As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
Proverbs 26:11, King James Bible
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Let me immediately state that this memoir is written under protest and purely for the reward promised me by completing it. I must admit that once upon a time I had pretensions at being an author, but those pretensions, it turns out, were more about the whole business of, well, being an author and not actually writing anything. A very tedious business writing is, and far too much like work to hold my interest. I would have loved the money and recognition and all that long in the past pre-Change nonsense, but never had much stomach for the work. So, while I will technically comply with the requirements set forth under the agreement with the Administrator, if there’s a shortcut out there I plan to take it.
This work will proceed with neither plan, care or even much in the way of interest on the author’s part. (That would be me.) I’m writing this because I want out, and for no other reason.
In fact, upon a moment of reflection, the easiest course of action here is simply to regurgitate the agreement between myself and the Administrator of the Boston Unified Zone. ( Hereafter BUZ, partially because the acronym amuses me but mostly because I am lazy) Or I would do so if I could find the thing in the jumbled mess that is my current living quarters. Which upon two seconds of reflection is far too much like work to even bother with. So I will simply recite the main points here, and assert that my memory is wonderfully perfect in all ways,and if nothing else act on the assumption that any errors I make will not be found out. Viz:
I want to die, or more properly be dead, but while I have found myself increasinly expert at ending my life, I remain completely unable to to make it stick. I keep coming back. And that sucks.
Hailey Swanson — second in charge of BUZ — claims to have found a way I can die and make it stick. And given what she has shown me and given how I interpret her personality, I tend to believe her
To get to where I want to go, as noted above, I entered into an agreement with David Katz, DMD, the deeply annoying, irritating and pompous leader of BUZ. (The most irritating thing being that even I must concede he is the right man for the job, but don’t tell him I said that). Terms of said agreement as follows:
Using my unique set of attributes, accompany Clara Benson and her brother Matthew to Phoenix and beg the Twins to teach us how to get psychic joining to work
• Done. That was certainly an adventure, if not carried off exactly as expected.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Return to BUZ and assist in pushing the Corrupted back to some point outside the Zone, again using to the best of my ability my unique attributes, to the point where they — that is, the Corrupted — no longer consitute any sort of real threat to the Zone.
• Done, draw a rough circle beginning in Plymouth, circling up through Worcester and ending somewhere in the vicinity of Portsmouth. No, or next to no, Corrupted to be found. For the present, at any rate. Sufficient that all sides agree I have done my part.
Write a memoir of my life, a summary of my beliefs, my own personal theory as to what happened with the Change and why it happened, running to a minimum of 50,000 words.
• To do, sadly. In fact, what I am doing in the here and now.
Even more sadly, my demand for unlimited alcohol during the writing of this mess was only partially met. Doing this is bad enough, doing it partially sober is not something I look forward to.
If nothing else by writing this I plan to debunk the appalling nonsense of the Lamed Vav and the even more appalling nonsense being spread that the folktale is somehow applicable to me. Risible nonsense.
I suppose this means dragging Sister Goldenhair Surprise into the story, as little as I would like to go there
Why anyone would want such a thing as this document remains a mystery to me. Clara stuck it into the deal and simply sighs and rolls her eyes when I try to learn the point of it.
Beyond that, I do know the agreement had some pompous language in it about being entered into on the fifteenth day of October 2035. So eight-ish years from the Change, as if you, dear reader did not already know that.
So, to sum up: this will be by no means be an exhaustive, complete or at points even a rational exposition on the world both pre- and post- Change. If you’re looking for such a thing, look elsewhere. And under no circumstances do anything but keep your sympathy to yourself. I am not a nice man, not a kind man, and certainly not the righteous man these crazy rumors would have me.
In fact, I strongly recommend you, dear reader, go away and waste your time on something else, anything else, than the explosion of nonsense I’m going to be forced to produce in the following. It is being written because it has to be written and no other reason.
As a bit of petty revenge at having this task foisted upon me I’m going to technically comply with the requirements of the deal, but do it in my own way. Meaning writing in no particular order and with no particular logic. I suppose the theorizing rubbish could reasonably be set aside in some sort of appendix, but that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to insert it randomly as the spirit moves me. And forget any sort of background or explanation to start this off. In media res all the way. Let’s get into it the day everything kind of went wrong for me, the day I did a good deed, like a complete fool. The day I died for the fifth time.
And you don’t need to ask me what I want. What I truly want is just to sleep. Hopefully soon.