ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
don’t lecture me, boy.
1 . 1/3 the linguist & the lantern.
uncertain English professors, spewing five-syllable words
budding language-lovers, masturbating over indecisiveness
focusing all attention on vocabulary. specialising in nothing.
eagerly anticipating absurd alphabetical aesthetics.
testing negative space for acidity. white. top soil.
a breeding ground for foreign/introduced species.
whether silent, anal, oral or written. no vacancy.
synonymous-antonymous-carnivorous. happy-sad.
directly communicate to my sub-conscious mind.
deliver me the foreign & the incomprehensible.
fuck excuses. syllabus be damned.
i stare, shamelessly, at the professor.
as if watching an execution.
apparently,
the word pussy should be substituted for a safer term.
vaginal-orifice, perhaps, or where-the-sun-don't-shine.
there are dozens of superior synonyms to choose from.
that's the gospel according to Professor Quail, anyway.
educator, womanizer & self-proclaimed feminine activist.
for a high-definition ebook copy of his over-priced textbook.
we must – either – pay extra; or, volunteer as his assistant.
assistant… emphasis on the ass, i suspect... no thanks.
gathering references, for the sake of gathering references, destroyed his soul.
Quail is a zombie. killed by his own curriculum. hypnotized by hyperbole.
left jaded, jealous and disingenuous. scraps of paper, like cat litter.
dead ideas, piled up like ashen snow after a volcanic eruption.
elongated verbs and nouns, casual as breadcrumbs.
stretched-limousines picking up street fares.
a hundred syllables, easily, per sentence. with obscure mythological references.
ultra-complex grammar. pseudo-intellectualist rants. and linguistic jargon.
absent of original thought. multi-lingual. and pretentious.
combining Latin, French, Spanish & English.
appropriately, he reads in monotone.
low-pitch. slow-motion. empty eyes.
us - sleepless & sober – waiting for the absurd and arbitrary to intersect.
sailing towards the world’s end. steadily approaching the temporal horizon.
pursuing the end of time. chasing infinity while waiting. we ask fate, "why?"
more of a curiosity than a complaint, this.
holding my illuminated phone, like an old-fashioned oil lantern.
cutting holes in the darkness as i dig through the pitch black void.
these dull luminous bubbles, projected around me like force fields.
spotlights fading behind me. devoured by shadow. fodder for time.
my smartphone, progressing from minor malfunction to meltdown.
batteries sending out funeral invitations. deleted. ignored.
1 . 2/3 the automaton & the armoury.
nothing inside, but dust and echo. my gaze, glued inches ahead of my toes.
i stumble outside. a pile of cash. abandoned on the naked sidewalk.
five-hundred notes, of various denominations. at least.
i save them from disintegrating into useless mush.
my treasure. my soggy green-paper men, drowning in rancid puddle-water.
rescued, flattened, dried and approximated. sitting in neat piles.
this monetary platoon – roughly 12,000 units – i exchange them.
trade slave-labour for weapons. my army, for a small arsenal.
thirteen guns, total. i bring the whole lot on the plane.
there’s my good-old 12 gauge, double-b. my pearl-handled six-shooters.
an assault rifle made in israel. two Uzis. a grenade launcher. an elephant gun.
a flare gun. a sawn-off shotgun. a flame-thrower. a telescopic sniper rifle. and a tazer.
not to mention, the grenades. the body armour. and other miscellaneous bits and pieces.
all this, straight through customs undetected. spread across four suit-cases in the cargo bay.
i work on my assignment, during the flight.
re-read it and translate, using a thesaurus.
replace three syllable words with tens.
make it as confusing as possible.
remembering, it’s all pretence.
it just needs to sound good.
it doesn’t mean anything.
like an arts degree.
i don’t have a voice of my own. neither does the professor.
we are nothing more than virtual, automated programs.
like forum bots, impersonating human behaviour online.
historians. data couriers. reading, writing. repeating.
the meaning of our words, corrupted over time.
each generation, learning from the last.
education, by Chinese whisper.
the taxi driver insists he doesn’t know the professor.
urban streets pass by the windows. some familiar. some un.
there’s a café, he mentioned in class once. i head there, first.
sit down. order an ordinary coffee. no mocha-cappuccino-lattés.
i roll my eyes at the suggestion, attempting to illustrate disapproval.
later, as always, silently regretting not having ordered something a bit tastier.
