by True
from issue 03
It started when it happened, and before that I was only waiting.
Everyone was exactly where they were, and in their same positions. From there I’m sure it looked like I was flying.
Nobody said anything, no one asking any questions. Some scream, though not me—I’m more special than that. I’ve the notion they’re pretending. I can’t stand it when it isn’t real.
I am lucid, and only accurizing. My methods are unconventional. I avert my eyes most often. This is not my perfect form. I have mostly bad intentions. I can’t tell what my face is saying. I’m probably weeping, seventeen and fully dressed. If you could see, you’d say it looks just like me. I’m well aware.
This is stuff. I could keep going. Does not matter. Doesn’t bother me.
...
I took the train into the Area, because there’s not another entrance.
I had been preparing something.
I am operating in accordance with a plan, advancing along an axis. I’d been given a prime directive. No action requires more than the immediate logical reaction, and every progression lays out the continuous next progression.
I execute the function.
Some things you just know it and you don’t know why, like schema, or the immutable and unquestioned background of dreaming, only not like dreaming, just like that.
I’d been given all the necessary information, and only. I got born at the maximum capacity, completely full though not overflowing, leaving no gaps, no holes, no openings—no empty spaces whatsoever, so there was never any room for doubt, or confusion, or fear.
I didn’t want it to be like this. It’s just happening outside of me, and regardless. Like breathing or an involuntary muscle spasm, like dropping a supermassive object from an insurmountable height, like the eventual position of a semi-buoyant object thrown into a stagnant body of water—Things occur generally as they always have, until they don’t. What must be done is to be done, and indeed already has been, alea iacta, consummatum est. I could be asleep and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m not, I’m up, it’s just nice to have the option.
Sometimes, I can see it all in front of me. It’s always there but barely, so not enough. It’s not a circle it’s a spool. It advances through rotation. When it gets like this I want to take it all the way, angle in, floor it. I used to think that was the point. Now I’m not so sure of anything. Come back around to me.
...
Shifting, and the sound of friction, or pneumatic tubes. Separating train doors, joining spaces, releasing pressure. I taste acidically, nitrogen-like. On display. Bristling.
Cold and clean. Your eyes, just after crying. Your eyes.
It’s not at all like I was picturing.
You can’t look out, or in, or through, the vision’s wrong, you have to focus on the middle distance. Then, you can go there. The air is dry, the color of lightning, and bright. It extends in all ways and at the end it just keeps going, all white and glossy everything, like a hospital or an airport, tiled, partially reflective, distorting everything into half-shadows with blurred edges. Whispers. For seeing. Or ghosts. For now. Distant, but actually they’re present, just semiopaque and there isn’t any music, I can’t see the people, but the feeling is they’re close. That’s only part of it.
...
Hovering at the precipice.
You can overcome the body through concentration, and the power of will. Generally I’m floating, but not flying, just above, and off to the side. Somewhere between my forehead and the ceiling. I reside at the end of the climax. I fall off regularly. My skin’s like an unpainted canvas. My bones are all too big for me.
The bag at my side leaves deep red lines, red grooves, red impressions in my shoulder from the strap. It used to be my mother’s. Now she doesn’t need it. It’s not that heavy, it’s just that I’ve been carrying it my whole entire life. I’m so weak that it’s embarrassing, but I’m also less than gentle. I don’t know what counts. My focus never lands where I want it. To undo the zipper makes a sound like nothing else is capable of. And when I step out into the Area, for only a second, I see everything, all points, equidistant to me, and I know the same would be true at any other given point. I feel like crying. It’s been so long since anybody’s touched me, I think I might turn clear.
...
Flat plane.
...
I can’t see.
There was only confusion for a moment.
It’s not a bad feeling. It’s just different, and not how it used to be.
It’s the strangest thing. I wish that I could show you.
...
Scattered.
Without my outsides. I can’t find me. Spilled, or spilling.
I arrange myself in a fashion, to a degree. The order I go in. This has to do with shapes, and changing the states of things. And movement. Turning. Stretching. Creasing, as an alternative to folding. Which is creation. Situating, which creates the situation. Flourishes. Fibers. Fibrous things. I’m craving warm, and roundness. Density. Thicknesses. Sweetly. I’m leaking. Also called tunneling. The tendency of objects to bend, before shattering. I am laying hands softly, and pressing. It’s utilitarian. The recovery of it.
A gesture like the focusing of a beam, blade sharpening. Stacking, without an increase in thickness. Vastness, stratifying. Fresh wound cauterizing. Liquid, freezing and with ice crystals forming. A two dimensional translucent sheet, folding in on itself, and then folding in again, distilling and refining the awareness into a single, solid point: the edge of the edge.
