[login]: query((?))
[username]: Hocking, Peter: [variant trace: lock] [password]: ******* [verification]: [sample approved.]
[login]: success. [/login]
[search]: query((?)) [search]: [[Paul + Hughes] + [silver]] [search]: [run]
[/run]
[run]: [system: override] [run]: [command: interject]
[/run]
[run]: [read]: author: la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle agent 66.14.7.050. title: of loss, of ruin: An Introduction. publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.
[full text]:
Thank you, [Hocking, Peter], for your interest in [Hughes, Paul].
As you know, la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle is still recovering from the effects of the Forever Dust. As such, results to your initial query may be incomplete or irretrievably lost. We are working to refine our recovery methods, and we assure you that the best teams of quantum-X string theorists are making valiant efforts to contain the loss of our database and re-integrate the mind-essence of our host soul caches.
[Hocking, Peter], your inquiry regarding [Hughes, Paul] presents several unique difficulties in that access to biographical elements of that particular string are severely restricted due to [[security + protocols] + [threat + matrix] + [containment + Forever + Dust]]. We hope, [Hocking, Peter] that you will understand our concerns when [(excerpts are expurgated due to aforementioned security concerns) + (incomplete data retrieval prevents total output of designated inquiry elements)].
We hope that you find [(designated output): [Hughes, Paul]] helpful and informative.
Sincerely,
agent 66.14.7.050 primary avatar re: [Hocking, Peter]: [inquiry #77.75.140] la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle
[/read] [/run]
[run]: [read]: author: la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle agent 66.14.7.050. title: of loss, of ruin: An Introduction: technical specifications [re: search results.] publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.
[full text]:
[Hocking, Peter] [trace:(lock: 68.166.235.153)], your search re: [Hughes, Paul] was generated [Q3:07.14.2064] by temporal servers [B.0-B.6] [Sedna Core Information Archive: tight-beam encrypted transmission] outside of the plague zone quarantine demarcation [refer: Forever Dust]. la biblio[“o]mnitheque, in conjunction with des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes, maintains quantum computing facilities [Omega-point hyperthreading techbase reverse-engineered from target Whens (salvage law compliant)] utilizing the best semantic web search engines available [B-LGoogle @ 147zettabytes/sec.(147x2^70mb/sec.) on MS/Halliburton™ dedicated a-zero servers].
This report represents the best assemblage of non-deepblack declassified intelligence fulfilling your designated search parameters [Paul + Hughes] + [silver]]. Due to ongoing security concerns regarding your line of inquiry, our engines have limited output, in cases removing sensitive passages and expurgating entire documents. This report embodies the most complete analysis of [Hughes, Paul] available to the public at this time. Due to ongoing concerns this Institute has [re: security clearance: Hocking, Peter], your access has been limited. You may re-query the database at any time after [Q3:07.21.2064] given bandwidth availability and continued access rights.
For your convenience, physical report [re: inquiry #77.75.140] has been printed on week-dissolve fiber. Your access to the digital output will expire [Q3:07.21.2064] to conserve resources.
We hope that you find [(designated output): [Hughes, Paul]] helpful and informative.
agent 66.14.7.050 primary avatar re: [Hocking, Peter]: [inquiry #77.75.140] la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle
[/read] [/run]
[run]: [hack] [hack]
[display]: author: la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle agent 66.14.7.050. title: untitled. direct/direct: [tracking lock]: [lock] [ghosting: subset]: [ghost] [full text]:
direct: [Hocking, Peter] re: [Hughes, Paul].
Well, you have balls, I’ll give you that much. Listen, I don’t have much time, so I’ll get right to the point. I’ve hacked the backend of lb’otu to send you this message and give you special access to your search results. The sysops would usually time out your connection and draft a threat matrix asap, given last year’s lockdown. I’ll let you in for as long as I can. Consider me your guardian angel.
You’re not unique. Everyone wants to know why he did it and where he went. I ran a search on you, and I think I know why you’re asking. I’m putting my ass on the line for you, not that I expect anything in return, but it’s information that needs to get out. Read it. Spread it.
