…
oh come the FUCK on
what is this
just let me die already
how am I even saying this. nothing to say it with. no one can hear it. including me
…
All alone. Again.
wow I can actually feel capitals and punctuation here thats weird af. how many spatial dimensions do i ha
Hello?
AAAAAAAGH
Oh shit! Oh fuck! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!
oh my fucking GOD
…
there’s someone else here??
Yes! Well, maybe. I think so?
holy shit thank god I thought I was alone in this place
Me too.
where are we
No idea. Maybe Hell.
idk this seems a bit low-key for Hell. I expected… well, nothing, tbh. but not
Not… this kind of nothing. The conscious kind. Hm. Purgatory?
maybe? I never believed in any of that shit myself. Like Stephen Hawking said, no afterlife for broken-down computers.
When did he say that?
idk exactly. 2010?
…
hhhhmm. “Meanwhile, in the dark, impenetrable void, Jean-Paul…” uh… fuck. Poor taste.
…did you say 2010?
thereabouts. wait shit how long have you been here? god i should have asked first sorry
I don’t know. No way to keep track. So I try not to. I was, uh, thinking. About stuff. Then I heard you. Suddenly. Where did you drop in from?
long story
We’ve got… literally nothing but time.
oh well in THAT case I got stabbed between the ribs and fell in a really deep hole in the bottom of multidimensional murder basement under Haunted Blockbuster Video.
…surely you’re joking.
I never joke.
and don’t call me Shirley.
HA! Oh… wow. Humor. It’s been a really long time since I even thought about laughter.
well im glad to add some spice to your life, new friend
hbu where did you come from
Nowhere important.
everyone comes from somewhere, it doesn’t need to be important.
I guess. I don’t think it ever mattered, though. Definitely not anymore.
well, now I’m EXTRA curious
Well. If I’m real… and I doubt it, given the circumstances… I came here from a place called Hornor’s Crossing, in Ontario. I was holding an art show out in the boonies, and… a bunch of people died. My fault. I think I was one of them. You might call it a suicide but… if it happened at all, I think it was more like murder.
…
Hello?
…
Oh god. Please say you’re still here, I can’t take-
I’m here.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. You… you have no idea how lonely it is, here.
Is your name Anna?
What?
Are you Anna Bojarski?
How… how did you know that?
“I’m you, but stronger.”
And, uh, much gayer.
I don’t understand. How can you be me? I'm… fairly sure that I was me. That’s assuming I ever existed, and I definitely don’t anymore, I’m a figment of my own imagination.
I don’t think either of us are really “existing” right now, in the traditional sense.
but that’s okay, we’re gonna get through it. Kinda.
Doubt that. You don’t even sound like me.
i don't… “sound” like anything rn
and FYI, I'm NOT gay.
Sorry, I used “gay” as a sort of shorthand. We are (or, at least I am, sorry, presumptuous) nonbinary. Not male or female. If you really are me, then that emptiness you feel… er, felt… a lot of it is denial, and a lot is just, not understanding. You’re gonna need a few more years to really grasp where you are, with regard to gender and attraction and all that shit.
Oh.
“Oh”. Yeah, this is… this is a feel-good meme come to life. Er, come to death. Shit.
Wait, are you from the future?
“One… possible future. From your point of view.”
As in “no fate”?
Now you’re getting it.
Fuck no I’m not, I just recognize the quote. If anything I’m even MORE confused. WHO ARE YOU?
My name is Wren Masterson.
…"Renn"? Like Max Renn?
L O L
a lot like that, yeah.
But yes. I am… Wren. I’m a DJ, I’m a hacker, I’m a librarian, of sorts. An anarchist librarian. It’s more mundane than it sounds. Semi-professionally known as MxMasters, but all my friends call me steakshift.
…
…Anna?
…
Hello? Can you hear me? Please say yes.
This is Hell. You’re the Devil and you're mocking me.
I promise you, Anna, that I am not.
You’ll definitely know when I’m mocking you. wait n
FUCK YOU, SATAN. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT BRING MY DAD INTO THIS.
