The Tower of Brahma 46 Paranoia Paradise (edit)

01/31/07

"Congrats on the book."

I look up from my beer, removing myself from stasis, regaining the game. I looked over at the man next to me. He seemed to be a boy playing at manhood, much like myself. We wore contrasting costumes to match our competing characteristics. He was dark, and thin; precise. I was white, beaten, and defeated.

"I didn't finish it. I don't think I'm going to. I think I hate it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't think I'll like how it ends."

"Limbo is a better fate", I added.

I thought about everything. About all the things behind me, below me, above me, before me. Putting together words is easy. It comes so natural that it's kind of spooky. Piecing together a story is impossible. Imagine trying to unite all of mankind into a state of interest, of a suspension of identity, to con them into emotions with words parading around as familiar friends or unforgettable foes.

But it's a lie. A shadow puppet display of ideas and instructions, or rather suggestions, to a bored, complacent society that has become virtually shockproof. Hell, I've lost the ability to feel months ago. So I don't feel pity for myself. Fuck that sense of failure. I don't owe anyone my words. I don't have to entertain them, distract them. Forget about teaching anyone, enlightening just even one reader, once.

"I thought that was a good turning point in the book. When things got more, I dunno, ugly. Raw, you know?"

I focused in on the individual in front of me again. I attempted to deduce whether we were speaking telepathically. Paranoia seeped in and so the awkward silence must be filled.

"I don't know why I don't destroy the whole thing. Delete it off that online journal I have and trash the backup I have on my Powerbook at home." I cringed at the thought.

"If the editors like it as much as I have, well I know we can get this thing on the shelves by summer." He stopped speaking mentally when he said this.

"What are you talking about? I'm not going to write it. I came here to tell you. I'm done."

I was getting drowsy, but when I re-focused my eyes I was sitting beside Agent Spider, and the bar had a symbolic sheen. Below us were bodies that looked too realistic to be real. It was us, but more muted somehow. Confined.

"You completed the book three months ago when you asked that we hypnotize you to help your motivation. After the first session, you locked yourself up in your apartment for hours a day. You just emailed me the final chapter last week."

I felt high from the out of body experience, grounded down through the booze. Everything was asleep. Reality was melting. I focused my third eye and rode the vibrations, tuning into the music from the jukebox. I felt every person in the bar, drank in their emotions, feeding on their humanity. I needed to be real to figure this out.

"What are you talking about?!" I shouted more than I meant to.

He glanced around and gave me a weird look.

"You okay? What's going on?" That's what it looked like his lips had said.

"Is this like a gimmick thing? You're Agent Fenris, the crazy writer in your book?" That is what I heard. And it wouldn't stop.

Those three months must have damaged something. Maybe it was that "creating antennae" we had built to force the book out of you. The "magic signal" that stimulates your impulse to write. And for what? The new bible I'm assuming. Ahh yes, you'll be immortal through the written word. But only a shell of you. Something that was never even real in the first place. Agent Fenris peels away, Charles Crown lies behind, and what's there underneath it all?

The Tower rumbles and crashes to the earth. That last brick brought it down. No, every brick brought it down. Every moment spent building caused this disaster. Devastation is everything. Desolation is all. There is nothing left.

I'm waving wildly as my senses scream at me, every sensation of this city assaulting me. I burst out the doors of the bar, obviously stark raving mad. I've lost it, I've lost everything. I slam into concrete and suddenly there is nothing left.