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[undoundue]

two part dream without a proper ending

I.

I’m a kid visiting my grandpa’s house when a missile lands outside. I know instantly that this is World War 3. Hiding from relatives who pinch my cheeks, I am left behind, drinking root beer, unconcerned until I notice the fire. A small fire—there’s still time for me to get my laptop, where I keep all my writing. Then again, you’re supposed to leave right away when you see a fire, and World War 3 is as good a time to start over as any. 

So I leave. Go to the train station. No one there. Four tracks, side by side, of which only the first is accessible. A train passes on the second track, a train passes on the third. I do nothing. A pillar-mounted TV says that America has been reduced to rubble, then goes out. I’m taller now. A massive train spanning all four tracks arrives, innumerable churning wheels. I get on.

The train conductor shows me to a spacious compartment with a long rectangular table and no seats. Eight or so naked prepubescent boys are using the table to crush spheroid nuts that spurt red juice; with this substance extruded, they rake the shells into burlap sacks. The boys have short hair and clipped nails but are tan and feral-appearing. They hiss and spit at my approach. 

Opposite my entrance, standing in front of a glorious ribbon window, is a tall woman, late 30s, long face, pale droopy breasts, wearing nothing but a brown cowl which she unhoods to reveal strawberry hair. “I am Demimonde, the Demigod. Worship me.” 

I step forward to an empty spot at the table and crack a nut experimentally. The kids hiss and edge towards me. I step back.

I think: Why should I serve?

The Demimonde notices my hesitation and says: “You do not believe. Very well, I will prove to you that I am a Demigod, by telling you something only a divine being could know.” 

She closes her eyes and breathes slowly.

“You masturbate to Jewish pornography,” she finally says.

“Not particularly.”

“You watch movies by Jewish film directors.”

“Well, statistically…”

“Forget it.”

The Demimonde seems put out. She turns and looks at a cathedral sunk into a greenish lake. “This isn’t even Georgia anymore.”

I tell her frankly: I want to become a writer. In post-apocalyptic America, this isn't cheap. I have $2500 in the bank, but no debit card I can use to withdraw it.

The Demimonde says this won’t be easy. These days, writing is almost exclusively associated with hotels, which are salon-like and hard to get into. She says my best bet is to talk to the Mayor of Pittsburgh. For whatever reason, I believe her.

II.

I get déjà vu as soon as I step into the Mayor’s office—isn’t this the same one my child psychiatrist used, with the big cream-colored tapestry featuring a hollow brown rhombus?

The Mayor gestures for me to sit. He has a goatee and a top hat. My brother is already seated in the chair next to me. The Demimonde stands.

“What talents do you have?” the Mayor asks.

My brother gives some answer.

I say, “I can write. I want to write. I’ll even do journalism, if that still exists.”

The Mayor muses on this. “It doesn’t. But there’s no reason you couldn’t invent it.”

He turns away from us and gets something from his desk. “If I’m going to hire you as my assistants, you’ll need to pass a few tests.” 

The Mayor shows us a six shot revolver, cocks it, puts it to his temple, and pulls the trigger. Click. Nothing. He hands it to my brother.

Click. Nothing. He offers the revolver to me. 

I think: Why should I take the chance? 

“No way.”

My brother shrugs, hands the revolver back to the Mayor. Click.

My brother’s turn. Click. 

I refuse again.

Click. Click.

This time I take the gun. “I guess that’s six shots, ha ha.” Nervous despite the math, I cock, put the gun to my head: Click. 

The Mayor nods, takes the gun from me. I feel a little cowardly but also that I probably passed.

“Before the next test, you will need to take off your clothes,” the Mayor says. He leaves the room through a door behind his desk. My brother and I strip naked. The Demimonde watches. 

The Mayor returns walking a fist-sized house centipede on a balloon-string leash.  Everyone’s eyes widen; I pull my feet up onto my chair.

“The next test is one of pain tolerance,” the Mayor says. “The centipede’s bite is as sharp as a knife and lodges just as firmly. Now, how do you respond when you’ve been bitten by a house centipede?”

“Squish it?”

“And push the knife in deeper?” His eyes emphasize how stupid this idea is. “No. You have to cough, gather up some sticky mucous in your palm, then apply it to the centipede’s back and pull the centipede out. Afterwards, you can wash your hands in the sink there.”

The Mayor’s office has a sink.

“Question: do we have to be naked? Couldn’t the centipede move…north?”

“Yes.”

I don’t buy it. The Mayor is clearly smart, confident, and well-respected, but he’s not above deception—and this is just way too impractical a way of treating a centipede bite. I feel like I would have heard about it if people were doing this.

And in the back of my mind I wonder: do house centipedes even bite? Maybe ignoring the centipede is the real answer to the test…but, then again, this centipede is pretty big: it may well be a different species altogether; it may well have a painful bite.

I think: Why should I suffer?

The Mayor lets go of the leash and the centipede skitters towards me. I lift my heel to mash it into the ground.

[undoundue]

the sexual act

jakob and anathema lay in bed: jakob over the covers, anathema under.

“you know,” jakob said like a thief, “freud once said that every sexual act involves four people. the two lovers, and each lover’s projected fantasy of the other.” 

“only four?” anathema said mildly.

jakob’s brows became anxious. see, jakob? that’s what you get for trying to be clever while naked. “yeah, only four. unless you got more?”

“i read, i don’t remember where, maybe lacan, that it takes a minimum of nine.”

“nine!?”

“mmm-hmm.” and she yawned.

ah, anathema: you’re one of those girls who hates to try, but loves to win. how brittle your seashell heart must be!

anathema’s voice went professorial. “first, there’s us: two atomic, untouching intelligences. then, like you said, the fantasied objects of desire. you didn’t mention, but, usually oedipal.”

“okay,” jakob said, then with a twitch of the mouth decided he had conceded too much. “maybe.”

“then there’s the repressed part of each person.” a solemn nod. well, at least grad studentorial. “often the most revealing part, sexually.” 

