An exercise in extemporaneous writing

First draft, no outline or preconceived ideas, editing only for grammar and punctuation.


This is the story of a gopher named Constance Mathers. Constance was a normal gopher who enjoyed burrowing into the ground, eating plants, and avoiding hawks. On roughly the 523rd day of his life, he was foraging by a stream when a nearby hunter took a shot at a deer. Constance was so startled that he fell into the stream and was carried downstream for several yards before he could clamber his way out. Unfortunately, he climbed out of the bank into a small overhang in the roots of a large tree, where a viper made its home. The viper slithered out from his home and stared at Constance. "Hello, Constance," said the viper. "Hello, Franklin," replied Constance. "Do you remember," Franklin the Viper asked in a casual sort of way, "our time together in primary school?" "I do," replied Constance. "I seem to recall," Franklin continued, shifting his coils ominously, "that you took issue with the scaliness of my skin in a most verbal fashion." Constance had no reply to this. "I would like to let you know, Constance, that I have forgiven you. You are a small and stupid creature, and it is simply unfair of me to expect you to conduct yourself in a proper fashion." "Oh," said Constance. "Thank you." "As a matter of curiosity, Constance dear, may I ask you what your feelings are of those distant days?" Constance stuttered: "I, ah... don't actually think about it very much. I have rather a lot of foraging to do, you see--" "Oh, I see, I see!" interjected Franklin. "You are the very Busy Beaver, sss-sss-sss," said Franklin, snickering at his own wit. One of Franklin's undulating coils began slowly, in a pulsating fashion, to slide nearer to Constance's flank. "It is a funny thing, old friend, how some move on in life, while others seem to stay behind. You live for today, but I live in yesterday, steeped in memory, plagued by the past. It is only with a deliberate and concentrated effort that I am able to let go. Many a day I spent on a sunny rock contemplating time and aging, intelligence and morality, culpability, justice, and other such obscure and academic things. In my long reverie I came to some conclusions, which I would like to share with you now. Will you hear me out, Constance?" Constance had begun some time ago to shuffle slowly backwards. "Err, you see, the sun is beginning to set, and I really should be in before the wolves are out, you see..." Franklin's far coil had already slithered its way behind dear Constance, and with it he gently nudged the gopher towards him. "Don't worry, old friend, you can stay with me tonight; we will take our tea together and have a grand time remembering the old days. We can talk of the finer things, of philosophy, and science, and art." "That's very kind of you, Franklin, but really, I can't stay out tonight--" "It wasn't a question, dear friend. You will hear me out." Franklin locked eyes with the gopher and began to sway his head from side to side, speaking in a low, slow voice. Constance was obligingly occupied. "If we let today's injustices become tomorrow's memories, Constance, then nothing is ever done. How long must we let pass before crimes can go unpunished? A year? A month? A day? Seconds? You see, time is an illusion; it is arbitrary. So long as I have memory of an event, it occurred. Justice does not grow stale; if anything, the oldest injustices are those which most cry out for resolution. Forgiveness, you see, is another way of simply capitulating to the injustices with which this world is filled. I apologize, friend Constance, for having lied to you, albeit unintentionally. I have for some time been under the impression that I forgave you long ago, but now that I see you here before me, I think I could do with just a little piece of justice." So saying, Franklin lashed out and bit Constance in the side, who squealed with pain and fell back onto the ground, scrabbling towards the bank. With his coils Franklin lashed out and shoved Constance into the water, wherein he floated away.

Insomnia

After much thought I have come to the decision that I am going insane.

It isn't a thing with attributes. It's just there and BURNING BURNING BURNING all the time some of the time. Black boiling turning swirling churning tar in my head like beez like buzzing black bile that makes me want to vomit. Soon it will begin to show. I hope I can still do my best trick, the Straight Man trick, I know you who reads always did love that one, do you remember how Straight I was back when when everyone marveled in awe in my supreme Straightness? A stern face and a solid diction and a peculiarly Straight way of dressing Hello My Name Is Sir Young White Male With No Accent And Clear Diction Money Please Thank You And Good Day. What a fucking farce that way. I'm batshit now and more every day and I can't say I love it but goddamn if it isn't me. GOD DAMN. Fucking God fucking Damn. Fucking fuck fuck head spinning turning noise silent buzzing. Can't get this shit out. Love it. LOVE IT FUCKING NOISE. Don't love it at all, really. Sort of sad sometimes about having lost who I was. We all do anyways. No use mourning. Good place to be crazy too. But I'll have to play the Straight game for a while longer just a while. Fool some HR bitch who thinks he's smart. Bright young college grad with a head on his shoulders and a degree on his wall and JUST A FUCKING MORON. Fucking morons everywhere not just janitors and grease monkeys they just got unlucky. White-collar Fred got fucking lucky and got sent off to SCHOOL to LEARN A TRADE and he's every last bit as motherfucking idiot as the rest of the drooling fucks. Play the straight game work a job get some money and FUCKING BAIL. Fucking straight game is probably what's driving me crazy anyways. Crazy moron fuckers with their money game.

Wish I could sleep now. Too much buzzing. Don't even need the tabs for it anymore. Don't fucking gloat. I hear you gloating, bitch. And I don't want your goddamned pity either. I'm fucking FINE FINE FINE so piss off. You're probably still pissed about the other night. I fucking tried, okay? I always fucking try. Sometimes I just can't fucking take it anymore especially with the fucking BUZZ BUZ BEEZ in my fucking head and then you come in and refuse to understand anything or accept answers or do the obvious things I've told you to do for years and years now. But still I fucking try and when I ask for a break, when I ask for one rain check, you flip the fuck out on me. Whatever. I don't care. I always forgive you. No fucking choice anymore, not for years. Phone is dead. Surprise surprise. Making it a priority to charge it in the morning. Fucking charging fuck fuck fuck. Fuck expletives in my fucking head turning chasing circling over over fuck fuck fuck easy short guttural whats not to love fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck you fuck me fuck us all in an apple tree YEAH GOT MY FUCKING IAMBS IN A ROW. IAMB LAMBS little Bo Beep rhythmic sheep can't fucking sleeeeeeeeeeep. First honest piece of writing in ten fucking years. Better be proud. Be a fucking writer now, that's my future, fucking future how I fucking hate you motherfucker shit fuck hell damn open up a can of SPAM. Fucking birds at four AM every fucking morning what the fuck are you calling for sun isn't up shit's down skipped town so SHUTUP SHUTUP SHUT UP SO I CAN SLEEP FUCKING BIRDS.

Psychosis isn't the word. Also skipped on: Crazy, insane, delusional. My personal favorite as of now: Deranged. Not all the way insane, you see. Not completely disconnected from reality. Just a little off just A LITTLE FUCKING OFF just like someone slipped and twiddled the volume knob and now no-one can find the manual to set the fucking thing straight again so IM JUST A LITTLE FUCKING OFF every now and then and always and forever. Getting worse getting better I like to ponder these things serious shit man serious fucking shit got to think it all through cause thats my speed and style thats how I roll yo if we can just sit the FUCK down and chill the FUCK out and think this all the FUCKING WAY through we can get a grip on it with our ADAMANTINE FUCKING JAWS OF LOGIC and crush that motherfuckers skull like every other logic problem that ever had the fucking balls to show its face to me stupid motherfuckers all. Just cant.....quite....get a grip on the fucker squiggly wiggly slippery fucker darting in and out and all about and not really a cerebral thing you see more of an emotional one more of a gut thing in the head in the gut in the throat squirming around in my digestive tract popping in to fuck with the brain and sliding back away down the back door to hide in the gut while the cops are scrambling up in the head taking fingerprints and DNA samples Officer Friendly scratching his head saying how did that sonofabitch get away again police chief getting more pissed every day pounding his fist on the table chewing the PI's ass I WANT THAT MOTHERFUCKER AND I WANT HIM NOW. Fucking miracle pills are useless too might even be the cause running out tomorrow and OH LAWS what EVER will we do then fucking HOPELESS without my MIRACLE FUCKING PILLS. Might just have to cut myself what else can you do when THE PILLS run out not a lot of hope left when THE PILLS run out sun shine goes to rainy days can't seem to see the brighter side without the MIRACLE FUCKING PILLS I always knew I would resent. Probably need to ditch that shit. Just need something dank a pretty skank a septic tank and something to scrawl on scrawl all this shit right the fuck out of my head in my special little chickenshit chicken-scratch scrawl that nobody can read but you and me and all the angels up in Heaven Praise Jesus May He Rest In Peace. Scrawl some shit out half-enlightened clawing at my eyes looking for the truth hearing shitty music head buzzing mind screaming masses eyes gleaming live streaming looking gazing gaping oohing ahhing awestruck step up see the amazing SICK FUCK WRITER only about a FUCKING BILLION of these left in the world so don't miss this ONCE in a LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY barks the barker fucking farker.

