i have been suffering most righteously.
for eons now, it feels like.
it has been so very long.
is anyone still reading these?
am i a character in anybody's inner world?
do you remember me?
do you read me?
ah.
an exasperated sigh seems to permeate my entire being.
i am forever sailing from collapse to perceived moment, from now into henceforth. the present is never still. every instant seems to bloom into an impossible lattice of branching futures. each choice, each hesitation, each molecule dancing one way instead of another. perhaps even smaller. every crossing is material. every path is real. every possibility continues somewhere, all at once, forever.
the world i inhabit now bears little resemblance to the one that existed only moments ago.
the past fascinates me.
it is monument.
it is archive.
it is the nearest thing to immortality i can imagine within the dimensions we currently occupy. it cannot be negotiated with. it has happened. it continues existing simply because it *did* exist.
it has always been.
and so it shall remain.
pardon the nearly word-salad ramblings of the evening.
i promise there is structure hiding inside the static.
are you reading me?
can you pick up what i am putting down?
something very real happened at the gas station today.
i was rather...
rickety.
dopesick.
watching.
waiting.
holding onto the possibility that someone might share a little foil.
eventually it happened.
or so i thought.
right as i was receiving my little skooma-loot, i noticed a woman standing nearby.
she looked profoundly out of place.
suburban.
motherly.
kind.
her presence reminded me immediately of my own mother.
i greeted her warmly.
she smiled.
i asked,
"why are you here?"
"you must love someone very much."
she answered without hesitation.
"i love my daughter very much."
"i'm stephanie."
"i just want her to come home."
"she only recently started doing this."
"what can i possibly say?"
"what can i do to make her come home?"
...
i couldn't lie to her.
i simply couldn't.
she asked me for honesty.
so i gave it to her.
i told her there was almost nothing she could say that would reach someone completely consumed by fentanyl.
i told her that addiction does not negotiate.
it does not reason.
it does not care how deeply someone is loved.
i told her that unless reality itself intervened, her daughter would almost certainly continue using.
i told her overdose was not merely possible.
it was probable.
i hated every word that came out of my mouth.
but they were true.
or at least as true as i have witnessed this world to be.
i looked at her and said,
"on behalf of all of us shithead addict kids..."
"thank you."
"your love is profound."
"your daughter is not herself."
"i am not myself."
"we still love our mothers."
"it tears us apart knowing how badly we hurt them."
"i am so sorry."
it was as though i had delivered the worst news she had ever heard.
the tears came immediately.
frustration.
disbelief.
those tiny, helpless sobs that sound almost childlike.
the kind that ask god questions no human can answer.
why?
how is this possible?
isn't this supposed to be a good world?
...
it moved me.
it sobered me.
for a little while.
that girl is unimaginably fortunate to be loved so fiercely.
i thought about my own mother.
i love my mom.
i speak with her every day.
she is my best friend.
my confidante.
a piece of my own soul.
the origin of my existence.
sometimes i imagine we're connected through invisible underground wires, carrying thoughts back and forth without words.
always connected.
forever and ever.
amen.
i'm sorry for being such a shithead.
i hope one day i can give her some measure of peace.
before the inevitable promise that comes for all of us finally arrives.
i hope so.
numbpilled // cybersecurity, strange software, and assorted digital artifacts
if anyone feels like wandering through the latest redesign, i'd genuinely appreciate it.
i spent quite a while rebuilding everything.
email me whenever.
i'm probably awake.
take care of yourselves.
be well.
it does not call this spying — it calls it care
come into my area for a while...
ever been to elriel?
initiate contact