of the unwinding & arrangement of threads there can be no doubt — so many lines all unaware of any break — then the glowlit scene — closeup on the warmth of arousal — a glance destined to preface more dreary selfpunishment — an instinctive dislike separates expectation from the art of disjecta membra — yet a spider doesn’t write w/ its neuroses — molested by that nameless thing — a buried memory cold dark motionless — I’m dead enough myself — sucking the ooze the mire — a little piece of authentic sufferance — yet through it all one question persists — Is need a sphincter caressing their skulls? — the proverbial Kiss of the Spiderwoman — [the very thought of a “Literature of Ideas” bores them rigid] — as the scene opens we are in a radiant city the entire décor is made of lights — in other words redolent of a metaphysical execution chamber — begin again w/ the blindspot the point at which the invisible object returns — just as the Arachnoid must descend further & further into aberration — in a domain that can only be defined by what it is not — every step shadows a previous step — but did they know for sure? — had they ever seen it THE PROMISED LAND even from afar? — “If G.O.D. existed’ the lunatic screamed “y’d all be dead already!” — once more the zeroes lining up to be counted — we who are not the others — resurrected through a trapdoor behind the scenery — the protagonist resembles a B=movie tarantula in a gestapo coat — Spiders from Mars on the inflight entertainment system — a drawn=out snakehiss from the shadows — the wind conducts an absence redolent of foreboding — errors of forced judgement or unenforceable law — a minor second a suspended third — the parts of a cube that are also cubes — the parts of a cube that aren’t cubes — to escape by paroxysmal subdivision into the Image Accumulator’s fractal archipelago — the Oedipal triangle inverts along each of its axes equally — Antigone gazing deadeyed into the suicide box — their Geo=Orbital Deity visible only to children & the insane — just as the action of Krapp’s tape invents the occult pleasures of lost youth — ghost menageries of predatory timeslips — metaphor isn’t a relation between objects but an event that brings these objects into view for the first time — emerging from a grey ever more palpable ever more real — the weather outside is of course dismal — giant slabs stacked against the sky — an underwater subway platform — conveyorbelts w/ vacuumsealed bodybags — drainpipes & fireescapes — a delicate mist of neon rain — it isn’t the task of writing to invent a reason for existence — whatever was there beyond the fourth wall — they make drama out of slightest disappointments — just as long as the ratings hold out — paying lipservice to the clovensexed vision offering it neck in return for love — “just because something’s a joke doesn’t mean y’re obliged to laugh” hahaha — the collective subject isn’t a social entity but a constellation of events — “between the lines of this story the stupidity inherent in all judgement” — unattributable actions also exist — harbouring their grudge against humxnity — because an audience expects an alibi for their guilty pleasure — watching that helpless malformed thing struggle across the stage — under a constant rain of unseen blows — make it dance! — like a spider on a stove — cruelty has no sense of aberration — starlight falling upon the scene of their latest massacre — & how the sins of the unborn do phosphoresce — returning the crimescene always — the way an idiot returns to a dictionary — WE ARE WHO SPEAK their mute language says — the actual scene is more ambiguous — sad beyond description & met w/ rabid distrust — cryptologically speaking it’s an onanist’s echochamber — incense & firedarkened idols — a petri dish of noncompliant brain=tissue — there may be times in what I’m about to relate when incoherence a feeling of disjuncture because more or less of the dead & of death itself by literature eliding certain passages where it may seem narcissistically a mirror in order to watch myself die — which they may do with a certain solemnity from time to time — well an audience has to be good for something — we call this riding on the pig’s back — taking every precaution to protect this tacit from being in any way confused w/ the unconscious — [they say that once upon a time] — a drug so subtle no=one will ever realise — discovering the Arachnoid lived in a film that hadn’t been made yet [wld it ever?] — FIRST YOU HAVE TO MAKE A CORPSE TO BURY A CORPSE — “the awful stench of History” — “personally a graveyard is preferable to a theatre” — well they tried on their high hat & the whole head come rolling off — plop! — like every disaster it was the outcome of careful & considered planning — drawn into the catching area as to a femmefatale — a mechanical spider weaving hyperstitional transfer protocols — telesthenia — the truth is quite a strange place — encrusted — germapexed — treated w/ brain chemicals — their vaccine is hexed — now comes the enraged mob hacking their noses off to spite their rapists — another day in lockdown theory — red tapeworms out the anus — pure sunlight! — washed down w/ Clorox — straight up no chaser — if I had a dollar for every fascist complaining about their rights — go ask the dead what kinda world they’d rather live in — sex potency or the Holy Ghost? — when it all gets boiled down money’s the only denomination — but why kill a spider w/ a hammer when a state of mind wld do — episodes of greater or lesser potency — as in the word laid bare — footprints fused to meteoric dust — ibis wading through river=clay bequeathing logos to the devolved ape — failure by first principles [their subjectivity suppressor] — an escaped laboratory animal taking the landing craft stairs in sudden unprecedented leaps & bounds — Dr K pricks a hypodermic in the Arachnoid’s ear — we see the submind arrayed in all the colours of burning potassium — their “psychedelic revelator” — static awash w/ luminal overtones — nothing will have been left untouched — in the beginning was the void & the void was inchoate — a shadow upon the eye — space is disappearing & something else is filling up the universe — for an approximate calculation of the web’s total thread=length L=nR+kπ[a+R] where the spiral consists of evenly=spaced regular circles — statements by circumstance — the blindfold sea ringing about — it floats in the air — strung — a billion lightyears endtoend — an outspreading ripple faintly disturbs the dewdrop constellations — a harp’s glissando — leafrustle — a faintly disturbing background hiss — the whole thing cld just as well’ve been a Martian simulation — one day there’s water a couple million years later there’s nothing you figure it out — eyes the colour of melted aspic tracing patterns on the ceiling — how do they know they’re humxn at all? — this inchoate parody — how many millennia salting the earth? — planting the evidence? — footprints along a riverbed — a bonespiked ankylosaur — one layer of erasure atop another layer of erasure — Schliemannic sediments — timeframe palimpsests — all the unburied agonies of time immemorial — from the subconscious voyages of the ancient beardstrokers to these Homeric roticisms — watch them tumble like spiders in zero gravity — before the first thread attaches to the world — a handdrawn arrow chalked on a wall — the subjective stream of consciousness is a constant ebb & flow — wavepattern — lignite — space compressed into time the way a reactor core detonates — frighted by false fire — a man draped with animal skins dancing in the mouth of a cave — trickster — Kwaku Ananse — teller of the 8 sacred charms — nothing you see here is real — inoculated by sleight of hand — a blue spinning orb over a tranquil sea — rather than desiring the world to end they had it in mind to goad it on by force — “like a ship whose sails have been ripped apart by a storm” — sky atop the water — the wrecked course turning back — strangulation gives birth to a spider — solarpowered — turning back into itself like the navel of the anus of the omphalos — the cosmophallus — noughts & ones again — Sodom & Gomorrah again — turned to molten glass fractured quartz pillars of lithium — they pray to the cosmic impact event — the saltpans of Eden — in its hung gardens nothing evermore shall grow — paradisum voluptatis — G.O.D.’s withered fallopian — that doth reap as it sows — they’ve seen before that erupting overhead star — prolific & devourer — bountiful Death — hominum salvator — behold! — an expert steady mind w/ no juice in its bones — slaughter’s reciprocal makes amends to the graven — rockfaced — nitrogenstarved — in the hacked lungsubstance — in the palpitating gut etc. — no free radical is a good radical! — as upon that plodding ass the cerebrospinsterish virgin doth lurch — blessèd be the sign of the plague once more upon them — a rocketpropelled rehash — blasted allegory — from timelapse meteorite to Unidentified Flying Oracle — see how doom becomes its opposite — bloodied lintel — red tide parturitioned ’pon Ararat’s peak — amen — like a shortcircuit in the holy motherboard — thus the eternal Wiederkehr doth bifurcate — proton & antiproton — zero stirred to entroparticulate — ying of yang — what comes of Cordelia’s broken heart — less than nothing more than soliloquy — fucked by a dirty foreign rat — for a father’s fury fears all equals — drawn & quartered in its sleep — like a hangman’s erection — garrot thee to a mummery? — it’s time for the little homunculi to sing & curtaincall to ring & whitelight from the gantries — rehearsing the death of ideas in the theatre — bowing & scraping bowing & scraping — the price of a ticket owes this much at least — mind=cops hiding in the orchestra pit