[Literary] Interstellar Space On Yr Radio Dial

A Self Group Collective Literary Publication
SGL001
​By SEVA
​Science Fiction
Introduction published 11/2/2023

Out Now:
Preface
Introduction
​Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
​Chapter 5

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Preface
​
An ongoing live story, each chapter posted directly after it is written experiencing the story's unfolding along with the writer.  There's no predetermined arch or intentional narrative beyond the affect of its development based on the time, place and mood of the author at the time.  This work is a means to capture momentary sparks in the hopes of reigniting a creative fire, to inch forward until gravity's momentum takes hold and imagination becomes a readily accessible constant again.

​- SEVA

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Introduction
Playlist: Against Me "Baby, I'm An Anarchist!"
​
Forty-two years ago I came barreling onto this plane in the multiverse.
I expect the decision to do so was ill-informed like many other decisions I’ve observed myself making.
Mostly stubbornness on a whim, momentary and would-be fleeting passion.
If I’d waited another few minutes, drifting on a fixed yet aimless trajectory in the cosmos, I’m certain I would have elected to simply remain as specks of carbon on whatever asteroid or cluster of hydrogen molecules on the comet I originated from.
But here I am, a human Earthling at present, riddled with neurodivergence, crippling anxiety and depression, and hard-lined ethos since birth in a period of time on a planet where the “dominant” species are struggling to remember what ethos even are.
And I’m in love.
And it sucks.
To borrow a phrase that I will continue to use in excess honoring a predecessor and metamour of Kilgore Trout, So It Goes.
But this isn’t so much a love story, or love-lost story, about two individual human Earthlings.  It’s about... err... well maybe it is about that and the rest is just driving home a narrative relational to romantic partnership and the human need for it?
The human need to be seen, accepted and celebrated both individually and collectively as both one and many simultaneously and without pretense, labor requisite, or the mirrored embodiment of common propagandized social personas.
That’s the Hollywood blockbuster way right?  And that’s what we’re writing here, a goddamn blockbuster… for people who still prefer to sit in diners drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes til the bar crowd stumbles to their SUV’s and back to the suburbs.
But this isn't Hollywood.
It's phenomenal, the power of belief backed with conviction, and it’s all around us when we step back from what we’ve become desensitized to, that which we’ve come to expect as constant and static.
It's all magick and we're equally practitioners and practicalities.
Alas, this paltry attempt at queueing is merely a disheveled and nonsensical introduction, ad-libbed ad infinitum.
Hope you feel at least vaguely introduced as this brain dances from thought to thought.
I may be hosting the ink on these pages but this is your party.
Have fun and stay dangerous.
I’ll check back in soon, report ongoing.
C’est la vie, XO.

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​Chapter 1
 Playlist: David Bowie "Lazarus"

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.
I know I was forty-two when I woke up but I have no idea if I’m still that age.
Nor do I believe I’ve slept since.
Am I held captive or was this a choice?
What, if anything, exists beyond the walls of this small square room?
There’s no adornment, texture or pattern, just four hard ninety-degree angles in a space no bigger than an industrial kitchen walk-in.
There’s an old wooden desk, sturdy enough, with a Sholes typewriter on top of it and an endless scroll of paper.  Another of Wisconsin’s many contributions to the modern world.
The desk is scarred with ruts from shifting the typewriter forward and backward in passionate inspiration-fueled sprees.
But there are no words, nothing but clean blank paper pressed to the platen by the paper bail and the return arm awaiting permission to reset for the next set of instructions.
An analogy for a lot of people I’ve interacted with.
Blank pages awaiting instructions rather than embodying the agency they inherently have over their own lives.
It feels like permanent dusk in here, the light sources are minimal.
There’s one lamp on the desk in the shape of Earth’s moon that rotates when you turn it on and the tiny motor makes a whispered whirring.
With no other sound in the space that whirring becomes amplified.
Maybe I’m just becoming more and more sensitive to it.
There’s no way to turn the light on without it rotating and its base is fixed to the desktop.
There isn’t even a power cable, like Edison never existed.  Not mad about that, he was an asshole and electrocuted countless animals attempting to falsely debunk Tesla.
On their behalf, fuck you Edison.
And go vegan.
What a strange space this is.
The only other light is from plastic stars adhered to the ceiling.
I remember having these as a kiddo in my bedroom for a while.
The UV light from the sun is supposed to charge them during the day so they glow at night but the yellowish hue began to dim rapidly within a couple of weeks as they held less and less of a charge.
These seem to be permanently charged.
Where they’re getting that charge is unknown.
There are no windows in this room and no sunlight.
But there is a door adjacent the desk.
What looks like old unfinished barnboard trim around a craftsman door.
It doesn’t budge even a millimeter and neither does the rustic tin handset.
No lock or keyhole, just appears to be a façade.
There’s no gap between the door, frame or floor and no light or sound comes through.
Like a master in realism occupied this space at one time and painted it on the wall.
Ok need to sit down for a while, feeling a little, ahem, light-headed.
Examining my hands in the lamplight I can see deepening gaps in the wrinkles on my knuckles and the skin between my thumb and forefinger seems to sag more than I remember.
Whether it’s just the minimal light or I’ve aged well beyond any memory I have of the duration of my occupation here is unknown.
Anyway, I hope you’ve been well.
I think about you often and if energy transference exists here I’m sending positive thoughts.
C’est la vie, XO.

