Nu-Metal Rural Revival Preview

I was cruising around Iowa, listening to the album Iowa by Slipknot. Twenty four years had passed since its release, and though I preferred Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat., the tracks took me back to the year the towers fell. I wondered what music would be the soundtrack to the next American disaster. As the Hyundai Sonata parked up at some traffic lights and I was on my second play of the album, there was a knock at my window. I look over. There's a teenage girl there.

“You listening to Slipknot?” she yells. I nod and she throws the devil horns hand sign and sticks her tongue out.

“You like them?” I yell back, refusing to turn the music down.

“Yeah! They inspired me to start playing!” she says, motioning to the guitar case on her back. The traffic lights turn green. But before I drive away, I start getting an idea.

Ten minutes later we’re at a diner, talking excitedly about music. Everything from rock to metal to sludge, Shannon knew her stuff.

“You thought about putting a band together?” I say.

“I tried, but round here nobody likes the music I do.”

“Look. I was in a group once, we were called The Boys. I learned about the music industry, but I always wanted to start a nu-metal band. I think we should team up, what do you say?”

“Goated.” She says. We shake hands.

 

A couple of hours later we are sat in a disused garage, auditioning band members that have queued round the block. There’s a few amusing characters, such as a dork that plays the keyboard, a big woman who sings opera and a guy with a dog that rolls a drum around on the floor. As the auditions go on we get exasperated, I hit myself in the head with a clipboard. It had seemed the whole exercise was futile. And then, some other teenage girls arrive. One plays the bass in such a funky, elaborate way that I start nodding my head. There’s another that plays a 180bpm Amen Break that has Shannon and me dancing on the table. And last, but not least, there comes a nerdy girl with glasses and pigtails. Shannon rolls her eyes and I check my watch.

“What’s your name?” I say. She mumbles something. Shannon and I look at each other as if to say ‘oh boy’, but then she repeats herself.

“Magdalena Cruffin. I’m a singer.” She says.

“Go ahead.” Says Shannon, checking her clipboard. This was the last audition of the day. We’re muttering to each other when Magdalena starts singing an acapella version of Freak On A Leash. Her voice has such power and raw emotion that we are floored.

“I think we found ourselves the lead singer.” I say, raising my eyebrows.

 

Later I have arranged the new band together at Shannon’s house. Her mother keeps bringing in bowls of snacks. At first she was a bit wary of a middle-aged guy wearing a mask of a normal man hanging out with her daughter, but after I explained to her what we were doing, she seemed to get on-board.

“We’re going to start a band. It’s called New Metal.”

“Awesome.” She says. “I always knew my little girl was a rocker! Uh-huh-huh-huh” she goes, impersonating Elvis. Shannon rolls her eyes.

“Mom! That’s so cringe.” She says. I throw a plastic bag onto the table.

“I got you all a present.” I say, watching their reactions. At first there is confusion, then delight. I had got them all scary Halloween masks to wear.

 

We have our first practice session in the garage, and to tell the truth, I was a bit concerned. Individually they had a lot of skill, but when they played together, it sounded awful.

“Stop, stop, stop. Jubi, you’re the drummer, you need to keep time for everyone else. Larana, quit playing those solos. Mags, you’re great. Shannon…uh…how can I put this. You need to get better.” I say. Shannon huffs.

“I can’t see what I’m playing with this stupid mask on.” She says, jabbing at the Pumpkin-head mask around her head.

“You don’t need to see. You need to feel. You’re making music, not baking a cake.” I say. We’re about to keep arguing but her mother rushes in.

“It’s your dad. He’s had a heart attack! And a stroke!”

 

Half an hour later we’re all gathered around the hospital bed, with Shannon clutching at her father’s hand.

“We’re keeping him in a medically-induced coma.” Explains the nurse. Shannon brushes her father’s moustache. Her mother is talking to a doctor outside, the conversation seems stressful. I look round at the rest of the band, everyone except Shannon were still wearing masks. I go outside and talk to Shannon’s mother.

“The medical insurance says they can’t afford to wake him from the coma. What should I do?” she says, crying. I hug her. Then out of the corner of my eye I see a poster. Its advertising a Battle Of The Bands, the top prize is $50,000.

“I got an idea.” I say.

 

That evening we’re backstage at the Battle Of The Bands. There are other acts here, a man with an iguana on his shoulder plays a lute, there’s some twins that are carrying a harp around. On stage I find out Shannon’s ex-boyfriend is the lead singer of a pop-punk band and the audience seem to love it.

“You guys are up next.” Says the stage manager.

“Okay you guys, get ready. Wait a minute…where’s Magdalena?” I say.

“I saw her go out back.” Jubi says. I run out of the back of the event hall and find the lead singer on the floor. Theres drugs all over the place. The rest of New Metal find us as I try and shake Magdalena by the shoulders, as that sometimes seemed to wake unconscious people.

“She’s OD’ing.” I say to the others.

“No!” they cry, kneeling down.

“Hang on, I have a trick Kid Rock's roadie once showed me.” I say, finding a syringe on the floor and sticking it in my side

“What are you doing!?” Shannon says.

“The adrenal glands are just on top of the kidneys. This should sort her out. Step back everyone…” I say, wincing as I suck out pure adrenaline from my body and hold it over Magdalena’s heart. I look around, raise my arm up and stab down as hard as I can. Magdalena sits bolt upright, gasping for air.

“Mags you idiot! We thought we lost you!”

“I just needed something to take the edge off. I’m sorry.” She says as her band mates hug her.

“Are you guys ready or what?” says the stage manager, appearing at the fire exit. I turn to her.

“Oh we’re ready alright. C’mon girls, let’s show them what we can do.” I say.

 

The stage lights dim. The crowd goes quiet. There’s anticipation. Then the music starts playing. A spotlight shines on Magdalena, wearing a Werewolf mask.

“Here we go again motherfucker!” she screams into the microphone. The band then play the unofficial anthem of Iowa, People=Shit. The crowd goes wild. As they play, I watch from the side of the stage and a little bald guy comes up to me.

“Hey, I’m Jimmy Iovine, owner of Interscope Records.”

“So?” I say.

“Are you the bands manager?”

“Get the fuck outta here Jimmy. Our music isn’t for sale.” I sneer at him. Meanwhile the band finish the track and the crowd screams and claps. The three judges at the front of the stage all hold up the number 10. The band can’t believe it. Corey Taylor comes out to present them with a cheque for $50,000. I’ve organised it so the hospital has brought Shannon’s dad on stage, where they bring him out of the coma. He sits up, looks around and blinks a few times.

“What did I miss?” he says. Everyone starts laughing.

 

Its close to midnight as I’m packing some stuff into the back of my Hyundai.

“We were going to go celebrate. You coming?” says Shannon.

“Ah, I got to hit the road.” I say. The rest of New Metal gather round.

“You can’t leave! We’re just getting started!”

“When I got to town this morning, I thought to myself, I wonder what the future of music is. But now I know I’m looking at it. You did well, you should be proud of yourselves.” I say. The bandmates all look to one another, feeling uplifted. Though they were a rag-tag bunch of underdogs, somehow they managed to come together through the power of music. Just as I’m getting into my car, Jubi grabs my arm.

“Where are you going? At least join us for Prime and Nachos.” She says.

“Ah, the open road is calling me. There’s other teenagers out there that also need to start playing music together and win Battle Of The Bands contests. And the only way you can win is if a middle-aged man sees their potential and fills them with confidence whilst overcoming his own past.” I explain.

“Oh.”

“But before I go, I got you all a present.” I say, a smile on my lips. I reach into the backseat and hand them a gift I’ve (badly) wrapped in newspaper. “See you later, New Metal.” I say, flipping the devil horns as I drive away, leaving the band standing in the middle of the street, unwrapping the gift. It’s a black and white framed photo of my rap group, with a message signed in gold pen.

‘We all got left behind, we let it all slip away’ it reads. They cry, watching the rear lights of the Hyundai Sonata drive away into the night and out of their lives.

Working For A Living

I walked through the office and nodded at a few people I recognised. The taste of sleep still rested in the cleft of my gums, where the face meets the skull, and the coffee wasn't washing it away. I finally got to a door and went into my office, a lone desk by the window with a computer and chair. A large metal cabinet painted in red was against one of the walls. After turning on my computer I then begin the actual work of pretending.

