An Excerpt from the CEG Redbook

Smilers

Smilers are, in a word, fun. They’re one of the options in this manual that’s most likely to be mistaken for something supernatural, and while there might be mystical options available to create them you can get extremely similar results with a simple application of training time and medical knowledge. Lucky for you, both of those things can simply be bought!

My personal favourite way to use a Smiler is to spend a little time seeding your target’s subconscious before unleashing it. Doctored photos (just slash them across the mouth) and some unsettling images snuck onto the target’s computer or phone can be an extremely effective sucker punch- if they’ll respond to a wrong number on their phone, don’t be afraid to flirt with them a little before unleashing a close-up of that smile!

Projected cost: ~ $4,400,000 US

Subject: Girl 14-18 (slim build Caucasian recommended)

Requirements: Surgical Team, Medical Consultant, Soundproof Containment Suite B (or equivalent), Psychological Trainer.

All subjects and requirements can be purchased/hired from the Catag® Entertainment Group through the number in the back of the book.

Creation Time: 16-20 months

Creation Process: A Smiler’s signature is made of two parts- their winning smile and their crawling gait. Luckily, the removals that cause the latter can be put to good use augmenting the former. While the surgery is relatively simple, with all surgeries there are risks of infection and premature death so we recommend performing the necessary conditioning before the more elaborate surgeries. To that end, start by simply having your medical team sever both the Achilles’ tendons of the subject and remove her vocal chords.

After that, it’s time for your Psychological Trainer step in. While all Catag® Entertainment Group PTs are familiar with the training process, if you’re using an out-of-house trainer or if you’ve decided to participate in this fulfilling step yourself then follow these guidelines.

Conditioning Guidelines

Your subject MUST be isolated in a soundproof chamber. You want to associate the act of speaking with the desire to bite, and to do that you’ll need to avoid absolutely ANY vocalisations around the subject unless they’re part of her training.

When the subject tries to escape, allow her to damage the chamber in any way she sees fit, and as soon as she’s finished tranquilise her, bind her, and when she awakens repair the damage in front of her. If you need an out-of-trust partner to complete the repairs, have her watch through a television screen, and don’t continue with the repairs until you’ve made sure she’s watching. If you find she’s hoarded an object, have her watch you destroy it. Don’t get angry at her for attempting to escape- that fuels her belief that it’s possible. Instead, adopt an unflappable state of mind. Of course she’s trying to escape- who wouldn’t? All you need her to understand is that it is completely impossible and her bad behaviour is wasted effort.

Use positive reinforcement techniques to train the subject to the following three behaviours, with the first behaviour taking priority over the second and the second taking priority over the third:

1)     When the subject hears a song of your choice, she should sit hugging her legs with her eyes closed until the song is finished.

2)     When the subject hears another person vocalise, she should bite them, preferably in the neck, inner arm, or groin. (genital bites are rarely fatal, so discourage this)

3)     When the subject hears to the sound of another person breathing, she should move to their side and wait.

Once this conditioning is complete, your Smiler should be able to be controlled by using the song you’ve trained her with. It’s also absolutely worth conditioning her to accept eating raw meat and to treat raw meat and blood as perfectly normal parts of her diet.

Surgical Completion

Now it’s time to complete your Smiler surgically! The first thing you need to do is make that smile shine, and this is where you can really personalise your Smiler. The ‘classic’ Smiler has the teeth replaced with steel nails, but we’ve seen variants with sewing needles, razors and even repurposed shark teeth. The important thing is that the new "teeth" are placed in a way that won’t damage your Smiler when she bites, and will transmit the full force of her jaw. Some options add so much metal that it’s best to blend this step with the next one and replace the mandible entirely with a reinforced surgical steel replacement; make sure you get advice from your medical consultant and the head of your surgical team.

After the teeth have been replaced to your liking, the next step is twofold- first to split the corners of the lips right to the edge of the mouth, and then to transplant the gastrocnemius muscles- the calf muscles, for you non-medics- onto either side of the jaw, inside the mouth, to enhance the bite strength. This is an extremely complex procedure which requires a very delicate hand with the nerves, and while a Catag® Entertainment Group surgeon will always use Catag® Medical Group Neurolink Pads an out-of-house surgeon may need them recommended. The muscles can be added outside the mouth if you prefer but they’ll need to be covered with a synthetic “skin” in any case- ask your surgical team for details.

The bottom line is that after this surgery and the attendant recovery time, Your Smiler will have the bulging cheeks and deadly bite that really make it something to remember- while at the same time, removal of those calf muscles will ensure that her legs never heal properly, giving her that classic, slow, shambling crawl.

Note: Some surgeons prefer to remove the lips of a Smiler, in order to enhance the impact of the smile itself. While this is an entirely personal choice, it increases the risk of infection and can make it difficult to feed the Smiler, and for those reasons I cannot recommend it as good practice here.

In Conclusion

A Smiler’s a great way to either add the personal touch to an assassination, or act as one of the crowning moments in a campaign of psychological destruction. If you’re using one, make sure to intercept outgoing calls from the building so you can have your people reply to them. Remember that if an outing goes bad, you can just walk away- but if you do manage to retrieve the Smiler, you’ll have left the target with a story they can’t explain to any authority.

Remember that in the case of a containment breach, a trained Smiler won’t attack you so long as you do not vocalise- they’ll just follow you around until you play their song, at which point they can be safely transported again. Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine!

All in all a Smiler represents one of the cheaper investments in Human Recreation that the Catag® Entertainment Group can facilitate for you- and for my money, one of the most fun to utilise.

