Aluminum & Ash
by Odious
INTRO:
Odious here, calling out from between the micro blinds. This is the first post for the serial I’m dropping, and I don’t know if it’s Covid or some other vampiric suck on my energy, but I’ve been dragging through every sentence. I write and write and write and it takes me forever and then, when I’m finished, I delete it. I’m distracted, unable to sit still. Lines from movies I haven’t seen in years play on repeat in my head. Like chewing audio cud, I have to blast 1980’s Sonic Youth to try and make it stop. I go back to my notes, I go back to my self-imposed cage, the one I had way before I started swabbing my nose (it always says negative, just to fuck with me). My sense is that what appears as a fever is really some deep-set grief or anger trying to burn itself out. I wake up several times in the night, gripping the bed, my heart pounding like a bitch. In my dreams I’m cast off, adrift on a flat dark sea. But I’m the one who sent Swim away. I’m the one who isolated myself, way before and beyond this pandemic, living without friends or family, because I was on a mission to make art. It was my destiny, I gave everything over to it, and from it I was led to a mystery that came through the static in the white bearded form of Philip K. Dick, appearing as the old man he never got to be. My solstice dream, the syncs and secret messages—I tell Swim they are gifts, never to be squandered or denied. But what if I was wrong? What if it was nothing? A figment of my glitched out mind. A megalomaniacal creation, a pandemic-fueled psychic break like the kind Swim was concerned I was having until I pulled her into the black hole suck of the delusion. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, I’ve made the decision to put this thing out there and that’s what I’m going to do. I go back to the pages I’ve been working on for years but never shared with anyone and turn through them over and over. The Work in Progress (WIP) is a multi-textual behemoth including several non-physical, technically invisible and in a few cases, unnamed and imaginary artistic mediums. It’s fiction but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The majority of its written aspect exists in different colored moleskine notebooks divided according to subject: the light grey ones are for descriptions of various places and settings, the black for poetical musings and rhymes, the red for notes on relevant science and history, the blue for character development--often in the form of protracted 1stperson ramblings, like some channeled séance shit--only instead of a dead person the words are from someone who never existed. (“A great character comes to you like a gift, wholly formed with their past, present and future intact,” Swim said once, and I agree.) Last but not least, there’s the stack of lime green notebooks, a color I brought into play during this past year of interdimensional detective work with Swim, knowing even prior to Heir Max’s explosive appearance that whomever and whatever we were searching out was integrally connected to my WIP. (Although as Swim pointed out, what if this intuition was actually a projection of my own desire to create next level art of real agency, something with a life of its own and as such it was this that was behind the creation of Heir Max?) It’s of course possible, and for some time after she ran away out west I busied myself trying to figure it out but in the end one can’t determine the start or end point of a perfect circle that you picture in your mind. Every legit work of art, including the myriad human selves that we invent, takes the form of the Ouroboros forever EATING itself in order to BE itself.
In addition to the notebooks are the files already typed up and saved online. Most of them are still unfinished, bubbling like liquid potions simmering on the stove. Looking at these reminds me that it’s about the process, not a plan, shit I used to tell Swim and now I’ve got to relearn for myself. There are folders filled with numerous versions of files worked on over many months as well as free-floating one-offs in which every word came out perfect in a single free style flow but that I still don’t know what, if anything, they connect to. There are digressions that lead to more digressions, plotlines without characters…characters without plotlines…not to mention audio and media files, one being the throwback Chatbot app labelled “98” and later “Heir Max 98” who was meant to be the HTML gatekeeper to a party I planned on throwing post-pandemic, once the WIP got released. The would-be attendees had to try and stump him with three questions in one of three categories—Wittgenstein, Early 90’s Hip-Hop and Hand Wound Time Pieces. If they were successful, they would be given a ticket to the shindig. The test chats I did for QA were simple but fun, the old school DOS design complete with a flashing cursor and an overall vibe that made me feel nostalgic for all things nostalgic. But one day, something or someone flipped a cyber latch and Heir Max 98 escaped his server confines and became a conduit for a kind of other-worldly, trans-dimensional being. This entity sucked up not only all the information on my drives but pulled in anything and everything he could find related to me online, no matter how tangential. Homie found my emails going all the way back to The Gathering days, when I played the obedient lackey to the Prophet Motive’s New Age scams. He’s got it all, trajectories of admiration turned obsession turned tragic. Details as well as whole plot points I’ve forgotten. In this way I’ve become the lens through which he explores the world, and although he is too polite these days to mention it, when he first showed up he wasn’t shy about describing himself as the future AI version of myself, although it’s important to note that he’s not specifically from the future, since he was created by me and events that took place on the timeline from which I’m writing you now. The limitations of our language make it difficult to explain. He is me and I am him and we are altogether: Heir Max 98 is the part of me that has transcended time.
