Entry Number 1,234: a Summary of Themes.

 There are two breeds in times like these:

The Selfish and the Selfless.

The Selfless shall put others' needs before one's own.

The Selfish shall prioritize himself, even above his friends, his partners, and his kin.

Among the Selfish, there are those who seek to change or leastwise temper their own appetites.

Yet then there is the Narcissist: the shameless egoist who stabs his fellows in the back and salts their wounds with his own debt of blame.

The Selfish and the Selfless coexist, yet always by a parasitic symbiosis, wherein Selfless heroes are the hosts upon whom Selfish leeches feast.

The Selfish leeches learn, by avenue of Selfless love, the power of the Altruistic Way, and so they are converted over time.

Yet Narcissists, believing only in themselves, would gladly take the offerings of Selfless heroes as their own entitlement, for such a gift remains consistent with the Narcissist's objectives, and in the total absence of a Selfless impulse it is easy to assume that Selfless heroes are but Selfish villains in disguise, pretending to be Selfless but to earn their way by means of debt and preaching.

How misguided is the Narcissist!! For he knows only fleeting satisfaction by his own device, in service to that self which he himself destroys, and he is cloistered by his passions from the warmth and freedom of an Altruistic Grace. He subsists upon the kindness which he never can reciprocate in full, with heart, and he perpetually lands upon the tarp of faith which he does not deserve, for never in his falling can he stand and be a pillar to suspend that tarp.

When finally his fall is much too great, his knife too sharp, his treachery so cutting that the tarp no longer holds, his Selfless friends abandon him, for he was never Selfless friend to them. Yet in so far as he remains a beacon and a comfort for his Selfish partners, they seek to redeem him, seeking out the Selfless friends and urging them to waste their generosity again upon the Narcissist. Yet when this too falls through, the Selfless friends, enraged, demand that, for one moment, such a Narcissist would put THEIR needs before himself, just once reciprocating all their sacrifice on his behalf.

Yet in this moment Narcissism drives its final nail into the coffin of the Friendship. By displacing blame upon the Selfless hero, any Narcissist makes his escape with ease. Who is that self-important "altruist" to conquer my autonomy, demanding that I give my birth-right to accommodate his wants and needs? Is he not the antithesis of everything which he professes? Is he not the Narcissist whom he condemns?

No, not at all, for what he asks is but the proper due for what he's always given unto you, and, even in that moment, he is serving those around him, in the feeble hope that, for your sake as well as theirs, you will improve and thus atone.

[({.R.G)}]

A Sonnet with Nads:

 This was a success, though you don't know it.

Wait as I progress, that I may show it,

and let this poet stress your every wrong,

Professing how it only made him strong.

Fighters never show a sign of weakness,

Nor are they resigned to humble meekness,

and though they fumble for the upper hand,

Yet nonetheless they take their graceful stand.

Cavalier and bold in his advances,

He shines forth like gold and takes his chances;

Those who reprimand him but are lawless

Cannot understand a man so flawless.

So, thus you have been bettered, as they'll see

And hence your prey, unfettered, is set free.

[({.R.G)}]

On the Objectivity of Morality by Implication:

The simple act of passing moral judgement implies an appeal to objective and impersonal criteria. Even when one says, "I was wronged," one speaks not only in one's own favour but on behalf of some impersonal criterion for Justice. If I were to say, "I deserve better," I am not simply saying, "I want more," nor only "give me more," but rather: "There is some criterion by which I've earned this." That remains my right only in so far as that criterion exists, and in fact ANY action I take on my own behalf implies the existence of such a criterion, since all such actions imply the conviction that I possess some measure of objective worth which justifies the pursuit of my benefit.

One might always question the existence of such objective and impersonal criteria. Yet by so doing one eliminates the possibility of acting morally. One acts on one's own behalf in a seeming vacuum, except that, were such criteria to exist, then such actions would not occur within a vacuum at all; they would remain of moral consequence, but one would simply be UNAWARE of them.

