Morning Commute
Illuminated signs Cut through the dark like harsh words Calling out like noisy merchants Vainly reflecting on empty streets
Illuminated signs Cut through the dark like harsh words Calling out like noisy merchants Vainly reflecting on empty streets
Her eyes are fixed on the cooker.
— Look.
Points at the egg.
— What?
— Can’t you see?
— Has it gone bad?
She takes a deep breath.
— I noticed the way you broke the shell, but I needed to confirm. Can you see how the yolk is soft yet whole, with a small cut in the lower portion slowly leaking a yellow thread at a regular pace?
— Yes...
— Don’t you get it?
— No.
— When the yolk leaks like that, it can only mean two things.
She hesitates.
— You’re either going to murder me...
— What you’re talking about?
— Or you’ll get a Ph.D. in Physics in 2035.
— You’re kidding, right?
— Nope.
— You saw all that? On a fucking egg?
— I knew you wouldn’t understand...
— You were right.
A second goes by. He cleans his throat, kinda embarrassed.
— Honey?
— Yeah, babe.
— I’m terrible at physics.
He holds a knife with a confused expression on his face.
1:45 A M Two divided Lonely bed, lonely couch Emotional drainage leaks Seeps into sub floors Foul and sickly Sticky and putrid Fuck me
Blue house Foundation exposed Brown threadbare carpet White counters fadded dull Wallpaper curled and yellow Still it's theirs Contentment abounds
I'm not quite like you
A few words and that's it
The façade fades
Crumbles
The carefully constructed mood dies
Coping mechanisms defeated
The castle is compromised
A strong exterior only goes so far
Each word pulls stones from the foundation
Fragile walls, fragile heart
I retreat to my secret home
Away from the swords and arrows and fire
No one can reach me here
Safe and quiet and in control
Equally secure, equally secluded
Tapped out on my phone in an Uber on the way to D&D. I write about more than love, I promise!
the water laps at the dam
seeking egress, seeking progress
everyone inside so thirsty
life affirming liquid
but the dam
the wall we built to keep ourselves safe
our salvation
our condemnation
seemed a good idea at the time
but all our other crimes against ourselves did too
how are we so smart yet so stupid
it hurts
it fucking hurts
life without love may as well be an empty gift on Christmas morning
but we all do it to ourselves every day
so many boundaries and rules and norms
all because we’re too afraid to get hurt
too afraid to be ourselves
too afraid to realize ourselves
too afraid to give one another the best gift we can
I’m sorry
but
I can’t today
I want to
but
I can’t
It’s not my fault
but
I’m guilty anyway
I’m not understood
but
I’m pressured anyway
I yearn to create, to do
but
I just stay in bed
I want to live
but
I’m too hurt
Please note, I am no writer of any kind. For some inexplicable reason I just had the desire to give it a go today. I hope someone out there finds some enjoyment in it.
After David left I decided I'd better make good on my promise and find a new place to live. The woman from the council said there might be a temporary property available. That someone had recently died at the retirement village outside of Holyhead.
When I finished at school on Friday, I went to David's and gathered up what I thought was mine. As it turns out, almost everything was his. It wasn't long after we'd met that I moved in. It was gradual though. Bits and pieces brought over from mom's in bin bags tucked under the bus seats they save for people and their buggies. As the months rolled on there was less and less at mom's. I'd still visit on a Sunday for lunch but that was about it.
I had this porcelain clock on the mantle at David's, two corgis sat either side of the clock face. David hated it. He had a thing for minimalist art and would order fake prints online. He liked Robert Ryman a lot. He thought my clock threw everything off. He'd often tell me how important it was to appreciate art but what he liked left me cold. I wrapped the clock in newspaper and tossed it into my backpack. I took a last look at the living room. It was something new now.
When I got to the village it was raining. Cold droplets cascading down my jacket. I alternated hands, dropping each bin bag to the ground to rub the speckles from my glasses. In front of the bus stop there was a pathway that led to the complex, flanked on either side by imitation grass astro turf. Beyond that, two identical adjacent blocks. Rows stacked on top of one another like lego bricks.
The woman at the council told me it was flat 2b, "the last flat on the ground floor". I searched for the receipt I'd scribbled the details on to check if I'd remembered it right. I hauled my bags over my shoulder and ran underneath the closest awning. I stared up at the sign fixed to the brick. 1a. I can wait here until the rain dies down, I thought.
From across the yard a woman was sitting in a wheel chair, a mask attached to her face. An enormous tube jutting out from her mouth connected to a canister strapped to the side of her chair. She stared in my direction and didn't move. She's sitting next to 2b, she might be my neighbour, I thought. As the rain died down I walked over towards her. As I approached, I wasn't sure if she was going to take the mask off or not. What's wrong with her, I thought? "Hi, I'm Kate". I extended my hand and wondered if she could move her arms. She didn't reach back. "Mad weather isn't it?". She continued to stare. "I'm only staying for a month or so, I need my own place for a minute and it's all I could get you know? Not that I'm not grateful or anything". She continued to stare. "Ok, well, it was nice meeting you". I took out my key, opened the door and stood alone in the hallway.
David and I usually ate together on Saturday mornings. He'd wake up later than I did and wander about the place yawning. He'd often glorify his exhaustion to me. Some invisible accomplishment he'd been gaining interest on since leaving uni.
