The Hippie and The Scientist : A Rough Outline

The barest shell of a fiction story.  It is what I want to get around to telling, and it includes a lot of small vignette type things which develop characters and shit.  Not much more than the ribcage of something better.  Merely ideas before a draft.

The Hippie and The Scientist : A Rough Outline
I am propped up against a wall, waiting for their reinforcements to come.  I have a cold, standard beat-cop issue gun in my hand.  There is a lifeless body at my feet garnering three bullet holes.  I was just trying to save my own bit of humanity.  My experience.  My world, my universe.  But, my chest is missing, my pounding heart giving way.

The Girlfriend Part I
Everyone that has been pinned down by a woman knows what it feels like.  Caged.  At least in my relationship, I am the bitch.  Let me explain.  In every relationship that is unhealthy, there is a bitch.  It is the subservient one, the one with the most vested interest in said relationship.  Typically, relationships will start off balanced and erode to this point.  Or, if you're lucky, you find someone special that will strike a balance.  I am not lucky, nor do I actually believe in luck.

I met her online.  We were both looking for a simple hookup.  We talk online and decide to do something that very night.  I look at her pictures and, deciding she was passable as a hookup, maybe a high 2 star or low 3, head to the park where we are to meet.  We meet at the fountain in the middle of Monroe Park, a dismal patch of grass with pavement intersections.  The homeless denizens swarm me as I sit on the bench.  One by one, I am asked for change.  I give the first few a couple of coins, but by the fourth guy, I am spent.  At this point I start asking them for change.  One homeless guy comes by with one of those huge hiking packs on his back.  His whole life is in there.  I ask him for fourty cents, and he gets confused.  He looks at me like I'm crazy and shambles off. 

Eventually, she shows up.  She walks around from behind me.  I remain on the bench as she comes into view, blocking my line of sight leading to the fountain.  She leans over and looks at me inquisitively.  Yes, bitch, I am the guy you looked up on that dating service.  We are equally pathetic.  She is a little bit heavier than she portrays herself.  I should have figured.  No one looks as good as their online dating picture.  This is basically a fact.  Forget what you know about attractiveness being based on geometric cognition or any of that shit, a 2D image can always fool you.  Always.

I tilt my head in response.  I guess I have to do a double take, too, because, with her added weight, I can't tell if that's really the girl I saw online.  Kris is her name. Kris with blonde hair, an amazing figure, and beautiful tits.  She is a little overweight, maybe 10 or so pounds, but I am willing to look passed this because of the well-shaped thirty-six-D's resting on her chest.  And, for real, I have my own faults.  So, I figure this won't be that bad.  I put aside my cost-benefit analysis of the situation and put on my A-game.  Every man who has gone two years without sex has either one of two options.  He can become a sad, bitter asshole or he can build himself up, regain a massive amount of confidence, and obtain a true A-game.  I am of the latter.

We head back to her place, which is a good ways down a cobblestone sidewalk.  It undulates, dipping, rising, and dipping again.  It looks pretty, especially with the changing leaves, but is impractical.  I see a group of people jogging on the other side of the street.  I practically will one of them to trip on the uneven surface, but none of them do.  I am engaging this girl, asking her all sorts of questions and coming up with all sorts of talking points.  It's all about talking points.  What did she major in?  One of your favorite shows is mine too, what's your favorite character?  And then I hit a chord-- sex.  I manage to start talking about sex by the time we've entered her apartment, and within seconds, she is fellating me.  I take my shirt off and she follows suit.  She stops blowing me as briefly as possible, and returns immediately after her shirt is off.  I unhook her bra and stare.  I was right, she has amazing tits.  They wobble as she works my penis.  My pants are still on.  I decide this is uncool, and tell her to stop.  We take a second to remove our lower clothing, and then immediately reengage. I grab her and throw her on the bed.  Her eyes light up, and I realize she likes it rough.  I nearly bound atop of her and, slowly pushing, penetrate her.  My hands are on her hips and I am rolling inside of her like it is my job. 

She stops me.  "I wanna ride," she tells me.  We roll over and she rides cowboy style.  Within minutes, I make it my turn to choose.  I want to hit it from behind.  We switch.  It continues like this for awhile, and eventually I peak.  Straining my PC muscle, I attempt to prolong it.  It works, but only briefly.  I slide out and explode all over.  My load shoots over her, across the bed, slams into the wall and oozes to the floor.  She looks surprised and gets up.  She kneels by the wall to inspect it, opens her mouth, and licks, no, laps it up.  Now I am surprised, this woman is sick.  "Let's go drink some," she says.  I am an alcoholic so I follow like a little dog to its master.  And so it begins.

The Job
I work for Techvice.  We integrate technology into current products that people are using.  This helps ween them off the old and gets them attached to the new.  It's a subtle form of social engineering, but a benevolent one.  It helps people accept the future.  This is the same reason you see movies set only slightly into the future with technology we currently have.  In these movies, you see the technology widely proliferated, improved upon, and accepted.  This helps movie goers see what is in store for them within ten or so years.  It helps them accept change.  This is common in the entertainment business.  Anyone remember Star Trek: The Next Generation?  The premise for that show was to demonstrate the benevolence in technology.  Entertainment is the whore of any high bidding product.  Brand name cars, brand name sodas, brand name suits, brand name anything.  Fund our movie, we'll expand your clientel.  Seriously, you may think it's fucked up, but everyone wins.  Except the mindless target market. 

Regardless, I am a scientist, and the first objective a scientist must achieve is neutral, or flexible, morals.  The advancement of technology is of highest importance, despite its form.  I am a part of Techvice's leading team, developing and integrating nothing but helpful technology services.  For real, you know that chip in your cell-phone that allows the Cops to trace you if, and only if, you dial 911?  Yeah, we made those.

On the team, I organize ideas.  What's good, what's bad.  I get to decide.  Will something work, will something explode in your face?  I go from one team to the next, and I exchange their thoughts.  I am a people person.  The Development Team thinks water spraying your ass will make wiping more sanitary.  The Marketing Team says studies show Americans will not accept this idea.  They think it is gross.  So do I, but to be objective, I ask the Marketing Team if they would take a shower without water.  Dave, the lead for the Marketing Team, he says no.  I ask him if he thinks his ass is clean without water.  He seems puzzled, and I ask him to think about it.  He does, and within weeks, we sell the idea to several European clients.  Sometimes we have to reach outside our marketing comfort zone and look elsewhere.

To manage the teams, I require their trust.  I take their goodwill, and in return, promise that their ideas won't get shot down, at least not too hard.  They are scientists.  They are inventors.  They are children.  They hand me ideas, like a child hands a parent a kindergarten painting looking for approval.  Most times, they are shitty, but I validate them anyway.  I feel like a parent.  I feel like it's so easy to bullshit someone who trusts you completely. 

In addition to being what amounts to a Confidence Man, I help debug faulty software.  Input, input, input.  I'm all about input.  I receive and receive, and never do I ask questions.  I receive ideas, I improve upon them.  My name is Niles Creed.  I am a scientist that never produces.  I am a man who never lies in the minds of those I lie to.

Prelude To A Dream
I had gotten no sleep the night before.  My girlfriend, Kris.  She is a total rotten bitch.  She has me up all night trying to fix her father's stupid record player.  I tell her its old technology and I don't know how to fix it.  She gets real upset and throws my work laptop out the window.  Seven stories to oblivion. 

For real, I don't know why I am with her.

Oh. Wait.

It's because I'm a bitch. 

I am with her because I am the bitch.  I can't leave her.  I could cheat on her, but I can't meet anyone. All the women at work are complete prudes.  They slick back their hair into tight buns.  Their hair is always stuck up with something, just like their attitudes.  Supported by some outward appearance of stability.

I take the remnants of my laptop to Repair Center.  On the fourth floor of Techvice, this is where they fix things.   I hand the guy at the cubby-holed desk my parts. His name is Hampton.  I call him "Ham."  He is my only friend.

"Dude," he says, "I don't know what to do for you."  He sorts through the parts with a chubby, cheeto-laden hand. 

"Can't you just get my serial number and replace it?  Our company guarantees replacements," I say.  Orange fingers hold up the base of my laptop.  Eyes behind glass windshields inspect it.  If eyes are the window to the soul, he has a splatterguard. 

"Maybe.  Let me check, man."  I respect him, he reminds me of myself before I met Kris.  Although his appearance is that of a thirty year old loser, gamer, and all out nerd, he generates more confidence than any man I've ever met.  This gets him women.  This gets him respect. This gets him-- he returns and I refocus.  Three hours of sleep was acceptable in highschool, but in the professional world it is tormenting.

"Dude," I say, "what do you think?"

"I dunno man, I can't replace it," he responds.

I implore him to do something, anything.  Everything I need is on that harddrive, and everything I do is on that laptop.  I am no better than the homeless with their overstuffed backpacks and shopping carts.  In fact, I am worse.  My life is not in necessity-- blankets, coats, thrown out food-- but in my laptop.  It is my life. "For real? That sucks.  There's nothing you can do?" I ask him.  "Can you at least retrieve the information on my harddrive?"

"Well, yeah, I can probably do that.  It might take awhile though.  Are you off today?"

It is a Friday.  I have all day off.  Most days I consider myself to be "off."  Really, when you work primarily at home, work seems more like a hobby, and less like a task.  A chore.  It is a good way to make your employees content.  This makes them work better.  When I used to sport a cubicle, I felt like a rat.  A dirty, mindless rat.  At least now I have the impression that I am working for myself, earning something.  Rather than working for the overmind of whatever company.  Instead, you get people working at home.  Encapsulated.  With their social networks, shopping websites, online pizza delivery.  Put it all in one box, make everything convenient.  Make everyone closer, more connected, and less personal.  Less in-your-face.  We don't want other people.  Their bad breath.  Their stupid habits. Everything disagreeable.  That's right, we like our comfort.  Don't touch, don't smell, don't look, don't care.  Don't care about anyone.

A few minutes pass and I am asleep on a crimson two-seater couch.  An hour passes while I wait, and I am unconcious, dreaming.

Dream Part I
I am seeking a blowjob and, for some reason, while seeking, I never leave my apartment.  Someone filters in. It is Donna, a co-worker of mine.  My roommate leaves and I feel no urge to lock the door.  Donna begins seducing me, and within minutes has her lips firmly wrapped around my penis.  It is awesome and I am very horny; however, in dreams sexual things fail to feel very good.  The more corporeal things are the hardest to invision.

I get a weird feeling from the atmosphere.  The groaning nightlife of the city pushes at the cracked windows.  I hear the rush of cars and there is an ambulance in the background heading into darkness to save someone's fleeting life.  I feel like I am in a bigger city, maybe New York.  Donna stops blowing me, noticing I am distracted.  She gets up off my dick and closes both windows.  I get only a glimpse of the outside world before this is done, and it looks surreal.  It is a void of darkness with very piercing building lights.

