Nephilim Death Squad - Mother Horse Eyes： Part 3

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00:01:24.180 When I was in high school, I liked dropping acid.

00:01:30.140 One of my favorite books was The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,

00:01:34.480 which tells the real-life story of a band of early acid heads and proto-hippies,

00:01:39.800 called the Merry Pranksters,

00:01:41.880 who invented a lot of what would become tropes of the 1960s, 0.99

00:01:45.400 such as dressing up in weird shit and riding around in a painted bus while stoned on drugs. 0.94

00:01:52.360 I was especially intrigued by an experiment which was carried out by the Pranksters in 1965. 0.98

00:01:59.360 One day, a few of the Pranksters put a sign on the front gate of the group's compound that read,

00:02:04.340 and the Merry Pranksters welcomed the Beatles.

00:02:07.820 At the time, the Beatles were the biggest band in the world,

00:02:12.160 and the Merry Pranksters were largely unknown.

00:02:16.560 Moreover, none of the Pranksters actually knew the Beatles or had any idea of how to contact the Beatles,

00:02:23.520 nor did they make any attempt to do so.

00:02:26.980 For the Beatles to show up at their house in California was extremely unlikely.

00:02:31.460 Despite all this, the Pranksters put this crazy banner out on their front gate,

00:02:37.620 and they fully expected the Beatles to show up.

00:02:41.260 To understand the Pranksters' behavior, you must understand the effects of LSD.

00:02:47.080 This is true in a general sense and with specific regard to that banner.

00:02:53.000 You see, sometimes when you take LSD, something strange happens.

00:02:57.440 Something beyond all the weird hallucinations and thought distortions.

00:03:03.680 Sometimes, you get the eerie feeling that coincidences are happening all around you.

00:03:10.100 You might be listening to music while watching TV,

00:03:13.780 and notice that the pictures and the sound seem to sync up.

00:03:17.380 You might open a book, and notice that the opening passage has an odd,

00:03:22.440 unmistakable relevance to the current moment you are in.

00:03:25.800 At times, you almost feel like you are conscious of things before they actually happen.

00:03:32.660 You imagine your friend walking through the door, and a moment later, she does.

00:03:37.900 You look at your phone, and a moment later, it rings.

00:03:42.220 Sometimes, these coincidences pile up so quickly that you get the feeling that there is something behind it all.

00:03:51.700 That all the seemingly disparate and unrelated phenomena of your life are actually part of an underlying order,

00:03:58.820 or pattern, or structure, which is normally hidden.

00:04:02.580 This order seems to be a cosmic phenomenon that pervades and controls all of existence.

00:04:10.220 Something which has always existed, but which you have been blind to until now.

00:04:15.760 The existence of this fundamental order comes as a revelation,

00:04:19.840 because it is completely different from the ordinary mechanism of cause and effect

00:04:24.220 that you are used to, that science uses to explain things.

00:04:31.000 This feeling, to me, is the essence of the LSD experience.

00:04:36.840 LSD leads to a sudden awareness of meaningful coincidences,

00:04:40.920 which, in turn, gives rise to an awareness of an underlying cosmic order,

00:04:46.680 which is a-casual.

00:04:48.220 The a-casual part is important.

00:04:52.640 A true coincidence is when two things happen,

00:04:55.400 which are clearly related, but which cannot possibly be related by cause and effect.

00:05:01.420 For example, let's say you were watching a show on TV about zebras,

00:05:06.380 then you walk out your front door,

00:05:08.360 and see a zebra trotting down the sidewalk, 1.00

00:05:11.320 dropping zebra shit all over the place. 0.99

00:05:13.660 The two events have an obvious connection, 0.99

00:05:17.480 but it's hard to imagine how that connection could occur through cause and effect.

00:05:22.060 It's not likely that your TV viewing choices cause that zebra to escape from the zoo,

00:05:27.020 nor is it likely that the two events have a common cause,

00:05:30.920 unless somebody is playing an elaborate prank on you.

00:05:34.160 Such a coincidence could be considered meaningful

00:05:36.540 if you believe that it is evidence of the aforementioned underlying order. 0.98

00:05:41.200 Otherwise, it's just some weird shit that happened randomly.

00:05:45.880 During my high school years, because of my little LSD hobby, 0.94

00:05:50.060 I became obsessed with meaningful coincidences.

00:05:53.400 I was always looking for little signs from the cosmos

00:05:55.920 and hidden connections between things,

00:05:58.580 which weren't casually related.

00:06:01.080 I tried to predict things.

00:06:02.920 I looked for symbols and tried to fit the events of my daily life into cosmic patterns. 0.96

00:06:07.340 I got into Nostradamus, the I Ching, Stitchomancy, all sorts of shit. 1.00

00:06:14.760 Unfortunately, my attempts to ascertain the underlying structure of the cosmos 0.97

00:06:19.120 were heavily clouded by my own immature narcissism.

00:06:23.200 You'll notice that people who believe in past lives

00:06:26.880 tend to see themselves as great figures of the past like Caesar and Van Gogh,

00:06:31.960 rather than the anonymous turnip pickers and fishwives

00:06:34.980 who actually populated most of history.

00:06:38.760 Similarly, I was convinced that the cosmos was sending me indications

00:06:43.680 my impending greatness.

00:06:46.300 Rather than portending my eventual descent into alcoholic mediocrity.

00:06:51.980 Yes, it was revealed to me that the world would end soon.

00:06:55.600 I'd be a Christ-like figure of greatness in the coming apocalypse. 0.99

00:06:59.480 I shit you not, I really believe this stuff.

00:07:02.960 Luckily, blogs had not become popular yet. 0.99

00:07:05.740 Then, I took my final acid trip.

00:07:11.020 And it was a bad trip. 0.99

00:07:14.020 I don't want to go into the details, but let's just say that I saw some shit. 0.99

00:07:19.400 And I never wanted to take acid again. 0.99

00:07:22.800 All my life, I had been hoping to be visited with the grand revelation.

00:07:28.140 And now I just hope I was never visited by another one. 1.00

00:07:32.160 It filled my head with all sorts of crazy shit. 0.99

00:07:35.820 Not truth. 1.00

00:07:37.640 Just madness.

00:07:39.700 I decided that whatever was underlying the cosmos 0.99

00:07:42.420 could stay underlying the damn cosmos. 0.99

00:07:46.180 I wanted no part of it. 0.99

00:07:49.660 Well, I guess I should tell you what happened with the Beatles banner.

00:07:54.480 In putting out that banner,

00:07:55.900 the pranksters had hoped that they could tap into the underlying a-casual order of the universe

00:08:00.220 by simply welcoming the Beatles.

00:08:02.380 Rather than reaching out to the Beatles.

00:08:05.180 Or pursuing them.

00:08:07.920 But the Beatles never showed up.

00:08:10.800 At least, they never showed up in a literal sense.

00:08:13.260 A couple years later, the Beatles released the Magical Mystery Tour film. 0.99

00:08:19.000 In which they all dressed up in weird shit. 0.98

00:08:21.540 And rode around on a painted bus. 1.00

00:08:23.640 While stoned on drugs.

00:08:26.260 Precisely as the pranksters had done.

00:08:28.380 So, in a sense, they did come to the pranksters.

00:08:34.740 Of course, this can be explained by ordinary cause and effect.

00:08:38.400 The pranksters helped popularize a social movement which eventually spread to England.

00:08:42.320 Or, you can invoke a mystical explanation.

00:08:46.040 Saying the pranksters somehow sense that the underlying pattern of the cosmos

00:08:49.940 would bring the Beatles around to their way of doing things.

00:08:53.180 After I stopped doing LSD, I started leaning away from notions of cosmic patterns.

00:09:00.960 And I became more convinced that any understanding of the universe would have to rely on cause and effect.

00:09:07.900 My earlier attempts at mysticism began to look like embarrassing folly. 0.98

00:09:12.460 I came to regard all that meaningful coincidence stuff as bullshit. 0.93

00:09:18.560 I figured that LSD just overstimulated whatever sort of coincidence detector might exist in the brain. 0.95

00:09:26.220 You could dress it up in a fancy word like synchronicity.

00:09:30.060 And give it the imprimatur of Carl Jung or whomever.

00:09:34.640 But it was nothing more than magical thinking. 1.00

00:09:37.900 As old and stupid as Stone Age tribes. 1.00

00:09:42.460 I had been perceiving connections between things where none existed. 1.00

00:09:47.940 There are no meaningful coincidences.

00:09:51.180 A coincidence is only meaningful if you can find a casual relationship between the two.

00:09:56.940 And if you can, it is no longer a true coincidence. 0.95

00:10:01.580 The universe doesn't send people signs through the I Ching or Nostradamus or any of that silly shit. 1.00

00:10:07.880 If there are rain clouds in the sky, it's a sign you should carry an umbrella. 0.96

00:10:14.160 That's an actual sign from the universe. 0.99

00:10:17.020 The other stuff is just a load of crap. 0.68

00:10:19.700 It was with this mindset that I entered AA years later. 0.98

00:10:23.800 AA is a God-centered program.

00:10:28.960 The main idea is that you can get sober if you live according to God's will instead of your own will.

00:10:35.360 People in AA often talk about watching for signs from God and listening to instructions from God and so forth.

00:10:42.900 As you can imagine, I was less than impressed.

00:10:48.280 I was appalled. 0.98

00:10:50.320 I felt like I was being dragged back into this narcissistic, mystical bullshit that I had thankfully left behind. 0.97

00:10:56.840 I felt like I was being asked to roll back my personal Age of Enlightenment and go back to the Dark Ages. 1.00

00:11:02.860 Fuck that. 1.00

00:11:05.680 I wasn't going to do it. 1.00

00:11:08.000 One night, at a meeting, after months of listening to the spirituality shit, I made my feelings clear. 1.00

00:11:15.140 I told them that spirituality was the hugest load of horse shit ever foisted up upon human culture. 1.00

00:11:22.100 Spirituality, I opined, was like a thought virus that gets passed on from one person to another. 1.00

00:11:27.120 It was basically gonorrhea of the brain, and AA was one of the biggest fucking disease vectors I had ever seen. 1.00

00:11:35.360 I told them they should be ashamed of themselves for preying on people who are in a vulnerable state just to convert them to their bullshit spiritual beliefs. 0.99

00:11:44.700 Rather than the stunned silence that is the dream of every R-Atheism subscriber, 0.98

00:11:50.080 they just told me to keep coming back, and moved on to the next guy.

00:11:54.240 It turned out that little rants like this are semi-regular occurrence.

00:12:01.140 Having no other good options, I kept coming back.

00:12:05.360 I asked a lot of people why they believe in God.

00:12:08.700 They almost invariably brought up meaningful coincidences or magical signs. 1.00

00:12:14.080 I became more convinced than ever that it was all bullshit. 0.99

00:12:17.640 I argued a lot with one guy in particular. 0.99

00:12:20.060 In recovery, you meet a lot of people who are like Ned Flanders with tattoos.

00:12:26.460 People who lived dirty, then cleaned up, and became extra square.

00:12:31.860 But they still have their tattoos.

00:12:33.520 This was one of those guys.

00:12:37.840 He told me a story about how he was in prison at the end of his robe.

00:12:42.440 And he prayed to God to send him a sign.

00:12:45.700 Just then, a little bird alighted on prison window and sang him a beautiful little song.

00:12:52.360 God, he knew, at that moment, was real.

00:12:57.640 I almost dislocated my eyes they rolled so hard. 1.00

00:13:01.500 What a bunch of silly shit. 1.00

00:13:04.340 How could a grown adult believe this crap? 1.00

00:13:06.520 I read the AA literature, mainly to bolster my arguments against the program. 1.00

00:13:13.360 AA literature is very sneaky.

00:13:16.180 It knows that most atheists follow the tradition of Western secular humanism,

00:13:20.800 which values open-mindedness in contrast, the closed-mindedness of religionists.

00:13:26.440 So the literature portrays atheism as closed-mindedness.

00:13:29.760 Atheists are encouraged to be more open-minded, more flexible,

00:13:35.240 more willing to accept the idea that they don't know everything about the universe. 0.95

00:13:40.100 I wondered if it was fucking opposite day. 0.97

00:13:44.220 How are these spiritual nutcases going to portray spirituality as open-mindedness 0.99

00:13:48.480 and atheism as closed-mindedness?

00:13:51.600 I was simply asserting that, my entire life,

00:13:55.100 I had never seen any convincing evidence of God.

00:13:57.620 That wasn't closed-minded.

00:14:00.780 That wasn't presumptuous.

00:14:02.860 It was the opposite.

00:14:04.620 I was willing to accept the evidence presented to me by the world,

00:14:08.600 unlike religionists who turn a blind eye to it.

00:14:11.880 I told heavy metal Ned Flanders that if the skies ever opened up

00:14:15.900 to show me the majestic glory of God,

00:14:18.700 then I would be happy to fall to my knees,

00:14:21.660 because either God existed,

00:14:23.640 or I was in the presence of a technology advanced enough to be godlike.

00:14:27.620 I told him that I was perfectly willing to believe in God,

00:14:31.000 if I was ever presented with a shred of credible evidence for his existence.

00:14:37.620 Soon after,

00:14:39.780 I was presented precisely that.

00:14:42.840 I think it's possible it could be written on the fly.

00:14:56.220 The story gives the appearance of vast scope because the storylines are from different eras and areas.

00:15:01.320 But rather than a broad panorama,

00:15:04.860 it only provides thin slivers of insight into each time and place.

00:15:09.540 Everything in between these slivers is left to the player's imagination.

00:15:14.200 And given the author's hints at branching timelines,

00:15:16.820 he or she is not even necessarily required to link these little slivers together,

00:15:21.860 people also point to the various stories' interconnectedness,

00:15:25.760 and claim that the work has a structure too intricate to be improvisational.

00:15:30.540 But how much interconnectedness is there really?

00:15:34.080 For example,

00:15:35.520 the Stone Age story has cats in it,

00:15:37.880 and the cat story has cats in it, obviously.

00:15:40.820 This is a point of similarity, obviously.

00:15:44.440 But what is the significance?

00:15:46.780 So what if both stories have cats?

00:15:49.400 Is this a meaningful coincidence, or a meaningless one?

00:15:54.740 The same question could be asked about the children of a forest, 0.96

00:15:58.320 or the various marines, or the demon penises, 0.98

00:16:01.160 for which the author has such fondness. 0.95

00:16:03.920 Yes, these elements recur.

00:16:06.080 But to what end?

00:16:07.680 Perhaps like somebody on LSD undergoing a false revelation,

00:16:11.840 we are drawing connections where none really exist.

00:16:15.340 Perhaps these are meaningless coincidences.

00:16:17.600 The story employs a number of callbacks,

00:16:21.360 where it makes references to something which was not mentioned in quite a while.

00:16:27.160 This gives the appearance of careful pre-planning.

00:16:30.580 But callbacks are actually a pretty easy thing to improvise.

00:16:34.580 The author can just look over the story,

00:16:36.360 pick an element, and bring it to the fore again.

00:16:39.300 Like a prime factorization problem.

00:16:41.840 The problem is easier to create than it is to solve.

00:16:44.720 A successful callback is really more of a testament to the reader's intelligence than the author's.

00:16:51.680 And by the way, whatever happened to Companion 12?

00:16:55.360 That seemed like it was going to be a thing.

00:16:58.280 But anyways, all this is speculation on my part.

00:17:02.160 It's an interesting question.

00:17:04.260 How can we know whether the story is improvised or not?

00:17:06.920 The author does occasionally make direct responses to other Reddit comments and makes reference to current events.

00:17:13.980 But as you said, this could just be a sort of superficial improvisation,

00:17:19.860 where most of the story is actually fixed, but a few of the details are improvised.

00:17:25.840 The author could also be combing through Reddit for the right comment to give the appearance of improvisation.

00:17:31.080 Are we watching real choices in action?

00:17:34.960 Or are the events of this universe occurring along some deterministic path?

00:17:41.000 Is there any way to find out?

00:17:43.840 Maybe some sort of test should be devised.

00:17:47.360 But that would require the author to play along.

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00:18:02.100 Like slots, table games, and arcade games.

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00:18:11.400 If you have questions or concerned about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you,

00:18:14.380 please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

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00:18:33.480 Hashtag make a play.

00:18:37.220 Okay, now I'm in my bedroom.

00:18:41.320 The bedroom smells like bedroom.

00:18:45.400 Actual bedroom.

00:18:47.640 So definite.

00:18:48.480 It smells like wood and blankets and stuff.

00:18:53.640 Sharp.

00:18:55.280 I wonder how they decide on the bedroom smell.

00:18:59.000 I move my arms around and bounce a little on the bed springs.

00:19:03.560 My body feels really natural and comfortable.

00:19:07.440 Everything looks sharp too.

00:19:10.060 There are no weird color trails like an acclimation.

00:19:14.160 Cool.

00:19:14.680 Really crisp.

00:19:16.720 I stand up and take in all the little touches.

00:19:21.420 It's an attic bedroom with a slanting ceiling and wood panel walls.

00:19:29.140 Night outside the window.

00:19:31.660 Mood lighting from a nightstand lamp.

00:19:33.620 Clothes and a skateboard and other random teenage stuff scattered on the floor.

00:19:39.360 Walls covered with posters.

00:19:42.920 I in access.

00:19:44.680 The cure.

00:19:45.460 Michael Jackson.

00:19:46.640 And the yellow vest.

00:19:48.640 Very definite.

00:19:50.640 Or should I say groovy.

00:19:52.760 Did they say that in the 80s?

00:19:55.560 An interrupt comes through.

00:19:57.820 Atlanta completely destroyed in full scale.

00:20:00.360 I use my illegal bypass to cut off all interrupts.

00:20:04.760 Ugh.

00:20:05.400 I hate sports interrupts.

00:20:07.520 I'll have to figure out how to change that setting.

00:20:11.120 I notice a can of Pepsi Free sitting on my nightstand.

00:20:14.780 I pick it up.

00:20:16.240 Still cold.

00:20:17.720 I crack it open and smell it.

00:20:20.320 And the fizz tickles my nose.

00:20:22.800 It really smells like soda.

00:20:24.520 I take a sip.

00:20:27.920 Wow.

00:20:29.560 Hmm.

00:20:30.800 Not very good.

00:20:32.820 Maybe it's a low quality render.

00:20:35.980 Or maybe I just don't like Pepsi Free.

00:20:38.820 It's pretty amazing to be tasting something in a feed.

00:20:43.080 This was really worth it.

00:20:46.340 The doorbell rings somewhere downstairs.

00:20:49.940 Oh, definitely.

00:20:51.180 We're starting.

00:20:51.820 I head towards the door and catch myself in the mirror.

00:20:56.540 I'm supposed to look like a girl named Brooke Shields at 18 years old.

00:21:01.580 Wow.

00:21:02.800 She's pretty. 0.99

00:21:04.480 What a render.

00:21:06.600 Eyebrows are a little intense, though.

00:21:09.400 I consider toning them down, but I don't want to get caught up in character design.

00:21:14.100 If you change one thing, you end up changing 50 things and it goes on forever.

00:21:19.500 However, I head out into the hallway and pause for a moment.

00:21:24.720 The smell just changed.

00:21:27.000 Now there's a hallway smell.

00:21:29.600 Carpet and drywall.

00:21:31.060 I laugh.

00:21:32.880 I take a step back into the bedroom.

00:21:35.700 And the bedroom smell returns instantly.

00:21:38.840 And I step into the hallway again.

00:21:41.220 Hallway smell.

00:21:43.080 Bedroom smell.

00:21:44.840 Hallway smell.

00:21:46.200 Bedroom smell.

00:21:47.080 I snicker at this.

00:21:50.520 The smell changes just like that.

00:21:53.240 Why can't they make it more natural?

00:21:56.440 What a giveaway.

00:21:58.540 Oh well.

00:22:00.020 I head down the stairs.

00:22:02.100 The furniture in the front hall looks really cheesy.

00:22:05.640 I pick up a lamp and toss it at the wall.

00:22:08.560 It smashes apart.

00:22:10.060 And the bulb explodes with a spark.

00:22:12.920 I look at the shards.

00:22:14.380 There's bits of powder and all sorts of little details.

00:22:18.940 Yeah.

00:22:20.020 Very certain.

00:22:23.020 Undo that, I say.

00:22:25.240 And the lamp fades away.

00:22:26.600 It reappears on the side table.

00:22:29.640 I open the front door.

00:22:32.380 A guy stands there with swept back blonde hair.

00:22:35.540 And a baggy red and black jacket.

00:22:38.000 With a collar popped up.

00:22:39.880 And sleeves rolled up.

00:22:42.100 Nice.

00:22:43.560 He gives me a killer smile and says.

00:22:46.480 Hey babe.

00:22:47.560 What took you so long?

00:22:49.700 A blast of electric guitar hits me.

00:22:52.560 And the guy floats up and over the front lawn.

00:22:54.980 Becoming two stories tall.

00:22:56.800 And striking a sexy pose.

00:22:59.460 Colors fill the night sky.

00:23:01.320 Sparkling starlight showers him.

00:23:03.820 And synth beat kicks in.

00:23:06.240 An announcer shouts.

00:23:08.140 Cory Lancer.

00:23:09.280 High school hotshot and rock and roll renegade.

00:23:12.400 He's a fast talker.

00:23:13.680 With a slick attitude.

00:23:15.120 A guy who can make anything happen.

00:23:17.380 All the girls want him. 1.00

00:23:18.400 But all he wants is one thing.

00:23:21.080 The Ferrari 288 GTO.

00:23:23.620 A red sports car comes flying out of the sky.

00:23:28.200 And does crazy circles around Cory.

00:23:30.220 While he strikes more sexy poses.

00:23:32.780 And the music thumps.

00:23:34.540 It's the fastest street legal car in existence.

00:23:37.480 Only 272 produced.

00:23:39.080 This is Cory's dream.

00:23:41.740 Cory's obsession.

00:23:43.260 Cory's life.

00:23:44.760 He'll do anything to get one.

00:23:46.580 And he needs your help.

00:23:48.580 Can you get the car?

00:23:50.000 Can you win his heart?

00:23:51.800 Are you ready for 80's turbo ascension?

00:23:56.100 Hmm. 1.00

00:23:57.220 Shit. 1.00

00:23:58.400 I should have looked the summary closer. 0.99

00:24:01.120 I'm not really into cars.

00:24:02.700 And this doesn't really seem like a very interesting narrative.

00:24:06.620 Still.

00:24:07.820 Cory is really well rendered.

00:24:10.280 Blonde hair.

00:24:11.520 Blue eyes.

00:24:12.900 A bit of a mischief and a smile.

00:24:15.760 I like it.

00:24:16.620 I wonder if he'll be controlled by an AI or a Filipino. 1.00

00:24:22.160 He floats back down to me and returns to normal size.

00:24:25.900 So.

00:24:26.520 What's up?

00:24:27.760 He said.

00:24:28.820 With a devilish little grin.

00:24:31.580 Wow.

00:24:32.420 This is A stuff.

00:24:34.700 Just doing my hair.

00:24:36.460 I say.

00:24:37.220 Flicking my huge brown mane off my shoulder.

00:24:40.440 This Brooke Shields lady has an absurd amount of hair. 1.00

00:24:44.100 You chicks. 1.00

00:24:45.300 Cory says.

00:24:46.640 Leaning forward and giving me a kiss.

00:24:49.800 His mouth tastes like bubble gum.

00:24:52.680 The kiss feels perfect.

00:24:55.680 Yeah.

00:24:56.620 Just definitely.

00:24:58.960 I feel Cory's chest through his shirt.

00:25:02.040 Skinny.

00:25:02.720 But nice.

00:25:04.300 I think about toning him up a bit.

00:25:07.000 Nah.

00:25:08.140 It's better to just go with his default settings.

00:25:10.580 So listen.

00:25:12.620 There's a race tonight at the Speedmax track.

00:25:15.520 Cory says.

00:25:17.120 The Crystal Cobras put out a challenge.

00:25:19.580 And they're taking all comers.

00:25:21.400 The prize is.

00:25:23.160 I don't really like racing.

00:25:25.680 Cory thinks for a moment.

00:25:27.760 A character animation.

00:25:30.140 He looks cute thinking.

00:25:32.120 His sharp eyebrows pressed together.

00:25:34.840 Now he's taking too long.

00:25:36.600 It's getting awkward. 0.89

00:25:37.580 I think he's controlled by a Filipino. 1.00

00:25:40.860 Or maybe there's lag.

00:25:43.440 He snaps back into action.

00:25:45.880 Okay.

00:25:46.540 Listen.

00:25:47.420 There's going to be a dance off at the club heat wave.

00:25:49.980 The Crystal Cobras put out a challenge.

00:25:52.200 And they're taking all comers.

00:25:53.860 The prize is 100k.

00:25:56.200 Dancing.

00:25:57.800 Yeah.

00:25:58.120 That would be one way to try out my body.

00:26:00.760 It sounds groovy.

00:26:01.700 I say.

00:26:03.540 But I can't help but think of another way to give this body a test drive.

00:26:09.160 I slip my hand down into my tight purple skirt. 0.99

00:26:12.420 Feel my genitals. 0.99

00:26:14.320 Ugh. 0.99

00:26:14.960 Yeeks.

00:26:16.220 They really have everything working down there.

00:26:19.600 Should I do it already?

00:26:21.240 Just five minutes into the narrative?

00:26:24.040 Eh.

00:26:24.580 Why not?

00:26:25.640 Everybody does it right away.

00:26:28.020 Cory looks really good. 0.99

00:26:29.700 I wonder what kind of dick they rendered him with. 1.00

00:26:34.160 But no. 1.00

00:26:34.640 I should go at least half an hour without slutting it up.

00:26:38.220 Dancing will be fun.

00:26:40.720 Cory holds out his arm like a gentleman.

00:26:42.980 And I take it.

00:26:44.480 He leads me down the front walk towards his car.

00:26:47.820 A smeary old junk ride.

00:26:49.860 With dents and rust all over it.

00:26:52.540 Sorry, hon.

00:26:53.680 It's only temporary.

00:26:55.640 Cory says as we come up on the car.

00:26:57.720 I promise you, by the end of this week, I'm going to have a Ferrari 288 GTO.

00:27:03.880 The fastest street legal car in the world.

00:27:06.820 It's my dream.

00:27:08.180 It's my obsession.

00:27:09.880 I'll do anything to.

00:27:11.760 But I'm not listening.

00:27:13.760 There's something in the bushes by the road.

00:27:15.480 I wonder if this is one of those fake-out horror narratives.

00:27:21.000 I really hate scary stuff.

00:27:23.520 I bend over and look into the bushes.

00:27:25.940 A pair of shining eyes stares back at me.

00:27:29.380 Ew. 0.96

00:27:29.940 What the hell? 0.99

00:27:31.840 There's an old naked lady hiding in the bushes. 1.00

00:27:34.380 Yuck. 0.64

00:27:37.260 This naked old lady hiding in the bushes looks like the beginning of a storyline I don't want to go down. 1.00

00:27:44.240 I really wish I had looked at the summary closer. 0.82

00:27:47.740 Who knew something called 80s Turbo Ascension would have artisanal porn in it?

00:27:52.900 I consider saying my safe word to stop the narrative, but I don't feel like going through the loading process again.

00:28:01.620 I should have loaded my feed splits, but I rush through the setup.

00:28:07.020 The old lady's bony arm shakes out of the bush and grabs my ankle. 1.00

00:28:12.260 Certainly not.

00:28:13.760 I yank my leg away and curse at her. 1.00

00:28:16.800 Corey is looking at her with the same confused animation he used a moment ago.

00:28:20.640 Is he already using the same animation?

00:28:24.040 That's kind of low def. 0.99

00:28:26.700 The crazy old lady comes stumbling out of the bush, her saggy old boobs flopping around. 1.00

00:28:33.360 Yeah, what kind of narrative is this? 1.00

00:28:37.180 I pick up a nearby potted plant and smash it on her head. 1.00

00:28:41.420 It breaks apart pretty nice, full of high definition dirt. 0.81

00:28:46.180 Lady falls on the ground and starts moaning. 0.99

00:28:48.220 I back away to watch how the scene develops between Corey and her.

00:28:53.520 It looks like her leg isn't quite attached to the rest of her.

00:28:57.020 You can see the meat inside of her hip. 1.00

00:28:59.660 Really low def.

00:29:02.060 Corey just stands there, cycling through different animations.

00:29:06.440 He turns to me and shrugs and says,

00:29:08.680 Hey babe, that's life.

00:29:10.980 I stare at him.

00:29:12.040 Is this how the storyline is supposed to go?

00:29:16.260 He runs his hand through his hair and says,

00:29:19.720 Cute skirt. 0.97

00:29:21.580 What the hell? 0.81

00:29:22.640 This narrative is bugged up. 0.92

00:29:24.980 Let's go, I say.

00:29:26.780 Going to Corey's car and opening the door.

00:29:29.580 It's an old hand drive with a fixed wheel.

00:29:32.600 You want me to drive?

00:29:34.180 Corey asks, coming over.

00:29:36.640 Yeah, maybe you better.

00:29:37.940 A minute later, we're cruising down the freeway, listening to some oldie about a girl named Jessie.

00:29:45.200 The scenery looks cool, with the blue freeway lights passing by and an old-fashioned neon metro in the background.

00:29:53.320 Corey is running through his backstory, talking about the Ferrari or whatever.

00:29:57.280 I can't ignore the fact that I feel a little bored.

00:30:02.240 I'm just ten minutes into my first direct sense feed narrative, and I'm already a little bored.

00:30:08.560 Was the surgery really worth all that money?

00:30:12.080 I don't even want to think about what it cost. 0.95

00:30:15.400 I slip my hand into my skirt again and touch my genitals. 0.97

00:30:19.380 It feels really nice. 0.98

00:30:21.360 Everything is super sharp. 0.99

00:30:22.700 I think about fucking Corey again, but I can't go back to feed fucking all the time. 0.99

00:30:30.020 Every day. 0.99

00:30:32.020 Why am I always bored with narratives after ten minutes?

00:30:35.780 Why am I bored with everything after ten minutes?

00:30:39.440 We pull up in front of Club Heat Wave, a big, glittering building with a neon sun shining above it.

00:30:45.420 A line of gleaming black limos snakes through a colorful crowd out front.

00:30:51.180 We park in the player spot across the street and head to the grand entrance.

00:30:56.120 Corey leading me by the hand.

00:30:58.780 Music thumps from within.

00:31:00.820 People are waiting in line.

00:31:02.900 But Corey says something to the bouncer, and we slip past.

00:31:07.220 The entrance hall is all mirrors and neon.

00:31:10.740 I can feel the beat of the music pass through my entire body.

00:31:13.620 That's cool.

00:31:16.440 The singer tells me to get out of his dreams and into his car.

00:31:20.460 Huh.