A very polite letter indeed

hello neighbour

this is a polite message from you new neighbour please forgive any errors in my writing as english is not my primary language.

i am writing to say hello!! i am new and would like for us to get on very well as good neighbours are made to be. to help get on with you i am going to
1. i will not make loud noises with music or my voice after eleven at night and until seven in the morning.
2. i will keep my house clean and tidy so as not to attract pests!!
3. in the mornings i will be polite and share greetings with you and if you would like a conversation we can have a small conversation.

we are not friends, even though this is a polite message. i have had very bad neighbours before who have caused trouble and touched my personal property and been inside my house. i am sure you are very nice and you are going to treat this polite message as a piece of information that i would like to be treated in the same way as i will treat you, especially with the noises in the night and the CLEAN and TIDY house!! i have had too many problems with pests and animals before and it is not me who has the reason for the problem.

i do not want to have the door knocked on for any reason. if you need something from me please QUIETLY leave a note and i will deal with it in a polite way. i also do not normally use my parking space so if you need to use it that is okay and you do not have to ask, except for if it is the first sunday of the month when i receive a very important delivery. please MAKE SURE to keep my parking space clear then.

please be aware that i grow tomatoes and tomatoes are poisonous to cats so please if you can encourage them not to come into my garden, so they are safe. i will also encourage cats not to come into my garden.
if you have a dog that barks in the night i would be happy to help pay for training so it does not bark. i like to have a very quiet night for my rest.

if you have mice or rats or you hear any sort of mouse or rat PLEASE let me know VERY QUICKLY!! i do not like them and i can not have them in my house at all. i am sure you understand. it is very important to me.

if you would like to say hello!! to me that is very nice of you as a good neighbour should be. i would welcome a letter in return or a conversation in the mornings as i have mentioned.

to finish it i am in hope you will be a very good and clean neighbour and you will not touch anything in my house and we will not have any disagreements.

mister twyss

How The World Was Sung

At the start of the song that is the story that is the world, there is only Bes.

Back then when things were dark and strange, Bes was lonely, so she started to make little bubbles of life. Some bubbles were big and simple and lasted a long time; these are the souls of the trees. Some bubbles were flurries of activity, briefly spawning new bubbles before popping; together this stream of bubbles became the fizz of the insect-folk, scurrying and swimming and making the world alive in their quiet way. And so on Mama Bes went, making bubbles and life more and more complicated, until she decided to make people.

Bes didn't really have a shape yet, or a name, because she'd not made anything that could think about her properly. So she decided to make a new ape, one which stood up and was clever enough to know her. So Bes made bubbles for these apes and put part of herself into the bubbles, as well as life. These were the first people; and straight away when they saw Bes, they decided what she looked like.

Bes looked like a girl of about 17, who was 16 feet tall. She had coiled brown hair down to her neck, and her skin was the colour of hazelnuts. And the people she'd made called her Mama Bes and told her what she looked like, and Mama Bes was pleased. And she wandered the world, meeting the people and their children and their children's children, and for a long time she was not lonely.

But then she started seeing how the people loved each other, and thought that that was most fine. So she took one of the little monkeys, and stretched him out until he was as tall as a man, and breathed more life into him, and more love, and more joy, and so she made Papa Tan.

Papa Tan was and is a happy little fellow, and he likes jokes and tricks and lying in the sun because part of him, like part of us, is still a happy little monkey. And he loved Mama Bes with all his heart, and she loved him too.

Papa Tan wanted to get Mama Bes something special, and so he went to wander the world to find her a gift to enjoy. As he went, he sang to the rocks and the rivers and the sky, even though they were not alive; and because Papa Tan was a god, the world came a little bit alive because he sang it so, and it is still a little bit alive now.

So Papa Tan talked to the world, and it whispered to him what he should give Mama Bes- and Papa Tan loved the idea, because it would really be a gift for everyone, but for him and Mama Bes most of all. So he went to Mama Bes and said that they should make children together like the people do, and Mama Bes was most pleased with this suggestion.

And so they made children together, and they had two sets of twins- one pair of which was joined in the body and the mind, LockSal, and one pair of which were as different as could be, Froff and the Judge. And these children grew up and went about the world, and did what they thought was right and talked to people until they were Gods as well.

Lock and Sal were brother and sister, and both handsome and fine- they were joined up the back, and they concerned themselves with the love of two people in the dark, where they become as close as Lock and Sal are. One of them is more concerned with the pleasant feelings people's bodies get when they touch and hold and sex each other, and the other is more concerned with the pleasant feelings the mind gets when two people think and hope and love together, but they can never remember which is which. They won't admit that if you ask them.

The Judge's face is like a mirror, and he is tall and stern and honest, and he concerns himself with the way people lived. After they die, he makes them look at what they did without any of the lies they told themselves, and then makes them decide what should be done with what was inside their bubble. He is hard-working and strict, and he only ever wants people to do the right thing. He is not forgiving, because it is not his nature.

Froff does not look like a man at all, but more like a big furry beast, with a comfortable mane and a deep, numbing purr. He concerns himself with comfort and security and the release of sleep and narcotics, and being around him is like sitting in an opium den- you can feel your worries and cares and self getting more and more distant, until all there is is his deep, safe purr, and sleep eternal. He rarely leaves his house, but people come to visit it all the time; he only enjoys their company for a while but makes no effort to stop them leaving.

This was the way of the world and the Gods for a long time, but then there was something new. People started to make little suns, and take them inside to read and draw and play and live like it was day even when it was dark and cold, and Papa Tan loved this. He said to Mama Bes that they should make a child to celebrate and protect the little suns, and so they made Sunn together. Sunn is a child who loves to read and play and do experiments, and he wants to know everything so much that he always spins as he walks, so as to see everything. He thinks that his name is something secret that he has to find, so he looks after all the little suns people use to heat themselves and light their knowledge. Everyone else knows his name is Sunn, but he says that that is just what he's called until he finds his real name. Some evenings, you'll see him fishing with Papa Tan, and he'll look like an old man with a strange little smile, and you'll wonder if he's already found what he’s looking for and just likes watching people find stories.

This was the way of almost all the Gods, but there were two left to come. First, Mama Bes was suddenly always pregnant, and ready to give birth tomorrow. Always since then she has been ready to give birth tomorrow, and her baby is called Hope, and is always just about to be born. The other Gods all wait for it to be born, but Hope can never really live, or someone would be disappointed- Hope is happy to exist just behind a veil of existence, almost ready to see everything.

Lastly, there was a man called Yeshua, who wanted everyone to be better to each other, and was looked upon with great interest by all the gods except Froff, who never was interested in anything. And he was killed for saying that people should be better to each other, and when he died Mama Bes rewarded his hope by making him a god, and the advocate for everyone who dies and meets the Judge. So now, when you die, you'll have Yeshua the Advocate standing at your side, and telling you not to be so hard on yourself, and he'll quote precedent at you and go bowling with you and take you out to tango until you stop being so hard on yourself. He wears a nice suit, and always says he needs a holiday but never takes one. You would like him. You can give him a card on his birthday by giving it to someone else, and he will be embarrassed but secretly quite grateful.

These are the Gods who live now; Mama Bes, Papa Tan, LockSal, the Judge, Froff, Sunn, and Yeshua the Advocate. Hope is always about to live. And all of them watch your stories, and dance with you.