For a few hours I sit and stare at the screen, doing completely nothing. Sometimes falling in and out of sleep, I could hear the office sounds around me. Telephones, shoes on cheap carpet, the hum of fluorescent lights, the occasional sneeze or cough, the barking of laughter. Now and then people pass my office door although nobody ever comes in. Once it reaches twelve I go for lunch, walking through the office corridors reading printed out spreadsheets, tiny on A4 paper. I stand in the kitchen and make brief conversation with others who happen to be there, before doing a lap of the buildings exterior. Eight hundred feet high, a mirror of the sky. I eat a packet of crisps behind some trees before heading back in. I pause at the end of the corridor. My office door was open. I walked towards it, checking my lapels for grains of salt before entering.
"Hello." I said, walking past two men and sitting back at my desk.
"Hiya. I hope you don't think me rude for asking, but who are you?" said the older of the two. I introduce myself.
"I don't think we've met. Who's your manager?"
"I wouldn't say I have a direct line manager per se." I say, wiggling the mouse to get rid of the screensaver.
"Percy?"
"Per se. As in, as is. I think anyway. You haven't heard that?"
"What is it you do here?"
"Most of my time is taken up by a side project. Excuse me, but I don't think you introduced yourself. Who's your manager?" I say, turning back towards them.
"I'm the head of HR. And I haven't heard from you. So I'm asking you again, who are you?"
"I said who I am. Who's this?" I say, nodding at a young lad in a tight suit.
"I'm Adam, the new social media manager. I'm confused, I thought this was my office?" he said to the head of HR.
"It is. Do you mind stepping out a moment?" he said. Adam leaves. The head of HR and I stare, fantasising about both being killed by and killing each other.
"I don't remember hiring you."
"I started about four months ago. Colin showed me around."
"Colin left four months ago."
"I wondered why I hadn't seen him."
"So what is it you've been doing?"
"I was given some photocopying to do." I say, nodding at a pile of neatly stacked papers.
"Then what? Why didn't you ask someone what to do?"
"No. Why would I?"
"Because you work here! You turn up here on your agreed hours and do whatever is required of you. What's your actual job title?"
"Assistant." I said.
"Come with me please." said the head of HR. I paused, weighing up the situation. Imagining potential endings to various strings of action, some ridiculous, others mundane. I got up and followed the head of HR towards the door before waiting for him to leave and then shutting it behind him. Lunging across the office I grab the edge of my desk and throw it back into the door, putting a large dint in the wood panelling. The head of HR and Adam both begin to rattle the handle of the door before there are murmurs.
"Open the door please." comes a muffled voice. Quickly I open the door of the cabinet and make some adjustments to its contents before closing and locking it. I swallow the key and walk towards the window. It had been painted shut, abandoned cobwebs spread like old ice across the sill. Placing both palms on the glass I begin to push, spreading the weight of my body across wide fingers. Sometimes an old window would just pop out. The head of HR meanwhile had managed to push the door open wide enough to reach a bare arm through it, it was quite odd. I took one of my shoes off and was about to hit the window with it when I felt him grip me around the waist, dragging me down towards the floor. The smell of Joop was overpowering as we wrestled on the carpet, pulling at each others clothes and quietly grunting.

Before long Adam and a security guard had arrived. The head of HR had overpowered me and I had my hands bound behind the back of my office chair.
"You captured him!" said Adam with glee.
"I'd like to let everyone know this is wrongful imprisonment and you should let me go immediately." I said.
"You're under citizens arrest for...posing as an employee at a private company."
"I am an employee though. I've just not done anything for months."
"He's right sir, I'm afraid he hasn't broken any laws technically speaking." said the security guard.
"What about vandalism? He broke that door!" shouted the head of HR.
"I was defending myself against false imprisonment and I failed. There's no need to make me feel bad about it as well."
"Let me untie you." said Adam.
"You'll do no such thing until he explains what's in this cabinet." said the head of HR, armpits damp with sweat that must have brushed cold against his underarms as he slapped the aluminium.
"My personal things are in there."
"It's company policy to allow us at any time to search through your belongings under suspicious circumstances."
"Is it?" said Adam.
"I swallowed the key."
"Darren, do we have any bolt cutters?" said the head of HR.
"I think we might." said the security guard called Darren.
"Fetch them up here will you." he said.

The three of us had been listening to each other breathe for ten minutes before Darren reappeared. Darren glided across the ribbed carpet before resting the teeth of the bolt cutters around the padlock. Although I'd been untied I remained sat in the chair and watched as the broken lock fell to the floor.
"Open it." said the head of HR. Darren nodded and swung open both doors. Inside the cabinet was a wall of soil kept in place with a series of planks that resembled the Slavonic cross. On the inside of the cabinet doors I had made many notes in my beautiful handwriting, along with diagrams. There was a true silence as they looked upon the things. Finally;
"What is it?"
"It is a diagram involving the infinity found inside pi, which in itself is found in all circles, both a positive and a negative infinite. The circle itself occurs in nature repeatedly, from a cell to a star. If seen at the right perspective a cell would eclipse a star. And in all of infinite is all of everything. All of the things possibly said, every molecule of DNA ever coded, every image that could be seen. All." I said, pointing at my notes.
"And the soil?" said the head of HR. I walk forward and pull at the central plank, causing an avalanche of blackness to flood the small office space along with a rotting pig.
"It is a grave." I said, picking up the carcass and looking at it, face to face. The skin had turned a bruised yellow and had begun to harden, shrinking tighter to the bone in some areas and bloating out in others. Worms festered in it's ears. I left the room and begin to walk through the corridors, carrying the pig. People were awed at the foul march as I made my way through every single office, the death stench hanging heavy in the air. Parts of the corpse had begun to fall off or leave big patches of rotten slime across my work clothes. An alarm wailed as I made my way out of a fire exit and across the car park. I carefully placed the thing in the back seat of my car and slowly drove away. In the rear mirror the office fades from view, around a corner, behind a tree. The traffic ahead swallows me into it. Summer is almost here.

The Wayne Factor

In the beginning of the 20th century Sigmund Freud proposed a theory in which a man would subconsciously want to kill his father and have sex with his mother. This was called the Oedipus Complex, named after the famous myth of Oedipus Rex, and was a cornerstone of psychoanalysis and, in turn, a building block that makes up contemporary society as informed through pop culture. I believe that we have entered a new paradigm, that in which a man wants to both be Batman whilst having his father as Batman. This is called the Wayne Factor.

The Wayne Factor is a more concentrated idea of Freud’s in that it examines the particular personalities of people who divulge in media starring Batman. It is estimated roughly 95% of the American population know who Batman is. Unlike Jesus or even Father Christmas, Batman transcends cultural and theological borders. Part of Batman’s success is in his name. Without even seeing him, you can image a man that is, at least in some way, like a bat and it is this whimsical image that makes him well known. With billions spent on superhero films every year, Batman is perhaps the most popular with Joe Q. Public who prefers his humanity moreso than that of the Ubermensch from Krypton, Superman. Iron Man and Captain America are both human and therefore popular, and so far it appears as though the superhero films contain relatively little superpowers when compared to their comic book counterparts. Instead they are films about men struggling for identity and deciding on becoming a hero, and exploring that theme ad nauseum. Yet who can really say they identify with either being a hero or wanting to be heroic? It is less the concept of what heroism means to the modern man than it is that these heroes can be idolised as potential saviours for those that need it. This anxiety stems from wanting to be rescued by one of your parents as a child and them failing you, which is one of the first steps in separating the concept of a parent from the person that is your parent. The conceptual parent then becomes an idol in which faith is applied to, which is common in religious people. I suspect religion itself came about due to the strong biological link between parent and child brought about by the helplessness of newborns compared to that of almost every other animal on the planet. In the life of an adult a child is a novelty, although to a child the parent is godlike. If a parent should fail their child, the child will then seek a new figure. For thousands of years this desire was manifest in a pantheon of gods. Now it has become Batman.