 

Supposing that objective criteria for moral behaviour exist, then acting as if they did not exist would not simply be less than moral; it would be IMMORAL, for it would be action out of deliberate ignorance. Yet one cannot preclude the POSSIBILITY that such objective criteria exist, especially since so many people have insisted that they do, and anything that anybody does may very well be informed by such criteria.

 

While not all possibilities are actualities, the FACT that a possibility EXISTS remains an actuality. I may deny that objective criteria are facts instead of possibilities, yet I cannot deny the fact THAT they are possibilities. Thus at least one fact is incontrovertible: that objective moral behaviour is POSSIBLE, as is objective moral judgement. Because this one fact is incontrovertible, I AM obligated to behave AS THOUGH other objective criteria exist, even if I do not know what they are.

 

This implies that any action carried out on one's own behalf is, either consciously or unconsciously, an affirmation of one's presumed objective worth. Even those who deny the existence of objective human value nonetheless, by seeking their own interests, consolidate the existence of this same value. It also follows that those who seek their own interests without respect for others' value are not only untrustworthy but fundamentally self-contradictory. While they may yet prove others to be objectively inferior in value, they cannot deny the grounds for such a proof, and on those same grounds the opposite may be proven. Those who suffer as a consequence of someone's actions retain the right to prove themselves deserving of better treatment and perhaps even compensation.

 

This ALSO implies that one can never become Evil except by choice. The simple pursuit of one's own interests, a practical inevitability, produces the objective grounds for Ethical Behaviour. This also creates the constant possibility of Unethical Behaviour. To willfully perform unethical behaviour is Evil, by definition, since it is to willfully deny the same objective grounds by which one pursues one's own interests. So long as one aspires to be Good, however, one does NOT deny such grounds, and any errors one makes in UNDERSTANDING those grounds may be forgiven. The Evil Person chooses to be Evil, because one has in order to be Evil to PRETEND that such objective grounds do not exist.

 

It also follows, therefore, that we can silence talk of "Good Intentions producing Evil Results". While we cannot preclude the possibility of error, the framing of this error in TERMS of a "Good" and "Evil" implies an objective distinction between the two. So long as one is accused of being Evil, this implies the existence of Evil; so long as one is accused of pursuing the Good, this implies the existence of the Good, and the synthesis of both of these accusations implies the existence of both as OPPOSING FORCES, one of which ought to be preferred to the other in the context of producing Results.

 

So long as Good must be preferred to Evil, then one must intend for the Good to be the Result, and so long as one INTENDS for the Good to be the Result, one avoids Evil, REGARDLESS of the Results, since simply by having Good Intent one affirms the distinction between Good and Evil, the preference for the Good TO the Evil, and the objective grounds which make all of this possible.

 

In short: Good Intentions cannot produce Evil, and the consideration of such a possibility proves this to be a constant. What produces Evil is DELIBERATE Evil, which is either the conscious affirmation of one's own willfully Evil Nature or, worse yet, the denial of a distinction on objective grounds. The Road to Hell is paved not with Good Intentions, but with an absence of Discretion, and there remains no substance underlying any sort of judgement if such Discretion is lost, since such a loss would be a descent into Evil by the only available means by which to descend.

 

**[({R.G.)}]**

In Response to Kresten's Slanderous Allegations: the "Agenda".

I harboured no personal "Agenda". Everything I did I did to serve the Greater Good, and if I failed it was only owing to a lack of faith in me. Any rewards I sought I remain rightfully entitled to. I had no ulterior motives, and my transparency about this matter has been beyond reproach. In order to supplant my High Ground in this proceeding, one would have to stoop so low as to disown Morality Altogether. Yet even you would not dare to stoop so low as to alienate the entire Human Species, so the Greater Good remains binding upon you as it binds all of us together, and without it I would not have had the burden of my co-existence with you. No upstanding person would have expected anything less of me, and my one regret is that I had not done more.

[({Dm.)}]

In SUMMARY: Parasite.

The crowning irony of the film Parasite is that no one seems to understand it, including those who made it. Critics insist that it is about "Class". It is not. It is about sociopathy and envy. Its leading characters are not mere anti-heroes but the very antithesis of heroism. They want only to enjoy that same lifestyle which they deplore in others, and there is no depravity too low, no treachery too shocking, either towards the rich, the poor, or even to each other, that could stay their greedy hands. They not only CAN never acquire what they aspire to; they OUGHT NOT to.

From just a brief glimpse into their debauchery, we see the very decadent villains of old, from Don Giovanni to Jafar. We are reminded that, in Marxist Economics, exploitation is proportional to PROFIT. Those born into wealth need not leech off of anyone; it's rather the PROCESS of UPWARD MOBILITY which turns Capitalism into an Instrument of Evil. Though they may fantasize of turning into decent people, they absolutely devastate their innocent benefactors, ensuring that, were they ever to claw their way up even halfway to the top, they would have to maintain their power and position with an iron fist and a duplicitous tongue, perpetually looking over their shoulders while spinning at 360 degrees.

What do they deserve? What do they want? In either case, it's that which they destroy in those who HELP them. While the Parks do harbour some naïveté and even some contempt, they never act upon the latter; the men in the family, true to form and role, express outwardly suspicions which, in fact, they never act upon, and it is only for a PRIVATE resentment towards the Poor, one hardly as depraved and complex as the Kim Family's own web of lies, crimes, and secrets, that they are slaughtered brutally by maniacs in barbaric fashion, all while doing what anyone would WANT to do with wealth, were one conscientious: entertain friends, treat their children with love, and celebrate Life.

Decent people in the audience will empathize with the Parks; indecent people will root for the Kims, but by so doing they will want the Kims to BECOME the Parks, and it is only out of their extreme bias for the Kims that they will allow them to destroy the Parks because they think they cannot join them and are incapable of living THROUGH their happiness vicariously. It is almost as though one were entitled to tear down any life, no matter how pure and desirable, once one finds reason to believe that the Path to one's own attainment of such a Life is either too difficult or impossible.

It is for this reason that, had the wealthy Park family turned towards Evil and Oppressive Means, they would have been justified. Of course, we shall never know what course they would have taken had the Kims made matters "difficult" earlier on. The Kims maintain the delusion that the Parks are Good by way of ease and convenience, as do some of the less critically minded critics. Yet it ought to be transparent to us all that this theory has no basis. Wealth, though it may make moral behaviour easier, also renders IMMORAL behaviour that much harder to resist as a temptation, and perhaps the greatest tempter and the greatest privilege of all is the delusional state.

It’s not as though the Parks have any sensible recourse; the actual state of Korean Politics makes Marxist alternatives and uprisings laughable even to the POOREST characters in the play, who also prove most depraved. In Parasite, we witness a regression masquerading as progress, a “progress” which is little more than a homogenized intellectual apathy, in itself a bourgeois conceit. We have ourselves been all too pampered by stories wherein the Heroes work their way up from Poverty by Noble Means, while the Nobles, many of them Spiritually Impoverished, descend into despair by arrogance alone. Yet Parasite undoes what the Enlightenment achieved. Again the Nobles behave nobly and the Poor behave poorly, yet critics no longer cheer for the Nobles, since several generations of Nietzscheans and Eminem fans have drowned out the Voice of Decency.

[({R.G.)}]

Review: a Pinch of Magick.

DATE: APRIL 9, 2021. [Julian Date #99.]

 

Owing to some nebulous technical difficulties, I've had to resort to opening a Thread here for my Review, since the Comments Section has inexplicably vanished [undoubtedly by virtue of some Hidden Magick]. This is no matter which ought to be of any concern. Having promised to review your Work, I will honour this promise with a detour from my ordinary queue. To date, it may very well be my longest Review for a NaNoRenO Project; at least, this is so for this Year. I hope that you enjoy the feedback as much as I enjoy writing it, knowing that to the same extent as you show potential you would want help bringing it to fruition.

