this regret machine

it's not supposed to look good, duh.  A brief 'lecture' (fuck off) on writing character for a course I'm on. Character exists at the heart of our association with each other. We know who is supposed to be a character, for what they have done, the abstraction and reduction into ‘h, he’s a character, in’t he?’ It is through others, we become ourselves, says Lev Vygotsky: and the social psychologist argues too, we become ourselves through play. Character and play are commonalities, rich in bed with each other, as we adopt roles and archetypes to, firstly have fun, and then, to become. Writing character, making character, becoming character can be the same. The precedent for creative writing guidance on YouTube is readily available,. The lesson I want to impart here is that character comes from energy, a fixed location, and must be progressing onwards and towards another horizon.  The traits and characteristics are already there for you watch and read about. This lecture is...

  Honningbarna released an album earlier in this year called Soft Spot that my friend heather described as norwegian black metal, and though i’m no expert in the scene, i wouldn’t call it black metal, i wouldn’t know where to begin with genre boundaries and placement. I don’t have the stomach to be that kinda mark. If i’ve learned anything over the year twenty twenty five, it’s that i’m not made like a know-it-all. I start most conversations with ‘I think it’s interesting that’, and now my mouth is all dry, and my mouth tastes clammier. When i drink water it just goes over my tongue. I haven’t really learned that i’m not made in any specific way. I just know that it’s music with spirit, man. The music has got the fucking spirit. It’s the party that never stops, that never dies, that keeps fucking going. It’s down woodland road at 15:15 without breaks on your back wheel or a helmet. My living has been in the hands of the surrounding world for a long time now, I’m only doing my job...

  I pop ice from its plastic body and they slide across the countertop, taking refuge beneath the dishes again. I pour more coffee than I should be drinking into a glass one of us stole on a night out. I check the photo again, I try to read the words. The people make me smile. I wipe the sweat from my brow and lick it from the back of my palm. I like these people. I always assumed they’d never exist, or be some part of my imagination. They laugh, each in their own way, the same way I laugh, and I see myself in each of them. My phone lives at 10%. There’s rum down the side of the backseat. The music changes. There’s an ancient shipwreck buried beneath the soil. The sun comes by. We pass the same trees at the end of Devon. If we drive through the night we miss them, instead making the same jokes about double suicide or falling asleep behind the wheel. We argue for the fun of it. We raise our voices. I haven’t sung with anybody since I was in a school for boys. I still dream about the...

    Their body chose to wake up. From billions of shattered and fleeting fragments, consciousness came back to her like liquid honey, sticking to her gums, spilling through their throat, sickening in her stomach. Their skin became aware of itself, the sweat and the quiet and the space they all filled. Breathing came next, a slow, needed exchange between the body and the bedroom. The air was heavy wet velvet on her tongue. She was awake, breathing, and real.  This year was the first year I started working. Properly working. Full time, seven days a week, zero hour contract work. I’m living the student experience, tossed between three jobs. The hours are nonsensical and shifting. From January to June, I would have a 05:00 start, 06:00 walk, to make it for a 07:30 start. On the same day, my shift could end at 16:00, and I’d start another shift at another job at 17:00, until 20:00 before walking home.     Too, fitting seminars, lectures and reading into this lab...

Deeper, deeper into this sweet quiet. Sweeter and sweet, and the darker the night gets, the less I feel. There, at four am, thinking about nothing. I am home, and I am safe. There is nobody I need to talk to, nobody will ever need anything of me again. My eyes stay open, my body listens to only itself. While this space is quiet, peace seeps through in different ways. I do not seek peace, not yet. There is nothing to be felt. I keep all ideas and knowings out. It is not a combat. I am just listening to other music. This song sounds so good. This is my jam. This is my song. Forever and ever I will keep listening to this song, as I live through this dream. Home and somewhere else entirely. A physical self sticks to these bedsheets like a toy stuck to a window. This body is filled with liquids and fruits not its own. It peels, shedding empty husks, revealing something quieter beneath. A place of solemn quiet. The window looks to the hollow and cold world. In one moment, I am growing, a...