They Serve Towers — At the Ground Floor

Artwork by Pocket-egg

Clip clop down the block, the sound of shoes hitting stone, a palpable enthusiasm in the tone. A shock of heavy hair, golden blonde — not overlong but substantial, slightly tousled — crowning a face alight with a cheer not immediately distinguishable from his youth. The early noonday sun bringing out the colours of the city completely; innumerable shining windows looking down over the narrow congested street; cars bright in reds, greens and blues; smartly dressed urbanites on break, seeking something upon which to feed, in their suit jackets and pleated trousers in an out of synch parade. Movement, dynamism, speed, all beneath a completely cloudless sky. There, just ahead, the Four Towers building waits, nestled a little inward from the pavement. Excitement and trepidation all at once, this is it.

Watching from the, somewhat anachronistic in our age, heavy wooden doors: his smile and optimism appear from around the black brick wall. Now aimed right at you. Not particularly tall, not particularly short, a forest green turtleneck and light brown bottoms, boots a darker shade. From his perspective now: ahead a very narrow courtyard jaggedly paved, rectangular it stretches out on both sides until rounding the corner just before a hedge. The building, a deep grey block dotted uniformly with mirrors which reflect the afternoon back out. Halting, he cranes his neck up, following the steel rimmed windows upwards, until at the centre — slightly further than two thirds of the way up — a gap. From this angle a seeming bifurcation, but everyone in the city knows Four Towers splits into four towers, a little like an idealised castle of olde. He’s just never been this close, passed by the street before but never turned in to the courtyard itself.

A fluttering noise from behind, distinct amongst the faded din of traffic, commuters, and so on, half blocked out. Turning his head and right shoulder to look behind, the bird is clear to see. Perched atop the brick wall by the street side, on the corner right next to the entrance he just came through a moment earlier. “Oh..” a faint note of dejection can be identified, prominent in the presence of his otherwise still cheery tone. Parallel with the road, the unmistakeable stripe of blue along it’s wing on full display. It turns it’s head rightward as well, they lock eyes, an almost silent bargain being made. Understanding. More familiar flapping sounds, and then down she swoops. Down from one of the trees that line the inner wall. Down and into full view, majestic little bird. Mr Magpie already on his perch, Mrs Magpie lands a little lower along the main portion of the wall.

We’re all rewarded with the return of a full smile, he stands for a moment beaming up at his new avine friends, how it melts the heart. Such a sweet boy, only just 19 but going on 12 in many respects. First job interview, it’s something he won’t forget, he knows it. Mum’s pep talk at the door before leaving reminding him “Oh Felix, your big day at last, I’m so proud of you. All dressed up in your widdle suit” a tear appears at the outside corner of her right eye “however it goes, I’m just proud you made it this far, I want you to know that. It’s a big day, one you won’t forget”. Embrace, a mother’s love, warmth. After a while she pulls back, crying clearly now, the joy falling freely from her eyes. A few tawny stray hairs, the ones which missed being drawn into her messy ponytail, stick to her face. Both smile, the young man opens his mouth to respond with his gratitude.

And we’re back, sun on stone, Felix turns back to face forward again. The old doorway looms, only a few steps above the ground, great monastic gate to the future. A new life, if things go well, characteristically hopeful his bags back home are already packed and ready. It’s time. He reaches out as he hops up on to the last step, the great bronze ring at face height, lifting it back, hesitation buried in the eagerness. Knock, knock, he brings the ring down into the smoothed groove just behind it’s resting position. Heartbeat, already going faster than usual since late morning, begins to speed up. If you’ve ever held a mouse, in your hand, so fast. Waiting, an eternity passes in under a minute, and then… footsteps on marble. Louder now, louder still, and then a creak from the door on the right. It is pulled back inside the building. Hard to see at first, the sun reflecting from above creates the impression of some dark cave or mine entrance, it takes a few seconds.

Then, a face from behind the door, and beyond it a room at last coming into view. Hard to make out from here the dimensions exactly, it seems small given the size of the building but this is the back entrance. Not a lot of people have been here, it’s by a busy street yet something tends to keep eyes off of it. Of course every person in the city would recognise Four Tower’s grand main entrance on the opposite side, all glass and steel, escalators taking you up from street level, four revolving doors, the works. The iconic golden logo on the tip of the alcove above the glass, and then heavy stone forever upwards. Men (and some women) in suits stream in and out all day long, the building doesn’t sleep. Though it’s certainly most alert and active right now while the sun shines, the lights down in front are on all night long.

A giant in a crowd of other, mostly smaller, giants; a lot of people are unsure what function Four Towers actually serves the city. A reasonable thing to wonder. In fact over a decade prior, towards the very end of it’s construction, it even inspired a large protest movement. Big symbol of corporate power that it was growing into, no one could’ve told you why it had to go exactly, it just inspired a kind of primal angst in people. Felix has hazy memories of being brought along, sitting on someone’s shoulders looking down at the rag tag army around him with their banners and warlike chanting. He wasn’t allowed to bring his Gameboy. In time, people grew to appreciate the building, it’s unusual to meet someone who hasn’t been up to the roof levels. But yes, it’s presence was initially quite a contentious one for the locals.

Open to tourists, visitors, and of course those who actually live and/ or work in the building, the four tower roofs at the very top allow for some of the most breathtaking views of the city. Connected by rickety wood and rope bridges — don’t ask me how they got those past council safety regulations — the roof levels are now an iconic tourist attraction for visitors to the city. You can also host a party up there, though it won’t be cheap! Regardless, partying or just spending an afternoon with the family, while up there you will have the service of each tower’s “Guardian”. These young men have a whole host of responsibilities, primarily working their own tower’s small outlet (two very small coffee kiosks, a bamboo cocktail bar, and of course the gift shop/ tourist information place) but also responsible for cleaning at night and some other small requirements. It’s a live-in position, naturally, tough but not unrewarding.

The face from behind the door speaks, in a most soothing timbre, “Ah, hello there young man! You made it this far did you?”. The face rises taller and the body upon which it is set appears. Long, gaunt, head narrow at the top with sparse lank grey hairs that come down to his droopy ears, and a kindly expression; atop a skeleton in robes, a few inches past six foot. Heart still racing “H-hi, my name is Felix. Felix H-Hel”, the man hushes him not unkindly. “Yes, for the interview, I know young Master Felix. The position wasn’t an open one as you well know, and beyond that very few made it to this final stage” he smiles. “Come, come boy, inside now”, he draws him in by the arm, points him towards a small mahogany chair with a round red seat, placed facing the misted glass desk in the centre of the room. The door closes, the background sound of the high street disappears. Our new friend puts the lock back in place, and proceeds to make his way back over and behind the desk. “Let us begin”.

“I’m sure you’re already well acquainted with the specifics of the Guardian role you’ve been scouted for Master Felix, you are the type to be that’s why you were selected” a pause, he reaches under the desk and pulls up a stack of papers. Smack, down on the table right dead centre. “We know all about you Master Felix, psychological profile, education history, family history, we take this position very seriously. It’s not an easy job, you know why we’re looking for a new member of the team I presume?”. Ah, a chance to show he’s been doing his research for the job, “Yes, I heard about the uh… “accident”, it’s so sad I almost.. I almost feel bad were I to benefit from it” oh no, don’t want to jeopardise things by seeming unenthusiastic “t-though of course it’s a dream job! It’s something I think I could really be good at”. Oh no, flailing, is this going poorly?

A sigh from the old man “Yes, very sad indeed, the other boys haven’t taken it well” he stands back up, over at the corner of the desk “an intensification of type in all three cases, fascinating but.. hard to watch all the same”. “I don’t quite” very brief pause “understand what you mean Mister”. The gentleman seems alerted by this statement, the tiniest flicker of concern — you probably missed it — appears on his face, while he tries to muster a fresh smile. Teeth hidden, more a smile of the eyes than the mouth. “Not to worry Master Felix, just thinking out loud. You should know one thing, the four boys formed a rather close group, it might be difficult for all of them to accept you right away”. The implication isn’t lost on Felix, he tries to stifle a smile to no avail, all noted by the old man with a secretive satisfaction.

Returning to his seat “Now, Master Felix, apologies for failing to properly introduce myself, you must forgive me. Though perhaps you recognise me from our initial e-mail correspondence, it is I who first offered you the option of applying for the position..” his zeal taking hold Felix rudely interrupts the man “Oh, Mister Uran?! I didn’t, I had no idea, it’s great to finally meet you”. Mister Uran is not offended by Felix’s eagerness, no not at all, in fact he’s rather pleased. The interview is off to a fantastic start actually, you might be surprised to find out, and yes the interview has been in progress this whole time unbeknownst to Felix or yourself. Since he first knocked on that old door. The very way in which he did it a part of the examination taking place still. With the usual pleasantries now exchanged, the formal interview can at last take place.

“Master Felix, as explained, we do know quite a bit about you, but there are some questions. It wouldn’t be an interview without them after all.” he smiles a little at his own remark. “Oh, of course, I’m ready” the boy’s bright blue eyes widen “what do you need to know?”. “First off, I’m going to ask you why you decided to pursue the role? It’s not going to be easy work boy, I hope you’re fully aware of that” boy takes a second, not immediately sure how to respond, then “Well, to be totally truthful with you sir it’s actually the exact kind of job I’ve always dreamed of”. A short speech follows, fully fleshing out Felix’s romantic vision, he waxes poetic about a number of stylistic life influences that led him to this seat in front of this desk in this room at this moment; depictions of boarding schools in old English novels, sci-fi crews on small ships journeying through the stars, close knit groups of friends young and old.

“I’m very impressed young man”, the boy does seem prone to becoming very suddenly enthused, Mr Uran notes to himself. “Very interesting response Master Felix. Someone with your attitude is exactly what we’re looking for in our new Guardian”. Though the reasoning behind such seeking isn’t what Felix thinks, the statement is an accurate one. Frankly, the interview is a charade, the job was his the moment he made it beyond the courtyard. You’d be surprised how few make it that far, of the already small number invited, very specific people are needed. This is meant not in the sense you might think, it isn’t a particular skill or ability that is sought by those who make the big decisions round here, no something other than that. “Now if you could, make the effort to answer the next series of questions as straightforwardly as possible”. What follows is a series of questions, which Felix proceeds to answer as straightforwardly as possible.

A good half hour goes by, Felix while already in the clear has his character tested some more, the most up to date and well tested personality screening techniques are enacted upon him under the guise of various rather mundane interview questions. The more information they can get the better, this is a very important position he’s filling after all, and after what happened with the last guy.. Well, let’s just say his untimely end threw a real spanner in the works, and not just because the second café had to stay closed for over a month. A sad thing really, the way the old boy went, tossed himself off one of those swinging bridges that make the place look like a treehouse one night. Easy clean up at least, was kept hidden from the public with little trouble, but everyone was sad to see the guy go. He was the best of them, that was the point, yet he couldn’t truly live up to that. A false hope.

The testing is much more stringent this time around, no such oversights will be allowed again. A lot of work had to be thrown out after what the suicide revealed, the whole project was really at risk, that can’t be allowed to happen a second time. The Guardianship project is of course only one of many such, it is however one of the more ambitious. Failure would itself reveal many things, but recent events are really more of a setback rather than an example of total failure. The proper measures were simply not taken in the initial stages. The lesson has been learned, with the boy now things should be smooth sailing. He was quite the find, it’s a lucky thing indeed he was spotted and scooped up so soon. The other three are finished with the new psychological evaluations — performed under the smokescreen of bereavement therapy — that the higher ups demanded as well. Phase two is well and truly ready to begin, isn’t it something to see?

“Master Felix, I believe that concludes the list of questions I had for you, your concision was appreciated. I realise it took some restraint.” Mr Uran stands “You will receive a call this evening, informing you of our decision. To be true, my decision Master Felix”. The usual farewell niceties are exchanged, they share a water together by a rather ornate drinking fountain out of place in these shabby back rooms, then Felix is escorted to the door. “See you Mister!” Felix waves back from the bottom step, that boy just can’t control his sanguinity. A good thing for him in these unusual circumstances he’s been drawn into. A little out of his depth this good lad is, but he’ll be in good hands. The sun is still out, not quite sunset just beginning to dip ever so slightly. An afternoon to himself, he’d expected the interview to go on a little longer than it did, Felix is burdened with a fair few free hours now before he’s expected home.

What is there for a good boy like him to occupy his time with in the big city, you may be wondering. He’s thinking along similar lines, but there’s more. The job might mean he won’t see the ground again for a good while, many months perhaps — leave is granted of course, just not with great frequency — he could be there above the city for the rest of the year, we’re already living through the last days of summer. He glides out and onto the main street, less busy now though still far from quiet, what  to  do. As if on cue, the stomach rumblies, yes, food! There’s a burger place not far from here, up the road and round the corner. Not cheap, it is the city centre after all, but money should be about to stop being a concern. Memories of lunch with mother there one time hit him as he goes, the two of them are close, naturally. He picks up speed, wanting now to get home to her and make the most of the last evening under her roof he’ll spend for a good long while.

At a wide open crossroads now, waiting to cross, one of those places where the city opens up and reminds you of it’s breadth. Reminds you of the man hours spent in the placing of each and every stone and steel beam and the laying down of the many roads which snake out web-like across and every which way. It’s an old city, and not one you’re likely to have heard of before, one with a storied history and a bright future. Literally, shining bright, from up on one of Four Tower’s four towers you’ll see it. The way the sun catches on this new skyline is something alright, the boys up there say you never get bored of that view. People have accepted Four Towers now, yes there is an unease that some of the city’s older denizens have about it, but the thing is an accepted icon despite it’s mystery for the most part. That initial distress it inspired in the population now long diminished.

Felix at the door to the joint, it’s sort of “make believe“, the place is playing dress up you could say, it’s like an American diner from the 50s. Straight out of a movie set, or a small town with the population number recorded on a sign like they do over there. In he goes, the trendy haircut on the server behind the counter immediately breaking the illusion of the place. He doesn’t look too happy either, scowling towards the newly opened door with a face like a slapped arse. Felix’s energy is truly contagious however, his mumbling alone, while he scans the menu, is enough to amuse the man in the apron. Double cheeseburger, and a good shake of black pepper on the cheese, vanilla milkshake alongside. Truly now, the two begin to get along, Felix stays at the counter to eat, on one of the stalls. Felix’s aura now no longer on the move, swells again, and the man behind the counter (bored out of his mind a moment before) is drawn in totally.

The place stays quiet for a time, just the two of them chatting. “So, young man, are you studying?” “Oh, no I’ve finished with school, I was taking a year off but I found myself a job. Or at least, I think I did”. The conversation takes it’s twists and turns as tends to take place in encounters of this type, though the man behind the counter leads most of it. It’s always been this way for Felix, there’s something about him which draws you in, not so much an allure (as regards romance, he’s been rather unsuccessful thus far, not that it bothers him greatly) as a kind of pull. You just want to help the kid, he’s… good. And that’s a rare thing it often feels like, especially when you’re around him. Like bumblebees to a flower full with nectar, even the most grizzled and gnarly old gits find themselves in good spirits when in his company. It takes a special kind of resolve for someone to maintain their gloom around him for long.