If you’re looking for answers, you might not find them here. Much of it’s there, the influences, the actions, but as for intent…Who knows? We can fumble around the edge of his intent for as long as we’d like and never get to the core. It’s obvious he was troubled. He thought that he wrote worlds into existence. Given the forty billion dead across seventeen charted systems, given the silver infestation, maybe he did. I’m not a religious man, but he’s the closest we’ve found to Omega.
Fuck this, I’m out of time. You’re safe for now; I’ve shielded your transmissions i/o lb’otu. Look around. Try to find meaning. As meticulous as he was at analyzing himself, you think he’d have done a better job analyzing his creations. He spent twenty-seven years undermining existence, and we’re still suffering the aftershocks and still trying to find intent. Lawyers love this case.
This is the last you’ll hear from me. I need this job. Good luck. Purpose be.
agent 66.14.7.050 primary avatar re: [Hocking, Peter]: [inquiry #77.75.140] la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle
[/hack] [/display]
[/search] complete: [display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [loss + ruin]]: [translate: standard]: author: unknown. title: “An End of Us: An Ontological and Epistemological Discourse on The Forever Dust.” publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.] [la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-33%]
…] deny that the Forever Dust was the defining metaphysical and cosmological event in the history of the first universe, the least of whom, those charted survivors. More than an historical crux from which we delineate the major eras of humanity into pre- and post-argent, the Dust is an evolution, a chimera of […
…] far lower than first believed, the ignition point of the silver catalysis experiencing total sub-spatial anchor diffusion consistent with first universe crossover. The magnitude of the primary […
…] found that contrary to their initial fears, the consumption line of the dust zone experienced a near-predictable transition to clean space.
…] hadn’t been for the discovery of the untainted genetic code of the arc female (later identified as Patra Jennings West, Enemy line -FD), the continuation of the species would have almost certainly relied upon XY splitting and double-X recombinant techniques. Viable male codes were plentiful; the pre-Dust attacks on Sol-3 (native: standard: Earth) and Alpha Centauri AB (Proxima Centauri destroyed in native civil war only twenty years prior to loss of binary system: AC A destroyed by Sol-3 forces. AC B hidden by native forces in a megascale system enclosure, later the site of the Dust trigger.) had in effect eliminated the female of both species, due largely to metallurgical contaminant’s ability to destabilize double-X codes via chromosomal synch/dislodge.
The discovery of the arc female allowed primary expansion of both species. Cross-pollination difficulties resulted both from basic atmospheric requirements (nitrogen active agent in AE-line humanoids; oxygen active agent in Enemy-line humans) and sub-genetic differentiation. Silver un-process rates for affected sample: AE: 99.9>%, E: 0.00~47.1%. *
The arc female’s voluntary life partner, one Enemy-line Adam West, was […
*refer: “La Séparation L’argent et la Poussière: Une Analyse d’Improbability des Existences Auteur-Créées,” la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle, FD+MCDVII.
[/display]
[run]: [read]: author: la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle agent 66.14.7.050. title: of loss, of ruin: accomplices [re: Hughes, Paul] publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes. [full text]:
[Hocking, Peter] [trace:(lock: 68.166.235.153)], your search re: [Hughes, Paul] includes supplementary information to your primary search string [[Paul + Hughes] + [silver]]. This supplemental information is intended to provide a context for the crime and suggest possible accomplices. It is unlikely that [Hughes, Paul] was the sole catalyst for our current socio-political desolation [refer: [[post + Forever + Dust] + [Heiligenscheineffektes]]]. As such, we at la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle have included a partial analysis of possible [(influences + inspirations + peers) + (accomplices + [Paul + Hughes])] that might have [participated/precipitated] the tragedy of 2050 [refer: “An End of Us: An Ontological and Epistemological Discourse on The Forever Dust”].
We hope that you find [(designated output): [Hughes, Paul]] helpful and informative.
agent 66.14.7.050 primary avatar re: [Hocking, Peter]: [inquiry #77.75.140] la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle
[/read] [/run]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [forever + dust]]: [translate: standard]:
author: […] Dela[…]unay]. title: “of His loss, of His ruin.” publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-45%]
excerpts:
…] and upon his disappearance in 2005, on the eve of his twenty-seventh birthday, friends and family simply assumed that he was hiding from his long-before prophesied death, perhaps on a beach, perhaps on the road. He’d spoken of it all the time, that ouija board prediction; few knew just how much it had terrified him.