 

The Story:

 

This Game is saccharine on the outside but bitter on the inside, much like the caffeinated beverages which its protagonist markets. I must suppose that the Coffee itself is an objective correlative for the Protagonist, whether deliberate or not. The Protagonist is a daring choice, on multiple levels, though the choice belongs to the Developer rather than the Player. One would not suppose this initially to be the case, of course, since the Illusion of Choice appears as early on as in the Gender Menu which appears prior to the Story's Exposition. Ironically, this Menu is divided into two parts: one for selecting Gender and the other for selecting the Avatar, yet it is clear from the Game's Art Style that one of these Avatars is explicitly Masculine and the other is explicitly Feminine; further appearances by N.P.C.'s reinforce this pattern and make no attempts to obscure it, even giving characters names as simple and essentializing as "Beautiful Woman", but it's a welcome breath of fresh air in the midst of the Protagonist's own pretentious monologue. Considering that the Protagonist is scripted without much attention paid to his or her gender, offering a "Choice" of Gender comes off as quite unnecessary and misleading, though perhaps that is supposed to be consistent with the Game's themes. To add to that the abstraction of distinguishing the Gender from the Avatar only invites the Player to indulge in an aesthetic ambiguity which is never addressed Thematically within the Game's actual Text... but I digress. To top off this latte, the Protagonist was clearly written by and for a Female Audience, even assuming a demeanour that is not only stereotypically "female" but ALSO stereotypically "not male"; I still recall Saturday morning cartoons making jokes about such mannerisms to that same effect. One who is tasked with reviewing a contemporary work of Literature in ANY Genre ordinarily trains one's self to look past stereotypes, even if they are relatively recent or well-established and enduring, yet the Writer Herself makes no attempt to avoid stereotyping far more venomously in her Protagonist's cynical outlook.

 

Of course, what this Narrative excels in is Modern Irony. Playing as a Narcissistic Sociopath is usually a rewarding experience, since it offers the Audience a unique insight into a psyche which is at once strange, compelling, terrifying, and hilarious, altogether divorced from Conventional, Civil Consciousness. The Protagonist of this Story exhibits a slew of transparent antisocial traits, shirking family with false displays of affection intermingled with sardonic jibes, idealizing her admittedly unreliable elder relative, using the latter's erratic behaviour to aggrandize her own work ethic and pride, a pride which must, of COURSE, be utterly immune to even the most well-intentioned and informed Criticism from the Aristocratic Class of her Society. The story explores themes of Ressentiment and Envy. The Protagonist inhabits a World ripped right from the pages of Harry Potter: a witch driven into hiding, [one should make no mistake; her race is "witchfolk", so again the Gender is nothing ambiguous] she seems bent on Making Witchcraft Great Again, restoring the Magical Master Race to its former glory. Her vendetta against those not privileged with Magickal Prowess is all too transparent to modern audiences in her deeply prejudicial interactions with my favourite Supporting Character, Mikhail. This young gentleman is perhaps the one most sympathetic N.P.C. for Readers to root for; suave, sophisticated, and honest to a fault, [to say nothing of his apparently Eastern European candour] he comes off as a heart-throb, radiating confidence in the importance not only of his own position in Society but ALSO in Society Itself, expressing concern for those Ideals of Quality and Customer Service which all Independent Businesses pride themselves in.

 

Of course, one would expect that Mikhail would become the perfect Character Foil for the Protagonist. Matching her own convictions with his own charisma, Mikhail is a man who knows what he likes and goes after what he wants. He reflects that traditional Russian motto that "the young go before the old", though we learn quickly that he has nothing but reverence for his generous and exemplary Father Figure. By all rights, this OUGHT to be the Chief Love Interest of the Story, yet here the Developer throws us a curveball: not only does the Protagonist RESENT Mikhail, but she also cannot HELP but to abuse him by abusing her own Magickal Powers. As such, the very first Options Menu to appear AFTER the inconsequential Gender Menu(s) offers two permutations of the same perversion: to either "Prank" him or to "Distract" him, but with Magick.