Consider Batman. Upon the death of both parents, billionaire Bruce Wayne trains all of his life and dons an animimal costume in order to fight criminals from a working class background. It is the costume itself that makes Batman who he is. This costume or ‘bat-persona’ is in order to mask the true identity of the wearer and so, by becoming anonymous, allows the potential in which Batman could be anyone. Fans of Batman often like to imagine themselves as Batman, perched on a tall building dressed in a cape, their muscular bodies protected against the battering rain by a second skin of body armour. At the same time they may imagine themselves victims of crimes and Batman arrives to save them. In the phantasy of the films this is Batman’s most useful skill, his ability to save people and in doing so he becomes a paragon of masculinity. If we consider a few attributes that we would consider masculine, such as physical strength, emotional resilience, fecundity and so on we can also see that these are attributes desirable for a father. It is the parental attributes of Batman that people probably find most appealing, hence his popularity amongst those who have difficult relationships with their own fathers. They love nothing more than settling into a folding-down seat with a box of popcorn, watching Batman loom over them in glorious 3D for hours at a time, trying to ignore the desperate need to be loved by an older man.

This brings us to the psychosexual elements of Batman. It is a common idea that Batman is a gay man, having sex with Robin at regular intervals in the batcave. Why not? I feel as though the idea of Batman being gay is so intrinsically tied to the metanarrative of Batman that this leads to a simple conclusion. The Wayne Factor of a person shows their inclination to desire sexual intercourse with their father whilst also being their own father, in order to have sexual intercourse with their mother. Also that during these acts, both parents are dead. The incestuous love triangle is complete and in the centre is Batman,
slowly rotating,
face hidden in the shadows,
his body pulses.

Horror Of Creek Mansion

It was a dark and stormy night when I arrived at Creek Mansion. The rain came down heavy on the car windscreen, the wipers sliced sights upward of the house I was to stay in that night. The billion dollar home stuffed with the latest technology was built on top of a hill overlooking the Yorkshire dales, isolated from the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life. Yet as I got out of the car and walked through the rain, I couldn't help but miss certain amenities living in a city offered. Strange things happened in the countryside. Things not reported on mainstream news, things that bore no witness. I took an envelope out of my pocket and ripped the top open. A plastic key-card lay in the cleft of the paper, I took it out and examined the design on the card. Every large electronics company had a secret division working on experimental prototypes, theoretical products that the public wouldn't necessarily yet want but was worth preparing for. The house I entered was part of one such programme, the Home of the Future. And I was to stay one night there.

The lights came on as I entered the front door, giving me my first glimpse inside. A sweeping marble staircase ran along one wall, drawing the eye to the elaborate plaster covings all around the ceiling, lit in a thousand reflections cast from a chandelier. Several corridors went off in various directions, the dark wooden floors leading off into the shadows. I removed my coat and placed it on a hat-stand by the door.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is there anyone there?"
There was no response. I walked across the huge Persian rug and through a hallway in front of me. I notice small black orbs in the ceiling. Cameras watched me. I pick the door nearest to me and turn the handle.
"Hello?" I say. Each wall switches on, bathing everything in a soft glow. A window unfolds and gives me a view of outside along with a large clock. Small projectors are stood at the foot of each of the huge, white walls. The only furniture in the room is a large red leather chair, a side-table and a bottle of red wine. A rotating circle appears on one wall dotted with symbols. I look away but find that the circle follows me. As if it is shining out of my eyes. A lot of the icons are similar to the ones I had on my phone, although there were just as many I didn't recognise. The minimalist designs were hard to decode, somewhere between hieroglyphics and Hangul. I reached out towards one.
~Welcome.~
"Hello. Can you hear me?"
~Yes.~
"Who are you?"
~i am the house computer.~ flashed the text. That made sense, in the future even computers would live in houses.
"I'm staying here tonight. Where can I put my bags?" I said, looking back towards the door. The lights had gone off outside.
~in your room.~
"And where is that?" With this, a 3D map appeared on one wall, showing a flashing red dot in a room upstairs.

The house was entirely silent as I made my way up the stairs and along the first floor mezzanine. A door at the end of the hallway was open. Things were moving. The walls seemed to bleed light across my vision like jets of ectoplasm, causing me to blink and jerk my head at the disturbance. I entered the room I was staying in, looking out of the window. Tree branches whipped backward and forward in the wind like waves of insect legs. I took out my dictaphone to call myself in the future. "I have arrived at the home of the future. There's a sort of crackling noise. It also doesn't smell of anything." I note.