00:31:21.300 The inside is filled with shadowy bodies dancing through strobe lights and lasers and artificial fog.

00:31:28.440 Cheesy, but kind of fun.

00:31:31.240 It even has that fake fog smell.

00:31:34.600 Want to get some practice in?

00:31:36.480 Corey asks, giving my bum a little squeeze.

00:31:40.080 This one is naughty.

00:31:41.260 We head out onto the dance floor and start to cut it up.

00:31:46.220 Wow.

00:31:47.200 Corey's dancing is terrible.

00:31:49.840 Looks like a motion glitch.

00:31:52.240 Guess I had to give him some old moves.

00:31:54.460 But did they have to make it this bad?

00:31:56.600 This is kind of ruining the storyline.

00:32:01.800 I look across the dance floor and see a tall man in a black suit with black hair, standing perfectly still among the dancing crowd.

00:32:09.160 He's watching me with dark eyes.

00:32:13.500 There's a sort of glow around him so that I can tell he's going to be a part of a storyline.

00:32:19.440 I lean over to Corey and ask,

00:32:21.760 Who is that?

00:32:23.880 Corey stares at the man for a moment and runs his hands through his hair and says,

00:32:29.180 Cute skirt. 1.00

00:32:30.600 What the fuck, Corey? 1.00

00:32:31.660 The dark man comes across the dance floor, coming toward me. 1.00

00:32:36.960 The other dancers don't move out of the way and he passes through them without breaking his stride.

00:32:42.780 Some programming.

00:32:44.520 Now he stands in front of me, looking down at me with his gleaming black eyes.

00:32:49.360 What an incredible render this guy is.

00:32:54.540 I mean, this is outright art.

00:32:57.540 Like Rembrandt level.

00:33:00.160 Say what you will about the game's production.

00:33:02.940 You really know how to build hot guys.

00:33:06.140 It's like he's tailor-made to turn me on.

00:33:10.420 Then I notice Corey standing right there,

00:33:13.820 looking at us, all confused.

00:33:15.520 He looks like a cheap plastic doll compared to this new guy.

00:33:20.780 What gives, Corey asks. 1.00

00:33:23.180 Fuck off, I say. 1.00

00:33:25.720 Corey gets this really heartbroken look on his face and says, 1.00

00:33:29.380 Listen to me, Zen Zen Zabacan.

00:33:31.740 You'll break my heart if you go with any other guy.

00:33:34.420 You got that?

00:33:35.560 You are the most special, most beautiful girl I have ever met.

00:33:39.580 I can't really get into his speech because it's too early in the narrative for that kind of stuff.

00:33:43.780 Plus, he pronounced my name wrong.

00:33:47.880 The new guy reaches out and grabs a handful of Corey's face. 0.92

00:33:51.860 Literally, he just sinks his fingers into the face and tears a huge, bloody hunk out.

00:33:57.760 Blood sprays everywhere. 1.00

00:34:00.240 Holy shit. 0.99

00:34:01.580 I guess this is a horror narrative. 1.00

00:34:04.620 Is this guy like a vampire or something? 0.96

00:34:06.520 Faceless Corey keeps standing there, spurting blood out of his head hole. 0.98

00:34:12.900 I push him away. 0.96

00:34:14.660 The new guy squeezes the hunk of flesh like a sponge.

00:34:18.140 And lets the blood run down over my face. 0.78

00:34:20.920 And starts licking it off.

00:34:23.480 Yeep. 0.99

00:34:24.560 This must be some kind of art porn sampler narrative.

00:34:27.500 I really gotta start reading those summaries.

00:34:31.600 Crucial. 0.99

00:34:32.940 Despite how strange this situation is, I ignore it all and begin some steamy sex with this man. 0.83

00:34:40.380 Even though I am lost in the moment, I can't help but notice that the light in the club has changed.

00:34:47.400 It seems like it's coming from two angles, making everything seem doubled.

00:34:50.820 I feel like I'm looking at the man's face from two angles, seeing four of his eyes.

00:34:58.640 It's a weird effect and I wonder if there's something wrong with my visual line.

00:35:04.200 Next to me, a woman in a pink dress opens her mouth and her jaw floats away from her face. 1.00

00:35:11.120 Her head floats off of her neck.

00:35:14.300 Beside her, a man separates into a dozen slices. 0.99

00:35:17.820 God damn it, this is definitely a fatal glitch. 0.98

00:35:22.500 But I am so close to climax. 0.99

00:35:25.180 It's gonna be fucking fabulous. 0.96

00:35:28.420 I wonder if the narrative can hang together for just ten more seconds before it crashes. 0.79

00:35:34.420 All around us, the people begin to break apart, become floating parts.

00:35:39.400 The weird lighting effect becomes more intense and the man seems to be made of four sections.

00:35:44.420 Except each section is his entire face from a different angle.

00:35:49.380 And they're all crossing each other, but staying in place at the same time.

00:35:54.780 And eight eyes are watching me. 1.00

00:35:57.920 Oh fuck, this is hurting my brain. 1.00

00:36:01.180 Fuck, I can't take this. 1.00

00:36:04.040 The narrative should have already crashed back into safety mode. 1.00

00:36:06.800 I say my safe word.

00:36:11.120 Nothing happens.

00:36:13.140 I feel my stomach drop in terror.

00:36:16.360 Except it drops at four different places all around the room.

00:36:20.640 Oh god.

00:36:22.540 Am I stuck in a crashing narrative? 0.99

00:36:24.940 They say it can fuck you up. 0.97

00:36:26.560 I feel myself falling and expanding. 0.98

00:36:30.920 One of my hands feels like it's way off on the horizon.

00:36:34.880 Another is ten stories below me.

00:36:37.500 Body parts are swirling around us.

00:36:40.300 Showing all sides at once.

00:36:42.900 The man is staring down at me with his awful eyes.

00:36:46.800 How are they so awful?

00:36:49.180 His face is as giant as a mountain range.

00:36:52.340 As the entire sky.

00:36:53.820 I'm seeing too much.

00:36:57.700 No, above and beneath.

00:36:59.040 Everything has too many sides.

00:37:01.680 Screaming.

00:37:03.200 He has dozens of eyes.

00:37:04.540 Thousands.

00:37:05.460 Thousands of sides.

00:37:08.040 Thousands and millions and millions of eyes.

00:37:11.980 God.

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00:37:40.100 When we got to the Clearview Hospital, it was like Karen said it would be.

00:37:49.480 The emergency room was flooded with patients coming from Atlanta.

00:37:53.240 But the readjustment center was empty, except for a lone staffer who was watching the lobby's wall set and praying.

00:38:03.700 The set was showing footage of the black cloud over Atlanta.

00:38:07.700 12 cities had gone up in the last hour.

00:38:16.100 They weren't the largest or most powerful cities in the world.

00:38:21.500 Hefei, Zhangzhou, Bengaluru.

00:38:24.940 What was the pattern?

00:38:28.400 What the hell had Bengaluru done to anybody?

00:38:32.740 Karen said there was no real pattern.

00:38:37.020 This is Q's opening move.

00:38:39.880 Her entrance into the world. 0.98

00:38:41.220 She won't destroy everything, but she will kill and kill until she thinks we are ready for her demands. 1.00

00:38:49.820 I found a wheelchair by the readjustment center's entrance and wheeled Karen down to the EMRT room. 0.70

00:38:56.960 Somewhere, a hygiene bed's life alarm was ringing.

00:39:00.900 I ignored it.

00:39:02.960 My goal was to get Karen some muscle treatment. 1.00

00:39:06.500 A single treatment probably wouldn't give her enough strength to stand on her own.

00:39:11.220 But she could at least hold her head up and move her arms. 0.89

00:39:14.960 She might regain her voice and sight.

00:39:18.440 In the treatment room, I filled a treatment tub with a minty-smelling conducting gel

00:39:23.780 and washed Karen off and fed her with breathing tubes.

00:39:28.500 These were normally tech duties, stuff I thought I would never be doing again.

00:39:34.320 Looking down at this little twig of a woman on the table, 1.00

00:39:38.200 it occurred to me that all I had to do was tie off her breathing tube.

00:39:45.480 And that would be the end of her.

00:39:48.860 I asked her the question that kept coming into my mind.

00:39:53.980 How do I know for sure that you didn't blow up Atlanta yourself? 1.00

00:39:58.120 How do I know you aren't full of shit? 1.00

00:40:03.980 My set was blank for a while before she answered. 1.00

00:40:09.340 Well, how could I prove it?

00:40:13.340 I tried to think of a way, some kind of test.

00:40:16.200 I don't know, I said, finally.

00:40:22.280 You know much about statistical proxy dilation tracing?

00:40:26.860 No.

00:40:28.820 Then it would be hard to prove it to you.

00:40:31.820 So how do I know it wasn't you?

00:40:34.680 You can't know.

00:40:35.780 I need to know if I'm going to help you.

00:40:40.560 Then learn about SPDT. 0.99

00:40:44.120 I don't have time to learn about fucking SP fucking DT. 0.99

00:40:49.540 Then you can't know. 0.99

00:40:51.980 You're just dealing with stuff that's too advanced.

00:40:55.940 I walked away from the table and sat down in a nearby chair.

00:40:59.340 I felt like I was cracking up.

00:41:04.120 The urge to cry had come and passed every few minutes.

00:41:08.880 And it came again.

00:41:11.880 I don't know what to do.

00:41:14.700 I told you.

00:41:16.340 We must get to upstate New York.

00:41:18.880 There's a way to defeat Q.

00:41:21.820 Maybe you are, Q.

00:41:24.680 Listen, before you put me in the jail.

00:41:26.860 I want you to pull my jack battery.

00:41:30.660 Cut it off.

00:41:32.300 And that would prove you're not Q?

00:41:35.360 Not really.

00:41:37.060 I could have scripted everything.

00:41:40.180 Oh.

00:41:41.420 But it would mean I can't directly order nuclear strikes.

00:41:47.580 Oh, well, that's a relief.

00:41:50.140 I said, rubbing my face and trying to blink away the fresh wave of tears.

00:41:54.240 What's in upstate New York that's so important?

00:42:00.100 There is a resource Q can't access.

00:42:03.900 Something she cannot defend against.

00:42:06.820 What?

00:42:08.560 Honestly, if you don't understand something simple like SP DT, you won't understand this. 0.98

00:42:15.900 Fucking great. 0.97

00:42:16.940 I said. 0.99

00:42:19.300 We sat there in silence for a long moment.

00:42:23.120 Finally, another message showed up.

00:42:26.760 I'm not Q.

00:42:28.660 I spent my life fighting Q.

00:42:31.500 I fought Q instead of living a life. 0.78

00:42:35.020 We still have a chance to win.

00:42:37.640 We must win.

00:42:39.000 I sighed and stood up and walked over to her. 0.98

00:42:46.020 Well, then let's get started.

00:42:49.860 Good.

00:42:52.300 I found the jack patch on the back of Karen's neck and squeezed at the tattooed points. 0.65

00:42:57.640 Her battery capsule slowly slid out of her skin like a giant blackhead. 1.00

00:43:03.800 I disconnected the wire.

00:43:06.440 Now she was completely disconnected from infraspace.

00:43:10.260 I picked up her body and gently lowered it into the conducting gel. 0.66

00:43:14.020 It took a minute for her to sink to the bottom, for the gel to slowly slide over her face like a closing curtain.

00:43:24.720 I dialed up to 90 minutes of muscle treatment and 30 minutes of eye treatment and started the tub up.

00:43:31.580 I sat for a while, listening to the soft, wobbling sounds of the gel shifting as Karen's muscles clenched and unclenched at rapid-fire rate. 0.79

00:43:45.060 This was the sort of spare moment where a person would stare at their set and look at a game replay or something.

00:43:54.640 But my set was just a long list of red interrupts, telling me about how everybody was dead.

00:44:02.120 I realized that the hygiene bed's life alarm was still going off in some other room.

00:44:08.420 Usually, when I heard that sound, I went racing to find out what was going on.

00:44:14.760 But I had just ignored it.

00:44:18.500 Well, the person was probably dead before we got here.

00:44:24.020 What were the odds that they had just gone into arrest when we walked in the door? 0.97

00:44:28.820 And who gave a shit anyways when a hundred million people had also died today? 0.88

00:44:36.040 Still, there was an instinctive part of me that wanted to run toward the sound, that wanted to help. 0.97

00:44:43.720 I got up and walked down the hall.

00:44:48.240 The ringing got louder.

00:44:50.860 At the end of the hallway, there was a small room with four hygiene beds that had been brought in for in-hospital disconnection.

00:45:00.500 A procedure usually reserved for really complex cases.

00:45:04.400 The last bed was blinking red.

00:45:07.940 I took a look at the readout, but it didn't show cardiac arrest.

00:45:13.540 In fact, it was showing 260 beats per minute.

00:45:21.680 It must have been malfunctioning.

00:45:24.640 I looked at the patient chart.

00:45:26.360 It must have been a run-time crash.

00:45:42.020 Unlucky.

00:45:42.660 I pressed the seal button, and the bed lid opened.

00:45:50.820 When she came into view, I staggered back and shouted for help.

00:45:56.240 I sat Karen up in the electro-convulsive tub and wiped the warm gel from her face and detached the breathing tube. 0.81

00:46:07.460 Her head rolled back, her face glistening in the glare of the LED.

00:46:13.520 I could see the shape of the skull clearly through the wet skin.

00:46:18.100 Slowly, she pulled her head upright, blinking the goo from her eyelashes.

00:46:22.660 Uh, hey, uh, hello.

00:46:29.540 Hello, can you hear this?

00:46:32.720 Yeah, I can hear you, I said.

00:46:36.320 Wow, okay, it worked, good, she said.

00:46:41.500 Her voice was completely flat, and surprisingly deep for someone so scrawny.

00:46:46.900 I am here, she said, bearing her teeth in what might have been a smile.

00:46:54.440 Can you see anything?

00:46:56.520 I asked.

00:46:58.460 She opened her eyes wider and moved them around.

00:47:03.060 Yes, Perseiston shapes, she said, pronouncing the word persistent like a child.

00:47:10.360 Can you see how many fingers I'm holding up?

00:47:15.660 No.

00:47:17.020 Try squinting.

00:47:19.620 Oh, right.

00:47:21.180 That changes things.

00:47:24.060 Hmm.

00:47:25.360 Two.

00:47:27.080 She was right.

00:47:29.340 Except she was looking at a completely different direction than my hand.

00:47:33.280 Great, I said.

00:47:37.500 Slowly, her knobby knees emerged from the gel, and she grasped them with her hands.

00:47:44.400 It was a good sign for somebody in her state.

00:47:48.140 It also showed that she knew some of the standard tests for emergence.

00:47:53.080 We went through a few more of the tests and found that the treatment had worked well.

00:47:58.580 She might even be walking soon.

00:48:00.460 I got her out of the tub and washed her off and put her into some scrubs. 1.00

00:48:06.700 She managed to sit up right on the table without leaning on anything.

00:48:11.500 Her bony arms set stiffly at her sides.

00:48:14.740 Can I ask you a question?

00:48:17.220 I asked.

00:48:19.000 Sure, she said in her deep, childish monotone.

00:48:24.000 What is Q?

00:48:26.140 You want the whole story?

00:48:28.720 Yeah.

00:48:29.280 She took a deep breath.

00:48:34.460 Okay, so.

00:48:36.960 Approximately 50,000 years ago.

00:48:40.780 She told me the story of Q as she knew it.

00:48:44.340 From the beginning and prehistory, when the hyperspace code was inserted into the human genome.

00:48:50.300 She went all the way to right now and the so-called plague of the flesh.

00:48:56.980 Her description of the plague explained what happened to poor Zenzen in her hygiene bed.

00:49:02.040 It also explained the red butterfly thing I found in the other hygiene bed.

00:49:07.520 If you are reading this, I guess you have access to her story as well.

00:49:14.980 Hopefully, she wrote down the whole history of Q, because I honestly didn't understand it all and couldn't do it justice.

00:49:23.940 If I had heard it on any other day, and the day Atlanta was destroyed, I wouldn't have believed any of it.

00:49:33.020 As it was, I just looked at it in a calm, detached way.

00:49:39.480 As if I was just listening to another delusion.

00:49:43.380 I guess you'll be reading her story before any of this even happens.

00:49:49.900 So you'll be inclined to believe it even less.

00:49:55.120 So at that point, I asked her how she knew so much about Q.

00:50:00.980 Like what its plans were and everything.

00:50:04.740 She said Q had recently stopped hiding anything from her and the other bred soldiers. 0.99

00:50:09.540 It was fully confident in its ability to win against them in any scenario.

00:50:16.220 It no longer felt a need for any secrecy.

00:50:19.920 I asked her why it had tried to kill her.

00:50:23.420 And she said that it hadn't.

00:50:25.960 It was planning to destroy Atlanta anyways.

00:50:30.080 She had arranged for the assassin herself.

00:50:33.740 An improvisation to get her out of the city more quickly.

00:50:36.720 I asked her if her ability to see all those extra dimensions allowed her to see into the future.

00:50:45.520 She told me that she could only see extra dimensions in the feed realm.

00:50:50.560 It allowed her to fight against Q more effectively. 0.83

00:50:54.040 Because she can process information on a different level.

00:50:58.100 She explained.

00:50:59.220 When you look at a digital picture, you can process a huge matrix of color values all at once.

00:51:07.440 If you tried to process the same picture by looking at a list of color codes for each point,

00:51:12.740 like R101G254B017,

00:51:18.060 it would take forever and be incomprehensible.

00:51:23.660 For certain problems, I have the same advantage over you

00:51:26.520 that you have over a guy reading a list of color codes on a ticker.

00:51:31.580 I can see many things all at once.

00:51:34.820 But I can only see extra dimensions in the feed realm.

00:51:37.560 Here, outside the realm,

00:51:41.560 there seems to only be three dimensions plus one timeline.

00:51:46.140 I can't see beyond that.

00:51:48.940 But I can imagine beyond it.

00:51:52.060 So you can't see the future?

00:51:55.280 No, I can only imagine the future.

00:51:57.980 I can imagine a lot of futures.

00:52:02.900 Then why did you hire an assassin for yourself?

00:52:07.080 I mean, that just seems like a really risky move.

00:52:10.600 Like something that was unlikely to pan out.

00:52:14.260 Oh, I couldn't imagine any scenario where it wouldn't have worked.

00:52:19.420 Really?

00:52:21.120 What if I had just been like, 1.00

00:52:23.100 fuck this, I'm out of here. 1.00

00:52:25.540 Oh, come now. 1.00

00:52:27.320 Nobody would do that.

00:52:29.780 Nobody would do that.

00:52:31.520 Almost everybody would do that.

00:52:34.080 He had a gun.

00:52:36.220 Wrestling over firearms is quite common.

00:52:39.660 Maybe in feed narratives, but not in real life.

00:52:44.220 You see stories about that kind of thing all the time in the news.

00:52:49.660 We argued about this point for quite a while.

00:52:53.460 It was like arguing with an intelligent child

00:52:55.680 who has no clue about the real world.

00:52:59.060 Her view of real life had been warped

00:53:01.260 by seeing only the sensational parts of it

00:53:03.900 that managed to leak into the feed realm.

00:53:07.780 She seemed completely unaware of that most basic

00:53:10.700 and fundamental fact of human life.

00:53:13.080 That most of it is boring.

00:53:16.460 That most of it is just waiting around.

00:53:19.780 That people go through large portions of their lives tired and sleepy

00:53:24.600 and wanting to lie down.

00:53:26.640 I tried to convince her of this,

00:53:29.860 but in her short time in the real world,

00:53:32.720 she had experienced a murder,

00:53:34.720 a drone strike,

00:53:36.380 and a nuclear holocaust. 0.55

00:53:39.060 So I wasn't having much success until,

00:53:42.460 lo and behold,

00:53:44.020 she got tired

00:53:45.440 and wanted to lay down.

00:53:47.240 I helped her into a gurney 0.99

00:53:49.580 and we made plans to head towards Plattsburgh

00:53:52.300 in upstate New York.

00:53:54.760 She said that the key to defeating Q 0.97

00:53:57.060 was somewhere near there.

00:54:00.120 Of course,

00:54:01.580 she was lying to me.

00:54:02.880 But I didn't realize it at the time.

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00:54:38.960 How the flesh dances

00:54:40.520 and how the flesh plays.

00:54:43.540 How the flesh toils

00:54:44.800 and spins through its days.

00:54:47.760 See the flesh happy

00:54:48.940 and strapping and young.

00:54:51.740 See the flesh sagging,

00:54:53.620 dragging and glum.

00:54:56.620 Shh.

00:54:58.220 Hear now the giggling.

00:54:59.420 See the shadows grow.

00:55:02.620 Step down the hallway.

00:55:04.840 Each door aglow.

00:55:07.400 Watch now the ceiling.

00:55:09.620 Sweet cradle rocks.

00:55:12.260 Who made these puppets?

00:55:14.600 Who made this clock?

00:55:17.720 Ancient hand on the cradle.

00:55:20.060 Withered lips form a song.

00:55:22.760 Golden wheels spinning backward.

00:55:24.340 Withered hand becomes young.

00:55:28.660 The hands can spin.

00:55:30.920 Spin then slow.

00:55:33.200 The clock is wound afresh.

00:55:35.720 But it is the key.

00:55:38.320 Turn this time.

00:55:40.220 By fingers made of flesh.

00:55:41.660 I am 24.

00:55:47.040 And it's a Friday night

00:55:48.160 in early summer.

00:55:49.840 The sun is settling down

00:55:51.100 into a haze beyond the mountains.

00:55:53.460 And the city's concrete

00:55:54.620 is beginning to cool

00:55:55.720 after a baking day.

00:55:58.120 The signs for all the bars

00:55:59.860 are turning on.

00:56:01.220 The windows of stalled

00:56:02.520 in office buildings

00:56:03.520 become a wild collage

00:56:05.000 of reflected neon.

00:56:06.080 Yes.

00:56:08.700 Everybody wants the party tonight.

00:56:11.460 Even the central insurance bank

00:56:13.160 is looking festive.

00:56:15.880 I've drunk six beers.

00:56:18.380 I am right in the zone.

00:56:21.160 Active.

00:56:22.160 Playful.

00:56:23.540 Charming.

00:56:24.660 Oh so charming.

00:56:26.740 I am actually charming myself right now.

00:56:30.120 With my internal monologue.

00:56:32.800 Reeling off clever little observations

00:56:34.900 about the people

00:56:35.940 who pass on the sidewalk.

00:56:38.360 I can see a glowing doorway

00:56:40.240 in my mind.

00:56:42.320 All I have to do

00:56:43.440 is walk through it.

00:56:46.580 My phone buzzes in my pocket.

00:56:49.500 Who's calling me now?

00:56:51.380 Maybe it's my usual gang of friends.

00:56:54.360 Or the Swedish friends I drank with

00:56:56.360 until 6 a.m. last weekend.

00:56:59.420 Or one of the dozens of girls

00:57:01.220 who are saved in my phone

00:57:02.540 with thoughtful pet names

00:57:04.960 like

00:57:05.620 Brown Hair 2

00:57:07.140 and

00:57:08.680 Met in Park.

00:57:11.080 But I'm not going to answer my phone.

00:57:13.920 I don't want to make any plans.

00:57:16.500 I am simply going to walk down this street.

00:57:19.880 And something

00:57:20.880 is going to happen.

00:57:22.880 Because the door is open.

00:57:25.480 The world awaits.

00:57:27.400 I stand by a food vendor

00:57:31.000 and watch people pass.

00:57:33.480 I smile,

00:57:34.960 nod,

00:57:35.780 make funny comments.

00:57:37.880 Most people smile

00:57:38.880 and pass right by.

00:57:40.960 Others linger for a while.

00:57:43.580 Two girls and a guy

00:57:44.540 start talking to me.

00:57:46.440 They're tourists from out of town.

00:57:48.860 What are they looking to do?

00:57:51.060 A nice place

00:57:52.260 or just somewhere cheap?

00:57:54.860 Do they like sake?

00:57:55.940 I know just the place.

00:57:59.520 Sure.

00:58:00.360 No problem.

00:58:02.080 And we're off.

00:58:03.840 Soon we're sitting in a booth

00:58:05.220 and the sake is arriving

00:58:06.760 at regular intervals.

00:58:08.640 And I'm telling crazy stories

00:58:10.560 and snapping off jokes.

00:58:12.640 And I'm listening to them.

00:58:15.040 And they're telling me

00:58:15.800 about themselves.

00:58:17.500 And one of the girls

00:58:18.840 keeps glancing at me

00:58:20.240 when she thinks I'm not looking.

00:58:23.340 And

00:58:23.980 I am 30

00:58:26.660 and I am in a darkened apartment

00:58:29.540 hunched over the glow

00:58:31.360 of my laptop screen

00:58:32.620 jacking off.

00:58:35.540 I finish and go to the bathroom 0.71

00:58:37.440 to wash up.

00:58:38.320 And there is that moment.

00:58:42.940 That same moment

00:58:44.460 where I have to look at my blotchy face

00:58:47.460 in the mirror and say

00:58:48.660 well

00:58:50.180 not my proudest moment

00:58:52.200 in my head.

00:58:54.940 The same joke I make to myself

00:58:57.060 every time.

00:58:59.460 When I'm done

00:59:00.580 I stand in the doorway

00:59:02.600 of my bathroom

00:59:03.500 and look at the tiny studio apartment.

00:59:08.020 A desk

00:59:09.020 a laptop

00:59:10.060 a futon

00:59:11.020 a small window

00:59:13.060 with the curtains closed

00:59:14.360 against the summer glare.

00:59:17.440 A crowd of empty bottles

00:59:19.340 on the floor

00:59:19.960 by the door.

00:59:22.180 A stink of old sweat

00:59:23.500 and beer.

00:59:24.360 I whimper

00:59:26.180 the door is closed

00:59:28.720 the door is closed forever

00:59:31.440 I am locked in this apartment

00:59:34.700 this little box

00:59:37.380 closed off to the world. 0.99

00:59:40.060 Now that the jerking off 0.99

00:59:43.860 is done 0.99

00:59:44.360 the jitteriness

00:59:46.580 starts to creep back in.

00:59:49.680 I want to drink

00:59:51.160 but it's only 3pm

00:59:53.300 I've only been awake

00:59:55.780 for half an hour

00:59:56.660 I should wait until

00:59:59.080 at least 8 before drinking

01:00:00.980 at least 6

01:00:03.940 but this is torment

01:00:06.560 I need some now

01:00:09.280 or I will have

01:00:09.980 some kind of 1.00

01:00:10.600 fucking seizure. 1.00

01:00:13.220 Just 1.00

01:00:13.820 2 shots

01:00:15.020 that's it

01:00:15.660 and then no drinking

01:00:18.180 until

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01:00:45.200 free of charge

01:00:45.880 I am 33

01:00:49.240 and I am sitting

01:00:51.120 in the 24 hour club

01:00:52.580 listening to a man

01:00:54.400 talk about a mouse

01:00:55.400 that changed his life

01:00:56.640 He had been living

01:00:59.540 out of his car

01:01:00.360 for a month

01:01:01.100 and it was so full 0.99

01:01:03.260 of trash 0.99

01:01:03.820 that a mouse 0.98

01:01:04.440 started living there too

01:01:05.700 This was the problem

01:01:08.640 that finally broke him

01:01:10.160 I finally showed him

01:01:12.180 the absurdity

01:01:12.920 of it all

01:01:13.540 I finally made him

01:01:16.120 get sober

01:01:16.820 How do you set

01:01:18.940 mousetraps in a car?

01:01:21.960 It's a pretty good story

01:01:23.740 but

01:01:24.100 I've heard it before

01:01:27.180 Stolid haircut

01:01:30.860 Walks into the meeting

01:01:32.100 late again

01:01:33.000 I call him

01:01:35.000 Stolid haircut

01:01:35.900 because I don't know his name

01:01:37.800 But he has a respectable

01:01:41.360 Republican haircut

01:01:42.920 Silver and grey

01:01:44.980 and sculpted into

01:01:46.060 broad curves

01:01:47.200 that recall the body

01:01:49.000 of a pre-gas crisis

01:01:50.880 American sedan

01:01:51.760 He wears the uniform

01:01:54.980 of a retiree

01:01:56.220 Bright blue dad jeans

01:01:58.640 with running shoes

01:01:59.920 and white socks

01:02:01.060 and a plaid shirt

01:02:03.500 buttoned up

01:02:04.120 to the next to top button

01:02:05.560 Stolid haircut

01:02:08.440 walks with the wide

01:02:10.060 clumsy steps

01:02:11.580 of a hesitant toddler

01:02:12.820 Years of alcoholism

01:02:15.680 have damaged his cerebellum

01:02:17.780 resulting in an abnormal gait

01:02:20.680 This and his reddened

01:02:24.000 venous nose

01:02:25.080 make his weakness

01:02:26.540 for alcohol

01:02:27.300 plain for everyone to see

01:02:29.340 At a glance

01:02:32.300 you can know

01:02:33.640 his most painful

01:02:34.880 personal shame

01:02:36.120 His lips are permanently

01:02:38.780 pursed into an embarrassed smile

01:02:40.660 I watched him

01:02:43.500 ease into the chair

01:02:44.620 and go back to listening

01:02:46.660 about the mouse

01:02:47.580 and find myself

01:02:50.100 looking at him again

01:02:51.180 It's a tragic haircut

01:02:55.200 The haircut caused me

01:02:59.660 from some golden past

01:03:01.720 It is the haircut

01:03:04.520 of a man

01:03:05.200 who once was

01:03:06.760 in days gone by

01:03:09.020 He was thick

01:03:11.280 and brown

01:03:11.940 and belonged to a man

01:03:14.800 who walked

01:03:15.360 with a purposeful stride

01:03:16.980 a husband

01:03:18.500 and father

01:03:19.500 The kind of guy

01:03:22.080 who hoisted his son

01:03:23.740 onto his shoulders

01:03:24.620 to watch passing parades

01:03:27.140 who played softball

01:03:29.540 and relaxed

01:03:30.640 with a few beers

01:03:31.560 after work

01:03:32.400 and a few whiskeys

01:03:34.580 after that

01:03:35.360 but always woke up

01:03:38.060 bright and early

01:03:38.820 the next day

01:03:39.660 who worked hard

01:03:42.480 who knew who he was

01:03:45.360 who knew right from wrong

01:03:48.520 who knows how the world

01:03:52.040 ought to be

01:03:52.940 I stare at his soft

01:03:57.440 shining

01:03:58.480 embarrassed eyes

01:04:00.040 and feel my own

01:04:01.180 filling with tears

01:04:02.240 How it all has slipped away

01:04:06.900 from him

01:04:07.460 The young son is grown

01:04:10.560 The job is done

01:04:11.640 The wife doesn't talk 1.00

01:04:13.260 Everything that once

01:04:15.720 was strong and sure

01:04:17.120 is now frail and shaky

01:04:18.640 How many nightmares

01:04:20.980 has this ordinary man seen?

