Chloroplasma
Chloroplasma.  IT IS FUN!
part of a dragonfly.

12 March 0003 N.H.E. (New History Era)

Si, ch’io vorrei morire. Yes, I want to die. It’s a piece by Monteverdi. I think about it a lot these days. Ch’io vorrei morire, I want to die. Now, with love, I kiss the mouth of my lover...

But I don’t want to die. Do I want to be dead? More than anything else, I want to be dead... I don’t want to be alive anymore. I don’t feel like I’m alive, anyway... but to be dead... and to die... are not the same. I know that now. That’s because it’s not the afterlife, or lack thereof, I don’t really know-- - it’s not what’ll happen after death that I fear. It’s Death itself. I’ve seen death dimly reflected-- I’m afraid to face it. I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T.S. Eliot.

People used to say they’d seen death, and they probably believed it. But they were all wrong-- death isn’t a bloated dead grandmother in her coffin frightening children who sneak a glance at her, there’s no death in graveyards or funerals or ashes or bones or corpses. Death is feeling yourself sink slowly into the core where real existence dwells, after you’ve worn your way through the rind that’s Life-- sinking in and knowing it and not being able to do anything about it since you’ve been dying since you were born. Professor Weston’s philosophy... Perelandra, C.S. Lewis.

I do read a lot these days. There’s not much else I can do, besides feeding myself and sleeping when I must. I’m compelled to read. I feel like if I stop filling my head with new knowledge and insights and opinions, even for just a minute, that’ll be it, I’ll just give up and die. But as long as there’s something I can keep learning, and I know that, I can keep hanging on. That’s the only thing I can do anymore-- hang on. Because I don’t want to die.

I’m hardly the last one alive. There are lots of things alive here, even though to call them “alive”-- to call this “living” feels like a blasphemy. There are... lots of things... alive... things that move, and breathe... but...

It’s like hue shifts on pictures. If you shift it halfway around the spectrum, it’s completely unrecognisable. But if you only shift it a little bit, you can see which things used to be red, which ones were blue-- you can tell what it’s supposed to look like, and you can tell it’s wrong. That’s what earth is like now. It’s shifted a few degrees, and I can recognise the earth I was born on in this planet I now find myself on. I still remember how plants used to be green, and the way flowers looked, and different animals, and myself, because things now look the same-- just shifted. It’s disgusting... I wish it had shifted further than just a few degrees. Everything would be easier if this was totally different from “life” and “earth” and “flowers” and “love”, and if everything was totally unrecognisable. But because it’s so close to life, earth, love, I keep trying to make it really be that in my mind and it’s not. My god... it’s not.

Sometimes I wake up and... I just want to destroy it all. It’s so wrong, so disgusting, so blasphemous, I hate it so much. I wonder if there is a hell apart from the one I live in-- there I am calling it living-- it’s not living, this isn’t life at all. I want to leave it behind, even if that means going to a real hell with fire and agony-- if there is one-- I think I would prefer it to this, because at least fire and agony and pain are things I can understand, things I’ve experienced for real. Am I saying I want to go to hell? I’m saying I don’t want to be alive anymore, I want to be dead-- I want to be dead and be anywhere you go when you’re dead, heaven or hell or limbo, I don’t care, as long as I’m not here. But I don’t want to die.

This is called “ultraviolet spring,” the period that follows after the “winter” induced by impact. To put it simply, impact caused an enormous dust cloud all over the globe, blocking out sunlight and killing off a decent percentage of life on earth. After a few years the dust cloud settled, and the return of previously normal amounts of ultraviolet radiation were too much for plants and animals that had learned to manage without them during winter. The nitric oxide in the atmosphere also managed to pretty much kill the ozone-- so ultraviolet radiation was even higher than it had been before-- much higher, and it kept on rising. This is “spring.” It finished off pretty much everything that was left, but there are still lots of plants and animals and all sorts of things. Like me. There’s not really any chance for reproduction since all plant and animal life has been disgustingly mutilated by such a constant barrage of radiation, which means that in a few years, at best, everything will die for real. No more plants. No animals, no humans, no more anything except dust. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19.

I am the luckiest of my race. I’m the only one condemned to this obscene parody of hell, the only one who’s not out in eternity somewhere resting or rejoicing or suffering, the only one who’s not finished, the only one who has to go on “living” day by day, minute by minute. But still, I am the most fortunate, on my own perverted scale of values-- I am the only one who has not tasted death. That-- that makes the other things I endure-- worth it. I will face anything if I only may not die. I am sometimes glad none of the others are here, because my shame is only mine and sharing it would be... what? Sin? Blasphemy? I do mention blasphemy a lot. That’s because reality itself is blasphemy now. Blasphemy is the unforgivable sin and sin is cutting off from God-- it does make sense. Because the way things are...

