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.

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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.

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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!