There wasn't a kettle in the new kitchen, but there was an electric hob. I poured water over the tea bag, into my cup and peered through the net curtains. The rain had settled and I could see the opposite house and the whole complex in the daylight now, some strange vortex, wholly enclosed. A village of it's own making.
I put on my old slippers, took my cup and stepped out onto the concrete walkway. The woman from yesterday wasn't around now. I thought about knocking but decided against it. Either she couldn't talk or has seen so many people come and go, she doesn't go in for platitudes anymore. Pacing, I caught a glimpse of her kitchen. Pink lino on the floor, almost nothing out on the worktops. It looked unoccupied. I moved back to my half of the walkway and perched on the step to finish my tea. I should get started sorting what I have before Sunday rolls around, I thought. As I got up, I heard my neighbour careen around the corner, up over the astro turf and onto the walkway. She stopped before her door, I nodded and smiled. This time she nodded back in my direction. She then raised her hand and jostled the toggle on the arm rest. Her chair moved closer towards me. She raised her eyes to meet mine and looked back at my hands. She did this a second time. "I'm sorry, I don't understand". She repeated this a third time. I mumbled something and she reached out and opened up my right hand. She surveyed my palm, in all of its detail, looked back up at me and nodded again. "Sorry, can I help with something?". She shook her head, reversed and rolled up the ramp back into her flat.
On Sunday morning I started sorting through the rest of the papers I threw into my bag at David's. Bank statements, a few receipts, junk mail. In amongst them I found a cinema ticket I'd kept from when we started dating. He asked me to go to see the first Terminator, "on the original reel", he said. I didn't much want to go and don't like violent films but thought it'd be a good excuse to get to know one another. We got pretty swept away with each other after that.
I sorted through the rest hoping I'd find something else, but there was nothing. I stacked the ordered papers on the ground and went outside for a break. There wasn't anybody out, like the day before. After some time my neighbour's door opened. I stood up and checked to see if she needed any help. I found her raising her eyes to her forehead, motioning backwards. "Do you need some help?", she shook her head and motioned backwards with her eyes for a second time. She reversed the chair and gestured for me to come in. I stepped inside. She manoeuvred her wheelchair into the kitchen and positioned herself next to the dining room table. There was a chair opposite to her, so I sat too. "Is everything ok?", I asked. She nodded. "I hope you don't mind me asking, are you able to speak?". She stared at me and shook her head. After a few seconds passed she pointed to a badge on her cardigan. On a yellow background, in all black caps it read, "JANE". "I'm Kate, nice to meet you Jane". This time she extended her arm and we shook hands. "How long have you been here Jane?". She nodded 5 times. "Ah ok, and how do you like it? Do you have family that visit?". She shook her head. "Do you mind me asking, what's wrong with you? Shit sorry, umm, not like that, I mean, umm, are you sick?". She paused for a moment and nodded. She then reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a deck of cards.
I don't know anything about Tarot, other than what you see on T.V but I'm not a superstitious like that. She laid the cards on the table in front of me, either nodding or shaking her head as she passed each of them one by one. The last card in the row showed a stone tower. She looked down, paused, raised her head, but this time, looked right past me. Dust cascaded through the shards of light piercing through the window. Jane starred into it for what felt like a whole minute. Watching the particles dance before her I asked, "Are you ok Jane?", she shook her head. "Is there something I can do?", she shook her ahead again. "I had better be going Jane, I meet my mom on a Sunday for lunch, please let me know if there's anything I can help with, OK? As I said yesterday, I won't be staying too long, but while I'm here, feel free to knock on". She nodded her head. I let myself out and left, the cards still strewn about the table.
I didn't see Jane much after that afternoon and things went on as normal. David called and we hashed things out over the phone but we'd petered out long before that. The council explained I couldn't stay on at the village for another month so I moved back with mom. After a few weeks passed, one evening after work, I opened up my laptop and searched online for "Jane Tarot". Tons of results came up but only one from Holyhead. A local newspaper article with a headline that read, "LOCAL LADY FORESAW DIAGNOSIS". "I knew what was going to happen to me, the fibrosis I mean. The cards speak and I accept, I give myself up to that". I closed my laptop and looked outside into mom's garden. I thought about the tower card and how people do all sorts of things to justify their own lives, to deal with their own grief and make sense of things.
Mom plants Floribunda's every year and they're starting to bloom now. My phone rings. I offer to cover a shift for a new temp at work. I put on my jacket, walk outside and think about Jane.
Put your head over here
and cry all the yearning away
cause thinking will bring you nothing
just thoughts and yet more pain
Sleep, sleep my child
breath slowly that way
cause here there is no more strain
under my loving gaze
In your cotton candy dreams
you embrace with such strength
a cloud above in the sky
sleep, honey, yes, sleep
cause here you're free from time
And there I am on this dream
imagining, imagined
the mark of a want, of a wish
a trace drawn in the sky
don't know if I'm the one dreaming
or if I am been dreamed about
encosta a cabeça aqui
e chora a saudade toda
que pensar não leva nada
só mais pensar e dor ainda
dorme seu sono infante
respira assim devagar
que aqui não vai sofrer
debaixo de meu olhar
em teu sonho de algodão doce
não sei do quê dá risada
e abraça com tanta força
uma nuvem no céu alçada
dorme, meu bem, dorme sim
que aqui o tempo não passa
E nesse sonho estou lá
Imaginando, imaginado
A marca de uma vontade
Um traço no céu projetado
Não sei se sou eu que sonho
Ou se eu é quem sou sonhado
So many wants that never were
But that were mine nevertheless
In the joy of many maybes
Slow evening
Time is cursed, it goes
The body is alive and weary
And stuck in hour a soul — immense
Nostalgia das 5 Horas
Tanto querer que nunca foi
Mas era meu ainda assim
Na alegria do talvez
A tarde lenta
O tempo é maldito e passa
Ainda vivo o corpo cansa
E presa na hora a alma - imensa
Saw in you a trace, a gesture without any end
a phrase with no reticences
a shadow lost in the gaze
A question you have not made
a plot not yet heard
a night with no resolution
be calm, the sun is not late
Gesto
vi em você um traço
um gesto sem fim colocado
vi frase vi reticência
suspiro pela metade
e olhar desencontrado
da pergunta ainda não dita
sequer pinçada talvez
da trama'inda inaudita
que a noite não tarda ou finda
mas calma que o sol já vem
Glowing friend, your light
has given me
everything I know.
