"They [my writings] are things I wrote because to maintain myself in a world much of which I didn't love
I had to fight to keep myself as I wanted to be."
-- William Carlos Williams,
Selected Letters
(letter to son. 1942);
from World, Self, Reality
by James E. Miller, Jr.

regretitorial
by rewired

Some crazy lady tried to kill her child by placing him in a microwave oven and turning it on. More old diseases are coming back in drug-resistant strains. Aside from that, the day has sucked about as much as every day since I came back from Kent. I actually miss the apartment. After a taste of freedom, even when having to deal with all the monetary burdens and all the crap dealing with my ex-girlfriend while I was down there, it still beats working at Chardon BK and living with and relying on my parents.

I'm not even sure about love anymore -- what it is, what it means, if it's all that good to begin with. All I know is that I'malmost certain I feel it, and I could write five novels just trying to make sense out of it and trying to communicate it to myself and the world. It seems like everything I experience is either boring or tasteless or so dark, intense and emotionally spicy that it drives me mad. I'm a storehouse of some strange energies, I'm almost certain. Maybe I should stop waiting around for (what I believe) is love to be nurtured from both ends, and open lines of communication to be made. Perhaps I should just go on what my friends and ex-psychologist had been telling me for years -- to quit living with the Eeore mindset, moping around and complaining, and just go get laid.

I'll just refill my coffee for now. That's satisfaction enough for me.

So, do my editorials really change at all? I didn't think so either.

The long-awaited issue is here, and if you haven't been waiting for it, then you won't be as excited as most of us are to finally get this out, and that'll be just fine. Because after just one mere glance at this issue you'll just HAVE to send me submissions -- I just know it. Why would you do this, you ask? For one of two reasons: you'll see the great literature in this zine and want to be a part of it, or you'll realize how much all this sucks. Then the fact that we'll print almost anything will get you to think, `hey, if they can print THAT crap then they'll most certainly print MY crap.' Well, maybe not. I'm getting pickier these days. I want good submissions.

Eh, what the hell - send it whatever ya got. I'll try my best to find a place for it.
For now, though, enjoy the latest issue. It's full of emotional turmoil, loss, misery mixed with happiness, and fear of the future and the paths we can take which is very in sync with my life right now.
So take two No Doz, pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back with this issue -- and e-mail me your submissions in the morning. Unless, of course, you're on Insomniac Time -- at which time you'll then mail it to me in the late afternoon before I run to my current employment at the Palace of Grease, otherwise known as the Burger Bog.
Toodle-oo, till the next issue.

Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Untitled
by Gemini

Hot infected
Molding Rejected
cold congested
live and let live
repel
and infest it
rebel
and resist it
sing
and sing louder
scream
and scream prouder
Hold the tears
building inside
scream louder
but never cry

Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember.
--Virgil

The Summer of Eighty-Six
By Tinman

"So whatever did happen to the seeing eye dog?"

"What's that?"

"I was just wondering what happened to the seeing eye dog."

"The seeing eye dog? Well, let's see… That must have been the summer of eighty-six, back behind McGraw's drugstore in that old wooded lot where we used toburn the leaves. Remember that? We all sat on the chain link fence and watched them crinkle and blacken, the flames licking up almost into the live trees. I was always afraid that they were going to catch fire and we'd start a whole forest fire back there."

"The place wasn't really that big. I mean, there were only like a dozen trees and they took up the whole lot almost."

"I know, but it seemed so big at the time. I guess we had no other place to compare it to. I remember playing hide and seek back there for hours and hours. And finding robin's eggshells and anoraks and those tiny little red spiders in the bark. That was a place."

"Remember that big tree, that pine tree that was behind the white house, past the garden and stuff?"

"Yeah, it used to have a name even, didn't it? General Something or Old General or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was. How tall was that thing? A hundred feet?"

"At least."

"Those bottom branches were huge. They were like tree trunk sized themselves. I remember when Jonathan Smiley or Smiles or whatever his name was-Jonathan Somebody with the blond hair and the bowl-cut and was always talking about how his older brother could punch through glass."

"I know who you mean."

"Yeah, he started climbing that tree. Always thought he was so cool, you know? Like when he went and saw Gremlins with his older brother. That was all he talked about for weeks. Another time he told everybody he saw a Jabberwocky. Even pointed out where it was."

"A what? A Jabberwocky?"

"Yeah, like in Lewis Carroll. You know, slithy toves and whiffling and burbling and all that. I didn't even know what it was at the time but it scared me half to death. It wasn't until later that I found out what an idiot that kid was."

"Where'd he say he saw it?"

"At school, right under the window. I looked for that thing for the longest time."

"Hey, remember Susannah?"

"Susannah? Yeah. I was over her house once. Big house with hedges and stuff. Her uncle had drums and keyboards and all kinds of instruments there. He used to do shows on the lawn or something. Anyway, she had a trampoline too. I remember that she got some water or something on her dress when she was on it and so she just took it right off."

"The dress?"

"Yeah. Wasn't wearing anything underneath it either. There she was, bouncing up and down until she figured out I was a boy and ran screaming into the house. Or maybe she had been trying to make a move on me or something. I don't know."

"That's a pretty extreme move for the first date."

"No kidding. As soon as she had her dress off, I was hiding in the bushes, covering up my eyes, afraid to look."

"Anyway, she called me."

"Called you what?"

"Like a year ago."

"On the phone?"

"Yeah."

"Why? What'd she say?"

"She's here. Moved back to the area and she said she was looking up people from the old school, so she called me. You know, we talked a little, but not really. It's been way too long."

"That's an incredible coincidence that you both ended up moving to the same place eventually. That's weird. That's like the Smith's live down the street from me. Maybe you don't know them. Ross was a year older than us."

"No, she said that Patrick lives around here, too. Not like real close, but within a couple counties. I forget where exactly."

"Patrick? That's a name I haven't wanted to hear in a long time. That kid was messed up even way back then."

"She says he still is. I believe it."

"Crazy…"

"Hey, remember how they used to have that big Christmas tree in the white house?"

"Yeah, and all the Dutch kids would walk around with candles in their hair. Saint Somebody's festival. Saint Lucia or Saint Monica or one of them."

"Man, it never snowed there, did it?"

"Not really. Not more than like half an inch and that much would shut the whole town down for the day. Still though, Rolo used to pound us with snowballs every morning when we were waiting for the bus. Remember Rolo from across the street?"

"Yeah, I'd try to get him back, but you can't make snowballs with mittens. It's impossible."

"We used to call him Rolo Polo with a Hole In the Middle."

"Wasn't he Dutch or something?"

"I don't know. Probably. Rolo's not really an English name."

"What about Paul and Linda?"

"Yeah, they lived next door to you. From Ireland, right?"

"Yeah, and Aaron down the street. Used to ride our bus for a couple of years."

"Didn't he move out of the country or something? To Switzerland or Denmark or someplace?"

"Everybody did. Even Mrs. Malcolm moved to South Africa."

"Remember Andrew Wagenhafer?"

"From Texas? Yeah. What about him?"

"Nothing. I just like saying his name."

"And Ryan Budd."

"Yeah, Ryan Budd! And Laura or Lauren…"

"Lauren. She used to be like my best friend. I liked her."

"Yeah, and Dave and Michael. And wasn't there Amber or somebody? Tiffany? Tiffany Amber?"

"I think so. But everybody just kept coming and going. Man, that time was so surreal. School was like one of those sliding puzzles. Your friends always moved away, and it wasn't like they were moving to Eastlake or someplace. It was always Italy or Belgium or Saudi Arabia. And nobody there thought that was strange. Here, they'd think we were freaks, but there we were just doing what people did. Life was like one of those sliding puzzles, with everything constantly shifting and moving. I don't know what it was, the place or the eighties, or a combination of both or what."

