27.

fire!

The Story of “God”

The four posts marked [in the interim] were queued in advance—cannibalized from a book meant to be a prequel—meaning we could be dead as you read them/this; hope not, though!

Alarm you?

Gosh, I don’t mean to do that, but we should brace for impact, and quickly. First, though, let us cut to the chase. Let’s slice right to the heart of the matter in question. Let’s work toward the root of the problem. Let’s dig out the meat of the situation. We need to uncover, unravel, unmask, untangle, and unbind the parts of reality we all share.

Oh, hey, how many ideas do we accept on the basis of misguided faith or blind trust? How many thoughts have we inherited from colleagues? How many opinions have we adopted from friends? How many beliefs have been absorbed by families thanks to little more than geography?

At some point (in time) sooner or later, I strongly advise taking detailed inventory of your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and beliefs.

Of all the ideas in your head, what percentage did you arrive at on your own?

We should be asking more questions.

I’ll start.

Who doesn’t enjoy a fatty, greasy, salty serving of crispy bacon?

What an incredibly pleasurable taste.

It’s even delicious cold.
It’s even delicious covered in chocolate.
It’s even delicious wrapped around all the foods that ever fed.

I’ve probably eaten enough bacon for a lifetime or two.

I’ll never eat it again.

And, unlike you, a natural hunger for flesh actually does twirl part of my deoxyribonucleic acid.

Hypothetically only, when presented with a mandatory choice between perfectly cooked cuts of bacon and a human hypothalamus and/or pituitary gland, assuming the dishes had already been prepared [I’d eat the burnt swine flesh over killing somebody in this instance], you may not want to know which I’d choose.

In a Siberian survival scenario in 2011, I might’ve sampled a few choice parts of a polar bear’s brain. The starving creature ambushed me while I napped for the first time in 51 hours. In those days, I slept with my warm hand extra tight on Halcyon’s cold hilt, so the poor animal was dead before either of us had time to process what was happening. That was a dark time of reckless abandon for me—I’d felt loneliness and fear before, but never simultaneously (and only after the fact)—however, the energy and knowledge I absorbed from my march across Russia might’ve kept me from dying later.

Napoleon must have been an arrogant buffoon.

To survive arctic conditions, one must possess the mental capacity to plan ahead seasonally while troubleshooting problems daily. The superficial ability to blend in with the environment [i.e. being white] helps, too.

I am very pale.

Where I come from, snow isn’t fun. It just is. Wintry weather becomes fun after you’re removed from it for awhile. Truly, I desperately miss fresh powder at high altitudes.

I’ve very rarely missed anything.

Nothing.

Ever.

Have you ever pondered the climate on the earth 10,000 years ago? What about 100,000? What about 1,000,000?

What about 1 (year ago)?

Pondering anything requires a base of knowledge and willingness to think. I suspect this is why more and more humans choose to abstain from the process. What a shame. Similar to how the reward for exploration is discovery and quite like a process of creation, thinking is an act that rewards itself—singing with your noodle burns calories for which your body/brain demands replacement. That’s called hunger. When people (in the U.S. especially) get hungry, they eat “food” that upends their potential to process thoughts—another cycle that feeds itself and worsens over time unbeknownst to almost all citizens/participants.

Fear not! Humankind’s idiotic brilliance has led to forestalling the next glacial period indefinitely.

In the past million years or so, the earth has experienced a predictable pattern of glacial periods [“Ice Ages”] that have lasted roughly 100,000 years and concluded with a time of interglacial warmth and growth that tends to last only over 20% as long.

The most recent glacial period subsided approximately 15,000 years ago. 

Our most ancient human ancestors managed the daunting task of evolving through the worst part of an Ice Age.

Technically, we’re still in it, the end of its life cycle, the warmest segment.

We live in a time known as the Holocene.

Hungering, assumedly.

Do you know the trick to removing yourself from the food chain? Develop the ability to create and control fire using only the sum of your body.

Wow!

I hope I get lucky enough to figure out how to choose words that properly explain (to you) how mindbogglingly insightful this should be to anyone.

Name one time of enlightenment in human history more profound than the discovery of fire.

(Can you yet?)

Folks, we evolved through a lengthy period of cold darkness on top of already dark coldness.

Piled atop that, approximately 75,000 years ago, our common ancestors survived an incomprehensibly catastrophic eruption from a supervolcano (known as the Toba caldera). Whether this event pushed humankind to the brink of extinction has been hotly contested, curiously enough, so let’s skip that debate and focus on what is known, which is that it resulted in several years of volcanic winter [like nuclear, only minus the radiation], meaning the sun was hidden behind dense clouds of dust, ash, and debris.

In other words, there was a lot more dying than living.

Also, let’s get a handle on the term “radiation” because it has gotten a needlessly bad rap. Even the words “ultraviolet” and “thermonuclear” are ignorantly feared. In language, we give up on too many terms without giving them another thought. I’ve lived long enough to know for certain that each thought deserves at least a second pass.

Go on. Think of anything that radiates.

Take any number of moments to spelunk your own memory banks.

Use your brain before a capable predator drinks it like a milkshake.

What radiates?

Insert original ideas now as your consumption of the next sentence has been delayed {with your permission, I might add} by remaining here as you anticipate the dot your periphery may glimpse ahead of its landing right about now.

Whatever thought you hatched pertaining to radiation—how many of those words carry a negative connotation?

As a human being, you can’t help but radiate warmth, which means being cold is unnatural.

In other words, you need to radiate, human reader. If you’re galacian or belanockian, I can only wonder know what you must be thinking {wink wink}.

I do(n’t )care who you are: reading this book work will only confirm what you’ve known all along.

Imagine being alive back in ancient times, living where all the snow almost melted during the hottest summer month, and there’s this amazing thing you’ve seen that you wish you could possess—a magical, bright, untouchable material that melts icy darkness.

Naturally you’d assume you can’t just make the stuff by exerting the power stored inside your body.

Now imagine the miraculous stuff in question is fire.

Now imagine you discover how to conjure it by gathering wood, kneeling down, and rubbing your hands together super fast.

Friction means heat.

I don’t wanna freak you out, but (literally) fire lives inside you.

Often, I find myself incredibly compelled {as you (may) know by surviving however many pages words preceded this one these} to rephrase and repeat certain thoughts in an effort to connect ideas with more people.

In other words [case in point], important concepts will be repeated using alternate terminology.

Language is funny like that.

Say something to people one way and listen to crickets chirp silently in their brains, but say the same thing in different words and watch their heads explode.

A male, quite like mail, is prone to taking flight and/or being sent off.

Have you ever seen anyone make fire by friction using a hand {or, hell, a bow} drill and a hearth board? If you’ve seen your author [me] do it—I dunno, on the internet perhaps—disregard that moving image because I certainly make fire-creation look far too easy; laughable, even!

Have you ever seen anyone (besides me) make fire by friction using a hand drill and a hearth board?

Golly, at a glance, it almost resembles kneeling down in prayer.

You don’t even need a visual aid.

Your brain already handled it.

I must admit, I wonder what would make anyone ignorant of the technique try it in the first place, but tell me your head would not explode when you saw smoke.

How might ancient man have stumbled upon the technique that births fire by friction?
– attempting to sharpen a spear
– shelter construction—trying to cram something where it wouldn’t fit
– struggling to file down a troublesome toenail
– making a bed rock
– pure madness

Back to our hypothetical tale about your accidental discovery of fire.

Whatever you’re doing (back in the day and in this story), let’s say you’re doing it aggressively enough that the point of contact starts smoking.

Heh. Bet you keep going.

Ha! Bet you even accelerate.

“Gotta go fast,” right?

Imagine your reaction when you see a speck of light—in other words, when you become transfixed by the sight of a burning ember—before (either a serendipitous gust of wind or) exhaustion evokes a heavy breath of fate that transforms your smoldering seed into flickering flames.

It’d be like figuring out how to see the 10th color, or feeling infrasound, or casting lightning bolts from your fingertips.

You’ll freak out.

Think about it!

You bow down, rub your hands together, alakazam, now you’re a god.

No matter how you look at it, fire liberates light, the savior of ancient man, the seed of cosmic enlightenment, then shines in darkness while rising from ashes.

Almost like a brain coming online.

Or a computer booting up.

My, my, what a collection of stories that would make.

Imagine when you realized that you could think.

We’ve all done it once.

Remember that? The revelatory moment when you became aware of yourself?

I wonder why we can’t remember.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be the first person ever to walk on two legs, or to be among the first people to open their mouths and speak to each other?

There’s a first time for everything, yes?

Imagine being the first human to carry a torch. You could walk through a jungle and keep “monsters” at bay. You could lead a group into the wild during an enduringly bleak period of time which featured big scary shapes frozen in dark ice. But, hey {again}, at least you could glow in the dark and radiate warmth to boot.

Do you see what’s happening?

You’re like a wizard with a fireball staff.

You’ll be worshipped, for Christ’s sake!

People would actually kneel at your feet.

Good job—you’ve imagined what it must be like to become a Fire God.

Now imagine seeing the sun for the first time in years once a long volcanic winter subsided.

All the while, your brain functions well enough to recall how to generate an ember.

And then imagine finally coming out of a glacial period [the most recent one, in fact].

