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In with Astrophe - The Feeling of Being Stuck on Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1SkepihYLE
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Jan 3, 2024 01:18
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 12:26 |
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Astrophe - The Feeling of Being Stuck on Earth Backdrop People 1485 words Len and Vasili drove by night to Nimbin, up in the hills. They killed a pair of backdrop people there, a fake woman and man. The backdrop people owned a beautiful beautiful holiday house in the woods, reclaimed timber, eucalypt branches brushing at the windows. Vasili called them prison walls. In a cupboard in the kitchen was a huge jar full of weed. No way said Vasili. These are delicate fuckin signals we're picking up on mate. We're so close. You want to go and gently caress it all up for a choof? What have I been telling you all this time? I know. I'm ready. Are you though mate? Six months ago they'd met and hosed in some guy's trailer in the Western Suburbs, way down in Melbourne. A long hazy night of punk kids bumming cigs and pills off each other. Afterward, in the tangle of dusty blankets, Vasili had said: I'm not a poof, you know. Len had smiled cause he'd heard that one before, even used it himself once or twice to get out of a tricky situation. Vasili went on, You know what celibate means? Yeah. That's what I am. Only I got to gently caress people sometimes to find out if they're real. What the hell you mean real? Vasili had sat up in the gloom, the blanket sliding down his calves. He started to talk about the backdrop and the foreground. Things Len'd known since he was a little kid, things that moved inside him deep below the level of insufficient words. The way people didn't seem like people when you saw them in the corner of your eye. And how thin the world seemed sometimes, like you could put your fist through it and feel some cold special terrible chill beyond. These were things Len had never told anyone. Never even told himself. But Vasili was telling it clear. He said the world wasn't the world, not really. He said there were real people in the world but not many. He said it's hard to find them. I'm just passing through here you know. I got to find certain reagents. Then I'll be gone. Vasili said he reckoned Len might be real. Not just another backdrop person. There were some tests, out on Vasili's uncle's place in a shed at dusk. Pain is the way through mate. That's only the first stage. You'll have to work hard to catch up to me before I go. Vasili had a plan to get out. He'd been reading and experimenting for years and he was almost done. Now he had Len to help him find what he needed. While all the other kids were just loving around, just getting high, Vasili and Len moved through them with a purpose. A shopping list. Things they dredged up from the far corners of the dark web, from dealers in high rises and hippie communes and run-down outer suburbs where the backdrop people went to die. Research chemicals, oneirogens, toad medicine. Real things hidden in the curtain maze of the world. In Sydney they left a kid OD'ing in an upscale apartment. Cleaned out his stash and went down the fire escape to avoid the cameras on the front door. He probably wouldn't have lived, Len said later. No dumbass. He never was alive. He was backdrop people. The streets were full of them. Cardboard cutouts pretending to be human. Flypapers for real souls. Len knew that, he said over and over that he knew. But the next day Vasili disappeared. No text, phone turned off. He finally showed up a week later. To be honest mate. I've had some doubts about you. I can't take you with me if I'm not sure. So what? What I got to do? You got to show me you're not still stuck here. Remember what I told you. Attachment is the roof of all suffering. And he showed him the hammer. Outside the house so nervous he could die. Trying to keep hold of that cardboard-feeling, that knowing the thinness of the world. He went in through the back door. The guy was at the kitchen counter drinking a glass of water. The other was upstairs in the spare room and still sleeping when he got to her. Right after he threw up. But then he felt amazing. Like everything around him was surging up into light and air and he could pass through it--walls, trees, skylight, sky, all close as a curtain and equally without depth. Just wave a hand and it would all ripple away. He looked at Vasili and Vasili looked at him. Now you see it mate. All that's solid melts into air. gently caress yeah it does. They left the backdrop people downstairs under a tarp. Then in the second floor bedroom they opened the window and threw everything out--lamp dresser quilted blanket crashing on the pebbled drive below. Minimum of material distractions, Vasili said. You're still floating close to earth mate. Don't let anything snag you when it's time to fly away. In the bare room, Vasili took out his notes and his medical bag. He unrolled a big piece of butcher's paper on the floor and drew the sefirot in magic marker. In each circle he placed a different tupperware container. Ready to go mate. Ready to fuckin go. But when Len went to piss, he came back to find Vasili shaking his head. What? Going to need more bottled water than this. Got to keep the meat sacks hydrated until it's time to go. They got tap water. Nah mate. Tap water's got folate in it. You know how much folate'll gently caress up a finely calibrated psyche like mine? You got to go into town. Len said nothing. Are you real or not? I'm real. Well go on then oval office. Before the trap closes again. Len got the keys from the bowl on the kitchen bench. It smelled in there. He started the backdrop people's Prius and drove down the dirt track, between thick walls of blue gum, grey gum, narrowing to a grey point ahead of him, the walls of the evil world that were always close enough to touch but jumped away if you reached for them the tricky fuckers. Half a k down the road he stopped and got out. Walked back along the roadside and went in through the back door of the house. Quiet as a churchmouse. That was what his mum used to say about him. Backdrop mum who was dead now anyway. Up the stairs. The vile scent of salvia was spilling out from the cracked door of the bedroom. Vasili was on the bare mattress, grey-faced. He shot up when Len came in. There was a pipe loose in his hand. You bastard. You think I'm fuckin stupid? I'm sorry mate. I can't take you. You're just going to drag me back to earth. Len took out the claw hammer, still sticky all down its length. Dumb poo poo mother fucker you'll take me with you or I'll beat your brains out and you'll never get free. You'll be reincarnating as a bug for the next ten thousand years. Alright fine. Jesus. Cowering now with his arms over his head. Pupils big as gently caress. He'd already gone on ahead. Give me that said Len. He hit the pipe. Bitter taste down his throat. What's next then. Vasili had always been cagey about the details of the program. He skulked around the diagram like a spider, snatching up pills and herbs, darting furious glances at the bloody hammer. His face flashed demon-cruel a second and Len knew the salvia was hitting already. Hurry up. They started to take the rest of the reagents. A groan of anticipation from the old timbers all around. Len reeled but kept his feet and his grip on the weapon. Vasili cracked an unlabelled pill bottle. Take these next. Is it really that many? Yeah. I'll beat your fuckin head in if you lie to me. I swear. The walls started to buckle at last. Outside the narrow window, the sky was like a lovely painting. Oh god it's happening. His head blossoming like a flower. A distant tug on his hand and Len looked down. Vasili had managed to crawl, wormlike, across the bare floor and was trying to take the hammer by its head. Rat fucker... His body felt slow as the deep ocean; shadow people rustled at the corners of his eyes. With great effort he snatched the weapon away from Vasili's reach while Vasili mewled now on his belly, pupils like dinnerplates. Pupils like curtains... that twitched away for a moment to reveal behind them a great void. A moment of recognition, maybe, as the hammer came down.
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Jan 5, 2024 07:16
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