I stand up as Donna turns around. Her black hair-bun unravells and elegantly falls, tickling her shoulders. We meet eachother halfway between the window and the bed, and I tell her I want to fuck her for real, no more blowjobs. At this point I have her triceps in my hands, rubbing the sides of her arms with my thumbs.  She says, "No, hunny, this night is for you," and reclaims her arms to lean in and push me on my back. I don't really understand, but accept that I will at least get to blow my load into something moist and lubricated. She goes down on my now flaccid penis, working it like it's her job.  I am quickly hard again.

What the fuck man, is the next thing I hear.   I am slouched on the couch in the back of Repair Center.  Three hours have passed since I fell asleep, and now Ham is looming over me, donning a disgusted look.  He stares.  He stares at a raging hardon shoving at my pants, pushing at my boxers. Fighting its way to freedom. 

"What the fuck, man?" he asks.

"Seriously, don't ask."  I tell him anyway.  Confide in him.  "I just had a dream about Donna."

"Oh, yeah dude, she is incredibly hot."

"Probably out of my league."

"Dude, there are no leagues," he says.  He doesn't believe people should pigeon-hole themselves.  He believes everyone should see life without barriers.  I wish I could think like him.  I wish I could believe, as he does, that to assume is to believe is to live.  "Anyway, I have all the information from your harddrive."  My raging hardon subsides.  I am elated to have my life back.  My laptop.  My work.  I am pathetic, holding on to the only thing I have.  The only symbol of stability in my life.  Well, that and being the bitch.

The Girlfriend Part II:
There are some truths to being human that just make you hate, well, being human.  There are traits that define you beyond your control.  There are things you can't change.  This makes us worry, this makes us doubt.  This makes us fear, and this makes us hate.  There are differences among us, there are better and there are worse.  There are aggrivations, there are explanations.  There is science.

The science of psychology.  In every relationship that is unhealthy, there is a bitch.  In every relationship unbalanced, the bitch is there to tag along.  To hang on to the dominant personality, the one who is emotionally reticent, reserved, and seemingly uninterested. 

I am the bitch.

She is the dominant.

Kris, with her wide hips and her thirty-six-d's,  sits across from me, and I stare back.  She goes, "What?" 

I say, "Don't you want to do something?"

"Like what?" she asks. 

"Anything." 

Let me translate for you:
"Why do you have to stare at me?"
"I need you to make decisions for me, what should we do?"
"Why don't you take control? Girls like that.  Girls like having the guy know what he wants.  Here, let me give you a chance."
"I can't do it, I'm weak.  I'm the bitch."

It goes on like this for months.

The Park I
Techvice is like any other company.  It has the same employees you see everywhere. 

There's Dave, the lead for the Marketing Team.  He has two sons.  He's putting his first son through college right now while worrying that his second son might be on his own in funding for college.  Dave is overworked, underpaid, and depressing.  He has given up his soul.  To his work, to his wife.  To his kids especially.  Every day, he comes home from work and does the same thing.  He watches his favorite show.  He reads a book while taking an hour long shit.  He does all the things you'd expect a sad, middle-aged man to do.  With his grey ends and balding crown.  He's the guy who buys Diet Pepsi for himself and snaps if anyone in the family drinks it.  He has nothing but his soda.  His soda keeps him going.  To get home, back to the routine, and to have some of semblance of stability. He is such a common personality in the middle-to-upper-class work force.  He is a drone.  A rat.

There's Fred.  He's the guy at work you hardly know anything about, other than he saw the game last night.  He likes golf, too.  He's a background person.  The type of person you call when you need more people at a gathering.  He is practically one dimensional.  A cardboard cutout of a sillouette. You wonder what must be going through his head.  Is he really that bland.  That ignorant?  Does he think at all like I do.  You'll never know, of course, and it is futile to ask yourself these questions.  But everyone wonders what is outside their own little vault of understanding.

My friend Ham.  He's here.  Here at the park where Techvice holds their trimonthly picnic.

Then there's Donna. She's here at the park, too.  Claypont Park.   She is a well respected, reserved woman.  A young professional looking to rise to the top.  Her hair is actually down, and she is in casual clothes.  You can see how refined her figure is.  She is the ideal woman.  At least that's what the magazines, channels, and websites tell me.  She works out at the gym constantly, eats all the right things, and never forms ties with anyone else.  She is all about improving her own position in life.  I wonder why she's here.

It is a beautiful Spring day, all the flowers fireworking their way from buds.  Unravelling.  Down the field there is a girl in a sundress, sitting with her legs crossed.  She is picking the pedals off of tulips, and throwing them down around.

She is beautiful, and I think about Kris-- wanting her to want me.

One pedal floats to the blades of grass.  Does she love me?

I didn't invite Kris to this event, because, honestly, I am sick of her.  But I can't leave her, I have nowhere to go from her.  I might as well stay with her, as I get to fuck her.

Two pedals on the ground.  Does she love me?

Instead, I invited Ham.  He works for Techvice, but this party is for upper management and innovation teams.  He works below the fifth floor, which means the company doesn't notice him.  He is unimportant to them. A number, a paper-trail. To me, he is my only friend, so I get him to come.  He didn't want to, but as soon as I mentioned free drinks, he showed up at my house, offering to give me a ride.  At first I thought this was out of concern.  You know, because I drink in excess and am a danger to everyone and myself.  No, he just felt he should return some of my good will.  I learn that he loves alcohol and professional women.