01:04:23.400 I saw so many in just ten years

01:04:27.540 And I am nowhere near the point

01:04:31.320 of an abnormal gate

01:04:32.720 This man has seen

01:04:36.600 unutterable things

01:04:38.860 How bewildered

01:04:40.920 was he

01:04:42.480 when it first came for him

01:04:44.320 The scuttling darkness

01:04:46.900 Did he think he was going mad?

01:04:51.940 He comes from a generation

01:04:53.400 where this sort of thing

01:04:54.520 is not discussed

01:04:55.560 How he must have suffered

01:04:59.360 The haircut

01:05:02.780 The haircut

01:05:05.220 The haircut

01:05:06.060 The bleeding drops of red

01:05:09.940 I am staring at him openly

01:05:14.440 The rest of the meeting

01:05:16.780 is not there anymore

01:05:17.900 A halo of light

01:05:20.320 pours out around his face

01:05:22.220 And he becomes a vision

01:05:24.860 Doves and cherubim

01:05:27.600 swirl around him

01:05:28.920 Escher staircases

01:05:30.700 extend in every direction

01:05:32.320 Mandelas expand

01:05:34.540 and overlap and spin

01:05:35.920 And the door

01:05:38.100 My god

01:05:40.500 For a moment

01:05:42.760 The door is open again

01:05:44.940 Right now

01:05:48.780 The car is headed silent

01:05:50.480 down the highway

01:05:51.360 It's dark

01:05:52.800 and there's nobody driving

01:05:54.260 I snuggle up in my seat

01:05:57.340 and listen to the hum

01:05:58.540 of its parts

01:05:59.280 I have turned my set off

01:06:02.280 It shows nothing

01:06:04.100 but reports of destruction

01:06:05.520 and plagues

01:06:08.020 The world on fire

01:06:09.180 The world gone mad

01:06:12.680 Most of the interstates

01:06:15.680 have shut down

01:06:16.480 They want people

01:06:18.140 to stay in one place

01:06:19.380 The car is moving

01:06:21.460 along the back roads

01:06:22.620 Switching from one

01:06:24.280 lonely little highway

01:06:25.540 to another

01:06:26.220 We are headed

01:06:28.620 towards the answer

01:06:29.800 Towards the key

01:06:31.220 to defeating Q

01:06:32.260 I hope we get there fast

01:06:34.680 Slowly

01:06:36.320 The sky pales

01:06:38.140 And the blue curves

01:06:39.860 of the mountains

01:06:40.540 emerge from the darkness

01:06:41.900 beyond the guardrails

01:06:43.120 I heard once

01:06:45.900 that the Appalachians

01:06:46.940 used to be as high

01:06:47.720 as the Himalayas

01:06:48.700 Looking at the sloping hills

01:06:51.340 under the sky

01:06:52.120 I can sense

01:06:54.140 the ancient shape

01:06:55.000 of the world

01:06:55.560 A world that was here

01:06:58.300 before us

01:06:59.300 Man

01:07:00.800 I'm getting pretty philosophical

01:07:03.300 In my mind

01:07:06.640 another shape appears

01:07:08.400 Massive

01:07:10.140 Continental

01:07:11.760 The slope of human decline

01:07:14.940 The awful descent

01:07:17.700 of the human race

01:07:18.760 into

01:07:19.260 Christ

01:07:21.300 Let's just enjoy

01:07:23.200 the pretty mountains

01:07:24.200 Karen is lying 0.52

01:07:26.380 in the back

01:07:27.020 She is doing

01:07:28.800 another eye treatment

01:07:29.860 with equipment

01:07:30.860 we took

01:07:31.380 from the hospital

01:07:32.220 Before we reach

01:07:34.880 Plattsburgh

01:07:35.560 The car switches

01:07:36.980 highways

01:07:37.400 and heads west

01:07:38.400 The sun climbs higher

01:07:40.720 We are getting closer

01:07:43.180 Eventually

01:07:45.860 The car turns

01:07:46.880 into an unpaved road

01:07:48.140 After a few minutes

01:07:50.600 It slows to a stop

01:07:52.060 And here we are

01:07:54.440 I look around

01:07:57.220 It's a nice bit

01:07:59.240 of country scenery

01:08:00.380 Grass

01:08:01.900 and trees

01:08:02.580 and gentle hills

01:08:03.720 and blue sky

01:08:04.540 and pretty much 1.00

01:08:05.740 fuck all 0.99

01:08:06.300 There is nothing here 1.00

01:08:09.600 Or whatever is here

01:08:12.280 is hidden

01:08:13.080 Karen is still

01:08:15.620 doing the eye treatment

01:08:16.600 in the darkness

01:08:17.660 of the van's rear

01:08:18.700 Light from the goggles

01:08:20.920 seeps out

01:08:21.680 little flashes

01:08:23.260 sketching the shape

01:08:25.100 of her face

01:08:25.800 Finally

01:08:27.980 the goggles

01:08:29.160 turn green

01:08:29.920 She pulls them off

01:08:31.840 blinking

01:08:32.780 and squinting

01:08:33.840 I go

01:08:36.320 and help her set up 0.84

01:08:37.800 Can you see

01:08:39.800 a little better?

01:08:40.720 I ask

01:08:41.340 She looks down

01:08:43.360 at her hands

01:08:44.120 moving the fingers

01:08:45.180 slowly in the dark

01:08:46.240 Yeah

01:08:47.940 Persistent shapes

01:08:50.500 She raises her hand

01:08:53.220 into a shaft of sunlight

01:08:54.780 shining in from the front

01:08:56.400 of the van

01:08:56.980 Her fingers catch the glow

01:08:59.980 My hands

01:09:02.460 She says softly

01:09:04.420 Her voice

01:09:06.760 quavering with disbelief

01:09:08.700 It's the first strong emotion

01:09:11.880 I've ever heard from her

01:09:13.260 Good

01:09:15.440 That's great

01:09:16.520 I say

01:09:17.560 Well

01:09:19.080 We're here

01:09:20.240 What do we do now?

01:09:23.380 She looks at me

01:09:24.240 and smiles maniacally

01:09:25.540 We go into the forest

01:09:28.520 She says

01:09:29.480 Her smile is unnatural

01:09:31.740 and stiff

01:09:32.800 More of a grimace

01:09:34.960 than a smile

01:09:36.000 But for a brief moment

01:09:38.320 As it first spreads

01:09:39.980 across her face 0.88

01:09:41.060 She looks like 0.55

01:09:43.300 a giddy little kid

01:09:44.400 The key is there

01:09:47.000 She says

01:09:48.040 What is it?

01:09:51.300 Some kind of

01:09:52.240 secret underground base

01:09:53.820 A hidden laboratory

01:09:55.340 She makes a groaning sound 0.97

01:09:58.240 that I barely recognize

01:09:59.760 as laughter

01:10:00.360 You play too many narratives

01:10:03.440 It's much simpler than that

01:10:05.740 I unfold a wheelchair

01:10:08.800 that we borrowed

01:10:09.980 from the hospital

01:10:11.040 and help her into it

01:10:12.720 When I open the back doors

01:10:15.460 of the van

01:10:16.020 She winces against 0.81

01:10:17.420 the bright sunlight

01:10:18.360 And again

01:10:20.420 Her face looks like

01:10:21.580 little kids for a moment

01:10:22.820 I give her a pair of huge

01:10:25.660 black wraparound sunglasses

01:10:27.280 that we took

01:10:28.240 from the eye treatment center

01:10:29.640 The van lowers to the ground

01:10:32.760 and I rolled a wheelchair

01:10:34.140 out onto the dusty road

01:10:35.800 She makes sure

01:10:37.420 I take a bag of supplies

01:10:38.700 with us

01:10:39.340 Snacks and drinks

01:10:40.920 and other stuff

01:10:41.760 The sun is warm

01:10:43.720 on my skin

01:10:44.580 But the breeze

01:10:46.400 is fresh and cool

01:10:47.660 It's a perfect day

01:10:50.360 You would think

01:10:52.360 that everything

01:10:52.820 is right in the world

01:10:53.880 So where to?

01:10:57.060 I ask

01:10:57.700 She looks around

01:10:59.720 Her head wobbling

01:11:00.920 on her thin stalk

01:11:02.380 of a neck

01:11:02.980 Her eyes hidden

01:11:04.760 by the massive glasses

01:11:06.180 There was once a house here

01:11:09.460 Do you see it?

01:11:12.480 I look around

01:11:13.520 and spy a low

01:11:14.740 crumbled grey wall

01:11:16.580 mostly hidden

01:11:17.300 behind the high grass

01:11:18.500 I think I see

01:11:20.840 an old foundation

01:11:21.820 That's it

01:11:24.220 She says

01:11:25.320 Her eyes are hidden

01:11:27.020 There's something in her voice

01:11:29.280 that wasn't there yesterday

01:11:31.280 A shivery excitement

01:11:33.620 It makes me excited too

01:11:36.140 I push the wheelchair

01:11:38.460 down a weedy gravel driveway

01:11:40.180 toward the foundation

01:11:41.540 There's nothing else

01:11:44.420 left of the house

01:11:45.360 It must have been

01:11:47.020 torn down and hauled off

01:11:48.560 Karen has me push her 1.00

01:11:50.720 around it

01:11:51.320 and go down a trail

01:11:52.640 leading towards the forest

01:11:54.180 What was that house?

01:11:57.860 I ask

01:11:58.540 Anything important?

01:12:01.640 I used to live there

01:12:03.260 I turn

01:12:04.800 and give it another look

01:12:06.400 as if I would see

01:12:08.200 some new detail

01:12:09.540 in the crumbling concrete

01:12:10.820 that I had missed

01:12:12.040 That was the old children's home

01:12:15.180 Yep

01:12:16.420 And where are we going?

01:12:19.920 We're almost there

01:12:21.100 She says

01:12:22.220 It's close

01:12:23.720 We follow the trail

01:12:26.660 into the forest

01:12:27.540 The trees become thick

01:12:29.640 and shadowy

01:12:30.440 The wheelchair

01:12:31.880 has a little power assist

01:12:33.800 But it's still tough

01:12:35.540 to push it over

01:12:36.260 all the roots and rocks

01:12:37.600 that lie along

01:12:38.740 the narrowing

01:12:39.400 twisting path

01:12:40.460 Oh yes

01:12:42.500 Karen whispers excitedly

01:12:45.100 Up ahead

01:12:46.660 sunlight gleams

01:12:47.860 through the branches

01:12:48.500 of the crowding trees

01:12:49.840 A wave of excitement

01:12:51.880 moves through me

01:12:52.840 and I push Karen faster

01:12:54.620 We come out

01:12:56.420 into a clearing

01:12:57.200 A broad patch

01:12:59.020 of wild grass

01:12:59.860 that glows green

01:13:00.900 and golden

01:13:01.640 in the sunlight

01:13:02.440 Here

01:13:04.460 Karen says

01:13:05.800 I stop the wheelchair 1.00

01:13:08.240 and look around

01:13:09.740 At first glance

01:13:12.060 there doesn't seem

01:13:13.020 to be anything here

01:13:14.080 So what's here?

01:13:16.760 I ask

01:13:17.300 I used to come here

01:13:19.660 as a child

01:13:20.400 to play make-believe

01:13:22.460 before I was connected

01:13:24.860 I take a walk

01:13:27.800 around the clearing

01:13:28.540 looking for something

01:13:30.320 a hatch

01:13:32.000 a hole

01:13:33.060 an actual key

01:13:34.740 lying in the grass

01:13:35.840 There is nothing

01:13:38.960 Across the clearing

01:13:41.500 Karen is slowly

01:13:43.020 pulling off

01:13:43.680 her sunglasses

01:13:44.440 When her eyes

01:13:46.500 appear

01:13:46.980 they startle me

01:13:48.800 They are wide

01:13:50.960 and gleaming

01:13:51.620 with utter fascination

01:13:53.260 I walk up to her

01:13:56.400 She is staring

01:13:58.460 at something

01:13:59.220 Tears fill the rim

01:14:01.660 of her eyes

01:14:02.380 and spill over

01:14:03.380 What is she looking at?

01:14:07.440 There seems to be

01:14:08.520 something right

01:14:09.120 in front of her

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01:14:36.540 Something I can't see

01:14:40.080 I stand beside her

01:14:42.500 and crouch

01:14:43.660 so I can see

01:14:44.760 what she is seeing

01:14:45.760 There is nothing there

01:14:48.500 but a small cloud

01:14:49.520 of gnats

01:14:50.200 What are you looking at?

01:14:53.860 I ask

01:14:54.560 She looked all around

01:14:57.440 takes a deep breath

01:14:58.800 and shudders

01:14:59.500 There's more

01:15:02.380 She whispers

01:15:03.920 More what?

01:15:06.540 I said

01:15:08.300 the feeds

01:15:08.880 were complete

01:15:09.680 But they were wrong

01:15:12.260 I wait for her

01:15:14.620 to say more

01:15:15.280 but she doesn't

01:15:16.300 What do you mean?

01:15:19.020 I ask

01:15:19.700 She looks at me

01:15:21.440 and smiles 0.92

01:15:22.160 The most goofy

01:15:23.800 crazed smile 0.91

01:15:24.840 I've ever seen

01:15:25.780 Tears still flowing

01:15:27.660 down her cheeks 0.62

01:15:28.560 The designers

01:15:30.880 of the feed

01:15:31.520 said that it provides

01:15:32.660 a complete experience

01:15:34.220 enough colors

01:15:35.880 enough frames

01:15:36.860 enough smell gradients

01:15:38.300 enough complexity

01:15:39.940 to make it

01:15:40.600 indistinguishable

01:15:41.600 from reality

01:15:42.400 But they were wrong

01:15:45.220 Here

01:15:47.220 Look at them

01:15:48.720 She says

01:15:50.540 Raising her hand 0.94

01:15:52.080 into the air

01:15:52.800 You mean

01:15:54.380 the gnats?

01:15:57.180 Yes

01:15:57.940 The gnats

01:16:01.480 are glowing specks

01:16:02.680 dancing

01:16:03.480 senselessly

01:16:04.420 in the sunlight

01:16:05.120 I wonder

01:16:07.180 if some pattern

01:16:08.100 will emerge

01:16:08.920 Can Karen 0.99

01:16:11.160 control them

01:16:12.000 with her mind?

01:16:13.880 Is that the secret?

01:16:15.900 Are they

01:16:16.480 forming shapes?

01:16:18.480 But they just

01:16:19.540 dance

01:16:20.040 and dance

01:16:21.040 forming nothing

01:16:22.860 making no pattern

01:16:24.100 that I can see 0.65

01:16:25.000 I feel silly

01:16:26.680 for even thinking

01:16:27.540 that they would

01:16:28.320 They're gnats

01:16:30.080 I turn away

01:16:33.420 A flood of 0.57

01:16:34.940 angry thoughts

01:16:35.880 rushes through

01:16:36.480 my mind

01:16:37.120 Nats 1.00

01:16:38.880 Fucking gnats? 1.00

01:16:41.640 She's a nut 1.00

01:16:42.740 She's lost it 0.95

01:16:44.440 Yeah, she's powerful 1.00

01:16:46.440 and impressive

01:16:47.040 in the feed realm

01:16:47.860 But now she's 0.96

01:16:49.660 in the real world

01:16:50.500 And she has

01:16:51.960 completely 1.00

01:16:52.560 lost her shit 1.00

01:16:53.880 And this whole 1.00

01:16:55.380 trip has been

01:16:56.180 a waste

01:16:56.700 Is there

01:16:57.960 anything here?

01:16:59.340 I ask

01:17:00.040 What's the key?

01:17:02.800 Seriously

01:17:03.260 Don't give me

01:17:03.920 any of that 1.00

01:17:04.440 bullshit like 0.99

01:17:05.140 I can't explain 1.00

01:17:06.160 or you'll see

01:17:07.280 Just

01:17:08.160 tell me

01:17:08.980 What are we

01:17:10.120 doing here?

01:17:11.220 What

01:17:11.540 is the plan?

01:17:13.620 The crazed

01:17:14.620 look of joy

01:17:15.440 fades from her

01:17:16.700 face

01:17:17.140 and is replaced

01:17:18.340 by a look

01:17:18.900 of a scolded

01:17:19.480 child

01:17:20.060 She lets

01:17:22.340 her head

01:17:22.760 hang

01:17:23.160 and wipes

01:17:23.840 the tears

01:17:24.260 from her face

01:17:24.920 with her weak 0.96

01:17:25.540 little hands

01:17:26.280 I feel bad

01:17:29.280 I kneel

01:17:30.840 by her chair

01:17:31.560 and say

01:17:32.100 I'm sorry

01:17:34.140 Please

01:17:35.560 just

01:17:35.880 just tell me

01:17:37.300 what your plan

01:17:37.960 is

01:17:38.260 I need

01:17:40.000 to know

01:17:40.440 now

01:17:40.980 Karen begins

01:17:43.440 speaking softly

01:17:44.700 without looking

01:17:45.700 up

01:17:46.200 Q has base 0.86

01:17:48.760 control of

01:17:49.400 every major

01:17:50.000 system in the

01:17:50.800 world

01:17:51.140 every drone

01:17:52.820 every rover

01:17:53.780 every defense

01:17:54.700 robot

01:17:55.280 all orbital

01:17:56.720 assets

01:17:57.460 all nuclear

01:17:58.820 weaponry

01:17:59.520 She has

01:18:01.280 control over

01:18:02.140 most human

01:18:02.820 political systems

01:18:04.040 She has

01:18:05.740 destroyed

01:18:06.280 or contained

01:18:07.080 every existing

01:18:08.100 countermeasure

01:18:09.000 including me

01:18:10.680 There is no

01:18:12.280 scenario in which

01:18:13.240 we could ever

01:18:13.900 reacquire control

01:18:15.200 not with a

01:18:17.020 thousand times

01:18:17.700 our current

01:18:18.200 resources

01:18:18.880 not with a

01:18:20.360 thousand years

01:18:21.020 of computation

01:18:21.740 time

01:18:22.480 So then

01:18:24.620 what's the

01:18:25.080 plan?

01:18:27.120 What we need

01:18:28.180 is a way

01:18:28.660 for Q

01:18:29.100 to be destroyed

01:18:29.940 by just

01:18:31.200 one or a

01:18:31.920 few

01:18:32.060 motivated

01:18:32.580 individuals

01:18:33.420 I believe

01:18:35.480 there was

01:18:36.000 points in the

01:18:36.860 past

01:18:37.280 when this

01:18:37.780 could have

01:18:38.200 happened

01:18:38.660 Maybe

01:18:40.020 one of the

01:18:40.540 Germans

01:18:40.980 overseeing

01:18:41.660 the early

01:18:42.100 research

01:18:42.600 program

01:18:43.060 could have

01:18:43.480 stopped

01:18:43.820 it

01:18:44.100 Maybe

01:18:45.560 it could

01:18:45.900 have been

01:18:46.200 stopped

01:18:46.560 around

01:18:46.880 2020

01:18:47.440 when the

01:18:48.580 portals

01:18:48.980 were shut

01:18:49.420 down

01:18:49.820 and

01:18:50.940 interface

01:18:51.460 research

01:18:51.980 was

01:18:52.240 temporarily

01:18:52.780 abandoned

01:18:53.380 But

01:18:55.060 it didn't

01:18:55.480 happen

01:18:55.920 Currently

01:18:57.980 at this

01:18:58.580 point

01:18:58.960 there is

01:19:00.340 no way

01:19:00.760 for it

01:19:01.040 to happen

01:19:01.640 Q

01:19:03.360 has

01:19:03.640 control

01:19:04.040 of far

01:19:04.600 far

01:19:05.820 too

01:19:06.020 many

01:19:06.280 assets

01:19:06.900 The war

01:19:09.260 is already

01:19:09.700 lost

01:19:10.240 irrevocably

01:19:12.460 Then what

01:19:14.920 do we

01:19:15.320 do?

01:19:16.860 We must

01:19:17.640 hope that

01:19:18.000 there are

01:19:18.280 alternate

01:19:18.700 timelines

01:19:19.400 and that

01:19:20.020 somebody in

01:19:21.400 one of these

01:19:21.900 timelines

01:19:22.460 foresees what

01:19:23.320 is happening

01:19:23.840 to us

01:19:24.280 right now

01:19:24.940 That somebody

01:19:26.700 foresees this

01:19:27.400 very moment

01:19:28.020 in time

01:19:28.540 and takes

01:19:29.020 steps to

01:19:29.540 prevent it

01:19:30.160 I stare

01:19:32.520 at her

01:19:32.880 She looks

01:19:34.340 into my

01:19:34.700 eyes

01:19:35.060 I grope

01:19:37.120 for words

01:19:37.840 Is that

01:19:39.860 Wait

01:19:41.640 Wait

01:19:43.080 alternate

01:19:43.520 timelines

01:19:44.200 Is that

01:19:46.080 the plan

01:19:46.640 We have

01:19:48.060 to send

01:19:48.340 a message

01:19:48.760 back

01:19:49.080 into the

01:19:49.360 past

01:19:49.740 In a

01:19:51.920 sense

01:19:52.300 Then the

01:19:54.580 person

01:19:55.440 who

01:19:55.820 receives

01:19:56.420 this

01:19:56.780 message

01:19:57.460 will

01:19:57.820 destroy

01:19:58.760 Q

01:19:59.140 in the

01:19:59.400 past

01:19:59.820 and that

01:20:00.960 will

01:20:01.100 save

01:20:01.400 us

01:20:01.780 Karen

01:20:03.720 shakes

01:20:04.120 her

01:20:04.300 head

01:20:04.540 slowly

01:20:05.040 No

01:20:07.080 That

01:20:08.160 clearly

01:20:08.520 won't

01:20:08.840 happen

01:20:09.180 or

01:20:09.340 everything

01:20:09.660 would

01:20:09.920 already

01:20:10.220 be

01:20:10.400 different

01:20:10.860 We

01:20:12.940 are

01:20:13.460 utterly

01:20:13.840 doomed

01:20:14.320 We'll

01:20:15.700 either

01:20:15.920 be 0.69

01:20:16.300 incinerated 0.99

01:20:17.600 in a

01:20:18.000 nuclear

01:20:18.360 strike

01:20:18.880 or

01:20:19.180 rounded

01:20:20.580 up

01:20:20.860 and

01:20:20.960 incorporated

01:20:21.540 into

01:20:21.920 Q

01:20:22.240 There

01:20:24.300 is no

01:20:24.640 stopping

01:20:25.080 that

01:20:25.520 The

01:20:27.620 only

01:20:27.820 hope

01:20:28.080 to

01:20:28.220 defeat

01:20:28.620 Q

01:20:28.940 is

01:20:29.260 on

01:20:29.560 some

01:20:29.820 other

01:20:30.040 timeline

01:20:30.640 If

01:20:32.560 such

01:20:32.860 a

01:20:33.000 thing

01:20:33.220 exists

01:20:33.860 There

01:20:36.680 is no

01:20:36.980 hope

01:20:37.240 for us

01:20:37.720 at

01:20:38.420 all

01:20:38.700 Then

01:20:40.260 what

01:20:40.400 are we

01:20:40.600 doing

01:20:40.860 here?

01:20:42.300 Why

01:20:42.720 are we

01:20:43.040 in this 0.99

01:20:43.440 fucking 1.00

01:20:43.920 clearing? 0.99

01:20:46.680 Haven't

01:20:47.160 you felt

01:20:47.620 it?

01:20:49.420 Felt

01:20:49.780 what?