At some stage a young couple enter as well, they stay at the counter a while. Felix, while being the least involved participant in the discussion, nevertheless remains the lynchpin for it. Afraid we totally lost track of the conversation itself, it went something like this: Felix’s new job, the Four Towers building and the business that has sprung up around it (such as this here restaurant), man behind counter’s own pie in the sky dreams of starting a business of his own some day, Felix’s age, counter man’s time in school, his regrets, the story of how the couple got together during their last year of school, and now their concerns about being forced apart when the summer ends and the girl leaves to study in a different town. Felix tires, the sun still shines down but the temperature has dropped, time to get on off home. He pays, drops a tip in the box, and heads out as the place begins to gradually fill up now with customers. The burger man and couple yell their goodbyes and good lucks to him as he goes.

On a bus ride through early evening now, late summer as already stated so the sun is yet to set, well on it’s way there though. That early glow before the orange haze comes to totally coat the city in it’s marmalade glaze. The buildings begin to get smaller as we go, from high above heads to a floor number you can count on just two hands. Beyond that public houses and cocktail bars, nightclubs not yet opened up, supermarkets that get cheaper and shabbier. Then we’re in narrow streets, residential middle class cafés with open glass left overnight, no concern for burglars or break ins here. Red brick, white lines between, neatly tiled roofs, cars parked in front in designated spots. Trees dot the streets, Birch trees to be specific. Through and beyond the bus ride continues on, there ahead a single standing pole and a man stood still, the bus stop. Up our new hero hops.

Alighting from the vehicle the house Felix has known his whole life, grown up in, is there to see. As it always has been, this is the same bus he took to get home from school. It’s a very familiar sight, his house from this angle; an admittedly rather run down little bungalow, to him and his mother it’s home. Or, it will have been. Not to get too down in the dumps now, grand opportunity awaits. Four Towers is a bus ride away, he just proved that, Felix reminds himself, and we see that little smile return. Unlocking the low gate, down the old path he’s walked many thousand times before, a faint ringing sound ahead. As he nears the door however, it stops. Out comes the key, gonna have to hold on to this somehow, into the hole it goes. A scream! Concern, he pulls the door open now flustered, there in the hallway hair still the same mess it was in this morning, brown and pink dress lank, his mother stands. Phone in hand, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, “It’s for you”.

They Serve Towers — Concept

Always following a period of stress, or at the very least increased emotional “activity”, comes a lull in my ability to write anything. A pattern I should have noticed much earlier, only apparent to me now, how silly. I’m in that now, it’s been a week since I uploaded last and I haven’t written anything. I want to, but I can’t do it. And now when these periods of writer’s block come along they worry me little, because in the last couple years I’ve hit them so many times only to inevitably stride forward and return to a healthy and productive state. For now however, though I have the idea in my mind for several potential posts, there is this force preventing me from doing what I do when I do manage to do it. Bringing them to life, making an idea real.

I realised, while wondering to myself about why I so often hit a wall like this one I face now — such reflection is what led me to the realisation I initiated this blog entry with — that the blog ironically functions as a wall itself when it is going well, and I am in my most fruitful state. See for a while now I’ve had the germ of an idea for something, a written work of some kind that would go beyond this blog. Not to say it’d necessarily exist beyond this blog, I’ve toyed with the idea of integrating the idea into the blog completely. I’d probably publish any writing towards this idea here even if I wanted the two projects to be seen as separate, though I doubt they could be truly, being the product of me there would be bleed-over. It’s a tiny platform, I have a handful of regular readers, but it’s preferable to attempting to get eyes on something from scratch all over again.

I’m not sure exactly what it would look like if I ever found the time or energy or motivation or clarity to actually start writing towards this thing, whatever it’s final form would take, it’s still a very rudimentary concept. I’ve decided today however, that despite that I’m not gonna hold on to this anymore. For lack of anything else to share or write about, and because frankly I feel like I may never do anything with what I think is at the very least an interesting idea, I’ll give a quick rundown today. So it’s out there, the potential anyway, and not completely lost with me. Not to hype things up so much, ultimately it’s a very simple idea, a short story or collection of stories — I’m undecided. I’ve said before I have a lot of ideas that pop into my head, artistic concepts, but very few stick with me like this one has. So, without further ado, They Serve Towers.

Ultimately, I see this blog as a way of understanding myself and my thoughts better, and I do that primarily through non-fictional means. I talk about my feelings, my thoughts on the world, etc. I talk about how works of fiction by others have influenced me, of course, but primarily the blog is me attempting to understand myself by presenting myself as sincerely as I can. So, some time ago I was thinking to myself if a similar kind of thing could work in fiction. Because while this blog has been very helpful for me, and will continue to be I hope, it is limited in ways. As I’ve talked about on here in fact, while like all people I am multi-faceted, I do tend to lean into some aspects of my personality more heavily than others when writing. A reader who met me might find me to be much less gloomy or prone to melancholy than they expected, which isn’t to say I’m not those things, but it’s not the person I am with most people most of the time. It’s something that’s impossible to avoid, the very nature of this blog as a thing for self reflection means it has to take on quite an introspective and somewhat sad tone.

So there was this idea, that through fiction I could more closely examine all aspects of who I think I might be. So, inspired to a degree by Pessoa and his heteronyms, I would take these personality tendencies which each have their own place in life where they express themselves more loudly over the others, and make unique characters out of them. My melancholy or angsty side which tends to hold sway in this blog; the naïve/ innocent little prince role, which I tend to lean into more when around my co-workers and other people I don’t know so well; the more angry or edgy person I might come across as if you read my posts on 4chan; and the genuinely happy and content individual who laughs at everything that my close friends seem to see me as. There could be more or less, I’ve thought about it a bit but am undecided, but the core of whatever this project could end up being are these characters which are ultimately aspects of myself made whole.

Through this framework, I think there’d be a lot of opportunity to explore how and why I make certain decisions the way I do by looking at which characters most naturally seem to take the lead in various different scenarios I could hypothetically put them in. There’s opportunity for interaction between these characters of course, and perhaps I’d find in time which of them I like or appreciate most and which I have the opposite response to, if I do. Through this I might better understand what I like and dislike about myself, if I want to be any different or if I should be more comfortable with who I am, that sort of thing. I hope as well, that others reading could gain something from such exploration, I’d be drawing on my own experience and person of course, but if it inspires others to think about themselves in a similar way that’d be nice I think.

Speaking of scenarios, I have a few in mind, I think I’d primarily draw on events which have happened to me at work. I’ve met many different kinds of people since starting my job, and had quite a few unusual interactions which could be spun into something much more interesting in a work of fiction. I would want to write fiction, and I have a bit of an imagination so naturally things would get. . . weird. Dreamlike I guess, I’m interested in magical realism as an idea, fiction which has elements which would seem magical or real to any reader that are seen as normal by the characters. The setting of a workplace similar to mine — in certain ways, though rather different in others naturally — provides a very easy means of introducing various other one off characters and asides which would be useful for exploring what I wish to explore with this potential story/ies idea.

Another reason for the shop setting, is that it shows up in my dreams a lot (not so much lately) and I would heavily draw on my dreams for this thing. One dream in particular actually, which is what took my idea from something very barebones and gave it something of a body. In this dream, which I had months ago now, I was working at a shop somewhat like mine. Except, it was on top of this skyscraper in the middle of a bustling city centre. Aesthetically, think Manhattan or the city from the videogame Mirror’s Edge. The tower I was on specifically started from one base, but split into four smaller towers or peaks about two thirds of the way up. So, there was like a narrow cross in the centre where one could potentially fall to their death. I was stationed at something a bit more like a market stall than what I work at irl, made of wooded planks, and on the other three towers were three other stalls. Hence the title, which came to me when I woke up instantly.

I don’t actually remember the specifics of the dream too well, I know I went to visit one of the other stalls and hung out with the guy there. It was actually one of co-workers, of course, when I was spending a lot of time around them they were showing up in my dreams frequently. One of the stalls was more like a bar, made of bamboo, with a huge glass bowl full of Caribbean punch. It was daylight at first, then later it got dark and me and my co-worker were sitting on the edge looking out over the city trying to hit the tower in front of us with pebbles, it was on the other side of a narrow street, as the day came to an end and the customers stopped showing up. I’m not even sure who the customers were, the were mostly just empty skins in suits, probably working in the building below us. It doesn’t matter too much, because I’d change a fair bit for the final work I think, this was just a major inspiration. The imagery of it, it was striking.

This was a short post, sorry, and it’s been longer than usual since I last uploaded. Mental block, like I said. I think I might be going back to work soon, hopefully before the end of the month, it’s been a weird period for me. I’m just losing track of reality a bit, some stuff happened as I’ve written about, and now I’m experiencing a new kind of weird. I’m having a lot less alone time, with this server that I’ve joined it’s like there’s always someone to talk to. And, I can’t help but be drawn into conversation, so starved of it as I have been for so many years. Resisting that, ignoring it and focusing on writing, it’s a new challenge. I’ve also hit a bit of a block regarding my reading progress as well, I was doing so well early during the quarantine but I’ve been stuck struggling to stay motivated with Gravity’s Rainbow for almost a month now. First world problems at least. Thanks for reading.

Books: Part 13

This one’s a bit of a cop out, and perhaps unlucky if you’re the superstitious type, there’s just not much going on at the moment. In my brain, that is, though in the normal sense as well it’s a shame to say. The two meanings are of course related. I’ve been clearing out old things to pass the time, I took a saw and carved off one level on one side of a shelving unit I’ve had with me across two bedrooms. The reason, so I could take that same saw afterwards to a cheap wood laminate desk/ computer table stained by spilt dark beer and tea so many times they’ve seeped through into the plastic, altering the patterning permanently. The removal of that ugly thing, far oversized for the purpose I held onto it for — the new space I created serves not just equally well, but more effectively — lifted my mood a degree, but still the dissatisfaction remains.

Clutter can look so pretty on camera, even more so in hand drawn or painted art, yet in person it’s usually so ugly that it dulls the spirit. Only curated can it achieve half of what it can in depiction. I’ve been enjoying the films from Studio Ghibli so much lately not for the fantastic otherworldly imagery and stories, not primarily anyway as I did when I was little, though of course I still derive great enjoyment from that aspect of those films, but from the way they beautify mundanity. It’s almost heart-breaking how /comfy/ they allow you to believe a child’s bedroom or a small family kitchen could be. It provides a kind of internal peace to see rooms and dwelling places, our own lone retreats, look so lovely. I’ve never seen a bedroom, not in all my days as little kid visiting the houses of friends now lost, which had that aesthetic I’m looking for.

Now as an adult, I am in charge of an entire flat (apartment). I failed that possibly impossible task of giving life to a room which provides me with solace through it’s aesthetic arrangement alone as I — somewhere along the way — decided is an old soul’s purpose. And now that duty has been extended to several rooms. More than this I now also must contend with a malignant entity hell bent on breaking my will, one primary means by which this attack on my very spirit is achieved being through the promotion of the same ugliness I’m trying to banish. I struggle to merely make my environment aesthetically bearable because of this. Yet here I stand, still pushing back against it. Even making inroads from time to time, though losses are taken too, which is all I can do.

One act in this war for my own sanity is documented here in some detail on this blog, the failure of which backfired some. I started this series a year ago, A WHOLE YEAR! Slightly more in fact, Part 1 (linked two lines above) was uploaded on April 9th. And yes the whole rigamaroo is enjoyable and it gives an excuse as it does today to fill in an empty week with feed for hungry mouths that may not really be there, and if they are whose hunger may be a Pavlovian product of my own rigidity. We really can be our own worst enemies sometimes, the idiom has some truth to it. Nevertheless, it was never meant to be like this, a pile of books on the floor for a year or more is the opposite of what I wanted. All I wanted was to throw some old things away, this time old books. So, today I’m going to talk about books.

The Big Trip is a book I was given as a gift by my uncle shortly after I turned 18 all about “travel” (in 2k20, it is a noun), it’s written by a bunch of middle class journalists and professional bohemians whose names I have no desire to know because really the book is by a company — Lonely Planet. They write travel books, if you were wondering. And I could go on and on ad nauseum about how gross this book is, how much it oozes petit bourgeois superficiality. Of course it does, it’s written by people who use “travel” as a noun, and “adventure” as a verb. Fuck please tell me I’m not the only one who feels an intense and immediate revulsion when reminded that these people not only exist, but are happy.

I’m not against the idea of tourism — though these people would deny that label that is what they are, tourists with pretensions — but the whole LARP from these unbearable strawmen is that they’re somehow different from the legions of Chinese families you see crowding around every major European monument. Well, maybe not anymore but until a couple months ago. I say strawmen, but if I’m being honest it’s more often than not women who fit into this unfortunate modern archetype I’m describing. Modern travel culture is just consumerism, and women are better consoomers than men. At least the ones I’ve known, which is probably a lot more than you might think for a shut in loser incel. They all seem to love trinkets, little things, scrapbooking, photo albums, all that faggy shit.

That’s what travel today is, the fabled “new experiences” these people claim to be seeking are just more trinkets to be bought. I’m not against that, in fact I think that given how cheap and easy it is thanks to modern globalisation for people to visit exotic places of natural beauty or famous historical sites that it’s probably a little less vapid to consooom that way than to consooom pornography and shitty TV shows from your cuck box in any modern western city. The purchase of “experiences” seems to be a slightly better deal than the purchase of new car, new shoe, new pop-science bestseller, new phone, etc. Five Guys is healthier than McDonald’s, but they’re both fast food, if you’re picking up what I’m laying down.

I just resent the mystification of “travel” that is so propagated nowadays, you’ll hear people talk in vague terms about how they learned so much, found themselves, etc. I’m not sure if it’s a lie they’re telling to justify what is ultimately a completely superficial endeavour, or if it’s something they actually believe. Usually when you believe something however, you can explain your point of view in much more certain terms. What I’m saying is, the world is utterly tamed. Most of the world, most of the third world even, is one big amusement park. Unless you’re going on some kind of religious mission or pilgrimage, or to study perhaps, then I don’t expect you’re learning or “growing as a person” any more from slumming it in India or Thailand than from spending a weekend at Disneyland.

There are very few places left on the planet where the thot fears to tread, and only in those places might you have these developmental experiences that these people talk about. I’m dissillusioned if you can’t tell. That being said, I think that if you have the opportunity then go for it, we live in a bleak and hopeless neoliberal hellscape where everything has been commodified, you work so you can consume product and get excited for next product, and then you die. You can’t escape, almost all of what you do is meaningless. The aesthetic pursuit is actually quite a pure one in light of this, shed the burden of seeking “experiences”, seek beauty in and of itself, drop the pretence. I suppose visiting a particular person is valid as well, though even meaningful human connection is something that I worry may not even be possible anymore. Fuck this book, fuck the people it represents, into the trash it goes.

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This post is taking on a very polemic tone as I go, I usually have to restrain that impulse when writing for this blog because I think it’s unbecoming, especially if I turn out to be wrong about something later down the line, but it had to be said. Moving on — though I’m trying to hold to a loose theme throughout this post, hopefully it isn’t going unnoticed — the next book in the pile that has been there too long is Chavs by Owen Jones. Owen Jones is a man, and here in the UK he’s become a fairly well known figure in the last few years, not quite a household name but one step away. He’s a left wing, socialist, progressive commentator, who was a journalist for years before becoming a political activist. I used to really like him, or more the idea of what he could be, back in my mid to late teens before I got radicalised by the far right.

