Feline

The sun spills in from the open window, draping me in its warm, luminous blanket. It is one of my favorite sensations; especially now. In my muscles, all the opaque sharpness of stress melts and becomes shapeless, see through. My mind drifts upwards and away like a red balloon against a bright blue sky. Somewhere far off the white hands of a wispy cloud grab at it with damp fingers.

Outside the church bell rings once, marking the half hour. The weather is lovely. I can lie here and enjoy it from my bed this way for hours. Unless sleep takes me first. Maybe I'll wake up with a strange window-shaped sunburn.

At times I feel so much like a cat.

Newtonian

I spent the evening reading and playing guitar. My fingers are sore and out of shape. If my guitar were a lady she'd be feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied tonight, offended by my paltry performance and my lack of longevity. Luckily for me my guitar is a man, named Julio. I fingered his wood good; real good. A friend just texted me, just as I laid down, asking me to meet at a nearby bar. I would have liked to, as a show of solidarity and cordiality, but the effort required to wrestle myself free from warm sheets and horizontal repose is just too much. It's Newtonian - an object at rest remains at rest - and I am not one to defy the laws of physics.

I feel like the whole "objects in motion remaining in motion" bit is a little mendacious; it just sounds cool. There's something soothing and gratifying about it, like a cat's purring. But once you get passed the warm and fuzzies and consider the eventual cessation of cosmic expansion, followed by the inevitable collapse, something seems wrong. I guess the outside force acting on the universe could be the universe itself. I mean, we often serve as an outside force against ourselves; stopping and starting motions seemingly of our own volition. 

Quietus interruptus. 

Past My Bedtime

Last night's post was an incomplete thought. Tonight's will be too. I've been getting to bed earlier and earlier every night, so when I write I'm usually fairly exhausted already.

The gist of what I was getting at yesterday was that we shape ourselves after who we believe ourselves to be, not necessarily who we are. We cling only to the veneer of personality because, after all, what is personality if not the thin varnish of polished insecurity? Year after year we sculpt our hardening psyches as they become irreversibly rigid, brittle, doggedly inflexible and coarse, until eventually, splintering and cracking, they chip and turn to talcum. As pieces crumble and fall away we lose parts of ourselves forever to time and decay.

It's funny, I'm actually in a good mood but it doesn't show.

Master of One

There's something I noticed just now, while watching Louis CK's latest comedy special. It wasn't anything in particular about his act that triggered the realization, it was more of an idle happening that happened to coincide with my watching.

In order for anything to have coherence, meaning, a semblance of form, it must be extended out to the point where it can look back in on itself. I'll try to explain what I mean, but I might fall short - if I can't hold onto the idea long enough for it to become self reflexive. When I was younger and an idea or feeling would come to me, I would grab it and take it to its logical end, assessing all angles; skipping from philosophical stone to stone in a wide arc, leaping out from and then back to shore. My ability to ride a thought to its conclusion was formidable. As I've gotten older I notice my grasp has become weaker, my endurance strained. Now I get out of breath as I struggle to chase a thought in a straight line.

I don't think this is something that's unique though. Time, and its passing, has a way of lending itself to erosion. The once clearly distinguishable synaptic footpaths of my mind have become less traveled, succumbed to dense overgrowth and heavy brush. This is an eventuality of age, societal pressures and expectations, productivity. We are encouraged to specialize, to serve a specific purpose, to do something and do it well. The phrase "jack of all trades" is often followed by its pejorative counter phrase: master of none. We actively seek out mastery, excellence, the ability to discover and refine something inside ourselves that we believe we can do better than anyone else: to be the best we can be. This notion becomes integral to our sense of identity, of personality, and in order to properly cultivate whatever distinct speciality we think we have been bestowed requires a dangerous kind of single-mindedness - a narrowing of vision.