To run you require
a sacrificeI click open my knife
forgotten forever in the drawer with the butterfly yo-yo,
the heart necklace of an immature love
and the compass
with the atomic symbol.With the blade I
etch
and cut
and stab
to draw sand
from the glass
long left unflipped.It slides along your surface
sinks in
and is gone.
lost time like grains leaking out an hourglass
lost feelings like love leaving a full heart
lost purpose like a crusader without a cause
all these years, feelings, purpose stolen, violated
an evil I never invited, never wanted
it's not my fault, not my goal
innocent yet guilty
convicted
more like cursed
their hatred is my destiny
never get back what was lost
never recover who I could, maybe should, have been
robbed of a life, of a happy, normal life
I can't even hate them for it
can't even have that comfort
I'd be just as bad, repeat the cycle
almost sympathetic
only path, only cure, is love
creamy center of a cyanide pill
This is a reflection of what building friendships and close relationships is like for me. Mental health makes everything much harder, but I keep trying.
it shines and blazes
such light and warmth
stories told round the hearth
cold nights kept a safe distance away
beauty in chaotic dancing patterns
it promises everything all at once
no regard for consequences or the future
just passion in the moment
no foresight, only enthralling abandon
its wake is ash
empty, cold, dead
no energy
never burn again
it destroys what it loves
what it needs
not because it wants to
because it is
destruction guised as passion
I wanted to write about self-forgiveness because it's such a hard thing for me to do. Past mistakes and trespasses stick in my mind for decades, and it's so hard for me to shake them. This work is an attempt at expressing that difficulty.
Down in the foothills the peak is so perfect
Covered in pure white snow
Nary a tree in sight
The peak carves a visage in the sky
In the clouds
It just is, it exists peacefully in its austere authority
Calm, serene
Impossible
Yet I yearn to climb
To ascend
Down in the foothills among the trees
The greenof the hills
I make my preparations
Breath
Training
Gear
I practiceand I meditate
I meditate upona life
A life of mistakes and triumphs
Each breath preparing and steeling
It's time to begin my climb
Each step and the air, the precious vital air, thins
Lungs emptying and muscles weakening
And yet I continue
Not quite undaunted, but I continue
The views are stunning
Yet I don't see them, eyes ever on the peak
Visualizing success, not the process
It's so cold
Bitterly, viscerally cold
There's no air
Even a yogi must stop for air
But there's no air
The ground slick with snow and ice
Snow and ice with the oxygen I need
Sealed away in the mystery of the bonds
Just as beautiful as it is inaccessible
But I continue my climb
Slipping and falling, the rocks cut and score
Gashes and bruises amass
I take a moment and reflect
Is it worth it?
Shall I ever ascend?
And as I slip into meditation, I slip down the mountain
All progress lost
The world turns around, up and down
I lose my breath
And land, dizzy and hurt, down the bottom
Even further from the peak than when I started.
Something I wrote after watching a scene in the Apple TV+ "The Morning Show" showing an NYC skyline. I've always had a love for NYC, even though I don't live there, and a love for cities more generally. I've never not lived in a city after moving out of my parents' place, and can't imagine going back to the suburbs. Cities are my home, cities are where I belong. I don't think this one is finished, yet; there are a few rough spots, and I'm not sure about the ending. But, like people have said in a few of the timasomo threads, the important thing is to get the words out, to make the work exist outside of one's head.
the city is awake, alive
lights dance in the dark of night
little lifesigns, each a past and present
each a history and a story not yet told
subways and busses and ubers
the occasional oblivious cabbie
(cancer on the streets)
each moving people to their goals
their dreams
veins and arteries in the city's body
lights for seeing
superstructure in steel and glass
inspiration
aspiration and ambition
passion and drive
these power the pulse and the breath
each person, each cell
shapes and grows the city, the body
each experience shapes epigenetics
no place the same after
the city takes us all in
gives us homes
maybe not shelter, but homes
we are alive and so is our home
an energy ineffable yet indelible
edit: A friend has said that this reminds her of the opening of Murakami's After Dark, and I can absolutely see it. Perhaps a bit of subconscious inspiration?
This is something I wrote a couple of weeks ago--not part of Timasomo, but something I'd like to share with folks here. It's becoming more important to me given events in real life and also as I explore yoga more deeply as part of my teacher training program. There's clear inspiration from Whitman's O Me! O Life!, but the message is very modern.
That the powerful play goes on and you will contribute a verse
Why not let the verse be love?
It used to be so easy, so easy, just a simple choice
Choose love
All the conflicts of today and every other time
Not enough love
For one another
For ourselves
Not enough love
All the religions and faiths of the world
All our enlightened leaders
All taught love
The play used to be about love
So many acts ago
Only a few moments ago
Seems like forever
Seems we’ve forgotten the lines
But no one to remind us what they are
And we don’t get a rehearsal
We get one grand opening day
One somber closing night
No matinee
No encore
Why choose any other verse but love?
Love makes everything else possible
Makes everything else worthwhile
Everything else builds on love
That the powerful play goes on and you may choose a verse
Choose love.
note: Posted this with the wrong title first, so deleted and reposted.
During the 2017 Solar Eclipse, a thick-skinned female police officer must prevent millennial Shadows from returning from the depths of the Earth to dominate humanity.
You can also read it in my blog (no advertising, no annoyances, no bullshit).
- As before, this is not my first language. All criticism is extra welcomed
- I included the previous content - the prelude - just because it's so small
@cfabbro, here's the ping you requested! Love to know what you think of it!
Before time was time, nights were dreamless. No one narrated the hunts, and death was just a cessation of the body. Births were joyful but meaningless. Statements were nothing more than intentions among roaring, shouts, and racket. Sometimes two sounds came together in funny ways, but meaning was still far away from our primitive cogitations.
In these times of monotony, the Shadows entertained the primitive men. With no timbre or elocution, they came from the deepest layers of Earth’s mantle to tell stories under the moonlight. They lived in harmony, feeding on each other. The Shadows came to life with the laughter and the souls of the Men, and the Men lost the fear of the night with the histories told by the Shadows in a primitive symbiosis.
One day, a man died after eating a tasty looking fruit. Hunting was a gamble, and eventually, men needed to eat potentially dangerous elements. Another, more intelligent man, noted that the juice from his mouth indelibly marked the rock with a pattern that was pleasant to the eyes. He collected more of that fruit, avoiding to put it in contact with sensible areas. This man did not have a proper name. None of them did. They just knew that there was “The Boss”, “The Hunter”, “The Large” and “The Delicate”.
Some men had soft lumps in their chests and above the thighs. Eventually, their bellies got big and other men came out from them. “The Delicate”, who discovered painting, was of this kind. In secret, he drew their hunts in the cave. He made everything bigger and more menacing than it was: the spears, the beast, the joy, the moon, and the flames, that reached the sky.
It took some gestures and vocalizations for The Delicate to make The Hunter understand that that set of traces was him and that the thick line with a pointing end penetrating The Beast was his spear. But soon they understood and had great silence. Followed by a great laugh.
The Hunter imitated the muffled sound of the Beast’s steps and learned to use this sound to talk about the Beast even when it wasn't there. War shouts, death songs, the cutting of the meat, the crackle of the fire, the crickets, the frogs and all animals soon had their sounds, their own “words”.
Men stories gained life by their own making.
The Shadows never came back.
Weakened, they returned to the depths. And, in the emptiness of their soulless existence, felt profound pain.
Worn books on the balcony: The Physics of the Light, Introduction to Modern Physics and Modern Optics, paid with greasy notes. Stumbles on a rock, knock the books on the sidewalk. On a dark tunnel, fluorescent light flicker irregularly. Hands in his knees, catch his breath and run with the rest of his lungs.
The front is completely black of smut. Turns the key with difficulty. The stairway creaks under his feet. A stack of old newspapers behind the door. Turns on a weak desk lamp. A crack of light comes from the sheets. Closes it with tremble hands and throws himself in the armchair. A thick cloud of smoke leaves Ernesto's relieved self.
The curtain drops with a thud. Behind him, a dark silhouette smiles.
The badge for the "Civilian Police of the State of São Paulo" swing above the toilet. In the ground, two pregnancy tests. Two lines in each. In the holster, a Taurus 38. Impeccable blue jeans. Mariana pees in the third test and waits. Two lines. She's fucking pregnant.
Ernesto's suit seems expensive twenty-year ago. He looks like a bum that made an effort. He holds a thick notebook with paper falling from the edges and a paper folder that seems to be about to explode. Dries his eyes constantly, and there are black spots bellow his armpits. In the edge of the table, it reads: "Mariana Diniz – Commissioner of Police" Ernesto gives her his card: "Eye of Horus - Paranormal Investigations". Below, a stylized eye with Egyptian inspirations. And a landline.
— I don't trust cellphones.
Smiles uncomfortably, trying to hide the nervous tic that makes his head swing like a salamander.
– It may not look, but I'm a busy woman.
Gives her two 15x20 pictures. The first is completely out of focus. The second shows an oddly slim, dark silhouette on a sewer canal. Ernesto sweats like an amphibian having a panic attack.
— For millennia, these creatures have been confined in the interior of the earth. Suffering the monotony of an incomplete existence. Waiting for a chance to come back.
— Yes.
– You don't believe.
Puts the card in her wallet.
– You got my number.
The long hills do not affect Mariana. Sumptuous homes, beautiful landscaping, mutilation, and infanticide. They're all part of the same world.
In a deserted square, eight hood teenagers assemble in a circle. Metal-heads and RPG players never caused her any trouble, but, as commissioner of that town, she has the duty of investigating anything out of the normal. She takes care to not flaunt the weapon.
They ignore her. The kids emit no sound, make no gesture. They're not injured, and their dark eyes are probably contact lenses. They have an ironic smile in their faces. No drug would generate such severe catatonia on a group that size, and there was no law against looking spooky on public premises. Sent two patrol cars to watch the group and went home.
The basic Chevrolet goes through the carefully constructed path, with exotic plants on both sides. Between two neoclassic towers, a slightly lower white house. In the living room, Eliza, short-exquisite-hair, beautiful and androgynous, stare at the TV with thick frame glasses. Notices Mariana's gun.
— Comes with the job.
In slow motion, a voluptuous Marilyn Monroe impersonator pours milk on a bowl of cereal.
– Bruno?
– Upstairs.
A plate brakes in the kitchen. To the left of the sink, dozens of cups organized by color, size, and format. To the other, plastic utensils organized by function and material. Scapular in the neck, Sofia é very white. She wraps the glass in paper, writes "GLASS" in wide letters and ties everything in a thick, transparent plastic bag.
– Your kitchen was too… Illogical.
– Of course.
Mariana notices a red spot below Sofia's long sleeve. She holds the arm of her friend: bruises.
— They're old, diz Sofia.
— Doesn't look like.
Takes the car keys. The pregnancy tests are in the same pocket. Mariana takes a deep breath and looks at the stairways.
Law books on the shelf, almost all sealed. Bruno is on the computer. It's hard to get why they're still married. Mariana has always been stubborn. He's on the computer most of the time. At 40, Mariana has silky black, perfumed hair. Tells good stories in a welcoming way. Mariana loves what the does. She's hit on constantly, by both sexes. And has a way to politely decline that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.
There's a month since they had sex.
— I'm pregnant.
— Are you sure?
The tests in the keyboard.
— They're from a pharmacy.
— Yep. Three.
She pulls the plug from the computer. Bruno looks at her. His eyes are black.
My phone sits, as I, in silence
In my room – alone.
I hate myself, but seem to lack the energy
To dig into my bones.
When I was younger I was told that
One day God would call me home.
Instead the coffin calls my name in whispers
And beckons the unknown.
.
Why do I feed a body with a
Soul that keeps depleting?
When all my hopes and expectations come up
Short and keep receding – I
Start alternating between plotting,
Thinking, pleading
That I’ll make a rash decision, they’ll
Give my organs to the needy.
.
Perhaps I’ll drive a stake into my head and chest.
No one should endure this mind or heart.
Meditation never seemed to give much value,
All the medication felt a farce.
I’m an incongruent, uncompleted puzzle
Dangling from a bridge; falling apart.
I watch my pieces sink below into the water,
As this letter dances all about the hearth.
.
I carried out important shit in boxes;
Let the rest behind to be thrown away.
I hid and watched as they threw in the dumpster,
A bed now wrought with chocolate and decay.
As the memories flashed in to my brain,
Of how we chose to spend that final day.
(Of how) even on the best day of the end of my life,
I ended up naked, chocolate-covered, curled up on your chest and crying,
Begging you to stay.
.
The devil is a myth they tell believers;
Hell prevents their chasing earthly dreams.
I will not go to Heaven, and there is no Great Receiver
Who will comfort me and silence my screams.
There is no purgatory in the ether;
The earth is this one act’s final scene.
Fittingly, the water isn’t beautiful here either.
It’s choppy, warm, and a putrid shade of green.
.
Someone use my hands to write a sonnet.
Someone use my eyes to see a better day.
Someone use my legs to climb a mountain;
Use my tongue to find the words to say.
They’ll use my lungs to feel the oxygen.
Use my kidney when theirs is in decay.
They’ll use my heart to feel in love again.
I’ll rest easier that way.
Before time was time, nights were dreamless. No one narrated the hunts, and death was just a cessation of the body. Births were joyful but meaningless. Statements were nothing more than intentions among roaring, shouts, and racket. Sometimes two sounds came together in funny ways, but meaning was still far away from our primitive cogitations.
In these times of monotony, the Shadows entertained the primitive men. With no timbre or elocution, they came from the deepest layers of Earth’s mantle to tell stories under the moonlight. They lived in harmony, feeding on each other. The Shadows came to life with the laughter and the souls of the Men, and the Men lost the fear of the night with the histories told by the Shadows in a primitive symbiosis.
One day, a man died after eating a tasty looking fruit. Hunting was a gamble, and eventually, men needed to eat potentially dangerous elements. Another, more intelligent man, noted that the juice from his mouth indelibly marked the rock with a pattern that was pleasant to the eyes. He collected more of that fruit, avoiding to put it in contact with sensible areas. This man did not have a proper name. None of them did. They just knew that there was "The Boss", "The Hunter", "The Large" and "The Delicate".
Some men had soft lumps in their chests and above the thighs. Eventually, their bellies got big and other men came out from them. "The Delicate", who discovered painting, was of this kind. In secret, he drew their hunts in the cave. He made everything bigger and more menacing than it was: the spears, the beast, the joy, the moon, and the flames, that reached the sky.
It took some gestures and vocalizations for The Delicate to make The Hunter understand that that set of traces was him and that the thick line with a pointing end penetrating The Beast was his spear. But soon they understood and had great silence. Followed by a great laugh.
The Hunter imitated the muffled sound of the Beast’s steps and learned to use this sound to talk about the Beast even when it wasn't there. War shouts, death songs, the cutting of the meat, the crackle of the fire, the crickets, the frogs and all animals soon had their sounds, their own "words".
Men stories gained life by their own making.
The Shadows never came back.
Weakened, they returned to the depths. And, in the emptiness of their soulless existence, felt profound pain.
