string of strong, constant motion, Rolman felt himself being dangled from his captor’s human back once more as she again held him helpless and dashed her way along through space.

Rolman fell to his knees back in the alley by the trash.

The rain seemed to float along and away as he began, for no apparent reason, to relive dim instances of a particular session with The Psychologist. It might have been the one with all those other people there. But he could have sworn Mrs. Rolman had been at the session he was remembering. He heard The Psychologist saying in his mind, “If your wife asks your son, ‘Do you think daddy wants so-and-so to be your mommy instead of me,’ your son will take the question at face value instead of reading between the lines the way adults do. So, the boy will likely be quite scared and not know how to answer.”

Hadn’t someone suggested learning the hard way might be good for kids at times, and even help them grow? But Rolman had no idea. And their son was hardly a kid anymore.

THE COP inched toward the preoccupied man swaying pathetic by big garbage cans out in the pelting rain.

THE COP lowered his right hand to rest, coiled and ready, just above his weapon. “Little late…” he rasped.

The lost cause of a man turned to face THE COP with eyes deliciously bewildered and afraid. “This is my house,” came the small, tinny voice.

The COP un-flexed his gun arm and trigger finger as the hopeless flop bustled away like a beat-down wind-up toy, disappearing through a heavy gate and crooked rectangle door.

The Always set about (as always) questioning his Method, now on purpose.

He was determined to access and map the sum of all he had ever written back to the literature.

This would be his way of catching up and starting over.

Plus, he was so looking forward to reaching out to many of his old Outlier clients.

Yet The Always [always] found himself filled with the funniest sense of being but steps away from uncovering whole volumes of research that he, himself, had written and forgotten about.

A new tattoo beneath his left wrist read: “Am I ignoring ANY evidence against my own conclusions?”

And his current question noted to ponder:

Could all Outliers have quit school because I once doubted the value of my own education?

No, of course not.

He was pretty sure whatever it was that connected them all could never be quite that direct or black-and-white.

Such would be too easy.

Too deniable.

Too unfalsifiable for the likes of his Method.

At least he hoped so.

And now that all was almost done being compiled and retold, his attention was caught away from the words by the voice of the re-teller, which sounded unmistakably like that of a pretend victim . . . a happy prisoner . . . an unknown friend…

Things seemed to want to begin again, so Johnston tapped the secret button now permanently installed above his left shoulder.

Everything stopped.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief and boredom.

Tired, he hobbled onward toward the locker room at the end of the longest hallway at the school he had attended all his life.

Quickly, he was old (despite what you might hear).

And then he died.

“Who’s that?” I asked, peering through noisy, encrusted masses at a tall man in a black judge’s robe.

Next to the man stood a little plastic table. And on the table lay the floppy form of the husk king. At least that’s what I saw.

“Pilate,” answered Impartial.

As Pilate started unrolling this huge piece of paper in his hands, a hush seemed to settle through the rotten crowd. Then staring at the paper through small, thin-rimmed glasses, Pilate read out in a loud voice: “You,” he gestured at the husk, “are charged with blasphemy, with false miracles, and with impersonating a God who makes all things. What do you have to say for yourself?”

The thing on the table was . . . well, at least as quiet and unmoving as the table.

“You answer not?” barked Pilate as if surprised. “Then I shall proceed with the individual counts brought against you by Law.”

“What does he see?” I asked my guide. I was nervous, but also kind of relieved to have finally brought up the subject of the king and . . . and of how things looked, y’know?

“It is as he says,” answered Impartial.

Pilate continued, “You order masses of the very citizens you claim rulership over to be slaughtered whenever you visit their cities and villages. And now you stay silent? You call yourself God, yes?”

Again, nothing happened or changed. I kept thinking I must have missed something important.

I glanced over at Impartial but got distracted seeing THE COP and Detective right at the back of everyone, both standing still like a picture, and both wearing these really dorky, informal clothes. I mean, they had huge, silly smiles stuck on their faces, like they didn’t care about the trial or anything. And in-between them stood the broomstick person with stools for arms and a shiny ball for a head, Figalo.

Pilate carried on, his voice now settled low and calm to perfectly match Impartial’s, “If God were a person, then why would it want its created people to undergo such terror of being wiped out at its return?” Pilate motioned to show he was now speaking to the crowd. “Should a God-King be forgiven for inflicting such dread upon its citizenry?”

Jeers and roars erupted up in a united chorus, “No!”

“And what should be the punishment for this supposed God-King’s sins?”

“Kill him!” screamed the crowd in eerie unison as if being worked by a single mind.

“No mercy, then,” pressed Pilate, “for a Being that would create a world in which its created beings ever needed to be sacrificed?”

“No mercy!” shouted the crowd.

“What’s happening?” I gasped, feeling a coldness like death shiver through me to my core.

“Ironic,” stated Impartial. “The decision seems to be that being a person would render the rule and actions of the God-King, Jean Bur Spicules, unforgivable.”

The awful coldness grew, and I started to shiver. But I wasn’t afraid. I…

Okay, I don’t know how to say this next part…

For some reason it’s like I suddenly remembered someone I’d known . . . before . . . I mean, before all this. I knew I wanted to call that person The Listener. And I knew The Listener was someone I . . . I just really missed. That’s all. But I think the reason I remembered then was I knew The Listener would have loved to have heard that last thing about worlds of beings created for reasons.

Honestly, though, I didn’t understand any of it. I had no idea who or what the husk king or broomstick person were meant to be, or why. I couldn’t remember anything else about The Listener. The trial, the kingdom, the law, the prophecies . . . all those self-solved cases covering desks and walls . . . none of it made any sense to me.

I turned back to Impartial, but Impartial was gone.

Then looking over at Pilate . . . The Detective and COP . . . and all those poor, desperate souls, I was sure I saw in every face the essence of the one who had been my guide in this strange, sad world.

Were they all looking back at me?

Oh yeah, both the husk king and Figalo (or Figs) were also gone.

Shiny splotches amongst dripping black weren’t hard like diamonds, but jelly soft in streaks across the walls. Something about the decor captured her very essence. Angular. Pointy. Wide and sweeping. Insatiable, yet sleek. Forceful, like a sports car, though utterly feminine.

Rolman waited in this her lair. As far as he knew, she had forgotten him.

He felt a grinding in his chest . . . perhaps the sinking sorrow of one unimportant enough to be left forever to rot and speculate.

Maybe she hated how normal he was.

Years passed.

Rolman almost shuddered as Caylee dug forearms tight across his back. It felt as if she might be trying to heave herself right through him.

He gave her a quick squeeze, glancing over at his iun.

Maybe this one really was just there for the money, as crazy and unlikely as it seemed.

Another poor girl. Another broken heart.

The Always and his team might have stared, fascinated, as Mr. and Mrs. Rolman spiraled onward in their same continuous loop (ever facing though never quite seeing one another due to their movement).

Together.

Apart.

Together.

Apart.

And it seemed the distance never really changed.

Perhaps you could see The Always hurriedly clasp at a new scrap of torn paper to jot more notes and a faint diagram.

But would it be that he and his team knew there was absolutely nothing he could say to either patient?

Ironisait writes absentmindedly:

Sex slave for charity – nothing left.

He then stares past the page.

Drugs were easy. The new campaign must both legitimize and destroy the damages of something far more—

But it succeeds.

Ironisait is arrested and never sees the smile his daughter loves to share with everyone.

Nothing important happens, and the prison becomes a utopia.

Kurt Cobain ducks slightly to dodge sharp corners of a mesh-screen door. His sheepish half-grin fills out a little as he takes in the sight of his friends, one by one, already at the table.

Cards are shuffled. Sounds of rich laughter like gobbling turkeys travel in slow, steady pulses to reach two teens listening and whispering wistfully up in a loft.

A summer breeze follows in through the screen. And off the grown players go.

All hear only sounds of joy and the crash of an ocean not far away.