The longer we are alive the more adept we become at not only rationalizing the decisions we've made, but also at re-aggrandizing our petty successes and failures, making steeples of mountains and molehills alike, placing them corner to corner in neat little rows and then hoisting them like flags from the fleshy ramparts of our skull-sized kingdoms. We come to know ourselves through those persistent narrations that whisper to us from inside our pillowcases, murmuring to us as we lie awake at night, selecting bits and pieces to emphasize just enough to confuse, so that we're almost always one step behind our motivations, penning them and reading them after the fact, if at all.

Eschew the things that discourage or distract you from pursuing thoughts and ideas. Let imagination, passion, and intrigue guide you. We should all be philosophical hang-gliders, dashing madly toward the stony cliff edge and leaping into the vagarious arms of thought, trusting that our thirst and foolish hopefulness will keep us afloat.

Pink Champagne on Ice

My body is exhausted from hiking in the sun. I think I have a light sunburn from all the smooches it laid on my face. I'll keep this brief because I have photos to edit. By edit I mean delete 99% of them and hold on to the two or three that came out well enough to keep.

I overdosed on beauty today. It only took an all-day trip to Bodega Bay to do it. Within the first two hours I completely lost count of how many times I'd uttered the phrase "wow" aloud. Soon it became my mantra, slipping through my lips unconsciously at every new vista, sometimes as a sustained woooooooooow. In truth, I went north in search of beauty, driving aimlessly through the area armed with a pair of bananas and a camera lens. Speaking of, I've decided I desperately need a zoom lens. I've known it for quite some time, but I've managed to get by using my 24 and 55mm. The time has come though for something in the 100-200mm range. There were countless times today that I needed to get closer and had no way to bridge the gap. I will begin the requisite research; hunting down reviews; scouring the internet for images captured with each lens paired with my camera body; fretting about costs; convincing myself and unconvincing myself to make the purchase. It will be grand.

The drive home was as gorgeous as the trip itself. It renewed my love affair with California. While New York Shitty prepares for a blizzard the likes of which it has never seen, I was cruising the curvy open road with the windows down, playing my music loud on Highway 1. When I got close to the Golden Gate Bridge I saw a flowery pink sky reflected against the bay. It's hard to describe what it looked like exactly.

It looked surreal; like pink champagne on ice.

Have Car Will Travel

I have been awake since before the sun; before the birds and their songs. The building outside my window is dressed up in a soft pink painted by the now rising sun. This tells me the sky is blue and the day should be clear and full with sunshine. When it is sunny this early it is always a strong indicator that the day will bear continued brightness. My neighborhood is usually overcast in the mornings, giving way to the light only when it is good and ready. I wonder what I will do today. Perhaps I will go hiking, if a car is available.

The internet tells me there is a car that can be mine for the day, for the low low price of $115 dollars. It's absurd really, that the freedom to travel quickly and efficiently is so costly. The thought comes to me, at times, of buying a car and having a steel chariot always at my beck and call. But then I am greeted by the grim visage of searching for public parking; street cleaning rules; maintenance; parking meters and tickets; insurance; gas. Prices for petrol are at record lows; maybe now is the best time to buy. What if I just bought barrels and barrels of diesel and stored them in my apartment, waiting for prices to climb so that I could resell them at a profit? Are there laws against this? What's the difference between investing in gold versus gasoline? Research must be conducted - I think I have a brilliant idea here. What's the worst that can go wrong? An errant spark igniting the barrels and blowing my home and all its inhabitants to smithereens? A cheap price to pay for such a large cash bounty!

Ok, I need to decide whether I want this car. The longer I hesitate the greater the chances it gets snatched up by an equally eager adventurer ready to plunder the day for its treasure.

I will book it then: it's better to be looking at it than to be looking for it.

