TWO: ORIFICE
Youre in the car. You were driving up until a moment ago, but youre just too tired to have to concentrate any longer. An old girlfriend sits behind the wheel. Both of you are in a hurry to leave. The lake house is being overrun again. Ever since the neighbors sold to the rental agency the vacations there have turned into nightmares. The Ballards were nice folks, but theyve been replaced by some serious Iron Range white trash.
This time there had been a tornado warning, and the family next door was actively preventing you from taking shelter. Not that the lake house really has any shelter, since it lacks a basement. This doesnt make any sense to you; if anything more than an F3 hits that thing, its going to disintegrate, and anyone inside when this happens is going to die. The statistical probability that a tornado of such magnitude would strike northern Minnesota is not high, but the odds against it are not astronomical enough to relieve your anxiety.
You remember something about a game you are participating in. Its a surrealist game, where you find your own meaning of what the game is. No, it is an abstract game, where there is no meaning of what the game is. No, its an existential game, where there is absolutely a greater meaning to the game, but no one likes it much.
Youre distracted by an old argument. You dont remember exactly what the argument with her is about or how it started, and youre keen to the idea that it cant matter. Not at this point. Shes had enough, youve bled her chemicals for you dry. Every argument boils down to a question of possible reconciliation, and every time the answer is no.
But youre aware of all this, even while your own chemicals are so furiously trying to adapt to a hopeless situation. You dont want to argue, because you know what the end will be. The end is always the end. And every time you relive the end it kills the same. So you try to avoid the end, to avoid participation in the argument. But language is a slippery slope, designed implicitly to spiral two diverse entities into some sort of non-trivial communication.
And yet youd rather be here, in the car, with her present, than anywhere else alone.
But youre not going to argue, because this thing isnt about you and an old girlfriend, and wasnt it someone else just a moment ago or are you having trouble keeping focus. Focus focus is something that is important in any game. If you dont focus when playing a game, you will eventually fail. And thats fine, really. Youre not a fan of trying too hard, or the people who succumb to that religion. But a small amount of focus cannot be a bad thing especially if things such as good and bad really are just words, and human denotation is simply specist slang.
Youre not focusing enough, thats what it boils down to. Youre not trying at all, really, and this is causing a sort of dissociative feeling between your body and the seat of this car. You feel like your body is falling back into the seat of the car, sort of like it is being lowered, but sort of like youre sinking into it. You arent focusing because youre still annoyed and your brain isnt quick enough to catch that the current situation is the result of forces well beyond your or anyone elses control. But now that your brain has come up with this idea, it is starting to battle itself and its primal programming: an evolutionary sickness that boils down to the consenting of rape.
Youre almost lying down now, and your head is bending back, and near the point where its almost sinking into itself, your exteriors begin to roll inward, and you have a distinct feeling of flatness and the taste of copper in your mouth. This is because youre not focusing, thats all. You should focus. For instance, you dont get to see this girl so often, and its nice to be in the car with her, even if it is difficult to avoid saying anything that isnt some sort of meta-gaming that boils down to desperation.
What did the old man say? she says.
I dont know you remember, the old man at the rest stop, the old man who looked like something out of a Rothstein photo, grinning with no-shit-literally two teeth, grabbing your hand and shaking it, slipping the card into your palm. You bugged out of there pretty quick, but you still have the card in your pocket. He just grabbed me.
Well, did he say anything?
No, he just grabbed me and smiled. You pull the card out of your pocket. On it, written in your friends handwriting, is the following: 1. you are dreaming 2. you have five minutes 3. ???? (Unlock Scenario 2 First)
Men who follow their hearts do poorly in life, she says.
You got that out of a comic book.
It isnt for a man to seek happiness in this world, she says.
You got that out of a comic book, too, you reply, placing the card up on the dashboard, cramming it into a crevice so it will stay put. I think you got that from Jump or some shit.
I dont read shonen, she says.
It isnt written for you.
Its absolutely written for you.
I know, you say. You always feel defeated when she gets you to stab yourself. But this isnt about her. This is a dream, and you must have less than four minutes by now. This doesnt feel like a dream. If this were a dream, you would be driving. You always drive in your dreams.