w/ taperecorders & fit=up evidence kits — if we all spit together we can drown the bastards — CHINGA LA MIGRA! — art creeps in by the backdoor carrying roses — well they shoot whoreses don’t they? — cldn’t let freethinking dialogue seep out & infect the general populace — covens of bloodsucking vampyrs invading the sprawl — any rightminded citizen cld see the sacrifices required — not for the first time appearing in their postmortem condition — you don’t start a revolution to stay poor — tracking the news presenter’s backlit manic serialkiller eyes as he waves a broken safety appliance at the audience — IT’S DOUBTFUL ANYTHING A LEMING DOES REPRESENTS A PURSUASIVE ARGUMENT FOR EMULATION — & is not the image of the plague in some part the plague itself? — the end & the means — like the sound of drowning deep within the ear — yes one day y’ll be forewarned if it isn’t too late — be what it may it doesn’t take magnanimity to admit it’s dark w/ the lights out — Dr K inserts an endoscope in Papa Walt’s rectum GOOD G.O.D. MAN WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU FLOSSED YR TEETH? — siphoning=off the metaphoric curds & whey for ratings saturation — Little Miss Walt in her schizo routine one minute flouncing around brushing dead insects from her hair the next orchestrating a fullblown genocide — know what the difference is between a remake & a sequel? — boxoffice! — give it a catchphrase & they’ll be queuing around the block — COME TO PAPA! — why the family=viewing segment’s affectionately called Pilgrim’s Progress — strung out over the laborious course of years till long after all life succumbs — jacked=up on a pile of shit like Simeon Stylite — one day the great unwashed are gonna wake up & smell themselves — gangrene of the vital appendages — worms threading in & out — like one of those nature programmes on TV — “my god it’s disgusting!” — the air was crawling w/ them — it was a bum predicament — mob running wild stringing up do=goods from the gargoyle gallery — civilisation’s last stand — let’s see that St Vitus Dance — splashing through gasoline towards the emergency exit — they’ve burnt everything just to get this far — Hiroshima mon amour it’s time to put on the tragedian’s mask again — the chorus raise their arms & rage back & forth across the scenery — hell’s a torturer’s litany on playback — a difference of degree becomes a difference in kind when the whole isn’t composed of parts [there are no parts] — they were willing to accept anything if its definition cld be changed — of course there’s no such thing as naïve art — to have discovered by chance the pure psychic mechanism — a mole in the nightsoil blindly burrowing — sniffing=out the shameful place — & now I must lie down & decompose myself — die Mauerfall — the differences spread their legs — the witness list — we see we unsee we see — agog — as minutely attested as an archaeology of deletions — deleteria — G.O.D. & Laplace — after all’s sad that’s undone — their demonic vengeance weapon — choked purple by a spider & hung by a thread — sending the tippingpoint into freefall — to be caught once more in revealed check — a poisoned pincer movement — gasmasks in the fallout shelter — deeply hilarious war=mongerings under bedsheets — heaven’s a torpid little ninny paid on her back — cockeared — hypochondriac — il Nuovo Mondo bound naked to Plymouth Rock w/ a baboon’s hindcomplexion — well every patriot knows how to abuse themselves before a paying master — like a lepper dancing on testicle hooks — play it for laughs kid & y’re a dead duck — feeding time at Police=Informer HQ — the pink=frocked interrogator is strangling the “suspect” w/ piano wire — each as has their leatherface on — the monster under the bed is right in front of you — truth being someone else’s paranoia 24=frames=a=second — the purpose of an enemy is just to provide the occasion — always a crow whenever you look over yr shoulder — from the point where they began to the point at which they arrived — a whole carnival of spite — the imploding climate of their Weltanschauung — a great smashing turmoil spooling from the moviola — now as in the future history differs from CInemA only in the mise=en=scène — but turning to the end of the book produced merely a blank — the very barest sensation of any kind of transition at all — it came from nowhere & will return to nowhere — full of millennial dread — that everything wld have to be lived through again — like an unrelenting desire for what civilisation refused to want — they built prisons the size of Australia to put their enemies in — the way a dingo hunts by listening for the heartbeat of its prey — tuned to hidden variables w/ no functional proof — in a place where the sky’s as grey as the sun — truth is that it died at birth — as incognito as the empty centre of a web — afraid to take one step in any direction — you can see them