Dark endings for nihilistic novels

Tower of Brahma 62.i Solo Inferno (edit)

6/14/10

And then I, that being Charles Crown, the author of this tale, the fabricated persona developed to drive the devil from me, dissolved into nothingness. This is how it ends on a personal level. A flash, mash-up of life experiences and things that seemed so important, now just melting away with the mysteries of the universe realized at the moment you become part of the ecosystem on a molecular level, showing that the only good thing the brain has done is distinguish itself as something other.

Which is all really a lie. The acceptance of all things, the going with the flow, the striking a balance with nature is what is essential to humanity, but we will always fight that, such is the human spirit's drive towards the unknown. There must be a pinnacle of existence, and for me, that is this book, if not specifically these final chapters. This is what I needed to do. How it all needed to work out. It was an apocalyptic novel from the get-go.

And so, the universe I created with Agent Fenris, the recruit, Agent Spider, the mentor/sidekick, and Charles Crown, the writer, the creator, the fall guy that I sent into another dimension to let me know how to master this one. Only it all backfired. Less than a month after I wrote this chapter I would write a suicide note, post it online, and attempt to disappear into the East River. Friends at the time saw it, kept me on the phone, until someone could come get me. That was my ending.

The is the end my friend.

Tower of Brahma. 62h. Hell is for children (edit)

6/7/10

And this is how it all ends. The final moment for all of humanity, the death of 63 souls follow my own into Hell, or perhaps Heaven, though they already picked their team when the Rapture came.

And then the Devil plays one last trick, he lets me judge my older self's soul.

The world ends in 2036, sixty seems like a good age to go, though maybe 64...

Tower of Brahma. 62G. God's Not Home (edit)

5/31/10

And so, I send myself to Hell. The last two people on the planet and they're both me, though battling out virtually. In the end I had to see myself for who I was, or who this future version of myself would become, and what the path to good intentions had created. More alone than ever, atop the food chain, and isolated, pretending the connectivity of wi-fi and A/V could provide was enough to keep the whole human race going. But it could never be that way.

And so, I hope to bury Pride. I like to think I have, not realizing that it was my deadly sin after all. The others are disposed of easily enough, but it is the Ego that fights to stay afloat when the times are hard, and the task seems impossible. I want to believe I am special, that this journey I'm on is important, and that this book somehow will matter to someone, somewhere, at some point in time. And in the end, it is important, life-changing, to me.

I became a better person, a more sane and whole person, after writing this book. I see that all these chapters are written just at the very end of who I thought I was, and who I was about to become. That a new adventure was waiting beyond the curtains drawing closed on the Tower. I had successfully destroyed the prison of my own design, but then quickly began following the path of tormented sadness and the steady climb back to being a healthy and happy human being.

What if you were given free reign to create endlessly but had to do so alone?

Tower of Brahma. 62f. Over & Over (edit)

5/24/10

A further exploration of the bubble hivemind that was the final remnants of humanity. This time getting closer to what I feel like my intentions are towards writing, or at least a theme that ran through this entire novel, and my entire life: destruction of archaic ideas.

By processing all of humanity's achievements, marking a timeline of anthropological creativity, in calculating all that has come before and seeing what it was all about, in that way the meaning of life could be distilled from the collective consciousness. In the final days we all put out exactly what we have within us, and in that moment we shine.

I was just tired of repeating patterns in my life, though I see I am still circling the tower, and perhaps always will be. That seems as true an existence as life has presented to me so far. Keep creating, keep consuming, feeding that unseemly beast we call the human spirit. But surely there had to be an end to it all...

The Heaven/Hell of our own design

Tower of Brahma. 62e. White Lie Like the Devil pt.1 (edit)

5/17/10

With each chapter I wanted to focus upon one aspect of the future and explore each part of what this world would be like in my vision. Sixty-four people remaining, in a safety-bag cocoon, each one a prisoner of their own design. A metaphor for how we can all get caught up in our head, losing ourselves to our passions, but they're not real. It's all an illusion and distraction from tangible interaction. And once that is lost, isn't the essence of humanity ultimately lost as well?

There's a lot of meditation on prisons, cells, traps, reality, virtual reality, heaven, and hell within the pages of this book, and in the end all I can say is that real human connectedness exists, however fleeting it may be. And it's all that matters. Everything else is a distraction from the flow of time, a shadow of our dreaming brought alive by our hands. How much experience is sufficient for a human being? What are the heights of self-indulgence? What is the outcome of it all?

I suppose we see, we observe, calculate and gamble, and the not knowing the next move, no matter how premeditated, is what we are all waiting for. The unquantifiable sum of all actions crashing into eternal possibilities. The logistical equation working itself out until the very end. All I want is to see the whole picture and interject my words right where they're needed most. I suppose that's all we can ask for.

This is what the Devil asked of me

Tower of Brahma. 62 D. This is a novel. (edit)

5/10/10

This one starts as the overall issue I saw approaching, and just three years later it's become so much of a reality to have our personalities stored into our smartphones, a 64GB interface profile. I knew that this was the direction my life was going, that I walked a fine line between analog hopefulness and digital disconnectedness. That in a digital world I could have all I asked for, except for the one thing I desperately sought, real world visceral experience. I would have to transcend anxiety for that to happen.

Then I kick it back into the novel and we see the remaining humans as blobs across the landscape, the final 64 humans tele-community. And now it was my job to burst all these bubbles and allow the last of mankind to be judged and purged from the Earth. It was a perfect job for me, fulfilling the Christ Complex I had within me, and also making me its ultimate betrayer. But humanity had done its best and it will sit and rot to the bitter end in these pods if someone doesn't do something.

Elder Charles could never take them out, for he knew them all intimately, had built an entire corporation and worldwide community with them. Each had served their purpose to what he thought was the greater good, but in the end it was just yet another distraction. The guilt from 33 year old Charles would catch up to him in the end, but this way the very end, and who better to clean up his mess than the one who signed the damn deal in the end.

This book should be called Alone At A Bar

Tower of Brahma - Christ, This is Easy - 62.c (of 64) [edit]

5/3/10

I think the consistent pattern here is that Agent Fenris & Spider have adventures, as does Charles Crown eventually, for awhile and then the realness of being alone and sitting at a bar, slightly drunk and writing quietly to myself as everyone else mingles and talks. I remember this being a peak social anxiety time. I would get immense chest pains and throw up sometimes as I would try and leave the apartment to go out somewhere.

I was working night shift so it was easier to come home at 6am, killing time sitting at my work desk and leaving just before the morning crew came in. It was a lot less suspect going back to Clinton Hill at sunrise than even just an hour or two before. I remember a lot of time spent sitting and waiting for the G train at Hoyt–Schermerhorn, derelicts and drunks prowling the station.

I was depressed. I felt disconnected. The relationship was over, all I had was this book I was writing, and it was almost over, and nothing was happening. I was crumbling, though it was still a comfort to comfort others. It's what held me together for so long. Until it couldn't anymore.

Subway Systemic Pandemic Situation

Tower of Brahma - U.R.B. - Chapter 62b. (of 64) [edit]

4/26/10

I wish I remembered what U.R.B. stood for when I titled this chapter. Elder Charles Crown returns and ushers his younger self towards the final acceptance of what the end really means. In the end human life is all just copacetic complacency of the status quo, and there's no place for anyone else when Hell comes to town.

No one special, just last in line

Tower of Brahma - I Saw A Mountain - 62a (of 64) [edit]

4/19/10

Short and sweet splitting of atomic structures in my head. Agent Fenris, Charles Crown, and Agent Spider seeped between us. The world tears itself apart and my Id, Ego, and SuperEgo are the fractured personas that first witness the fissure. All of my life just shockwaves of this event.