appdev

So this is the opening to a story I never have finished, despite numerous attempts. But I dunno, I always liked this opening. And I want to post some writing tonight. So here you go.

I think, in times past, people counted the ticking of the clock while they were waiting. Does anyone have clocks that tick anymore? I don't think so. Everything is digital, built into our phones. There’s an app for clock ticking, I suppose. I think the waiting is worse in total silence. Nothing to distract. It might be possible to create a house that's totally silent, but I have my doubts. Doubts about getting the silence, I mean. There's always the hum of electricity. I guess you could not pay your bills and they would cut the electricity off. Then you'd be pretty cold, unless you had a wood stove or a fireplace. Building a fire makes noise, a fire burning makes noise. There is always some complicating factor. There is never true silence.

                I’m rambling.

                I can’t count the ticking of the clock, this apartment is absolutely silent and it really doesn’t matter, I know she is dead. Our four years together are over today. I wasn’t even there when it happened…if it’s happened by now. Jesus, I just don’t know.

                I remember a post a friend of mine made on Facebook, back before all this crap happened and I did things like read Facebook. A dude asked my friend, an avid cineaphile, what he should be prepared for before watching his first Tarkovsky film. My friend told him "deep existential grief." I guess that's pretty much where I'm at now. I used to like Tarkovsky, though I think Bela Tarr had the market cornered on deep existential grief. The heaviness of human existence. Used to, but not now. I don't need films for that now, or music, or any art. The universe is punishing enough.

                Why did it have to be Sequoia?

                I know the answer to that, but I don't want to accept the answer. I suppose that’s one definition of deep existential grief. The universe doesn't give a shit, one way or another. It destroys and creates pays little attention to what it spits out. A million years from now the human species will be dead or evolved into something we can't even recognize. I think I'm pulling for death. Species that unleash shit that we don't understand and then run away don't really deserve to survive.

                It’s too fucking quiet here. I can’t sit still and I can’t move. There’s a bottle of Maker’s on the coffee table in front of me but I don’t even have the stomach for that. Sequoia…she kind of hated that name, you know. She had nothing but derision for her burned-out hippie flake parents. Yet she never changed her name. When I asked her why, she just shrugged and made a comment about it not being worth the trouble. I think there was something deeper there, though, something she would not say. And now I’ll never know what it was. There are lots of things I’ll never know. That’s true of all of us, but when your number is coming up and you no longer have time for any bullshit, you become extra aware. Sharper perceptions. I should dull them with the whiskey.

                Eventually they will miss me at work, and they’ll figure out that I know. Sharpie would miss me right away, but Sharpie is dead. Lucky bastard. He went quick, too—lethal injection of [x]. Sequoia and I dumped the body in Panopticon Lake yesterday. By the time it’s found, it will be irrelevant. The body and us. We may have been followed. It’s hard to know, those fuckers are everywhere.

                Oh Sequoia. I know you must be dead by now, and I should go check to make sure. But I can’t bring myself to do it. They’ll figure it out soon enough, if they haven’t already. They’ll come for me. I don’t know how many, and I can’t hope to take them all out. But I’ll take as many of those fuckers as I can. That’s what the gun on the table is for. I’ve never fired it. But I will. I’m going to go out firing.