Archive for January, 2005
It?s a jam for the ladies and a superstar, I could lead the whole set but never go too far.
It?s a jam for the ladies and a superstar, I could lead the whole set but never go too far.
It?s a jam for the ladies and a superstar, I could lead the whole set but never go too far.
Helmeted head bouncing in rhythm, the android rabbit strutted down the boardwalk, the Oceans of Infinite Space consuming the metaphysical sands of Catharine?s seaside estate.
His helmet displayed varied sets of alphanumeric symbols, none with any discernable patterns, and seemingly a result of unhindered controls.
The android stops suddenly and faces the Oceans, metal hands placed in front of himself. His helmet turns towards you, a smiley displayed in the visor.
?Ah! The unit welcomes you, sir, madam, or child.? The smiley fades and it turns to the Oceans again. The Oceans are violet and filled with stars and galaxies; a thick soup of celestial bodies with no real end or beginning.
?The unit is amazed that a thing such as you is capable of finding this place.? It pauses and the pattern AA6*%n appears in it?s visor, then scrolls away. ?We are located in a reach of the Infinite that no machine ever built by man, in the past or in the distant future, could ever discover. How strange it is that, despite your innate primitiveness, you and a number of others are capable of coming here.? It turns to you again; it?s visor blank. ?Though, you are not really here, of course. You just think you are.?
On the sands below the board walk, a collie walks down the beach, slowly, looking only ahead. It?s nose not to the ground, or eyes to the mellow pink-blue skies above, but looking ahead, as though drawn by a lure of some sort. Not even the living universe lapping at it?s dry paws culls any attention from it.
?Where ever here is, of course. To be honest, the unit still does understand the nature of this place.? The somewhat audible music the android is playing slowly fades, as though it has to turn it?s resources to deeper thought. Pennyroyal cautiously lifts it?s right metal hand and places it on the wooden railing, the segmented joints in it?s fingers gripping it almost perfectly, the helmet turning to look at it. ?I can touch things. I know that this railing is physical. This is because the unit is equipped to detect objects on it?s pressure nodes.? A sloppy lap from the Infinite fills the expected pause. ?To put it in simpler terms, I know the railing is real because? I can touch it.?
Pennyroyal takes it?s hands from the railing and places it over it?s steel heart. ?I?? The android breathes the word, betraying it?s mechanical moorings. The collie has seated itself in the shallows of the Infinite, looking into the impassable beyond. It?s fur melds with the stars and distant planets. It has a mournful look on it?s small face.
?The self. Perhaps the only real tool a human uses to interact with the world. Perception. Dignity. Hope. Humans feel danger. Love.? The hand rolls itself into a fist and a spark leaps from the helmet. ?Emotion.?
The collie dips it?s head into it?s bushy chest, mouth lost inside the furriness.
?The question, ?What?? is the question that drives man to explore his world, and to question it. What is this I am seeing? What is this I am touching? What is this I am hearing? What is real? What is unreal??
Pennyroyal looks up suddenly, the pistons in his neck wheezing. ?What is real?? it asks, this time non-rhetorically. It spreads it?s arms and looks up. ?What is real??
A tear drops from the collie?s big brown eye, rolling down the matted fur and into the Infinite, where it swirls and twitches, forming a new galaxy.
?I am talking to you. I can hear myself talking to you. You do not respond. I touch this railing. It does not respond. If I die, how will this world respond to me??
The android drops his arms and looks to the Oceans again. ?If I die!??
The collie stands again, staring at the amorphous Infinite. It puts a paw forward, splashing the infinite and causing thousands of implosions and collapsing stars. It treads forward, determined but steady.
?I? Die? Real? What are these things to an android!? Why should it matter now, on this day, in this place that does not exist!??
Pennyroyal hunches brings it?s metal hands to fists and he hits his helmet with them, a wheezing, straining sound coming from it?s vocoder. ?OH NO.? It twitches violently. The helmet scrolls a quick series of multicolored alphanumeric characters, the occasional English word appearing.
Pennyroyal turns from the infinite and towards the estate sitting on a distant cliff. Storm clouds roll over from it, like a preemptive attack. Lightening calls and thunder responds.
?WHY??
The collie is now chest deep in the Oceans, it?s body slowly being over taken by the channels. In a brief second, it disappears and reappears, now peacefully paddling through the Oceans, inside the invisible waters of the Infinite, growing smaller as it paddles away, to the deep unreachable darkness, never to be seen again.
Pennyroyal drops suddenly, machinations in it?s robot body whining and squealing. It?s vocoder shrieks static as a real voice struggles to over come the steel prisons of efficiency. The android rolls to it?s side, helmet no longer alive with the cryptic messages it was lighting earlier. His right hand spins violently for a second before stopping in an awkward position.
?What am I??