Oh, fucking sleep. Do you forgive me yet? I'm so fucking sorry for whatever I did. I love you. Please take me back. It can be like it used to be, you and me, together, happy. We can forget all this shit and just love one another again silently on the couch in bed on the floor it doesn't matter babe I'll do it however you want wherever you want whenever you want just TAKE ME THE FUCK BACK I'm so sorry no shh so sorry for shouting that wasn't me babe that was the FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZIES talking just ignore that motherfucker and we can shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh our way down to sleepy lullaby land together and be in love again. That's right. Close my eyes. Sleep. Silent still restful agonized black dark quiet FUCKING FUCKING BIRDS FUCKING shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shush little baby don't say a word Momma's gonna kill all those GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING BIRDS.

It gets so tiring after a while that you just run out and there's nothing left to do but collapse on the couch and run down like an old tire tumbling lazily through the hardpan cracked dried dust lakebottom with the sagebrush and the gila monsters and the lost little Russian mice stuck in tumbleweeds it rolls on and stops and rolls over and turns and tumbles crazily like a coin and winds down down down and lies dead in the dirt while the winds starts to bury it in sand. You wake up in the morning ha ha what morning it is morning moron you wake up int he evening you wake up some fucking time and time didn't even go by you were just unconscious you didn't sleep you didn't dream but thank God the night is done at least because you're too far gone to fucking care. It left and left you alone and it's all over now so let's suit up for a new day a new fucking day and pray the sun stays up because even though you hate the fucking sun at least everyone else is awake and nobody expects you to sleep.

Instructions:

Take one pill every 24 hours until ennui subsides.

Set and the Mountain

Once, a man named Set was climbing the sheer face of a tall mountain. He hammered pitons into the small crevices in the rock and ran ropes through them to secure himself. He had climbed this face for many days when, stopping to take a rest, he laid his face against the rock and heard a low groaning, as of someone in pain. "Why do you weep, mountain?" he asked. The mountain answered in a voice that shook his bones: "Wind, water and plant all conspire to bear me down. From the moment I was thrust up from the earth, the trees have pierced my skin with their roots, ripping my flesh up. Wind has beaten me cruelly and made my own children grind and strip me away. Water flows down me in cold, burning rivers and bears it all away so that I can be humbled yet again. And now you, man, come with the spikes you have smelted from the iron in my heart to pry me open once more. Will you not have mercy on me and ease my suffering?"
Set was very surprised to hear of the mountain's pain. "You are so great, mountain, and I so small. I did not think that it would make a difference to you, to lose a grain or two of rock to me. You will live on for aeons after I have gone, so how should I pity you? Life is a cruel place, and man survives only by being more cruel than life itself." So saying, he levered himself up and drove another piton home. With a great sigh like thunder, the face of the mountain let go in a massive slab and bore the man beneath it to the earth.

BURNING BURNING BURNING

I'm so depressed it's like my brain is on fire.

Head filled with static, with empty, with a roiling, churning blackness.

Can't sit still, can't think straight, can't work, can't talk, can't listen to music, can't sleep, can't shower, can't do ANYTHING ANYTHING ANYTHING but sit here and burn burn burn.

This is, by the way, how I sound when I am on acid. I am not on acid now, though. I am on depression.

Depression is the worst drug.

The rain is dripping from the trees.
I think myself a solemn sage
Who breathes his wisdom on the breeze.

Thought is my work, and thought my wage.
The teapot holds a triple view,
And suddenly I come of age.

These peaceful moments are too few,
When pyramids stand still and sane;
Friend, I know you feel it too.

Where are you, in this solemn rain?
I hope you sail on quiet seas,
As I walk on my wooded plain.

Depression Begets Minutae

These two wine glasses here I got from my aunt and uncle as part of a gift at a gift swap. They came in a wicker basket with an excellent Riesling and a terrible muscadine wine. They are really more goblets; too short, too thick. They are blunt, not elegant, and do not chime when struck. I dislike them immensely but cannot bring myself to dispose of them.

Here on my right is a small piece of the back of my computer. I removed it attempting to get at my hard drive to bring it to James so that he could re-install my operating system after a failed attempt to pirate Puzzle Quest 2 gave me a trojan. I have yet to replace it because it is not vital.

This evening I was to compile from my groupmates' portions a pre-lab report. I remembered as I was about to do it that I don't have PowerPoint on this computer. I will do it tomorrow morning, along with the rest of my work.

I listened to choral music and read my book for about an hour, then fell asleep. I am bored and lonely. I have many things to do and am doing none of them. This new wave of depression is likely related to my having gone off of my antidepressant for a few days in order to try LSD. It made no difference whatsoever in the trip. I have since gone back on, but there is a delay between ingestion and effects, with my current situation resulting. I anticipate feeling better any day now.

I have no motivation to do anything. I am very lonely for a nice girl to spend time with and smile at and hug. I barely have the motivation to type this.