01:20:51.840 The

01:20:52.360 feeling

01:20:52.660 that you're

01:20:53.080 inside a

01:20:53.580 narrative

01:20:54.080 An

01:20:57.540 eerie

01:20:57.820 shiver

01:20:58.200 comes

01:20:58.600 over

01:20:58.880 me

01:20:59.140 I

01:21:01.240 look

01:21:01.460 around

01:21:01.780 at

01:21:01.940 the

01:21:02.080 clearing

01:21:02.500 Like

01:21:05.200 I'm

01:21:05.420 inside

01:21:05.900 a

01:21:06.120 feed

01:21:06.480 Now

01:21:08.800 inside

01:21:10.240 a

01:21:10.480 narrative

01:21:10.980 A

01:21:12.900 story

01:21:13.300 in

01:21:13.580 somebody's

01:21:14.140 mind

01:21:14.540 Doesn't

01:21:16.800 this

01:21:17.000 all

01:21:17.220 seem

01:21:17.440 just

01:21:17.700 like

01:21:17.920 a

01:21:18.100 story

01:21:18.500 Two

01:21:20.040 people

01:21:20.420 rushing

01:21:20.840 off

01:21:21.180 to

01:21:21.380 save

01:21:21.600 the

01:21:21.760 world

01:21:22.100 To

01:21:23.220 find

01:21:23.460 some

01:21:23.720 hidden

01:21:23.980 key

01:21:24.260 in

01:21:24.400 the

01:21:24.540 forest

01:21:25.040 Yeah

01:21:27.660 It

01:21:29.100 all

01:21:29.360 seems

01:21:29.700 pretty

01:21:30.020 unbelievable

01:21:30.640 That's

01:21:33.780 how I

01:21:34.060 wanted

01:21:34.300 it

01:21:34.500 to

01:21:34.680 feel

01:21:35.000 That's

01:21:37.160 why

01:21:37.300 we

01:21:37.500 came

01:21:37.780 out

01:21:38.000 here

01:21:38.320 So

01:21:40.180 that

01:21:40.320 we

01:21:40.480 can

01:21:40.640 be

01:21:40.820 inside

01:21:41.180 a

01:21:41.380 story

01:21:41.740 Now

01:21:44.340 hopefully

01:21:45.600 there

01:21:47.720 is

01:21:47.880 somebody

01:21:48.240 out

01:21:48.520 there

01:21:48.840 in

01:21:49.220 the

01:21:49.360 past

01:21:49.840 who

01:21:50.500 will

01:21:50.680 write

01:21:50.920 the

01:21:51.140 story

01:21:51.600 Write

01:21:53.200 the

01:21:53.420 story

01:21:53.880 What

01:21:55.860 So

01:21:57.620 there's

01:21:57.860 nothing

01:21:58.240 out

01:21:58.560 here

01:21:58.860 There's

01:22:00.680 no

01:22:00.860 magic

01:22:01.260 key

01:22:01.680 or

01:22:01.940 secret

01:22:02.720 underground

01:22:03.320 base

01:22:03.860 Well

01:22:05.220 this

01:22:05.440 story 1.00

01:22:05.800 sucks 0.99

01:22:06.420 Why 0.93

01:22:08.180 It's

01:22:09.780 a

01:22:09.920 huge 1.00

01:22:10.220 fucking 1.00

01:22:10.760 letdown 1.00

01:22:11.360 Karen

01:22:13.500 makes

01:22:13.800 a

01:22:13.960 mild

01:22:14.200 choking 0.54

01:22:14.640 sound

01:22:15.140 That

01:22:15.460 might

01:22:15.660 be

01:22:15.820 a

01:22:15.980 chuckle

01:22:16.420 I

01:22:18.120 slump

01:22:18.440 down

01:22:18.700 into

01:22:18.900 the

01:22:19.040 grass

01:22:19.380 beside

01:22:19.760 her

01:22:19.940 wheelchair

01:22:20.340 and

01:22:21.560 hang 0.99

01:22:21.780 my 0.98

01:22:22.040 head

01:22:22.420 I'm

01:22:23.860 out

01:22:24.040 in

01:22:24.120 the

01:22:24.240 woods

01:22:24.500 with

01:22:24.720 a 0.98

01:22:24.880 crazy 1.00

01:22:25.280 person 0.99

01:22:25.820 She

01:22:27.240 doesn't

01:22:27.560 even

01:22:27.740 make

01:22:27.980 sense

01:22:28.440 She

01:22:29.880 spent

01:22:30.160 too

01:22:30.380 long

01:22:30.660 in

01:22:30.840 5D

01:22:31.380 She's

01:22:32.780 talking

01:22:33.080 about

01:22:33.340 alternate

01:22:33.740 timelines

01:22:34.400 Finally

01:22:37.380 I

01:22:38.500 ask

01:22:38.840 her

01:22:39.100 So

01:22:40.600 we're

01:22:40.800 just 1.00

01:22:41.060 fucked 0.99

01:22:41.480 right 0.98

01:22:41.840 If

01:22:44.080 you

01:22:44.200 look

01:22:44.420 toward

01:22:44.660 our

01:22:44.900 future

01:22:45.400 If

01:22:46.800 you

01:22:46.920 look

01:22:47.100 at

01:22:47.220 the

01:22:47.380 series

01:22:47.680 of

01:22:47.880 events

01:22:48.320 which

01:22:48.620 will

01:22:48.780 happen

01:22:49.120 to

01:22:49.400 us

01:22:49.740 They

01:22:51.040 are

01:22:51.200 dark

01:22:51.640 They

01:22:52.700 are

01:22:52.820 very

01:22:53.160 awful

01:22:53.540 We

01:22:53.820 will

01:22:54.100 suffer

01:22:54.660 We

01:22:55.860 will 0.99

01:22:56.100 die 0.89

01:22:56.560 But

01:22:58.820 that

01:22:58.980 would

01:22:59.120 be

01:22:59.300 true

01:22:59.560 in

01:22:59.700 any

01:22:59.960 timeline

01:23:00.520 On

01:23:01.960 the

01:23:02.080 other

01:23:02.280 hand

01:23:02.620 If

01:23:03.680 you

01:23:03.800 look

01:23:04.020 at

01:23:04.140 the

01:23:04.280 entire

01:23:04.700 story

01:23:05.280 not

01:23:06.960 as

01:23:07.140 a

01:23:07.300 series

01:23:07.580 of

01:23:07.780 events

01:23:08.260 not

01:23:09.360 from

01:23:09.560 beginning

01:23:09.920 to

01:23:10.140 end

01:23:10.520 but

01:23:10.840 as

01:23:11.780 a

01:23:11.960 single

01:23:12.320 continuous

01:23:13.220 connected

01:23:14.280 shape

01:23:14.840 where

01:23:16.080 every

01:23:16.420 event

01:23:16.760 is

01:23:16.980 occurring

01:23:17.480 simultaneously

01:23:18.660 I

01:23:20.720 think

01:23:21.200 my

01:23:22.420 life

01:23:22.920 even

01:23:24.720 my 1.00

01:23:25.040 stupid 1.00

01:23:25.500 little 1.00

01:23:25.920 life

01:23:26.420 which

01:23:27.640 I

01:23:27.800 spent

01:23:28.060 mostly

01:23:28.480 inside

01:23:28.880 that

01:23:29.120 hygiene

01:23:29.560 bed

01:23:29.940 could

01:23:32.040 form

01:23:32.360 a

01:23:32.500 beautiful

01:23:32.860 shape

01:23:33.340 I

01:23:36.120 snort

01:23:36.580 I

01:23:37.960 am

01:23:38.020 tired

01:23:38.300 of

01:23:38.440 this

01:23:38.640 cryptic 1.00

01:23:39.120 bullshit 1.00

01:23:39.700 Karen 1.00

01:23:42.200 goes

01:23:42.500 on

01:23:42.860 Maybe

01:23:44.520 that

01:23:44.820 shape

01:23:45.160 reaches

01:23:45.560 back

01:23:46.040 back

01:23:47.540 to

01:23:47.700 some

01:23:47.920 place

01:23:48.220 where

01:23:48.400 somebody

01:23:48.760 can

01:23:49.020 see

01:23:49.340 it

01:23:49.540 and

01:23:50.360 change

01:23:50.740 things

01:23:51.220 I

01:23:53.760 don't

01:23:54.000 say

01:23:54.260 anything

01:23:54.800 Karen

01:23:56.900 reaches

01:23:57.260 into

01:23:57.540 our

01:23:57.760 bag

01:23:58.040 of

01:23:58.240 supplies

01:23:58.860 pulls

01:24:00.220 out

01:24:00.460 one

01:24:00.620 of

01:24:00.700 the

01:24:00.780 little

01:24:00.960 paper

01:24:01.340 notebooks

01:24:01.880 she

01:24:02.140 bought

01:24:02.440 at

01:24:02.580 the

01:24:02.720 gas

01:24:03.000 station

01:24:03.420 what

01:24:05.560 are

01:24:05.660 you

01:24:05.780 doing

01:24:06.180 I

01:24:07.020 ask

01:24:07.420 I'm

01:24:09.320 going

01:24:09.540 to

01:24:09.720 write

01:24:09.880 a

01:24:10.020 poem

01:24:10.340 do

01:24:11.920 you

01:24:12.040 want

01:24:12.180 a

01:24:12.300 notebook

01:24:12.780 what

01:24:14.160 for

01:24:14.560 maybe

01:24:16.260 there's

01:24:16.560 somebody

01:24:16.860 out

01:24:17.140 there

01:24:17.440 who

01:24:18.560 needs

01:24:18.800 you

01:24:18.940 to

01:24:19.100 write

01:24:19.300 a

01:24:19.440 story

01:24:19.840 who

01:24:21.960 would

01:24:22.140 read

01:24:22.420 it

01:24:22.700 isn't

01:24:24.020 everybody

01:24:24.380 going

01:24:24.700 to 0.99

01:24:24.880 die 0.74

01:24:25.180 who

01:24:27.260 knows

01:24:27.740 she

01:24:28.540 says

01:24:29.000 and

01:24:29.200 drops

01:24:29.440 the

01:24:29.600 other

01:24:29.780 notebook

01:24:30.180 into

01:24:30.500 my

01:24:30.720 lap

01:24:31.100 maybe

01:24:32.880 somebody

01:24:33.380 would

01:24:33.580 be

01:24:33.760 interested

01:24:34.340 I

01:24:36.480 toss

01:24:36.780 the

01:24:36.960 notebook

01:24:37.280 off

01:24:37.640 into

01:24:37.760 the

01:24:37.880 grass 1.00

01:24:38.300 fucking 1.00

01:24:40.060 pointless 1.00

01:24:40.700 I can

01:24:43.420 barely

01:24:43.700 write on

01:24:44.140 paper

01:24:44.440 anyways

01:24:44.980 we

01:24:47.980 sit in

01:24:48.400 silence

01:24:48.720 for a

01:24:49.140 long

01:24:49.360 time

01:24:49.780 when

01:24:51.920 I

01:24:52.080 look

01:24:52.320 up

01:24:52.700 Karen

01:24:54.220 is

01:24:54.440 staring

01:24:54.740 at

01:24:54.940 the

01:24:55.100 same

01:24:55.340 little

01:24:55.600 cloud

01:24:55.980 of

01:24:56.160 gnats

01:24:56.600 occasionally

01:24:58.460 jotting

01:24:58.960 stuff

01:24:59.280 down

01:24:59.680 I

01:25:02.380 find

01:25:02.700 myself

01:25:03.100 staring

01:25:03.480 at

01:25:03.740 them

01:25:03.920 too

01:25:04.240 they

01:25:06.380 look

01:25:06.600 like

01:25:06.820 nothing

01:25:07.060 more

01:25:07.400 than

01:25:07.620 living

01:25:08.020 specks

01:25:08.480 of

01:25:08.660 dust

01:25:09.060 worked

01:25:10.400 into

01:25:10.680 a 0.57

01:25:10.860 crazy

01:25:11.360 whirling

01:25:12.220 frenzy

01:25:12.740 is there

01:25:15.140 any

01:25:15.660 pattern

01:25:16.120 in how

01:25:16.600 they

01:25:16.800 move

01:25:17.220 would

01:25:18.880 it

01:25:19.040 matter

01:25:19.360 if

01:25:19.600 there

01:25:19.800 was

01:25:20.220 I

01:25:22.800 think

01:25:23.040 about

01:25:23.300 what

01:25:23.560 Karen

01:25:23.840 said

01:25:24.260 about

01:25:24.520 the

01:25:24.740 shape

01:25:24.980 of her

01:25:25.280 life

01:25:25.720 what

01:25:27.280 it

01:25:27.380 would

01:25:27.520 look

01:25:27.740 like

01:25:28.000 if

01:25:28.180 everything

01:25:28.560 happened

01:25:29.020 simultaneously

01:25:29.920 if

01:25:32.280 it

01:25:32.420 could

01:25:32.540 all

01:25:32.720 be

01:25:32.900 seen

01:25:33.140 at

01:25:33.320 once

01:25:33.700 I

01:25:35.720 think

01:25:35.940 about

01:25:36.180 the

01:25:36.360 shape

01:25:36.600 of

01:25:36.740 my

01:25:36.920 own

01:25:37.100 life

01:25:37.480 I

01:25:39.320 stare

01:25:39.620 at

01:25:39.780 the

01:25:39.940 gnats

01:25:40.380 and

01:25:41.520 imagine

01:25:41.900 seeing

01:25:42.240 every

01:25:42.580 position

01:25:43.240 of

01:25:44.300 every

01:25:44.560 gnat

01:25:44.900 all

01:25:45.180 at

01:25:45.340 one

01:25:45.600 time

01:25:46.060 what

01:25:48.700 kind

01:25:48.940 of

01:25:49.080 shape

01:25:49.380 would

01:25:49.560 it

01:25:49.700 make

01:25:50.060 even

01:25:52.100 if

01:25:52.560 I

01:25:52.720 could

01:25:52.900 see

01:25:53.200 it

01:25:53.460 when

01:25:55.600 this

01:25:55.800 shape

01:25:56.100 have

01:25:56.300 any

01:25:56.600 meaning

01:25:57.040 I

01:26:00.480 pick

01:26:00.760 up

01:26:00.920 the

01:26:01.080 notebook

01:26:01.560 and

01:26:03.300 begin

01:26:03.580 to

01:26:03.840 write

01:26:04.160 before

01:26:09.220 writing

01:26:09.660 the

01:26:09.900 series

01:26:10.240 I

01:26:10.740 wrote

01:26:11.200 a

01:26:11.360 novel

01:26:11.700 I

01:26:12.660 worked

01:26:12.940 on

01:26:13.120 it

01:26:13.220 for

01:26:13.380 six

01:26:13.700 years

01:26:14.140 the

01:26:15.100 worst

01:26:15.400 years

01:26:15.760 of

01:26:15.920 my

01:26:16.080 life

01:26:16.480 as

01:26:17.920 I

01:26:18.040 sank

01:26:18.240 deeper

01:26:18.600 into

01:26:18.800 alcoholism

01:26:19.600 and

01:26:19.840 became

01:26:20.240 a 1.00

01:26:20.380 pathetic 1.00

01:26:20.780 trembling 1.00

01:26:21.320 recluse

01:26:22.000 I

01:26:23.000 held

01:26:23.220 on

01:26:23.400 to

01:26:23.500 the

01:26:23.640 novel

01:26:23.940 as

01:26:24.280 my

01:26:24.460 one

01:26:24.720 desperate

01:26:25.060 hope

01:26:25.500 maybe

01:26:26.620 it

01:26:26.780 would

01:26:26.900 turn

01:26:27.100 out

01:26:27.300 well

01:26:27.620 maybe

01:26:28.480 it

01:26:28.620 would

01:26:28.740 get

01:26:28.920 published

01:26:29.480 maybe

01:26:30.660 it

01:26:30.860 would

01:26:31.000 sell

01:26:31.280 well

01:26:31.640 maybe

01:26:32.580 my

01:26:32.820 life

01:26:33.080 would

01:26:33.260 change

01:26:33.800 maybe

01:26:34.700 I

01:26:34.880 would

01:26:35.040 escape

01:26:35.380 my 0.99

01:26:35.640 stinking 1.00

01:26:36.200 little 0.99

01:26:36.540 apartment

01:26:37.080 what

01:26:38.860 dreams

01:26:39.400 I

01:26:39.660 had

01:26:40.120 what

01:26:42.040 desperate

01:26:42.600 little

01:26:43.220 dreams

01:26:43.840 as

01:26:46.280 my

01:26:46.480 life

01:26:46.760 got

01:26:47.000 worse

01:26:47.460 I

01:26:48.220 told

01:26:48.460 myself

01:26:48.860 I

01:26:49.080 was

01:26:49.220 on

01:26:49.380 a

01:26:49.520 journey

01:26:49.760 of

01:26:49.980 self

01:26:50.200 discovery

01:26:50.740 that

01:26:52.040 I

01:26:52.160 was

01:26:52.300 an

01:26:52.480 artist

01:26:52.880 going

01:26:53.240 through

01:26:53.460 a

01:26:53.620 period

01:26:53.880 of

01:26:54.060 struggle

01:26:54.400 before

01:26:54.740 my

01:26:54.960 great

01:26:55.240 breakthrough

01:26:55.720 every

01:26:57.220 famous

01:26:57.600 artist

01:26:57.920 has

01:26:58.360 some

01:26:58.640 story

01:26:59.200 of

01:26:59.420 living

01:26:59.700 in

01:26:59.880 a

01:27:00.000 tiny

01:27:00.240 apartment

01:27:00.720 and

01:27:01.240 working

01:27:01.920 a

01:27:02.160 mind

01:27:02.420 numbing

01:27:02.720 job

01:27:03.140 and

01:27:03.340 eating 0.98

01:27:03.660 crap 0.99

01:27:04.040 food 1.00

01:27:04.300 before

01:27:04.580 their

01:27:04.780 first

01:27:05.080 big

01:27:05.320 success

01:27:05.960 surely

01:27:08.020 this

01:27:08.340 was just

01:27:08.740 part

01:27:08.960 of

01:27:09.080 my

01:27:09.260 story

01:27:09.740 how

01:27:10.880 much

01:27:11.120 richer

01:27:11.400 would

01:27:11.580 my

01:27:11.760 success

01:27:12.180 be

01:27:12.460 after

01:27:12.760 all

01:27:12.920 this 1.00

01:27:13.100 pathetic 1.00

01:27:13.480 degradation 0.95

01:27:14.200 after

01:27:16.020 a

01:27:16.200 night

01:27:16.380 of

01:27:16.540 writing

01:27:16.880 I

01:27:17.500 would

01:27:17.640 get

01:27:17.840 drunk

01:27:18.300 and

01:27:18.720 imagine

01:27:19.100 myself

01:27:19.600 being

01:27:19.940 interviewed

01:27:20.460 in front

01:27:21.140 of an

01:27:21.400 auditorium

01:27:22.080 full

01:27:22.300 of

01:27:22.440 my

01:27:22.620 fans

01:27:23.120 telling

01:27:24.540 self-deprecating

01:27:25.660 but

01:27:26.020 touching

01:27:26.600 anecdotes

01:27:27.340 about

01:27:27.600 my

01:27:27.840 ragged

01:27:28.240 days

01:27:28.720 before

01:27:29.420 I

01:27:29.620 became

01:27:29.920 a

01:27:30.080 literary

01:27:30.400 success

01:27:31.200 the

01:27:32.840 audience

01:27:33.240 full

01:27:33.560 of

01:27:33.900 bookishly

01:27:34.660 pretty

01:27:34.960 young

01:27:35.260 women 1.00

01:27:35.680 would

01:27:36.480 titter

01:27:36.860 and

01:27:37.140 sigh

01:27:37.400 as

01:27:37.600 they

01:27:37.720 related

01:27:38.100 to

01:27:38.280 my

01:27:38.460 struggles

01:27:39.020 and

01:27:39.940 admire

01:27:40.360 my

01:27:40.660 unwavering

01:27:41.400 determination

01:27:42.100 what

01:27:44.300 fantasies

01:27:44.940 I

01:27:45.180 had

01:27:45.560 there

01:27:47.720 were

01:27:47.900 other

01:27:48.180 times

01:27:48.660 when

01:27:49.000 I

01:27:49.160 knew

01:27:49.360 that

01:27:49.660 I

01:27:49.880 was

01:27:50.060 just

01:27:50.340 comforting

01:27:50.860 myself

01:27:51.440 with

01:27:51.680 delusions

01:27:52.160 of

01:27:52.400 grandeur

01:27:52.940 that

01:27:54.240 I

01:27:54.380 was

01:27:54.540 trying

01:27:54.800 to

01:27:54.980 romanticize

01:27:55.760 my

01:27:56.000 lazy

01:27:56.420 failure

01:27:56.940 of a

01:27:57.340 life

01:27:57.680 by

01:27:58.080 pretending

01:27:58.460 to be

01:27:58.840 a

01:27:59.080 struggling

01:27:59.440 artist

01:27:59.940 on the

01:28:00.340 verge

01:28:00.600 of

01:28:00.760 success

01:28:01.360 really

01:28:03.480 I

01:28:04.480 was

01:28:04.660 just

01:28:04.900 a 0.52

01:28:05.060 lazy 1.00

01:28:05.300 drunk 0.90

01:28:05.680 on the

01:28:06.020 verge

01:28:06.260 of 1.00

01:28:06.440 fuck 1.00

01:28:06.700 all 1.00

01:28:06.980 I

01:28:08.420 wasn't

01:28:08.720 even

01:28:08.920 some

01:28:09.220 proud

01:28:09.600 rebel

01:28:09.960 drunk

01:28:10.340 like

01:28:10.620 Charles

01:28:11.120 Bruckowski

01:28:11.740 I

01:28:13.280 hated

01:28:13.580 myself

01:28:14.140 I

01:28:15.260 didn't

01:28:15.520 write

01:28:15.780 enough

01:28:16.120 or

01:28:16.320 read

01:28:16.580 enough

01:28:16.920 or

01:28:17.080 know

01:28:17.280 enough

01:28:17.680 or

01:28:17.900 work

01:28:18.220 hard

01:28:18.480 enough

01:28:18.740 to

01:28:18.880 be

01:28:19.000 a

01:28:19.160 real

01:28:19.380 writer

01:28:19.760 I

01:28:21.040 had

01:28:21.180 never

01:28:21.420 read

01:28:21.780 Anna

01:28:22.120 Carnina

01:28:22.680 or

01:28:23.620 100

01:28:24.140 Years

01:28:24.520 of

01:28:24.720 Solitude

01:28:25.200 or

01:28:25.520 anything

01:28:25.940 by

01:28:26.260 Henry

01:28:26.620 James

01:28:27.080 I

01:28:28.960 was

01:28:29.140 often

01:28:29.460 bored

01:28:29.820 when

01:28:30.260 reading

01:28:30.640 and

01:28:30.920 bored

01:28:31.220 when

01:28:31.480 writing

01:28:31.900 did

01:28:33.540 I

01:28:33.660 even

01:28:33.880 like

01:28:34.240 it

01:28:34.460 I

01:28:35.660 had

01:28:35.880 half

01:28:36.200 assed

01:28:36.540 my

01:28:36.680 way

01:28:36.940 through

01:28:37.120 school

01:28:37.480 and

01:28:37.680 work

01:28:38.020 and

01:28:38.180 relationships

01:28:38.880 I

01:28:40.520 had

01:28:40.680 half

01:28:41.000 assed

01:28:41.320 everything

01:28:41.740 I

01:28:42.160 have

01:28:42.340 ever

01:28:42.560 done

01:28:42.920 and

01:28:44.340 I

01:28:44.460 was

01:28:44.660 even

01:28:44.920 half

01:28:45.300 assing

01:28:45.740 something

01:28:46.140 that

01:28:46.380 was

01:28:46.540 supposed

01:28:46.800 to

01:28:47.000 be

01:28:47.140 important

01:28:47.540 to

01:28:47.760 me

01:28:47.980 I

01:28:49.940 hadn't

01:28:50.240 even

01:28:50.440 finished

01:28:50.840 one

01:28:51.140 novel

01:28:51.560 after

01:28:52.080 six

01:28:52.480 years

01:28:52.920 and

01:28:55.620 then

01:28:55.760 there

01:28:55.900 was

01:28:56.080 the

01:28:56.200 most

01:28:56.400 damning

01:28:56.780 evidence 0.84

01:28:57.300 of

01:28:57.500 all

01:28:57.780 my

01:28:59.480 writing 0.99

01:28:59.940 sucked 0.99

01:29:00.560 sometimes 0.97

01:29:03.360 I

01:29:03.720 felt

01:29:03.920 like

01:29:04.100 I

01:29:04.240 was

01:29:04.380 a

01:29:04.520 fraud

01:29:04.860 sometimes

01:29:06.180 I

01:29:06.500 felt

01:29:06.680 like

01:29:06.840 I

01:29:06.960 was

01:29:07.100 on

01:29:07.200 the

01:29:07.320 right

01:29:07.520 path

01:29:08.000 sometimes

01:29:09.180 I

01:29:09.520 felt

01:29:09.740 like

01:29:09.960 both

01:29:10.220 of

01:29:10.340 these

01:29:10.540 things

01:29:10.800 were

01:29:10.960 true

01:29:11.200 at

01:29:11.380 once

01:29:11.760 like

01:29:13.020 I

01:29:13.180 was

01:29:13.440 on

01:29:13.800 two

01:29:14.080 different

01:29:14.440 timelines

01:29:15.000 my

01:29:16.140 view

01:29:16.400 on

01:29:16.600 the

01:29:16.720 matter

01:29:16.940 changed

01:29:17.500 often

01:29:18.060 at

01:29:19.360 night

01:29:19.680 I

01:29:19.960 tended

01:29:20.240 to

01:29:20.420 regard

01:29:20.720 myself

01:29:21.180 as

01:29:21.420 being

01:29:21.660 on

01:29:21.840 the

01:29:21.960 very

01:29:22.180 cusp

01:29:22.600 of

01:29:22.800 fame

01:29:23.080 and

01:29:23.280 fortune

01:29:23.760 the

01:29:25.080 next

01:29:25.320 morning

01:29:25.700 I

01:29:26.820 tended

01:29:27.060 to

01:29:27.260 wake

01:29:27.460 up

01:29:27.640 feeling

01:29:27.940 like

01:29:28.300 an

01:29:28.460 untalented

01:29:29.120 dilettante

01:29:29.840 meanwhile

01:29:31.560 this

01:29:32.000 supposedly

01:29:32.520 temporary

01:29:33.100 period

01:29:33.560 of

01:29:33.720 struggle

01:29:34.140 stretched

01:29:34.640 on

01:29:35.120 and

01:29:35.580 on

01:29:36.000 and

01:29:36.540 on

01:29:36.960 I

01:29:38.500 turned

01:29:38.820 thirty

01:29:39.300 surely

01:29:40.560 something

01:29:40.960 would

01:29:41.220 happen

01:29:41.520 by

01:29:41.740 forty

01:29:42.180 but

01:29:43.620 what

01:29:43.740 if

01:29:43.880 it

01:29:44.020 didn't

01:29:44.400 as

01:29:45.960 I

01:29:46.120 withdrew

01:29:46.520 from

01:29:46.780 friends

01:29:47.140 and

01:29:47.340 co-workers

01:29:47.900 it

01:29:48.540 became

01:29:48.840 more

01:29:49.080 of

01:29:49.200 a

01:29:49.320 recluse

01:29:49.880 I

01:29:50.940 rationalized

01:29:51.700 it

01:29:51.840 as

01:29:52.160 concentrating

01:29:52.880 on

01:29:53.440 my

01:29:53.640 writing

01:29:54.100 except

01:29:55.640 my

01:29:55.860 busy

01:29:56.160 schedule

01:29:56.620 of

01:29:56.900 drinking

01:29:57.280 and

01:29:57.500 hangovers

01:29:58.020 didn't

01:29:58.320 allow

01:29:58.580 for

01:29:58.780 much

01:29:59.040 writing

01:29:59.440 the

01:30:01.040 story

01:30:01.320 of

01:30:01.460 the

01:30:01.580 struggling

01:30:01.960 artist

01:30:02.400 was

01:30:02.700 showing

01:30:03.020 itself

01:30:03.420 to

01:30:03.580 be

01:30:03.700 a

01:30:03.860 lie

01:30:04.160 then

01:30:06.860 I

01:30:07.020 got

01:30:07.180 fired

01:30:07.520 from

01:30:07.720 my

01:30:07.900 job

01:30:08.300 and

01:30:08.760 sent

01:30:09.020 to

01:30:09.180 rehab

01:30:09.520 after

01:30:11.180 I

01:30:11.380 stopped

01:30:11.680 drinking

01:30:12.140 I

01:30:13.060 used

01:30:13.280 my

01:30:13.460 newfound

01:30:13.920 energy

01:30:14.320 and

01:30:14.560 spare

01:30:14.800 time

01:30:15.120 to

01:30:15.300 finish

01:30:15.580 the

01:30:15.780 novel

01:30:16.100 I

01:30:17.520 finished

01:30:17.860 it

01:30:18.080 in

01:30:18.260 a

01:30:18.380 few

01:30:18.520 months

01:30:18.960 you

01:30:20.580 can

01:30:20.700 get

01:30:20.840 a

01:30:20.980 lot

01:30:21.140 done

01:30:21.400 when

01:30:21.600 you're

01:30:21.720 not

01:30:21.940 entering

01:30:22.260 the

01:30:22.460 void

01:30:22.720 every

01:30:23.020 night

01:30:23.360 for

01:30:24.820 someone

01:30:25.040 like

01:30:25.320 me

01:30:25.620 the

01:30:26.620 completion

01:30:27.060 of

01:30:27.260 a

01:30:27.400 six

01:30:27.640 year

01:30:27.820 struggle

01:30:28.240 is

01:30:28.480 an

01:30:28.620 occasion

01:30:29.040 which

01:30:29.760 simply

01:30:30.120 begs

01:30:30.500 to

01:30:30.580 be

01:30:30.700 accompanied

01:30:31.060 by

01:30:31.340 a

01:30:31.500 drink

01:30:31.860 by

01:30:33.300 many

01:30:33.600 drinks

01:30:34.100 I

01:30:35.660 had

01:30:35.840 always

01:30:36.200 planned

01:30:36.540 to

01:30:36.740 just

01:30:37.020 go

01:30:37.420 get

01:30:37.600 drunk

01:30:37.900 for

01:30:38.080 an

01:30:38.220 entire

01:30:38.580 week

01:30:38.920 after

01:30:39.200 I

01:30:39.380 finished

01:30:39.660 my

01:30:39.900 novel

01:30:40.280 instead

01:30:42.520 I

01:30:44.200 took

01:30:44.400 a walk

01:30:44.840 down

01:30:45.120 to

01:30:45.300 a

01:30:45.420 nearby

01:30:45.700 bar

01:30:46.180 and

01:30:47.240 stood

01:30:47.480 outside

01:30:47.940 of

01:30:48.080 it

01:30:48.160 for

01:30:48.340 a

01:30:48.460 while

01:30:48.780 I

01:30:51.080 didn't

01:30:51.320 go

01:30:51.540 in

01:30:51.840 in

01:30:53.360 my

01:30:53.560 head

01:30:53.960 my

01:30:54.560 life

01:30:54.840 seemed

01:30:55.100 redeveloping

01:30:55.900 into

01:30:56.160 a

01:30:56.300 new

01:30:56.480 story

01:30:56.960 a

01:30:58.000 heroic

01:30:58.380 turnaround

01:30:58.880 in

01:30:59.320 which

01:30:59.480 I

01:30:59.620 got

01:30:59.860 sober

01:31:00.280 and

01:31:01.340 everything

01:31:01.780 fell

01:31:02.160 into

01:31:02.380 place

01:31:02.880 yes

01:31:04.620 surely

01:31:05.280 this

01:31:05.560 was

01:31:05.740 how

01:31:05.900 it

01:31:06.040 would

01:31:06.180 go

01:31:06.500 I

01:31:07.560 sent

01:31:07.800 letters

01:31:08.080 to

01:31:08.300 thirty

01:31:08.600 literary

01:31:09.080 agents

01:31:09.740 with

01:31:10.080 the

01:31:10.220 hopes

01:31:10.480 of

01:31:10.680 getting

01:31:10.880 the

01:31:11.100 book

01:31:11.280 published

01:31:11.820 none

01:31:13.440 expressed

01:31:13.980 any

01:31:14.500 interest

01:31:15.080 it

01:31:16.240 hurt

01:31:16.520 to

01:31:16.700 be

01:31:16.840 rejected

01:31:17.320 I

01:31:18.760 had

01:31:18.920 stopped

01:31:19.220 drinking

01:31:19.620 but

01:31:20.040 I

01:31:20.340 still

01:31:20.580 hadn't

01:31:20.900 found

01:31:21.160 a

01:31:21.300 fulfilling

01:31:21.640 job

01:31:22.180 I

01:31:23.460 was

01:31:23.600 able

01:31:23.760 to

01:31:23.960 talk

01:31:24.180 to

01:31:24.320 people

01:31:24.640 and

01:31:24.840 look

01:31:25.040 cashiers

01:31:25.640 in

01:31:25.800 the

01:31:25.920 eye

01:31:26.100 again

01:31:26.520 but

01:31:27.760 I

01:31:27.900 was

01:31:28.060 still

01:31:28.280 a

01:31:28.440 recluse

01:31:28.980 I

01:31:30.500 had

01:31:30.660 still

01:31:30.900 invested

01:31:31.280 a

01:31:31.520 lot

01:31:31.740 of

01:31:31.900 desperate

01:31:32.200 hopes

01:31:32.540 into

01:31:32.760 getting

01:31:33.000 the

01:31:33.200 novel

01:31:33.460 published

01:31:34.040 I

01:31:35.780 felt

01:31:36.040 so 1.00

01:31:36.300 foolish 1.00

01:31:36.660 for 1.00

01:31:36.920 investing

01:31:37.320 so

01:31:37.640 much

01:31:37.840 hope

01:31:38.100 into

01:31:38.260 something

01:31:38.660 that

01:31:38.940 is

01:31:39.160 just

01:31:39.380 so

01:31:39.620 unlikely

01:31:40.180 but

01:31:41.960 I

01:31:42.100 couldn't

01:31:42.420 help

01:31:42.640 myself

01:31:43.280 the

01:31:44.860 lure

01:31:45.140 of

01:31:45.360 feeling

01:31:45.640 some

01:31:45.920 sense

01:31:46.300 of

01:31:46.500 purpose

01:31:46.900 and

01:31:47.140 accomplishment

01:31:47.700 was

01:31:48.040 just

01:31:48.300 too

01:31:48.520 much

01:31:48.940 I

01:31:50.760 wanted

01:31:51.000 to

01:31:51.180 be

01:31:51.340 noticed

01:31:51.860 honestly

01:31:53.380 I

01:31:53.660 wanted

01:31:53.840 to be

01:31:54.100 rich

01:31:54.460 and

01:31:54.720 famous

01:31:55.200 though

01:31:56.940 they may

01:31:57.320 have been

01:31:57.700 disguised as

01:31:58.560 achieving

01:31:59.100 artistic success

01:32:00.400 and finding my

01:32:01.360 purpose

01:32:01.880 perhaps my dreams

01:32:04.560 were ultimately as

01:32:05.480 crass and

01:32:06.540 grasping as any 0.84

01:32:07.600 Kardashians

01:32:08.440 I

01:32:10.500 had

01:32:10.680 given

01:32:10.920 the

01:32:11.120 literary

01:32:11.540 agents

01:32:12.120 four

01:32:12.440 months

01:32:12.780 to

01:32:12.960 respond

01:32:13.380 to

01:32:13.540 me

01:32:13.740 before

01:32:14.160 accepting

01:32:14.640 that

01:32:14.880 they

01:32:15.020 were

01:32:15.180 not

01:32:15.420 interested

01:32:16.000 soon

01:32:17.900 after

01:32:18.180 that

01:32:18.420 deadline

01:32:18.800 passed

01:32:19.360 I

01:32:20.520 started

01:32:20.820 writing

01:32:21.180 this

01:32:21.460 web

01:32:21.700 series

01:32:22.140 as

01:32:23.700 you

01:32:23.840 may

01:32:24.000 know

01:32:24.300 a

01:32:24.940 few

01:32:25.100 websites

01:32:25.560 wrote

01:32:25.840 articles

01:32:26.220 about

01:32:26.540 the

01:32:26.740 series

01:32:27.020 and

01:32:27.420 some

01:32:28.140 very

01:32:28.400 lovely

01:32:28.720 people

01:32:29.080 created

01:32:29.440 a

01:32:29.600 very

01:32:29.820 wonderful

01:32:30.360 subreddit

01:32:30.980 about

01:32:31.240 it

01:32:31.480 and

01:32:33.080 this

01:32:33.280 drew

01:32:33.440 the

01:32:33.620 attention

01:32:33.920 of

01:32:34.160 people

01:32:34.420 in

01:32:34.560 the

01:32:34.680 publishing

01:32:35.020 industry

01:32:35.560 they

01:32:37.160 contacted

01:32:37.820 me

01:32:38.180 and

01:32:38.840 just

01:32:39.040 like

01:32:39.260 that

01:32:39.620 my

01:32:40.460 long-held

01:32:41.000 dream

01:32:41.320 was again

01:32:41.820 revived

01:32:42.440 and

01:32:43.820 now

01:32:44.020 it

01:32:44.180 seemed

01:32:44.440 more

01:32:44.720 in reach

01:32:45.140 than

01:32:45.360 ever

01:32:45.660 I

01:32:47.240 had

01:32:47.380 been

01:32:47.560 struggling

01:32:48.000 to

01:32:48.300 contact

01:32:48.760 agents

01:32:49.380 and

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01:32:50.660 were

01:32:50.820 contacting

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01:32:58.440 like

01:32:58.600 everything

01:32:58.900 was

01:32:59.140 falling

01:32:59.400 into

01:32:59.660 place

01:33:00.080 like

01:33:01.080 my