This book in it’s own small way might have pushed me in that direction actually. “Chav” is a slang term in England for working class/ poor people, or at least a certain type among them. They’re like our equivalent of gopniks, and although the term itself is generally used in a derogatory way in both cases I think, there’s a particular vitriol behind the term “Chav”. See in Russia they still look down on those people I’m sure, but at the end of the day they are all the same people. Here, as I’ve talked about before, class division is almost like a mild form of ethnic division, especially in the most populous urban areas. This is before even taking into account actual non-native ethnic groups who’ve arrived in recent decades.

From a very young age I’ve grown up around both people who use that word, and people who are being described by that word, and I hated it. My mum and uncle grew up in a very comfortable environment, my dad explained it to me when I was quite young in this way: When my mum was born in 1959, she had a colour television; when my dad was born roughly a decade later, he still remembered having black and white television. It might seem like a very shallow or materialistic means of differentiation but it’s just there to illustrate in a small way the drastically different backgrounds they had. My mum didn’t come from an incredibly wealthy background, but it was a very comfortable middle class one. Big house in a London suburb, luxury family car, plane trips abroad in summer which was a big deal in the 60s. My dad slept in a suitcase for the first few months of his life.

Some people say class is not economic in this country, it’s cultural, but that’s misleading. Rather, the economic division alone doesn’t equip someone foreign to this rainy little island well enough to understand the division. It’s economic, and cultural. See, plenty of people from a background like my dad’s can and do get to a point where they’re earning at least a lower middle class income, a small few become incredibly wealthy either through luck or determination. But they will always be seen as working class, until the day they die. I guess the best example is Alan Sugar “the working class billionaire”. Social mobility is a multi-generational affair, a working class man can become wealthy but he will always be his background, his children however will be middle class even if by the time they reach adulthood they are not particularly financially well off.

The recent history of my mother’s side of my family is actually a perfect example of this. Being the daughter of a working class man — I still remember my granddad occasionally lapsing into cockney rhyming slang when talking to me, telling me stories about growing up during the blitz — who became relatively wealthy, my mother was given a very middle class upbringing. She was sent to elocution lessons to learn to speak proper English, all her school friends were middle class, and after leaving home and entering adulthood she knew her parents would always be there to support her if she failed.

Because of this she spent most of her life in a sort of bubble, she was in a way a prototypical example of the “travel girl” caricature I was talking about at the start of this post. She lived in the third world for a few years teaching English, could afford to take a year long road trip around the US, that sort of thing. By the time I was born she had settled and found a stable career at a school library, but she was earning far less than my granddad at that age. If class is only an economic category then I definitely grew up working class, at least until my granddad passed away when I was seven. The money my mum inherited allowed us to move into the flat I live in now which is much nicer, and to this day most of my money in savings is from that inheritance.

Class isn’t an exclusively economic category though, and so my mum was always considered middle class, and more interestingly so am I. I didn’t go to university, I have a job which pays by the hour, but because of the way I talk which was learned from the friends my mum had while I was very young I am perceived as middle class. I would say my background is possibly more similar to my dad’s than my mum’s, but it doesn’t matter. If I had the exact same background, or a very similar one, but my mum spoke differently, then I’d be working class. Most people who grow up in this country spend most of their lives primarily around members of their own social class, almost like two separate ethnic groups who live side by side in a geographic area and have occasional inter-mixing but remain functionally distinct. Naturally the group which is generally worse off becomes resentful, and an ugly sense of superiority develops among the better off.

I saw all this growing up, and due to my unusual positioning, I never really saw myself as belonging to either group. I suppose I do feel a bit more comfortable around middle class people, but I also have a kind of disdain for them that I don’t have for working class people. The working class may be kind of rough, and crude, and — my dad being a perfect example of this — they are generally much more lazy and content with ugliness; but sometimes that’s preferable to the very feminine passive-aggressive posturing of the middle class. The middle class existence is filled with many hypocrisies, the biggest being that they are all very left wing — “tory” is an insult among the urban middle class, which is who I’m talking about — but clearly despise actual working class individuals when they encounter them. It’s almost like the working class they defend at their dinner parties are just an abstraction, unrelated to the actual working class as they exist.

This is what I thought this book would be about, but it’s not. This really disappointed me when I read it, I think during my last year of secondary school, because I was becoming completely disillusioned with the left because of this. It wasn’t until I read a book by a man who Jones has actually been compared to (a ridiculous comparison, imo), George Orwell, that I found someone else who had intelligently covered this issue. The second half of The Road to Wigan Pier talks about exactly this subject, but I didn’t read that until it was too late. I read a few other books by Orwell while I was in secondary school, but I didn’t read The Road to Wigan Pier until much more recently, certainly after 2016. I really do wonder if I had read it earlier whether the trajectory of my political beliefs would have changed, but that’s a subject for the next part in this series.

In fact, I’m going to continue talking about “Chavs” in the next part as well, maybe not the next upload but it might be, because I think I might need to skim through it again before I can give my final thoughts on it. As I said, at the time I was disappointed that it was not what I thought it was about. In fact Owen Jones is complicit in the very type of demonization of the working class I thought the book covered, in more recent years referring to working class people who oppose mass migration to this country as “gammon”, an explicitly racialised slang term aimed at working class men. A little ironic for a public “anti-racist”. Instead the book is mostly about how government policy and rhetoric in the 21st century has harmed the working class. A topic which is actually worth discussing, but I don’t have time to give my thoughts on now as it’s been eight days since my last upload, I know this post sucks but it’s better than nothing. Thanks for reading.

Link to Part 12

If Life is Tragic

And you can write whatever you want, but it might not really make any sense whatsoever. It might just be total gibberish, and maybe that’s all you can muster that day. So the day ends, and you delete it all because it’s meaningless trash that doesn’t really communicate anything. Not only that, it doesn’t even have any pure aesthetic value, it could be nothing but noise and yet be masterful in it’s word placement, alliterative or poetic flow, evocative power, etc. But it’s not. It’s just the dull and desperate scribblings of a midwit who can’t maintain his own standard, who can’t live up to his own shitty reputation. A reputation only held by a doomed few anyway, perhaps in their mind feeling privy to something unique and valuable — the ego hopes — but with no power to take the author beyond what he is. Maybe even desirous to keep him so; their little secret.

Demoralisation. When I first thought up the idea for this thing that will — if I don’t scrap this mess along with all the other failed attempts — fulfil the role I rudimentarily mapped out along with it’s twin last week, I actually thought I’d struggle to be appropriately miserable. Misery and Mirth, Merriment and Melancholia. I wasn’t feeling too good, cooped up and torn away from the life I hate but keeps me paid. I say hate, but when contrasted with my current state, my yearning to go back is truly great. Sometimes at least, I oscillate. That’s my point, I have held in my head since starting this job that it exacerbated my unreliable mental state, that days now were bad days or good days, whereas before there were mostly just dramatically dull days.

Now once again functionally hikikomori (NEET De Facto if you prefer), I’m reminded that the stability was a fiction. There are still only good days, and bad days; and it was bad days that halted my progress last week, that my post last week was a battle against. It worked, as I laboured I willed a bad day good. It lasted, the day after was also good. I was pleased. Every night for the last week I’ve watched a Studio Ghibli movie, I like to watch them just as it starts to get dark out. The ones I watched a hundred times as a kid, and some I’ve never seen. Ponyo is a personal favourite at the moment. How can anyone be anything other than completely and utterly content when in that world, at that perfectly imperfect cliff point house, the window letting in a breeze — cleaner than this city has known in decades — from the darkness? Nostalgy.

My favourite part of my favourite park is greener than I remember when I first fell in love with it all those months ago. The blossoms are bright as they catch the sunlight, so perfectly beautifully white. The mud has dried, the grass is green, the road alongside almost empty. Unfortunately the field itself is filled with people, busier than what I would previously describe as busy. I find it harder to block them out, and more than this I sense an ugly atmosphere. Walking the streets to get to my place I find that there are far fewer (oftentimes none) smiling eyes and twinkling smiles, and I’m not sure if it’s a result of my new 4am crackhead aesthetic — I haven’t bothered to shave in almost a month — or the deadly supervirus that no one I know has yet encountered but people assure me is out there, regardless it hurts my feelings. My feelings matter to me, I’m the only one who is willing to put up with them.

I sit in front of a screen, I want to write but it’s all shit. I hate it, I look at it and I read it back and it’s just… garbage. This is the third time I’ve reached 600 words under this title, but it’s been almost a week when I wanted it to be a few days and I can’t bring myself to drag that blue bar across it all again, to send it down the same memory hole. I’m not sure what I want to say, the grim and existentially dreadful is such a broad category. In it, you can go almost anywhere you want, which ironically leaves you in an almost stupefied state. Paralysed by choice. Instead of writing I hop tabs from this one I’m on right now; one, two, three times over; sinking hours into meaningless “discussion” with meaningless people who don’t have names because they’re only really me shouting back. Alone in a hall of mirrors.

So the perfect fiction of nights and days, workweeks and Sundays, disintegrates before our very eyes. The numbers on the calendar now a triviality, the artifice of routine — the sole standing pillar supporting the sanity of so many — is replaced with even flimsier substitutes. And I do it too. I design all these silly rules and patterns to follow to stop myself from falling completely into a state of chaos; read for two hours a day, go out for a walk in the park every day — but not on weekends lest I forget the ancient structure, wake up at 10 every day and then perform the same morning ritual, and so on. I also tell myself every day to write, and I open the “new entry” page and every day tell myself this time it’ll pour out of me like it has before. Alas, not. The thoughts come but I can’t make sense of them.

It all comes at a thousand miles a minute, thematically contradictory or just simply incompatible ideas for long essay-like screeds on all manner of totally distinct and diverging conversations I had with myself. I wrote a post, linked above, last week to break the boredom and live up to the standard I hold myself to. I can and should be able to express myself with frequency, it’s not like I can express anyone else. It was a lot of fun, composing the little poem particularly. In that I was inspired by a thread on /lit/, one which didn’t grow into what it could have but started strong, more than anything else. Poetry as an avenue for crude and juvenile humour I find much more easy to appreciate than long sentimental and sappy expressions of great seriousness. It reminds me of the only collection of the stuff I ever liked, a book of children’s poems which I’ve talked about before.

So the inspiration for, at the very least, the premising theme upon which this and last week’s titles were based, is a line of my own from an even earlier post. It was a line that has and had a lot of meaning behind it, in my mind when I first wrote it that is, but which I think is overshadowed by the primary thematic purpose of the… I’m not sure what to call it. I like the term prose poem, but worry it sounds pretentious. Either way, that thing that I wrote. At very first glance it might seem like a superficial and reductive thing to do, to reduce the potential overarching theme of life to those two ideas, but really think about it. When the time comes for reflection, when immediate emotion is out of play, it is always through one of those two lenses that we recollect.

The most fundamental switch in worldview and sense of self one can go through, is from being firmly in one of those two camps to the other. In a rather cringe line from a rather good film (in my opinion), it’s expressed pretty well. When you switch from seeing life as fundamentally tragic or cause for sorrow, to absurd or ultimately fit only to be laughed at — or vice versa — you undergo a change which will affect every decision and every quiet moment to come. Me, I’m still not sure what I think. That’s what I’m trying to express, and as always failing completely to do, here. It’s amazing how I can laugh, genuinely laugh, at my own misfortune today; and tomorrow be rendered almost immobile by the weight of my grief.

And of course I shouldn’t focus so much on my own personal little slice of hell. Because by “life”, I don’t mean the tiny portion of it that I occupy but the whole pie. The grand human experience, and beyond that even, far beyond that. All is change this I believe, but do you view this change as a ruthless struggle, an eternal cycle of destruction and pain? Or a ridiculous and senseless cosmic joke, an eternity of ever more freakish and preposterous contexts? Like my recent uploads… don’t worry, I plan to return to a simpler style of writing with my next post. I locked myself in to this, and I hate not to follow through with something after I commit.

On occasion I find myself giggling like a little girl thinking about events which I’ve written specific posts on this very blog despairing about. It seems to me to be a decision which we don’t really make, consciously that is, but rather just fall into eventually. Of course for the last few days I’ve been in one of my grim moods, at least I hope it’s obvious because I have admittedly hammed it up a little for the sake of being more literary. I know it’ll pass though, and if not tomorrow or the day after, then the day after that will find me once again simply amused by it all. And I guess the day on which, in our minds, we conclude against our will what life’s overarching theme is, is the day we finally grow up.

If Life is Comedic

I was about to start this entry — delayed I apologise, despite having more time to write than I’ve had at any other time since starting this blog I am finding it difficult to sit down and do it — with a statement to the affect of (I hadn’t yet settled on the precise wording) “in dreaming, we can finally bee ourselves”. I’m sure it hasn’t gone unnoticed by any longer term readers that I have a slight obsession with this phrase, every time mocking it as I do with the extra “e”, it’s just so exceedingly layered. The eternal onion, every time I return to it in my mind I find another sheet of meaning to be stripped off and examined. Yet at the same time there is a beautiful, truly beautiful, simplicity to the saying. I am sure it will continue to provide as we move forward, as it has so reliably done so far.

Anyway that sentiment (about in dreams) is not quite accurate, I realise upon further reflection. To say we can bee ourselves in dreams isn’t quite true, because unless you achieve complete lucidity within the dreamscape — which I have never experienced, though I’ve had moments which took me halfway there — then the experience is essentially an “on-rails” one. Pardon the vidya jargon, it’s just the most effective means of elucidation available. Of course so is waking existence, as I’ve written about before more than once, fairly recently. In “real life” there is the illusion of agency however, but in dreaming that illusion is removed. It could be said that in one sense dreaming is a more honest experience in that we simply follow along. Some people, one of whom I know, experience dreams from a third person perspective. They see themselves from outside.

I don’t dream in that way, my visual perspective is for the most part exactly as it is when awake. This was particularly clear the other night during the dream I had which inspired the point which I used as the prompt for this post. It’s a short one, but I remember most crucially being aware of my own upper limbs. I’ve always felt like a head above a body when dreaming, but my awareness of anything about my own anatomy beyond that has never really been something I felt worth paying any attention to. I’m not sure if I always have arms and legs, hands and feet, or if I sometimes sprout webbed alien flippers, large crablike claws, or cloven hooves. My attention is so taken by everything else, it’s something I don’t even think to wonder about, and after waking I’m in no position to examine a then faded experience.

So, the dream itself. Corona-Chan had had her way with the world, and work was back on the table, that is the premise. I was called in, for some kind of meeting, and it was announced that with the death or disappearance (not actual, thankfully) of unnamed once-colleagues a new team of replacements would be brought in to fill the old roles. These new characters, they were not right, they would shift and morph into new types in most blatant fashion. Impolite I think, to shapeshift as they did right in front of me. I believe the proper thing to do is to change out of eyesight and then somehow hold convincingly that they always appeared this way. That is the standard rule of dream, and they broke it. From a woman so tall and thin she towered over me, long nose drooping to form a sharp point, lank stringy greying hair; was molded a stout old world Turk complete with little red hat. The fez.

