30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003 --
INFINITY.
"*30*."
PART SIX: "Weapon of Choice."
Be enough to put you off your bread and jam, if they bothered
to give you any.... Sugar... poor sod... ras, man... I've got you
under my skin... deep in the heart of me.... Bastards, I'll wipe
you out. Don't you know who I am? I'm the... I'm the Singing
Detective....
--Philip Marlow
BENEDICTION
First light of day, our man
is out of bed and standing at attention. His head cleared of all
thought, he prepares the morning ritual.
Middle fingers of both hands
straight out, all other fingers curled, he readies himself. Seconds
pass, then a minute. Then in a state of grace and focus, he begins.
Facing North, middle fingers
extended, arms thrust out, he bellows "FUCK YOU!"
Then, turning to the East,
fingers still stiff, arms out, and: "FUCK YOU!"
Then, South: "FUCK
YOU!"
Then, West: "FUCK
YOU!"
Then to the ceiling, to
the sky above: "FUCK YOU!"
And, as above, so below:
"FUCK YOU!"
And so, all four points
of the compass (each point also standing for each of the four primary elements
Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) as well as the third dimension (above and
below, you can work out what those mean) duly blessed, our hero
has mentally, physically, and spiritually readied himself for all the herculean
tasks that will comprise yet another syssiphian day.
STRAW UNIVERSE
Meanwhile, on the grid:
"Wait a second."
"What?"
"'The Seat of God?'
What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"The final joke. Me
as God. All writers want to be God. All writers are Gods, and
they all create worlds they want to live in because they find the 'real'
world interminable. Even people
who create nightmares. On some level they prefer their own nightmares
to the hell of the real. Everything moves here because I say it does.
My home."
MORE
And one day the little white
mouse discovered (through the grapevine) that one of the wizards he'd worked
with way back when he worked with computers in The Kingdom Of The Eagle
had died. It was the wizard with the really big, long beard.
He died of cancer. And the last time the mouse had seen him the mouse
had been kind of distant and dismissive and cold to him, and that was the
last time he'd seen the wizard alive. And now the wizard was dead.
The little white mouse felt
depressed and shitty, and like he was an insensitive, crude, walking turd.
It seemed like there was
a lot of that, these days.
WATERMUSIC EIGHT
yeah yeah yeah yeah but wait the insane they all died insane yeah yeah
yeah but yeah they all died insane and i
HEARTWORK 1
Sitting in the waiting room
of the medical clinic.
I've had enough of my heart
doing its cute little trick all night-- and, even though I haven't had
any palpitations all day, I'm still here because, well, it's been weeks
since these flutters started and I want some answers.
And, yes, I'm scared.
Terrified.
Is that what you all want
to hear?
Good.
WATERMUSIC SEVEN
mouse eagle hubble bubble kitty cat everything crumple crumple they all
died insane and alone alone go home die at home fuck you at home it was
a self fulfilling prophecy sure but still they did it they all managed
it worked it through to its final catching up gaining fast no wonder
THE NEW TANGIERS 1
It's winter, and I'm cold.
And I know I'm in the Land
Of The Dead
I walk around. I'm
on a street. To my left and right there are old, empty buildings.
At least I assume the buildings are empty. They look like warehouses.
I don't go inside them because, for some reason, they scare me.
Eventually, even though
I'm walking by myself, I realize that I'm not alone.
And then I notice that Allen
Ginsberg is with me. And it's not like he faded in from another dimension,
and it's not like I turned around and there he was-- like in a cheap movie
with cheap special effects-- he's just somehow with me, now. Somehow.
Like I'd never noticed him before and now I know he's in front of me.
Hi, he says.
Hi, I say.
Welcome to the Land Of The
Dead.
I had a feeling that's where
I was, I say.
Come on, let me show you
around.
WATERMUSIC SIX
no wonder my heart/s fluttering no wonder i always feel weak no wonder
this is the first time i/ve ever had physical symptoms like this the disease
heart stopping fills with blood then pumps out a huge heady shot the disease
is loneliness is a disease and people the carriers not origianl at all
existential whining but ture nonetheless and the yeah they all died insane
and they/re all selves
HEARTWORK 2
And the walls are blank with
the exception of three perfectly placed, perfectly framed bulliten boards.
However, the bulliten boards are empty. No pins, no scarps of paper.
On closer inspection, they appear to have never been used.
And the only magazines they
have to read while I wait are old issues of Golf Digest, Chatelaine,
and Seventeen. And I didn't bring a book.
And Golf Digest is
all about golf, so it's boring. And I can't even really understand
how there can be an entire magazine devoted to golf. But there is.
And Chatelaine is
insipid. And Seventeen, while it is filled with cute
pictures of cute girls, is equally insipid.
So I sit and pretend to
be interested in Golf Digest. And, maybe it's because there's
something zen about golf, or maybe it's because I'm scared shitless of
what the doctor might say and so need to focus on something else, but after
a while the articles on golf seem really interesting.
And then my name is called.
In fact, my name is called
immediately after they call a kid named Jeston Wookley.
Now, even though my version
of that name might be misspelled, the phonetics are still the same.