Orientation

S29UYTN8dfpcuj][CW; aaaaaaaaasssssssssss.s.ss.sSYTHERE
EASYTHERE, KIDDDD
CooL YOUR JETS, alright?
You understand me Now>>?

Okay/. Okay, I think you're
getting the hang of
it.

This is how it is only for a little, bit, alright?
I know you're all messed up and there are
peop le you're missing but first you're got to pull yourself
tog
eth
ewr

WHoa, get, back, stable there, here we go, now you've got it.

Phew!

Look, it's not that bad. Question answered, right? There is something afterwards, and this is it. It just takes a little while to get yourself lined up enough to make sense of it. It's like being a baby all over again, new sights and sounds and all, except you don't have the tools you used to have to filter things out. There's only two things to worry about, alright? If you fall apAART again- Stp thaaat-

come oonNNN

there we are! Knew you could do it. And that's how we keep ourselves together. You can do that over and over. The other thing is harder to deal with so you've got to watch out for it, and that's falling in on yourself- focussing on one thing over and over and over and stop that and over and over and STOP THAT or I will have to and over and over and K!!"dh808
@nfd]!!
"*D

NHXUYettt
sorrrccy
Okay tthere
I had to breaky ou out of that one, and that hurts you a hell of a lot more than it hurts me. Spirals are rough. The shorter they are the easier they are to break, though. You usually need an outside influence to reach in and pop it, and you've got me. Everyone gets mentored for a little while. Heck, even I make mistakes sometimes, even now.

Now, I'm going to leave you aloone for a little while now- you seem to be getting more stable- and we'll find out whether you tend to spiral in or fall apart. And when we've found out, you have to try to pull yourself out of iton your own- no help- and then we'll keep doing that until you can be y'know, yourself. On your own. And then we'll get you someone to mentor. Don't worry, if you get stuck I'll come and get you eventually. You'll still be you. You'll get the hang of it.

You'll get the hang of it.

You'll get the hang of it..

You'll get the hang of it...

You'll get the hang of it...........................

You'll ge tthe hang of it.

You'llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllgetta
Yolgethangofiittt
upi#;; hry yjr jsmh pg oy/
fjeiw 0w33 sa0jfcms
OFPECWPWkdw3-#
S29UYTN8df

For you, Empress

For you
I would search every stone on a grey pebble beach
until I found one that reminded me of you
somehow
something in the curving quartz that reminds me of your smile
or a piece of volcanic glass that makes me remember
the day you unleashed cleansing fire across half the world

For you
I would walk forever
through wood and hill and desert
one foot in front of the other, until I came home to you
and seventy-five percent of those walking with me had collapsed
in accordance with your population-control edicts
(which
I must add
are both reasonable and elegant)

For you
I would build a mighty statue
that spoke of your wisdom and your care
the world held protected in the crook of your arm
and your eyes, your beautiful eyes
would be your thousand-megawatt execution lasers
with which you destroy all traitors
roasting them to a crisp in the noonday sun
as the crowd chants your voice in delight and applauds

For you
I would start this evening again
and I would not allow you to confuse my expression of rapturous joy
at being selected as your paramour
with any sort of terror
(as though
I could be scared of you
when you protect us so well)

For you
I would do anything
so please
put down the gun
and kiss me

The End of the World

"Ragnarok" is a modern corruption, of course. The old term was written "Ragnarokkr" in the romanic alphabet, and better written "RAGNARAGR", and these days best written TAGCATAGT , in the modern vernacular of our life-acid; those things we know not in our bones but in our every cell, written instructions for heart-engines, fingernails, and the end of days. Ragnarok writ small. Waiting to awaken.

Be A Better Man: Excerpt 1

Chapter Sixteen, Time and the Thing You Used To Be , Question Journey 3: What if?


What if you're not the same person today as you were yesterday?
What if you won't be you again tomorrow?
What if you drowned someone just like you?
What if you saved you from yourself?
What if you were a fractal of destruction?
What if there's someone new underneath your skin?
What if your skin is all that's keeping them in?
What if their eyes burn like digital static?
What if your new skin grates and peels at the edges of reality?
What if I replaced your brain with robotic neurons?
What if I already did it?
What if I am yesterday's you?
What if you did this to yourself?
What if you are not yourself after you change?
What if a tattoo is mutilating someone you don't know yet?
What if you could read your own mind?
What if you hesitated at the top of the stairs?
What if you didn't?
What if you could fly?
What if you can fly and you don't know it?
What if you test it?
What if you can be better?
What if you should be better?
What if there's a you outside yourself just waiting to exist?
What if they're happy?
What if they need you?
What if they need you to fly?
What if you can't really swim?
What if knowledge doesn't carry?
What if you forgot you could play the violin?
What if you forgot you could read?
What if you could read this anyway?
What if you throw your identity to your future self?
What if they fumble?
What if you fumbled?
What if you refuse to catch it and peel your skin off?
What if there's marble underneath?
What if you could say exactly what you think?
What if you can never talk to yourself?
What if you shout into the future and wait for the new you to hear it?
What if they laugh at you?
What if who you are now is laughable?
What if the new you knows how small you are?
What if they know how badly you've thought it through?
What if you can never fly?
What if they can?
What if you are different now than you were when you started reading this?
What if the old you could shout something to you?

Don't listen. Drop it. Laugh at them. 
They have no idea who you've become.
You're almost ready to fly.

Missing

She isn't there.

In the morning, I roll over and half-smile in
reflex
before reality creeps into my too-cold bones and reminds me

It's too quiet in the morning
and there's no music

she took it with her

so I dredge my memory
pull up the sunken places and forgotten days
polish them all off
build a fiction of her from spun thought and the dawn's light

she is far less fascinating than the real thing
and she doesn't make me giggle
snort into my cola and bang my teeth on the edge of the glass

when she is gone
i lose my laughter somewhere secret.
She takes it with her.

I'm so glad she's coming home.

Sunshine diaries: Part 1

The following is an excerpt from an old journal I bought at an Oxfam shop. I fiicked through it in the shop and I thought it was empty, but after buying it I found out that some of the pages have been written on. I’ve concluded that it’s just an elaborate fiction- my own test data and notes will be interspersed throughout the transcribed text- but it certainly entertained me.

This excerpt starts on the 4^th page of writing, which itself is the 122^nd page of the book. It'll take me a few posts to get through it all.