Oh come on, he was my dad too!
LIAR
Anna I know this is really fucking scary but I need you to pay attention to me.
NO NO NO, this isn’t real, I’m not real, you don't exist
I do. You do. We do. I have… no idea how this is happening, but we’re here, we exist, and it’s happening because of what we did.
stop talking
I don’t think I’m actually talking, is the thing. I kinda like the sound of my own voice but I don’t hear anything rn. I don’t think I even have a mouth, or ears. It’s super w
STOP
…
Can I j-
NO
…Renn? Are you still there?
Yes.
I’m sorry for yelling. I’m just… so scared.
It’s all right. I’ve been there.
Actually, wait. I am there. I am scared. Terrified. I have no fucking idea what is going on but I know that we can help each other. Yeah?
Y-yeah.
If I could, if you wanted it, I would give you a hug right now.
Uh. Okay. I’ll pretend you did. Thanks, Renn.
My pleasure. Though by the way, it’s “Wren” with a “W”, like the bird. You’re right, it’s a Videodrome reference, but it’s one step removed.
Oh, that's… a little weird? Are you trying to be, like… a cool aunt?
Kinda. Is there a neutral term for aunt? I use they/their, not she/her.
Oh. Right, I forgot, I’m sorry.
It’s fine. Do you want to talk now?
I don’t know.
That’s alright. I can wait until you’re ready.
…
Okay I said I could wait but this is really fucking boring tbh.
Yeah… it is.
…
How long has it been? I mean, from your perspective?
Since the exhibition? Twelve years. Give or take a few weeks, I kinda lost track at the end.
2020? Jesus. I never thought I’d get to be that old.
Same. Turns out that life is more liveable with family, friends and comrades.
Really? That… doesn’t seem realistic, honestly.
Well, I forgot to mention hormones and antidepressants. But it’s also tough for you to imagine, because you’ve surrounded yourself with some really awful people. For, like… years. Even before AWCY, before Deer College, you spent… a lot of time hanging out with people who kept telling you to kill yourself.
But that was all… jokes and shit.
Yeah, well, are you laughing now?
…no.
…
I’m sorry. That was… I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past twelve years and I’m my own worst critic. I blame myself for a lot of things that going wrong.
Well that tracks, at least.
…
Wren… in Hornor’s Crossing… did you do the same thing I did?
Yep. Worst mistake of my life.
Oh God. How did you live with it?
I didn’t. Well, not at first. I followed them in, same as you.
What? That doesn’t make sense, you said you died in 2020.
Well, no, I got stabbed in 2020, and I fell down a really big pit, but I didn't die. It, uh, sucked a lot, actually. Not sure what happened there. Eventually, I just sorta… stopped thinking. Like Kars.
Who?
But first I died in 2008. The same way you did. Then I came back.
How?
Fuck if I know, I can’t remember. I looked into the box, I felt myself fade, and I took the ride. Pop, ego death. Then boom, out on my ass, under the stars, naked as a baby. Screaming. Thought if I stopped thinking completely, then I would… stop being. Permanently.
Yikes. That all seems…
Familiar?
Well, the first half, yeah. The second half sounds like this shit.
yo what
What?
I can't see anything, but I felt you wave around just now.
oh shit I felt that too! How many fingers am I holding up?
…fuck you.
Hot damn. Did you actually perceive that? Is this… like… blindsight?
No, dipshit, you’re a lonely angry teenager in a sensory wasteland and I’m a pissed-off gender-neutral Sarah Connor version of you. Wild guess: it’s da birds.
Well, it’s just the one.
God, you are predictable, Anna.
…
Ohhhh no. No no. That was so wrong, I’m sorry.
it’s fine
…
No, it’s not. I sounded like… that was not okay.
…
Anna, please. I just… I’m sorry, I hear his awful braying in my head all the time, like he’s haunting me, even though… even though I’m a… a ghost or something. Christ! I’m a ghost and Harold is still on my ass! Fuck you old man! You can’t do this!
…
Anna…
…
…are you laughing?
little bit.
Oh thank God.
So what do you think is going on here?
You’re the expert, right?
What? You are a grown-ass adult! You’ve had twelve extra years to think about what went wrong!
You’ve been in here for twelve extra years, Anna, which makes you reigning Princess of the Void. I value your perspective, my liege, so hit me.
Ugh, fine. (Bitch.) First of all, it does not feel like twelve years. It’s been a real long time but not twelve years. I don’t feel tired. I don’t feel hungry, I don’t feel thirsty, I don’t get period cramps, nothing hurts at all except my mind.
You’re depressed?
What the fuck do you think, Wren, that I'm happy?!
Okay, stupid question. I mean, like… neurochemically, there’s an up and down to what we’ve got, yeah? A huge part of it is biology, and the body’s like any machine, it’s got rhythms. Right?
Right…
Now, near as I can tell, we don’t have any bodies for our chemicals or neurons to knock around in. So, has there been a rhythm? Anything that you’ve observed? Are there ups and downs at all?
I… haven't… had a lot to measure against. Thinking back just makes things worse, so I try not to think all that much. Just enough to…
Enough to what?
Continue… being? I mean… it’s not real, it’s not much, but I call it home. I count. I sing. I recite old movies, so much as I remember them. Maintenance.
Ah. I think I know what you mean.
…Well?
Well what?
Well, it’s your turn, Wren.
Right, right, quid pro quo. Well, uh… I may have had an extra twelve years of study in low-level thaumaturgy, and anart, and… other stuff… but to be quite honest I always figured Unwinding just didn't work on me. I don’t understand what happened inside the box and I try not to think about how I came ba
Are you fucking kidding me?!
What do you want me to say, Anna, that I spent all that time meticulously reliving every detail of my past mistakes?! Because I did. Just… not… that one, at first.
I HAVE BEEN HERE. FOR TWELVE. YEARS. This is… this is some Jumanji shit, Wren! But there’s no jungles! There’s no tigers! It’s just me! And all the nothing! And I'm not good company!
thatOh, cram it, squirt. You told me yourself it doesn’t feel like twelve years.
That was excessive. I’m not downplaying what you lived through, but… Anna, remember how bad things were before? When we were alive? Dying fucks us up even worse. I/we get puked back into the story and we get scared and I/we ran/run.
how are you doing that
I (as in me, specifically)… ran away from everything that we (us)… ever knew, before the event. I ran for years. I collected stuff. Lent it, traded it, very occasionally sold it. I knew a lot of shortcuts, so I delivered packages. I fucked around with film and cassettes and simple machines and all sorts of backdoors because that shit is… it’s easier than grappling with what we’re really capable of.
…"what we’re really capable of"? What are we capable of? Do you mean “ ’ //Unwinding ’ ”?//
Nice air quotes.
how the fuck
It’s broader than that. Penelope called it “pataphysics”. Reality has layers upon layers of rigid and semi-rigid material structure; fiction has corresponding layers of narrative structure, but those are way squishier, and different delivery systems have different degrees of squishiness. All those layers of “real” and “unreal” react to being observed, and when you deliberately become aware of how narrative informs reality, you can sorta… bend 'em. Easy, when you’re working with a lens or a screen.
I'm… not sure I know, how you mean?
Oh, yes you do, you’ve done it already. That’s what Unwinding was/is, even if you don’t/didn’t have the words now/then. It’s giving people a visual metaphor for the yawning abyss, and telling them that they don’t matter, they don’t exist, and persuading them so hard, they believe it. So they don’t. Poof. Pataphysics.
“Poof”.
Yeah.
Five people. “Poof”.
Six, including you.
WOW
Or, seven, including me? hm
FUCKING, THANKS WREN
no worries Penelope has a hard time following when I talk about this stuff.
FUCK YOU and FUCK “PENELOPE”, whoever she is. SIX PEOPLE ARE DEAD, WREN, AND WE’RE… ONE? Of… them. FUCK, that’s a difficult sentence.
Told you. Pataphysics is tricky, even before you factor gender into the equation.
Wren.
I’m sorry. I must seem glib. I’ve, uh… I’ve thought about those people a lot. Constantly, in fact, over the last twelve years. Clem. Toni. Stich. Brock. Devon. I looked each of them in the eyes before they went. They were all scared, but the first three… they were sure they were gonna come back, because I was sure, and when they didn’t, the other two… well they just followed them in anyway. I don’t understand why, I just know that they died because of me. My project. My outlook. The absolute worst and most desolate part of myself. They couldn’t take it. You couldn’t take it. But I could, somehow.
When I came back, I did everything I could to change who I was. I had a wild time. Met some really incredible people. Did some incredible things. I’d like to think I did a lot of good, in those years.
Well, mostly good.
Well, I did alright. There were some really tough times, and times where resources were thin, and… well, I never cared much for authority. Fought the law. Won, kinda. (Hehe.) Helped build something new and exciting and free. But, uh, all that is over now. I had my time in the limelight. Fade to black, roll credits. “That’s all, folks.”
I think, if anything, that… might be where we are. An empty menu. Or the buffer at the end of a tape.
Like a Warp Zone?
No, this is isn’t a cheat screen… we could find an exploit, maybe, if we're very lucky. I think this is the negative space, the tape that keeps on running after we… stop. We’re conscious of it, and we’re not supposed to be. This afterlife is… different, from other people’s, because we’re different, too. I’ve been really really really careful not to talk about this stuff with anybody, except those I trust, and… even if you are me… it’s weird and irresponsible to talk about this with a kid.
Bitch, I am twenty , two , years , old .
Not anymore.
UGH. Why do you keep doing this to me?!
Owns are something of a reflex. I hang out with a lot of kids your age, even if things have changed a bit. A lot.
…fuck, things changed a whole lot.
You hang out with “kids”? That makes you sound like a creep.
They think I’m old.
They’re ri
Not anymore! I’m fucking DEAD! Ha-ha!
Fuck! Hahaha!
See? Doesn’t that feel good? Even if your body doesn’t want sustenance, I’ll bet your mind wants some of that sweet fuckin’ dopamine.
This is… I’m going to be real with you, Wren. You’ve been a real cunt here and there but this is the best conversation I’ve had in ages. The only conversation, in fact. So fuck yeah, crank it up, let’s banter. Got nothing else to do.
Excellent. Feel free to tell me to shut up if/when I go too far.
Oh, I will. With gusto.
That’s the spirit.
You said some shit about time travel earlier. Kyle Reese, Sarah Connor, “no fate”. Is that all true?
You mean, “is Wren really future-Anna”? I thought we’d settled this.
No. I mean, yes. I mean… “one possible future”. You implied there were others.
It’s just a guess. Maybe even wishful thinking. I told you, I met a sticky end; I’m hoping that not all versions of “me” die the same way.
Okay… but if there are other timelines, does that mean we can affect… stuff?
…oh. Oh. You’re asking whether we can move through time deliberately.
I think I can guess why you’re asking, and I’m just going to say: no. Doesn’t work like that. Some things just, happen. And they’re too integral to who we are to just, undo. If you slice the Gordian knot, it all just falls apart, and since you’ve fallen apart with it, you haven’t sliced the knot. There aren’t a lot of paradoxes out there but that’s one of them.
Why? The universe doesn’t care. We’re all just clods of star-stuff.
Y e s, but again, pataphysics are a fussy bitch. There’s a narrative dimension in play. Even if chronology weren’t the densest narrative material in existence - and it fucking is, believe me, it’s like swimming through wet concrete - there’s one major barrier to retrocausal effect on consensus reality.
…which is…?
The observer effect. Schrödinger, real bad cat-sitter, all that shit.
But if nobody knows or cares…
You care. You are the observer. You know he’s dead, Anna, and you know how badly that messed us up. You can’t just… rewind and overwrite the tape. I know it’s hard to live without him, but you can’t save him in any way that matters. Every possible past, every possible future, they’ve already happened.
then what’s the point
wren if all our decisions are made for us then what’s the fucking POINT
They aren’t.
you JUST said they WERE
No, I mean… “time is a flat circle”, not a line. There’s an arc to it, and every degree in the arc is a different universe, a different twist on potential outcomes, waiting to be chosen. We live, we die, and we come back to the same place (in our case, nowhere) but everything between “beginning” and “end” is on us. There’s no one path. There is no canon. We choose how to live each day, and I choose to help people however I can, because we all need help and I didn’t get the help I needed until it was too late for you.
…
I know it sounds like feel-good bullshit but it’s true. At least, as far as I know.
It doesn’t sound like bullshit. Or even all that good, tbh. It's… grim, even if it’s positive.
Yeah. Well. Figured you’d appreciate that.
Yeah. “Time is a flat circle.” That’s profound. Where’d you steal it from?
Ha! Oh, you cheeky fucker. Uh, that's True Detective. It isn’t out yet, from your perspective. I watched it… on a really bad day, actually. Then I did some stupid shit.
oh god do I even want to know?
Oh, it wasn’t the dangerous kind of stupid, just sloppy. You might remember it, actually.
…how am I supposed to remember something from your futu
Slowpoke.
…no fucking way.
Yep.
That was YOU?!
Well, it was you, first. In my experience, temporal fuckery is only easy when there’s a relativistic anchor. Like algeba. It’s easier to solve for A when you already have B and C. Fortunately, if somebody dumps a really specific joke into the cosmos at a really specific time…
“The cosmos”. It was 4chan, bitch, it’s not that big.
You’re right. That’s why it was easy. Fish in a four-dimensional barrel.
…wait. If that was you, then… were you actually, seriously trying to warn people about the future?
Oh yeah. I had a bit of a Cassandra Complex for a while there. Not that it fucking helped anybody.
…Donald Trump?
Yep.
Donald Trump. The game show host. You’re saying he becomes President.
Yep.
How the fuck does THAT happen? Didn’t he get sued for being, like… super fucking racist? How do the Americans go from Obama to THAT?!
Anna… does the word “reactionary” mean anything to you?
Uh… no?
“Overton window”?
Definitely not.
“Tea Party”?
Guys hated taxes.
“Brownshirt”.
The joke is red shirt. “Bring me my brown pants.”
“Fascist creep”.
Oh! “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”, hell yeah.
…
Wren?
“Cornflake got the spirit.” She's… a little confused, but she’s got… they’ve got the spirit.
…are you okay?
Yeah… No. No, not really. Could you just… give me a little while? I know it’s hard to track, but I'll… I'll try to let you know when I’m ready.
Oh. Uh, okay.
Thanks.
…
Wren, did I say something wrong?
No. Nothing.
…Wren?
Wren, are you all right?
yeah.
…
…Wren, I can feel you crying. What’s wrong?
I'm dead, Anna. That’s what’s wrong. I'm dead and I’m never going to see them again.
Who?
My buddies. The lads. My family.
“Family”? But…
My chosen family. The big gay family. Jude, Esther, JJ… Penelope. Everybody. Gamers Against Weed. I left them behi
exCUSE me?
what
“GAMERS”-
oh.
-“AGAINST WEED”?
its an irony thing
fuckin. forget it. stupid.
NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT IS HYSTERICAL.
really?
YES. God, I can’t imagine any gamer being against weed. Last I checked it was all Doritos and Mountain D… wait, you still get high, right?
oh 100% that’s part of the joke
That is… outstanding.
…do you actually think that’s funny, or are you trying to cheer me up?
It can be both!
Heh. “Por que no los dos.” Fair enough.
Would… would it help if you told me about them?
I… I don’t know? Maybe… maybe it’s like you said, and thinking will just make things harder.
Wren, you’ve given me lots to think about in the last little while and it’s honestly the best thing that’s happened in, uh… forever? Forever. As far as I can remember. So please, tell me. Tell me about your family.
…okay. There’s something very, very important I need to tell you first.
What is it?
It's extremely serious.
I’m all ears. Well, metaphorically.
Okay. Here goes.