"No, wait, it was Isabella, not Tiffany!"

"Yeah, I remember her! Right."

"Anyway…"

"Right. Wasn't I supposed to be telling you about the seeing eye dog?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Where was I?"

"I think you were at the summer of eighty-six."

"That's right. The summer of eighty-six. The summer of eighty-six."

"Crazy is a relative concept."
-- from some stupid Sci-Fi movie my uncle was watching over Thanksgiving break. --

Dagmar, the Mental Terrorist
and How to Initiate the Brain Fart Mechanism
by Rewired

"Excuse me, ma'am," said he, approaching the desk, where an attractive, slender female was typing, chewing Nictorette gum.

"I need to see a doctor."

She turned slightly to give him an uninterested glance. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, of course not, but it's urgent, I swear." He said in an urgent tone that seemed to catch a bit more of her attention, "I need the best mental therapist you've got. Please. I don't know how much longer I've got."

The attention quickly drifted as quickly as it had come. She looked back down at her paperwork as she had been doing before, and only then shrugged and said, after a moment of silence: "You'll have to wait, I'm sorry." She sounded rather annoyed. The stranger didn't catch this; orperhaps the truth was that he was quite aware that he was causing her agitation, but didn't give a ragged rat's ass.

"Oh, it's just a goddam matter of life and death." He said, sarcastically dismissing himself, "It's not as if I called three weeks ahead of time to arrange to wait in a fucking hospital room for forty-five minutes to wait for a doctor whose main motive is copping a feel, placing it under the guise of a routine physical where he says, `drop `em,' sticks his finger on my scrotum and asks me to turn my head - so as not to see - and hack deeply."

He got her full attention. she now looked directly at him and blinked, and proceeded to say in a rather perplexed tone: "This... is a psychologist office."

He shrugged. "Good, because I have a mental problem."

"Really." She said, more of a statement than a question.

He shook his head in the affirmative. "I need to see a doctor now."

She then cranked back into her By-The-Book-Bitch Mode: "You'll have to make an appointment, I'm sorry. We have a schedule, sir, we have to - "

He slammed his hands down on the desk. "Time - haha! Chronology! An illusion! Time doesn't occur in order, it's just an illusion of this plane of existence! A man-made invention! Now, I'm not asking you to sell your soul for a peanut - I merely want to see your top mental health specialist, stat - so get on the damn phone and call someone!"

She picked up the phone and breathed silently. "Security?"

He put his fingers down on the hang-up thingie.

"What's going on?" Said the rather short, skinny, brown-haired balding man in a long white coat coming out of the office door. He turned to the stranger. "Is there something I can do for you?"

He sighed and straightened up his posture. "I need a mental health specialist. Are you one?"

"Yes." He said. "Do you have an appointment?"

His body dropped into a slump again, his face turned red, and as his face contorted his eyeballs looked as if they were ready to shoot out of his socket at tremendous speed, which wouldn't at all be healthy. "For the lack of god, no, I don't have a fucking appointment! What's with you people and this persistent infatuation with the illusion of chronological time?"

He rested his cupped hand on his chin and let his fingers slowly play with his overgrown beard. "So what could we do for you?"

He sighed, apparently satisfied that the question had finally been thrown at him. "I'd like to commit myself." He said in a straightforward manner.

"Why?" The doctor said, trying to act all empathetic and stuff -- but anyone could tell he was already running through diagnoses.

He shrugged and looked at the doctor as if he'd expected him to have a firm grasp on what the stranger took to be obvious. "I'm mentally ill."

"What can I do for you?" He asked, trying to sound empathetic. "What happens to be your condition?"

"You're the damn doctor!" He said. "Can't you see that I'm a compulsive liar?"

He shook his head in the positive, chewing on the eraser of his pencil. Then his eyebrows did a funny thing, forming a scowl of utter confusion. He looked back up at him. "You're name?"

"Dagmar."

"Mister Dagmar," the doctor told him, "if... uh... if you're a compulsive liar, how exactly do I know whether you're telling me the truth right now?"

"I hate prejudiced people."

He blinked.

"I also marched in Washington in an effort to ban censorship."

His eyebrow raised.

"What I'm saying right now is a blatant lie."

Someone in the waiting room farted and let out an exasperated sigh.

"Nothing exists."

A fly buzzed somewhere in the room.

"God, who knows everything, even the future, which means everything's set in stone and cannot be changed at all, which means anything we do is what he made us do, gave us free will to do with what we choose as long as we choose to go to church, follow his ten rules, and kiss his omnipotent ass through the channel of prayer."

Somewhere in the New Mexico desert, an atom bomb exploded.

He sniffed.

No one said anything for a few moments. He looked at the doctor. "Don't you believe me?"

He nodded in the positive. "Well, no."

"Then you do."

A minor brain spasm shot through his skull at tremendous speed. "Huh?"

"Think about it: if I'm not a compulsive liar, than I'm lying about being one, and doing something like this - running into a hospital and demanding to see a doctor for this condition - is seen as bizarre in society, and I did it all on a whim, to tell a lie, therefore by telling a lie of this magnitude for no conscious motive I must've done it on compulsion. Therefore, if you don't believe me whenI say that I'm a compulsive liar, than I'm lying compulsively about being one, and therefore I am a compulsive liar. Of course, if you agree that I'm a compulsive liar, which, in actuality, you must, then you also have to agree that I could be lying aboutit. Yet if I was lying, in that, I would be telling the truth, yet still lying."

Somewhere in the air vents on the Pentagon, a mouse's blood is being replaced with coffee.

"But that can't be so. It leaves no possibility of a lie in your statement."

"No possibility of truth, either." Added the secretary.

"What the hell are you saying then?" Said the doctor, turning back to that crazy, crazy man.

"Good question. These dual, contradictory truth/lie paradoxes exist naturally yet they seem to defy nature, or at least our modern way of perceiving it. Dual, opposing halves of any element of reality are found everywhere: `ban censorship', `I hate prejudiced people,' `what I'm saying right now is false'."

"They're just statements that can only exist in our limited language, not in nature. Nature - physical reality - has laws that disallow such contradictions. So nah. Such contradictions cannot exist in actual, real physical reality."

"Heh," he said, laughing and shaking his head. "Real reality, heh? Physical? Real? Give me a break. You understand that every piece of matter is composed of 99.999% empty space and the rest is particles of condensed energy that zip around so fast they merely cause the illusion of matter? So all matter is mostly nothing encased by itty bitty bits of something called energy that zips around and makes everything in this `physical reality seem solid and concrete and `real'? "

"It doesn't change the fact that what we see is still there. That we, in fact, are still here," he said, "We can interact with things, change things, create things. We're conscious of things happening."

"How do you know it's not a dream? How do you know it's not all just some big dream?"

"Because reality - although, like you said, based mostly on nothing - exists for everybody. So I see a car, and someone else sees a car, and we can both climb in and tell each other that it's there, and it exists for anyone else who comes into contact with it, that pretty much hints that it exists. I'm sorry, but that makes sense."

"A mere illusion."

"We can interact with it. It's always there. Things are composed of nothing, yes, energy, yes, but that energy cannot be destroyed, only change form and change it's point in space - it's location - through time. So you're wrong! In whatever way, time exists! Matter exists, even if it's composed of almost totally of a vacuum or `nothing' and a wee bit of energy, or `something'!"

"Why do you say it exists, though?"

"I see it. Smell it. I can taste it, hear it, touch it if I like."

"Wecan say the following, can we not? That we believe reality exists because of three reasons. a, we perceive it, b, because other people perceive it, and c, because of the fact that existence is consistent, but only changes form and location in space ordered by time as it pulls space through it."

In another dimension, a writer of a really lame story itches his balls at roughly 2:19 am.

"Agreed." He stated.

"Okay. First off, I might explain the nature of the human body's mode of perception. As science has so boldly proclaimed, we have five kind of sensory organs that `pick up' on the reality outside our own brains - what I'll refer to Objective Reality. Our ears pick up `waves' that exist in the atmosphere due to vibration, reduce them to signals and send them on a path to the human brain, where they're picked up as sound. Listen to what I said: they aren't sound, they are interpreted by our brains as sound. Sound itself, as we know it, doesn't exist, just the waves. Not only that, but we don't pick up on all sound waves - only a limited amount. We can't hear dog whistles, high-pitched or really low vibrational sound waves, and so on. So what we know of sound is just a delusion fed to us by our genetically-produced brains based upon the objectively-existing waves our senses pick up on. Worse yet, what we pick up on and coat with a delusion to understand is only a small range of the sound waves that e\par "Our biological body's five senses pick up sensory data, which travel along the nerve endings as signals, and bring it to the human brain which sews all the fragments of sensory data together in what could be visually rendered as a patchwork quilt. We fill in the holes that are left behind by the limited information about objective reality given to us by our senses."

He shrugged. "So what? Still, as delusional as objective reality and the subjective view of reality we have of it seems to be, we all share the same `delusion', which would hint at the fact that this shared delusion isn't a delusion at all. It is what exists!"

"That's b, in our mutually-agreed reasons as to why we think reality exists. The old belief that `well, I see the car, she sees the car, that guy sees the car and he sees the car, too, and we can all hop in it and have someone drive it and it exists objectively the same way for each and every one of us.' Well, thfft. Shared hallucination? Ever hear of it?"

"You say that reality is confirmed by others and that makes it real. No, you see, humanity as a whole only knows without doubt that we're the only conscious living beings on this planet, and we haven't publicly announced any known extraterrestrial life out there yet. Due to this, we have no one else to verbally communicate with who has a different genetic structure and biology, and someone at our level of evolution or over it that can communicate to us the nature of a different mode of perceiving than we do. Our natural, biological way of sensing objective reality is given us from our birth by our bodies, and our bodies were given to us by our DNA, which has the genetic blueprint and information that has beenpassed down from generation to generation since the dawn of our civilization. Since we all have the same tools for measuring reality, we all have the same natural ability to perceive reality the same way. Others seeing the same delusion only reinforce ourbelief that the delusion is not a delus\par "So every species sees there own version of reality? Their own rendition? Who sees the fuller reality then?" The man was a little upset. Had he had any hair left on his head by that time, he would have pulled it all out. It wouldn't matter, though, because that hair and his head is mostly nothing. No, really.

"None of them. Or all of them put together."

"Which is it?"

"Neither one. Maybe both of them."

"How can that be so, dill honkey?"

"Same reason I'm both telling the truth and lying when I came in here saying that I was a compulsive liar: reality is purely a war of dual subjective minds and fantasies, and thus contradictory truths - by law, not by exception - coexist within the same objective framework of reality. Dual existence is a major element of reality. We learn through differentiating views and existences, we learn who we are and what is by experiencing who we are not and what is not. To know good, we must know evil, to know evil, we must first experience good. Contradiction is a law of reality, not an exception. Contradiction doesn't go against nature; it is a major part of it. It may even hint at the Great Dream's purpose."

"Nyeh?' He said.

"Reality's a dream."

"How? What? Thfft."

"Thfft indeed. Tell me, what is a dream?"

"A sequence of thoughts, emotions, sensations, images that one experiences alone during sleep." He said, feeling all proud of him self for the great answer. Under realization, the author suddenly feels rather arrogant.

"What would be the difference between your subjective dreams and the objective one?"

"Duh... I dunno." Said the doc.

"Key word: alone." He grinned. He likes grinning. He is crazy. Hehe.

"True, smarty pants, but what differentiates a dream from physical reality? Not the perception of it, because we can dream of getting shot, of tasting something, of hearing a voice, smelling roses, and most certainly of seeing something. Those are all elements of physical reality, are they not?"

"Dreams are nonsensical. Reality makes sense."

Dagmar gave him a look. It was not a good look, or a hope for the human species, many of which were not unlike this doctor man, who seemed hopelessly attached to his scientific and strictly materialistic perceptual framework of reality. He also noticed an unappealing wart on the man's face that he had not before noticed.

"Okay, until you think about it." He thought a little harder. "Things are consistent. I go to bed with a sandwich by my bedside, I wake up, and it's still there. If not, I can find out what caused it not to be there. Things follow an order we can't control. In a dream, you can control the sequence of events. Out here, it has to happen in a chain of cause and effect."
That wart was really bothering him. Yet the show must go on, and so he continued warping the doctor man's mind by smashing his views on reality before him. He was sadistic that way. "So physical reality is existence in points in space ordered and change through time? Hrm... We could say that time is the dominating element in this universe, and has a grip on `physical' reality as a whole. There is chronology on this plane. Every present moment must use all that which has happened prior to it - all past events - as a stepping stone for any future choice in the chain of cause and effect, which is external once an action is taken. We have a choice on what to do next, but once we make that action it exists out of us and we have to face the consequential chain of causes and effects caused as a result of our action.

"Actions are just interpretational expressions of thoughts from our intellect that we've put form to."

"Huh?" Said the doctor. He likes muffins. No, I mean he REALLY likes muffins.

"Reality is a shared, waking dream. Pardon me. My mistake." This man, too. Strawberry's his favorite.

"What do you mean?"

I mean he likes strawberry muffins, silly.

"We're in someone else's dream, but he lost control." That crazy man boldly proclaimed.

"Ehfk?"

"Nyerp." He responded soulfully, "Look, each individual is composed of three inner levels of being, or inner `planes of existence.' The inner soul or self, the subconscious and the conscious, right? Well, we have full control over those worlds. We all meet in another being, which acts as a nexus or intersection for souls who want to learn from each other through differentiation and reach their spiritual heights. It's a stage, so to speak. We live within another individual's three planes, and since we live in it's mind we all have equal control over it. It's a collective reality. We have a personal conscious that is al our own, as well as a collective conscious we share with the rest of existence - we have a personal unconscious all to ourselves, and we have a collective unconscious that we share with the rest of existence. We are individualized souls with our own hemispherical mind living within another being with a hemispherical mind."

"Keersplthfkt?"

"Didn't your mama ever tell you that if you made faces like that it'd eventually stay that way?"

"Nyit."

"Yeah, I never listened either." He said. "Let me start over. Say you went to sleep, and had some dream - you'd havethe potential to completely control the content of the dream. Every element in the dream can be completely controlled by you - you have a grip on the environment, you're the dominating factor. You're at the center of a web that interconnects all elementsof your inner world, and can pull anything toward you and manipulate anything, create anything you wish merely by willing it due to the fact that you have the highest consciousness.

"Why is that? Why is it you have complete control? Your ability to focus your conscious will upon the environment. This ability, otherwise known as desire or passion, can allow you to completely control the inner planes. This is because they're your worlds, and since you have the highest consciousness and all the elements in these worlds, accumulated, is, in fact, you, you're consciousness has the dominance. Of course, through trauma, consciousness can break apart and other figments can get consciousness, resulting in what you guys call multiple personality disorder. Hrm."