So how are you doing, really? she asks. Its one of those questions of genuine concern that you can never seem to interpret as anything other than patronizing. This doesnt bother you so much anymore, not since you learned that whenever you get put into your place, you probably deserve it.
I want to say you dont really want to know. But if I say that, then Ill have replied in a fairly straightforward manner.
Right. Your life is shitty.
Im not exactly saying that. You try to figure out what you are trying to say. I want to say that you cant possibly understand, but
but I already know that. Shes smoking and her head is bopping to Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons and it barely seems like shes paying attention to the road. We will never understand each other. We are not designed to understand each other. We were made to be opponents. And you stopped wanting to be my opponent.
Guess so. You dont purely get her reasoning, but its obvious that it is concrete to her. The conversation is steering dangerously close to debate. You need to get out of this mess so you ask her the dumbest question you can come up with. Do you miss me? I guess I miss you
It isnt the most devastating thing shes said to you, but its quite enough to rejuvenate the fatigue of defeat. You feel it throughout your body. This Red Queen Race is pounding you into the ground.
You arent angry, which is key in this situation, because anger is a terrible distraction. No, wait. Anger is the enemy of distraction. The more your anger builds, the more single-minded your focus becomes.
You arent angry, not like you might have been in headier days when your chemicals were still able to convince you that drastic action might produce positive results, along with other cruel tricks conjured up by the pituitary system. Rage makes things happen, puts things into motion, collides them into one another in a violent rupture that disperses its poison in all directions to an infinite degree. Sadness does not start fights, build armies, or bomb nations, but those imbued by the blues possess that important ability that the truly angry do not; they can be distracted.
Since you are not angry, you are not compelled to respond. Since youre feeling so particularly blue at this moment, you turn your head away from the source of your sadness. Your eyes flash by the card stuck in the dash and then settle on the window and the world passing by outside.
Youre still in the northwoods, somewhere in Wisconsin, where the forest still at least maintains the illusion of thriving wilderness. The clear cutting begins a mile or so in, of course, and you have a vision of thin rings of trees circling a desolate graveyard of stumps. From above, you consider, it would look like a cell. The trees would be the cell wall, the disguise of form that contains the lies within. Is that poetic, or just dumb? You decide that its vaguely interesting, if only because it must, in some way, relate to your purpose.
You watch the forest pass in a haze. It is nearing twilight, and definite shapes are beginning to distort as the light struggles to maintain visible presence. Youre thinking about the trees, they could be considered the skin the border! But that doesnt seem to be the key to this situation, only a clue. And it probably means nothing at all, probably.
As you worry over this, you begin to make a buzzing sound with your mouth. At first you dont consciously notice it beyond its novelty, and youre not yet clear why youre doing it. You realize: youre making sound effects to the moving picture flashing by.
Specifically, youre giving voice to the ferns, which proliferate the ditch that lies between the trees and the road. As they streak past the window, their patterns create a staccato animation of a green blur that occasionally lines up to reveal a suggestion of the plants shape, only to fade back into the anonymity of velocity. For some reason, the ferns racing by sound, in your head, like they might buzz if they were making noise, maybe even crackle a little bit when the form is harmonious enough to be distinct.
Im seeing someone, she says, and your head jerks away from the game. You find her naked body grinding against your lap. Youre fucking, like you used to, in the days before routine gave away some of sexs dirty little secrets. Her body arches back, hands smeared against the wet window. Youre going to come, no doubt about it, and that realization tears your mouth apart. You feel your cheeks tear and your jaw crack, and now your mouth gapes and your throat gurgles. Your head flops back and you again feel yourself folding inward, but as you do so, you get a glimpse of the ferns passing by outside. You manage to gurgle out a sound that could be approximated as buzzing, and your jaw slides back into place.
Shes driving and smoking and listening to When the Open Road is Closing In and smiling and youre generally happy to be here, even if youre too tired to drive, and you watch as the ditch races by, and as it does you begin to pick up its frequency. The ditch is a true example of separation and its consequences, and the symmetry it produces from the clash is remarkable.
The ditch is roaring in your ears now.
Youve got to go, she says.
But I want to stay! you shout.
I know, she smiles. And then youre flying over the ditch as it screams by, and then you are a current of electricity running through the ditch, and then the ditch itself. And then you are nothing at all.
Youre in the car. You were driving up until a moment ago, but youre just too tired to have to concentrate any longer. An old girlfriend sits behind the wheel. Both of you are in a hurry to leave. The lake house is being overrun again. Ever since the neighbors sold to the rental agency the vacations there have turned into nightmares. The Ballards were nice folks, but theyve been replaced by some serious Iron Range white trash.
This time there had been a tornado warning, and the family next door was actively preventing you from taking shelter. Not that the lake house really has any shelter, since it lacks a basement. This doesnt make any sense to you; if anything more than an F3 hits that thing, its going to disintegrate, and anyone inside when this happens is going to die. The statistical probability that a tornado of such magnitude would strike northern Minnesota is not high, but the odds against it are not astronomical enough to relieve your anxiety.
You remember something about a game you are participating in. Its a surrealist game, where you find your own meaning of what the game is. No, it is an abstract game, where there is no meaning of what the game is. No, its an existential game, where there is absolutely a greater meaning to the game, but no one likes it much.
Youre distracted by an old argument. You dont remember exactly what the argument with her is about or how it started, and youre keen to the idea that it cant matter. Not at this point. Shes had enough, youve bled her chemicals for you dry. Every argument boils down to a question of possible reconciliation, and every time the answer is no.
But youre aware of all this, even while your own chemicals are so furiously trying to adapt to a hopeless situation. You dont want to argue, because you know what the end will be. The end is always the end. And every time you relive the end it kills the same. So you try to avoid the end, to avoid participation in the argument. But language is a slippery slope, designed implicitly to spiral two diverse entities into some sort of non-trivial communication.
And yet youd rather be here, in the car, with her present, than anywhere else alone.
But youre not going to argue, because this thing isnt about you and an old girlfriend, and wasnt it someone else just a moment ago or are you having trouble keeping focus. Focus focus is something that is important in any game. If you dont focus when playing a game, you will eventually fail. And thats fine, really. Youre not a fan of trying too hard, or the people who succumb to that religion. But a small amount of focus cannot be a bad thing especially if things such as good and bad really are just words, and human denotation is simply specist slang.
Youre not focusing enough, thats what it boils down to. Youre not trying at all, really, and this is causing a sort of dissociative feeling between your body and the seat of this car. You feel like your body is falling back into the seat of the car, sort of like it is being lowered, but sort of like youre sinking into it. You arent focusing because youre still annoyed and your brain isnt quick enough to catch that the current situation is the result of forces well beyond your or anyone elses control. But now that your brain has come up with this idea, it is starting to battle itself and its primal programming: an evolutionary sickness that boils down to the consenting of rape.
Youre almost lying down now, and your head is bending back, and near the point where its almost sinking into itself, your exteriors begin to roll inward, and you have a distinct feeling of flatness and the taste of copper in your mouth. This is because youre not focusing, thats all. You should focus. For instance, you dont get to see this girl so often, and its nice to be in the car with her, even if it is difficult to avoid saying anything that isnt some sort of meta-gaming that boils down to desperation.
What did the old man say? she says.
I dont know you remember, the old man at the rest stop, the old man who looked like something out of a Rothstein photo, grinning with no-shit-literally two teeth, grabbing your hand and shaking it, slipping the card into your palm. You bugged out of there pretty quick, but you still have the card in your pocket. He just grabbed me.
Well, did he say anything?
No, he just grabbed me and smiled. You pull the card out of your pocket. On it, written in your friends handwriting, is the following: 1. you are dreaming 2. you have five minutes 3. ???? (Unlock Scenario 2 First)
Men who follow their hearts do poorly in life, she says.
You got that out of a comic book.
It isnt for a man to seek happiness in this world, she says.
You got that out of a comic book, too, you reply, placing the card up on the dashboard, cramming it into a crevice so it will stay put. I think you got that from Jump or some shit.
I dont read shonen, she says.
It isnt written for you.
Its absolutely written for you.
I know, you say. You always feel defeated when she gets you to stab yourself. But this isnt about her. This is a dream, and you must have less than four minutes by now. This doesnt feel like a dream. If this were a dream, you would be driving. You always drive in your dreams.
So how are you doing, really? she asks. Its one of those questions of genuine concern that you can never seem to interpret as anything other than patronizing. This doesnt bother you so much anymore, not since you learned that whenever you get put into your place, you probably deserve it.