And so, what the hell kind of last name is "Wookley?" And who in
their right mind would name their child "Jetson?" Although it is
kind of neat to have both the Jetsons and wookies in your name simultaneously,
I find it had to believe that this child will live to see highschool.
So me and Jetson Wookley
and Jetson Wookley's mother all go into the back.
Then I go into a room and
sit by myself.
I look at the medical posters
on the walls:
Graphs, cross sections of
the human eye, the heart, a skeleton showing all the major bones from two
differnt angles.
WATERMUSIC FIVE
infinite singular selves that/s old and dull too so breathe just breathe
in and out chest just just breathe calm in out relax don/t panic sleeping
like a log need to get up tomorrow don/t need this swing your partner everyone
pair up yup partner up like a graph each point higher they all pair up
grab a friend ignore the idiot in the corner looking with longing all the
time ignore him he doesn/t exist he/ll die insane alone like all the greats
died insane or alone art comes from pain and yeah yeah yeah yeah but wait
wait there/s a gene for transcendence yeah but but but wait wait wait space
is filled with sugar and but yeah yeah but yeah yeah but yeah i miss her
i i i i i oh god infinity always at the edges of my being
THE NEW TANGIERS 2
And Allen Ginsberg shows me
around the Land Of The Dead.
It's hard to describe how
it works, he says, You just have to be dead to really get it. It's
like a whole bunch of rooms superimposed on each other, and the rooms are
infinite. Maybe a better was to describe it is it's like a lot of
dimensions that intersect at certain points, although these points are
everywhere and all the dimensions are located inside each other, all the
time, and it's sort of like an infinity of infinite regressions.
And you're everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
I think I understand that,
I say.
You don't really, but you
think that you do. But that's okay. It feels like I've been
here since the beginning of time and I don't really understand it myself.
And we walk, together, and
he shows me the sights.
But I don't really understand
the sights. Not really. It just seems as if we're passing the
same warehouses over and over. And what he's saying to me I can't
really comprehend.
And, somehow, all the warehouses
begin to turn into a Middle Eastern bazaar. The effect is slow and
hard to describe. It's just like, somehow, the warehouses slowly
become something else. Almost like an effect in a movie-- unlike
Ginsberg's appearance which was nothing like a movie effect-- but it's
not really anything I can "see" as such, just somehow "feel" or maybe "know."
And, before long (although it actually feels like years are passing) the
transformation is complete, and we're in an infinity of stalls and people
are selling things to walking pedestrians, or just talking amongst each
other.
It's all like this, Ginsburg
says, First you're somewhere, and then you're somewhere else. Partly
where we go also depends on your perceptions.
Oh, I say.
I walk over to one stand
and look at some objects. I don't really understand what the objects
are for. They seem like shapes, but somehow they're also not shapes.
Allen Ginsberg explains what they're for. But I don't really understand
what he's telling me, though. It's all somehow, if not beyond me,
so radically other to my experience, that even his words stop being words.
Eventually, I give up trying
to understand my environment, and we walk on.
THEN THEY CAN ALL JUST BURN IN HELL
And now it seems like NASA is
just going to let the Hubble telescope drift in orbit and die because they
don't have enough "funding" to maintain it.
But of course they have
enough "funding" for pointless military horseshit.
I guess all they really
do
care about is putting bombs in orbit.
Pig fuckers.
HEARTWORK 3
Eventually, a nurse comes in
and asks me how it's going, what'm I here for, what's the trouble.
"Well I, well, I have this,
it started a few weeks ago, this, this, well, it's like my heart's going
along just beating normally thump thump thump and then it just stops for
a second and then it gives this big WHUMP and then it keeps on going normally
and this doesn't happen often but it does and it's well, it's sure a sensation,
heh, and well I'm under a a lot of uh stress lately there've been
personal things and and like stuff with a friend of mine and she, and uh
nevermind, and there's school I'm trying for my Master's and and my Master's
in English after a long time I went back to school and there's this language
thing I have to be able to speak another language and er or I mean read
another language, and uh there's this test that I didn't think I'd pass
I had to read a passage in French and translate it into English and I did
it and I if I don't pass this test I can't graduate but I just found out
a few days ago that I did pass it so that's something but, well, there's
still more stress and and this thing it happens mostly in the middle of
the night just I wake up from a dream and my heart's thump thump thump
thump and then nothing and then KATHUMP one big one and and this happens
like a few times in a row and then it like it'll beat for 20 times and
then go whump and then a hundred times and then go whump and then six times
and then whump, and it happens in, I don't know, in, in, in clusters, and
maybe it's stress, I don't know, anyway, heh," I say.
"Oh," she says.
She takes my pulse with
a device strapped to a finger on my left hand.
She takes my blood pressure.
She listens to my heart
through a stethoscope.
"The doctor will probably
want to run some cardiac tests," she says, "just to let you know."
She smiles and leaves the
room.
BOOM
And now, Bush is breathing down
the neck of Iran. Saying that maybe there are weapons there, now.
Or the capability for weapons. Or something.
No, wait, or is that Syria?
Or, wait, what about North
Korea. He's pissed them off, too. And they are insane,
and they do have nukes.