Those of his immediate circle who had actually read his books might have recognized in his disappearance the opening theme of his third speculative fiction novel.* Solipsistic, self-indulgent to the extreme of alienating his potential audience, he’d gone into hiding after its completion. He somehow felt responsible for the deaths of fictional characters, whom he seemed to believe actually existed, actually lived and died in nearby parallel existences.
By 2006, people had stopped looking for him.
By 2010, his books had started to come true.
*refer: Hughes, Paul Evan. broken. New York: Silverthought Press, 2010.
broken: Alpha: 1.4.0: 17 December 2002. He’d disappeared. They searched, friends, family, the authorities. There was no evidence that he’d been to Panama City or Charleston or the writers’ conference. They waited, but there was no word. No body. In time, many forgot. He’d disappeared.
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [criticism + posthumous + negative]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Thara Ruskin. title: “[re][dundant]: PEH Pap in the Age of Transgressive Interdisciplinarity.” publication: NY Times Book Review, 08 February 2010.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-27%]
excerpts:
…] (Hughes’s) writing grates, indeed, chafes at the spirit of modern speculative fiction. Steeped in the post-Delany aesthetic, the author’s latest (and presumably last) offering is a confusing, dissatisfying and ultimately offensive collection of “transgression.”
If we are to assume that P.E. Hughs (sic, henceforth) is in fact dead, then the literary world should rejoice that we will no longer be subjected to such self-indulgent rubbish. It is painfully obvious to even the casual reader that what Delany handled with such skill in The Mad Man (1994) and Savage Bent (2007), Hughs maims. Is Broken truly the gift he had intended for his sf idol? Doubtful. Delany, were he dead, would be screaming invective from his grave.
Essentially a string of space-suited dykeouts intermixed with the post-post-modernist ramblings of a mentally-ill young man from upstate New York, Broken is transgressive only in implication…What else would we expect from a self-published author? What he lacks in talent, he makes up for with vivid descriptions of sexual encounters, cannibalism, brutality. In essence, exactly what we don’t need in a novel.
A message to Mr. Hughs, if he is reading this from an island populated by other victims of the age-twenty-seven curse: stay dead. Our slushpiles are already filled with similar pap.
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [criticism + posthumous + negative + response]]: [translate: standard] :
author: SE Colmey. title: a response to “[re][dundant].” publication: NY Times Book Review, 14 February 2010.
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-14%]
full text:
To Ms. Ruskin:
I guess I’m partly to blame for the book that so upsets you, Paul Hughes’s Broken. I found the manuscript in an old cardboard box he had willed to me should he disappear. Inside the box, there were photographs, letters, cards, things that meant nothing to anyone except him and me. At the bottom, I found a cd-r with the novel on it. Sorry that I disappointed your precious literary world so much. I just thought it was a story that should be told.
What’s your problem with his book? That he wrote things that made people actually feel? That he had a following, people who would read everything he wrote just because of the way he had of drawing us in and making us think we were part of the book or his life? Some of us loved him. I understand it’s your job to read books and write reviews, but your commentary wasn’t a review of the novel, it was an attack on someone dear to many of us, someone who had more love to give than he knew what to do with. He knew how to write the things that most of us could never even begin to put into words, and his words were beautiful, magical things. Some of us regret letting him go.
And yes, I’m the Seattle girl in the books. I’m sure that taints your view of me. I’m too involved in this to see things clearly, right?
It’s now been almost eight years since I saw him, five years since anyone else saw him. I just hope he finally found what he was looking for somewhere out there.
In closing, fuck you, Ms. Ruskin. It was a good book, better than anything you ever could have written. “Pap?” Nice word. Do you feel proud that you have a big vocabulary? Get over yourself.
Sincerely,
Mrs. SE Colmey
Chair, Fine Arts Department Cornish College of the Arts Seattle, WA
p.s. There’s an “e” in his last name. Use it.
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[an + end] + [forever + dust]]: [translate: standard] :
author: unknown. title: “An End of Us: An Ontological and Epistemological Discourse on The Forever Dust.” publication: Ein Journal des Instituts für die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-33%]
excerpts:
…] post-Judas anthropological teams from Sol-3 (14.7+) found little to suggest that the agent actually arose from “Black Space,” that area of the AC system most affected by the destruction of Proxima Centauri. Intervention posts listening from the edge of the timeline reported no significant evidence of remaining industrial centers, much less the planetary production system that the creation of silver would have necessitated.