STIMULUS. STIMULUS. STIMULUS. Time slows.
Chrome.
...
4140.
I get it now. It hits all senses equally and simultaneously. Glow, enveloping. Filling. Presently. Six and a half pounds, at first.
Hydraulic systems in the body. Liquid, and the body. And the body.
Synaptic Transmission.
Forces, acting upon the body. Universal constants.
Impulse filtering.
Heat exchanges, steady pulses.
Auxotonic response.
Hissing, due to ungrounded circuits. Strobes.
Kinematic synthesis.
Crystal against crystal, vibrating, shaping waves.
Axial glide.
And waves, being shaped by the sound they make.
Lateral Pivot
Looking, without seeing, and seeing everything.
Vergence shift.
A thick, viscous liquid, sticking to surfaces and coating things.
Hypertension.
Rubber soles pressed against marble. My perfect boots, and flooring.
Digital probe.
The thrash of oblivious limbs.
Abduction.
The weight of a thousand bodies.
First lumbrical at the superior elevation.
The grazing of hair against your shoulder.
Abduction.
Your shoulder. And mine.
Distal phalanx to the second position.
Isochronous figures, sharing equal space at their same time.
Abduction.
Hands, even touching me.
Forward assist.
Squeezing, which is a contraction, a completion, closing a loop.
Safety release.
A tightening around, and holding, to change the size of things.
Pre-travel.
Generating.
Movement before the sear.
Organizing.
Hammer spring to firing pin.
Being a woman’s process based.
Firing pin to priming charge.
So’s combustion.
Spark to ignition compound.
It’s a type of creation.
Combustion.
Like sculpture, using the body, or instruments, for making things.
Centerfire.
New forms. Forming.
Break.
Stages of the action. Stages, or the invention of memory.
Overtravel.
Now.
...
Memory, sometimes belonging to an object. This one’s the memory of a gun. The gun’s memory is a letter, recounting a dream. Everyone gets it.
...
I’VE HAD A DREAM ABOUT YOU, K. LET’S GET MARRIED.
WE ARE OLDER THAN WE ARE NOW AND YOUR HAIR IS DIFFERENT. A LITTLE, BUT NOT MUCH. YOU LOOK SO TIRED. WE ARE IN THE WAITING ROOM OF AN UNDERCOVER MEDICAL PRACTICE HIDDEN IN BACK OF A FISH STORE. THERE IS A SMELL LIKE KITCHEN GAS, AND DAMP. I WANT TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH THE FISH BUT THEY SEE WITH ONE EYE ONLY ON EACH SIDE, YOU CANT LOOK AT BOTH OF THEM. THAT’S WHAT MAKES US MORE THAN THEM, I THINK. ALL OF THE MAGAZINES THERE ARE WRITTEN IN THIS FUNNY LANGUAGE THAT I COULDN’T TELL YOU. YOU CALL IT DEAD, BUT YOU READ IT TO ME AND KNOW IT CUS YOUR MOTHER USED TO TEACH IT AT THE SCHOOL FROM WHERE YOU’RE FROM. YOU NEVER SPEAK OF HER, AND I WANT TO KNOW MORE, BUT WHEN I ASK HER NAME YOU KISS THE CORNER OF MY MOUTH AND DON’T SAY ANYTHING. YOU ARE SO SMART. I’VE FORGOTTEN EVERYONE I EVER KNEW BEFORE YOU. ON THE TV IN THE CORNER OF THE CEILING THERE’S A NEWS SHOW AND IT’S SAYING THAT THEY’VE CAUGHT THE KILLER, AND THERE’S CAUSE TO CELEBRATE. SHE’S GOING TO BE EXECUTED, BUT FIRST THERE’S A CAR COMMERCIAL STARRING A GIRL WHO IS SO PRETTY I STOP BREATHING. THE CHAIRS ARE SUCH CHEAP LEATHER THAT THEY SQUEAK EVEN WHEN NOBODY’S MOVING. FINALLY THE WIFE DOCTOR COMES AND SAYS WE’RE READY, BEFORE THIS WE WERE ONLY WAITING. I WILL MISS THE TELEVISION IN THIS ROOM.