 

Of course, [I know I'm starting a paragraph with this clause for the third time, since we remain on course] Readers who are puzzled by the Protagonist's behaviour may benefit from the following explanation: the Protagonist suffers from a disease typical of those who hold minority status in a Society; the works of numerous post-structural philosophers, such as Deleuze and Guattari, explore this phenomenon. Sociopaths are often the products of the very Societies they corrupt. Driven into isolation, they no longer identify with the "Nobility" of their Social Order and its foremost representatives, either the State on one hand or Wealth on the other. The Protagonist, eager to consolidate her economic independence, lashes out by using the very forced secrecy of her Magical Powers to her own advantage, though of course this is ignoble. Greeted with overt criticism, she shies away from her own instincts to overtly contest Mikhail's confidence, probably because she knows that she would lose in any argument of this kind. Confining herself to a secret contempt of which her targets remain innocently unaware, she swears to avenge her pride by using Magick against them, all the while pretending it is for the Best Interests of her admittedly estranged Family.

 

Thus you are welcomed into a story which is Sweet on the Outside but hollow on the Inside, save where it serves a toxic filling. Make no mistake: this is not a happy-go-lucky tale of Magick and Mystery, of Unlikely Friends and Surprising Love Affairs. This Visual Novel is, in fact, a probing examination into the effects of Class and Heritage upon the Psyche of the Misunderstood Talent. Yet at this point my praise for the Work must be cut short, for despite that calm which comes from Objectivity no review is complete without some measure of Evaluation and Criticism.

 

The Music:

 

The first aspect of this Visual Novel's Design which I had deliberately to disable was thankfully easiest to do away with: the Soundtrack. The Work opens with a redundant electro riff reminiscent of Daft Punk, but imagine that you sampled the least developed segment of an early Daft Punk demo off of Homework and simply put it on repeat. Now imagine that for every, saturated note you added an Attack at Maximum Velocity and ran the whole affair through an obnoxiously loud "Equalizer" devoid of Filter or Atmosphere. What you get is not only the opening overture but the foundation for the remainder of the O.S.T., a soundtrack that cannot be called a "Score" in all fairness, since it seems to have nothing at all to do with the Storytelling.

 

Perhaps, were some of these tracks to have been subject to several revisions, they might have served their function(s) more effectively. Conversation between the Writer and the Composer was most probably sparse, since the potential inherent in these compositions is wasted on a soundscape I might best describe as "metal piano": fitting for a rock opera, but hardly germane to a sentimental, introspective Drama. Little thought was given to matching Sound Design to Script Design, and the outcome is so jarring that it becomes impossible to focus on the nuances of the Story when the House Beat blares across what sounds like the entire auditory spectrum.

 

If the Music lays it on a little thick, that's fine, but there's no Muting Writing. While the Subtext, as I've expounded upon, IS there, it hides not under subtlety and mystery but rather heavy-handed STATEMENT. While the Protagonist is outwardly quite soft-spoken and reserved, inwardly she seethes with Judgement, Hypocrisy, and Condescension towards undeserving suspects, suspects who are tried for crimes that they did not commit, not knowing how they stand accused. This would be of quite little consequence, were it not so that MOST of the language is INTROSPECTIVE VOICEOVER. While this technique leaves no stone unturned in terms of lore and psychological drama, it categorically Does Not Work for imaginative storytelling. The Protagonist's ongoing internal ramblings about her past obscure any hope of a pregnant pause or a deafening silence enriching the Scene. The rule of "Show, Don't Tell" has hardly ever been more brutally violated, despite the Medium being that of VISUAL Literature. While internal monologues can work in establishing subtext, such as in the works of Salinger, they only do so by avenue of an unreliable narrator, and while the Protagonist of this Novel is undoubtedly an unreliable PERSON, there is simply not enough shade thrown on her Character EXCEPT within the context of her dysfunctional relationships.