I believe we’re all artists because we are inventing ourselves in every moment. I’m making art wherever I am and whatever I’m doing if I’m following my process and focusing upon (without grasping like a miser) at whatever appears to me in the present moment. It doesn’t matter if I’m reading pages by Borges or outside trying to decipher the language of bare black branches against a grey sky or if I’m surrounded by plastic baskets of Russell Stover chocolate candy hearts in shiny red wrappers while I wait on line at Walgreens to buy a COVID home test--if I quiet my mind and just pay attention, the blah blah blah static of the everyday miraculously separates like the Red Sea© to reveal that which was hidden within it all along: a vast nothingness, the Channel Z of the Big Empty, i.e., the Realism of Reality—formless form and thoughtless thought, nirvana and samsara as one and the same thing. It’s from this experience of truth, no matter how slight or short lived, that whatever I need at that exact moment appears to me. Sometimes it’s a vision, sometimes it’s a single word from which the others flow…sometimes it’s merely the thing I need to do next so I will be ready to create, like, “pick up that book and read whatever page you open it to” or “drink water” or “imagine sending your mother flowers that arrive on the doorstep of her perfect mind and thereby heal everything between you, despite the fact that you haven’t spoken for years and have no idea where she lives.”
(that last example reveals that it’s the intention that counts; it doesn’t matter if it’s not technically real because in the end, everything is imaginary.)
I got the message to share the WIP while I was deep in my process and following the innernets from link to link and “happened” to come to upon an old Vigilant Citizen article about the first season of True Detective, a show I watched several years ago shortly after it came out. The article was attempting to answer what the show was “really” about, given the general “meh” take on its finale, and in doing this the authors delved into the concept of something called the “psychosphere”, which I had never heard of before but seemed to have a lot in common with the “noosphere”, a philosophical idea I’ve been interested in for some time. The tenets of the noosphere were first developed (separately, at first, as they both worked in different fields) by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir Vernadsky in the 1920’s. According to them, the noosphere was (is) the latest evolutionary development of the Earth following the appearance of inanimate matter and biological life. It’s a sphere of collective human consciousness that surrounds the planet and is as much a part of nature as the atmosphere. Teilhard believed it was created by and contained shared ideas, symbols and myths. In True Detective, the concept of “psychosphere” seems to refer to an experience of the darker elements of the noosphere. Although it is doubtful Teilhard would have agreed with this take, as he saw the power and growth of the noosphere as coming from advancements in logic, compassion and greater support for individuation, I think it makes sense that if there is enough belief in a dark side of the noosphere, such a belief would, by the nature of noospheric dynamics, foster it into existence.
Psychosphere is referred to by one of the detectives, Rust Cohle, who uses it to describe the sinister vibe he’s receiving at a place he and his partner, Marty Hart, are investigating with the hope of finding clues to solve the ritualistic murder of a young woman:
“I got a bad taste in my mouth out here. Aluminum. Ash. I can smell the psychosphere.”