1 . 3/3 the physicist & the phone book.
there’s eight hundred and sixty-four addresses listed for Quail in town.
i do them all. one visitation after another, all day for three long weeks.
his family home is hardly standing. condemned, abandoned. burnt out.
otherwise, it’s just as his auto-biography described. only, less syllables.
his parents – Mr. & Mrs. Quail – are dead, according to the neighbours.
you can’t ransom corpses. dead hostages don’t provide much leverage.
necrophilia and other forms of desecration aside, there’s no real threat.
pain, fear and trauma are not things that the deceased can experience.
they can’t see a gun, even when the barrel is pointed into their eyeball.
nor can they cry over the phone, or say help, or beg their son to resign.
left-over adrenaline from the kidnapping attempt, lingering in my lobes.
I decide - spontaneously - to move in, to the professor’s childhood home.
time to re-strategize. need a new plan. back to the drawing board.
i get started the next day, by enroling in the local university.
completing a bachelor’s double-degree in applied sciences.
majoring in quantum physics and aerospace engineering.
with a minor in theoretical physics and pure mathematics.
depleting my inheritance for 5 years. studying unemployed.
living in the Professor’s house, with no electricity or water.
then,
post-graduation, i apply for a junior research position at the university lab.
the hardware – everything i will need for Project Q – is available on campus.
this is no co-incidence. construction is catered to my specific limitations.
my basement – Quail’s basement, i should say – is my central laboratory.
there’s hardly enough room for the equipment i borrowed from work.
and, admittedly, it takes a bit longer than i’d originally anticipated. but, i manage.
two years, give or take, building a temporal transporter alone from odds and ends.
travelling backwards, through time, leaves me disoriented.
i am standing beside a young professor, in the early 1960s.
a black and white television in the corner, humming white noise.
my innocent victim acknowledges me. bright blue beautiful eyes.
hard to believe. one day, this kid’ll sabotage educations. destroy lives.
his blonde fringe, hanging down to his eyebrows. cheeks, red and round.
surrounded by pre-digital toys. a train set. a book. a teddy. and some blocks.
a pair of faded denim overalls undone at one shoulder, letting a strap hang down.
doubt, re-entering my mind… maybe – i think – maybe, this isn’t even him.
then, he speaks.
he says, “delighted to make your your acquaintance, fine sir.
please permit me to introduce myself. i am Johan Leonard Quail, Junior.
unfortunately, my mother and father are unavailable. dining – at National Pine – you see.
they extended the invitation to me, of course, but i lacked the inclination to attend.
between the two of us, i’ve never been particularly impressed by the establishment.”
only four years old and he’s already a walking thesaurus.
sounds exactly like the professor, too. weird.
it’s actually cute coming from a little boy.
like apes, dressed up in human clothes.
here’s a boy, mimicking a man.
i have to force myself to do it.
grab him by the face and scream so loud, i hurt my own ears.
“who do you think you are, talking like that, huh, you little cunt?
we’ve been watching, you know. we’re always watching you.
if you speak like that ever again we’re going to cut off your dick.
tell the police and you’re dead. the same goes for your parents.
tell anyone about this, and you’re fucking dead. you got it?”
2 . 1/3 The Professor & the Pigs
anxious physicists, struggling to untangle the algorithm.
algebra enthusiasts, standing on the edge of their seats.
muttering softly in the traditional numerological tongues.
scientists, developing solutions for unsolvable problems.
trying to find answers for the unanswerable questions.
like newborn babies, solving Rubik's cubes underwater.
students, wielding markers, climbing over each other.
like a dozen malnourished pigs, in a feeding frenzy.
formula flooding the negative space left on the board.
misinformation, spreading. airborne. highly infectious.
the prescribed texts, ground zero, expose yourselves.
fuck that! deliver me the irrational & the paradoxical.
there's only misinformation, or the absence thereof.
algorithms are rendered illegible by scribbling pigs.
conventional mathematics be damned.
i eyeball the Professor,
as if watching an execution.
1 . 1/3 the linguist & the lantern.
uncertain English professors, spewing five-syllable words
budding language-lovers, masturbating over indecisiveness
focusing all attention on vocabulary. specialising in nothing.
eagerly anticipating absurd alphabetical aesthetics.
testing negative space for acidity. white. top soil.
a breeding ground for foreign/introduced species.
whether silent, anal, oral or written. no vacancy.
synonymous-antonymous-carnivorous. happy-sad.
directly communicate to my sub-conscious mind.
deliver me the foreign & the incomprehensible.
fuck excuses. syllabus be damned.
i stare, shamelessly, at the professor.
as if watching an execution.
apparently,
the word pussy should be substituted for a safer term.
vaginal-orifice, perhaps, or where-the-sun-don't-shine.
there are dozens of superior synonyms to choose from.
that's the gospel according to Professor Quail, anyway.
educator, womanizer & self-proclaimed feminine activist.
for a high-definition ebook copy of his over-priced textbook.
we must – either – pay extra; or, volunteer as his assistant.
assistant… emphasis on the ass, i suspect... no thanks.
gathering references, for the sake of gathering references, destroyed his soul.
Quail is a zombie. killed by his own curriculum. hypnotized by hyperbole.
left jaded, jealous and disingenuous. scraps of paper, like cat litter.
dead ideas, piled up like ashen snow after a volcanic eruption.
elongated verbs and nouns, casual as breadcrumbs.
stretched-limousines picking up street fares.
a hundred syllables, easily, per sentence. with obscure mythological references.
ultra-complex grammar. pseudo-intellectualist rants. and linguistic jargon.
absent of original thought. multi-lingual. and pretentious.
combining Latin, French, Spanish & English.
appropriately, he reads in monotone.
low-pitch. slow-motion. empty eyes.
us - sleepless & sober – waiting for the absurd and arbitrary to intersect.
sailing towards the world’s end. steadily approaching the temporal horizon.
pursuing the end of time. chasing infinity while waiting. we ask fate, "why?"
more of a curiosity than a complaint, this.
holding my illuminated phone, like an old-fashioned oil lantern.
cutting holes in the darkness as i dig through the pitch black void.
these dull luminous bubbles, projected around me like force fields.
spotlights fading behind me. devoured by shadow. fodder for time.
my smartphone, progressing from minor malfunction to meltdown.
batteries sending out funeral invitations. deleted. ignored.
1 . 2/3 the automaton & the armoury.
nothing inside, but dust and echo. my gaze, glued inches ahead of my toes.
i stumble outside. a pile of cash. abandoned on the naked sidewalk.
five-hundred notes, of various denominations. at least.
i save them from disintegrating into useless mush.
my treasure. my soggy green-paper men, drowning in rancid puddle-water.
rescued, flattened, dried and approximated. sitting in neat piles.
this monetary platoon – roughly 12,000 units – i exchange them.
trade slave-labour for weapons. my army, for a small arsenal.
thirteen guns, total. i bring the whole lot on the plane.
there’s my good-old 12 gauge, double-b. my pearl-handled six-shooters.
an assault rifle made in israel. two Uzis. a grenade launcher. an elephant gun.
a flare gun. a sawn-off shotgun. a flame-thrower. a telescopic sniper rifle. and a tazer.
not to mention, the grenades. the body armour. and other miscellaneous bits and pieces.
all this, straight through customs undetected. spread across four suit-cases in the cargo bay.
i work on my assignment, during the flight.
re-read it and translate, using a thesaurus.
replace three syllable words with tens.
make it as confusing as possible.
remembering, it’s all pretence.
it just needs to sound good.
it doesn’t mean anything.
like an arts degree.
i don’t have a voice of my own. neither does the professor.
we are nothing more than virtual, automated programs.
like forum bots, impersonating human behaviour online.
historians. data couriers. reading, writing. repeating.
the meaning of our words, corrupted over time.
each generation, learning from the last.
education, by Chinese whisper.
the taxi driver insists he doesn’t know the professor.
urban streets pass by the windows. some familiar. some un.
there’s a café, he mentioned in class once. i head there, first.
sit down. order an ordinary coffee. no mocha-cappuccino-lattés.
i roll my eyes at the suggestion, attempting to illustrate disapproval.
later, as always, silently regretting not having ordered something a bit tastier.
1 . 3/3 the physicist & the phone book.
there’s eight hundred and sixty-four addresses listed for Quail in town.
i do them all. one visitation after another, all day for three long weeks.
his family home is hardly standing. condemned, abandoned. burnt out.
otherwise, it’s just as his auto-biography described. only, less syllables.
his parents – Mr. & Mrs. Quail – are dead, according to the neighbours.
you can’t ransom corpses. dead hostages don’t provide much leverage.
necrophilia and other forms of desecration aside, there’s no real threat.
pain, fear and trauma are not things that the deceased can experience.
they can’t see a gun, even when the barrel is pointed into their eyeball.
nor can they cry over the phone, or say help, or beg their son to resign.
left-over adrenaline from the kidnapping attempt, lingering in my lobes.
I decide - spontaneously - to move in, to the professor’s childhood home.
time to re-strategize. need a new plan. back to the drawing board.
i get started the next day, by enroling in the local university.
completing a bachelor’s double-degree in applied sciences.
majoring in quantum physics and aerospace engineering.
with a minor in theoretical physics and pure mathematics.
depleting my inheritance for 5 years. studying unemployed.
living in the Professor’s house, with no electricity or water.
then,
post-graduation, i apply for a junior research position at the university lab.
the hardware – everything i will need for Project Q – is available on campus.
this is no co-incidence. construction is catered to my specific limitations.
my basement – Quail’s basement, i should say – is my central laboratory.
there’s hardly enough room for the equipment i borrowed from work.
and, admittedly, it takes a bit longer than i’d originally anticipated. but, i manage.
two years, give or take, building a temporal transporter alone from odds and ends.
travelling backwards, through time, leaves me disoriented.
i am standing beside a young professor, in the early 1960s.
a black and white television in the corner, humming white noise.
my innocent victim acknowledges me. bright blue beautiful eyes.
hard to believe. one day, this kid’ll sabotage educations. destroy lives.
his blonde fringe, hanging down to his eyebrows. cheeks, red and round.
surrounded by pre-digital toys. a train set. a book. a teddy. and some blocks.
a pair of faded denim overalls undone at one shoulder, letting a strap hang down.
doubt, re-entering my mind… maybe – i think – maybe, this isn’t even him.
then, he speaks.
he says, “delighted to make your your acquaintance, fine sir.
please permit me to introduce myself. i am Johan Leonard Quail, Junior.
unfortunately, my mother and father are unavailable. dining – at National Pine – you see.
they extended the invitation to me, of course, but i lacked the inclination to attend.
between the two of us, i’ve never been particularly impressed by the establishment.”
only four years old and he’s already a walking thesaurus.
sounds exactly like the professor, too. weird.
it’s actually cute coming from a little boy.
like apes, dressed up in human clothes.
here’s a boy, mimicking a man.
i have to force myself to do it.
grab him by the face and scream so loud, i hurt my own ears.
“who do you think you are, talking like that, huh, you little cunt?
we’ve been watching, you know. we’re always watching you.
if you speak like that ever again we’re going to cut off your dick.
tell the police and you’re dead. the same goes for your parents.
tell anyone about this, and you’re fucking dead. you got it?”
2 . 1/3 The Professor & the Pigs
anxious physicists, struggling to untangle the algorithm.
algebra enthusiasts, standing on the edge of their seats.
muttering softly in the traditional numerological tongues.
scientists, developing solutions for unsolvable problems.
trying to find answers for the unanswerable questions.
like newborn babies, solving Rubik's cubes underwater.
students, wielding markers, climbing over each other.
like a dozen malnourished pigs, in a feeding frenzy.
formula flooding the negative space left on the board.
misinformation, spreading. airborne. highly infectious.
the prescribed texts, ground zero, expose yourselves.
fuck that! deliver me the irrational & the paradoxical.
there's only misinformation, or the absence thereof.
algorithms are rendered illegible by scribbling pigs.
conventional mathematics be damned.
i eyeball the Professor,
as if watching an execution.
Last edited:
