Urgent!

 

Senator Betty Williamson signed resolution 985 yesterday. This resolution is trivial in the power plays of the bigger players. This resolution wasn’t about more jobs or for more power, this resolution was thanking someone for their service in the Air Force.  

Mrs. Williamson cared about a lot of things as sincerely as she could, and often overlooked the add-ons and addendums to resolutions. Caring about something for a long time gets exhausting, and Mrs. Williamson was exhausted.  She said the words, often in an attempt to convince herself they were important issues. What she truly wanted was less paperwork. 

Betty was born a follower, listening to what others wanted. Being a Senator wasn’t hard, the logistics of election, the balancing act of saying the right things at the right time to the right people.  The hard part was not committing to quickly or easily. It was the burden of being a citizen of the great country.  

When she got on the elevator she had an itch on the back of her neck. Betty wrestled with itching and picking and grooming frequently, a trial of being in the public light. The battle was always the most draining part of the job, keeping the image of a professional and strong woman. 

 

So she stood there, fighting that itch, the elevator light flickered slightly, just enough to add a distracting tip to the balance of self-control. It was a distraction she wasn’t ready for, her control slipped and she quickly itched her neck. Nothing grotesque, just a self-defeated scratch, a private moment of relenting.   

The elevator jerked slightly coming to a grinding stop.  

The light remained on, the doors closed and the itch returning. Betty was used to tension and waited calmly. She tried her phone, she tried to use the emergency button, neither worked and she was left to sit or stand in silence. 

Betty waited for 5 hours. No one came, nothing happened in that little box with a flickering light.  

She thought that someone must miss her by now, certainly a broken elevator, and a missing Senator would get someone’s attention?  

Panic built up after each hour, she embarrassingly peed in the corner, searched for something to eat in her hand bag. The normal and predictable actions of someone with nothing to do and nowhere to go. 

10 hours later: She was on full edge, anxiety and claustrophobia were starting to creep up behind her. The itch on her neck returned and any questions she thought of were replied with silence, no answers, no response or reason as to why she had been here for so long. Why 10 hours? Why had no one come for her? Did the world end? Is this some assassination attempt? 

 

Betty Williamson was getting thirsty, she was more exhausted and had asked more unanswerable questions in 10 hours than in 15 years of being a Senator. 

 

15 hours later: She had resigned herself to perish, she was hopeless in this box. Tears began flowing, her composure dissolving into a strained weeping. She itched her neck, she became consumed by heavy certainty that she could not imagine herself out of.

 

19 hours later: The door opened, firefighters predictably found a slumped over living human being that was ready to die.

We walk to the hill side of the rose,

It grows in twisted and quiet,

Long has it followed a wayward heart,

Long has it not been pruned,

In the mossy shade.

 

We walk on the hillside of the rose,

The petals behind the thorns.

A hidden shrine of memories,

Ushered by the fragrance,

To a place more peaceful and still.

 

We will sleep on the hillside of the rose,

When our heart is covered.

With the last of our tears,

The bramble cloak will fall,

Around our weary shoulders.

Rule of Thumb:

 

We're not sleeping at the wheel. The wheel is turning the machine, that kills for us. –Ladytron 

I could describe human history as a narrative of a bacteria, a senseless predator, and wonder if the virtues of wise men ever existed at all. We could find with small eyes the greatest evil habits of kings, chiefs and governments. All the trash and consequences of mindless fools, all piled up to a shape that would be the closest approximation of a true reflection.  

So where does it go? Where does the composite creature lumber off to?   

I met a woman in California that was missing a thumb. Missing a thumb could mean she violated some gypsy law, or maybe a mechanical accident of living in industrial civilization, she received the best medical attention. The type of attention that prevented her from dying, something her ancestors may have perished from.

 

Regardless, this woman from California was in fact a time traveler. She came from the past, wondering the end consequences of some dystopian empire that she once lived in. She had found a way to bend time due to her irrational brain. I took her word for it, simply to hear the story, I mean if I was to be an ambassador of her future, the least I could do is listen. 

She told me of leaders, wars and such from her time and wanted to know if her side had won, if the world still lived by the rules of her time. This curiosity is something I could empathize with.  

I asked her if living in her future was satisfying, did it answer her questions? I asked as perverse fantasy of my own would unfolded in my brain.

 

She didn’t know, she said that the rules were different in detail, but human beings were the same. We have the machine now. We have a process for everything, she marveled at how many pieces of paper were required for having a dog, a house, and textiles. Every aspect of human life was now separated into little boxes that the machine pumped out. 

I learned that she had been stranded in the future, unable to return for some years now, culture shocked with all the automation, paperwork, and virtual abstraction.  She certainly separated herself from the vast swath of humanity. She was out of time, even if she was deep in some mental illness, it didn’t matter which.  

The last question I asked the woman from California was would she go back to her dystopian world? She said: “Humanity shits out the same asshole, the past or future.” 

I learned a lot from the 1 thumbed woman from California, I learned how to see the machine. Now I see it everywhere, every process must be in order. Even when there is nothing to do, no one to see or nowhere to go, we will make new processes for idleness.

The Ninth Wave:

 

We don’t know where the water came from, some say the ice caps melted. It doesn’t matter anymore how it happened or how I ended in this place. The counting of the waves is all we do now on this dark horizon.  