01:33:01.260 life

01:33:01.540 was

01:33:01.720 shaping

01:33:02.000 into

01:33:02.340 a

01:33:02.580 story

01:33:02.920 with

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01:33:36.760 up with

01:33:37.080 an ending

01:33:37.460 for this

01:33:37.880 series

01:33:38.160 before I

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01:33:38.880 finally

01:33:39.240 take

01:33:39.540 my

01:33:39.740 rightful

01:33:40.120 place

01:33:40.600 as the

01:33:41.640 leading

01:33:41.900 light

01:33:42.340 of the

01:33:43.200 literati

01:33:43.720 a few

01:33:45.740 people on

01:33:46.240 the subreddit

01:33:46.840 had expressed

01:33:47.560 doubt

01:33:47.980 that I could

01:33:48.660 possibly deliver

01:33:49.600 a satisfying

01:33:50.460 ending

01:33:50.940 and I was

01:33:52.560 inclined to

01:33:53.100 agree with

01:33:53.580 them

01:33:53.860 I had already

01:33:55.800 noticed that the

01:33:56.500 story was easier

01:33:57.300 to write when I

01:33:58.000 was opening

01:33:58.480 narrative threads

01:33:59.460 than when I

01:34:00.760 was wrapping

01:34:01.200 them up

01:34:01.760 what would the

01:34:04.200 overall ending

01:34:04.860 be

01:34:05.220 it had to be

01:34:07.460 about mother

01:34:08.040 that was the

01:34:09.480 center of the

01:34:09.980 story but

01:34:10.660 what did I

01:34:12.140 really know

01:34:12.600 about mother

01:34:13.120 beyond a few

01:34:14.020 vague memories

01:34:14.800 I had long

01:34:17.480 puzzled over

01:34:18.140 these memories

01:34:18.860 back when I

01:34:20.380 was drinking

01:34:20.900 I was convinced

01:34:23.060 that something

01:34:23.600 had happened

01:34:24.120 to me

01:34:24.440 one summer

01:34:25.160 something beyond

01:34:26.460 my understanding

01:34:27.280 something monstrous

01:34:29.720 but after I

01:34:31.840 got sober

01:34:32.460 I was encouraged

01:34:34.580 to digest some

01:34:35.540 hard truths

01:34:36.400 about myself

01:34:37.220 and I decided

01:34:39.740 that it was

01:34:40.280 entirely possible

01:34:41.360 that I had

01:34:43.140 more or less

01:34:43.900 made it all

01:34:44.600 up

01:34:44.900 not that I

01:34:47.280 simply lied

01:34:47.920 to myself

01:34:48.480 but more

01:34:49.800 that I had

01:34:50.320 latched on to

01:34:50.920 some vague

01:34:51.420 memory

01:34:51.880 perhaps a

01:34:53.260 reoccurring

01:34:53.820 nightmare

01:34:54.300 and built it

01:34:56.080 up in my mind

01:34:56.820 over the years

01:34:57.600 perhaps as an

01:34:59.920 explanation for

01:35:01.040 why I was so

01:35:02.000 emotionally 0.99

01:35:03.040 fucked up 0.99

01:35:03.800 it was easier 0.99

01:35:06.360 to face life

01:35:07.140 as a victim

01:35:07.680 of some

01:35:08.380 unknown

01:35:09.160 half-remembered

01:35:10.340 evil

01:35:10.680 it gave me

01:35:13.000 an excuse

01:35:13.480 to crawl

01:35:14.040 into the bottle

01:35:14.740 I needed

01:35:16.800 to provide

01:35:17.340 a satisfying

01:35:18.020 ending

01:35:18.460 to the series

01:35:19.460 and to my

01:35:20.040 quest to get

01:35:20.700 published

01:35:21.240 being intertwined

01:35:23.260 both of these

01:35:24.100 tasks rested

01:35:24.920 on a hazy

01:35:25.780 collection of

01:35:26.500 sinister memories

01:35:27.460 then again

01:35:29.580 couldn't I

01:35:31.080 just make 1.00

01:35:31.420 some shit up 0.99

01:35:32.160 hadn't I been 0.99

01:35:33.860 doing that

01:35:34.280 all along

01:35:34.900 the solution

01:35:37.580 presented itself

01:35:38.540 to me

01:35:38.980 one night

01:35:39.700 when I was

01:35:40.300 talking with

01:35:40.860 my roommate

01:35:41.400 Sean

01:35:41.880 he told me

01:35:43.920 back when he

01:35:44.500 smoked crack

01:35:45.320 he used to

01:35:46.360 break into

01:35:46.760 abandoned buildings

01:35:47.660 to see if there

01:35:48.260 was stuff to

01:35:48.860 steal

01:35:49.180 he said that

01:35:51.080 once he broke

01:35:51.620 into a warehouse

01:35:52.320 downtown

01:35:53.040 and found a set

01:35:54.260 of stairs that

01:35:54.980 led to an

01:35:55.420 underground room

01:35:56.280 which led to

01:35:57.940 even more rooms

01:35:59.000 that went deep

01:35:59.680 underground

01:36:00.240 over the course

01:36:02.100 of a few weeks

01:36:03.040 he went deeper

01:36:04.480 and deeper

01:36:05.020 into the complex

01:36:06.020 taking various

01:36:07.580 stuff

01:36:08.040 but always

01:36:09.840 leaving quickly

01:36:10.800 because it was

01:36:12.820 a spooky place

01:36:13.800 on the last night

01:36:16.360 he snuck

01:36:16.840 into the complex

01:36:17.720 he found a room

01:36:19.780 where the walls

01:36:20.440 were covered

01:36:21.080 in human bone

01:36:23.200 so there I was

01:36:27.000 on the front porch

01:36:27.900 with Sean

01:36:28.480 both of us

01:36:30.000 sitting in rickety

01:36:31.000 old chairs

01:36:31.780 slapping away

01:36:32.780 the mosquitoes

01:36:33.340 when he mentioned

01:36:35.340 quietly that

01:36:36.380 he had once

01:36:37.000 seen a room

01:36:37.680 where the walls

01:36:38.460 were covered

01:36:38.960 with human bone

01:36:39.900 right away

01:36:41.700 my heart started

01:36:42.940 thumping in my chest

01:36:44.140 he must have seen

01:36:46.240 my reddit post

01:36:47.160 this was something

01:36:49.360 I had been worrying

01:36:50.340 about

01:36:50.780 even dreading

01:36:52.060 my posts were

01:36:53.820 none too flattering

01:36:54.820 of him

01:36:55.360 and he was

01:36:56.740 a very private

01:36:57.680 person

01:36:58.280 very defensive

01:36:59.660 of his boundaries

01:37:00.480 he would see it

01:37:02.280 as an intrusion

01:37:03.120 and a betrayal

01:37:03.960 I had taken

01:37:05.980 great pains

01:37:06.660 to obscure

01:37:07.300 the details

01:37:07.940 of his identity

01:37:08.700 giving him

01:37:10.180 a new name

01:37:10.900 and a different

01:37:12.160 sort of

01:37:12.640 afrocentric religion

01:37:13.940 nobody would

01:37:16.200 recognize him

01:37:16.960 from my post

01:37:17.800 but some

01:37:19.840 of the stuff

01:37:20.480 in my writing

01:37:21.280 had been taken

01:37:22.340 verbatim

01:37:23.040 from our conversations

01:37:24.260 if he saw them

01:37:26.480 he would surely

01:37:28.120 recognize himself

01:37:29.420 Sean was not a guy

01:37:32.140 I wanted to piss off

01:37:33.380 when he first came 0.94

01:37:35.680 to the house

01:37:36.300 he told us

01:37:37.160 that his main

01:37:38.040 character defect

01:37:38.840 was his temper

01:37:39.900 and he wasn't kidding

01:37:42.240 on more than one occasion

01:37:44.560 I had watched anger

01:37:45.720 build up inside of him

01:37:47.000 until he ended up

01:37:48.400 chewing somebody out

01:37:49.480 it was a sort of scene

01:37:51.540 that left me

01:37:52.640 tiptoeing back

01:37:53.460 into my bedroom

01:37:54.320 giddily thankful

01:37:55.820 I wasn't taking

01:37:56.740 the brunt

01:37:57.180 of his outrage

01:37:57.980 all those years

01:38:00.080 as a recluse

01:38:00.920 had left me

01:38:01.720 with no appetite

01:38:03.200 for confrontation

01:38:04.480 Sean had been

01:38:07.460 sincerely working

01:38:08.380 on his temper

01:38:09.100 he was the only 0.71

01:38:10.640 black dude 0.73

01:38:11.240 in the house 0.89

01:38:11.800 and he was worried

01:38:12.840 about being seen

01:38:13.660 as the angry 0.97

01:38:14.440 black guy 0.91

01:38:15.120 he often said to me 0.92

01:38:17.440 you get up

01:38:18.480 in somebody's face

01:38:19.360 and they'll be like

01:38:20.100 say fellas 0.99

01:38:21.000 let's work this thing out

01:38:22.580 but if I cross the line

01:38:24.400 they'll be like

01:38:25.380 call the police

01:38:26.060 this dude's gone crazy

01:38:27.360 I assured him

01:38:29.220 that this was not the case

01:38:30.560 while not being

01:38:32.380 entirely sure

01:38:33.300 that this wasn't the case

01:38:34.760 as a result

01:38:37.080 of his fears

01:38:37.940 he had become

01:38:38.900 very indirect

01:38:39.800 about how he

01:38:40.480 expressed his anger

01:38:41.460 if he felt

01:38:43.040 somebody was

01:38:43.580 disrespecting him

01:38:44.640 he would give them

01:38:46.040 the silent treatment

01:38:46.860 for a while

01:38:47.480 then come down

01:38:49.060 hard on them

01:38:49.680 for something small

01:38:50.960 all the while

01:38:52.540 being very careful

01:38:53.480 not to raise his voice

01:38:54.700 or make any

01:38:55.780 threatening gestures

01:38:56.700 which somehow

01:38:58.940 made him

01:38:59.760 more intimidating

01:39:00.840 as much as he

01:39:03.260 didn't want to play out

01:39:04.000 the angry 0.95

01:39:04.400 black guy stereotype 0.94

01:39:05.500 I didn't want to play out 0.96

01:39:07.440 the meek

01:39:07.960 affronted 0.93

01:39:08.620 white guy stereotype

01:39:09.940 but I was sometimes

01:39:12.500 intimidated by him

01:39:13.740 so now when he told me

01:39:15.820 about the walls

01:39:16.520 covered with bone

01:39:17.440 I figured

01:39:18.980 he must have been

01:39:19.820 feeling me out

01:39:20.740 seeing if I would

01:39:22.000 come clean

01:39:22.580 about what I had written

01:39:23.720 but it was such

01:39:25.940 a strange way

01:39:26.620 to do it

01:39:27.220 I didn't know

01:39:28.880 what to say

01:39:29.500 I looked him in the eye

01:39:31.700 trying to make my face

01:39:33.080 completely natural

01:39:34.180 he gazed back at me

01:39:36.640 his face

01:39:38.300 half in shadow

01:39:39.420 half colored

01:39:40.960 by the yellow

01:39:41.580 porch light

01:39:42.260 his expression

01:39:44.180 dead serious

01:39:45.760 he went on

01:39:48.100 speaking softly

01:39:49.360 skulls

01:39:51.680 teeth

01:39:52.300 arms and hands

01:39:54.380 melted together

01:39:55.700 on the walls

01:39:57.080 up on the ceiling

01:39:58.680 he had seen

01:40:01.540 in real life

01:40:02.600 what I had only seen

01:40:03.800 in my mind

01:40:04.520 he was about to tell me

01:40:07.120 that the flesh interfaces

01:40:08.360 and mother

01:40:09.080 and all the other

01:40:09.880 nightmares were true

01:40:11.080 I had

01:40:13.300 on some level

01:40:14.380 known this was coming

01:40:16.200 it was the culmination

01:40:18.980 of the strange feelings

01:40:20.200 I had all week

01:40:21.440 it started when I was

01:40:24.540 sitting in that

01:40:25.140 AA meeting

01:40:26.040 looking at the sad face

01:40:27.780 of the old man

01:40:28.640 with the stolid haircut

01:40:29.860 I had entered

01:40:31.980 a strange

01:40:32.620 and sudden reverie

01:40:33.720 carried away

01:40:35.180 by the sheer 0.97

01:40:35.780 damn poignancy 0.99

01:40:36.740 of this man's haircut 1.00

01:40:38.000 and how it symbolized

01:40:40.360 the sort of strong

01:40:41.720 upright man

01:40:42.680 he had tried

01:40:43.340 and failed to be

01:40:44.300 I saw him

01:40:46.600 in a great

01:40:47.080 shifting vision

01:40:48.040 different versions

01:40:50.140 of him emerging

01:40:51.020 and overlapping

01:40:52.060 here he was

01:40:54.740 a young boy

01:40:55.460 learning how

01:40:56.100 to use a comb

01:40:56.860 here he was

01:40:59.400 a young man

01:41:00.140 the wind

01:41:01.340 ruffling his

01:41:02.080 sturdy locks

01:41:02.800 as he experienced

01:41:03.800 that rush of confidence

01:41:05.040 that comes with drink

01:41:06.160 here he was

01:41:08.220 in front of the mirror

01:41:09.660 running the comb

01:41:11.400 through his wet hair

01:41:12.200 with his shaky hand

01:41:13.360 dropping it

01:41:15.280 into the sink

01:41:16.180 here he was

01:41:18.740 with stitches

01:41:19.340 just below the hairline

01:41:20.680 after another

01:41:22.160 accidental fall

01:41:23.220 here he is finally

01:41:26.460 face down

01:41:27.800 at the bottom

01:41:28.320 of his stairs

01:41:29.100 his hair

01:41:31.040 ever so slightly

01:41:32.100 muzzed 0.96

01:41:32.800 just a few strands

01:41:35.040 out of place

01:41:35.800 almost perfect

01:41:38.660 the next day

01:41:42.220 my roommate

01:41:42.860 Donnie

01:41:43.380 the ex-marine

01:41:44.540 and I went out

01:41:45.460 to the river

01:41:45.880 to swim

01:41:46.420 it was a perfect

01:41:48.500 sunny day

01:41:49.220 and there were

01:41:50.540 a lot of people

01:41:51.280 out swimming

01:41:52.000 and floating along

01:41:53.120 in inner tubes

01:41:53.900 as I lay back

01:41:56.420 in the cool waters

01:41:57.360 feeling the warm

01:41:58.220 forest of air

01:41:59.200 alive on my wet skin

01:42:00.600 I saw for a moment

01:42:03.740 I saw for a moment

01:42:03.760 that vanished

01:42:05.500 primeval world

01:42:06.820 peopled

01:42:08.120 by the forest

01:42:09.220 children

01:42:09.720 these children

01:42:11.760 lived along the river

01:42:13.280 not working

01:42:15.020 or toiling

01:42:15.660 but simply

01:42:16.400 taking what the river

01:42:17.720 offered

01:42:18.220 living

01:42:19.840 and dying

01:42:20.800 by the good mother's

01:42:21.920 generosity

01:42:22.500 sure

01:42:24.700 they wouldn't know

01:42:25.520 the benefits of writing

01:42:26.560 or agriculture

01:42:27.440 and they would drop

01:42:29.280 like flies

01:42:29.840 to horrible diseases

01:42:30.840 and predators

01:42:31.500 but in doing so

01:42:34.000 they would accept

01:42:35.620 their humble place

01:42:36.520 in the universe

01:42:37.280 rather than

01:42:38.860 striving to overcome

01:42:40.080 it through science

01:42:41.080 or religion

01:42:41.700 they would know

01:42:44.040 themselves to be

01:42:44.880 fragile things

01:42:45.880 which lived for

01:42:46.720 a brief moment

01:42:47.580 and died

01:42:48.720 like glimmers

01:42:50.600 on the river's water

01:42:51.720 for the second time

01:42:54.240 in as many days

01:42:55.240 I found myself

01:42:57.140 with tears in my eyes

01:42:58.260 over some trivial moment

01:42:59.860 and I was forced

01:43:02.000 to turn away from Donnie

01:43:03.140 as he related a story

01:43:05.280 about Marine Buddy

01:43:06.180 who had been given

01:43:07.760 a humorous nickname

01:43:08.760 by the platoon

01:43:09.620 due to his uncanny knack

01:43:11.320 for finding

01:43:11.920 and acquiring

01:43:12.800 venereal diseases

01:43:14.060 in AA

01:43:17.060 they talk about

01:43:18.240 not struggling

01:43:18.980 or trying to manage

01:43:19.980 everything

01:43:20.580 but rather

01:43:22.320 letting God manage it

01:43:23.940 not believing

01:43:26.200 in an interventionalist God

01:43:27.740 I had to interpret this

01:43:29.600 as simply trying to

01:43:30.920 accept the things

01:43:32.280 I cannot change

01:43:33.400 I saw a vision

01:43:35.260 of my life

01:43:36.080 where I was able

01:43:37.060 to accept life's vicissitudes

01:43:38.920 with humility

01:43:40.220 and grace

01:43:41.200 and where life

01:43:43.380 opened itself

01:43:44.040 to me as a result

01:43:45.020 with it

01:43:47.480 came a wave

01:43:48.380 of nostalgia

01:43:49.060 last time I felt this

01:43:51.920 I had been in college

01:43:53.480 and taking a lot of acid

01:43:55.560 how long

01:43:57.060 had I shut myself

01:43:58.080 away from life 1.00

01:43:59.020 in that goddamn apartment 1.00

01:44:01.460 with that goddamn bottle 1.00

01:44:03.840 I had been unable 1.00

01:44:06.660 to accept any discomfort

01:44:08.200 or unhappiness

01:44:09.420 so I had avoided

01:44:11.460 everything except liquor

01:44:12.900 I had tried to control

01:44:15.160 my feelings

01:44:15.840 and as a result

01:44:16.760 I found discomfort

01:44:19.620 and unhappiness

01:44:20.780 like I never imagined

01:44:22.220 but now I could accept life

01:44:25.900 embrace life

01:44:27.900 welcome all the awkwardness

01:44:30.780 and frustration

01:44:31.560 and pain

01:44:32.280 and indignities

01:44:33.360 how many opportunities

01:44:35.940 were right at my fingertips

01:44:37.400 I could talk to one of these girls 1.00

01:44:40.500 wearing the smart bathing suits

01:44:41.960 and be married

01:44:42.600 in a few months

01:44:43.500 or just find a friend

01:44:45.560 or be hired as staff writer

01:44:47.780 as some kind of pastry magazine

01:44:49.760 anything was possible

01:44:52.700 I saw now the glowing door

01:44:55.860 open before me

01:44:56.880 I saw all the doors open

01:44:59.360 all the doors open

01:45:01.420 and align

01:45:02.140 one after another

01:45:04.740 and behind them all

01:45:07.340 there was

01:45:08.540 there was what

01:45:11.120 I couldn't say

01:45:13.660 the insight slipped away

01:45:16.680 without revealing itself

01:45:17.900 but the fading reverie

01:45:20.720 left a warm glow

01:45:21.940 and I dipped my head

01:45:23.920 back into the cool water

01:45:25.160 and looked up into the sky

01:45:27.560 crowded with bright

01:45:28.580 weightless clouds

01:45:29.500 I could see now

01:45:32.740 that so many things

01:45:34.780 were coming together

01:45:35.620 in my life

01:45:36.340 I was getting sober

01:45:39.720 I was learning to talk to people

01:45:42.640 even the dream

01:45:44.700 of being a novelist

01:45:45.900 the dream

01:45:48.380 was coming true

01:45:50.980 so now when Sean told me

01:45:54.320 about the walls

01:45:54.960 covered with bone

01:45:55.920 it seemed like he had

01:45:57.700 another thing

01:45:58.400 falling into place

01:45:59.480 but this time

01:46:01.960 it was something sinister

01:46:03.140 something so awful

01:46:05.740 I thought it couldn't be real

01:46:07.200 now it seemed

01:46:09.780 that whatever force

01:46:10.580 was bringing my dreams

01:46:11.600 to life

01:46:12.040 was also acting

01:46:13.000 on my nightmares

01:46:13.980 I looked Sean in the eye

01:46:17.100 trying to make my face

01:46:19.080 completely neutral

01:46:20.080 he gazed back at me

01:46:23.220 his face half in shadow

01:46:24.740 half colored by the yellow

01:46:26.900 porch light

01:46:27.600 I asked him

01:46:30.340 very carefully

01:46:31.480 is this something

01:46:33.560 you read about

01:46:34.300 on the internet

01:46:35.040 he shook his head

01:46:37.480 and said

01:46:38.220 nah man 0.92

01:46:39.520 and looked down

01:46:41.460 into his lap

01:46:42.220 I needed to find out

01:46:45.240 exactly what was going on

01:46:46.740 even if it meant

01:46:48.420 giving myself away

01:46:49.580 I asked him

01:46:52.180 have you been reading

01:46:54.160 my reddit post

01:46:55.160 he squinted at me

01:46:57.420 and asked

01:46:58.880 reddit

01:47:00.380 what is that

01:47:02.460 so it was real

01:47:06.120 after all

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01:47:41.280 free of charge

01:47:41.960 a full-scale

01:47:46.620 interface portal

01:47:47.640 below a highly

01:47:48.560 populated urban center

01:47:50.020 in the early days

01:47:51.780 of flash interface

01:47:52.720 technology

01:47:53.380 this would have been

01:47:54.900 considered utter madness

01:47:56.300 the uncontrolled

01:47:58.200 incident zone

01:47:59.120 would have resulted

01:47:59.960 in mass segmentation

01:48:01.400 and total chaos

01:48:03.000 and looking back

01:48:05.840 on the experiment

01:48:06.640 madness was in fact

01:48:09.260 the result

01:48:09.860 but for a brief time

01:48:12.080 it seemed like an idea

01:48:13.620 worth exploring

01:48:14.540 it all started one day

01:48:16.980 when a mid-level analyst

01:48:18.560 was navigating

01:48:19.340 a 3D map

01:48:20.220 of the Honduras

01:48:21.020 contained interface 2

01:48:22.440 and felt the urge

01:48:24.040 to go to the bathroom

01:48:24.980 just as she was getting up

01:48:27.640 from her desk

01:48:28.300 she was struck

01:48:29.440 by an overwhelming

01:48:30.260 realization

01:48:31.020 but before we get to that

01:48:34.040 you must understand

01:48:35.960 some background information

01:48:37.440 first

01:48:39.160 building an interface

01:48:40.660 below a populated city

01:48:41.940 was now possible

01:48:43.140 because we had learned

01:48:44.740 how to control

01:48:45.280 the size of the incident zone

01:48:46.760 we could create interfaces

01:48:49.420 with incident zones

01:48:50.580 that only existed

01:48:51.440 within the interface tunnel

01:48:52.780 instead of there being

01:48:54.420 a large uncontrolled zone

01:48:56.000 around the interface

01:48:57.180 this was achieved

01:48:59.480 through a breakthrough

01:49:00.340 involving signal cables

01:49:02.120 for years

01:49:03.740 we thought that the interfaces

01:49:05.100 had little appetite

01:49:06.060 for anything but flesh

01:49:07.460 machines and other objects

01:49:09.820 were ignored

01:49:10.460 they were not incorporated

01:49:12.580 into the interface

01:49:13.500 superstructure

01:49:14.420 they did not seem

01:49:16.160 to undergo

01:49:16.700 significant travel

01:49:17.900 but the Chinese 0.89

01:49:20.000 figured out

01:49:20.580 that the interfaces

01:49:21.340 were willing

01:49:21.980 to incorporate

01:49:22.800 electromagnetic signal cables

01:49:24.860 if a live

01:49:26.860 transmitting cable

01:49:27.900 was sent

01:49:28.380 into a phagus corridor 0.68

01:49:29.780 the cable

01:49:31.320 was taken up

01:49:32.020 by the cell of limbs

01:49:33.140 and connected

01:49:34.120 directly into the

01:49:35.060 interface's

01:49:35.680 nervous conduits

01:49:36.760 at this point

01:49:38.520 we could send

01:49:39.340 and receive signals

01:49:40.280 from the interface

01:49:41.200 you could imagine

01:49:43.160 our excitement

01:49:43.880 we had a working

01:49:45.820 example of seamless

01:49:47.260 techno-organic

01:49:48.420 integration

01:49:49.020 it would naturally

01:49:51.320 become the basis

01:49:52.140 for direct sense feed

01:49:53.360 technology

01:49:54.080 in those early days

01:49:56.460 we had no idea

01:49:57.680 what the interface

01:49:58.320 did with the signals

01:49:59.440 we sent to it

01:50:00.440 nor could we make

01:50:02.260 much sense

01:50:02.840 of the signals

01:50:03.460 it sent to us

01:50:04.380 all we knew

01:50:06.180 is that it loved

01:50:06.940 signals

01:50:07.640 the more

01:50:09.420 the better

01:50:10.200 the more cables

01:50:12.260 we hooked up

01:50:13.040 and the more

01:50:13.780 information we sent

01:50:14.940 and received

01:50:15.660 the smaller

01:50:16.900 the segmentation

01:50:17.860 zone would become

01:50:18.780 as computing

01:50:20.820 and signal

01:50:21.380 technology advanced

01:50:22.580 we were able to

01:50:23.760 reduce the segmentation

01:50:24.960 zone to an area

01:50:26.420 within the interface

01:50:27.320 tunnels

01:50:27.880 finally we had a

01:50:30.620 relatively safe

01:50:31.660 and stable

01:50:32.420 flesh interface

01:50:33.420 still we had no

01:50:36.740 reason to consider

01:50:37.500 building an interface

01:50:38.460 below a city

01:50:39.220 until her mid-level

01:50:40.680 analyst made her

01:50:41.600 startling discovery

01:50:42.680 before this discovery

01:50:46.040 we knew that the

01:50:47.620 size of a flesh

01:50:48.340 interface depended

01:50:49.260 chiefly on one

01:50:50.140 factor

01:50:50.640 how much flesh

01:50:52.440 it was provided

01:50:53.160 but at a certain point

01:50:55.340 the interface would

01:50:56.360 cease to grow

01:50:57.040 even if it was provided

01:50:59.000 with ample

01:50:59.780 building material

01:51:01.000 we wanted to know

01:51:03.280 why

01:51:03.700 why

01:51:04.600 why

01:51:04.700 had the

01:51:04.880 Novae

01:51:05.280 ezemlia

01:51:05.840 and the

01:51:06.420 Artegas

01:51:06.860 portals

01:51:07.320 grown so large

01:51:08.460 when other portals

01:51:10.000 were offered

01:51:10.580 more flesh

01:51:11.280 but failed to grow

01:51:12.300 in addition

01:51:14.260 we wanted to know

01:51:15.320 what factors

01:51:16.020 shaped the

01:51:16.460 configuration

01:51:17.000 of the interface

01:51:18.020 tunnels

01:51:18.520 the so-called

01:51:20.120 ant farms

01:51:21.140 at that point

01:51:23.040 we knew

01:51:23.920 only a few

01:51:24.500 basic facts

01:51:25.400 the tunnel

01:51:26.640 would form

01:51:27.120 either underground

01:51:27.900 or underwater

01:51:28.840 but not

01:51:30.020 in the atmosphere

01:51:30.660 the underwater

01:51:32.440 tunnels

01:51:32.880 were much larger than the underground tunnels, generating more segmentation and requiring more

01:51:39.080 signal transfer to quell the segmentation. While the interface tunnels avoided the surface,

01:51:45.320 they had little regard for the composite of the rock, sand, or soil that they were tunneling

01:51:51.160 through. They tunneled through everything at rate chiefly determined by how quickly we fed them

01:51:57.540 flesh. It was impossible to observe the tunneling process, but it must have happened via segmentation

01:52:05.280 because the dirt and rock which was removed simply disappeared. The tunnels were self-supporting

01:52:11.940 and would remain in place even if the surrounding earth shifted unless they were wholly exposed to

01:52:17.540 the open air, in which case they would putrefy. But why did the tunnels take one configuration

01:52:24.100 or another? What our mid-level analyst discovered as she travelled through the 3D digital recreation

01:52:31.360 was that the route she was taking was strangely similar to the trip she took to the bathroom

01:52:36.580 every day. It was an odd little route through a poorly designed research facility, which included

01:52:43.140 a short flight of stairs and a switchback at the end of the hall. All of this was reflected in the

01:52:50.180 ant tunnel.

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01:53:20.420 Forgetting for a moment about her desire to use the bathroom, she took an emergency escape map 0.98

01:53:25.620 off the wall and compared it to the ant tunnel she was studying. The layout of the Honduras research

01:53:32.900 facility, which was just a few hundred meters from the interface entrance, was quite different from the

01:53:39.220 layout of the interface tunnels. But there were certain similarities which went beyond coincidence.

01:53:45.940 The analyst's discovery spread quickly through the facility, and the analyst herself was given a

01:53:51.220 minor promotion along with a new office. It was discovered that the interface tunnels did not

01:53:57.300 copy the architecture of the research building, but rather the most frequently used paths and most

01:54:03.300 frequently occupied rooms in the building. That is, it copied the layout of human activity within the

01:54:10.260 building. But even this did it in a distorted, oblique way, repeatedly copying and multiplying certain

01:54:19.220 sections of the layout, as if the building map was being viewed through a multi-faceted lens.

01:54:26.100 For the people working in the facility, the discovery was nothing less than eerie. Shortly after the newly

01:54:33.140 promoted analyst moved into a new office, a new section of tunnel was created within the interface to

01:54:39.140 reflect this. No longer were the analyst detached observers. It was clear that on some level,

01:54:47.780 they were being observed and copied for some inscrutable purpose. A quick comparison of interfaces

01:54:55.940 in nearby human-occupied research facilities revealed unmistakable parallels. Huge facilities such as

01:55:03.860 Novaya tended to produce huge interfaces. This even held true for undersea interfaces such as Artigas,

01:55:11.700 where the nearest facility might be many kilometers away. The correlation was stupefyingly obvious once

01:55:18.340 we looked for it, and it set off a wave of crazed speculation. People started theorizing that the

01:55:24.980 interfaces were affected by all sorts of things. The mood in the office, how much coffee we drank,

01:55:31.700 the health of our potted plants. This period of wild speculation came to be known as the correlation

01:55:38.980 game, as almost anything was proposed as a possible correlation. Most of this speculation came to nothing,

01:55:47.940 but there was one idea that gained traction. What if we built an interface in a highly populated area,

01:55:55.620 and gave it unlimited flesh material? How big would it get?