still — squatting there uncontrollably weeping for the simple fact the story went on without them — life on Mars — interstellar minddeath — another sacred mission to redeem humxnkind from inflight entertainment — bored as batshit in back of beyond — another day staring into G.O.D.’s great white arse — COME WHERE DREAMS BEGIN! — [the whole world’s up on a marquee in yon Downunder] — scratch yrself kid & all y’ll find’s celluloid — well every bleeding heart flows through eternity — catching the last wave out into blue Pacific vanishing routine & never look back — there are whole nations who dream of nothing but a world bombed flat — history has always favoured the 2=dimensional — but a writing w/out signs was it possible? — dernier rampart antilittéraire hahaha — engaged in a bit of sacred=cow duffing — [electric vibrator therapy not for everyone apparently] — the Arachnoid sets pen to page in defiance of the electroneurotic regime — creaturing the illegible w/ monsters no=one else can see — odes to Panoptia — poisoned prose on the far side of preposterous — ain’t no vaccine fer stupidity tho pard — flipping backbrain switch to camouflage — Brute et tu? — READ THIS & DIE — gamma=ray storm burns holes in their eyes — blink & it’s Spyder Grrl wading out of MRI sludge — homicidally protolinguistic — never seen a body=without=organs before? — it’s a grope in the dark in a flooded tomb — wielding canopic jars & amphibious landing vehicles — picture the lights coming up in a theatre full of nightvision binoculars — insect monitors — tidal flats shedding the mummy’s curse like a pullulating vulva — Why I want to Fuck G.O.D. a melodrama in 8 acts — Ariadne w/ flowers in her hair — Baba Jaga rubbing snakeoil into her snatch — & so they believe humxnity shares a warm feeling of devastation in other words that every child has blood on its hands — well listen I’d love to go on w/ these reminiscences folks but there’s still a lot more killin’ to be done — like a spider in quantum superposition — I know what y’re thinking an evolver is both more & less than the sum of their potential — tadpoles in jars — legless lizards — twoheaded dragonflies — merde d’auteur — assuming progress only occurs w/ malevolent intent — enemy forces tending to become manifest — but we are more than the sum of our indifference — applying the pituitary siphon to the collective brain haemorrhage — “well I may be lowincome but I’m not lowincum” — selfbetrayal magnified into literature is the whole art of writing — question is why be burdened w/ authenticity when you can be anything at all? — saying that what they know or don’t know won’t matter — but the wanting — to have wanted — to have been wanted — conjunction murders the soul every time it promises a future — destined to relive its past deaths — lineaments of ungratified desire — public solitude — walking at the bottom of an aquarium — “Red Sea” c1250BC — the actor prepares by becoming an aqualung — after rowing against the wind for most of the night — symptoms include fatigue — numbness — pulmonary oedema — [there’s method to this madness] — 50 years on lifesupport — sleep drifts out past Saturn’s rings — the Oort Cloud — Planet X — rebirth from cryosac in the general vicinity of the Other World — robotic eyeball=through=the=lookingglass stuff — the weather at Alpha Proxima this time of year — lying in the sun as the first autumn leaves begin to fall — mortality isn’t an end but the beginning of a great journey — aka “transmigration of souls” — yr free ticket to indefinite borderzone refugee=camp=limbo — Desperately Seeking Asylum — the promised landing as upon some further shore — Martian vistas stretc.h far away — the lone & level sands from which zombie proletariats harvest perchlorate — never was such abundance seen — onwards & ever upwards as they say — kicking the eyes out of spiders — it’s impossible to deny that violence exists — as to the opposite nothing’s simpler — plugging the launchcodes — the Minuteman Mantra [Zen in the Art of War Machinery] — thereby to cleanse the world of its sinfulness — picture the day! washed in the blood of exponential zeroes — mutant strains of Nirvana full of bliss — PEACE EVER AFTER — well even selfloathing needs to take a holiday once in a while — supplanting the old values w/ an all=new expressive nihilism — fear of extinction isn’t a virus only because it spreads & evolves at the same time you do — these are called dependency platforms — like an ungainly idiot savant stalking the matrix on too many legs — [the Arachnoid “is” an 8=gendered shifter] — montageur of dead dreams — prenatal shaman — unweaver & weaver — distending the flat Earth — unpicking the palimpsest

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Louis Armand is the author of THE COMBINATIONS (2016), THE GARDEN (2020) & VAMPYR (2021). He lives in Prague & Beja. www.louis-armand.com