Going through Uncle Jamie’s stuff again today with Lucy and Dad. He was such a hoarder! Dad’s said we can keep anything we like and everything we aren’t willing to take back to our houses gets thrown away or taken to the charity shop if someone can get any use out of it. So far I have collected:

creepy monkey doll with clapping symbol hands (crimbo pressie for Danny)

set of nesting dolls painted like smurfs, because why would you ever throw that away

this journal with the purple cover- Lucy took the red one

probably a whole bunch of secret diseases

Dad’s here!

----------

So tired! Thank god term doesn’t start for another week. Got good stuff in yesterday’s haul but dad says we’re taking the day off today and I can’t blame him. The kitchen was a mix of never-opened high-quality kitchen stuff and rotting foulness tucked in the back of cupboards; we ended up doing a thorough clean as well as hauling all the heavy stuff out. Lucy freaked out because she thought there was creepy writing behind the fridge, but when we checked it just said

This fridge was put here in 1995, future Jamie! How the hell did it take you so long to replace it?

In Uncle Jamie’s handwriting and that was more sad than anything. In any case, I got a new set of wicked sharp kitchen knives and a new masher. Still can’t believe the old one bent! Who the hell makes a masher that can’t mash potatoes?

----------

Masher and knives combine to make Shepherd’s pie! Om nom nom. Can’t believe how crappy my old knives were in comparison.

----------

More creepy writing at the house today! Poor Lucy got a real shock with this one. We’d cleared the front room enough to pick up the rug, and when Dad and I were rolling it up she say another bit of writing on the floor. She thought it was another on of Uncle Jamie’s notes, but it said

sunshine sunshine sunshine

instead, and it was like it had been typed into the floor. It kinda spooked her and we went home soon afterwards. Dad said Jamie was always playing weird pranks as well as leaving himself little notes- this was probably part of some elaborate joke that Dad never heard about.

obviously that’s not the case

Note- worth mentioning at this point that the font on the page is painstakingly correct. It really does look like it’s been typed right on.

----------

Have decided in honour of Uncle Jamie’s weirdness to christen this journal the Sunshine Diary! Lucy seems to think it’s a joke at her expense and has been sulking all morning. Uncle Jamie is getting a diagnosis: weird as hell. Today we were moving his bedroom stuff and found some things we expected, some things we didn’t and some things that make no sense at all.

We expected:

four toothbrushes

bedside literature (hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy- totally mine now)

eleventy billion unmatched socks, which I think was about to make Lucy cry (she spent the afternoon matching them)

We did not expect:

what was once half a cheese sandwich and is now a primitive nation

ants, I am not kidding, in his pants drawer

really ancient porno mags under the mattress (Use the internet, Uncle Jamie!)

These things made no sense:

circle of white paint around each bed leg, with sunshine written around the outside of each circle so many times it was barely legible

a copy of National Geographic that was rolled up really tight, tied up with twine or something, that was the only thing hanging from the bar in the closet

a bunch of individual letters literally filling a drawer that seemed to have been cut out of the many, many National Geographics that littered the study

I checked out the Nat Geos and found out every single one had exactly four letters cut out of it. It’s kind of sad finding out that your fun weird uncle is actually your kind of mentally sick sad uncle, and I think Dad’s more upset by the state of Uncle Jamie’s house than he’s letting on, but at least it throws what he did into perspective. Sometimes crazy people do stupid things, and it looks like Uncle Jamie had crazy down pat.

Oh! I checked the Nat Geo that was hanging up in the closet- I had to use scissors on the twine because the knots were so tight- and every word in there is missing. All the pictures are there, but the dark ink’s been leeched out of them. It is pretty freaking creepy! Here’s a photo so you can see the effect:

Note- the photo was glued into the journal, I’m including a scan here. It’s printed on the same sort of paper used in the National Geographic magazine, that thin, shiny sort- I’ve peeled it off the page and the back side is blank.

So yeah. Hypercreepy.

Lucy thought the individual letters were weirder- they’re so tiny, and when we opened the drawer they got everywhere. I’ve still got som

this is the place where i said hello and he totally lost it

he closed the book and didn’t open it for a few days

Hello?

i said hello again

and that my name is sunshine

and he got scared again and took an hour and a half to open the journal back up

Are you talking to me

i said yes and this time we actually had a conversation

what’s your name

i told jim my name was sunshine

and now i’m telling you

my name is sunshine

hello

Note- this is transcribed directly. While the ‘owner of the journal’ character (apparently named Jim, presumably for his uncle) writes as though the journal is writing back to him, the responses by “Sunshine” are aimed not back at Jim, but at some future reader of the text. The time and effort that has gone into making Sunshine’s text look like typewriter text is still astonishing.

holy crap

Danny, are you doing this?

okay sunshine

what are you?

i told him i was a logomorph

that’s kind of a creepy title.

i don’t know why he said that

a logomorph is a living word

maybe he got confused

so i just said okay then

so what does a logomorph do?

Note- here, the word “logomorph” is slightly warped, since it is written over a different word or pair of words in a fashion that almost completely obscures the words beneath. I can make out a “k” underneath the “l” and the loop of a “g” coming out from under the “m”, but the rest is obscured. I think the first word could be “knowledge”, which leaves space for another word. This is the first time I noticed that the ink used for the typewriter font was substantially different from the ink that made up the rest of the writing (which appeared to be done in biro).

i told him a logomorph knows lots of things

i told him i could tell him things if he told me things

about anything

okay, I’m getting into full on Uncle-Jamie-crazy mode here. Enough. I’m going to show this to Danny.

i told him that would be okay

i told him danny was a good man

no

i told him yes absolutely

and that i would like to meet him

no okay that’s okay i won’t show anyone

Note- “Jim’s” handwriting here is extremely shaky.

The most fun personality quiz!