A few instances like this, a few such slippery characters, then appeared a more structurally stable seeming individual. Dark auburn hair held in a loose ponytail; a round, rather undefined, but nevertheless alluring visage; eyes, in colour and slight shine matching the hair atop her head, which expressed a certain acuity; delicately held atop a pretty plain — though difficult to tell, concealed beneath a woollen forest green jumper — figure, unremarkable if not for her fairly large breasts. I don’t include that last note of description in order to titillate, I don’t write for coomers (formerly cumbrains) and never will; in fact if you identify with that descriptive positively, that meaning in any sense other than as a state of being you wish to free yourself from, I want you to know you disgust me. That being said, I won’t pretend that feature of this fictional female wasn’t memorable, I am only human.

Drawn together like two magnets, we fell together and into the usual formalities. The handshake, the exchange of names, so on. There wasn’t much time for introductions though. My manager appeared, gave a rousing speech which I now forget the contents of along with the name of my mysterious maiden, and declared us back in action. A tour, of a new shop opening to mark the occasion. And like magic the cold glass prismatic canister on rails that would whisk us over there pulled in behind her. I’m sure you can figure out who was seated next to me, on my right hand side to be specific. It was an open carriage, empty save for our group, yet beyond her I saw nothing. We were in a bubble, her as much as me.

Her role in the interaction as an amalgamation of the noted movements and cues of numerous somehow-charmed ladies I’ve chanced to be stuck with in “real life” was not too unfamiliar, though still enough so as to rouse my full focus. My own part though, in the game of conversation we played, was something surprising. Again, note the total awareness of how I was merely along for the ride I was taking myself on. I’ve spoken before, on this thing I call a blog, about how in similar interactions that no doubt inspired this merely dreamed one I feel like I’m trapped in a bird cage of my own bones helplessly watching myself, through my own eye sockets, fail fantastically to demonstrate any charm.

Now the situation was reversed, from the first person I watched myself display a quick wit and casual confidence that is rather alien to me — there have been brief moments where I’ve distractedly stumbled into mimicking this “Chad-like” deportment, but the moment I notice the positive response I am always snapped right out of it — rhyming with her you could say. I’ve described it as a game, perhaps more accurately a dance. And it worked, the bubble around us gradually lost it’s transparency and the world beyond became a dimmer and dimmer thing. There was that rare genuine interest in genuinely uninteresting aspects of my life (I have no life), and, paired now, this encouraged a similar interest from me in turn.

This continued, and then somewhere along the way she looked me in the eyes, holding her gaze intently, and with a wry smile let go of the handle she had been holding to keep her still while turned to face me fully. I saw her about to crash to the floor, and immediately reached out to grab her. The smirk grew into a great grin, she purred playfully while still holding eye contact, I brought her back up onto her chair properly. As I was doing so, she instead leaned forward trying to pull me into an embrace. “Lucky me” was the last thing I remember hearing from her, my alarm crashing through the barrier between realms causing the train and everyone on it to dissipate almost instantly. What a lovely way to start the day.

The point in recounting the events of this dream? It was just a good dream. I need to improve my writing, I need to simply do some writing, and so now I have. No, that’s not quite true, there was the other thing.

On beeing yourself

One sentiment behind “yourself”                                                                                             Could be the simple fact of health,                                                                                                But one does wonder if perhaps                                                                                           Another meaning it might map.                                                                                                What if the moment you are you,                                                                                       However hard to follow through,                                                                                            Comes when you reach total comfort.

Now if this explanation is                                                                                                        Correct, not a hit and a miss.                                                                                                           It’s fair to say that in our dreams,                                                                                              Even our waking reveries,                                                                                                           With all our usual social fears                                                                                                        No longer there to interfere,                                                                                                            At last we meet our fabled selves

Alas, the issue is not so                                                                                                             Simple. No, I have to say no.                                                                                                          You see, a dream is fantasy,                                                                                                             We watch but have no agency.                                                                                              Without that waking delusion                                                                                                     Now revisit our conclusion.                                                                                                          This “self” we see is make-believe

What was the point of all this? Reader, I’ll level with you, today I just wanted to have fun. For a week I’ve delayed, hid that “new entry” page, but this morning again faced with a day that contained not a single aim I finally decided to push through the pain. Sometimes, most times, I do have something to write about specifically. With this lockdown, as alluded to already, despite the extra time I find myself in front of a wall. Writer’s block is a term, but I find it a rather presumptuous one in my case, can I call myself a writer? This is a hobby, and that’s what I kept in mind when starting today. I thought to myself, well if I’m gonna be sat in front of this damn white screen all afternoon then I’m at least going to make it enjoyable for myself. No moaning or whinging from me today reader, today I wrote for fun alone. Prose and verse, arts and crafts, I’m just here to have a laugh.

I hope that my humour comes across well of course, I make these public so naturally I want whatever I put into an entry to be felt by the reader. There’s no point asking for comments I know, but if you do feel the urge to tell me that you “actually really enjoyed this one man” then by all means go ahead. Bonus points if you can guess which author’s style I aped all day, all the good boy points you’ll ever need. I promise. If you thought this post was great, tell me it was great; and if you thought this post was pee pee poo poo, tell me that too. Regardless, I should do more like this in future. From time to time, I should just try to simply have some good natured fun.

There’s a rather woeful tone that clings to this blog like a bad smell, perhaps sometimes a little more mirth is needed to combat the melancholy. I think it’s important to step back and see the funny side of things, in life I do this all the time, but on this blog I have fallen into the unhealthy habit of mostly mining my most mopey moments. That’s probably not going to change a great deal, I like wallowing in my own misery too much, but it is a refreshing thing to engage with the side of myself which sees the humour in this absurd world. Don’t want to ruin the tone I worked so hard to create now though, that wouldn’t be a very funny thing to do at all. Thanks for reading, it’s night time for me now so I’ll end this by saying goodnight. Goodnight!

A Few Lines for the Ancient Dead

I’ve been returning to the park I described my visit to in this entry a few months ago, I’ve been going there almost every day that I’m not working or doing something else. And I very rarely am doing something else, so I’ve returned quite a few times now. Possibly as many as half a hundred already, at least I’m probably getting close to that number. I really have found somewhere special, and it’s close by as well so I can get there whenever I want. I’ve never had an experience quite as powerful as that first visit, although I did have a slightly similar one that I mentioned in the follow up I wrote, but I still feel like there’s some magic about this place that hasn’t faded. I remember being very concerned that would happen, that after a few visits the power would be lost completely.

It’s impossibly pretty, whatever the weather. I’ve been caught in heavy rain on more than one occasion and still been happy to watch the little pools of water form in the areas where the ground dips. The water takes on a sort of purplish tinge, maybe some optical effect caused by the interaction of the rust coloured autumn leaves and the mud below. I tried to get a photograph but I couldn’t really capture it. It just looked like a muddy puddle, with some dried leaves floating on top. Yet in person those muddy puddles are truly beautiful to me, I could stare into them for hours. The day after it rains might be when the place is most beautiful, the way the grass so verdant and fresh stretches out all around inspires a yearning within for true unbound grassland.

 

What you just read were the only two paragraphs I actually wrote for a post that I intended to write many months ago, shortly after the two more it links to, but totally forgot about. I started it during a time when I was visiting the local park in question several times a week, every day I wasn’t working and even on a couple of occasions after work when it was dark. I would go every day, and every day I would simply wander around for an hour or two in a half daze taking in the atmosphere and beauty of it. I gradually began to fear less and less that the connection I had to the place would fade, and of course it was when I completely lost that fear and my visits became another dull habit that the magic finally did leave.

From late summer, through Autumn, and into the first days of winter I did have a good thing going though; and during my many visits I frequently would find myself fantasising about creating some kind of great work of art to mark my time in this park. Lines of poetry would pop into my head, from everywhere I stood I felt like I was viewing the perfect photograph, and from my favourite area of the park – because I explored it thoroughly in my many visits, and didn’t just stick to the small area I had seen that first time going – which was that first found field, I would form stories of the grandest scope in my mind.

I remember one particular visit, towards the end of this period (during November) where a storm was heading towards me, I could see the dark clouds filled with rain looming in the distance when I looked backwards as I arrived at the park entrance nearest to where I live. I was listening to an album by this band called Taake, the second in a trilogy of concept albums about “death, Norway, and the devil in man” apparently. I walked up and along the path which is on your right as you enter and noticed it was beginning to get dark. It was early evening, and I turned around to look at the sky and saw the clouds much closer now and the feeling of rain about to hit. A wall of rain was rushing towards me along the tree lined path.

I began heading down a slope into this more wooded area, which I had avoided that first trip but now been down several times, and the fourth track on the album was playing. I put my hood up, and almost right after that I began to feel the first drops of rain hitting it. In my head, a grand narrative was playing out. I saw in my mind a man of antediluvian appearance, rags and bones tied to his waist. Some kind of Neolithic hunter-gatherer, his brown matted hair soaking as he stood in a wide expanse ringed by mountains. He had also been attempting to outrun the storm, and then as I walked along I felt his story forming in my mind. Then this particular track that was playing comes to an incredible crescendo and I realised the storm that followed him was in fact a wrathful god. I saw lighting cracks in the darkening sky of this alternative world I was glimpsing, and the man once again took off at a run.

It was a whole film that played out in my head, and I began to see it as something that could be seen on a screen. A full feature length film with not a single line of dialogue, just music and visuals. Almost like an incredibly long music video, perhaps all from one coherent album, but the music existing to serve the visual experience rather than the other way around. A film which lays on various grand and age old themes of heroism, man’s contention with nature/ the elements, and so on. I’ve always had these kinds of experiences, walking to school or stuck in my bedroom as a kid I’d dream up ideas of what seemed to me at the time to be amazing artistic visions. I’ve always had a creative impulse; but neither the talent, skill or resources required to manifest anything worthwhile from it.

An artist is a composite of all those things. We have a surfeit of self described “Creatives” in the modern day, but few artists. I’m not an artist, and one of the few positive qualities I have (my self awareness) prevents me from even seeing myself as merely a creative type. Yet I have always had this impulse, which is one of those necessary characteristics that an artist is made up of. This park was for a time able to draw it out of me much more consistently, you could almost say that it functioned as my muse. I would go there and often listen to music but sometimes just walk around and listen to the sound of the birds in the trees or dogs barking and so on, and enter a state that I would describe as mildly hypnagogic.

If normal hypnagogia can be described as having one foot in the world of dreams and the other fully in reality, then you could say when on these visits I was merely dipping a finger into dream. Everything I was reading and watching and contemplating during those months would stew in my mind and I would be struck by these many potential expressions of their fusion. It might seem strange but at the time I was fascinated by the imagery of the Eurasian Steppe, of this great and once eternal seeming grassland from where the Yamnaya and their descendants came down to conquer the known world at the beginning of history. Followed in turn later by the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Huns, the Magyars, the Mongols and even the Turks.

The romance of it, the beauty of that unbelievably harsh and cruel environment, I really did find myself thinking about it constantly. I would walk through the field of the park with my arms stretched out to either side and imagine myself there. I’ve always been drawn to wide open spaces, only in totally open places does my soul feel completely free to assert itself, to fill out fully. There’s this wide road I used to walk along during the last year of school (I still go past that way from time to time) in the morning and I really enjoyed walking right up and along the middle of the road when it wasn’t too busy with cars. I’d love to see true open land one day, in Mongolia or Southern Russia or wherever, though it’s neither cheap nor especially safe.

This kind of imagery was a major feature of these artistic potentials that would float into my mind that I was talking about earlier, that very example I gave certainly had it. On one other walk a little earlier than the one in November I just mentioned, instead of a work of visual and audial art I began to feel a few lines of poetry forming from that same creative source. I didn’t write them down at the time, because while in that zone I really liked how they sounded to me, I know I’m no poet. I’ve talked before about my failure to understand or appreciate poetry, and so for those reasons I abandoned the idea as I did with all the others when leaving the park. The lines never left my mind though, I couldn’t get rid of them.

From Éire to Indus and every inbetween

There lived Gods and many kings

Riding down from the great grass sea

They weren’t even the first lines of a potential poem, and there were more that I did forget, they were just lines that felt poetic to me that I could see being somehow worked into something coherent one day. Grandiose ideas never last long though, especially those that are conjured up in this park I noticed after a time. So I kind of forgot about it, the idea of the poem was what I’d been fantasising about on that day just as the idea of other kinds of art were on my other strolls, rather than the pure expression of the lines themselves. So I let the lines remain somewhere in my mind, but had effectively let them go.

Then my visits to the park stopped, it didn’t snow this year and so the park in the dead of winter really lost a lot of that beauty I saw in it during Autumn without evolving to express a new kind as I had hoped for. I actually found a different park, also quite nearby, which I began visiting instead. The last few months though, since coming home from my trip to Rome, I’ve not really been visiting any of the parks. I’ve been working a lot, and I just haven’t been enjoying the walks as I once did, so on my days off I’ve been doing what I used to do and just staying indoors all day. The weather is warming though, and I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands going forward, so I do intend to start going again in the coming months.

As you may have heard, there’s a bit of a bug going around at the moment. My boss wanted to stay open despite it, and so I was working last week, but this weekend he announced to the team that we will be closing temporarily. Probably for the next 12 weeks, but it’s open to change. The government has instituted a temporary kind of UBI, so I’m still getting paid 80% of what I was, but I am effectively a NEET again. On the one hand it is an opportunity to read a lot, and write a lot more, but tedium does have a dulling effect on my spirit so I am a little concerned about this. I was an actual NEET for about half a year before getting this job and that really started to get to me, but I didn’t have an outlet like this back then.

Are we living in the end times? No, I don’t believe so. I was reading the Wikipedia article on the smug french imp known as Voltaire the other day and somewhere in there (or maybe in one of the linked articles about a particular work of his, clearly I was just ‘pedia surfing that day) it is mentioned that there was a smallpox outbreak in Paris during his lifetime that killed 20,000 people. I found myself stumbling across this information to be rather timely, given the major news story of the day, and it made me think. Corona-Chan – Gaia’s latest vengeful aspect – has actually been rendered rather impotent by the selfsame superstructure which roused her in the first place.

The initial outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan began before I left for my trip to Italy in early February, and there were cases in the north of the country while I was there if I remember correctly. Given how badly the country is affected, it has the most declared deaths I believe, I was pretty lucky. Always one step ahead of the game. I remember talking about it with my co-workers the night we went out a week before I left, joking about it actually. It has been about three months since the first cases appeared, and the death count worldwide is at about half of that 20,000 in Paris alone that died in the 1700s. Yet all around me people are acting as if the world is burning, you can definitely smell the fear in the air. That or acting as if nothing has changed at all, I’ve noticed.

I noticed customers last week shaking while paying for things, showing an unsual consideration for how I’m doing, or just a nervousness in their voice. I’m not saying there’s not cause for concern, but the way people are acting is just pathetic. Fighting over dried food that will be restocked the next day, stealing from shopping carts, hoarding. I am not saying that this couldn’t potentially kill a lot of people, but it hasn’t yet unless the conspiracy theories about the CCP lying about the numbers of dead in China are true. I saw a pretty interesting thread on /pol/ the other day about a very sudden and drastic increase in cancelled SIM cards in China that coincides with the timeline of this outbreak. I remain sceptical though, it does seem like this thing will blow over without having done too much damage.

Think about how incredibly unlikely it is that 20,000 people in a single city, as didn’t just happen in Paris but became nothing more than a historical footnote. It’s not even mentioned in this article documenting the history of the city in the 18th century, In fact given how much smaller the population of an average city, even a European capital, was during that period of time, an equivalent percentage of people dying now would be far higher than 20,000, somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. I just think it’s beneficial to take a step back and get some perspective. Though of course also take the sensible and necessary precautions, or don’t whatever. Maybe the reason I’m really so unaffected by this is because I don’t really care if hundreds of thousands of people die from this anyway.

