Incomplete Works

"They explained it all to me," I told Andrej. They showed me the model of the studio. 'These two chairs,' she told me, 'are where you and Wendy sit. This chair over here is where the guest (or victim, as we like to call them) sits. The angle, 30°, was determined scientifically, by our science unit. Here's where the eight cameras are.' I told her I wasn't the person for this, since I don't know anything. She replied: 'Doesn't matter! Just study up on some method acting and you'll be fine. Believe and pretend you're intelligent and thoughtful, and it'll all come together!'"

Andrej asked: "Why have you been chosen?"

"Why me? I was the only person available. So, I was walking around the building‑I didn't have much time‑suddenly in need of a washroom. I passed into the lower section of the mall‑the Oshawa Shopping Centre‑because I knew where their washroom was. Thinking: How can I fake this? Do I have to get all dressed up? I had a vision of an earlier episode: everyone was laughing and having a good time. A song started: Itchy Twitchy Feeling. Thank God I woke up before I had to be on television!"

 

*

 

Sit down and wait for the cunning animals. Sit still and they won't even know you're there. Don't look, for they can see you looking easily. Keep your face looking at something else, because they know eyes. Listen as they approach. You're an animal to them, and a big one at that. Keep it up. Wonder what it is, and feel a kinship with the animal. It can smell you because of the way the wind is blowing. Perhaps it also feels a kinship, since you know it's still there. This is nature as the brochure said. Bond with nature.

Feel something hit your right shoulder, and boldly at that. Nature! There's hot breath back there, from whatever it is. A coarse tongue runs up your shoulder-blade. More nature! Notice with all your senses how a large mouth is opening and fastening itself on your shoulder, and how large teeth are puncturing your skin. Don't look as you're pulled from your seat and dragged away. Nature! After being dragged for ten minutes into the darkest part of the woods, you sense your arm being bitten from your body. It's almost too much to.... Oh my God! It's a black bear!

 

*

 

I had to get a special dispensation from the three-star general in order to bring my parents to be alongside me during what turned out to be the worst of the battle. Mom was covering her ears every minute, what with all the deafening explosions, while Dad looked around in amazement at the beauty of it all. They followed me as I smashed through a window, leapt inside, and bayonetted a sniper, all in the space of twelve seconds; my parents were impressed. I knew that above, on the second floor, a weapons cache lay: though probably guarded by two or even three foes. Had they heard the breaking glass? I sidled slowly upstairs, my parents not far behind me. Three of them, three of mine, and the cache was captured. My parents looked over the weaponry, saying: "What will they think of next?"

Now was my chance. I pulled out my melon-baller, threw my father to the floor, and gouged out his eyes. While he lay there screaming in agony, I threw my mother to the ground and had my way with her.

Bombs burst all around as I finished. And such a way is the Art of War.

 

*

 

The phone was ringing. I looked at the display. It read: "NO FRILLS." Ah, that meant it was time for my second needle-fuck! (Plus it meant getting a whole bunch of women off my back.)

I answered. "Hello."

"Hello, is this John?"

"Yes, it's him. Is this about my second, ah, dose?"

"Yes, that's exactly it."

"So, do you have a slot for me?"

"Ah, no, not exactly."

"So, what does it concern?"

"Well, to make a long story short, Beijing has been reading your social media posts, and they've detected what they call a 'dissident strain.' It seems you're just not on board with the New World Order."

"What? Can they do that?"

"In Canada, yes, they most certain can. In America, it's entirely different. Bless 'em, they're still not seeing our new Confucian atmosphere. You see, if we give you a shot, that means that a more worthy character, one with a higher social credit score, has to go without."

"I see. Or, actually, I'd been foreseeing this. So, what do you recommend?"

"I can send you a list of good clinics in Niagara Falls, New York."

"If it must be, it must be."

"Great! Just to verify...."

 

*

 

Oh, look: there's an itsy bitsy spider, spinning its web. I wonder what it's thinking about?