"Anyway: How do you do it? Now that's an important question. You can't bring these landscapes out of nowhere, know what I mean? You pull them out of your unconscious and bring them to your conscious. You give substance to the idea, the form."
"That's your world, which you are king. You can make landscapes appear out of nowhere, dead relatives form - not saying it's your actual dead relative, but you can make a figure that appears to be him or her. You can allow an effect to precede it's cause - a glass can comeinto existence broken, and then later you can go back and make up a reason as to why it became broken - someone threw it. You can pull any point in time or space that you've created or experienced and have logged in memory toward you. You are the dominating force in the dreamworld."

"Objective, Physical Reality is also a dream. The only difference is there's more than one dreamer. In a person's subjective, personal dream, he has the highest power, the highest consciousness - therefore he can control his complete world at will. Since there is more than one dreamer for this Great Dream, more than one `center' for the web through which we can control things, we each have equal potential for control over the content of the dream, which would include controlling each other. Since we each have equal potential for control in what we choose to do, whatever we do effects the web, and thus reality as a whole. More than one dreamer means consequence. If you take an action it is out of you, and you can't take it back as in the unconscious. We have to build off of what has been done before. This is because of the conflicts in our choices in the Great Dream that we don't have in our Personal Dreams. There are others that are making choices in the Great Dream. Like the whole greed thing. I \par "Well, my work here is done," said the crazy man, who extended his hand and shook the hand ofthe secretary, who now resembled an erect vegetable. "No need to commit me. This man, is cured!" He smiled broadly.

"Remember my name: Dagmar Blankly, Mental Terrorist."

He walked toward the door, and opened it and stepped out. Before he got a chance to close it, the doctor man propped himself up - tried to anyway - and pointed a wobbling finger at him. "You.... you.... DAMN YOU!"
Dagmar waved, then closed the door behind him. "Neep." He said as he walked away.
"DAMN YOU!" He screamed louder. "DAMN YOU! YOU FUCKED UP MY MIND SET!"

All this bullhonkey is copyright (c) 1999 by Rewired.
NeverEatSoggyWheat. Icky. Byebye. It's 2:45 am.

The battle for 95 percent of the universe is taking place between WIMPS and MACHOS
BBC news

A Piece of Paper as Metaphysical Energy
by Cibman

The piece of paper in my hand is a collection of molecules formed in such a way that I, an English speaking person, am able to identify it as "paper". However more than just its molecules the paper I hold has a history, as do each of the tiniest particles that compose it. This history is a record composed of metaphysical energies which have interacted with the particles since their formation. So far these energies are undetectable by science, yet they still follow a strict pattern, and are able to take the form of matter or energy. The metaphysical energy can convert to physical energy or matter. This conversion is rarely noticeable though, as is conversion of physical energy into matter given by Einstein's E=mc2. The materialist view of the piece of paper is a close approximation of the true nature of the paper. However, in it's most basic form the paper is actually a combination of metaphysical energies condensed into matter.

The precepts of materialism do much to describe the basic properties of the paper. According to a materialist's perception the piece of paper is an arrangement of atoms in which every property is described according to its physical and chemical properties. Three basic principles back this view. First is the uniformity of law, which demonstrates that identical conditions will always yield identical results. Second are the denials that the Universe has a purpose, especially one centered around human existence. Finally, is the denial of any existence other that matter and energy, which is based on a principle rejecting all 'superfluous' factors in seeking an explanation.

Materialism provides a precise way to describe the piece of paper on many levels. However, I think there exist cases which contradict the third principle's explanation. With the volume of ghost reports, miracle claims, and people alleging to demonstrate psychic ability I find it difficult to discredit all them all.Therefore I shall introduce a third basic component other than energy and matter for the purposes of this argument which I will call ether. Ether is similar to Shankara's concept of Brahman because it is the underlying energy of the universe and its contents. However, ether is not a uniform unified existence. Ether, like matter and energy, can take many forms including the forms of matter and energy, which are the necessary components in forming a piece of paper, and the ink upon it.

My basis for the third component also deals with the history of objects and the material Universe. Although the universe does seem to be without purpose, it is not without its rigid structure which the materialist is unable to explain outside of materialist terms; i.e., materialism is largely self reliant. With the introduction of ether reason can be made of why we have the physical laws we do. Similar to when a red light and a yellow light both shine on a piece of white paper to appear as orange; different forms of etherwhen interacting with a medium combine to form something new. Note carefully that both the incident energy and the medium are required to form something new. If the light had shown on black paper there would be no apparent interaction. The universe operates in a similar way where only certain interactions can take place in the physical. With ether this something new can be matter, energy, ideas, supernatural events, or an infinite number of things which I will never be able \par The ink on the paper also contains in it special properties which the materialist neglects. When the author of the words typed the letters their ideas became represented by a uniform system of characters. It is quite possible that some of the author's idea ether was transmitted onto the piece of paper. This transference would allow for someone in meditation attuned to that energy the ability to decipher an interpretation to the paper's content without ever reading the words. The words themselves enable people trained in their meaning to access thoughts from the ether and to make new connections in their brain. The strictly adhering materialist would argue that even the mind can be explained away by science, and by some regards, specifically the reproducibility I would agree. However, what would seem the simpler explanation, and therefore the more likely one, is that the specific chemistry which forms our thoughts enables us to receive the energies contained in the ether. 

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
-- Winston Churchhill.

Nightfall
by Nightfall

As I step into this dark forest,
your words ring through my skull,
echoing your torment, your hatred,
blood drips from my eyes,
I no longer want to hear it,
so I step into this dark forest,
and lose myself in the nightfall.

Maybe life is more than it seems, constantly running from reality, chasing dreams
-- Limp Bizkit.

A Physical and Spiritual Self
by Cibman

I am both a body and a mind. My mind is essential to the existence and development of my body, and my body is essential for the development and interaction of my mind. My body exists as a receptor and emitter of metaphysical energy. Much of this metaphysical energy is the constructfor my personality and my beliefs. Without my body my mind could not develop, and so the mind part of my personality, though it would continue after my death, would remain static without my body. What makes me a person is this interaction between physical matter and metaphysical energy. It is this distinct interaction which separates the way that I think form the way a computer thinks. Though computers might be designed to mimic people they will never be able to have consciousness according to our current understanding of the word, so long as they remain a strictly binary system.
The metaphysical energy that I am referring to I will name 'ether' for the purposes of this essay. Ether is a more basic form of energy than the forms that we currently recognize. Given the appropriate environment ether can form into matter or energy. This transition is an extremely rare occurrence though in this well structured universe. As an analogy red and yellow light will combine on white paper to form orange light. However, if shone on black paper the combination is not decipherable as orange i.e. the environment is wrong. For the most part this universe has become "reactionary independent" of ether, it has a "black color" to the metaphysical energies because the energy and matter that were formed by certain combinations of ether have proven far more stable than a random interspersing. This metaphysical energy is not something that I am simply assuming. Rather, I think that ether is a necessary component needed to explain both the uniformity of physical laws and how they came to be,\par I thus conclude that although it may one day be possible for brains to be "manufactured" in laboratories and the mechanics of thought replicated, the idea of ether will not be invalidated. Reproducing the chemicals and pathways will merely be a reconstruction of an "environmental site" on which different types of ether might act. What the result over time will end up being though will be as indeterminable as how similar two twins will end up being. The reason is because thoughts and therefore actions are in part determined by what ether energies one is interacting with.