I began to pace the corridors of the house, bursting my way into the various empty rooms lit by energy saving lightbulbs. The whole house appeared dim and almost sepia toned, the colours dripping in on themselves as I made my way round the maze like structure around me before arriving back at the main foyer. I was alone, yet knew that the internet of things made this a veritable wasps nest of wi-fi activity. The walls were thinking. I was inside a computer, an electric brain. I saw a silhouette in the darkness, which gave me pause. I watched at it dissolved in a cascade of entopic cells. Was my mind rotting or had I just seen a ghost? And in so seeing a ghost proving to myself that there was an afterlife, in which case I should spend as much time as possible with the ghosts in order to see what they're like? Why is it they spook people? Can't we work together in a metempsychotic utopia? I went back into the room with the chair and poured myself a glass of red wine.
"Computer...have you ever seen a ghost?" I ask.
~No.~
"Show me videos of actual ghosts on youtube, please." Against one corner several squares were clustered, each showing a silent video of ghost sightings. I raised my arm in the arm and selected several of the videos before flicking them out across the walls.
"Maximise." I said, pointing at one clip and throwing it to the centre of my view. It was of an empty room at night. Using a mixture of sign language and hand miming I paused the video, unrolled it like a piece of film and cut out a specific section towards the end in which a mysterious figure appears beneath the duvet. I mime using a magnifying glass.
"Where are you?" I scanned each frame individually before stopping. I could see an evil face peeking out from the side of the bed nearest the wall. Proof of paranormal activity.
"Computer, e-mail this to all of the newspapers with the title; Proof of ghouls. FAO Editor." I said, drinking the fortified wine. And so this went on for several hours, the wine bottle becoming emptier, my clothing being shed gradually so that I emerged from the cotton cocoon into full nudity. If I should be attacked by any being, actual or imaginary, it was best to be like Beowulf.

After a time I decided to go into the kitchen to make myself a midnight snack of booze.
"Kitchen, do we have any fruits?" I ask. The fridge lights up to show a video of the inside of the fridge. It is empty.
~Would you like me to order some food?~ came a voice.
"Sure. Order me a variety of fruit please." I say. A phone sprouts small wheels and drives itself towards me, flips itself over and shows the number for a local fruit delivery guy. Twelve pieces of fruit for ten hard earned bitcoins, what could go wrong? I picked up the phone and began to dial when a strange goo began to pour out of the receiver.
"That's strange." I remarked to myself. A sinister giggle happened behind me, causing me to turn. Nothing there. When I looked back at the phone in my hand I could see it had turned into a humanoid figure made out of an orange. I began to peel but dropped it when it began to bleed. The orange-man began to crawl away from me but I took the piece of peel and ripped it back, revealing an inner skeleton and nervous system made from pith.
"Kitchen, what's that supposed to be?" I said, picking up the orange-man.
~I tried to print you an orange using nearby matter.~
"What's this then?"
~50% man, 50% orange.~ came the metallic response.
"Where did you find the orange?" I asked. No sooner had I said it an orange bumped against my foot. It must have rolled across the floor towards me from beneath one of the cupboards. I knelt down on the cold floor and peered in the shadows.
"Do you have any grapes?" I asked. I could see for a moment the grinning face of a corpse, it opened its eyes and slime began to pour out. I reached under the cabinet for it and yanked it out by the neck, it had the consistency of wet cobwebs.
"Beware...beware..." it murmured, voice sounding as though it was gargling soup. I'd seen a few ghosts in my time, but never any ones that gave me fruit.
"What's the big deal? Where did you get that orange from?" I asked, laying the dead thing by the sink and washing some of the mud off it in the sink.
"Don't...don't go into the cellar..." it whispered.
"Why?"
"You'll die..." it whispered. I laughed at it, picking it up again and putting it in the fridge.
"I think you need to chill out ghost. What if I'm already dead? I should get to the bottom of this mystery."

I walked down the hall, knocking on the wall as I went. I'd found it, a hollow sound. There was a door that had been boarded up, probably when the computer systems had been integrated into the house. After looking around for a bit I found a knife and began to stab at the wall.
~What are you doing?~ said the computer from the observation room.
"Looking for ghosts or something."
~You shouldn't go down there.~
"Yes." I said. I kept stabbing and slashing at the wall until I'd made a hole big enough for my arm, I reached in and began to tear the panels back.
~Stop.~
"What will you do if I don't?" I said. There was no response. Suddenly all the lights went off. I could tell the air conditioning was a bit cold.
~I'll undo all your reviews on Netflix.~ said the computer.
"Do it. I keep a paper version anyway. Analogue, baby." I said, turning around and smiling over my shoulder at one of the ceiling cameras. With a final push I managed to make a hole just big enough for my body to fit through. The steps leading down to the cellar were cold against my feet. If I put my hand out in front of me I couldn't see anything.
"Hello? Is there anybody down here?" I shouted. After fumbling my way through the darkness for a while I finally found a lightswitch and flicked it on. Blinking in the abject brightness momentarily I then saw something that made me stop. My eyes were afixed to it.
"Oh..." I said quietly. My hand went back to the light switch and turned it off and I began to walk back upstairs, the hair on my neck standing up. I sat back in the silent observation room eating an orange. I hadn't blinked for hours, simply staring off into the distance. The thing in the cellar had etched itself onto my very soul. A horror.

Entering Deep Simulation

E-cigarettes
Social media
Body-building
Microwaves
Porn
Travelling
Video games
Make-up
Sport
Are all simulations of the intended act, made antiseptic and cyber. We are entering an apocalyptic society in which technology begins to invade not just our minds but our bodies. The world vibrates at a certain frequency as it tries to attain balance. The search for authenticity leads to a simulated version which becomes the subject rather than itself. A thing is reduced by being recorded, quantified, replicated. A video of a storm is not a storm, yet the person recording it was experiencing it behind a camera. What is in front of the camera becomes cinematic, there is a theatricality in the image. People nowadays walk around with a computer in front of them, ordering burgers to their pet dog whilst quitting work to go on a Call of Duty binge. I can shout to my phone and it sprouts small wheels and drives itself to me. In the film The Matrix it was thought denizens would be imprisoned in virtual reality pods with their butts hanging out. In the future reality will become more virtual, there will be no real world to escape to as technology will have replicated everything.

There is no imagination, just reference. Many critics throw this bone out once in a while, although they don’t understand that an Egyptian Pharaoh wouldn’t have been able to imagine being a heroin addict living in New York city. Therefore the original will always exist in the future. If time travel existed we could go into the future, copy some CD’s and bring them back. Can you guess what the number one song in the year 3589 is? Probably some grindcore.

In the video game the sims you play out the lives of actual human beings in abstract potentials. But whose to say all of this isn’t controlled by a mad robot? This questions the nature of reality and in doing so we realise it really is a moot point only the worst pragmatist would lazily bring up. The nature of reality itself is unimportant. Whether we are a brain in a jar, the dream of an elephant, the game of a god or any combination of the three. What scientists do know is that the skein of reality is malleable, similar to lava or perhaps magma. Through inventions like the internet or hypderdrives we can explore the alternate dimensions that exist on another planet. How about a world in which everything is legal? What about a world without poverty? Can you ever imagine that happening in this dimension bub?

To bring this essay to a close I’d like to share some thoughts with you.

Sand is like time, without nature involved we don’t know what to make of it.
Yonic symbolism is strongly lacking in our culture.
Think of life like a bubble floating in the air. When it pops aren’t we just one of the cosmos?
Quantum Physics has proved that we are watched by particles. Why?
There is an unbroken chain of parent and child that links you to a fish.
Magic is real…if you believe in yourself.
Sometimes there’s no such thing as coincidence. This is the uncertainty equation.
It’s fear that gives men wings.
If you sharpen a pencil until there is nothing left, is the shavings a pencil?

Gym Membership

In the nineties it was rare to see a jogger. Nowadays exactly half of the people you see on the street is running around dressed in the finest cotton wanking outfits, ipad strapped to the chest, nose full of nitrous oxide. It is more common to see a beefcake whilst out on the lurch than ever before. People love exercising. But in the future knee problems will wash over the populace, so no problem! Titanium joints delivering a heavy metal buzz stone. I switched from smoking tobacco to weed, now I'm a genius. Personally I do 30 rep HIIT exercises running from the 5-0 24-7/C://jttps:www.sandras.com

Weights that contain energy. Bikes that contain energy. Yoga balls that contain energy. If everything is made out of energy and the laws of thermodynamics state the eventual destiny for everything is heat death does that mean the soul lives on? To what end, running an electroencephalogram on the intestines in order to read the waves from neural activity in the gut and comparing them to the waves in the brain. Synchronicity. Otherness affected by diet. Increase in supposed paranoia via feelings of depersonalisation caused by foods with fake sugar in them.

I have deeply studied the rigmarole of gym exercise and have concluded it is an extremely highly fetishized masturbatory zone in which one can view an array of human material whilst exercising ones body to the point of pain. The muscle men of today will be the toothless geezers tomorrow, clutching at your ankle and laughing from the drain. Children on steroids ripping off the heads of flowers. 'Power' bicycles weighing ninety kilos speed through imaginary bike lanes, slicing in half electric cars and vaporizing mutants like tron in the dark.

We are living in a gym future. Why isn't the Milky Way an enormous protein shake spilling pearls over the cosmos? The Red Bull breakfast sponsored by Bruce Willis. A ninety degree angle in the form of a piece of metal that is thrust and grunted upon as the projection of sublimation via chemicals in the water supply. Super soldier serum basically.

Yeti

I watch a clockwork ensemble gradually tick over, smiling Hanuman sets fire to a city made of ivory, fireworks pop and smoke in a three dimensional air matrix overhead. It is the winter fete and crowds have gathered around a wide selection of entertainment at Spinningfields Winter Experience. The ice rink is made of real ice. If you bite off the backs of slugs you can see their organs. There is a strong man competition. Gerrard Jones, 35, is one of the contenders and having come all the way from his home town of Earby, he's pretty eager to win. I ask him about his training.
“My method is hard soft.” he says.
“Which one?” I say.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“Is it hard or soft?”
“It's both.”
“Isn't hard and soft together just...normal?” I say.
“It goes hard, then soft. Hard soft.” he says. I thank him with a little bow. We both bow towards the stage then at each other, banging our foreheads. He clutches at his and howls.
“Don't bow at the same time. After one other.” he says. I bow towards him and when I lift my head manage to catch him on the chin. An official runs up to us.
“Are you boys ready for the weight lifting?” he says.
“Yes we are.” says Gerrard. I follow the twenty stone man to the back of the stage.

As Gerrard gets ready I peek through the curtain at the current champion getting ready to lift a block of ice.
“He must be cold.”
“Nevermind that, help me into this thing.” he says, gesturing toward a reindeer costume. He puts on the bottom half first, I help him put the giant cartoon reindeer head on.
“What about the top?” he says. I fetch the top part of the costume and try to pull it over the fake head.
“No, I need to take the head off first.” he says. I ignore him, climb onto a chair and begin to yank at the top of the costume. The chair slips from under me and I am left grabbing onto Gerrard, we stumble backwards and forwards, knocking over a table filled with sports drinks and then fall over.
“You idiot!” he says, voice muffled inside a fake reindeer head inside a fake reindeer torso.
“I'm sorry, I thought it went over your head.” I say. He begins to pull at it.
“It's stuck...help me get it off.” he says. I put a foot on each of his shoulders and begin to pull.
“Stop it...you're...hurting my neck.” he says. I shake my head and look around the backstage. There's a jar of vaseline. I begin to smear it onto the brown fur and around his neck, pushing big clumps of the yellow substance into him. I try again and this time it comes away easily, making me stumble backwards into the official. I wipe my hands on his jacket.
“Gerrard Jones?” he says at the body builder.
“Yes.” he says, face and hair smeared in vaseline. He goes out onto the stage, waves at the crowd then picks up the block of ice. Almost immediately it slips out of his grip and lands on his toe. He howls again, grabs at his toe and begins to start hopping around the stage until falling backwards through a curtain, managing to fall headfirst into the lubricated reindeer torso he had just escaped from. When he gets up he takes a few blind steps forward before stepping on a bottle of lucozade, making him slip out through the backstage and onto the ice rink. He begins to shout and howl as he slides across the rink, trying to pull the reindeer costume off his head. He finally manages to, then screams as he sees the wall ahead of him in which he bangs into at quite a pace. I run after him with some paper towels.
“Did you see that?” I say.
“I saw enough of it. Pass me a towel.” he says.
"I think you lost." I say, patting him on the back.