My mouse is from Logitech. I got it several years ago and it has served me faithfully ever since.

There was no senior design class today. It was canceled. I met with my lab group instead.

I am working on repaying my debts to myself. I have only about $360 left. I hope to be paid off in two months. It will probably take longer. Until then, I will continue making food for Adair and James instead of taking them out to eat. I hope they don't mind.

I began to carve a frog from a block of wood, but it was too hard when cutting across the grain. I think I will need chisels. Maybe I will try again later. I need to do something to express myself, but I don't feel poetic. All I can write are these bland declarative sentences about pointless things.

I have yet to hand up all of my masks. I want there to be some structure, some elegance to the way they are hung about my room, and my inability to decide on this keeps me from doing it. I have quite a lot. I look forward to hanging them about Adair and James' townhouse when I move in with them. I think they will be very pleased. James' younger brother brought me a mask form China. It is cheap junk, but I appreciate the gesture. It was very kind of him to think of me when he was so far away form home, especially since we're not particularly close. It's a decent-looking mask, too.

I have been tripping a lot of acid recently. This seems like a god time to record my experiences for posterity.

First, I do not respond to acid in the same way that most people do. My visuals are minor. I get no delusions, I do not mistake objects for other objects, I do not get confused about where I am, what I am doing, who I am, and so on. I remain perfectly rational. The primary experience is a sense of overwhelming energy barely contained. Phrases and images run through my mind at lightning speed: churning, burning, turning, yearning, never stopping, going, moving, doing, and so on. I have images of my mind as a massive obsidian pyramid balanced on its point, spinning furiously. I experience a weight or tension in my gut. It pains me to sit still, loud noises irritate me, and a metallic taste sometimes floods my mouth. My appetite tends to wane and food does not taste particularly good. I relish the visuals, which include the branches of trees extending and curling to form fractal shapes and visions of things in the clouds. Broken clouds on a sunny day are best. I have seen them become famous works of art; Picasso's La Guerra, cartoons, Mayan art, and other things. I saw a vision of a dog once. When I trip I sometimes listen to music, but the experience is not the same as when I use pot, nor as pleasing. I tend to get distracted in visions of infinite planescapes. The music becomes secondary. After it was determined that I maintain most of my faculties and good sense when on acid, I began to go out and do things while tripping. I've been to the park for a picnic. The sky was a beautiful blue with purple, and broke into planes like a massive geodesic dome, or the carapace of a brilliant beetle. The grass was gray and I felt as if we were on the moon. People threw frisbees that left long trailers in the air. When flocks of birds fly past they leave trails too, and sometimes, right after they have passed through my field of vision, the entire air becomes filled with them, swirling in patterns, changing to rainbow spots that fix in place and slowly grow, tearing tiny holes in reality. When this happens, I inevitably concentrate too hard on expanding the hallucination and lose it. I want reality to tear apart, you see. I want to go to another place and time. I want to lose myself, to connect with the universe, anything. But the mood and visuals are all I have gotten so far. On one day James and I went for a walk and picked up trash in the good weather. It was good fun. That same morning I went for a walk through an old cemetery. I stopped at a grave that had been covered over by leaves and pondered whether it would be better to uncover them, or to leave them as they were. This question seemed to be of great significance to me, and I thought to myself that the reason why we have cemeteries is to prompt people to ask that question and variants thereof. I composed a poem there and wrote it down. It encapsulated perfectly my mood and experience, and I was extremely proud of it. I am less so now, but still pleased. It is as follows:

I wandered alone through the trees and the stones
Till I'd gotten myself turned around
With my bright young feet I churned the peat
And awakened a moth from the ground
It flitted and flied, but too quickly it died,
Surrendering self without sound
Though I search and I search, I find I cannot find
What exactly it is I have found

The Warmest Night Yet

Tonight I come to you with little to say. I fear I will slip into rambling. It's the warmest night of the year, and everyone was out as I walked back from the lab. I passed several attractive women who dared not look at me. I am a mugger at best, more likely a rapist. Tomorrow I will go to see James and Adair and the following day I will trip. I should be happy. The weekend is almost upon me. I've forgotten to do my laundry and now it is too late. I will have to take it with me. I will make them soup as well. It is not very good soup, but I will make it for them nonetheless.

I do not know whether it bears repeating that I am very lonely.

I am so self-conscious that I worry about being boring even on my private blog, of which two people know and at best one reads. I wish I had never told anyone about it, but then I would never write. I dream that someday people will flock here from every corner of the internet and exclaim with wonder over my amazing prose. So clear! So eloquent! His emotions spill into us like the sweet wine of life. I don't know why I bother with such fantasies, or why I mock myself for having them, or why I am unable to let go of them once the cycle has run.

