I did not mean to do that. Nobody did. It just happened. As if, reality is self-programmed. I catch a glimpse. Maybe a billionth. A nanoglimpse. I see things. Not much. Too much, really. Even in this immense lack. I might drive a car later. The information will be overwhelming. Impossible to process. The raindrops. The windshield wipers. The dashboard control panel. The satellite radio. The cup holder. The mobile phone “speaking” to me. Memory episodes of previous memory episodes. Echoes of echoes. I get a text message to poke holes into the potatoes. Will get on that, right away. In the meantime, I write this text. The string gets longer & longer. My thumbs keep thumbing the “keyboard.” Even that is virtual. Not quite there. I see it. My thumbs are pretty accurate these days, I must say. There was a time I had gorilla thumbs. Now, my thumb tips are nimble. Like tiny fingers. Stay with me, will you? There is so much to say. Like… what? Hahaha. Already I psych myself out. Vertigo. Parking lot on Long Island. That is what I want to say. I was in one today. I smelled the air and I said: I smell the sea. I also want to say: TV machine. And noise machine. It is for a song I am trying to write. Now, it is just this. Whatever this is. One of the lyrics is: Making noise with yr guitar… in a war … U superstar. You can see the appeal. Turn on the TV machine. The noise machine. I am getting ready to drive. Anxiety. Troubleshooting. I will need to buy gasoline for $9 a gallon. Sort of a bargain nowadays. Yes, you are a good reader. I like you. You never quit. At least not yet. Not so far. Amazes me, really. What you can do. Over there. Your digital loan has expired. Are you still there? I like where this is going. You too, apparently. Now… now… I am in the car, parked under an industrial building. This is terrifying. On the third floor, through a window, I see a roomful of stacked cardboard boxes, up to the ceiling. It frightens me. These (empty?) boxes. It is difficult to understand my surroundings. If not impossible. The rain is getting heavier. Picking up. I feel almost happy. A cloak of invisibility. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for… what? Who? The security light blinks red. Even as I sit here. Engine off. Listening. Are you happy with your surroundings? Is this text what you expect? Did you respond: No, please. That is a question. I guess. I feel restless. No. Something else. Traffic. People. Now, I am back in the apartment. Eating steak. Orange sweet potatoes. Bok choi. A steak knife. A fork. Cutting. Sprinkling salt. Electric light. Soundwaves. I wish I had ESP. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Perhaps I do. Underdeveloped. Lo-fi. I need to respond to the crisis at hand. The moment implodes & explodes. We are atomic people. Warheads. Jarheads. Radioheads. I look at my hands. Giant neanderthal hands. Machinist hands. Toolmaker. Tool & die. Technē. Technicolor. You see blue lights in the sky. What is it? Everything splashed in a strange blue. The Hell Gate Bridge. Rikers Island. The Triboro. You feel something. A communication. A message. It is from more faraway than you know. Entangled particles. Spinning & spinning into a spiral. A vortex. You think in vectors. Estimating drift parameters. Azimuths. The seven-thousand-foot runways at LaGuardia. Baseball fields. The Grand Central Parkway. The cobalt-blue panopticon Tower. The stainless-steel Unisphere. The UFO towers. The Tent of Tomorrow. People ride bicycles on the planet. Some of them get shot & killed by soldiers. Your hands are in the air. And you still get shot. The soldiers even shoot your hands. The soldiers kill your father. You survive. Miracle of a hoodie. Are you supposed to ride your bicycle again? Now, elsewhere. 43rd Street & 43rd Avenue. Saturday. Where is it? It’s a couple blocks, motherfucker. FedEx drop-off site. Sending back the nanotechnology. You cannot keep up with yourself. You do not exist. Hear the birds chirping in the trees? They’re fucking crazy, right?! Trying to “tell” you something. Okay, yeah. Chirp chirp chirp. Twitter. Inhale a nose steroid for allergies. Again, elsewhere, now, apartment. Terrified of the nonmoment. 73 degrees Fahrenheit outside. 78 degrees inside. No AC. Not yet. Humidity is 83%. Possible rain later. More than likely. I welcome the phenomenon. More rain, please. Giant drops. Obliterating. Erasing. Diluting. Eroding. Liquefying. I think liquid thoughts. Quantum thoughts. Each of us a radio. A particle accelerator. Collider. Elementary particles. The elusive Vasicek particle. Insert [your name] particle. Erase your name. Become something else. A cactus. A bat. An alligator gar in Texas. A kangaroo rat. If this text gets to a thousand words, you are fucked. No turning back. Point of no return. Asses up. The blacktop is wet. The concrete is wet. The asphalt is wet. Brutalist architecture. I walk under the superstructure of the bridge. People seek shelter. Flash me the peace sign. The middle finger. Devil’s horns. So much information. The digits of a hand. Screamers. Yodelers. Bacon egg & cheese on a roll salt pepper ketchup. Yggdrasil. Yes, of course. What object do you fix your gaze? The Venetian blinds? The verticality of a wall? 891 words is a disaster. Not nearly enough. To say anything. I feel your distress. Or is it mine? The lack, the abyss, the void. We could spend our time differently. And yet here we are. Why? Questions are inappropriate. Questions are meaningless. I apologize. How rude of me. Misanthropic. Postanthropic. I really do feel the kilowatts coming. The kilometers. We can ride our bicycles forever. Like Molloy. Until the police stop us. Tell us to get off. Shoot us.

