1. introduction of the problem

The body is planning to desist, to schwiff away the carpet from under my feet, to leave me no option but to take on an ethereal form!

2. the problem solidified

brain stuff mostly, neck stuff, some spine stuff and lung stuff

I can hear the spirits traveling within me, up and down my back, like canid vapours surfing on the bloodstream... Up in the "sponge" = the forest = the contact surface of the planet, and down in the warm and protected furnace core. And they carry whispers with them back up, of things theyve seen down there, mixing with the flesh matter, playing their games for seconds (or even minutes if they lose themselves in some peculiar process)

A troubling matter. The fourfoots never make much sense on their own, but after a while you can almost sense the bigger picture, in the outline of the semantic cloud of their conversations. The furnace is in bad shape, it's burning illict fuel, it's harboring life where it shouldn't. The map of old fox knowledge doesn't apply anymore; things are moved, walls built and tunnels dug.

Not that it stops the spirits (nothing much does) but it's still a situation. Things are happening down there. I'm not sure how i want to proceed.. should i travel down?

3. the forest

I take off the collector helmet and the air falls quiet. I am struck by how dull the room is, as if having just been transported here from a busy dancefloor, still kind of remembering people i've never seen.

The tree hut is roughly a square, twelve by twelve meters, one big room. I rise from the recliner and shuffle toward the bannister, where i keep a pair of binoculars. I call it the tree "hut" but it's more a platform with a roof, and some radio equipment, and my toothbrush.

I gaze eastward over the treetops. The sun is long gone so all light comes from below, beneath the foilage. Those who stay awake keep fires to stay warm, and to find each other. At night these creatures scheme wildly, sing songs of careless devotion, drink wine, and start fires. In the day, no trace.

4. the map

It's a different thing in person, down on the forest floor. It's like a sea, a stormy sea that you're trying to navigate, but you're on heavy tranquilizers and they seem distort time, smudge it out together with your lipstick and your friends... It all melts together in slow motion, every moment slightly different than the rest yet containing a whole universe of sweat, drinks, people smells, rain drops piercing cigarette smoke...

You are thrown between waves, between personas, between worlds almost. But as the darkness wanes, the water stills and you center back around a single sluggish body, not being moved at all.

And so, it's time to drag myself down below. I need to find a hole to dissapear in where the body can empty itself of dark ingredients and fall asleep

5. outro/credits/reverb section

(in the background: lot's of cats playing reverbes)

Monday tomorrow. Gonna rain. I need to send a report back. Got a fax machine in the tree hut, they expect me to write a few pages... every week... at this point i'm a few behind. Shameful, i know. It's just i get caught up in these other things, you feel me? Counting frogs, moving stones, stuff like that.

Yea i know about the furnace! I know there's a situation! I'ts just... i'm too close to the present to see it? Like they say with the fish, right, too close. Because they're inside it, part of it.

Aw feck, just remembered a phone call there is to make as well. There are, in truth, things to do! And here i am musing about being a floor dweller. A critter! I mean, anything for pain relief, right? I'm probably not even kidding, either.

To dance around each night... and then curl up in a hole with a bunch of suckers... i imagine it would be close to being one of the vapour canids. When the furnace is extinguished, that's a shape to take. It's almost worth not trying to stop it.

links

* this is a sanctioned alternate reality
* anime reality
* mitski a pearl

thank you for your time.