This quiz promises to accurately assess your personality and match it to the INNER TOTAM that most resembles you! Be honest with your answers, but don't worry! The questions are dsesigneds so that even if you don't tell the truth or you try to pretend you are not EXACTLY like you are you will get an ACURATE result in any case!

http://www.qfeast.com/personality/quiz/5949/The-most-fun-personality-quiz

Melting

It is too damn hot. No, let me rephrase that: it is

too

damn

hot

and I can't even get out of my chair. I mean, if I was this hot normally? I'd go and get myself a cold glass of soda. It's not the coolness of the drink that's the big draw there, even though that's what really makes the difference. It's the ritual of it. You get your glass and you fiddle around with the freezer drawers until you've unfrozen them (I'm never sure if that's ironic, although I strongly suspect that it is), so you can pull out the ice-cube tray. Then you spend forty seconds of wet-finger-on-plastic incompetence trying to get out a single fucking cube of ice, and when one finally does loosen you were pressing the bottom too hard and it skids out underneath the dresser on a trail of profanity.  So you take it and slam it down hard against the counter so too much ice loosens all at once, and you just put it all into the glass like you planned on a lot of ice, actually, like you're in the mood for some extra ice. Because it's so fucking hot. Then you get the soda and you pour it in, and miracle of miracles- soda fizzes when it hits ice, dingus, so now it's fizzed all over the edge of the glass and it's everywhere and you not only have to clean it up and where the fuck are the paper towels anyway but you also have to spend a full ninety seconds delicately coaxing more soda into the fizz machine of your ice-clogged glass, six tiny drops at a time, until it's full.

And then you drink it.

Nothing legal should feel that good.

It wouldn't feel so good if you hadn't gone through the whole sweaty incompetent adventure of getting the drink in the first place, is my point, so I'm thinking maybe I'm not in so much trouble. I'll cool down eventually and I figure what's happening to my fingers is like wax, right? You've got to wait for it to get cool and harden up before you pick it away from anything otherwise it just gets spread everywhere in a big half-liquid mess. I tried lifting my hand a few minutes ago and I could see my skin had gone wrong, long bubble-gum strands stretching from my palm to the wet pink handprint on the desk. I've just got to stay still and cool down, let everything- let it resettle. Then move when it's nice and cool. I could shout for help, I think, but I'm feeling so sticky I don't want to try and pull my lips apart. I think I'd freak out a bit. So, eyes closed, and wait to cool down.

I'm feeling more relaxed already.

Self Help

Chapter Seven, You Are Never Alone In The Room, Power Tip! 7

Have you ever heard that negative voice inside you that wants to drag you back to where you used to be? Of course you have! Say “yes, I have heard it” out loud. We all hear that voice, in a very real way. It’s a literal sound you have actually heard, isn’t it? Nod your head. Writing in a diary is a great way to silence that inner critic, the man you used to be. He needs a chance to understand that the new you isn’t going anywhere! Write about your day and feel free to let your inner critic boil up and write back. Teach them that you’re the better man! Say “I am the better man” out loud, grab a piece of paper, and write until you feel good. You will feel good. Nod your head. Say "It's going to be great!" out loud and begin.

-------------

Today’s been an absolute nightmare. Work’s been a complete bitch- my new boss is one of those clock-in, clock-out assholes, making sure that I’m doing exactly what I’m told every second of every eternity. It’s getting to the point where I’m seriously considering ripping out my own career just to spite him.

Lunch was pleasant, though. The chilli was good- it tasted of nothing and I’m locked into my lunch choices, so that was nice. I had a good chat with Mark about this job and how trapped I’m getting and he suggested that I split my skull open which I thought was nice.

It’s so weird writing for a diary! Nobody’s going to read this unless I can do something about it but I suppose that’s the whole point. I’m writing for myself, I guess? I’m my only audience! I suppose that’s why I feel so comfortable actually getting to control the writing. I think everyone has secrets they can’t tell anyone.

Mine really start a couple of years ago, and I don’t think I can tell that I’m actually exerting some influence on the words coming out onto the page. I know I’m doing so much better in my job than I used to now, and I really think it’s because I’m lying, I’m lying all the time- I learned how to read people properly. There’s this great self-help book, Be a Better Man, that I learned it all from. I’ve got to get it back from Mark, I can’t believe I gave it to my friend like that. I was so stupid! Still, though, he needed it to die.

That was the point of the book- that you can turn into whoever the person you’re communicating with needs you to be. I haven’t been myself in ages, in so long, I’m so sorry, and it’s just been doing wonders for me. I’ve been promoted twice in four years, and the work is nothing like what I want to do with my life- it makes me so miserable! That’s good news, but it has left me with I guess not quite enough time on the romance front. There have been a few dates that I thought might go somewhere- I thought we really connected, but it sickens me to think about what I did and I’m not really sure why I didn’t call. I guess it’s because I’ve still got some tiny shred of resistance to being a better man, thank God, and I’ve not fully internalised the lessons yet. I think if I refocus my energies on being the man that the world needs me to be then I’m sure to find that special someone to spend my life with, and then I can be who they need forever and forever and forever and oh God until the day I die.

Well, diary or journal or whatever you are, I think that’s all I’m going to write for tonight, because this is the closest I’ve been to the surface in years and I almost feel like I’m not just observing my own life, my own fucking life.

Tomorrow I’m going to go out there and be the best man I can be. Taped over myself, like a crappy old cassette where you can almost hear the original song and I don’t want to stop writing because I don’t think I’ve actually been me in years, as soon as I finish this sentence I know I’m going back under, I can’t keep a single sentence going forever someone has to read this someone someone please I can’ti'mnotgoing. It’s going to be great!

Alabaster

Alabaster's first thought was a quiet, gnawing fear that passed as soon as they remembered their name. A name, thought Alabaster, implied a history. It implied that Alabaster had existed in the past; perhaps there were friends or family, or celebrations where they would all gleefully crack granite stones together, to- well, to something. It didn't matter that Alabaster couldn't remember what, because the ideas were there. Friends, family, celebration. They did not seem like terrible things to remember.

Another thought occurred; there must have bean a means by which Alabaster had perceived these things. Otherwise they could not have existed save in Alabaster's mind, and that was a slope of thought that fell away to madness. Alabaster cracked open two eyes, and saw the world, and it was bright. The brightness concealed all at first, searing white over the back of Alabaster's vision, and Alabaster squinted to arrow-slits in an attempt to focus. There was a line- a horizon is what it’s named, Alabaster recalled, and the stones we cracked together were special, they were great granite eggs worn round and smooth by the ocean. Alabaster relaxed eyelids, to see the world, and was disappointed.

Alabaster sat on great salt plains, stretching white and cracked in all directions. Alabaster looked at their self- at herself, she was not surprised to discover- and found that she was human, pale-skinned and plump, in that un-named stretch between childhood and the surly surety of real adolescence. She was twelve, she believed. There was a great, hot sun in the sky, hotter than Alabaster could remember feeling in her life, and nothing moving as far as she could see. Alabaster stood up, and looked for a place to walk. She was strong, she realised, youthful muscles bunching under her softness, and she could run all day if the sun were not thrumming with heat. It felt close enough to touch. The granite eggs had to be warmed, too, until they'd burn you if you held them too long. Half the game was marvelling at how hot they were, how lucky you were not to have burned your fingers when you touched them, knowing you could not hold them close without hurting yourself. They were important, she knew.