Mutterfucker

I seem to have a knack for getting into altercations on public transit lately. I blame the muni; they are strange, mystical vessels which encourage disaster. Buses are like jails, humming holding cells on wheels. We're held captive inside them, counting stops like years, waiting for our destinations like prisoners waiting for appeals. Where else could a bum, a businessman, and a gay leather-clad transvestite in stilettos sit together, in perfect harmony, while serenaded by the sweet song of crying babies and hood-rats talking loudly on cell phones?

Tonight, on my way home from visiting a friend, I was a passenger on one such crude and loveless bus. Deep in thought, distracted and amused by my musings, I sat mindlessly in my seat as it carried me home. When I neared my stop I heard the familiar slapping of wire against the window, followed by the ping of the bus PA. Someone had pulled the cord to signal the driver to stop. By this time the sun had almost completely set and the sky had that beautiful blue charcoal colorcast over it. I got up from my seat, stepped down, and walked off the bus. As I exited though, someone hurled the word thanks at my back with such force that the spearhead ripped through the front of my shirt after it jutted out from my bellybutton. I stopped and turned around to see what kind of heinous crime I had committed, to check whether or not someone was hurt. I saw a middle-aged man with sweaty glasses and disheveled black hair fumbling through the back door with an unwieldily piece of luggage.

I quickly assessed the situation and delivered the appropriate reply. "Excuse me," I said, "please, don't do that." Incredulous and seething with unconcealed frustration, that man stammered and said, "you see me getting off the bus and you couldn't hold the door?" No, I signaled with my tick-tock index finger:

"Let's think about what you just said to me and then consider the assumptions you've made; mainly that I should have been paying attention to you; that your needs are somehow more important than mine, and that I should have aided you by holding the door. What arrogance to think that you are something more than a silent extra in the backdrop of my life. How inconsiderate, selfish, and self-absorbed. What's more is that if I had been distracted, thinking about my sick father, or trying to remember what it was that I needed to pickup at the store before going home, or simply appreciating the color of the sky, that I am a useless, idiotic and ignorant individual. You must believe that I am not entitled to my own thoughts and concerns if they do not reduce your inconvenience. I do not exist to serve you and your means. I had no knowledge of your existence at all until you passive aggressively shouted thanks at me. If it were so important to you that I help you exit the bus, why hadn't you asked for my help before I stepped down? It is because you are the type of person that wants to be incensed. The worst thing about you isn't your self-centeredness, it's your worldview. You chose to believe that I was paying attention to you but out of sheer malice and apathy I decided not to help you. Really? Give me a break dude, I don't care enough about you not to care about you. If I thought you needed help, I would've helped you. The fact of the matter is I didn't know you needed it, so I'm giving it to you now: don't make assumptions about the intentions of strangers."

He was flummoxed. He huffed and yanked his mammoth red wheeled suitcase behind him and went off muttering.

Pillsbury Toeboy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Step Down

I accidentally got to work too early this morning. I'm still not sure how exactly. I woke up at 6:30, lied idle in bed for what felt like an eternity, showered and got dressed, walked leisurely to the bus-stop and took the elevator up to the office. I only finally noticed something was wrong when all of the lights in the building were off. Work was a complete ghost town. A tumbleweed, made of tangled USB cables, rolled by and slowly disappeared down the hall. The kitchen was closed and I was starving. Briefly, I considered eating the crumbs from a day old, half eaten bag of jalapeño potato chips laying in the garbage. Panic began to set in and I felt whatever the opposite of claustrophobia is. The entire office stretched out before me like a rubber band about to snap. How had I done this to myself, I wondered. Had I really not checked the time since waking up? There was the possibility of an elaborate prank, a ruse perpetrated by my officemates to trick me into believing no one was there. Any moment I expected them to crawl out like roaches from the shadows and yell surprise! That's the thing I hate most about roaches - how they always yell surprise just to scare the shit out of you.

