Edging the Aftertimes

Dear Americans. Annual rituals of spiritual cleansing do not kill COVID. That is all. Please stay safe. — A young man joined a silent older man on a bench. Turning to the old man, his face shiny as a fresh condom, he said: “Mayflies are going extinct. Apparently, they confuse cars paint with bodies of water. They swarm, spooge and die.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ,ha. He laugh hysterically inches from the old mans ear. The old man didn’t move. “Excuse me?” His laughter stopped. He rotated his entire body to see a woman had stopped on the sidewalk between the bench and the large retail parking lot. Holding her treats, her body made a backwards “K”, her mouth rotated forty-five degrees, her eyebrows the inverted triangle of Thewn (all hail Thewn, he thought). “Where’s your fucking mask?”, she said. “Where’s my fucking mask? Where’s your fucking manners? It’s Christmas you mother fuck. You’re one of them, you filthy hole. This low-rent ass veil shit ain’t keeping nobody pure. They bust the stores and dinners and shit cause why?! Cause they’re all in there without masks, but if they had the disease they’d be sick but they’re not, they’re just in trouble with the fucking government man. But then they put them in the black prison camps where there really is a disease just to show those white folks what the fuck is what. And now you. Are they paying you, how much are they paying you?” Her body made an “H”, her mouth was flat, her eyebrows the triangle of Thewn’s nemesis (all vengeance to Thewn, he though). “I just need to get my dad, but I don’t want you to breath on me.” He paused, breathed deep like he had been told to. They told him they couldn’t keep him but he could come by sometimes. He was glad they wouldn’t keep him. Unless he hurt someone again. He stood up slowly like he had been told to. He was at least a foot taller than the woman, his long bathrobe worn from the weather. His slippers were covered in tape, his sweatpants held in place by twine he periodically used as a drying rod, wherein he laid naked under blankets til the clothes were dry and he could leave. His skin was often sore, and when he wore normal clothes his skin would become so inflamed that his hair follicles would harbor life that would ooze and kill the hair. He now had discolored calloused patches of barren skin emanating from elbows and knees and traveling like a plague across his body. He covered his body in lotion and activity that consumed much of his day. He frequently stole his lotion. “I’m sorry” he said to the woman, like he had been told to. He turned and started walking away from the woman. As soon as he was a safe distance away, she grabbed her father and dragged him quickly to the waiting car, idling with a spouse and young kids. He walked to the edge of the superstore, across the service road and disappeared into the woods. Get full access to Edging the Aftertimes at austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe [https://austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast]

I am sitting on a bench beside a narrow river. People pass me on the wide sidewalk in front of me. There are small recreational boats on the river, with colorful hulls and laughing crew. It is sunny. It is a warm spring day. I hear church bells across the river, B, F♯, G♯, E. One, Two, Three... A woman laughs behind me, I do not see her. The church is a handsome but modest. It mustn't be Sunday, there are very few people gathered in the plaza. A woman sits on a bench with her back to me. She seems to be reading. I don't remember walking here. I look left and right. The river curves behind me on both sides. I stand up and begin walking. It is a warm lovely day, the clouds are perfect. There is a thick canopy of trees on my right. Someone laughs on the river, I look over. I am sitting on a bench beside a narrow river. I see the woman alone in the park reading her book in front of the large office building. I see the small barges on the river. I see a man walking towards me and ask him the time. He answers me politely though I am uncertain what he said. I am alone on my side of the river. I wave to the woman and she keeps reading. I smile, remembering the warm day and the laughter, but I am wearing a coat, and it is grey outside. I stand up and start walking, a thick canopy of trees on my left. I walk to the edge of the water and look at the muck and the brown water. I pick up a rock it is still jagged, it cuts me and I yelp. The woman looks up from her reading and I wave. She waves back. And I smile and shyly look away. When I look back she has risen to her feet and is waving frantically and pointing. I am confused, I am struck and I hear panting and I hear back up alarms and ambulances and hammering. I am sitting on a bench beside a river. Men and women scurry on the sidewalk in front of me. I am watching buildings being built across the way next to where the old row houses used to be. Piles of furniture and boxes cover the stairs of the remaining houses. A woman sits on a bus bench hanging her head. I wave at the woman. She doesn't respond. I stand up, but am quickly knocked down. I yell for her, but she can't hear me. A man walks up to her screaming and she cowers and then strikes him. He grabs her by the hair. I start screaming for help. I point at her and no one stops. I stand up and run looking for a bridge, and there are no bridges, I start walking into the water and she looks up, making eye contact with me as I sink into the river. I am laying on a bench shivering. I can smell the river, but not see it, for there is no moon. Away in the silence I see a single street light on a bench where a woman sits smiling and waving at me. How long has she been there? I wave back. A figure from the shadows comes and shoots her in the head. I scream. I am lying on my back flailing and slowly focusing on a young man who says something I don't understand. I stand up and he protests but helps me to the bench. He is trying to pull me somewhere, other people are around and I wave my hands, they must leave me alone. He has killed her I scream, he has killed her. And the young man holds my hands and stares into my eyes. And I know she is there. He walks away. It is late afternoon and I am very tired. I wake to a bright light, a glowing orb of white, then grunts and growls and I wave my hands and there is pain and I am dragged and hit and the light goes dark, and the moon glints off all of their shiny plastic, metal and sweat. I fight and I scream. And I am withdrawing, the pain consuming all of my thoughts, my soul and finally the universe itself. I am sitting on a bench, I remember being hit by several cars. I must have jumped into the boulevard in front of me. I see a woman waiting on a bus. She is reading a book. In the distance I hear bells. Get full access to Edging the Aftertimes at austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe [https://austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast]

