Bridge Over Troubled Water

It's not easy, trying to communicate without talking. Kenny and I have exchanged perhaps a dozen words today. I ended up writing most of the messages to him in a notebook. And then I asked him where exactly we were going - and he told me it was to the temporary abode of Lyron.

I then asked him to write it out again, since I was sure the Choir was messing up his note. Because the only Lyron I knew about was a servant to the Fears. Wait, hold on, she's only a "scribe" for the Fears. But let me just quote something from her introduction:

Hello commenters [sic] and let us pray that I never have to meet anyone of you else I might be made to kill you or something... And we all know we don't want that.

Yes, that's right, we're going to the home of a person who might kill us. Frankly, I called Kenny crazy and nearly asked the bus driver to stop so I could get off.

Kenny managed to stop me from doing that. He didn't say anything (because, frankly, I wouldn't and couldn't listen), all he did was look down in subtle resignation. And I knew: he didn't think this was a good idea either. Then why?

He wrote one word in my notebook and made it all clear: information.

He's going there because he wants information on the other Fears. Because once you're in this world, the best chance to survive is to know as much as you can in order to avoid what you can.

So I'm staying. Because I'd like some information, too. And if Lyron does try to kill us, well, I still have a few tricks I haven't revealed on this blog.

So let's do this thing.

See My Friends

Good news: I can sleep in a real bed tonight, care of my traveling companion for the moment.

I had stepped off a bus and was wondering if I should take my chance here at finding a place to sleep or take another bus to another bus stop, when I saw that someone was trying to talk to me. I told him to piss off.

Instead of doing that (as a sensible person would), he instead said something else. And it looked as if he has said the word 'running,' so I finally pulled down my headphones and said, "What?"

"I said, 'Are you running from something?'"

I looked at him. He looked young, maybe nineteen or twenty perhaps. His face was thin, with a faded x-shaped cut on it, and he had brown shaggy hair. The one thing that struck me, however, was that he was holding a wooden staff. And there was only one person I knew who owned a staff, let alone walked around with one: the Wanderer (or Kenny, I guess I should call him).

After our awkward introductions (my fault, I guess, for picking a masculine sounding name), he said that he knew a place where I could stay.

I weighed my options - stay here and possibly sleep in another parking garage or trust another runner and sleep in a real bed? Well, since I'm currently on a bus on the way to the Wanderer's friend's house, you can guess which option I chose.

I'm a little nervous, I'll admit. It's been a while since I've really been around people - stayed around people, that is. I tend to keep in my own little world. I'm not really at being social.

But I can try, if it means sleeping inside, where it's warm.

I Don't Like Mondays

Tried to sleep in a parking garage again. Was chased away by security (why was security working this late? fuck if I know). Need to find a place with a real bed where I can get some real sleep.

I miss listening to songs. Mouthing along to the words. "The silicon chip inside her head was switched to overload. And nobody's going to go to school today, she's going to make them stay at home..."

Can't listen to them anymore. Tried before. Every song becomes different, twisted. No matter how far away I go, it's all the same. All the words become poison, dripping into my ear. So I stopped listening.

No more music. No more songs.

Just noise.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Ended up sleeping in a parking garage. Not the most dignified place to go to sleep, but it'll do for now. I might be able to line up some other places to go, places that have actual beds.

Since I couldn't find an outlet for my iPod, I've switched to the Walkman. It's strange, listening to something that's now an antique. I don't actually remember when Walkmen were popular, but they must have been sometime. The idea of people being amazed about carrying a few songs in the palm of their hand is strange, considering we can now hold thousands of songs in something smaller.

Is that what we'll become? Does time just leave us behind, like relics, bits of old technology? Do we become runners of monsters who no longer seek us? So entrenched in our ways, only running due to momentum and the fear of what will happen (or not happen) if we stop?

Fuck it, I haven't been a runner long enough to philosophize about it.

When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around

One of the dangers of running: sometimes you just can't find a place to sleep on the money you have (I'm pretty sure all my credit cards would be declined right about now). If I wanted to, I bet I could have found a homeless shelter, but I was so tired and cold and the bench was comfortable, so I closed my heavy eyelids and let the world fall away.

I woke up when someone tapped me in the shoulder. I looked up at the face of a policeman, his uniform a crisp blue, with brass buttons. He motioned for me to take off the headphones and I did.

"Hello, officer," I said. "Is there a problem?" It pays to be nice to the police, especially if they could run you through their database and find you are a known arsonist.

"You're going to die here," he said.

I stopped. I had heard him correctly, I knew. He hadn't said that, but I had heard it. His lips hadn't even been out of sync.

"Sorry?" I said.

"I said you can't sleep here," he said.

"Ah," I said. "Okay, sorry. I didn't mean to. I just am waiting for a bus."

"Buses don't run this late," he said. He looked at me, my backpack, my laptop. I didn't look like a homeless person - what homeless person has a laptop? - but I didn't look like someone just nonchalantly waiting for the bus. I looked like what I was: a runner.