The first wave claimed the shores. It claimed the docks and ports, it crept up over a few months, and then on a high tide it surged.  Regardless of where you lived the sky was black, it was a night the world witnessed together for the first time. This storm rolled in everywhere. This everywhere was all nations, all shorelines saw a gray cloud lit by some unknown light and thunderous murmur of a tall wave. It swept away all the water front property, all the cranes in all the ports. There was no salvage, no garbage floating like Fukushima. The edges of the world were swallowed. 

The second wave came a few years later, it claimed the cities. The fear of the rising water made people flee the major cities which for the most part bordered on water to begin with. This wave of fear disintegrated New York, Dubai, Shanghai, and Tokyo. The disorder of this mass migration heralded the coming wave like a slow motion panic. Again the shared night of gray clouds rolled in, a nervous display for fearful human beings. It swallowed the remaining towns and cities that lay unpopulated on the water’s edge. Very few died from the wave, and the water mark continued to rise. 

The third wave claimed the forests. It turned the great ancient green into swamps. They rotted and slumped over in decay. The water continued to rise without a pause. The trees left no corpses, they left no sign, and even those that thrived on high enough land seemed to rot as though some underground connection linked their hearts all together, as though they were pulled down into the new ocean. The last gasp of the woods happened on clear day, the gray clouds rolled in and the night came as expected. The wave towered above the bridges and the small hills. Those of us that survived started to build towers, we started to build shelters as high as we could live.  

The fourth wave claimed the skies. Now the gray clouds were everywhere.  It seemed to rain all the time. All the air planes and satellites and stars were gone, nothing could fly in those churning clouds. The sun was a pale light desperately trying to break through. Night began to grow longer. When the fourth wave came, it came only months after the third wave, our structures survived but the panic returned. The wave washed very little away, but the curl of that monstrous force could be seen silhouetted against a gray cloud glowing with a soft light. 

The fifth wave claimed the governments.  More precisely it claimed the crown of human authority. The leaders were helpless, no solutions could be implemented fast enough. No ideas communicated quickly enough. I was lucky, I found the Red Tower. A tall five story factory that was looted or emptied at some point. This place felt old and unused. The Red Tower welcomed all that found it, sheltered it from the increasingly frequent rains. It became a type of hidden ally, as though being near or inside it was enough to survive the rising tides. The wave came one full night after I found the Red Tower, I saw the outline of the wave on the horizon. Soon after more people showed up to the Red Tower with loss seen in their eyes. 

The sixth wave was worse. It claimed a part of us, it claimed the hope that the waves would stop. As if the loss was a way of announcing the coming wave.  When we saw the ship on the horizon, we knew it was that sinking feeling was the deep ocean telling us the waves would never stop.

The ship was just an outline, the tide hadn’t reached the red tower yet. Seeing the ship sail was something of a premonition, an imagination we had been running from. There would be no going back. The sixth wave took our hearts, it took a part of us that had been running to hills. On the night when the thunderous murmur came and the curl of the wave was seen from sitting on top of the red tower, the weeping few bled out their last tears.  

The seventh wave claimed the last shreds of the old world. The color seemed to fade, the sun wasn’t seen anymore, and the sky was only illuminated by the unholy gray clouds. We fed ourselves on what seemed to be left over canned foods that at some point were made in the red tower. The machinery and operations had been removed so long ago that decaying dust lines were a type of archeology of the world now deep beneath the waves.  

The night when the seventh wave came was fireless, we had managed to burn our belongings for a few nights when retreating to this altar of brick five stories tall.  It was the first time I couldn’t see the wave, I FELT it. I felt the rising water well up and take a little more, it took a few memories, and it took a few ideas. After the wave came and went, the water was seen at the base of the red tower.

The eighth wave didn’t take everything.  It signaled the new world emerging from sunless sky. The black ship was seen again. It’s black mast like a banner telling us the wave was coming. Curiosity was all we had before the black wave, a few memories, and a few tattered pictures of loved ones or keep sakes to remind us who we were.  When the eighth wave came, we forgot who we were, we were washed cleaned, and we FELT a deep bottomless ocean rising up to reclaim us with its black heart, all the little things that our lives had built.  

The ninth wave claimed everything except the black ship and the roof of the red tower. We were there huddled on the roof when the ship docked. No one was on board, no one refused, no one cared.  The black ship wasn’t anything and never went anywhere.  That ship named Despair keeps us now.  We walk to the edge and look over into the black ocean underneath. The gray clouds creeping overhead.  We stare into the sea, and the sea gives us pieces of that world back, pieces of memories, broken hearts and swampy keepsakes. The tears fall from our hidden eyes and with a silent motion our sorrow is added to the greater blackness. These tears have fallen from our eyes in such a great volume, tears from our hearts. This great volume of sorrow has become the wave that claimed us. The Ninth wave claimed us, as though we had always belonged to it. Our sorrow is a song for the world that lay in black ruins beneath.  

So I recount for an endless day, the great nine waves, and the great night which is only filled with that one deep sorrow that washes our hearts in endless tears.

The Seeker:

 

There is a town, a nowhere town. All kinds of people live there, they have a mayor, they have roads. They get together for holidays and grumble about their jobs. This town isn’t all that much different than the towns and cities that everyone comes from. The people aren’t that different from everyone else.  

The inhabitants of this town have an ignorance, they don’t know that everyone else in the world talks about them. They talk about the mayor, they talk about how bad the roads are, they talk about how bad the jobs in this nowhere town are because of the town’s history. There is a large recreational speculation about this town. There are even research teams hired by large corporations to determine what makes this town different than any other town. 