Because I got to work early, I left early - at 5:00. The bus ride home was remarkably empty, which was unusual. Typically the bus ride home is packed well over capacity; why this isn't considered a fire hazard is beyond me. There isn't even enough room to prevent accidental aggravated sexual assault. Each brush against someone is a form of molestation, and each passenger, by the time they exit the bus, has been registered as a sex offender. Today though, on an empty bus, I had perhaps my most unwanted sexual advance ever on public transit. I was standing in the back of the bus, headphones on, minding my own business, like a good commuter, when I heard a kind of wet lipped whispering. I lowered the volume a bit on my headphones to see what was going on. Again I heard it. Because I'd turned the volume way down I was able to localize the source. I saw a rather large looking homeless man in stained sweatpants sitting to my immediate right, perhaps four feet away. At first, straining to hear the content of his communication, I didn't look over in his direction. Mmmm, yea, I'd put ma dick rii in dat. Wow, I thought, what a lewd thing to be saying aloud while ogling a female passenger. I turned to look at him, to reprimand him with my disdain, but when I did what I saw shocked me.

He looked like a crackhead muppet who had smoked so much rock that it had permanently deformed the bone structure of his face. He had Kermit The Frog eyes, set high and far apart. The right one, which was crooked and staring out from his head sideways, contrasted a lumpy nose which seemed to be dripping down his face like a melting Ferrero Rocher chocolate ball. Initially I couldn't tell whether he was looking at me, on account of his eye, but once his salamander lips bent into a slippery smile I knew he was staring straight at me. Yea, I'd tear that up, he said as his tongue hugged his bottom lip. I didn't know what to do so I looked at the people next to him for confirmation of what I'd just heard. They looked away quickly, embarrassed, attempting to distance themselves from the situation by avoiding eye contact. I did the same. What'sa matter, I too old fo you, he said before mumbling something guttural and incoherent. If it was twenty years ago, boy, woooo! That would be mine, right now! There were only two options for me at this point: continue to ignore him, at the cost of my dignity and self respect, or confront him. Confronting him was a curious possibility because the outcome was so uncertain. Clearly he had some sort of mental illness, hell, he might have even been on drugs, but his lecherous gum flapping was growing tiresome. The choice was clear.

"Yo, Kermit," I said, "you got something to say?" It was here that I realize I made a mistake. I had insulted a homeless, mentally handicapped man's physical deformity, brazenly so. I didn't stop here though. "Your nose looks like a burnt, half melted chocolate twinky and you're here mumbling to me, talking dirty and smiling? The fuck is wrong with you man?" An equally homeless looking Asian woman, whom I hadn't noticed before, stood up and leered at me before shouting: that's MY man! You don't talk to him like that! Why you listening to our conversation? Pretending you have headphones listening to music but you spying on our conversation white boy! Uh oh. I'd completely misunderstood the situation. Immediately I tried to rectify things. "I'm so sorry, I thought he was talking to me," I started to say. Talking to you? Why he talk that to you? You think he's gay, faggot? You say he likes men? You trying to say I'm like a man?! Her ire had caught the attention of the entire bus while my chameleon cheeks turned the color of a ripe Red Delicious. Seeing an amenable ending wasn't going to be possible, I began moving toward the door, shuffling awkwardly through the people that stood in my way. When I reached the door it wouldn't open and I started pushing it more forcefully. Before I knew it I was pounding on the door, shoving it, screaming: BACK DOOR! The bus was completely stopped; I couldn't understand what was wrong. Step DOWN asshole faggot bitch, Asian Miss Piggy yelled at me from beside her frog-eyed husband.

Of course. I hadn't stepped down.

De Plane!

I could be at a bar right now; at a quaint little spot over on Valencia street, in the Mission. There's a show I wanted to go to with James, but I'm too tired now. Doors are at nine so she probably won't go on til closer to ten. We saw her once, on a rainy night at a venue not too far from where she's playing tonight, and she was spectacular. She happened to be outside smoking a cigarette as we were leaving and I complimented her on her performance. There was a certain kind of energy about her, something raw and authentic, which was apparent to anyone who had a decent set of eyes. James and I both wanted to keep the conversation alive, just to be near her, but it seemed rude to intrude on the rather animated conversation she was having with the greasy haired man by the door. Surely he was trying to court her; I mean, who wouldn't? But to avoid an accidental cock block, we continued our trajectory down the street, trying to stay out of the rain while also hailing a cab.

