Chapter 1

Four-point-three billion years and two days-but-not-nights ago, in a rapidly cooling universe, the Earth came into being, where it was soon accosted by the rock that would soon to be called the moon(which then became the space of residence to a great many deities, a smattering of rabbits, and, God forbid, a man).

The moon in question is without doubt, a universal thing across human civilization, having shown itself naked before all of humanity, who have, since then, revered it for its ultimate shamelessness. (This may or may not be made worse that the moon is typically depicted as female in a lot of cultures around the world.)

It is such that I typically find myself marvelling at the spectacle in the sky, when the sky is clear after the nighttime clouds dissipate for good, having taken their good-for-nothing selves and disappearing and finally allowing the moon to spread its wonderful glory across the skies.

Without doubt, I can confidently say, as an honorable, capable, and good-for-nothing individual, that I am drawn to clear nights in which the full moon is shining onto the world, on full display, when the sense of romance hangs in the air like a dewdrop upon a leaf or as a body hangs on a tree, when the liminal space surrounds one and plunges a sense of apprehensive sense of curious anticipation upon one’s heart, when the gentle moonlit night covers the world and darkness crawls out of their pitiful shadows to engulf the nighttime and wage war against the sun’s proxy(as a gesture to spit upon typical grammatical structures and their good for nothing selves, who honestly should take themselves and disappear along with the scum of society, like the worthless bureaucratic drivel that they represent, I shall forge onward).

It is the results of nights like these, where I can go out and proclaim, with full and set conviction, that I, with burning passion, despise pure-and-bright moonlit nights, being so sick of the yawning gap beside my heart, that I have, and will, to the end of my days, elected to irrationally pin the blame on the pretty rock in the sky, despite the fact that my lack of anyone is purely reflective on my own character(or lack of thereof), and knowing the knowledge that self-improvement is a necessary step forward upon one’s walk of life, I have elected to walk sideways.  There is no need for self-improvement if one is already flawless, anyway.

It was on such a night that I met absolutely nobody, having been walking alone in the cold and desperately wishing and imagining a fateful encounter, like any man or boy has or ever will. After two hours, with a herculean surge of effort, I swallowed my hopes and that one thought that told me to stop and wait just one more moment, that surely some random woman(a perfect beauty in every way, of course, whoever she was) would come crawling out of the sewer or fall out of the sky, ready to throw herself upon me and pronounce me her lover, that I should perhaps crawl into the sewer grate and meet her myself, and become the unknowing protagonist of an accomplished love story, that I should perhaps just wait for that one last bit of time for something to happen.

It took an inordinate amount of time to refute this nonsense, and by that time all thoughts of love or a fateful encounter dissipated fully and I made the journey from the pitch-black backyard back into the warmth of my home. It took naught but a second to crawl into bed and begin my nightly ritual of staring at the typical sight of the dead and cold ceiling, as was only proper as atonement for my folly, and I began to engage in the foul act of self-reflection.

Having said such things and reflected upon the meaning of my actions and words, I came upon the epiphany that love and the moon are one and the same; a useless thing in the sky to reach at, so close but so far. Love, I realized, was simply useless, something to hang up on a wall and forget about, a meaningless trinket to be thrown to society at large to fawn over. Being in love was simply in exercise in futility. The joy I felt was palpable as I came to realize these concepts(just as I had the night before, and the night before that, and so on). Having realized the flawed nature of my very existence, I steeled my heart(coping as hard as was humanly possible) and rolled over in bed, ready to go to sleep. 

It was then, that the book so messily thrown into the corner of my room drew my attention. It was old, dog-eared, and tattered, having been inked on and read so many times that the spine was falling apart, and the pages were mostly yellowed and ripped. The cover was completely faded off, leaving only a hard shell that might have been a rosy bright red once. I had bought it at a garage sale several hours away(on foot, as was only proper), from an old woman that looked as if she belonged in the twelfth century, on age alone. She had called to me, picking me out specifically and pushing the filthy book into my hand. “You’ll need this more than I do,” she said, before reaching into my pocket and taking five brand-new two-dollar bills and disappearing off to help a man holding a broken lamp.

 I had never read the accursed thing, nor had I opened it, and yet it drew my attention every time I lay down to sleep. The faint prickling of guilt filled my stomach whenever I looked at it, and the urge to open it and read whatever lay inside grew every time I looked at it. However, I was not one to be fooled by such things, and as such obstinately resolved to never open it, nor read it, nor ever look at it. At this, I was filled with an extreme sense of fury, and, as aggressively and violently as possible, turned over in bed again.

It was then, and only then, that I abandoned my previous steely convictions(for they were, in reality, as thin and flimsy and weak as tissue paper) and realizations and bemoaned the lack of romance in my life, and instead vowed to myself to never to ever feel the touch of a woman’s soft love for the rest of my life.

And so, my bitter tale began, on a moonlit and ordinary night. Not in part to parental reasons(for they were a perfectly normal pair of loving parents), nor was it due to the need to find myself(how could I possibly perfect myself, when I was already perfect?). It was instead, due to the saltiness of romance, and the fury, curiously directed at myself.

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The very concept of fantasy is something that has existed in all of humanity’s history, from the early days of supposed supernatural beings walking the Earth to the meagre rumors of female spirits who accost little boys in the night to the idea of metal tubes that fly across the world. The sheer madness and variance of whatever twisted nonsense the human mind can come up with is reflective in all of the history of the world’s literature, most of which I have never touched before in my life.