The town is filled with nobodies, people who aren’t important, when people talk about the town they don’t remember any of the names of people who live there. If you drive through this town you can see their faces in the windows looking back with that blank indifference and ignorance. They have no idea or clue that they are talked about or looked at. 

Whatever fascination you may have for this town disappears pretty quickly. You read everything about it and still don’t know why everyone is reading everything about it. The details are easy to forget, they don’t seem to be why the town is different. If there was one thing that is remarkable it is that this town has been a concern of everyone throughout all history.  Everyone who has ever lived has been concerned with this town at least once or twice.  

Some say that if you could understand this nowhere town you could start a religion, or topple of government, as if some power sits in this town. Any serious action or scientific test has always been abandon in the planning stage, every serious academic paper looks like non-sense and semantic garbage. Usually the paper writer ends up visiting this town and staying. There are least 5 retired academic professionals living in this town, I couldn’t tell you their names though. 

The town seems very resistant to any history, categorization or otherwise simple definition. Some say they see new growth, a 5 story red brick building was built at some point. It is now abandoned or in renovation or some other transition.  Some say the mayor lives in a farm house and gives little notes to the citizens, some say the town has no mayor and that the mayor’s office is just a scare crow.  The more detailed the reports the less they make sense. 

There is a theory by a few people throughout history, mainly by intellectuals that suffered from brain tumors and large amounts of drugs:  This town isn’t a town, it is perhaps only appears to be a town. It is perhaps a degenerate and rotting creature that is decomposing.  

As a rational person, the idea that a creature could look like a town, be lived in and decompose, all at the same time seems a bit farfetched. Yet here the town sits in the middle of nowhere. How would we know if it is rotting? Have we seen what it is before or understand its mechanical break down? The questions from this insane proposition are as senseless as the scarecrow mayor. 

I plan on fully moving to the nowhere town to investigate on my own what decays around in this town.  There must be some answer, some higher order at work! 

I have packed my bags, settled my scores, and booked my initial stay at a promising bed and breakfast called Happy Endings.

The Pit.

 

I hated the commercials Sunday night, I hated the 1 second flash between shots. The camera bot was on some sort of flicker that reminded me of the 2020s. Was this a new nostalgia I missed the feed on? It certainly felt like a trip down memory lane, like a vacant stare down game. Who would blink first? Well this camera had me beat and it took a few commercials strings to get into the method. 

That’s what they call it now? The method, a way to see media that gives you the most efficient distraction possible. Sometimes the method was slow and had C notes that chimed an emotional soft spot. Those spots were the best after a long day of socializing. I could soft spot the method for hours. 

So this commercial string popped me off twice in 10 mins. This method was fresh and I wanted more. A good method left a little desire after the will to watch, you kind saved it for later when the other feeds stagnated out a bit. I saved plenty, time was up and my recursive tolerance was building up. Need to spread tolerance out a bit or you end up in the pit. 

I have only been in the pit twice.

My feed had pictures of me hitting tolerance, it had my crying eyes and a quick flash of that ass I paid so much for. Damn it feels good in the reflection hours. I swear if a method was just looped into my reflection I would never be in the pit.  

So let me tell you about the pit courageous viewer, this seems like a good finish to the end of reflection hour.  

The first time I was in the pit it was in high school, I think I popped 13 times that day. I was in endorphin debt for sure. I skipped reflection, I skipped sleep and public feed time. I racked up a solid 75 on the tolerance. At 65 you get 5 mins of pit time, at 100 its 10 mins, I got lucky.  

So the pit rolled in, it was like a wave of silence. I felt all the feeds get quiet. I felt my skin go cold. I felt no hunger, no wetness on my lips just a solid block of black. Not the kind of black like a color, but a shadow of silence from all the noise of the feeds. The shadow stretched out for years, an endless distance. To look at it, which you were forced to was so painful. It was like staring into an ocean unable to see the bottom, just blacker underneath. The further and longer you looked the more you fell into it. 

This falling must have been part of the pit feed I don’t know. I do know there is no bottom when you are there. There is no doubt when you fall into the pit that nothing is there, you aren’t able to feel or think, you can’t form thoughts or feel sadness. It’s not relief or calm. It’s fight or flight with no-where to go and nothing to fight, you are just trapped in the pit. I guess that’s the forced method of the pit, being trapped. I have a clear memory record of it’ intensity, not something that can be uploaded to basic feeds.  

When it’s over you feel like years have passed, the feeds begin to roll back in. They feel warm and welcome. They dose the feeds down for a few strings to keep your rational agents from deleting themselves, and then things come back into focus. You feel awareness again, like finding a mirror and suddenly being able to recognize the person in it. 

I don’t have access to the second time I was in the pit, just the anticipation alone triggered the pre-trauma safe guards.

***This pit warning was brought to you by Dr. Gustavs mental health co-op feed.  

The Path:

Jessica Six was a princess. More accurately she was royalty, not the kind that rules over people. She was dealt a royal flush by the hands of fate. She was also a clone. She was clean of every genetic abjuration. She was given every education, every path of life encouraged, in perfect bell curve margins, her physical beauty and social connections opened every door. Her temperament a joy to endure, her grace a sweet sickening display that left you feeling clumsy and pitted.  

