After the Now

Introduction: Is all we see is all we are just stimulus fed to a brain in a jar?

I think I'm dead. I seem to drift backwards and forwards across the span of my somewhat disappointing life. Sometimes I drift into realms beyond what I lived and the time line of my existence seems twisted. So I'm writing it all down trying to create a linear narrative. But am I really writing it down? Do I even have hands? I oftentimes can smell the nourishing fluids and feels the confines of a metal jar I seem to be trapped inside. Just a brain, no arms legs eyes. Electrical impulses feeding me impressions of this life I think I have lived/am living. Other times I find myself on a pulsing flat and endless purple plain. Laying there dead, and the after life is just my spirit hovering above my sprawl and dead body in the eternal moment that I died. A billions years and I'll still be hovering watching the never decaying body. No change ever in this purple table land. It seems to be energy so thick it can support my dead body.

Yet sometimes I find myself in a massive convention hall. People all gathered there after some major catastrophic event. We are waiting for instructions after being called here. Yet the instructions never seem to come.....

March 1968:Bicky explains Everything

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When I was born I knew so much more then I know now. I remember songs from before my birth. I knew the past present and future. I remembered hundreds of past lives into detail. Many of these lives lived during the same years. I knew the adults where poisoning this world. They would destroy everything. I tried to tell them. But my throat could not form words. I could only "Gooo" and Gaaaaah" desperately. Telling them how to save they're lives to save this world to be happier and fuller. But they just heard baby talk and would grin and say that's so cute. Nothing was cute about my desperate attempts to wake the sheep it was deadly serious. And I knew I could get them to realize that I had something so deep and meaningful to say to them. If only they would try just to focus on my fumbles at they're language. Then they would comprehend that I am no simple baby but a savior with a all important message. But no attempt was made. I had to learn there way of speaking. The punch line is that by doing this. By learning the adults world and rules all my past memories drained away. I left with only two distinct memories. One of being a soldier in a past life. Sitting on a beautiful beach with a Asian Woman cuddling up against me. Kissing her silky fragrant hair. And being a brain trapped in a jar and fed stimulus. A random life template. A fed world program I had been through many variations of before and will be recycled through again and again, maybe forever.

January 1972:Satan

When no one else is around and I was really young around seven I had terrifying encounters with the devil or some evil presence. Long sounding claws drawing down the inside of the walls late at night. Like a demon trying to scrape away at the dimensional walls to break into this world. My brother had a massive antique radio that got stations all over the world and police chatter and hospital and airport dialogue. But sometimes the air in our room would go "dead". A eerie feeling of not being alone. Of a dark evil. The radio would turn turn into to the Devil speaking directly to me. I forget what he would say but I do remember having long fearful but passionate arguments with the Horned one. Sometimes when the Devil came these little plastic balls I owned would hover in the air and swirl around in scary patterns I later learned where magical glyphs. Once I was riding in the back seat of the family station wagon. Mom driving, Grandma and a aunt touring the local garage sales. The air suddenly went dead like it did back then and the car sputtered and died. The adults did not seem scared. They just thought the car died from a mechanical failure. I knew different. The car was able to start again when that strange eerie feeling left. The air opened up again and time seemed to resume its normal pace. Mom said the car was just flooded. But I knew better.

September 1974:Gurgle Parts

In grade school Bicky is drawing pictures in his notebook during a inactive period of class. The teacher went out for a few minutes, probably to puff a smoke. Tina Smith was talking to Rocky Bader, a future jock with rich parents. She likes him because he is mean and aggressive. She is grinning and saying listen to this. I bet YOU don't know what it is!". She then made this long quavering gurgle sound that seemed to come from his nether regions. Like flexing muscles churning thick liquids. Bader just smiled like he knew whats up. Bicky was confused but he could tell Bader was as well.

October 1978" I Question your values

Whats wrong with you Howe? You like everything bad and hate everything good. You like rock music and books. You hate sports and killing animals. Whats wrong with you. And that hair! Are you a boy or a girl Bicky?

Sept 11 2001

Bicky had just spent around three or four hours recording music in his den. He decided to take a short break. Cruise the web, listen to NPR news. Let his mind cool down. All that heavy thinking, art eats a lot of brain glucose. "The white house is on fire, the Pentagon is on fire, the Twin Towers are on fire!", Says the newsvoice. Fear floods through Bicky. What the hell is going on? He hurries over to his parents to tell them. His Aunt called and told them a few minutes before he arrived. He sat down all freaked out and watched TV coverage with them. His parents didn't have cable. They channel surfed the three available channels. All of them kept repeating the same message over and over again. "How much of your freedom are you willing to give up to be safety?". It was like a mantra. It was like IMPRINTING. It reminded him of what he had read of secret societies simulating killing a initiation newbie to scare the fuck out of him then impart special information to INPRINT it deep into his mind. Bicky was getting suspicious now. Then he finds out the White House was not on fire, but flight 91 was supposed to hit it and the radio announced it was burning! What the fuck,a mix up of preformed messages? Who knows. Then the government says the reason why the terrorists did it is because they hate freedom. What kind of second rate comic book crap is that? And lets not even get into THOSE FUCKING COLLAPSING BUILDINGS!

August 2011: Late Summer Party

A late summer party at a house He's never been to before. Bicky Howe was feeling pretty good. He was done drinking for the night, but his liver was saturated with the golden buzz. And the environment of the house provided a self renewing contact high from the stoned revelers. Bicky wandered room to room. Sometimes talking but mostly just listening to the sprinkles of conversation in the mellow later phase of this party.

He ended up on a comfy but tattered yellow/brown couch. A wooden coffee table in front filled with empty cups and beer bottles. The TV was on, but no one was paying it any attention. The picture too bright too white, like a overexposed picture. The party had been happening for hours and it was starting to wind down. Folks drifting off to they're cars and beyond. A pretty young Woman with shoulder length brown hair sat next to Bicky. They exchanged a warm smile. A sudden warm wave of love came over them. So often times in Bicky's life love comes sudden and wordless, a deep yet fleeting thing. He chatted with her about nothing either could remember of the next day. She ended up falling asleep leaning against his shoulder. A wonderful warm energy of life against his side. Bicky soon drifted off as well leaning against the wall, head slumped forwards like a sleeping sparrow.

September 2011: Family re-union/Party

There's a big family re-union that has over spilled into a over all massive party. About 60 percent relatives and 40 percent strangers who are also drinking and mingling here. A large historic house. Old but sparse furniture. Dimly lit rooms. Bickles is walking around here with a Styrofoam cup containing beer from one of the triad of slowly dwindling kegs. The evening has taken on a almost feverish feeling. The warm beer tickling inside Bicky's head. Churning deep near where dreams lay. A primal wash over his mind. Whilst sipping at the cup a elbow pokes his ribs. Bicky turns to see his uncle Lenny grinning at him from behind a round and somehow authoritarian stomach. He brags about how he just ripped off some guy for 200 bucks. Convinced him he was putting down the check for a once in a life time opportunity that shall never manifest. Uncle Larry is a preacher, a man of God. He is stern in his lack of compassion for people who fall for his schemes. "He didn't want that money! So I helped him out. I did him a favor, a service for which I charge him 200 bucks". Finding suckers who don't want they're money is easier when God's on your side. While Uncle Lenny is talking he suddenly puts his cigarette under Bicky's upper lip. He drags the cherry around in a burning circle. Bicky flinches back in shock. What the fuck! He escapes in the packed crowd and makes his way to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror he sees the burn. Dark red and swollen. He looks pretty awful. Bicky complains to some relatives about it. They suggested he was out of line. They let it be known he was being an asshole. A bad party night. He couldn't really connect with anybody. And his fucking uncle burned him. Then he just smiled with sadistic pleasure. Bicky fumed. Tried to bitterly complain to people he met. They either payed him no attention or voiced that he was wronging his long suffering Uncle with his complaints about nothing. His skin burned where the cigarette seared it. The total unexpected shock of it. He couldn't even say anything or react other then to flee. God had his uncle done this routine to him as a child? Burn and hide burn and hide. Isolation in such a packed crowd led Bicky back to the keg several times. One one of these goes his uncle came up while he was pumping the keg trying to get the last golden yellow warm drink out. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe with a dirty orange fluid inside, packed to full capacity. Before he could dodge away Uncle stabbed him in the leg with it. Bicky twisted free and pushed his way through the tight crowd to get away. Uncle Lenny held up the syringe, a little bent and only about a fifth of the substance was injected. Now Bicky was really freaking out. What the fuck is that orange stuff now in his blood stream. He didn't feel any different yet. Just a pain in his leg from the violent injection. Was it a virus or a virus combo? Poison? Some sorta drug? Bicky fears he will pass out and he tries to get some family member to help him. They opinion that he is being a baby. They make it known he is doing his Uncle wrong with all this acting up. Nothing to get upset about is going on. The others who are also partying in the house ignore Bicky like he is some street bum who just pissed his pants while begging for change.

Bicky makes his way to the basement. Lots of people are down here as well. People toking pipes but only passing them around to small circles of friends. He don't know anyone down here. He is starting to feel sick and light headed. But it could be from the beer and the fear. He is leaning against the wall starting to dry heave when his Preacher Uncle finds him. He flings the syringe like a dart this time and it slams into Bicky's leg to the hilt. High up the leg, the force of impact drives the plunger down and now he has a full needles worth of orange unknown flowing into his blood. He turns pale with shock and crumbles to the floor. He pulls the syringe out. A live music set is starting up with a funky distorted bass line and blues drenched guitar. Bicky heaves and retches making ghastly noises but he cannot throw up. After about forty eight minutes he is feeling a little better. He gets up and tells everyone he sees what just happened. Still they think he is being a prick. Several relatives say "Don't you ever come to other family get together again!". Fair enough. Bicky stalks out of the house slamming the door behind him. A bass blur of the blues in the basement below fading as he fumes and walks.

Death of the Party

Bicky is at a party, drinking beer from a Styrofoam cup. Rock music from the mid 70's to now on the CD changer. Lots of smoking cigarettes and talking amongst the crowd. Mostly men in they're late 30's to mid 40's but many have brought they're teenage to early twenty kids to join in the revelry. Its a colorful cast. Folks nowadays never seem to fade into gray outfits the way people this age did when Bicky was young. Now they seem to never fully mature and as a result they seem to age slower.

Bicky who is now 46 is talking to a very pretty skinny girl, about 20. The daughter of one of his fellow Generation X'ers who are at the party. The difference is ages does not make Bicky want her any less. The biological imperative. If you say you grow older and no longer appreciate a beautiful young Woman in your prime you lie. To yourself and or me. her black shining silky hair, tight brown unwrinkled skin. Pretty fox like face with a almost Pharaoh like black eye liner make up. And she seems so open, so interested in every thing he has to say. But she is circulating throughout the party and only flitted over to him for a brief meeting and conversation. Soon she wanders off without a further word. The world must seem warmer, friendlier to pretty girls like her. Open doors and desire filled looks everywhere she goes. A life Bicky can only imagine.

He wanders on talking to people, standing still while watching others talk. The pretty girl is leaving. Bicky feels a sad hopeless desire for her. Hopes she will turn his way and wave. But she doesn't notice him at all. She just walks out.

Bicky is standing by this table where a couple of joints are circulating. He gets a few puffs before they are burned to nubs. The center of attention at the table is a big chunky know it all blow hard dude. Dressed in blue denim jacket and pants. A Go USA! shirt. Expensive tennis shoes. He is roaring his harsh opinions while drinking whiskey from a clinking ice filled glass and chewing on a long cigar like a rail road robber baron. His name is Jerald Darvis, a aircraft worker for the last 25 years. High paid and lazy. Does as little as possible on the job while complaining about others lack of work ethic. "You can still rock in America by Nightranger ends. "Smells like teen spirit by Nirvana takes its place on the randomized CD changer. "Turn off the socialist crap and put on some fucking Nugent!", Bellows Jerald. No ones minding the stereo however and Cobain is still singing in his raspy howl. Jerald turns to Bicky who is hanging here still although he's starting to not dig the group at the table. "The sixties are over get a hair cut you commie prick!". He sends a cloud of cigar smoke to halo Bicky as a punctuation.

"Maybe the whole house should clear out to make room for you bloated and gaseous ego!", Bicky Replies.

"Are you starting shit little man, better shut up or the next sound you make will be form spitting your teeth on the floor".

"I call that bold talk for a one eyed fat man!". This netted Bicky some giggles.

"I don't have to take this crap!", Jerald says as he gets up and walks. Bicky thinks he is walking away from being pissed off but he walks behind him and puts a handgun against the back of his head. Bicky KNOWS he is going to die. No question about it. It a frighting and sure feeling. A feeling he has known so many times in so many lives. But when you are going to die anyway there's no reason to grovel. "Go fuck you mother, I did.", Bicky says. Blam! Brains on the table, twitching dieing body on the floor.