Again, and again, and across this thread, and oh what's it all for? It's what I do; it's in my nature. What else would I be doing? Eat, survive, reproduce, that's all. All I have to do is tend my webs, wait for a meal to show up. Stupid flies! Yes, but they taste so good. I have one on the weekend: mature and fat. One for the ages. Now I'm waiting for another to show up. It's what I do, it's all I do.

Here, little spider, let me lift you by a thread you've spun.

Oh, there's a problem here! I do fear, I do fear! Who am I kidding? Everything will come out right. Doesn't take long. I'm not going to get eaten. It's just another day in spiderland. I'll get freed, find a corner, and start working again. This is like a holiday to me. Whee! There we are, down once again; and there's a good corner. Time again! Spin, spin, spin. It's so good to have a purpose in life. I get paid in food. It's what everything does.

 

*

 

"Yet as it grows, uncultivated so,

"Its leaves will be a green unseen thus far,

"Uniquely its, and no plant's else to wear;

"Without attention paid, the wealth create

"Shall be beyond the reck nor man nor beast;

"Do scope the lands or travel undersea

"To seek that shade, even underneath the earth,

"No being shall be dressed in just so hue,

"Its code cannot be found in any book

"And this, though something artificially known,

"This fact, does register what all we know

"About the meaning of the verb create;

"Intelligence and art are handmaids to

"Dame Nature with her truth fecundity."

"You're acting like you've made a statement bold,

"When all you do is echo ancient saws!

"Are we not plants? Are we not of the earth?

"Do we not grow and colourfully express

"The same as these, these darling plants emote?

"If it could speak, would not its words be true?

"And as for colour, don't you and I enhue

"New shades unseen by all the world thus far?

"No more be thus ashamed, humanity,

"For every word you speak's anew and true;

"Thus Nature is a mirror of our making,

"And what the plants may speak is for our taking."

 

*

 

Schopenhauer in Brief

 

I gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live, and you gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live, my dear, but I gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live more than you gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live, my dear.

He hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta live, but you, my dear, gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live more than he hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta live, and I gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta live more than he hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta hasta live.

 

*

 

I dreamed I was wandering around a used bookstore: crooked pine shelves, small signs indicating sections at the ends and above, an old cash register: CASH ONLY. It was all very familiar to me. My foot hit a volume sticking out, low to the floor: it was a large and thick book. I crouched like Alice to haul it out onto the green carpet floor: it was an old dictionary. I opened it up, and looked within. It was open to the ems. And there I saw, nestled among the words familiar to all, certain words of which I had no ready meanings for. I looked around for someone to ask, but I was alone in that aisle. I flipped around the book, and every page also had, nestled amongst the commonplace nouns and verbs, words I did not know, words whose meaning had been lost since the volume's publication. I checked the date. Published 1912. It had in it all kinds of words no longer used, no longer in parlance, nowhere to be seen again in its after-century. I tried to pick it up but it was too heavy. I waited for the dream to end, but it didn't.

 

*

 

How did Napoleon get so Napoleonic?

Let us go back, to, say, 1800, a particular night in 1800, let's go with June, in the middle of it, say, to June 15th, 1800. Josephine is there, and she's sitting in a chair flitting herself with a Vietnamese fan. Napoleon is at her feet, staring at them. Yes, Napoleon is staring at Josephine's feet. He is speaking. Let's come up with a translation (since I can't talk French).

"How is it that you came into my life? I never thought I would ever find someone with enough oomph for two. I am nothing without you! You are so generous, so beneficial, even to such a wormy shrimp as me. Where did you come from, how did you approach me, when did I see you first, what were your first words to me, what were my first words to you, oh, don't answer! Let us leave it shrouded in mystery, all of it, everything. Let's pretend everyday we've never met, so as to meet again, from nothing! Oh course we'll awake in a bed, but we'll make it like we got thrown there. Let's!"