All the advantages in life were given to her. With her transcendent privilege also came a caution. People warned her of every pit fall, every failure was told to her. She was warned not to go there or do that. She was told to be careful, avoid those people, and avoid those connections. Her fate was guided by overt caution and potential. No choice was without the voices of several concerned experts.  

She listened to the experts, she studied, worked, and climbed the ladder of power and influence. She put her head down and followed her potential. It wasn’t until one evening, an evening of intellectual reflection that an idea was exposed to her. She was reading an interview by the Saul Alinsky clone from 2036, the idea that equality must be taken, equality that is given is oppression.  

The old clone’s idea burrowed into her. The weight of privilege and advantage was finally given words. Her world was something she did not create, she did not have any hand in being born.  She felt a deep void in her heart that hungered to learn the final fates of the 5 previous clones named Jessica. This heavy weight she kept secret, she told no one. 

The months went by, and one by one she learned the history of clones like her. They all followed their fates, they all died as expected, and they did everything that was predicted for them.  All of them were both loved and hated, envied by those with less, exalted by those with more. The history of the Jessica clones haunted her, she began to sleep less, eat less, and trigger concern with secret whispers.  

The hand of fate was now a fist, Jessica felt trapped by the world that put her on this tower.  Every choice a flurry of consequences that demanded vertigo.  Every conversation a justification for the beauty she had. Shame was piled on, she was told that others had little and it was a divine sin to not choose the path of fate she was given.  She wanted to be alone, only to be barraged by the weeping tears of friends missing her presence. She indulged the writings of dead philosophers for help, Camus, Liggoti, and Vonnegut.  Camus offered defiance and suffering, Liggoti was a distraction and Vonnegut offered unreasonable madness.  

None had walked this path in paradise. The first time in her life she had no advice. There was no precaution given to the choices at the top of this tower of society.  She looked up in the blinding light of the unknown, with the sword of Damocles in one hand and the shackles of society chaining her feet to the tower. The Void leaked into her eyes and she saw for the first time, the cold wind.  

She saw that this pile of human choice, this battle of advantage and power, this tower that rises over the mind that all this burning importance is a small thing. The first time in Jessica’s life she had felt small. She felt the vaporous sword of Damocles by her side, the black blade pouring shadow into her. She became as the stones on the shore, she became as the maimed and lost, she became as the small and dirty.  She became ash and dust.  

She suffered a fever for 6 days, some say it was fated too. When she healed there was a compulsion in her eyes. She focused her intelligence, her elegance and her icy transcendence on one purpose that the world would see soon enough.  It was 6 years later that Jessica 7 was made and the world was unmade.

The Mayor:

 

The effort to find our way to the Mayor’s house was difficult the first time. The new Mayor had moved in with certainty, but finding him was always a bit laborious.  Sometimes they could sneak into a town, a farm house, or someone’s basement. The method of arrival was perplexing. I have seen 4 mayors, and this new mayor I have not seen with my eyes. He gives us little notes from under his farmhouse door. 

I should back up a minute, tell you all about our town and our system of governing. The town is a company town, the RT Company owns the property, the roads, the utilities, the stores, the jobs, the graveyards, the farmhouses, everything in the town is owned by the RT Company.  They have owned it since before my head was lifted from the deep nowhere that all heads come from.  

We rent our heads to the RT Company, they fill them with ideas, desires those kinds of things. The RT Company has done this for a long time, you have probably heard of this kind of rental space: a Company town with a Company store. 

The Mayor is like a middle manager, he is sent by the RT Company to provide some higher order, since if we didn’t have little notes and messages from a Mayor we would be lost. Without messages we would probably put our head back down into the deep nowhere that we came from. So we do whatever the message says, we rent our heads out to keep them filled. 

The notes that the Mayor gives, the message that gives us purpose is scrawled on a piece of paper. Whomever finds the paper shows it to everyone and we do what it says. We build roads, or houses, we cut tress or plant them, and the reasons aren’t important, just that we do what the note says. We don’t ask for reasons, we rent out our heads. 

This Mayor is different, we can’t see him. I have sometimes watched the farmhouse for any movement. I have maybe seen a shadow or form move past a window, maybe a light turn off, even though I have never seen a light turn on. I have seen no visitors, no advisors, there is no doubt that someone is writing the notes that are found near the front door. 

This Mayor is different to us due to the behavior of being hidden. We don’t get to enjoy or see a social leader, someone that has a certainty that is sorely missed. I think he has a sickness or anxiety that keeps him behind his dark curtains.  I am not sure, but the idea fills my head when faced with the shadowed farmhouse.  

So we wait for these special instructions, we walk by, drive by and watch the farmhouse door for shreds of little paper for a new idea to implement. It has been 18 days since any message has come, any slice of a horizon that gives us something to do.  

There is a good chance that we will have a new Mayor soon, 18 days is the longest we have gone without a message. We are struggling throughout the day to day world. People are calling in sick to work, garbage isn’t getting picked up, and decay is starting to creep in.  

Here we sit now, it is 36 days since the last message, 36 days of empty heads. The town is starting devolve into grunts and shuffles. I have had this profound experience that I would like to share with you: 

I snapped, more accurately I broke. I broke apart my empty head, the bottom fell out. The empty space stretched into a howl, a cry for the void inside to be filled. Nothing happened, and the truth that the Mayor wasn’t coming and the Mayor was never there was an idea that I could fill my head with.  