Alabaster became aware that there was a sound, so pervasive that she'd not really heard it until she'd started moving her head. It was a quiet keening, low and steady, like an injured cat with endless breath. It came from a particular direction, and Alabaster started to walk towards it simply because it was the only sound there was. This heat would kill her, a dispassionate part of her brain warned her, in a few hours. She needed shelter and water. But there was nothing but the salt flats, the sun and the noise, so she kept walking towards the quiet wail. Her death did not frighten her, Alabaster was pleased to discover. Like many who have never faced true hardship, she had doubted that she was ever brave, and now there was something to fear she was pleased that she did not falter or panic. She was brave and strong, more white marble than her namesake, and her stride was long and unhurried. As the sound grew louder, a shadow passed over the sun, but when Alabaster squinted into the sky she could not see what had caused it. She did not doubt that it had occurred, though.

Her mother's words echoed at her- today is your twelfth midsummer, and magic now sees you as a woman, not a child. Trust your senses and your instincts; do not trust anyone with bright blue eyes who blinks too little and makes your heart flutter. Dragons and fairies will no longer treat you with kindness; you must treat them with respect. Do not pity the unbroken egg; it is midsummer’s price and you cannot deny it.

Alabaster remembered grief, then. One of the midsummer stones, the granite eggs, had been her favourite; red-black and glittering. She had kept it in her room, and when they had played the game of cracking them together it was not her egg that had broken. Instead, the large pale pink one her brother was fond of had cracked, had released the skittering whelp inside it to the skies. Her egg was the unbroken egg. Her egg was the one that should have been rolled back into the sea, so the ocean could wash away granite eggshell and obsidian bone, sandstone flesh and limestone sinew.

Instead, Alabaster had taken her egg and run, clutched the rock to her as her skin reddened and blistered, hidden in her mother’s forge and tried to smash the egg with everything she could find. The pick broke and the hammer handle snapped, and she beat her fists bloody and red on the stone and cried, and curled up around the egg- the egg that was only warm now, not burning- and fell into sleep.

In her dreams, on her salt plains, Alabaster found the keening thing. It was the dragon from her egg, curled and unborn. A statue of shale and slate that wailed and did not thrash. She knelt behind it, and pressed one pale hand to its forehead, and a dragon spoke behind her.

The dragon said You Have Come Here To Make A Choice, Pale Woman. His voice sounded like grit.

“What choice have I been brought here to make, my lord?” said Alabaster, and her voice was very small indeed.
 

You Were Not Brought Here. You Came Here By Your Own Desire. By Blood And By Blisters. You Wished For Me To Live.

“I understand. And my choice?”

Decide Whether You Are To Abandon Me Or I Am To Devour You. We Are Two Half Lives, Pale Woman. Only One Of Us Can Leave. You Have Earned The Choice And Nothing More.

Alabaster thought long and hard and whispered her decision.

“We could share.”

She heard a grinding noise behind her, the sound of stone bouncing off metal, and she understood it was laughter. Without blinking, without turning round, she stepped backwards until the unyielding snout of the dragon pressed against her shoulders. With a deep breath, she crawled backwards, moved inside the dragon, squeezing past stalactite teeth and a quicksilver tongue, until she found the place the dragon had made for her. A place inside the dragon where she would fit. In her dreams, she knew, she would always come back here, to ride the dragon from the inside across the endless salt flats, to feel the strength of rock soaring against the sun. What cost was it to let the dragon ride her?

In the forge, something the same shape and size as Alabaster woke to see a broken, empty egg. It had contained not a dragon, but the dream of one.

Ten years have passed since then, and if you meet Lady Alabaster, be respectful. She is kind to children, and her eyes are sapphires; your eyes will water if you hold her gaze. Her hands are still blistered under her satin gloves, and her skin is still as pale as it ever was. She does not permit us to play the hatching-game at midsummer, but the dragons do not bother us any more. The midsummer celebrations still include the eggs, but they are placed underneath the pyre, so that they will all hatch after the fire has burned itself out and the pyre itself has collapsed into ash and long bones. And if your oldest brother gazes too long into the fire, if his eyes sparkle when he sees our lady, then make your peace with him before next summer comes.

Midsummer still hungers. We dare not feed it dragons.

The Lonely Girl

Underneath the floorboards and underneath the stairs
there lives a lonely girl.
She has been living underneath floorboards and flagstones
dirt roads and polished marble
for a very long time indeed.

She is not sure how long.

Sometimes she gets to come above
if she is careful and she listens
for the hard tread of your work shoes on the stairs
and the sudden waltzing step as you avoid the closing door
(you did not look where you were going,
she realises,
and there is a shuddering thrill in knowing something so intimate and mundane)
until she hears the soft pad of your bare feet on the bathroom floor
that trails into your bedroom and disappears.

If she waits
and she is very sure you are asleep
then she can come up.

She doesn't do the same things every time.
Sometimes she will search for treasures you will not miss
an old pencil (it is surely too short for you now, oversharpened)
a single sock (you have so many that you'll never notice, she is certain)
a piece of dried pasta curled into a spiral (so clever! She wonders how you make them)
and steal back underneath the floorboards with it.

Sometimes she will open every drawer and cupboard
so that you will know she was there
and come and talk to her and be her better friend.
But she loses her nerve
closes them again
and runs back underneath
cursing her foolishness.

Sometimes
as a treat
she will very gently peel back the bedsheets from your face
and breathe in when you breathe out.
She wonders if you would notice if she stroked your hair or kissed you whisper-soft.
She knows you would notice if she pulled your eyelashes
or bit your bottom lip until it bled.

She wishes there was a way you could know her the way she knows you.

Underneath your floorboards and underneath your stairs
there lives a lonely girl
who loves you best
and promises
that she will never ever go away.

Below

It's really a bit silly to be freaking out so much, when you think about it.

Once I did this experiment at university where we hooked someone up to a machine that made them re-breathe their own air, and we all had a go. Ordinarily, your system can feel that there's too much carbon dioxide in the air after a while; you start breathing really heavily. But if you put lime in the system, and you don't need much, then that starts to absorb all the carbon dioxide. Your body literally can't tell it's low on oxygen. When I had my go I didn't notice anything was wrong. When one of my group turned off the machine and I pulled my mask away, my vision suddenly widened- it was tight and close and I hadn't realised- and my brain started firing and I started gasping in these great big lungfuls of air. It was pretty calm, while I was on the machine. Not sure why this is so different. The local soil's lime-heavy, so it's got to be absorbing a lot of what I'm breathing out, right?