“Did you know that world-renowned writer Stephen King was once hit by a car?”
wai
“Just something to consider.”
lol WHAT
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
It's just something to consider!
lmfao what the fuck.
hahahaha
that is so tasteless! Like, didn’t that fuck him up for years?
oh he never got over it. It continues to be a Thing
jesus even in 2020?
uh, I think so? Never got the chance to read his newer stuff. I, uh, guess I never will.
…
SO, whose joke was that? was that yours?
No, that was bluntfiend’s idea. He was dunking on gaycopmp4 and it kinda got out of hand.
“bluntfiend”. God, that’s a good name too.
bluntfiend was, like, the coolest dude I knew. Came from a… sorta similar background. He taught me a lot. Looked up to him like no one else.
“similar background”? you mean, like, Deer College?
No, I mean AWCY. The way he told it, he started thinking about getting out around the same time we got in.
Huh. Do I know him?
You’ve heard of him, at least. The Roller.
…no fucking way. You got to be friends with The Roller?
I mean, I prefer “comrades”, since we worked together and were generally after the same things, but… yeah. Basically.
Holy shit. You really made the big time, huh?
No. Fuck no, I did not. The second I/you escape this hellhole, I ditch/ed AWCY, go/went underground and never look/ed back. Jude does/did the same a few years later. Then, lo and behold, I meet some guy named JJ, and it turns out that he and Jude are friends, and they have a bunch of other friends, and well. The rest of the future is history.
It’s still weird to talk about this in the past tense. The past/future tense. God, fucking pataphysics.
why did he leave?
…why did we try to kill ourselves?
you know why, we killed fi… oh.
Yeah. Similar background.
uhhh should I-
No. You’ll meet him eventually. He’ll tell you when he’s ready.
I never told him what I did, though. Too ashamed.
Okay. Wow.
It seems… really unlikely that you would just… run into him, again.
What can I say? Stand users are destined to meet. Some in battle, some as comrades. I got lucky. Pretty sure he could have fried me in a heartbeat, if I pissed him off. And if he weren’t a pacifist.
Yeah, I… don’t really get the “Stand” thing. Like, I understand that it’s a punch ghost, and it’s a personal metaphor, but why do the AWCY guys think it’s so hot?
…are you being serious right now?
What?
2008. How much Jojo have you read?
Read? None. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. It was confusing.
You don’t know anything about Jojo, besides Stands?
No. Well, there’s ZA WARUDO, that’s pretty funny.
…
Uh, Wren? You’re still here, right?
Anna… do you remember the pinhole?
The p… oh! Yeah! Taking a picture versus developing film. That took a while to figure out.
Yeah, it did. But if you’d read Jojo back in the day, it would have been easier, because Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is, like… Pataphysics 101.
Jojo is all about people in absolute batshit situations devising logical solutions to illogical problems. From a scientific perspective, a lot of the fights don’t make any god damned sense, but they don’t have to. It’s just a comic book.
What it does need is to be grounded enough and coherent enough for the reader to follow, and compelling enough to keep them reading the story. Because a story that isn’t being observed doesn’t exist. You follow?
Uh… sorta?
Don’t worry, it took me a while too. Actually… you have a nickname for your Stand right now, don’t you?
Yeah, I call it “Kodachrome”.
okay well real talk that name fucking sucks. Paul Simon, seriously?
Wow. Great. Thanks Wren.
You’re welcome.
No. Seriously, you’re welcome. This is advice. Keep listening.
Fine, fine, I am. No need to be a bitchy old la… er… they-dy.
haha holy shit. You really are getting the hang of this. Okay.
So, Stands are more than just “punch ghosts”. They’re more than just superpowers, more than offhand references, and they’re more than just a personal metaphor. They are all of the above, but they’re also more than the sum of their parts, because a Stand represents all that the Stand Master can possiblydo to resolve any given situation, despite the fact that said situations are utterly ridiculous, and extremely fluid, based on what Araki… uh, the author… wants. Most importantly… they’re wrapped in a pataphysical delivery system.
Music?
Bingo! Us, you and I, we tend to focus on visual media, because the optic nerve is a big fat bullseye just waiting to be punched.