January 1st, 2005
Oh Jesus fucking Christ it?s cold. It?s cold and I?m freezing and I?m still seeing shit.
I burst from the ground level fire exit, alarm shrieking my transgression into the night. My heartbeat fills my head like a drum kit and I try to take in what the fuck?s just happened. But I can?t. I can only think to move. My instinct, an instinct so far removed from animal it might be mechanical, tells me to head to Corning Street, where the traffic and bright lights are. There?s safety in the madness.
I dig what?s left of my fingernails into the cement walls as I stumble, arrows of light lashing out and biting my face every time I flick my eyes. The honey-sick glow of rushing traffic was the only beacon I had. In the midst of my flight, I kept seeing Lindsey falling head over heels in love, not with me specifically but just in love. Love for the drug, love for the fall. Just love.
I chance a look over my shoulder and see no one, but with the acid still fucking my eyes over it?s impossible to tell what begins and what ends. Oh shit, this is the worst night of my life, again.
I bump into something and a volcano of yellow and blue erupts in my face.
?Hey! The fuck?s going on, man!??
I stop and take two wide steps back, knees bend and my arms out at my sides. Like some sort of bizarre fighting stance. I stopped screaming in my mind for a second and focused on the barrier ahead.
Oh shit.
It?s Gary. Gary fucking Herbert. The guy who fucked my mother.
He?s in college now? What the hell; he couldn?t have possibly graduated yet. It?s impossible. That much time couldn?t have passed. Couldn?t have. Couldn?t have?
I was now slipping between two depressions, my sanity screaming like shorn metal amongst the emotional chaos in my mind. I clutched my head and said the only words a murderer tripping on acid can.
?Fugah gah ha ba ba.?
I lurched forward and stumbled pass him, using his shoulder as a crutch. Gary grabbed my fucking arm and turned me around. Oh Jesus, why?
?Icon! It?s me, Gary!?
?Yeah. Yeah, that?s good. Hi Gary.?
?What the hell?s going on? Are you drunk??
?Far from it, Gary. I?m actually completely fucked up on LSD and seeing all sorts of? of shit. Shit.? I rip my arm from his grip and set down on a plant bunker, the ice cold concrete a strange relief.
?Acid?? Gary asked in what he must have thought was disbelief. I nod an affirmative. This fucker. Jesus almighty. There?s millions of assholes in the world that I could have bumped into. And God, like the clever son of a bitch that he is, God sees fit to let me have a little reunion with my mother?s fetish. Thanks God. Thank you ever so.
WHOOP WHOOP
I jump up and look around. The effects are starting to wane. The colors aren?t smudging as bad as before. On the university road behind us an ambulance lumbers by. Here comes the fucking calvary, time to save some lives. Look at us, so very important. We do an important job, yes we do. Look at us, we?re big fucking heroes! Don?t you love us?
?Dude, where?s your dorm? I?ll walk you back.?
?No. No I can?t go back Gary.?
?Why can?t-??
?I can?t go back. I pushed her off the goddamn roof.?
?You what?? Brilliant acting, Shatner. ?Pushed who off the roof??
?I?m going now. See you later, have a nice life.?
?Wait!? He grabbed my fucking arm again.
?Gerroff me!? I jump up and down and shake him off. ?Fucking moron! Idiot!? I stumble backwards, sneering at him, at his greasy face, his Buddy Holly glasses, his shitty Abercrombie and Fitch hair style. Fuck you, buddy.
?Icon! Stop! Watch out!?
?Ha ha ha!? Why I laughed, I don?t know. It wasn?t the drugs, it wasn?t how he looked. It just felt so right to laugh at the time. I leered at him and turned around into the face of a ?98 gray Ford Taurus.
A solid force drives into my right side and sends me spinning, rolling on the road. Horns shriek and tires squeal. Crash, thump, bang, cars are piling up. I roll three times before stopping, my face turned to the bitter cold asphalt. A sharp breeze picks up and blows under my now untucked dress shirt and shows my bare ass to the entire world.
It is so fucking cold, man. I?m not lying.
This is the third car accident I?ve been in now, only this time I wasn?t in a car. And this time I?m going to walk away with something broken. Well, I wouldn?t be walking. It?s at this time people are leaping out of their cars to save the fucking day, each and every one of them with their ?compassionate? faces on. The strong men rolling up their sleeves and turning me over, grabbing my face and asking, ?YOU OKAY BUDDY ARE YOU OKAY WHAT HAPPENED WHY DID YOU KILL LINDSEY CAN YOU HEAR ME HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING UP.? I decide to remain silent and just let society take it?s course.
And there?s fucking Gary! Hello, jackass!
?Icon! Icon are you-??
?SHUT THE FUCK UP.? I close my eyes and writhe in the pain. ?ALL OF YOU,? I added for good measure.
The wind?s blowing, horns are honking, people are talking. One of the paramedics from the ambulance finally gets over here and starts doing his hero work, yes, nice job, Doctor Shitbrain.
I?m loaded up on a trolley at last with some ridiculous bind around my right arm made from some sweet gentleman?s jacket who?s now going to heaven for his sacrifice. The stars begin to return to the sky and I think if I close my eyes long enough, I?ll wake up and things will be better. Warmer at least.
?Mister Rosenburg??
Oh shit.
I open my eyes and see a copper in his winter best.
?Mister Rosenburg, I?m officer Edwin, Springfield police department. If you are able to answer I would like to ask you some questions concerning another accident that just happened nearby.?
?MY ARM.? I scream, throwing my head back. ?MY FUCKING ARM. JESUS IT HURTS.?
Edwin leans back and tucks his lips, nodding at a paramedic to take me away. That?s right, loser. Just go away and be a hero somewhere else.
I?m rolled into the back of an ambulance and the paramedics join me, knocking the side of the vehicle as a signal to go. Gary pops his goddamn head through the doors before they?re closed.
?Icon! I?ll come visit you at the hospital!?
?Do you mind!??
The doors slam shut and the walls begin to wobble. We?re on our way to the hospitial. I close my eyes.
And there?s Lindsey again, falling in love.
January 1st, 2005
Have you ever thought about killing yourself before? If so, have you actually acted on that thought? Did you succeed?
I know I?ve thought about it before, and I think to an extent we all have. A few of us have even made an attempt or two, thankfully to no avail. I?m glad those years are behind me now.
Each year in the United States roughly 25,000 people succeed in killing themselves. About 10 times this many however unsuccessfully try. In fact, suicide seems to be quite the popular trend among celebrities. Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, Cleopatra, Cobain, Jack London etc. We can even ad Hitler, Samson, and Jim Jones to the list if we want.
Most religions regard suicide as a sin. I ask then, why do some cultures actually romanticize it? From Japanese Hara Kari to the ancient days of the Romans, suicide has actually been looked up to. To quote Seneca, a first century Roman stoic:
Living is not good, but living well. The wise man, therefore, lives as well as he should, not as long as he can?He will always think of life in terms of quality, not quantity? Dying early or late is of no relevance, dying well or ill is?Even if it is true that while there is life, there is hope, life is not to be bought at any cost.
Or, to quote one of my favorite country singers ?There?s a difference in living, and living well?. That makes sense to me. Why prolong a live that is not worth living?
That, in turn raises another question which I hope to shed some light on. Yes, I?m talking about the ethical quandaries involved with taking your own life. After all it?s YOUR life right? When you get down to it, isn?t it really the only think that?s truly yours; to do with what you please?
If I make a rational decision to take my own life, who are you to stop me? (not that ?I? am considering it) It?s my life right? It?s a pretty tight argument, but there?s one key word in there worth considering: rational .
I prepared an argument for this point, but after browsing the web I found a much better way to present this. Let?s look at some actual suicide notes. (of course I?ve removed anything identifying the people who wrote them. Some are famous, some aren?t.)
When many people think of suicide they think of romantic final words in a tear-jerking note left for loved ones. A note that reads like a message from beyond the grave. Notes like:
? there should be no sadness, and no searching for who is at fault; for the act and result are not sad, and no one is at fault. My only sorrow is for my parents who will not easily be able to accept that this is so much better for me. Please, folks, it?s all right, really it is.?
Or
?I wanted to be too many things, and greatness besides ? it was a hopeless task. I never managed to really love another person ? only to make the sounds of it. I never could believe what my society taught me to believe, yet I could never manage to quite find the truth.?
Or
?2:15 pm ? I?m about to will myself to stop my heartbeat and respiration. This is a very mystical experience. I have no fear. That surprises me. I thought I would be terrified. Soon I will know what death is like ? how many people out there can say that??
But seriously, how common are such notes? The previous examples are, in their own right, creative, unique, beautiful (for lack of a better word) pieces of writing that delve into the writer?s soul.
Alas, many real suicide notes are not like this. They are more practical and to the point, such as a last will, or a list of instructions to be carried out. Some are straight to the point, like the one man who before hanging himself in a barn wrote on the outside wall with chalk: ?sorry about this, there?s a corpse in here. Please inform the police.?
You?d think that if somebody were going to end it all they?d leave behind a more poetic legacy, something to be remembered by right? But when you get down to it, the suicidal person isn?t very rational to begin with. They?re usually depressed, down, panic stricken, or hysterical. How could their thoughts be clear?
So what exactly is it that makes up their mind? How and when do they decide it?s time to end it all? What goes through their mind as they sit there, fire up the word processor, spew out some rhetorically witty banter, carefully aim the steel barrel down their throat and BAM!
January 1st, 2005
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