I don’t want to talk about it anymore.


--


4 August 0003 N.H.E.

I saw death again today. It’s kind of interesting the way something that would have made me throw up or faint or have nightmares only a couple of years ago doesn’t mean that much to me anymore. There were two animals, some kind of badger, I think, killing each other. Actually, I don’t think they were the same kind of animal. I can’t remember anymore. Anyway, I don’t know what colour the blood was. It kind of looked red, but that was just relative. Possibly blood is still red. I really don’t know. But two things killing each other, finishing their work and dying-- I felt sorry for them because they didn’t understand. Penance is like that. Suffer through this life and then have your eternal reward-- peace, at least, and even if death is the end, still peace. But it’s not true. Death is just the beginning. It’s not that everything is over, it’s just that you’re dead. And you don’t have peace, and you don’t feel joy or anything, and you’re not calm, you’re dead. Sealed up forever inside a cage you won’t ever get out of, and nothing will ever change, ever. To some extent Hedonists understand that happiness must be found before death, but they are fools. Just to be alive-- that’s happiness, that’s the best it’s ever going to be. Is it punishment, or is it just reality? It’s not cruel, really-- it feels cruel, but I think it’s just the way things are. It’s not justice because there’s nothing to judge. It’s the whole universe in a sentence: Be born, and die.

Yes... that’s how it is, I think. I don’t think I want to be dead anymore. I’m afraid. I can’t express how I hate this life, this world, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to make it all go away-- but I do want to live here-- I want to live here forever.

Still, dying is worse than being dead. I wouldn’t mind being dead.


--


6 August 0003 N.H.E.

I didn’t know it was going to be like this, do you understand? I thought it would be different. But you, I am talking to you and you do not exist-- nobody will read this, because it’s only me now. I shouldn’t torture myself by saying you, you’re not real. That’s why I hate you, do you understand me? No, you don’t. I need to stop writing you. I only make it worse that way. Before, I only talked about myself and about them, I never said you, but I did it just now, why did I do it? It’s different now. It’s not the same anymore. I didn’t know it would be like this. Knowing is better. No, it’s worse. I don’t know. Perhaps I am wrong. That would be nice. I thought that maybe-- well I thought others would understand and we could all be together, do you understand? No, I can’t say that anymore. I need to stop. I want to talk to you. I hate you! If you ever read this, I hope you die! I hope you die. God, it hurts! This hurts. Why is it like this? I thought it would be different. It’s such a parody, my God, it’s so obscene, I hate it, why won’t it go away? You, you are reading this, aren’t you? But that’s why I hate you. It never stops hurting, did you know that? It hurts all the time now. You think I don’t mean physical. You think that emotional, spiritual, you think those are more important than physical. Like sensing things, you think it’s better to just sense them, you think seeing something, hearing something, you think those aren’t as important or perfect, and you think when it hurts in your heart it means more than when it just hurts, when your arm hurts, and I hate you, do you know? I hate you! I cut one of my fingers off today. It really hurts, do you understand? Stop reading it. Go away and die, I am begging you to go and die. I bandaged it right after, anyway. I was not trying to bleed to death. You couldn’t, not from a finger anyway, and I only did it because I diseased it somehow a long time ago and it was rotting, so I cut it off. I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. I didn’t want to see it. It wasn’t that I couldn’t use it, I mean I couldn’t use it of course, but it’s not because I was mad about that, I just hated it so much, do you understand? And afterwards I thought about cutting my wrist, and bandaging it right after, but I might not be quick enough and then I’d die. Do you know what I mean? It’s grey-- I think it’s grey now. I can’t tell. I thought it wouldn’t be like this. What I mean is-- I knew it would all die-- I knew about the radiation and mutation-- but I didn’t know it would all change like this. I thought we could just be deformed and diseased and dying together, not changed like this. I didn’t know. I’m not writing this, do you know? I am not. Because it’s not writing. It’s like writing. It’s like I’m moving my hand and the pen makes marks on paper, but it’s not a pen, it’s not paper, I’m not writing, this isn’t a language that you can read, if you’re there and you’re not and I hate you, it’s only a lot like writing, but it’s not writing. And I’m doing something that’s kind of like reading over it again, well I’m not but maybe I will sometime, but it’s not reading, and I won’t see letters on a page, I’ll use a sense that’s a lot like sight and there will be things like letters on something like a page but it won’t be that, do you understand? But I didn’t know it would be like this! No, I can’t ask why again. Because it’s just like this. I didn’t know and it is. That is worse. I’m not being punished, this is just life. But this isn’t life, did you know that? I said it already. It’s like life. I am not alive, do you understand? I need to eat. Maybe I should sleep. I will do something desperate soon and I could die if I do that. I won’t die. I am going away now.


--


2 January 0004 N.H.E.

I think I’m very happy. Another person came and we’re going to stay together. I don’t really like him-- I don’t like him at all, really, but I think I love him. I love him because he’s... well, he’s human. I miss humanity. I mean, even before when I was alone I still had humans because I had myself. I’m not a person anymore, of course-- but he is. Somehow he didn’t change with everything else, it seems. That makes me kind of happy, because maybe sometimes I can pretend I’m still human too. I wonder how he survived the Winter? I could ask him, I’m sure he’d be glad to tell me-- how he survived that and how he came here, but I don’t really want to talk about that. I don’t really want to talk about anything. I’m just happy that he’s here. But now I’m kind of scared, too. I’m just fooling myself, isn’t that right? I mean... of course he can’t be a person, because there aren’t those anymore... or maybe there never were those. Or maybe I’m the only that changed, and I just don’t realise the world is still the same. I can’t understand it very well. But I can’t be happy-- I’m just something kind of like happy-- and “I” is not really there, either. Thinking in terms of self and others-- believing that I’m “thinking” at all-- “believing”-- those aren’t real anymore. And real isn’t the same thing either. I can’t understand it. Maybe it would all be better if I just think everything really is the same-- not better, but easier. But since I can’t do that... no matter what, that is-- what I mean is I won’t believe that’s true even if I try to. God, I really hate this now. I mean, I feel like I hate it, but I probably don’t.


--


18 February 0004 N.H.E.

Yesterday was my birthday.


--


25 July 0004 N.H.E.

I look back on these previous writings and I have to wonder-- what happened to me? Well, of course I can understand my state. What happened to me-- to everyone-- was an enormous shock, both physically and psychologically, and I suppose it wasn’t really a fault of my own that I cracked under the strain, more or less. I was alone for over two years in a grotesque imitation of the planet I grew up on, so the whole thing makes sense when I think about it. Even so, it’s a bit disconcerting to know that my entire mode of thought and sense of self could change so radically in such a small amount of time. It’s like reading something written by a different person; I can’t recognise myself at all in what I know I wrote. Even the handwriting is different... similar enough to see that it’s mine, but changed somehow. I can’t explain it in a way that satisfies me, but that’s the part that frightens me more than any of the rest of it.

I say frightened, but I’m really not frightened anymore. I’ve come to terms with how things are now, and since I no longer see it as some bizarre ethereal curse or dark infernal perpetuation-- or however I saw it, I’m not sure anymore-- there’s no need for me to worry or try to cheat the universe. Of course it’s not easy knowing that my world doesn’t have much left in it. Nobody wants to see something they’re a part of come to an end. It’s only that now, I don’t have to feel like I’m facing anything alone, or that I’m working against or for something unnatural. I do know I’m going to die soon. We all are, of course; most, including me, will more than likely be dead of cancer before the year is out. I both feel worse for and envy the others who have no physical ailments at the moment, since it’s entirely possible they’ll survive to the end of their natural years. In fact, a few were never exposed to the radiation at all because they’ve been here since before Impact. Theoretically, if the shock wasn’t too intense for them (and they can stomach the thought of each other), they will be able to reproduce and keep the human race going. Maybe we’ll come through this, after all. I don’t have any real expectations, though. We have no reason to assume this period will ever end, since I can’t quite believe the ozone will rebuild itself and the plants will come back to life once they realise the sun’s not out to kill them anymore, or that the water outside will spectacularly clear itself of pollutants. But then again, maybe everything will adapt somehow, and life will go in a new direction. After all, who of us can claim to understand all the workings of nature?

Like I said, I don’t have any expectations or assumptions about how everything will turn out. Still, when I think about all the things we’ve managed to accomplish-- surviving the Apocalypse, for heaven’s sake-- it’s not hard to believe we have enough strength to keep going into the unknown of eternity. And that’s a comfortable feeling.


--


14 November 0004 N.H.E.

Oh my god! I can feel myself dying. Medically they can’t help me here. Oh my god, oh my god, I’m rotting away. I barely have any time left. Oh my god!! I’m dying. No, please, please, no, I’m afraid. It hurts so much, but I don’t want it be over, ever-- I want it to end but I want to be the one that ends it, because that’s the way I hate it. Can’t I please-- can’t I please destroy all this, destroy it and justify myself? No, I can’t. I can’t. Oh my god. I don’t want to die. It hurts. I had to write it down-- I don’t want to forget it. I mean I do but I can’t... what will happen if I forget? I don’t know but I can’t... I’ll never find out, I’ll make sure I don’t. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is it. This is the end. Before I was looking forward and I was afraid but it still seemed so far away. I don’t have any time left. Oh my god. I’m so afraid. I feel weak and it hurts so much, I can barely write this. Breathing hurts. Oh my god. I’m afraid. I want anything.... anything to ease my pain, I want comfort. I want assurance... I want someone to hold me and say it’s going to be okay... but no, I don’t wan that... I hate.... untruth... oh my god... I’m afraid... I can’t do this. I can’t let this happen. I won’t die. I won’t. There’s got to be something I can do! There’s got to be something! Why can’t there be-- no, I can’t ask why-- I... what do I do? I’ve got to calm down. Everyone dies.... but, no... it doesn’t matter about them, you can read about people dying, you can see people die, you can kill people, it doesn’t help-- it doesn’t matter at all, it doesn’t make any difference when you die yourself, at lease me, it’s not making a difference, I saw so many people die, and I-- no-- oh, god, no, no. I’m so... I don’t know... what do I do? Those ones here all the time-- they stare at me because I’m ugly. They think I don’t know? I survived! They just... no, I’m better than they are. I had to survive myself... I had to... but... oh, god, no. What do I do? There’s something, I know it. I want to... I don’t want anything... I want... but even if it went back to before. Even if there was never impact... I... it’s too early to face this. I should put it off... I want to put it off... I want to die on my own terms. I can’t. There’s got to be... oh my god. I’m so afraid. I hurt all over. I feel like my skin is falling off. I’ve never been in this much pain before, any kind of pain. Why do people say they can’t stand things? You have to stand things... you don’t have a choice. I think I can’t stand this, but what happens when “I can’t stand it anymore”? Nothing happens. You keep on enduring it the same as before no matter how much you think you can’t handle it. That’s not strength. It’s more weakness. I can’t stand this, but I’m standing it, I’ve never felt like this.... it’s got to end, if it doesn’t end-- if it doesn’t end nothing will happen-- it’s never been worse. This is... no. What do I do?













March 0003 N.H.E.

Her name is Aisling Cogan. She was born 17 February a little over 23 years ago, took piano from age 7 and majored in physical sciences for her first year of college. At the time of impact, she was four months past her nineteenth birthday.

Aisling had never been pretty. By no means was she ugly, and she really was somewhat attractive when she smiled, but beautiful, striking, lovely, nobody would, or did, ever use such words to describe her. Her dark blonde hair was just wavy enough that it never lay straight and smooth, but it couldn’t hold curl and always adopted a sort of miserable thin wiriness in any level of humidity. Her eyes were a very liquid blue but not very expressive, and her mouth was a bit too large for her face while her nose was a bit too small for her nostrils. As for her build, she was average enough; nothing spectacular, but at least somewhat pleasant, and she managed to avoid being overweight by four or five pounds. She’d been a straight-A student through high school and she worked hard for it; her passions were Mozart, the theatre, and astronomy.

Surviving the Winter had not been difficult, really. One only needed to be reasonably separate from the impact site and be prepared to stay indoors for all of anywhere from two to six years. Supplies can last that long when one is prepared. Heat, that was important too-- the whole earth was frozen. Generators, then-- and fuel can last long enough as well. One only needs to be expecting it. As the asteroid hadn’t simply appeared one day and struck the next, everyone was expecting it. There weren’t excuses.

Billions survived impact, and millions lasted well into the Winter. Hundred thousands remained when Spring arrived-- too many were ill prepared-- and now, the Spring has been going on for two years. There are a few hundred, maybe. Aisling herself is alone.

Take her objectively and look at her against the infinite. Her skin is sickly yellow with a tinge of green and mottled all over with reddish-purple spots. Her left ring finger is partially rotted away. Her hair is dull yellow streaked with something pale and very foul-looking. Her black eyes are sunken in her gaunt face and ringed with a very dark orange, and her nostrils are distended. Her purple lips appear too heavy for her face. She is thin and angular with ugly parodies of feminine curves scattered about her frame; the skin on her ankles clings tightly to the bone and her feet are bulging and grotesque. She is horrifying, she is a monster; she is the denizen of everyone’s nightmares. In a menagerie full of bizarre almost-mistakes of nature, she is the defect, she is the singular vileness.

This, and she is beautiful.


--


January 0004 N.H.E.

"Do you know," he muses, "You are really a very pretty girl."

She is leaning against the ghastly trunk of something vegetable and her filmy eyes are drinking the abomination that runs through her instead of blood. Her lethargic motion in turning her head in his direction resembles death throes.

“My name is Jarrett,” he says, and smiles.

She stares through the air next to him and a bleak silence envelops both of them for a little while. Her head shifts just a little so it appears she is looking at him again.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

Despite appearance, it doesn’t seem likely now that she sees him at all. But at length she speaks. “There’s not really anything I can do anymore. The world is dying. God, I hate that word. Dying. It won’t ever be beautiful. Don’t you know that? Don’t you feel yourself dying? I feel it. I always feel it.”

He looks directly at her eyes with nothing but pity. “The world isn't beautiful. I’m sure we both know that. But why accept it? Now we live in a nightmare world, but a nightmare is still a dream. We can make it what we want it to be.”

She is silent again, as if she is going over what he has said again in her mind to make sure she understands. When she speaks again it is with startling violence. "That's an escape! It's totally worthless! We’re dying, dear God, don’t you know we’re dying? Pretending you aren’t dying only makes the shock that much worse. An escape like that…"

"But everything is an escape." Voice without mercy. Only half a voice. "This world is a mistake. Truth is worthless. You've got to see that. Truth is an accident."

"...but you… how can you live when you think that way?"

He smiles again with genuine peace and it is an obscenity. "I don't live at all anymore. I dream."

"So, this?” rising voice, shrill, like a dead scream-- an imitation of a voice. Her arm jerks outward spasmodically to indicate the landscape.

"Truth is the nightmare. My escape is the perfect dream. Why should I not shape my perceptions? Why should I face a world that was never meant to exist?"

"'Is Maleldil a child--'"

Voice with surprised cruelty. A whole voice. "But there is no God."

"No, there still is that." Her mottled, spindly fingers shift to another spot on her knee.

"Why would you imagine such a thing? No, you are wrong." Voice with violent sorrow. More than a voice.

"I know. If there isn't a God, we couldn’t be cut off from Him."

"Ah! I see it now; you are mad. That is a pity."

"No," worthless voice, voice without meaning. Nothing of a voice. "I am not, unfortunately, but that would be nice, don’t you think?"

“I will stay with you anyway,” he says, smiling for a third time. “We can help each other. We don’t need a god to help each other. And we can help everyone. What’s your name?”

“Aisling,” she responds. She tries to smile, just as an experiment, and fails.


--


"Dammit, Aisling! What's wrong with you? I know it hurts. Do you think I don't hurt, too? For God's sake, either just shoot yourself or grow a spine. You've still got your life, so do something with it!"

"You seem normal right now," she smiles. "You remind me of Earth."

"Stop your idiocy. I know you can't really believe all this nonsense. This is Earth, we are humans, and we are alive. If this is the last chapter of humanity, so be it, but so help me I am going to keep fighting until there's nothing left to fight against, do you understand me?"

"So help you what?"

Jarrett doesn't speak.

"So help you what? You said 'so help me.' So help you what? You don't believe in God."

"So help me me. Have it your way. I'm what I need. Being human is something important."

"But I'm dying."

"Dying, of course you're dying. Life is just the time it takes for you to finish dying. You'd be dying even if the asteroid had never hit."

"But then I wouldn't know! Knowing is the worst part! I wouldn't have been able to feel it, then!"

"That's why I'm begging you to take control. Please, Aisling, I'm alone, and you're the only one I've found, but you won't be human for me. Please just go back to being a person. I've been alone for so long. Act like normal. Don't be strange just because the whole world is different."

"I just don't understand anything anymore," Aisling mutters. "I guess I never understood the world at all, but I felt like I might be able to understand it someday. I'm never going to understand the way things are now. I just want to know-- why? Why all this-- why just me and just you?"

"Never ask 'why' again."

"What?"

"Ask whatever question you want, but don't ever ask why to anything. You can know everything about everything, but you still won't know why, because why doesn't exist. It's fake. There is no why that will explain things. Do you hear? There is no why. Everything is its own justification."

Her mouth forms an oblongly misshapen 'o'. "I see," she says at length. "That makes sense. Thank you."


--


curly thing.
one's hair on trees and one's hair on people.
IMAGE MAP OF YOUR DOOM.