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Chapter 2
Playlist: Mazzy Star "Fade Into You"

About being in love ..........................................
C'est la vie, XO.

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Chapter 3
Playlist: Fiona Apple "I Want You To Love Me"

​I think about writing, a lot.
Plot ideas, phrases, perfect chapter abridgments pop into my head at consistently inopportune times.
Elaborate fully detailed chapters, in-depth character analysis and beautiful sentence structures drip from my right hemisphere.
All perfectly timed to expire just as soon as I reach a writing utensil and document vacant enough to jot them down.
At times I can resurrect a sampling and some minor details to expand on later but it never has the same organic feel.
Mostly though I just sit at this desk zoning out as I observe my mind playing leapfrog with seemingly disconnected thoughts.
But there's always a linear thread buried somewhere in there, a second layer to the treasure hunt in figuring out what that is exactly like some discovery workshop.
Of late I've just been staring into this moon lamp, watching Tycho disappear and reappear.
Its representation on this illuminated sphere a near perfect circle with perfect dot at its center.
It takes eleven seconds for it to make a full rotation.
Everything in odd primes.
My imagination has been projecting a face on the lunar surface...
I know one of the many caveats of this ADHD is hyper-focus, which presents not only with objects, ideas and tasks but with people as well.
When I have a crush I spend a LOT of time silently sorting out whether I actually have romantic feelings for that person or if my brain is just on another dopamine-seeking trip.
Pausing for the sake of us both and our longterm well-being.
The elusive brain versus the elusive heart, a battle royale.
My therapist has volumes on me about that.
So I go internal, don't respond as expected to advances or hints, until I have a handle on how I actually feel.
But socially common hints and flirtations don't really work with my brain primarily for three reasons...
One: I'm slow to catch on if it's not direct, like days behind the actual act of flirting...
Two: The depression voice tells me all the things depression voices do including "why would this person be romantically interested in me? Can't be what I'm sensing it is, my radar must be fritzing out..."
And three: Other's boundaries are incredibly important to me to the extent that I won't ask the person if they'd be willing to take time and space to talk about and process whether romantic feelings are mutual.
I'm firmly aware that I make myself near impossible to deal with on this level.
Perhaps that's by subconscious design.
The only move that's ever worked with me is the other individual being direct and asking me.
That's how all of my primary longterm partnerships have begun, they just asked.
I know it all sounds like a cop-out but it's real.
ACAB includes cop-outs.
​I spend a lot of time thinking about whether, why, how and where those ancient invented "gender roles" are still visible and whether those expectations actually continue to be prevalent.
That they ever were is mind-blowing to me.
Egalitarianism and continued work toward the erasure of those "gender roles" is another reason I prefer the other individual takes initiative.
Being asked exemplifies to me that individual also shares my egalitarian ethos.
So yeah, there's a lot of shit wrapped up in my head around all of this.
Needless to say, I'm sitting glorbs knows where in this fucking room staring into a moon lamp still thinking about them, having never asked if they felt the same way I do... the way I still do.
Fuck my life for being a romantic, especially a neurodivergent romantic, what a trip to observe.
I mean I love romance, I'm a goddamned fool for it, but getting stuck on it without being able to express it is, to say the very least, brutal.
The blessings versus the absolute detriment of this brain and heart.
The elusive brain versus the elusive heart, a blabble bloyblahblahblah.
Ok, my eyes are tired and Tycho is just a blur on the lamp now.
Goodnight, get some good rest.
C'est la vie, XO.