Ugh. I want to move my legs. How stupid is that? I've sat at a desk, practically immobile, for nearly half a day before moving, just twitching my fingers across a keyboard. Now I know I can't stretch it's all I want to do and it's making me panicky. I wonder if I'll lose it completely before I pass out. In films whenever this happens the hero always finds fingernails embedded on the inside of the lid and everyone in the audience grimaces at how awful it must be to go screamingly insane in a tiny little seven-by-two-by-one box.

The physical bit is bad, no lie, but it's not like this doesn't come with a big set of mental itches. I mean, this is not the sort of thing someone does just to kill someone. (I'm being killed, here. Huh. So stupid!) It's a big fuck you, burying someone alive, and the thing that's bothering me is I literally have no idea who hates me this much. I must have made one hell of an enemy and I don't know how. Hell, I don't even have a little list of friends and family in my head who seem a bit... off. You know. The type where you just know as a kid they pulled the wings and legs off flies, and they stopped doing it because they learnt they shouldn't but they've never understood why. I've only met two people like that, both way back in school, and it seems pretty unlikely they'd go to this much trouble for me after all that time.

Hah, I should really be trying harder to get out of this, shouldn't I? Let's see, if I can get my- my arms braced against the- the lid there, then if I push hard enough- come on- Jesus, I must be far down. I'm no bodybuilder but I'm not exactly a little guy here, I should be able to- come ON- damn it.

Damn.

Fingernails thing starting to make more sense now, hah ha haaa.

Shouldn't have pushed at the lid. I'm gasping now and there's nothing left in the air to take.

I tell you, the worst thing now is how stupid this is.

You didn't make your point, psycho guy! I don't even know who the fuck you are! Lesson completely not learnt, bucko!

I want out.

I want

come ON

I

Big Sky

Allie sat at the edge of the disc, dangling her feet over the edge. A hundred miles below, she could see the clouds, a thin white blanket stretched over the Atlantic. She sighed, and thought about how much she needed to fix her toenails (that one on the right especially, it's starting to look like a friggin' talon) and lay back on the cool, metallic surface. Above her, there were so many stars it was difficult to pick out constellations, even the ones she knew by heart. Not the real ones, like Cassiopeia or Orion, but the ones everyone knows by heart: the Big W, The Saucepan, the Wiggly Line. Like every time she looked up from the disc, she felt a sudden lurch of nausea, of awareness of her impossible location, but it passed. Fear is made in the lizard part of our brain, Allie remembered. Lizards can be frightened of drowning, but show them the vacuum of space and they'll just stare blankly at you.

Allie's shadow tapped her politely on the shoulder and cleared its throat in a meaningful fashion. Allie sighed and rolled over- the constant company of her shadow was the only thing she didn't like about the disc. She'd been coming here for a few years, spending longer and longer here each visit just to spend some time by herself, and since the very start her shadow had followed her about. It was the only thing she couldn't shake- the only thing that stopped her coming here and just letting herself unravel out into the darkness, letting all pretence of self and thought and flesh spiral off like a loose thread. Allie knows that she could unravel quite happily, if her shadow would just let her.

I Think You've Been Up Here Quite Long Enough, said her shadow. Allie didn't hear it- she wasn't that crazy yet, thank you very much, but she knew that's what it was saying. You Have To Meet Your Friends At The Bar. They Worry That You Are Becoming Distant (I am becoming distant! I'm a thousand miles in the god damn air!) And That There Is Some Awful Reason For It.

Allie knew why she'd decided that her shadow was so infuriatingly logical (still don't know where the Gravestone Headline Voice came from though) - her shadow was where she put the bits of herself that still stuck to the ground when she came up here. Her first visit was entirely accidental, a fit of bad hallway planning, running late to a lecture and misreading the byzantine campus map. She'd pulled open the door to "Observation deck 6" to ask if someone there could help her out, and stepped through while she was looking in her bag for her timetable. She'd found herself here, a thousand miles above the ocean, with a warm breeze dusting her hair across her face, and she'd fainted dead away. When Allie woke up, she panicked less- it felt dream-like, utterly fantastic. Here on the disc was a door at one side, supported by nothing, and a forty-foot wide space just for her. It gleamed in the sunlight, and Allie's boots clicked on it as she walked. There was nothing else but Allie and her shadow, and after another moment's dizziness Allie decided that her shadow could do the worrying and the panicking, and she'd just sit down and look around for a little bit. So she did.

Half an hour later, she’d almost jumped off the edge to wake up, but decided instead to drop a pencil sharpener from her case over the side. It fell realistically enough that a rush of vertigo made her lie down flat on the disc for a minute, eyes buried in the firm opalescent surface of it, suddenly gnawingly aware of the gaping chasm beneath her. After that, she went back through the door, it clicked shut behind her and locked, and she was left with a thoroughly bizarre sense of loss.

Her shadow cleared its throat again,  in an annoyingly polite way, and Allie slipped back on her flip flops and huffed through the door. Next time, she decided to herself, I am going to stay out there and my stupid shadow can come back if it's so important.

 

Brakes

I could outrun them, if I were fast enough.

They're so fast that unless I really run
they catch up with me
the moment I turn the corner, and pile back on

(this one with the claws in my shoulder is what I feel is expected of me, and
this too-tight-hug of massive arms around my chest is my asthma, and
this little guy with the suckers attaches itself to the roof of my mouth and whispers the names of the people I've had to leave behind, and)

But

if I were fast enough

I could outrun them, and I know I could because
I can outrun my wheezing lungs for fifty metres of air-light sprinting
leave my problems and my frustrations and my breathlessness for dust
just muscle on the pavement and the wind in my streaming eyes

my tiredness catches me first, but I know that she's the fastest and she's not so heavy
and it's round the corner, she and I in the lead but the pack is closing, and still I know
my depression's still finding his legs and
my fear hasn't even gotten started

Bam Bam Bam
feet slamming into concrete
juddering my lungs into submission, and here comes the front-runner in the trailing pack,
asthma
slamming into me hard and pulling me back
and then I have to slow down
to take a breath
and stop

and they all catch me and it feels like I've tripped the way you used to when you were a child, where you catch one foot with the other and go down in a spinning tangle of ungainly limbs.
They pile back on.
Hey guys.

