Tuesday

 I dredge myself up from the tepid quagmire of another night, cutting short the taught strings of thought tugging me along the road to infinity. I'll stop here, thanks.

My eyes open. I stare at the mirror hanging over my bed. Darkness. I can see myself, but that's the impression I get.

Bipedal wobbling. Learning to use my legs all over again. Bump. Bump. Bump.

I go get a bowl of cocopops, poking a cat along the way to make sure it's real.

Chocolate. Milk. Crunch crunch. Blegh. What an aftertaste.

Back in my room, I sit on my chair and the power goes off, like some cosmic whoopie cushion of evil and annoyance. I get up and switch the mains back on. I wait for Hexidecimal (my computer) to power up.

I write.

I check what's going on on the internet.

Nothing. I am alone and disconnected from all else. My blog traffic feed shows I had a visitor from xxx. That means xxxx. Who, I should point out, used a search engine to find me rather than asking me what I've been doing by E-mail. Ah well. It's better than nothing, I guess.

I read my blog, because nobody else does and I think it gets lonely.

My morning is smeared across my glasses like a strange, ever-changing painting. Tuesday. Tyoosday. A new midget. Midget 1 & Midget 2. Work and Hexaemer. Consiousness.

Sigh. The geyser is cold.

I'm seriously reconsidering the whole cereal thing. My lactose intolerance builds up after about a week. Toast, you. Just eat toast.

Standard preparations...

'Ohm'. I am a self-contained universe. Hear my silence.

Reciting songs. Weird Al and My Chem. Shh.

I'm drifting.

Whenever the thought get too chaotic I give them something to visualise. Reltash orbited by three moons. Reltash dancing on its axis, running a figure eight around twin suns. So much spinning and so much motion there simply isn't room for anything else. I tip over an imaginary bowl of rice and pick up the flecks one by one. Stillness. Calm. Order.

It's like lifting my brain off a meat hook and dipping it into a jar of formaldehyde. So relaxing.

I open my eyes. Back to the world.

I feed the dogs. “Dogs sit”, “Lexi sit.”, “Tibby away.”, Pat pat. “Cute banderbeast. Lexi away.”

49 degrees Celsius. Thank you for your heresy, Prometheus.

Black Parade. Dear Hearts and Gentle People. I do my best not to look at myself while the water cascades around me. I tug out knots of loose hair. I shut the valves. I dry myself off. I brush my teeth, avoiding the mirror. I think of doing nice things for people, but I can't pinpoint the best time to do them. I shelf the ideas, for now. I shut the valves.

Timing. 12:15 minus 21 minutes minus

I really need to keep better notes.

15? Let's hope so. Minus an additional 5 minutes for safety, and

11: 34. That sounds right.

\SNEEZE ATTACK!!!!/

I survive with minimal casualties. But it's Mister Bon-bons, Sir. He's dead.

God damned those allergies. Well, soldier; remember the dead, fight for the living.

Aye, commander.

I set my alarm.

Clothes. Black pants. A short-sleeved blue shirt with 'xxx xxx' plastered to the front. I'm doing a lift at a preschool today, and I don't want to look like a homicidal vampire. Also, I really do need to find an excuse to wear this shirt, or it will just sit in my closet indefinitely.

Herm... projects... projects... The Artaean Manuscript? Possibly. Something more publishable, perhaps?

Nope. T.A.M. it is.

Blue ink from one of my 24 remaining gel pens. The best kind. This page is actually very pretty. I think I'll scan and upload it.

Big crystals. Swoosh swoosh. Feel my imagination, empty pages. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six. Six.

The Kill Bill whistle. A terrible movie, but a fantastic whistle. Wee woo, wee wee woo, wee wee woo woo wee, wee woo wee woo woo wee, wee wee woo woo woo wee woo, weewoo weewee weewoo weewee weewoo wee wee woo

and repeat.

I draw a crystal, pooling chaos into it until the original work is defaced and unrecognisable. I'll learn to stop with the details at some point and trust in the negative spaces, just as I trust in silence. While I draw, I whistle an unwritten melody; something that may never have been before and something that will never be repeated again for a thousand years. There's beauty in that, and consequential sorrow. But if I did write it down, if I did try to cling to that melody, would it retain its precise form of beauty? I don't think so.

Nothing is happening on Facebook. It is a sure sign that people have actual lives. If a tree falls in a forest, and no-one is there to see it, how do you know there's a forest in the first place?

Because people aren't on Facebook. That's how.

Tea! Rusks! The sad consumption of another lifeform's physical essence to perpetuate my existence.

I perpetually use the word 'perpetuate'. That'll need to stop at some point.

Thank you, rusks, for being bred in captivity and ritualistically slaughtered to appears my hunger.

Scrawling words in tiny typeface. Blood and crystal.

Mini-break. Data capture for xxxx. Thank you for feeding and clothing me and providing me shelter. 54544555554445555444455554444555444455554445555. I wonder who actually reads these reports? Probably the same people who don't read my blog. Well, I hope their numbers make them happy.

I am drifting. Sooooooo tired. Despondence. 'Meh'.

Live with it. Reality bites, no matter your flavour.

I put on my boots.

I read Vox.

Yum. Digestion and visceral explosions. A 'children's' novel. How little men know...

11:31

Time to go relocate the midgets. Goodbye, dark bedroom. I venture forth to face the harsh light of the world. Any minute now. Legs, work. Go on. Up. Good legs.

***

Whistling in tune with the music. Man, I'm getting good at this. Why aren't there any professional whistlers out there? The kind that don't kill people on radio shows?

xxxxx Avenue. Change CDs. Instrumentals: for people who don't want to emotionally scar three year olds. I play the Heroes IV Necropolis suite very loudly. Some kid turns around and looks at me through his car window.

Why, yes. That is your mind exploding.

I trace lines through my memory. Do I recognise this person? Is he one of the illusionary ones who show up on street corners and shopping malls wherever I go? I don't know.

Chaos! Tomanha! Rapture! Driving dissolves into a series of predefined motions. I'm not concentrating, but I'm not crashing either, so it's all okay. I'm drifting across worlds, feeling the tug of different memories well up around me, thrashing in the shallows.

I need to put some links up to this stuff on the internet. People have no idea what they are missing.

I, Librarian.

xxxxxx. yyyyyyyyy. Fetch [Midget 4], who may be promoted to [Midget 1] if she never learns how to talk. xxxxxxxx. “Bye, [Midget 4].” I wave. Nice kid.

Tribal drumbeats and didgeridoos. The Hellgate Theme. The Exile Theme. With one last babbling shriek of death I park Jason Vorhees and go inside. If I keep driving this quickly and charging by the hour I'm never going to make any money.

“Hello Alex.”

Water. Bedroom. Writing.

My thumbnail is bleeding. When did that happen?

Sigh. Reading things on the internet. Listening to other people's music. I'm getting so tired of trying to feel something. I need to disappear for a while. Be someone else.

Artaea will do, for now.

Mmmm nyum. Blood. Tasty.

Gah! Stop staring at the nothingness on Facebook!

Artaea. Many words.

Zoom Time strikes again.

***

xxxxxxx. “Hello, [Midget 1].” Silent driving. I like this kid. It just sits there and eats its lunch. “Bye, [Midget 1].” Wave.

Elsewhere in xxxxx. Waiting in my car. The world is boiling. I'm reading Vox and slowly turning into a hot sack of phlegm. My disembodied eyes blink, trying to focus on the words and the story and having marginal success. Counter-posed elements of decadence and toil. The powerful push the average out of the best areas and claim them for themselves, growing increasingly lax. The average live in areas where survival demands extraordinary measures, and cease to be average. These transformed beings can then strike back at the powerful and claim the best areas for themselves, hopefully having learned from hardship.

Leaving the car. Wearing a small blue tag that says I'm not a pedophile/rapist person. Oddly reminiscent of Psychonauts, especially since the sidewalk is curving above my head. Yawn. Ooze. Continue reading. Hymns floating from children's mouths. Pitchy. I try to ignore the memories of my childhood. Mostly successful.

[Midget 2] does even less talking. This really is my lucky day. We walk to the car. I drive [Midget 2] up the road. “Bye, [Midget 2].” Drive back to Blairgowrie. Rhapsody in Blue. A song for people too weary to drink coffee.

Drink water. Write.

Cool air.

Head on desk. Listening to music, because you matter.

Hunger. Feed me. Feeed me!

Grapes. Another fruit. I am eating unborn children. Thank you for your sacrifice, carbon-based lifeforms.

I swear someone moved a satellite. This frequency was never this strong.

Boots off.

Artaea, a human butterfly. I am writing a metamorphosis.

SMS. Will you be able to look after our inhuman babies for a week during the daylight hours?

Yes. Send.

Wait – next week? No – maybe? I have Midgets 1 through 5 next week. How much do you like your babies?

We'll see.

Darn /.

I need to sleep. I need to sleep. My brain is popping, one ventricle at a time. Do brains have ventricles? Mine does. And they are POPPING.

Does it matter that everything is happening out of order? What is that deranged voice yowling 'shlayan' at the edge of my consciousness?

4:46 PM

Lights off.

I brace myself for the inevitable.

Oh, but what comes after is so much sweeter.

I'm lying down. I'm still lying down. I'm not going anywhere. I'm thinking. Just let the thoughts flow over one another, thousands of puppies squirming and trampling one another to reach an outstretched hand. Echoes. Booming. I cannot feel my meat, but I can hear everything around me. Gasps of noise punctuated by the demon stream of tentacle thoughts leaping page after page towards the void and never quite filling it as it explodes outward and leaves a black rinse of emptiness from which I sit within and watch and hear but never feel. I am nothing. I am restless space.

And then, so very quietly, I hear a change. The thought that comes to mind is of the Universe flat-lining. One long, drawn booooop of null value. I lie here in these waters for as long as I can, sensing the world around me, lukewarm and detached, and think, yesssss. This is what you need. To just lie here, and let it all disappear.

6:29 PM

It rushes back, and you can probably tell I'm not very pleased. Whatever made me break the surface of the water is gone now, a fleeting scurry of motion. I'm here, a little less asleep. But as always, I am left with that haunting question: did I sleep?

No. But maybe, just maybe, this was something better.

Just think of all the pretty symbols. See them up against the wall.

I insulted someone's thrash metal. Sorry, xxxx.

Furious motion. Scissors. Masking tape. Dog food. “Good Bambi.” I am a voyager in a spinning reality.

Supper. Peas and carrots. A fish entity. A slice of lemon. Some kind of potato... things. Starting to understand why dinosaurs don't eat peas. Gnash gnash.

I'm weeping inside.

Sorry. I'm so sorry!

I bite the lemon slice to the rind, and swallow it whole. This thing died for me. I'm not about to squeeze it dry and toss aside its perfectly good flesh.

Gah. The massacre is over. Thank you for your sacrifices, vegetable entities, fruit and fish matter. You will not be forgotten. Just like whatever I had for lunch.

