Work Text:
August 23rd, 1989
Hello, I am Alex or Alexander, whatever is easier. Identity is such a superfluous thing, ever changing.
This is a series of tapes before I am erased from the record for good.
I had been born with a bizarre power to be able to unwind the minds of others, like a surgeon of history.
I can reconcile people's pain and hurt, well i could hurt people more, i could chain memories to pain that wasn't there, but i don't do that. all of it, just at the contact of my fingers, I just need to touch their body and focus.
My parents made of me some Messiah of sort when they found out, whatever silly spiritual beliefs. I know them not true.
Because I was always haunted by something dreadful.
Hard to describe, amorphous, humanoid shade, irradiated Divine, eyes that pierce your thoughts so strongly, you forget you are an animal.
I call it city mother, I remember seeing it when I was born, I feel it's presence when I sleep. It tears at my thoughts, at my everything.
It wants me to let it in.
I don't know what it is.
Except that it beckons me to roam ancient towns, to see the hidden histories. To Ingrave them into my flesh.
Sometimes I feel like doing the hand gestures a smoker does
Not because I ever smoked mind you, although I've known most people that I had been around to be smokers.
No, I think of myself as an addict to a sort of chemical too.
Nostalgia, the greatest drug of the mind. What if, what if what if? No.
I know those moments were all worse then me now, past me would kill to live this life.
I just miss the people, I regret that I had not have had the eyes back then. That I did not value the smallest of things, that I had such a lack of grace and kindness. The world was so much smaller then, it truly feels like I had been reborn. Alien eyes to that other country, past. Although it is literally another country.
It's my kinda funny how despite all of that, I'm still not happy.
Perhaps that is due to the circumstances of my most recent death.
In my attempt to escape the pain of it all, I somehow. Managed to do it in a way I could have only dreamed of.
Which sounds wonderful, no?
It is a hell, like a Faustian bargain or wish of a djinn.
I had finally grasped a piece of the world, not in theory but in practice.
And city mother, how cruel it all is.
But I can't help but see these ancient western cities, to imagine how the government of fascists were in charge, how the medieval merchant roams through the now demolished city gates. How the red army took over the city, raising down all those banners to hatred.
What a beautifully horrifying world.
And I'm a part of it. I thought myself a nothingness, but maybe I'm a ghost.
Haunted by a life I was never meant to have.
What if I was in the army? What if I stayed back there in my birth land? What if I just reached out to that one person?
What if I was still friends with them?
I can only feel myself through the masks, the roles, the acts I take.
Like great heavenly strings guide by my ghastly hands.
When I'm not acting out my part
I become a blank sheet.
Perhaps I was molded to be one, my parents did little to make me anything.
Why?
City mother, I miss it all.
I just don't know where to start again.
Our work never slumbers.
And I remember it, that sweet call of death. Oh how I know it, an acquaintance I've seen enough times. I am not afraid, and that's horrible. I find death to be my companion, not fear. I walk with dying.
But before I've known love, what a short fleeting feeling it was. That love. It ate my heart and left a void. But in my mind, I still keep that kindness and gentleness, that love. I remember, I will remember her and never forget.
The things I've done in that madness are irredeemable. But still, the impermanence of all things.
I love death such as life, it's all so beautiful. It gives value to know that I am able to see it as it was, at it is.
I think it would be better for us as a species if I were gone, I think I can't stop it any longer. Someone else has to mantle this thing, it is too powerful.
And I am so afraid of everything these days.
I have ever present feeling ever since the death walk.
Before it, I felt like at least there was one person to whom I could call my own, a sibling of pain, hope and trying.
But now I feel alone, they are gone.
I miss them dearly, but I must accept that actions are of consequence.
I have grown to the old habits of coldness and detachment.
Horrible formula for living, especially when trying to survive in some alien place, all alone.
There is so much that chokes me out constantly.
I want to breathe, I want to cry, I want to feel the horrible pain of my body and mind.
I feel like I've become a ghost, excised from myself, watching as I go through the motions.
I bore of things I have, so I try not to have anything
I'm sorry, I now understand. I was so afraid to love. To lose again, to be attached to the world like you have. We are of the same blood and mind.
I just hope, the light shines upon you.
That you don't wither.
I love you, forever. Good luck, wherever you are
PLEASE
LET ME BACK IN
I CAN'T
I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF ANY LONGER
I'M NOTHING
SOVEREIGN TO OBLIVION
I am a broken thing, so irreparably cruel.
It's weird, so many people have tried helping me.
I let them all down, because that's what I do.
I am a harbinger of doom.
No one who touches me comes unscathed.
So I hope whoever finds this tape understands.
I cannot change what happened.
It would be better if I was never born.
I'm sorry
But I'll do it again.
It all hurts so much, but it will change naught.
I hope they find these tapes, and understand and forgive me.
Please forgive me
i can't forgive myself
I just can't
I can't do it another way
I'll do it again
And again
And what if?
I'm an animal, a thing. A puppet on strings of something horrifying.
There is a cruelty deep inside where my heart should be.
That, nothing. That unhumanity.
I'm that, that's what I am.
A monster, a thing, an animal.
You cannot reason with my being.
So I will relieve myself of that responsibility.
So no one should suffer anymore.
So i cause no more hurt.
I'm sorry
I'm so fucking sorry.
I just want to be loved
Was I born too late to be loved? There are so many stories where people care for each other, stay there when it's difficult. Even in war, the winter truce and all that.
But why have everyone left me? Do they feel it? That presence?
I remember their words
"i'm sorry, you will outlive me. I am happy that in my final moments, you are here. And not fighting"
WHY WAS IT NOT ME?
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!
i tried, i tried so hard to help them
but i could never find them
we always moved in a curved orbit around one and other
meeting and flying away
those meetings, i cherish them so dearly
they taught me how to control my art, my emotions.
but then they told me
"i am not myself, and the darkness, it can't come quickly enough"
it can't come quickly enough
it can't come quickly enough
it can't come quickly enough
it can't come quickly fucking enough