running together toward the core, maryam reaching him first, throwing herself upon his corpse, the showy screaming and sobbing thereupon .
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
my jealousy panging fire flaring but fleetingly, but. but remembering, reminding :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
she knew not of what will and i had spoken. he was still hers , to her , will still was hers . so. let her . let her cry upon him then
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
let her lay beside him just as she’d lain beside him secreted beneath her sheet , beneath my nightly slitted gaze . lying now so closely
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
their hands tiightly clasped, her black hair hiding her eyes and his (—) let her. let her never know i’d stepped in between them.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
instead. i turned away . turned and ducked under the oval door into the outer core where will had sat four days before,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
where will had sat and cried, sat and scratched as he cried, scratched incessantly at that single line in his book , the list of codes ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
the hundreds of pages , the hundreds of thousands of codes , the book : still turned to the page that’d blotted the blood from his finger
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
and. the code still legible . and . the terminals still running. even in the stillborn silence of the just-hushed tweeter rater ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
the clicking claackery of its machinery settling into stillness after so many months’ unbridled exertion , our search unfulfilled
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
(the code there, the terminals still running, my mind running over the memory of will’s memory of the tweeter rater’s deadly directives :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
In the outer core you will find four books. Your book is a list of 18-character codes.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
Enter a code into your terminal and a piece of human literature will appear on the screen. Read it, digest it and then enter the next code.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
Do not cease in your labor. You must carry the stories of man with you to New Eden. Do you understand?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
yes, he’d said, yes.) the numbers still legible under his crimson ink: 114 484 921 172 084 831 . yam wept as i typed with trembling haands
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
and. the story of man , one story of man ,flickered there onto the screen:
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” The angel of
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) December 19, 2012
maryam weeping endlessly atop will’s wilted form upon the floor weeping,fists pummeling upon into his frame.my body wrenched and reeling
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
spinning shock of the holywords on the screen,hands agripped upon the table then un steady fingers fraantic graasped the letter carved into:
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
the M beneath my palm , M of MLCH there before where will had sat before had scratched into his sweat had pooled , had sat and wept,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
for days had wept, “my children.” why ?this of all the stories of man, why the test of faith, what need?has omniscience for such games ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
to what end make a man inflict such terror upon his crying child,what beast to force the filicidal flirtation, for whatfor what end in deed?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
and . why will’s bloody scratching?scraatching thereupon , in the face of the test then set before him, to drag yam or me into the pool
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
(the pool fillingfilling god no,no god so quickly now, faster even than will had surmised, surely but surely to overflow.two feedings most)
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
had will wanted to redact its last trace, or. to draw me nearer now unto?the tweeter rater hushed and dimmed but humming humming on :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
its maanifold tiled eyes the thousand blind windowstill flitting flickers faces maps and maths,oceans vast of tweet and thought and word
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
and there ! it was again, the tweeter rater’s gaze affixed upon the beast again: Moloch .he of horn of hoof of human torso filled with fire
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
(no)!no .the little ones, o godno tiny writhings in its pyre , but babies rolling shrieking dying there within.a . mere flit across a screen
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
but a moment’s flit , but : the searing. my mind, my mind the grisly circuit then, the names: Moloch,Lord. the names: isaac,ike.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
the fourth book, (his)?book upon the table reader never to arrive : Fearful Symmetry by anna arjee. the 0s and 1s within 0s and 1s unfolding
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
never to cease unfolding in my miind0110 1001 1001 0110 1001 0110 0110 1001 1001 0110 0110 1001 0110 1001 1001 0110 . the answer :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) January 17, 2013
the answer was there, will had left if there for me, scratched it out in blood, ancient words calling out across the millennia: “Here I am”
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
the answer was Abraham.the answer was compliance,unquestioning. that’s what will that’s what will'd said to me the first day here ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
(mind re turning to his words mere moments after cassius crazyglue stillingering within my nostrils ancient yarnloops curling neath my nose)
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
the answer : “but what you are going to see Keely, is that drawer, those things, their utter impossibility. it's liberating.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
there is no understanding, there is no sorry here. we just do what we can do
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
we serve the tweeter rater. our only wish is to serve the tweeter rater. our only thought is, how may i better serve the tweeter rater?”
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
and this to be it then.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
there to be no more questions to ask, nor thoughts to thiink.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
i’m not scared anymore i whispered trilly to myself,to the machine. not scared, perhaps.permission is borne of the impossibility here
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
perhaps , a liberation. perhaps there is no right no wrong no justice here. there is: only .to survive . at laast, with certainty:
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
I serve the Tweeter Rater. My only wish is to serve the Tweeter Rater. My only thought is, How many I better serve the Tweeter Rater?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
and the Tweeter Rater demands that one woman’s blood and breath paass together into the pool, the pool so soon to overflow. and so :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
keely bea keene , kill or be killed
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
will said:he’d kill the entire world, that he’d murderaall to live but one year more, but . will had been a liar or a coward or both.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
but i . i’d said i’d kill one. just one. and , i had .not lied
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
and i’m not ready to diie
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
“Here I am.”
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
i will comply
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
my gaze turning cold gaze turning upon her. maryam, tears drying upon her cheeks upon will’s lifeless form on the floor,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
drying upon the body of he who’d thought himself the leading man, thought the rest of us sent on a fool’s errand, but.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
he was no protagonist here. he was but a bit player. and if yam was to be a hero here, she. was sure to be a tragic one, i
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
needed but to find her flaw for this story to be mine. and there riight there again the Tweeter Rater answered :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
Bio bucket replenished. You may feed as you wish.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
i had my plan at once, at the memory of maryam fingerswabbing out the mallowsack after each feeding
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
at the memory of maryam greedily gobbling will’s mallows when he sat atop the drawer, and of her naked wanderings thereafter.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
and even in her grief, her sobs still reverberating, the need to feel that sweetness sweetly melting into her tongue pulled.her away,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
tore maryam briskly away from his body toward the bio bucket, the twelve in her mouth without question before i’d even approached
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
her eyes guiltily averted , jaw frantically working. (it could work, so long as she didn't see through,it could work) my measured words :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
maryam. maryam it’s ok, you can have them , if it will make you feel better you can have them—you can have mine as well, if forgetting will—
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
(the mallows already in her mouth, my words were of no matter then,then the desperate fingerswiping even still) then. she.was gone,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
eyes closed, distancing, rushing away from me even in her stillness.my teeth griinding in the instant knowing : no mallows for me this time
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
body recoiling , how long, a year now more, every six hours for a year, the six marshmallows, pushing me back from the edge. the
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
minutes ticking by silently the.tweeter rater flckering, the.pool filling steadily, maryam’s eyes roiling beneath her lids, her.tiny smile
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
and her eyes at once open, gazing down into the bucket, and it was into the bio bucket that maryam finally spoke:
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 18, 2013
thank you, hank.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
what—what did you say, maryam? i said thanks. to who? to hank. hank who? hank blank. ( !? henri) who is hank blank? this she did not answer.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
why did you say thanks to hank? perhaps, keely keene, you should ask yourself why you do not say thanks to hank.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
maryam, no—no, maryam , you’re frightening me, i know not who he is, please tell me, please tell me what do you mean?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
do you not hear him in the walls, moving among us around the bunker? i do not hear him at all, maryam.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
nor have you felt his palms pushing against our soles as we walk, nor pressing our buttocks through this rug even now as we sit together?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
(the delight in her eyes then my wanting to shift up away off the floor, but where? away?towaard ) no, yam, i have not felt him here.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
and i suppose you’ll say you’ve not seen his tweets upon the screens of the machine? his tweets? at-henry-double-underscore-blank,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
you’ve not seen them? no, i’ve never seen the tweeter rater rate those. not rate, keely—it just reads, again and again, it returns to read.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
( silence then, long siilence near panic, near shrieking not knowing what or when to kill or ready myself to be killed,she spoke again)
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
i say thank you to hank, for hank is our caretaker, keely, have you not once thought how our daily bucket comes to be filled,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
these egg whites rice daikon milk so fresh fish flesh, and (wistful smiling) daily mallows, are you so coarse as to not even have thought?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
of course i’ve thought— (and her eyes then so wild, so filled with something like?pity like amusement, like )
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
you need to say thank you to hank now, keely, say thank you to hank for filling this our bucket today. i— (her chest heaving then, in anger
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
anger or excitement her chest heaving ) thank him now, keely. thank you, hank. for what! thank you, hank, for filling this our bucket today.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
and what about the cleaning of our filth from the bucket, keely, have you thought not about the cleaning of our daily filth?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
he cleans our filth from the bucket? not cleans it—eats it. my god, maryam. you see, you do not appreciate what has been done for you here,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
do you keely? yam, i’m— you need to thank hank for eating your piss and your shit, keely, right now! thank you, hank, for eating my filth.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
how do you think hank feels to have to eat your filth each day, keely, how must he feel there in the wall, awaiting your daily filthy mess?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
yam, please, i’m sorry, maryam, i didn’t know, i didn’t, i don’t understand. and do you know what he shits? wha—what, maryam?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
you eat his food and you shit his food and he eats your shits, do you know what he shits? i—no, what does he shit, maryam?