I posted a few days ago about a notes app I was working on called Notementum, and I'm happy to show you the first release (0.1.0). Installation instructions are available on the Github repo: https://github.com/IvanFon/notementum
There's still lots of things I'd like to add, both big and small, and definitely a few bugs here and there, but I've been going for too long without sharing it, and I find it's best to release as early as you can to start getting feedback, and perfect it later.
One things that's missing is documentation. I'd like to start on this soon, but I'm probably not going to share this anywhere other than Tildes just yet, so this comment will do for now :)
Right now, the app only runs on Linux. I'd like to add Windows support, and it almost works, the problem is that WebKit2Gtk, the embedded web view I use to show note previews, doesn't support Windows. I'm going to explore some other options in the future, whether that's figuring out how to compile it, or allowing other preview methods (user's web browser, PDF, etc.).
The app is also very much in alpha, so you shouldn't use this for anything important, there may be bugs that can cause you to lose some of your data. If you do use this for anything, make sure you backup your notes database.
If you want to use it, here's a wall of text on usage:
The notes database is located at ~/.notes.db
. When you launch the app, it'll load it, or automatically create it if it doesn't exist. I'd eventually like to allow choosing different locations, but it's hard coded for now.
The interface is fairly simple. The leftmost sidebar displays a list of notebooks, and the "middlebar" displays a list of notes. Selecting a notebook will display the notes within it in the notes list. Selecting a note will open it in the editor, which is to the right.
To create a new note, press Escape
to focus on the searchbar above the notes list, and start typing a title. If no existing notes are found, press enter, and a note will be created with the title you entered.
To rename a note, double-click on it in the notes list.
The editor has a toolbar with 4 buttons, from left-to-right:
Ctrl+E
)The green circle all the way to the right turns into a loading indicator when you have unsaved changes. Once you stop typing for a few seconds, your changes will be saved, and it'll switch back into a green circle.
Notebooks aren't created directly, they're based on what notebooks your notes are assigned to. This means that, to create a notebook, assign it to a note. To delete a notebook, just delete all the notes contained within it, or assign them to a different notebook.
Clicking on the notebook toolbar button brings up this dialog. To create a new notebook, double click on <New notebook>
and type in a name.
The notes database also stores attachments. This means that the entirety your notes can be contained in your database. Clicking on the attachment toolbar button brings up this dialog. The toolbar allows you to upload an attachment or delete it respectively. Pressing Insert Selected
will insert the image at your cursor in the editor (![](image.png)
).
The screenshots show the app with my desktop Gtk theme, Arc Dark. On your desktop, it'll use whatever your theme is. It should look good with any Gtk theme, but at some point I may bundle Arc Dark with it.
The note preview currently has it's colours hard coded to look good with Arc Dark, so it may look a bit off on other themes. I'll try to sort that out at some point.
The app was made with Python and Gtk+ 3. I've done this before and I really enjoy the development experience, especially with Glade to design the interface. There are still some Gtk features that I should really be using to make things simpler (GtkApplication, actions, and accelerators) that I'll be adding later.
The database uses sqlite 3. This is convenient, as it allows for storing everything in one file, and will make fast searches easier in the future. Attachments are stored as base64 directly in the database. This makes it easy to have all your notes be contained entirely in the one database, but I may have to think about a more efficient method in the future.
Markdown rendering is done using mistletoe, which has been great to use. Syntax highlighting and MathJax renderers were already available, so it was just a matter of combining both and adding custom image loading from the database, which was very easy. Mistletoe has a very easy to use API, so this was no problem.
For LaTeX math rendering, I'm using MathJax. It supports pretty much everything, which is nice, but it can take a while to load. I'm currently loading it from a CDN in a <script>
tag, so I'm hoping once I load it from a local file it'll be a bit faster. If not, I may have to find another solution.
Like I said, the app still has a few bugs that need to be fixed. If you find any problems, it would be great if you could leave a comment here or open a Github issue (or if you have any feature requests).
Longest piece to date?
Last night I saw a beast
four different heads with blackened eyes.
Not black in metaphor, but from
the blood that dried inside.
Each of seven legs was mangled
and the beast was blind
but she could fly.
.
Once upon a night so dreary,
and so dreadful I
came across a weathered bar
a woman stood inside.
She sat me at a table, there was
not a soul in sight
but I felt fine.
.
Then she brought a glass of dark with
something new inside.
Leaned in close and whispered to me
"Baby, close your eyes."
I parted my lips and drank as
her hand guided mine.
My guard resigned.
.
She said "I know a place where you can
truly feel alive.
Each one of your problems fall
defenseless by your side."
And she wrapped her arms around me
I contently sighed
as she took flight.
Her wretched and misshapen legs
held me close to her chest.
She let out her warning cries
i inhaled every breath.
Her claws were creeping out I
fell upon them like a bed.
I laid to rest.
.
I fell into a home so oddly
shallow and recessed.
The walls were made of rock,
a water drop fell on my head.
There was no single light,
the ceiling lowered as she led
me to her den.
.
As I looked around the room birthed
questions in my head.
So opposite the warmth that she
had first on me impressed...
She stroked my cheek, claws on my chin
my heart fluttered, digressed.
I was possessed.
.
She laid me on the floor and stood with
five legs for each end.
One aside my head and feet
another at my hands.
Then she gently laid a blanket
down over my head,
"Shall we commence?"