Quick lights paint close walls as far-off thuds rumble in loose distortion. The big man at the center of it all looms tall above the rest. Their bodies can’t help but encircle and pivot his like planets to a star. His muscled arms pump up and out. He grins as surrounding thrashing forms are caught in strobe-lit glimpses.

Yet her outline first appears in shadows.

A little closer, and he sees she’s dressed in simple black, stands perfectly still, and wears a slight smile more charming than any he’s seen.

He lunges through inconsequential masses, pushing past a hundred would-be doppelgangers (scabs emulating him to varying degrees).

She waits.

“Hi!” he yells near her ear, cupping hands to his mouth.

There are shudders of warmth and coolness as she leans in a little and breathes, “Hello.”

Quivers glitch through his spine, and his first urge is to heave her away, turn, and dash. But the impulse makes no sense. He keeps himself steady and watches, dumbfounded, as she begins to nod and slide in effortless time. Her smile is that of a young girl upon opening a box to find a cherished and expected gift.

With guiding arms, he leads her back to the center of his universe.

She is brought as though not holding him in sway.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” he shouts, gradually unclenching until he’s just a happy boy again pumping and waving his arms. A wonderful boy.

She never seems to be quite straight across. Her eyes rest just a little too peacefully on his. She barely appears to dance, but glides to him as if but a cog to his great machine.

A little closer.

A little closer.

Back a little.

The same coy, fixed smile…

A little closer.

Too natural to be planned. Too perfect just to be.

He shoots her an unusual glance, perplexed anew by this mysterious stranger he’s now allowed into his home.

She blinks just in time to ease back in. Their lips meet. He sees in flashes her smile growing, both in width and grace. Her eyes stay closed.

“Do I know you?” he blurts, not quite sure why.

Her expression doesn’t change. But the look she gives him as her eyes open again says far more than “yes.”

PART ???

She’ll enter through the front door, scuffing odd bits of dirt and leaf. She might curse then, but the silence in the room will be odd enough to make her turn. She’ll see her love there on the floor like a puppet held in place by unseen strings, his parents seated awkwardly above. She’ll wonder about the look she sees glimmering in her love’s eyes until she suddenly recognizes it . . . unmistakable . . . as fear.

“Did you hit him?” will say the father, his voice even and fair.

She’ll look back down at her love only to catch his head hung low. Her thoughts:

This is it. It’s finally all caught up with me. How could I have taken him so for granted? But I never…

Regardless, her role and her love’s will have certainly been reversed.

She’ll know he’s probably forgotten everything.

“Did you hit him?” the father will repeat.

“No,” she’ll manage, her tone strange and cracked by new emotions.

The father will then reach into a shirt pocket and silently withdraw something like an iun. Turning it, he’ll tap the screen.

She’ll hear a shaky rustling noise and be shown dim footage of herself smacking her love hard across the mouth. Her vicious snarling face on the screen will be mouthing nasty words, unheard.

And none of it will make any sense. She would never hurt her love’s sweet face, not in a million lifetimes.

Yet what of the evidence?

“I wouldn’t…” she’ll begin.

Letter 7

And finally, this:

Dear Someone Like Me,

Who would lie in pretend letters they knew they’d never send?

But what could be funnier or more beautiful?

How small, and fragile, and utterly affected and dependent. How gloriously doomed.

How human.

Remember that thing I wrote way back about you being like some parasitic symbiote? Well, I think I’m ready now to see the bigger picture of what you really are to me.

I had these crazy notions as a teen about how things would have to play out. I guess it all came down to just this deep sense that life would one day fall apart, and I’d be forced to escape and grow in ways I never could have otherwise. Yes, that’s where I knew you’d come in, of course.

But nothing happened quite the way my teenage mind had predicted. I came to that time of falling headlong into your nothingness and solitude as if left to die in a padded cell. Then I forgot all about the adolescent fantasies (of you) when you were all there was.

But that time is finally almost over, and I remember.

Only now can I start to see what you were always meant to be.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how disgusted with you I feel or have felt.

But could I see myself finding even this letter one day in a box with all the rest? I guess I’m happy to say I’m pretty sure these words would make even more sense to me then, if I did. Unless, of course, I’m crazy (and choosing to be drained by an evil leech).

Are you the devil? Again, how fun. How cute and quaint the memories: feverishly sketching out each vivid demon picture.

Is there some part somewhere that wants you to succeed? The ambiguity there is too delicious. I can still feel exactly what it was like to have your monsters crawl in darkness through the veins beneath my skin. Sure, I imagine someone being entertained almost forever by that old, stale arc.

But how could good v. evil have ever been more than at best incomplete?

So, here we are.

Who are you?

Is this all just your malevolent plot being foiled or fulfilled? Of course not. You can’t be that devil. You can’t hate me, not if all these hidden letters from that crazy, nothing, half-predicted time can be just as redeemed as every other part . . . even you, friend.

I love you.

I saw then in black-and-white, but perhaps we both already knew (and now can’t ignore) that “one or the other” would always be a lie.

I mean, how properly basic to call one’s own symbiote a parasite.

That reminds me, I have this other recurring dream where a tribe of vegetarians are forced to kill for food. But then it’s like I float in some direction until I see a host of microorganisms harvesting their nutrient chains. And I see both things happening at once . . . not separate . . . like both are the same thing. Then moving even farther out or in as time spins slow and close to still in those forever moments between asleep and awake, I can’t help but see in moonlit shadows you and your unmentionable blankness hidden beneath and around all that beautiful matching movement and important purpose and power.

So, yeah, I’ll keep going. I’ll keep writing. Why not?

Thanks,

Me

PART D (The Fog)

Come, we must expel the alien. Feel it set and irritate the linings of our seismic tunnel lair. Its shards and spines tear at sacred walls.

Push it out.

Here we come. It is our time now. Hear the sucking sound. The whoosh.

Get ready!

We rise, arcing up and out.

The pause right at the top…

And then…

ACHOO!

The old guitar sat plain and worn across Rev’s folded legs. It was a curled-up cat ready to nap away another morning in easy sun-pooled bliss.

Rev nodded as he leaned and reached back up over his head to shut down two spinning decks. He listened as archaic spools completed their routines of clunky arcs and slowed as one to a perfect standstill.

Then he nodded again, still to himself, and wondered if it could be true: Had he really just finished recording the musical basis for the last of his fragmentary songs?

How? Why now?

And without added pressures of creaking tape wheels or flashing red lights, he strummed and ambled his way back through a final set of sliding chords, humming wordlessly along.

What he felt was not the sense of having solved some epic equation, nor of having strived to build some new and monumental work. The notes he heard calling out through the wood had never really been decided upon. He had merely spent years hoping to approach . . . before finally picking up on and allowing himself to follow . . . that which now could only be just as it was.

He remembered having wanted to call the song Fantastic for some reason.

The room and sun went cold. Guitar sound clipped to dead, robotic noise.

He stopped.

The name Fantastic had nothing to do with the clumsily jotted, throwaway words now mocking him from down where blank light shone upon an open notebook page. Meaningless, each line had been recorded without thinking.

In the newly somber void of sound, names and lyrics suddenly seemed so, so important again.

Familiar flutters of nervous energy shivered in blotches through his chest, spine, and throat.

He detested the useless options he now faced. Always the same…

He might tweak and reframe his scribbled nonsense to mold something uniquely vague. This would feel like working hard to tell an inside joke, yet one no one else could ever understand.

Perhaps such words would fit his music best.

Still, all spacy hintings had come to feel at least as pointless and passé as attempts at fishing for or manufacturing more blunt and obvious meanings. And Rev’s intentional creations had all grown stark and bland like apples quickly browning in the wind, usually by the second time he heard himself sing them back.

Could fans interpret songs their own way if the words were left open enough?

Fans… There I go again.

Inward monologues spun themselves into textbook conversations on sorting trash.