What a difference fire made under the stars back then when our planet teemed with all sorts of curious growth and suddenly brave lifeforms.

Can you imagine? You’d get to name all kinds of new stuff.

“Psst, what should we call that thing?”
“Clearly we should label it a ‘humpadub’.”
“Wouldn’t ‘camel’ make more sense?”
“Sure!”

What if these stories were told over and over across generations of people throughout tens of thousands of years by way of a million different grunts, gestures, syllables, interpretations, renderings on cave walls, symbols, signs, eventually spoken for hundreds upon hundreds of centuries before finally being written, deciphered, translated, and fought over time after time again and again.

I wonder if, as the years crept by and added (way) up, those tales would deviate from their original source, or, if you will [please and thank you], their “genesis”—especially the stories about learning how to use our melons, and the part about a cold, hungry, desperate man praying to the God of Frictious.

I just pulled that outta your ass.

I wonder if any such story would sort of, um, what’s the word we’re looking for here—merge, fuse, overlap, entwine, compound, exaggerate, expand, explode, spread, collide, twist and turn?

We’re only wondering, “What if?”

Have you ever played the game “Telephone,” the one where you whisper a message around a group of people and see what comes out at the end? Personally I haven’t played since the heyday of my Rocky Mountain daze, but I’ve always found the concept immensely amusing.

What starts as “planet of the apes” can end as “pet an apple, bite the snakes.”

To cite a particularly fond memory from an extraordinarily festive New Years Eve (in 1969), “Stevie smells like fish poo.” I doubt this was true, but reactions around the table didn’t do anything to discredit the declaration.

By the by, throughout this fake piece of real work, names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent—as well as to precipitate disorientation as far as which elements are (auto)biographical.

Anyhoo, do you reckon maybe a sea could have been ever been parted by a man’s telekinesis?

I suppose that first I should have asked whether you reckon a man could possess any telekinetic abilities.

Perhaps now you’re wondering why I didn’t edit accordingly.

Perhaps next time {a.k.a. one day} you’ll know.

How else will we ever learn from each other?

No, Moses could not have parted the sea like you’ve been led to believe, but I’ll bet that a “land bridge” was crossed.

Now, having been bewildered into making logical deductions, keep going!

What if our ancestors discovered such a formation of land at high tide?

What if, then, they had the wherewithal to wait for low tide?

“What is this, I can’t even…”

“Relax, for the sea itself merely parts.”

That would be cool to see.

Or what if you felt the earth quake and saw the ground split at your feet?

There’s no telling how I’d react to that if I were -50,000 years old or so. I would probably scream {the high-pitched kind—think Marv in Home Alone}.

What if an adventurous spirit led you away from the Fertile Crescent and into a Great Pyramid?

This would certainly incentivize further exploration, no?

The word genesis simply means the origin, coming together, or beginning of anything.

Kind of like, say, when two people unite and become parents.

Do you know how many possible DNA combinations can assemble between parents?

According to the invisible web both worldly and wide, it’s around 2 x 10^-8 per base pair per replication event.

You might have no idea what that means, but it seems to imply an origin point of infinite possibility, wouldn’t you say?

The world sells division.

Besides anything, what all does the neighboring image symbolize?

Hmm.

Oh, incidentally, have you ever read a little book called Genesis?

Do you know how many different (major) religions subscribe to it?

I think you should read it (again).

I might have read it (once) before this year, but honestly I can’t remember.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness [ahem, oceans of space, seas of ice, or the mind prior to connection] covered the face of the deep [illusory shapes in glaciers], while a [solar] wind from God [light] swept over the face of the waters [melting ice]. Then God said, “Let there be light”; [receding dust cloud, blossoming warmth, gaining sense of sight last] and there was light [sunlight, or a brain before initialization]. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

It goes on and on.

Drop your guard, read, and think.

It won’t hurt.

This isn’t a dare; quite rather, it’s an earnest plea.

I need (your) help.

Think.

Read.

Think again.

You can’t miss it…

What if The Old Testament opens with “God’s” flavorful spin on “His” timely tale of language in its infancy on our planet while chronicling the budding fruit from sentient momentum within a booming tribe of early humans?

What if the mind began its journey toward awakening during an epic volcanic winter, and/or right as an age of ice began thawing?

The beginning of Genesis can should be read as if the character named “God” is selecting words to describe basic stuff and things. If you keep reading, you’ll learn about how the earliest humans noticed the horizon and the two “great lights” in the day and night skies. Read about when our ancient ancestors found a treasure inside fruit, buried their seeds, took notice of sprouts growing in both fertile soil and bellies, as well as when they detected seasonal changes in climate and weather, observed the importance of water through farming, so on and so forth.

Has it dawned on you yet?

Consider the possibility [no one has to know but us] and ask, “What if?”

There’s a lot of truth in these words, but there’s also a lot of conjecture based (up)on the onset of facts.

We need to be rethinking archaic sources of current knowledge. There’s just no damn way we got it all right. We didn’t get everything right in the last year, or decade, or century, let alone in the last millennium. You can bet my bottom dollar that most of us screwed up yesterday at least once.

Things People Used To Do and Considered To Be Completely Normal
1) Smoke on airplanes. (1990)
2) Cure mental illness with an ice pick into the eye socket. (1946)
3) Sell heroin as cough medicine. (1924)
4) Used rocks to wipe butts. (Ancient Greece)
5) Believed that God gave a donkey the power of speech. (Biblical)


What if you could travel back to Ancient Egypt and show the people of the time a few clips of Mr. Ed on your phone? One can only imagine how they might react.

Incidentally for any young folks who might be reading this, Mr. Ed was a talking horse on a television show from the sixties. For any adults who think this elaboration is unnecessary, I’ve met kids who have never heard of Michael Jackson. Similarly, I’ve met adults who don’t know what “yolo” means.

In other words, we possess the knowhow that will allow us to bridge these troublesome gaps.

What if “God” were an ancient leader of man—the biggest, strongest, tallest [“most high”], and the brightest—an alpha male among the first tribes {if not the first} of our kind to start thinking hard enough to “talk”?

And wouldn’t it stand to reason that he was the only one around who could make fire?

How would his awestruck followers know whether others around the world had made fire before? It’s not like they could’ve seen it on Instagram. They wouldn’t even know how big the earth is, or that it’s (undeniably) round. They’d assume they were at the center of everything there is!

Of course they would.

All children start out believing that.

Most Americans (seem to) believe it now.

You should peruse the text acknowledged by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam because it seems to tell the obviously vague tale, in parts, about the very first of humankind discovering how to rise above, literally and figuratively, by standing upright and learning to reach out toward our heavenly dome of fluffy, white clouds.

Page after page chronicles the beginning of energetically vibrational communication [a.k.a. spoken language], recounting the times we figured out ways to think, look, handle, have, hold, crawl, climb, see, stand, count, fall, remember, rise, balance, walk, love, stumble, hate, plan, retry, run, explore, fire, conquer, everything, all of it—in other words, how to be a goddamned human.

In other words, it’s about people learning how to see the light in one another.

In even more words, it parallels a newborn’s emergence from the safety of the womb throughout training to walk.

And in even more other words, it reflects the time our brains booted up and, more importantly, when our imaginations escaped a long hibernation.

It also relays a story about when one of humanity’s inaugural tribes assigned labels to basic material while deciding what matters most.

Also, in a way, it describes the birth of our universe, back when light built up enough mass to escape gravity with a quantum bang that established the patterns exhibited by either a volcanic burst or an ecstatic little eruption.

Maybe we’re wrong.

About everything.

Maybe we’re missing something crucial.

Maybe I just don’t wanna die.

Maybe my head is twisting facts in an effort to make sense of the universe as I see it, scrambling blindly in a naive attempt to fully grasp my own personal reality.

But what if we are right?

When you feel a revelation bubbling up, I’ve learned that it’s best not to fight it.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that man created God in his image.

God was the alpha among the first of mankind.

He became the stuff of legends.

God is humankind.

In other words, “He” accidentally invented tribalism and artificial selection at the same time.

In other words, intelligence is artificial.

In other words, thinking is an artform.

Together we are writing the ongoing saga of an intergalactically legendary lifeform.

You’re all people, people!

We learned how to think.

We’re way ahead of schedule {but behind the curve}.

If we’re in a simulation, it’s ours.

What we get is what we make.

Reaping equates with sowing.

I wonder if we should shape up.

We need to wake up.

Just think.

What if?

Light is god.

If opinions can rightly turn out to be wrong, then obviously so can beliefs.

I have to assume that in the educated eyes of many a scholar, fire was the most enlightening discovery in human history.

In my opinion {the value of which is debatable}, fire wins the silver medal.

I believe there was, in fact, a golden age more enlightening than that—the time we learned how to use our heads and stand on our own two feet—it was as if, oh, I dunno, a light bulb came on in our brains. Without that lucky stroke of brilliant, critical thinking, our ancestors couldn’t have reached the point of controlling fire.

She and he, who spread the warmest love amidst an age of frigid darkness.

I must believe, too, that a brand new age of enlightened clarity will take hold and fan out across the globe on its way to quickly and easily earning the gold [(poetically) in 2020].

Important.

But where there’s one thing, there’s the other.

Where there’s good, there’s also bad.

