Touchscreen

We are our best machines.

Flat screen, touch screen--haptic. There are buttons sort of, buttons in theory,well no, buttons literally, but they are hidden so smoothly, so finely, because we are our best machines.



We are not machines; not the first type, prototype, not the first of its kind, perhaps, but the best so far; there are no large red emergency buttons, no delete buttons tucked along our jaws, no brightness adjusters on either side of our eyes. Scratching the surface will not lure them out; the functions are sleeping under the skin the functions are sleeping under the skin different engines difference engines we are the best so far.

We are mover and moved; one thumb on the scroll pad the other is the scrolling rolling do you know where you're going?

We are the best so far; we are lost in how good we are, really. Arrogant fizzes, every last one. Where are the buttons? I don't know. Where are the functions? I know. I know.


We are monsters behind the screen; monsters under the skin. We are tangled networks and the snarling loops and back loops of an electrical octopus--under the skin. Without buttons or keys, so much must be pressed and pushed and buried under the skin--now, look, they've run into one another. The fan has broke, and the technological heat of it all is fusing them together, winding them together switching signals changing tracks like a train. The circuits are mucked up fucked up lucked out but it's good that way, ain't it?
011011110110111001100101
Yeah, it's good that way, Marty. It's real good. Now why don't you push that pretty little head of yours around the corner so I can--
Bam.

We are undirectable machines--no instructions, no buttons, just haptic. Don't go looking, don't go scratching for buttons--they aren't there. You're scratching the screen. You're bloody all over and there's functions spinning in your blood. Nose at, graze, hum, and you will be answered; sing, dog, and pull the food up from the ground. Things are found in increments; we eat everyday. I ate a shit-ton of amazing chips and dips and taco-amazing on Wednesday, and was slightly horrified to find that the next morning, I was hungry yet again.
Shouldn't there be one thing? One moment? EpiphanyepiphanypointpinaclepushBUTTON-

No.

We are clever machines.
We are damned machines.
We are hardy machines.
We have pushed out and picked off our buttons and put them around us, onto others, onto other things.
We are our best machines yet.

Just now

I stopped moving--my hand above a jar, my fingers over the keys. I can't believe I stopped moving. I think something happening in my throat, or in my jaws; some sound died an inky little death between those angles and rounds. My cheeks are already flushed; but I don't feel them. But I did feel them, just then; warm and too close, my skin too close to my brain too close to--I should run. Now. I really should get my feet gone. If it doesn't kill me, it will twist me like a branch caught up in a sweater. And we all know how easily sweaters get fucked up.

I want to stretch; I do not want to darken. Not in this way, at least.

It is silly. It is embarrassing. It is trifling, I imagine--but a very small thing can conjure some serious symptoms. It isn't the flea; it is what comes with the flea. And this small thing, virus, plague, can cover a body. Latticeillnessironironironnettles I just pulled a hangnail too far.

I have gone so long without tearing my nails; I do not want to tear my nails.

There--it is so small that it is already gone. But...but there is a ghost. There is a bite pattern, lingering and itching and before I can know whether I have what I think I have, I am already thinking I have it, and the thought of it makes me ill.



I am leaving this thought behind--it won't do me no good where I'm goin', anywho.

Lay me down in the grooves of a hard written 'n harder erased word, Lani, I need to think--good and long, or not at all.

Speak up

[I'm a bit hard of hearing.]

I like writing dialogue. It goes faster than prose. It feels good.

"Dude, you fucked up."
"One person's fuck up is another person's up fuck."
"What? That doesn't even make sense."
"You must be on the up fuck side then."

*

"I'll see you tomorrow."
"No you won't, we're not meeting until Monday."
"I know. But I'll see you."

*

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen."
"I know, right?"
"I totally want one."
"I know, right?"

*

"I think it's raining outside. You should bring a coat."
"Coats are for pussies. Badasses don't need coats to stay warm."
"Badasses like penguins? Penguins don't wear coats. Well, they look like they are, but they aren't."
"Badass."

*

"I've gotta go."
"Why?"
"This place don't exist no more and I'm afraid I won't exist no more if I stay. You should leave, too. Get far out from here. Don't come back."
"But I've lived here all my life."
"then you ain't never existed, boy."

*

"How many more are there?"
"Six, I think. Yeah, six."
"That shouldn't be too hard then. We've got time on our side anyway."
"Six mouths talk a lot faster than you think."
"Well, then what do you suggest we do?"
"You still got that bottle Frank gave you?"
"Yeah."
"What's left in it?"
"I dunno, a good third of--shit, man, you're not gonna-"
"Not alone I'm not. Come on. We're gonna need to get there before they do."

*

I'm not gonna lie. I don't know what the fuck to do."
"Oh come on. It's not that big of a deal."
"The fuck it isn't--you just don't get it, do you?"
"I do. We're just not looking at this the same way."
"You're not looking at it at all, goddamn it!"
"That's one way of looking at it."

Lacquered Brain

"What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapor rises from within forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapor brings a delicious anticipation." Tanizaki 15.