I still feel it so vividly
each night I fall asleep,
the fused infatuated fear I felt
at a monster's feet,
when that heinous eldritch horror
drained my blood from me,
took me for libation, prayed a tithe
she poured me out.
Her heart could call the kettle as it,
too, went black in drought
She bore her fangs and lowered,
took my body in her mouth.
She then carried me cliffside, like a dog
she threw me down.
My corpse then fell so far, on
impact, no audible sound.
The final earthly thing I heard,
her shriek, "The Gods are proud."
Now upon each night so dreary, she
crawls out to find
a source of poor, defenseless blood
that she can sacrifice.
She'll lure them in with gentle kisses
and sapphire eyes.
We all will die.
Epilogue.
On my way to death, I was met
with a choice instead.
I could end my life or help
ensure the gods were fed.
In the heat of fear and pain I
then nodded my head.
The halls of purgatory filled with
screams and smells of death,
as my eyes dried from the inside
and I then begat
five extra legs.
So what’s the deal with offices, amirite?
What if we gave a building full of adults enough money to get by. Oh, and also they have to drive 30-60 minutes to get here. And that time they spend on the way here? Yeah what if they just gave us that for free, and we made them pay for parking!
I know, I know, fantastic right? But listen, it’s not over yet. What if we also made the work pointlessly constrained to a particular 8-hour block in the day, five days a week so that they never have any personal time, even though this is all work they could get done in four hours a day and is fully capable of being completed on their own?
Fabulous!
——
So yeah, I don’t have free time. That means I’ve got a few half-ass pieces that I’ve been wanting to finish up for awhile.
Apparently bars are open today, so I’m gonna get sauced and get to it. Prepare for a small dump today. (Also I got some dummy minor news imma share in another post. Stay tuned if you want. Or don’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ all’s well.
Anyway here’s that piece now.
——-
I remember that time I forgot your
birthday
And that time was today
At 12:08 in the morning
And for a moment
I felt great.
.
My dear that was the first sign
That you were
Slipping on out of my mind
Today I’m sober in the morning
Feelin okay.
.
Well well-butrin what a surprise
When it done
Come on back to my mind
Now it’s 12:09 in the morning
And ain’t shit changed.
.
And in those 60 seconds
Girl I swear
I learned a lesson -
Depression is a woman
With your name.
fotózás
i wonder what it must be like
to remember your life.i wonder what it must be like
to record it with a flash.i wonder what it must be like
to pass those memories down.i wonder what it must be like
to be normal like that.
nyáj
in the shadows of a great unrest
stand hallowed halls
yet undisturbed by
collapse.
to be untouched by
revolution
is a lucky fate
for a place like this—
so stable in lives
and yet
always received
with such hostility.oh, to be a church—
a great meeting hall
for those of
the faith—
is to be us,
the people of this place
who dare to
keep their fire alive.we are but a
little congregation,
coming together
once in awhile.
giving praise to
what had been;
remembering what
our time had lost.we bear upon our weary backs
a legacy
and hope one day
to restore it.but
we must rest now,
and resign to our dreams
what could be again.
A free form poem.
You sing the devotion song and
your people drink from your font
of well-meant falsehoods.
They sway in the breeze,
roses ripe for cutting,
so you reap. And I deal with it.
Brain revolting, hands shaking, heart beating
Sweating, aching, freezing, creeping thoughts
that I'm not enough.
I'm a failure. I don't deserve it. What if this goes wrong?
"Sometimes it can take awhile to find the right combination of medications."
And I deal with it.
The blood in the streets is cleaned, pristine,
likewise the crimes of an otherwise good man.
Heads shake and hands pray,
repeating robotic platitudes, but I do
nothing.
And I deal with it.
The sun shines high and the wind blows cool.
Our future dances and plays in the light.
We watch and her skin is soft, her hair yet softer, and I hold her
against me.
This too shall pass, my gut twists in knots.
And I deal with it.
Dark nights, dark thoughts
in front of a washroom mirror.
Lightning thunders, they come and go.
Drinking my hopes to keep them gone,
I tell myself, "This isn't you," but it hurts and it's true and I can't stop the dreaming of passing this down
And I deal with it.
This was written for a themed flash fiction contest (the theme was Technological Dystopia) and ended up losing, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to share it here. It's not my proudest work but, as flash fiction, I think it works well enough. I hope you enjoy!
She was three floors from the bottom of the sunken tower when the crying first reached her. A quick swipe earned her a pair from the rack nearby and she continued her descent.
With the aid of technology this process had been streamlined and systematized such that these checks were only needed once a month, but everyone dreaded them. She had drawn the short straw this time and, though it had been years since last she’d ventured to The Lab, she still remembered her last haunting experience. It wasn’t that she was a dissenter or rebelled against that which needed to be done. This was a necessary evil to save their species, but she was still a human being. Seeing them all like that, all tubes and tapes running from frail flesh, was enough to turn any stomach.
A pair of heavy iron doors sat ominously in her way as she bottomed out. She could see the white, crisp interior of The Lab beyond and pushed forward, swallowing her hesitance as best she could.
Before her lay a large room with clean white tile, walls and harsh, flourescent light. It smelled and looked like a hospital because that’s exactly what it was. 10 rows and columns of small, clear, plastic boxes stretched between her and the far wall. The muffs were doing their job exceedingly well, but she could still hear the awful racket bouncing around her memory. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and started working.
