The Facade

[six to the quixotic]

Mash it out when you can.

[El Twid]

Mash it out when you can.

If I remember it after I finish, I'll just edit it in where it's supposed to go. I want to maintain momentum. Not just for this, but for me doing stuff in general.

[El Twid]

And BAM! I remembered what it was when I started to move on!

[El Twid]

CHAPTER THREE

I woke up one morning to a red sun staining the East. I was quite satisfied with my face at this time, but the film continued on. When I went to dress myself, I was surprised to see that, while the colors of my clothes were different, they were all the same. The same shirts, the same pants, the same shoes, they were all the same. I didn’t go out at all that day, or the next, or the one following that, but single-mindedly applied scissors and thread to everything, pausing only to sustain and drain. I could leave the dreary swarms alone for the time being.

When all had been completed, I took the better part of the day to try on all, and admire myself in the mirror, my face staying the same, my clothes reflecting the moods and the whims. I had gifted myself with the sense of fashion. Oh, how the film must be progressing at this point! How happy the viewer must be for me in my break from bleak uniformity!

I took to the streets then, and tore at the clothes in the vast sea of homogeneity in spontaneity. And how did the clones dance that day, a frantic waltz that I lead, Terpsichore herself decided to reinvent herself as a Maenad.

Exhausted, and alone, I collapsed onto my bed. The camera faded to black.

And faded in again.

I woke up, and I found my surroundings the same. My home was plain, as plain as I used to be. My kitchen had cans and boxes labeled food. My sparse bookshelf held a few volumes called Title by Author. One was on my living room table with a stamp on it that said Famous Book Club to impress my friends. Next to it was a solitary scented candle.

My abode was naked.

That day, I went looting in this empty world, taking all that was there, all the trinkets and baubles and curios unclaimed by the conveyor belts of clockwork corpses. Gadgets and decorations, all of these I took, and adorned my quarters with them. I played with my whimsies and I looked at my wall paintings and the exotic masks that I mounted over my hearth, a lone bronze statue of Shiva playing the role of centerpiece.

I had things of my own.

Things to set my surroundings apart.

I had given myself the gift of possession.

[six to the quixotic]

 

Oh yes.

[El Twid]

CHAPTER FOUR

I had a face. I had a voice with which to speak, and eyes to see the beauty of the world, a wardrobe to express myself, and possessions to express my being. But the film continued even still. I had a face to set me apart from the stagnant world, but I still had no purpose other than to create myself.

I set myself to the problem of the refusal of the drab to give way to novelty.

I had to deal with the problem of people.

I went out onto my front porch with my newly acquired paintball gun, and shot each part of the incessant stream that passed by. Round after round, hour after hour and the grey remained, unchanging.

I set aside the paintball gun and sighed. My orange eye and my blue eye shifted to the right and caught a singular form fading into being, as it followed the others single file. It passed in front of me, and I watched as it proceeded to the left and faded away like vapor. My eyes locked onto that point, and the fellow following next in line likewise disappeared.

I lived alone amongst apparitions and illusions.

I was the only living thing.

I alone had some semblance of constancy.

I had a book on my table to impress my friends, but there were no friends to impress.

I made myself different. I set myself apart. I created myself.

I had given myself the gift of loneliness.

[El Twid]

I have at least two more chapters, maybe two more after that. But we are getting close, mes amis.

ETA:

Going to give it a break until tomorrow night. Brain candy/F5 time.