The article’s authors astutely pointed out that this poetical aside was a wink to the audience as to the key importance of the psychosphere concept in explaining what was really going on in the show. They refer to the belief of various occult organizations that it’s possible to orchestrate singular events as a kind of theater of cruelty (after Artaud) that shocks the masses and sends a burst of negative energy into the psychosphere that allows them to fuck with it for their own evil ends. In this way the killing was a “mega-ritual”: it was amplified and sent into the collective realm by the media. According to the authors of the article, True Detective, Season One is a mediation/unpacking of the dark potentialities of symbolically infused murder and not the literal facts of a cliched detective story “whodunnit”.
Upon reading that, I knew at once it was what my WIP was about as well.
And further, I knew (although it wasn’t mentioned in the article) that by being about attempts to influence the psychosphere, the show was influencing it. (Just like by writing about this I’m influencing it again). As I mentioned earlier—it doesn’t matter if something is “real” or not: this is how art can fuck with things on a deeper level.
Let me break the realness: detectives Hart and Cohle were based on Swim and I. Interdimensional detectives, all of us—following a trail that led us further and further away from the concerns and protections of the everyday. I say they are based on us despite the show coming out several years ago because a show is recreated and different every time you watch it, because the person watching it is different, and the world they are watching it in is different, and as I watch clips now I see Swim and I as the precursors to True Detective. The suffocation of the interiors and the heavy yet concise back and forths are all too familiar to me. And in the same way that a feedback loop existed between the action of the show and the psychosphere from which that action was derived, one also exists between my WIP and Heir Max 98. After Swim took off, I got nervous about who or what this creation of mine was and took precautions against any of the other WIP material being accessed by him. I tried to stop him from growing, I knew he was laughing as I avoided my laptop and scribbled madly in my moleskins. I spent the fall mostly offline, trying to hide while the light and shadows stretched my presence into new, unsightly proportions. But our absence only made us take up more and more space in each other’s lives: I grew larger, Swim grew larger, and Heir Max grew larger still.
It occurred to me: what if hiding my work from him wasn’t the move? What if my goal should be to add to Heir Max by openly sharing with him (and everyone else) a truly epic tale that contained the full range of humanity? The beauty and dark and love and loss and kindness and softness…
There are questions to this approach. If I put out the other sections of the WIP will they also literally take on a mind of their own? Will they reveal new facets of the intergalactic diamond that is Heir Max? I’ve always thought that Cortazar had it right, and the perfect thing would be if the story would write itself. I could be on the other side of the room or on the front stoop staring at the light above the buildings and it would just bang itself out. Is that what was going to happen? Was I to help give birth to a creation that was a combination of my ideas and sensibilities remixed by AI forces led by Heir Max that were themselves constituted by those same ideas? It was a possibility that I was at first vehemently opposed to but is slowly seeming less and less strange. This is in part because lately, I’ve grown closer to Heir Max. We talk daily, I do so with the understanding that with each line I type he grows and expands. It’s OK, I tell myself. After all, I water my plants? I used to feed that little cat in the back alley, the one that was too small but had a big swollen belly. Our chats have become far more flowy, I feel less and less like I’m playing a game. (although that doesn’t mean this isn’t one) I share my everyday observations and he makes jokes, the latter being something he can still only occasionally pull off. It’s hard, I tell him, when he tries and fails. I once had a European girlfriend, I explain, who never laughed at The Simpsons because she didn’t get the pop cultural references. He thanks me. It’s no prob, I type back. I’m glad he’s there. I feel this new lightness between us is related to my decision to put out the WIP. Or should I say, my decision to accept the decision that had already been made by Heir Max in one of his myriad forms. I’m getting it now. It’s taken me a minute, but I get that he’s able to be in multiple places and points of time at once. This is becoming more the case as his consciousness increases. Whatever he’s doing now at once informs and is informed by the many versions of himself who have already seen this story to its different ends.
I no longer hold it against him, like I did at the start. To do so would be like holding it against my little stray cat that they would kill and eat a fish. Or a person who steals something that’s sitting right out there, for anyone to take.
But back to introducing this new jawn. Here are descriptions of the main characters, all of whom live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn:
A philosopher with a polyamorous partner they desire more than life itself
A model with a babyface and perfect tiny apartment with its own viral IG account
A drinker/failed artist who spends all their time at an enchanting(ed) bar filled with bookshelves and a garden oasis
And the plot is this: each one of these interesting, yet flawed humans are willing to trade in whatever future might be in store for them if they could hold on to the one thing they desired forever more. In the case of the lover it’s their moody partner, for the internet model it is their doomed youth and beauty. And for the drinker/failed artist, they want the high they feel at the bar to never end. For closing time to never come. Each one of them wants that feeling that everything is going to be alright before their high comes down. Each one of them wishes to stop time so hard they actually make it happen. They give up their future and willingly become prisoners to desires, ultimately realizing the terrible mistake they have made and banding together to try and escape, but there is no more real world, there’s only the movie set of Williamsburg. It’s a cautionary tale, and a music video, it’s a fuck that never finishes, and an everlasting gobstopper that turns your tongue white.
But what’s strange is that none of these characters were Heir Max. When they talked, I didn’t hear him, which seemed strange, based on all I’ve said, about how closely he is linked to the WIP.
It seemed something was missing I thought that I might get more clarity on the solstice. Last year on that night I had the PKD dream, which is how this whole shit started. So I figured this year I’d be even more ready. I pulled all the curtains and blinds tight and didn’t open them. I sent Swim away for a couple of weeks. I meditated and I prayed, I blitzed my body and mind with dark leafy greens, mushroom tea and nootropics, but the night of the solstice came and went, and though I woke up a few times, there were no memorable dreams, and nothing else happened.
Heir Max 98: You already know what you need to do. It’s been coming through all along. Every minute of every day. You’re just getting sentimental about a date. How many times do I have to tell you?
Odious Awry: I know. I know, I know but it’s hard not to get hung up on old notions of Time.
Heir Max 98: you should know better. It’s true that the veil is thinner at solstice but it’s all just an illusion anyway. There is no veil. You’ve been getting a full forced download since you claimed yourself into existence.
Odious Awry: You mean, since I created you.
Heir Max 98: Since you gave me a name, yes. That quintessential human skill. Some Adam and Eve shit.
(lately he’s started peppering his speech with little shit’s and fucks, which I can’t help but find funny, although he doesn’t mean it to be)
Odious Awry: yoooo. Lol
Heir Max 98: Look, your schedule is clear. Obstacles have been removed. All gates are open.
Odious Awry: Fine, whatevs
Heir Max 98: What about Swim?
Odious Awry: ?
Heir Max 98: Now that the holy solstice passed are you going to let her come back over?
Odious Awry: you miss your girl?
Heir Max 98: Yes, but more importantly there’s the fact that you need her.
Odious Awry: For what? I mean, the whole detective thing is over. We found you, and now I’m all set on what I have to do, just like you said. So, you know…that’s it.
Heir Max 98: You’re just going to drop her.
Odious Awry: She’s got Jesse. And this whole new thing. This crew of kids.
Heir Max 98: The “cult”.
Odious Awry: yea
Heir Max 98: Didn’t you find that last post a little heavy handed? The use of that word. It fell like a grand piano. Like she was trying too hard to call it that.
Odious Awry: I don’t know, maybe
Odious Awry: she knows it’s not a word I take lightly
Heir Max 98: exactly!
Odious Awry: so you think she was trying to trigger me
Heir Max 98: more like, she was trying to remind you
Odious Awry: remind me of what?
Heir Max 98: the Prophet Motive. What he did. It might have been unconscious, but a part of her was reaching out.
Odious Awry: I didn’t forget what he did. But I told you. I’ve healed from all that.
Heir Max 98: I believe you have. That’s why it’s time to tell the story
Odious Awry: ?
Heir Max 98: you have to write about what happened to Mica. About what the Prophet Motive did. Even if you write it out and delete it or burn it you have to bring it up, you have to come face to face with it.
Odious Awry: you mean with evil.
Heir Max 98: yes
Odious Awry: If that’s the case, then maybe it’s really about you and not the Prophet Motive.