Before our ancestors started running their mouths, they developed a greedy taste for power in the face of food scarcity {understandably}, so they went a little nuts, bit by bit, striving for meaningful purpose while longing for and cultivating the fruits of our passionate labor, which, in my opinion, should definitely include taking care of our shared mother [Earth].

Genesis can apply to all the most enlightening miracles in human history.

God has become what many of us now know as humanity.

God is light.

We are God. Each and every one of us.

Once unified, “we” become light.

And we may go forth with harmonic success only as one.

All together.

It’s just you and me down here.

How we doin’?

Differences.

Compelling similarities exist between the dawn of our universe, the explosion of light’s time, the formation of stars, galaxies, black holes [dark orbs], solar systems, planets, the moon’s run-in with Earth, the cycle of tides stirring carbon into oxygenated soup, earthquakes and volcanoes, fluctuations in climate and weather, photosynthesis and respiration, the circle of life, the rise of mankind, a hunger for power, connections across species, differences (and similarities) between the sexes, the creation of offspring, the birth of a child, the development and advancement of civilization, and ignition of a/the human brain.

And to think that we figured religion and science couldn’t get along because of irreconcilable differences. What if it turns out that in some ways, both have been right all along?

Still, I wonder if any parts of those ancient stories might have been lost in translation.

That would only make sense, I guess.

Nah, we probably nailed them all.

Right?

Either way, the good ole Bible can be seen as a truly useful, brilliantly informative anthropological anthology. I look forward to reading all the new interpretations of ancient texts from various people all over the world; I am no more interested in doing all the work than I am inclined to steal all the thunder. I’ve identified inescapably essential value in sharing. Plus I’m sincerely glad that so many moral compasses and sets of belief all start on the same page pointed in the right direction—the same way that time goes.

Hurrah, congruence!

Thanks, first people to start thinking, and to figure out how to count!

Thanks, too, first lady who ever spoke and wrote, first guy who ever walked, first person who ever talked, first girl who ever sang, and the first player who ever invented a game.

Appreciate it!

This isn’t meant to ruffle feathers.

It’s really simple.

If you believe in God as an omnipotent being, then you believe in magic.

Which is fine, but we all need to stop calling spades anything but what they are. (Spades are spades.)

If you believe in magic, then you may as well assume that Harry Potter is/was real, too.

Also fine.

Seriously.

Hell, in a way, Harry Potter is real.

I neither judge nor mean to belittle any belief.

Your beliefs are your own.

Own your beliefs.

If you believe in something, then act like it.

Why would anyone begrudgingly sit through church hungover?

If you claim to believe something and act like you don’t, the logical conclusion is that you don’t believe in what you claim to believe in.

Why would people claim to believe in a cause that, deep down, they reject?

Tribalism.

It’s in our blood.

We are social creatures.

In other words, human beings need help from each other in order to progress.

Just like all life, we have to move.

We need (in order) to move.

If we don’t move forward, then we tend to fall backwards.

Just look at what social media is doing to average intelligence.

Too many people don’t think anymore; instead, they cherrypick opinions which fit the narrative threads that inspire them to sew into being.

We should not pick cherries; rather, we should let them release naturally from their branches.

Then we should gather.

For a multitude of reasons, too many people act like something they’re not.

That’s the opinion that has fallen into my lap, anyway.

Being human taxes the classic trio of “mind, body, and soul.”

We need to feel a sense of belonging.

Humans must work for a community in which they serve a purpose and through which they strive toward meaningful fulfillment.

We need to recognize this pattern or the States will eventually have to remove the word “United” from the country’s name.

Wouldn’t a unified global community be far superior to 195(-197) politically clashing countries?

If your beliefs provide your life with a helpful structure and make you a better person for it, then I think you’re doing it right. Doesn’t matter if you believe alien lizard people are coming any day now to scoop you up in their mothership and take you home to the Andromeda Galaxy. As long as you don’t convince your followers to don purple Nikes and then orchestrate a mass suicide—in another worded interruption, as long as your beliefs equate with more good than harm—you should feel no shame.

My beliefs, even my wildest guesses, are supported by more factual data than any skewed belief in an omnipotent being that compels suicide bombers.

Muslims believe in the same god that both Jewish and Christian people worship, but most of them aren’t schoolboy-rapists posing as priests. Most clergymen aren’t rapists, either, but given the frequency of occurrence there, I’m pretty sure something’s off.

Which is Worse?

A Catholic who uses the priesthood to prey on children.A man who straps a bomb to his chest in the name of Allah.

I don’t know either.

The bigger the basket, the more bad eggs.

Like most Christians and Jews, most followers of Islam don’t believe in self-destruction in the name of mass murder.

In the name of diverging interpretations of a shared concept.

In the name of hate, fear, vengeance.

In the name of their “God.”

If your belief in the unbelievable is inescapable, then at least meet everyone else on common ground and stop being so intolerant of others.

Earth’s sandbox has enough room for all kinds of camps; She needn’t feel overcrowded.

➭➫➬

By mere definition, patterns may never exhibit any tendency if not for the flat refusal of deviation. Patterns can only deviate upon a binding oath to form a straight line pointing one (and the same) way.

Anytime you find yourself reading conceit into my carefully chosen words, just remember that you’re doing it wrong.

​Far be it from me to sideswipe anyone’s (date-of-birth-related) thunder, but I’m pretty sure I’ve entered the early stages of a late-blooming mental breakdown.

I might have lost sight of what “sarcasm” means.

Heyyy, how hard is to predict which day of the year will see the most lit fuses?

Personalities multiply by themselves.

RAWR.

Fire works because light works better and enlightenment works best.

It empowers.
It promotes unity.
It permits visibility.
It makes things happen.

Harnessing the currency of starlight surely must be superior to burning down the fuel stored in carbonized vegetation that can predate The Mesozoic Era.

In other words, if you could travel back in time to a swamp roughly over 250 million years ago, then you might run across coal in the form of an extinct forest before its decay {which then deposits peat on the way back} toward becoming what it is now.

In other words, time changes anything.

The lesson in this particular instance appears to be that we should commence exclusion in borrowing solar power directly from the present source as opposed to the indirect approach of sucking out old energy from fossilized remains.

Whenever you find my vernacular to be inaccessible, I’m sorry (because it portends my demise). I can’t help it. Keep in mind: I’ve been alive for almost a century, but I occupy the body of a thirty-something {super}human male.

At any given point in time, a living being contests with a fearsome foursome of ages: numerical, spiritual, physical, mental.

As a consequence of clinging desperately to outdated methodology, we are angering our already unstable foundation by bleeding it dry.

It’s a sleeping dog, and you know it has to be there for a reason.

The dumbest person in the history of brainpower knew that, even if he didn’t—or far more frighteningly doesn’t—realize it.

Glad we finally got it cleared up, though, because now the stage has been set for elaboration.

In the few decades leading through the turn of the millennium by a handful of years, Oklahoma registered less than 20 earthquakes.

Now compare that to the 888 that were measured in 2015 alone.

Some studies seek to link the process of fracking to the underlying cause.

On cue, other studies claim that wastewater disposal is the real culprit.

How often has{/have} pointing fingers promoted solidarity?

In both cases, essentially, problems are being buried deep below the surface.

Do we need to know how much dirt can fit under any given rug? I assure you, just as every rose has its thorn, every rug has its limit. Terms excel at coming up.

Who reckons that buried problems don’t eventually come back to haunt?

What has “The Blame Game” ever accomplished beyond cramming foots into mouths by way of mutually unintentional confessions from each party latching radically onto a competing story’s dilemma in question?

In other words, when people accuse each other of sole responsibility for the causes of any negative effect, whether blinded by the heat of a moment or undeterred despite honest reflection, it’s usually an emotionally charged exchange.

How logically do you behave when flying off the handle?

Causes.

Plural.

In other words, either way in the case of Oklahoma’s recent uptick in seismic activity, some bodies are injecting shit where it doesn’t belong.

Our gut tells us that this stinks.

My brain tells me that following the money could lead to the truth.

Our hearts tell us, deep down, that you certainly must agree.

What say we abruptly pivot and head off in another direction?

It already happened.
Obviously.

But I would like your retroactive blessing.

Ahh, greetings—yes, there you are. What a delight! I can almost smell your pheromones through the page.

Earth is the one and only planet we [humanity] have detected where fire can burn.

In other words, however mathematically improbable, our home turf might be the only place in “outer space” whereupon flames can ignite, let alone spread.

To exist, fire needs a double dose of oxygen {unlike H2O, which clearly leans on hydrogen for structural support}.

In other words, O2 serves as spacetime for flames.
In other words, fire needs oxygen to breathe.

Math is funny like that. It has a fondness for inversion. If you mess with one side of an equation, something tends to happen on the other.

Fire, water, ice.
Rock, paper, scissors.
Fire, the hottest thing since ice.
Water, the undeniable answer to fire, which melts ice.
Ice reflects light, which makes embers.
Triangular relationships abound.
Life abides.

Let’s not forget water’s gassy form, a.k.a. vapor {or water on the way up}.
Though you may not see it, it’s always around you, reflected in a measurement we (might) call humidity.

And it’s all fundamentally integral to the cycle of life on the “pale blue dot” known in some circles as “Earth.”