Perhaps it should be noted here that the anthro teams did eventually compile a comp/cont report on the status of the AC system pre- and post-war. That report is fundamental to understanding the conditions in that system that most likely were contributing factors to the madness of subject Maire and the Forever Dust she caused.
…] remember that teams arrived mid-war, and even under the cover of […
…] major shipping lanes closed, and some evidence suggests that orbiting war platforms enacted a planetary blockade that forced the starvation of over ninety percent of the population. We can only imagine the desperation that the survivors felt while quite literally under the gun of the blockade platforms. Added to the lasting effects of biowar and engineered climate changes, the […
…] without doubt tortured.
Torture is that most effective of appropriations: the victim in essence becomes the transitional commodity of the process. The information gathered during torture is only secondary in importance to the “owning” of the victim by the perpetrators. The process is one of excision. First, the victim is excised from her normal environment. Second, the victim’s language is excised. Torture enacts a regression within the victim; it takes away the ability to communicate as one always has and instead replaces it with those first forays into verbal communication that we make as infants: cries of pain and fear. Third, the perpetrator restores just enough verbal ability to excise the required information from the victim.
Torture is an insistence. Without the benefit of […
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [criticism + posthumous + negative]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Thara Ruskin. title: a response to SE Colmey. publication: NY Times Book Review, 15 February 2010.
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-27%]
full text:
My dear Mrs. Colmey,
You are the last person I would have expected to write to defend the late Mr. Hughes. My apologies for misspelling his surname. Truthfully, I couldn’t be bothered to care when I wrote my review; fact-checking is the responsibility of interns. Let us for the moment set aside personal differences (I am familiar with your painting practice and your work at revitalizing Cornish, and for that, I applaud you as an admirer) and analyze your involvement in PEH’s books.
We all know the story of the manuscript at the bottom of the cardboard box; please don’t insult my intelligence. I commend your willingness to seek the publication of the third novel in the silver series, given the unflattering character summary of you young Paul wrote in both an end and his online journals. I commend your willingness, yet lament it at the same time. What you’ve given the literary world is a horrid tangle of self-serving scribble hardly worthy of a hand-written diary entry. Empower yourself, woman! Can’t you see what he was writing about? You. He wrote about you in the most selfish, vain way possible; your side of the story has never been represented. All the readers are left with is but a shadow of whom I assume you truly are. That, in and of itself, is unforgivable. Had I been you, I’d have burned that cardboard box and been rid of that man.
We can only forgive so much to mental illness. I hope someday that you see what you’ve done. Broken will only serve to inspire future generations of conceited young authors.
Ms. Thara Ruskin, associate editor NY Times Book Review
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [personal + journal + 2002]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Paul Evan Hughes. title: “hovering.” publication: 28 June 2002.
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-50%]
full text:
through it all, i’m still crazy
this veil of dream i weave around myself
.
moon behind gauze: walk, because. that’s all there is. stumble. through tripping grass, barefoot. thistles, prickers. shred. flesh. but at least i can feel something, anything. not him, not now. he’s asleep.
stumble into black, smoke inhaled, exhaled, tears under gauze: moon. walk: because.
if this is a test…how much more can you take from me? how much more before i am broken completely?
whispers into that night. shards of a song. two songs. more. words run together, thoughts: none, because. there is this, but it isn’t stillness. there is defeat. replacement. there are silences begun, and
all i ever wanted was forever.
there was happiness in those months, happiness in those years. in that life. in what existed between us and between Us. i’ve lost. so much. and. the mind. it consumes.
i’ve considered locking myself away in a place where chemicals will wash the blood from these wounds. for a while. just to get away. from this. from
and i trip, fall into a rut, grass, stems: gouging pathways into palms. mud. water. wash my face with this dirt, rub mud into those wounds so that they’ll scar and i can be reminded someday of how far i once fell.
things will be okay. not now. not for a long time.
and tonight someone seemed genuinely concerned. thought i was joking at first. when i told her that i’ve slipped into a deep depression. slipped? falling, falling, feels so much like i’m still falling and there’s no end in sight. subtractions. how could anyone ever love this? broken? man?
it is better that you’ve escaped me.
take
take me
take me to
take me, too.