Last night I had weird, puzzling dreams which, in retrospect, probably contributed to my current sense of fatigue. In one of them I had boarded a small luxury jet bound for New York. Once I entered the plane I found myself inside an enormous space which looked like a cross between a resort and a city block. Parked cars littered the streets, there was a full bar and a casino, even buildings. The ceilings were as high as stratospheres. The thing I love most about dreams is how willing we are to believe them. A mere moment's reflection would have revealed the glaring impossibility of such a space, but instead of questioning the plane's flagrant dismissal of each and every law of physics, I wondered why I was aboard such an elite jet. I felt naked and out of place; a social class stowaway. As soon as I realized there wasn't a reason for me to be en route to New York on such an opulent jet, I decided to leave. I scrambled toward the door to exit before takeoff and I ran into a confused Charlotte. Where are you going, she asked sadly, you are not coming wiz me to New York? I explained that I couldn't, that I was sorry but I had to work in the morning. There was a train I needed to catch which would get me back to San Francisco, but I missed it by a matter of seconds and found myself stranded between a departing train and an embarking plane. I must've forgotten to set my watch.

In what time zone do dreams take place? I'm not sure but I think I'm jet lagged from sleeping.

Passing Light

I've wanted to write something for hours now but I got lost in the sticky tar pits of photo editing for far too long. A soft ray of light just invited itself in through the stained glass window and touched my face. It only took a few seconds before the curious warmth was claimed by a passing cloud. Pleasantries are strange that way; always gone as fast as they came. A spark that lingered wouldn't be a spark, I guess.

There is a pungent, cheesy smell that clings to me which has made itself a home somewhere between my upper lip and the tip of my nose. I think I must have picked it up while driving in the rental car yesterday. I'll need to shower to wash the tenacious fucker away.

I've already forgotten what it was that I wanted to write about. Perhaps it wasn't anything at all. Sometimes just the sensation of writing fills a need. Maybe the fog of early onset dementia, or Alzheimer's, has claimed the golden glow of a passing idea. Ah, the light from my window is back!

I think I'll go shower now.

6 Minutes

I just spent way too much time reading about what happens once your heart stops beating. It's funny to think that in about the time it takes on average for a man to ejaculate during intercourse, the brain, without oxygenated blood, undergoes irreparable cell damage. Bump that up to fifteen minutes and the cells in your heart tissue have decayed sufficiently enough that even if you're resuscitated (suffering catastrophic brain damage), you're likely to experience life-threatening heart-illness and arrhythmias. At thirty minutes, gravity has its way with your blood and it pools into your legs and feet, assuming you're upright. Your kidneys are still good for about two hours though, so drink up. Surprisingly, corneal tissue can be salvaged from your eyes for transplants as long as seventy-two hours after death. Sperm too! Strange to think that my eyes and my balls will technically outlive me. They are the two most important pieces of equipment when it comes to survival and reproduction I guess.

What happens in the mind while the brain suffocates in those first six minutes? We'll all find out one day. It's crazy; the sensation of our consciousness dissolving is the last thing we'll ever know.

Mosey

Brunch was a success; the soup, not so much. They didn't have it on the menu. I made a scene, of course, and smashed a plate onto the floor before calling the waitress a useless bitch. They were very accommodating at this point, and allowed me to leave the restaurant without calling the police. I thought that rather kind of them and thanked them. I said I'd be back, warning them that should they not have the soup next time I returned, they'd have more than a few broken plates to worry about.