The key arrow points toward a prismatically mirrored image of the three-headed spirit animal watching over the cosmic population bound to race against the clock that matters throughout our indefinite suspension of both time and disbelief.

Does that sound kinda kooky or nah?

As I may or may not have mentioned by now—honestly, in our non-linear plotline, it’s nigh impossible to keep track—he is not a human. He’s neither a galacian nor a belanoc, either. But he is a he.

We’re the only ones of our kind{s}.

In other words, I’m (a) lone(r).

My birth mother, Liana Rex, was {before her defection} the one and only Galacian Princess. To draw her affectionate attention, my father must have been a quiet but gifted human with a sharp, dry wit—a diamond in the rough, as I’m sure she saw him.

Evidently T ‘N A were the happiest accidents in history.

I can’t begin to tell you how crazy it is that “our people” knew about the belanoc decades before catching wind of The GE.

Clearly, since I began telling you, I may have misled you.

It’s actually not crazy at all. The inverse order of discovery would’ve been “crazy” because whether thinking back or trudging ahead, we can best learn sequential steps in (the correct) order.

Think of the belanoc as the more emotional members of galacian society—the prison population, as it were in truth—and now they enjoy their freedom while slowly fanning out and drifting south along their path toward adaptation to ultraviolet radiation.

Genetically, you see, galacians are ill-equipped to tolerate prolonged exposure to UV rays. That’s the reason they prefer extremely cold weather, low altitudes [they can barely get enough oxygen at sea level], and why they (generally) only come out at night.

Yes, these surely are the living creatures that inspire vampire mythology.

However, I can confirm from {reliably instanced reports of innumerable} firsthand experience, that should you ever encounter a galacian in the wild—particularly a hungry sort—you’ll wish it were only a vampire. Galacian/belanockian fangs have evolved to administer the most paralytic toxin on earth, and unlike “vampires,” g/b don’t care about your blood beyond spilling it by the pint. They only want to eat your brain, and ultimately (in order to optimize the redistribution of energy) they aim to begin feasting while you’re alive.

Most of us can relate: food is better fresh.

Let’s change the subject!

Disorderly, reflective “equalization”?

Here’s a fun couple of facts: the color spectrum is an example of a wavelength, and wavelengths reveal frequencies (of matter).

Within frequencies, patterns can be observed!

Given time, patterns will repeat.

(We’ve all seen history repeat itself.)

Seems to me that man got a taste for power after learning to create light by stumbling upon the solution to setting a fuel source ablaze while using his own body to harness energy through circular motion.

In other words, somebody got a big head when he figured out how to cook.

Us

To equip temporary power means to want everything indefinitely.

To want nothing you don’t need means to wield indefinite power.

Power means very little without anything of substance between the top’s bottom and the bottom’s top.

Willful ignorance of this reality might make a lot more sense if our concept of a pyramid were flipped, but as it stands tilting, it amounts to an abysmal lack of structural integrity.

See, this is why I think I know that the collapsing energy of existence starts its own cause known as gravity.

This could mean a lot of stuff and things.

Causes effect, effects cause.

Weird!

Gravity anchors and consumes, fire(light) vrooms and blooms. It’s just what they do. And we can’t do squat without either.

Extrapolating from this reality, you might say that we’d be well-advised to search for our collectively sole soul.

Energy instills the guts, light provides the nerve, and we need the combined power of both to move.

Every creature on the planet knows it.

We all know it.

That’s why we get hungry and eat food, or feed ourselves, or fuel our bodies, or gas our tanks, or charge our batteries, or energize our cores, or however you wanna express it.

Energy [everything] is the one thing anything needs [craves] more so than even nothing [perfect, if unfathomably boring, state of balance].

In other words, using energy yields a waste product commensurate to necessity.

In other words, shit happens.

At least we can still breathe with a closed nose.

Our cumulative brainpower might be too tangled up and twisted to make sense of it all right now, but eventually the knots will untie.

Whether we’re talking about wasting away, pigging out, getting busy, or sawing logs, we can all relate in one way or another.

You know that friction generates heat, and that heat rises. That’s physics, and no matter how much you claim to know about physics, you are dead wrong.

You know more.

You’ve felt the force in your body.

You can feel it right now through the power that keeps your feet on the ground.

In adverbial essence, we are nothing if not highly evolved, wildly fragmented, increasingly chaotic, intrinsically electrified energy.

We are what we eat, and yet here we are eating more and more obese cows.

Gobble me.

All the sugar in almost anything you find packaged on a shelf.

All this modified wheat.

In other words, we stuff our faces with toxins on purpose.

It’s bad for you. It’s bad for the planet.

In other words, believe it or not, what’s poisonous may poison us.

Funny how that works.

What’s good for you is also good for Earth. Lose/lose when it could (and still can) be win/win. The opportunity to recalibrate exists, but have you ever heard of a chance that didn’t eventually pass if not taken? Humans need to eat daily at most but should not graze like cattle.

Galacians eat once a month {as close to the new moon’s darkness as possible} unless they’re hibernating, in which case they could sleep for a thousand years before waking up, knocking off the cobwebs, and then returning to dreamland.

Belanoc are all over the map. Even under the bright blanket of a full moon on a clear night in highly reflective winter wonderlands, they will hunt. They can’t afford to care about your feelings—like us, they face a steep climb to avoid extinction.

Once targeted by either a galacian or a belanoc, not even the world’s fastest human (on steroids) could escape. The only difference between these two apex predators is that you’ll likely never see the galacian coming; whereas, a belanoc inconvenienced by a marginal hunger pang will charge straight at you because it knows you can’t do anything to stop the one-sided, fatal dinner date you’re about to experience {most likely without your permission}.

In school I learned that belanoc feed about 3 times a month. Indeed, some of them do, but the farther they stray from a cold, dry environment into wet, warm air, the more energy they must burn, meaning the more craniums they have need to puncture.

Food chains are a natural part of life on Earth.

Here’s an example you might (not) find disturbing. I tracked a six-pack to Chicago in the dog days of 1995 during a record heatwave. The temperatures truly were miserable. Heat indices rose beyond 120°F [felt much hotter in the middle of the city]. 739 heat-related deaths were logged in a span of five days. The belanoc were killing 10-20 people per day—mostly at night, but as the days went by, they got started earlier and earlier in the late afternoon underground. I found them inside a derelict subway station around midday when I was reasonably sure they’d be out like logs.

Halcyon hadn’t seen any action in months, but in those days I was still quite dedicated to my sharpening routine(s); thus, 3 of their heads had been separated from their bodies before mama bear popped up shrieking like an insane banshee; the alpha kept snoozing in spite of the commotion. Wasn’t even a fair fight, to be honest. I almost felt a tinge of guilt.

I haven’t been challenged physically in combat since 1979. Another subway story—this one particularly tubular; it’s how our enemies learned of my existence. It’s how I lost the only father figure I’ve ever known. It’s why I had to abandon my “family” [notably the woman who raised me—I saw her as my “grandmother”—along with her son, my “best friend”] and go into hiding alone. It’s why I’m here. It’s a tale for another time (and possibly in another medium).

It’s why you’ve been here (this whole time), too.

It’s how, together, we exist.

You & I?
We exist.
Here we are!

🔥

025

LIKE THE FLARED HOOD OF A SCARED COBRA


Imagine a fair-skinned towhead, an older (male) toddler who twirls eyes that pierce into your soul with an array of facial expressions that shouldn’t be possible, broadcasting a degree of wisdom belying his years, advertising an eerie, almost alien intelligence.

This is Atlas Knight at age 10. He looks maybe 2 (and a half).

Now picture a librarian. Good job. Close enough. You (may) have just caught your first imaginarily physical glimpse of Eve Lynne Quinn {a.k.a. “Elvyn”}. She’s in charge, and rightly so.

Belanoc Studies & Surveillance Institute [“Bessi”], 1929

In broadly limited strokes, a small classroom setting floods your imagination. What do you see? Don’t (feel compelled to) answer. Let me handle (some of) it (for you). Minimally furnished, this room. Few desks. A brutalized blackboard. No windows—we’re underground down here, folks. Clean space, safe place. An environment that evidences years upon years of hard-ass learning. Two beings present: insanely brilliant teacher and dumbly apt pupil. EQ and ARK.

This was the day she informed me of the particulars surrounding my highly unusual lineage.

Softly, Elvyn echoes a request from earlier: “Are you ready to tell me about the dream?”

“Nightmare,” Toddler Atlas corrects his loyal guardian with the spoken inflection of a wise old sage. How eerie, indeed.

“What were you doing?”

“Metaphorically speaking with a tinge of literality, I was decapitating monsters.”

She can’t help but smile at: “‘Literality’.” I mean, hell, that’s barely a word.

It just popped out. So much does.

For some reason, I doubt he’s employed the term since; not sure why!

Mind you, this exchange predates the coining of the term Galacia (and all its children). The Belanoc were old(ish) news.

And let’s get one thing super straight. EQ embodies a living angel. To know this, no, I don’t need to have had the pleasure of making her acquaintance in the flesh. I’ve read plenty of her words and heard a lot about her from reliable sources. Her life’s work roots itself in a steady stream of steadfast advocacy for humanity’s cause to spite a snowballing pattern of effectively self-destructive, outright idiocy (in a collectively survival-oriented sense).