We are drinking at the table where they serve free drinks.  They are only serving wine.  We begin downing glass after glass.  One of the caterers asks us if we've had enough. We give him disgruntled looks and tell him to just leave the bottle out.  Make that a couple of bottles, I tell him.

Off to the side, there is a plethora of red tulip pedals orbiting the girl in the sundress.  Does she love?

I have enough alcohol sloshing in my stomach to merit a random inquiry.  I saunter over and sit, crosslegged. I am just outside her circle of tulips.  Facing her.

I say, "Hey what are you doing?"

"Making a circle," she says.

"Why?"  She looks up at me with big Italian eyes.  Deep and hazel.

"Because. That way it's mine."

This is how I met Calliope. 

The Girlfriend III: The Girlfriend's Friend And A Decision To Cheat
I confess that I love her, my girlfriend Kris. But she only says, "I can see me falling in love with you."  Which is a sure sign that she won't.  It means I haven't done my job as the person with a penis.  I haven't been attractive, in my actions, enough to validate love.   And I so desperately need it.  Validation.  Like my co-workers. Like a child with a painting.  My painting is love.  My poorly presented idea of love.  My sick attachment.

She is a stupid southern belle who thinks she's something she's not.  The forces that control her conditioning come in the form of mountains.  She is from the valley.  A stupid, redneck, racist, asshole, ill-mannered valley girl who was brought up to believe she is better than those around her.  She lives on a large estate once owned by her grandfather, a man who passed away several years ago because of shotgun wound to the face.  And by wound, I mean his head was completely missing.
 
A few months before Techvice's tri-monthly get-together, I go back with Kris on a week off.  It is early December and the valley is freezing.  Before actually heading to Kris' house(mansion), we stop by her best friend's.

Her best friend lives in what appears to be a shack.  Inside, shit is strewn all about.  Clothes are drying on the back of a torn-up couch.  The couch looks like it was suicidal.  Almost like a preteen cutter who blossomed into a full-out, dead-on shredder.  

Her friend.  Her name is Naomi. That is "I Moan" backwards.  And it fits.  This girl is a dirty whore.  With glorious buck-teeth.  Seriously, she can whistle through the gap in her teeth, I have seen it.

I have seen it while laying in bed with her one night. 

There had been a barn party, and I had been drinking excessively when I got the idea that I could fuck Naomi.  I knew it was immoral, but I was tired of being dominated, and I wanted to take it out on someone.  I wanted to continue the cruel cycle of abuse.  That unloving, uncaring lack of attention.  That neglect.  That power.  And I knew how to exert it.

I wandered back to her shack, knocked on the door, and was greeted.  I had snatched a handle of vodka from the party.  Some top shelf stuff.  Good stuff.  She was enamored that I would bring her such a gift.  She can afford only shitty brands.  Odesse.  Aristocrat.  That sort of poison.  I can't blame her, because, as an alcoholic, anything that gets you drunk is worth drinking. 

She is an alcoholic too, and, like I said, enamored at the fact that I brought her such a high-quality gift.  In this brief hook-up relationship, I am the provider.  This makes me the dominant personality.  I get the idea that I like dominating, controlling.

I just want to fuck her.  Hear her scream and whistle through her gapped teeth.  I mean, other than the front teeth, she is attractive.  Short, bobbed hair to the side.  Like every stupid Scene-kid you see going to punk and emo shows.  She has a sense of style, in spite of being poor, and however conformist it may be. 

With every drink, she is more into the fact that I am dominant.  With every drink, the gap between her teeth gets smaller. 

She is too dirt poor to afford being on the pill, which is bullshit.  The government should seriously just issue them to every woman after a certain age.  They put that stupid skin-care nonsense in there to justify every woman being on it.  Say what you will about Brave New World, contraceptives are here to stay.  They have been around for a long time.  Yes.  Yes, they have.  Just not in the way you think.  Well, maybe not contraceptives, specifically, but definitely countermeasures.  All I am saying is, why in the hell would you want to wear a condom when you don't have to?  If you can achieve contraception and enjoy it more, go for it.  

Rant asside, I have to wear a condom.  She only has the free kind they give out at colleges.  These suck.  They are too small.  And there is no lubrication.  The first two bust as I apply them.  I get fed up and tell her to do it with her mouth. 

Just watch the Twin Towers you got there, I tell her. 

She either doesn't notice or thinks I am funny.  Either way, I win, and she applies it with her mouth.  Thank god she is a whore, neither of her huge teeth scrape, and I am happy.

Under the Stars
I wake up in the middle of the night to vomit.  I am not just vomitting from excessive drinking, but because something inside me is wrong.  I do not know what, but as soon as I hit the dry heaves, I leave.  I leave Naomi with a huge puddle of vomit on her floor. 

I return to the barn party where Kris hasn't even been looking for me.  I figured.  She doesn't care about me, which is why I feel no remorse in fucking her best friend.  I do kind of feel bad about puking all over her pathetic living space.  Like she'll notice--that place is a cess pool already.  I push the guilt aside with a double-shot of whiskey.  My blood thins and I am disillusioned with whiskey-addled warmth.

I am not wanted by Kris, so I walk away, swiping a pack of cigarettes from the backpocket of some douchebag wearing a strong plaid pattern.  He doesn't notice.

I walk into the field.  Deep into the field, under the stars.

I lay my body, stretched, across soft, green pasture.  It is cold, but I, content, for as the breeze blows, my eyes set, fixated on the ever infinite heavens.  In it, stars punctuate the darkness.  The air and sky are clear.  The cold sweeps away the past, the smog, the city.  The entrapment.  But, I am understanding, with increasing awareness, that the city is invading the sky.  In the city, the ceiling layed above sits invaded.  Encroached upon.  Hung delicately, the stars sit in a sphere of influence completely surrounded by an enchroaching darkness.  A blankness.  A sick, milky blackness.

But not here, no.  In this valley, I see the craftsmanship of the universe.  And I wonder. 

Where does the hand, the extension of core, begin? And if indefinite strings and beams, do we continue like streams of light, into the perilously infinite swarms of delicately balanced spheres? The conclusion is as the hourglass, hung, fixed above the plane of muted sound and blanketed sight, replenishing and everlasting. Could the eyes of the Leviathan see with the convex crystals, examining intricacies of common ground so few and far? Or do the very retinas of infinity–darkened shadow compressed to brilliant diamond threads–extend beyond the realm and presence of calculation?  Forward, the lineage of all things continues, motionless, securing forgotten inevitabilities, left like infants on the pious doorstep of truth, a location which connects infinite destination.

I wonder this.  Again and again.  And I feel small.  I light a cigarrette, take several drags, and put it out on my palm.  This is my answer.  An outlet for relief. 

I return to the party.

The Park II
The sky is as dark as the ground.  My feet press against my socks.  They against my shoes.  Them against asphalt. I type numbers into my cellphone.  

"It's gone," says Calliope.

What, I say. My ear pressed to the speaker, I hear ringing.

"Why would she leave me here?"

Who, I say.  Ring, ring, ring.

"My sister, we came in the same car."

I tell her that sucks. 

A familiar voice answers the phone.  "This is Hampton, I'm evidently not answering my phone right now.  Leave a message."  And I am stuck at the park too.

There is a squirrel contemplating a crossing.

Calliope asks, "So, what now?"

I have to make a decision.  Take the reigns.

The squirrel is alone.  The squirel wiggles its nose.  Its tail, poofed, twitches.  In its tiny mind, it has a tiny understanding.  Of the world, of itself.  And an interaction between the two.  It has no meaning.  It just has fear.  Fear of failing.  Failing survival.

I say, "I guess we can walk."

The squirrel hops once.

"Alright," she says.

The squirrel hops twice.  It is in the middle of the road.  Is it going to the other side back home.  To get food?  Maybe it's coming back from work, stressed out at the day.  It needs to go to the gym, for some relief.

"It'll be a long one though," I inform her.

The squirrel senses something.

"That's okay, I like long walks through the steel jungle."

A car. 

The squirrel juts back to the other side, making it about as far as the opposite wheel, before getting destroyed.  Bone chassis crushed.  Organs squished.  Eyeballs pouring out onto the pavement.  Tiny understanding of the universe squelched.

All this right in front of us.  She screams and closes her eyes, Oh My God.  I say, ew.  We all live alone and then die alone.

She says, this is true but the one thing we can share is our suffering.

We walk home.  Back to my apartment.

Dreamfast : Breakfast and Dream II
I rest on my couch, and I am uncomfortable.

I fall asleep, briefly and have a dream.

I stand up as Donna turns around.  We meet eachother halfway between the window and the bed, and I tell her I want to fuck her for real, no more blowjobs. At this point I have her triceps in my hands, rubbing the sides of her arms with my thumb.  She says, "No, hunny, this night is for you," and reclaims her arms to lean in and push me on my back. I don't really understand, but accept that I will at least get to blow my load into something moist and lubricated. She goes down on my now flaccid penis, working it like it's her job.  I am quickly hard again.

Minutes into this second wave of saliva and moisture, I tell her to stop.  I am in love with someone other than her and acknowledge this even in the dream.  I tell her I can't go through with this, that it's wrong, and she tells me it's not a big deal.  To me it is.  If I were single, I would have no problem being with a plethora of girls throughout the week, letting them fall under the false impression that I was soley into them.  She tells me I am single, but I imply that I am taken.

I tell her I can't do it, again, and inform her I am in love.  I am not a good person, but I am not a bad person either. She tells me she's used to being cheated on and helping others cheat.  It's like anything else, in that, the more you do it, the more your morals adjust to it, and the better it gets.  "I was like you once, before I first cheated on someone."  This sends shockwaves through my core.  What if this is the beginning, and I am on the verge of becoming a new person that the old me always despised?  I am terrified and sick to the stomach.

By the time I wake up, Calliope is gone.  In the kitchen, there are used pots, pans, plates.  There are two sets of everything.  She fixed breakfast for two. 

Splatters on the wall like gun-shot wounds.  Brains.  Goo.  Internal organs ejected by brute force, slammed into my kitchen wall.  On my ceiling.  There are broken plates everywhere.

I go to the kitchen table.  There is a note.

"Niles," it says.  "Your girlfriend came by."

Oh great.

"She saw me and got angry."

I'm guessing this mess was her.

"I was fixing breakfast when she stormed in and ruined it."

Yep.

"I wish you had told me you had a girlfriend."

I didn't lie to you, at least.  I respected you enough to only let you assume.

And it went on to say she had to leave anyway, for some anti-war rally.  Something she stands for and fights for. 

She didn't leave a number.  Any way to contact her.  And I am alone.

I call Kris and tell her I could never be who I really was with her, that I hated being attached to her.  I hate changing for her.  I told her we were done.  She didn't say a word.

Hampton and Donna
Dude, he says.
"Dude, she is fucking incredible."
Hampton is explaining himself to me in the cafeteria across the street from Techvice. 

This is your standard city cafeteria, run by people who are recovering crack heads.  People who are struggling to get back on their feet.  Or to get on their feet for the first time.  From a life of turmoil.  People who were never given the chance to stand up. They are well into it, this suffering business.

I share it with them, by coming here, by eating the food they prepare.  It's not bad.  It's not good.  Their pizza is phenomenal, and I always get a bowl of fruit, but other than that, it's mediocre.

The ranch dispenser is broken, and I have to get my hands covered in the ranch on the outside of the bottle, just to pour it onto my salad.  Poor me.
An ex drug dealer drops a pan of toasted bread on the floor.  His manager scowls and writes something on a piece of paper.  The manager is a well dressed man with slicked back hair, faded on the sideburns--grey.  He has a striped tie.  He's the only one in here with a tie and it's striped.  This is slavery.  Of the poor and misfortuned, this is slavery.  Basically. 

One of the staff is mentally handicapped.  He says hello, and I nod and wave.  He sits at a table in front of Ham and I, sipping his diet Coke through three straws.  I wonder what makes him unhappy.  If he realizes his life sucks.  Does he want something.  He needs things, for sure, but what does he want.  What drives his understanding?

"She's incredible, man, I had to leave with her,"  Ham continues.
I say, "How exactly did you manage to hook up with Donna, of all people?"
"No barriers, man," he says, muffled, shoving a dead cow into his mouth.
Yeah, I know.  No barriers.  But how exactly did it happen?
"Well, she was there because of her sister."
She has family.  I thought that bitch was a completely shut-off person.  No relatives.  No friends.  Especially no sisters.
"Yeah, I figured that to until I actually talked to her.  No barriers.  She says everyone assumes that she dislikes them or is distant.  She's not."
So she's not into just herself.
"No, she is.  That's why her sister made her come.  She said Donna was, and I quote, 'pushing life away,'" he says using the stupid air quotes.
Pushing life away.  Like, being alone and shit.
"Yeah, and her sister loves the outdoors.  She wanted to share it with Donna.  Donna ended up ignoring her, though."
So, how does this justify leaving my ass behind, I ask him.
"Come on, can't you just be happy for me."
Happy for you.  Alright, I'll pretend, but I woke up to a whole slew of broken things in my house.

I tell him how I woke up and this girl I met at the park was gone and there was a mess in the kitchen.  A splintered breakfast everywhere.

He asks how it was.  How was what?  Hooking up with the girl I took home.  I tell him it isn't like that.  I like this girl.

"Like you liked, or, should I say, loved, Kris?" he says between fits of laughter.  He's making fun of me.
I say, "Hey, fuck you, man, that was infatuation."
"Yeah, when a girl puts out like she did, you gotta love her.  Four times a day, minimum? Jesus man, are you sure breaking up with her is the smart decision."
Sex and love are mutually exclusive.  At least usually.  I tell him this.  He laughs in my face and tells me that sex is the physical embodiment of love. 

Well, I like this girl.  I don't want to fuck anything up.  I tell him this

He laughs again.

There's a fat college student sitting a couple of tables away from us.

CNN blares on the suspended wide-screen a few feet from us. 

The fat kid just isn't fat.  He is obscene.  Obese beyond recognition.  A human blob.

A reporter says the war is going poorly and the military is to be broken into smaller sects for better control.  Secret contracts are being discussed with big corporations.

The human blob sits alone, eating everything on an overloaded black tray.  I feel bad for him.  I tell Ham we should invite him to sit with us.  He looks depressed.

An anchor closes the story, mentioning that some corporations will be conscripted into use, while others will be payed large sums for their services.  They will work hand in hand with the military.  The corporations will own some of the military's forces.  The military will own some corporations' businesses.

"Dude, pity is the worse than hate," says Hampton.

Calliope
She sits in her big black John Lennon shirt.  She sits and doesn't say a word to me, a pear all cut up in front of her.

I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, staring at her.  She doesn't look at me.  Her big Italian eyes stare down and passed her cute little Jew nose to her long, slender hands, which grip a silver spoon.  My reflection is upside down.  I wonder if it would matter if I flipped my view-- if it would be right again.

We're in a public restaraunt and she's silent.  She is so different in public. 

I'm leaning on the edge of the table, staring into two round splattershields.  Lennon just stares back at me.  Calliope's hair covers part of his head, making the shirt kind of come alive with a grown sort of quality to it.

Social Anxiety Disorder.  She has it.  Dipping her spoon up and down, she pokes her pears.  They are soft.  She looks up at me for a quick glance and looks back down, uncomfortable that her gaze was met by mine.

"Why is your hair so long?  I mean, like, no, I mean, I like it, but I'm just wondering,"  I sputter out.  My thoughts are firing off so fast in my head that they have trouble getting out of the traffic jam in my mouth.

"When I was young, my mother always cut my hair, and I always looked like a boy," she says.

"Sort of rejecting your past, that sort of thing?"

"I guess so," she says.

Her slices of pears now sit completely smushed, in a pile of fruity muck.

And I am spent.  I sit there, talking to her in my head for a few minutes.  I don't say a word out loud, but inside, my brain is experiencing a cataclysm of thought.  Nothing thought is suitable to speak, and I remain silent. 

I don't trust myself to talk, in fear of fucking things up.  She is silent, and doesn't give much reaction to what I extend.

A past of heavy drug use.  She has it.  She feels wasted and broken.   A leftover shell of a person.  What's left of me, she asks herself sometimes. I hear her in the next room sometimes, in my apartment, in between fits of singing.  Her life is a musical and she's the main character, alone but not lonely.  Or maybe she is.

I look across the table at her lake of pear-sauce and know that she is full, whole, even if she doesn't think she is.  There's no such thing as losing yourself or falling apart.  Every result is just another form.  The energy of the past pushes the present.  What we are just exists as an output of an input from the past.  We change, but we're really just the same.

But it all sits in my head.  The gridlock on my tongue is caused by one word blocking the path, something I reserve.

This is how I loved Calliope.

Necrolagnia
I come into work one day hungover and my co-worker, Fred, he tells me the news. 

Fred, the cardboard cutout of a sillouette.  He is actually useful to me, for once, other than making myself feel better about, well, myself.  This time, in fact, he makes me feel sick.  Techvice is now merging with a branch of the United States Military.  They are integrating the old with the new.

They are simply declaring the merger, when it has been there for years.  Every piece of technology we have produced for the past three years has been working toward a larger goal, an objective to control.  Tracking devices in phones, advanced camera lenses with smart chips.  Anything.  And they're all weapons.  Tacticians are taking my job.  Whereas a scientist seeks to balance his morals, a tactician seeks to completely ignore the existance of them.

I am baffled and slightly repulsed.  Fred tells me there's one more thing.  There's a reason he's informing me of the merger weeks before we go public.

Naomi Palinski is dead.  She was fucking some guy during the night when it happened.  He's dead too.  When I heard about it, they said he looked so much like me.  His name is unimportant, Naomi is dead.

This means I have fucked a dead person.  I can't believe this. 

They were fucking the night away.

Someone lurks outside.

NonameGuy puts his dick in her mouth, she sinks her teeth down-- her two ivory towers.

Someone looks through the window and sees me fucking Naomi.   And then, Someone moves to the front door of the shack.

Naomi flips over, NonameGuy hits her from the back.

Someone charges through the door with a steady shoulder and steel will.  A thin, shack door cannot contain the intrusive hatred of Someone.

Naomi thinks she hears something in the next room, NonameGuy convinces her it is nothing.

The double-barrel gun blast convinces everyone in the final room, the bedroom, otherwise.

Why is he telling me this?  Because in every device used by customers and employees, especially employees and those they are close to, there are chips that send and receive information.  Trackers and the sort.  He tells me why this is important to take into account. 

I rush out of the office and head to the bathroom.  My stomach is rotten.

In the bathroom, I shit for like twenty minutes.  Because, when some people drink or are hung over, they don't throw up.  Out of their mouth.   I wipe, stand up, and survey the damage I've delt to the toilet.  My shit is greener than I have ever seen it.  And fluffy.  It looks like I just submerged clumps of astroturf.  Much to my dismay, I am now vomitting everywhere.  This is awful.

I step out of the stall and one of the cleaning ladies is standing there looking at me, disgusted at the noises and smells generated by my body.

Naomi Palinski is dead.  And Kris killed her.  Transitively, I killed her.

Shotgun
Kris' mother is insane.  She is obsessive compulsive and manic depressive.  She sees one awkwardly slumped pillow on the couch and flips shit.  First, she tries to make it perfect, but, realizing nothing is ever good enough, she breaks down and starts crying, depressed.  Broken. 

Kris is similar, but not about objects.  She seeks to control people, not things.  This leads her to be a little crazier than the average person.

The grandfather that owned the farm which Kris owns now died from a shotgun blast to the face.   Kris' grandmother was a very controlling person and one night the grandfather came home drunk and said a few things that were less than pleasing to her.  She took a double barrel shotgun and blew his fucking head off.

Kris is similar, and equally crazy.

Rhythm and Police
The next thing I know I am getting a phone call from the police, asking if I knew Hampton McDylan.

I say, yeah, I know him.

The man on the phone asks me to come down to the station for questions.

I ask him what happened.  Ham was shot dead.  We need you down at the station for questioning.  We just need to know all you know.

"Officer, I'm as shocked as anyone else, I don't know how this could have happened," I tell the cop who sits across from me with broad shoulders and

"Sir,  to be honest, I'm just questioning you right now because we need to keep you safe."

Keep me safe?

He says, "Yes, keep you safe."  The murders have all involved Kris.  They haven't caught her yet, and are worried she will find and kill me. 

"What about Ham," I ask. "He was my only," I pause. "He was my friend.  What happened?"

Kris must have followed me back to Donna's apartment.

"But, I've never been to Donna's apartment."

He scowls and insists this must be the case.

"Wait, what's Donna's last name?"  What's her last name?

"Dellini.  The same last name as your girl," he says ominously. 

Donna's sister.  Calliope's sister.  Sisters.

"I've gotta get out of here, I have to make sure she's okay."

"She's alright," he says.  If they lose her, they might lose me.  "We've been monitoring you for awhile, now, Niles, and what we've come to realize is that you are vital to our success."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, the corporation.  Techvice.  You know, I'm not supposed to say nothin', but you're in a pretty high position, and all these women in your life, all this doubt you have, we gotta protect that if we're going to push forward."

"Push forward? What're you talking about.  The merger, is this about the merger?"

The state police are under Techvice's control.  The local cops.  The sherrif's in small outlying towns.  This city is now a nation, a small nation under the bastille "Techvice," the largest building in the city, right at its center.  Its heart.

My heart, not at the center, but offset to the side of my chest, begins pounding.  War drums in the depths of my ribcage, a mounting tide from within. 

Lub-dub. 

I see the officer has taken off his jacket.  His gunstrap is exposed.

Lub-dub, lub-dub.  My heart expands, contracts, expands, contracts. 

"We really think this'll work out, you know.  Taking things over.  We've gotta keep you safe, you're one of the head designers.  You're a people person, right?  Talk to me."

Thump, thump, thump.  I stare, with tremored vision from a pounding wardrum.

"If you're worried abouch'your girl, I already told you, she's completely safe.  This is in everyone's best interest."

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.  Rapid fire gun shots.  A tommy gun of force.

And it stops.  I am calm for a brief second, sweat beeds forming around the edge of hair, like fields of tall grass, and scorched earth in contact at the edge.

I snap, bounding across the table, landing a hard fist to the bridge of the officer's nose.  Blood rockets out each nostril as the cartilage in his nose comes crashing down towards his face.  A quick left hook and a right elbow to the side of his face, and he is sufficiently disoriented, having fallen, crumpled, from his metal chair.  I take his gun and keys. 

I shoot my way out of the back of the building and into the streets to my car.  I am speeding to Calliope's apartment, to where Hampton and Donna were murdered.

Relief
I have come to realize something so pivotal life, that it brings clarity to all my actions, and puts them into perspective. 

It is relief, simple yet exquisite.

I work out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I space it out, but on these specific days, exhaust the designated muscle groups.

Monday. Everything chest. Abs, too.  Wednesday. Everything arms.  Abs, again.  Friday is back.

I do my excercises with Ham, because without latching onto a person, I generally lack motivation.  This is why my job is great, I am latched to people who think they are latching to me.  It is a one way street in my mind, where I get all the benefits. 

I lift, and lift, and lift.  I picture Calliope and am able to go beyond my body's limits.  She is the one thing in my life I have been able to detach myself from healthily, while maintaining a fair interest in her. 

I lift, and lift, and lift.  My arms become sore, but I continue.  The more I work my muscles, the better I will feel.  The more I hurt now, all the more pleasure later.  The more endorphins I will release, the greater benefit I will achieve.

There's always this group of guys in there, The Pack, Ham and I call them.  They stick together like dogs, wolves, whatever.  Their biceps are improportionately bigger than any other muscle group on their body.  It's kind of sickening, and disturbing looking.  Even Ham, with his pudgy self, could destroy any one of them.  Sure, they could land a few painful blows with that kind of strongarm, but overall they have nothing.  They walk around, flexing their muscles, looking angry and scowling at everything, especially themselves in the large mirrors that encase the gym.  The don't look like themselves.

Ham struggles to do sit ups on the slanted bench.  Partly because his stomach is the weakest part of him, and partly because I am cracking jokes on The Pack the entire time I stand next to him.  He gets off, laughing, saying he hates me. 

Either way, there we are, destroying our bodies to improve them.

If there's one thing I've come to learn about the wave-pattern of life, it's that there would be no up without the down, and no down without the up.  Without pain, there can't be pleasure, and without pleasure there can't be pain.  But, within both sets of oposing forces, there is relief.  And there is relief in the pain, in a sense.

The Final Cut
I stand inches away from a double-barrel shotgun.  It is leveled at my chest.  The center mass.  She knew I would come back to the scene of the crime.  Mostly criminals do this.  She said I would do this, because she would do this.  Kris.

I hesitate.  It is dark. This side of earth is in a negative universe now-- illuminatory descent, blanketed by its back, which is toward the sun.  The sun, the great big fireball of a life-source.  Suns, the great genesis machines suspended in the great beyond, the nothingness.  I can't help but think we are all our own genesis machine, creating a step further, however minute.  It's big at frist, creation is, and it gets smaller and more complex as time passes.  This is just the way life goes. 

Life.  Not that which you live, but life, the almost ethereal sense of organisms and existence.  Stretching, reaching forward, through the dark, to advance, to exist.  I should have stopped.  To rebel is to impede.  The final stages of man are in efficiency, in giving in to a greater system of need, beyond that of the self.  These final stages of man, I am prepared to say are the death of humanity as we know it.

I hesitate until a dark shadow with chest-length hair comes to the door.   I think back to a time when we sat alone, together, looking up, reaching out with our minds to a better time, and a better place.  This unobtainable dream, within us both, was a similar vision with very different perspectives.

I pull my trigger as fast as I can, three times.  She pulls it once. 

And it is enough.

Humanity
Under the ten story fortress of an apartment, we look at clouds.  We are laying down on an emerald lawn, mesmorized. The top of the building reaches upward, stretching, and scrapes the sky.  Clouds sail quickly across the roof, in our eyes, and beyond our foreheads.  The building is falling through the sky, careening into neverwhere.  It's a simple illusion of juxtaposition, but I don't care, I think it is beautiful.  I appreciate it the only way I know how, I reach out for the closest beautiful thing I can.  I put my arm around her.  She just smiles back and allows it.

The sun sinks in the distance.  I comment on the change in hue.  I say, "It's beautiful how the day changes.  I used to be upset at the fact that it was as simple as the angle at which rays hit the atmosphere, but now I think that complexity's incredible."

"Well, it's pollution too.  It's kind of sickening that the color changes because we're trashing our planet," she says.  I don't know if she's right, but I tell her I guess I'm happy we pollute the earth.  At least I can enjoy the pastel clouds here and now, and not worry about what humanity is doing to itself.  Self-mutilation.