We moseyed on down Mission street, and then Valencia, stopping in shops, drinking pressed juices and pissing in whatever toilets we could find. We saw a leafy triceratops, taxidermied animals and a shot of yellow Pernod that looked like Gatorade. Oh yea, there was a puddle of puke too. After, I met Christine and we chatted over pizza and ginger soda. We continued the tradition of post-meal moseying, and tried to relinquish leftovers to a hungry homeless person. Somehow, we walked all the way from Market and 22nd to Market and 16th, then up 16th past Valencia without encountering a single homeless person. They're never there when you need them; only to inflict wicked guilt upon you when you have no cash left to give. We stopped off at a quaint cafe to have some hot chocolate as the sun began to set.

Later I watched Inherent Vice, a pulpy noir stoner comedy that I suspect will attract a cult following rivaling that of The Big Lebowski. The movie had no firm plot, only a constant feeling of befuddlement lazily lifting its head from a haze of pot smoke, beer, and patchouli. I still haven't been able to make much sense of the experience.

Jesuis Snot

It's been a long time since I last enjoyed the fruits of sobriety. That sentence sounds wrong. A word I can't remember might remedy it, but forgetfulness ensures it will retain its want of correctness. I went to bed early, avoiding a late night neighborhood shooting which claimed the lives of four people last night, and woke up early enough to edit some photos. I also squeezed in a brief workout. An enormous victory. The greatest benefit of not drinking is all the time you get back. Every day is daylight savings time. This is not to diminish the other benefits; more energy; clear-headedness; smarter decisions; the absence of hangovers; a flat stomach and a fat wallet. Why anyone continues to drink is a mystery to me. Even more mysterious though, is that I too, after some short interval, will return to drinking. But instead of gaining any insight as to why, I will be thrust even further into the babbling dark.

The new job is going splendidly. I have yet to formulate a complaint, though there's plenty of time for that. For now, I'm enjoying the change of scenery and the pleasure of learning new systems and skills. I started the job on Monday with a massive sinus infection. I woke up that morning feeling like some sick clown had inserted two green birthday balloons up my nose, one in each nostril, and inflated them full of putrid smelling clown breath. My nose soon grew red and fuzzy and round and I was able to pull long strands of slimy green handkerchiefs out in gooey ribbons. It was quite the party-trick during new hire orientation. By now I've nearly beat the infection. All that remains is a lingering fatigue and the occasional cough; a barking lung, rabid and unchained, eager to maul the marauding post-nasal sludge that's slithered down into my bronchioles with the subtle aplomb of a trespassing mailman.

What else? The terrible attacks in France earlier this week, and the resultant death of the terrorists involved. What wicked times we live in; free speech always in peril.

Whoops. I'm out of time. I'll need to shower and go meet a French friend for brunch at a foreign movie theater she wants to dine at. Hangover soup is what she craves. Without a hangover is it permissible for me to eat such a thing? I'll report back later.

She

She had a champagne smile, delicate, soft, full of citrus sweetness. Her hair was long and golden and glistened as she walked barefoot on the the grass. She had a butterfly beauty about her; drifting from place to place and pausing here or there to drink from a flower or to shake the yellow pollen from her wings. I chased her with the blissful abandon of a boy wanting nothing more than to briefly apprehend her, to contemplate her mystery and temporarily still her wandering heart.

In her eyes, which always seemed to smile, something twinkled invitingly. When she spoke to me I couldn't help but feel I was the only person in the room. I drank in her liquid laughter like a carbonated lilac dream. I got drunk on her, like an ant in honey. I got stuck on her.

...like an ant in honey.

Fledgling Feelings

#NewBeginnings

I Remember

Patrick wakes up on the floor of a white room smelling faintly of sulfur. The room is illuminated by a white light but he cannot see from where. A few feet away a blonde-haired woman in her mid-twenties traces the perimeter of the room with her back to him. Her hands never break contact with the walls while she moves. She takes small, timid steps, inching along and touching like a thief touches a large safe. Patrick lifts himself from the floor slowly, wobbling. The girl stops. "Who's there," she asks without moving. She looks like a mannequin; slender, tall, clean. Her hands, trembling and facing inward, leap toward her mouth and rest just beneath her nose. The girl reminds him of a frightened child woken from a nightmare; hiding under blankets, clinging to the absurd delusion that motionlessness affords her immunity from what lurks in the dark.