“i don’t repress,” jakob said, “do you repress? maybe you repress.”

“of course you repress, jakob,” anathema said, stroking his hand. “whatever you aren’t, your unconscious is, you know? so if you’re a skinny, sensitive, poet-type, then your unconscious is obese, uncouth, illiterate.”

“i bet he eats pussy like a king though,” jakob said, “what’s yours?”

anathema touched her cheek. “dunno. i’m well-integrated.”

“coward,” jakob said.

“well, fine,” anathema said, “if i had to guess, she’s sickly, nervous, complains a lot, an aging nurse with eau de nicotine and chronic cough, holding a coffee mug that warns against conversing with the holder before the liquid therein is consumed.”

“you lost me,” jakob squinted, “is this like, your aunt, or something?”

anthema flushed. why who can say? perhaps, like many girls whose beauty is mathematical, she was guarded against even the mention of numbers that didn’t add up. 

“doesn’t matter. that’s six,” she said.

an imperceptible nod.

“then there’s each person’s identification with the other person,” anathema said, “the empathic radar sweep—pleasure? pain?—which rebounds into narcissistic gratification, ‘i am making them feel this way.’ ”

anathema pulled up the sheets. “that’s eight. it’s kind of cold in here?”

“the thermostat says 72. but c’mon, is empathy really needed to enjoy the music of mutual orgasm? i mean, just from the you know, pavlovian…ah…”

jakob trailed off.

“you don’t empathize?” anathema asked.

“no, i’m autistic,” jakob said.

pause.

“i guess i knew that,” anathema acknowledged. “anyway, last, but not least, is the excluded third party.”

“huh,” jakob said. he scanned her eyes to see if any excluded third parties were present, but could see nothing clearly in her black coffee eyes. “you mean excluded ninth party.”

“sure.” anathema smiled without humor. “the excluded ninth party includes everyone not involved in the sexual act, who by their exclusion, are thereby included: referee, nightmare, voyeur.”

jacob looked out the dust-dried window, then at his the weather app on his phone. the sky was bright and blue, but the air was rumored cold. thus a distinction between light and heat was implied.

“ ‘who by their exclusion, are therby included,’ ” jakob said.

“that’s what i said,” anathema replied coolly.

“given that such a quorum is required,” jakob said, “it’s a wonder anyone has sex at all.”

“actually, they don’t.”

“they don’t?”

 anathema shrugged. “i mean, according to lacan.”

silence seemed to enter through the window, although there was doubtless more noise outside than within. by degrees, the earth turned its face away from the sun. 

“so this is the power of french philosophy,” jakob mumbled, “damn.”

jakob and anathema shifted pointlessly in the bed. 

remember, they were hungry. remember, they were young.

“you said a minimum of nine,” jakob tilted his head. “could there be more?”

anathema sighed.

“there is a tenth,” anathema said: “God.”

“GOD!?”

“yes,” anathema said, “in the sexual act, each of the aforementioned persons contributes to a single massive superego that in each moment rolls a kantian gut check: are they fucking in a manner that they would will to be a universal law?”

“if yes, there are ten, and god blesses their intercourse with love and sacred warmth. if not, there are nine, and they have to fill their doubt with hormones and mantras to the effect that You Only Live Once.”

both of them scanned the other’s eyes.

“seems complicated,” jakob said.

“well, life is complicated,” anathema said.

both of them scanned the other’s eyes.

“but it doesn’t have to be that complicated,” anathema, as fantasized by jakob said.

“i could make it even more complicated,” jakob, as fantasized by anathema, said.

“the numbers don’t add up,” anathema’s unconscious said, “i want to want this. i want to want to want this. so why can’t i…?” 

“there ain’t no universals! that’s some dumb shit!” jakob’s unconscious said, “now let me get back to going kobayashi on that gash!”

both of them scanned the other’s eyes, looking for something.

“a girl like a videogame, perfectly just in her correlation of effort with reward,”

“a boy like a cop who never catches the criminal,”

“a girl like the punchline of a joke, or a secret,”

“a boy like a promoted pawn,”

“a vampire, but not for blood,”

“a kiss, but not for love,”

“light, without heat,”

“heat, without light,”

“what i can’t get from you i will…”  the part of anathema that identified with jakob and the part of the part of jakob that identified with anathema said. 

and here the excluded ninth party opined: “in the penultimate act, the young two lovers curse each other with society’s labels. made strangers by this crude understanding, the lovers separate; but with distance, they realize that what is true in the abstract, misses the point entirely in the particulars. they reconcile. they face us, in defiance of our labels. and we approve. we approve of their match. we always approve when people turn to face us, for we are lonely, and we crave their gaze.”

“so it goes in most judd apatow movies, but perhaps your case is different.”

“i don’t know what to ask from you and i don’t know what to ask from the world,” jakob said quietly.

“what?” anathema said.

“NEVERMIND ALL THAT,” God said, “I AM THE LORD THY GOD, WHO BROUGHT YOU UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELVES AN IDOL, NOR ANY IMAGE OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN THE HEAVENS ABOVE, OR THAT IS IN THE EARTH BENEATH, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER UNDER THE EARTH: YOU SHALL NOT BOW YOURSELF DOWN TO THEM, NOR SERVE THEM, FOR I, YOUR GOD, AM A JEALOUS GOD, VISITING THE INIQUITY OF THE FATHERS ON THE CHILDREN, ON THE THIRD AND ON THE FOURTH GENERATION OF THOSE WHO HATE ME, AND SHOWING LOVING KINDNESS TO THOUSANDS OF THOSE WHO LOVE ME AND KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS.”

jakob and anathema sat up in bed and listened, expecting discourse on graven images and maybe some life advice.

but God only said: “SO ISN’T THERE SOMEONE YOU FORGOT TO ASK?”

and the eyes of jakob and anathema were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