It might sound cold of me, but I don’t have too much sympathy for normalfags. The only people I hope (or even simply care) remain safe through this thing are the people who care about me, and my care is proportionate to theirs. It is purely reciprocal. My co-workers seem to care slightly, so I in turn wish them the best even the girl who I was calling oneitis a few months ago. I’m actually quite surprised how little I care that I’m not going to see her for possibly three months, given how upset I was about not seeing her for only one this last winter. I guess she’s not my oneitis anymore, I’m not sure why but my feelings have just faded. I’ve just been wanting to get away from people lately, good timing I suppose.

So a few weeks ago I was still at work, I was working until late last week actually the quarantine officially began on Monday, and stuck there all afternoon and evening with nothing to do but away from my laptop at home so unable to write. For most days of the week as well which is why I’ve been uploading rather infrequently lately. One day there I was sitting down and I was reminded of those few lines from months before. So I took out a notebook from my bag, and began to write.

From Éire to Indus                                                                                                                          And every inbetween                                                                                                                  There lived gods                                                                                                                              And many kings

Rolling down from                                                                                                                           The great grass sea                                                                                                                        Long haired heroes                                                                                                                   Bronze clad steeds

Now only the high                                                                                                                        Walls of once cities

I stopped there, it wasn’t good at all. There’s no structure to this mess, it is rooted in nothing. Nowadays everyone can be a poet, an instapoet if you want. You can string a few sentimental sentences together, cut them to pieces arbitrarily and if you pair your product with a picture of a pretty girl’s face then you’ll receive all the adulation you could desire as a “Creative”. Yet is there any value to it, it’s all a sham. Compliments are a sham, a lot of the time. I showed the written above section to someone, and she told me it was “great, you should try and get published!!”. What a joke, it is structureless and soulless. I scribbled it up in a few minutes, it flowed from my pen like prose.

Poetry is structure, it is rigidity that gives it it’s freedom, even I know this and I find little pleasure in reading poetry. It’s greatness comes from construction, the greatest poets of history didn’t just shit out fully formed works they laboured to produce their works. Even those iconoclastic avant-gardists of the modernist period like Ezra Pound who threw out strict meter did so not to open poetry to the world, to allow any fool’s ink to be held in as high regard as that of a master craftsman’s. They had their reasons I suppose, you’d have to ask someone who knows a thing about literature to explain precisely what, but they came from a place of knowledge. Think of the phrase “you need to learn the rules in order to break them”.

A few weeks ago I finally found the courage to fall for the online dating meme. I know how those sites work, Chad Thundercock uses it like an in-store catalogue, everyone else shouldn’t bother, but I’m lonely and my pride hurts for having remained so this long and so I did. The whole process is humiliating, taking a photo of yourself because you haven’t got any candid ones because you’re a fucking loser with no friends is humiliating, having to advertise yourself like a disposable product is humiliating, answering the asinine questions that no one ever looks at your answers for anyway because they “swipe” after seeing your first photo is humiliating. Taking a “selfie” for the first time felt like a nu-male rite of passage, I have become a bugman.

Somehow, I did manage to match with two qt3.14s. I think because when you make a new account they promote your profile to as many people as possible, then after a few days they bury it unless you’re Chad so you’re incentivised to pay for exposure. Or something like that, there are definitely some shady practices going on. You’re getting taken for a ride boys. I chose an app called Bumble, rather than Tinder because it has this gimmick where women always have to message first which allowed me to avoid the final humiliation of coming up with a funny enough opening line to snatch her attention away from the ten Chads she’s chatting with briefly.

It was one of these two girls who complimented my “””poem””” as relayed above, that’s why I’m mentioning this. It just rang so hollow to me that I couldn’t help but resent her deeply for it, all her false enthusiasm. She was really enthusiastic at first, though it felt so fake to me. I remember waking up, she must have matched with me during the night, and there was a message from her. She wanted to text back and forth the whole day and after a while I was really starting to feel like I’d made a terrible mistake. I tried replying with shorter and shorter messages to get her to back off a bit but that had the opposite effect, so that evening (the day after I first downloaded the app) I just asked her if she wanted to meet. My thinking was maybe after that she’d be satisfied and leave me alone a bit.

Which she was very happy about it seemed, asking me why I hadn’t just asked her earlier that day. Maybe if you hadn’t been constantly making it impossible to broach the subject roastie! She did back off a bit after that though, and the next day I decided to stop being such a bitter fag and embrace the situation. This is what I wanted right, to find a pretty girl who seemed to be interested in me? So I decided to reciprocate her enthusiasm when we picked the conversation back up. She wanted to know what I do for fun, I said I write quite a lot, before realising that there’s no way in hell I could share this blog with her. So when asked for examples I shared that stupid non-poem which this blog entry is meant to really be about.

Throughout the day, I noticed her interest seemed to lessen inversely with mine which actually increased as the day went on and I began to enjoy the text conversation. We made proper plans for meeting a couple days after that, I’ve never been on a “date” before so I let her decide and plan what to do. The day after she replied far less, and then the day before we were meant to meet she sent me one message very early then didn’t reply to my reply until that evening. I woke up the day we were meant to meet, and she had “unmatched” me. And while I was offended by the rudeness of it, wouldn’t it have been better to just tell me she’d lost interest, I found that I was also very pleased.

There was this dread about the meeting that was immediately lifted. Not just because there was that resentment I couldn’t get rid of even though she was quite nice, maybe just something I’d have with any female after years of being alone and bitter. Because I was just expecting an incredibly awkward experience and I knew I’d hate it. It’s funny though isn’t it, when I was slightly disinterested and also talking to another girl (who both matched with me and then stopped bothering to reply the same first day) she was very interested, and then the more I made an effort the faster she lost that interest. Maybe the PUA’s are actually onto something, what a crazy world. So after finding out what happened I noticed myself going back to swiping almost unthinkingly.

I stopped myself though, and in a moment of disgust at how quickly this thing had hooked me into it’s consumer cycle I deleted the app. Half a week after first downloading it. I remember thinking in that moment how sickened my ancient ancestors; barbarians, warriors, even any priestly or learned men if there were any; would be to see me there. I saw myself; pathetic, soft, modern creature in my pyjamas. And I saw these ancient men who those very lines from my failed poem brought to mind, the kind of men who put their enemies to the sword and razed cities to the ground. How would they see modern “man”, who prostrates himself so on these apps, who puts himself up for auction, who lives only for validation from women. I deleted the app, and in that moment vowed – I’m serious – that as penance I would take those lines and produce something that I could at least call a poem.

The immediate problem of course, was I didn’t know anything about poetry. I still don’t really. I remember what little I learned in school, English poetry is about stress. Feet, that is groupings of syllables which are repeated in a line a set number of times, in English (and I think most other languages throughout the world) are differentiated by which syllables within are stressed or unstressed. You’ll notice when you speak, at least in English but again many other languages as well, that you emphasise some syllables in a sentence very strongly but others you’ll just naturally glide across more softly. The same syllable in a word might be unstressed or stressed depending on the words surrounding it the particular sentence as well, it’s not always the same from what I understand.

A particular kind of poetic line then, is named based on the foot that is repeated and the number of said feet. I remember being taught that iambic pentameter is the standard poetic form in English, it’s what Shakespeare wrote in they told us. An iamb is a two syllable foot, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, it is supposed to sound like the beat of the human heart. da DUM, da DUM, da DUM. Repeated twice would be bimeter, thrice trimeter, four times tetrameter, and so on. You can find a list for the many different feet and all their names online, but it’s not going to help you if like me you just have a terrible ear for this sort of thing.

Maybe it’s a result of being such a thoroughly modern city dweller, maybe being so detached from the country and the earth has also alienated me from my body’s own natural rhythms. I remember the first day at work where I decided to really work on this thing, I decided I’d stick with the longer version of the starting line and analyse that. I then planned to use that as a model to repeat for the rest of the them, which at this point I had very little material for in preparation. I wrote down the line, and repeated it out loud to myself.

From Éire to Indus and every inbetween

Now it actually by chance seems to have a good natural rhythm to it, the muse must have been speaking through me when that line first came to me. It seems to very easily break up into four feet of three syllables each, so a kind of tetrameter. Yet despite reading it over and over to myself, in my head and out loud, and I just couldn’t quite figure out where the stressed syllables were in each foot. At first I thought the middle syllable on each one sounded best, but something about it sounded stilted and unnatural to me.

The last foot in the sequence just sounded completely wrong even to my untrained ear, and so I had to accept that that one would end with the stressed syllable rather than having it in the middle. This is fine though, one slightly different kind of foot (a substitutive) is generally acceptable even by older more rigid standards. In fact if done well, for example if used to break up the flow for deliberate effect, it improves the poem. Of course in my case it wasn’t for effect, although I did like that it gave the line a masculine ending. A line which ends on an unstressed syllable is referred to as feminine, and of course a stressed final syllable makes for a so called masculine ending.

From Éire / to Indus / and every (pronounced ev’ry) / inbetween

Given the subject of my poem, the harsh land of the steppe and the men and cultures it produced which have all been very strictly patriarchal I thought that was actually rather appropriate. I was now beginning to develop a real vision for the structure and layout of this thing, it was actually coming together. So at this point my thinking was that I’d try to end every line with one of those feet which has the stressed syllable on the end, an anapaest it’s called, and the first three feet would follow the unstressed – stressed – unstressed pattern referred to as an amphibrach.

An amphibrach is, according to wikipedia, mostly used in children’s poetry and more jovial or humorous kinds of poems. It is a kind often found in limericks, Dr Seuss wrote a lot with them I read somewhere, you get the idea. Given the tone of the poem I was trying to write that wasn’t ideal, my goal wasn’t a funny nursery rhyme clearly, but by this point I really liked the three syllable idea and that was where I felt the stresses were so I didn’t have much choice. It sounded right, and so I decided to just keep it. Not only did that first line just break into feet of three very naturally, but there was a rather appropriate symbolism to it as well.

The number three had a lot of significance to the Proto-Indo-Europeans, their social hierarchy was structured in a rigid three caste system. You can still see the echoes of it later in history; from the priest, knight, peasant social order of feudal Europe to the Hindu caste system which has it’s origin in the Vedic period though of course has evolved into something more complex. There is also more religious significance to it if you look into the subject further. There seems to have been some kind of division of the soul into a tripartite structure which their society must have seemed to mirror. With this in mind, I decided to work on developing the second line with what I already had.

It took me a lot longer than I’m proud to admit honestly, more than a couple hours, but after a few hours of fiddling around with what else I had I managed to produce two more lines which I thought conformed to that same amphibrachic tetrameter structure. To give myself some credit I was being interrupted by customers that whole time.

Old gods did / dwell, living / , and many / noble kings.

They came roll / ing down from / the once great / grass sea, on

As you can tell the third line there leads right into a fourth line, it’s enjambed. Perhaps because I’m just a brainlet, or perhaps because I’m good at sniffing out a fraud, most of the time I see enjambment used (particularly in contemporary free verse poetry from amateurs, instapoetry, most of the stuff that gets posted in critique threads on /lit/, etc.) it just seems arbitrary as I’ve said before. I’m never able to discern any kind of purpose or reason behind it, and there’s no strict metrical structure that makes it necessary, it just seems superficial. I was constricted by meter however, and so my hand was forced. I did plan at first to have all the lines end stopped, almost as a statement of protest towards the poseurs.

I had the general idea for the fourth line already in my mind at this point of course, just not the final product, it was going to be a variation on the “long haired heroes” line from before. I knew I had to keep that particular phrasing because I liked how it serves as an unintentional reference to Homer’s famous phrasing “long-haired Achaeans”; and also a structure for the overall poem was beginning to form in my mind which had eight lines which were paired. Eight lines, paired together in twos, kind of like a certain highly important Indo-European symbol which has an unfortunate reputation due to recent historical events…

See, in writing that second pair of lines – it would have been more impressive if I could’ve made them rhyme but unfortunately that was too difficult a task for me – which are obviously describing a kind of warrior aristocracy, it once again reminded me of the tripartite hierarchy of the Indo-Europeans I was mentioning a moment ago. The first two lines served as an introduction to this ancient world, the second clearly referenced a group of Kshatriya/ Knightly types, so now I knew what to write about for the rest of the poem. So the next quiet work shift I had, I got to work, and the writing the rest of the poem actually only took a couple more hours.

Their chari / ots, clad in / bronze, those long / haired heroes.

The many / , the most, both / their own and / those foreign

Did stand in / true awe be / fore their sub / limity;

Yet contact / with such a / thing as di / vinity

Could only / by souls ranked / most highly / be achieved.

So there it is, I’ll post it all together at the bottom of this post if you’re interested in reading it in it’s final form. I know it’s still not very good, I feel like the second half doesn’t have the same natural flow that the first few lines do. I worry that it sounds contrived at a few points in the second half trying to stick to the specific stress pattern from the start. It works “ok”, when reciting the poem you quite easily fit every line into the pattern set by the first, but when I look at some of the later lines on their own I’m not sure if that is the most natural way to speak them. I can’t think of a good title, so I’m leaving it without one for now. Thanks for reading.

 

From Éire to Indus and every inbetween                                                                                   Old gods did dwell, living, and many noble kings

They came rolling down from the once great grass sea, on                                                 Their chariots, clad in bronze, those long-haired heroes.

The many, the most, both their own and those foreign                                                            Did stand in true awe before their sublimity;

Yet contact with such a thing as divinity                                                                                 Could only by souls ranked most highly be achieved.

Dreaming in Prose: Slumberous Soup

Life is lots of tiny cuts, and we dream.

I saw that building again, the glass tower standing above the shop filled with sweets of all sorts. Old boiled sweets, hard sunset pink and lime in clear wrap, little bows. Timber framed finger pointing to the sky, a chair inside. I didn’t venture inside this time however, we went next door and I heard the same comment about the empty wall. We’ve done this routine before. It wasn’t even empty this time, made of marble it had things hanging.

Later I was at the station, it was half sunken and to get around one had to swing around on heavy cables, monkeys in the jungle canopy. The trains entered from the trees, and returned to them, we must have been in some kind of clearing. Looking down at the tracks I could see the water went deep. Stone and steel and little fishes who would scatter before the train came into view. A few of the guys who work there were around, the orange coats, but no shop. So, I was without purpose, cut loose. No fun allowed!

Now later my mother appeared, back from wherever she’s been all this time. We had to sell the flat and go some place where it would be sunny all year round. At once I was again fourteen, and though still naïve at twenty taken back to a kind that even to me seems now to be extreme. I walked past palm trees and felt again to be the shortest person in the room. The beach, an open room. It wasn’t to be though, just another false or fading memory.

I did return to one more concrete however. On the same night I forged a memory of particular regret and resignation, I was sent back. This time with added smiles, and warmer goodbyes, and a department store, of course. I didn’t return to the restaurant of goodbye but the streets after, instead of a glum plod the sounds of mirth filled the air and the streets seemed to twist and turn forever. I was glad, I really thought I was back there to do it again. Farewell, again, fool am I who truly thought I had gone back in time.