“In the nightmare, why did you choose decapitation as your method of elimination?”

“Brainstem severance.” Off his educator’s narrowing eyelids: “Only way to be sure.”

This is, in fact {as I’ve recently learned}, the standard method of dispatching g/b from their cold mortal coils. Atlas had not been taught it in any official capacity—he simply worked it out. Always mentally ahead of schedule, never a physically early bloomer, sometimes an emotionally retarded stumbler. [But he’s getting there, I swear.]

Again, at this point, Atlas appears to be a tiny human having aged no more than 3 years, and his insightful conversations with Elvyn are as surreal as they are stupid. A fucking baby, basically, talking like a renowned {and appropriately confident}, field-pushing, trailblazing physician. Framed another way, at 10 years old, he’s already smarter than almost everyone ever. Nonsense!

Nonsensical.

The Second Day of July, 1941

For context, the world is at war, and it’s terrible. Recently fought on Syrian soil: The Battle of Palmyra—don’t let the hyperlink imply hidden significance that encourages your sleuthing; it’s just not an event about which most people have heard, I’m presently reckoning, so I’ve elected to save (some) people the trouble of inputting keystrokes [or screen-taps] which facilitate the collection of clarity on this subject.

Anyway. Summertime. 1941. The United States of America has not yet been (fully) roped in to the Second World War. [Pearl Harbor happens six months later.] {Pardon me, history buffs.} Still, galacian has yet to be defined.

Once more, we’re in the classroom, a sanctuary which finds itself, aside from (ab)normal wear and tear, curiously reminiscent of its state over a decade prior. Herein, scientific theories/methods have seen more action than a{n} __________ [insert whatever makes you giggle; pretend the blank space is a long as you like; I can’t be arsed to be inventively sophomoric at the moment].

“Aside from your twenty-first birthday,” Elvyn begins, arresting Atlas’s textbook-devoted attention, “do you know what today is?”

Now he probably looks about 7. I dunno. Hard to keep up. It’s just so darned weird.

Verbally, he answers not; however, with a telling glance, he invites the immediate continuation of her just-announced thought-path. She suggests, “What say we hike the perimeter?”

One of my favorite (impromptu) activities {back in the day}.

Normally these hikes were planned ahead of incoming precipitation, particularly snowfall. Spontaneously taken hikes took/lasted longer thanks to the careful application of extra caution toward covering tracks. Are you relaxed? I hope so. Because Bessi was/is literally buried deep in the Rocky Mountains. I’m not tipping our hand; every g/b on (or off) the planet already possesses this knowledge. But they don’t know where—at least not exactly. The mountain range in question? Vast (enough). Trust me {unless, from personal experience, you’re aware of the world’s second densest mountain range’s lofty majesty}. The base is hidden very, very well. Our enemies might find it one day, but not because of anything contained on this (web)site.

Unless we clue them in purposefully.

Very rocky is the path which leads to the front door of our esteemed, secret fortress.

Screw you, fate.

It’s hard to believe that I know this kind of shite. Were I to require the confirmation afforded by the act, I’d pinch myself, probably.

Oh, Earth. You marvelous slut. Love your face and core!

Walking Bessi’s jagged perimeter used to be our hero’s form of church, a merry jaunt through nature’s grasp. The altitude. The panoramas. The thin air.

Ahh…

Firstly, as I’ve been told {and have no reason to disbelieve}, completing the trek implies an inhuman level of fitness. [Racists!] “How many klicks?” you may/might (not) wonder. As of now, you can’t know; you’re not allowed; it’s a current security issue. Forget the rock-climbing aspect—suffice it to say that a handful of dangerous leaps were involved.

In the meantime, while immersed in this noteworthy day’s iteration of the oft taken journey around their home, Elvyn and Atlas embark on an important and diverse discussion which, in my estimation, has still yet to reach a satisfying end. Handful of highlights incoming. [I’m glad you’re used to jumping around in time. Fun, isn’t it.]

“Why do their eyes change color?” Atlas wonders.

“A defense mechanism,” Elvyn responds then quickly supplements, “a display of power.”

He pauses for a moment. More so to himself than to his teacher, he mutters, “A conduit of fear…”

She nods. “Well put.”

Kinda disappointed in himself, I’m imagining, Atlas edits his choice of noun [the one meant to precede “fear”]: “Conveyor.”

I liked the sound of “conduit” better. Still do. Arguably, it’s less accurate but more…colorful.

More electric.

Suddenly Elvyn recalls an example: “Remember the serpent we encountered last summer?”

You can fill in some of these blanks, yeah? The summer prior, they ran across a formidable viper—a rattlesnake, I correctly assumed {and perhaps you did, too}—which prompted a brief fascination with “hamadryads” [doubt you assumed that], also known as Ophiophagus hannah, a.k.a. king cobras.

Damn, his brain. What a messy dandelion.

Turns out, however, that on this rare occasion, EQ was mistaken. We’ve all been wrong at one time or another, haven’t we? Makes you wonder if we’re botching something awfully obvious (as we “speak”) now, no? Anyhow, g/b eyes change color when they apply their infrared filters, one of the signature differences between us and them [like hinged fangs connected to venomous glands, not to mention ridiculous muscle fiber density, among other advantageous characteristics]. In a blink, their eyes may/can change color. Drastically. Now, granted, this ability could be activated defensively if not involuntarily. “How do they make it happen?” Hmm… Know how you flex a{ny} muscle? That’s how. Want that put in other words? Fine: how do you mindfully expel urine from your urethra? That’s (kind of) how they apply their ocular enhancements. They sense a need, and then they just do it, goddammit.

Quite strangely—and in a painfully obvious twist of truthful perspective—a brain sends urgent signals to certain parts of its body.

How (in) the hell else would any living creature ever know what to do?

Atlas figured it out [the infrared detection attribute] a few days later. Elvyn kicked herself for not sorting it out on her own much sooner. The most profound eurekas evoke head-slapping “duh” moments, don’t you know?

Later, after a usual period of silence during the most challenging stretch of terrestrial obstacles in the thoroughly mapped orbital stroll, Atlas concludes [probably muttering to himself again], “The Belanoc must’ve inspired vampire mythology.”

Slightly winded, Elvyn chuckles. “Without question, I’d say.”

See, throughout his early days as a blossoming messiah, in favor of making statements, Atlas rarely asked questions. In a nutshell, virtually, he was (almost) never wrong because he asserted no claim to which any weighty fleck of uncertainty clung.

In other words, he waited for positivity.

Nineteen & Forty (Plus Two+)

In other words, the year has eclipsed the marker of 1942.

On a sunshine-soaked day, a childlike {in appearance} Atlas sprints up a steep snowy incline followed by a version of Ernest who, even as fast as he moves, and despite appearing to be physically superior to his running mate solely due to being on the other side of puberty, has no chance of keeping up. None. Whatsoever.

Atlas is fucking fast. I’m a capable runner myself. But were you to witness his sprint speed at full tilt, you’d doubt your own eyes. The blur is real.

Conrad, at this time looking fresh and spry, waits at the unmarked finish line, whereupon the clocked {uphill} sprinters arrive. Atlas breathes easily while Ernest sucks wind. “Getting faster,” a noticeably encouraged ICQ notes.

“We better be,” Ernest coughs. “Otherwise fuck this shit harder than damn hell.”

He hated hates hated cardiovascular exercise.

“Our training regimen needs a minor update,” Atlas declares matter-of-factly through an even-keeled rhythm of careful pronunciation. Conrad waits for the prodigal “child’s” inevitable elaboration. “Less aerobic exercise; more hand-to-hand combat training.” Remember: picture a boy on the cusp of adolescence.

“Why do you reckon?” Conrad questions, genuinely looking forward to the answer.

I imagine Conrad’s accent as somewhere between that of a New Zealander and a South African. I’m sure I’m wrong. The Quinns were/are all over the place. Ernest’s accent has changed three times since I met him the other day.

“I understand the importance of conditioning,” Atlas acknowledges, “but I think we could afford to cut back on that aspect of our training and devote the leftover time to honing our skills in the arena of swordplay.”

“Please,” Ernest wheezes, halfway kidding but also pleading in firm agreement, sure hands gripping his relatively untested knees. “I think I’ve plateaued. Today. Just now.” He pukes.

Funny. Ernest never cared about cultivating a proficiency in the art of close-quarter combat. He was born to be a supportive assassin from afar with shitty stamina.

“Sir,” Conrad addresses Atlas while ignoring his youngest (living) brother, “your endurance will never be as good as it needs to be.”

“I can run a mile in under two minutes.”

“So can hundreds of thousands of belanoc.” [Bet he paused dramatically after “hundreds” and before “of belanoc.”]

To his astute point of fact, I had no retort.

“Laddie, you need to accept the possibility that there may come a day when you will need to forget all your combat training in favor of running for your life.”

Yeah. He called it.

We’re fast-forwarding, okay? To a time when The Empire of Galacia has been uncovered for, oh, about a quarter-century or so.

Bessi, October, Day 25, 1979

The intersection of two long corridors bustles as busy agents move to and fro. The environment has been modernized since our last incomplete tour: eighties technologies, seventies clothing. Something’s in the climate-controlled air today. A problem that needs to be solved. A crisis, even.