Shakespeare’s ridiculous sophistry pertaining to ancient Britain with his one-hit-wonder A Tale of Two Cities(and I did cite the proper author and history behind the text) is the most mainstream wonder of modern fantasy today, which only goes to show what ridiculous heights the human mind can reach. Specifically, the mere notion of the scale of the fantasy world Shakespeare created in his utter insanity, for writing entire novels for perusal to a fictional nation(for how could anyone possibly nearly colonize the world, I rationalized, and thus concluded its target audience’s country of residence was a fabrication).

Thus, have I realized an untenable tenet: books and historical records are elaborate nonsense and the modern information flow, which profits off of misinformation and incorrect narratives, cannot be trusted either. The effortless and aggressive means to falsify even the most obvious things have obfuscated everything, simply everything, to the point where fact and fiction have blended into a whirlwind of half-truths and nonsense.

Without question, I can safely attest to the philosophy that everything and everything around one’s person(including oneself), is false.

With that said, I have resigned myself to a life of gritting my teeth and dealing with the fantasies and lies that I despise, for my own mind and body(as a singular entity, as the traitors have unified into a shambling and incoherent mass), as keen as a brick and just as obtuse, stubbornly and obstinately refused to acknowledge my sheer superiority, instead electing to mutiny and thrust itself upon the nonsense that I so hate.

 “We need to talk,” I told it one day.

“No,” it replied. What followed the refusal was a stream of sounds that I could neither make heads nor tails of, something that spoke to the deepest parts of my consciousness and poisoned it with honeyed words and the temptations of propaganda too good to be true. It took naught but instants for the corruption to take hold, and I was forced to concede and follow, like some sort of slave.

Rather than focus on love or reputation, like a normal boy should, instead I was dragged by the ears into lies and falsehoods by my traitor of a mind. Truly, I was an unfortunate soul, already being pumped full of the nonsense of society and forced to heel towards whatever decided to turn its head at me.

Months after months of agonized pondering to escape myself followed, and I was left with nothing but despair.

From thenceforth, I resolved to overcome my traitorous self.

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It was on the tenth-and-a-half hour of the twenty-ninth-and-one-fourth day of the seventh month of the twenty-first year of the twentieth century, in pure love and in pure hatred, that I first felt love for the seven-hundred-and-fifth time. When I left my house, after greeting my parents and brother and dog, and subsequently seeing them off, when I was on my way to wherever I needed to be, when I first saw the fairest woman I had ever seen in my life, despite having not gone outside in three years due to my efforts to overcome my perfect and flawless self and not seeing anyone to compare her to, I was immediately smitten, and my heart was pierced through-and-through by her perfect beauty. Of course, being the spineless protagonist that I still am today, I did nothing and simply continued on with my day.

It was only then, and only then, that I realized that my mind had betrayed me once again(for I was still coming to terms with the humiliation of my defeat), and I steeled my resolve and buried myself in multiple punishing training regimens to overcome my mind who had so unduly humiliated me on that night(This was done under the threat of extreme punishment, having elected to crucify myself upside-down if I failed, for losing to my mind would still be worse punishment still). This was done by boring and monotonous and mostly outright painful tasks, such as staring at a clock for seventy-two hours straight while having clips biting into my fingers, and counting without losing focus on the thoughts in my mind, or without losing count by more than two seconds(if I did so, I would have to start over). Ultimately, not only did this approach aid me in overcoming the brain, but also it aided me in forgetting of the mystery maiden’s existence, and I thenceforth on with my life without bothering to involve myself with or acknowledge her existence.

And all was right with the world.

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I can still recall firmly the last day that I practiced my training efforts to rid myself of my mental capabilities and return to being my perfect self. It was on the first winter night of the year, on a day where the moon shone bright and the filth that obfuscated it magically disappeared. It was on such a night that I went outside seeking an epiphany, and instead received salvation.

The moon was out, the shameless and bare queen of the night who reigns supreme over the false nation whose banner we live under had revealed itself to me and every sentimental onlooker who was curious enough to partake in her plume of seasonal lunar glory, and I simply sat outside and contemplated.

What exactly, I do not know the specifics of(for not even I properly understand the perfect and deeply complex and profound workings of my then-renegade mind), but I do know that I came to a surely incredible realization. And as the moon and God and thankfully none of the other riffraff that plagues the night as my witness, I came to a breakthrough, smashing past the great gates in my path of cultivation of great knowledge that I realized.

It was then at that exact, singular critical moment, that I came up with the ingenious idea to go on a fantasied journey, to defeat my perfect self that had turned on me, and to escape from the rampant lies that perpetuated themselves by spreading like some sort of virus. The perfect plan, I thought, being able to see past everything and reach the end of the Earth(for at the time I believed it was flat), and uncover the truth behind everything. It was just a mere whim, though it spread to a fantasy that I drooled over every which way, for hours and hours at a time, which then spurred me to action.

I congratulated myself on my brilliant plan and plotted to realize it, to allow it to reach fruition. First, I would steal a boat, and then I would surely sail to wherever was on the west side of the country(I did not believe in world maps). However, I knew that boats existed, and I would thus take it to wherever that massive body of water that lay on the side of the road lead.

However, the doubt that by perchance boats and ships and the ocean, and everything else was an elaborate lie to deceive me(that everyone else was responsible for) remained, but steadfast conviction won out, and I placed a note in the dead of night(another thing that I believed a lie that the world had placed to deceive me, for the moon did not shine that night), snatched the rotten and tattered book, and left. As such, I resolved to reach the ocean, wherever it was, by dawn.