There is a sort of myth of History that philosophers have. . . . History for philosophers is some sort of great, vast continuity in which the freedom of individuals and economic or social determinations come and get entangled. When someone lays a finger on one of those great themes- continuity, the effective exercise of human liberty, how individual liberty is articulated with social determinations-when someone touches one of these three myths, these good people start crying out that History is being raped or murdered.
--Michel Foucault

Iraque and a Hard Place
by Rewired
12/17/98

"I know it all -- I just can't remember it all at once."

I'm at Eat-N-Park and a guy with a pager has been giving us on-the-minute updates on the news: Billy-boy, our nifty old president, has just bombed Iraque. Russia's on their side. I hate this. I finally try to conform to the society I despise (but I value all of the individuals and sympathize with them) and now we enter what could very well be the Last Great War.
We're like children with really big toys. This is a good example of the dangers of a highly-developed technology and a low-developed sense of spirituality and morality. We're so blind, we don't know what we're doing. We're just like raging animals, army ants -- except we have more elaborate motives and high-technological means. It's horrible.

It's later now, and I've just quit Super K Mart -- again. My parents are going to threaten me, lecture me, and maybe even kick me out of the house, but I can't stand these stupid-ass jobs anymore. This whole societal caste system, you have to have the lower class -- the slaves -- for the middle class to stand on, and they serve as the foundation for the higher class. It's our job to conform to society's demands; be robots performing our duties without question or doubt, in quick and efficient redundancy -- in short, it's our job to be robots. Only, unlike robots, we possess a spiritual power where we can transcend and override our programming; we can even program ourselves. This ability is why everything can be functioning fine in our biological bodies -- all wires are hooked up properly -- and we can still make a mistake. We can also choose things out of spite without a logical reason. Through will or lack of concentration, we can stumble upon things or do things that our biological `nature' does\par Why does it have to this way? `Because it's just the way it is; the way it's always been.' Mother says; granmother says. That's no excuse -- it's not even a good reason. `Well, what are you going to do about it? I feel the same way, but the world's not going to change for you Tim.' Yet so many others feel this way, but are so easily controlled. I rebel, looking for an escape, but those closest to freedom are the bums, the unemployed. The Powers That Be have no reign upon them; unfortunate for them only the robots get to survive and be accepted for who they are -- they who've limited themselves to be who they appear to be, or the parts of themselves they wish toshow are the only ones respected. The common human being is living as a patchwork being; the bum is what he is.

I'm sick of trying to tell myself that conforming is a must -- or at least a stepping stone. I pretend to be like them, but I am not them. I'm me, and to hell with anyone who thinks otherwise. Bum, idiot, angst-ridden pessimistic Scorpio with an oversized cranium -- label me what you will, for I know it's not true. I know there are indescribable truths behind those masks people put on -- such anunnurtured, neglected eternity. I know you can't know the totality of anyone, so don't try and limit me with your pesky labels and constricting words.

Like this guy -- I wonder what his story is. He looks a lot like Jeff, the brother of a girl I knew in high school, who I think was mildly retarded. This guy is creative -- he brings his pad of drawing paper in, filled with vibrant pictures of Winnie-the-Pooh characters, and two Pringles cans filled with magic markers. I saw the guy this morning. So many people were interested in his artwork and wanted a piece -- it reminded me of how people approached me in high school. He even seemed to be as annoyed by it as I had been.

A couple minutes ago I got done talking with him. He seems to enjoy doing artwork as much as I do -- he says it's a big escape from reality, and it gives him a good feeling, and when he's doing it he looses his sense of time. Now that's fucking passion. He' s right-brainer; I noticed that immediately. His personal artwork, the stuff straight out of his head, is excellent. He's a modern-day hippie, at least within. He sells his artwork. I told him that if he'd start hanging stuff in coffee shops he'd be able to start making a living off of it (strangely, what I've been told limitless times). I wish I could. Why can't we pursue our passions instead of conforming to the norm, sacrificing ourselves at the hands of the demanding mainstream who's punishment for non-compliance is poverty? It makes no sense to me how we can be so stupid. Adults, teens, people in their twenties like myself -- they all seem to say the same thing: `this is just how the world works.' That excuse isn't good enough for me. There is more to life than money. But why do they have to make it the foundation for everything?

While playing the game, people get stuck -- my dad wanted to be a writer, go to a specific college -- but others guided him elsewhere, and he threw up the arms and figured the fight was useless. He got stuck.

To beat the system, you must first be in the system, work within it -- to defeat the enemy, you must first become that enemy, using the same tactics the enemy is using, they seem to say. And I'm illogical? Think about it. Does the concept really make sense? I'm voting `nay' on this one.

Now, to know the rules of their game and use it against them is like holding a lit candle to a mirror before a beast in the darkness -- I taunt them with their own ugliness. That will get the point across. That, in my eyes, is more than winning a mere game. I sound rather sadistic, don't I?

I was thinking of founding a school under the guise of a religion in order to build a place of alternative knowledge like the Library of Alexandria (which the Christians burnt, of course.) I'd have a place that would allow kids to be taught how to draw, write, or express themselves in any personal fashion they see fit. It would support the unique, free-willed natures and the right of self-expression of the people, and supply an understanding of the Wiccan Rede and Natural Law. There would be no godliness beyond that -- no god or goddess to be worshipped; just striving for freedom through the pursuit of one's passions and the respect for the passions of others.

Yet for now, I have some demons to face at the present moment, and the longer I put it off the worse it will get. There's no use putting off the inevitable. It's time to go home and face the hell that awaits me, and keep my hopes close to heart.

That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.
-- Charles Bukowski.

Points Between
by rewired

She sits in the courtyard, smoking a joint,
blind to the ignorance around her, lost in a daze,
monkey-fucking cigarette after cigarette,
taking slugs from the bottle she keeps
in the pocket in the inner lining
of her lather jacket.
He sits in the artroom, his canvas before him,
spilling the thoughts in jagged lines and dreamlike visions
breaking a hole in his conscious a mile wide
to let the unconscious step into the light
of his private world
to be vomited in paint.
She sees them, and she just doesn't understand
yet she understands that she cannot understand,
and that she understands her ignorance and
that it is a space full of questions,
holes to be filled,
souls to be linked.
Their trips out, all these men and boys
girls and women,
don't the number speak that there's something wrong?
That this isn't the world we want anymore,
that it's not a world run by ourselves?
A world of freedom and expression?
He's out of this world, he's trapped in his own.
She's stuck in this world, and can't find a way out.
Where are the points between them?
The points to pull them together?
The points to group to find a core
so they can begin to make their own world
and interrelate;
and learn to live life,
rather than pursue a death?

At best, human thought is but a tiny, grammar-bound island, in the midst of a sea of feeling expressed by `oh-oh' and sheer babble. The island has a periphery, perhaps, of mud -- factual and hypothetical concepts broken down by the motional tides into the "material model," a mixture of meaning and nonsense. Most of us live the better part of our lives on this mud-flat; but in artistic moods we take to the deep, where we flounder about with symptomatic cries that sound like propositions about life and death, good and evil, substance, beauty, and other non-existent topics.
-- Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, 1951.