This quote is in reference to a dark, lacquered bowl of miso soup eaten in an old room with old lights. And other things, probably; everything, by virtue of existing in this world, is touched and tampered with by everything else--even in the smallest of ways, this quote is connected to many things besides soup and shadows. Some more than others. Some less than others. But everything's got a claw in it somewhere.
But those last four sentences were throwaway; I am trying to obscure and making a mess of it. I am trying to keep from saying that I am holding on to this quote like my last coin, my last weapon against (for?) syntheticism, against an unresolvable story. But my brain has found the weak point in the armor, and I can't forget it's there. And if you have to forget something to make it work...then it doesn't work, does it? I wish it did. I'm working on it; I'm working on it. I just need the right numbers.

decanters look cool.

antonym

1870, created to serve as opposite of synonym, from Gk. anti- "equal to, instead of, opposite" (see anti-) + -onym "name" (see name).

anastrophe

"inversion of usual word order," 1570s, from Gk. anastrophe "a turning back, a turning upside down," from anastrephein "to turn up or back," from ana "back" + strephein "to turn" (see strophe).

strophe

c.1600, from Gk. strophe "stanza," originally "a turning," in reference to the section of an ode sung by the chorus while turning in one direction, from strephein "to turn," from PIE *strebh-strophaligs "whirl, whirlwind," streblos "twisted"). "to wind, turn" (cf. Gk.

A turning of a turning of a turning of a turning--spinning spindled wait, look, listen, catch up your legs, you're dragging threads and I know this song I know this face I bit its eye I twisted its lips I tied the thread so many colors so many frays and ways around this weird house my house? no not my house just my points and my eye and my string and my running and--is this-is this what--?

I am so tired. I do not have nearly enough of a reason to be tired--just a history of animals and loud noises, mostly. I can sleep with the TV on, with my laptop fan on, with the dreadful light in my room on. I have I do I probably will. But when you get one good night of warm, dark, quiet sleep...sand is forgotten much more quickly than it is recalled. Sand is heavy. Collecting takes time.

If I could just--If I had-I don't care ab-I don't want t-I-I just--

"I run the numbers through the floor."

Wakarimasen.

Marmalade

This was going to be a plurk.
But then..it wasn't.
So now it's a blog.
Except still largely in plurk format.



Nautiloons is a collector.
Nautiloons is a bit of a hedonist.
Nautiloons is doing penance for all nine crimes.

You can't kill what you can't catch; you can't catch what won't run. Smooth move, Odradek.
Nautiloons wishes she wasn't so hung up on that star-shaped twit.
Nautiloons knows that twit will fuck her up in the end; she'll be cauterized to it and roll to the end with it.
Nautiloons has bread and marmalade on her tongue; mostly marmalade. Too sweet. There's bits of rind in it, though. I like those.

Nautiloons is nursing a jar of marmalade to get another taste out of her mouth.

Nautiloons is a collector; Kane was trying to collect himself. He gave everything; he gave nothing. The collector does not give his collection away--what use is all that collecting, then?

Nautiloons is speaking in neurotic shapes.
Nautiloons just got marmalade on her keyboard.
Nautiloons has a little rind stuck in her throat.
Nautiloons is washing it down with more marmalade.

Nautiloons is trying to make a terrible idea work. But so far, it keeps ending like this:

"...and six men died in Omelas that day."

It's like the end to a bad dream. You can't get away from it, and there's no way to make it right. I can get just lucid enough during some dreams to go back in time. But it never changes anything; it all goes wrong again, and again, and right before I wake up, I get stuck, pressed up against the wall of my brain. No room to get away.

Walking does not clear my head; it fills it.

Nautiloons hates not being able to run, to or from things. But this is, at least partly, a self-perpetuated state.

Nautiloons hates when places evaporate; when contexts kill themselves and doors close and sandsandsand I'm so tired I'm so tired of sand.

Is it too much to as for..no more sand? Yes. The answer is yes. I know it is. I know this one I know this song I know it I know it I've written it I've drawn it I've learned it I've done everything but live it and fuck if I'm going to live it.

Syntheticism is not the answer. But...but I want it to be.

This is terrible.

Foooo-

jookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookdajookda

Times like these, I see Odradek. Fuck Odradek. Spindle shaped shithead. Don't give a shit 'bout him. What does he know? Nothin', that's what.

I have seen this do damage; I have seen the fatal, blunt nose of this blast through lips and jawbones and the clutched up bones of the chest. I am a notorious collector, and I do not even have as good a reason as others for it. But I've seen enough shit to be freaked into collecting. Giving nothing; collecting nothing. Rolling myself to the end. Take that Odradek. Eternal twit.

I would rather kill than be killed; I would very much like to survive. And by killed, I mean three or four things at once, because they are all tied up in each other. I've seen some things, man, I've seen some things--and so a part of me is determined to feel no more. Just a little closer, down the bend, under the lip of--I know how it goes--and before you know it, you're murdered, up and dead.

I would rather kill than be killed.
I've seen shit.
I've seen some things, man.
I've seen nothing: I collect. I run. I collect.

And I know the collector can die under collecting as well; it is perhaps a worse death, even--suffocation. Crushing of bones and wings and pins until it's all just...just dead. Until you collect yourself. Until you're lost in Xanadu and ain't nobody gonna find you no matter what you give for 'em (and Kane had quite a bit to give--sort of).

A matchstick lives to burn; those five seconds before fleshsootsulfurburned. But af-

I am biting my tail into neat little tufts--each just enough for a brush, for a little dab of ink, for another little Odradek to eat its way into the world.

nom nom nom

I am careful of my deaths.
I die singular.
I bite my tail.
I pull Odradeks into this world by the tongue and the teeth. When they resist, I snap out their eyes. And that's all there is to it.

If I could catch that little twit-legged monster and pull a switch-a-roo, I would. I am familiar with Mr. Gray's unfortuitous experience. But still, I don't think I could help myself. I would take my legs and run myself to--into--

EdnaEmmaHedulia sees Hedulia saw Hedulia is troubled Hedulia is staying right here on this blog and never leaving ever leaving she is dead because she refuses to die she is mad because she has seen shit seen things and bit her tail to shreds for it and hide the pieces in a little crawl (silly scrawls) and wait for someone else to find them and go mad and bite and dig like her.