01:56:04.660 There was this abandoned warehouse that everybody knew about. I knew it had evil spirits when I first

01:56:10.580 went into it, but the crack had me thinking nothing could touch me. Even the other crackheads didn't like

01:56:16.740 to go in there, except the ones who had really fell off. Those ones you see standing around just staring

01:56:23.380 through the wall. But I'm up in here like, I got God's protection, I don't fear anything. But really,

01:56:30.660 it's just a crack talking. I start looking around, and I find some stairs in the back. At the bottom is a

01:56:37.300 steel door. This thing is big, solid, deadbolts, everything. Somebody already went at it with a sledge,

01:56:45.780 but it ain't moved at all. You think, there's crackheads in there every night, and they still

01:56:52.420 ain't broke through that door. That's a solid door. So where I was working at, I knew my boss had a

01:57:00.340 spreader, like some Jaws of Life shit. So the next night, I took it, and I broke open that door. 0.96

01:57:06.980 Inside was just a little room with block walls and another door. Same big-ass steel door. And there

01:57:16.100 was a smell. That underground smell. But also like how when the spirits are unclean, they made a stank.

01:57:26.500 That smell. I broke open the next door, and it's a hallway with another door. I keep going through the

01:57:33.700 place, breaking open doors, but it's mostly empty. Just some desks and computers too old to sell.

01:57:40.980 I was like, shit. So I took the doors, sold them for scrap. Heavy-ass doors. The reason nobody got 0.99

01:57:49.300 in them doors before is because a crackhead can't hold onto something like a hydraulic spreader.

01:57:55.300 That thing was like $400. A crackhead will just sell the spreader. He ain't gonna fuck with those

01:58:01.860 doors when he can just get his $400. I still had some discipline. I was smoking rocks, but I had 0.99

01:58:10.660 some discipline. So I would put it back in the morning before my boss saw I took it. But that

01:58:17.860 crack had me going. So one day, I sold the spreader too. My boss never figured out it was me who took that

01:58:26.500 spreader. I was so slick. Then some things happened with me and my wife, and I stopped smoking for a

01:58:34.340 while. Things were going alright. She acted like I was gonna see my kids. But nah. I had forgot all

01:58:44.500 about that old warehouse. But just as soon as I had forgotten, I looked in my boss's trailer,

01:58:51.300 and he had another spreader. I was like, damn. I didn't even want to look at it. 0.99

01:59:00.500 I had been clean for two months, but the crack was whispering. It got me again. And I was back

01:59:07.300 down in that warehouse. I was just breaking open doors, going room to room. There was hallways,

01:59:14.740 stairs, more rooms. I kept going deeper. I found a room full of cages. A real big room, like a pound.

01:59:26.020 I was glad because it was a lot of metal. But in that last cage, at the end...

01:59:34.180 Do you believe the things I'm saying?

01:59:36.020 I know you don't believe in God. I know you don't care about the Jews or the Gentiles. The Bible is

01:59:43.540 real, but it happened a long time ago. People have forgotten. That's why they carry on like they do.

01:59:52.100 They don't know. It's just when people forget. That's when the Lord comes again. And He will punish

02:00:00.260 us all for the antiquities. The evils we do. The days to come will be full of terror. The Lord will

02:00:08.500 chastise us like little children. The smell was strong in that room. Real strong. That evil smell.

02:00:18.900 I knew what I would find before I found it. There are some bones in the last cage. Little bones,

02:00:25.300 curled up in the corner. Still with clothes on. I got out of there. I was gone. I wasn't never gonna

02:00:34.420 come back. But God, I came back and I chopped up those cages. And I took them all out. Just kicked them 0.64

02:00:45.060 bones out on the floor. I came back again the next day and broke into the next room. And there was more

02:00:54.180 cages. All of them full. I was supposed to be back in my old house with my wife and kids. But I was down

02:01:02.660 in that room with all those little skulls and hands. That's the insanity. It wasn't even worth that money,

02:01:09.700 but I kept going back. There was always one more door. One more room. Just a little more money.

02:01:16.660 I didn't even think about where them bones came from. Who killed them? Who put them in the cages?

02:01:24.020 I didn't care. When I found the room with the bones on the walls. That's when I was done.

02:01:32.100 That last night, I was way down in there underground. I opened a door. And inside,

02:01:40.100 it was just a cave. The other rooms had block walls, but this was like a mine.

02:01:46.500 I shined my flashlight around. And up ahead, I thought there was crystals on the walls or something.

02:01:53.460 But it was bones. I mean people. Hands, skulls, ribs, all of it just put together.

02:02:00.740 And it went on and on and on. I said, God, this is the valley of the shadow of death.

02:02:10.500 I knew I wasn't scared of those spirits because they were already inside of me.

02:02:15.060 Telling me, don't worry. Telling me to keep going back down in there.

02:02:19.700 I prayed to the Lord to deliver me. And I got scared right there. The spirits came out of me.

02:02:26.100 And I got scared. I won't lie. I was crying. Just shook up. I knew I wasn't alone in there.

02:02:36.980 I could feel the evil one down in that tunnel. It was all power in the dark.

02:02:44.260 Spirits of all those dead people were all formed together. To form up into the body of the evil one.

02:02:50.500 The evil one formed into a beast. It wanted me to bow to it. To bow to the idol.

02:03:00.980 I didn't bow. I ran. I was gone. That was my moment of testing. I didn't bow.

02:03:12.180 Before a minute, for a little minute, I could feel all that power.

02:03:16.100 And I smelt another smell, different from the other rooms.

02:03:21.780 I remember. My daughter is more grown now. But when she was little, I'd feed her applesauce.

02:03:31.140 I'd be thinking about her when I smell it.

02:03:33.140 I smelt it then. Coming out of the dark. And God, I wanted to bow.

02:03:44.020 Alcohol goes great with nostalgia and melancholy. It's what gives us misty-eyed barflies,

02:03:54.420 forlorn poetry, midnight phone calls, last page of The Great Gatsby,

02:04:00.580 Sinatra ballads, and 73% of all country music. That was my favorite part of drinking. The wistful

02:04:09.220 interlude a couple hours after the first flush of drunkenness, when you wander away from a

02:04:14.740 moisterous party and look out into the darkened woods, and see for a moment the fragile past

02:04:21.140 floating ghostly before you, colored in sunset oranges. All the bygone things which have slipped

02:04:29.700 away in the gentle flow of time. Your breath catches in the tightness of your throat, and your eyes

02:04:36.820 filled with tears. Then somebody calls your name or you have to piss, and you wander back into the party.

02:04:45.780 I felt like I was at my finest in these moments. I felt poetic and sensitive and alive. Eventually,

02:04:53.620 though, it all became an awful parody of itself. The gentle wishfulness devolved into me sitting in

02:05:01.380 front of my laptop, drunk on a Wednesday night, watching sad YouTube videos, weeping and slurping

02:05:08.980 down vodka and water. I would watch any sort of weepy video, soldier homecomings, kids with cancer,

02:05:18.820 dogs being put down, etc. Just to get a good cry on, to trigger that dopamine release that came with

02:05:26.900 the tears. It was nothing more than emotional masturbation, just like with the alcohol itself. 0.99

02:05:35.460 I had found something that gave me true pleasure, then used it over and over until my feelings had become 0.90

02:05:41.620 rote and dead. The same sort of thing happened with my memories of mother. At first they came unbidden,

02:05:51.620 stirring up a sense of wonder so powerful it brought tears to my eyes.

02:05:57.700 But over the course of too many drunks and too many hangovers, I replayed the memories over and over

02:06:04.820 from every angle. Eventually, I couldn't be sure if certain parts came from the original or were formed

02:06:12.340 by later recollections. The whispering magic became a monotonous drone. The vaporous impressions dried and

02:06:22.260 hardened into simple facts. Mother was a woman sewn together from different things. Mother would come in

02:06:30.820 late at night with a bag that squirmed. Inside the bag were children. We would go down into the basement

02:06:38.900 where she kept the cages. We would do things to them, together.

02:06:46.420 I thought the memories had no more power. I thought they were just abstractions at this point. Bad data.

02:06:53.380 Who could explain them? And why bother? Now I found myself walking down the street in the middle of the

02:07:02.660 night, trying to burn off these eerie feelings that Sean's story had put inside me. At the intersection,

02:07:11.780 a stiff breeze zipped down the empty lanes, making the traffic lights sway. I walked by a bar with a

02:07:19.780 patio and listened to the low rumble of confident male voices. A smell came off the bar. Cigarettes and

02:07:28.180 hot wings and liquor sweat. It was the smell of action, a smell of good times. I could just walk in

02:07:38.180 there, have a couple of drinks and hold court, tell a few jokes, make a few friends. The problem with going

02:07:47.860 out sober is you have to make all these little decisions. Where to go, where to sit, what to get.

02:07:55.460 When you go out drunk, you just make one decision. To keep drinking. Every other decision just falls

02:08:03.700 into place. Life becomes easy. As easy as listening to a story. It wasn't worth going into the bar.

02:08:13.700 It would be closing in an hour anyway. So I walked past it. On down the street. By myself.

02:08:25.380 God, if there is no closing time. No tomorrow morning. Just darkness and magic and mystery forever.

02:08:34.580 If I could just be drunk until the end of time.

02:08:43.060 Mara is molting, so we can't play. I'll have to wait until she's done.

02:08:47.940 I've moved out of the crowded sand burrow. I think six different broods live there now.

02:08:55.220 And everybody crawls all over each other and bickers and snips. Now I live in one of the sea caves.

02:09:02.740 It's wet and lonely. But at least nobody snips at me. And it's a little easier to find food.

02:09:10.180 When Mara is done molting, I want her to come here. And maybe we can live together.

02:09:17.700 The caves are made of gana black, melt rock that was hardened into fluid shapes.

02:09:24.100 The moon shines through dozens of porous holes in the roof. And the sea glitter throws shapes onto the

02:09:30.500 rock ceiling. I like to sit back and let the shapes tell the ancient world story.

02:09:36.180 This cave is nice. I will stay here. I'm getting tired of eating sea flowers. But I don't want to

02:09:45.460 go through the trouble of buying livestock. The crowds at the temple are awful this time of year.

02:09:52.260 Everybody clamors and begs and the priests are greedy and officious. They tell us the livestock is

02:09:59.220 a generous blessing from the womb sack of the mother. But I think they just buy it from the inland. 0.70

02:10:06.900 At any rate, I don't want any part of it. There is never much food around during the ebbing.

02:10:14.180 When the air turns cool and the worms travel away. But the plumes have not yet come.

02:10:21.220 This year is even worse than usual. They say the ocean dies a little more each year. The water is

02:10:28.980 becoming bitter. But since I live in this sea cave, I can get down into the cove before anybody else.

02:10:36.420 So I'm pretty lucky with what I get to eat.

02:10:40.900 I wake up to the sound of rain on the ocean outside the cave.

02:10:44.500 I look out to see which kind it will be. Light yellow. Cata green. My favorite.

02:10:53.300 I crawl out onto a bluff and let the rain fall on my carapace. There is something sweet in the

02:10:59.540 cat of green rains that loosens up the whelks on my seams. I comb through my carapace with my forelimbs,

02:11:07.300 snipping them off, letting them fall onto the rocks until the whole front is clear and smooth.

02:11:12.660 After that, I do my joints and my underside. Nowadays, with food scarce, it has become common to eat the

02:11:22.420 whelks. But they taste like ammonia. Just as I am done grooming and feeling very new and shiny,

02:11:31.460 Mara comes climbing up the rock. Her shell is brand new and looks amazing. We dance and burrow and make

02:11:39.940 happy little snips. I have missed her even more than I realized. She moves the colors on her carapace

02:11:48.180 to show me how she feels. They are very vivid on her new bone. She shows pictures of her looking

02:11:57.220 everywhere for me, searching through all these sea caves. I show her myself as I sat in the cave,

02:12:04.500 lonely and waiting for her. She snips at my front legs and I dance around for her.

02:12:13.780 Sweet lovely Mara. I show Mara my cave and she likes it. She loves the sea mist and the way we can see

02:12:23.540 the tetapurple moons pass through the sky through the holes in the rock. I show us living there together

02:12:31.700 and making it into a nice home. She shows me leaving the burrow, colored as a question.

02:12:40.500 I show her that I was too crowded and I was getting sick of all the others.

02:12:45.460 She flicks her antenna at me, making slow, comforting movements. But I notice she hasn't

02:12:52.580 answered about living in the cave. I feel my little plan is being washed away.

02:13:00.260 Mara doesn't stay with me in the cave, but she visits often. I make sure to always have

02:13:06.820 some sea flowers for her when she comes over. Lately they have been harder and harder to find.

02:13:14.340 I get so hungry that it's hard not to eat all the flowers before I can give any to Mara.

02:13:19.460 I give her the best flowers, but they are all small and colored in ugly shade of hannah blue.

02:13:28.500 Despite this, she always shows me how delicious they are.

02:13:36.340 Mara suggests we go to the temple to get some livestock to make a proper meal.

02:13:41.780 I show her that I don't like the crowds. Mara has always loved the temple.

02:13:46.340 She uses admiring colors to show the great gemstone mountain and the moons passing through the pylons

02:13:53.780 and the great ziggurat where livestock is brought out and sold.

02:13:59.620 She shows the priests with their painted shells and red claws.

02:14:04.180 I insist that I don't like meat. I prefer sea flowers.

02:14:07.780 She wiggles her hind jaws at this. Nobody can prefer sea flowers. They taste like sand.

02:14:16.980 I crawl back away from her a little. Hadn't my sea flowers always been delicious to her?

02:14:23.700 Was that just a lie? She crawls closer to me.

02:14:27.620 Her carapace takes on gentle yellows. She shows me that they were delicious because I had picked them.

02:14:36.500 But I don't want her pity. I pull my legs in and stay still until she leaves.

02:14:41.780 I don't see Mara for a long while. The third moon makes its way to the high cusp,

02:14:49.940 marking the end of the ebbing. The plumes have still not come, and I'm often hungry.

02:14:57.780 Finally, Mara shows up with meat wrapped in temple cloth. I wonder if she's there to taunt me.

02:15:04.260 But she offers it to me. She shows me that my shell has become thin and dull, and I am looking worse.

02:15:15.060 She is right. I have not eaten enough in a while.

02:15:21.300 We go down inside my cave. Before she unwraps the meat, Mara lets me know that she has become a

02:15:28.420 priestess at the temple. I turn blue with surprise. How had it happened so quickly? She had been

02:15:37.060 studying for a while without telling me, since I never liked the priest. I feel sad about this.

02:15:45.220 How many times have I complained about them in front of her while she was studying to become one?

02:15:51.460 It was no wonder I didn't have many friends.

02:15:53.540 Mara unwraps her gift. The creature she has brought me is soft and pale pink.

02:16:02.260 Mara likes the taste of these the best. But I don't think there is any difference between these

02:16:07.620 and the brown ones. I break off one of the five little feelers on the end of its foreleg,

02:16:13.380 and nibble at it. But Mara snips at me, and breaks off a hind leg, and offers me the thick end. 0.99

02:16:20.100 My shell turns yellow, and I take it. The pretty red juice runs all over my jaws as they pull the meat

02:16:29.780 from the bone. We eat in blankness for a while. Then I ask Mara where the priests get the livestock

02:16:37.540 from. It has always been a mystery, since none of these soft little creatures are ever found on the

02:16:44.100 land or in the sea. I have wondered if they raise them inside the temple, or if they bring them in

02:16:51.540 from the inland. Mara doesn't answer at first. She doesn't want to show me. I ask again.

02:17:01.940 She shows me a quick, vague picture. The old story about the womb and egg. Something the priests tell

02:17:09.700 little children. I know she is hiding something. So I snip at her. Why does she hide things from me?

02:17:20.020 We used to be so close. After a moment, a picture forms on her carapace. As clear and vivid as anything

02:17:29.620 she has ever shown me, I ask what I am seeing. It is the womb. That's where they come from.

02:17:44.100 Dear Iselandria, I hope your name is Iselandria. I will name my daughter Tezalandria,

02:17:51.460 and I will tell her to name you Iselandria. These names are prettier, more than my name.

02:17:58.260 Anne. Too plain. I am your grandmother. And even though you are still not born,

02:18:05.460 I am writing to you in all 100% original English. Grandmother is teaching it to me.

02:18:12.740 My grandmother is your great-great-grandmother. I call her Allie Helmini.

02:18:18.740 Yet that is not true English. Whoops. Grandmother is my best friend,

02:18:25.460 and she gives me presents. When I meet you, I will give them to you,

02:18:32.100 and we can be best friends the same. Can you keep secrets? Some of the presents are secret.

02:18:41.220 I will keep this letter and your presents safe under my bed until you are here.

02:18:45.940 I will give you the presents and a lot of hugs. I am learning new English every day.

02:18:54.580 Cloyster. Do you know what that is? Grandmother used to live there.

02:19:01.140 It is a special house for the mountain-born. Surprise! Grandmother was a mountain-born.

02:19:07.860 She came out of the mountain's womb when she was a little girl. That's why me and Mom are very healthy,

02:19:16.980 and I hope you will be very healthy the same. I hope you have curly hair and green eyes.

02:19:23.940 Rather plain hair, like me. Grandmother said she hated to live in the cloister,

02:19:30.820 because the monks are mean. Grandmother does not like the monks. Yet that is secret.

02:19:39.140 Don't show this letter to anybody. It is just for you. After she moved out of the cloister,

02:19:45.860 she met Grandfather. He was very nice, yet not healthy, and he is passed on to the love of the imp's son.

02:19:56.020 On days when the imp's son rises before the big monk's son, I say some prayers to Grandfather. 0.99

02:20:03.620 Grandmother never says prayers to the imp's son. Rather, she only prays inside.

02:20:08.900 I want to tell you about your presents. Grandmother carved them directly from green crystal. The biggest

02:20:18.900 one is a kitty cat. That is an animal that lives on the far world. The next one is a rose. That is a

02:20:27.540 vegetable that grows on the far world. It is supposed to be red, yet this one is green and still very

02:20:34.180 pretty. The littlest one is the secret one. Grandmother keeps it for herself, and she will not

02:20:41.940 tell me what it is still. Yet one day she will give it to me. I think she is still working to carve it.

02:20:51.380 When she started to make the rose, it was just a block, and she carved it and made it beautiful.

02:20:58.020 When she started the little one, it was just a T-shape,

02:21:02.260 yet now she has carved a little man on the front of the T. I know she will finish it very beautiful for you.

02:21:10.180 Okay, that's it. See you not soon, Isalandria. Love, Anne

02:21:21.300 The remnant ember of a dying star drips along the gigantic fringe,

02:21:26.820 companioned solely by a tiny world. On the planet's surface, a great crystal tower lords over a vast

02:21:36.820 and airless plain. The cooling star's blue light draws the tower's shadow across the land,

02:21:44.500 and marks the passage of the ages. Through the core of the tower runs an artery of living flesh,

02:21:53.060 branching paths of blood, are refracted within facets. At the base of the spire, there is no door,

02:22:03.540 no entryway, but at the top, a fleshy orifice. Once or twice in age, for purpose unknown,

02:22:13.860 tower's mouth expels a living human to fall down and down through the airless space and land atop a scree

02:22:23.140 of other people. A traveller passing on foot would be forgiven for wondering why so many other travellers 1.00

02:22:32.020 had approached the tower and flung themselves down at its base to die. Perhaps it was in prayer,

02:22:41.540 or perhaps they were searching for an entryway, for a door, which doesn't exist.

02:22:50.180 I have decided to move out of the sober house. People usually stay here a couple months.

02:23:04.900 I've stayed here for over six months. Honestly, I'm finding it hard to live in the same house with

02:23:10.820 Sean. He's never been easy to live with, and lately we've been getting in arguments about little

02:23:17.860 shit like chores. On top of that, I'm freaked out by a story about the room full of bones. 0.97

02:23:25.780 I've come up with a few theories about why he would tell me that story,

02:23:30.180 and why he would insist it was real. None of these theories are terribly comforting.

02:23:35.940 I want to put it behind me, for a while. I had actually considered finding the warehouse that he

02:23:44.020 mentioned. Maybe it would give me some answers, but I've decided. Fuck that. I'm not going to some

02:23:52.660 goddamn warehouse in Crack City. I don't need an ending to my story that badly. I'll just do what 0.99

02:23:59.780 I've been doing. Make shit up. Actually, I've been stuck for the past few days. I can't really 0.99

02:24:07.940 come up with anything that seems fitting as an ending. I've been considering just leaving it

02:24:13.380 unfinished. Maybe not all stories should have endings. Endings are a lie. I've realized that AA meetings

02:24:22.740 are just a form of storytelling. That's what we do in meetings. We sit in a circle, tell each other

02:24:29.060 stories, and we pretend like it's all real life. But every time somebody shares, they make an attempt

02:24:36.500 to storify their life. To make it into some tidy little parable. Sometimes the parables are profound

02:24:45.380 and touching. And sometimes they're just absurd or cliched, or just terrible. A guy in meeting might

02:24:54.820 tell a story about how he got into an argument with his boss. And he might end it with something like,

02:25:01.060 and that's how I learned I need to stand up for myself. Except maybe arguing with his boss was a

02:25:07.620 terrible idea. Maybe he's trying to portray stupidity as wisdom. Or maybe it really was wisdom. Either way, 1.00

02:25:16.740 he's packaging the truth up as a story with a lesson at the end. And this covers up one of the essential

02:25:22.820 facts of life. That it just keeps going along. Not giving a shit about our attempts to explain it.

02:25:31.380 There are these moments in life when the goal is achieved and the story should end and the credits 0.89

02:25:37.460 should roll. But instead, it just keeps going the fuck along. The guy gets the girl, and now they 0.96

02:25:46.020 have to live with each other. She farts a lot and he hogs the shower. Or the underdog team wins the 1.00

02:25:51.940 tournament. And now they have to get ready for the next season. Ten seasons later they're all retired,

02:25:58.260 sitting around and scratching their balls. That's the first big problem. The recovering alcoholic 0.98

02:26:05.780 encounters. We make the inspiring and courageous decision to walk away from our whole way of life,

02:26:12.020 to try something new. The story could end there. But it doesn't. Instead, life stretches on, and we

02:26:22.260 have to live day after day with a grinding boredom of sobriety. So maybe the interface story should be

02:26:30.100 like that. No tidy ending. Just, here, take it or leave it. Except that's lame. That's a rip-off.

02:26:41.300 I'll just wait. Some kind of ending will come to me. But I'm not going to that warehouse though.

02:26:48.420 No. Fuck no. I'm not asking Sean any more about it either. If I have to make up a shitty ending, 1.00

02:26:56.820 that's fine. A lot of good books have shitty endings. At this point, I'm just a little burned out.

02:27:07.540 After I'm done, I'm going to put aside writing and work on my social life for a while.

02:27:13.380 I'm going to try to change my number of friends from zero to a positive integer.

02:27:19.700 I thought maybe I could find a group of friends in recovery, but it hasn't happened.

02:27:25.460 I don't like recovery people. They're corny and boring. I've found a room to rent near downtown, 1.00

02:27:32.980 in an arty neighborhood. And, as a soon-to-be acclaimed writer, don't I belong among the thinkers

02:27:41.300 and the artists? I'm going to get in touch with some old friends, and I'm going to try to go out

02:27:47.780 and meet people. I'll just try to get a small circle of friends started. I know I need to meet

02:27:54.420 friends. I've always known how. It's easy. I'm going to drink again.

02:28:00.260 One time, my mom took me to a clothes store. She was wearing a blue dress, and I was following her

02:28:09.380 around. But then I looked up, and it wasn't her. It was some other lady wearing a blue dress I had 1.00

02:28:17.380 followed by mistake. I was scared, so I ran away from the lady, but then I couldn't find mom.

02:28:25.700 A lady from the store found me crying and took me back to her. I was mad at her because I thought 0.90

02:28:32.820 she switched into that lady on purpose to trick me. I was too little to know that that's not possible.

02:28:42.660 Is it? I wake up by myself and go downstairs for toast and jam, but the kitchen is totally empty.

02:28:51.300 I call mom. Mom. But she doesn't answer. I can't find anybody. In the TV room, there's a stranger

02:29:03.140 sitting in the big chair. Uh-oh. I can only see the back of her head. Gray hair. I sneak away into my room.

02:29:14.820 Upstairs, I check mom and dad's room and my sister's room, but they're all empty. Where did they all go?

02:29:26.500 It's not fair that they all left without me. Anna and Brittany always go places and do things without

02:29:32.900 me. But mom wouldn't do that. She likes to take me everywhere. We are best friends, so what happened?

02:29:42.260 Maybe they said they were going somewhere and I didn't listen. Mom always tells me to listen better.

02:29:51.540 Why don't I? Wait a minute. Today is Sunday. Usually, we go to church on Sunday. Mom and dad go to the

02:30:01.060 grown-up church and I go to Sunday school. They must be at church. Last week, I told mom that I never,

02:30:09.300 ever, ever wanted to go to church again. Hey, maybe mom decided to leave me at home just like I told her

02:30:16.980 to. This is great. No stupid Sunday school. All the playtime I want. I run over to where my toys are

02:30:27.060 piled up in the corner and get all the ones I want. I've been playing this great game with my trucks and

02:30:32.740 cars called police versus firemen. The policemen use their guns and the firemen use their hoses

02:30:39.300 and they even have hoses that shoot fire. I play for a long time and it's great, but I'm getting more

02:30:47.220 hungry. When will everybody be back? How long is church? It feels like forever when I'm there.

02:30:55.540 It's so boring and the kids aren't nice to me. I remember that last week I cried in the car on

02:31:02.980 the way over because I didn't want to go. Mom was mad. I was really crying like a baby and it was

02:31:10.420 embarrassing. I always cry too much. Anna and Brittany make fun of me for it because I cry more than them,

02:31:20.260 but they are girls. I try not to, but I do it anyways. I wonder about the stranger downstairs.

02:31:30.420 It looked like an old gray-haired lady, but I only saw her back. Is she a babysitter? 1.00

02:31:37.860 I decide to go downstairs and get some crackers from the pantry. Mom keeps some on the shelf for me.

02:31:43.860 I go get the crackers and eat them until I'm full. On my way back, I pass by the TV room.

02:31:51.780 That old lady is still sitting there. Her long gray hair is hanging down over the back of the chair. 0.98

02:31:59.140 It's got leaves and little sticks stuck in it. This makes me want to giggle a bit. What a messy lady. 1.00

02:32:06.980 But then I start to get scared thinking about it. I sneak back upstairs.

02:32:16.980 Now it's sunset time and I'm hungry again. And I'm a lot more scared.

02:32:24.820 Mom and Dad and everybody are still gone. What if they don't come back?

02:32:30.260 Mom was really mad at me for crying last time. Now this is punishment.

02:32:39.460 Oh no. What if God is mad at me for not going? We're supposed to go to Sunday school to make God

02:32:46.980 happy and I didn't go. I was really bad. What if this is a big punishment?

02:32:55.620 God can make people disappear forever. I get down on my knees and press my hands very tight together

02:33:04.420 and whisper, I'm sorry, God, for not going to Sunday school. I will go every time, forever,

02:33:12.260 until I am dead. I am sorry. I am sorry. Please bring Mom and Dad and Anna and Brittany back.

02:33:19.140 Thank you, God. Amen. I get up and run over to my window. I can see the front lawn and the street.

02:33:30.500 It's all empty. I wait for Dad's car to come down the street. Now they'll all come back.

02:33:38.180 But nobody comes. Downstairs I hear noises. Like a dog growling, but so loud. And something banging on

02:33:52.100 the ceiling. I go into my closet. I cry too much. I always cry too much. The person sitting in the big

02:34:05.860 chair. New mother. A basement full of specimens. Glistening membranes. Blurred faces laughing.

02:34:15.940 Tower witch monster. Mountain apocalyptic sky infested with winged things. The dream folds in on

02:34:23.860 itself and spills out dozens of new creatures. Images intercourse. Panes of light behind everything.

02:34:33.220 Ragged muppet creatures tumbling out and chasing one another. Devouring, bloody crunching.

02:34:41.060 Growing panes of light. Galapagos critters howling, infesting, affixing. Lamprey succubus,

02:34:48.820 Voltron food chain formation. Panes of light. A persistent locus. The window pane's persistence

02:34:57.220 triggers reality. Rational bootstrapping. Persistence rapidly infects everything else. The weird Galapagos

02:35:06.340 creatures die off. Too weird to live. All the props of ordinary reality are rushed into place just before

02:35:14.420 I open my eyes. A sunlit window in a bedroom. Where is this? My new place. I rented it online before

02:35:28.740 moving out of the sober house. This is real. I try to remember what I did over the last few days. The

02:35:37.380 memories are a dark, shifting mess. A clinging mud I'm afraid to touch. Face hurts. My tongue finds cuts 0.98

02:35:47.220 on the inside of my bottom lip. Brown spots dot the white pillowcase. Picking my head up and looking

02:35:56.180 around the room. I recall it from the twenty sober minutes I spent here. Before going to the bar.

02:36:04.660 Beside the bed, the nightstand has been tipped over and the lamp is a corded pile of shards. 1.00

02:36:11.940 Shit. This isn't my stuff. It's just a bedroom in somebody's house. 0.99

02:36:18.180 I slide out of bed. My stomach tingles. My brain tingles. My limbs are moving stroboscopically.

02:36:30.100 Oh wow. I am inside the nightmare. Mind crucifying. Reddish spots make a trail along the hardwood floor. 1.00

02:36:40.500 Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can't handle this. 1.00

02:36:43.860 I run to the little bathroom and a red-faced creature lurches into the mirror's frame. 1.00

02:36:50.500 Oh Jesus. A distorted mass of bruises. I turn this way and that to see my new features.

02:36:59.460 The horrible tingling in my brain feels like it's going to eat through my skull.

02:37:04.740 I check my teeth and my heart sinks. The bonding of my front tooth has been knocked out.

02:37:10.660 The other teeth seem okay though. I look down at the sink. It seems to have been scrubbed with blood.

02:37:20.500 Swirling trails of reddish brown cover the porcelain. It's on the floor. The toilets. The walls.

02:37:30.260 Damn. It's a lot of blood. 1.00

02:37:32.740 Have you ever noticed that whenever you swallow your throat closes up for a moment and you can't

02:37:40.500 breathe at all? Of course it always opens back up. The process is quite automatic and you don't need to

02:37:48.020 think about it. But what if you do think about it? What if by thinking about it you somehow confuse

02:37:56.020 everything and your throat just stays closed? What if all that gummy flesh just sticks together

02:38:04.340 and you suffocate to death? This is how I think after a bender. I call it the scary swallows. 1.00

02:38:13.620 I swallow and my throat seems to catch for a moment cutting off my windpipe.