Conrad enters his mother’s well-kept office, a workspace fit for regality {as if such a notion should exist}. One (of these two) looks close (in age) to the other. Given the mother/son relationship, it doesn’t make sense. Fuck it. This is how it is. Earthly affairs are even weirder than you yet know.

“I just got off the telephone with the Queen herself,” Elvyn informs her right hand. “Lovely as ever, that woman. Such grace under pressure.” Conrad waits, knows there’s more. She hasn’t enjoyed enough sleep recently. Nowhere near. Regardless, truly a trooper, she marches forward. “A particularly barbaric pack have been terrorizing the London Underground. Blimey. We should’ve been notified a month ago.” [Here, a belabored sigh seems likely.]

Did she actually utter the word “blimey”? How could either of us know? Should I ever get the chance, I’ll be sure to ask. I’m doing my best here.

Though he knows the forthcoming answer, Conrad seeks clarifying confirmation: “When you say terrorizing—”

“Yes, I mean eating.” She’s tired. Of course she is. Her job is heavy. “The belanockian authorities have very diplomatically denounced their kindred’s unsavory actions, naturally, but have deferred to us, yet again.” Conrad rubs his own weary eyes. Stressed, cynical, bloodshot. His mother continues sarcastically: “At least this time they have kindly granted us with permission to use deadly force, but only if necessary. First they’d like us to attempt to negotiate the overindulgent pack’s peaceful relocation. Peaceful, it was said. Allegedly. Can you believe it? Peaceful?”

Astutely resolute—or “resolutely astute”; however you wanna look at it—Conrad proclaims, “I’d like to take the new recruits.”

“Well, good, because you must—it’s come to that—but that will not be enough. We might have to pull from Spain. Perhaps even France.” [I like to imagine a sort of delirious chuckle here.]

Emboldened by newfound moxie [another story, I’m sure], Conrad claims, “It will be more than enough if we include Atlas in the operation.” Right about then, EQ must’ve shot her eldest child a glare which elicited his response: “Mum, he has aged over 59 years and has no idea what he’s capable of. Nor do we.”

I like Thierry’s willingness to change tenses on a dime. Breaking rules can be a liberating riot, eh?

Conrad cleans up his last assertion as if he may have launched it in haste: “Not to imply that we should know what he’s capable of by now…”

His mama appreciates that. Calm, cool, and collected, she thinks aloud, “It sounds as if you’re implying that I’ve been overly careful with him.”

“I don’t meant to imply it,” entreats her firstborn. “I mean to make it clear.”

“Connie, I mean no offense when I say this,” begins EQ, “but he is more ready than you are capable of understanding.”

“I don’t doubt that for one second. But by the same token, I am certain that not nearly is he as ready as he could be.”

To this, I must imagine, she could muster no reasonably grounded retort.

Not normally known for his intellectual prowess—and by no means considered daft {relatively speaking [you know, flanked by unrivaled genius and all]}—Isaac Conrad Quinn seems to have had a way of making airtight points outta flippin’ nowhere.

October, Day 28, 1979

Visualize a setting which feels like a governmentally top-secret cafeteria. We’re still inside the bowels of Bessi. You with me? Envision it already. Formed an evolving image in your head? Great!

Battle-weary yet businesslike agents operating on the heels/shoulders of ground-swelling, reality-bending, clandestine knowledge break bread together. Not literally. We all gotta eat, though, ya know. Their diets {did and still do} consist mostly of plant-based foodstuffs and as well as healthy doses of nutrient-dense protein by way of seafood, namely bivalves. (It’s probably how we should all be/start fueling our organic bodies.)

Atlas—now pushing 60 and personifying a physically primed adonis—grabs a seat beside Ernest, who bears a recently applied cast on his left leg below the knee, upon which simple doodles dot its length. Anyway, by now, it has been decided: Atlas will be traveling abroad. To contextualize the gravity of this decision, up to date, he has visited (all of) 5 states. Tomorrow, though, he’s off to the U.K. For imminent culture shock, he is prepared.

And I’m not even born.

With absurd specificity, I remember being terribly uneasy about the prospect of Ernest’s absence.

Must’ve been emotional.

By that time, Ernest’s presence was the only one to evade any temporary instances of Atlas’s calculated exemption from Colorado’s borders.

Wow, self, that was a confusing way to inform readers that prior to the incident in London, Ernest was the only semi-person to have accompanied humankind’s hesitant hero to the other 4 (neighboring) states he’d visited previously.

God! Words are hard.

Atlas plainly states, “Something about your logically unavoidable exclusion from the roster on this incursion bugs me immensely.”

“Eh,” Ernest casually dismisses, “I’ve been to England. Their yogurt tastes funny. Peanut butter, too.” Atlas must stare a hole through his “BFF,” off which EQ2 adds honestly, “Underground, you don’t need my skillset. You know that.” The gaze-dug hole grows. “Think about it.”

I had thought about it. We didn’t need him. Easy conclusions form easily. That wasn’t the point. I wasn’t sure what the point could’ve been; therefore, I let it go. I kept my mouth shut. I ignored my gut.

That must’ve been a difficult lesson to learn. Not unlike you, I can only imagine.

Intuition beckons the trust of oneself.

“Given the mission, I understand that we don’t require your ability to hit targets at great distances,” clarifies Atlas, “but I feel like I would benefit from your presence.”

“Aww, that’s sweet.”

“Is it?”

[I really didn’t know.]

With one eye squinting and the other’s furry brow raised, Ernest follows up with: “Maybe?” ARK shrugs. EQ2 adds, “Also, as is so often the case, I don’t know what you mean anyway.” Atlas gets that. [Hell, I get that and it’s 40 years later.] “Do you even know what you mean?” [Can confirm (via firsthand experience) Ernest’s impressive observational capacity.]

By now, Atlas has grown accustomed to being misunderstood. He reroutes the conversation: “I’m not sure about the new guys.” Knowingly, Ernest nods. Atlas expands upon his worry, “They’re overeager.”

“Aren’t they always.” Taya Skeeter joins our boys. [“Boys.” Ha.] She’s like…over 200. And sneaky, too, evidently. Clearly she’s no more than half human, right?

Luminoc. Rare bird. Almost as rare as me, the world’s lone luminate (until further notice).

Essentially, TOS [O for Ophelia] serves as Elvyn’s “lifeline.” No field work; body’s too old for the strain. But upstairs, she’s all there, contributing purely in an advisory capacity. View Taya as Atlas’s dearest grandmother’s dear grandmother. With reverence, Ernie and A. Ray await her sure-to-be (in)valuable input; however, while she works on a mouthful of tough, leafy food—and hampered by a population deficiency in the realm of naturally grown teeth—Brackett and Riley, a pair of young humanocs [less than 10%, my trusty cohort guesses], join our “Table of Fate,” if you will.

“A team of six?” Riley questions skeptically, addressing Ernest directly. “Is that accurate?”

“That’s accurate,” confirms Ernest, underscored by an understanding nod from Atlas.

“Why not more?” Riley expands frankly. “Just to be safe.”

Another important tidbit in the timeline: only five agents know who Atlas really is; the rest (allege to) believe him to be an Upper Internoc {just like their currently on-assignment colleague, Xalvador Maru [more on him in time, undoubtedly]}.

The concept of protection defines its own importance.

To have what’s ours, we must guard ourselves.

“Don’t get us wrong,” Brackett interjects. “We’re not questioning strategy. Just curious about the philosophy behind the tactics.”

“We want to learn,” Riley adds with apparent sincerity. Brackett nods in staunch agreement.

Ernest relishes the opportunity to educate (the newbies) while Taya’s eyes silently roll. “Fellas, in general, as an organization, would you say that we’re undermanned?”

“Grossly,” Riley blurts.
Overlapping his equally (in)experienced comrade, Brackett agrees: “Without question.”

“What if we’ve been misinformed?” Ernest poses. “What if it’s a trap?” Can’t you just hear his smart ass? “Ever think of that, bois?” [He didn’t use those words {to my knowledge}, but I’d wager that, for all intents and purposes, he was thinking the crap outta the general sentiment.]

“Gotcha.” Yep, now they get it, those thirsty rookies. “Makes sense.” Fast: assign the dialogue to either; it fits both ways.

Ernest goes on unnecessarily, “The fewer we deploy, the fewer we chance losing.”

Taya changes the subject. To what, (right now) it does not matter. Truthfully, I have no clue whether this conversational shift prompts another story. It might; time’ll do its thing (unless it doesn’t)!

Two days later we, us, the human race, lost a lot.

I lost (almost) everything.

But…

Given the devoted passage of timely effort, losses leads to (nothing if not) gains.

Does this image match anything or nah?

Abruptly, (y)our reality barrels toward an ending.

Feels like a solid spot for a slightly new spin on a thematically re(oc)curring, friendly reminder, don’t you think?

Umm…

Thinking about feelings—such a strangely wonderful, unnatural (cap)ability. Have you ever really considered the power of being able to ponder your emotions after the fact?

A part of the BODY, the MIND is not. The BRAIN is the body’s part that (electrically) conducts OUR mind. THE “mind”—collective consciousness—is part of parts from ALL (sentient) bodies {through which light filters}.

#facts

Including yours, mine, and ours [Earth].

Despite our myriad {of} differences, WE are the same.

Really, we are!

Messed up, right?

Just wait until somebody (besides me/us) tells you that he’s/we’re/I’m not wrong.

Quite briefly, let’s revisit the post-Halloween fallout of ’79.

Imagine that your next birthday will be your fifty-eighth, you’re literally one of a kind, sporting a monstrously massive brain, entrenched in your (physical) prime and, for the first time, you are completely on your own and all alone in this big wide world. Ready for that?

No.

Who would be?

During his emotionally exhausting, emergent egress from The United Kingdom {and en route, (co)incidentally, to Scandinavia, I think}, Atlas discovers a handwritten note zipped inside the least-utilized pocket in his favorite tactical britches:

Penned roughly midway through 1938.

This tale—our story—is far from over. It has barely begun {but seems ready to unfold (soon)}.

Is your “self” braced? Yes? Good. No? Brace it, then, you silly goose.

Embrace (the) truth. Because either way, it will come.

Here it comes!

It’s coming.

022

Earnest Last Words

“budding pudding”

“It’s me again,” melodramatically grumbles Ernest Q. Quinn. Who is me. No, we’re not playing Jeopardy, but our lives are in it. “What is WTF for 14 billion, Alex?” Still not playing. Also that’s probably wrong. This is their fault. I’m trying to help get a point across and I don’t reckon I’m qualified to cross any of the points. It makes me itch. I’m not titling this crap; they can handle that. I’m tilted! Plus I’m hard to read. By the way, Thierry might be capable of (something akin to) Jedi mind tricks; you heard it here first.

Oddly enough, in the grand scheme of (covert) things, complications continue ensuing with an unflinching propensity for violent escalation. Let me be clearly vague. We’re gonna try something tomorrow. Not quite a Hail Mary; more like a Hook & Lateral after a Double Reverse. Big brain tactics. 300 IQ shit. I hate sports. Over the years, I have enjoyed my time on various golf courses across the world, but I don’t consider that activity to be a sport, per se.

What wasn’t I saying? Oh, this: I’m petrified, and I’ve never admitted to being nervous.

[Fret not; this isn’t scheduled to post until many days after I declare the draft final. By then, we’ll either all be dead, or some of us will have won (the battle). Hurrah!]

This isn’t exactly how I saw it happening, but I guess it’ll have to be doing.

“Gerunds!” somebody once hollered with excitement, most likely. Wrong? I’m not saying s/he who hollered was right. I’m merely complying with the persistent requests to force a river of info to flow from my consciousness.

I’m pissed. Whatever. Amateur Old Fashioneds. First time in months. Wasn’t my idea to stop a random distillery. I wanted to stop at a specific place, but that would’ve meant going out of our way to cut through Kentucky, which triggered a certain halboy’s OCD. Anyway, Thierry fancies herself an amateur but very capable mixologist. And she did choose an excellent jar of cherries, I’ll give her that; also mandarins were a nice touch. I suppose her self-assessment can be viewed as accurate. Tomorrow sucks and I need sleep. Shut up. However!

If I can survive ’til the nineteenth day of February, I will celebrate the fucking ass out of my 109th birthday. By the way, in case you didn’t realize this terribly fun fact, Atlas is only ten years my junior but appears to be “around 33” [I say 35.75]; whereas, I look like I just tripped and stumbled my way into senior citizenship. Not sure whether I find these discordant aging rates to be more bizarre or annoying. Anyway, what’s the point of all this? In nearly 109 years, here’s what I’ve learned (ambiguously):

Fires Can Start Amid (Your Own) Mist

Welcome to ground zero of my confessional booth, “Father.” Either kindly display your invitation or boldly own your invasion.

One [“s/he”] says, “You’re pushing me away.” The significant other [“s/he”] says, “You’re pushing me farther into my own head.” Gosh, it’s almost as if there’s a whatchamacallit—a (negative) feedback loop advertising an endless cycle of prolific opportunity for sound-minded disruption/reversal.

I used to love those candy bars.

The fellow being who booked my heart [many moons ago] heartily hearts books.

In my time spent upon the earth, I’ve learned other lessons, too. Here’s one such. Act like a pussy; you know what’ll happen. You will get yourself fucked. “Man up” and you’ll inevitably “screw the pooch.” Aren’t options great?

Disclaimer: I’m only the third smartest contributor to this concerted effort. Once my mother chimes in, I’ll be fourth. I’m okay with that. After all, I’m a Fourther*, and my days are numbered. And, yeah, I’m admitting that a full-blooded human has eclipsed my personal intelligence. Finally.

*I miiiiiiight be a Lower Internoc [31.5% g/b DNA]

Honesty liberates oneself.

Meanwhile, withholding information can spare others pain.

But what the hell do I know? I don’t want to do this. I have a long history of “pushing back,” a{n ir}rational proclivity for evading cooperation, a deeply seeded, deep-seated desire for submitting to {inter}stellar excellence. Somebody already tried to tell you (about that) once.

In many ways, I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. I’m following orders. I’m creating my own mythology. And, just so you know, A.K. and T.T. can be annoying as hell when they get together and ride the emotionally same train of otherwise mundanely thoughtful energy. Fuck those two. Physically. (In the future.) And I know they’re editing me. Corkscrew their asses!

Daily, more and more, I struggle with not thinking I must be coming across as a narcissist, egomaniac, megalomaniac, psychopath, sociopath, sufferer of grandiose delusions, et cetera—all the tasty labels in the realm of mentally ill psychobabble.

And then I remember that Atlas R.K. exists, and I’m like, “Nope, I’m dandy.”

Any vacuum, by virtue of being itself, must be shallow, no?

Now, consider:

What if I'm doing it all ON PURPOSE? What if we ALL ARE?

Ever think of that?

While it may not alter the balance of the equation—that is to say, the result(s)—it certainly shifts your view on authorial intention, yes?

What if this is part of the plan, a necessarily messy thread in the narrative flow toward some kind of heavenly nirvana?

Gotta survive a horrifically hellacious war for the planet first, of course.

Yes.

This is necessary.

Pretend you’re the smartest person in the world. With that in mind, think about not having a say about anything. But everyone else does. All the people dumber than you get a say.

That would suck.

[Do these rigid parentheses mean they’re not editing my verbiage?]

(Very minimally. {Hi.})

“Bully for you.”

In all likelihood, I’ll never know, either. So how should you know? Likely, you should never know. Are you (not) more than an innocent bystander? Have you ever taken a bull by the horns? Can you succeed? Will you win?

I’m not sorry for being wrong, but I do sincerely apologize because I’m right about your saving grace: he comes correct.

One thing I know is true: we (all) need to stick together.

People like to win.

You know “us,” yeah? Yeah, we’re not done. “Undone,” sure. Done, no. But, all you want/need, go ahead and “act” like we are done. Sorry. Still no. We have not finished. Tell me we have and I will call bullshit (from beyond the grave if necessary). Victory will taste all the sweeter.

The same woman [my biological mother, “EQ”] taught both Atlas and I how to write/communicate; and, happily divulged, his mother’s words influenced mine. My own, too. A threaded chain of influence! Shit gets muddy. We have been interwoven. Similarities are bound to surface. You can take most anything more than one way (in terms of meaning).

It’s fine. One day in the future I’m sure they’ll make a strangely solid argument for extracting my present input from/{with}in{side} the past. Part of this one’s for nobody other than somebody in particular.

You either know who you are, or you don’t.

You also might be very, very confused.

Because upon the horizon, danger doth lurk.

Okay, I already hate a poetically abstract approach (to all this) here. There’s plenty of clutter through which to cut; therefore, crush (lovingly), I shall.

Electric.
Hearty. Nerves.
Radiation. Pulsating. Ripples.
Drumbeat. Rhythm.
(Ka)boom.

Solved that shit in a hurry.

One could cultivate a hilarious hodgepodge of reasons to believe that my head ain’t quite screwed on straight. I don’t always feel sorrow, but I know when I’m expected to be sorry, usually, I think. Like when I accidentally mowed down those couple of civilians while spraying at Vilfred with a minigun. Those things are hard to control. (Ever handled one?) Most importantly, I’m a sniper. I don’t fire automatically.

Anyhow, I feel sorrow about the collateral damage there.

I’m just an old-timer by now; your hero harbors ancient souls. I’ve lived for about as long as he has existed—we entered the world approximately a decade apart; I’m his elder—but he ages slower than I do. Can’t be helped. Genetics are a beautiful bitch.

I’ve been around for a long while, but I’ve never “settled down.”

On that note, I’ve had [or attempted to have] intimate relations with 386 females, 379 of whom were fully human. I only went back for seconds to/from one of them [a humanoc, in fact], and that occurred the next morning and began whilst I slumbered deeply. She drugged me. I didn’t seem to mind; I actually finished. That was a few years ago. 74% certain she was the last lady I knocked up. I take no blame for that one. Over half my encounters ended with a failure to perform. I’ve used two condoms and one of them broke. I’ve never been tested for anything.

I know, I know: I’m just an awful human being.

Only I’m not all-the-way human.

More than Map-Male, sure; but still, plenty not.

Pathways {particularly of the neural variety} beg for your mapping.