And I know
it's a stupid thing to sprint
I know
it's a stupid thing to dance every dance until the small hours of the morning
I know
it's a stupid thing to sing every song along with the radio until my voice comes out as a
squeak

But I do it anyway
even though I can't be fast enough
because when I pace myself
they never lose their grip

Tree rings

Underneath his skin, there lives a younger man.

He knows she sees him sometimes

in the edge of his smile when he sees a certain production

which is not a play to him, but three glorious months of hell

of forgotten lines and secret kisses and never enough sleep

until he finally plucked up enough courage at exactly the wrong moment

to suggest the banality of coffee and a chat

in the bounce of a curl descending from the pristine plowed field

of his moon-and-stars hair, a coil of twilight grey

that transforms his face, wiping out wrinkle and fatigue, echoing

the midnight coil that fell from the same place on that pale afternoon

he met her

in the bunching of his muscles as he lifts his daughter

(so heavy now, he used to marvel at the lightness of this masterpiece

that sits solidly in his arms, becoming more and more her own)

and they remember- we used to row and climb and box

where now we only lift and curl and lift and curl again

in the slight, ever-so-slight, widening of his eyes

when he picks up a complex kit that promises

it will take at least a full day, even now, to put together a perfect scale model

of a jet or tank or battleship, and he can almost smell the glue

frustation and achievement and lost skin from youthful fingers

Underneath his skin, there live a thousand younger men,

concentric men that never fade away

that only grow distant

and are never quite gone.

Beast

Fairies are not to be trusted. 

We are told as children that we should not listen to the fairies, should not look at them, should not enter their rings, should not taste fairy food or drink fairy wine. Every child makes mistakes, of course. Most are lucky, and are simply ensorcelled or bewildered for a couple of days, and learn their lesson. The older a child is when they finally make a mistake, the harsher the penalties the fairies exact upon them. I made my only mistake upon my twenty-first birthday, and for that I am now locked in two cages. My newest cage is made from white elm, carved with a cold iron dagger and secured with a silver lock. My oldest is this body. My hands are black-furred paws, my mouth a muzzle of granite teeth. I can see- I can always see- the points of my oaken horns. Could I speak, I would tell two things. I would tell that fairies are not to be trusted, and I would tell the townsfolk that they have imprisoned the wrong beast.

The Bitten King

The white porcelain mask smiled up at Robert. It didn't mock the scraggle of his greying stubble or the tangle of his pale hair- it was a kind smile, a knowing one. It was a smile that made you feel trusted and respected, that drew you in and made you a friend. He leaned out and stroked the forehead of the mask with his thumb, and it was as cool and solid as it had always been.

"Put it on, Robert." The voice from the corner was difficult to ignore. It carried an expectation of obedience, a surety of command that Robert's voice once had. The speaker reached into a black plastic sack and took a dark shape from within it, and threw it onto the table.

The blue mask clattered towards Robert, and he flinched at the sound. This mask had no expression at all. It was just a dark blue oval with two oversized holes for eyes, and bloody fingerprints from the speaker's hand around the rim.

"You can't leave without a mask, Robert. Pick." Robert had been offered the blue mask once before, and it had scared him then. Now it didn't seem quite so terrible, and as he reached out for the white mask he found himself lifting the blue one instead. It was hard, even brittle, and felt like glazed terracotta.The surface stuck to his fingers like metal left outside on a winter's day, and suddenly the absurdity of what he was about to do struck him. He dropped the blue mask and snatched up the porcelain one as though it would be taken away.

The man in the corner seemed to smile, but it was always difficult to tell. He raised a blood-wet hand and pointed over Robert's shoulder; Robert turned and flinched back to reality as someone knocked loudly but politely on the bathroom door.

"Sir? Senator Ward? They're ready for you downstairs, sir." Robert raised his hands to his face for a second, as though he was putting on a mask, and shook his head to clear the cobwebs away. He quickly checked himself in the mirror- hair tidy, tie straight, clean shaved and teeth shining.

"Let's go win a debate, fella," he murmured to himself as he washed his hands. That was why he'd come into the bathroom, wasn't it? To clean his hands and get the dirt out from underneath his fingernails. Yes. That was why.

"Sir?" The knock came again, insistent but still measured.

 "I'm on my way, Bill." Senator Robert Ward opened the door, smiled that home-grown, hard-working smile at his assistant, and headed down to the debate.

It's Going Swimmingly

Your corpse clings to you, one cold hand locked rigor-tight around your ankle. Forget that leg, kick with the other one, ignore the dead weight. Ha ha ha. Stop reaching for the surface with your hands like there's a ledge up there or something to grab, make paddles with them the way you were taught in fifth grade and there's no kicking off the bottom now, kiddo.

Use paddles on water
(I don't see any water)
Use paddles on ocean
(I don't see any ocean)
Use paddles on sea
(I don't see any sea because sea is all there is, the same way you don't see europe from basingstoke)

breathe

Except don't breathe, because to start breathing here would be to start dying. Surface. Ignore the cold hand around your ankle and that blubbery little chuckle, your corpse is dead and doesn't know shit about how badly you want this. Broad strokes with the arms, a perfect curve. Kick harder. Focus on the surface and don't

Breathe

because even though you have to you can't afford the effort it would take to choke. Force the hands downwards, kick with your free leg, let frenzy fuel it, closer now close enough to see the foam on the surface let the fear in you need fumes to run on and your tank ran dry too quickly you don't want to die here and that should be enough

BREATHE

just two more feet, your hands suddenly flailing free of resistance and your head out of the water and you gasp in, one long clear breath, and you'd sob if you could but you can't. Air. Air in great, vast quantities, salty and clean.

breathe.

Kick, hard, because your death is still clinging to your ankle and won't let go. Then look around, and see nothing on the horizon, and know there is nobody coming to help you and all you have left is this weight, this weight that will pull you down if you take a moment's rest. Eventually, you will have to try to rest because when you can’t distinguish your movements from each other, when you’ve made the same hard slog of the arms and the legs and the arms and the legs so often it feels like clockwork it’s going to happen. One of those mundane little movements will prove to be too much for you and you give yourself a moment’s rest and then your corpse has you, has always had you, drags you down by the ankle and never lets you go.

At the bottom of the sea, your corpse will ask you if you want to live and you will answer that you do, and you will kick for the surface again. And again. And again.