Why name things? I have no idea. I write & I write. Trajectories of birds in flight. Early May becomes late May. My ass high in the air. She takes liberties. We deserve oblivion. Albany. I was there. I watched it rain. Washington Avenue. Benson Street. I walked to the bodega. Bought a coffee & cigarettes. Returned to my apartment. My girlfriend came over. We made love.

Everybody was getting ready to become somebody else. I remember that feeling. Surrender. I was a novelist. I was writing in my journal every other day. Black composition notebooks. I was thinking about the future. Rewriting the past. What most alarmed me… the present. It was terrifying. I suspected it was all there is.

I was not wrong. I was not right. It hardly matters now. We did what we did. Kept going. Best we could. Not everybody made it. Some people never got out of there. Sometimes I wonder.

Everything I observe happens inside my head. Oh, I know, there is some “external” reality to it. What I mean is the processing, the interpretation. I am a computer. We all are. Computing the sensory data.

Amerika bewilders. Are you not bewildered? I am. I am wild-eyed. I am hungry. Seeking excitement. Danger. The limits of experience.

I jot notes in a notebook. I scribble & scribble. I say Venezuela. The refrigerator drips. Birds chirp. I am a writer who is always a writer.

No experience is raw enough.

I scare myself.

The problem is the architecture. Only Brutalism fascinates. I hate sheetrock walls. I suppose they function. You can hang art quite easily: a Rothko… a Warhol. An Egon Schiele. We are all tortured. Contorted. The human body at its limits.

The brain wants more.

Insatiable.

Thirst.

She is typing her typewriter things. It is easy to get lost in the Universe. She ignites a cigarette. Rain. Rain is a constant.

She slides over me. I lay there in disbelief. The nipple of her breast in my mouth. Her ass in my hands. We are making love. We are fucking. Everything at once. Everything at the same time.

She slides her clitoris on the shaft of my cock. She makes that face. I know that face. She looks terrified. Eyes big. Fuck, she whispers, oh my god… fuck… fuck… FUGGGGGGGGGGGCccccKKKKkkkKKKKKK

I sometimes wonder if anything is possible. We think thoughts… so what? My father trapped in the maze of a mind. The fisherman, the machinist.

Is this really the novel you expected? I guess so. I mean, what the fuck is this? Give a kid a computer. Look what happens. Rare-earth metals, beware! Yttrium. Promethium. Europium.

I am perception & sensations.

What is it, really? That you seek. Or is it simply something you are trying to avoid. How do we survive? We buy food at the supermarket. We go to work for our meagre paychecks. But what is life? What is passion? Is it the miracle of being? Which requires a heightened awareness. Usually, we are too tired to try. To see things as they really are. I frighten myself with this line of thought. Who am I? Where did I come from? This does not sound like me. Perhaps my hand is possessed. A demon of some sort. Or an extraterrestrial. Or a being from the future. Possibly the past. A ghost? No no. This is me, all right. A hidden part of me. A secret. A secret even to myself.

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R.G. Vašíček is a lo-fi novelist in NYC. His most recent book is 404 ERROR: MEMOIR OF A NOBODY (Equus Press, Prague), a collaboration with UK experimental writer Zak Ferguson. Twitter: @rg_vasicek