YOU ARE GOING TO BE A MOTHER. AND ME. WE ARE GETTING A BLOOD TEST TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING’S ROCK AND ROLL. THERE WEREN’T ANY PROBLEMS. WHEN THE DOCTOR CAME BACK HE SAID YOU LOOK LIKE GLOWING AND I ASK YOU WHAT THAT WORD MEAN. YOU SAID IT MEANS YOU’RE ON YOUR WAY TO BEAUTIFUL. THATS HOW I KNOW THAT BEAUTIFUL’S A PLACE, AND YOU CAN GO THERE BUT YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE IT. HE SHOWS US A PICTURE OF OUR DAUGHTER BUT IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE US AT ALL. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY, THOUGH. I ASK YOU WHAT’S HER NAME AND YOU SAY MEA CULPA CUS SHE’S ALL YOUR FAULT. MEA. YOU LAUGH. YOU LOOKED ALMOST PERFECT, THEN. YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU NOT EVER WOULD BE. I COULDN’T KNOW. WHEN I REMEMBER YOU IT’S ALWAYS IN MOTION, AT TREMENDOUS SPEED, YOU’RE OUT OF FOCUS. MAYBE I NEVER ACTUALLY SAW YOU. WHEN WE GET UP TO LEAVE I KNOW WE’RE GOING HOME, BECAUSE WE LIVE THERE. YOUR TRUCK IS IN THE PARKING LOT, AND WAITING. YOU WERE STANDING IN THE SUNLIGHT FROM THE WINDOW AND YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WERE ALL ONE COLOR, EVERYTHING GOLDEN, AND YOU WERE WEARING THIS THING, JUST ONE LONG CLOTHING ALL THE WAY DOWN, LIKE WHAT I’D NEVER SEEN YOU IN. YOU WERE ON YOUR WAY TO BEAUTIFUL. NO ONE THOUGHT ANY OF THIS WAS REMARKABLE OR FUNNY IN ANY WAY, NOT SPECTACULAR AT ALL, IT WASN’T EVEN A MIRACLE. IT WAS ONLY KINDA SPECIAL.
KISSES, FOR YOU.
...
Hot tears. And blur.
...
Flying.
The covering of distance, and crossing, or traveling through. Slicing spaces, and displacing, establishing the meaningful orientation. Here, it’s more like joining points, connecting. Magnitude, in no direction, in motion and while going no distance. But spinning. Copper jacketed. And the sensation of air rushing by you, brushing against, 3300 feet per second. To nowhere.
Striking, and then entering. Penetration. Touching, with resistance, and slowing down, all the way to a stop, which is an ending. Finishing. I don’t know what happens here. I think it makes me better. I agree.
...
Change is localizing to a point. It places you. Projecting things outside of you, so you can hide inside it. The interaction with the object. The outside of you.
I remember how it could have been. I’m so sorry.
I’ve no appetite for violence. If there’s a source, it’s located externally. Sometimes it’s initiated. It doesn’t feel good it feels necessary. If I’m resolute I’m solving, and then resolving. I try not to think about it. I go around. I go where I go. I move freely, like a fluid or a virus, filling gaps that open to receive me. Smoke, expanding to the size of the container. Liquid mercury spilling forward delicate arcs, tendrils piercing, and poisoning, and reflecting the whole entire time. Cancer spreading, metastasizing. I am inventing this at you. If you’re there, you’re going to get it. Creating empty spaces just to go inside them, filling holes. Sure. Is anyone surprised.
I feel like a credit card.
It’s sort of devastating. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I wanted it to be important. It doesn’t feel like killing, it doesn’t feel violent at all actually, it’s just regular, and so easy, that when I did it, I don’t even wish that I didn’t.
Blood pools in the horizontal body, settling into an eventual position. It is going to stay there forever, I think.
...
DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU TOLD ME? AT THE TOP OF THE SCAFFOLDING, OUTSIDE THE TALLEST OFFICE BUILDING IN THE COUNTRY? THIS WAS YEARS AGO AND MAYBE JUST BEFORE YOU LEFT. YOU TOLD ME WE TAKE PLACE INSIDE THE EYES. THAT’S WHERE YOU FIND ME. YOUR EYES. WHAT YOU DO SEEING WITH. YOUR EYES. WHERE SEEING HAPPENS. YOU DO SEEING WITH YOUR EYES, SO THAT’S WHERE WE MUST BE LOCATED. THAT’S WHAT YOU THOUGHT, AT LEAST. I WAS ALMOST SAYING SOMETHING. YOU INTERRUPTED FREELY. YOU CALLED ME BEAUTIFUL, AND THERE WEREN’T ANY MIRRORS THERE AT ALL, NONE WHATSOEVER, NOT EVEN REFLECTIONS OFF THE WINDOWS, I HAD NO WAY TO TELL IF YOU WERE LYING.