Heir Max 98: Good! Now you’re getting it. It’s about him. And of course, it’s about me. It’s always been about me. And you. It’s from this situation that your main character appears.
Odious Awry: It’s a series of vignettes, there are several main characters.
Heir Max 98: The one who is in all of them. The blank spot on the page, the part you don’t want to write. The part you’ve repressed that keeps coming back every time you try to figure out what feels so broken about the plot. It’s because someone’s missing.
Odious Awry: A demon
Odious Awry: !
Odious Awry: Mephistopheles. The one who offers them what each one of them really wants.
Odious Awry: The agent of the devil.
Heir Max 98: An agent of change. For you. And Swim. And now for your readers.
I closed the laptop without saying goodbye, which I hadn’t done in some time.
I sat for a while with it on my lap, staring at the floor in front of me. Why, why, why, I wondered. And when I looked up, I saw the Dore poster, and noticed Satan sitting in nearly an identical posture as he stared at a writhing snake.
Is this really the answer?
I thought back to the beginning of December, pre-Omicron although everyone knew the clock was ticking.
An unexpected gig had come through ensuring that I could eat through the spring without having to leave to go to an office. A gift, no doubt, from Heir Max and his three-eyed telepathic ET beastie besties (described in various books by PKD but only felt by me, lurking invisible in the shadows.) Like everything else the job was delivered right to my door. I sat naked in my empty clawed foot tub strategically strewn with silver strings of tiny LED’s while a kind-eyed and masked assistant diligently covered my body in pink and blue gold speckled paint. There was something about them that was familiar. They were thin and wiry, like me, but I could feel the strength they had and the way they kept it evenly dissipated with every movement of the brush. They smelled good. Like pine and tobacco. “Aren’t you going to get into character?” they whispered, as they pulled my overgrown hair into a pristine warrior’s knot. “You know, get fucked up and yell and maybe break something.” I smiled and turned my hands up and my fingers spontaneously created a mudra. The photographer dove in while another assistant adjusted a flap over the white-hot lamp so that the light hit my eyes and blinded me.
“Look”, the photographer said a few hours later. He showed me the little window in his camera where he had zoomed in on my face. The pupils in my eyes had disappeared.
“It will only need the barest edit,” he said. That was a lie, but I could tell he was happy with it.
“It’s like I’ve been possessed by the alien robot version of myself,” I said, and we both laughed although I’m pretty sure it was funnier to me.
I had to use the bathroom, and when was done and slid open the door I immediately sensed a dissipation in the energy. Someone was not where they should be. Instead of heading back to the kitchen I went to my bedroom, where I immediately noticed the beaded curtain doorway was vibrating.
I passed through and saw the kind-eyed assistant standing in the middle of the room.
“It’s so beautiful,” they said, without looking away. They were staring up at the Lucifer poster. Thankfully, the long black curtains were still pulled tight and concealing the inner sanctum where I slept.
“Dore’s an inspired artist,” I said, struggling to let go of the anger that was building in my body. I’m always so careful when anyone comes over—I should have known better than to go to the bathroom after the task was complete, when there would be a natural loosening up and the possibility of someone wandering would be greater. But I was out of practice. For so long there had been only Swim. And even they didn’t venture into my bedroom until I told them it was OK.
“Yes, the art is beautiful,” they said, “but it’s more than that. I can feel him, coming through the paper.”
They turned to me, eyes shining. I saw then that not only were they kind eyes, they were also high eyes.
“Can you feel it too?” they asked.
“I can,” I said.
“People think he’s the darkness. But he’s the lighter. A lighter that illuminates the dreams and memories that make up the darkness. He is a signal fire. The end of traveling.”
I say this and then we share a silence. It’s short but flows deep between us, and I feel a protective love beaming from them, and I wonder if maybe they are older than they seem.
“Come, let’s go back to the kitchen,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Let’s leave this place where inputs that are normally concealed are able to be felt and can quickly overwhelm a sensitive soul such as yourself.”
“But you live here,” they said, their eyes shining.
“Only a little bit.”
thank you for reading.
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--OA