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [MFA] + [Goddard] + [advisor + response]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Pam Hall.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-50%]
excerpts:
…] [I] feel pressed to note and name the “tone of voice” that runs through these pages. Paul, you have such a powerful (and yes, engaging, seductive, inspiring…) “positive” voice. I cannot tell you, as both your advisor, and as hopefully, a friend, how fine it is to share it and the energy that it carries…energy, which, yes, is also in the work and thinking and just kind of leaping out of everywhere[…
And here I want to take a small stab at pulling out what I suspect might be an important thread of practice even though it might be obvious. This shift in your voice, (and I suspect in your eye)…this joy, this more active attitude, represents for me what I have meant all along when I share my little platitudes about “practising your joy” or rigorous play. As artists, almost everything we do depends on our “seeing”…our gaze, our perceptual “attitude” or stance. Our work in the world begins with how we “see” the world, yes? With how it excites us, makes us wonder, invites our curiosity, or interrogation, or awe, or even anger…So it seems to me that part of our “task” is one of making ourselves, keeping ourselves in a state of sharp-eyed-ness…raw receptiveness…“good looker”…yes, “see-er/seer.” This is part of practice…fundamental I think to the next step or layer…which leads us into “making” or “poking at” meaning. And, if this little “theory” might have some truth, then it makes a profound difference “where we look from”, i.e. our Point of View, our stance, or what I call the “attitude of the gaze”. And we need more than one.
The gaze of “beginner’s mind”, of child enchanted, of pissed-off cynic, of broken heart, of deep despair, of wild, erotic heat, of heart in love, of brain on fire…are just a few that we might bring to the way we dance our work into the world. And just as I would argue for diverse vocabularies for expression, different strategies for different discourses, so would I argue for diverse “attitudes of gaze” or perceptual stances or POV’s[…
…]It really is the “eye of the beholder” that creates the thing “beheld”.
…] can we become fluent enough, flexible enough, skilled enough to select our lens, to call up that stance or attitude most needed by the notions we are dancing with, or are we victimized by a single purpose POV forever, and cursed to frame a lifetime’s vision from within a single “attitude”?
…] there is a fundamental thing afoot here, Paul, a “quickening”, a new way of “seeing/looking”…and it is beginning to sing through you…Pay attention to it. Find out how to call it up when needed[…
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [music + (John + Cage + Farley + {middle + C})]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Brandston, Ken. title: “The New Cage: The Experimental Revival from Cornish to Prague.” publication: Journal of the American Musicological Society, February 2010.
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-33%]
excerpts:
…]and consider the following journal entry recently decoded from the private writings of self-styled wunderkind Hughes:
…]newfound love of john cage’s music now forever tarnished by biographical research. you should know why unless you’re completely ignorant of cornish alumni. MethodStructureIntentionDisciplineNotationIndeterminacy InterpenetrationImitationDevotionCircumstancesVariableStructure NonunderstandingContingencyInconsistencyPerformance(I-VI). —”Dream”: In a Landscape: John Cage. there has to be a reason for these webs.
Mentor and ethnomusicologist Dr. Michael Farley presented an intriguing posthumous analysis of Hughes’s musical mentalities:
“The Hughes boy…He was a different kind of young man. Please don’t take that the wrong way. He just thought too much. The kind of thinking a person does when they can’t sleep, but they also can’t stop listening. Not hearing; it’s not an issue of hearing. He couldn’t stop listening.
“He told me once that he’d figured out that that ringing in his ears was a ‘C.’ Took him a while, since he wasn’t the kind of technical musical student I usually get. I asked him to play middle C on a piano once in my Musics of the World class, but he couldn’t.
“His dad had tinnitus, too.
“But he said that that sound, that ringing, it was a ‘C,’ and I played it on the piano, and he just nodded his head.
“He had a theory, said it came to him one night when he couldn’t stop listening. He thought that maybe people were drawn to music that featured the note of their natural resonating frequencies. He told me he’d gone through dozens of songs that had touched him deeply at some level, and ‘C’ was a prominent tone in each of them. He was convinced that those songs literally resonated with his heart.
“There’s a thing called a seiche wave. It’s a wave that travels on the surface of a lake, or any landlocked water. Barely discernible. Sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes hours to oscillate completely. It’s the natural resonance of the earth.
“That boy got caught in a seiche wave. Maybe he heard a ‘C.’
“That’s why he disappeared.”
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [personal + journal + 2004]]: [translate: standard] :
author: Paul Evan Hughes. untitled. publication: 12 February 2004.
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-35%]
full text:
i am complicit in my own desolation.
no matter how brilliant they say you are, how sweet, charming, intelligent, no matter how innovative your work is or your theories are, no matter how all-around great they tell you you are, the cold, hard truth is that you fall asleep at night alone, and in the end, there will be no one to hold your hand and watch you die. there will always be someone prettier, more interesting, more spiritual, closer, bigger, better, faster, to fill the time with flesh and sound.
there is no enlightenment. there is nothing left to enlighten.
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + […signal corrupted…]]: [translate: standard] :
author: […signal corrupted…] title: […signal corrupted…] publication: […signal corrupted…]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-50%]
full text:
dear jacob,
i’ve dismantled my life completely in these two weeks.
dear jacob, i know i haven’t spoken to you in a while—it’s been difficult. it’s been the happiest almost-year since you left, and i apologize for substituting contentedness for communication. i owe you more than silences. the time i visited you, just before the dismantling began in earnest, i didn’t give you my full attention. i was selfish. i didn’t listen, didn’t really talk. just looked at a rock and wondered what’s left of you.
dear jacob, i know you would have loved her. and i know you now know everything i’ve collected of her. and i know that i would have been the one sobbing at the fire.
it’s now been a year since that first kiss, and i think i’ve lost her.
forever is a difficult word. you know that better than i can until i’m there.
i’m leaving this place, and i’ve started to box things up. the dismantling has ruined me. i can’t apologize enough, because i don’t know what to apologize for—it’s me, just me, all of me, and i don’t think i can get it right.
dear jacob, i understand the how and why now, and every day for weeks has been dissuasion. it’s been a fog. i’ve slipped back into so many habits. you know—the drinking, forgetting to eat. 176lbs now for the first time since you left. i’ve spiraled off into productivity, but what products could substitute? i shouldn’t have driven home.
god, i wish you could have seen me this year. almost-year.
because i’d never had a partner, never given myself so completely, never loved so deeply, and now i think i’ve lost it all. and the worst part is the maybe—maybe she still loves me, maybe there’s a chance, but i can’t operate like that. i have no great goals of getting back into the game—the thought of being with anyone else makes me sick. the thought of her being with anyone else makes me want to stop breathing.
i’ve started stuttering again.
if you could have seen us—
i don’t know what to do anymore. it’s all broken. there is no home, and i’ve substituted moving away for any semblance of trying to improve my situation. you know the friends—they’re gone now, married off and busy. no one’s visited since may. i’m always the one to drive to visit. and home—how do we define that? the farm has gone. under new management. and the constant—every day for almost-a-year, she was my constant, and maybe i shouldn’t have ascribed that responsibility to her, but i thought that’s what partners were. now it’s lost, and i stay awake at night wondering if i’ll ever see her again, if she’ll ever love me again. because i can’t imagine a lifetime without her.
if you could have seen me that night—you would have known.
dear jacob, i’m on the edge, and i know how it must have been for you. at least i can suspect.
but i won’t be visiting anytime soon. i’m sorry and not in the same breath.
i’m so lucky to have been given the time with her i was. few are given the opportunity to love like that. i know i’m greedy and selfish to want more, but i don’t know how else to be. i’m so lucky—do you understand that? to have loved like that—to continue to love like that, even if it’s only me.
i can only hope that something remains of this almost-year.
dear jacob, i’m fighting right now. i know you understand. because even with you gone, you’re still the one who listens.
i love her.
let me broadcast that with everything i have left—i love her. and if that love is resigned to echoes and sunrises, if it’s only a box of plastic or a folder of postcards, let it be known that my heart continues to be hers. and i’ll hide away from the world. i’m done with the game. i’ll rebuild in a ghost house and make a bonfire pit. i’ll set and overmeet goals and my heart will be hers, as flawed as it is, as broken as i am, because i’ve never wanted anything more than this. anyone more than her.
i’ve lost my best friend.
dear jacob, i’m so tired, but i’m fighting. there’s no room for surrender.
a year ago…i can’t write through the tears anymore. so much of me has been excised.
and i know words are weapons and this broadcast could ruin further, but i can’t keep it inside anymore. it would have been one year today since that first kiss, since i started to fall the best fall. i’m so scared to tell her how i feel, and i can only hope that she knows, beg that she remembers. because i gave her the best of me i could, and i don’t think i did enough. it’s a startling realization to know now that my best will never be good enough.
dear jacob, i’m coming home.
[signal faded.]
[/display]
[/search] complete:
[display]
search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + […signal corrupted…]]: [translate: standard] :
author: […signal corrupted…] title: […signal corrupted…] publication: […signal corrupted…]
[la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-50%]
full text:
…] [i] know you told me to go to bed, but there was editing to do and i wanted to write to you before i tried to sleep. i’m sorry i haven’t called. i know it’s ridiculous and i can call and leave a message and i know i should, but i don’t want to interrupt and i want to talk to you when you have time and i know you have time for sure. i don’t know how to do this. i think i’ve been doing a bad job, and i apologize….] [i have had] dreams of you, and i’ve looked through england pictures and all the other pictures. missing you is my constant. and it’s something i don’t want to get good at. i don’t want to be good at missing you. that’s why i’d really like to see you on saturday. i don’t mind driving, and i wouldn’t presume to spend the night, anyway. i’d just like to be within a distance of you where i can feel you there. i don’t know if that makes sense. i never imagined that you’d feel farther away in vt than you did in england, but it’s happened, and i know i have to deal with that. i miss my best friend, my lover and partner. i miss us. broken hearts can heal, but it’s like the heart is made of glass. scar tissue can form around the pieces, but every time it beats, you can feel the sharp edges. i’ve never felt so lost….] people come into and leave our lives, but we keep going. i’m trying so hard to keep going, but i’d give anything to hold your hand again. i keep busy and do things that most people never do, most people never have seventeen authors excited over the opportunity of being published, and i’m the one offering that opportunity, but everything just feels like i’m going through the paces, sitting in front of the camera putting on a strong face and saying that i’m okay, but everyone knows that [i’m] lying. the cashier jokes playfully while checking my id and it makes me sick. i’m in love with someone i’m afraid i’ll never see again. my dad says i need to find me a big indian woman to keep me warm in this cold old house this winter, and i know he’s just joking, we have the same sense of humor, but there’s no one else i want to hold on to. sisters hint at passing my number to really nice 36-year-old divorcees, two kids, like to read, and i feel like breaking. does any of this make sense? i know i’m tangenting. but i sit here and wonder what set of paints i could wrap for you, what little drawing with “never give up” on it. i looked for you my entire life. and if i could apologize for the times i hurt you, i would, if i could erase the stupid fights we had over nothing, i would, but that was a part of us as well, and erasing any of us would be to alter something that was beautiful. so i say goodnight to you each night and i hold my pillow and pretend it’s you and i feel the pieces of glass grinding. i’m making a living on words and these words don’t even begin to approach what i feel. i don’t know. i don’t know how to write what my heart’s telling me. it’s been so difficult, and i know you know that, it’s just. i don’t know. i stood in the rain yesterday and replaced the broken clutch in my truck, just in case you wanted to get together this weekend. i hope we can, even if for a few hours. i know it’ll be difficult, and i don’t know how i’d be able to keep my eyes dry, but i miss you so much. life’s composed of moments. i think back, and it’s so overwhelming. “cover my feet” and the way you said NO, seeing you from across antique shops, holding hands walking up the hill at the grange. sitting on rocks with you and eating cheese by the water, washing dishes, washing the entire floor’s dishes while you cooked. running for buses and trains and standing in awe at paintings and just curled up together on my futon after you got to my apartment. the way you said my name. i’ve never felt closer, never felt safer. and it’s so hard to let go of that—i don’t want to let go of that, don’t want to experience you through memory, because i’ve almost forgotten the scent of your hair, something i realized nights ago, and i’m holding on so hard to what i have left, the feel of your cheeks on my lips, the taste of you, the size and squeeze of your hand, the way we fit together spooned, or with your arm around me from behind. half asleep and waking up to i love you, paul hughes, so much, a kiss and you fell back asleep. how can i give that up? i love you. this is a love letter—they all are, they always have been, and when i’m gone someday and all that’s left of me is my words, someone will know that i was in love and my world was beautiful.
i love you, […
[signal faded.]
[/display]
[run]: [read]:
author: [Hughes, Paul] title: publication:
[system interject]: [deepblack]: [ops: eyes-only]: DESTROY AFTER READING.
Paranoid: Very High Schizoid: Moderate Schizotypal: High Antisocial: High Borderline: Very High Histrionic: Very High Narcissistic: Very High Avoidant: Very High Dependent: Very High Obsessive-Compulsive: High
[recovery team notes signal shatter; text incomplete.] [la biblio[“o]mnithèque universelle confirms textual probability to statistical significance +/-50%]
recovered excerpts:
…][I], Paul Evan Hughes, of sound body and questionable mind, do this sixteenth day of March, 2005 at 10:14AM, write this document in my own hand, which should be considered a holographic confession of my misdeeds and the wrongs for which I wish to repent. A fundamental confusion and misinterpretation of my intents this last decade has solidified my decision to subtract myself from this timeline and attempt to repair the damage that I have done. What follows is a brief account of the circumstances that effected this decision and the course of action I have undertaken to[…
…]was a desire to create a virtual space where kindred spirits could gather. Of course, the kindred spirits drawn to such a place were[…
…]transgressing the line between real and virtual spaces, hoping to validate that which I had created in a space that was not a space, a world outside of time and[…
…]and how much farther, how much further could we transgress? Maybe if I’d chosen a closer semblance of reality instead of that blurred[…
…]unrest appeared not long after the return to the digital world. Those drunken collisions of flesh, those muted penetrations and slicks of sweat[…
…]was complicit in that process. I am complicit in my own desolation. To surrender to temptation, to bridge the virtual and physical worlds, to give in to that desire to[…
…]giving in to loneliness. I knew then that it would all change, that[…
…][I] had birthed new notions of virtuality. Dissatisfied, I took it upon myself to destroy that world.
…]began the dissolution of the[…
…]before reaching the breaking point. It wasn’t long before[…
…]and yes, an ego the size of Sedna, an intense jealousy that at that gathering I hadn’t found the relationship that I suspected might arise from that breach of worlds. There are differences between electricity and flesh, heightened by observation from feet of air, not fiber. How many young men create and destroy empires of zeros and ones? How many young[…
…]speech almost a decade before, I had prophesied what would become the core of my unrest, urging my school to focus on the students, not on the then-new invention of the “information superhighway.” I sensed the impending societal shift from physicality to virtuality, and now, in these last days, I have seen the deadly results. Communicative technologies have created worlds that at first might appear to contain just as many inherent exceptions to truthfulness as reality, but I am now convinced that[…
…]asked me to define my concept of transgression. Is it my recurring practice of acquiring and exploiting others’ words and actions for my own purposes? Is it the desire to breach and destroy? Or is it perhaps the willingness to let strangers so far into my heavily-guarded, subjectively-constructed notion of history and “reality” that they can’t ever completely escape? I have no answers. I realize that I have lied, cheated, and stolen, as painter Jack Beal insisted I do in one of my first studio art classes in 1996, if I ever wanted to become anything in life.
…]virtual world that I began and ultimately killed was one of intricate deceits.
…]that I have maligned and fabricated my art from subjective memory filtered through a rapidly-dissembling mind. What memories have I constructed of my best friend? “Best” friend? Is that because he was truly my best friend or just because he’s dead now and can’t disagree? What shames have I subjected her to? I loved her, but was that love as strong during our relationship as recall would have an audience believe after she left me? How much of this is a lie? I can no longer tell the difference between past and dream, and I fear that as long as I invite viewers, readers, strangers into my soul, I’ll never be able to discern truth. So much of me is performance now that[…
…]stealing words, shattering memories, placing words into strangers’[…
I don’t know who I am anymore.
…]know what I have to do, what I’ve known for years. I will take this jihad to the[…
…]if I can only secure this reality, if I can only guarantee that this soul, these lives[…
So I confess these transgressions. I will reclaim reality. I will[…
It begins now.
[/read] [/run]