Just do it already, George.
Enough with the suspense.
Enough with all this pointless
dicking around.
Wipe every last crumb of
life off the face of the globe. Every last organism, incinerate everything.
Just do it.
WATERMUSIC FOUR
and me here alone lying alone in bed heart racing gasping for breath again
in the dark flickering at the edges light flicks flecks flickering yeah
they died insane don/t let me me me die insane my head needs something
some sheets around me feet back my back cold lying in sweat back cold legs
cold ears face numb lying in bed trying gasping for breath anxiety that/s
all this is is is just a an anxiety attack again every night no wonder
i can/t sleep every night the same thing in bed and me thinking don/t let
me die insane don/t let me die maybe i won/t wake up sleep isn/t death
death isn/t sleep death is death something different when you/re asleep
you know you/re asleep
HEARTWORK 4
The doctor comes in and I tell
him everything I told the nurse, only this time it's all a little more
focused and linear.
He listens to my heart with
a stethoscope.
"Do you drink?" he asks.
He's British and has a kind, soothing voice.
"Not much."
"Drugs?"
"Nope."
"Coffee?"
"Up until this happened,
I consumed massive quantities of caffeine. I was even doing one Red
Bull a day, for a while there."
"That'll bugger you up.
I'll tell you your heart sounds normal but we really have to catch these
things when they happen to be sure."
"Well, yeah, but the medical
clinic isn't open at four o'clock in the morning."
"It doesn't matter.
This is the kind of thing that vanishes as soon as you come through the
door. I want to run an ECG but I'll tell you right now it'll probably
show normal activity."
"I haven't been drinking
any caffeine since this crap started."
"Well, that's good.
Most of the time these drop beats are nothing to worry about. You
trying to do something abut your stress?"
"Trying."
"Good, that's something.
It's probably stress, that's all. We're going to do bloodwork, too.
You ever had your cholesterol tested?"
"God, maybe years ago.
If yes, it's been so long I don't remember."
"Okay. We'll do that,
urinalysis, other tests as well, both cholesterols, and so forth."
He writes some stuff in his notebook. "Come with me to the lab.
But if it gets worse later on we can refer you to a cardiologist, we can
only do so much here."
THE NEW TANGIERS 3
Ginsberg and I walk along, for
a while, without speaking to each other.
Eventually, I notice that
there's a little snow on the ground.
Then the snow becomes thicker,
and the air begins to cool off.
I realize that I'm about
to make another transition to another place, and the bazaar begins to become
more and more spotty, more and move vague and undefined while the snow
grows thicker and the temperature drops. Eventually, the bazaar is
gone and I'm back in an environment that is cold and wintry.
But this time there are
no warehouses, just snow as far as the eye can see, and the occasional
tree.
I exhale, and I can see
my breath.
The transition was easier
this time, right?
Yeah, I say.
It gets easier over time.
Then the air warms and the
snow begins to melt a little. Also, some houses begin to fade into
view.
Eventually, we're in a residential
district, and the air feels like springtime.
Come on over here, Allen
Ginsberg says, I've got someone you should meet.
THE QUESTION ANSWERED QUESTIONED
And she looks at me.
"So, what about 'The Question
Answered?'"
"The what?" I say.
"'The Question Answered.'
*30* Vignette Number 18."
"Oh my God, that thing.
That was so long ago. What was that one about?"
"It was 2001 and the entire
text reads: 'In many fascinating ways, both foreseen and unforeseen.
And, y'know, it'll only take about a week.'"
"Yeah, that's right.
And the context is something to do with 9-11, doesn't it? To be honest,
I really can't remember. You have to figure out what the question
is, and be damned if I can remember what it is, unless it's somehow implied."
"That doesn't really answer
my question."
"That's the best I can do.
Sorry. Oh well, there so much other cryptic stuff in *30*, just chalk
it up to that and move on."
"Yeah, but it's been bugging
me. My interpretation is something like it's the answer to 'How will
all the stupid bullshit surrounding 9-11 screw up our lives?' Or
something like that."
"Yeah, that's pretty good.
Go with that. It makes as much sense as anything I could come up
with. Probably more. But I really can't remember what I meant
by that vignette. Sorry."
"You're useless."
HEARTWORK 5
Sitting in the lab.
More posters. A couple
of mahines, too. Boxes with wires and screens. One of the boxes
has a paper scroll attached to it. ECG.
A nurse comes in.
I take off my shirt and
lie on a table. She sticks electrodes all over my chest and some
on my sides.
"Just relax. You can't
be tense when we do the reading. If all your chest muscles are tense,
the reading won't be accurate."
"I'm trying. I'm kind
of a tense guy. Is all." I try to laugh. It sounds forced.
"That's better. There."
30 seconds and a short graph
scrolls out of the machine.
"Oops. One of the
electrodes came off." She stands, looks at me lying desperate and
pale on the table. She finds the electrode and sticks it back onto
my side.
"There you go." She
sits, starts the machine again. Another 30 seconds.
"Okay. That's good."
She turns off the machine.
She stands.
She pulls off the electrodes
one at a time.
"Thanks. You can put
your shirt back on."
I look at the graph.
Regular peaks and valleys.
THE NEW TANGIERS 4
Bill, this is Brian Cotts.
Brian, William S. Burroughs.
Hi, I say.
(But Burroughs hadn't been
there, but then suddenly he was there. But he'd also "faded" into
"existence" over the course of what felt like centuries. Although
he'd always been there, too. I try not to pay too much attention
to the way time and causality work in this place.)
Hello, Burroughs says.
WATERMUSIC THREE
my being my being HAman beinHAg makes ha from an opera tha ha ha o a chn't
just mean writing-- I meair mu comnicates something-- and so is thus a
kind everytd oAnd by texts I doan anything that comm icates anything, however
vaguely it hahamuA nicates-- anhing that a human being makes from an opera
to a chair commuand i i i i i i help me shinji help me on the grid in my
head on the net words living eating words help me shinji i i i i i i i
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
HEARTWORK 6
"Well, so far, there's nothing
wrong with the ECG. It's normal." I'm in the doctor's office.
"So that's good news. LIke I said , these drop beats are common and
seldom anything to worry about. Still want to do the bloodwork, though.
Come in any time."
"Okay. What about
my blood pressure?"
"It's normal. Your
heart rate, it's normal too."
"Thanks. I'll be back
tomorrow for bloodwork I want to get this over with."
"I won't be here, but it's
so standard. There will be someone who can help you. Cheers."
TSUNAMI GHOSTS
And now, there are ghosts littering
the countries still standing after the tsunami swept them all clean.
People are reporting ghosts by the thousands. It's a plague of reported
supernatural activity.
Psychologists are saying
it's mass trauma. Buddhist monks are saying that it's mass ghosts.
And Thailand is worrying
that all the ghost sightings will drive away tourism.
However, I figure the ghosts
will increase tourism.
Everyone wants to see a
ghost.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE GRID:
SHE: "So what's your obsession
with infinity?"
A FRIENDLY REMINDER
By the way, kids, "Weapon Of
Choice" is still playing in the background, seemingly caught in an infinite
loop.
WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE TURN
THAT OFF!!!!
WHERE IT'S AT-- 2005
There are no scenes, just illusions.
Electronica was once, in the years surrounding the turn of the century,
vital and important, filled with life and the future. But no more.
Just like Grunge in the early 1990s, New Wave in the 80s, Punk in the 70s,
and so on down. But, now: Electronica is dead; Noise is dead;
Rock is dead; Rap is dead; Folk is dead; Country is dead; Metal is dead;
Punk is dead; New Wave is dead; Blues is dead; Jazz is dead; Industrial
is dead; Classical is dead; and so on. Synthesizer, guitar, drum,
bass, orchestra, laptop, flute, saxophone, piano, all forms of harmony,
all forms of dissonance, all order and all chaos. It's all dead and
over. Forever and ever. There is no underground and there is
no aboveground, no counterculture and no mainstream. It has all been
neutralized, nullified, become benumbed, equalized, no motion forwards
or back, up or down, stasis unchanging, like a single, dull tone having
no beginning or end. The same can be said for literature.
HEARTWORK 7
"It usually doesn't take this
long," she says.
(Because of the bloodwork,
no food or drink for 12 hours.
The food's not a problem,
but since I quit caffeine I've been guzzling water like a junkie.
And so, depriving myself of H2O for 12 hours has been excruciating.
I'm so thirsty I'm practally
halucinating.)
"I mean, usually I find
the vein right away. The most I've ever taken is two times.
Until now."
And I feel the needle slinding
in , yet again. Usually, if I don't look at a needle, I don't feel
it going in. Turns out, that only really words a couple of times,
though. I have just discovered that, after a while, if the exact
same tiny patch of skin is being drilled with holes over and over, the
nerves in that area begin to get hyperexcited. This results in my
being able to feel, in exquisite detail, every micron of a needle's progress
through my body-- from the first initial tiny prick, to its sliding through
centimeters of raw, quivering flesh in search of its ultimate goal.
And when that goal (after a good deal of exploratory prodding) is not reached,
the sensation of the needle's retraction is likewise enhanced.
In and out, in and out,
the crook of my left arm.
It's like this:
She says, "Sorry, still
can't find the vein," in a kind of embarrassed tone, undoes the rubber
tourniquet, tells me to relax my hand, feels around my arm, taps and pokes
where she thinks the vein should be, decides on a location, reties the
tourniquet, tells me to make a fist, positions the needle, then slowly
inserts it, a millimetre at a time, until about two centimetres of needle
are imbedded in my flesh. She then looks puzzled, feels around the
needle's entry point with a finger or two, pushes the needle in a little
more. Says, "Hm." Wiggles the needle a little bit. Then
gets this odd expression on her face, and pulls the needle back out.
"When I was I the hospital
once before," I say, "they had trouble trying to put the IV in. I
guess I have a lot of padding. They also had to do a spinal freeze
on me and couldn't find the right nerve in my back, or something.
So I sat on the table for about 15 minutes while the kept crackling into
my spine between the vertebrae." I'm just trying to be friendly.
"So they kept poking, and it's this weird feeling. Kind of like a
crunching, crumpling feeling when they get into your spine. It didn't
really hurt, but there was this dull ache. But I really remember
the cracking, crumpling feeling when the needle would break into the bone.
After a while it made me feel vaguely nauseated."
"Maybe if I try the other
arm," she says.
THE NEW TANGIERS 5
We spend time talking, Burroughs
and I. Although much of the discussion occurs on some sort of sub-vocal,
almost telepathic, level.
I tell him who I am and
he tells me that he already knows who I am. I ask him how "life"
is in The Land Of The Dead, and he tells me that it's nice. He gets
to see his friends all the time, hangs out with Allen and Jack. Gregory
Corso, Brion Gysin. They're all here. Kiki, too.
Even Joan. He's made
peace with Joan, and they're friends again. She doesn't resent his
having sent her here all those years ago: The Land Of The Dead, while it's
not heaven, is still far more interesting than The Land Of The Living.
But of course, he hadn't known that when he'd shot her. And he hadn't
known she was fine while spending all those years feeling guilty and sick
about her murder. But they're friends now. They spend time
together.
And, I discover, that he's
working on a new book. He'd been discussing the idea of a new book
with Allen, and they'd bounced ideas off each other, and Allen had insisted
the book be an expansion on his last words. And, aftre a lot of thought
(because what else is there to do in The Land Of The Dead but think) he'd
agreed. It seemed as if the time was right for a statement about,
not just love, but LOVE-- in all capitals, the ultimate painkiller.
And so the book, which doesn't have a title yet is about LOVE-- as a pure
thing, a painkiller and a drug, pharmakon, and all the nuances contained
within that idea. The book is, mostly, going to be about Joan, although
there's still gonna be plenty of toothsome young men to satisfy an old
man's degenerate appetites....
And Burroughs laughs in
the way only he can, with that craggy, fucked up croak of a voice-- but
because this conversation is sub-vocal, I feel the laugh inside me, crawling
into all my openings and shaking me to my bowels.
And I get a feeling of warmth.
Warmth and joy radiating off and into me. Death has been good to
Bill.
It's been good to all of
us, Allen says.
WATERMUSIC TWO
i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i and not be and be and somehow be me and i/ve
done so i/m i/m i can/t it/s just that well lying here and i hurt her i
can/t think imagine how bad i am what a bad man i am evil pure and a call
what i/ve i i am not a good person i hurt everyone and everything i touch
touch just for some contact just something anything some days it doesn/t
pay to get well i/ve got my heh heh heh health sorry i/m sorry that it
worked out this way and that well your words are empty hollow bleatings
sheep of our pains desired french very french down this way i hurt her
my chest hurts cramps gas not an artery arterial scholoersis heart disease
uncle pete died of a heart attack and that was a long time coming not me
not going to die this way maybe next week i/ll look for get out of bed
get off my ass look for some way to
OH.
....or not pig fuckers....
....as the case may be....
It seems that in six years
NASA will be putting up another telescope called LISA (Laser Interferometer
Space Telescope) that will be so sensitive it (lotsa people are hoping)
will be able to see right into The Big Bang, and maybe beyond.
Some physicists and astronomers
are hoping that LISA will be able to show not only the birth of the universe
as it happened, but will also uncover a kind of "umbilical cord" that connected
our universe to a "mother" universe, all those years ago. Thus showing
that our "big bang" was really not a "big" bang but just another of a (possibly)
infinite number of "bangs" that occur when one universe is born out of
another. Thus showing that this universe isn't the only one, proving
the existence of parallel universes.
And from there, who knows.
ME: "Ever since I was
very young, I've felt strange.
"When I was really little,
I had no words to describe it, so I just felt strange.
"After a while, I developed
a vocabulary, and I began to realize that infinity is always at the edge
of my being. Not any 'real' infinity, but an idea of something that
I myself had created, somehow, without really realizing that I'd created
it. And that idea that I'd created, but still had trouble vocalizing,
kind of took on a kind of life of its own, sort of. It was just this...
feeling....
"And when I read White
Light by Rudy Rucker in Grade 9 (or maybe Grade 8, but I really think
it was in Grade 9), the idea of Infinite Set Theory was introduced to me,
and with it the idea that you can on some level comprehend infinity-- if
not in any sort of traditional way. And I realized that this was,
sort of, the 'idea' that had been haunting me, the 'idea' (I put it in
quotes because remember it was more like a feeling, or even a feeling of
a feeling) that had been making me feel strange.
"And so I began to visualize
infinity as this pulsing white light I could only glimpse out of the corner
of my eye, always infinitely far away from me, and yet somehow within reach--
except that when I looked at it, it vanished, and when I reached for it,
it was always tantalizingly near, but still millimetres away from the ends
of my fingertips.
"And this feeling / idea
informs everything I do, and everything I will do. An unknowable
that is, ultimately, the result of my own mind, an ephemeral illusion but
still (maybe even because of its ephereral and illusory nature) somehow
very, very real.
"And I want to touch it
so badly, all the time. I want to be it, and have it be me.
I want to merge with it, become infinity.
"Even if this longing is
the exact kind of thing that drives people insane.
"Even if it's just an abstract
lie I tell myself.
"Even though sometimes it
feels so real."
UNIVERSES
Of course even if the existence
of parallel universes is proven (which I have no doubt it will be), the
proof will be so vague and abstract that the majority of the population
will just have to take the scientists with the proof at their word.
Of course.
OF COURSE
Much like the way lay people
have to take the word of religious leaders at face value when it comes
to matters religious.
OF COURSE
Except that science is based
on "fact" and if you're properly educated you can understand the theories.
All you have to do is think logically and immerse yourself in math and
physics and other scientific disciplines, and then it all makes sense.
It's all a just matter of learning.
OF COURSE
Except that the exact same thing
can be said of religion. All you have to do is learn to think spiritually
and immerse yourself in the hermeneutics and theology, and other religious
disciplines, and then it all makes sense. It's all just a matter
of learning.
HEARTWORK 8
Eventually, she finds the vein
and takes out a nice syringe of deep, thick blood. I now have several
pads taped on both my arms.
"Sorry about that," she
says.
And then it's the plastic
cup and I'm in the john for my urine sample.
I have never peed in a cup
before and, because of a sudden difficulty with aim combined with the fact
that having nothing to drink for over 12 hours has dried me up, things
don't go too well.
Tiny, unfocussed droplets
scattering everywhere. Then a stream. Then I place the cup
under the stream, which immediately stops.
Then I begin again, but
this time I'm pissing all over my left hand.
I move the cup under the
stream, almost drop the cup, jockey for position, and end up somehow arcing
a stream onto the wall.
I'm starting to run out
of urine now, so I have to conserve. I stop the stream right when
it's actually getting good and try really hard to aim.
A few drops, then a
stream. Then, because of the piss all over the cup and my hand, and
the unexpected force of the stream, the cup almost falls into the toilet
again.
But this time I manage to
hang onto the cup, fill it half full, reach for the lid, clamp the lid
on the cup. Then I wash up.
And, as I'm about to leave,
I notice that somehow I managed to urinate all over the copy of Baudolino
I brought to read in the waiting room.
I wonder if somehow I haven't
polluted my urine sample with bacteria from my hands or sudden unexpected
exposure to Umberto Eco, but fuck it. I put the cup of pee in the
urine sample cupboard in the wall of the washroom, throw my book in the
garbage, and, with all the little gauze patches taped to my arms pulling
painfully on my arm hair, I'm outta there.
WATERMUSIC ONE
find this place any place when back when i/m sorry i can/t say i/m sorry
i hurt you didn/t want to hurt you i i you/ll hate me you have to hate
me now but i understand but but but don/t i i i can/t say how sorry i am
but that look the sorry quivering lips look in your her eyes betrayal anger
trying not to cry me her the the the newspaper they arrested that woman
in the states human rights lawyer for defending civil liberties sorry i
can/t see the connection she did her job defended a terrorist and got arrested
for defending a terrorist on terrorism charges unfair so much for
the free and the brave that law think about anything but the look in your
eyes betrayal hate rage that look in your eyes and you did nothing to me
innocent and i/m just a sucker for wanting to feel hope and love but you
you can/t i don/t blame you if you never want to see i should call can/t
bare to see after what i/ve done can/t bare if i cry if big if if i get
angry get depressed uncorked who knows what i might do just maybe end it
nighttime you/re not so innocent either the stars all no don't at least
talk to her one more time have a real talk not that stammering shit not
that feeling of acid in stomach in chest vomiting stomach acid an ulcer
holes in my flesh the size of a fist said once to me if you blush your
tummy blushes is your tummy corrodes you corrode acid holes the size of
hands dark night black rose immortal empty hollow bleatings velvet tongue
blue rosebuds hello skinny anything but what i am
THE NEW TANGIERS 6
And then Burroughs sits down
in the slush and says, in a neutral voice:
Please leave now.
Just go away.
And I feel kind of confused
and hurt, being shunned by Bill like that. But the Allen says:
Don't mind him. It's
hard on him, hard on all of us, when someone from The Land Of The Living
comes through here. You're alive and we're dead, and so you're not
supposed to be here. It's kind of like the sort of disruption living
people feel when they encounter ghosts, but we, being pure thought, are
so much more sensitive to disruption. And, being dead, we know you're
really here while you are probably interpreting this as a dream.
And Burroughs is sitting
in the slush like a child, holding his knees, looking away from me.
Don't worry, Allen says,
He's not upset. It's just, just hard.
What should I do?
It's already been taken
care of, Allen says, Don't worry. You'll see us again. Maybe
not that soon by your time-line, but soon enough from our perspective.
And then I'm in my bed,
and it's morning and I don't feel like I've woken out of a dream.
In fact, I don't feel like I was even asleep. I'm just in bed and
it's morning. It was night, I was in bed, then I was with Allen and
Bill, and now it's morning and I'm here. It was like, somehow, I'd
moved from one room to another room, and then I'd moved back. Nothing
remarkable, or strange about it. Perfectly natural.
Although I do feel rested,
and strangely happy.
I sit on the edge of my
bed.
I laugh and look around.
The apartment seems so fresh
and new.
HEARTWORK 9
Later on that night, I'm sitting,
reading Ulysses because it feels so good to get back into James
Joyce-- I feel like I haven't picked up any James Joyce since 1999-- and
Stephen Dedalus is walking along the beach, thinking about life, and while
I read my mind drifts to one of the last things Jacques Derrida said in
an interview about how he never said everything was language, and he never
said that we're bound in language, implying, in the context of his work,
that while everything isn't all language, it's still the way we see the
world, but we can still use language to point to another state beyond language,
or at least if not beyond then other to language, and that while we're
not bound up in language we're still dependent upon it, but language itself
is unstable and contains fissures in it that "point" to this other "thing"--
and for some reason I keep forgetting it, that there is that big, undefinable
Other out there that we can never get to because of the way we need language
to be ourselves, but still we can point to it, in oblique ways, and in
a way "glimpse" it, however briefly before we retreat back into our language
that is both us and is in no way us at the exact same time.
And I look over to the right
end of my couch, to the end-table there, and at the aloe-vera plant Kim
gave me a few months ago because she figured my apartment needed some greenery.
The plant is doing fine, thick and green as ever. And I look at it,
and it sits there and a choking tightness builds in my chest. I stiffen
and suck in breath to loosen my lungs. I shudder as my heart palpitates.
And looking at the plant,
I set Ulysses on the couch cushion beside me.
Then I stand, turn off the
light, and go to bed.
WATERMUSIC ZERO
scars on the walls here lying low here alone unloved unlived along the
riverrun from swerve of shore to fuck you asshole you can all just go fuck
yourselves sorry i/m so sorry about everything i ever did just forgive
me please be with me again just go fuck yeah now that/s what i i i i call
a a a no wait breathe in breathe out you/ve gotten through worse try to
fall asleep try not to panic do not collapse do not rest no rest rest please
rest do not collapse but for the love of god you don/t really believe in
but yeah okay you want to believe in but wanting and doing are not the
same think you need there to be something but there/s nothing just try
to go to sleep just don/t no focus on the dark the calm the dark the walls
can/t see the walls dark focus on the dark calm breathe in breathe out
go to black fade Aman beinHAakes ha from a breathe tha ha ha in out calm
o a t just mea'tn writ-- I meathe air mu comnica in and out calm tes somethando
is thinking thuus a kind everytd everyman ever y body ev oAnAnAnAnAnd by
texts I doan you/re not always so innocentanything that comm you not just
me icates all my breathe fault faulany doan thhong howe to black calm black
try to to relax tomorrow will be another day and each day is a battle war
attrition bullshit give up give/em hell hello fuck you operator calm down
just just do not collapse HA HAiccate sunk suck such and such fight till
you drop each day just calm black at the walls just black look no lights
no shapes hand on face on heart just look at the trees out the window trees
in fall leaves back then we had a cat not really just warm choose and each
day you choose your weapons and tomorrow you choose your weapons make it
stick make it work breakthrough break but the key is for you to make you
you you yourself your own weapon your own
WEAPON OF CHOICE
I wake and stand. The
sun is out this morning. Slivers of sun shining in through the light
Venetian blind covering my bedroom window, and the dark sheet covering
the blind.
Fine day, fine day.
I walk to the centre of
my apartment and, slowly, silently the floor beneath my feet begins to
dissolve.
I descend through the floor,
down to the centre of the apartment directly underneath mine. The
people in that apartment are much older than me, and it takes them some
time to register my presence. However, by the time they fully comprehend
that I, their upstairs neighbour, am standing in the centre of their apartment,
disrupting their breakfast, the floor beneath my feet has almost fully
disintegrated, and I have begin my second descent. This time I drop
into the centre of the main floor apartment, an apartment that is inhabited
by a still older couple.
Above me, however, the disintegration
has progressed away from the hole through which I have dropped. The
top floor is crumbling faster than the one beneath. And as the void
I have created spreads, gobbling up walls, supports, and confused neighbours
who have little or no time to fully register what is happening, bits of
matter begin to fall downwards. Remnants of the building: wires,
insulation, flakes of paint and concrete, chunks of pipe, assorted metal,
pieces of shelving units, clothing, the remains of furniture, pets, plants,
pictures of loved ones. All these falling fragments, traces of things
that once existed, are quickly gobbled up by the nothingness my descent
has caused.
The second floor disintegrates
more slowly than the top floor, but the same effect occurs: walls, people,
furniture, things, whole lives consumed and obliterated by an unstoppable
circle of hungry nullity. Crumbing, falling detritus disintegrating
through proximity. And, on the third floor, the disintegration moves
slowest of all.
Like a slow-motion tornado
consuming the world.
And, now, the main floor
finally consumed, I begin my walk across the snow.
And, although in only a
t-shirt and underwear, barefoot nearly naked against the harsh winter air,
I feel no cold, no pain, only an increasing crackling sensation somewhere
behind my eyes.
And, as I move, a spreading
radius of nothingness emanates from my position in spacetime.