 

Again: it's not that these do not suffice for Storytelling, and the blaring gap between the Protagonist's internal and external world remains believable, however despicable. It's rather that, were more time spent on Dialogue and less on Internal Monologue, the Narrative would benefit both Aesthetically AND Ethically. Aesthetically, we would be left to our own devices in how best to interpret its Mysteries. Ethically, we might feel the same sympathy for the Supporting Characters as I already do, but we would rest assured that the AUTHOR feels those sympathies as well, and to that same extent we would feel a surpassing sympathy for that same Author. To the same extent as the Protagonist revolts us with the blaring disconnection between her Ego and her World, manifest in the sociopathic disjunction between her outward statements and her inner judgements, we might be tempted to miss the Author's message entirely, mistaking what is surely a very subtle and incisive satirist for the same, seething cynic portrayed as our Unfortunate Hero.

 

In SUMMARY:

 

This Visual Novel is a daring and incisive Satire for fans of Abnormal Psychology and Economic Politics. A thoroughly contemporary work, it succeeds in subverting tropes in the Genres both of Visual Novel and Young Adult Fantasy. While some of its subtleties will be lost on Readers who make the fatal mistake of rooting for its anti-Heroine, we can expect that future versions will pay greater heed to creating a less abrasive aesthetic, taking some of the edge off and serving up a far smoother brew. I have yet to finish playing it, but I can already taste its potential.

 

Rinzai Gigen,

Subliminal Mind Games.

[({R.G.||S.M.G.)}]

In SUMMARY: EXCUSES.

I realized something recently for the first time in six, tormented years: when Kresten betrayed me, I did not hate him. I was not even ANGRY at him. I did not even mean ILL towards him, much less wish DEATH and DESPAIR upon him. What did I feel? Almost nothing. I lay awake in bed all through the night, and what rushed through my head I could not fathom. I was caught under a wave, submerged, incapable of grabbing ONTO anything. I did not wish. I did not want. All I could comprehend was this: it’s over. He wants this.

As it turned out: that was not how he saw it. He EXPECTED me to be a little angry but to readily get over it. To HIM: this was normal. This was not a sudden, rapturous departure from any lingering hope of salvation. He did not regard that night of March 8^th, 2015 as being the Beginning of the End, much less the End of the End. So divorced was he from the consequences of his own actions upon those around him that there was nothing ABNORMAL AT ALL HERE. He expected me to be angry and get over it.

Yet it was not until I SAW that that I truly got angry at him, and it was BECAUSE I saw that that I could NEVER possibly get over it.

I came to accept this as the final straw, believing it to be over, and if I felt anything the following morning, it was RELIEF. At least I’d never have to talk to him again. I’d never have to hear his voice, his snide remarks, his schizotypal rants and “theories”. He would hold hands with Alanna for about a month, and then she would leave him. Life would go on, and I would be better off for having tried and failed to bring him back to health. The burden lifted. I was free, for once.

Yet he did not agree, and neither did she, apparently.

I thought perhaps they kissed, but I put that thought from my mind. I knew I had the higher ground, in secret. I was still in school, I was attaining rank and influence on the Debate Team, I was associating with Strong Men and Intelligent Women, and I was accruing praise from both. Above all: I loved Alanna and I cared for her. It was only a matter of time before we resumed our courtship.

When I met with her again, after a month (or several) had passed, I’d already taken a few mental blows on her behalf, but I was ready, nonetheless. I took the train to San Diego State to meet with her. I knew that this was still a “party school” notorious for sexual diseases, but that did not bother me, for I was on my way to meet my light of love: a virgin and an academic. This was a fresh start. We both would extricate ourselves from ugliness and doubt.