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
he shits tweets.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
and with this, she opened her eyes impossibly wide, her snarled lips spread into a smiile, and she laughed
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
and she laughed , and she laughed, and
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
fell silent, then sat still with her eyes shut again, shuddering slightly, but otherwise perfectly still.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
my mind reeling, whiteness of the room smearing, teeth grinding sending seismic pangs into my brain, the horror of her madness,mine then
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
needing protection (ike)please, god let this o ! god let this become undone, dear god let me out of here, dear god give me something to—
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
the shell.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 19, 2013
springing up then (hank’s hands ?pushing) from the floor away from maryam still still eyes closed. distant . running across the bunker
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
sidelong lookover shoulder to the tweeter rater’s core, the white hive burning therealone eye un blinking, waatching me reach the drawer ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
opening. the sanguinary sickening , the cursed crimson column pouring again into the whiteness . the four familiar chambers therein
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the first : the scrap of rumpled newsprint, a yellowed obituary hastily torn :
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
REBUS, William Ahern died suddenly at home in Mile End on Oct 1. Beloved husband of Eve, caring and kindly father of William, Tim, and Tara.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the face half-ripped roughly along the brow but undoubtedly will’s father ,the same darkness of face and eyes, the .same tired smile, his
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
son dead not thirty yards away not thirty minutes since the. father and son perhaps now at laast perhaps .the . second chamber
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
empty , the rainbow beaded bracelet sitting still upon maryam’s wrist, her cleverness , the touch that endured for day after day
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the blanket in the third, threadbare faded barely baby blue, tattered and impossibly soft, did it hold the baby ike, did it?it did
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
it must have, i. holding it to my face, the silent insufflation the (am i dreaming the ) scent of him upon it still. upon me,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
and my tongue allowing my tongue upon the tattered threads in (—lingering deliciously in the corner of) my mouth. if only .and then the last
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
cassius face down there as i’d left him. once more over my shoulder ,the silent white eye still upon me, the words unspoken still heard:
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
Find your artifact in the drawer. You may look at it as you wish. You may touch it once. Second contact with your artifact equals death.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
i’d touch it not upon my skin ii’d not, instead: the blanket . gently so ever so gently, wrapping the hateful thing , its body its face its
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
all in the blanket beshrouded, its disgusting weight in my hands , the vomit onrushing again,be rid of it, onto the counter,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the thing lying there between the turtles then, above the drawer like a tiny corpse, an artifact perhaps never. to be unearthed again
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
maryam : across the bunker now upon her back, trembling still , trembling to be seen even from here, overwrought. the 18 mallows inside her
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
and there before me, so plainly to be seen the compartment secreted below cassius’ chamber, the slotted gap my finger into and lifting,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
and . will had been true. it waited there for me, the shell. the ancient shard of the terrapin stationed there for me in the drawer.
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
curved handle , ragged splintered blade made not to slice but.to stab. how old this thing, how many lives impaled thereon its tip, how
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
horribly maryam now clattered and convulsed upon the ground, running to her noNO not to cannot let her die here outside the pool
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the whiteness of her eyes rolling baack into the darkness of her face, her hair matted,sweaty across her brow ,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
my pulling her head onto my lap, the hushing, the stroking of her cheeks, it. slowly stilled her, breaths more measured, again steady
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the shell set beside, hidden at my hip as her eyes slowly opened, softly, her strange smile at me then,
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013
the peering deeply up at me, into .the recognition , childlike . the sadness in her voice as she spoke: Madar
— StoneColdBuddha (@StoneColdBuddha) February 21, 2013