July 25, 2001: my name is ariel
It's over.
Yesterday, she posted one last journal entry.
Packed up.
Left our lives.
So did the rest of them. Martin, Brutus, Diane, Dwayne, and all the rest. This is where their stories and ours diverge.
I am, of course, talking about the AI game that sucked up so many of my spare brain cells for so long. It was less a game and more a new art form--the PuppetMasters staying just a half a step ahead of us as we solved problems, revealed more plot, voracious for more and more and more. We--and by this i mean the eight thousand or so people who played the game--drove the game, and the PMs, forward.
I developed a crush on Laia.
Like reading a novel, but more involving. There was more time and space for the characters to grow, to breathe in us. Pictures anchor people, make them more real. Voices on the phone, even more.
I was a part--a very, very small part--of the Cloudmakers, a collective intelligence that jumped on puzzles as they were presented, working together on puzzles that got more and more obscure. It was an odd experience, to know that I was functioning as part of this giant problem-solving machine. I actually cared about whether the Mann Act would pass. I cared about Martin and his obsession with his AI brother.
It was fun, and complex, and the plot twists were so insane that I have difficulty explaining them.
Thanks, guys. It was fun.
local access only
twist me.
I bite my fingernails to the quick and walk
the city streets, barely noticing the way
the sky is reflected in car windows
the cat watching me from under a bush
the way the smell of the sea sneaks up the hills
barely noticing.
Summer slides by me and I remain fixed,
a cardinal point in my silence
and my universe which rotates only slowly.
they say that poets who commit suicide
betray themselves beforehand, by speaking endlessly
of and to themselves. Thus, suicide as a self-centered act.
I work my way into myself, lie silent
at the base of my betrayals, feel the weight
of my obligations shift on me.
I find my step-self, my shadow spirit,
my mirror and my twin. She snarls.
She asks inconvenient questions, like
why do you care? and
where are you in all this?
Summer slides by me and I remain fixed,
the deteriorating balance point of my life.
I've tied my own hands and I watch
the season, moving slowly away.
twist me.
I speak to my shadow-self
and together, her pale hands on mine,
we take our burden and put it down.
Done with the caring, the hard rewards of unselfishness,
of the yes mouth and the no mind,
bloody nail beds and seasons fading unremarked.
Every dream, joined to a steel yoke.
Every sunset, reflected in glittering windows.
7.25.01