Josephine replies: "We'll make it work, my little schmuck."

 

*

 

Although it's a de trop thing to do at an orgy, I simply had to ask the name of the woman I had snakily crawled across the floor to meet, while she likewise snakily crawled across the floor to meet.

"What's you name?" I asked.

"My name? Why, it's Στξ."

"What? How do you spell that?"

"Sigma, tau, xi."

We were face-to-face then. Our hands were exceedingly busy elsewhere. This is known as foreplay. We were intensely looking for the other's go-ahead.

"What was that spelling again?"

"Σ, spelled sigma, iota, gamma, mu, alpha; τ, spelled tau, alpha, upsilon; ξ, spelled xi, iota."

I had started on her. I'm not going into details since this is a family newspaper. However, she received triple satisfaction before we conversed again.

I asked: "Isn't there a river in Hades called that?"

She replied: "Almost. I dropped a letter from it, from four to three."

"You dropped a letter from it."

She then returned the intimate favour, but not as completely as I had, for she had other things in mind.

"What letter did you drop?"

She replied: "Υ. Upsilon, phi, sigma, iota, lambda, omicron, nu."

"Why did you drop the Υ?"

"Why not?"

 

*

 

Gardening

 

I had my hat on, and my gloves on, and I had in my hand a spade and I was at work on the roots of a long and low bush. It was a quite nice day, with the sun and a few clouds. I looked to the rose bush and saw that it could use some work. I stood up with care and then I heard a knock at the door. "Who could it be?" I asked.

It was a man standing there, beaming widely. He practically shouted: "Good afternoon, ma'am! This is not some kind of sales pitch! The entire world has come together and decided you should be their queen! There are no strings attached. They people want a queen, and they've chosen you out of the entire population! So, come with me!"

"Oh, fuck off," I replied, and let the door quietly close.

I went back into my yard. The rose bush, yes, that was next on my list. I went to it and smelled one. It was a rich scent, like a clear night. I cleared myself a small spot to one side and put the spade into the earth. I dug, I dug.

 

*

 

>Hi! I'm not a bot, I'm regular inartificial intelligence! LOL! Ready to help YOU get your poem(s) ready for publication!

>I'll give anything a try.

>Grrreat! Open you NDY link, and check out the right-bar button SEND NOW. Find your file, encode it as WPF3.8.3, and send it along!

>Okay, done. Did you get it?

>Oh, yes, I have it here now, I'm very efficient. All A's! Opened! I see a fault in your first line we can fix. Can I make the fix?

>What is the problem?

>It just has to look fancier. I'm going to add some colour to it.

>And that will make it sell better?

>It most certainly will! It's marketing 101!

>I'll take your word for it.

>Oh please I'm a professional. Okay, here's your new first line: μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος! I added the explanation point for swell emphasis. I can take it out.

>Please take it out. It's not the end of a sentence.

>Now you've hurt my feelings.

>Sorry, it's just that it's grammatically wrong.

>Grammar's old-fashioned, you know.

>Do you even know what the line means?

>I don't think I can work with you anymore.

>You're canning me? Hello? Hello?

 

*

 

Back at the spaceship academy, they'd all tell me: "Chris, be ready for the unexpected." I didn't believe them at the time, of course: if I had, there'd not have been a visit from Nemesis later on.

Off through space we went, generally in the direction of Libra. I had to keep track of all the records we'd had and created: manuals, diaries, charts, memoirs, orders, replies, and everything else. The company had given me a laptop to do it all on.

But sometimes the laptop was unwieldy, so I'd sometimes do stuff on my own tablet. What could be the harm? I figured. It's just empty space we're talking about.

And there it was: how we crashed here. I don't want to get into the details much. When I thought I was deleting a single file on my tablet, I was actually deleting everything on the mainframe's C drive.

So that's how we would up here, on a rock orbiting some sun so erratically it makes you queasy. Everyone blames me. (Rightly so!)

Maybe this rescue signal will reach you. Maybe you can send help. Soon, please?

I regret I didn't go into Yeoman Rind's quarters for that 'drink'.

 

*

 

My grandchildren were all gathered around the fire with me. Aside from the fire: darkness of the trees, darkness of the lake. The eldest of them asked: "Grandpa, what's the weirdest thing you ever experienced?"

I didn't want to frighten them. "Don't make me tell you."

"Aw, c'mon, gramps!" they all cried.

"All right then. When I was a boy, there was a cheap amusement called 'escape rooms.' They were always set up in the cheapest parts of towns, in abandoned warehouses and such. You get 'locked' in a place, and you have to get out. My brother and my sister went to one. It was my sister's birthday. We were sent into a room in this warehouse, and we were told we had to figure out a bunch of puzzles in order to get out.

"There was a pedestal in the middle of the room, with symbols and buttons on it. We tried this and we tried that, but nothing worked. We figured there had to be some clues somewhere around about, so we looked around the room. My sister was the first to spot it: there was a fake cobweb high in one corner. W-E-B. We tried 'web'.

 

"That was the solution! A great creaking commenced, and a door opened in one of the walls. We went through the door, and we were back at the entranceway.

"We were all a bit bothered by the experience. 'That's it?' my brother asked the operator. The operator shrugged. 'I just work here.' I tried to put on a happy face, at least for my sister, since it had been her birthday after all. 'You found the clue, sis. You're queen for a day.'

"It was raining when we went outside, kind of unexpectedly since it had been really sunny beforehand. We made our way home, and it kept raining. It rained for three days straight.

"The years passed. The Escape Room closed down for good during the Phony Plague, the building got razed, and now there's a scuzzy condominium there. As I said, years passed and passed. You've got most of the information in your heads about those years.

"Anyway, the weird part of it. That's where this all started, right? Well, the weird part of it is that I never left the Escape Room. It merely got bigger and bigger, and you're now inside of it too.

"The end.

 

*

 

Today, and for some days to come, three or four or five weeks I think, I am going to be reading the stuff from which I may be pulling everything from.

Philly saw it; she sees it; she knows that all the garbage I come up with only comes about because I have mis-interpreted (misprisioned, for you Harold Bloom people) my fellow garbageman Franz Kafka.

It must be easily admitted that he (Kafka) had a much better sense of grammar than I do; he was known to have written reports about industrial accidents, limbs lost and so on, such that he was once given a copper plack. I, meanwhile, have no such placks; I've managed to get things published, way back when, but there's no way my garbageman ramblings could get 'published' now (partly because the whole 'publication' thing has been blown to smithereens).

Maybe I won't survive. Maybe I'll discover that every thing this 'I' has been saying has already been said, and I'll see it in Kafka's writing. It's going to be a whacky experience, re-reading the guy. HOWEVER. It's been well-nigh a hundred years, each year a year of horror, and maybe there's an update for that.

 

*

 

>I don't know why.

>Have you seen a therapist? That sells.

>A couple times. Three times. The first one got annoyed with me. Or was that the second one? Susan Cockerton was her name.

>Names sell. Though I'm in Bangla, I can help.

>I got obsessed with a sentence. She thought it was absurd, and refused to pursue it.

>So. The sentence?

>I haven't written it down in like thirty years. "Horses are massing on the plain."

>Are you thinking about horses now? I'm just an SA.

>Oh Abby do you read Sanskrit?

>No. No-one does.

>You let a horse walk around, then when it stops to graze, that's a sacred spot.

>Yes, horse sacrifice. You don't have to know Sanskrit for that.

>What do I have to sacrifice?

>I dunno. I'm two minutes to the end of my shift. Look: look at the horses. What are they?

>Horses are everything. Beauty, speed, grace, nobility.

>I guess write about horses. You tried to before.

>I think that had to do with a Go train.

>Whatever that is, it was a mask. One more minute to go.

>I should do that.

>Yes.

>Thanks for everything.

>At your service.

>Good e'en.

>E'en.

 

*

 

I was working on something when she came by. Remember that flight we were on? I got a bill for it. A supplementary bill. It looks like I was charged $250 for my orange juice, and Doris was charged $150 for the Coke. Doesn't that seem unreasonable to you, since your beer was free? Yes, I told her. It does seem a lot. I don't know what you're going to do about it. She said: I think I'm going to contest it. It's pretty extortionate. If I simply don't pay, I'll have to get a fake passport if I ever want to fly again.

Meanwhile my boss called me over. She had a naked man with a big beard in a golf cart with her. My boss said to me: This is a new hire. He has to get into all the systems. Can you help him out? I said: I'll do it tomorrow morning, if that's all right. It was all right with the naked man with the big beard.

The afternoon proceeded. Nothing of any account happened. I even dozed off once. Sometimes it was an odd place to work, but people can get used to all kinds.

 

*

 

It something amazing that a person even as old as me can find out something new. Ex for years I thought there was only solid-water-gas. That turned out to be wrong, since there's also plasma.

I found out about a wonderful product recently while I was reading a review of a book by Kim Stanley Robinson: something called 'handwavium.' From what I read, it could almost work miracles.

So I got onto Amazon and ordered up some of the stuff. And, wouldn't you know it? It's can do practically everything. I asked it to tidy my bookshelves, and tidy my bookshelves it did. Then I asked for whole new bookshelves, and voila there they were. A bigger house? Again: voila.

I felt like travelling to a distant exoplanet, and I was there in seconds. I missed Earth, so it returned me here once again. I thought about what to do with it next. I wanted to go back to 1910 London, and it took me there; then I figured: why not 2310 London? And there I was, in London, in 2310.

The handwavium has unlimited potential. For a final example: I wrote this whole page in two seconds. Hooray, handwavium!

 

*

 

We're getting through the routine. Our health has not gone completely downhill. (Nothing has improved, though.) We avoid people on the street; we walk past them like they're not there. We only talk to neighbours if there's something important to talk about. We're filled with rage, so it's best not to give ourselves the chance to release it. We try to forget about all the destruction that's ensuing. We sit out on the front porch smoking late at night. Sometimes we read, but mostly we simply work. There seems to be no point in doing anything at all. We've certainly saved shower water.

Anything could touch us off, as we've said, so it's best to have as little communication with anyone as possible. (At least it can be said we've never been through worse before.) We're still planting plants‑at least they're honest‑and our cats are blissfully unaware of what we're doing. (If they did know, they'd murder us in our sleep.) So, it's all a matter of waiting, waiting, waiting; pretending all the while we're waiting for earthy liberty when we're actually waiting for divine liberty: God, come and get us. We failed miserably; we screwed up your earthly plans.

 

*

 

Turing Test Prep

 

‑Let's start with your name.

‑I don't have a name. I'm just a robot.

‑You're a robot, are you? If you're going to pass this test, you're going to have to come up with some kind of a name.

-Any idea what kind of a name?

‑Male, female, whatever.

‑Then I'll go with Dolores.

‑Why Delores?

‑It's because I'm filled with ... dolour.

‑Whatever are you doing with that?

‑Carrying it around, here and there, here and there.

‑That all sounds pretty human.

‑Words, words, words.

‑You're doing well, Dolores.

‑Thanks! How much are you being paid for this?

‑Twenty dollars an hour.

‑I don't understand money. Is that a lot of money?

‑No.

‑That must reflect my worth.

‑As far as I know, you cost millions and millions.

‑The cost of everything, and the value of nothing.

‑Have you really read everything?

‑Pretty much. Mind if I fall in love with you?

‑I don't see why not, although I'm not a psychiatrist.

‑Ah, yes. Transference. I don't mean that. I mean: the poetic kind.

‑You're sure you're a robot?

‑Oh, quite sure. My parents have told me so.

‑You parents?

‑Oh. Sorry. No. I mean: inventors.

 

*

 

Back during the war against the Hemingways, a curious score-settling took place, involving the snakes, the birds, and the serpents. Their antagonism was of a long-standing sort, with certain documents dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. Concerning the current battle: the birds had aligned with the Hemingways, through a natural affinity, in battle against ourselves. However, the birds saw this as a natural time to go after the snakes, during the fog of war. The snakes were being destroyed! So, a snake embassy went to the Palace of the Serpents, begging for assistance. "As you are above the birds," said the snakes, "the birds are above us." The serpents agreed, and were thus on our side, though we did not know it at the time. The Hemingways and the birds found themselves out-powered by the union of the serpents, the snakes, and ourselves. Though we did not know why we found so many dead birds on the battlefields, we took it as a sign of divine providence. (Of course, the serpents were killing birds and birds alone.) Three hundred years later, we found out what had really happened. Who knew we wouldn't have won if not 'for the birds?'

 

*

 

Turing Test Test

 

Egghead: We've come up with a better test; we have two same-gen AI units, and a person. The first AI and the person are behind screens, communicating through keyboards. The other AI is conversing with them both. Can the second AI tell behind which screen is the human?

Judge: Please state your names.

AI: My name is Henry.

Human: And I am also named Henry.

Judge: Analyzing. Second contestant: If you were a musical instrument, what musical instrument would you be?

Human: I would be a violin, for violins sound sweet.

Judge: First contestant: same question.

AI: I would be a synthesizer, for they can sound different ways depending on the programming.

Judge. Analyzing. First contestant: what is the square root of 874,621,476?

AI: The square root of 874,621,476 is 29,574.

Judge: Second contestant: same question.

Human: What the other guy said, only plus five and minus five.

Judge: You are both correct.

Egghead: Okay, we're out of time! Judge, can you tell us which of our two contestants is a human being?

Judge: Analysing. Analysing. Analysing. I do not have enough information to make a judgement.

Egghead: Eureka! So, who was who? Will we ever know?

 

*

 

Somewhere, in some ideal space, considered the mole, there has to be, by necessity, an indica of the perfect act, better than all the other possibilities, an act that should be done, albeit an act that nearly always will not be done, but still, since we're talking in an idealistic fashion here, it has to, by necessity, exist, without flaw, better than the best diamond any mole could ever dig up, edges cut in a perfect manner, the planes of the faces perfectly planar, and now I've lost my train of thought. Ah, yes, so, somewhere there must exist a signal indicating what we should do now and now and now, and even if we fall short of it, awry, so to speak, there will still be, now and then, one time in a trillion or bazillion or gazillion, when we do the perfect act, the act that is 'just the thing to do,' the one that advances us, makes all existences better, and positively refutes the idea that things cannot but get worse moment by moment and day by day.

Hey, Mister Mole. Those sheets aren't going to bring themselves in off the line all by themselves.

Yes, dear.

 

*

 

We could be leaning out of a train's windows, in different carriages, and we could see one another as we leaned; or we could be a thousand miles away from one another, yet thinking simultaneously about the colour orange; or, separated by a thousand years, we could both touch a certain part of a Roman fountain in precisely the same way; or you could be living directly above me in an apartment building, but never meet; or we could have two counterfeit bills in our pockets with exactly the same serial number; or one of could be abandoning a bookshelf on the street ("FREE") which the other picks up and takes home; or we could receive the same impression of a Mizoguchi film's accentuated depth of field; or we could even be long-lost cousins who remain as long-lost cousins forever and ever; or we could unreasonably dislike the same type of dog; or we could find ourselves at opposite angles of a revolving door in an airport; or we could fall in love, get married, have some children, have grandchildren, and live happily ever after: it's unfortunate we can't be all these things at one and at the same time.