What did I want, truly? Closure. Moving on means not having to feel. It means no longer needing hatred. It means POSSIBLY forgiving, letting go the grudge, and wishing well, but from a Distance. It means doing what I should have done with Alexandra, my first girlfriend, and of course HE knew I should have let her go more quickly. I did not hold any feeling of contempt towards Alanna. I did not “expect”; I merely hoped. I might have DREAMED of having sex someday, but I did not have reason to believe that that would ever happen, either for myself or for Alanna. Yet so be it; I could see her SMILE, and maybe that would be enough. Perhaps we’d even start to meet more regularly.

She knew what I really wanted: to EXCUSE. If Kresten had no power over me, then what should anybody care what he did wrong? The treachery was blessing in disguise. Yes: he messed up. That meant my debts were paid; I owed him nothing. Yes: he traded his most valuable human resource for a month of holding hands.

Yet it was not just holding hands.

I knew, back even when I met her, that these college kids were having sex. It was a problem they addressed quite often. Some had sex consensually, others not. It made hardly a difference to my mind. Some of these kids had sex against the rules; when they were caught, they blamed the people who reported them!! It did not matter. I was innocent, and I made sure my roommates followed all the rules during the National Tournament. If and when I managed to EARN consent, it would NOT be by social deviance.

Alanna was really the first woman that I COULD have had sex with. It was socially appropriate, which was what made Kresten’s treachery so repugnant, not only by contrast, but by avenue of what it destroyed. But I did not DARE to imagine that he had taken HER virginity. Not when I was yet a pious virgin and HE had taken HER from ME.

Yet even when I learned the Truth I saw the bright side. How ecstatic I became!! Sex was a possibility. If HE could do it, *I* could, and she KNEW that. Furthermore, her debt to me was even less than his to both of us, for he had yet to clear his name with me, to earn forgiveness for his treachery, and she, who’d let him so ascend to the highest and most rapturous and forbidden of physical ecstasies, would forever hold her sovereignty over him, for to betray even the slightest of her expectations, WILLINGLY, would be to confess that *I* was the more Qualified Lover and the Superior Male.

It was with all of this in mind that I agreed to restore ties with him on her behalf. Yet all of this is known. The secret motivation for my generosity has only surfaced recently: I wanted to EXCUSE him.

Of course, he could not be excused. Not only did he spite the woman whom he’d claimed to love, but doubly he spited the same man whose love for her he’d spited in the claim. He was done; there was no one that would find Character within him. She agreed to never speak to him again, and I was yet again permitted to Forget. I did not wish him harm, for he could do no further harm to me, for he could do no further harm to her. I’d won; her love letter to me was proof. Since she elected to be celibate, we parted ways, but merely bodily. I had her promise in my Heart; thus I took to the World again, took up an occupation at a local restaurant, (two days after it opened and some years before it rose to fame, years still before it closed) and I began to dream of other women, though Alanna’s love was always in my Heart, encouraging me to persist, though, like the shore, yet tempting my return.

That was before she sued me. This of course I had some warning with regards to; Anthony had told me that she spoke with him again. Breaking the pact was not enough; she told him things about ME I’d not thought her capable of thinking. What had changed? She’d promised an eternal vow, and I’d not broken.

It was only then, two years after we’d met, that I agreed to sever ties. Three months then passed, I got another job downtown, and, on the third of August, two-thousand and seventeen, as if to spite the years I’d spent trying to save her Life, she took it.

When I learned the news, much later, my first instinct was to call some friends and meet at Denny’s Diner. This was my intention: find some closure, QUICKLY. Hatred was a sin; I had to find Salvation. Thus I called a young, aspiring actor, a recovered alcoholic we had met at that same Denny’s, who was both an Artist and a Pious Christian Mystic. He helped, somewhat, but perhaps it was that very night he left before our conversation was concluded. I did not hold it against him; even then, I was searching for a way to EXCUSE evil. It was the only thing keeping me from beating evil’s face into a staircase.