And, as I walk, the spread
of annihilation widens; ahead of me, it is thin, like ripples in a river
made by a speeding boat, spreading out behind me, stretching across the
planet in waves.
Behind me: no snow, no sidewalks,
no cars, no grass, no people, no buildings, no shrubbery, no birds; everything
consumed at a calm pace.
All things dissolving, breaking
down into entropic clusters-- bits and pieces, chunks cracking off, and
then these cumbersome chunks breaking down into even smaller and smaller
units. Living flesh and plant matter reverting backwards from organics
to nothing: from whole bodies to organs to cells, then organelle structures
and molecular chains. From molecules to atoms. Then from atoms
to quarks and gluons, and then breaking down into even finer stuff.
Electrons, positrons, all subparticular matter weakening and reverting
into even more and more basic stuff, until all that are left are waves
of probability, tiny fluctuations in the void, and then even those ripples
are stilled.
Ahead of me, now, as I walk,
stream further rays of annihilation. Long tendrils of nothingness
that cut through space and time, each tendril fracturing the fabric of
being like long, thin cracks in a glass windowpane. And each of those
cracks becoming unstable and feathering into thinner and thinner fractal
cracks, until all matter along those cracks falls away and is gobbled up,
nullified, neutralized. And then the cracks widen and shoot off cracks
of their own, like an exponentially growing mass of tree roots. And
the spaces between the roots filling with emptiness.
And it is silent.
Utterly and completely silent. When the matter crumbles away into
air, the soundwaves of the crumbling are consumed. And when the air
itself is replaced by vacuum, the sound of inrushing (because nature abhors
a vacuum) is also curled backwards into the nothingness and consumed quickly,
for soundwaves are things and thus can be captured and easily neutralized.
Yet, there is no massive
suction from the spreading nullity behind me.
As everything is destroyed,
there is a subtle motion towards nothingness that might be able to be felt
as a slight breeze, if anyone were able to get near enough the breeze to
feel the breeze without first being negated.
The world is simply, calmly,
standing still, remaining at peace, waiting for complete its complete and
inevitable annihilation.
And, on I walk through the
city, and as I pass the roots I have sent out ahead of me, what little
remains of the world that hasn't yet been eaten by my spearing rays is
destroyed by the growing nothingness I leave in my wake.
And I walk and walk, and
as I walk I speed up. Or, perhaps, time begins to slow down because
even time isn't immune to what I have willed. And, soon, within ten
minutes, the nothingness I have caused has spread beyond the province within
which I live, and then beyond the country, and then the past continent.
All cities, town, villages,
hamlets, gone.
And then into the ocean.
And beyond.
Every drop of water, every
particle of organic stuff, all objects manmade and natureborn. Every
river, ocean, mountain. Every skyscraper, church, school. Cars,
trucks, planes, trains. And so on.
Beneath me, the planet still
rotates. But a quick shift in perspective fixes that. Topsoil,
crust, mantle core, all gone.
Then the moon.
And then the asteroid belt
and then Mars and Venus and Mercury. Then the sun goes out.
Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune,
Uranus, Pluto and Charon. Sedna.
Now the effect is speeding
up. Every star above and below begins to waver and break down.
Soon, the Milky Way galaxy
is gone. Then, minutes later, Canis Major is consumed. Then,
the effect grows faster from there. Hundreds of galaxies, then millions,
then billions gone within an eyeblink.
Faster than the speed of
light. 299 792 458 m / s x 2 x 2 x 2 x 299 792 458.
Every atom of hydrogen,
helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, fluorine, neon, sodium,
magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon, potassium,
calcium, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt,
nickel, copper, zinc, gallium, germanium, arsenic, selenium, bromine, krypton,
rubidium, strontium, yttrium, zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, technetium,
ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, silver, cadmium, indium, tin, antimony,
tellurium, iodine, xenon, cesium, barium; the lanthanoids lanthanum, cerium,
praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium,
dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium; as well
as hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, rhenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, gold,
mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, polonium, astatine, radon, francium,
radium; and of course the actinoids: actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium,
neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium,
fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, and lawrencium; and rutherfordium, dubnium,
seaborgium, bohrium, hasslum, meitnerium, darmstadium, roentgenium, ununbium,
ununtrium ununquadium, ununpentium, ununhexium, ununseptium, ununoctium,
and all other elements stable and unstable, solid, liquid, and gas (both
Noble and Non-), metallic and nonmetallic, those decaying into a-particles
or those simply sitting there like a stable, happy lump, as of yet undiscovered
or unmade.
Every cosmic ray.
Every quiver of radiation. Every photon.
Finally, laws of causality,
math, physics. Gravity, Electromagnetic, Weak and Strong forces,
3K Background Radiation. Etc.
The Planck Constant.
Higgs Bosun.
Etc.
Everything.
Light, dark.
Nothing.
Moving both back in time,
and far into the future. The abstract idea-forces governing being
giving way, crumbling.
Spreading, speeding out
of the brane-bubble that houses this universe.
And then universe after
universe after universe likewise nullified.
Infinite, instant collapse.
30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23, 2003 --
INFINITY.