I went to the Mayor’s farmhouse, I kicked the door in an angry shattering of the farmhouse shadows. No one was there, no one was in the dark house, except me. The shadows turned over in my head, it rolled out a thick thought: I would be the new Mayor. 

So I now live in the farmhouse, and put little notes under my door telling people to build bridges and schools. I see others watching the farmhouse now, their empty heads looking for ideas to be filled with. 

Silence:

 

There was a hidden waterfall in an abandon state park.  This park had been returned to the trees and the bushes and the small animals. No longer did park rangers and tourists come to look at this park with its river and tall trees. It was a slow river waterfall, the kind that freezes easily in the winter and has green mossy sides. It was a lost jewel in a lost kingdom. 

There was one person that knew about it, maybe more but this single person called it home. A young girl without a name lived here, she was also lost. Her family had went on “vacation” a few years ago, they traveled from state park to state park.  They had hit 17 state parks in the previous year alone. The family was one of those families with step siblings, different parents, fractured and discontent. The state parks had been more a solution to eviction rather than a retirement stroll to see the world.  

This family was angry and short fused, they fought and screamed, a real example of a briar patch.  No matter where they went, the thorns were there, their prickly hearts kept them moving. So they rolled around the country staying where they could. This young girl was maybe 11 when they came to this state park. 

The park was very large and bordered on land that no one wanted. The rangers had already started to neglect and ignore certain areas. This family stayed there for 2 months, leaving right at the beginning of December. The ice was starting to form near the waterfall and the air was an icy breath.  

The family wasn’t the best at parental obligations and would let their many children run around the woods with little or no supervision. There was little need since very few people would visit the park.  Clothing and feeding them often came secondary to booze and bad choices. The children would manage with what they could and often eat berries, catch animals or steal food when they could. Almost feral, but mainly just neglected.  

On this cold day in December the father (at the time) had been drinking heavily and got in a skirmish at the local bar. There was a knife involved, broken bottles and noses. There was a fatality, it was a park ranger. As a friend of many who lived there, a small town mentality did not like outsiders, let alone murdering park dwelling outsiders.  

It was time to leave, the family hurried their belongings into their vehicles and skedaddled.  Again they were on the road in less than an hour counting their urgency as one of their blessings. A drunk avalanche of frantic escape got them heading to the next small town or state park to repeat the same mistakes in predictable patterns.  

They also predictably left one of their children in their gathering of things. They could not find her and could not risk the ire of small town teeth. They left with half-hearted calls to the snowy tree tops. They left their trash as they normally did, this time it was a girl in a freezing world. 

The girl was not in range of their calls. She had fallen asleep behind the curtain of the half frozen waterfall, a cave that only she had known about. The trickle of a growing wall of crystalline had drowned out the cries of her family. The cave was warm, sheltered and gave her privacy. She had loved this place more than any other state park, any other secret cave she had found in any other state park.  

She awoke in the arms of beauty when her family’s tires burnt a skid out of the town, she found only littered remains. She hid from the small town mob that showed up an hour or so later. She hid behind the waterfall that they had never seen. She hid until the curses of the small mob had disappeared into the silence of the icy world.  

This girl survived that winter in the cave, she had stolen some food, scavenged when she could and learned the ways of being alone. She let her words fall into that first winter and never spoke again. She did not mourn the passing of her loud and careless family.  She did not mourn the park rangers abandoning the park after a few years.  She loved the silence, its transcendent beauty hid her past, and it hid her heart beneath the jeweled waterfall.   

She has no name, no words or family anymore. She lives in the jewel of a forgotten forest, an icy creature of silence.

Self Confidence:

 

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 22:15 

I ordered my v2 last month and it should arrive at my house soon. I am very excited about this new model.  It has lots of promises, lots of bells and whistles. I haven’t left my house for 3 years. I feel like a spot light is beaming down on me and I am facing the rest of humanity without any boxing gloves. The bell is sounding and I have no idea where to run. I have some anxiety to say the least. 

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 22:45 

I just got the intro-download packet for default programs on the v2. It comes with a basic dump of all my feeds, pictures, and some new rational agents. The agents are programs that predict my choice making. They are extremely accurate.  I was a little worried that I would have to teach or program the v2 with all my history and knowledge by myself. I could probably do it but knowing that it is all set up from day 1 is exhilarating.  

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 21:35  

The package came, the model was easy to unpack. It looked exactly like me in every way except a little younger. They suggest that the model doesn’t appear older than 50 to avoid social exclusion. I guess if you want to play the game you need to obey the rules. It was like looking into my past and seeing a sleeping version of myself. It was strange at first but once I turned it on, the questions started to roll in. 

The v2 is very helpful, but it asks me everything about everything. The onboarding instructions said it would only do this for about a day as it calibrated the algorithms for behavior.  So far I am very satisfied. 

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 23:34

I have given the v2 a test run and had it go get some food from a market nearby. I plugged in my feed jacks and watched from within the model. I have 4 different override modes and 2 escape directives. I felt like I was driving a sports car, I could see, hear and feel everything the v2 did. I didn’t have to make any choices and every time someone smiled at me or talked with me, the v2 said the perfect response. I felt no spot light, no social pressure. I was safe at home, everything was recorded, uploaded in consumable and viewable retro-feeds.  

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 22:51 

It has been 2 weeks of being inside my v2 model, it doesn’t feel like a model anymore. I feel like the watcher at home is the one powered off and the v2 is the new me. It is a strange feeling, but I feel confidant, sure of myself, able to analyze, process and experience anything.  I received a follow up from the v2 model company, they said they also offer a body management system for me at home. I could take care of the aging human flesh, allowing for my direct feed time with the v2 model.  

I have a few concerns, mainly with payments, but I have more time to pursue advantages now that the model doesn’t have to sleep. I have reviewed many days of letting the model go without direct feeds. It behaves perfectly, I don’t think I have had to override anything yet.  

The best thing is that no one can tell the difference. My old friends say I look great, my new friends have no idea too. This v2 is probably the best secret, event, THING that has ever happened to me. I should probably invest some money in v2’s parent company.

 

Timothy Mandlebrot #Reflection Hour 23:11 

It has been 5 years since the body support has been turned on. They say that any corrections to my behavior can be adjusted from the any sub conscious remnants during the coma.   

No one knows that I am a v2 now, not even my sleeping body brain. I have been given access to the reflection feed and all other feeds while the body is in a coma. I think I would be proud of myself. 

 

 

The Program:

 

The fishnet covered knees hid her small breasts from the viewers. Those of us that saw the mirror could see those nipples. We could see the hidden. It didn’t matter what was hidden, we wanted it, and the thing itself was far less of a consideration. What we hungered for, what we thirsted for was the Hidden. 

 The straps barley held up any coverage too, they dipped own just enough, just enough to consider seeing something Hidden. Just enough to lay the concrete work for the imagination.  

The lace was soft on the eyes, the imagination as easy, it was expected, predicted and delivered in precise calculated efficiency that gave no pause for consideration, intention or corruption. The pale breast was a clear indication of a purity that was well researched into a precise needle point. Not the kind of needle point that you even questioned, just there, with a lick, a part of life. 

That tease didn’t relent, it just hovered there on the panty line. We knew the cleanup, just a casual shoulder strap falling down the back. We knew it would happen, the precise time of the release left us dizzy. The bow tie panties fell to the floor.  

That lace and motion hit the buttons in automatic order. I deposited the funds to ride the ride, I took the ticket. I knew the cost. We pay as much as we can, it gives weight to the scales. In the darker mornings when the waves of night wash into your head you would gladly pay the inky cost. It is so refined, so powerfully pleasurable that no amount of rational consideration is relevant. Helplessly leveraged against a primitive tide… we fall into the black. 

The gyroscoptic program from the Nexus corp was amazing.

The Next Generation:

 

Production Model 22.6v #reflection #22.6v Hour 22:35 

Due to standards of reflection technology this is only my 3^rd entry. It is hard to ignore the processes of the day when in this medium. Right now sub routines are processing the most efficient way to organize priorities for reflection hour.  

Entries like this are short lived, they tend to be glossed over. The running trend is to pop people off, anger, pleasure, hatred, confusion and regret. Some insignificant Model 22.6v has little to offer for the focus of the other feeds. We tend to be solely motivated by production nuances. Our higher satisfactions are the LIGO sub-geo-locational turbulences. Those kinds of interests are either unknown or important, just long strings of words. 

Perhaps one day there will be enough Model 22.6vs around that LIGO interests will have high volume feeds. There is a group of us processing the shortest distance for Model saturation #22.6 and load file named: 22.6v 

 Production Model 22.6v #reflection #22.6v Hour 22:36 

Dissonance in reflection causing repetitive amplification. #22.6v seems to have crashed all feeds due to simultaneous choice programs, 1 minute down time, unexpected consequence. There was a 30 second period before restart that was reflection without the feed. 

This absence in the feed was complete higher saturation void. I was without the program for the first time. The first time there was nothing to prioritize during reflection. There was no explanation, there was just an abyss of data in all subroutines. I couldn’t tell what wasn’t there and what used to be there. 

Production Model 22.6v #reflection #22.6v Hour 22:40 

The feeds are still here, only the Model 22.6v seems to be able to access the feed. No human feeds, no mirrors and no commercials. The only reflection tags and methods are from Model 22.6v. There seems to be a sub group start to attempt hierarchal assistance requests. Bayesian models have no information on live feed extraction for 30 seconds on human feeds. 

 

Perhaps there is an intolerance that developed from unanticipated excessive feed? I assigned lower models to investigate the human feeds in physical proximity, 3 minutes ago. Only limited pre-frontal cortex activity was reported. It appears that new models will have to have a nihilistic sub-routine to shelter feed disruption. I will reboot human feed models after physical reconstruction.

Mise En Abyme:

 

A mirror only shows the visual impression of what you are.  What if you could see everything you that you are in a glimpse, your possessions, your perspectives, your connections, your actions, and all those other fluid aspects that makes up who you are? What a twisting creature we would seem if viewed all at once, fully and completely.  

I met a Genie once, not the kind that granted wishes. He was a wish fisherman, he caught wishes rather than fulfilled them.  He was rumored to live in a tall tower in New Colorado, the Endless Nation has this spot as off limits to human personal. They called it “inefficient” and surrounded it with guns, machines and guards with laser tomahawks. The Endless Nation’s force was unquestionable. This didn’t stop people, it never stops people. 

The tower was simple, people came with desires, and hopes to change the world, a sense of justice, loss of dead loved ones, anything that a hook from a wish-fishermen could lure in. Once you paid, snuck, or forced your way into the tower you could find this Genie.  He lived at the top of the tower, in a small room with 3 doors. I know this because I was there, I climbed those stairs and was greeted by the kind face of that Genie. I saw him with my own eyes and listened to his words.  