BLOODY RABBITS
by Gemini

Tiny blue bunnies
bouncing around
Sharpening their nails
by scratching the ground
stroll outside
in your little red bonnet
it'll get even redder
when these bunnies get on it

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
-- William Shakespeare.

the limbo
by rewired
9/23/99

We were young and so enlightened
the world had so much color and such wonderful odors
and you could taste the reality and feel the life;
but as we grew we belt-sanded the texture
and now everything tastes like air
and we lost the roses in the scent of shit
and all we can see is the black and white
as apathy reigns and we drown in our own ignorance.
A child that yells from my heart, and an old man on a hill preaches in my brain
they've bickered about this and that for so long, but their influence has waned
ignorance died out, and I wouldn't call this apathy, but on the contrary
some kind of empathic transcendence; a reluctant, mature acceptance
of my own anger and my own place, in the spikes of times that break down space
and the load of things behind me, and the thing as of yet to come
I'm undefined and beginning to unwind right where I stand, at home
a place where my feet wander, and all is familiar too me, no matter
if I've been there, or it's a new place that I see, the world is my home
and no shit it's a sick place, but I can only hope it'll heal
as I pursue a health, and face my face, stepping over the gripping shitpiles
in the limbo between the wild-eyed, expressive, wizened old man and
the twinkling, curious, absorbing enlightened child.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky
Followed my meteor showers and tidal waves
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still
Followed by billions of dumbfounded dipshits
-- Tool, Aenema.

Report on Nostradamvs
by Nightfall

How would you feel if you woke up one day and found your puny little world engulfed in flames? The buildings that protected your frail body would be crushed as nuclear winter fell onto your lap, your world would be gone, and your life as you knew it in shambles. It sounds like the beginning to a very good science fiction novel, but it is not. It is the end of your own world, not the one in the writer's mind. Michael de Nostradame, most famously known as Nostradamvs, once said that "the great king of terror will come from the sky … causing more horror than the newspapers have told of before … and the enemies of peace will bring plague, famine and death." Left to simple interpretation, the great prophet from so long ago clearly states that today's terrorists, or at least one large, all-powerful one, will cause mass destruction throughout the entire world as we know it. Not even the great armies of America are immune. The end of the world is a possibility that can no longer\par While the World Trade Center bombing is the most widely known, it is nothing compared to the other acts of terrorism committed around the world. Terrorism is defined as at least any damage to electricity, the water supply, public transportation, and communications with explosive devices, tear gas, pipe bomb, fire bombs, and not to mention, guns (Backgrounder). We have seen examplesof this many times over. This year, on June 25, nineteen American pilots were killed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia when a truck bomb was unleashed upon them. On July 17, TWA flight 800 was taken down and 230 people were killed. Shortly after, on July 22, a pipe bomb killed one and injured well over 100 people at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park (Dubow). These are but a few of the acts of terrorism we see in our own backyard. Even in Kenya and Tanzania, our own United States embassies were bombed (Richtor). However, America is not the only one who experiences these tragedies. The Islamic Followers of God killed at least forty thousand people.

Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and perishing, as the lightning.
--Richard Chevenix Trench

St. Elmo's Fire
by Tinman

"Jeb," I asked, as we topped the hill. "Where are we going?"

"It's raining," was all that he said. This I had indeed noticed. It was wet and cold and dark and Jeb and I had walked several miles in silence already. I was hoping for a point eventually. "I love it when it rains," said Jeb. "Then you know for sure that you're alive. Rain is the most sensory of all weathers; you can hear it, you can see it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Walking through rain is like testing every part of your body to make sure that it all still works. I happen to love rain.

"There are a million things that can only happen during a hard rain. It's like an entirely different world comes out from underneath the normal one. All the leaves on the trees open up yellow and green and afterwards they loaf around on their twigs like satisfied people at a restaurant. The worms come out, and the nightcrawlers, from their little tunnels underground. You have to wonder if a worm ever sees daylight. They only ever come out when it's night or raining and the sun is covered up. Otherwise, they're crawling blindly around the roots and tubers in the soil. And, of course,"continued Jeb, "you've got your rainbows. And haloes and glories and mists and fogs and thunderheads. And then there's lightning."

I followed a while longer, not speaking. Jeb held a closed umbrella in his left hand which he had yet to use at all. He had known, I suppose, before we leftthat it was going to rain that night. I wished that might have let me know too. Or that he might offer me his umbrella.

The grass was slippery as we descended down the slope and up another. To the west, powerlines hung from massive metal towers, set up in long straight rows like modern menhirs: invading armies of giants turned miraculously to aluminum and put to work by the scheming grandchildren of Edison. Thunder growled somewhere in the distance almost inaudibly.

"There's another reason I like the rain," said Jeb. "When it rains for days at a time, everyone else in the world gets depressed and sad and moody. I don't. I get almost… happy. Not quite, but almost. It's very different for me, to be the only person in all the world who feels like dancing under the raindrops. I would have made a good Gene Kelly, don't you think?"

This was not usual for Jeb. He seemed drunk, but I knew that he wasn't. I have never seen Jeb take so much as a single sip of alcohol; it causes him to lower his guard and leaves him vulnerable to whatever he might be afraid of at the time. I doubt that he has ever even taken a Tylenol.

"People are fools, happy in the sunlight, depressed in the rain. They've got it all wrong. What's so interesting about the sun? What's so good about it? It is a giant yellow eye blinking at the earth, watching us walk and work and sleep and eat. The sun is everywhere during the day. It never leaves, never goes away, never stops looking down at the same ants that it is scorching. But what is rain? White noise. Interference. Gentle fingers of falling calm. Rain is a massage. It's a mask, a blanket, a warm coat that you can snuggle into after being lost in the mountains for three days. It's the arms of a girl who loves you. Rain is the closest thing to happiness in this universe.

"Why do we insist on hiding from the rain? Umbrellas, cars, houses, awnings, coats, hats. All of it is designed to keep rain out when really the only thing saving us from death is that very same rain.Hold it, embrace, kiss it, lay with it on a hill under the dark and demonic sky and then you'll know just exactly what real rain is."

I wondered briefly if Jeb had actually done those things. But then I knew, of course, that he had. He had done all of them.
Stopping at the top of a hill, he spread wide his arms and looked, so it seemed, like Moses with an umbrella. He pointed. "That is where we are going," said Jeb.

I looked down the hill and across the wet grass. Squatting on the field surrounded by a chain link fence was a large power relay station where the lines from half the county all converged on one spot. Square in shape, the blue metal frame seemed efficiently Gothic: an electric cathedral with a conductive nave. As I gazed down upon it,thunder snarled again from inside the clouds, and I wondered just exactly what Jeb had planned.

Jeb had not been his usual self lately and now, under the humming canopy of electrical wires and metal crossbeams, he was slipping farther into depression. He'd always been paranoid, but ever since he'd thought he was abducted by aliens, he was becoming suicidal.

"Two of these cables are carrying enough electricity to light a city," said Jeb, indicating a row of three thick metal wires. "One is a ground wire. I wonder which one." Jeb's face had a far off distant look as he reached out and grasped one of the cables, expecting, I am sure, that he would be instantaneously electrocuted. Instead, all of the hairs on his arm stood on end. Nothing else happened. He smiled resignedly and let go, speaking softly to himself. "You have chosen poorly," he murmured.

We sat a while-not touching anything metal-as the rain sizzled on the live wires all around us. As the storm moved closer, seemingly attracted by the vortex of electrical power in this place, I began to fear that Jeb had come here to die in a fatal symphony of man and nature. That didn't explain what he wanted with me, though. Perhaps I was to witness.

"Look," said Jeb, indicating without moving or pointing what he wanted me to see. I turned my eyes upwards, searching for what he felt-for he was really looking at nothing himself-and saw the top of the aluminum scaffolding glowing green in the night. Brightest were the three coils anchoring one set of power lines which, if looked at from the correct angle, spelled out the digits 666 in satanic fire. "Is it there?" asked Jeb. "St. Elmo's Fire?"

I said nothing. I did not know what the green glowing was. Frankly, it frightened me.

Jeb nodded. "St. Elmo's Fire. The thunderheads contain negative electrical charge which, as they hang above the earth, pull positive ions up out of whatever is around and that positive charge collects at the highest points that they can find. Those positive ions in turn attract electrons from the neutral atoms that make up the air, stripping them away from their nuclei. As the electrons speed toward the positive charges, they heat the air, making an unearthly glow."