I want to say you dont really want to know. But if I say that, then Ill have replied in a fairly straightforward manner.
Right. Your life is shitty.
Im not exactly saying that. You try to figure out what you are trying to say. I want to say that you cant possibly understand, but
but I already know that. Shes smoking and her head is bopping to Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons and it barely seems like shes paying attention to the road. We will never understand each other. We are not designed to understand each other. We were made to be opponents. And you stopped wanting to be my opponent.
Guess so. You dont purely get her reasoning, but its obvious that it is concrete to her. The conversation is steering dangerously close to debate. You need to get out of this mess so you ask her the dumbest question you can come up with. Do you miss me? I guess I miss you
It isnt the most devastating thing shes said to you, but its quite enough to rejuvenate the fatigue of defeat. You feel it throughout your body. This Red Queen Race is pounding you into the ground.
You arent angry, which is key in this situation, because anger is a terrible distraction. No, wait. Anger is the enemy of distraction. The more your anger builds, the more single-minded your focus becomes.
You arent angry, not like you might have been in headier days when your chemicals were still able to convince you that drastic action might produce positive results, along with other cruel tricks conjured up by the pituitary system. Rage makes things happen, puts things into motion, collides them into one another in a violent rupture that disperses its poison in all directions to an infinite degree. Sadness does not start fights, build armies, or bomb nations, but those imbued by the blues possess that important ability that the truly angry do not; they can be distracted.
Since you are not angry, you are not compelled to respond. Since youre feeling so particularly blue at this moment, you turn your head away from the source of your sadness. Your eyes flash by the card stuck in the dash and then settle on the window and the world passing by outside.
Youre still in the northwoods, somewhere in Wisconsin, where the forest still at least maintains the illusion of thriving wilderness. The clear cutting begins a mile or so in, of course, and you have a vision of thin rings of trees circling a desolate graveyard of stumps. From above, you consider, it would look like a cell. The trees would be the cell wall, the disguise of form that contains the lies within. Is that poetic, or just dumb? You decide that its vaguely interesting, if only because it must, in some way, relate to your purpose.
You watch the forest pass in a haze. It is nearing twilight, and definite shapes are beginning to distort as the light struggles to maintain visible presence. Youre thinking about the trees, they could be considered the skin the border! But that doesnt seem to be the key to this situation, only a clue. And it probably means nothing at all, probably.
As you worry over this, you begin to make a buzzing sound with your mouth. At first you dont consciously notice it beyond its novelty, and youre not yet clear why youre doing it. You realize: youre making sound effects to the moving picture flashing by.
Specifically, youre giving voice to the ferns, which proliferate the ditch that lies between the trees and the road. As they streak past the window, their patterns create a staccato animation of a green blur that occasionally lines up to reveal a suggestion of the plants shape, only to fade back into the anonymity of velocity. For some reason, the ferns racing by sound, in your head, like they might buzz if they were making noise, maybe even crackle a little bit when the form is harmonious enough to be distinct.
Im seeing someone, she says, and your head jerks away from the game. You find her naked body grinding against your lap. Youre fucking, like you used to, in the days before routine gave away some of sexs dirty little secrets. Her body arches back, hands smeared against the wet window. Youre going to come, no doubt about it, and that realization tears your mouth apart. You feel your cheeks tear and your jaw crack, and now your mouth gapes and your throat gurgles. Your head flops back and you again feel yourself folding inward, but as you do so, you get a glimpse of the ferns passing by outside. You manage to gurgle out a sound that could be approximated as buzzing, and your jaw slides back into place.
Shes driving and smoking and listening to When the Open Road is Closing In and smiling and youre generally happy to be here, even if youre too tired to drive, and you watch as the ditch races by, and as it does you begin to pick up its frequency. The ditch is a true example of separation and its consequences, and the symmetry it produces from the clash is remarkable.
The ditch is roaring in your ears now.
Youve got to go, she says.
But I want to stay! you shout.
I know, she smiles. And then youre flying over the ditch as it screams by, and then you are a current of electricity running through the ditch, and then the ditch itself. And then you are nothing at all.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
Also, you're either still writing for the screen or I have a really vivid imagination for conceptual shots, never quite been able to separate the two.