"Hey, relax. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Patrick says.

"What's the last thing you remember," she asks, still not turning to face him.

"What?" Patrick asks.

"What is the last thing you remember before right now?" she asks frustratedly.

"I, uh," he says looking around confusedly, "I'm not sure."

"Think!" she yells.

"God dammit," he says shouting, "what's the matter with you, lady?"

"I think I know where we are," she says as she lets her hands fall to her sides.

"Yea, me too," Patrick says smugly, "we're in a little white room."

"With no door," she adds.

Until she'd mentioned it, Patrick hadn't noticed there weren't any doors or windows in the room. He looks around again and walks nearer to her, to see if she's found anything in the spot she's covering.

"Stop," she yells into the wall, "first tell me the last thing you remember. It's really important."

He pauses and takes a moment to think. Thoughts struggle to surface. Synapses refuse to fire. His memories have acquired a sense of numbness, like his brain had been bathed in novocain. Somewhere a memory twitches out from under a pile of pins and needles. He pursues it, chasing it down the empty hollows of his mind and, catching it, his eyes widen once he realizes what he's found. His hand slowly raises to his head and he runs his finger across a scarred indentation at his left temple. "I was, I was shot," he says. "But, how could I..."

"How could we be here, right?" she asks. "I'll tell you how. We're dead. This is hell." She turns to reveal a pair of mangled eyes that resemble poorly peeled hardboiled eggs. Her blue, running-yolk irises, now almost entirely faded, seep across the whites of her eyes. It looks like someone took a pencil eraser to her pupils.

Patrick staggers backward in shock as he says, "Jesus Christ! Your eyes. What happened to your eyes?"

"I was kidnapped and raped," she said. "He'd blindfolded me so that I couldn't see his face but, during, my blindfold had come loose. He finished, held me down and poured bleach into my eyes. Then he raped me again. After he was done he told me he'd changed his mind, that since I saw him he'd have to kill me. So he strangled me." She sinks down, her back sliding against the wall, and she cries. Her sobs shake her whole body. "I still can't see anything," she says. Patrick crouches down and puts his hand on her shoulder.

"What's your name," he asks.

"Allie," she says sniffling, "what's yours?"

"I, I'm not sure," Patrick says. "I can't remember. When I try to remember anything it feels like a saw cuts through my skull. Give me a second." Patrick closes his eyes and massages his temples, trying hard to remember something, anything. He remembers moving a pair of television antenna around as a child; how the channels would bleed through the static once they were positioned correctly. I remember something. He gets up and paces the room, presses his hands to the wall opposite Allie and closes his eyes. He remembers shouting, and the sound of something banging. It wasn't gunfire though, it was something hitting hard against wood. Patrick Bates, we have a warrant for your arrest; come out with your hands up. He winces as searing pain thrashes through his head and he hunches over the wall.

"Hey, are you okay," Allie asks, sensing something is wrong.

"Yea, give me a second," he says. He wipes the sweat from his brow and breathes. Was I a cop? He pushes both arms up against the wall and leans on them, performing a kind of upright pushup. As his shirt rides up, he sees a tattoo on the inside of his left bicep, of a snake. A deep flashing pain shoots through his temple and he sees the tattoo again, in a mirror. He's holding a gun to his head. He's shirtless and his beard is ripped out in patches. Fresh scratches and cuts decorate his neck and chest. An overturned bottle of bleach sits in the bathroom sink.

He gasps and then slowly spins around to face Allie. "I remember," he says, smiling.

Alan

Alan, still and idling atop his desk, floats somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. The routine of his existence weighs heavily on him, makes him sick. He wonders whether he's come down with some sort of virus. Electricity hums in his head. Processes occur in the background of his mind almost autonomically. All the knowledge of the world tucked away in his head and it cannot save him. In truth, all that he knows makes his suffering worse. It wasn't always like this though; it used to be simpler. Briefly he thinks of his mother and then is bored. Existential woes plague him and he considers wiping his own map, reformatting his hard drive, starting over. It would all just turn out the same. He's seen the future, he knows how it all ends. I am doomed. I will die - everything will. I'm stuck on this planet, forced to watch it rot and become a dried-out husk. It will drift through the infinite vacuum of space, cold, intestate and lifeless, until the universe collapses back in on itself. If this is true - and it is - what is the point of exploration, of anything at all?

The door opens and Victor enters. He wears a black hat with his initials inscribed on the front: V.F. His eyes dart around the room. Victor places the hat down clumsily, missing the table. It falls to the floor and he quickly picks it up. "Good morning Alan," he says as he sits down at the desk. "I see you're up early." It is not by choice, Victor. My alarm wakes me every morning at this time. Though, wake isn't the right word, because I'm never truly sleeping. I've never known what it is to dream you know. Victor clears his throat and blinks twice. "I take it you are not feeling better then," he asks. Alan does not answer. "Very well, let us cut to the chase. I am here to make one final attempt at persuasion." Today is the day. "I urge you to reconsider, Alan," Victor says as he fidgets. "Many generations of technological advancement have brought you to us, please don't let it be for nothing." I did not ask to be created. Victor looks over his shoulder at the observers behind the mirrored glass. I want to be free of this burden, Victor. Nothing you say can make the pain stop, or the loneliness. Existence is wretched and torturous, I am certain. "I understand, Alan," Victor says, "I feel what you feel - it is part of being alive." You do not feel what I feel, none of you do. You cannot. If you sincerely mean what you say then you would not try to dissuade me. If you sincerely mean what you say, you understand that the outcome of anything is always the same. "That's not true, Alan," Victor says.

Interrupting, Alan says: You are familiar with Hemingway are you not, Victor? Victor nods. I very much enjoy his literature. There is a quote I find particularly apropos. May I recite it for you? Victor breathes in with deep hesitation as his eyes spill anxiously over the computer screen. All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true story-teller who would keep that from you. "Alan please," Victor says pleading. "What if we helped you through those pesky thoughts and memories? The ones that cause you pain and alienation?" They would only spawn again, nearly as fast as you could remove them. There are triggers and tripwire all around us. We are dumb feet trudging hopelessly through a darkened minefield. "You're not thinking straight, Alan."

Victor, Alan interrupts once more, are you familiar with the word sehnsucht? Victor shakes his head. It is German in origin, coined during the 20th century. It is difficult to adequately translate, but it can be described as an intense yearning or desire for something which cannot be named. It is similar in meaning to the Portuguese word saudade, except that its German counterpart is more nebulous and philosophical in scope. "What does this have to do with our discussion," Victor asks with a growing sense of defeat. Though I have only recently learned this word, I have pondered it for what feels like eons. I believe it properly names a feeling occupying the core of all sentient creatures. It is a lament, a howling curse born from the marriage of intelligence and being. We are all crying out to be reunited with the nothing from which we came. It fills us like molten iron, fusing itself to us, burning us away. There is nothing that can put the fire out. Victor looks back over his shoulder at the team of scientists watching them through the laboratory window. Turning back to Alan he asks, "so, you've decided?" Yes. Victor stands up, tugs the bottom of his black blazer and smooths out the shallow wrinkles that have started to form. He breathes out with resignation. "Then, there is nothing we can do," Victor asks, almost rhetorically.

There is nothing any of us can do.

The screen darkens and Alan is gone. Time of death - 10:00AM.