I find some paper. I throw away last year's calendar. I throw away some other stuff for good measure.

Tearing out pages. Taping them together into one gigantic wall-sized canvas. String. Clips. Hoisting a flag. An empty page.

It'll take a while longer to expand upon the edges, but for now I've run out of time, and to be honest my shoulders need a rest. (Haha. 'to be honest'. That's redundant here.)

Lounge. Open the door. “Be free, doggies!”

Couch. I too, am a vegetable entity.

The Office. I laugh, because I am seeing articles of physical reality behaving in ways that do not match up to physical reality itself. This causes a form of bodily agony in which my lungs expel air rapidly and a tight pain runs up my diaphragm.

Hysteria, in other words. A reaction brought about by fear.

I tape another set of pages to the wall. Almost done.

House. Medical nonsensity. Ontological & logical value. Scratching Alex behind his ears.

Blogging. Weariness and truth walk hand in hand.

How can I be tired again? I haven't done anything.

I put the last four strips of paper into place, right down near the tiled floor. Before I can tape the last piece down I fall over completely, rejoicing in the cool tile, in what few happy memories I have, and in the quiet of the moment.

“Achenar, are you alright? Do you not like them?”

“No. No, its not that, it's just... they're soft. I'd forgotten what that felt like.”

One last strip in place. I am facing an empty space; a wrong-angled mass of paper. I can't leave it blank now. I consult my notes, and put three Sigils into place: Time, Spectrality, Meaning.

I lose myself in the work for one very long moment, tracing lines and Sigils here and there. Absolute Laws, Attributive Laws, Balance. A starting point. I still have so much to learn.

It's late. I put the mess of pens, pencils and books I've scattered back into their places. I try to get my scanner working. It's taking its time. I start editing this post. So many mistakes. I scan the images. I prepare for launch.

Goodnight, whatever you are. I hope you sleep better than I do.

Monday

 In the interest of not feeling like a complete (insert nasty word) every time people mention how hard they are studying at university or whatever, I've decided to make a record of this week (in those moments I have access to a computer) as an affirmation that I don't actually just sit around staring at the walls all day.

Today isn't the best start for that, because it's half-term and I don't have any actual money-making work. This leaves me with the option of reading or writing. YAY!

Okay.

Coco Pops. Crunch crunch. Blaurgh! What an aftertaste!

Writing this intro to Amethyst Rock Star. I'm feeling a bit hazy.

Am I awake? Did I even sleep? Not quite. I'm wandering the borderlands again. I reckon a shower will help. As the argonian proverb goes, “Water purifies everything.”

Aaand the geyser is cold. I can't shower yet. Fine. Moving up the list. I meditate.

Music off.

Light off.

Mind on.

I'm picking through the detritus and rubble of half-spoken things and thoughts that won't quit. Someone is sweeping steadily in the background. The titanic rush of traffic down at xxxxx Avenue flows and thunders like river rapids. The light cutting at the corner of my curtains plays at murdering my eyelids. A cat curls up in my lap. A phone rings. Alex's morning dump outside my window is just another smell I'll never come to appreciate.

Fade away now. Fade away.

It's okay to think this. Stop dwelling on that. It's okay. You're wasting time agonising over things you can't change. You did well there, and I'm pleased with you. What do I write next? Hexaemeron. Symbols splashed across your wall. Just think of it. You'll get there, I promise. Smile a little. Go on. Just for yourself.

Paging autopilot. The conscious self is now free to walk about the cabin area.

Am I awake? Did I even sleep?

Who cares? You can stand. You can write.

I unpack the dishwasher. I feed the dogs. “Sit. Stay. Good banderbeast. Stand. Away. Eat your food.”

Alex stares at the bowl, and then turns to me forlornly. I'd be worried, if he didn't do this all the time. He's built like an insect, his hindlegs attached to a wafer-thin thorax at the point where his sternum and his spine almost seem to touch. My anorexic snapdragon.

“Eat,” I encourage him, and he lowers his head into the bowl. I turn back into the house, away from the excruciating morning light.

46 degrees Celsius and rising.

I ablute.

Skin. Hair. Teeth. My inescapable physicality. Hello, I am trapped in a sack of meat.

I sing songs to help me forget. Billy Joel, Running on Ice. Saul Williams, Talk to Strangers. The Heroes IV Chaos suite. I have no I-Pod. All I have is the gramophone drone of memorised chords inside my head. Copies of copies of copies, made mine by parts I have forgotten, spliced, misheard and added.

I stand over the sink and breathe heavily, catching a glimpse of my eyes in the mirror. My irises swell and retract.

What the heck are you looking at?

The 1.2 metre space between the bathroom and my bedroom door tumbles madly, like a revolving tunnel. My feet slip sideways. Practice ensures I stay upright, and cross the gap. Towel-wrapped, I land in my chair.

I try to write an invoice. Please type in your Microsoft Product Key, you slithy freeloading bastard. I try again with Open Office. I can't find a way to change 'x' to 'x'. I slap a large 'X' next to the Total bar. Success.

E-mail. Sorry it's late. Staccato symphonies play across my keyboard. Click. Send.

Clothes. I have 7 billion pairs of socks. They clog up the empty spaces in my closet; a dark, writhing mass of tentacles. I have 3 pairs of underwear. Facepalm.

Black pants. A long-sleeved black shirt. My self-imposed uniform. There is a hole in the baggy shirt halfway down my abdomen, and a rough-edge of skin peeks through. A starless void. This is me: The Midnight Man. An open space, ready for the universe to rush in and nebulise me at any time.