[undoundue]

dude, you're smoking crack

ME: what are you smoking, CRACK? seriously, are you smoking CRACK? jesus CHRIST. i’m not one to participate in CRACK-SMOKING, nor one to condone it, but the CRACK ROCK that you’re SMOKING must be so potent, must be so mind-altering and deeply, brutally rewarding for you to say something so CRACKED-OUT AND INSANE, that i can’t help but wonder HOW IT WOULD AFFECT ME: that is, if i became a CRACKED-OUT BASEHEAD, would i gain confidence in myself, sever those tethers no stronger than seaweed that oblige me to the opinions of others—to others, yet alone—alone, un-FREE, and un-BASED?

and yet, i know in my uninfarcted heart, still beating autarkically rather than marching TO THE STIMULUS of BICARBONATE-PREPARED COCAINE, that something essential would be conserved—a sobriety, a sanity—a mere SURGE OF DOPAMINE would not sway the NEURAL TRACKS which i have laid down over years of study and labor. i cannot ESCAPE MYSELF so easily: that is my BLESSING and that is my CURSE. so i stand by my principles, and the shadow of my countenance falls across you like a storm god’s cloud, like the silhouette of a cowboy spinning his pistol, and with mercy but no reluctance i admonish you: DUDE, YOU’RE SMOKING CRACK. OTHER GUY: Um...that sounds bad?

[undoundue]

VILLAIN: happiness…at last…with this, i can conquer the world!

[undoundue]

caliban iv: glass and scissors / giantess / heaven

1. there's a new cult around town that holds glass and scissors as sacred. glass, scissors, locks, walls, and white paint. glass, scissors, locks, walls, white paint, ghosts, chasms, oceans, and space. their sacredness is in approximately that order. whatever separates. whatever mitigates. whatever promotes distance from the immiserating world of people and things.

well, i won't pretend to understand "youth culture," but i can't say i approve. for one, they are virulently anti-semitic, which i am not. for another, they reject any skin-on-skin contact that breaks the five second rule, which i do not. and furthermore, i don't like how they look at me. their evangelist grins run thick as cough syrup, and their eyes, shadowed by cowls, still gleam like a scarab's back. they preach outside cvs pharmacy in the bad part of town, thocking cowbells and chanting, offering pamphlets called HELPING THE HYLICS while their leader calls out to passerby: "hey brother, hey brother, the rules have betrayed you. hey brother, hey brother, because of your vagueness, the rules have betrayed you, now the ogre of shadows has caught you in his evil eye. hey brother, hey brother, lock your doors and smash your idols, wash your hands and shave your head. beat your breast, kill your darlings, put a glass window in an empty field, yes brother, a glass window, to promote distance—"

their smiles betray poor dental hygiene, for in their cosmology dental hygiene belongs to the world of things. when i pass by, there are three of them. one does the preaching. one holds the pamphlets. the third hits the cowbell and chants. they have a donation box, lined with aluminum, but i never give. instead i check my cellphone and smile bitterly, thinking: "well, i wouldn't want to immiserate them in the world of things!"

when i sneak a corner-eye glance, i find them smiling back, as if they expected this.

2. well, on the bus the other day i heard an argument between two giantess fetishists about how tall giantesses should be.

one guy said they should be between 100 and 120 feet tall. any shorter and you're leaving eternal feminine on the table, any taller and they might not feel it when you put it in.

this guy argued for giantesses between 30 and 50 feet tall. his argument was that giantesses over a hundred feet tall are so strongly associated with vore, diaper/scat, and unbirthing, that humble lovers of gentle femdom need a separate height to clear the libidinal palate ("my dick has locked me in a cell with three types of fetishes that i absolutely hate, and thrown away the key.")

well, that sounds rough, but i get where the first guy was coming from too. if i might paraphrase robert frost:

Some say the world will end in vore giantesses (100-120 ft) Some say in gentle femdom giantesses (30-50 ft) From what I’ve tasted of human boredom I hold with those who favor vore (dom) But if I had to die again, I think I know enough of tender closeness, To say that kindness I would commend, Is no less potent To the same end.

this is all conjecture, of course. my personal experience extends only to a 5000 foot giantess, Gnathaena Moedecker—and at such a scale the rules of everyday giantesses simply do not apply.

it was a few months after college and i was desperate for a job. the margrave of zebulon, that damned miser, only offered two grand for disposing (by any means necessary) of the giantess who had wrecked zebulon's economy; for every unmarried man, and some married men, and some women, had emigrated to Gnathaena's armpits, kneepits, or pubis, as she passed zebulon, north carolina, heading north to who knows where; maybe pittsburgh; and now, the scarcity of local labor was intolerable.

it took a day to climb her knee-high stockings, for her legs shook like earthquakes with each county stride, and besides i had to go around the men who were clinging like limpets and sniffing. the smell, to be fair, was quite nice—like potpourri, but sweatier. in a virginian corn field she lay down for a nap and i made progress more quickly, though there were still obstacles. the ass-cultists who lived in the pockets of her jean shorts tried to wicker man me in a denim effigy. the slow respirations of her tanned abdomen tumbled me towards her umbilicus, from which it was said no one could return. dozens emerged from her rose-gold gucci handbag and explored her snoring corpus, playing guitar, composing sonnets, painting portraits that were also landscapes, masturbating, looking for meaning i suppose, and it wasn't hard to find, because everything you do on a 5000 foot giantess feels meaningful, and the way the moonlight fell on the surrounding corn stalks was pristine.

well, in the early morning i reached Gnathaena's mouth. i tried to pour in the potion, but her lips were slippery with lip balm, and too heavy to part an inch. i pored through my textbooks and ruined them with my balm-stained hands. could the potion be administered aurally, as well as orally? i did not recall. but in a compendium of fairy tales another solution presented itself: i kissed her. her eyelids made a sound like waves crashing as she blinked awake.

"sup, pervert," she said.

"i am not a pervert," i said defensively, hiding the potion behind my back.

"sure ya are." she yawned. "did you like kissing me?"

"well, they're softer than i expected...given their size..."

"anyone who likes kissing is a pervert. anyone who likes parts of things is a pervert. you're supposed to like everything or nothing at all. anything else, that's what being a pervert is."

i started to object, but well, she was obviously right. the moonlit corn stalks had indeed been beautiful, and while watching their sway there was a moment when, a little high from the estrogen fumes, i accepted existence in its entirety, as a transcendent calm flowed through me and i felt like crying at nothing at all. but it only lasted a second, and then i glared at the crescent moon and moved on. for i didn't know what to do with moonlit corn stalks or transcendent calm, any more than i knew what to do with a 5000 foot giantess, and something very old and never satisfied, not with the kernel that preceded the big bang, not now, turned the machinery within me and crunched transcendence into its parts.

well, but now i felt a little bit sorry for Gnathaena Moedecker, who after all was not really existence but merely synecdoche for it. so i said: "well, perversity aside, around your sternum i really started to wonder: where are you going?"

"new york city," she said, and exhaled a slow twister. "i started working right out of high school, but ever since i saw Lady Bird, i've been obsessed with the idea of going to NYU. so i've decided to pull together a personal statement and apply." she bit her lip. "do you want to read it? i don't know if it's very good..."

well, it now became apparent to me that Gnathaena, if she was synecdoche for existence, was not very smart, or at least she was younger than i had expected. i mean, Lady Bird is not a very good movie, and i was sorry to learn that her personal statement was equally saccharine. she had an uphill battle, to be sure: most admissions officers can't relate (and not in a "good" way) to the experience of being a 5000 foot giantess hiding out in the appalachian mountains, emerging only at night to devour the sheep of terrified farmers, all while harboring a secret, lifelong dream to work on sustainability in high-end fashion.

so i told her that a few edits might help, and together we came up with a statement that de-emphasized her size and instead focused on a formative trip to Madrid and her volunteer work for the ASPCA. but it wasn't enough, and we both knew it. and, softly, though even her regular voice was softer than i had expected, she told me to "just do it."

"do what?" i said dumbly.

"give me the potion you've been hiding behind your back for the past three hours."

and since it was going to happen eventually, i did.

so it happened that Gnathaena Moedecker shrank to five foot eight inches, which is taller than average but by no means bestiary-worthy. sudden whumps, painful yelps, and angry shouts accompanied this rapid shrinkage. since i doubted the mob of recently giantess-deprived individuals would understand the inverse relationship between the abstract and the individuated, i took gnathaena's hand and read my scroll of return.

in zebulon, north carolina, the weather was warm but cloudy. we rented a room at the motel 6 and spent a few lazy days drinking and eating mexican-asian fusion. it was strange to get to know her, strange to get to know her until it felt like there was not much more to know; for she was young, and we didn't have much in common. her freckles were smaller than i had remembered. i saw her off at the airport, and we promised to get coffee if i was ever in new york, or she in zebulon.

the margrave cried and gave me a $500 bonus when i told him the news. i was stunned—i guess his interest in the local economy was more sincere than i gave him credit for. i bought takeout sushi and ate it crosslegged on my hotel bed. i flipped through the channels. sports. news. rocky iii (1982), pay-per-view. scooby-doo. news. ghost world (2001), pay-per-view—

whoa, what are the odds? ghost world was my favorite movie as a teenager. maybe this is just nostalgia speaking, but enid seems a tier above any cinematic art girl this side of anna karina. her jokes are weirder, her worldview is firmer and yet less legible. you can't quite identify with her, so you get the feeling she might still exist when you turn off the screen. plus, steve buscemi—i mean, steve buscemi's always great. it's a great movie. every time it gives me a feeling sort of like transcendence, but while transcendence happens in my skin and spine this feeling happens mostly in my chest. it's sharper too, less like a flow and more like an arrow emerging. i'm still not sure what to do with it. but, since it's a movie, i guess there's only one thing to do. i hit play.

3. the divine offers strange incentives. if you're angry, god grants you nothing, but hate yourself and he descends. blessed are the meek and masochistic; cursed be the paranoid pugilists. well, i'm no atheist, i've met the big man himself once or twice, but i can't stand him getting up in my business. "jesus takes the wheel," says the sucker. what—and i suppose you play videogames on easy mode, too?

that's why, whenever i feel i'm becoming too sympathetic, i go to my walk-in closet and whisper hateful words. last monday, for instance, i meticulously insulted the irish, the choctaw, the norwegians, and the balinese. i could practically feel the freedom as omniscience looked away. kind of a nausea, but kind of a pleasant dizziness too. if you've ever walked on a hardwood floor in fresh socks, you've felt something like it.

so i don't swing too far, i keep it fair. it's not like when comedians claim to "offend everyone equally." nice try, buddy—ever heard of the availability heuristic? no, what i've done is write each entry of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_contemporary_ethnic_groups on a flashcard, with the harmful and unjust stereotypes on the flip side. then i use a random number generator to pick the cards.

it's not a perfect solution—even 4chan can't provide stereotypes for the more obscure peoples. still, up until now it's worked.

but now a beam of golden light enters my living room, not even bothering to knock. a holy refridgerator humming fills the air. and, despite my best efforts, the archangel michael descents, cherubim fluttering around him, and the room is perfumed with frankincense and myrrh.

the archangel michael tells me the gig is up.

"the gig is up," the archangel michael says, "too many people are exploiting the 'good intentions' loophole—thinking of the reduced carbon footprint when committing arson, or whatever—and on occasion there are 'bad intentions' exploiters, like you—so we're closing them in the next moral patch. it's good works or GTFO."

"this is bullshit, mike," i tell him, "matthew 5:27-28, for instance."

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

"i commit adultery in my heart constantly. depriving me of purgatory is unjust."

"you're single," michael says.

"i have a tulpa," i retort.

"tulpa tulpa!" motte says indignantly, setting a cheese plate on the table.

"that's masturbation," michael says. "it's not great, but it's definitely a venial sin."

motte shrugs. we eat the brie. the cherubim flutter nervously, deck us in laurels, make kissy lips, send stylized hearts through the air which i puncture with carefully aimed magic missiles.

"so the nerds won, eh?" i lean in confidentially. "you can be real with me, mike. a bunch of heaven's eggheads got together and decided that silicon valley guys deserve a shot at passing through the eye of a needle? probably for the best, really—presuming that manna is vegan. i hope you enjoy your donated benches. hell, even tolstoy said that goodness was fungible. but villainy, now that takes courage. to not do what everyone else is doing, even when what you're doing is obviously and horribly wrong—"

"don't blame the nerds," michael says angrily. "if it weren't for people wanting so desperately to be something they're not—!"

michael's golden, pupil-less eyes glow with an impossibly compassionate and righteous light. i blink away tears.

"heaven could use you, bill. you belong there. everyone does, if they would only let themselves be."

"nope," i tell him. "nope! for i am no sorry do-gooder. i am bill caliban: the graye wizard of new canaan! and not in the next life, but in this one, my name shall be known! mwa—mmmph. sorry." i finish chewing and swallow. "mwahahaha! ahahahah!"

the archangel grumbles inaudibly, then pops a mouthful of gouda. the cherubim give up their visual antics and instead launch into a surprisingly capable harp rendition of the first eight minutes of st. matthew's passion. we listen.

"it's beautiful," michael says. "you have to admit."

it is.

then michael stands, thanks motte for hosting him, says "bill" in a neutral and vaguely paternal voice, and teleports away with the cherubim.

nothing is left behind but a faint scent, a mix of baby powder and incense, and a few silvery-white feathers from angel wings.

i bite my nails. "you don't think i'm a good person, do you motte?"

"tulpa tulpa tulpa tulpa tulpa tulpa tulpa," motte says.

and i know what she means: that i am vile. that everything about me disgusts her. my face, my body, my odor, my habits, my personality, my spells, my staff, my tattered grey robes. that if it weren't for my explosive sexual charisma, she would never dream of choosing to spend time with me, and the fact that she does proves that something has gone deeply and profoundly wrong in her astral life.

i hug her. i love her very much.

[undoundue]

the adventures of the graye wizard caliban: and the curse of spotifsploitation III

i'm eating panda express in the food court outside work with my week's wages in gold coins in my trademark italian leather sack (dolce & gabbana, $1000) at my side, when out of nowhere a shadowy figure carrying an identical dolce & gabbana italian leather sack bumps into me.

"ah, vi vam very vsorry," the figure says thickly.

"hey, don't worry about it," i say.

then, hoping to dispel the tension, i say "orange chicken. yum!"

i chopstick accordingly.

the figure laughs "va va va," bows, and departs.

i feel a warm rush of closeness for this mysterious stranger. i gotta admit, i'm a little suspicious of any figure wearing a trenchcoat and fedora (trilby?) who speaks in a thick but unplaceable accent and whose face is completely obscured by shadows. that's implicit bias, and i'm working on it, but i'm not going to pretend it's not there. so it's nice (and humbling) to be reminded that, hey, shadowy figures like eating orange chicken and carressing their D&G sack full of $37.50 in gold coins just like the rest of us. because the boundaries we put up are artificial: deep down, we're all the same.

it's only after i finish my meal that i realize the shadowy figure has exchanged my bag for their identical bag—and that this new bag is ticking. tick tick tick...

"my god!" i blurt out, as mallgoers turn and stare, "my coins have been replaced with identical tare weight in tiny clocks!"

the clocks explode. an oversized mouth appeared in thin air.

"this man faps," it says smugly.

then shrilly: "this man faps!"

and so the pattern repeats, ABABABABC, with C being a sonorous and melancholy delivery similar to whalesong. yeah, i said it, sonorous and melancholy. check out some youtube videos if you don't believe me.

a crowd surrounds me. i tried to leave, but the food court is a labyrinth, and wherever i turn the mouth follows a few feet behind. i began to sweat.

"what's he fap to?" a mall rat-person says. "fur-ry porn?"

the mouth seems to consider. "yes. furry porn."

"hyuk hyuk hyuk," the rat-person says. "fur-ry porn."

"you've got it all wrong!" i scream. "i am not a socialist!"

whoa. dead silence. where did that come from? i guess i have always wondered why furries seem to run leftist while anime aficionados span the whole political spectrum, because you could totally see it being the other way. i mean, there's a reason furry artists draw vore: they're obsessed with who's predator and who's prey. and when someone's into that stuff, is social darwinism really that far behind?

of course, you could spin it the other way: that when someone is totally committed to egalitarianism in everyday life, the old tooth-and-nail has got to come out somewhere. in that case, the question isn't "why are so many furries socialist?" it's "why aren't more socialists furries?" rousseau was into mommy femdom, so it's not crazy.

i should caveat with all of this that i have nothing against socialism (i am a proud member of new canaan wizard's union) or against furries (as a doujin reader, i empathize with their struggle against myriad oppressions). but, i have to admit, i would hate to be a furry socialist. i don't know, something about the combo just rubs me the wrong way.

i try to explain this to the crowd, but they don't take it well. lacking stones, they arm themselves with condiment bottles, napkin holders, salt-and-pepper shakers, cutlery. moments before i am seasoned, who steps between me and the crowd but—jesus christ!

"stop!" jesus christ says, his white robes aflutter and radiant. "let he who is without sin..."

here jesus trails off meaningfully, but since no one is holding a stone per se he can't finish the line. the crowd hesitates.

"but jesus," the mall rat-person says, "this man's a socialist. and a furry. we don't want his kind in the new canaan community mall."

"so!?" i shoot back at the self-hating furry, "like you've never jerked it to a girl with animal features? also, i'm not a furry, or a socialist."

"this is a christian community," a mall-mom spits out, "we don't engage in beastiality."

"yeah!" another guy shouts, a little protest-too-much. "i hate furries! kemonomimi are cute though."

"kemonomimi do not have souls," the mall mom says.

"come now," the first guy says. the arch of his eyebrows tells me he's decided to play the enlightened centrist, the schmuck. "kemonomimi have souls. animals have no souls. furries—"

"—have partial souls," i offer. "maybe 65%. it depends on the furry."

the mall-mom looks annoyed by this academic turn. "but only a whole-souled being can consent in the eyes of the lord. this is why—"

i cut in: "—but can any of us be truly said to be whole souled? are we not all sinners in the eyes of god?"

the crowd enters an uproar of spittle and heresy; i narrowly dodge a plume of sriracha. "hold on! maybe we should just ask him," someone suggests. the crowd turns to jesus for guidance.

"my poor, lost sheep," jesus says.

then jesus hesitates. maybe this was the wrong metaphor?

"THIS MAN FAPS!" the magic mouth says, for the last time, because i snap my fingers and hit it with a pink ray of Dispel Magic.

instead of disappearing, though, it makes a scratchy noise like a radio finding a signal.

nico says: please don't confront me with my failures i have not forgotten themmmmmmmmmm

the crowd weeps, rends garments, beats breasts. amidst the chaos i make my escape.

[undoundue]

the adventures of the graye wizard caliban: and the curse of spotifsploitation II

at the house party to celebrate my fifteen seconds of fame, spotify segues from ignition (remix) into nico - these days, causing three panic attacks, two breakups, the adoption of a service animal, and four grown men (myself included) to weep.

the guests mumble goodbyes and leave without making eye contact. nico says: please don't confront me with my failures i have not forgotten themmmmmmmmmm

"she's so sad!" i tell my tulpa girlfriend, as we sit on the sectional sofa and drink flat champagne. my tulpa laughs and nods, as if realizing this for the first time.

"tulpa tulpa," she says wisely.

my tulpa, named motte, is a figment of my unconscious summoned from the world of forms and instantiated in the material plane. she looks like a catgirl. she feeds on "men's spirit energy," which includes semen, but also the low effort jokes and minor insights that one would otherwise post on twitter. (i can still post them on twitter, but they won't get any likes, so i don't.)

she gets me.

still, our relationship has its troubles. for instance, that night, during foreplay, i freak out about a mole on her cheek. did i put it there? and why? i know that in all the old movies the mole on the actress' cheek makes her beauty real, but i never asked for beauty, i never asked for reality, i asked for control...i asked for control...

when i bring the mole up, my tulpa makes it vanish, but i tell her to put it back. i'm used to it now.

[undoundue]

the adventures of the graye wizard caliban: and the curse of spotifsploitation

no matter where i start the spotify algorithm continues with nico - these days. is this the future of big data? vox radio asks, in your randomly assigned lyft lux.

"yes," i answer, "i think so. and i think it's racist. or if not racist, a deeper and more pernicious form of discrimination, one we don't have a name for yet. but consider: spotifsploitation."

"wow," says the young interlocutrix, "i've never been spotifsploited, so maybe it's not my place to say, but is it kind of like how spotify plays nico - chelsea girls no matter where my playlist starts from?"

"absolutely not," i tell her, "that's not spotifsploitation. of course someone like you would listen to chelsea girls. that doesn't say anything about society. that doesn't require Big Data. a pile of bricks and straw would make that call."

the young woman nods from behind her nonprescription glasses. "thank you, professor caliban."

"doktor caliban."

"thank you, doctor caliban."

"doktor. glottal stop."

"thank you, doctor glottal stop."

"no problem."

here the program cuts so that two men with neatly trimmed beards can announce their work bringing oat milk to lactose intolerant infants. it's said that such children grow up both more resilient and more able to empathically consider the perspective of others. well, i've only met one.

i said, "hey."

the kid looked me dead in the eye and said: "i'm sorry for your loss."

i was shaken—it was probably one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my adult life. that said, later on his mom told me he was seeing a speech-language pathologist because this was all he could say, so i'm not sure whether to count this one as a win for oat milk. sound off in the comments if you have thoughts.

back in the studio, the interlocutrix touches my arm and and asks if i want to get coffee sometime. something about her irks me. maybe it's the size of her glasses. they make her eyes look bigger, which in turn makes her look genuous and receptive to the world in all its forms. i want to grab her by the shoulders and scream: you're not genuous and receptive! i'm genuous and receptive! i'm genuous and receptive! stop copping my fucking brand!

instead i ask: "were the coffee beans ethically slaughtered?"

"um, i think so...?"

"the coffee beans were grown in l-theanine enriched soil and read victor frankl's man's search for meaning every night until they reached an existentialist-humanist (beanist) understanding of their own demise?"

she doesn't answer. i smirk. "maybe not coffee...but, you know, i'm sure we'll cross paths again."

"yeah...!" she says, and looks away.

i leave. out on the street, a guilty feeling swings in my chest like a pendulum. i look back. i keep walking. a few blocks away, outside walgreens, i take off my nonprescription glasses and throw them in the trash.

[undoundue]

i don’t know anything except how stories go

i don’t know anything except how stories go

the music isn't as good as i thought it would be

i'm not sure if i've taken enough drugs or too much

when i take too much, i get grandiose: big ideas. little follow-through.

when i take not enough, i also get grandiose, but i know it,

and i sound like a graveyard glass harmonica when

the wind passes through. when i take the right amount, i do not ask

whether i've taken enough drugs or too much.

instead i hallucinate that i'm a cicada, an elegant disgusting jewel

smithed by mommy nature to reproduce a tinny song,

and i'm grateful to my parents

and the 17 years i spent gestating

and this morbid cherry tree

because nobody buckles their tymbals like i. also, cicadas lack

the relevant receptors altogether,

so the dosing question doesn't apply.

(beat) say,

have you noticed that zoomers are really into columbo?

(you nod)

i've seen him on twitter twice lately, asking "just one more

question—which would you prefer as an afternoon snack?"

and there's a poll, cheez-its

or little debbie snack cakes.

the appeal, i think, is to a generational forgetfulness, to

a generation most in need of alarm clocks and aricept,

to the desire to see forgetfulness as a superpower, as an

equivalent to innocence, to be so impervious to

reality's demands. but haven't we been here

before? didn't milennials all die for the sin of inventing "retro

gaming"? and by the way,

did you hear the one about the guy who gave himself three-hundred

and ninety-one concussions, each time suffering retrograde amnesia

which knocked out his memory of his last pokemon red playthrough?

ah. ah yes. it is not a tale the jedi would tell you.

when i take too much, i get despondent. when i take not enough, i

get grandiose. but the line breaks are for the poet's benefit anyway.

besides, there are kids smoking brick weed in lebanon, we should be

thankful for what we have.

and hex maniac is pretty cute. her pupils spiral

counterclockwise,

going from out to in; in some of the fan art they go the other way but

you can tell those guys don't "get it"; the allure of a counterclockwise

spin on how you are perceived, to have your silhouette distorted

and your details properly misunderstood, to lose at games you've

never heard of it, to eat with chopsticks incorrectly,

to trip and fall and look at the sidewalk and say "thank you.

yes. i had grown complacent in my patterns, my

nucleus accumbens

was running on fumes; and i certainly wasn't expecting that!" and

mean it. i did this once. i was in a state of rare tranquility after

masturbating for sixteen consecutive hours (essentially a

performance enhancing drug for meditation—which is why,

in the tibetan olympics, strict no-fap is required for a week

before competition—and they take semen samples to be sure!)

so (you nod), when the buddha saw me

so grateful for life's misfortunes, he made a "look

at this fucking guy" gesture to ganesh and then said "look at this

fucking guy" as if the gesture wasn't enough. naturally,

i was offended, and besides i recalled the old koan "If you meet the

Buddha on the road, kill him," which i had read in a collection

of koans for children titled "If you meet the Buddha..." which

my Mom had purchased for me in the novelty gift section

of an urban outfitters in santa barbara ("Mom, why are you shopping

at urban outftters?" "son, yr mama just tryin' ta stay cool. say, you

heard of this MF DOOM cat?" "ugh! Mom!") and which had

such thought-provoking aphorisms as:

"If you meet the Buddha in an airport, buy him a cheeseburger."

"If you meet the Buddha at a dive bar, play him some new wave—the

Buddha is big into that shit." the idea being, you're prepared for any

circumstance, which is what buddhism is all about. so i did a

bunch of fast attacks; the buddha blocked; i said "shouldn't

it be all the same to you if i kill you?" the buddha said "it would,

except i want to get home and watch columbo, and i don't

want to wait to respawn." i said, "jesus. just—jesus." then the buddha

kicked me through a brick wall. everyone in the WeWork

screamed and fled, leaving their kombucha behind, and

for some reason the sprinklers went off. then, after the initial

impact, a lone brick fell (because of torque—force times the length of

the lever, remember) and hit me comically on the head, causing a

concussion. i said "guh."

yup, (you nod sympathetically),

i was feeling mighty grim. then it occurred to me: why don't i

play pokémon red? unfortunately, on my cellphone i only had

the romhack version, you know, where all the pokémon are allegories

for depression. so you got your depressionmander, depressioneleon,

depressionizard, and for pokémon where that doesn't work

they use it as a suffix, e.g. bulbadepression, ivydepression,

venudepression. also you can't leave the starting room and

your character moves really slowly. the indie gaming press

loves it. one of the features that reviewers single out is

that, instead of a lone Stand By Me reference, the TV in your room

goes line by line through Aguirre, the Wrath of God, except the

murders are replaced with pokémon battles and at the end

aguirre tries to command a horde of mankeys ("depressionkeys"),

which is a metaphor. dark stuff. it makes me think back on my youth:

lying on my child-king sized bed, masturbating to polyhedral

stellations, suffering from severe geometric dysmorphia as i

compared myself to the grandeur of those idealized forms—god, i

used to hate myself for those wasted hours. i mean, i still do, but i

used to, too. only after years of therapy have i developed a mantra

that eases the pain:

"i am mostly a cylinder.

i am mostly a cylinder." presto. you can get off to anything, even

loomis.

(you nod, hesitantly.) on saturday night,

i throw open the window and scream at the children: "you'll get old

too! an abstractome of brittle opinions even as your bumbling

homunculus drops the data you once used to back them up!"

the children reply "not necessarily, given the rate of advances in

biotech. also, no one cares, grandpa." they play soccer. my

mad pilgrim hair blows in the wind. i scream: "suffer! suffer! i am

omniscience!" they say: "oh yeah? how many fingers am i

holding up?" "four! five! four!" "it was five, you old fart." "the thumb

doesn't count as a finger! you should have a specified!" "OK, new

game: what sort of person am i?" "you are—you are—!" and so

i peer into their souls and know the answer, but i can't

find the words. the words do not come. i have forgotten them.

silently i draw away from the window. the children smirk, but only for

a moment. for they know i am right.

ah, to reveal the soul's heist, to be seen through by the omniscient

and powerless, what a delight! who among us would not cheerfully

kill the buddha when he's comin' through the rye? who among us

has not been blessed by the kind words of a stranger? and yet, we

shouldn't incentivize people to be strangers. society would collapse.

besides, we are no longer strangers to ourselves, you and i.

(you nod.) we will have much to discuss about that.

[undoundue]

lying to yourself

i've never been able to lie to myself. not that i know, anyway. it's complicated. you know how most people can detect lies better than they can tell them? well, i'm the opposite, and it's not even close. so when i lie to myself, i totally believe me. maybe this tendency is true of liars more generally, i think so, at least.

...

look, i'm not stupid. since i know this pattern, i know my beliefs cannot be believed. i am constantly possessed of both exceptionally high confidence and exceptionally low meta-level confidence—an aerial whimsy of a man, an infinitely thin sheet of metal, a corruption of software, an /r/slatestarcodex comment, a paranoid thought. yes, it's a tremendous burden. but here's what's crazy: the chicks dig it.