"What does it mean?" I asked.

"It means that lightning is about to strike. Or has a strong potential to strike." Jeb stood, his eyes hidden from me in the darkness. Opening his umbrella, long metal rods and spikes sprouted from the fabric, creating a gleaming lightning rod. Actually, it was several lightning rods arranged in a circular fashion around the umbrella, focusing electricity to the central metallic spike which reached at least three feet beyond the others.

"There are four kinds of lightning," he said. Jeb is nuts, but it's amazing the amount of stuff that he knows. "There's the usual kind, the kind that everybody sees, from a cloud to earth. Or so they think. In truth, what we see is the return stroke of lightning-from the earth back up the cloud, completing the circuit, if you will. Once again, this stems from the negative charge in the sky and the positive charge on the ground. At times, a stream of negative ions will make their way down through the air and touch the earth, often at high points such as radio towers, skyscrapers, or tall trees. This stream is called the leader and enormous amounts of static electricity are instantaneously transferred back up the leader from the earth to the cloud. Lightning. Thunder is the sound of superheated air expanding faster than the speed of sound around the leader column, which is usually no more than an inch in diameter, but can be several miles long.

"Third is lightning that erupts upward from clouds and extends into the atmosphere. Visible so far only from satellite photos and high flying reconnaissance aircraft, these bolts can be as long as three or four miles. They can exhibit various colors, from red to green to pink, depending upon which ions are charged in the atmosphere. It's the same phenomenon that colors aurorae."

Jeb stopped talking a minute and stood in the posture of a worshipper.

"What's the fourth kind?" I asked.

"You'll see," said Jeb, eyes shut. Suddenly, the hair along the back of my neck stood on end. I smelled ozone in the air.
At that instant, a stroke of lightning seared through the green 666 and knock Jeb and I to the ground. A shower of thick sparks rained from the sky as we stood again and now even the metal rods on Jeb's umbrella were glowing.

Jeb talked fast and low. "St. Elmo's Fire appears under the exact same conditions required for lightning. First witnessed and recorded by Magellan's crew in the 1500's as they sailed around the tip of South America, they mistook it for a sign that they would be spared the wrath of the storm. Although the appearance of St. Elmo's Fire indicates an increased likelihood of being struck by lightning, this belief persisted for hundreds of years. Any point exposed to positive charge that is high enough can harbor it: the masts of ships, church steeples, even cow's horns or the crooks of shepherds on mountainsides." Lightning was now flashing all around us, an artillery bombardment dropping invisibly from the sky. Jeb was geared up for something. One way or another, something was about to happen. "Look up there," he said."The fourth kind of lightning."

I looked and blinked. A bright ball of incandescence was descending slowly along the power lines. "Foxfire," I whispered.
Jeb shook his head, still talking quietly. "Foxfire is produced when flammable marsh gases, like methane, congregate and ignite spontaneously. That,rather, is ball lightning. The two are somewhat similar in that they were both long connected with demonic forces or witchcraft. Today, they are often mistaken for extraterrestrial encounters. According to present scientific understanding, ball lightning should not be able to exist at all. There is no apparent way for it to sustain electrical power of the duration and magnitude which is consistently reported. Theoretically, it should burn itself out in less than a minute; yet, many cases have been documented when it persists unchecked for several minutes. Although it is less deadly than regular lightning, it has been observed floating through open windows, down the aisles of airplanes, and even descending into a barrel full of water, which it then proceeded to boil-while remaining incandescent. It is extremely rare to see it under any c\par Slipping behind beams and girders, it drifted to the middle of the power plant. In one brilliant flash of expanding energy, it dissolved, sending out concentric circles of ions into the night. Jeb finally breathed again.

The storm slacked off after that into mere gusts of wind blowing limp rain around. Jeb and I, soaked straight through to our skin, started off single file on the long walk back home.

A hundred yards away, I stopped for a minute and turned to look back at the place where we had just witnessed an event so extraordinary that it was already beginning to fade from my memory. Jeb had stood side by side with death underneath the web of aluminum and he was walking away from it now. Death had released him, leaving him untouched. He had been searching for a reason to live and I guess he found it, there beneath the humming power lines.

Even as I looked from that distance, I could still see the mark of the beast, faintly glowing green, losing its illuminance quietly until it went out and became simply another piece of cold metal. It's funny the places that God turns up and it's funny who He comes to sometimes.

I nodded, a silent salute to whatever power had consecrated us back there, and turned once more to follow Jeb out of the darkness and back into the warmth of life.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.
-- William Shakespeare.

TAKING IT BACK
by Gemini

The shit your trying to feed me
is tearing up my soul
fuck you
i dont want it anymore
Shove your shit
in someone elses face
i can never get back
the years that you wasted
Im sick of getting shit upon
by little fucks like you
one can only take so much
before they say they're through

Sometimes... you can cry until there is nothing wet in you. You can scream and curse to where your throat rebels and ruptures. You can pray all you want to whatever god you think will listen. And still, it makes no difference. It goes on, with no sign as to when it might release you. And you know that if it ever did relent... it would not be because it cared.
-- end of Part 5 of Johnny the Homicidal Manaic, by Jhonen Vasquez and Slave Labor Graphics.

the dry leaf
by rewired
9/23/99

It is misery, and not pleasure, which contains the secret of divine wisdom.
-- Simone Weil.

a train following the matrix beneath the skin
by rewired
9/23/99

I live in a carnival, I'm sick of these clowns and their
fake little faces as they dance their painted asses around
to an annoying tune with persistent redundancy
like a drill bit digging deeper in my cranium
my mind becomes my sanitarium, and I can
never hope to see
what's in that deeper side of me
because the anger feeds, and my heart bleeds
for some actual interaction
some intellectual, emotional interaction,
and they're satisfied; pacified in their revolting mind-games
they just play with each other, masturbating their own egos
because it'd actually take effort and independence
to seek something with depth in themselves
to cradle others with true joy, and to take
a look inside the hells that form a matrix beneath the skin
of the lives we've made for ourselves
our destructive, collective hell, that grows
from our never-ending supply of self-sufficient negativity
growing deeper down in darkness, eating away at it's gods,
as they ignore the growing world of cold's existence
their eyes blinded by the light they swear they see down the tunnel
they never look to the sides, it's a shame, there might
be a way around the light that's growing
fools, it's a fucking train.

Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
-- Woody Allen.

TWISTED LOVE
by Gemini

Twist me
turn me
tie me up and burn me
Push it
Shove it
any way you want it
Kiss it
Hate it
fuck it up and love it

An imaginary ailment is worse than a disease.
-- Yiddish proverb.

Those Few Feet
by Gemini

Those few feet could have been a mile. A mile of space without a single breath of air. We're sitting on opposite sides of my friends huge bonneville and im pressed against the window like hes got some disease. I reach my hand up to scratch my nose, but then i wish i hadnt, because i bet he can hear it. Its so quiet i can hear him breathing, and i remember how it used to sound so good, and now when i hear it i feel dizzy. Hes sitting there, legs spread, and then he scoots a little bit lower, and I wonder if hes expecting me to lay down on him, and if he has any idea how miserable i am. i wish I could scream, but i sit here, pressed against the window, afraid to move or breath too hard cus he might look at me. The car stops and he doesnt even look at me or say good bye. Hesgone again and this time i know im going to have to forget.

Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.
-- Matthew Arnold.

Road date 7-25-99
By Nightfall

I drove 90 east and beyond.
I drove passed two girls in a white car. For some odd reason the hyper girl driving reminded me of Nicole. As I passed they looked over and yelled. Interested or just playing around? Probably the latter. I think TOO much.
Passed a semi with 3 things on back. Two pickups, one sand tan, the other camouflage, and a box shaped object under a tarp. Curious. Who knows?
Pulled over three miles from Erie in PA to go to Eat 'n Park. Maybe I'll go on an Eat 'n Park quest, who knows. Until then I sit here in a Wal-Mart parking lot writing.

Is it luck or something else? Some hidden force? I somehow find myself in PA at EnP and attempt to order a waffle. Maybe an Ed influence, maybe not. But both waffle irons were broke and I got free cheese sticks. What does it all mean?
Later, I received the waffle too, also for free. Oddity, a sign, or just plain weird luck?

Made it to Mentor EnP. After taking exit 235 and buying a Dew, I returned to 90 and went here. I ran into Pat, played Lunch Money, and then Nicole and Taryn showed up. Dumb fucking luck. I realized that I cannot escape from society because I either do not want to or some unseen force doesn't want me to.
Nicole is the same and I understand that the small possibility that we could be together is not there, and I seem to make her uncomfortable in some way. Although, she seems the same and did not have a problem sitting next to me. But at least I've managed to get away for a bit and think.
I see how pathetic I am. I still don't know what I want to do, but I won't make it there anyway. I may have to join the army to make it without going back home. Who knows? Not I.

I decided it would cost too much that I did not have to stay somewhere, so I had to go home. I ended up at the third EnP for the night, at Chapel Hill. Great, somewhere else to fuck up in. My mind is going rampant, and I could not escape society. I do not understand what it is that I fucked up, but I fucked something up big with Nicole. I hope we can still be friends, but it seems that once again my stupid attraction to someone has ruined a friendship. I like her too muchand I know that she does like me, which is why I cannot let go, but it just fucks up and blows up in my face. I'm a pathetic loser and need help, but I cannot even run away. I end up at home and alone, close to tears over something that could never be. Why can't I let go of her? What is wrong with me? What do I do now? Where do I go now? And more importantly, why?

100% Genuine Psychopath Opus
by Cado Noctus

Love and attraction
shall always eat me
haunt my eternity
hurt infinity
Yes a pain truly
called affection
she likes me but continues
me to shun
why toy with me
why play a heart
because I let her
destroy this work of art
which I've built from a thread
from ash I emerged
to dive into insanity
completely submerged
from head to toe
seeking only her
why? because I'm ignorant
and shall be forever
I know now
I clearly see
how my heart has somehow
grown green and fuzzy

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more,
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writings songs that voices never share
And no one dares disturb the sound of silence.
-- Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence," 1964.

Death at the Door
by rewired

She lies to me: "I'm not scared." Why does she lie to me? I don't appreciate the lie at first, but then I do -- I hold value in her ability to lie to people who she knows must already know of her hopeful fiction. Anyhow, perhaps it wasn't me -- or merely myself -- that she was trying sohard to convince. As if I don't see the tears -- of sorrow? fear? happiness? perhaps all of them -- stream down her face, to the bridge of her noise, down her lips as they hang casually at the base of her chin, awaiting the right moment to fall. Some do come to fall, as others disappear below her shirt, down to her concealed breasts -- her lovely breasts; but not nearly as lovely as those pairs of eyes. I'd been as close to her breasts as one could possibly hope to be, had her nipples in my mouth, held bothher breasts close to my body, yet never had I been able to get any closer to those eyes. Perhaps that's why she cried now, to blur any self-intimate emotions she may desire to remain uncovered by other prying eyes as t\par Suddenly her attitude took a shift, as if an acceptance had taken effect: she had already made her decision, and in these final few moments she decided for some unknown reason to dispel all doubts she had regarding taking her one-way ticket to Somewhere Else -- and all before my eyes. I valued her, but her strong (and I could not, and will never believe stronger) value in me I found frightening. How could such a beautiful being such as her find anythingworthy in these eyes of mine -- brown eyes, the color of mud, the color of manure? Could her lovely eyes of blue dilute the muck within me so much that she found beauty below the surface? Why would she take the time to attempt the pursuit of such a thing,much less fall into the delusion that she had succeeded and actually found it?

She lay her head on my lap, trying to muffle the last of her sobs and hide the damp face I knew she wore. My eyes jumped to the clock, and my heart sank -- and she heard it; I swear she heard it drop within me; for she clutched me tighter.

I pulled her up to me, her body trembling and her loose strands of hair, matted by sweat, hanging across her blushed features. She looked at me straight in the eyes, no longer trying to hide from me her pain. She let me in, and the heart that had sank into the pits of my stomach twisted and my whole body seemed to convulse and suddenly I found my eyes watering as well -- and then, their was a downpour of undefinable emotions, expressed through the medium of exchanged tears as they forced through our clenched eyelids.

My eyes drifted towards the clock. The time was growing near. Previously, time had always gone slower when you watched the clock, but not now. I glanced, in awe at how time was falling away for only a moment when she pulled my chin away from the ticking time-bomb -- where the past would loose it's grasp on the present and begin to aggressively fuck the future -- and back to her.

As I kissed her, I wondered why it felt so very muchmore real at that moment than any other -- it was where the morbidity of two met and somehow the opposing forces, the relaxation and ignorance of the pain, hand-in-hand with an air of bliss, culminated. I let the nature of the question slide -- the momentary answer washed away all need to ask it -- a conclusion without an end.

Then I heard them; the dreaded steps of death, the footsteps of the feared. The green-clad anti-pacifists, the brainwashed zombies of destruction -- and then, like the flip of a switch, she was done with me. She was simply all better; she had changed already, as she had warned she would since she had revealed to me her chosen path, with renewed strength and faith. I lay there confused and deeply hurt in the most confusing, mind-bending, heartbreaking sense. I suddenly felt used, betrayed, stranded -- she wasn't going to leave me here with this, was she? How could she? Was she now getting up, wiping off her face with tissues, straightening up her posture?

They approached, the shadow of their feet stretching in the light that cast out the bottom of the doorway. The door rattled as they rapped upon it, an earthquake signifying a certain apocalypse. Death had arrived, and was standing outside the door, hungry to bring her to her fate, Iwas certain. I stood up. She looked at me, long and hard for a moment, but then drew away the gaze. I hugged her tightly, wishing I had the ability to freeze time, and she pecked me on the cheek, and turned the doorknob and walked out of her room, and took three steps into the hallway of her parent's house.

I saw them standing there, looking all proud and proper. Their noses pointed high in arrogance of their supposed authority over all present, and they looked at her, after briefly nodding towards me. Time to take her away, their posture seemed to say; we'll make her better, we'll fix her, we'll train her and make her what she wants to be; all she can be -- to which my scowl at them responded: she's fucking fine just the way she is.

She needed to do this, but only because she desired to do it so badly -- she wouldn't tell me why, though she may have tried and supplied for me convenient and comforting excuses. I now think it's possible that, just perhaps, she didn't even know herself. She did it, and that was all that had mattered; and she left me there, adding more to my world of questions.
For her, the road she chose was enough -- the answer had been accepted, and the unasked question that would've, to me, justified it, seemed irrelevant to her.

As for the questions we'd spoken of that summer before she left to be all she could be, she left those with me -- because she'd lost the value in them onto which she knew I would forever hold. She also added that unasked question to my growing list, so multifaceted and complex I could never verbalize, literalize, or conceptualize it. It was a beautiful question, though., unbounded by semantics and free from words -- as complex, mysterious and beautiful as herself.