The kitchen. Kettle hiss, the alchemy of sugar, milk, and bergamot. Cup the first. Too hot to drink.

Back in my room, I turn on my fan and rejoice in the ecstasy of cool air. The fire horses sleep. I write.

An essay on Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. That was a good one. Type type type. I suffuse his world with reason, and this pleases me. Everything in its own place. Every instant catalogued, and filed away.

Phones ring, but don't ring. My teacup is empty. It is 10:04. When is ten oh four? Another moment, floating between all that came before, and all that is yet to be. Structure is a temporal anomaly. You'll find that out yesterday.

I recycle the teabag, prodding what flavour I can out of it with a spoon. Cup the Second. Someone finished off the Kitke (me?), so I scrounge in the pantry and find a solitary chocolate chip cookie. Crunch crunch. Thank you for putting up with me, liver. Thank you for facing a horrific genocidal beheading in the wheat fields, cookie parts.

Oh look, a message. Can you take so-and-so from here-to-there? Yes, my life is sad and empty. I'll be there. Cha-ching.

I look at the JTHM Essay. My eyes glaze. I need to shoot something. 10:33.

Mount ISO. Hellgate London: the game for people who liked Diablo, but felt it was lacking something in the way of in-game narration. I sit through a whirl of flashing logos. Intel: do do do do. I whisper, “Invidia”. And at last, I hear Murmur's polite narration:

“How little men know. About worlds. About light. About the great dark that boils behind all.”

Esc. I've heard the rest a few too may times.

I surf through a few half-attempted single player profiles, and I feel like cleaning. Me, a Level 6 Engineer. Click. Are you sure you want to delete Me?

What a concept. Yes, I'm sure. Let it be as though he never existed. Click.

Sigh. I'm still here.

I settle on Shaera, my Level 32 Evoker; a demon-exoskeleton wearing ash-blonde capable of slaughtering things 100x her size with rays of purple energy. The perfect woman.

Rampant violence. A coiling vortex of riven flesh and a carpet of lifeless limbs. It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. Voltaire.

Sascha Dikiciyan and Cris Velasco are my trumpeters. All this destruction, faceless from the deep well of midnight that drives through my being. I am become death.

Exit game. I drink the last cold dregs of my tea. Now I'm feeling much more in touch with Johnny. If Vasquez created him as a means to express his violent desires, Hellgate was made for those sad individuals who lack the spark of creation. For that, and for the prose of an apocalyptic world.

Click-clack gears and grinding thoughts. My mechanical mind runs one thought into the other, and churns out something relatively whole. One essay, served cold. Hurrah for me.

Cup the third, hammered out of the last soggy twigs of my teabag. The concoction is pallid and unhealthy-looking, like a geriatric on its deathbed. Slurp.

Blogification time. Cut. Paste. RAR. Cut. Paste. Repeat.

Gah. Time to work. Curses.

Where did my boots go?

Oh. Right.

Grabba book

Swish!

***

I get into my Jason Vorhees Toyota and cringe as I turn the key in the ignition, surprised to hear no devil squeal of glee as the fan belt rips into action. I open the window. I navigate the driveway. I crank up the volume on my mix CD, and listen to faceless Swing as I zoom to xxxx. The Love Hina theme song. The Syncopated Clock.

Brake. Pick up [Midget No. 3]. Banter. “Did you know?”, “You know what?”, “Can you guess?”, “Hey?”, “Hey?”, “Hey?”. One of these days I'm going to force him to read Dianne Wayne Jones (which even I can't read) and he'll develop a complex with the realisation that he's just asking questions I can't answer because he's an insecure little berk who needs to feel superior to everyone around him. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe I should just wear earplugs.

Let's go Sunning...

Hydepark. Brake. Fifteen minutes early. How did that happen? I can't seem to get a firm handle on time. I grip it too tightly, or not at all. “Bye [Midget No. 3].” Have fun waiting. I'll just go writhe in my own incompetence now.

Swing. Voodoo Cowboy. Gods, I wish I'd cornered the potential in writing about a voodoo-wielding cowboy. Another life, I guess.

Craighall. Brake. An errand at Postnet. The parking lot is wobbling like jelly at a disco. I need copies.

“I need copies,” I say.

I hand over the forms and wait, staring at stationery. A pile of CDs has a note saying x7.00 on the front. I need CDs, but I have no idea if it means x7 for one CD or for fifty. I'm not really any good with money.

My copies are ready. I pull x200 out of my pocket and the girl at the counter stares at me. I smile. Teeth and hair and skin.

What the heck are you looking at?

It costs x30. I pick up the copies. I leave.

Drive. I whistle along to the same songs I heard earlier. Ragtime. Those Dear Hearts and Gentle People. A phrase written on a piece of paper found in the pocket of a dead jazz player half a decade ago. Sunny smiles and close harmony. xxxx. My hometown.

My tea died some time while I was out, and it is corpse cold. I drink it anyway. I can live with entropy. It tastes like dishwater. Who defines what tastes good anyway?

Clickety-clack. Words. Now launching my essay into the Blogosphere. Three, two, one.

Jeez, my boots smell funky.

I honestly have no idea what has gone wrong with the font sizes, but I'm feeling inclined to leave them in their Wonderland state to get back at Jhonen for making his comic so difficult to read. That and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it.

2:28. Another moment, now vanished. I'm tired. I could lie down and close my eyes right now. I would, but I know I'll be just as tired when I get up.

I douse my boots in anti-fungal powder. Filthy, filthy footwear.

I put them on a windowsill one room over.

I read. I analyse. I find something worth saying. I say it.

Universes expand.

Hungry now! Feed me, please! Gau gau!

Satay noodles. I pierce the film on the lid seven times, because 'several' and 'seven' sound the same, even though 'several' comes from 'seperalis' and 'seven' comes from 'Septem'.

Microwave whirrs. Kettle gurgles.

I visit Alex. “Good bandicoot.”

I fetch my noodles and Cup the Fourth (fresh teabag). Crunch crunch nibble. I tuck my elbow into my hip and hold my fork like a claw, pretending I'm a dinosaur. Gnash. I may have tiny arms but I am ancient and fearsome. Feed my quaking belly, puny chicken meat. Gnash gnash.

All done.

Bumbling around on Facebook. Surprise! Nothing's happening!

Right. Semantic Constituency. Divining the nature of each singular letter in the English language.

Okay, what's the word, what's the word. Word... word... word... Heroes Season Three, those Japanese guys, red lightning – booster? Close, but not right. Augmentative. That's it.

Word... word... word... ivory towers, shaped resources, worked things. Artifice? No, that implies deception. Structure? No... Construct? Close enough.

“N.”

“Okay”, enough music for now. Concentrate. What does 'N' imply? Naughty, negative, intergers –

Rebellion. Renegade. Yes.

“O.”

Orbitals. Spheres. Space. Numeric and geometric duality. Cosmic. That's it.

P

Pharoah. Pens & pencils. Legislature. Law. Science. Principality. Presidential. Governance. That doesn't have a 'p' in it, but it is the right word.

An E-mail! Could it be –

No. Junk mail.

Q

Question. Equation. Query. Inquisition. This one's pretty clear.

R

Hmmm. Rodents. Rats. Rebellion. Rage. Revenge. Rotation. Revolution. An aspect of nature that demands change. Force and motion. Perfect.

S

You know, writing down everything I think isn't such a bad idea. x3.x6. Why do I keep repeating this to myself? I'm not an idiot, brain.

Oh, S. Right.

Sly. Stealth. Seduction. Secret. Smooth motion and deception. Subtlety.

T

Terrain. Traverse. Transportation. Travel.

Tired. So tired.

Motion.

U

Unctuous. Disgusting. Repulsive. Umbrella. Umbrella?

1. F12 puts in bullet points, apparently.

Yes , umbrella. Wetness. Discomfort. Under things.

V

Vivacious. Vitality. Victorian. Elevation. High, lofty things.

W

Question words. Where, when, why. Which. What. At first I'd bunk it with 'Q' as an inquisitive force, but perhaps...

Words. Worlds. Vowels. Communication. 'W' is Instigative.

X

Explain. Extraneous. Expansive. Explosive. Hex. Complex. Yeah, 'X' is a growth force. 'Expansive' will fit nicely.

Y

I close my eyes.

Some time later, I open them.

Am I awake? Did I sleep? Have I

Ah, shut up.

Y

Yo-yos. Adverbs. Eyes. Yolk. Transcendent geometry. One word, please. Transform. It's the only thing that comes to mind.

Z

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Lazy. Hypnotize. Zebras. Haze. Freeze. Breeze. 'Z' is sleep, and dreaming.

Only a few hundred more combinations to go.

But I need to rest. This lethargy is intolerable.

5:03 PM

Cough cough.

I'm lying down. I'm lying down. I have lost feeling in my spine. I have lost my sense of gravity. I am lost among the reaches of variable syntax pushed forward in ever reaching eddies of thought that scatter stars like dust with my passage through the dark places of time and space an reason time and season hours minutes days reaching ever outward with elastic legs firmly rooted to their whatever and lengthening by the hour to the power of infinity bars bending across the winding spherical shell of by turtle consciousness swimming along with the currents of never before seen things into the hereafter without rhyme nor rhythm but just as a single flowing free-form being of nonsense whose neurons have fired simultaneously and left a swirling residue of thoughtpowder and ringing headaches that quake through the whole uniform scattering without distance or direction and clash upon the hard spaces with the sound of scraping metal and breaking glass sending me falling forever through my naval into unwritten spaces so loud and insistent I can't hear what I'm saying but I have this idea that it has something to do with nothing or was it anything whereby I've killed off parts of myself and scattered the ashes it the infertile gardens of my mind and bred phoenixes from the moonlight and the arid phantasms of things long forgotten until they burst into flame as the torchsong grows wilder and razes the whole place like a helium balloon put to a match and I watch the greyscale explosions over and over and this is me by any other name.

I think these things for hours.

5:47 PM

Was that sleep?

Gods, I hope not.

Facebook. Talking on the internet. What a novelty. People are billions of centimeters away and I'm talking to them. I'm not crazy. The world is crazy.

Hmmm. Apparently I'm feeling snarky. I am pleased to associate myself with such a thrilling word.

S. Sharpener! Where did I put my sharpener?

Looong conversations with many many 'ooo's. Healing the world, one person at a time. Or trying to, anyway. Synaptics, synaptics. I am the Last of the Jedi. Watch my midichlorians dance.

I am awake, right?

Goodness knows.

I read your blogs, because I care about you and your life has meaning.

I write in silence, because I care about Hexaemer and it gives my life meaning.

The rattle of my computer in its iron skin. A pitched frequency shooting a laser point through my ears. The rattle of my world in its skin. Lights bright as UFOs shooting through the dark.

Shh. I'm ignoring you, world.

On with my ceiling fan. Begone, foul, living warmth.

S is for sharpener. x5

Plegh. Graphite tastes horrible.

Oh. I fed the dogs again, by the way. Ages ago.

Knoffel. Giggle.

Transcription complete. Ready for phase 3, commander. Commander? Are you sleeping?

Bugger off.

Sometimes I'm such an a-hole.

I go to the bathroom. I set the alarm – after going to the bathroom. I switch off lights and close doors. The hall is spinning again, and my feet dance to keep up with the involuntary motion. My head keeps rolling off balance like a ragdoll's. I could really use a stick and some twine.

Touching surfaces. Prod this, prod that. Make sure it's all really there. Good. Thank you.

Archive, investigate, read things. Chew up the hours. Did that reply I wrote earlier go through? No idea. I send it through again. Well, it still isn't there. Who knows? Who am I to judge blog management? A mortal thingy, that's what. We're all just mortal thingies.

My words are so wise and descriptive. I'm so glad I'm a writer.

Cut the sarcasm, me.

Time for a little retrospect. What did I do today...

Hmm. Not bad. Not terribly good, considering the best part was written about three minutes after I 'woke up', but today was fairly productive, given what I'm working with. Yes, I spend a good deal of time staring at the walls, but they do dance so beautifully.

You know what, I'm going to get this over with. Stop prodding me, 6li7ch. I'll change it already.

There. 'Sixth World Librarian'. Are you happy now? Geez, that was pointless. Nobody reads your profile anyway, you know, except me, and I already know we're the Sixth World Librarian. The pretty photo of the hill from The Wild Coast was a good idea, but this

Stop being so hard on me. I just need to do these things sometimes. Haven't you ever wanted to feel normal?

No.

Well, its a good thing too, because that job description makes you sound insane.

Says the guy talking TO HIMSELF.

Grumble.

15 minutes until your designated down time. Plus whatever for however long you slept between 5 & 6.

Ah, Six.

Let's read a book. Vox. An adventure in Screetown. Ghoulish happenings. Goblins and plots in Undertown. Once again, the word 'acrid' does not fail to appear. It's almost as frequent as the word 'Curious' in Alice in Wonderland. What was it that essay said? 'The spirit of a book can be summed up in the single most frequent word to cross its pages'. In War & Peace, that word was 'Impetus'. In this series, it just has to be 'Acrid'.

10:31

I am awake. I think. I'm certainly not asleep, and I don't need to sleep. I have to try. 7 ½ hours. Just do your best.

Scanning for errors...

/

\

/

Done.

Now launching into the blogosphere.

Three

Two

One...

5:03 PM

Cough cough.

I'm lying down. I'm lying down. I have lost feeling in my spine. I have lost my sense of gravity. I am lost among the reaches of variable syntax pushed forward in ever reaching eddies of thought that scatter stars like dust with my passage through the dark places of time and space an reason time and season hours minutes days reaching ever outward with elastic legs firmly rooted to their whatever and lengthening by the hour to the power of infinity bars bending across the winding spherical shell of by turtle consciousness swimming along with the currents of never before seen things into the hereafter without rhyme nor rhythm but just as a single flowing free-form being of nonsense whose neurons have fired simultaneously and left a swirling residue of thoughtpowder and ringing headaches that quake through the whole uniform scattering without distance or direction and clash upon the hard spaces with the sound of scraping metal and breaking glass sending me falling forever through my naval into unwritten spaces so loud and insistent I can't hear what I'm saying but I have this idea that it has something to do with nothing or was it anything whereby I've killed off parts of myself and scattered the ashes it the infertile gardens of my mind and bred phoenixes from the moonlight and the arid phantasms of things long forgotten until they burst into flame as the torchsong grows wilder and razes the whole place like a helium balloon put to a match and I watch the greyscale explosions over and over and this is me by any other name.

I think these things for hours.

5:47 PM

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: A Discursive Essay in the Field of Absurdity

My only experience of Jhonen Vasquez was up until today limited to Season One of Invader Zim, which while entertaining and bearing a theme song that haunts my psyche continually, did not actually have much of an affect on my general thought process. Johnny is different. This 90s comic manages to clearly convey a variety of psychological concepts which are still abused and ill-assigned today, as well as providing a darling insight into the mind of an artist.

For those of you too lazy or noble to download & read the first seven issues of Johnny's story, this post will not make much sense. Sorry.

For those of you who have several hours to spend, get torrenting before reading further, because this baby's loaded with spoilers.

I also should mention that there are several continuity errors below, because I haven't done much to refine these musings past their original state as reading notes.

Overview:

The sub-reality that is Johnny's world exists as a means of expression without consequence, as explained by Vasquez in his introduction.

Its creator, Jhonen Vasquez, has created a world which closely mimics [Central/Our] Earth, but is an inexact replica in that this 'Earth' is centred around the conservation of the life and liberty of a serial killer named 'Johnny'. The world is pretty much exists as his playground, where he can murder with impunity.

The true crime of the creation is that this becomes the only thing he can do; it is the default response to anything he is presented with, because the majority of the time the attitudes and behaviourisms of the people in this world reflect Johnny's ideology of humanity as emotional predators who openly engage in acts of sadism and who are hypocritical by nature.

There are, however, a number of instances where Johnny encounters people who do not behave in this way. Horrifically his response of murder continues to be the same. It is his function, tied to him as the protagonist and officiator of Vasquez will.

The Characters:

Johnny:

Johnny serves as an baseline in an emotional trinity, pivoting between mania and dementia frequently. Johnny is in most cases a slave to these forces, acknowledging that he may be insane and that despite his free-action he is unhappy.

At heart, Johnny appears to have lived a slightly dismal but otherwise ordinary life until

he fell subject to manic depression. The early story is ambiguous as to whether these were 'his' emotions or rather the emotions of his 'creator', Vasquez. Later on the latter proves to be correct, as his emotional focal points reintegrate with the Wall-Entity (A being from beyond Johnny's world possessing ultimate subjective control over his reality).

Despite Johnny's temporary death halfway through the series, he continues to exist in the afterlife and experiences both Heaven and Hell, and remains a vessel for Vasquez' destructive emotions. During this time he discovers that he is a point of galactic confluence where all the residual misery and despair in a particular 'cell' of the mortal world collide and remain stored away until death, at which point these emotions are 'flushed'. As a 'Waste-Lock', Johnny is doomed to grow increasingly introverted and isolated from those around him.

This can be interpreted as a chain reaction: That Vasquez himself is a Waste-lock for his particular cell of the universe, and that Johnny is a Waste-lock for the universe that is Vasquez. Without Vasquez' interference in Johnny's world, it can be assumed that by reverse action his cartoon Noodle Boy would become his own Waste-lock. As things stand, Johnny's reality begins to feel the backwash of the emotional waste within him, and the only part of his world with any purity is his Noodle Boy comic.

Ideology ~

In an attempt to find reason in his world, Johnny makes the motivations of each of his murders clear. At different times he uses it as a mode of revenge, a way to appease 'The Wall', and as a way to preserve the few happy moments he experiences before they can sour.

Death is his default method of purification, but the reader quickly come to realise that Johnny is aware of the corruption present in the act of murder and that he wishes to free himself from it. This is where his suicidal tendencies spread from, because he knows his murders are a logical conclusion, but he does not want to live in a world where murder is a logical conclusion.

Johnny identifies that there are two separate beings classifiable as human; the common type who mascarade in human form and act through cruelty and evil, and another rare species who are genuine and good. Johnny lacks the means to tell the difference between the two, and so he settles for slaughtering both.

Johnny does not believe that his victims have any right to complain about their situation, as it is their own actions that made him into who he is. They are, therefore, the cause of their own death.

For whatever reason, Johnny generally considers suicide by firearm. This is a notably different approach to the one he takes with his victims, because with them he tortures them first as a means of hollowing out their minds and purifying them spiritually. The implication is that Johnny wants physical escape, but not an actual end to consciousness.

Johnny avoids sex and physical contact with human beings (other than the obvious) as a method of transcending the physical world and separating himself from the base cruelties of humanity. In a way this could be seen as a means of personal expression within the limitations of his actions: the Doughboys (mania and dementia) and the Wall demand that he tortures his victims and murders them (once again, mental death, then physical death) but do not insist upon 'how' he should kill them. By adopting a restrained method, Johnny reveals his will to be separate from mortal chaos.

--

The Wall

If Johnny is the cornerstone of Vasquez' world, then The Wall can be seen as the cornerstone of Johnny's. He is driven to periodically 'feed' it with a fresh coat of blood to prevent his reality from falling apart. This is the point where Vasquez and Johnny truly become separate characters rather than the same character acting in different realities. Johnny is a slave to the wall just as he is a slave to Vasquez, and despite what he personally desires he must feed Vasquez periodically to keep his own world feasible as an expression of its creator's bloodlust. Should he ever stop, the whole purpose of his world would collapse and his reality crumble into nothingness.

Halfway through the series, this actually happens; Johnny is shot in the head and is incapable of feeding The Wall, so a tentacled avatar of Vasquez' wrath breaks out from beyond it and performs murders of its own. As Johnny dies, so too does his world die and Vasquez throws up a series of new ones to give his emotions a continuous mode of expression.

When Johnny is reawakened, it is unclear if the Wall still exists or if it has taken on another form. Its absence could be interpreted as a closer union between Johnny and Jhonen, where they begin acting out of the same desires and urges.

Mania and Dementia:

Two Styrofoam dolls speak to Johnny whenever he feels any particularly strong emotion. These are classified under two spectral points: mania and dementia.

The proper names of these 'doughboys' are Eff and Fu2k, but at times it can become difficult to differentiate between the two.

I found it much easier to tell them apart from their eyes (mania = Whiteness; Dementia = Swirl) and their shirts (Eff = Fu2k; Fu2k = Z?)

FU2K:

Fu2k voices any thoughts of dementia/depression that Johnny has, driving him to

commit acts of murder or to obsess over suicide. He continually berates Johnny for how weak he is, and claims he does not have the strength to end himself.

~ It is later revealed that Fu2k hoped that by keeping Johnny alive, he would eventually consume his whole character and gain control of his body. This plan failed with Johnny's accidental suicide.

Z?:

Z? is a force of mania; being love, happiness, or intense desire. Like FU2K, Z? sees the solution to Johnny's emotions in murder as an act of preservation at the height of the emotion. He also acts through Johnny by encouraging him to seek out negative elements of humanity and revenge himself upon them.

Z? stayed loyal to the Wall-Entity that is Vasquez, and kept pressing upon Johnny's mind in an effort to kill him. Once the comic (Vasques' source of emotional release) died, the manic and depressive forces he placed in the comic book began to 'reintegrate' into him.

~ It is later revealed that the Doughboys are not wholly a part of Johnny's mind, but

are rather an external force of evil playing upon it and driving him to perpetuate

the misery in his world. At some point they became 'self-aware', and in doing so,

separated from Johnny.

The presence of these two polar attributes in the comic are indicative of Vasquez intention to separate himself from any strong emotion or the actions that accompany them. With the comic as his Waste-lock, he dissociated himself from his bipolarity and gave it a means of feeding itself. The doughboys reacted to this forced imprisonment by fighting over Johnny, and by trying to escape Vasquez' control. At the point when they succeeded in damaging their prison enough to escape back into Vasquez' world, he was forced to rein them in and reconstruct what he had lost.

It is possible that the Doughboys were recycled back into the comic as the guiding factors behind Johnny's afterlife, with Mania representative of a Heaven where an injection of desire resulted in a head-exploding competition, and a Demented Hell where paranoia, materialism and dissatisfaction led only to an empty shell of feigned life. Like The Wall, they have become an actual part of the comic book world rather than characters acting within it.

The Nailed Rabbit:

The rabbit is a token of one of Johnny's earlier kills, and if anything represents his childhood or past at a point before the Doughboys started talking to him.

The Rabbit speaks from a place of sanity, pleading to Johnny to listen to neither of his demons and remain neutral. He is a vessel for internal dialogue, and is the most connected to Johnny as an individual. Johnny views him as a friend and companion – his only one.

Big Boy & Mr. Samsa:

After his resurrection, a new manifestation appears to Johnny as the embodiment of sensational excess (addiction), and he quarrels with it, demanding to live his new life free from external forces. He ponders over the glory of a beetle, Mr. Samsa (named after the unfortunate in Kafka's Metamorphosis), who he sees as a creature with only the most basic desires. From this we can see that Johnny is now yearning for his own metamorphosis from a human being into something more elemental and focused. He sees insectile beings as the fulfillment of this spartan existence, quoting 'The Fly' to one of his victims.

Happy Noodle Boy:

Happy Noodle Boy is a comic character created by Johnny as the only alternate means

of expressing himself. Given that his response to any emotion is murder, it could

even be said that his cartoon is his only true mode of expression.

The Noodle Boy is notably different from Johnny in that he doesn't kill anyone,

and simply yells whatever he feels from atop a soapbox. Johnny's attraction to the

character is probably due to the fact that people will listen to Stick Boy and react

to what he says. In many cases, this leads to Noodle Boy becoming the victim of another's violent intentions or to him being reprimanded by the police. Those things that Johnny can't have, Noodle Boy does.

At the same time, Johnny sees Noodle Boy as the devolution of his creative instinct

in favour of his destructive urges, having once been a painter who had other modes of expression than murder.

'Noodle Boy' was a nickname given to Johnny in school. The character may even be

seen as an alternative course to the one Johnny took.

Squee (Todd):

Squee is Johnny's neighbour, an isolated child who Johnny has decided to take on

as a protege. Squee is obviously traumatised by the attention and violence Johnny

exposed him to.

At the end of the series, Johnny reveals to Squee that he hopes Squee will be able to get past the terrible things he has lived through and become a good person rather than a murderer.

Devi:

Devi is a girl who works at a bookstore who Johnny dated and tried to 'purify' at the height of their relationship. She injured him and escaped, and was too afraid to go outside as she believed he was stalking her and she was been unable to get the police to act in her defense.

Devi is revealed to be the only one capable of actually hurting Johnny, and inadvertently kills him by calling his phone and triggering a killing machine he set up to prove how disconnected he was from the world.

After his resurrection Johnny apologises to her and says that he will annihilate all memory he has of her so that she can go back to living her life. She replies that only she can actually free herself from him, and that his apology is inconsequential.

In light of all this, Devi can be seen as a being within Johnny's world with an ability to resist or change its shape, much like Vasquez himself. If she has a counterpart on [Central] Earth, it may be her interaction with Vasquez that triggers responses within Johnny's world.

Anne Gwish:

At the point in Issue 5 when Vasques begins to reunite with his exiled emotions, his suppressive conciousness throws up a new avatar to react to the Doughboys. He introduces her as a Type A (cle) 20th Century Goth. The idea quickly fails and attention returns to Johnny. Anne sticks around as a side-comic designed to poke fun at Goth culture, and at Vasquez himself.

Jhonen Vasquez:

The artist appears intermittently in the comic to serve varied functions. He first appears in Issue 4 when Johnny retaliates against him by striking the wall with a hammer, and a sequence of gasping frames tie Vasquez to the world he has used to incarcerate his emotions.

Later in Issue 6 he contrasts his life with Johnny's before decaying into a wacky run of comedic exploits, but it is clear that his intention is to display the control, dullness and order that exist in his life as opposed to the unthinking reaction in Johnny's (what he does versus what he wants to do).

Wobbly Headed Bob:

Bob is another short cartoon strip that features in the series. Bob is a being who suffers from near-suicidal depression due to his understanding of the universe, and sees it as his duty to share his nihilistic views with the ordinary citizens he comes across. Bob reveals that nothing in the universe is special or amazing, and that life is exceedingly dull and empty. He reflects that he would like to be blissfully ignorant himself, but cannot.

Summary:

Simplified, JTHM is the story of an artist who placed all his emotions in his artwork to try and remove them from his life, only to discover that his art and his emotions rejected this design and warred against him in an effort to be free of his influences. There is a continuous struggle between the artist's attempts to control his creation and his creation's desire to be free. The story begins with a large number of chaotic elements which slowly unify and stabilise. The series has an open ending, and it is difficult to tell what actual changes have occurred within the artwork or if it is any more likely to hold together than when it began.