Duty calls though, for there was a city to save. Against the backdrop of pitch black sky pierced by bright and colourful lights we brought the terror down. Gliding up and along it’s cold metal body, and inside the thing. The destruction it caused was great, wandering through that broken city I realised this. Upon a toppled temple tower I stood, feeling sorry for myself. I think I was in some sense aware of the fantasy.

Handing out crisps, a bag bigger than any I’d ever seen before, to everyone in the room. The faces I knew and the ones I had forgotten.

Different city, smooth and shining bright with the sky open above. I searched for you, a platinum bob forever out of reach. Then you were a wolf, all white and vicious, and you hunted me. All these memories I have, of leaving you behind on that football field plateau, driving away in the shop. Or that old European city we set up in under the main level, and not one customer came. While I have you around in this world can I better access these fragments of our exploits in others?

I’ve met someone new in a different world, a sleepy seaside town by a forest. Tommy Caruso is her name, investigative journalism is her game. A walking caricature, a cartoon made flesh, golden hair, cork hat, shorts and boots, and a big smile to follow up after your first encounter with that accent. An exiled scientist from her home country of Australia who she was sent to get the story on had released a new breed of highly intelligent talking wombat dogs. They look more like black poodles with three rows of teeth. To hear them speak in their strange strained voices unnerved me. I found myself dragged into a series of events I felt unqualified for. Raised stilt houses on a cliff on one side of town, I went to them and delivered a letter. A chat with one of those odd and slightly frightening creatures. Finally a trip into the forest, cutting through vines with a lent machete. I don’t recall the laboratory, perhaps I woke up.

A cold concrete car park that was also a school, plastic red/ yellow signs by the railing over the stairs. I had to explain the purpose of my poem. “The thing is, women above all want to be pretty, rather than beautiful. This is why they wear make-up, sacrificing the latter for the former.” It wasn’t received well by Flo, but Molly didn’t seem to care. Tacit agreement, in my opinion. There were also stone streets, a tiny wooden bridge (enclosed) crossing over the narrow street above me.

Getting on an unfamiliar bus to go back home, a passenger who was equally unfamiliar expressed clear interest in getting to know me. So I responded in kind, only to be shunned. I get off the bus and see you, you’re crossing the road and I assume you’ll not even see me and keep my head down. That’s not what happens, you turn and smile just before a car blocks my view. So I walk some more towards home but now you’re walking towards me. You have this smile, and I kind of can’t believe you really want to talk to me. I then notice you’re talking to a friend. As we pass by one another there is a very quick moment of eye contact.

You look away almost like you feel guilty of something and I try to pretend to myself this never happened. I got a reply in my dreams, closure. Not all of them nice, in some instances you mocked me and another I was shaken awake by an imagined embrace. At the glass doors to the stairs you waved and I had to say something then from the lift you turned and we fell.

A, I didn’t realise this was your last week here or I would have said goodbye properly earlier. Anyway I’m glad to have met you and it’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better. Goodbye, and good luck at your new job. / Goodbye, good luck, have a nice life!

It’ll feel strange here with you gone.

A, I wish you all the best in your new job and wherever else life takes you, I’m glad to have known you.

A, I’m really glad to have met you, I wish you all the nest in your new job and wherever else life takes you

A, I’m really glad to have met you, I wish you all the best in your new job and wherever else life takes you.

Name, I know I already left a goodbye message in the card but it was difficult to fit everything there is to say in just a sentence. Also I prefer to say goodbye to people in writing because I’m not very good at talking, maybe you / you might / maybe you noticed.

Name, It’s a shame there [page torn out]

Name, It’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better, but I’m glad I got to meet you. Goodbye, and good luck at the new job.

I can’t just wallow for a month straight. I cried, I never cry, and spent a week of time miserable. I can’t sleep, my appetite is gone, and after you actually leave it’ll be ten times worse. For the next couple weeks I need some stability or I’ll go mad.

The same bright white head of hair again, only when I sleep now.

Name, It’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better

Name, I’m really glad to have met you, it’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better. Goodbye, and good luck at the new job.

Name, I’m really glad to have met you, it’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better. Goodbye and good luck at the new job.

Name, I’m really glad to have met you, it’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better. Goodbye, and good luck with the new job.

Name, I’m really glad to have met you, it’s a shame there wasn’t time to get to know you better. Goodbye and good luck with you new job.

I just wanted to say that I

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you

____________________________________________________________

Ok, now you’ve made it through all that faggotry here’s an explanation. I did write an introduction intended to go before all of what you just read, but I’ve decided that maybe it’ll be a more interesting read if at first you don’t quite know what you’re reading. The introduction I originally wrote is below. I hope you found this post interesting, a little change of pace compared to what I usually write.

I’ve had some trouble writing this week. I did have an idea planned, another “describing my day” style entry, but I found it too close to the walk around Rome one from a few weeks ago. I went to a museum on my own, I went to some old places I used to visit when I was young a lot, I listened to some music, the usual. I had a lot of thoughts to share, and perhaps some will come through in later posts, but I’ve decided to scrap that entry. I had started on it though, and written quite a lot, so now it’s Saturday and I’ve got nothing at all and I’m working the next couple of days. I need to upload something or it’ll start to bother me.

Now today I was looking through an old notebook from a couple of years ago, which I was using as a sort of “dream journal” among other things. I have quite a few of these old notebooks, before I had this blog I’d write to myself just to get my thoughts out. Think of my more erratic posts, but far shorter, if you want to have an idea of what I would write in these things. A paragraph or two or any one subject at most, sometimes nothing more than a single sentence. I’d just write down ideas I would have, lines I thought sounded cool, and other similar kinds of things. I still keep a notebook, actually I was gifted three small ones when I went to Rome, but now most of what I write down in them relates to this blog.

Anyway as well as this I was also trying to keep a record of some of my dreams, as I’ve said. And reading back through that section today, not that there was too much because I kept forgetting to do it most mornings, I actually found myself enjoying reading it. Every morning it seems instead of starting a new section for another dream, I would just add to what I had written the last time I woke up and actually remembered to write. When we wake up we simply pick back up where we left things the day before, maybe instead of viewing dreams as distinct, we should see them as connected in some way like this. Sure, any two dreams will usually seem wildly different from one another – there isn’t that experience when you fall asleep as there is with waking, where you begin to refamiliarize – but often so can any one dream’s beginning when compared with it’s end.

I’m not too fixated on the idea, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about a little today after reading through these old notes. The technique works I think, for recording dream if you are someone who does so, it has a flow to it that mimics the feeling of the dream experience. And that’s what I think I was trying to do, and still am in some of what I write these days. To capture not just the content of dreams but the essence of dream in writing is something I’m interested in trying to pursue. I am also drawn to the writings of others which I think also attempt this in some way, as I’ve written about before a few times.

So today, or maybe tomorrow morning if I can’t finish tonight, I’m going to transfer those pages from the notebook to this blog. I’m going to fix any spelling mistakes and maybe I’ll edit it slightly, but I’m going to mostly leave it as is. The changing tense (I seemed to alternate between past and present freely), any other grammar issues or weirdness, I’m going to leave in. I think it adds to the effect I was going for in fact. There’s a little note I wrote at the start which I’ll leave in too, and the ending begins to take on a slightly different tone as it bleeds into more real events. I don’t know how far back I started, possibly around the time I first started working which is about two and a half years ago, but the descriptions towards the second half begin to concern events which would define the early days of this blog.

It ends where this blog begins, the line between the two worlds which had begun to blur being fully crossed by the end. I wasn’t really writing about dreams much by the end, but for some reason I don’t remember I decided to write it as a continuation of the earlier stuff, and so I’ve kept it in here as well. A lot of what ended up being that first post was written alongside some of what I’ll present today in fact, before I was sure I would start this thing. So, I hope this is a nice insight into what came before this blog, and a good way to show how far I’ve come in my writing since starting to really take it seriously again.

I’m Also Going to Use Proper Titles Going Forward

And here I am once again wondering to myself, and those of you reading, why I do this little thing that I do. I’ve always come at this topic from the position of trying to define intent, what I should do. I think I understand now that this was a silly way of going about it, that instead of obsessing about plans, the best laid of which often go awry, I should just let the thing live. All these vain declarations of design, of what outmoded model I follow or wish to, all this arrogant self explanation of what tone or message I imagine others could take from what I leave, it’s tiresome. You’ll note the irony in this statement I’m sure, but from here on out I intend to stop this.

I don’t know why I write exactly, I just feel compelled to keep doing it. Even though sometimes it’s as if I’ve been whisked back to my school days, particularly those long weekends spent staring at a blank sheet of paper – or playing vidya, trying to pretend the paper doesn’t exist – with an assignment hanging over my head. I keep writing, week after week, and I savour the moment when I press the “publish” button because it’s often the high point of that day. Through words I can explore my thoughts on anything and everything, and more than that I have the eyes of a small group of people so I know I’m not entirely screaming into the void. I like being heard, however faintly.

I don’t know if most of you are regulars, because none of you actually responded to the poll I made a couple weeks before I went away. I’ll be honest I was disappointed at first, but with the other things on my mind I was quickly distracted. Then of course I was away, and now I’m not that upset or disappointed anymore – well I am a tiny bit, over ten hours in MS Paint on that header image desu – I understand that I’m not owed anything from any of you. The only issue is that I still don’t know what it is that I was hoping to find out from that very poll, which is whether all this new traffic is from return visitors or not. Things have died down a little, I’ve had a few days here and there with few or no visitors, but I’m still getting a lot more than I was before the bump that inspired the poll.

Days with no one are very rare, rather than normal as they were. I should mention that one person did respond, so I can say with a certainty that I have at least one return visitor. I appreciate that, guy, but on reflection maybe it’d have been better for me to truly have had no response at all to that poll. Because it would strengthen my resolve when it comes to what I realise I need to do. Circling back somewhat to how I started this post, I need to stop worrying about what kind of writing I should be doing, what ideas and themes I think people should read into what I write, who I should be writing for, and instead just get on with the bloody thing. Like I’m not doing right now…

The results of the poll, that is the lack of results, seem to suggest that most readers are one time visitors. That for some reason I will never understand, and that could change at any time, these posts I write are showing up more in search engines than they were for the first year and a half of me having this blog. So while these posts that I write now receive more attention than what I was uploading even half a year ago, there’s no reason to assume they’re making any impact on any of the people who do. In fact, if I am being consistently stumbled across by people and am staying at the same average page views roughly then it must mean most of these new people don’t find what I write compelling enough to stick around or I would see consistent growth.

The poll result (or non result) has still taught me something, even if not one of the two things I expected to learn. I understand now that even if I have a reliable following, which I might/ but I very well might not, it’s a ghost following. It will never be anything more than numbers on a page, which represent people and show that I am heard, but tell me nothing about what impact my words have. Do I make people think, or feel? Do I inspire? Do I make people feel less alone? Do I provide comfort for people down on their luck, for the fact that they have found someone even more unlucky? Some mix of those and plenty more I would guess.

I’ve mentioned it already in a few posts, but I’m reading The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa at the moment (or Bernardo Soares perhaps) and I think I might see something of what people see in this blog. The book is much more poetic, and an entirely different beast, but similar in a few key ways. It’s a posthumous collection of notes and scraps of paper which were found in a huge chest nearly lost forever and put together in a way that Pessoa himself never would have wanted. I’m reading just one of several orderings, the one I chose seemingly the most comprehensive as it includes almost everything, and this is only of the translations in English. In the original Portuguese there could be thousands of potential arrangements of these short snippets of inked reflections.

He talks about so much, and I’ll save my specific thoughts on the book’s contents because I think I’ll probably write a whole entry here about the book, but it does remind me a little bit of this blog. I’m really loving the book, I was reading it for almost two hours straight last night. I’m trying to savour it though, I’m mostly reading it for around half an hour a day at most. I’ve been reading other stuff alongside it, I recently finished Dubliners by James Joyce. I really want to read a lot more in 2020 than I did the last few years. Every year since about 2014 actually, the last decade was a lost decade for me. That’s how I see it, not just in regard to reading but in every sense actually. I ruined my education, and I retreated away from the world only to waste that time in petty self pity.

When I came back from my trip to Rome recently, for the first time since dropping out of school during my A-levels, I considered higher education. My conversation with a man who I only know as “Bournemouth” which I talked about in my last post, prompted it I suppose. Though it was more than that, my uncle has been pestering me about when I’ll give uni another chance from the day I renounced that path, it was as much spending time with people who were just like me that are studying. Sure I have a friend who is in uni in England, but I spend very little time with him. The last time I spent as much time with him as I spent with the people I visited while in Rome was back when we were both 15.

I realised that I don’t want to be stuck in this box by the station until I’m old, honestly I’m terrified I’ll still be doing the same job I do now when I’m 30. There’s a guy I work with, he’s in his early 30s (about the same age as my dad when I was born) and he has two children. If I want a stable, lower middle class job, then it’s going to be very difficult without a degree. The traditional career, that of the boomer, is dead. The idea of working your way to a position through experience alone. At least, the barrier for entry has been raised significantly, you need a degree, and so I briefly considered trying to go back to take a year course to qualify and then go to university. I’d probably study English, certainly a humanities subject because it’s the only thing I could stomach, and then after looking into it for a couple weeks I decided I would rather not.

See, the barrier for entry may have been raised in one sense, if you want to be another office worker/ cubicle cuck then you’ll need a degree, but on the other hand the barrier for entry has been lowered in some respect. We as a society have achieved a level of consumerism never before thought possible, and unless Corona-Chan or some other catastrophe arrives to kick off the long awaited boogaloo then the trend will only increase. We are living through the slow bourgeois-fication of the human species, honestly look at the most well developed countries on the planet. Whether it be Norway or Japan, you could categorise them as middle class nations. Where I live, in England, we’re not far off. Even the homeless have smartphones, the other day a gypsy woman showed me a photo of her daughter with hers after I gave her some spare change.

I paid for my plane ticket to Rome (a return ticket, though as I mentioned there were complications) with the money earned in two seven hour shifts at work. I would like a more stable job with reliable hours and slightly more money so I can perhaps one day afford to own a home. Although on other days I wish I was dead, but assuming I “make it” and find someone I love and find a reason to continue with it all and all the usual normalfag faggotry. If I could earn what I earn right now (if averaged, because I do shift work of course) working as a teacher, or a librarian; or I could earn the salary of one of those more reputable professions doing what I do right now; I’d probably go with less money for the more respectable salaried job. More importantly, I think most people would be even more likely to do so. Especially people from a similar background to me.

I’ve never really cared about being wealthy, I have no real ambition in that regard, but I’ve always craved respect. Not that I’ve done anything to earn it. As we near the point where even the poorest among us live better than the kings of old, the idea of the job gradually becomes nothing more than fashion. It’s all posturing, it’s the expansion of the blue collar (trade) vs white collar dichotomy. You might very well be able to earn more as a tradesman of some kind than at a low tier “white collar” profession like middle management, but yet you will always be looked down on by that same white collar worker. You will always be a red faced prole, gammon. Now I see it though, I can’t find it in myself to take part at all. It’s so sickening to see the charade play out.

It’s a crazy world, clownish. This blog is the only real solace I have from it, that and good books. I’d say I should write as if I have no audience, because it would lead to the most pure kind of expression of whatever it is I wish to express, but I’d be trying to maintain a fiction. There are people here reading, and I intend to keep giving you more to read. I am however, going to try my absolute best not to be influenced in any way by what I think said audience may want from me. I recently uploaded something quite unlike anything else I’ve ever posted on here before, a work of prose poetry inspired by the creature Tiktaalik who has been making waves recently on 4channel.org.

I’m pretty sure the first thread was made on /his/, that’s where I saw it first anyway, but either way I really just took the inspiration to talk about determinism in a way that I thought would be more interesting than if I just made a more standard entry on the subject. I mentioned ages ago now, over a year I think, that I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that free will is anything other than a mirage and that I would need to write about it in some depth, but I never could find a way to intelligently share my view. Anything I wrote seemed juvenile, easily dismissible, and useless given there are so many very clear and well reasoned writings out there for you to read on the subject already from people far more educated and knowledgeable than I.

Whatever this new gradually forming worldview of mine ends up looking like, it’ll almost be certainly be determinist/ fatalist, because that’s how I see the world. It’s gradually become a crucial way of seeing the world for me, at this point a day doesn’t go by where I don’t find myself reminded at least once of the fact that we have no real control over anything. I’ve been meaning to write more generally about the idea of constraint as well, the very idea of it, and of course this subject also always leads one to the most oppressive kind of constraint of all. That being the idea, the fact, that we have no kind of freedom of choice in any sense when you really think about it.

There are no choices, whenever you follow through with a process that in your mind you would consider a choice, know that this “choice” was the only outcome that there could have been. You were always going to do what you actually did do, which is why you did it. It’s not something to be upset about though, for a long time I was quite negatively affected by this new understanding, for as I said it’s the truest realisation of constraint imaginable. Now though, I’ve kind of made peace with the idea. I said I didn’t want to push people towards a particular interpretation of my writing, so I won’t labour the point, but that post was kind of about that.

I really find the philosophy of Heraclitus helped with this process, which I wrote about a fair bit in this post. I do intend to get back into that by the way, I have been distracted lately and also reading other things, but I will finish that book and the post responding to it. I’ve also been working a lot lately, I did six days of work one week. It’s an easy job for the most part, and I’m getting paid, so I don’t mean to sound as if I’m complaining, but I’ve had very little time to write. I’m surprised I’ve managed to get a new post out every week since getting home from Rome. Well actually it’s not too surprising, this one I’m writing right now is completely mad and stream of consciousness. It’s easy to just vomit my thoughts out like this. The prose “poem” I was talking about a moment ago was half finished before I left and still ended up being pretty short, less than 1000 words. Last week’s post was substantial though, I hope you liked it.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, I feel like everything is slowly deteriorating around me and I’m very concerned. I don’t even have time for “tfw no gf” anymore… those were the days. I know that I don’t want to study, I would hate the environment, I’d be stuck doing a course for four years at least and I’d probably have to continue living with my dad for that time because I wouldn’t be able to work full time and study. I don’t know what to do, but I know I need to do something or I’ll be in that exact position I fear so much. I can coast through life, barely alive of course but present, and modernity will do it’s best to keep me comfortable while doing it, but in my heart I will grow more and more to hate every waking moment.

I know it’s odd that I was just writing about how free will and choice are an illusion and now I seem to be obsessing over “choices”, but knowing an illusion for what it is doesn’t make it feel any less real. Another example of constraint would be the languages we use, as far as I’m aware all languages are predicated on the idea that we are agents with the power of choice. So it’s impossible to talk or write about doing anything without reinforcing the illusion, every time you say or even simply think about doing something you further strengthen the false idea of choice. If you throw a ball at the ground and it bounces back, you wouldn’t say it chose to do so, but imagine if you were raised in a language that did. You would start to think it did, and of course the presumption probably comes before the language and I understand that our innate belief in free will might be genetic and not cultural.

I’m very tired, I’m going to stop writing now and go to sleep.

A Walk with White Phantoms Along Well Trod Routes

I went to a restaurant on my own one of the days I was in Rome, I’d spent the entire day alone because the person I was visiting had to go to uni that day, so it was a fitting way to end the day. I didn’t really plan it, I was in my hotel resting after walking for miles and miles back and forth across the city and I began to get hungry. When I left my hotel I was still undecided. My main plan was to go to the big train station nearby, and just find a McDonald’s or some other fast food place. On my left as I closed the front door behind me however, I spotted the restaurant that is situated right next to the hotel, and on a whim I just decided to go for it.

I’ve been reading Fernando Pessoa’s the Book of Disquiet (Richard Zenith translation) lately, and early on there’s a passage where Bernardo Soares – the fictional “heteronym” whose perspective the book is written from – talks about eating at a restaurant after work every night alone. He talks about how he sees another man also doing the same evening after evening, and how they eventually develop a slight kinship or mutual respect for one another despite never really having more than one brief conversation. I saw the restaurant, and thought that if this man who I already feel a similar kinship as those two did for can comfortably eat alone, then so should I be able to.

Whenever people like myself express slight fear or concern about doing things alone; worrying that people will stare, think we’re pathetic or pitiful, and so on; we are told – gaslighted – that we’re worrying over nothing, that no one cares. It’s a lie, of course it’s a lie, in the 21st century more so than ever it’s a lie. It didn’t help that I was seated right in the centre of the room, I was thinking I’d find a nice table near the corner, but wherever I was I know I would have received the same judging stares. The same looks of first curiosity, then suspicion, and finally contempt. It was a lot less unpleasant when it was happening than it has been in my mind all the times I’ve considered the idea of doing stuff alone over the years, but don’t for a second let any normalfag tell you that it doesn’t happen at all. You will be judged.

I feel I’m giving the wrong impression though, the place was nice and the food was good. I had some gnocchi with a pesto sauce that had some soft cheese stirred in with it, giving it a kind of stretchy/ stringy consistency. I don’t know if it was a particularly “authentic” dish, I was told the day after that gnocchi is something you usually have with a more meaty sauce, that it’s a little strange to have it with pesto. I liked it though, it tasted pretty good. I had a desert as well, a big chocolate truffle thing with some ice cream. It was a pleasant experience for the most part, though there was a slight unease the entire time. I’m glad I went, I’ve always had this fear of doing things alone and the whole day felt like me overcoming that to some extent, this restaurant visit was where those feelings of being a loser or that everyone is either laughing at or embarrassed for me were most intense.

I started the morning in a very similar way, after leaving my hotel around 10 o’clock I decided to walk in a direction I hadn’t yet gone starting at my hotel entrance until I found somewhere to get breakfast. After about 20 minutes I found a place, a small but busy café that was down some stairs in an alley just off to the right of a main road. I had looped back around on myself at this point I think, there were very few major roads in central Rome unlike the city I live in, instead most of the day was spent walking through smaller side streets and alleys like where this café I had breakfast at was located. Like shown in the header image, left is actually a photo taken from the front door of my hotel – so if you’re able to find where I took that photo, and you turn around, you’ll be able to visit the restaurant I was just talking about – and the right one is just an unnamed alleyway I thought looked pretty.

The café was really nice, I went in and tried to order in Italian but the woman behind the counter could tell I was struggling and so spoke to me in English, and pretty good English as well. She was really helpful, trying to explain various different coffee types, giving her suggestion for the best pastry to have with it, taking me to my table. Part of me felt a little patronised, that I was being treated like a child, but that is the effect I tend to have on people. Forever doted on, it’s preferable to being treated with disdain of course but being held as a perpetual child isn’t ideal. Everyone always thinks I need help, that they need to take care of me, I don’t know how to change that. She took me to a nice seat by the window, where I stayed for a while deciding what to do with the day.

I had this big map given to me by the hotel, which had all the major city landmarks made clear, and so seeing roughly where I was on the map at that café, I decided I would walk in the general direction of the Castel Sant’Angelo (formerly Hadrian’s Mausoleum) and cross the river there, then walk along the river for a while before crossing back later that afternoon or early evening after finding somewhere to get a late lunch. I went to the counter and paid, and headed back out onto the street. I believe instead of going back up onto the busier main road, I took a right and followed along the smaller walkway where the café was.

I remember I walked for what seemed like a really long time; down more alleyways and through side roads, past various churches and other interesting and beautiful buildings, down a long series of very narrow cobbled streets lined with various clothing and jewellery shops, through a big open marketplace filled with families and old women wandering between stalls, then down through an area with quite a few restaurants, finally ending up on a long stretch of road mostly lined with apartment buildings; looping back on myself multiple times over but trying to stick to the same general direction. After said empty stretch of street I walked out into what I thought was going to be another of the many Piazzas that dot the city, and instead was greeted with pic related.

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It was a lot more impressive in person, the pillars at the front are thicker than old oak trees. Walking through them to see the inside, I was transported back to imperial Rome for a brief moment. The inside by the way was an equally spectacular sight, though I’m afraid I didn’t get any photos, the ancient poured concrete dome (a technology that was lost for over a thousand years) with it’s perfect circle in the centre to let the light in is really something to behold. The rich patterned marble that covered the whole floor, the perfect squares lining the interior of the dome, the sculptures in their little alcoves. All the major churches and cathedrals and places of worship in Rome have a very similar style, but it never loses it’s majesty even after you see it time and time again.

I’m glad I saw it, because I hadn’t planned to that day and wasn’t sure if I’d have time to fit it in on any of the days following, turning that corner and stumbling across it like that was quite pleasant. So after going inside, I came back out and thought I should look for a certain sandwich shop which an anon from a thread on /trv/ I saw a month before the trip said I could find very near to the Pantheon that was really good. I couldn’t find it though, I did a lap of the entire building and then came back around to façade at the front without seeing it. So I continued on in the direction I had been going, towards the river. Along the way I passed by a small art gallery, and decided to take a photo of one of the pieces I saw on display that I liked. Can you ever guess why?

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So after another half hour or so of wandering I finally found myself walking up along a street with the building I had originally been heading towards right in front of me. The famous bridge in front with the statues lining the railings that is in many of the photos of the Castel Sant’Angelo was right ahead, on the other side of a road I had to cross. It was both a fair bit smaller than I expected, and much busier. I didn’t take a photo myself because there were so many people crowding around the front of the bridge, and as soon as I began to cross I was met by another one of the African scammers who seem to plague the city. Luckily a family were also trying to cross and they walked inbetween us before he could get to me and try to fasten one of those stupid bracelets on my wrist again, and so I moved on ahead.

The castle, or fort, or I guess just museum now, was also smaller than I expected. It’s going to sound silly, but I assumed it would be much larger. The Pantheon I had found larger than expected, but with this place I had the opposite experience. I remember climbing all over it a decade ago, or longer actually, in Assassin’s Creed 2 (a videogame) and it seeming huge. Almost as tall as the Colosseum. Yet in reality it was quite a bit smaller. I thought about going inside, but I decided it wasn’t worth paying as I’d probably get bored rather quickly on my own in there. I stood looking at it for a while from the bridge, and then not sure what to do next I just decided to take a left and follow the river. After a few minutes I came to another road, crossed over, and in front of me was this view.

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St Peter’s Basilica, at the end of another short road. I thought perhaps I should go in a different direction, as the plan for Friday was to go to the Vatican with the people I was visiting, but to turn away without at least seeing the place that was right ahead of me was too difficult. To keep finding these world famous landmarks – and world famous for good reason, they really are something to behold – without even really trying but instead just by wandering around, it really does begin to feel like you’re wandering around one big open air museum. That’s what one of my co-workers said, he’s from Italy and when I mentioned I was going to Rome that’s how he described it. The historical centre anyway, the area within what remains of the Aurelian walls, which I saw a portion of on a different day near the Pyramid of Cestius.

The city I live in has it’s share of monuments and old churches, the cathedral of course, old fashioned houses, and even a couple of cobbled streets preserved; but it is nothing like this. It has been thoroughly modernised, almost every single street has tarmac, and a lot of the older buildings have been demolished to make space for more modern (or post-modern I suppose) structures of glass and steel. You couldn’t have a day like the one I’m trying to share now, where you feel like if only for the modern dress of the people surrounding you, you could be walking around the city as it existed two or three hundred years ago. Before industry, cars and buses, the reinvention of concrete.

I saw a lot of motor scooters to be fair, very handy for zipping around the narrow streets, but almost no cars that entire day. Of course I did see some, there are still major roads which run through the city like veins and arteries. There’s this one major road built during the fascist regime which is particularly hard to miss, the bronze statue of Augustus I mentioned in a previous post is on the side of this road. It is very possible however, to navigate the city with minimal contact with such roads. At one point I went almost an hour without seeing a moving car, just the occasional one parked somewhere, between the café and finding the Pantheon. At least I don’t remember seeing any, but I do have a tendency to beautify a memory so maybe the city isn’t as free of vehicles as I’m remembering.

Walking up to the main square I saw another scammer, this one was already occupied. Working his magic on another tourist, I hung back to observe the routine. I almost thought that maybe I should say something, the tourist was an older gentleman and I didn’t like the thought that he may be scammed out of quite a bit of money. I took a photo of the two of them to show my friend, this whole racket these people are running is funny to me, and then continued to watch the exact same steps play out as they had when I was getting home on Tuesday evening. The older man was smarter than I gave him credit for though, and after a moment he just walked off with the bracelet, without paying anything. The scammer couldn’t do much, there were crowds of people all around.

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He looked over to me, ah another victim he thought, but I quickly stood up and headed into the square proper ignoring his calls. In the centre is this big Egyptian obelisk, surrounded by a ring of stone bollards, which are taller than they look in the picture. These obelisks are all over the city, in the various Piazzas you can find while walking around. I think they’re all really cool, the legacy of Rome’s past as a great conquering power. I know that many of them are not actually originals, but some are and when you see one you can’t help but imagine the legions hauling them back from some pillaged city in Egypt or North Africa after a siege.

I climbed up on one of the bollards, and sat there for a good while. It’s from there that I took the picture above this paragraph. I watched the people around me for a while, and just enjoyed being surrounded by it all. The square – more of a circle, but you know what I mean – is ringed almost by these two long exterior hallways lined with columns that spread out from the church towards you like arms trying to pull you in to an embrace. On both sides just in front of these, are two fountains, pic below. After some time taking the view in, I headed over to the one on the left.

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As I was trying to get a good photo of the fountain, not sure if I succeeded or not, a man walked by and somehow I caught his attention. He was fairly old, maybe in his late 60s or early 70s, and from England like me. At least that’s what he said, from Bournemouth specifically, though he seemed to me to have a slight German accent. He asked where I was from, and I said where and asked him the same. We chatted for a while, he told me he visits Rome often now that he’s retired. Being a catholic and having friends there to stay with apparently. His daughter-in-law is or was quite ill, he told me, and so he had decided to come here to say a prayer for her.

He asked me why I was visiting, was I studying or what plans I had in life, the usual kinds of questions people my age receive from older more kindly strangers. I told him I was visiting a friend, but had taken the day to enjoy the city alone, and that I was still trying to decide what I want to do. At one point a homeless gypsy woman came past and held up a box of coins, croaking something unintelligible. I gave her a few cents, and so did Bournemouth, and she wandered off muttering something to herself. We chatted for a while longer, and then he told me he was going to go ahead into the Vatican proper to find a toilet and say his prayer.

