Death [Redux]

Portrait, Self 2 & 3, iPhone 3Gs Camera, modified in Adobe Photoshop Express

Death

Portrait, Self 1, iPhone 3Gs Camera, modified in Adobe Photoshop Express

Incantation

Who are you, who took the clay from my river?
Who burned my figures in her dark house?
Who spilled my water over a grave?
Who gathered sprigs of my fruit trees in the corners?
Who cut the seam of my robe in the house of the tanner?
Who gathered up the dust of my feet on the threshold?
I sent to the mouth of the harbour, where tallow was bought for you;
I sent to the moat, where clay was picked up for you...

...Who are you, whose son? Who are you, whose daughter?
You who sit here and command your sorcery, your plots,
That you have done against me!
May Ea the magician undo,
And nullify your sorceries!
Asarluhi, the magician of the gods, son of Ea the wise!

--unknown author, Mesopotamia, 1st Millenium BC (supposedly)

Absorbing [March]

Reading:
Peter Pešić: "Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science"
William Gibson & Bruce Sterling: "The Difference Engine"

Listening:
Various Artists: "Kill Bill, Vol. 1 Soundtrack"
Ted Nugent: "Craveman"
Blue Murder: "OST"

Notes from the End of an Era Pt. 4 [Desparatus]

Someone being punched righteously straight into the face by reality and the causality within. I watch in the sidelines and smile. I have forseen this.

There is nothing more satisfying than being right.

The Land of Strange Gods II: Borderline

The gentle veil of rain shimmered in the early morning half-light. His eyes were fixed somewhere in the horizon, but he was looking at no particular point in the distance. The land was asleep and the yellow leaves rested in the trees looking tired. There was a great sense of sadness and longing. The landscape became blurred and distorted in his sleep deprived perception. When he slowly turned to face his car, an 18-wheeler passed the truck stop sending a gust of wind and water behind his back. As the whirlwind of leaves and tiny droplets slowly died, he pinned the butt of his still lit cigarette with the nail of his index finger against the upper joint of his thumb. He exhaled almost theatrically through his nostrils and sent the cigarette flying through the air towards the thick woods.

Then, it came again. The uncomfortable feeling at the tip of his sternum, rising towards the neck and when it reached the level of his heart, his whole chest jolted with arrhythmia. He raised his hand to feel the back of his head and slowly turned to look at the sky behind him. The reality changed in front of his eyes and a film of water appeared over his eye-sight. Small ripples formed around the clouds as everything turned black and white. He felt the back of his head again carefully. From the liquid sky a pillar of water-like substance coiled in a downward spiral attaching to the back of his head. He took hold of the thing firmly with both hands and uttered a single word. Motherfucker. The sky replied with a tremor that brought him to his knees. His upper body buckled and twisted violently backwards.

It was barely audible, but he heard it: the three very deep and low shocks in roughly half second intervals. He had no idea what it meant and what it was trying to say. He felt betrayed and trapped in this creation, as the plaything of a malevolent, unpredictable and autistic deity, and as the middle finger of god. Waves of pain washed over him. It was a divine catharsis delivered in a manner which made Satan appear gracious, courteous and kind. His mind was soon blank and cleansed. The vast nothingness inside his head made the only unpurged thought echo like whisper in a cathedral.

The thought of her.

It completely eluded him. He was kept sane and walking the Earth by one of the most despised human fallacies. Love. What an appropriate shrine for a failure. The punishing waves of hurt gave birth to another thought amidst the abyss of his mind, and then, to another and another. A train of thought sped away, spitting soul-fire, through the vast chambers of his consciousness.

"Am I turning into one of these monkeys? I am not one of these monkeys. I have a purpose. What is my purpose? I do not remember. Who am I? Why am I here? Where is she? I love her. No, I am not capable of love. It is one of the tricks of that evil fucker. Love is only fine-tuned jealousy. Who said that? I do not remember. Oh, dear god..."

And then it stopped like it always did. He opened his eyes carefully to see the world in color again. The soaked leaves on the wet asphalt felt strange underneath his aching knees.
He staggered a few uneasy steps towards the car. He just wanted to sleep. The smell of diesel fuel on the parking lot made him feel even more heady. Through the open door, he fell to the front seats, face first. The first time on that particular day a wish was granted to him.

A series of images scattered in blackness. Black and white photographs of non-Euclid shapes rotating in a dimensional void. Scattered parts of a grand design floating in terrifying silence. It must be here somewhere. I placed it here. I cannot walk towards the images for I have no legs. I cannot reach out to them for I have no hands. I have no willpower to move the images anymore and I have forgotten how anyway. This place has a terrible sense of sadness and longing, if it is a place at all. But then, everywhere I go these days it seems to be the same. It is a world where it always rains. Each night is like a demand. Oh yes, it is still here. Behind a column of schematics rotating slowly around their axis. If I could just get closer. The image has faded even more as I feared, but I can still make sense of the picture. She is sitting on a beach amongst ancient ruins. She rests her back against a fallen pillar of a temple at the waterline of a white city lost in time. The sea behind her is calm, reflecting the light ethereal. There is no sun but the velvety silver light appears from every angle. Her white long dress glows in this unearthly light and embraces every curve of her beautiful body. Her hair is just as I remember, soft and sand brown. A few cork-screw curls caress her goddess-like face with high cheekbones as the rest of her hair is gathered behind her head skillfully in a bundle. She smiles. There is a small jewel implanted on the surface of one of her teeth and there is a matching one pierced on the left just above her full and lush lips. I want to drown in her large, dark and playful eyes forever. It will not be long before the image disappears completely. A curious thing it is, this entropy without time. Everything here is eternal, but this one thing. Did I do something? Am I losing the connection? Would she even recognize me anymore? It is getting harder to remember, even though I am keeping myself awake for days to make the sleep and dreams deeper. Dreams are helpful. They make me remember. I don't want to wake up. I...

The smell of rain and the hissing from the road invaded his conscious thought. He opened has eyes and felt a sharp pain in his left hand. He carefully opened his clenched left fist to find the ignition key inside. It had left a deep red mark on his palm. He rose up arduously and shoved the key to its place in the steering column. Not much farther, he thought, as he turned the key to wake up the sleeping engine. Everything in his body hurt. He thought of it as vapid waste of useless flesh. There was a sense of special discomfort he felt towards this body. Hands, feet, breathing and heartbeat seemed all foreign to him, especially after an incident with the maker. His eye-sight was still flooded with overlapping images lifted from his dream. He really needed to clear his head. This sensory overload was too much for the flesh. He searched for the glove compartment for a fresh pack of smokes. There. A lighter. Check. Cold coffee from last night on the dash. Roger. A box full of strong painkillers. Uh-huh. Good to go.

It was all unremarkable. Yet another podunk sleepy factory town tucked behind gods know where. The ill-proportioned box-shaped buildings made out of concrete elements, and the general ugliness of everything was nothing short of appalling. He pulled left on the main street to the parking space of the apparently only hotel in town. It was a two-storey hotel, about average in size, and with a not very interesting facade of white bricks and corrugated iron plating underneath the windows. There were only two other cars in the parking lot, and he mused that they were probably cars owned by the hotel staff. It was in the middle of the week, which meant that the restaurants would be closed in the night. A good place for deep sleep, if nothing else. The ceiling was low in the lobby and the front desk was worn. The check-in was uneventful and quick. He dragged his flight-case to the first floor where the smoking rooms were. He let the door swing open before entering the room. Judging by the view from the doorway, it did actually not look as bad he had envisioned it. The curtains were exceptionally good. He could black out the whole room. There was one abstract painting hanging on the wall like an afterthought. The bathroom was white on white on white, and it delivered the second surprise of the day as it was clean. It was the hotel room modestly acceptable. This would then serve as yet another permanent address for the time being. There was even a small shelf for the luggage beside the writing table. He lifted the bag to the shelf and opened it to make inventory. It was like he had left it years ago. Three black suits in packed in transparent vacuum bags. Three pairs of black wing-tipped shoes. Three black cotton turtle neck shirts. One black dress shirt. One black silk tie. A bundle of black socks rolled into a ball. A dozen black underpants. One black notebook. One black fountain pen. One black pouch that contained toiletries. A black older model mobile phone switched off. All the items were unlabeled and therefore untraceable. He peeled off his traveling clothes and threw them into a trash can. As he walked naked towards the bathroom, his eyes caught the refection in the mirror. He appeared in his thirties, but those who had seen him, had described his age from 25 to 40 depending on the given situation. His face could be described as the definition of average but perfectly symmetric. His body was completely hairless with the only exception being the mop of black hair on his head. Only a closer examination would have revealed that it was all synthetic and it would change color when exposed to a certain level electricity. His eyes changed color too but only depending on his mood that was usually shifting between shadowy gray and black. He stood examining the reflection in the bathroom mirror under the cathode ray blue light. It was all unremarkable.

March

"It's been doing some thinking
And felt fair that she should know
All actions in which partake
Are far beyond it's control
Whether it was born or bred
(Genetic, Environment)
I wouldn't bother to ask it why
Simply concentrate on when

It lies awake, yes, quite obsessed
Making plans but It won't tell
So longs to hear her final words:
"I brought this on myself"
The theory of futility
Now you'll learn, so be prepared
Enemies are equal to
Wrath times the speed of fright squared"
--Peter Thomas Ratajczyk (1962-2010)

Sleepless

Needless to say I'm tired but there's always a way to cope,
there's unspoken beauty in hope, when hope is love and love is hope.
Then whose is the voice saying "go back the same way you came",
when I am breathless from running and determined I'm here to stay.

And go find someone who can help you with your heart,
and go bleeding somewhere else, I tell the mirror it's all your fault,
the man on the other side

So this is where we have come, we are helpless and we're wrong,
I always thought the life I lead would give us what we want.
With every nerve that I've got, with every pore of my skin,
I can feel the weather changing within

The daybreak is so cold, awake from dusk 'till dawn.
Am I just a paper where the picture is drawn?
But as far as I can recall, I've had a mind of my own,
when everything else is gone, I am a whisper standing stall.

Broken [Redux]

On a hallway painted white, on the edge of the world I know,
came a thought to rest on my shoulders, like a shadow or a ghost.
Something demands an answer, but maybe there is no question here,
on the threshold of losing everything or somewhere in between.

And how right were you when you said it comes with the falling snow,
arrives and refuses to go, into unknown.
And something in me moves restlessly, breaks against my frame
and turns out to be, a voice of compassion not knowing whereof it speaks

Always outnumbered, never outgunned

The Holy Father has complained that the atheists pick and choose their morals. That is correct: today I will be frowning upon child abuse and not having a problem with homosexuality.

Notes from the end of an era Pt. 3 [Gateways]

I have, literally a minute ago, decided a path which to take. A decision in itself does not mean any form of actualisation. Hell, the proverbial "making up your mind" does not mean anything, and no, a decision does not mean that you are "halfway there". You probably tell yourself that all the time, don't you? A decision is never causal. Period. It is an end-result of events and acts, and a possible gateway to more events and acts, but by nature, it is never a cause.

If we describe causality as the relationship between the first event and the second event, a metaphysical arising called "decision" describes the relationship between "the subjective former and the imagined latter". However, there are beings to whom a decision describes the relationship between the actual-as-they-know-it and an identified potential field. To witness such is a rare privilege, I might add. This is related to another human fallacy called "intuition", which would be best described as "a lame excuse for not understanding why a choice was made, usually in an either-or situation".

Thus, to come into a conclusion intuitively, and to make a decision based on that intuitive conclusion means clueless guessing.

A note to self: the explanation why this planet is such a dump has been discovered.