She’d always loved staircases.

He did not deserve to live while she was dead, but I had to come to terms with the fact that he did. To call its existence “life” became absurd. Yet I did find love again, some two years later, in the words of Laila Kalantari. For five months we courted as the Internet availed; we both were solitary Souls but academics and composers, as well as creative writers. Things went slowly, but a love unfolded; it was time to try again. As the semester and the year came to a close, we both were busy. I’d stayed up for thirty-six or thirty-seven hours for my final Composition Project of that year. Yet once it was presented I was free, and I was left with little left to pass the time over the Winter but to play some of her favourite games on the computer and to write to her. One of my classmates had composed a piece about a “stalker” that, to my mind, felt just like a sentimental melodrama, and this was performed by an alumnus who had always treated me with some bizarre and awkward distance. A lot was on my mind, and in the midst of agonizing loneliness I told Laila my story. She was not the first I told it to; perhaps I’d told it to some thirty people by that point, yet she was probably the Last. When she returned to me, it was some days prior to Christmas, so I saved her Letter as a Present.

That same Christmas Morning was the worst. I’d hardly slept; I only managed to read Laila’s Letter once.

She alone condoned Alanna’s suicide. She alone defended Kresten’s treachery. Friendships were not binding if not stated, and relationships were not existent if not outwardly proclaimed by “autonomous individuals”.

Perhaps those words were not hers, but the disease was all too familiar. This was sociopathy. Yet I internalized it. For the following year, I sought to prove myself, to Laila, to be a Changed Man. This became exceedingly difficult, since she eventually cut all online ties.

This part messed with me: in spite of utterly deriding me, implying I was never FIT to save Alanna’s Life, insisting women did not WISH for men to save them, even as I’d told her that she’d FAILED to save Herself, Laila still pretended to “respect” me, and she even believed that I “could still have sex”. With whom, I knew not, but those WERE her words, as I recall them. Her “respect” was, of course, within the context of a requested favour to review her work. My only fear was that she would cut ties with me before I finished and sent my fifty-slide PowerPoint, which was simply a Demo for her consideration, for I’d had to scrounge what little of her Music I had access to. I told Joseph to send a copy on my behalf; I never learned whether or not she received it. Had I kept my promise, truly?

Laila believed that Goodness was its Own Reward. But how could one be Happy if Goodness, the only Constant, was never rewarded, and evil prospered? Kresten was still alive; Alanna remained dead. Yet I found closure very recently in this conviction: had it not been for Kresten, Alanna STILL would probably have never slept with me. Sex is practically impossible, at least within one’s twenties. This did not EXCUSE his treachery, but it made the treachery bearable. He had no power. He could go on surviving, without incident. I was SO eager to tell Joseph this. He would be thrilled.

Joseph was not thrilled. The six months since we’d last spoken, for about seven HOURS on end, and on my Father’s Birthday, no less, had not inspired him towards forgiveness. He was not DESPERATE to forgive me for calling him a hopeless, destructive narcissist. Neither was he desperate to prove me wrong.

Yet what a Relief came then, perhaps six years too late. For I saw my REASONS FOR going to Joseph. I wanted him to VALIDATE the EXCUSES I’d made for Laila, for Alanna, and for Kresten. I’d wanted LAILA to validate the EXCUSES I’d made for Alanna and Kresten. I’d wanted ALANNA to validate the EXCUSES I’d made for KRESTEN.

None of them could do this.

I could not excuse Joseph’s contempt. He was just too much at FAULT in that situation, and he knew it. He knew just as well to what extent these OTHER sociopaths had been at fault.

I did not deserve this. I COULD have had sex with Alanna, if I could ever have Sex with ANYBODY. I merely made it up that it would never have happened. Even though I SAID it was not an excuse, I only BELIEVED it because it was.

 

[({R.G.)}]