I’ve been in a better mood these past couple of days, which isn’t saying much given that I was contemplating very dark thoughts until then. A significant part of my change in mood has been thanks to my basement girl (my subconscious, in case you picture a fragile female chained under my floor). Recently she brought my attention to a novel I wrote about ten years ago, that I abandoned midway through because it wasn’t viable. Its core was worth exploring: it dealt with an autistic, reclusive person who was writing a novel about the artist she was obsessed with. It delved deep into how I lived for most of my twenties: deep seclusion, detachment from society, sinking in obsession, etc. I never processed that period properly, I don’t think, and working through such issues with a story tends to help, so I’m not surprised that my basement girl has been focused on it. Throughout the day, she has come up with the proper tone for the narration, with a bold idea for who the narrator should be, and for how to handle the scenes of the book-within-a-book (the entire book the protagonist wrote is one that I actually wrote, so that will be interesting to depict). As I was standing on the bus or the train, either heading to work or back, new moments from that story kept bubbling up from my basement, sometimes even interrupting my daydreams, clear proof that my mute girl is hard at work piecing it together. It will take me quite a while to organize all my notes and structure the whole thing properly, but as for now, I feel like I’m going to do this.

I’ve also been translating one of the novellas I wrote back in the day. I was surprised to discover that I still like it a lot, although it puzzled me with how different I feel these days. Back when I wrote Smile, the vastly increasing crime where I lived, as well as the regular terrorist attacks in Europe, kept me enraged. I couldn’t understand how people kept Don’t-Look-Back-in-Anger-ing. It was like most people had been brainwashed into becoming perfect little lambs for the slaughter. The situation hasn’t changed much, and in many ways it has worsened, but I don’t rage about it remotely as much. That may be in part due to a mix of growing older and caring even less about the world. I don’t feel like I’m part of this society; I just happen to live here. If I had the balls to do it, I’d move somewhere else. Maybe the Catalina foothills in Tucson, AZ, to give 65-year-old Augusta Britt a massage.

Speaking of troubling daydreams, yeah, I’m still fantasizing about Alicia Western, the haunting character from Cormac McCarthy’s last couple of novels. The daydream has become so elaborate that I may as well detail it now: a version of myself (perhaps even the protagonist of Smile, who was a recurrent protagonist in my daydreams whenever my savior complex kicked up) travels back in time to the Stella Maris sanatorium in Wisconsin, before Alicia Western killed herself. I show up in her assigned room. She’s all blonde-haired and shit, wearing such a pretty white gown. Anyway, I convince her that I’m from the future, that Bobby will wake up from his coma and be ready to dick her down. After a good cry, she gets hungry, so I bring her over a plate of Italian pasta from the future or whatever. The following day she decides to leave the sanatorium and travel around with me until Bobby wakes up. A few days into the trip, that involves watching movies from the future in modern TVs installed in roadside 1970s motels, Alicia gets curious about her younger self, and she asks me to set up a line of video communication with her teenage self about the time that Bobby fell in love with her. So I return back in time to her grandmother Ellen’s home to show her older Alicia’s video. That leads to a whole bunch of interaction from both sides, with 22-year-old Alicia recording videos for her younger self to guide her through her troublesome hallucinations and all that. Probably lots of advice on how to seduce her older brother. Anyway, I’m feeling generous, so I gift her grandmother like a hundred thousand dollars. “Oh, we can’t accept this!” “This isn’t even chump change, old broad! I’m a fucking time-traveler: I can win the lottery then win the lottery then win the lottery. I know the locations of piles of gold that won’t be found for decades. Just take the goddamn money and buy yourself a platinum dildo or something, will you?” They spend some of it on a tractor.

Ah, daydreams are so soothing. Just being able to close my eyes in the train and be transported mentally to these inner worlds where I can have conversations with a delightful, fascinating fictional character (though based on real person) the likes of which I’ve never met in real life, in part because I hate dealing with human beings.

Oh, I forgot to say about my novella Smile, the one I’m translating at the moment, that it may come close to what I consider “angry autistic guy writing.” The closest form of that which I recall is the manga Gantz. I hope it never quite reaches that point. I was fully aware during writing it that I was making it harsh and generally unpleasant, because it had to be. The protagonist, although an avenger who saves people, is a nasty serial killer himself who has murdered far more people than the serial killers and terrorists he hunts down. Of course, he’s justified in doing so… or is he? There’s the whole dilemma about his methods, the way he interacts with others, etc. I found him a very interesting guy. Of course, such a story would never get professionally published, which for me is a plus, as seemingly most of what gets published these days is politically correct slop. I want my writers deranged and half-evil, possibly even escaping to Mexico with fourteen year olds.

Anyway, I hope you’re getting to orgasm on a regular basis. That’s what life is ultimately about.

The brilliant Deep Dive couple produced a fun podcast about this post: