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 ^{(it's beta!)}

"...And now we come to the brain of the centre." the manager of operations stated, "this is where the brains are actually manipulated, where the actual work goes on, you might say."

The reporter scribbled down some notes, just to make it look like he wasn't recording.

"If you'll take a look through the one-sided mirror at the front of your room, you'll see our current patient,"

Chris did, and he noticed a look of loathing on the face of the teenage girl in there. She looked drawn, and her fingers were writhing over each other. The other woman, who he presumed to be the councillor, was smiling through some slightly misty glasses, nodding in a comforting way. She had warm curly hair down to her ears, and her skin was reassuringly lined.

"She's just being prepared now. Caroline's just giving her some blurb about test results or something, if someone at this kind of stage were to know about the operation it would send them into an episode. So it's all done quietly. In a moment the councillor will start the operations. We always have the front face leading, because they have an idea where to start. There were some silly mistakes made before... but look, it begins."

The woman left the door, with a soft smile to the girl. In a moment she also entered into the centre of operations, tore off the wig, threw down the glasses, and set herself down at the helm. She turned a switch on the right of the panel, and the light above the door she entered through silently shut and sealed itself. The light above it switched from blue to green.

"Right now a transparent, odourless, and tasteless gas is filling the room. It puts her into a deep non-REM sleep. We need her brain as idle as possible for this to be a success."

The girl's eyelids were slowly falling, she set herself down on the table, and in a moment or two she was asleep. Caroline pressed another button, and a number of mechanical tendrils felt their way over the girl's head, finding their rightful place, then lifting her head upright. More tendrils felt their way to the previously hidden side. A light flashed on Caroline's panel. The manager led Chris up to the helm.

"You're aware, I'm sure, of the way memory works. Through connections, each neuron can have many connections to others. Thoughts are actually routes through this network. This is a very simplistic model, but for our purposes it works well enough. The more electrical pulses that go through a route, the stronger that memory is. You can think of this like grooves in a block of wood. A ball will travel through the thicker and deeper route, in preference over the shallower ones," Chris signalled a stop so he could write this down, always better to be in control, he thought.

"Okay, well, erasing these routes is hard, and impossible without damaging all other memories, which would not be a desirable result. Instead what we do is make a groove of our own. Take Lucy here, she's been diagnosed with anorexia nervousa. Every time she thinks of herself, she thinks of overweight. What we can do, is make it so all thoughts of herself actually go to something else, rather than her weight. Of course, if we tell her she's beautiful then she might become overweight, so we do some complicated jiggery-pokery to route those thoughts to the place a normal person would route them."

The machine let out a couple of shrill beeps, and a model of Lucy's brain appeared on the screen. Within a few seconds strands of it were flashing blue almost too quick to see. "We're just mapping out where everything from her visual cortex goes, we have to work out where the thought originates," he said matter-of-factly.

Slowly, strands of her brain were turning a solid and constant green. "Those green lines are what we've just mapped as necessary to alter." Before long there was no flashing blue and the screen was left with green in a mass of red. "That large block of green signifies where the thoughts should be entering, at this point we work out the best route to join the two points we need, this part is more an art than a science."

After a while of pointing and clicking by Caroline, a clear route was mapped out. "At this point we direct electricity from the electrodes on her head through the neurons we dictate, making the deeper groove. We direct the electricity with magnetism, there are very precise electromagnets in the electrodes on the side of her head, which will create a path in space for the electrical pulses to pass through."

"Ordinarily the brain would take weeks to form a path like this, but we can do it in a matter of minutes."

Indeed, in a matter of minutes they had. Buttons were clicked, the electrodes retracted, and another gas started to fill the room to bring her round.

"All in all, it's a very simple and low-risk operation. You may remember hypnotism, which worked in a similar way. Put the brain into a resting state, and then direct it. However we have enhanced the process so it only takes around an hour in total."

The girl was waking up, and the light on the door changed to blue again. "Would you like to come through and meet the patient?" Caroline interjected. Chris agreed.

When he entered, the girl looked at him with some confusion, indeed she did at both of them. "How are you feeling?" Caroline asked.

"Tired.. what happened?" she replied.

"I'll explain in a moment, do you want anything to eat? drink?"

"Water.. please,"

"I'll leave you in here while I fetch it, Mr. Bernard, I wont be a second."

Chris glanced uncomfortably at the mirror on the far wall. Lucy was looking down at her hands, arms, turning them over in astonishment. "Look how thin I am..." she said incredulously, "my god..."

Caroline walked happily in with a plate of pancakes, and no water. Lucy's eyes lit up.

Remember: Your sweatshirts MUST be worn over your shirts at all times, even if you take them off temporarily during lesson. The time on the beep will be three-fourtyeight... beep... All services to/from Portsmouth Harbour are unavailable due to sun on the lines, we apologise for any inconvenience caused. The time on the beep will be, would you like to supersize? We both know you do. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Hundreds, thousands of Marxist teenagers wake up.

Most are drowsy, and really don't feel like getting up this early. The school claimed this early start benefited them, it made them more awake, more receptive. "You're more receptive earlier in the morning, there's studies to prove it!" they were told. They certainly don't feel like that right now. The truth is that evidence to the contrary was brought up in a meeting about the proposed school opening time changes, research with the conclusion that teenagers are suited to later starts. The headteacher claimed that he didn't know this. It was never discussed again, of course.

They stumble down to the bathroom. They wash, they brush, they cleanse. They slowly become more awake. They clothe themselves. They walk, still slightly subdued, to the kitchen. They eat, they drink. They pack, they leave. They might check the news before they leave, but there's little time with these earlier starts.

It doesn't seem to matter though, because they're late either way.

They briskly walk into the classroom, carefully and precisely acting out the excuse they prepared for on the way in. Perhaps their brother held them up, maybe it was traffic, maybe they've tears around their eyes. The difference between the truth and a lie is only acting.

What the lesson is... well that's random. Could be maths or science, where the only complaint you might get from them is "Why do we have to know this?". Could be English, Art, Music, where they're either not in the mood and will mess about, or they'll get amazingly engaged. Smiling at parts no one else does, maybe even because no one else does. Could be modern languages, where they'll fall asleep. Could be sociology, and they'll be overtly grinning all through discussions.

There was a girl once. She had pink hair, in huge spikes. Her exams were coming up, and a teacher said to her "If you don't do something with your hair, you'll not be able to sit the exams."

The subjects aren't so much the problem really, it's the whole concept of school they're a little sceptical about. They have epic ideas, simple to form and easy to implement with a clean slate. They notice that everything's geared towards exams, and so does everyone else, but why, and what are the ramifications of this? Well, who are the qualifications for? Businesses. Who is a stakeholder in what is taught? The private sector. Education has turned into a factory. Teachers skip the understanding, because they have to teach their students to pass exams.

"Well... I guess I'll have to get it dyed then... and cut perhaps..." others might have said. Not her, she bought a wig. But not just any wig, a wig in the style of her headteacher's hair. Grey, blue rinsed, curly, built upwards. She wore it through the exams, how could they find fault now?

At lunch they mix with groups of misfits. Frequently targets of any group who fancies messing people about, due to their generally pacifist and non-combative nature. A number of teachers intervene and take the easiest way to resolve the situation, by persecuting the victim. "Can you all move on to your own year areas please" they command. Our Marxists protest that then they wont be able to socialise with their friends in other years. "Why wont you do what you're supposed to?" they reason.

Another block of lessons and it's time to go home, for some people. Other stay on to act, or to compose music, or to create. It's a mere hour of extra time, but it's a highlight of their day. But... isn't that an hour of homework lost? "It's a lesson best learnt now," the next day's teachers preach "you have to make time and be dedicated to your studies, if you don't get your work done, then where will you be? Time management is a useful skill..." Oh, that lesson will be learnt, when they wonder where all the time's gone. When they notice that all they've gained is a little bit of paper.

The journey home is a difficult one. The sack of books they carry seems heavier with all the ink they've spent. Their back and neck aches. As soon as they arrive in their room, they let the bag and coat hit the floor, and relax. Even lying on a cold floor seems peaceful. How lucky they are that it's not nine to five. Oh.. wait, homework. They can't even bear the thought.

As you get older, things speed up. Long car journeys don't seem as terribly boring as they were once. You become thankful for the moments of peace. You begin to look forwards to doing nothing, because you're just so tired. You learn the lesson, even if only subconsciously, that creative interests mean bad things. Slowly but surely the mind of our Little Marxist is hammered and bent into shape. She no longer seems to notice the oppression, he doesn't speak up when people are being manipulated. Slowly the sense of having grades predicted by your ethnic, economic, and family background becomes more sensible, and they cease to care.

Don't think, run. Just keep running.

I stared down at the brown bottle. I remembered having medicine when I was a child. It came in the same kind of glass, seductive. I can almost remember the taste. So sickly sweet it would make your lips stick together if you didn't swallow it right.

The wrapper was peeling slightly where I'd been flicking it off. It was seductive. Even the bottle held connotations of goodness for me. It relaxed me. In fact, this whole indecision would stop being so worrying if I just relaxed a bit. It might take some of the weight from my shoulders.

But how could I? Knowing what it was. The purpose of it.

This had been happening for years now. The liquid inside was hopelessly out of date. But I've had it for years now. Every night, staring down at it. Was I Alice, or Pandora? The gleam of the bottle opener caught my eye, and I remembered that the looking glass was never locked.

I was a data manager. My duties were to pretend to honour the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts for British Telecom. You might think that BT has nothing to do with much aside from communication. You'd be wrong, though I wouldn't blame you. I wasn't high up enough to know about everything, but as a data manager I got to know about a lot. And, them knowing this, there was a kind of understanding between me and the management. They'd keep giving me access, and I'd keep deceiving the public.

The file in question was one I came across when looking for something else. Some conspiracy theorist or other had requested information on wiretaps in a certain area or something. I thought I'd check, just out of interest really, and to make the reply consistent.

I remember there being a couple of drawers that were always locked. I usually only needed to go to the drawers below these, but today it had jammed for some reason, and someone had left one usually locked drawer open. Obviously, I couldn't get to what I wanted, so I waited around for a little while, in case someone was going to come and get it fixed. Of course, after a while I realised that everyone was on lunch break.

This opened up a new opportunity for me. Since no one was there, I could take a look in these forbidden files. I've never really found it easy to ignore secrets to be honest, in fact I've no idea why they employed me. I guess I'm good at keeping my composure, you need that to get through the interviews they throw at you.

So I rifled around for a bit. Most of it was stuff I knew about or had guessed, really. But one file caught my interest. "PREACTIVE DISTURBANCE LIMITATION."

Very bureaucratic, I noted. That tended to be the case for things there. So as not to attract attention. Intrigued, I read it. I read it all.

I put it back, carefully leaving everything as it was. And I left. That job could be done another time, when the cabinets were fixed.

There had been some experiments done. They were hardly necessary, in hindsight. But they were done nonetheless, to put some confidence in investors I suspect.

It was all done in the field. They'd taken a small town on an outlying island somewhere off Scotland, and collected all the teenagers together. They then explained that, due to problems with anti-social behaviour, anyone between the ages of 12 and 20 would not be allowed out after 7:00PM or before 5:00AM. Except in a remote part of the village, in a large but bare hall.

Predictably, there was mass disobedience for the first few nights. Even when police were sent in, you could barely find a teenager indoors, let alone the hall.

After this, the second phase of the experiment began. A number of adults were sent in to give out free alcohol to the teens.

Just as predictably, the teens began to flock to the hall, rather than avoid it. The police were hardly needed. Those so drunk as to abandon the source of alcohol and cause trouble were rarely much of a problem. It was as though the teenagers simultaneously forgot that they were being confined to one space. After a short amount of time, a number of things were observed.

Those that were most disobedient before, tended to be the ones that drank the most. Presumably due to the fact that alcohol was a relatively new experience for them, it was deviant, it was exciting. Much later on in the study, marijuana started to appear, and the rebellious moved onto that. This made them even less of a threat.

Those who were becoming wary of the alcohol, due to things that they'd seen their peers do, or suchlike, would generally return home. No one fancied being tackled by police for breaking curfew when there weren't many to back them up.

It was noted, in the file, that people tended to grow into their own deviance limits. Those who would cause trouble, eventually migrated further and further away from reality until they were no threat at all. Just pin cushions. Those who didn't drink considered themselves 'cultured', and better than the animals who drank and messed around all the time, these were no threat either. The gradient in-between were a fraction more trouble, but nothing a couple of coppers couldn't handle. Nothing organised, nothing dramatic.

Just for good measure, they took the drink away. There was a disagreeable nature to them for a while, and the police had to work a bit harder. Until the teens started smuggling it back.

At that point, the experiment was concluded. With the note that there seemed to be an equilibrium that was achieved by the introduction of alcohol. It was even sustainable when the alcohol was taken away. It would just seep back in, like a sponge collecting the moisture from the air around it.

As long as there was moisture in the air that is. As long as there was money to spend, enough for the essentials and the alcohol. But take away someone's supply of money and, of course, they'd riot. That much was certain. And they'll always be people with a cause. But, as a population suppressant, alcohol worked remarkably well. Why would you bother changing anything if you could get your instant gratification down the pub whenever you wanted? At the moment of distress, drink it down, it'll help.

And those were the words echoing through my mind as I stared down at the bottle, the words of my Mother.

Drink it down, it'll help.

"God or me."

"What?"

"You heard. Choose, God or me."

I looked at him, half confused half shocked.

"It's obvious that there's not enough room in your life for both him and me. We're two completely different entities. He'd sooner have you lock someone up than let them have an abortion, I'd sooner lock you up than stop them. I see sex as a wonderful and liberating experience, he considers non-procreative sex to be a sin. He strongly encourages procreation itself, I believe it to be nigh inexcusable for the informed person. He declares homosexuality a sin, I fuck men. I can't take it anymore, I doubt he likes it much either."

He looked into me, his eyes full of pain.

He left. I prayed.

I'd contend that it's one of the hardest things in the world to see someone getting destroyed. I can't work out whether seeing someone destroy themselves is better or worse, but I don't suppose ranking is going to help anyone.

She's flooded her brain with ethanol, nicotine, starved it of nutrients, starved it of rest. She's crushed, split, and torn cells to get through the night she artificially extends. It is a testament to the resilience of the human body that she's not dead, though even that's standing on a knife edge, £4.99, B&Q.

Who is she? She's many people. She's the person who raised my spirits with distraction, the person who I counselled through an early morning of incestuous fallout. She's the person I met in a town where people stared as they walked past because her skin contained more melanin than theirs, and the person I convinced that an abortion was the right thing to do. She's the girl I ate cookies with at the Mall, and the girl I failed to make eat the next morning. She's the girl whose touch made me bite my lip, and the girl who pushed me away because she values weight loss over the loss of me. She's the girl I accidentally denied my love for when I really meant to say that I did, and the girl who with wild eyes and bedraggled hair begged me to make her visions stop.

I couldn't.

It's very scary to realise, at that point, that there's nothing you can do. When you're trying your hardest, you suddenly fall off the cliff of your own delusions and the quartz ticking in your soul just stops. You stare back, your eyes feeling like egg-shells, your expression completely empty because every bit of emotion has been stolen by this girl who wills you to be able to help when you can't. You just hold her, and she tries to move but you don't let her, you stop her with half a will to block her mouth and make. this. all. stop.

And then you relax.

But not for long. She's begging you to let her harm, and your resistance starts up again. There's no silence in this place. When you're running, even if you're being chased, you always have the freedom to stop and let the inevitable come to you. Not this time, there's no breather as long as you're conscious. You hold her wrists and stare blankly into her eyes, your brain a numb machine knowing only what its function is. To stop her.

All machines break eventually though, and so do you. She pulls and suddenly you don't hold on enough, her fingers sliding away past yours. You want to just curl up and cry, but you can't, it's not your choice to do so. You have to watch. It's the truth, it happens, it's reality and there's no escaping it. She's rocking on the floor, clawing at her wrists with her fingernails, and you swear it's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen.

What are you going to do now you've failed? Give up? No. Not possible. Forget this ever happened and carry on as before? Your only choice.

There are no long term solutions, apart from the obvious. None of your profound insightful maxims can help them, or you. You've just got to keep listening, fill yourself up with the emotional toxicity splashed in blood red across the corridors of their minds.

I am the opium of a small section of the masses who fall at the edge of the bell-curve labelled sanity.

And I'm shaking.

Not content with having no distance between us, you press your fingers against my skin. The blood is pushed out, the flesh turns white under your thumb, until I give no longer, and my bones push back. When you let me go the blood returns, saturating me once more. One day it won't. The pale blotch will remain there, as the usually ignored thumping rhythm of my life ceases, and I hear that internal silence known only to the dead. As my body cools, the signals in my wires will slow, and before long, an hour or two, I'll be gone too. Leaving behind a sack of cells, and they'll collapse, eventually being consumed by cells better made than me. The warm skin you touched, The nerves that let me feel it, The brain, the person, that it mattered to, they'll all disappear eventually. But not the bones, my brittle calcium fingerprints will remain. What pushed back will still be there.

Act 1: The Lingering Smoke

sunny day, lively still

something odd

it seems like it will

deliver news of a fall

Oh Alex. There's not a thing I could say that someone else hasn't already said. I found out in the car, on my way to Pittsburgh. One of my best friends shakingly poured out the words through the phone and into my head "Something horrible has happened. It's Alex. Alex Shane." All the life drained from my body with her next few words and it took everything in me to stay in my lane.

i know my words don't mean much

to you, though i wish that

i could at least bring some peace to

what disturbance i have caused

i haven't talked to you in a long time, maybe i should have. someone could've helped, anyone. it doesn't matter who. anything is better than this. you could have fucking cancer or something, but at least you still would've been alive. at least i'd have gotten the chance to come see you. at least i'd have gotten to say something to you one last time. maybe we could've jammed together one last time, i don't know. why the fuck do people do this?

so when was it,

when did you

start to see

all the pieces

start to fall

apart just like the

time before, i know

i should have

known this would

happen, it always

does, when all

that’s left,

grey, black, and white

no brilliance, just

there is no sunset...

I never would have guessed this from you.. you seemed to have it all figured out. What the hell was going through your mind that night?? What seemed so damn unfixable??? God whatever it was, I hope you're happy now, 'cause no one else is.

how dependable

are second chances

i live 2 fucking seconds away. we hadn't talked in a while, but you know damn fucking well that i'd have done anything in my power to do anything to help you out, cos i know you'd have done the same for me. and now no one will ever get the chance to help you again. you really went and fucked it up this time. couldn't you at least have done it with something other than a gun? guns are so final...you could've taken pills or something. at least you might still be alive enough to have your stomach pumped, to have another chance. now that chance is gone, thrown out your fucking bedroom window.

it was too late

already much too late

light shining through

the open window

finds its way

through the lingering smoke

so, how much does this hurt?

I hope that what you've done has eased your troubled mind and has finally let you rest peacefully. So I guess we're not still on for next week are we?? We'll have to take a bit of a rain check, Alex.

...i am destructed.

Act 2: Ashes

from what the shanes tell me, alex's ashes are going to be put to rest on dec 3rd, which is a saturday, at 11am in washington pa. the shanes said it was an open invitation for all who want to come, so please spread the word to anyone the shanes don't know or don't have a phone # for. i don't have directions yet but i would assume i'll know in a week or 2, so let me know if ne one needs them or any questions or whatever. so please tell anyone that would like to come. ~kelly

~

I fucking hate that I'm never going to smell your laundry detergent in your clothes again or marvel at your long, bony fingers warped and molded from years of abuse and metal strings. I hope you know we can never talk about twelve different things at once again or have another "give and take" lesson. I have to believe you didn't realize that. Because if it were me, I'd have changed my mind for that alone.

~

alex i miss you so much. when i went to your house today i thought you were going to come walking out of your room and offer me food like you always did when i was there.

~

You used to steal my pencils in 8th grade history even when i only had one... and i couldn't get mad at you cuz you gave me that big goofy alex laugh, the one that lit up your whole face, and I just had to smile.

~

jesus christ. i fucking grew up with you. we taught each other to play guitar. if it wasn't for you, i wouldn't be able to play as well as i can today. and if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have gotten your first guitar. i was the first person to introduce you to a lot of the bands you know today. i was your first friend when you moved from highlands. we rode the same bus, from 2nd grade until 10th grade. i used to make fun of you and tell you your sister was hot, and you used to get pissed off and we'd beat the hell out of each other, but 5 minutes later it'd be ok. i was in my first band with you and greg and ryan. shit, you were still making great music today. http://www.purevolume.com/adorepa go listen, that's the kid i grew up with. we were best friends all through elementary school...you, me, brett, jonny, and greg. fucking christ alex. why would you do this? you should've called me...

~

You were so god damned precious, everything about you, every last detail, I absolutely hate you. I am screaming these words in my head at you, and I hope to god you can hear them somehow. I hope to god that you can.

~

i'm not the same person as last summer. so much has changed and i can't believe tomorrow is the 5 month mark. instead of him visiting my room i have his pictures up everywhere. on my desk and by my bed so i can say goodnight.

~

alex shane, i am never going to stop. i am a freight train on fire. this is the worst kind of heartbreak. i hate you, i found an album that you would love.

and i can't even talk about it. i can't write about you anymore. i remember too much.

~

My body is rattled and when I least expect it I heave and sob and vomit.

All your stupid freckles.

Or moles whatever they are.

Were.

FUCK. I'D HAVE FUCKING BLED MYSELF DRY. I WOULD HAVE CRAWLED FOR YOU. I WOULD HAVE DONE WHATEVER IT TOOK. WHY DIDN'T YOU LET ME. WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME. WHY DIDN'T I CALL YOU.

Act 3: Sunset

i just hope you know that i was on my way to class when somebody called me, and that i cried the whole way there and the whole way home. and i bawled my fucking eyes out as soon as i got home. i hope you realize the effect you have. i just printed out your away message and your info, because you're still online. i just wanna keep it

tired eyes are losing hope

losing grip on what its worth

You signed offline at 7:31 that evening. About twelve hours after, so I'm told. I watched your name go faint on my buddy list. Someone must have shut off your computer, finally. I wanted to message you, tell you all of this right then, because some small part of me thought you might still get it.

there is no sunset...

Last week, I put an alert on his name on my buddy list. And even as I was doing it, I knew how sick it was.

if you remember when

we gave up completely

after what was said

these broken chords know

what was eventually shown

it was too late

Epilogue: The Final Away Message

the sky is grey, the sand is grey, and the ocean is grey. i feel right at home in this stunning monochrome, alone in my way. i smoke and i drink and every time i blink i have a tiny dream. but as bad as i am i'm proud of the fact that i'm worse than i seem. what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more. maybe some tiny shiny thing will wash up on the shore. you walk through my walls like a ghost on tv. you penetrate me and my little pink heart is on its little brown raft floating out to sea. and what can i say but i'm wired this way and you're wired to me, and what can i do but wallow in you unintentionally? what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more. maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore. regretfully, i guess i've got three simple things to say. why me? why this now? why this way? overtone's ringing, undertow's pulling away under a sky that is grey on sand that is grey by an ocean that's grey. what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more. maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore.

Ani Difranco