Our rapidly aging boomer landlord has a beutiful old home that getes worse everytime he fixes something. He has the aethetics of a slum lord. As such, we’ve gone with open cabinet concept, removing the doors as the frames and hinges crack off. It pairs well with our broken microwave. I strongly suspect he is of the “No no, security deposit is the name of the thirteenth month of the lease, when you don’t live here” school of thought. It’s still an awesome place, but details can really sneak up and shit on your foot then smile at you like “I dare you to do anything you forty-year-old who knows they ain’t gonna do shit but hurt they’re hand and some drywall”. MF Imps. I updated Sofa Flower Moon this week. Random, nineteen hour playlists at the push of a button. [https://sofaflowermoon.com/] Have a happy weekend, enjoy the sounds of the birds while not begrudging them they’re flight. — Maybe we should just kill all of the boomers. Just kill one boomer per zip code per day. There areseventy-three million boomers left [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/12/by-2030-all-baby-boomers-will-be-age-65-or-older.html] andforty-two thousand zip codes [https://facts.usps.com/42000-zip-codes/]. We can do it in 5 years. It seems like it’s that or the planet dies. They seem to be the methane. All the policy impossibilities. The selfishness and personal responsibility. They seem like cynical old dreamers with guns and money who still treat us like children that owe them something. But when we were forced out into the world and away from home to find enough stability to sleep in the same room for two consecutive years, they adopted these violent new kids who are bleeding our inheritance dry with security and medical grifts. Most of us won’t inherit anything but debt after these adopted corporate siblings are done. We spent a lifetime being brow-beaten for theoretically one day maybe getting out of debt when we lose someone we love and inherit some life changing amount of money. Wanting that made us assholes, so they hired new kids who tell them what they want to hear. I suppose it’s fortunate that there’s always more banks to adopt as wise old ancestors to whom one owes karmic and material debt. Maybe we take what money they have left, and send the boomers to perform a giant cleansing ritual. We send them by train to fill up Las Vegas and have an orgy until they mostly die of COVID, drugs and strokes. When it’s all done, the beurau of prisons can sweep through food stained uniforms, flame throwers and pistols to clear the evidence. We can give the boomers back their pay-phones, living rooms, decency, cocaine and all the credit they can take on. They will see it as a vacation. We will live with the burden of what it really is. But it’ll never work, even if it is they’re fault. It’ll just make a mess, and they’re insufferable when they’re meek. They’ll just fake cry like a toddler until we let them live and they go back to how it is now. The point of the fantasy is for me. It is the myth-making that the boomers are coherant enough to be culpable, and to have enough agency to be punished and through that punishment absolve us. They lack the spirtual essence required for sacrifice. Shit is just fucked and I participated too. Fuck me. There is joy in eliminating easy answers. Get full access to Edging the Aftertimes at austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe [https://austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast]

We are rapidly finding homes for our things, our old house is nearly empty and clean. All in all, a joyful, if not entirely happy, process. Thank you all for your support. For our sound selections this week, we continue — “Sofa Flower Moon [https://sofaflowermoon.com/], but fast”. — The rot continues a-pace. I, like many of my friends and family, remain fine. Scared, stressed, “inconvenienced” but overall my lifestyle remains intact. The internet works, I continue to telecommute, I continue to pay for goods and services. In some ways my economic life is actually better. Perhaps this will continue, those with power certainly seem focused on that outcome. Besides a winter tide of death, it’s all quiet out there in the western metaverse. It gives me time to catch my breath and think about what I will be doing as the tide rises. As I imagine it, the state increasingly justifies genocidal in-action as impotence, finding just enough firmness for genocidal action in support of property. This means class and other identity hierarchies will be maintained, likely because they are the new "norms" we all fight over. Which means nothing changes much, except things are shittier. What will I be doing? Same thing I did last year this time, telecommuting, unpacking boxes. Talking to neighbors without touching them or even getting closer than yelling from my yard to theirs. Smelling the ass of the new neighborhood and letting it smell mine. I piss in the park, shit in the basement and curl up for a nap. Get full access to Edging the Aftertimes at austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe [https://austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast]

We spent our first night in the new rental house. Almost all of our things are here. Knick·knacks, hair, dust, dried effluvia remain in the old one. If we don't get the Rona, we'll be out in the next week. The fire alarm is screaming in “competent beta male" that the batter compartment is open. I opened it to stop the traditional ear shattering plosive followed by “Low battery” in what should be the Ur-voice for the current trend of incest porn. I'm wearing sound-canceling headphones made by large company A. The fire alarm is made by some large company B. Is there not a company C that could provide data from B to A so that A can better cancel the sounds of B (or provide different sound with more data perhaps (targeted to that device - this has got to be what's up with the little speakers -- its really a microphone sold as a speaker)), or whatever; so the slacker can pay $9.99 a month to better ignore their failing smoke alarm. And the free version uses ads. Periodically when you start moving around a lot an ad kicks up “Looks like you're onto a new activity, let's reinforce consumption”. I guess that's what all the watches are for. I'm exhausted. I feel without context to hold onto reality. I will sense that something is acutely wrong. I will feel absolutely justified in my reaction to it. I then realize I am not justified. I then realize that the thing that was wrong was supposed to be wrong at that momement so I'd do what I did and now things are right. But I can't remember that. I'm so goddam tired. But I'll add with proof-of-life intentions that I'm very happy that we are here, joy is possible even as hope evaporates leaving its gooey stain. Get full access to Edging the Aftertimes at austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe [https://austinmeyers.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast]