I sit here now in a state of abject terror beyond anything which I've experienced the last week. I have just awoken out of the dream again, and I feel I have a duty to write it down before sleep takes me again back into this dream, from which I fear I may never return.
Let me begin by saying that I have always been a troubled sleeper. I can't get to sleep, I can't stay asleep, and sometimes I experience sleep paralysis, but never see anything. That was until twelve days ago from the time I write this, the 20th of January, 2025: I fell off my bike and hit my head pretty hard, for the second time in as many months. The first was a minor concussion, and I talked funny for a while before returning back to relative normality. This time, however, something was different. I couldn't sleep, no matter how hard I tried. I have always been a pretty heavy drinker, and my drinking escalated drastically in an attempt to force myself into unconsciousness. In vain. I drank exorbitant amounts, stopped eating. This bout, my heaviest in more than 8 years or so of drinking, landed me a stone's throw away from death. It lasted for about a week, how long exactly I could not say, I had reached the end of the alcoholic rainbow very quickly and drank into a previously unknown oblivion. I couldn't drink any longer. I tried to force it down and I vomited so hard again and again and again until I saw blood, until my stomach cried and screamed with pain. I went to the hospital, and without insurance was summarily discharged after sitting in the DTs for five hours without much assistance. I returned home. The terror of delirium was upon me. I was wracked by fevers, plagued by auditory hallucinations beyond anything I've ever experienced. I heard my mother and brother screaming for me to wake up, that I was dead, that they were so sorry. I heard police outside ready to charge in. I heard doctors explaining I had been in an accident and that I had received some kind of severe brain injury, and I found I could communicate with them and they would respond if I thought what I wanted to reply in my mind. Every time I would try to sleep, I would hear noises or people that were not there that woke me out of it and scared me. When I finally did sleep, I woke up fifteen minutes later in a severe bout of sleep paralysis where I watched my mother clawing into the ceiling like a rabid animal. I called my brother in the middle of the night hearing people outside that sounded so real I couldn't chalk it up as a hallucination. He soothed my fears, for a while. I stayed up and talked as long as I could, seeing things in shadows, hearing voices and accusations, always talking about me. All the while, shaking miserably, on the verge of seizure, beset by fever and relentless cold.
When I finally did sleep, the dreams were horrifyingly real, of family entering my room to find me dead, or to chastise me severely; I was sleeping for about an hour at a time before waking up to fever and hallucination feeling no the more rested. By the second day the worst of the DTs had subsided. I was beginning to eat again, the hallucinations faded, I started to remember and talk in a somewhat coherent fashion again. There was still fever, night-terrors, but nothing compared to what I witnessed in that first twenty-four hours of sobriety, the first in almost a year. I had the dream for the first time, and found it unusually odd but somewhat amusing.
It was a dream where I met various people in various places: a girl under a cliff edge knitting; several in a super-market in various sections, and the last in the super-market was angry and the only scary part of the dream on the first night, red-eyed, she explained that she was a killer to me, but was gentle and sweet even though everyone else in the store feared her to death. There are several more that I cannot remember in detail—one in an apartment that was not quite clear. They all had names floating above them, some were actual names like Diana or Mercy, I remember one was the emoticon ":3" and the self-professed killer had a series of numbers.
I will make a short intermission here to say that I have always been able to read in my dreams, even though the scientific consensus is seemingly that you simply cannot. I have read in English and Japanese in this fashion for as long as I can remember. What does it mean?
I step outside the supermarket to walk up a winding road. A large truck is coming down, and I dodge to the side, hearing a man yell curses at me. I follow this road and I meet who I will refer to as the princesses along the way. I call them this because they wore ornate and laced dresses of different colors, and were quite beautiful. They had no names. "Ominous warning—which I failed to heed." They do not speak but as I travel along they follow and laugh. The first of these was the red princess. She stands in the middle of the road (I am on the side now, fearing for another truck, I suppose) and as I pass she follows along and begins to laugh almost constantly. Further along I meet the green princess, who joins my newly formed procession and begins laughter in the same fashion, and soon after the yellow princess, also laughing. I come to the end of the road to a stone temple with a small doorway for an entrance. As I step inside, I notice that the princesses will not follow me, electing to remain outside. Another bad omen I suppose, but at the time I thought nothing of it. Inside the temple are two rows of evenly spaced squares you have to make a short hop across, and a lower floor that was a short ways down enough that you would not hurt yourself if you jumped off and perhaps would be able to climb back onto these "stepping stones" as it were. I hopped for a short time along the path before I came to a corner section that seemed to have two straight paths unbroken by gaps, as though the walkways in a section of sewer. On the near side stood a short, fat shirtless man who was called "HELPER". He beckoned me onto the walkway, and we walked some distance before we came to a door, which the pathway across terminated. We hopped onto the first of two stones from the door, where he brings out an elaborate and ancient puzzle box.
At this point in the writing of this dream I stepped out into the bathroom and was afraid that when I returned, it would be gone. So great is my fear of what is to come next.
He explained to me that I would need this box to navigate the maze. I clumsily attempt to open the box, spilling the contents which looked like small air-conditioning filters among other things onto the floor below a short distance. I look to HELPER, who is looking to his right at the far walkway.
I woke up then. I checked the time, that I had slept for almost eight hours, the first decent sleep in so long. I felt relatively good all day, although the pain in my stomach had shifted to a pain on the other side of my abdomen, and was intense, but at least the hallucinations had faded and I could again speak and write and read. I forgot about the dream, stayed up late talking to my love, and fell asleep around 11:30 last night.
The dream began again, from the beginning. Let it be known that I do not have recurring dreams, or rather, have not since I was a child. I had one before my father went to prison that I was in a darkness that was hard to breathe until light shined through a red musculature and I could see what I believed in the dream to be my beating heart, and suddenly I was dashing across a plain with the sun too much in my eyes. Since then, I have had no dream repeat itself for any reason.
The details as I remember were all the same, unusually accurate, the truck and the killer and the princesses. The difference was that when I dropped the puzzle box this time, and looked where HELPER was looking, I saw something that froze my blood. The blue princess. I suppose at first it surprised me more than scared me, until I realized she was not animated, not in the slightest. It was as if someone had taken an image and pasted it over reality. She stood frozen there, unlaughing, unnaturally and eerily still.
And through the fear peeked a new sensation in her strangely gentle, toothy smile: malice.
I awoke into a state of sleep paralysis which I quickly succumbed to.
I returned to the same dream, at the same state, and I tried to scream through my sleep to awake when I saw her again.
She had come closer.
Again into sleep paralysis, and I attempted to scream and writhe and somehow get out of it because I knew that whatever she was was worse than any evil man has conceived in his boldest flights of fantasy
I shook myself out of it, somehow, and screeched with such intense dread that I had never known, flailing my hands and legs, almost knocking my typewriter off the bed before I could fully realize that the dream was over.
I checked the time. It was a few minutes before 1:30 in the morning. I had drempt the entire dream which had taken eight hours previous in less than two.
I have turned on every light in my little home. I have been afraid that if I should look into the dark she might be there.
I am afraid I have seen something myrialeagues more wicked than any devil that man has created in his image.
Every word of this is the truth. I am afraid to go to sleep for fear that the dream will be upon me again, and I cannot even imagine what fate lies for me when she is right in front of me.
you feel the window
and it isn't cold, back to warm
shortcoming of soul
how drunk are you?
exceedingly.
Drinkers are like that.
day-again-style
despite obvious evidence to the contrary
a few beers to prime the pump
palooka
a little gin to clear the vision
oh cripes
i was licked
how do i explain this
the alcoholic has no tolerance for the limelight
always keep it simple
full disclosure
same dried corned bullshit
shambolic
vaguely drunk and coming down hard
morning terror upon me
perturbingly drunk
pain is there to keep you alive. or kill you. i haven't figured it out yet.
i reached for the heavens, and this is what i found
plagued with nightmares
hearse-followers
like ant defecation
scenes in the life of an alcoholic
watching through the crack of a door
the wojaczekian man
where it was not supposed to, where no-one thought it would
blisterous pustules
like a diseased saliva
head-in-lap
forfeiture
came out like a raspy cigarette
kid-shit
courage and death
do you know what that means
pleasing and freezing
get away
they don't get far
between the lines of cocaine
permanently
too drunk to start the set
when someone has died of overdose they have really died of loneliness
month-ruining, year-ruining
the only truthmorer
little did i know, id rather have the goddamn bruise
sometimes
serious personal condemnations
aggravated drinking bouts
i don't respond to my feelings in appropriate ways, in fact i always choose what will make me the most miserable, the most listless and morose and i think about everything constantly
when you focus on pain it's like everything else evaporates away
evinces a design
i don't believe for a second you lack empathy
lack of social prowess is often construed as a lack of empathy even though the things are as different as night and day
what's more, even a person with underdeveloped empathy but still capable thereof can develop it
every time i told the truth about how i was feeling to my ex i was scolded relentlessly and she would call me a piece of shit sociopath
it hurt me so badly every time that i would go outside and find a patch of grass and i would begin to pluck blades of grass and then fold them and tear them again and again and again
after about 5 or 6 hours when she calmed down, she would come back and apologize, and i would willingly go back and bottle everything up again
i love to sit in the grass
i think i'm quite good at it
i feel bad about plucking the blades because it's living, too
but sometimes there is nothing else to do
sorry, grass
it's scary how much time can pass in such a fashion
grass-time is some of the hardest time there is
half of our relationship must have been me on the grass for almost 6 years
this was a daily thing
sometimes she brought over other men
i just kept tearing away
i didn't dream of a better world, i hardly thought
i became a grass-tearing machine
when she came out to find me and hugged me from behind, my programming would cease
i could be a human being again
jijr — Today at 1:09 PM
kira was a bitch plain and simple
she fucked my best friend in front of me
what did i do?
i went outside and i jerked off and i cried
that's when i knew she wasn't the love of my life despite my hopes against hope
i was in a crisis ward a day later
i tried to kill myself
i jumped off a bridge and somehow managed to survive
when people die, it's very sad, but there's also relief
when kira died i could breathe easy knowing she could never get me back in her clutches and damage me more
do i miss her? sure
but i'd never let her touch me again
she was more fucked up in the head than i am, somehow
it's funny
she talked so much about her confinement to an adolescent ward was so traumatic
she went a single time
i would end up going every other month until i was 24
15 or 16 times in total
jijr — Today at 1:16 PM
life and time could not be held in my hands
flowing steadily like a sieve
imagine this: you're 18 years old and you know nothing of life and everything has been shit and you want to die
what do they do?
they put you in a ward full of alcoholics and drug addicts and half of them are so far-gone you cannot even imagine they were human beings to begin with
you're 18 years old and 105 pounds soaking wet
some old motherfucker thinks you're a girl and comes and tries to grope and rape you every night
the attendants don't speak english so they don't understand and they certainly don't care
they think of you as a lower animal
"where's your pussy,,, where's your pussy!"
after two weeks of hell you come out and it's all another kind of hell again
a week later, you're billed $2400 for the stay
went (tried to go) to work and was ran off the road. people are so immediate and belligerently themselves. two bikes coming my way down the side walk so foolishly i say, hey, the road is clear, why not get out of the way? some idiot at the same micro-instant barrels down the road, fast and vicious and uncompromising in his big steel brick thing. somehow i was able to land back into the sidewalk grass (what i call a semi-median) but it tore me up to hell. blood everywhere my arms and legs even. the bridge of my nose all fucked up and bloody. my top row of teeth loose (i may need dentures!). i didn't want to call out of work. i said as much and i said to them that i feel i have let them down. and my underboss who taught me everythig i know said i'll figure it out please get some rest. can you imagine? wish us luck.
195X Royal HHE
There isn't a lot of information as to what serial ranges indicate year on this one. The E is for Elite, a smaller 12cpi typeface, as opposed to Pica, the standard 10cpi typeface.
the linkage for the 2/" key had come unattached due to some of the metal breaking off. i was able to bend the end of the linkage and get it reattached, and while the keyarm now rests slightly elevated compared to all the others, it functions again and doesn't jam.
my 12th typewriter, and i officially have a problem with addiction to buying typewriters. i love the dark keys!
three more typers in my collection, all desktop standards
1960 R.C. Allen Vis-O-Matic A
incredible feeling and snappy action on this girl. i've heard it is very much befitting of the title of a descendant of the Woodstock machines from decades earlier (i'd love to have an original woodstock in my collection someday too). it's missing the plastic front plate with Vis-O-Matic on it. i'd never seen one that sported the grey keys on the sides with the green main letters, and since i had received a good offer from the seller on ebay, i couldn't resist. the blank grey key on the top left side is a 1/! key!
1951 Remington Super-Riter
this model happened to be made before the Royal-Remington lawsuit that would strip later models of the "Key Margin" controls (KMC key on the right side). apparently it was too similar to Royal's Magic-Margins design.
unfortunately at some point, she was repaired and the 'E' and 'O' typeslugs were soldered on too low. i will have to get then resoldered at some point (out of my area of expertise unfortunately), but otherwise it is a splendid and impeccably clean machine inside. came with the original small metal clip spools.
1927 Underwood No. 3 11 inch
this is now the oldest typewriter in my collection, and one of my favorites. according to the serial she celebrated her 97th birthday since manufacture in June.
everything worked with this out of the box essentially; i only had issues with the ribbon bichrome mixing colors, which my underwood portable has issues with too. the patent decals on the back are still in good condition too!
the following day after she came in the mail, the drum-end drawstring clip broke when i was attaching the other end of the drawstring to the frame to remove the carriage, but i was able to fashion a replacement. she types wonderfully!
i have another typewriter coming tomorrow, a Royal HH from the 1950s, which i am also quite excited to check out. it has the grey crinkle finish with black keys, which i couldn't refuse for the $9.99 it was up for auction uncontested for. i've heard nothing but great things about the HH (Bukowski had one), and i'll post pictures when it arrives.
it is both my late father's, and my mother's birthday; as one can imagine, it has been a strange day.
miss you terribly...
recently acquired two more beauties for my fledgeling collection
1960 Olympia SM4
this Olympia is equipped with the "Senatorial" typeface, a kind of boxy, retro-futuristic typeface at 11 characters-per-inch
the Olympia is my new favorite machine: it is an absolute joy to type on, and the typeface makes me feel as though i'm writing a dime science fiction novel that Kilgore Trout might've written.
1933 Underwood Portable
the Underwood has issues with letter alignment that i've not been able to fix yet due to missing a very specific wrench for the "on feet" adjustment locknut. in all other respects though, it is a beautiful machine.
in other news, i've been going over an archive of the old site, and i think i will attempt to restore some old pages soon. a lot of the assets were hotlinked from discord and no longer work, so i have to see if i can find them somewhere. "oh well, what the hell," i sing.
oh, and in addition, some new books arrived:
The long awaited English translation of Mainländer's first volume of The Philosophy of Redemption
i need more time to really tear into this one, but what i've read so far has been as magnificent and vindicating as i've hoped it would be for years
and the translation of the long-lost Céline novel, War.
a very quick read and very funny, very much Célinian, but very unfinished too—characters changing names, continuity issues, it reminds me very much of Kafka's "The Trial." a lot of the ideas in this book seemingly went into later novels, namely Guignol's Band.
started collecting all sorts of typewriters since we last spoke
1949 Royal KMG
1957 Royal Quiet De Luxe
1966/67 Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe
1975 Smith-Corona Galaxie Twelve
1965 Royal Mercury Ultraportable
also, more bookstore finds, namely a copy of Journey with my favorite cover, first editions of Mason & Dixon and Timequake, and an almost complete set of the plays of the great George Bernard Shaw
finally got to fixing the broken image embeds on the site—i intend to do better custodial work here in the future.
having not much else to do, i frequent the bookstore often and spend probably too much money
here are some more finds from there
work has been awfully stressful and frankly a load-of-shit for the meagre sum they're paying me, but having extra cash is nice for a change. a few weeks ago i purchased a 1958 model Smith-Corona clipper portable typewriter. it came in the post quite quickly and it has been perfectly fun to toy around with.
it is most-assuredly in need of a deep clean, but the provisional cleanings and oilings thus far have left a machine in very good working order.
after my father died, i embarked from the town that i spent most of my life residing in. my new surroundings are quaint and terribly boring. there is, however, quite a fantastic bookstore i have taken a great liking to; it is a maze in both layout and size, an obvious and enchanting labor of love. here are some of the choice morsels i have been able to scrounge up there.
more stuff to come whenever there is time.. here's a picture of the bookstore:
and lastly
i fear for my sanity when i think about doing ten more years of this (of anything)
we have wasted human history like a bunch of drunks shooting dice in the men's crapper
all the old same tune, literally, the same single song that proffers me: "drink deep into the night!" and the deepness of the nights becomes the shallowness of the morrow, what shit, that i've a few hours to recollect and regain and do all the same shit again for fear of being thrown to fucking death, frankly, at my age, at my experience
"oh you've done it to yourself"
an easy statement to make when the poison is not your own and you've some bridges left to burn!
the shyest hours of the day have my most beautiful words
My father died in May, and it seemed high time to me to take personal stock and figure out a way forward. I am less sick now, and I return to things as they somewhat were before.
As for my father, I miss him dearly. We did not get so much time as we would have hoped together, after everything. I am glad I was there for him, at the end.
As for what to say about the dead? How about this: Oh well—He wasn't going to write Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway.
it seems that any attempt at putting together words to form some kind of coherent thought is just an excuse for those devils to put it through filter of their own experience and assume things about you
the only way to really escape this, or so it would seem, is to kill oneself and suffer through all the terrible things they have to say about you after you die, until the words come no more and you can be at peace.
It has become so difficult to speak candidly in this format since my father died. Strange how that works: it seems these days I have a lot that I'd like to say, but none of it ever seems to be said. The bulk of my poetry has been uploaded, now. All the stuff that was up on the old website, that is; I have a lot of new written material that I've yet to actually put to type. It will probably be up here sooner rather than later. It seems to be the only way I can say the things I need to, even to an audience of zero.
And of course, a wonderful new year to all.
世から離れたい季節だから。けどよ、結局矛盾じみたとこ作っちまったなぁ。言い出せばきっと矛盾になるのよ。やはり一言もせず死んだ方いたしい。淋しいからな。淋しい。
人間ってこういう一人ぼっち生活じゃ生き続けると気が済まん。済むわけがあるまい。けれど一人じゃないのならそれも敗北さ。絶対損になっちまう。
前のところ消した理由は、わしゃ言うことが価値のないことという、その価値のない状態を認めるんというわけですから。価値のないわしのこと言わなけりゃええと決めた・・と思ったけれどもな。だがやはりいつもこうなる。くそ外道が。
どうせうまくいかないのなら綺麗に済ました方じゃマシなのにね。なさけん。ばかばかしい。
もう笑いもんだ。後戻りはありゃせん。父親が他界しちゃっても無論わしゃ許されん。ホンマ苦しいとしてもやはりうちのせいじゃ。
文句言う余裕もなし。
これもダメじゃろうが。
もはや薬飲んどらんと決めたんじゃ。もうその生き方できない。もっと人間らしく、その人間らしさが悪だとしても、もっと人間らしく、生きたいと思う。人間らしく生きなくてはならんのじゃ。自分で生きとらんとは草臥れた。もう生涯半分すり減らしてきたんじゃのぅ。ここまで生きてきたけぇどうしても生き続けるのなら自分で生きるとはよかろう。