Vaginal sex has never offered me very much satisfaction. None of the many, many times. A couple encounters were “memorable” because those ladies whipped out strap-ons. Beyond that, no clue how many times I’ve procreated. I’m a ghost. I’d guess that I’ve co-made at least 50 babies. I know of 11 for sure. 10 are female. Weird, right? You might consider me “a piece of shit” until your brain starts unlocking. But the continuation of my DNA will come in handy one day.

Recently I have enjoyed saying/knowing that a singular (feminine) presence has sucked me through the (a)eons, pushing me toward the end of my chaotically stable road, but I didn’t write the essence of the thought. “Werdyboi” wrote it and when he hit me with it, it landed. I shat out the last sentence to fuck with him on all the levels. Same word [“it”] in a sentence three times? He hates it; I love him [not like that; he’s my brother, basically].

Anyway, the singular feminine presence I mentioned? Here’s the kicker. He’s the only person to whom I’ve ever returned again and again and again and, in case you somehow missed it a second ago, he’s not a she.

And I’ve returned often to him often.

Ahhh. My shoulders feel lighter already.

He’s like me, i.e. not entirely human, even less so!

It feels forbidden. And he’s a colleague. All kinds of fucked-up. Soon, it won’t matter.

[Sorry, X.] It’s time. I have to unload. “The Facility.” The Outback. Imminent. You understand. [Atlas, please don’t edit this out (unless I live {then we can talk about it}).]

See, I’ve lived a strange life, did a lot of weird shit, had many a crazy thought, kept obscenely monstrous secrets, but I have never “felt” like I was doing anything “inappropriate” [and I often apply focused scrutiny, honestly]—or, to reduce the last-quoted term fully, “wrong”—but I’ve always been acutely aware that others might not see the world my way.

I’m sure this must be horribly vexing.

Where (even) are you? When are you?

I’m still not convinced that my voice belongs here, but I’m placing my trust in another. Should you do so as well?

I wouldn’t know.

Most of this is for Mister Ex. I hope you meet him one day. Much won’t make sense, but a lot might be weirdly relatable. I don’t know how else to tell him all this, and I have to tell him all this.

While very briefly contemplating any questionably viewed exchange on occasion during any moment now rendered historical—and in retrospect {since “the book” was abruptly closed}—I reckon I’ve always thought/think I was doing/did something…weird, no matter what. Singular, even. Like…I can only travel certain paths and unpack particular (bits of) information once, and emotions simply need to achieve release; they really must; otherwise, I/we/you could maintain their bottling, no? As I write this, I haven’t a clue whether lightening my personal load by fiddling with long-buried scars will be worth the dicey price of the current cost in the long{est} run. Fingers are tightly crossed, and I’m ready for anything.

Themes do recur, you know? That’s why they’re considered thematic.

You have no idea what I’m talking about (unless you do). See how I covered my be-hind there? Cover yours in the same vein. I’m amazing. 🙄

Are emojis even allowed here? Bloody hell ass, I don’t know—I’m not reading all this junk anytime soon. I’m just trying to fit (it) in while/where I can.

I know: nothing makes sense. It’s not my fault that your hosts insist upon my contribution. Take it up with them long after my earthly expiration.

I’m kidding.

That probably sounds more morbid than I intend.

I’m kidding!

Have you ever experienced déjà vu?

I’m kidding.

And I’m not kidding.

Plus, in case it matters (to you), I retain many more (magically delicious) {split} beans left to spill than have been spilt thus far. We could divide the difference; options abound. The art of being (alive) truly exists!

God, Atlas. It’s so obvious. You sly devil. I can’t believe I didn’t sort this out decades ago. That’s what makes it the eureka of all time.

Light evolves, too.

Duh!

Matter can’t have all the fun, can it??

I’m unsure about whether we should be revealing any of this already. I think the modern world would’ve been better off blindsided by the harsh reality of its quickly brewing pickle. Superiority rises. You are subject to bodily global domination. I’m sorry.

My twisted moral compass doesn’t tell me a violation was/has been committed. For me, I feel better. For you, I feel worse.

And her? Poor her. She didn’t sign up for the snaking lunacy on display.

Again, plenty of this will make sense to no one, and some of it will prove inaccessible to (al)most everyone. Don’t blame me. I’m just…here. A soldier. Doing what’s asked of me because I believe in something.

I have a nonsensical feeling that humanity can win. And the man he has a way with words.

X: Mentally reverse-engineering the unexpected conundrum at hand, I think I’ve been able to swiftly rationalize/justify my comfort with venturing into new territories of indulgent divulgence due to both the densely insulating separation (of physical bodies) as well as any evolving personal discussion which originates with a highly academic tone. I additionally imagine no real-life fruition (other than mental) from the trains of thought we explore. I mean, come on, bud—a Chinese girl?

Reader: Often you may/should wonder what I’m really saying. In such cases, just assume I’m trying to reach an arbitrary goal in terms of word count. That’ll be easiest (unless it’s hardest).

Self: Look, I am terrified of the immediate future. Me. The vintage sniper. A slayer from afar. The best shot on Earth [seriously maybe]. I’m scared of dying first. It’s almost as if I already know I will. Somehow I think I hope that writing about imminent death will reduce the chance of its occurrence.

People: Something’s (definitely) amiss. The First Earth War looms.

Not even I can imagine how my (own) brain must seem from the outside looking in, and I’m goddamn fucking imaginative AGDF.

But I’m not crazy for believing in something insane.

Actually, there’s not a whole lot “wrong” with me—meanwhile, there’s too much right. So whatever is hidden in my gray matter at any given time has this way of be{com}ing especially LOUD. And I know it can cause nervous/primal (tw)itches.

But, okay, yes, I do accept fully now—seriously, after this very morning—that my brain must be doing some extra funky shit to itself [my body] and fucking with my head to boot, adding Inception-level layers of mindfuckery.

I want to get lost every now and again, but also I could really benefit from a good, solid finding.

Perhaps I’m a lost cause, an old dog incapable of learning new tricks. I’ll bet Atlas chimes in here with a stupid quote.

When your cause is lost, find another effect.

Anonymous

Did he do it? I’ll bet he did it. Such a predictable dog, that cat.

I’m also suddenly terrified that if a quote has been inserted, then I must might be dead. It’s more likely than not, I would say.

I need all kinds of help; and forget that I don’t know where to seek it out—I don’t have the first clue how to ask for any assistance.

Maybe this counts?

EQ2’s Favorite 3 Songs (as of today {in no a particular order})
– Live-In Skin
– Judge me, fool.
– Tighter & Tighter

I possess not the foggiest idea why I did that.

Blech. It’s as if I can literally feel time expiring. I can’t explain that! But it’s heavy. And, until further notice, I’m embarrassed. Indeed, I feel actual embarrassment. I should have allowed myself to be me so much sooner. Decades ago! It’s not you; it’s (most definitely all) me. I’m deathly afraid that I’ve only got one way out of the overall mess (I helped create), and it’ll only come through a type of “meteoric rise” after a “one-in-a-million lucky break.” My chances sound great, eh!?

If this isn’t meant for you, then (feel free to) pass on by. Come back later.

See you then.

Today, I confessed to Attaboy [I stopped calling him that in 1943; bringin’ it back!] that I have never really been attracted to the female shape and parts. He didn’t blink. He half-grinned and slapped me on the butt, then we hugged. I stymied a flood of tears while he embodied a brick wall, as usual. That son of a bitch goddess. A deep, dark, emotionally exhausting secret that I thought belonged to me and Xalvador, and he knew all along. I should’ve known.

Knowing that another being (besides me) bears a burden much heavier than my own might be the chief reason why I still manage my {for-/on}ward march.

With that in mind, I am so very terribly sorry to anyone who has absorbed/dampened an unwanted spray of (my) friendly fire, particularly you, my dude. Of all people, you? Eek. Sorry. Up-close marksmanship has never been my forte. You deserve to enter a phase ripe with fitting betterment.

Truly I do apologize; more than that, I mean it.

Were it not for our guns, to what would we stick?

myself [proud of that one]
(I’ll bet the “editors” move the “to” from where I’m choosing to leave it.)

I have a special relationship with my collection of rifles. That’s a story I don’t care to tell, but someone else might be bothered someday.

Political Commentary [interjection by TNT]
Today in American politics, both parties are “sticking to their guns.”

Annnnnnnnyway.

Regarding most emotions, I suffer from a general undercurrent of crippling uncertainty. About one feeling—for you in particular [a rare upper internoc once destined to forever remain anonymous]—I’m absolutely positive. It’s actual love.

This is a fresh spot for a tired joke about throwing up “in my mouth.”

My head always knew what to do—I’m was just waiting for my brain to send the right signals to my feet. I also wished you’d have shown me something (else) new.

And, still, I may never know a resource more valuable than you, the best mate of my tortured soul.

Either way, barring an extremely unfortunate robbery of time [currency], I’ll be part of fixing E. And we’ll be all set, sorted, square{d away}, you might not say.

But you’d be wrong.

You’ll figure it out one day.

There’s nothing quite like a quality paradox. With that in mind, don’t wait to give me time. I need it today, and I wanna use it tomorrow.

Time itself “needs” to be{come ab}used.

It’s high time for us to go. We’ve been stuck here for long (enough).

If I don’t post again, it’s because I died (in battle).

Damn it! [Dam it.]

palindromic:
09 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90