Her primary duty was to make sure the machines were functioning correctly, mostly the arm that glided to and fro above the boxes, administering medicine or changing bags of various fluids as need be. She would also be checking the tubes for clogs that may have been missed by any old or worn out sensors; this was the part she dreaded the most. She flipped the lid on the nearest box and checked the left, then the right, and lastly the tube running into its belly button, and closed the box quickly.
It couldn’t have taken her more than 5 seconds but that short time was enough for the anguished face to plaster itself onto her mind. Everyone does their part, she reminded herself, from the start to the end. It didn’t serve a purpose to bemoan that which she could not change. She moved on to the next crib, hoping this would go by faster than she expected.
Halfway through her checks she hit a snag. There was a clog in Crib 54. She could register the fault in the system and it would fix it on its next hourly cycle, as were her orders, but it was such a small clog. The tube simply needed to be changed, and as a nurse she was well-versed in the procedure. In that moment it was decided.
The tubes themselves were specially designed to be thin and flexible, but rigid enough to fit the shape of a tear duct. Her first task, after finding a pair of gloves, was to gently remove the tube currently in the eye. She hovered over the crib and gently pulled the tube out of the right tear duct. It came slowly, millimeter by millimeter, each bit covered in more goop and mucus than the last. It wound its way up into the sinuses which meant, by the end of it, she had pulled at least five inches of tubing. This she discarded.
Next she had to insert the new tube (these were kept in abundance in a draw underneath the crib). She grabbed one, snipped it to length with a pair of scissors hanging from the IV stand, and took a moment to recent herself. Inserting the tube while the child was crying would be much more difficult than removing it.
As gently as she could she reached down and, with her index finger and thumb, pried open the eye of the little one. With one came the other, the muscles young and unwilling to work independently, and she found herself staring into a pair of brilliant green pools. Her heart melted and, for the briefest moment, she thought of taking it. She could smuggle it out. The bed being empty would trip the system but she could clear the error and explain it away somehow. But no, that was silly. This wasn’t a decision for her to make; things were done this way because there was no other choice.
She pushed the tip of the tube into the tear duct confidently, shoving the traitorous thoughts from her mind as the child’s cries were renewed with pain. She was here to do a job, cold and emotionless. It wasn’t her place to question the way things were done. The tube went in without a hitch and the child’s eyes snapped closed again once she released them. The little bundle of agony before her squirmed and she saw the tears begin to flow anew. With swift, definite movement she closed and latched the lid.
The rest of her checks went smoothly, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that now ran rampant in her gut. She hated Lab duty, and she expected that would always be the way. With a heavy heart she signed the documents needed to record her visit, noted the tube change in the work log, and left The Lab through its heavy iron doors. The trip upstairs would be long and tiring, but at least she could try and forget ever having been here.
Update! After a few hours of struggling I managed to set up Read the docs for Tildee, it should help using the library significantly.
After getting some inspiration from TAPS I thought that maybe I try to work on something vaguely similar on my own. And after… some? hours of coding today I came up with this: tildee.py (source)
It's a wrapper for the Tildes Public/Web API that is already used by the site internally to make it work. The obvious problem with that is that it will at one point break when this unstable API is changed. It can do basically all things a normal user can do with the notable exception of applying comment labels (because I haven't gotten around to that yet).
Example of usage for a DM reply bot (result):
import sys
from tildee import TildesClient
import time
# Initialize client and log in, 2FA isn't supported yet and will probably break in horrible ways
t = TildesClient("username", "password", base_url="https://localhost:4443", verify_ssl=False)
while True:
# Retrieve the "unread messages" page and get a list of the conversations there
unread_message_ids = t.fetch_unread_message_ids()
for mid in unread_message_ids:
# Access the conversation history page; this also clears the "unread" flag
conversation = t.fetch_conversation(mid)
# Get the text of the last message
text = conversation.entries[-1].content_html
# Abort if it's from the current user (I don't think this could actually happen)
if conversation.entries[-1].author == t.username:
break
print(f"Found a message by {conversation.entries[-1].author}")
# If the message contains a reference, reply in kind
if "hello there" in text.lower():
print("Replying…")
t.create_message(mid, f"General {conversation.entries[-1].author}! You are a bold one.")
# Delay before processing next unread message
time.sleep(3)
# Delay before next unread check
time.sleep(60)
This has a lot of potential. Haven't yet figured out potential for what, but I'll take what I can get.
I'd be really grateful if someone with a little more experience than me (that's not exactly a high bar :P) could give me some pointers on the project's structure and the "API design", hence the ask tag. Other creative ideas for what to use this for are appreciated, too.
This simple stylus userstyle hides vote counts on both voted and unvoted comments and your own comments. I really like what Deimos did, it significantly improved my time here on Tildes. If you want the feature back, install Stylus extension, click the Stylus icon > write style for tildes.net and paste this:
/* Hide vote count for unvoted comments */
.btn-post-action[name="vote"] {
visibility: hidden;
position: relative;
}
.btn-post-action[name="vote"]:after {
visibility: visible;
content: "Vote";
position: absolute;
}
/* Hide vote count for voted comments */
.btn-post-action[name="unvote"] {
visibility: hidden;
position: relative;
}
.btn-post-action[name="unvote"]:after {
visibility: visible;
content: "Voted";
position: absolute;
}
/* Hide vote count for your own comments */
.comment-votes {
display: none;
}
Known issues
I know nothing nor do I want to: a blank brain is all I want! I have nothing nor do I want to: I want to be, nothing else do I want!