The policeman took out his notepad, wrote something on it, and then ripped it off and handed it to me. "Here," he said, "there's a place where you can sleep. It's not far."

"Thanks," I said taking the slip of paper. Could I trust him? His words had been twisted in the beginning - were they being twisted still? Was I being led into a trap?

The policeman tapped on the top of his notepad with his pen thoughtfully and then said, "I can give you a ride if you want."

I took a look at the paper. "No," I said, "I can walk. Thanks anyway."

I got up and slipped the paper into my pocket. I would go in the direction of the shelter - if that was what the address was - but I wouldn't go in. I'd find somewhere else. 

"I don't want to find you sleeping here again," the policeman said as I walked away. "Loitering is still illegal here."

"I understand," I said.

I slipped my headphones back up over my ears and didn't look back.

Louder Than a Bomb

can't sleep. still have that ringing in my ear. it's concentrated in the left ear only. choir trying to make me an insomniac? i'm trying to concentrate on the soft hum of the white noise, but the ringing ringing ringing is still going on.

do they want me to cut off my ear like van gogh? perhaps, realizing that they couldn't force me to down a bottle of pills, they are taking the slow approach. one ear and then another. suicide in slow motion.

no. No. I lived through their taunts and hallucinations, I fucking burned my own house to the ground. I will not cut off my ear even if it stops the ringing. I will not give them what they want.

Come on then.

Bring the noise.

The Note You Never Wrote

Another day, another bus ride, another trip to another city.

Here's something you may not know about the Choir: they can cause hallucinations. I know what you're thinking: "Surely you mean auditory hallucinations, since they only manipulate sound?" No and don't call be Shirley.

Have you ever heard of infrasound? It's sound on frequencies lower than 20 Hz. Normally, it doesn't have any affect on humans, but increase the sound pressure and you get something that causes uneasy feelings in people. And when I say "uneasy feelings," let me just quote that Wikipedia article: "anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, chills down the spine and feelings of pressure on the chest." So yeah, there's that.

So this stuff supposedly is what causes "hauntings" (so you can blame the Choir for all those stupid Ghost Hunters type shows). But guess what happens when the infrasound is on the same resonant wavelength as the human eye? Well, it creates optical illusions, that's what.

I've experienced these hallucinations. You think it's bad hearing people insult you? Just imagine seeing a crowd of people surround you and berate you, all your friends and family, everyone you love telling you just how worthless you are. Just how they wouldn't care if you died, if you killed yourself right then and there.

I honestly don't know how I survived. It was afterward that I realized the white noise trick: don't hear anything, don't listen to anyone. Block out the world and they can't hurt you. Well, mentally, that is. They can still hurt you physically. Hence the running.

So next time you're all alone and break out into a cold sweat, just think about this.

Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

What to do when it's 3 am and you can't fall asleep because it's freezing and there is a loud ringing in your ears: use the local Starbucks wi-fi to troll the internet.

...I'm slightly worried about the ringing in the ears thing. It's probably just tinnitus, but just in case, I'm loading up another track of white noise. Can't be too careful.

It's not easy trying to block out the world.

Fire of Unknown Origin

Okay, it wasn't really "unknown" origin. In fact, it was a pretty, um, known origin. (Is there a better way to say that?) The simple fact of the matter was this: I set fire to my home and watched it burn.

Now, some of you are thinking: "Holy shit, what a firebug!" But others are thinking: "Good job!" Because they've been paying attention. They get gold stars.

If you noticed closely from the last post, you may have inferred that I am in fact running from something called 'the Choir.' It's part of a larger group of things called 'Fears.' They are, basically, monsters.

The Choir, as I learned, can manifest as a blur in the corner of your eyes or something in your shadow...or a gray fungus or mold that grows on walls and floors and ceilings and people. You can't do anything about blurs or shadows. You can do something about fungus. You can fucking burn it.

Which is what I did. It caused a lot of trouble, but I'm glad I did it. There's more to the story - quite a bit more - but this is only what I'm willing to share right now. I'll leave the rest for another day.

But I just want to say that, of all the bands I miss hearing, Blue Oyster Cult is up there, near the top of the list.

Left for Dead on the Road of Love

Maxed out my credit cards on my last day. Bought supplies.

Supplies include:

• one pair of noise-cancelling headphones
• one iPod Touch with extended battery and a playlist of white noise
• one old-style cassette walkman, in case iPod fails
• one rugged laptop (Panasonic ToughBook 52) with wifi capabilities
• twenty road flares
• several bottles of liquor and rags, easily converted to molotov cocktails
• one propane torch (I made sure to keep this hidden away)
• several plastic lighters and boxes of matches
• food, water, et cetera

Was I ready? Hell no. Not even close. But I had to go, I couldn't stay any longer.

Bus is here. Time to move on.