HERE’S A TRUTH: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU.
...
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS A PRECEDENT TO EVERYTHING, AND A PRECEDENT BEFORE THAT, TOO, THERE IS AN UNDERCURRENT WHICH SUPERCEDES THE CURRENT, THERE ARE STRUCTURES LAID OUT FOR US, AXIOMS IN PLACE, TRAJECTORIES IN MOTION WHICH CANNOT STRAY FROM PATH, THERE IS A COVERT THREAD EXTENDING AN INFINITE DISTANCE IN ALL DIRECTIONS, AN ANCIENT AND UNENDING TRUTH, THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE, THE NECESSARY, THE SECRET ORDER SUI GENERIS, THE FUTURE IN FORMATION, THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION, PUSHING US FORWARD, ONLY FORWARD, TO THE WHOLE NEW NEXT, THERE ARE MAGNETIC FIELDS, SHEAVES, AND ATLASES, PLANAR LAMINA, REMINENCE, PRE-EMINENCE, HYSTERESIS, OR THE HISTORY OF OBJECTS, LAYERS, WITHOUT THRESHOLDS, LIKE RINGS, OVERLAPPING AND WHILE NOT INTERSECTING, BUT I WILL TELL YOU THAT THERE IS IN FACT A VEIL, OR COVERING, AND AFTER IT YOU WON’T COME BACK, THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN, AND WHEN CONFRONTING YOU MUST FACE THE THING DIRECTLY, GAZE RIGHT AT IT, BEARING WITNESS, WITHOLDING NOTHING YOU MUST WALK TOWARD IT FRONT-FACING, UNYIELDING UNWAVERING AND UNRELENTING UP AGAINST THE INTERFACE AND BREAK RIGHT THROUGH, LOOKING THE ENTIRE TIME AND THEN NOT STOPPING, YOU MUST EXPERIENCE COMPLETELY, TOUCH AT EVERY POINT OF CONTACT, SHIELD YOURSELF FROM NOTHING SO YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND THE WHOLE SHAPE OF IT, TO THE MAXIMUM, AND KNOW THAT THERE’S A BIGNESS TO IT, I MEAN BIGNESS IN SIZE, AND EVEN A SURFACELESS, EDGELESS VOLUME HAS A CENTER, YES, THERE IS ALWAYS A CORE, AND EVEN FURTHER YOU WILL FIND THE CORE OF THE CORE, IN SITU, ADSUMUS, I AM HERE, THE LOCUS, CENTRAL NEXUS, THE INVARIANT CRITERION, THE END OF THE IMAGE, THE IMAGE BEFORE THE IMAGE, THE FINAL IMAGE, AND IT’S ALL IMAGES, OVERLAID AND OVERLAYING, I GET IT NOW, IT’S NOT NOTHING, IT’S EVERYTHING, A LIGHT WITHOUT AN ORIGIN SHINING IN NO DIRECTION, ILLUMINATING NOTHING, A MOMENT WHICH LASTS FOREVER ALONGSIDE ALL OTHER MOMENTS POSSIBLE AND PRIOR, INFINITELY CONCURRENTLY AND OUTSIDE OF IT ENTIRELY, AT THE END WHICH IS WITHOUT ENDING, WHERE ALL THINGS WIND UP EVENTUALLY, WHERE THEY STOP, AND THEN KEEP GOING, I HAVE SEEN IT, THE SHAPE OF HISTORY, THE SPOOLS OF TIME, CYCLES OF DIVINE MACHINERY, I HAVE GAZED INTO CREATION, LOOKING, WITHOUT SEEING, AND SEEING EVERYTHING, I HAVE SEEN THEIR LOWEST FORMS, BODIES TORQUED CONTORTED INTO ANGLES BENT AND BROKEN, THEIR CAPACITY FOR CRUELTY, THEIR WRETCHEDNESS AND PERVERSITY, THE COLLECTED WEIGHT OF ALL THEIR FEAR, I HAVE SEEN THEM COWERING, BEGGING, WHIMPERING, THEIR LAST EMBRACES, FINAL ATTEMPTS AT LEGACY, I HAVE SEEN THOSE MEN WITHOUT KNOWING, FLAILING DESPERATELY FOR SOLACE IN THE POSSIBILITY OF A GENTLENESS WHICH NEVER WAS, WHICH WILL NOT COME, I HAVE SEEN THOSE WOMEN IN THE GRIPS OF A WANTING INTERRUPTED, AJAR, ABANDONED, RAVAGED AND RIDDLED WITH OPENINGS REVEALING ONLY THE INHERITED GRIEF FOR THATSELF WITHOUT WHICH THERE HAS NEVER BEEN, I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF GOD, THE FACE OF EVIL, ALL OF THEIR FACES, AND MINE, REFLECTED SIDE BY SIDE, I HAVE SEEN SMALL CHILDREN STARING UP AT ME IN WONDER BEFORE BEING, THEY WERE WONDERING, EVEN BEFORE BEING AND I KILLED EVERY ONE OF THEM, I SAW ME DO IT, MY FACE HOW I’D NEVER SEEN IT, THROUGH THEIR EYES I KNEW COMPLETELY, I FELT THEIR TERROR AT THE SIGHT OF ME JUST AS IT WAS MINE, TERROR, LIKE A ROOM, BIGGER THAN ANY, THERE IS TERROR, FINALLY, AND ME, NOT STOPPING AS THEY BEGGED FOR MERCY, ME, UNYIELDING UNWAVERING AND UNRELENTING I AM FRONT-FACING, ADVANCING WITHOUT ROTATION, MOVING NO DISTANCE IN NO DIRECTION AND YET STILL IN MOTION, FOREVER AT REST, THE REMAINDER AT THE END, A CAELO USQUE AD CENTRUM, FROM THE SKY AND TO THE CENTER THIS IS IT, IT’S WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED, ALL OF MY LIFE, ALL OF MY LIFE, A VICTIM TO THE CIRCUMSTANCE, SUBJECTED TO ITS OFFENSES, IT FEELS LIKE FLYING, FINALLY WINNING, THIS IS FREEDOM, BONA FIDE, WITH EACH FRACTURE IN THE FABRIC OF LIVING, EACH PRE-EMPTED EVENTUALITY, EACH BRAND NEW SOUND ENTERING, SWALLOWING, AND NEVER LEAVING, THE PERFECT MAKING PERFECT, HOT-TASTING, SACCHARINE, WARM, A FINE MIST WASHING OVER ME, DISSOLVING, SYNTHESIZING, SPREADING THIN ACROSS EVERYTHING, APPROACHING BUT NEVER REACHING, A FLAT PLANE, GLEAMING, LIKE A DESERT ON FIRE, GLASS-COLORED AND EMPTY AND INFINITE, MUTATIS MANDIS, CUPIO DISSOLVI, AND THE IMAGE IS DEAD NOW, NOW THERE IS NO MORE IMAGE, AND WHEN I GOT HERE, I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD FIND YOU, WHEN I WENT WHERE BEAUTIFUL CAME FROM I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THAT YOU MIGHT BE HERE BUT YOU WEREN’T, YOU AREN’T HERE NOW, I CAN’T FIND YOU, BUT I DON’T CARE ANYMORE, DOES NOT MATTER, NOTHING DID, IT’S LIKE MELTING, A FLUID SORT OF FEELING, AND YET DRY ALL THE SAME, IT’S A GOOD THING, REALLY, IT’S LIKE SNOW OR TV STATIC, THE RIPPLED SURFACE OF A SHIFTING SEA, THE LAUGHTER OF OUR CHILD, EXCEPT IT’S NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL, IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE ANYTHING, ACTUALLY, IT’S LIKE NOTHING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED, THE CREATION OF CREATION, EVERYTHING SURROUNDING ME, AND IS ME, IT’S STARTING, HOTSPOTS AND HIGHLIGHTS AND ALL WHITE EVERYTHING, ONLY GETTING CLOSER, GAINING COLOR, SPEEDING UP, IT’S GETTING HARDER NOW TO REACH YOU, FOR I HAVE GONE SOMEWHERE, MY LOVE, I AM ON MY WAY TO BEAUTIFUL, AT THE END AND THEN RIGHT THROUGH I AM NOT WAITING, I’M ONLY PART OF IT, THERE’S SO MUCH I WANT TO TELL YOU, MY MOTHER STUDIED LATIN, HER NAME WAS JUST THE SAME AS ME, I WOULD HAVE COME WITH YOU, I THINK, AND I LOVE YOU, DEFINITION OF A DISK–CIRCLE WITH INTERIOR, AND I WILL TELL YOU THAT WHEN YOU GET HERE IT ISN’T WHITE AT ALL, IT’S BLUE ACTUALLY, BLUE 100, JUST BLUE AND NOTHING ELSE, STANDARD, UNIVERSAL–
PERFECT.