TANTALUS OF TARTARUS

Books are machine-made objects. Human beings are vectors. We live in a metropolis besieged by itself. You live in a mind besieged by itself. You are a thought machine. I am a thought machine. We are thought machines. Thought machines coupled & uncoupled. The bigger machines irk you. Growing. Absorbing. Remokable. Turn off the spellcheck, you bloody iijit. Everybody is being scrambled after the egg is cracked. Into the same fucking omelet. We yolk. Sliding across the plate. Asses up. Over easy. Nice to meet you. The ecology of people. The strata of being. Amerika is whatever you say it is. Easy on the mustard. Horseradish. Wasabi is just green horseradish in disguise. San Francisco is a tectonic metropolis. The nonorganic. The inorganic. The no-no organic. Is there a human future? Are we possible? Media theory is… what? Are you listening? Are you pinging? Are you a circuit? Are you a circuit-breaker? The U.S. Geological Survey. Afghanistan is the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Erkki and Wolfgang: are you the offspring of electronic media? The little zigzag? From the ziggurat? Tactile sensations of existence. The spatio-temporal occurrence of a thought. Metatarsals and phalanges digits of calculation supercell before the F5 tornado. Vectors of thought. Information capitalism. Are you satisfied with your technological machine? Happy? We laugh. We giggle. What next, how now? 

Yes. Let’s get that out of the way. The break. The space. Electronic waste[land]. We are wanderers. Refugees. Tinkers. 

REMs are required to glimpse the disappearing Rare Earth Minerals. Tantalum. Coltan. Yttrium. Silent concrete buildings in Stavropol. The nuclear football fish discovered on a beach in California. We kissed against a brick wall in Prague. Geopolitical manoeuvres in a bedroom. The submarine cables of Brazil. Spectacular jumps of the mind. We send each other postcards. Adjunct lecturers of post-humanities, we strip & fuck.

I might change everything. I might change my life. Bring me a jar of kimchee. A fork. The IF/THEN routines of everyday life. I keep eating bagels. I keep getting fatter. Atomic number 73.

I sip coffee. The morning glories. Day must begin. Night is not far behind. Endless revolutions. Time is behaving strangely. Are you okay? Do you still exist? Glimpses of lovers in the electronic aether. Human beings. Homo sapiens. Neanderthal encounters in the dark. A handprint on a thigh. A rump.

We yolk. We succumb.

“Speed is the computer’s secret weapon.” -Vannevar Bush

Human beings are vectors of thought. What passes through you/me passes through me/you.

Making space to make the noise.

Granola-eater. Crunch crunch crunch. Your molars impress. Radioactive fillings. Electromagnetic smile. Ass in the air. Get as much as you can.

I write things. Things write me.  A novel is the beginning… of the end. The end… a beginning. We speak to each other. We spoke to each other. I remember everything. Night at the edge of a hill. A moon in the sky. Railroad tracks. A town. A village. We kept walking. To where? God knows. Another village. Another festival.

I lived hard. Too hard. Not hard enough. I can no longer tell the difference. The equation is algorithmic. The equation is quadratic. Solve for X. Solve for Y. Solve for Z.

We inhabit each other. We linger at the edge of memory. Echoing the vastness. The emptiness. We are pilgrims. We are prisoners.

We are free.

Yes, well yes. Sip. Eat the forbidden fruit. Grasp at the ungraspable. I stand in a whirlpool of space-time. 

A knob-on penetrates sweet honeydew labia. Rub your hands together. Knead the dough. Make the pizza. Squeeze the ass.

Are you capable of dream? 

Is it a television machine?

Episode 88.

Season 8. The Finale.

The TARDIS tantalizes Tantalus in Tarturus.

Get in.

Jaunt.

Jump!

I am a film-novelist. Already, the laughter. Stop. This is serious. Laugh your ass off, if you must. The end is nigh. Haha!

Loops of time.

Loops of space.

Everybody is everywhere.

Integers on the Cartesian plane.

The in-between.

Neither-nor.

You.

Me.

I.

.

by R.G. Vasicek

R.G. Vasicek is a lo-fi novelist in NYC. Vasicek's books include THE DEFECTORS, MACHINE, CYBORG, & the anti-novella JÖRGENSEN AND THE MACHINE.