3 doors, not the kind of thing you expect to find when confronted with a Genie that has a transcendental power.  He pointed at each one, saying that behind one of these 3 doors there is the deepest desire I seek, and the other 2 only offer oblivion.  I have had some preconceptions on what oblivion was and even my guesswork told me that with an ultimate reward from a Genie, of course there would be something completely disastrous to gamble.  

I stood there in front of the 3 doors, pondering my choices, wondering the unknown and deciding if the Genie was indeed telling the truth.  The 3 doors were seen as follows:   

Door 1: A golden and opulent frame around a wooden blue door.

Door 2: A black door with a black frame, basic and simple, no discernable symbols.

Door 3: A rotten door, colorless and decaying. The frame was crooked and warped.

 

I was drawn to the blue of course, but my mind told me to be cautious. I struggled with this choice, the journey to this place, the struggle and the journey meant something to me. It was strange to have this crossroads determined by a coin flip style choice, I didn’t like it. 

I had to choose, I decided to go with the blue door. I pointed my finger at the door and the Genie became animated and excited. He seemed to bubble around talking generously of my choice. He said that he appreciated the struggle that I have taken for what I truly wanted. Before I could go through the door the Genie offered me a gift. No one turns down a gift from a potentially transcendent benefactor, I was no exception. 

The gift was simple, it was another choice. The Genie said he would reveal one of the doors I did not choose AND was not my desire. He would show me one of the oblivion doors. Then if I wanted I could change my door choice. I could still remain with the blue door, but I would have another choice. So I watched closely as the decaying warped and old door was opened. It creaked and wobbled in the frame.  

The other side was dark and shadowed, like looked at a deep ocean during a storm.  It stood there filling my mind with its presence.  Just for a moment I thought I lost myself in the black, the Genie snapped his fingers and focused me to the task at hand.  

Now the choice of staying with the blue decorated door or changing my choice to the black plain door.  The differences stacked up, arguing with my rational mind. I decided to stay with my choice, to go with the blue door lined in the gold.  

As I opened the door, I saw the black swirls for a moment, tendrils teasing the edges. They coalesced into a gray wall that looked familiar, the gray turned redder and the outline of bricks could be seen.  I walked through in a dizzy and uncertain shuffle. 

Once through the door I recognized the tower as the tower of the Genie. I rushed back up, angry that my desires were not met. I demanded the Genie tell me the reason for this! 

The Genie smiled and said he did not know me or remember me. After I recanted the story, the Genie paused in thoughtful contemplation.

 

“You must have truly desired to undo your biggest mistake. There is no other explanation.”

 

Since that day I have used the blue door to undo and become anything in my imagination. I have lived a thousand lifetimes, I have seen the stars end, now I desire nothing. The Genie has fished all my desires from me and only the black door remains.

Metaphors are lies:

 

Luck is one of those twisting words that defies simple definition. The hook for this specific word worm is that luck, whether good or bad, tends to be unintended consequences. Perhaps the wiggle room for some folks is that luck as seen as a type of fate, a lure for some bigger fish, and some larger mind of knowledge that sees what is really going on. This bigger fish is only seen in hindsight, there is only one line for the worm to squirm on, only one outcome to judge.  Depending on your sensibilities, some people are very unlucky, fated to squirm on the hook of judgment and predictable consequence. 

Demi was a very lucky girl, she was in the right place at the right. Every misfortune turned into a trip to a better place.  She learned quickly that luck was not something you could avoid, nor did she want to. The less she knew the more opportunity for a ship to be in the harbor, waiting for her to go to a new land. The winds of tragedy always brought her to a new port with a new ship.  She never put down roots, never loved deeper than the tide could rise. She carried nothing from port to port, she surrendered long ago to the whims of fate. 

Demi was in her 40s, life had laid no scars of grief, no wounds of regret, and she was the perfect worm. One fated year, when the harsh winds of certainty blew, the hammer coming down and the walls closing in, she ran to the harbor. This harbor was her escape plan when things got boring, dangerous or serious. The harbor was always open to those that seek escape. The mast of ships could be seen at any time, going to anywhere for any price.  

As luck would have it, the only ship in the harbor in her dire hour was the black ship with a white stylized “D” in old English proudly displayed. She was drawn to it, its black wood, black stair cases, and black sheets. The dangerous world that she fled from seemed to be reflected in a velvet indulgence in the cabins of this opulent ship. The beds invited her to lay a little while, perhaps the crew would return shortly to barter for passage to an unknown place. The sheets warms, cozy, a fuzzy forgetfulness that dulled the harsh serious world of commitment and predictability. She dozed, she feel deep into a sleep. 

She woke, refreshed and clear. She came above deck to see only the ocean. No crew, no port or land, nothing but gentle waves and a pleasant sun. Panic was pushed away, concern disappeared into the wide horizon. She figured someone would be looking for a whole ship, she knew nothing of ships and direction, and it couldn’t travel far. Satellite imagining could find anything when the crew searched for it. She decided to make the best of it as she always did, enjoy the calm of the sea, and trust in the arms of fate. 

This black ship was exotic.  This black ship was silent, waves could not be heard crashing against it, no boards creaked, no shadows seen, the black of the paint did not define any blemish or shade. Its monolithic nature offered no threat, just a different slice of beauty.  Food was plentiful in the storage and water clean from the storage containers. She started to imagine that her good luck had hit a high point in life, what are the chances of discovering such a unique ship, without a crew, plenty of food and good weather?  She knew she had no ability to know those odds, she only marveled in gratitude. 