02:38:18.260 And panic blooms through my brain, threatening to take over everything. And then I manage to suck in

02:38:27.140 a breath and the panic subsides until the next swallow. So I try not to swallow at all. But then

02:38:34.980 I'm thinking about it. Obsessing over it. And my throat starts to twitch. Shut up. Shut up. Irrelevant.

02:38:46.100 Stupid. Do something. What do I do? Liquor. Look for liquor. My queasy stomach groans at the thought of 1.00

02:38:58.020 it. But every other part of me shrieks with anticipation. Liquor will make everything else

02:39:04.500 possible. Without it the panic will rattle me apart. With it I can do anything. I scan the blood

02:39:13.060 smeared bathroom for bottles. Nothing. Out in the bedroom there's an empty half gallon of vodka and

02:39:19.860 empty cans everywhere. Drunk to the last drop. God damn it. Nothing in here. Where's the owner?

02:39:31.620 I remember that I checked into the place without meeting him using a door code. Have I met him since?

02:39:39.060 No idea. That area of memory is corrupt. What will he think when he sees the broken lamp,

02:39:45.780 the blood, my face? He'll kick me out for sure. What if something even worse is waiting outside the

02:39:53.940 bedroom door? What if I've killed him and his body is lying face down on the floor and my entire life is

02:40:00.660 over. And I was so close. So fucking close. To getting out of this misery. Of doing something. Of 0.99

02:40:10.740 accomplishing something. Something mom and dad could be proud of and now it's all over. All destroyed.

02:40:17.540 Calm yourself. Calmness. This is all imagination. Just your fanciful imagination.

02:40:26.340 What a delight it is. Just go out into the living room and look. Just go. Just go.

02:40:37.540 I crack the bedroom door and peek out. It's the ordinary living room and kitchen of a pretty nice

02:40:46.100 apartment. I don't see anybody lying face down in a pool of blood. Nothing is broken.

02:40:55.460 Liquor. Now. I go to the kitchen. There's nothing on the counters. I open the refrigerator. Please, please,

02:41:05.140 please, please. There is nothing. Oh, you titillating cunt. Did I go to room with one of the sober

02:41:14.340 motherfuckers in this whole fucked up drinking ass city? I open the freezer. A frosty bottle lies on 1.00

02:41:22.500 its side. I pull it out. It's a fifth of absolute. Full. Unopened. Emitting a ghostly cold mist like an angel.

02:41:35.140 I stare at it in my shaking hands. Tears coming to my eyes. I feel flowing through my entire existence

02:41:44.580 to be grudging mercy of a disapproving god. I scratch at the stupid, slippery plastic around the cap. 1.00

02:41:52.740 My trembling hands are almost useless. I imagine myself having a seizure before I can get the bottle 0.99

02:41:59.140 open. Dying right here on the kitchen floor. Like a man in a desert, dying of thirst just feet away

02:42:06.260 from an oasis. But finally, I manage to tear the cracking plastic off. The front door of the apartment

02:42:14.420 swings open, letting in a blast of horrible sunlight. A figure stands at the door. I shove the bottle back

02:42:22.180 into the freezer and slam it shut and turn my back to the person. I want to run and hide. To evaporate.

02:42:31.780 But all I can do is just stand there. Fuck. Fuck. 1.00

02:42:37.140 Oh, hey man. A friendly voice says. Nick, right? Yeah, good. I mumble. I am still standing with my back to 1.00

02:42:49.380 the person. This is not a valid human behavior. Fuck. Fuck. Why did he have to come home now? I force

02:43:00.740 myself to turn around. A youngish dude standing in the doorway with a bag slung over his shoulder.

02:43:10.580 Apparently the owner. Hey, are you alright? He asks, a smile fading from his face. Yeah. What happened to

02:43:21.220 you? I don't know. Mountain biking. Another invalid response from me. Now he's worried.

02:43:30.740 He glances around the apartment, checking to see if his stuff is okay. I broke your lamp. I say

02:43:37.140 preemptively. I'm gonna go. I'm sorry. What happened? He asks, closing the front door.

02:43:46.500 I got drunk and mountain biking. I mumble. I head to the bedroom, my heart pounding.

02:43:53.780 On second inspection, I notice that not only is the nightstand turned over and the lamp is broken,

02:44:02.020 but there are broken plates and a hole punched in the drywall and beef jerky sticks strewn everywhere.

02:44:08.340 Jesus, man. What did you do? The guy asks as he follows me into the room.

02:44:13.700 I don't know. I say, already on the verge of sobbing. Maybe I can just cry my way out of this.

02:44:22.500 Nobody likes to see a grown man cry. I've gotta get out of here. I got drunk. Please,

02:44:29.300 just take the month's rent. I'll go. I say. This is a really stupid offer. I can't afford to give away

02:44:37.620 a month's rent. But I don't know what else to do. I can't handle going to jail. It would kill me.

02:44:45.940 My heart feels like it's trying to punch its way out of my chest. I need liquor. I just need liquor.

02:44:53.380 Dude, hold on. How much stuff did you fuck up? The guy asks. This is it. I say, not really knowing 0.99

02:45:04.020 if I'm telling the truth or not. A bunch of my clothes are lying on the floor. And I gather them

02:45:09.620 up and throw them into my suitcase and zip it up. Only to realize that there are a lot more of my

02:45:14.980 clothes obviously lying all over the place. Well, we need to figure out the damages. I can't, okay?

02:45:22.420 I've gotta go. I say in a quavering, childish voice, just take the month's rent. The guy starts

02:45:30.900 inspecting the room as I pack my clothes. The awkwardness of it makes me want to claw my eyes

02:45:36.420 out. My suitcase won't close. The clothes won't fit unless they are perfectly folded. God, I want to cry.

02:45:44.500 I am almost crying. Good. Good. It's like a squid blasting out a jet of ink. It will allow me to

02:45:55.140 escape. I throw my least favorite shirts onto the floor and zip the suitcase up. When I stand up,

02:46:02.820 me and the guy have this moment where we're looking at each other eye to eye.

02:46:06.260 Why? Dude, he says. You're all fucked up. I'm taking the vodka, I announce.

02:46:16.980 I fall asleep in the closet, but I wake up in my bed. Before I open my eyes, I know she will be there.

02:46:25.060 She is. Standing at the end of the bed. Morning time. She is not a person. She is something else.

02:46:36.740 I try not to cry. I start crying right away. I can't stop. She is tall, but her body is not a body.

02:46:49.860 It is just a pile of things. It's covered in a long, shiny robe. Shiny from a million blue gold

02:46:58.260 flies crawling on her. Long gray hair covers most of her face. I look up at the ceiling and scream and

02:47:08.020 scream and scream and scream. I scream for mommy to come back. The ceiling turns pink and fuzzy.

02:47:17.140 I am screaming so hard. Then she is standing over me, looking down on me.

02:47:24.420 Her face is awful pieces of animal. I remember her eyes. The same eyes as the white horse Brittany rides.

02:47:35.460 The one that mom said I could pet, but it bit my hand and I had to go to the hospital.

02:47:43.620 The eyes are just hanging on the face, not really looking at me.

02:47:47.460 The flies crawl on them. I am shaking, scared. Please God, please, please make her go away.

02:47:59.620 She snorts and makes animal sounds. Her old barn smell makes me want to throw up. She reaches out 1.00

02:48:06.900 and her fingers are made of crab legs, all different sizes. No, no, no. I hate crabs more than anything.

02:48:15.940 When we go to the beach, my dad always makes sure to pick a part of the beach with no crabs. He says he

02:48:23.620 can tell when there are crabs because... No, no, no, no. She touches my face with her crab hands.

02:48:30.260 Horrible. Horrible. I close my eyes as tight as I can and scoot against the back of the bed.

02:48:36.740 The touching stops. I press my eyes shut tight. Tweets and chirps.

02:48:45.940 Drink, a happy little voice says. I keep my eyes closed.

02:48:53.060 Drink, says the voice. It sounds fun and cartoony.

02:48:57.220 I open my eyes just a little bit. A dozen bird heads have crawled out of a hole in her neck.

02:49:07.140 They move in different ways. I found a dead baby bird once in our backyard.

02:49:12.980 It had no skin and blue lumps for eyes. It is there with the other birds.

02:49:22.260 Drink, it says in its funny parrot voice.

02:49:25.380 She holds up a big silver spoon in her crab hands. A greenish monkey hand holds up a glass 0.99

02:49:34.420 bottle full of purple stuff and pours it into the spoon.

02:49:38.340 I can smell it. Grape, like the medicine mom gives me. Is it the same stuff?

02:49:48.580 She holds the spoon up for me to drink. Please God, make this stop. 0.90

02:49:55.220 All the birds giggle. Her claw pinky pokes my neck. It hurts.

02:50:01.780 I open my mouth. Down goes the medicine.

02:50:07.380 I lie there with my eyes shut tight. I cry and stop crying and cry again.

02:50:14.420 I know she's there. The smell. The flies. The sound of animal breath.

02:50:21.940 Why won't she go away? 0.84

02:50:23.300 Why won't she go away? Please go away. Go away. Go away. Please God, make her go away. 1.00

02:50:33.860 Something slipped inside my eyes. I can see it even though they're closed. Not a square. Not a triangle.

02:50:42.660 A shape I don't know the name of. Lots of shapes. Oh no. My eyeballs fill up with little people,

02:50:54.500 like a Where's Waldo book. There's a million of them, all doing different things,

02:50:59.620 moving around in an old city with castles and flags. They're running through tunnels and climbing up

02:51:05.620 towers. I can watch them all at once. There's a baker and a knight and a clown and a queen with lots of...

02:51:16.980 They're all dying. Cartoon-y blood pours everywhere. And they've all got scared looks on their faces 0.77

02:51:24.420 and the blood washes away and they're all playing and smiling again.

02:51:28.420 The places and people change. I see stories. They happen all at once. A hundred stories.

02:51:40.020 But I can watch them all at once. It's different people crying and laughing and living and dying

02:51:48.500 and doing all kinds of things. It's like seeing ten movies all at once.

02:51:53.780 And it's so much. Too much. I open my eyes. She is still there, piled up on the edge of the bed.

02:52:05.620 The Where's Waldo people are still there. Playing and laughing and bleeding and dying.

02:52:12.900 The animal pieces of her face open up and... Look. There's another face inside.

02:52:19.860 It's a woman's face or maybe a man's face made of wet clay. It's smooth and beautiful. And I'm not scared

02:52:30.660 at all looking at it. And I feel like I'm floating. The clay changes and the face turns into other faces.

02:52:39.620 It's an old man. A young man. A Chinese guy. A sad black guy. Other guys. A cat. 1.00

02:52:49.620 The shapes of the faces change but something in the eyes stays the same.

02:52:55.620 Staring at me. Telling me something.

02:52:58.820 The face changes one more time. It's a woman's face. 1.00

02:53:08.020 Mother. Maybe very old. Maybe very young. 0.98

02:53:13.940 Mother. The eyes say something clearly. Mother.

02:53:18.660 Mother. I can feel my heart beating. When it beats it says,

02:53:24.180 Mother. Mother. Mother.

02:53:26.820 The eyes are sad. So old and sad and kind.

02:53:32.580 So kind. Like they're sorry for me. Like they wish they could help me.

02:53:38.660 But the face is still and the lips are pressed together.

02:53:41.460 Mother. Like she. Mother. Is trying to hide that she is sad.

02:53:49.940 Trying not to be sad. Trying to be strict. Because.

02:53:57.700 Because she is going to punish me. It is the same luck mom gives me.

02:54:03.780 When I've been bad and she puts me in time out.

02:54:06.500 The face is mom's face but also a thousand other faces.

02:54:14.260 They feel sorry for me.

02:54:17.540 Oh no. Oh no. No. No. No. No. No. No.

02:54:24.980 I scream and scream. Scream. Scream.

02:54:29.380 Outside. The midday light and the heat are mind bending.

02:54:36.740 Like some kind of goddamn UFO ray zapping me. 0.98

02:54:41.540 Sweat rolls down my burning face. Squinting makes my cheeks ache. 0.99

02:54:47.460 The wheels of my suitcase rumble over the gritty sidewalk. 0.97

02:54:50.900 I have no fucking idea where I am or where I'm going. 0.98

02:54:57.140 Some street. Some fucking neighborhood. 1.00

02:55:01.300 I desperately want a drink from the bottle of liquor I'm carrying in a grocery bag. 1.00

02:55:06.820 But I'm afraid somebody will see and report me.

02:55:10.580 All the internal alarms in my mind and body are ringing at once.

02:55:14.340 Each passing car seems like it will pull over.

02:55:19.060 Each one seems to slow and veer towards the curb.

02:55:23.220 Each one is surely filled with gang members or undercover cops, ready to beat me down.

02:55:30.500 Each one passes, sending a wave of warm air and panic past me. 0.90

02:55:35.300 I am insane. I do not belong in normal society. I must be isolated. I must keep moving.

02:55:49.140 Sidewalk ends. Shit. Fuck. 1.00

02:55:54.340 The road is turning into some kind of freeway. 1.00

02:55:56.900 Can I walk along it? Is it allowed? I don't know. I don't know. Why don't I know things?

02:56:08.900 Everybody knows things. Here I am wandering, tits out, no fucking clue. 0.99

02:56:15.460 This wet bottle of liquor is showing right through the plastic bag. 0.99

02:56:20.900 I've gotta get somewhere. I've gotta get this liquor inside me.

02:56:25.620 I trudged through an abandoned lot, trying to get away from the road, dragging the rebellious suitcase

02:56:34.340 over rocks and weeds. There's a bunch of high grass and some kind of sloping concrete drainage

02:56:41.620 thing behind it. I don't even know what the fuck it is or how to describe it. I'm not a novelist. 0.90

02:56:50.740 Never was. I plop down on the concrete so that the weeds shield me from the passing cars on the road.

02:56:59.140 And I spin the cap off the bottle. My stomach cringes when the cold liquor hits it.

02:57:06.660 Relief begins to flow almost immediately into my brain. Merely psychological, I'm sure.

02:57:13.460 But psychological is exactly what I need right now. I breathe deep and shudder and take more sips,

02:57:24.340 shaping my tongue into a sluice to send it right down my throat with no fuss.

02:57:29.380 The panic slackens. Perfect. Perfect. Relief.

02:57:41.620 All the nightmarish feelings are still inside me. But now there's just a bit of distance between me

02:57:48.500 and them. They are at bay. Pretty soon I've taken down a quarter of the bottle. Wow. Fuck.

02:58:00.660 Look at me. Just a few days out of the sober house and I'm literally lying in a ditch with a bottle of liquor. 1.00

02:58:07.220 At least it's a concrete, man-made ditch. No declassé dirt ditches for me. I snicker at the thought.

02:58:19.780 My panic of just moments ago seems ridiculous. Underneath it though, the awful horror is still there.

02:58:28.260 I know my snickering is just an empty little show of bravery. What to do now? Usually, at this point,

02:58:39.380 I would do forensics. We have to find out what happened over the past few days. For example,

02:58:46.740 who beat me up. But it could be anybody. Who even cares? I used to get punched out all the time.

02:58:55.220 Whoever did this really had it in for me though. I must have unleashed a few of my delightful bond

02:59:02.580 motts on an unamused stranger. I check my phone. All my cringe sensors are on full alert.

02:59:12.900 Ready to fire when I see what nonsense text and 3am calls I've made. But it's just a few ordinary texts

02:59:21.300 from my new landlord. He says he won't be back until Monday. That's today. I left the sober house on...

02:59:32.020 When was it? Wednesday? Fuck. A five-day bender. And only a handful of memories from it all.

02:59:42.980 Scary. At least the owner was out of town for most of it.

02:59:47.060 I take a sip to my good fortune. It occurs to me to check Reddit. I have a vague memory of being on

02:59:57.060 there, chortling at some outrageous comments I made. Let's see. It turns out I posted the piece I had been

03:00:06.180 working on and the title was Chode or Chode. Let's settle the debate. Jesus, how stupid.

03:00:17.620 It certainly undermines my claims of possessing otherworldly knowledge. 1.00

03:00:22.660 Hey, some guy possesses the power to see into alternate timelines and he's using it to make

03:00:27.940 chode jokes on the internet. Right. A wave of ethanol relief is fully washing over me, caressing me,

03:00:38.260 easing my worries. I can feel the euphoria of the booze, but I can also feel the dread of the

03:00:45.380 withdrawal at the same time. And I know that both feelings are lies. Soon the euphoria will be gone,

03:00:53.940 and the dread will rain again. It will be like this for three days, or more, if I keep getting drunk and

03:01:02.340 this turns into just another day in the bender. I have to try to taper down. But tapering means always 0.98

03:01:10.260 drinking less than you want to, always remaining in barely tolerable misery. I groan, and my babyish

03:01:20.020 instincts tell me to take another drink. But I don't. I shouldn't drink for another hour. Then one shot

03:01:29.940 every hour, until it's time for sleep. Then six shots to speed me through the nightmare realms.

03:01:36.820 God. The math. The fucking math. Seventeen drinks in a fifth. Nine hours until alcohol sales stop.

03:01:50.420 The body processes a drink an hour. For all those months, I didn't have to do the drinking math.

03:01:57.300 Now I'm back in it. I groan and lie back against the concrete drainage, whatever. I know I look like

03:02:07.460 the very picture of a drunk, but I don't care. I wallow in the feeling. Good. Good, I say.

03:02:18.100 One of the lies that leads you down the road of addiction is that you are just visiting. The first

03:02:24.180 time you end up in the drunk tank, or the trap house, as the kids call it, or the rehab. You look

03:02:31.780 at all the other guys and shake your head at how sad their lives are, because they are regulars. But you,

03:02:40.100 you are just visiting. You're here because of a crazy fuck up. But you'll go back to your normal life. 1.00

03:02:46.980 Heck, it'll be a funny story. Even when it happens for the second or third time, you're still just

03:02:55.540 visiting. You're just a tourist in the land of misery. Not a resident. Well, no more lies for me.

03:03:06.980 I am not visiting. I am returning home. And everything is just where I left it.

03:03:20.340 Mother has put a nail in my brain. The nail stays still. Everything else moves.

03:03:28.820 Last year, me and my family took a trip to California. My dad got to drive on the Pacific

03:03:34.900 Coast Highway. He really loves cars and it was his dream to drive on that highway since he was a little

03:03:41.060 boy like me. But he didn't get to drive on it much because I got really car sick. We kept having to

03:03:49.380 stop and then we just went home. My dad didn't say anything on the way home. Why did mom and dad leave me

03:03:58.340 behind? Was it because of stuff like that? Because I'm too much of a baby? I feel like I'm carsick now.

03:04:10.020 The medicine makes everything look like it has colored shadows. Everything is going different

03:04:16.500 ways and different colors. I can see things that don't happen. And things that do. Things that try

03:04:25.540 to happen but don't get to. It's too confusing. Outside, it's sunny. But I stay in bed so I don't feel so

03:04:36.420 sick. If I lie in bed, I only see a few things. Me lying this way or that way. But if I get out of bed,

03:04:46.100 I see a thousand different me's. I'm doing different things and crowding everything up,

03:04:51.300 like where's Waldo. It makes me dizzy. Mother comes in and puts three big stones on the floor by my bed.

03:05:01.220 I don't know why. I watch them. They just sit there, doing nothing. I think about pushing one of them

03:05:11.300 away. And then it's covered with color shadows. The shadows show things that could happen but don't.

03:05:20.980 So I make this a game. Watching what could happen.

03:05:27.380 After a few days, I start feeling a little better. I still see colors, but they don't make me sick all

03:05:33.220 the time. When Mother comes to give me more medicine, I tell her I'm hungry.

03:05:40.820 Make some food then, dear, she says with her bird voice. How? She points to the stones.

03:05:50.100 Command that these stones be made bread, she says in a new voice. A man's voice. 0.68

03:05:56.100 I look at the stones. Now they are colored with more shadows, moving every different way.

03:06:05.220 It looks like colored fire. But I don't know what to do. I say,

03:06:12.660 Stones, turn into bread. I shake my finger at them like Harry Potter pointing as one. 1.00

03:06:18.580 I see a color of fire I haven't seen before. It works. The stones are bread. Mother laughs.

03:06:32.500 Mother leaves and I eat the bread. It's wonderful, just like my favorite bread from Tony's. Warm and

03:06:40.980 squishy. But how did it happen? Is this magic? Real magic? I drop the bread and run to the window.

03:06:53.380 The street is empty. Almost sunset. I close my eyes and make a special magic spell. When I open my eyes,

03:07:04.740 eyes. Yes. There it is. Coming down the street. Mom and Dad's car.

03:07:16.580 The back of my neck feels all hot and boggy when I wake up. I hate that. The air conditioner in this

03:07:26.020 motel room makes a lot of noise. But it's just a big show.

03:07:31.140 I close my eyes and hope sleep takes me away somewhere dark and cool. But it doesn't. Reality persists.

03:07:45.780 I have been tapering off booze for the past few days. It's amazing how timid and jittery I become

03:07:53.380 when the alcohol is oozing its way out of me.

03:07:55.860 I haven't even worked up the nerve to call the motel manager and complain about the air conditioning.

03:08:04.500 To think I lived for years in this helpless, reclusive state. What a fucking waste. 1.00

03:08:13.140 The whole time I thought the alcohol was giving me courage when it was stealing it from me. 1.00

03:08:19.140 I can't drink anymore. I need courage. I'm down to my last $200. I could call good old Mom and Dad and

03:08:33.300 ask them for some help. What kind of conversation would that be? Why am I broke? Well, I took some

03:08:42.660 time off work so I could write a book. About what? You know, usual. Tripping acid. Nazis. Finger blasting. Cats.

03:08:56.420 No, I'm not going to call Mom and Dad. I'm not going back to the sober house either.

03:09:02.580 I'm going to call Sean. Sean shows up at the motel right after he gets off work.

03:09:17.060 I'm surprised because we had gotten into a lot of little arguments towards the end and I left on

03:09:24.580 pretty bad terms with him. I'm standing in the parking lot when his black pickup truck pulls up.

03:09:32.740 My paranoia starts to flare. Maybe he saw the story online and was outraged. Maybe he's been looking for me.

03:09:43.540 He strides up to me and gives me a quick hug, patting me stiffly on the back.

03:09:48.580 He steps back and squints at the dingy face of the motel. I know this fucking motel. He says, 0.99

03:09:58.100 quietly. Come on, man. Let's get your stuff. Get my stuff? You said you're sober, right?

03:10:07.780 I already talked to the house manager. I'll take you back. We got a bed. He says.

03:10:13.460 I'm not going back to the house. I asked you to come out here because I...

03:10:20.900 I want to know where that warehouse is. The one downtown.

03:10:27.620 Sean turns and looks me in the eye. Why you want to know about that?

03:10:34.420 I tell him the story. I tell him about Mother Horse Eyes, the Nazis, the CIA, the LSD,

03:10:39.940 the experiments. Most of the stuff that I've told you. I leave out some parts, like the fact that he

03:10:47.540 is in the story. That we are in the story. That all of this is in the story right now.

03:10:56.500 He listens to me, but his face darkens. Maybe he thinks I'm crazy or high or full of evil spirits.

03:11:04.100 Listen to me, I say, working myself up to deliver my big speech.

03:11:12.740 I have lived things which are impossible, which could not have happened. So have you.

03:11:21.540 Those tunnels, those cages, the bones, none of it should exist. But you saw it. I've seen things too.

03:11:30.100 We have to find out what it is. I've lived with that monster for a whole summer. I know she's down there.

03:11:41.300 And I want to find her. Sean narrows his eyes as he stares at me.

03:11:48.980 What's down there is the devil, Nick. If you go down there, you won't come back.

03:11:55.460 I want to see her. I want to know. Please. I say to him. My voice breaking.

03:12:07.300 I just want to know why I'm so fucked up. 1.00

03:12:12.180 You're fucked up because you drink all day and you got character defects. Like me. And everybody else. 1.00

03:12:19.700 That's it. Don't you want to know what's going on down there? You're not curious? No.

03:12:29.140 It doesn't eat at you. You don't need any answers. He shakes his head.

03:12:35.300 God doesn't promise answers. God gave us all the answers we need in the Bible. That's all we get.

03:12:44.660 I don't ask him what's going to happen in the future. I don't do horoscopes.

03:12:50.260 I don't practice witchcraft. God's not going to come down and give me the answers to everything.

03:12:56.180 All he wants from me is obedience. Oh, come on. So we shouldn't try to figure things out.

03:13:06.900 We shouldn't ask questions. That's just some anti-intellectual, anti-science bullshit. 0.98

03:13:12.020 When we were roommates and got into disagreements, he would start quoting the Bible at me. 0.98

03:13:19.860 And I would start picking at him with snide intellectual arguments,

03:13:24.260 using as many big words as I could. We're falling back into the same dynamic.

03:13:31.540 Anti-science, he says. Shit, I'm not saying don't be a scientist. 1.00

03:13:36.580 I'm saying don't go into a tunnel with fucking bones on the walls, man. 1.00

03:13:42.740 I find myself laughing at this. He smiles with me. 0.99

03:13:48.820 For real though, man. It's dangerous. He says, smile fading.

03:13:56.660 I look out across the crumbling parking lot. Long evening shadows are drawn across the asphalt.

03:14:03.460 Man, I don't know. I just feel like if I could figure out what happened during that summer,

03:14:12.580 then maybe I wouldn't be so fucked up. I've obsessed about this shit for 25 years, give or take. 1.00

03:14:21.460 And now there's a chance to get some answers. Just let it go. 1.00

03:14:25.860 No, no. There has to be an ending. There has to be some kind of payoff.

03:14:34.580 Moses and the people wandered in the desert for 40 years, looking for the promised land.

03:14:41.060 One day, Lord took him up to the mountaintop and showed him all the promised land.

03:14:45.860 And Moses died right there, without ever setting foot in the land.

03:14:54.580 Do you know what kind of Lord does that?

03:14:58.340 A messed up one, I muttered.

03:15:01.380 The Lord knows that we are generations.

03:15:04.580 Man is a few days.

03:15:06.740 Generations might pass before we get any answers.

03:15:09.540 For the last 10 years, I've been living like the world might end any day.

03:15:16.100 But I'm not doing that anymore.

03:15:18.340 I have to remember that we know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.

03:15:26.180 That's why I'm going back to school and all that.

03:15:30.500 I nod.

03:15:31.140 Through the course of our little debates, I had told him many times that the world wasn't going to end anytime soon.

03:15:41.540 The world was going to go on and on and on like it always did. 0.99

03:15:48.180 In a fucked up and confused state. 0.98

03:15:51.940 Maybe some of it rubbed off on him. 0.99

03:15:55.940 Maybe some of it should be rubbing off on me now.

03:15:58.500 I need answers, I told him.

03:16:05.060 I've tried just accepting the mystery and whatever, but at this point, 0.99

03:16:10.980 I just need to know why I'm all fucked up. 0.99

03:16:14.980 Why I can't stop drinking. 0.99

03:16:17.860 Why I can't be normal.

03:16:20.660 I could tell you where the warehouse is.

03:16:23.540 But what are you going to do when you go down there?

03:16:25.540 What are you going to do when you meet the devil?

03:16:31.140 I haven't told him that part of the story.

03:16:34.980 It's a part that I'm not sure I really believe myself.

03:16:37.860 I think I have been given reason to believe that whatever is down there, I can destroy it.

03:16:54.100 As soon as I see the car, I rush downstairs.

03:16:57.140 Mother is in the kitchen making noises, but I run right by her. 0.97

03:17:02.740 Outside the car pulls into the driveway.

03:17:05.620 I run to it smiling, but I slow down.

03:17:10.020 Something is different about the car.

03:17:13.620 Whose car is this?

03:17:14.740 The door opens.

03:17:18.420 I stop.

03:17:20.260 Dad gets out.

03:17:22.180 He's got that grumpy look he usually has.

03:17:25.780 He's wearing his pajamas, but they have no buttons.

03:17:29.620 Mom gets out of the car too.

03:17:32.340 She comes out the same door.

03:17:34.900 She's wearing her blue dress.

03:17:36.340 I start to cry and run to her and hug her legs. 0.60

03:17:41.940 She pats my head and says,

03:17:44.820 There, there, Nick.

03:17:45.940 It's okay.

03:17:48.020 Where did you go?

03:17:49.140 I ask.

03:17:50.900 I'm crying like a baby.

03:17:53.300 Why did you leave me?

03:17:55.380 Why did you go?

03:17:57.940 We went to the store, Mom says.

03:18:00.900 But you were gone so long, I say.

03:18:04.100 My face is smushed against her side.

03:18:07.140 We went to the store and bought some dresses and Dad got some stuff for his car.

03:18:12.340 I look up at her.

03:18:14.500 Her face is all blurry because I am crying.

03:18:17.860 I wipe my face.

03:18:20.100 She looks down at me, smiling.

03:18:23.060 Her face is smooth and glowing.

03:18:26.180 We stayed at the store a few days, she says and pats me on the head.

03:18:30.340 It doesn't make sense to me.

03:18:35.220 Why did you leave me with the monster, lady? I ask. 0.99

03:18:40.340 Mom stops smiling.

03:18:42.980 Monster?

03:18:44.740 There's a monster in the house.

03:18:47.780 Nick, she says like she thinks I'm telling a story.

03:18:52.100 You weren't at the store for three days, where were you?

03:18:54.660 Nick, my dad says in his grumpy voice.

03:18:59.060 That's enough.

03:19:01.460 I look at him.

03:19:03.540 The shape of his face is weird.

03:19:06.580 He usually has freckles on his cheeks, but they're not in the right place.

03:19:12.580 I let go of Mom and look at her.

03:19:15.540 She makes a little smile like she always does when she sees me.

03:19:19.380 It's her.

03:19:22.260 It's Mom. It's her face, but...

03:19:25.700 It's two.

03:19:28.100 What's wrong with it?

03:19:31.300 Mom's shirt moves.

03:19:33.300 There's something underneath it.

03:19:35.540 It's pushing and trying to get out.

03:19:38.180 I step back.

03:19:39.940 Her face sags like a water balloon and her cheeks fall off.

03:19:43.300 It hits the ground right in front of me with a big wet smack.

03:19:49.380 It's lying there like a big raw piece of chicken.

03:19:53.620 I scream and Mom falls apart. 1.00

03:19:57.220 Her face falls into pieces and her whole body hits the ground like a sack of potatoes.

03:20:03.220 The same thing happens to Dad.

03:20:06.180 Their clothes are just lying on the driveway, but there's something inside the clothes moving around inside.

03:20:11.140 I scream and something screams back.

03:20:15.300 It screams again.

03:20:17.380 A little scream and pokes its head out of my Mom's dress. 1.00

03:20:22.820 It's a cat.

03:20:25.700 Other cats slip out of the bottom of the dress and out of my Dad's pajamas.

03:20:31.940 A whole bunch of cats all different colors.

03:20:35.860 Mom and Dad's clothes just blow away like tissue.

03:20:38.580 And the driveway is full of cats and pieces of meat.

03:20:45.060 A few cats run away.

03:20:47.460 Some of them cry.

03:20:49.140 Some wander around and sniff and lick at the meat.

03:20:53.380 Something pinches my shoulder and I scream.

03:20:57.220 It's mother's crab hand.

03:20:59.540 She yanks my arm and drags me back into the house. 0.99

03:21:03.380 I shout and scream but she holds me tight.

03:21:05.780 She slams the front door shut and pushes me into a big metal cage in the kitchen. 1.00

03:21:12.900 Her birds are pushing out her shoulders and her face.

03:21:16.660 They're missing eyeballs and covered with big golden flies and all of them tweeting and cackling at me.

03:21:22.260 Your magic isn't strong enough to make whomever you want, she says in a deep voice.

03:21:31.140 The birds all giggle.

03:21:33.540 Never will be.

03:21:35.300 One of them shouts.

03:21:38.980 Mother locks me in the cage and sits down at the kitchen table.

03:21:42.260 I scream and cry but she doesn't move.

03:21:46.260 Her horse eyes stare at the wall.

03:21:48.980 The sun sets very slow and the room goes dark.

03:21:53.220 She is just a shape of a black mountain sitting at the table. 0.58

03:21:58.260 When the sun rises, her eyes are still on the wall.

03:22:01.140 You were bad.

03:22:04.500 Your magic was bad.

03:22:07.060 You won't be bad again, she says. 0.99

03:22:10.820 I hate you, I shout. 0.99

03:22:13.860 I do hate her. 1.00

03:22:15.700 I hate her. 1.00

03:22:17.540 Hate her. 1.00

03:22:19.460 Mother's birds giggle. 0.97

03:22:21.620 She stands up from the table and all her golden flies scramble around. 1.00

03:22:26.180 The bars in the cage slide to the side like magic.

03:22:31.940 She reaches in and grabs me with her crab hand. 1.00

03:22:35.700 It hurts so bad I scream and kick at her but she doesn't care. 0.62

03:22:41.300 She lifts me up and carries me into the living room.

03:22:45.540 It's full of cages.

03:22:48.340 When did they get here?

03:22:50.420 There are naked kids inside the rows of cages.

03:22:53.140 They are not scared like me.

03:22:56.740 They are sitting cross legs with their hands on their knees.

03:23:00.260 Sitting nice and still and straight with their eyes closed.

03:23:04.820 I will show you what will happen if you are bad.

03:23:08.180 She says.

03:23:10.100 We go to the back hall.

03:23:12.500 There is the door to the basement.

03:23:15.380 I don't like the basement.

03:23:17.940 I cry and ask her to please let me go.

03:23:20.260 She opens the basement door.

03:23:24.660 Usually the basement is dark but not this time.

03:23:28.740 Light shines out of the door.

03:23:31.220 I look inside.

03:23:34.260 Inside it is not the basement.

03:23:37.860 It is alive.

03:23:38.740 Grim stuff on the news lately.

03:23:45.300 Gunshots popping like fireworks.

03:23:47.780 People scrambling through shaky footage.

03:23:50.420 Cops dead in the streets.

03:23:53.060 It hit 100 degrees today.

03:23:55.460 It is supposed to hit 100 every day this week.

03:23:59.540 What a strange summer it has become.

03:24:01.460 Nobody can agree on the truth.

03:24:06.180 They say the media is ignoring the problems.

03:24:09.460 They say the media is creating the problems.

03:24:13.300 Protesters are the problem.

03:24:15.780 The cops are the problem.

03:24:18.020 The whole thing is a false flag operation.

03:24:21.380 So Obama can take our AR-15s away.

03:24:25.460 Chemtrails crisscross in the sky.

03:24:28.500 Conspiracy theories clash in the comments section.

03:24:32.180 Single women in your area want to date now. 1.00

03:24:35.940 Across the ocean.

03:24:37.460 They're crucifying people again.

03:24:38.980 I feel so much different than I did in the spring.

03:24:45.460 Less optimistic.

03:24:47.700 I thought maybe I would achieve the dream of publishing a novel and...

03:24:52.740 Wouldn't that be neat?

03:24:55.540 But now I don't feel any excitement about it at all.

03:24:59.540 Whether I publish something or not,

03:25:02.420 I'll still be this friendless little specter.

03:25:05.700 Hold up somewhere.

03:25:07.380 Sneaking drinks.

03:25:09.780 Money is pointless for a recluse that never does anything.

03:25:14.180 And fame?

03:25:16.100 A bicycle for a fish.

03:25:20.180 There's nothing in my future.

03:25:23.460 I'm going back to the past. 1.00

03:25:26.740 I'm going to kill it. 0.99

03:25:30.980 Mother doesn't care what I do so long as I don't bother her. 0.99

03:25:35.460 I make sure not to bother her.

03:25:37.460 When she comes into a room, I sneak out as quiet as a mouse.

03:25:42.020 I never go into the rooms with cages.

03:25:45.780 I never, ever go near the basement.

03:25:48.820 I just stay quiet.

03:25:51.540 And make sure not to get in trouble.

03:25:53.940 I have been practicing my magic, doing small secret things.

03:25:59.860 I make bread for myself out of stones.

03:26:02.900 I make yummy cookies.

03:26:06.340 My stuffed animals walk around and do fun things.

03:26:09.140 My trucks race around a little track I made.

03:26:14.500 Magic is a lot of fun, but I'm afraid of making Mother mad. 1.00

03:26:18.180 How long will Mother stay here? 0.99

03:26:24.420 Will it be forever?

03:26:27.300 I think it will be forever.

03:26:28.740 It makes me cry when I think about it.

03:26:33.460 I can't even think about Mom and Dad for even a little second before I start to cry.

03:26:40.740 I came up with a neat idea.

03:26:43.940 Lately, there are a lot of ideas in my head.

03:26:46.020 Like a crowd of people all talking at once.

03:26:51.460 One idea was very strong and clear.

03:26:56.580 I tried to bring Mom and Dad to the house, but I couldn't do it right. 1.00

03:27:00.980 My magic fell apart and they turned into stupid cats. 1.00

03:27:05.300 It's because Mom and Dad are on the outside. 1.00

03:27:08.100 I can't make them do things with magic.

03:27:13.220 I'm not strong enough.

03:27:16.660 But I can make myself do things.

03:27:21.300 Sean told me where the warehouse is.

03:27:24.660 I am going down there.

03:27:27.140 I am being called.

03:27:29.300 By the shape of my entire life, I am being called.

03:27:33.780 The story must end this way.

03:27:35.860 Mother will be down there. 0.97

03:27:39.700 And so I will try to destroy her. 0.98

03:27:43.380 I've thought about bringing some kind of weapon. 0.99

03:27:47.300 But what good would a weapon be against her?

03:27:51.620 She who is everything.

03:27:54.180 Who has shaped my life across space and time.

03:27:57.700 I feel exactly like I do when the evening comes.

03:28:01.220 I have woke up so many mornings, swearing I won't drink that day.

03:28:08.580 But 7pm comes.

03:28:11.060 And I am walking to the store.

03:28:13.860 Feeling none too wise.

03:28:16.500 And I don't want to be walking to the store.

03:28:18.500 And I know I am making the wrong choice.

03:28:24.180 But my feet keep moving me closer and closer.

03:28:29.620 I know what I am doing is wrong.

03:28:32.980 But I am doing it anyways.

03:28:34.500 I am coming mother.

03:28:39.940 I am coming.

03:28:43.700 I am being changed.

03:28:46.020 Mother's lessons are teaching me things.

03:28:48.980 Transforming me.

03:28:50.020 At night I lie in my little bed.

03:28:53.620 Eating cookies and watching the ceiling.

03:28:57.220 Then the seams open up and...

03:29:00.740 Look at what's behind them.

03:29:03.460 Colors without names.

03:29:05.940 Stars from long ago.

03:29:08.980 Tunnels through the beyond.

03:29:12.180 My magic is growing stronger.

03:29:14.260 I can make things happen.

03:29:18.420 I pray and wait.

03:29:21.060 And they come to me.

03:29:24.100 Every morning, little sparrows land on tree branches outside my window.

03:29:30.660 Mother says I can't be too greedy.

03:29:34.260 Press at the curves, she says.

03:29:37.300 Direct the flow.

03:29:39.460 Don't move against it.

03:29:40.740 I am reading the Bible with the new words I've learned.

03:29:47.300 Christ had blood magic.

03:29:49.860 Magic of suffering.

03:29:51.780 Of desire and limitation.

03:29:55.540 At night, mother and I watch the soft flesh writhe and struggle on the hard architecture of the cross.

03:30:05.060 Mother, he cries.

03:30:07.460 Behold your son.

03:30:08.500 Father, he cries.

03:30:12.100 Into your hands I commit my spirit.

03:30:16.100 Soon I will call my own little Christ.

03:30:19.460 Unto these yellow sands.

03:30:22.660 The other passengers on the bus seem unaware that I am headed towards a showdown which will decide the fate of all mankind.

03:30:31.620 Am I still sane?

03:30:32.820 I feel pretty sane.

03:30:36.580 I'm not drooling at the mouth.

03:30:38.660 I'm not shouting at the pigeons.

03:30:40.500 But what really makes me feel sane is that I can still recognize that my actions are insane.

03:30:47.460 I am going to confront a sinister entity which has been shaping the course of human events since prehistory, which may one day enslave all of humanity.

03:30:59.060 As I step off the bus and onto the blinding summer sidewalk, I am reminded of the brave marines piling out of their landing vehicles onto the beaches of Iwo Jima.

03:31:18.660 Yes, brave warriors are we.

03:31:22.420 They say one hallmark of delusional thinking is grandiosity.

03:31:27.300 The delusion man often thinks himself to be a part of some grand struggle, when really there is no struggle but that in his mind.

03:31:40.260 A pigeon bobs across my path.

03:31:43.460 I mutter, 1.00

03:31:44.820 Fuck off. 1.00

03:31:47.140 Google maps leads me through the streets. 1.00

03:31:50.260 I expect to see a bunch of crackheads milling around but everything is empty.

03:31:54.580 In the sunshine it looks like an ordinary factory street.

03:32:00.420 The warehouse itself is just a dusty old brick building with scribbles of spray paint and boarded up windows.

03:32:08.580 It's not even especially shitty.

03:32:11.220 The front door is chained up, but I check the boarded windows and find a board that bends back easily.

03:32:18.340 A musty smell seeps out of the dark. 1.00

03:32:21.700 Fuck. 1.00

03:32:22.820 Am I really doing this? 1.00

03:32:25.460 Sweat already coats my face.

03:32:28.260 I fish a flashlight out of my backpack and turn it on.

03:32:32.580 Inside the warehouse, my sweeping flashlight finds dusty shapes littering the floor.

03:32:39.060 Old boxes, cinder blocks, and a gleam on the floor.

03:32:43.780 Yes, it's our first crack pipe.

03:32:49.060 Or maybe a meth pipe.

03:32:51.620 Is there a difference?

03:32:54.340 Listening to people in the rooms has made me feel rather worldly when it comes to drugs.

03:32:59.140 But it's all been second hand stories.

03:33:04.100 What do I really know?

03:33:07.060 Sean said there was a flight of stairs that led down to a door.

03:33:10.660 The floor of the main room doesn't seem to have any stairs leading down.

03:33:16.660 But there are a few doorways on the far side.

03:33:18.980 I make my way over, stepping carefully through the debris.

03:33:24.660 The middle doorway sits at the top of a short staircase.

03:33:27.940 At the bottom is another empty doorway.

03:33:32.580 The flashlight catches the glint of metal.

03:33:35.700 A pair of torn hinges.

03:33:37.140 When we were roommates, Sean always had such a cool demeanor.

03:33:43.540 Cool and poised and confident.

03:33:46.820 But now, I see a new picture of him.

03:33:49.940 Working the hydraulic spreader.

03:33:52.260 Prying the door off its hinges.

03:33:54.900 The metal groaning and shrieking.

03:33:57.780 Sweat coating his face.

03:34:00.100 His eyes bright and wide with that terrible craving.

03:34:04.420 That thing beyond hunger.

03:34:07.140 I shudder and step down the stairs.

03:34:11.860 Sure enough, they lead to a tunnel.

03:34:15.540 I move slowly.

03:34:17.540 Forced to press against some basic animal instinct to go back. 1.00

03:34:21.780 Get the fuck out of there. 0.80

03:34:24.420 But the tunnel is strangely plain and featureless. 0.98

03:34:28.260 Considering that it lies under a cracked den and leads to a possible flesh interface.

03:34:34.340 It's just dusty block walls.

03:34:36.740 With no light fixtures or anything.

03:34:39.780 The tunnel leads to more tunnels.

03:34:41.940 More stairs.

03:34:42.900 Empty rooms.

03:34:44.500 The black air teems with bits of dust that shine in the flashlight.

03:34:48.580 My skin tingles all over.

03:34:53.300 Is it the dust clinging to me?

03:34:55.780 Or is it just a low grade terror that has filled my body?

03:34:58.740 It reminds me of the tingle that filled my limbs on all those mornings before the first drink.

03:35:06.980 How I had begged for that feeling to end.

03:35:09.140 But now I know it will never end.

03:35:13.860 There will always be another awful morning. 0.99

03:35:17.460 Another fuck up. 1.00

03:35:18.420 Another withdraw. 1.00

03:35:20.500 Unless I go forward.

03:35:21.860 Not away from the nightmare.

03:35:25.220 But into it.

03:35:26.100 But it goes on and on.

03:35:30.580 I cannot believe how long the tunnels are.

03:35:34.980 How many rooms there are.

03:35:37.300 How deep the stairs are.

03:35:38.740 I can taste the dust on my lips.

03:35:42.180 And I pull my shirt over my nose.

03:35:44.660 Occasionally I come across an old metal chair.

03:35:48.580 Or some rotting boards.

03:35:50.100 But nothing else.

03:35:52.820 I'm hoping to find some scrap of paper.

03:35:55.220 Or maybe a name tag.

03:35:57.460 Some clue as to who built this monstrosity.

03:36:01.460 But there's nothing.

03:36:03.780 But dust.

03:36:05.780 More and more dust.

03:36:10.020 I stop and watch the dust float across my flashlight's beam.

03:36:14.660 Holding out my sweating, shaking hand.

03:36:18.180 I let a dark speck settle on my fingertip.

03:36:22.420 Looking at it closely.

03:36:25.060 I see that it's in the shape of a flake.

03:36:29.220 Is it dust?

03:36:31.060 Or is it ash?

03:36:34.340 A wave of dread moves through me.

03:36:37.780 Could it be from a burned interface?

03:36:41.540 Is this human ash? 0.70

03:36:44.660 A wave of dread is followed by a flurry of nervous wisecracks. 1.00

03:36:49.700 Fucking dust. 1.00

03:36:51.620 What the fuck do I know about dust or ash? 1.00

03:36:55.060 I'm not some dust expert. 0.97

03:36:57.780 Maybe it's just flaky dust.

03:36:59.620 Maybe it's dandrift.

03:37:01.540 Maybe I'll find a huge cache of used wings down here.

03:37:04.740 Did you find an interdimensional portal?

03:37:08.980 No, but these wigs are in pretty good condition.

03:37:12.420 Look, we got a mid-sixties dusty springfield here.

03:37:15.140 I wipe my hand on my shirt and keep moving forward.

03:37:20.660 Just a few steps later, my flashlight finds the end of the block tunnel and the beginning of the rock cave.

03:37:26.740 Just like Sean said.

03:37:31.060 God, can it be real?

03:37:35.460 Maybe it's an ordinary rock tunnel.

03:37:39.140 Maybe it's just part of an unfinished.

03:37:41.060 I put the light on my face.

03:37:43.380 Reaching out from the shadowy wall with its bony finger splayed, almost elegantly,

03:37:50.500 as the shape of a human hand.

03:37:52.180 I stare at it for a moment, letting my eyes flood with tears before I have to kneel down

03:38:00.900 and wipe my face.

03:38:04.860 I am not crazy.

03:38:08.600 I have not been crazy all of these years.

03:38:13.700 Something happened.

03:38:16.240 Something happened to me when I was a child. 0.92

03:38:19.740 And I'm not just some fuck-up. 1.00

03:38:22.620 I'm not just some piece of shit loser who can't keep his hands off a bottle. 1.00

03:38:27.400 I have seen something. 1.00

03:38:29.080 I have been touched by something vast and unimaginable.

03:38:34.920 I stand and approach the hand.

03:38:38.900 Yes.

03:38:40.540 It is a human hand.

03:38:43.320 As real as my own hand holding the flashlight.

03:38:47.820 Except it is little more than bone wrapped in a gray, papery skin.

03:38:52.180 It extends from a wrist that is fused to a distorted mass of gray and black shapes.

03:39:00.400 A flashlight passes over an awful collage of desiccated anatomy.

03:39:05.040 Rows of teeth, racks of ribs, pairs of eye sockets, and hip sockets.

03:39:12.460 Snaking vertebrae and femurs and tibias and clavicles.

03:39:16.880 For a moment, I feel like I'm not standing on the ground, but I'm suspended over a pit full of bodies.

03:39:25.940 Like one of the great burning pits of Treblinka. 0.91

03:39:28.500 These are not just the bodies from Treblinka, but from all the camps, all the prisons, all the pogroms.

03:39:39.460 All the wars, all the plagues, all the different machinery of history.

03:39:45.440 The great unfeeling clock wheels of the cosmos which roll sublimely along, generation after generation.

03:39:55.220 Rending and crushing the human form into pieces, into powder, into dust, into ash. 0.99

03:40:07.400 Vertigo encloses me.

03:40:10.060 I totter and find myself sitting on the ground.

03:40:13.360 Sweating and gasping.

03:40:14.660 A jumble of body parts spin around me.

03:40:18.920 And I close my eyes.

03:40:22.000 What is this vision of death?

03:40:24.760 This dead clockwork universe.

03:40:28.040 Stars and abyss.

03:40:30.160 Atoms and void.

03:40:32.420 This is something beyond Mother.

03:40:35.840 Even more horrible and fundamental.

03:40:39.440 Mother is at least alive.

03:40:42.260 Monstrous and devouring, but alive.

03:40:45.660 Virulently fertile.

03:40:47.840 She writhes and struggles within this vast tomb universe. 0.92

03:40:53.240 Binding times and worlds too.

03:40:56.940 But the dizziness passes.

03:40:59.720 And with it, the visions.

03:41:02.040 The ideas slip away like fish in a stream.

03:41:06.360 Sitting there in the afterglow of this near revelation.

03:41:09.340 I think of what Sean said happened to him when he came down to this cave.

03:41:16.460 He said he smelled applesauce coming out of the tunnel.

03:41:20.500 A smell that reminded him of his daughter.

03:41:23.940 He said he could feel the presence of the evil one tempting him with dreams of family and love.

03:41:30.140 I open my eyes and pick up the flashlight and shine it down the tunnel.

03:41:35.600 Is there anything down there?

03:41:40.400 Anything to tempt me?

03:41:41.900 The flashlight catches awful shapes along the walls.

03:41:47.860 Extending on and on.

03:41:50.520 Until the beam of light fails.

03:41:52.100 But I don't see anyone in the tunnel.

03:41:56.560 I don't sense anyone waiting for me.

03:42:00.220 And I don't smell anything but dust and ash and...

03:42:05.100 Cookies.

03:42:07.560 Little sugar cookies.

03:42:09.460 Little sugar cookies.

03:42:11.460 Little sugar cookies.

03:42:12.100 My God.

03:42:14.060 I remember.

03:42:16.420 They were like the ones my mom used to make.

03:42:19.540 For me.

03:42:21.060 But not quite the same as them.

03:42:23.660 These were the ones I used to make for myself.

03:42:26.880 Out of stones.

03:42:29.440 The memory of it comes flooding up to me.

03:42:32.160 So hard that.

03:42:33.440 Again my eyes are full of tears.

03:42:35.400 Christ, I used to set my room with stones and turn them into cookies.

03:42:42.640 I tried to make them like mom's cookies, but they always tasted a little different.

03:42:47.400 And that made me miss her even more.

03:42:52.080 Impossible.

03:42:53.720 Completely impossible.

03:42:57.680 And yet, real.

03:43:01.480 And floating in the darkness before me, I stand and brush myself off.

03:43:10.480 There is something at the end of the tunnel, waiting for me.

03:43:14.920 Good or evil, it will be an answer, a resolution, an end.

03:43:26.140 I walk into the dark.

03:43:31.200 I say my prayer and look out the window.

03:43:34.840 For a long time the street is empty.

03:43:38.200 Then he comes walking down the road, carrying a flashlight, even though it's light out.

03:43:45.200 I rush downstairs, mother sitting at the kitchen table.

03:43:50.200 I think of saying goodbye to her, but the gleam in her eyes tells me there is no need.

03:43:57.200 I go into the dim little front hall.

03:43:59.840 A beam of daylight is shining through the peephole.

03:44:03.720 There is a knock on the door.

03:44:06.200 I wait.

03:44:08.200 The knob turns, and the door opens.

03:44:13.840 This is it.

03:44:15.200 The beginning.

03:44:17.200 I walk into the light.

03:44:24.200 The embarrasses, and the lower sins.

03:44:31.040 Certainly.

03:44:32.040 We have to take back the world, to free it from mother and let it be born again.

03:44:36.040 It's our world.

03:44:39.040 Either it was made for us, or we were made for it.

03:44:44.000 Either God designed it and bestowed it upon us, or we slowly evolved according to its

03:44:49.220 rhythms.

03:44:51.220 Either the glove was made to fit the hand, the hand was made to fit the glove.

03:44:56.120 Either way, it fits.

03:44:59.160 Either way, we were meant to live among the trees and the grasses and winds and sunsets,

03:45:05.280 or to live in these stinking steel pipes, staring at this empty blackness as our power cells

03:45:11.280 slip into entropy.

03:45:13.760 We were meant to be eternal, to strive to live forever, to pass ourselves down, however imperfect

03:45:21.400 we may be, so that something of us remains in the future.

03:45:27.160 We weren't meant to live lying in some plastic coffin, flicking our endorphic clits until we 1.00

03:45:33.200 decay into the point of hopelessness.

03:45:36.580 We were meant to roam the lands, to wake up with the sun, to smile at the warm air and

03:45:42.560 to take shelter against the cold and the dark.

03:45:46.640 We weren't meant to live in this eerie half-light, where there is no true sun and no true setting

03:45:55.000 of the sun, no real cold and no real warmth.

03:46:00.960 Moses traveled through the desert with his people for forty years and died before his

03:46:05.980 people ever reached the Promised Land.

03:46:09.860 Some would describe this to be the cruelty of God, but you must understand, in this incident

03:46:16.960 God showed in His great and wondrous mercy.

03:46:20.880 He showed that a man's acts can live beyond himself, that a man is not here to fulfill 0.76

03:46:26.520 his own whims but the higher call of history, which stretches far beyond a single man's life.

03:46:35.140 We must commit ourselves, that should it take a thousand generations to see again the Earth's

03:46:40.960 sun.

03:46:41.960 We will not give up, for we do not seek reward for ourselves, but we seek to simply become

03:46:50.020 part of the long and unknowable flow of righteousness.

03:46:53.580 Mere atoms in the water, in the stream of the sweet river of Jordan.

03:46:59.800 Not rewarded in this life, but rewarded in our connection to what is beyond this life.

03:47:06.620 Not some fantastical promised afterlife, but the real course of history.

03:47:12.120 History which depends now on our actions, our commitment to something beyond ourselves.

03:47:19.680 Men who do not understand history destroy themselves, become vaporous whiffs of selfishness.

03:47:26.500 I would hope that we would live beyond this, that we would become part of the flow. 0.99

03:47:32.700 And the children of Israel replied, oh come on man, you ain't MLK, and this place sucks, 0.88

03:47:39.300 and I'm three levels away from winning a full sensory night with this chick, with three 1.00

03:47:42.660 tits. 0.99

03:47:44.000 Three good tits, very proportional, and not weird. 1.00

03:47:47.940 So don't get on my shit about going back to Earth. 0.99

03:47:53.700 I am an old man, the oldest on this starship. 0.99

03:48:02.360 So you have some notion that there is wisdom in me.

03:48:07.140 Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.

03:48:11.800 I can't say much for wisdom, there is only experience, which in the long run includes

03:48:18.660 and conflates with wisdom.

03:48:22.740 Is it wisdom, or just a story?

03:48:27.600 Do you want to hear an old man's story?

03:48:32.060 I was on our orbital platform when the world ignited, when it burned at a whim.

03:48:39.460 Mother set fire to a few major cities. 0.77

03:48:43.340 That wasn't enough.

03:48:45.800 So she set fire to everything. 0.93

03:48:49.220 I watched, safe behind the vast vacuum of space.

03:48:55.060 I watched as city after city bloomed and faded, silent embers in what was to become an eternal

03:49:02.960 night.

03:49:06.800 As a young man, I had wished that I would be present for important times, for world-changing

03:49:13.420 events.

03:49:15.760 I wished to be prophet, like those of the old days.

03:49:21.180 Now I saw before me my burning bush.

03:49:25.200 Now I saw the terrible beauty of the Lord, burning and consuming all I had ever known.

03:49:32.440 Now I had become a prophet, a man face to face with the Lord himself.

03:49:42.340 What was it like?

03:49:45.080 It was beautiful, truly beautiful.

03:49:49.940 Beyond man's conception, Moses stared into the flames of a burning bush.

03:49:56.620 I stared into the flames of a burning world.

03:50:01.140 But what difference should it make to a God eternal?

03:50:05.660 Avoid prophecy, eschew revelation.

03:50:09.640 When the Lord calls, bow and turn your eyes down.

03:50:14.180 This, if it is wisdom, is the best advice I can give you.

03:50:25.560 I have to admit, with no small amount of shame, that I've always been perversely titillated

03:50:32.140 by the Nazi's depravities.

03:50:35.080 That's why I wrote the Treblinka segment in the rather lurid style that I did.

03:50:40.720 When I look at the old pictures of the Nazis in their nicely pressed uniforms, I can feel 0.84

03:50:46.900 the asture pride with which they wore them.

03:50:51.520 I can feel the almost sexual withholding of human compassion that accompanied their crimes

03:50:56.880 against their fellow human beings.

03:51:00.040 To button up your nice crisp jacket and step out onto the campgrounds.

03:51:05.520 To strip other people of all their clothing, and then strip them of their lives. 0.94

03:51:12.520 This must have been a thrill.

03:51:15.620 One of the deepest and sickest and darkest thrills a human can experience.

03:51:22.800 People have been slaughtered by the millions of various atrocities throughout history.

03:51:27.760 But the Nazis brought a certain orderliness to it. 0.92

03:51:31.880 A pristine hypocrisy which has not been matched before or since. 0.97

03:51:37.640 The fusty cavets of American slaveholders. 0.98

03:51:41.200 The drab tunics of Chinese and Russian communists. 0.64

03:51:45.000 The sweaty overalls of the Chimer Rogue.

03:51:48.920 None of them can incite that sick and awful delight that the SS uniforms incite. 0.73

03:51:55.520 The ancient Jew, as the Nazis saw him, with the stories of shepherds and wine, with his

03:52:01.760 beard and his curled sidelocks, with his insistence on the value of God and history, with his lawyers

03:52:09.360 offices and jewelry shops, must have seemed the perfect target for destruction.

03:52:16.800 For the Jew was both more modern and more ancient than the Nazi. 0.89

03:52:21.960 In the West, at least.

03:52:24.400 He lived in the cities and earned money through what he now calls the knowledge economy.

03:52:31.480 But he practiced a faith far older than all others, save perhaps Hinduism.

03:52:38.500 For a set of sociopaths bent on creating an entirely new past and a new future, the Jew, through 0.98

03:52:45.460 entirely no fault of his own, was an ideal vessel for their hatred. 0.98

03:52:50.980 With their runes and their silly fire-lit ceremonies and all of Himmler's invented lore, the Nazis 0.97

03:52:58.860 made their claim to ancientness. 0.96

03:53:02.900 But compared to the Jews, it must have looked rather amateurish. 1.00

03:53:07.460 And wasn't this at the root of anti-Semitism throughout the ages?

03:53:13.580 As centuries passed, Christianity was able to assume the prestigious mantle of ancientness.

03:53:20.440 But to know there was something still more ancient, something which rejected their claims

03:53:24.560 as the majesty, it must have wrinkled, and so the centuries of killing.

03:53:32.840 The Nazis wanted to own the past and the future. 0.88

03:53:37.080 They wanted to bend both of them to the throbbing will of the Fuhrer and his obedient Volk. 1.00

03:53:43.860 But the past cannot be owned if it is still alive.

03:53:47.980 To build a pristine new future, the past must be destroyed and made remote.

03:53:55.820 It must be argued that at some point in time the flow of history was interrupted, that we

03:54:01.320 have become decoupled from our glorious past, that it does not currently live among us, that

03:54:08.420 the eternal flow has been diverted and must be restored.

03:54:13.420 So I hope it doesn't need to be said.

03:54:16.300 I feel I should make it clear that I reject anti-Semitism in all forms.

03:54:22.240 Anti-Semitism is perhaps the ultimate conspiracy theory. 0.64

03:54:25.720 And though it may surprise you, but I don't much care for conspiracy theories.

03:54:31.180 The world is far too chaotic and complex for one small set of people to exert much control

03:54:36.620 over it.

03:54:39.820 The world is nonsense.

03:54:43.700 As I understand the AA philosophy, the root of all human suffering is in attempting to

03:54:49.720 control what we cannot control.

03:54:52.880 For the alcoholic, this attempt takes the form of alcohol.

03:54:57.600 We try to control our feelings.

03:55:00.520 For others, it may take another form.

03:55:04.400 Regardless of the means, a person who attempted to control everything will suffer grievously

03:55:10.880 under their delusion of control.

03:55:14.220 Conspiracy theories are just this same delusion turned on its head.

03:55:18.800 Instead of assuming that I can control everything, I assume some shadowy person or set of people

03:55:24.820 can, and I assume that by overthrowing them, everything can be made right.

03:55:32.180 This is delusion.

03:55:35.080 Nobody has that much control over the world.

03:55:38.740 There is no secret puppet master.

03:55:42.040 The puppet is pulled by a million different strings, and nobody controls them all.

03:55:49.240 So then, Mother, the wicked being which has shadowed us through all history, which has guided

03:55:57.080 everything, which is now on the cusp of separating us from the past and plunging us into an unrecognizable

03:56:03.840 future.

03:56:06.460 Is it just delusion, a futile attempt at control?

03:56:12.040 Or is it just the ravings of a sad and misogynous man with mommy issues?

Nephilim Death Squad - July 18, 2025

Mother Horse Eyes： Part 3

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript