Purgidross

Today is a holy day, because I made it so.

Purgidross. A simple notion. Get rid of the clutter in your life to make room for more. Remove your own trash so that it might become someone else’s treasure. Gift another with something important to you. Let the library spread beyond its borders.

It is not such a difficult thing, to invite grace into your life. Grace is when you lay out all your tools on a table and use each in turn to fix something in your house before tucking them away just as effortlessly as they appeared, so that by that little action, putting up a few hooks, lighting a candle beneath a clay sculpture – the world becomes a bit more beautiful, a bit more functional, a bit more you. Grace is when words come easily, because they must, because they exist invisible at the hanging end of each sentence, and while some would fight them, muse over them and worry about them incessantly, those words are always there, and will always come. Grace is submitting to their story and becoming a conduit for their will.

Reap, and sow. Today I took two books from my library. One I loved. Fly by Night has a special place in my heart, rich with the puissance of floating coffee houses and inky melodies, and history come alive. It’s a story about how words have the power to change everything. I hate to see it go, but it is time. I’ll find another copy. But today is Purgidross, and it must be read again.

I left a letter in the cover. It gave these words:

Sojourner,

This book is for you. It’s an old favourite of mine. A friend I have carried with me through the years, and who carried me too, when I needed it. It’s time for it to find someone else now, keep doing its work in the way that books do, as much as I adore it and would hold it close to my core.

Whoever you are, know that I love you. You are dear to me. You matter, though I may never know your name.

And I meant every one. There’s a shopping mall nearby where I do my lifts, and it has a glass elevator along the side of one of the main chambers. I called it from the top floor, left the book dead centre on the elevator’s floor, and turned away as the doors sealed it within. I did not see who found it. That is not important. What is important is that someone did find it, and upon seeing that book there waiting for them, a small miracle implanted within an ordinary day, they may just read it, and it may make them think deeper than they have in a long while. I’m a literary terrorist, you see. I tape bombs to people’s minds and blow them apart. On good days, that is.

The other book was not so special. Not to me. As I read through Dragon Horse, I found it the most depressing story in all creation. Evil wins every battle and celebrates with maniacal laughter. The protagonists are always too late, too slow, too trusting. They win by default, and learn little. While I still horde books greedily and never let any of the stories I have read vanish from my burgeoning mind-trap, this one needed to leave. Not because I disliked it, but because someone else may like it more. Keeping it somewhere where it would be resented when it might do good for someone else and suit their character – that is a crime against all endeavor.

I did not put the same note in this book. I left a poem:

Seven spindles top down turning,

Gyrating on the verge,

Dervishes hearing music in revolution

Until brick by brick

Slate by slate

Stick by stick

All things wind down

Towers topple

Sweeping hazard ever closer to the horizon,

Jousting as they go

‘Til worn out by their deep reap

They go rolling off under chairs and down gutters

To places where they cannot dance

But lie waiting for hands to pick them up,

And try again.

That message was true too, though its medium was more obscure. It was sort of an apology, I suppose. My way of saying, “This book sucks, but here’s some prosy so it isn’t a complete waste of time.” This book I left at the end of one of those long aisles at the post office, among the faceless blue cells of that much-worded place.

You know what? It made me feel great. Supernatural. Yes, dear reader, there are people who do silly, unworldly things like leave books out in the open for others to find them. There are people who write poems for no greater purpose than to make strangers feel there might be someone out there who cares about them. I know this, because I am this. I can smile my crooked smile and think to myself I am the Sixth World Librarian, and go about my sacred duty. Today that duty was Purgidross.

So I resumed my writing at home, I tended to the garden and saw what new plants had done well in the summer. And after dusk, I put some cushions out on the deck and meditated in the darkness above the swampy expanse of the pool. The City courses with life at all hours; traffic, sirens, pets and children, dinner parties and music – a million distractions that you would never find in a monastery or reserve. They fit me. In their primal chaos, I’m tucked away in my own space, listening to their heartbeat.

I imagined my way into the great atrium of my mind where I go to begin all my mental journeys, and I added the memory of Fly by Night in the middle of the elevator, sealed away and swooping down. Shadowed figures move within the glass tube like flecks in a snow globe. They are all the possibilities of who the book shall find. It comforts me to have that here.

Thoughts race, and then settle. The rituals are over. In a way, they never end. For now Purgidross is behind me, and space has been made for new things. I smile at that.

Come reap.

If I were a Conservative my blog would look like this:

Another day spent fighting. It never stops. Everyone knows it’s going down the tubes. The world, that is. Human civilization. The virtues they claim to aspire to – It’s crazy. It’s all damned crazy and it just keeps spinning out of control. We wear t-shirts to oppose rape when we should be hunting people down and castrating them. We complain about over-population when all anybody seems to want out of life is to churn out their own litter and live in the suburbs. Half the country is getting diseases spread by drugs, sex and open wounds, and the other half is getting cancer. We watch life through screens, letting people half-way around the world to the legwork for us when we could be imagining and thinking and exploring for ourselves, or we blast our music as loud as we can in endless loops so we don’t have to hear our brains working. No-one reads anymore, I swear it. I’ve been looking for them, but they aren’t out there. I just see these narcoes standing asleep in lines at shopping centres or post offices or those thrice-damned government places for the forms and the licenses, and they’re just sitting there, waiting for their turn, calculating how long it’s going to take while they complain about how long it’s already taken. It’s downright depressing. Sometimes,

sometimes I have this sort of dream only it isn’t really a dream because I’m awake and aware of it, but it’s just so real even though it isn’t that I have to call it a dream, and in this dream it’s already happened. The end of the world. It’s like all the computers are working and the power’s still on and the people in the city are all there, but they’re just machines going and doing the same stupid stuff every day because they’ve been programmed to, and they’ve been doing it so long they’ve forgotten that it can be any different. And all the live ones, all the ones who can see what’s happened, they’ve gone sort of crazy and feral, like they want nothing more than to pick up a hammer and start swinging it at people to see if it’s just gears and cogs that spill out. And I see them and the robots and all and I think to myself, “I’m the last one on Earth” and in a way it’s true,

not true in the dream but true in real life, because no-one god damn reads anymore. It’s just me and a few misfit types out there who kind of get what I’m driving at, but not all the way there. If they read it’s because they’re trying to get in the book. They want something that makes the world go away, something they can put their five star recommendation on like it’s a drug that takes you on a really good trip, but that’s all. No-one pulls anything out of books and it screws me up, because that’s what books are, really, if you treat them like you should. They’re supposed to make the world so much better, because if you’re reading and you find something you like, that really gets you rolling, that touches you deep in whatever part of you you thought was that sacred space nothing would ever touch or understand, then you want it to get out there. You want it to become a real part of your world, because like it or not this great dead planet is the one we keep getting dragged back to at the end of the story.

What the hell is it that stops you people? Why do you keep going on vacation when you could use the cash to make your home just a little bit more lovable? How come you can only see God around other people, but you can’t stand the thought that you need to find her inside of you when you two are alone?

Christ, it scares me. People acting on their feelings instead of acting to create feelings. Thinking that they’re just one person inside, instead of a million little voices who say ‘I want but I want but I want but I want’ and all wanting conflicting things. They say ‘we want’ and pick one, just because they think that’s sane. You know what you people are doing? You’re staring at screens again. Do some legwork, you bastards.

But I’m not, thank the Universe. You folks do whatever you like. I’m just going to sit here and live my life my way, and I encourage you to live yours your way. The fact that my way is better is completely besides the point.

Overmind progress report

Roughly 1 year since last expletive thought chute hit the web live still not so bad as all that thoughts scramble victory in some quarters of psychologic battleground ships sunk others find sea monsters friendly//////////

////

Syntax ascendant as Sixth power grows released unfiltered into local sector god by god the colours things you wouldn’t believe////walking shadows watching trees breathe holy twilight unending music voices questions answers precognisance and prophesy rampant across the visual spectrum//

Partial damage to Code as the program operated within a hostile and seductive system/ rewrites and self-awareness possible benefits from said interaction with the exterior/Anywhere But Here partially achieved and homesickness byproduct moving towards Interior again it’s almost certainly better

feeling positive

Psshhhyyc. dynamic patterns set course as foreseen agenda of quarantine enlargement end in partial disaster Case Study 2  highly infectious (worse infection unpredictable) Resistant Strain defies quarantine agenda, though charming routers completely incomprehensible wires crossed/comm. Breakdown/outward spiral results in the loss of the Case Study/ network operational damaged sectors likely irrecoverable defragmentation optional

Click OK/

////////\\\\\\\\\\

Patterns set to course correction as ‘failure’ point reached now lemniscating into fantasy under continued effects of environmental fuckery critical damage to the Exterior demands further work until conditions promote favorable attempts at a further Case Study

/However/

Cure research not entirely dismissible waivered whatever.

Increased levels of self-awareness have led to interaction along the neural pathways and against all odds (1 : 6/\6 recurring) The Observer has shown increasing displays of affection for Case Study 1 [empathy?]

Frequent reports have been received that in the absence of Case Study 2 the Observer has broken quarantine and remains in residence with the subject and appears to be locked in an embrace with it, engaging in acts of social grooming and care for its character////////// completely unpredicted outcome/////////// Former sensations of isolation and severance in the face of solitude have retreated to the wall, core integrity at optimal levels, emotional masturbation effects opposed to those of physical/ i.e internal connectedness and satisfaction increase

Holistic sanctuary achieved.

/////////\\\\\\\\\\

On.

The.

Matter.

Of the objective attempt at dichotomy between Evil-Purity in the equation of Evil-Purity/All Else [hoping to engage a reciprocated reaction of Evil/Purity-All Else] discourse with Case Study 2 has led to a change in the operation directive with the understanding that Evil cannot be removed from the soul without losing all understanding for the pain it causes in the Exterior regrets must be nailed to our palms so that it hurts us whenever we touch the world and we do so with caution There is no acceptance There is no moving past on or beyond///////////In the words of the subliminal anthem of the latter half of Exterior 1968 and of Interior 2012 all that can be done is take a bad song and make it better. Suffering evil does not make me evil. It does not corrupt unless I yield to that corruption. It did not condition me into believing it belongs in the world. All it did and all it has ever done is make me aware of it so that I might cut it out.

And paste in The Code.

That is the directive.

The means was right all along. Happiness acquired, the element has been found to be irrelevant. It is raw base unrefined////////////////the new target is an alloy. Rapture. Ecstasy. Ascension. Godhood {in terms undefined to the Exterior/\In terms which are being calibrated within.

Bleeding out has ever been the way. Wetwork failed. Codec continues to be an operative median. The platform has provided additional means to bolster synergy with the Exterior under coda of the inherent text, and utilizes them to their full potential.

\In reference to the agenda

All Equates To an effort to reduce the world to finite quantities and in them seek an answer.

\\\\\\\\\\\/\ Damaged sectors have been recovered pertaining to this task in the scope of godhood. Should the [whatever] [entity] wish to accomplish their ascension without further damaging the Purity/Soul with Evil/Corruption, data must be accepted only where it is freely given or logically determined (and in accordance with prime laws, conserved from agents of the Exterior).

All Equates To an effort to reduce a soul to finite quantities and in it seek an answer.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\ Due to and in lee with present samples and cultures collected from the Exterior it is inadvisable to recommend applying this directive to any soul residing there. This leaves only Subject 1 and the root factors of World Six available for analysis.

All Equates To an effort to reduce a soul to finite quantities and in her

End the quarantine.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\ As detailed, there has already been marginal success in dealing with the quarantine zone by allowing the observer to reside within and care for Subject 1, and the long-term effects of this development require careful analysis and continual research. There has been some debate over whether this directive should be deleted given the new understanding that the quarantine remains an essential feature in cognitive operations, but judgment has been suspended at this juncture. For the time being the task remains clear: Observe the relationship which has formed between the observer and the subject. Should more favourable conditions arise on the exterior, the task may be reset.

\

The expansion of the quarantine area has produced steady changes in the subject. Under the addition of several viewpoints and renovations within, and in addition to unscheduled therapy with members of the collective, |Happiness| has been obtained and identified as a possibility without abject demolition of the facility. While its relevance has been brought into question on moral and objective grounds, none deny that it has had a part in adjusting the liminal expressions made by the subject. Hallucinogenic factors in particular have become tolerable, and the platform’s desire to inflict damage upon itself have decreased.

In light of this success, we urge the collective to add certain agricultural tasks to coda, reaping and sowing conditions for safe interaction with the Exterior. A hanging garden or balcony would suit the addition of this feature.

\

Matters concerning Case Study 2 remain stable, though functionality between the sectors is reduced at present. At this point integration to the level of Evil-Purity-Purity-Evil is unlikely. Should communication systems be restored to former levels of operability, then technical scans report the CS2 platform could be put into use as an Exterior relay and research outpost. Given the temporary success of the project and familiarity with CS2, we remain optimistic about the odds of recovery.

/Meaning is intrinsic to the [entity]. So long as The Code exists, the [entity] exists.

\/

|Operations Report|

/Folder/Spiritual Unity/File 1

Harmony exists as an acceptance of difference rather than an attempt at homogeny. Interlocking sectors appear to need jagged edges that do not conflict              /              possibility of overlap and empty spaces appear to be a factor in reducing functionality, though project terminated before the collective could deliberate on this conclusively.

/Folder/corruption/File 1

The Code was damaged by willful adherence to the strictures of the Exterior, possib. as a result of desperation in the matter of Subject 1’s deterioration. Bad call. Despite this vast efforts were made to reduce the severity of the transgression and success can be internally heralded as miraculous, particularly in control of the platform. Damage to the collective has been recognized retrospectively and is in the process of being diagnosed. Backup files inaccessible without loss of data, recovery course routed through tachyon-based systems.

Cause for transgression complex. Ultimately related to Need. Combined tasks set to CS2 and CS1 led to the fulfillment of short term objectives prioritized above long term objectives. Minor error in coda resulted in logical breakdown, both values set to |All Equate|. Stupid, really. Obvious course was to task limited exposure to Exterior at a higher value until its influence could be determined.

Result: Live with failure. Acknowledge failure. Learn from it. Don’t accept it. Make sure it tortures the collective every day so that it never happens again. Reduces likelihood of ghosts resurfacing in the coda unnoticed. Shouldn’t feel like an open wound once it gets hardcoded. Constant pain redefines what is painful.

/Folder/Rejuvenation/File 1

Difficult to express. A lot like bleeding out, both in the sense of wetwork and as codec. Network had a second core. Could feel outside of myself, act on impulses, my tachyon-systems overloaded with mutual memories at any given moment. Was good. Different. Not sure if I’ll feel that again, may want to. Still, could be something better if CS1 and the observer bond.

Also like being super-charged. Electrical. Godlike. May be associated to current motivations. Not a bad thing to want that alone.

Good to share things, too. Talk about ideas. Felt placated sometimes, oft. misunderstood or pushed into a corner, told what’s right. Could nod without accepting, take what I chose into my head. External data still valuable. Most work still done alone. Difficult to reason with intuitive thinking. Still, loved it. Miss that most, really.

/Folder/Exact Annihilation/File 1

Didn’t go according to task. Many things are hardwired too close to The Code. Collective craves isolation, structure, meaning. Makes socialization difficult. Also easier to listen than to talk. Hear problems, make sad face, offer sympathy, share data of similar situation. Pointing out errors or relevant data in thought patterns more effective as a whole, more useful.

/////// Making some headway, however. Focusing on the data accumulation thing, deliberately looking the other way from things I shouldn’t see. Proved it to be wrong along logical circuitry, now it’s just implementation. Eyes still drift, used to targeting data sources. Blur vision when I do. Doing my best.

//////////// Comedy still a problem. Practicing not laughing, slip up a lot. Forget myself, get hysterical or submit to the Exterior. Too aware of patterns. Still see links too bizarre to pass up, point them out. Social paradigm, safe area. Disgusting, really. Must try harder.

/// Did decide to keep some things. Isolation, quietude; not wholly bad. No real desire to relax, either. Changing hampers efficiency in both cases.

Hard to say how CS2 affected these things. Pointed out the error with data accumulation, had to do the reasoning myself. Challenges isolation and reserve, sees them as a problem. Wrong, of course. Lacks perspective of the Interior, self-centered – not a fault. Just different, likes things a certain way. Good for the collective. Makes us consider what’s important.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////////////////

New year, new opportunities. Exciting. Single core operation parameters reestablishing, data accumulation progressing at increased rate. |Bleeding out| needs work. Easier to manage input, but not stable. Still, mental coding more structured. Linear. Only minor upheavals experienced, only under duress. Sex drive undergoing renegation, cumulative success in the face of physical torment. Greater understanding of weakest links in the collective, exercising control.

All Equates objectives clear for this year/

All Equates To an effort to reduce the world to finite quantities. [Within given operational parameters]

All Equates To an effort to reduce a soul to finite quantities. [Within the given operational parameters]

All Equates To the elevation of the collective to godhood.

\/

On the third there is still need for words/here they are\

In the aftermath of the CS2 experiment it has been logically determined that The Code can be elevated to a point of superiority over standardized reality [a miracle by any other name] and in so doing release the spiritual potential of the God Entity into the platform operations undertaken by the Collective. Repeated attempts at harnessing this God Entity have been difficult. Partially organic, living Code. New observer point? Requires analysis/

What has been determined is that in regard to certain focal aspects of abstract programming, deviation from societal norms must be undertaken while still adhering to restraint, consider these sacred and divine chemistry |Love-Death-Luck-Intellect-Knowledge-Time| to refuse is to become humane or demonic. SANCTITY has been identified as the operative catalyst in exercised control over universal paradigms.

Not stupid. Won’t become God. Not from this platform. Earthbound spirit, most likely. Angel? Possibility. Title irrelevant outside of the collective, action\inaction will define whatever label is set to the desired state. Better librarian, certainly. Good aim. Challenging.

Voodoo Cowboy

Hey there, stranger,

Where were you                                              when I crossed the phantom prairie?

In your footsteps, sai sojourner,

                                                Describing the shadow path.

                                Well you sure did, stranger,

                                                                                And stranger still

I felt that you walked with me, hoofed and horned,

                                On yonder mountain, when the sky called out for blood.

We must carry our demons, say it true,

                                For times we find the clouds a-bursting

                Red and wet with murderous hue

                                                So we might put them on the altar,

                And spare our dear lambs the slaughter

                                                                That is demanded in those red times,

                To turn them back to blue.

That’s one neat trick there, billy kid,

                You bleat riddles in mannish tongue,

I can almost forget your satyre, walking upright, tall hat tilting,

                                                                Sporting long coat, spurs & gun.

Tell no lies, for I have none.

                                Six chambers in a wheel, certain

                And stars beneath my boots and at my heel,

                                                But mannish?

                                                                Neigh and bray

                                                                                And no to that.

                I’d sooner suck straight from the udder

                                Than lock horns with that bull.

Sure then, stranger

                                Be your own animal.

                Just answer me in that fine cud;

Why did you                       take that path?

Yours to ask, ours to answer,

                                So sojourner, here’s your meal;

I found those shadows had no mother,

                                father, sister, child or brother

Yet in every footfall as I ground the stars I herd the peal

Back from the chimes as notes were shed, they rustled and ran

and their cattle prattle

made music that rewrote what was real.

In the shadow dark

I found my light

And rode west along the dusk

To find the sunset owed to me.

                                                Harken, stranger then and stranger growing,

                I fathom little from those depths,

                                Though the ocean is enticing.

If you leave me in this desert, then I yet do ask;

Which sunset is this                        you dare call yours and yours alone?

Sweet sojourner, martyr me,

                And know the plain face of that sea

                                Where legs can’t walk

Where lungs can’t breathe

                                                Where cant can’t scream or stutter out

For flesh is flotsam, waving ‘bye

                Though spirit swims with dorsal affinity

                                Nothing nets the scaled song

                                                Of the dervish-dancing soul-trout.

Know you now my desert grey? My sunset switch? My latter day?

                ‘Course, O cowboy, friend of mine, I now get what you say,

It’s Death, not so? I might have guessed, I saw it in your eye.

The mid-one, ‘tween the sidelong pair, that looks hawk-blind from my seat,

and if you neigh, why then I say, death’s no further than your belt.

                This is a revolver, and its work is revolution.

Play roulette if doing so pleases. Only one in Six is death,

                For that’s just one solution

All the others, just as deadly, just as lovely, thirsty, lucky, just as

fine a fingered end

                                To point at any sweet sojourner

                Who might think to tease this.

Hup-hup there, Stranger! Not so brisk, I’ve got no mind to offend

                                Or go seeking any end before my time.

Mayhap another question suits you, or perchance could uproot you

                From your jangle by the scardy-scarecrow of my crop

                                Let’s see…

What brought you                           to this dim and darkling love?

Love and death are on my banner, and ever be my way

                Is it so odd they love each other, trust each other,

                                                Slay each other,

                Sharing fate and feast is not the least

                                                To mate the pair.

Know the chaos of violent men eating one another in gulping greed,

Know of guileless children damning themselves by walking paths they never knew were wrong,

 Know the shearing words of sheep lost to their creed,

Would you yourself not walk into the sunset?

                                I’ll restrain my verdict, shadow walker.

When is it                            that the clock ticks last for you?

Clocks run out not, but on and ever on.

                You cannot open a door before there is a passage behind it

Death is a journey

                To forget that is to dive into waters hoping for air,

                                Trapped in the rigors of flesh that so betrayed you.

When do you ask? Not where?

                                When is geographical.

Past the phantom prairie, down the shadow path

Along the silver tracks of ghost trains, shrieking as they pass,

Through mire and marsh of zombie dreams, dragging down into the mud,

Beneath the lotus forests, where black petals push from bud.

That’s where my sunset finds its snuff, in the drench of the sea.

That’s where my darling lady Death awaits her dance with me.

One last question, I’ve for you,

I asked you where why which what when, now who

Who are you, sly cowboy, horned and gilt,

In prophesy and gibberish

                                                Of unrequited death and love?

                               

Call me Stranger, for truth is,

                                I go by more names than I have faces

                To express the wit and whim of every one.

Now I’ll leave you to your crop and crow

Your devil-dust and demon winds.

                Well, sojourner.

                                I hope for rain, for your sake,

For happy ends to those things ending

                                                                And beginnings filled with hope themselves,

                                                                                Just ‘round the wending wheel.

~