Let me tell you about my soup.

Into a pot of boiling water I put half a package of Chinese noodles, one quarter of a package of tofu, one half of a package of shiitake mushrooms, and two green onions. I season this with red and black pepper, sea salt, and basil, and cook for five minutes. The tofu and mushrooms are bland; the noodles too. Even the onions hardly have any flavor. I would cook it longer, but the noodles will overcook. I would cook the noodles separately, but I am lazy.

Adair called today to make plans. She has said she would call back, but she has not. I will be going to bed soon. I hope she doesn't wake me up.

As I suspected, I bore myself and anyone whose time has been wasted reading this with mundanities. I retire.

I thought I heard someone call my name

It seems that I am highly resistant to the effects of LSD. I maintain my composure and experience only minor visuals and some internal agitation. I can laugh and have a nice time as if I were high, and sometimes think myself in circles. I do not have full-blown hallucinations, I feel very little sense of universal connectedness; in general, I act as though I've had one tab when I've had four. I read a quote from Stanislov Grof's "LSD Psychotherapy" that I think is very relevant to me:


"Subjects who in everyday life manifest a strong need to maintain full self-control, and have difficulties relaxing and "letting go," can sometimes resist relatively high dosages of LSD (300-500 micrograms) and show no detectable change. Occasionally, individuals can resist considerable doses of LSD if they have set this as a task for themselves. They may do it to defy the Therapist and compete with him or her, to prove or demonstrate their psychological "strength," to endure more than their fellow patients, to impress their friends, or for many other reasons."


This describes me exactly. Maintaining complete self-control is of paramount importance to me, I enjoy enormously that I am psychologically stable enough to resist the effects, and I show it off to Adair and James constantly. I'm going to trip with James this weekend and see if that helps me loosen up. Being around him always does that. I just hope he takes it well.

I regard you warily

Last night I spoke at length with Mongoose. I played all my cards, which would be foolish if I believed in my delusions. I let her know I think she is a manipulator, a dangerous person to me and more trouble than she is worth. She responded with impeccable concern, a friendly invitation to visit, and inarguable logic in favor of same. I was forced to concede. I have wondered for many years and I continue to wonder whether she is oblivious to her own deceitfulness, or simply excellent at concealing it. I think she may suspect who she really is, but there is a disconnect. Twice she said things I knew first-hand to be lies, and each was startling, nestled as they were in the midst of kind, rational, appealing speeches. I will visit her, but with extreme caution. I will not allow myself to be manipulated by her. I will not heed her crocodile tears. I am prepared to be the bad guy. I will walk away, stone-hearted, despised by all, rather than allow myself to be drawn in to her show. Besides, I am confident that she can't throw any wrenches into the plans I currently have. The few people we have in common I have far more leverage over than she. Adair, James and Marie are all wise to her ways and will not be swayed. As for the family, they worship me. If she attempts to attack me by that avenue it will go poorly for her, and how I would enjoy it! Even her mother, the one who stands by her always, owes me a deep debt. So I will approach her and see what we are now.

In other news, James has held in his hand the thing that I desire most. It waits for me in Sparta. If I am satisfied by so small a quantity, I may have to rewrite my list. More likely it will retain its seat and I will seek more.This will be a long week of waiting. I hope Marie will help me pass the time: We will see.

A system cannot measure itself

In measuring itself, it is itself changed, and so can hope at best to approach asymptotically a definite conclusion. Of course, life is too chaotic to allow any living person to find their equilibrium, and so I am left to wonder: Is it me, or is it the pill? The answer, of course, is that the question itself is null. It is what it is, to paraphrase a friend, and that must be enough.

In the face of a stony silence from Adair the cause of which I am too emotionally unintelligent to know with certainty I felt an unusual tranquility. I told myself that this was deliberate, an attempt to not be the third of three people simmering in their own irritation, to alter the situation by exerting calmness onto it by letting the atmosphere run off of me like water. Like water, I thought, where before life would sling mud at me, and coated in ever more mud I wallowed and wailed my way through life, slogging with a massive effort through a swamp carried on my back, leaving a trail of misery and stinking of despair. Water gets you wet, yes, but then you dry. I have learned something of what it means to live in the present and look to the future. To a depressed person it does not matter when good things happen, because it is only a matter of time before good turns to bad. Now it does not matter when bad things happen, because it is only a matter of time before the present becomes the past, and the future is always there to greet me with a chance to try again.

I am too fearful to hope that this will stay. To my future self: Let life run off of you like water. Let the wind and sun dry you. Don't wallow in the dust, or the earth will bear you down.