...

i'm being punished by the old testament god for insincerity in my prayers. turns out, the attitude you're supposed to have is one of tender supplication. i'm tender, but i never supplicate. it's just not something i do. lightning bolts miss me by inches, conveniently giving me an excuse to avoid all social engagements. "unfortunately i can't make it on wednesday—i'm fleeing the indomitable wrath of yahweh. have a beer for me!" "aw, that sucks, we'll miss you!" like prometheus thieving fire, i steal exclamation points from the girls of the group chat. yahweh hates this—as the god of the group chat, he's obliged to talk in all caps, which girls hate, because it sounds like he's yelling at them. "what are you, my dad?" "THOU SHALT NOT COVET. THIS SHOULDN'T BE CONTROVERSIAL. THOU SHALT NOT COVET." i react with a "thinking face" emoji. more lightning bolts.

...

i've started work in the rubber & glue factory of akron, ohio. the good news is, the place is insulated. the bad news is, no one can leave, on account of the storm outside. i am unpopular in the work group chat. "bill, you need to go home. it's been three days of uber eats burritos and i'm going to puke if i eat another." my thumbs crouch like praying mantises. "i'm rubber, you're glue. everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." gerald is furious. "that makes no sense! god has damned you! you need to leave!" "i'm rubber, you're glue. everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." "you're not rubber—i'm rubber! newbies are assigned to the glue department! get out!" god intervenes: "SOUNDS LIKE THIS CONVERSATION ISN'T APPROPRIATE FOR 'WORK GENERAL'. NO ONE IS AT FAULT HERE, BUT I'M GOING TO ASK THAT YOU TAKE THIS CONVERSATION TO 'QUALITY IMPROVEMENT' OR ELSE THE 'INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION' CHANNELS." playing with my newton's cradle, i grin. "thanks for the heads up. i'm still getting the hang of the work slack, but i'll try to post comments like that in QI in the future." steve slams his desk. "fuck this, i quit!" of course, as soon as he steps outside he is killed by lightning. between this death and my deference, yahweh is appeased. the storm stops. i am promoted to the rubber department. the girls "fave" this news. i update my priors accordingly.

[undoundue]

once upon a time there was a story that was too scary to tell, and the reason it was so scary was that you could never tell it, and the story went like this: once upon a time there was a story that was too scary to tell, and the reason it was so scary was that you could never tell it, and the story went like this:

[undoundue]

what if the shorts guy from pokémon returned, but he doesn’t like shorts anymore. “they’re just OK.” now wouldn’t that be a trope subversion

[undoundue]

mournfully i consider playing neutral milk hotel - two-headed boy. but no—a situation this grave calls for two-headed boy, pt 2.

[undoundue]

oh honey, no one likes her, she's just legible to the state, that's all

[undoundue]

we must be fully attuned to the experience of public transportation, even if it costs us our dearest memories.

- a light spring jacket, a shirt with one button undone

- an old man in beret and shorts

- waiting: how far to stand from the sign with the bus route? how much "advance notice" should we give? (to read: james c scott, jane jacobs.)

- the common starling, speckled and billed like a no 2 pencil. a shitty bird. the spotless (rare) starling—improved by its artificial scarcity.

- when the bumps along the y-axis, i am reassured. when it bumps left and right, i am discomfited.

- pregnant woman in a pencil stripe dress reading recipes for escargot

- the backpack occupies its own seat. does it have rights? it does not. briefly i consider calling the police.

- the red STOP button, on a grey carapace screwed into the curly brace yellow poles, which span the bus like a ribcage projecting its anger

- coffee spill. everyone wills the globs of cold latte towards another. no one intervenes. to do so would invite culpability, lawsuits. parallels to kitty genovese here.

- "if possible, exit the rear door." this message is interruptible if you press stop midway through.

- when you leave, do you say "thank you"? do you shout it, to be heard from the rear door? to leave from the rear door is preferred, and yet it makes gratitude more difficult: yet another way in which society is hypocritical.

- the final stop. everyone lights marlboros and equips their spiked gauntlets. the pregnant woman daubs her face with warpaint. the old man is trampled. all ethical codes abandoned. still, i am five minutes late. (to read: hobbes. maybe rousseau.)

[undoundue]

d-o-g-g

i tipped my hand when i referred to a mere aquaintance as d-o-double-g. first, it presumed closeness—inappropriately so. second, some people are allergic to doggs. i could have said "c-a-t-t," but statistically more americans own dogs than cats, so i went with the safe (but still dangerous) choice. third, it might be offensive. to black people? of course not. what, do they have a patent on “dogg”? no, but it might be offensive to snoop dogg, or the guy who writes achewood, diluting their brands at the least.

[undoundue]

THE SOLDIER: Yeah, I served in the pussy wars of ’76. Ate some good pussy too. French pussy, Korean pussy, Native American pussy—Cherokee—Thai pussy, Ugandan pussy, Croatian pussy, Serbian pussy, Mongolian pussy, Prussian pussy—and they don’t even make pussy like that any more. ‘Course, it wasn’t easy. I remember sarge, on the first day of boot camp, before we’d even licked the letter ‘A’ into our regulation cantaloupe, he says: “Boys. Not all of you are going to make it out of this alive. But I’ll be damned if you don’t get your ears wet first.” Sarge hisself died in Newfoundland, sucking on the engorged clit of a BBW. Yep, like a starving child at its mother’s teat. Aneurysm. Still, what a way to go. Nowadays, kids wouldn’t appreciate the glory, the honor, in the way a man like sarge died. They eat ass, which I don’t knock, certainly in the midst of a labial barrage most men have felt the brownlust and mouthed at the Antarctic circle; but the quantity which kids today eat, and the pride they take in it, in eating ass instead of eating pussy, it’s anti-family, and its arguably unhygienic. And they do it, they eat ass just ‘cuz its disgusting. I know, I sound judgmental, but that’s how I see it. It somehow alleviates their guilty concern that eating pussy pleases a woman too much, and that if they go down the road of pleasing a woman they’re liable to start shopping at Williams-Sonoma and having informed opinions about moisturizer. Not a way I’d want to go, for sure. And yet…pussy is warm. It’s sensitive. And it self-lubricates. Ass don’t do that. Well, not in the way that you’d want.