THURSDAY AUGUST 4TH, 2011
(Don't Speak Its True Name IV: Music)

a voice speaks to
me, I
Noise. Tones, scales, motifs. Song.
The environment, white dotted line on black roads.
I have left Sonic behind.
I am walking on monotone.
Barriers on all sides, guiding me towards what?
Can't I just take Tiger Stripes and swing out?
Cast away the old shapes? Go freeform and just dance?
This world of numbers is the Musician's domain. They have total freedom, so long as they embrace creativity within structured restriction.
But they are gods. They need the limits, as otherwise they grow bored.
As a human, as a kid, I'm already living in fundamental limits. Cycles within wheels within cycles! Mortality!
I think, within that, I'm allowed to breathe.
Listening to the vibrant wind. I hear nothing but my patience as it writhes away from life's music. Old expectations, others' old favorites.
I must craft my own

music, II
By listening as hard as I can, I manage to unhear the eights and fives, and I can just about hear my own footsteps. (Dammit.)
By trying as hard as I possibly can… wait, no, goddammit! Jordan, listen!
Think of spoonman. No, not the chorus!!! Fuck!!!!!
Walk in sevens. Sevens will save you.
Step, two, three, f-- Step, two, three, f-- Step, two, three, f-- Step
Well, Spoonman is more like 7/4, isn't it? I need 7/8. Or 11/8, or.
7/8 it is. 7/8 it is, then.
Step, two, three, f-- Step, two, three…
I can hear it. My own footsteps.
I can feel it. Inside my body.
Three of a Perfect Pair. Back in N.Y.C.
Fuck! I'm overthinking this. Have to be.
I've proven I can hear my footsteps.
Now I just need to understand. It does well to understand.
Sound is life of its own. Movement. Is movement life?
Remember what Donnie said. Character is life after death. Story too.
Make a story out of particles: Movement.
At the very least? Annoy the gods.
Isn't that the most living thing of

all, III
I enter a colorless city, knowing that opening my other eye would take me elsewhere. I have no need for that. This city will do fine. I need no escapism now.
I look down one alley, it's all monotone. Whack the brick wall with my guitar controller, bring vibration to the bricks.
Vibrations cause an unexpected screech, bouncing from wall to wall-- a feedback loop.
Colors fly in strands from my footsteps.
So I run.
Hitting every surface I

find, IV
..but what is this doing? Now colors fly through the air, now what?
I'm making pretty pictures, in the Musicians' world. They will have made this possible to do anyway.
And the rhythm, my gait-- so it's no longer eights and fives. So?
I'm still limited, still playing in their world.
In the end, I'm running from the truth:
That I don't want to do this anymore.
That I'm letting my friends down. I'm leading them into the gods' arms.
Just because I'm reckless with my own safety.
Because I'm.. suicidal. Not entirely, just enough.
Fuck.
How's that for my music?
I don't want Fentzy here. I don't want Danny either. Did I even want Bones?
I just want to find a place where Donnie can be safe, while I…

end, V
All sound ceases.
No environment.
Even I darken.
If I want a chance to fade out, the Musicians gave me plenty.
…
>_<
I guess Sonic wasn't enough to carry me. When I was younger, yes. I'm sixteen now. Too old.
What would he say, though? If I could manifest him.
"If you have time to worry, then run."
Here, I have all the time I need. There's nowhere to run to.
"You have to try. Get up, and run!"
I'm not a damn mascot. I get tired.
"You don't understand. Just try!"
I know, running creates color. Sound and motion. Like my thoughts spin their wheels, uplifting, downtrodden. But why? What am I doing? Do I deserve to feel I'm so special?
"The Harlequin thought you were special. She's right."
The Harlequin? She was a sad fucking mess. There are plenty of subs in the world. She'd have found one, one way or another. And anyway, after all that she did? Should I want to share her broken values?
"You're asking 'should.' Do you not know, yourself?"
After all that she did?
"Yes. Do you not know?"
...there's a lot of things I don't know. One can have the best values in existence, and still we make choices. Who we are inside doesn't determine our actions. Not one to one, anyway.
"You're saying it's balancing acts, one after another."
A constant tightrope, facing walls and long drops. You'd think the walls'd help? Instead, they throw you off-balance. You get used to one way, then you're thrown into another language set.
"You're mixing your metaphors here."
Exactly. It's another language set.
"So. If I'm understanding correctly. You're doing fine."
Huh?
"You've got some doubts, because you're human. You're in a mental prison that's limiting you. But you'll get out, because. You'll talk yourself out of it."

VI
I blink, and I'm back in the city. All my talking has colored the sky.
"Even when presented with nothing. Even when cut off. No way out. Your mind... self-perpetuates."
Behind. Turn around. Facing me down. Two blurs, black suits.
Is it time to talk?
"We knew that you'd escaped before. You and Donnie together make a team. But if we put you alone, against your fears? We were surprised. Aren't you?"
You were testing me?
"Trying to kill you."
"He was. I'm not."
"We are one, Seppo."
"One team. One test."
"One mind."
"Two minds. Two characters."
"'Characters?' We are not characters."
"There's a lot you don't realize in this. What did you hope to achieve here, now? Isolate him, drive him mad? Then what, Grimaldi?"
"An obstacle would be removed."
"An obstacle? You think he's much a threat?"
"I think he's-- we!! We think he's tenacious. He gets in the way."
"I don't understand you anymore."
The left Musician's head has grown in size. I see now that they are not blurs: their bodies are always vibrating. Fast vibrations, distorting light around.
Uh. Should I be here?
"'Should!' 'Should!' Always a 'should!' Are you here, that is the question!"
..yes?
"Then yes! Be here! Be!"
u_u
I see.
"Grimaldi, let me speak. Let me do this."
"…" head shrinks back to size.
"Jordan. We know you, your mind. You wish to do some large things. You wish to stop Rapture. Your doubts are strong only because your ambitions are so great, earth-shaking, earth-shadowing."
"Also because of your background."
"Yes. I don't think you have quite realized. You run into trouble because others have plans for you, meanwhile you keep thinking, questioning, deciding. Your world had no place for your ideas."
None for a better world?
"None for a world where you have a place. No one had even considered that."
"But there's something to that."
"What?"
"This kid is all that is not accepted. His mind is filled with rejected, mocked ideas. He is, somehow, Everybody Else. Too big for a seat at any table."
._.;;
"Are you starting to understand, Grimaldi?"
"Understand what?"
"Why he keeps coming up? Why the Archangel asked us to stop him?"
"..I think the question is, does he?"
Me?
"Do you see?"
"Do you want to see?"

VII
The ground in front of me opens up, and out rises a fungal substance emitting every color of the neon rainbow. A specter with a terrifying face rises out of the smoke, and my ears are filled with a piercing shrill shriek, the darkest bark.
A rumbling Donnie, a fragmented Fentzy, dead Anna
at the end of strings that I hold.
I am made of wood, with jagged smile.
Eyes watch me. Faces judge.
I try to move, but the wood restricts. Strings tighten on my friends.
I can only move in limited, certain ways.
Dragging the others with me.
Is this character? Is this control? Responsibility? ..life?
Voices cry out around me:
"You arrogant little shit!”
“You are the disease!”
“Should have been an abortion.”
"The worst kind of person."
"You're doing everything that you claim to hate."
"Smartass."
"Asshole."
"Kind of a dick, annoying piece of shit."
"He's just a robot. He has no emotion."
"Strangling would be too good for him."
Memories.
I have to let go of the strings.
Donnie, Fentzy, and rising undead Anna approach me.
Their hands around my throat.
Rosa comes up behind them, wielding a knife.
It goes in my ear.
I'm hit. I'm hurt. I'm kicked. I'm down.
My head is cracked open.
I let it all happen.
But when they're done, when I'm still alive…
Scattered wood chips on the ground around me…
They destroyed the wooden suit.
It hurt. But it helped.
I get the feeling... I'm going to have to get used to that.
Life, my mind, is going to hurt me. But I've been through worse.
I'm ready for the hurt, this time I will make it free me.

My Octavarium, VIII
Here we are again, in a maze of mirrors, this time extending far into the horizon.
All of my reflections are Musicians.
"You can talk yourself out of anything, Rael."
What, you're gonna call me that too now?
"There is nothing that we can do to you that you haven't already done to yourself."
I'm pretty sure you guys could kill me if both of you wanted to.
"But we don't. We only wanted to talk."
Then let's talk. Enough of the misdirection and the tests and the word restraints. Are you going to help me save the world?
"The others will not be happy with us if they find out…"
Yeah, I don't know if Donnie will be happy with me either.
"But we must."
"We know what Rapture will do to the world."
"We know what is coming."
"It is a reality check. We, like the others, have been toying with the power of fear. Rapture is a horror far greater than anything we have wanted."
"We cannot compete. And there is no place for us if we choose to join it."
"And here you are, human and stubborn and slipping through all the cracks."
"Taking your gods at face value, because you know full well that they are better at being predators than you are at being prey. And you have already seen the short future that would await you if you had even approached other humans accepting that."
"The world had no place for you."
"Yet you would still try to save it."
"Your character is compelling. That counts for something."
"Your story has legs, because it is not just your story."
Even with all my narcissism? I talk a lot about myself.
"Everyone has an 'I,' Rael. It would be deceptive to put yours away. Anyone reading your journals has the opportunity to do some mental math, work on their side of the equation, and solve for X."
"We would be fools if we, too, did not take this opportunity."
Huh. Well, it's nice to formally make your acquaintance, Musicians.
Where do we. Where do we go from here?
"Your group has settled in a dangerous place. Your habits have backed you into a corner. You cannot stay, but you also cannot leave. You may have to ride this one out, and take the first chance you get to make your escape."
Can you help us?
"We will have to see."
do you want to

(Attached is a detail from the book of Ptah: “Somewhere between the first star of the universe and the last meteor to be born (otherwise known as "the 7-11 of the Ceesverse"), I receive an unexpected phone call. I didn't even know I had a phone.
Look in the mirror, what do I see, held up to my face cellular tranquility.
I say "Hello," she says "Seppo?"
I say "'Tis me," she says "Louhi."
"Thought you were dead," says I, and she "Just put to bed."
"Is that so? What can I do," says I, and she "You know what I ask of you.
"I'll give you my daughter's key if you'll build me the axis mundi."
"I don't make for power anymore, absolutely not for another hour of amore."
"Oh, but don't you desire it? To create, shape, and pontificertificate?"
"Your ambigunity," I affirm, "afflectious so it may be, betrays more than you know."
"I'm rubber, love, and you are only glue."
"Don't be childish."
"I know I am; how about you?"
"Admit to it, you wish."
"Tell me again, hero: Don't you desire it? All that you may be. All that you may become. All that you may behold, yours always."
"I cannot be beholden as a hero."
"I know this more than any."
"I feared that."
"Or did many?"
"I'm hanging up now."
"Still your tongue, hold your finger and stay your thumb! Old and wise Seppo Ilmarinen, half-mortal and many-named man, you know my disposition, you're aware of how I act. I wouldn't come to you, first action back from the grave, my first thing done since escaping Tuonela if we can call it that among its names, epithets many-- be they as they are-- and nature eldritch-- a prism refracting desire into the unspeakable just as speech does to an idea ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, unless I had a reason, unless I had a face, unless I desiblue something intent something rael something not in finite. You know this, Seppo Ilmarinen; you know this, unstoppable smith. Hear my voice."
Look around my empty head. Red star.
Cellphone in reflected world, lend yourself my invisible ear. "I am here."
"Build me the centre because you want to be the only one who knows how."
Stars in my eyes, monomyth of the quarks born in my heart this night-- if one can even tell the difference between day and night when there's always stars out. The point, the abstract point, I'm trying to get to is that of creative passion.
So I put that phone back to my head and I say, "I'll do it."")