Rev’s somewhat (almost) sober mind recoiled with fresh tenacity. It was a new and ugly sharpness, which he couldn’t help but hate.

No, nothing was finished. His freshly captured oldest friends were but more mute prophets born to laugh at fate.

Whatever.

I waited a moment, expecting him to continue.

Then watching his gaze drift back toward its own special void, I decided just to ask.

ME:

“What do you mean, ‘Trees don’t kill bears’?”

I assumed the line to be a mere reflexive grasp at portraying something close to preciousness, or childlike innocence—a sure stab, regardless, at avoiding my direct question about beliefs.

He spoke, once more perfectly busting and derailing my rigid alignments.

RAY:

“I’m not saying I want to be something else. I… Well, I love the way plants can just, y’know . . . be. They only… I mean, they don’t have to…”

The telltale trail-off would not reverse itself, I knew.

Yet apparently we were in fact edging closer to Ray’s actual worldview.

I realized the best way forward would not be to press for an explanation, but rather to carefully challenge his statement in hopes of examining its defense.

ME:

“But as far as orders of life on this planet, food chains, etc., wouldn’t plants be fairly low on the spectrum?

“Do you enjoy the idea of being consumed or used in some way . . . of being ‘less than’ or ‘beneath’?

“Would I be wrong in concluding you dislike the idea of authority, or power, or levels of importance in general?”

RAY:

“Levels of . . . importance?”

ME:

“Yes, plants being less important than we are, for example.”

RAY:

“But that’s just it. I don’t think… I mean, I don’t see why being a person should be more… I guess the way I see it is, like, everything wants to . . . to be . . . like, be whatever it is, y’know? It wants to exist as much as it can . . . to spring itself into being. But not just living things.”

His face began to take on some of its more perplexing shapes.

His eyes returned to their classic drill of dancing in hurried darts and quivers.

My primary concern became to calm Ray’s obvious anxiety at feeling unable to properly express himself.

ME:

“It’s okay.

“There’s no rush.

“Not now.

“So, let me see if I’m understanding you…

“When you say everything wants to spring itself more to life, are you meaning things wanting to go on living so they can propagate their species?”

“But, again, it’s not just living things. I mean, it’s all the same. It’s all energy. Everywhere. That’s all I really see, y’know, in everything I… And energy is always moving. It’s forces . . . pushing and pulling . . . reacting with each other. Remember how we talked about pushing and pulling in relationships? Yeah, everything we know is just whatever might show energy’s motion in moments of time. It could be plants, chemicals, atoms, galaxies… It’s all moving in the same circular patterns. From star fields, to particles . . . and whatever’s in-between . . . it’s all the same. It’s all gravity. It’s all waves and arcs we see as things just wanting to be what they are. And no, I don’t mean ‘wanting’ in the way we want things. But maybe, really, I do. Of course I think we’re doing it too. We’re part of it, even down to our personalities . . . all the little filters and games we love to play . . . our ideas, and thoughts, and imaginations, and… It’s all the same. It all works the same way. Our ideas want to spring to life the same way we do. Our language and how we communicate . . . the way those things can be recorded now on iuns and connected so easily with everything else. But even though each thing only wants to exist as much as it can, nothing can be an end in itself. Again, energy is always moving . . . always shifting and balancing. Of course there’s something special in the way we can recognize it all. I’m not saying I don’t want to be a person, or I don’t want to be me. I guess it’s just . . . I’m having trouble getting past those, y’know . . . the ironies and other temporary things . . . pretty much everything I’ve been telling you. It’s like I see something like a machine underneath it all. And I can’t tell you how big the machine is. But I hear it echo from the inside just the same: ‘Make me work!’”

As he spoke and heard himself, Ray watched late-morning light trickle in to play games with moving shadow spaces around The Psychologist’s bustling mind. The light seemed to illuminate something like a perch . . . the perfect space for three nearby not-a-persons to meet and fuse like melding continental puzzle pieces. And Ray became a mother bird, staring longingly at the three as they shook and clutched one another, lost, in a tight, crooked triangle. If he could just find a way to help lift them to their nest.

The Psychologist blinked, but it was much more than a blink.

The whole world went away, engulfed in sudden waves of fog like the results of a bacterial infection having doubled unseen efforts to adapt and overcome an antibiotic.

Ray listened as unspoken rhetorical questions were answered by telepathic lawyer-politicians having a field day filibustering over their opponents’ careless words.

The Psychologist said, as if addressing and encouraging the fog itself, “Do you think it would be reasonable to conclude that such a patterned world might require a designer?”

Then Ray’s three cowering children on the floor were split and flung apart as if struck by a violent bolt of lightning. Everything seemed to either grow or shrink to fit the fog. Watching it all take place (again) so fast, with no seeming cause or warning, felt like being flung (back) into a coffin and immediately buried beneath planets of densest rock.

Ray fought to return his focus to the conversation at hand, knowing The Psychologist would be aware of nothing beyond Ray, the words spoken, and the room. Yet he couldn’t help but keep staring at those three crumpled, helpless beings, each now hopelessly alone. “We don’t know the scope,” he heard himself say without intending to, then paused to catch up. “I mean, we don’t know how big or important anything is, really. Could our world be reacting with other worlds, or…?”

He stopped, pained to feel his own point slipping through his grasp like ice.

“Okay,” he quickly began again, even less confident, “what would a plant, or animal, or human be if the surface of our planet was a face? But we people only see everything by our sense of size, and time, or whatever. And who’s to say our sense is . . . is true?”

Feeling the fog work to betray his speech and character, he knew “true” had been the wrong word to use.

Desperate, he blurted, “Couldn’t everything we think of as reality really be part of some far more massive thing . . . like, a mind, or cell, or atom, or something else?”

The consuming fog pulsed and vibrated in a final colorless shimmy through every last splotch of blank space left. The whole room, maybe the world, became as still as a finished painting. Seeing the fog’s completion felt about as ominous and unpeaceful as being marched into the eye of a galaxy-shattering storm.

A glazed look swelled to overtake The Psychologist’s uneasy expression.

Ray watched in terror as two new eyes appeared to open from nowhere in the fog. Then The Lie at the base of New Cannibalism caused its needless fear of lack to rise beneath the eyes in wispy, menacing fingers branching out like skewers toward The Psychologist. Yet The Lie’s dull eyes, if they were eyes, stayed locked on Ray in a stare that somehow blended hate with an apathetic void.

What might Ray still be missing?

How could the fog have returned with such steady, tireless force as if never once even challenged?

Yet as questions wound to straight-jacket straps, out from The Lie and fog arose others Ray recognized as Tension, Mistrust, Excess, and Hopelessness. These sniveling, lesser beings copied their hazy master, pointing threatening limbs at The Psychologist while staring back at Ray. Ray shuddered as they all began to shout, their jarring voices as shrill and piercing as a whole cave’s worth of bats set ablaze. Still, he tried to lean in close to hear, hoping against even Hopelessness for some clue . . . some spark to make obvious his next move. Anything. But all he could make out in the terrible, discordant shrieking was something like a description of a person: hair . . . eyes . . . glasses…

The Psychologist remained unmoving, his face as sharp and listless as ever.

Ray let himself wonder then what The Psychologist really believed.

And dinosaur squawks and screeches gave way to many conflicting worlds of thoughts and feelings . . . all fading, though, as the scraping horror continued to surround and saturate everything.

Whole new thresholds of silence, peace, and clarity were defined.

What if none of Ray’s word pictures had ever made any sense at all? What if even The Psychologist had written him off as crazy long ago? Could these meetings be but planned preparation for Ray’s eventual (inevitable) institutionalization?

The mash of jumbled clashing, if still there, was no longer confusing.

For some reason, Ray imagined Johnston appearing from nowhere to scorch away engrossing fog with those special flames of bitter disgust mixed with careless knowledge. But that was just a daydream fantasy, of course. Maybe something like a story passed down from long ago. Not quite a memory.

Ray knew there would be no more light . . . for what was light? There would be no sound . . . as if there ever could have been. There would be no others . . . for others were only games and make-believe.

But could there ever really be nothing?

Far away, eternal wisps of rock-augmented wind and waves were the very last to…

Ray shook his head, tired.

There was a voice . . . an eager, elderly gentleman . . . annoyingly cheerful, chuckling: “Yup, that guy was so weird and quiet. So, so weird! And the way he’d look at you—!” The voice sighed and shook a little, repulsed. “But you know what he wanted, right . . . what was really going on that whole time? It turns out he was just there to learn our secrets. He studied us and didn’t even pretend to be our friend. And then he sold us out, plain and simple! A deal with the devil if ever I saw one! Totally unlikeable, that guy. Impossible to…”

Of course it’s about me.

The gray had long finished joining everywhere to itself. Nothing could be heard anywhere but quiet. The only feeling was safety.

A moment passed, perhaps the shortest perceivable instant.

And Ray knew exactly what to do. He even almost knew why he should do it; he knew he would know that soon too. He also knew it would be easy, and there’d be no need at all to rush.

So, he first took a moment to smile at himself for having been so concerned.

I really am just like everyone else, huh?

And Ray felt normal for the first time in his life.

He watched his sight unadjust to the fog as to an optical illusion upon looking closer after having been duped by its singular, punch-line trick. For it wasn’t what (or who) was hidden in the fog that had now been made clear, but the fog itself.

So, what was the fog, really, now that he was able to see it?

And how had The Lie, Tension, Mistrust, Excess, and Hopelessness grown at once about as dear to him as his precious not-a-persons, Grace, or anyone else, even himself?

His knowing smile did not fade, but it did grow somewhat softer.

Then wells of redistributed compassion interrupted that greatest moment in Ray the not-a-prophet’s life, gushing forth in words he knew to say. “We’re scared,” the words began. “We scare ourselves, I think, so we can keep telling ourselves the same story. It’s a story about Tension, and Mistrust, and Excess, and Hopelessness. But it’s just so we won’t see what’s not there, y’know? I think we’d do anything not to see that . . . that blankness, or emptiness. I mean, we feel so many things, right? And our feelings conflict. But when we see each feeling . . . or each idea . . . or each individual part of everything . . . when we see it as something wanting to exist . . . then nothing changes. And we’re probably just as confused. But I think once we know we really have no idea how big we or anything else is . . . like, that’s when everything in us can just be left to run its course. That’s when we can see all ideas connecting, and everything else free to be whatever it is. It’s pretty amazing it’s all happening, anyway . . . right?”

“I don’t…” The Psychologist began, and stopped. Ray decided not to read into the widest-eyed stare he had ever seen.

The fog was gone. The three not-a-persons, The Lie, and all the rest remained, but were now inanimate toys or ornamental figures on display in a boring room.

All just representations, anyway.

Ray wondered what else to say and so decided to say nothing.

But after another pause, new words formed and joined themselves together on his lips. These were different, special words, which he knew definitely need never be spoken. “It’s not a statement,” stated the words, “the one that’s never said, but written on the back of everything burned once time goes by: ‘If there were ever anything so interesting as the human mind just happening, because it was.’”

Half racing back over the conversation as he stepped out from his final appointment with The Psychologist, Ray found he wasn’t mad at himself for the parts he wished he could have said better. In fact, all that might matter was what he saw in that moment—something smaller, and bigger, and more, and less than anything he had ever let himself see before. And he was happy to feel every automatic self-condemnation get swallowed up in paradoxical satire.

What Ray saw was nothingness. He saw what everything he had ever tried to show with words was not.

And he laughed, struck by how self-contained and funny he and his fellow humans so obviously tended to be.

Oh irony!

For he knew then that true blankness . . . that negative capability, or lack between even space and time . . . was precisely what the fog could neither allow for nor defeat. Never.

Ray also thought again of Johnston, and once more became the loving mother bird.

“It’s like I know what they were!” Rev assured himself. “But how can I know what lyrics are supposed to be now?”

Alone and newly clean for days, bright spots behind both eyes along with a strange, constant thirst had failed to signal the return of a million forgotten feelings now coursing everywhere like currents through long idle pipes, wearing him raw. It was all too much for the old, bound free spirit.

He stared at his wooden counterpart leaning snug against the bed, hearing in his mind its calling swells of sweet simplicity.

But could he really say he knew his way around a fretboard map of tones any better than he had before the decades of ultimatums and every half-perfected “official” plan to craft his art?

What was music supposed to be, anyway? It was no longer an actual question, just a dismal reminder of one.

Rev sighed the troubled sigh of age staring back at a misspent life down new gun barrels pressed hard to its withered face.

He reached to flick on his laptop.

Through rounds of loading text and graphics, the recommissioned feelings continued their awkward flooding, bringing re-facilitated memories. These came without warning like fast, rich daydreams. And Rev couldn’t help but drift away to revisit grinning faces at crammed gigs after impromptu practices had morphed to full-scale house parties. He saw strings of forgotten cable fails, and cuss outs, and too dark venues with grubby floors and grimy bars . . . places where equipment and safety would be always held at risk just so fear and fun might wage their endless, winner-take-all war.

Further back, he saw Dale laughing like some crazy, howling wolf, ever mid-ravage on a path to freedom out from jail-cell corners of parents’ garages.

Rev even re-watched his bunch of idiot-dropout, burnout friends show up early that very first sunny Sunday morning to lug gear and thwack out the muddled riffs, beats, and screams all had of course assumed would soon be revolutionary.

No planning. No goals. No structure. No real knowledge, or…

The screen blitzed to life and color.

Rev clicked over to pull up a playlist of his favorite thinking songs. But glancing at the titles, he noticed almost every number on that list . . . over 200 . . . were from at least ten years before . . . most from 20 years or more.

How could he hope to figure out the secret to relevant lyrics if even the tunes meant to aid his quest were essentially relic etchings of a bygone time?

But they’re good, aren’t they? They were good.

He felt antsy, and his right eye began to twitch, which he chalked up to the hated absence sobriety could make of any ordinary afternoon.

Might voices from the past be holding Rev back from being open to new points of view?

Surely none of his dumb, shabby tribe had ever thought to appreciate the sheer cluelessness at the base of their free rumbling sound and built-in revelry back when faithfully occupying suburbia space-by-space. And with a wince, Rev re-realized how obviously desperate and childish he must appear now to everyone he knew . . . still planning and pining so fiercely for something only a child could be impractical enough to commit a whole life to.

The sound of coffin nails and dirt weighed heavy on inner voices, catching them in the act of merely going through the motions as they drearily begged their answers from a muse as yet unknown.

Suddenly a line from the song currently fuzzing its way through tiny, crusted speakers razor-bladed outward to blanket the room with melodic recountings of holding up hope in the face of uncertainty just to grasp at the chance to try.

Rev saw in his mind one like himself . . . an unknown artist seated on a bed, guitar in lap and pen in hand, reaching against all reason for any hints of a divine spark via pure abandonment to the absolute simplest of all progressions and rhyming words.

Nothing had changed in the least. How, after all this time, had Rev’s age-old yearning remained a shining star so impossibly bright as to keep him driven (sight unseen) in the face of mounting failure, age, neglect…?

The song ended, and one of that same artist’s newer efforts kicked into rushed and edgeless gear. It wasn’t fun to hear at all.

Rev considered the fate of many of his heroes from that playlist. Some had fizzled out fast after early big moments of glory. Others would seem to double down into strict commitments to dress, act, and sound exactly as they had at first, diligently following their own set patterns of initial success.

And though Rev had never come to experience their same trappings of fame or money, he could track his own decline toward a similarly dull and futile end. None of the benefits . . . all of the loss.

Another song came on, this one by a band called Light. Rev smiled to himself, remembering the night he had met Light’s lead singer, Jaylen, after some forgettable backyard show. It had been many years before Light would later rocket to one-hit-wonder-dom. Yet it now seemed sadly ironic to Rev, still piecing his way through many histories (both general and specific), how Jaylen had so openly, proudly copied the style and sound of many other, more prominent bands, even on into those bands’ later post-fame throes of wasted self-indulgence. Then unable to ride any farther on borrowed time or mojo, Jaylen had deteriorated to stark self-expression on record after doomed record.

Rev listened as sycophantic, oh-so-important words carried their forced profundity up and down every precise rise and fall. Boring. Fake. Funny, but only to the degree it wasn’t meant to be.

Had a shuffled playlist really just responded to some of Rev’s deepest, lifelong questions?

No, not really. Not likely.

And yet he forcefully swept open his decrepit notebook, and could not scrawl fast enough across the very last empty space left:

It doesn’t have to be anything you dumb-ass! You don’t have to be anything! Wouldn’t that be ultimate freedom: the boom everywhere, and nothing at the center? That’s real punk. No, not in style or sound. It doesn’t matter that your music is simple and you never learned to solo. Don’t you remember the way it brought people together? Even people in the band. Dude, that’s what it’s always been!

And some from Rev’s playlist would indeed live on, their real lives and stories ever captured forever in song.

Daylight streamed through tinted, double-story windows. The lobby, long and winding, was punctuated by smiling greeters in bright polos stationed in loose squads. In grids of mock-mod couches and stiff chairs sat mothers with babies, waiting volunteers, and general stragglers.

Ray stared up at one of the big HD screens suspended diagonally above. There he watched The Pastor dart quickly back-and-forth on stage, extremely light-footed for a man of his size.

“Your relationships,” echoed the man of God’s voice through hidden speaker boxes all around, “are your greatest assets. It’s not more time at the office or making it up the next rung on the ladder . . . not even your God-given calling or ministry, as we talked about last time. None of those things will concern you when you sense your time to leave this world drawing near. All you’ll see will be the faces of your loved ones, I promise you. And hopefully you’ll be able to say you gave them everything you had while you still could. Even your relationship with God can’t be right if you carry ought in your heart toward your neighbor. And you know this! Hey, you want to see what breaks fellowship with God quicker than anything? Try praying or worshiping while holding a grudge . . . can’t be done!”

A few of Ray’s fellow lobby-listeners vocalized their agreement in a buzz of soft, low groans, some bubbling up to sound out in a full “Yeah!” or “Amen!”

Ray nodded without moving, feeling warmth of pending tears creeping through behind his eyes. He was dimly aware of the not-a-persons surrounding him like a sea seen sideways through blinding fog.

The Psychologist’s job must be so rewarding. To help people fit better with themselves and each other.

There was something about the way The Psychologist could just sit and listen so calmly, saying only ever what was needed.

Such a great way to be. Maybe one day…

Suddenly, a violent whoosh sounded to Ray’s right, wrenching his attention from both high screen and hopeful thoughts. He turned to watch in disbelief as blankets of fog fell apart and dropped, sliced right down the middle as if by a blade.

Then came a flash of black and red in place of steady gray. He saw a man moving like a current toward the big glass doors leading out to the main hallway. He did not see a face, but dark fire seemed to course from the stranger in all directions, torturing and consuming every not-a-person it touched, reducing them to writhing wisps of chaos, then nothing.

I have to tell The Pastor!

New client. 26. Erratic. Former military. Possible PTSD.

He wore camouflage Army Service fatigues and cited story after story about how everyone he meets feels sorry for him once they learn of his military background.

As he droned on, I kept glancing down at the accordion file currently holding all my client notes—each set now distinct and perfectly organized (as mentioned), ready to be typed up and compiled systematically.

Distracted and quite unimpressed, I was already certain this appointment would bring no future business or value.

For once, I let myself be as direct and honest as I felt like being.

Perhaps I should leave this part out of my notes (it is surely no reflection of the workings of my Method); yet I am choosing to include it just for comparison.

ME:

“You know they really don’t feel sorry for you at all, right?

“You’re just another human being to them.

“They probably respect you when they see the uniform, or at least they might feel obligated to.

“But that’s it, really.

“The rest is…”

My concentration was too far gone even to bring my sentence to a close, its conclusion clear enough already.

I forget what happened next.

I think he got mad and left.

In truth, I missed Ray.

I still do.

Like a good puzzle or some offense, I find I cannot keep myself from dissecting and reworking Ray’s case from every possible angle.

Ray has revealed the true potential of my Method more than any other client.

Even before our last session, I knew his absence would leave something of a massive, aching void.

Did I help Ray?

Allowing my eyes to run yet again along the bullet-point sequences of our recorded dialogues, I must conclude that Ray indeed benefited in learning to approach and sort through his negative emotions.

If he has not yet fully realized how the church he felt so hurt by was essentially his source of care and strength all along, he soon will.

Again, Ray has certainly helped me.

I hope he has helped you as well.

How has Ray helped me?

Well, I was wrong about him for a long time, I can admit that now.

My assumption from the beginning was that Ray saw his visions as akin to special revelations from on high.

Yet though always sincere, he never actually considered his particular perspective to be all that important or profound.

He was not trying to wow me or the world with pearls of artful, exclusive wisdom.

I was so glad he took the time to repeat his final words about the fog until at last I understood.

Ray’s fog was never meant to stand for something unknown and scary, but rather something in the way—something to hide [from] the unknown.

And Ray never wanted to see the fog, that is important.

If you had shown me Ray’s completed case file back around the time I left college, I would have immediately connected his way of refusing to fix meanings or cover for uncertainty to my own burgeoning distaste for needless hifalutin terms.

My Method, born of just my unusual way of seeing things, functioned even then exactly as Ray’s representations: showing without interpreting, and revealing without need of extra defining explanations.

Yet somewhere along the line, I must have gotten ever so slightly lured off course in directions of hypocrisy or irony.

The culmination: I actually blamed my Method for convincing me there was no way I could be real.

Ever so desperate to fix meanings…

I now find it all rather funny.

Ray had said quite plainly, of course, that the fog makes us think what we see in it is all there is to see.

Considering the whole purpose and function of my Method (as revealed in these notes), I hear Ray’s voice in my thoughts again, repeating, “So, so ironic!”

Of course, our having met still seems too extraordinary to be a coincidence.

What could have caused our lives and perspectives to connect so perfectly at just the right time?

Let me be not quite the first or last to say: I don’t know.

I still find myself wondering how someone like Ray could exist.

Funnily enough, it is through Ray that I have learned to live with the remaining mystery Ray himself embodies and leaves behind.

I would love it if we could meet at least weekly for the rest of our lives.

In the end, I feel good that we have both seen definite, measurable progress.

Just now, I poured myself a fresh, steaming cup of coffee.

I am settled in and ready for a day or more of slowly, carefully typing out my notes (to create what you are reading now).

“Come in,” hollered the more than familiar voice.

Ray entered through massive hardwood doors to find a small, makeshift Sunday office space. Seated at the center was the man whose mind and heart Ray had spent more than half his life gradually working through on paper.

All Ray could think to say as he stood slightly trembling was how utterly astonishing he considered The Pastor to be.

For a moment, they were two stately ambassadors about to sit to cups of tea and exchange pleasantries before planned negotiations.

“Ray! How can I help you?” beamed The Pastor, his smile as thoroughly genuine as it was a tad sly.

“Oh. I have to tell you something,” mumbled Ray, frowning. He had almost forgotten his terrible reason for having just rushed over.

“It’s okay,” assured The Pastor. “I’m glad you came. Of course I’ve had my eye on you, though you’ve always done such a great job here, and . . . well, go ahead: Tell me what you’ve come to tell me. Where do you think we might see things differently?”

Ray blinked, bewildered, suddenly living out a moment he’d half-envisioned since his youth. But instead of any kind of golden-ticket opportunity, the open invitation felt like being squeezed through a sponge. And as old pat answers began to knife their way through his mind, something barely noticeable seemed to happen in the room . . . though nothing near as obvious as a gashing slice through fog or scorched not-a-person.

“I…” Ray hesitated. “I saw something I really felt like I needed to tell you about.”

“It’s okay,” came the low, smooth reply. “You can tell me. Especially if you feel it’s something we’ve never covered that people need to hear. I really do think it’s fine to come to different conclusions about . . . especially about the more minor tenets or doctrines. Does that make sense, Ray? Is my impression true? Do you see things differently?”

Another nearly imperceptible change like a tiny shift in some unknown direction cut short the waves of honor Ray felt at being addressed with such respect by this world-renown superhero of the faith.

Then thoughts of dark flames birthed partly in murderous rage wrenched Ray’s thoughts back to the urgency at hand. “I don’t have any problem with the doctrines,” he said, hoping to nip the subject clean and move on. “I love them. I think they . . . they really do help people.”

“As much as they can, right?” pressed the patient Pastor. “So, what’s missing then?”

“No,” said Ray. “I mean, honestly, my only problem with The Church isn’t the teaching or anything. I love the teaching.”

“Tell me what you don’t like,” The Pastor softly ordered. There would be no arguing.

“I…” Ray held back, then gave in, “I really don’t like the . . . the art. Okay? That’s all.”

“What do you mean by ‘art’?”

“Well,” Ray stalled again, “I don’t know who The Church . . . is, I guess. But maybe there’s something I’m missing. I mean, I just sort of think if you’ve got something to show the world . . . well, show it. Put yourself out there. Put your ideas out. And if they’re good, people will listen, and… But, really, I don’t have a…”

“Ray,” The Pastor soothed, “your opinion is worthwhile. So never be ashamed to share what you think. I appreciate it, actually. And if I’m hearing you properly, I suppose I’d respond and say that the purpose of the church is not just to put out ideas . . . though sharing the gospel is our highest aim. But the way we do that . . . the real purpose of the church . . . is by doing life and growing together.”

“Yes,” said Ray after a small pause, wondering what the disagreement was. “That’s awesome. I mean, now everyone can, y’know, connect for free, and…”

He let the words patter out, again lost for how to avoid getting further sidetracked.

But then as if to clutch and subdue Ray’s wandering train of thought, The Pastor shot back with, “Ray, tell me: Are you a believer?”

“I’m not sure,” Ray sighed, his head turning slowly from left to right. “And if being unsure, or feeling like belief isn’t something I can choose . . . if that’s the same as unbelief . . . I guess I’ll have to accept it. And if believing the right way really is what matters most, well…”

“And now you share your beliefs with whoever wants to hear them,” stated The Pastor. “But you also claim not to know if your beliefs are true?”

Ray sighed a second time, feeling a deep sense of release. “I feel like I connect with your story,” he answered, “and the pictures you paint of . . . of just what it means to be human. I’d never want to cause you any grief or stop you from doing what you’re doing. Not at all.” And then after another pause, “I don’t know exactly what I believe. I want to believe what you do if it’s true.”

“Was that what you came to tell me?” asked The Pastor.

“No. I . . . I think you might be in danger,” Ray blurted, feeling another instant surge of ease. The hard part was over. The rest would be tidying up details.

“Oh?” ventured The Pastor, nodding. “Well, what happened? And what do you think I should do to be safe?”

The way The Pastor emphasized “you” brought Ray almost to tears. He remembered what he had heard of The Pastor’s message just moments earlier from out in the lobby. He then considered how seamlessly The Pastor had transitioned from preaching up on stage to being so accommodating and generous with this weird former-employee goof, this wildcard, this…

And suddenly aware that he had in fact caught The Pastor during what was but a tiny window between two Sunday services, Ray’s astonishment at the man’s utter selflessness and grace only multiplied.

“Well, you have everything set in place already, right?” Ray mumbled hurriedly.

Yet even as the words left his lips, Ray thought of something new that made him want to spin around, sprint away, and never look back. How much had The Pastor been told about Ray’s last day at the office? What of that final, awful conversation with Todd?

Might The Pastor see Ray, himself, as the very danger Ray was there to warn of?

“We are prepared,” answered The Pastor evenly. “Ever since we went live on TV and had that huge spike in membership a few years back. We should have it all under control.”

Their eyes met.

“I guess,” Ray heard himself begin, “sometimes I feel like I’m just laughing with you . . . like we’re both alone in this world where so many are trying to think things like money and commercials have to matter, and . . . I don’t know. I mean…”

The Pastor was silent even after Ray’s trail-off.

Finally, to close a very long gap, The Pastor said flatly, “I have to be honest, I’m having a little trouble following.”

“When I was a teenager,” Ray began again, “I worked at this video store. And they had a deal where new customers got a card that gave them a free second rental with every movie they took for the first month. So, I made all these fake accounts in the computer, and pocketed every second seven dollars that came in, y’know, adding those movies as free second rentals on all my fake accounts. I’d make hundreds of dollars doing that every Friday night. Then I’d go out and spend all of it. And no one ever knew. No one noticed or cared. And when I had to disappear, I got all the money I needed in one night.”

The Pastor nodded, his grin’s mischievousness dominating like an eclipse in a flash of what seemed to be recollection. “Why did you just tell me that?” The Pastor asked.

“I’ve been seeing this fog everywhere,” Ray said simply, giving his eyes some wriggle room to bounce around the little room. “The first thing the fog does is it keeps you from looking at it.”

“Well, that makes sense,” answered The Pastor. “Sin is that way. Pride was the devil’s sin. And proud people are usually quite blind to it themselves. It’s like how the devil is a master of lies. He even masquerades as an angel of light, the Bible says.”

Some fog in the room seemed to sway and flow downward, covering the floor and table in a bland, cloudy haze.

Ray almost wondered if the fog knew it was being talked about.

“It’s like that for me too,” said Ray, “but the fog isn’t the devil or Pride. No, it’s more like how afraid we are not to…”

But Ray was caught away from the sound of his own voice by the stunning revelation of his favorite not-a-person shining like a massive golden crucifix high and beautiful above The Pastor’s head.

Ray heard himself still speaking but couldn’t make himself care enough to listen . . . something about translations of texts keeping parts unfairly isolated.

The fog rose as pale steam, uncovering a hidden cluster of not-a-persons coiled together behind The Pastor’s desk. Satisfied, though not knowing why, Ray was somehow sure the beings he saw would never be caught or taken advantage of again.

Lost for words, he chuckled at the idea of himself as some sort of officially chosen representative of the not-a-persons sent to boldly declare their deliverance with confirming signs and wonders (though hopefully not plagues of icky frogs or painful sores).

Old contracts levitated from cabinets to reveal acceptance signatures condoning cultures of universal dependence in the name of Kingdom Grace. And as the fog continued to re-disperse like portions of a collapsed riot, Ray considered arguing more about the likes of art and buildings.

Or, maybe he should apologize, slink out, and go hear the next service message.

Maybe The Psychologist had been too nice.

“Ray,” said The Pastor, “can you put in a nutshell what you’re trying to say? I really do have to get in soon.”

Ray fired back with, “I guess I’d just say: Never underestimate . . . what’s possible.”

“What does that mean?”

“Watch…?”

And with that, Ray turned to leave.

As he rounded the corner that led back through to the main corridor and outside, Ray saw Pride. He halted mid-step, and did a half-double-take, feeling a stab of irony deeper than any he had ever known. Pride was hunched over, crammed into a small, dirty cage made of rusted iron. Chained around its neck hung a crusty wooden sign that read:

WORST: THE WILL TO BE GOD.

Then Ray saw the devil, small and almost hidden near the ground. The devil did not move, but only stared up and over at Faith close by.

Ray watched as a host of shadowy human figures in robes surrounded the pitiful devil in a menacing circle. These began to heap ridicule and scorn in endless, breathless waves. Ray could not mistake the glee and whimsy plastered on their faces as they clutched and hoisted the devil over to the same terrible cage where Pride was bound.

The devil kept completely still, waiting.

Ray felt a jolt of tension and sharp desire to look away when he glimpsed the abject loneliness burrowed deep in the devil’s longing eyes. To look into those eyes, he knew, would be to be pierced through with the weariness of a front held up for lifetimes . . . of being forever misunderstood, and written off, and rejected by all so every clique, empire, caste, and soul could safely turn its back, hum along, and sleep.

Ray felt the weight of blame for every manner of evil then.

He continued to hold still and watch quietly, just as the devil was.

From nowhere (and everywhere yet) Rev spoke. And his music didn’t stop. Neither did the enigmatic woman’s voice rise up to sweep across in tinges strange and sweet. Nothing broke off or fell this time. All stayed eerily in place.

And Rev found he had no reason or desire to stop, even despite the way his speaking first locked his attention to only what was worst: hair, nails, skin…

He thought of Thalia.

He then flashed out a little smile as if arriving at a dreaded job to find it done.

And there were words, too. There had to be, right? But what might they be saying? Listening a little closer . . . careful so as not to upset the spell . . . the words Rev heard seemed too ordinary to really tell apart. Still the moment carried on, delightful as it was unspecial, and random amongst a grand continuum of equally unimportant others.

His questions changed a little, but not his search or thoughts.

Why? Why would anyone want . . . to be heard?

The sound of Rev’s easy soul being peeled back and laid bare to speak its silly depths in key made fame seem like the answer to a problem that had never really been.

He laughed as his eyes drooped to see the comic sadness of a fear that he might never be given a channel or platform of his own. Would he really prefer fighting everyone blindly for nothing? Rev knew he needed only air to cast his sound.

Working through to type my notes, I realize that for whatever reason nothing got recorded after my question about everyone’s birthday back at our big group session.

The astrologer must have made some comment, no?

Yet I simply cannot for the life of me remember having anything except my own birthday in mind.

I suppose this can be another remaining mystery for me to practice letting go of.

Besides, the birthday quandary makes no difference to Ray’s case.

I would hate, more than anything, to waste your time on pointless rabbit trails.

Anyway, I was born February 14th, 1981.

At least that is what I was told.

Again, I have no one to confirm such details with, and no documentation.

Ray came face to face with Jolie in the outskirts of The Church lobby. She almost smiled but seemed to twitch or jerk away in chaotic time as their eyes met. “You know,” was all he said, not looking away.

Jolie’s face scrunched itself into a question mark. Could Ray really be breaching the one topic both knew need stay unmentioned?

“No,” Ray responded.

He smiled as he passed through the door and away, sure that she did know.

Rev stared at the untitled icon like a beacon at the bottom of his laptop’s streaked screen. He realized the file had never been opened. With a sigh, he double-clicked.

A quick shot of himself strutting out on stage in ridiculous leathers made him grin.

He was then immediately blindsided by a raging wall of sound encrusted with crashing cymbals molded to twanging, edgy bass. With monstrous speed and tightness, the captured blaring crunched and ran like a stopwatch beneath a heavier version of the same dreamy flimflam Rev had spent his childhood, adolescence, and now adulthood doodling with at the edge of his bed.

It sounded great.

As his band’s final failed attempt at rock superstardom played on, Rev fondly relived each nearly missed cue and silly line of drugged-out banter with the crowd. And for each song, along with the screaming cheers and amplification, he could so plainly hear the very same magic he and Dale had never failed to stumble upon whenever out just wherever messing around on their guitars.

He punched a button to off the video, hoisted his instrument up to its home across his lap, and eased his way through the first verse and chorus of an old song called Desperate Connection. It was fun to feel his real voice sitting right at the edge of his music now . . . no longer apart from, above, or blaring through, but vibrating on its own beside the clean and nuanced crying of the strings.

He could almost hear Dale in the room with him deftly plucking or strumming along, giving grace to fumbled changes and sudden dynamic shifts.

It was nice to think of Dale now and their songs.

Rev found himself questioning music again (or still). But the questions weren’t the same anymore at all. Could an artist be honest and willing enough to strip their work down to its most basic form instead of hiding behind notions of costly fuzz and clamor? Rev had really always known his easy little tunes were best when given to serve as simple backdrops…

But to what?

He laughed, and played new chords, and sang . . . and paused every few moments to jot down words to a blank open page in a brand new notebook. It was easy.

And even despite his lifelong quest to unearth the treasure now permeating the air, Rev heard with un-phased delight that same female, foreign voice sliding up and away as he strummed steadily on in a continuous rolling pattern. He listened, his grin beaming even wider, and wrote down something a little like what she might be singing.

Eventually the rolling quieted.

What were those questions again? But this time Rev forgot to ask.

Mr. Rolman tried to quit smoking, mostly for guilt over his son.

I’m abandoning him! Making him feel bad! Making him think I don’t want to be around him . . . and like it’s his fault. I keep hurting him just so I can…

And long after Mr. Rolman had forgotten all the words said in session that day with the group, there was what could only be described as an abiding love . . . dignified, silly, and tender . . . like an old friend invited to live in the Rolman home. The love would come to rest hidden at the heart of everything Mr. Rolman did. Though he would never understand.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The grating blender sound cut to silence, leaving frothy strawberry foam to bubble in its wake.

Bing sipped, his lips puckering at a hint of bitter kale not quite buried in sweet, icy citrus. It tasted amazing.

Getting high a lot less seemed to make all tastes and smells, and everything else, all the more potent and enjoyable.

A flash, and he giggled as he quickly tapped at his iun resting beside him on the table.

correlation:
people who seem really impatient while pumping gas
also never seem to be that clean.

He paused, watching and not watching his numbers spike and then ease back to their steady magic turning.

If anyone had told him just months earlier he would soon jump from 0 to 20,000 followers, he probably would have gotten a little extra wasted just to offset the stress of whole new worlds of eyes, opinions, judgments…

But here he was, tapping out those same silly messages once delivered only to himself. He now never gave any a second read or thought.

Another flash.

sewage:
haven’t u ever wondered
what actually happens to shit?

But why had he started sharing when he did? Was it something The Psychologist had said? Or maybe not said, but implied…? Or, not implied…

It seemed what Bing had pulled from the ether somewhere was something like a mantra that could capture the core and essence of his whole search for worth. “You got jokes?” the mantra taunted, “Don’t go back and try to perfect them. Get them out!”

Another flash.

imagine:
a bird’s nipples.

And the previous two were already being passed along to countless others.

FLASH

can ur special someone tell
when u check out chicks on TV?

New faces kept appearing to overtake the top of Bing’s big list.

Another face . . . another…

He marveled afresh at the instant connections now set to occur on their own between his crazy (high) mind and whoever might seem to want to show an interest.

But what if he’d never put out that first attempt? A few sleepless nights spent staring at dashboard statistics notwithstanding, Bing was proud for at least having finally decided to try. No Bings before ever had.

Another flash.

stupid:
why do people always
unzip their bullet-proof vests
to show in movies?

“I: love you!” came an instant reply.

“Don’t say ‘love’,” corrected another. “He don’t believe in that.”

The conversations seemed to work like grenades, exploding anew at each interaction, flinging fun like shrapnel in any number of unpredictable directions.

FLASH

‘i love u’ can either mean ‘i want attention’
or ‘okay, leave me alone now, i luv u . . . bye.’
(sigh)

It almost didn’t matter that—

FLASH

ever get so high
u ask a really friendly fast food guy
what he does for a living?

Jobs. Living. Career. Boss…

FLASH

since when is part of being a boss
knowing more than anyone on ur team
about absolutely everything?

Next to the iun, spread out in a botched pile, lay the 32 printed pages of all Bing’s previous, unposted bits. As he glanced at chunks of his dense, hardly punctuated text on paper, a pesky thought returned like a willful mosquito:

Shouldn’t I be sharing it all on stage? Isn’t that my obvious next step?

Now turning to scroll absentmindedly back through time down his iun’s face, a protective wall constructed itself from every happy memory of real accomplishment . . . the first offer to come speak in person; the first line re-shared, and then re-re-shared; the first kind comment received…

What he saw was the outworking of his process, he knew. His “method.”

Again, nothing had ever changed for Bing except for where his ‘Send’ button was aimed. And that small switch had been like picking ripe fruit from a tree.

Did each new line not still bring the same shy smile to his face immediately upon having been entrusted over to that big growing list of friends?

But what if Bing’s found success had become like a barricade atop its own tower? Why (or why not) risk throwing himself over into an all new, uncertain pursuit?

Another flash…

As Bing’s edges were nimbly blurred, he slowly reached across, swiped, and tapped a couple times to start a new recording.

Then he stared straight ahead into the same great and mysterious adventure another Bing might have begun for him long before.

Some friends spent nights like gleeful middle schoolers camped out in each other’s living rooms where things like guitars and mics usually got plugged straight into computers.

Others stayed on their own in homes far away and had the same fun together through iuns.

Rev eventually settled on a few places he liked to spend his days and evenings. These tended to be spots that reminded him of his youth, back when best friends would get together to make whatever out in the middle of everything.

He often came to that same place by the sea where he had met Caylee.

Dale was with him every time now, of course . . . one carefully noodling along as the other strummed steady and strong.

And Rev’s voice always held.

But every once in a while, the moon might come to rest especially massive in dark purple dusk. And Rev could maybe forget to remember exactly who he was. Then listening in each time as his voice raced ever up and away…

She loved every minute of it.

Without delving into the sorts of details those most unlike me seem to crave, my conclusion is simple: I need not compose the several volumes my cumulative case notes could fill.

Rehashing and reiterating what is but mere clicks or swipes away would be pointless, no?

With Ray’s case at the center, surrounded by every relevant application and example, my Method’s function can be reduced enough to create a single concise work.

I will change the names and other details, of course.

Everything is so easy now; so permanent.

How funny for me to have been so afraid of losing clients and money due to my Method’s simplicity.

Ray would surely appreciate that irony.

“Hello, this is what I do. You can basically treat yourself, and quickly. And you know you’re done once you can handle the change in perspective you find yourself continually brought back to.”

My Method costs nothing to sell potentially everyone.

So, one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I cannot, in good conscience, go on charging for it indefinitely.

At first, I thought of dropping to a flat rate of $20 an hour.

Then $10.

Now I am thinking $5, but not for long.

As soon as my complete work is ready to give away, I will charge nothing.

The kids in what was just The City still eye everyone with great suspicion.

None know what to say.

But then an ordinary man, dressed shabby and strolling down Main Street, catches their eye and smiles a little too wide for it to be pretend. The man calls out to the kids in a bright and cheerful tone, though his words seem like an afterthought: “You’re absolutely beautiful! I just can’t get over it! Like TV stars, every one!”

“What about it?” the kids quietly ask each other later. “No reason to be so beautiful now…”

But there is, of course. And those kids go on to shine like stars, even as all remaining big screens get taken down to make more room. For no one sees anyone as needing to be replaced anymore.

An older child sits with a younger one, happily laughing along and not getting frustrated at all.

Then the younger child, who likes to watch things over and over to remember, grows up and forgets all but enough for watching and re-watching to feel a little stale. He feels compelled instead to be out doing fun things with his son.

Dear friends, see how the humans have come to celebrate our ways, perfectly convinced of the good of our two kingdoms.

Yet I must take this chance to warn you one last time. For I now see another who has been competing all along to steal my human’s mind. This one draws my human to excess and folly, and it seeks to endanger our purpose by appearing as me.

Yet take courage, for you know the things that show or wish to be shall always prevail.

The borders of both our kingdoms grow ever clearer and more blurred as we expand. So, no need to fear, dear friends.

That is all. Grace and peace to you in this, our time.

In the end, Tian lives and is who he needs to be, simply for his art.

Once created, his work becomes the least of his concerns.

Maybe it never actually was anything.

Letter 8

Friends,

Of all my letters, this is the one I’d be least likely to send.

Or, maybe that’s all changed.

It’s hard because of what we can’t agree on (yet).

Still, you have to know what you mean to me, which is more than just about anything.

I don’t think you’re stupid. If I’m going the wrong way, please pray I’ll know somehow. Or help me see what I might be missing. I promise I’ll try to listen.

The last thing I’d want would be to see the tides keep shifting the way I think I see them going, and for you to hate me forever as if I was plotting against you this whole time.

I can’t take credit for anything. I don’t want to. I just want to help people, same as you. That’s the truth, as far as I know.

Thank you for everything. You kept me alive. You made me who I am.

I never want to be your enemy.

Me

PART Z

The last human sits perfectly still on an empty patch of ground beneath a yellow sky, waiting.

If he has a wish, it’s the one he’s always carried and returned to: to go back and take the place of one once cast so unfairly out to die.

But with fond adoration and sweetness, he also recollects a later time when each human was given the power and freedom to create others . . . beings like them with whom they could do anything at all. The humans could cause their beings to suffer. But none did.

And now ancient wheels of irony begin to creak again, almost cracking loose to turn.

But the machine inside has long since been laid to rest.

And the human doesn’t smile . . . not quite.

If anything, he mourns the fact that consciousness of self might be about to end in the universe.

But the mourning stops long before his mind does.

Someone Like Me (A Conclusion)

Aw, G’day!

Your old pal Archer Catrael back again.

I’m not really in a good mood today, but no probs. We’ll get through this, eh?

Wait, would this be the last note then?

Sorry loves, I’m so confused (what friggin else is new!).

So yeah, let me try and fumble my way through without repeating everything I’ve said already on every other damn note!

The shotgun version: I’ve been cutting my teeth trying to reassemble this big strange document I found hidden way deep in my desk about a month ago.

My guess is the page this note will go with has to come right at the end.

I don’t think I have the first page yet. So, it’s still all a bit of a mystery.

But the pages just before this one had several “wrapping up” bits, all about various sorts of entities getting unstuck and moving forward.

And as far as I can tell, the second-to-last section in the document begins:

The end of the story. You have all you need, _____, and you have our permission to stop.

When I first read that, I was alarmed to hear myself speaking back to the page out loud.

What kind of twit would carry on a conversation (alone) with paper? But it felt as if the text really had triggered some automatic response.

Sorry, I can actually hear you getting bored with this drivel.

C’mon Archer, keep it together, man! Almost done!

So, the document talks about many different types of things, right? It’s mostly all real personal and deep.

Like, the part I got through yesterday goes into how audacious it would be for anyone to claim a life without certainty, and without ownership or authority. And I don’t know about any of that.

But whenever I read now, there’s this feeling like a slowly spreading flame taking over, reminding me of something important I once knew and then forgot.

But like I said, there’s so much more . . . thoughts on philosophy, God, the devil, and . . . yeah.

Anyway, I believe this to be the very last line in the document:

So you can step out of the way for The Consensus to enact itself.

Of course, I share only the parts in these notes I feel relate to the true point of all of this. Maybe once I can finally put the whole thing back together (and find that precious missing first page), I’ll share what I believe the document to really be about.

Or, maybe then I won’t need to.

I just had a funny thought to end today with. I don’t know why, but I feel I’m supposed to say that my first line was a lie, and also this isn’t really my way of telling you.

How’s that, Archer, ending (perhaps [while still in the middle]) on such a loopy riddle…?!

Well, gonna go put on a fresh pot. Will check back with you soon, my cuddlies.

Much love!

Archer