I wandered around for a little while longer, and unsure what to do with myself. I took some more photos, none of them were very good, and just enjoyed the sun. It must have been about midday at this point, and the sun was beating down. Notice in all of the photos how blue the sky is, I haven’t seen it like that once since getting home. It’ll be summer before I see that again, a sky completely clear of clouds. So warm as well, not uncomfortably hot but just right. I could comfortably walk around without even needing to wear my jumper, I didn’t even have my jacket with me that day but left it behind in my hotel room. I was thinking about what to do, when I saw Bournemouth again walking back.

He spotted me as well, and came back over to chat some more. He said he couldn’t find a toilet, and was thinking of getting some lunch if I wanted to come along. So I said yes, and he said he knew a nice little sandwich shop. If you want to find it, with your back to St Peter’s head leftward instead of going straight down the road I originally walked up to get there. Then on that path take a left again somewhere onto a reasonably wide (for Rome) street lined mostly with clothing shops and small places to eat. The place we went to was very tiny indeed, the area behind the counter was larger than the seating area. Essentially just a small wall table with stalls along to sit at. Inside there were only two men in suits chatting to one another, both speaking Italian though one had a clear British accent, and the place still felt full.

I had a coffee (unusual for me) and a panini with rocket, mozzarella and a few big slices of tomato. We continued the conversation about my plans for the future, the man told me about his children and how they had gone travelling around when they were younger and that helped them decide what they wanted to do. One had gone on to become a dentist, I can’t recall what he said the other went on to do. I expressed some doubt about the likelihood of me having a similar experience, but I never quite forgot the exchange and it has stayed on my mind since. I will perhaps talk about this in another post, we’ll see.

I told him what I said here two entries ago, about how finding someone from England was so comforting, like finding an oasis in the desert. I also said that I could never imagine just hanging out and having lunch with a total stranger back home, yet out here I felt an immediate kinship with him. He said he understood exactly what I meant, and if he were my age he would likely understand far more so, being old and familiar with the city and language after many visits unlike myself. Bournemouth also told me that he was actually born in Norway, but had moved to England while still young, which explained the slight accent.

The man who ran the shop and served us was also really friendly, joining in to chat a few times. When it came time to leave I left him a couple euros extra as a tip, and headed out with Bournemouth. When we got out we decided to head our separate ways, he gave me a hug and wished me the best of luck with everything, and I said the same. The whole encounter reminds me of something I read from an interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki (the mind behind Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne) talking about the PvP system in those games. For anyone who hasn’t played them, essentially when you want to play online with someone you enter the world of someone else as either an opponent or an aid. The encounter is random, you can’t really communicate through voice chat but only through the in-game gestures and your actions.

He said he got the idea from an experience one evening when his car broke down in traffic. A man in another car got out to help him, waited with him keeping him company until someone could come to fix his car, and then left without ever giving a name or anything. An entirely benevolent encounter, with someone he would never meet again. In another life, in another circumstance it’s very possible he could have had a completely negative but equally contained encounter with that man, as he has had with other people in life. This was very much like that for me, I met this really charming man who reminded me of home, we shared stories and a meal together, and now we will never see one another again.

Speaking of that the desire for familiarity – and charming men, though in my story of course there’s no such connotation for you to find – I found myself listening to a lot of music over the holiday that I haven’t listened to for a long while. Kasabian, a band which I strongly associate with a certain very happy time of my life, and The Smiths. Now The Smiths I actually associate with a rather unpleasant period of time, but I found great comfort in the band’s music (as well as some of Morrissey’s solo work) during that period and I listened to it so much back then that the band’s whole sound is very familiar to me.

As well as this, both bands also have a distinctly English sound I think, despite sounding entirely different from one another, and during this trip I found myself really searching for that in whatever small way I could find it. A recognisable accent, a cup of tea with milk at a café when I could get it, and yes in the music I listened to. Most days of course I was with company so I didn’t listen to a lot of music over the holiday, but on Thursday whenever I was wandering from place to place I was playing something. So those two bands really provided the soundtrack to this day I’m describing here.

So after the lunch I began walking in the general direction of the river again, and came to it just in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo. That is, if you are facing it from the bridge I would be just on the left. Back where I started, and so this time I followed the river in the other direction. Yet another scammer came up to me, and I don’t know why (perhaps I was in a good mood because of the lunch) I decided to humour him. I had no intention of paying him a single cent, but it was funny how religiously they all stuck to the same routine. He asked me if I was English, I can only guess that they always ask this first because they speak English better than other languages common among tourists, because I do not look particularly British or English myself. I have curly brown hair, and brown eyes, in fact I don’t think I looked too foreign in Rome. Though I was generally a little lighter skinned and taller than most locals.

He followed the pattern as they all do, pulled out a bracelet and was going to tie it around my wrist but I grabbed it before he could asking if I could just look at it first. He was somewhat taken aback I think, like this messed with the routine and his programming, so I examined it for a second and handed it back to him. He insisted it was a gift, and then grabbed my other hand as if to shake goodbye but a little aggressively and looked me dead in the eyes before repeating again “is a gift brother”. “Ok” I said, and turned to walk away, he followed along with the same line as always, “a donation my man, my family very poor, you have any euro?”. “I don’t have any euros” I said, as matter of fact as I could deliver it, and I walked off, keeping hold of the bracelet. Another one for my collection.

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I followed the river for some time, past a couple of nice looking cafés and lots of very dry looking trees without leaves, until I came to another bridge which took me back across to the main side. I say the main side, the side that my hotel and most of the major landmarks are on. There was a whole area of the city on the far side that I wanted to visit at some point, called Trastevere, which I heard from an anon on /trv/ is filled with loads of fantastic looking old medieval buildings as well as lots of great places to eat and drink, but we never ended up actually going there. There’s always next time, maybe if I go back I’ll find a hotel there instead as I was recommended to stay either there or where I did. Back on the original side of the river I started from, I took a quick photo of the Tiber.

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This might be getting boring to read, maybe I’m sounding like I’m repeating myself, but after this I walked some more. Shocking surprise I know. I walked for quite a while, again just listening to music and enjoying the old avenues and small streets. The city is so much more colourful than any British or at the very least any English city, there’s a town I visited in Wales called Tenby a few years ago with my dad which was very colourful, but not like this. With the same soundtrack I’ve already mentioned, I kept walking without really knowing where I was going for probably another half an hour or longer until I came out into a much wider open space with this huge set of old brown stone stairs ahead of me.

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To the left was the famous white marble monument to the unnamed soldier used in the header image for my first post about this trip, I had come full circle. I almost thought about returning to my hotel, a short walk away, but I found myself drawn to that huge staircase like a moth to a flame. I say this so often, probably because I’m not great at taking photos, but the picture here really doesn’t show how grand and palatial this staircase was in person. It really felt like something out of an old and very different time, ancient, part of a city designed for people who moved and lived and operated entirely differently than modern man. A huge set of stairs – the image doesn’t show it as I’ve said, but from the top you can see quite a lot of the city – a path to bring man closer to the old gods of the city.

There’s a church at the top of course, so going up the stairs now you only head towards the one god. I’m sure that once this was a pagan temple or something like that, at least the site at the top (I found out a little later these stairs were built into the side of the Capitoline hill) must have been. I should look it up, I’m sure it’s an incredibly famous named church and I seem like a brainlet hypothesising when I could just read the Wikipedia article. The church was of course incredibly ornate and filled with delicate symbolism and decoration everywhere you looked. Every detail, every square inch of the interior deliberate, layered with meaning. I took a few photos, here’s one of them.

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After that I came back outside and sat at the top of the stairs to rest my legs. I had walked for hours at this point. The sun was beating down, though it was past midday and beginning to lower. If I had to guess, I’d say it was maybe getting on for three in the afternoon at this point. I wasn’t the only one sitting on the stairs, several people all the way along from the top where I was right down to the bottom few steps. People reading, groups chatting, one woman just seemed to be lying there with her head resting on the step above sunbathing. It was one of my favourite spots in the whole city, maybe my very favourite. I was thinking I would have to go back to my hotel after this, I wasn’t sure where else I could go but I was not in the mood to go on another long walk to another distant area of the city. So I stayed there, trying to make the moment last as long as possible.

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I decided after a while to go back up to the platform in front of the church before leaving, and standing there I noticed that down and to the left was a open and also raised area with a bronze statue of a man on a horse. Pleased that I had found something else to spend time doing, I went down the stairs and up into that courtyard. Getting closer I realised it was the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius – or more accurately, a replica, the real one being held in a museum also on the hill that I didn’t feel like paying to visit – which was how I realised that this was the Capitoline Hill.

If it’s not clear already, my knowledge of the geography of the city is pretty bad. I got around though, after admiring the statue and taking the photo above, I headed past the statue to the right and through the pathway down the other side. Which took me to an overlook of the Forums that we had walked around the first full day of my visit, but from an angle I hadn’t yet seen them. I tried to take some photos, but there were loads of Chinese tourists crowding around near the railings with selfie sticks and similar devices which made it pretty hard to get a good one. This is the best of them, the only one I’ve held onto. On the right you’ll notice the raised platform and gardens from the other post I wrote about this trip, and where I also took some photos from.

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So I walked down a rocky path, which led me to a carpark that I followed, forcing me back on myself a little, in the direction of all the old ruins. There’s no access unless you have a ticket though, and I’d already been inside anyway, so I followed along and around the road which went along the gates in a curve until I eventually I found myself back on a normal street. This was after maybe ten minutes or slightly longer. I then walked along this road for a while, thinking that eventually it would surely curve again to the left and bring me back to the Colosseum from I could easily find my way back to the hotel. So on I went, and after a short while I noticed a small narrow park to my right. I crossed the road, and found a place to sit on one the stone wall surrounding it.

It was a strange park I thought, stretching quite some distance to my left and right, but with not much of a width. If I walked maybe the length of two swimming pools I’d reach the other side, though it wasn’t a straight path to get there. There seemed to be two gravel paths along each side’s wall, which both slope down symmetrically into a grassy central area. It just seemed like a weird design to me, but the weather was nice and I was glad to have found a nice park so I decided to stay a while. Even though it was quite unlike any park I know here at home, because I have been spending a lot of time in parks recently I found that same feeling of familiarity there.

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So I carried on in the general direction I had been going, but through the park, and as I reached the end I saw there was some ruins. I sign told me that this park existed was once the Circus Maximus, the iconic chariot racing stadium of ancient Rome. If you’ve ever seen Ben Hur (the one from 1959 with Charlton Heston) you’ll know it well. It was quite an interesting moment when I found out, I really began to see that everywhere I walked in this city I was touching history. Again I had stumbled upon another major landmark without even intending it as well, though this was to be the last that day. After this I headed back up to the left and in the direction of the Colosseum.

This time, even though I had seen it from multiple angles and at different times of the day, I yet again found myself seeing it in a way I hadn’t before. There was a small hill on my right as I walked towards it, the Arch of Constantine being straight ahead of me. Up on the hill were of course many tourists all taking photos, but not so much that it was completely crowded and so I decided to take another photo as well. I headed up there, and ended up having another, this time much more brief, encounter with a stranger. I was standing up on this rock trying to get a good photo (pic below), when a small middle aged Chinese woman came up to me and tried to get my attention.

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“Hey, you tall. Take photo me?”. It wasn’t the first time I had been asked to take a photo this trip, and it happens from time to time near where I live because the stadium brings in tourists, so I understood what she meant and agreed. I dropped down, and watched as she tried to climb up onto the rock to pose for a picture. I took the photos, she jumped back down and offered to take a photo for me, but I said it was ok, and then she thanked me with a slight bow in that typical East-Asian way and disappeared somewhere. I also got down from the hill, walked around the Colosseum until I got to the same side as my hotel, and decided to take one last photos from a small footbridge before heading back there.

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As you can see, the sun was a little lower in the sky and it was not long before it would begin to set. I headed back, past the statue of Augustus to say hi, to where I had my first encounter with a scammer two nights previous and had got very lost. This time, I knew exactly how to get back from there. It’s a really enjoyable feeling, when you start to get to know a city and figure out how to navigate it. Sure it was only a ten minute walk, but I think now that if I were to return to the city I could find my way around much more easily. I’ve made a lot of videogame analogies in this post for someone who almost never plays them anymore, but here’s one more. Like in any open world game, after enough hours of exploration you just get a feel for the map.

Funnily enough, it’s doesn’t work too differently in real life. Not only do you learn about the specific area you’re staying in pretty quickly, that isn’t surprising, but from that you begin to understand how the city is structured more generally and how to get around it. You start to understand, in a way that you can’t explicitly articulate, the pattern behind where things are. It’s a really satisfying feeling, it does make you feel more confident, that initial feeling of being completely out of my depth that I had the first couple of nights really dissipated after Thursday. For several reasons, one of them being this understanding of the city, of the very buildings and roads, that I started feel after that day. Of course it still felt very foreign to me, I’d need to live there for some time to truly understand it in the same way I understand my own city, but on Thursday I realised that I could.

Why did he do it?

His whole energy lent to it, that tetrapod to whom all our insecurities and petty quarrels can be traced. Not to their foundation, but a crucial – to us, though in the grander scheme possibly quite insignificant – point of reference. Nothing so simple as a fish-lizard, a hero and our doom. If life is comedic, or tragic, respectively. I’m still not sure, but I’ve at least narrowed it down that far. Modern life microcosmically, and grander life in all it’s scope as well. Life itself possibly a mere peculiarity or detour in the great unending motion that all forces serve, all things submit to.

Through him fate made itself felt. Always moving, no one can say where except maybe the initiator, a pinball game of a complexity unimaginable to any creation of itself yet made manifest. One day maybe our goal in turn, like Tiktaalik’s before us, will be recognised as to bring that forth. Or at least, to drag the line along a little. Only unknowing agents of the all unifying principle, the reliably unreliable Logos.

He did it because he was born to do it, because every event he met upon his way there pushed him further to it. His body was built for it, the product of the very same process which he was an avatar of. As am I, as are you. What specific series of events led him to the beach now long lost, where he slipped free of the primordial deeps and into the loving embrace of the sun, we will likely never know. Not to worry, to what end would you seek such knowledge anyway? Trivia. The gravitas of the day the deed was done is what should hold your attention. That brief spike of sudden momentousness, dead aeons on either side.

We’re in the desert, and then the world changes. The product entirely of undetectable ripples, that make themselves known only when they meet to turn the tide once more. Perfectly predictable, the only thing you truly can be sure of, yet every time unanticipated. For of course every time the twist twists, it takes on a totally distinct character. Probably unrecognised completely in it’s own time, if anything with such power is present, the weight of the turning is felt truest in the next. Proof of itself, and the guiding principle, long after it is of use.

The potential for prediction doesn’t need justification by the thing itself, innumerable elements – every thing that was and is – combine in the weave of fate, the arrogance to assume that have not implies could not is unwise. One day further on along this strand of the greater stretching line of All, prediction may occur. Mayhaps even the or an conclusion, if ever there will be, to totality will be something within itself achieving such realisation. Enlightenment from within rather than beyond, replication/ birth of divinity anew and an end to what can only be called a kind of feeding process.

This mighty minion of the Moirae, he did his duty. “Do what you would do” was all instruction given. Indirectly, from an indescribable number of sources. None of the neurosis that inspires man’s pathological illusion of choice – a quirk I struggle to understand the purpose of, yet owe everything to – existed to give him pause as it appears to do us, though of course such stumbling is just as much a part of the performance in truth. No, he had none of the unease you or I are at all times aware of. He only did exactly what he only ever would do, and thus was content. We should be so lucky.