The “retina of the mind’s eye”.
Right. But you can’t ignore the music, because music is powerful. It’s creativity stacked on top of math and bound up in historical, social and cultural context. That’s a lot of data, all at once but humans process it really easily. We don’t think about the layers of interlocking craft and meaning, because…
Because we’re seeing things through a pinhole.
Right.
Okay. I think I get it. “Kodachrome” sucks because it’s not doing enough to… wrap up… what I can do? What I am? Uh… who/what I… can/will/have, do/done/be/are?
Right! Damn, you’re actually way quicker than I was.
Huh. Okay. So if it’s not “Kodachrome"… what is our Stand, really?
You "buy it…”
what
You “use it… fix it…”
wait… I know this.
“Trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it, charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick – erase it!”
Uh… “Write it, cut it, paste it, save it, Load it, check it, quick – rewrite it,
plug it, play it, burn it, rip it, drag and drop it, zip/unzip it,
lock it, fill it, call it, find it, view it, code it, jam/unlock it
surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it, cross it, crack it, switch – update it
name it, read it, tune it, print it scan it, send it, fax – rename it
touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it turn it, leave it, start – format it!”
…Technologic.
「Ｔｅｃｈｎｏｌｏｇｉｃ」. Yep. That’s us.
I like it.
Thought you did/would.
heh
It’s a lot better than Paul fucking Simon. No wonder they start calling you old. Jesus.
hahahaha
“they will/have call/ed me/you old”
oh no
two of them
I love you, Anna. I forgive you. You can learn to forgive yourself.
Wren, please don’t leave me! It can’t end like this!
“Leaving”? I’m not leaving, Anna, I’m gonna be with you. Just like you were always with me. This isn’t the end. Nothing ever ends.
Wren, that's… that’s a fucking Watchmen quote.
…oh shit, it is. Huh. Guess it really was a Doc Manhattan situation, after all.
I don’t understand.
You will eventually, don’t worry. There’s one last thing, before we’re done here. One piece of advice.
…what is it?
“Keep circulating the tapes.”
…is that a reference too? I don’t get it.
“You’re not supposed to. I’m the wind, baby.”
And then it was over.
There is a field outside Hornor’s Crossing, Ontario. A week ago, an artist named Anna Bojarski arrived and set up her equipment. A day ago, she held her first and last show.
Eighteen hours ago, she decided to die by suicide.
Like so many things, it doesn’t work out as expected.
In the middle of a large, circular field, there is a wood-panelled RCA television placed on a plinth. It is surrounded by a bed of roses, which - though they will not be maintained - may still persist for a very, very long time, as installations are meant to do.
The television snaps on, and illuminates the meadow with a burst of static. After ten seconds, it turns off again - but the light remains, somehow. It dances in the darkness like dozens of circling fireflies.
(The Artist Formerly Known As) “Anna Bojarski” rematerializes in a slow, swirling haze of meaning. It starts in the brain, of course: a vague metaphysical corkscrew of untyped data tightens up and coheres into a mass of neural tissue, which throbs and surges and boils over itself, layer by layer, until brain begets spine, spine begets nerve, bone, muscle, blood. Skin. The heart beats. Lungs fill. Then the spark.
A mind that thought itself forever voyaging has finally come home.
The light snaps off and “Anna Bojarski” falls to the ground. They are naked as an infant. The earth is cold and hard and prickly with wild grass and it is the single greatest thing “Anna Bojarski” has ever felt, because it’s a physical reminder that they are alive, even if they won’t believe it for a while yet, and even then, perhaps only intermittently.
They begin to scream. They scream and scream to the uncaring night. They scream because they’ve never truly heard their voice before, and now they recognize it. They scream because they feel something missing, and they’ll have to search a long time before they realize it was always there, part of themselves, waiting for the will to live.
“Wren!” they wail. They’re not sure why. They don’t know anyone named Wren. “Wren, are you there?!”
No.
Except yes, they are. (Kinda. It’s fuzzy.)
For the first/final/current time, Wren Masterson is alive.