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Chapter 4
Playlist: Aloha "Ice Storming"

​It's just darkness.
With no sunrise or set there's no gauge of how time is passing.
It could be hours or years.
Sleep is an abstract concept and my historical filmography of subconscious dreamscapes just an allusion to experiences I think I've had prior.
Who's to say.
I've built a scale out of the typewriter ribbon feeder and take-up reels with the return arm as its pillar.
There is dust here which signals there is a world outside of this room, particulate mass finding even the slightest of cracks to pass through and settle on these few surfaces alongside shedded dead skin cells.
Collecting it as I can using spit to form tiny clods.
​Cannon fodder for the scale's canonic measure.
On the floor with legs v'd barricading the crudely constructed device, contemplating the perceived value of my life.
What have I actually accomplished?
What is my own personal measure of what accomplishment is?
Does the balance tip toward positive, supportive, helpful work in the world?
Or am I villainous with good sprinkled in to satisfy a need for justification?
Most importantly did I live in accordance of my own ethos?
I don't know enough about astral projection to know if that's what I'm doing...
Going back in time as far as my memory will allow with minimal distortion, invention or exaggeration...
But...
Who fucking cares.
It's just me here.
​Fuck this place.
​No gods, no masters.

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Chapter 5
Playlist: Miley Cyrus "Wrecking Ball"

Silently miming pleading words to this empty room, shouting in my head.
I finally sit down in front of the Sholes.
Some amalgam of raw venting to ease emotional pressure and a letter I've intended to write for far too long.
There's no time like the present I suppose and I have nothing but time...

Juuussst…
Don’t let my heart continue to ache, shattering and reassembling, destitute in this void of a chest.
​Mercy.
Uncle.
​I give in.
Don’t wake me up.
Leave me in this dream, if this is a dream.
Don’t wake up.
Fixated on thoughts of lateral planes in the multiverse.
Each decision creating a new reality for other quantum entangled selves playing out every other potentiality.
Each optional decision, interaction and outcome existing.
Somewhere, somehow.
I think about how in one of those multiverses we said yes to one another so easily, so quickly.
That we made it through these multitudinous trials to the end of life, together.
Not that I want to martyr this self, here and now, for that version of us elsewhere.
But should the theory hold true then it didn’t yet happen here so it could happen there.
And I'm envious, crushed and elated for that version of us.
I wish we were anomalous, beating the odds, storylines overlapping across the multiverse.
But I only have to examine the shape of an oak in winter, its lung-like vision, to remember that its branches rarely intersect in alignment.
I understand that martyrdom in some form, as defined, is potentially a looming reality for me.
At least it could be if I ever get out of wherever this is.
Or perhaps that's why I'm here.
The world I was in was toying with the tip of totalitarianism.
And I’m a known Anarchist.
It was only a matter of time before they came for me.
They’ve been trying already and we’re yet to exist in a full dictatorship where due process has been functionally eliminated and replaced with the whims of a singular oligarch's temperament.
My ethos will be my end.
And I’ll gladly forfeit my life to remain intact, aligned, ceaseless and morally fortified.
For what life is worth living if self-preservation means the annihilation of who you are at your core?
What are you even preserving then?
Fuck that.
I’ve sacrificed too much to even attempt to consider that.
And I think about how I’m keeping you safe by staying away.
Because I could never allow any harm to come to you.
And if the cause of harm were related to me in any capacity it would be unbearable.
There is no conflict there.
And though you are as, if not even more, fierce than I am.
And I know you'd stand side by side with me as you always have, comrades in lockstep.
I’d choose you.
As I desire to be chosen.
I'd choose your safety, health and happiness.
And I choose to keep you safe.
The only way I know how.
And that’s to stay away.
I've already experienced how these things play out when the neo-cons came for my uncle.
Over decades they tapped his phone, harassed, forced him to stay on the move, State to State and revoked his passport to prohibit access to international travel, to anywhere that would provide safe haven and didn't have an extradition agreement.
I know what happens, what that life is like.
And I want so much for you to experience lasting peace, beauty and a consistent calm forged in stability.
I fear I won't be able to offer you stability much longer.
I fear becoming the harbinger of destitution for anyone else, most especially, for you.
Though we both know a true utopia is by definition unattainable.
I wish we could co-exist with our other selves in the timeline where we spend our lives continuing to work toward it, every day, for all of the days.
Alongside our closest beloved comrades.
A family.
Together.
​
C'est la vie, XO.

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