윤

It can’t possibly just be dawning upon me “there’s a lot of it about”—as Waters said about being down and out, but the same schisms apply—nor that the machinations of the bad guys (including crypto!) in fictional settings where even demons appear to be more than hallucinations pale in comparison to what’s happening in the real world. And while the utter banality of misbegotten intentions doesn’t make them any less horrific, I can’t rely on the onslaught of post-Roe news or congressional hearings like I can the annual weekly drama.
I insist that there are parallels with X-Files sister show Millennium—leading man with visions, a psychobabbler to try and explain them away (alright, Mrs. Black played a more supportive role than that), the inevitable Christian eschatology—but while network television of old had twenty-plus episodes a season to fill, often with frustrating excursions into the latter, isn’t it a coincidence that the then-INS would also detain a Chinese woman with preternatural insight?

Following a harrowing hearing in front of the Supreme Court, I was returning home on a train dogged by two detectives who suspected me of being the masked vigilante. They tried outing me by watching my reaction to the last page of a nondescript graphic novel where the Bat symbol appears, but I didn’t flinch and kept up my identity hunching over as I walked. I could take them all, I thought, but decided to play it out until we arrived at a London station. There I would meet and greet my neighbor Madonna with a baby in pram, then tried ditching my pursuers by a dirt path into the park. A sting in my left leg as I mounted a knee-high mound alerted me that I had stepped into an ant hill, and though most of them seemed inert when I kicked it open, many had climbed onto me and left bites as far as my right forearm. However, as Batman, I was unfazed.

Back in the real world, the closest thing we have is a knob with the Wayne family fortune and none of the drive for justice. God, would one of them at least bankroll another decent live-action portrayal to keep us restless masses opiated? Because boy, was he terrible in this past season of Titans, blasphemously bad. Now the plan is to bring back Keaton? And Pattinson’s “I’m vengeance” line is pretty hard to take seriously in a society that abandons a mentally-ill loner and treats him like trash. For as frightening as he tries to make himself to the superstitious cowardly lot, how much more effective are clowns on the rest of us?

Despite being tired as fuck from another pathetic run earlier in the evening and unable to sleep I think, from the Dew I drank with the wholly unscientific purpose of stimulating my recovery, I woke up an hour and a half before my first meeting after a dream that a tall Black woman and skinny teenager with two handguns had home-invaded us. They weren’t particularly cautious criminals, unmasked and allowing us to move about to bring them their spoils while the former danced and her partner sat with his back to us. There were lamps and things we don’t own that I might’ve taken to his head, but would it have been enough to incapacitate him, or could I take the chance he hadn’t transferred his weapons to her without my knowledge? I continued to consider the possibilities during my transition, when even my strength and will didn’t seem sufficient to go at him with an easily-obtained knife from the kitchen.

Later that evening I’d read the synopsis of Bob Odenkirk’s new film—or did I re-read it, and subconsciously schedule my dream as a preview or reminder?

Cooped up at home over the long weekend, praying that the old A/C doesn’t implode under the record heat, I woke late this morning to hear the others watching what must have been more Disney drivel and despite recognizing the musical flourishes and voiceovers from a latter part of the ride, lay back down to relieve the unsatisfactory emergence. There was some bickering about the playback skipping, so I found myself lifting the appliance-like disc player from the rear and looking for the right connections underneath for a two-pronged grounding cable (possibly a callback to checking the condensation pump or frayed toilet tank flapper these past few days). Results notwithstanding, my immediate attention was to prepare for a visit from John Chen on the 22nd, whose inclusion is definitely the product of our recent support of his Twitch alter-ego and went to see whether we had the arrangements to host him.

An extra room at the end of the hall, open with a bar-high counter for a wall and furnished with two twin beds in the light ash-veneer color popular in newer Taiwanese homes/Muji stores, was a giveaway that this was a dream, and I remarked as much as I walked back. A pretty young woman with short red hair, resembling Buffy-era Alyson Hannigan passed with a smile and consented to allow me to follow her to the addition to the house and make the most of it. Our interaction on the far bed was surprisingly detailed, as often they are not and merely presumed as through some disappointing narrative device: I could see the side of her face when it was pressed against mine and the shape of her body as she removed the remainder of her clothing. She told me her name was Christina (taken, perhaps, from the Lovecraft Country character), but that I called her “Linnie.” I dismounted and turned her over for re-entry, which didn’t come without the sensation of collision but was successful in the end. After returning to a reclined position, I asked her how she came to be here, and she said her roommate Hylie had invited her. It was Nicole Tan, with a curly perm, who entered and sat down next to the other bed, curiously taken up by the wife in an agreeable state. Linnie welcomed her from her knees, then closed her mouth and proceeded to call forth one last, powerful rush on my exit—but again, the feeling wasn’t all too fleeting and gave me quite a running start in the real world!

For two summers in college, before the advent of any respectable form of electronic media, I kept almost daily written journals of my dreams, which were obviously facilitated by lack then of distraction before the effort in transcription, but as they’ve returned to plague me again, I must reconsider the notion that the time of year plays some role in their occurrence, what with the television hiatus in full swing following the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Fargo was a disappointing follow-up to True Detective, but I insist it was Billy Bob Thornton’s malevolent character narrating the video on my phone that reminded me I was completely out of place among the beautiful cast in last night’s, even with super-speed. Maybe another man would’ve fallen for it, sold his soul or taken his own life, but I’ve grown too accustomed to my place in the alternative.

You can play forever, but start learning things, and you’re dead.

By then I’ll be old as dirt (or buried beneath it), but the idea of a super man still makes me giddy. There’s just so little evidence in the world that one could possibly ever exist, and more than enough that we really, really need him.

As out of it as I may seem sometimes, my attention will always be there for a mobile app that purports to take you to another reality of some greater import. Perhaps it goes back to waiting for all my cellphones to ring, beating X in a dingy Japanese youth hostel fortified by warm はちみつレモン, or thinking the low-battery antics on my Mattel Electronics Auto Race meant that something special was happening. To me. This time it’s called “Shadow Cities” and what I like (assuming I’ve read the conceit right) is being able to conquer your own block, virtually, and “call” everything in it, at least in your own mind.

It’d never happen—or does it, everyday we go to work for the Man? My eyes, my brain, my very soul, aren’t these all organs we disposable donors sacrifice for the longevity of a corporate recipient? This “art” is unimportant.

老婆 got this pot holder from one of her co-workers (who’s since been sacked) last Christmas or for her birthday, and I’ve been meaning to share my puzzlement with its design, but you know, baby, work, TV. I think I see the Greek letter Φ, which Grant Morrison said in Doom Patrol contains all of existence reproduced digitally, the Stargate symbol, Mensa’s table and things that could either be from Prince’s dictionary or that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa couldn’t figure out the brain teaser. Could the reputed cheapskate have unknowingly passed along an item of immeasurable worth, or been a tragic figure who tried to get a secret message out to the world?