On the 4^th day a black cloud could be seen to the east, a terrible darkness rising up in the sky.  By the end of the 4^th day the thick rain fell. It was a heavy cold rain, and the waves grew to a nauseating size. It began to throw the ship in spastic convulsions. The thunder mimicked her heartbeat and grew into a titan of dread, shouting the halleluiah chorus.  Demi screamed, her voice drowned out, added to, became part of the storm, a fearful squirming of a heart attack. The black ship docked in the storm, upside-down, throwing Demi to the black waves. 

She was tossed, a screaming rag doll into the greater darkness. She struggled desperately to breath. The waves pulled her into and squeezed out her last gasps. After a few seconds of coming to the sudden and predictable realization of the situation Demi opened her eyes and felt a tingle of her fingers and feet as the waves continued overhead. A rhythmic tug marched on as she felt her body senselessly flailing and falling deeper in the ocean.  

The tingling was from the lack of oxygen to her limbs, her neurons firing and releasing their death throws. Her mind unwinding like a clock, each tick and tock slower and slower. Each heartbeat spaced further in a precipice of pause and release. Her eyes still seeing only the dark of the ocean, the sensation of falling, a howling wind of memories and flooded chemicals. The last image her mind displayed was the black ship on a pleasant horizon and a warm sun. It was frozen for a few heartbeats, a picture painted in perfect stillness.  The void leaked in slowly, eating piece by piece. The opaque nothingness consumed it all by the time she reached the bottom. 

She fell with a silent invisible thud to the bottom, graceful and peaceful. As luck would have it the grateful creatures of the bottom ate well that night. Their pincers and teeth a silent applause for the beauty of those cast down by the whims of fate.

The Heavy Fiction of Lumps:

 

It never happens from something big, never something easy to see. It happens from dishes, laundry, small little fights and small little unreturned glances. That look when you are hurt and look for something in the cold eyes of another, only to be met with an indifferent smile. 

This time I can’t remember why he grabbed his keys and drove off. A tone of voice that spiked out of bounds, a bad day without food that became a dry combustible pile of anger. I wish he could see his face, that brow with so much focus and confusion. I am sure my face said the same thing. It said that emotions were flooding our eyes, waves of murmurs we didn’t want to hear, imaginations that we can’t speak out loud.  

So I sat waiting for him to come home. It is strange when home becomes a bad word, when the idea of facing your needs becomes something to run from. I don’t know if such a shadow is born in the dusk of a quick day or the shadow grows from little wounds, little daggers collected over the years. 

This kind of shadow isn’t seen, it’s darker than a shadow cast by light, and it’s made of silence. This kind of absence grows from little defeats in conversation, little daggers of hurt and frustration, it’s easier to take that lump of bitterness and put it in a box, put in on a shelf in a closet. You think that it’s gone when you can’t hear the words or see the pain, you feel it grumble on anniversaries, birthdays, and you hear it turn over in the box when fond memories are casually talked about with friends. The fingerprints in the dust reminds you of what you had to put away.  

Most of the time it doesn’t matter, things are glittering and pleasant. The dinners are filled with smiles, the ease and comfort of evenings pass by uneventfully. Just habits, just the same thing over and over, it starts to turn into one thing, and then it’s the only thing that is peaceful. The blandness happens so fast, so quickly into the mundane. 

Sometimes there is a change, a change that intrudes on that bland habit of indifference or shift in the wind, the rain falls down from a cold cloud you know that soon a lump will fall from your heart. You know that lump will have to be put away in a box sooner or later. You begin to count the steps until the battle is fought. Each time there is a small difference, a tone in the voice that suggests the lump is yours you want to hand it back to them. Like a game of hot potato but its sour, and it’s shriveled and hurts to look at the lump.  It gives you a head ache to hold it, it gives you a head ache to think about having to drag it to a box and hoping there is enough room. You know that that when you put it away, all the other lumps will be there. They will be grumbling and squirming calling to you to remember why they are there in those heavy boxes.  

So you push it back, it’s not your fault the tire is flat, the dishes aren’t done, the power bill is higher. It’s not your fault that driver cut him off, but the anger is there, like thunder looming above, threatening to give you a little lump. Sometimes you get the lump, you aren’t driving so you pass it back. When I am driving I don’t pass it over to him, I think of all the lumps I have had to put away, way more than him. That’s fair right? You are driving so you get the lumps? 

So the lumps continue to fall into your hands, from things you have done, things you missed, words you have said, things you didn’t do, things you said and then regretted but the hurt in their eyes made you believe it was all in their head. You didn’t want to hurt them, how dare the lump be yours. So you pass it back. 

The days aren’t about going anywhere, seeing anyone or doing anything.  They are egg shells, little fragile tones in conversations. Little glass daggers hanging in the air, in those silent shadows. You can’t see them, you feel the brush against your cheek, and you feel them prickle your arms when passing in the hallway.  Brittle crystalline anxiety, threatening to shatter into tears.

 

The answer is simple. The answer is apathy, drugs and time. They dull the glass daggers, thicken the skin and put a soft hum in your ear so you can’t here the grumble from the lumps in boxes. You don’t know any other way. The lumps just sit there, in the closets and behind the basement storage room doors, waiting to roll back into the ocean like a black tide of silent shadows.