I don’t think it’ll ever be published, in print or on the web, but I had to say something. I’ve also contacted my MP and the Right Honourable American Biotch, Jim Prentice. This is what I have to say:

No, these proposed changes won’t change a thing. They’ll merely make things that us ground-level Canadians do illegal.

The problem with the bill isn’t that it wants to combat piracy. That’s fine. Piracy is bad. If we want free stuff, we can create it ourselves and release it under a free license.

The problem is that it makes transferring my music (that I bought) or my movies (that I bought) to a device illegal if the content provider has placed any sort of digital restriction on it.

This gives corporations the power over my rights. They can grant me (if they wish) to power to copy, but of course they don’t because they want to sell me a copy for each device I own, not a copy I can copy myself. The legislation purportedly protects these rights, but in fact does an end-run around them.

Of course the law won’t stop copying files. This is what digital media is about: Cheap reproduction. And digital restrictions are fundamentally flawed and will always be circumvented. So Canadians will still be doing what they like with the media they paid for, but now it will become illegal to do so.

This legislation stinks of being written by American corporate and governmental interests. This isn’t the Canada I know, where we simply kowtow to our American cousins. It offends me (as a person who voted for the Conservatives), and if this law passes, I will find somewhere better to place my vote.

Amen.

You get one shot. Do you ever stop to understand that? It’s almost crazy; you’d think you get a few tries to get it right, but no. You come into the world screaming, maybe leave it that way too, and that’s it. Boom. The mortal coil unwinds and you fade from memory.

That scares me more than anything - that I’ll be forgotten. It scares me that the people left behind will go on, and the people I loved will eventually have moments when they forget I existed. And then it’ll almost be as if I hadn’t existed at all.

See, I had one of those moment this morning: I woke up, got out of bed, brushed my teeth, and was spitting water into the sink to watch it swirl out of sight when I remembered why I shouldn’t be happy. Even then for a few seconds it puzzled me. What was there to be sad about?

Oh, you. When the memory came back, it came back full force and hit me like a falling building. And it went, again, after a little while. You’ve gone sideways, and I’ve kept moving forward. But it seems unjust, somehow. I should be in a deep, dark pit of despair I can’t escape from. I should write bitter prose about life and its chance and design.

I should, but every day it’s longer before I recall why I almost stopped breathing. My heart maybe skips a beat, but it goes on.

April 16, 2005

i’ve never been so mad b4 in my entire life! i went 2 this cool date party at the beach and i saw jim making out w/ sandy…… i think i cried 4 like 2 or 3 hours.

at least it got me thinking about my life……. and i think i 2 have some goals……… so here goes.

1 - i’m going 2 find the real me ive kept berried 4 so long…… the real me i was and still am…
2 - i’m going 2 lose 5 pounds in the next 2 weeks.
3 - the next guy i date will be head over heels with me so i dont cheat
4 - i’ll pass my exams and study realy hard 2 get good graeds

see thats the problem…… i don’t no how 2 be me…… not really.

April 19, 2005

my parents R driving me crazy….. they dont understand me at alll! all i want is 2 B happy….. but its like they want 2 totaly shut themselves out of my life…… daddy wont give me anymore money. i dont’ know how i’m going 2 my hair died without htat money.

May 2, 2005

i think i’m in <3 w/ jim still even though im trying 2 get over him…….. yesterday i though how much stuff he taught me…… like how 2 B the real me…. i felt like i was something when I was with him

[How do people write like this? It's driving me insane!]

but sandy still hangs w/ him all the time. i dont’ know what 2 do!

May 22, 2005

i dropped out of college 2day because i failed all my exams…. i should go to europe or something….. ive started a myspace so i’m not going 2 be writing hear anymore…… but i still ahve 2 have some goals…. so here they R:

1 - im going 2 find who the real me is……. in europe…… i cant find it here anymore its 2 suffocating
2 - i’m going 2 lose 5 pounds in the next 2 weeks.
3 - the next guy i date will be head over heels with me so i dont cheat…….. and its going 2 B Jim……. he <3’s me……. i know it

Today I’m breathless. It’s not that there’s no air to be had, oh no; it’s more that I’m holding my breath. I don’t know whether to exhale, these days, or hold it in for another minute.

If I breathe out, I’ll lose this precious lungful. If I don’t, I’ll die.

There must be another way.

He hefted the gun in his left hand. It felt solid, re-assuring as always. A thing of power, a thing of control, and wrapping his fingers around the grip gave him the rush of adrenaline he wanted.

A moment of hesitation, and then action. He kicked the door in and sprang forward, into the dizzying light flooding the warehouse in front of him. He trotted between shelves of grey boxes, the room strangely silent, empty almost. Strange. People should be here, somewhere.

He reached the metal steps up to the second level, took them briskly. Still no movement. His hand started shaking, the oddness of the silence unnerving. Looking left, looking right. No one. Not a breath, not a footstep - nothing.

The pale green door was unlocked, and he turned the knob slowly. Sweeping through suddenly, he almost threw up. Gilotti’s head lay on the desk in a slick pool of blood, hardly as alive as he had hoped. Someone had been here before him, and his edginess returned quickly: a trapped animal.

No body slumped in the leather chair. Light flickered overhead and he twitched. No body anwhere in fact, just Gilotti’s head staring at him obscenely as he moved around the room. The mouth was turned up what seemed a mocking smile.

Panic. He reached the door in a stride. Still no movement, no noise, no sign of human presence anywhere in the warehouse, just the lights burning above. They seemed brighter suddenly, glaring.

Click. He heard the noise from across the room and spun to where he thought it came from. Echos. The lights began to shut off, row by row. He scrambled down the steps, then, a greyness spreading his way. Running between the shelves toward the door.

Then black. He stopped running, disoriented, the firearm clenched still but awkwardly powerless in the dark. Panic again, stronger this time. A flicker of light from his right, then blackness, then another flicker. Flashlights, he realized. Another flicker across the room in a different place, then another and another and another.

Shit, he thought, there’s five of them!

Footsteps. Boots. Probably police. Maybe even their trained “confrontation” team.

Clickclickclick. A bullet punched through the flesh in his right arm. He twisted, almost screaming, throwing himself to the floor. Clickclickclick. Sounded like a staplegun firing. He fired into the darkness, a ringing in his ear, crawling then, quickly away from where he had been seconds before.

Light, behind him, sweeping. Targetting. Flattened himself against a shelf, the metal digging into his back, arm burning bloody murder. The light swept by again, and in its blaze he saw a second figure motioning forward. Hand shaking, he fired at it once, twice, three times.

Obviously hit, the man pivoted, thrown backwards by the force of a round hitting his shoulder. Odd, though Greg Muller. It’s just a pistol.

Clickclickclick. Three round burst, and he couldn’t breath. He died there, blood filling his lungs. It hurt to die. It hurt a lot.

“And that’s how it’s done,” the technician said. “Greg Muller has died fifty-three times so far. His behavior hasn’t been modified very much, but if you watch some of the output graphs, his emotive responses to stimuli have changed quite a bit in some areas.”
“What now?” the student asked, laying his pen in the spine of a notebook.
The technician shrugged. “We boot him up again, and he gets killed again, and I do a crossword puzzle.”
Frowing, the student said, “Aren’t you supposed to teach me something?”
“Yeah, sure. Can you read a graph?”
“I’ve read the textbook, if that’s what you mean.”
“Great - so now you’ve learned something.” He pulled a pencil from his breast pocket. “First, you don’t need me to teach you what you already know, and second, I like games that involve paper, a pencil, and four letters that mean ‘leave me alone’. Any guesses?”
“Look, at least show me how to fix some of the programming parameters - I mean the stopping power of a handgun -”
“I don’t care about the programming parameters, and if you do, go read the textbook, for crying out loud.”
The student scowled. “Maybe you should care,” he said.
“Make me.”
A pistol in the kid’s hand. “Alright,” he said, and fired three rounds into the other man’s chest.
He died, then, his blood filling his lungs. It hurt to die. It hurt a lot

“Think he’ll ever learn?”
“Dunno. He’s a tough nut. Maybe that bad egg we’re always talking about.”
“And lazy. Look, Josh, go home. We can pick this up tomorrow.”
Josh settled back in his chair. “We’re just getting started, Dr Cohen, we can’t give up now!”
“We can, and we will,” Cohen said, pointing at the door. “That way. Your wife is going to leave you if you keep this up.”
“Guess a few hours of sleep won’t hurt our precious technician.” He shuffled some papers together, grinning. “Won’t hurt me, either.”

He hefted the gun in his left hand. It felt solid, re-assuring as always. A thing of power, a thing of control, and wrapping his fingers around the grip gave him the rush of adrenaline he wanted. But it felt wrong all of the sudden, like a punch to the gut. Something very bad was in that warehouse, something about to go awry. Panic, then. He tossed the gun aside, running as fast as he could. It felt good to run, strangely. It felt free.

“And that’s how it’s done,” the technician said. “Greg Muller has died sixty-one times, and that’s a wrap!”
“What now?” the student asked, laying his pen in the spine of a notebook.
The technician shrugged. “We boot him up again, and he runs away again, and I get a sparkly new badge on my boy scout sash.”
Frowing, the student said, “Aren’t you supposed to teach me something?”
“Yeah, sure. Can you read a graph?”
“Well, then, let’s compare his first reading with this one, and maybe one day you’ll figure out how to condition your barber to hate you less.”
“My barber?”
“Have you seen your hair?”

“That was… easy,” Josh said, frowning. “Do you think he’s figured out it’s a sim or something?”
Cohon shook his head. “No neural feedback, no leakage, no nothing.”
“Mind if I check the figures one more time?”
“Josh - go home, man. Your wife is going to leave you if you keep this up?”
“You don’t mind?” he asked. “I mean, checking the pattern scan and the -”
Cutting him off, Cohen said, “Not a bit. And your son has a soccer game. Don’t forget it.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“I know a lot of things.” He smiled, clapping Josh on the shoulder. “Go enjoy yourself.”
“Guess a good soccer game never killed anyone,” Josh said. He shuffled some papers together and stood to leave.
Dr Cohen nodded, satisfied, as Josh left. “And they say they never get anywhere,” he said. He spoke the password, and the neural connection severed. He opened his eyes.

“They called him Alexander the Great,” I told them, “because he did something amazing - he conquered most of the known world.”
“Yeah, and he died when he was, like, thirty.” My friend Trey is sucking down a Guinness. He’s possibly the most laid-back person I’ve ever met, and also quite possibly the best friend I’ve ever had.
“And history remembers him,” I reply. I take a sip of scotch and lean forward. And there it is, me leaning forward, Trey leaning back. I can’t really say much more: we’re microcosms of our personalities.
The conversation turns on its heel, quickly. We’re quoting some movie Jess thinks is the best thing ever put to film, but I’m not really thinking about what they’re laughing about. I’m thinking about running, running faster, running further, pushing myself until it hurts. I do it, sometimes, just to prove that I can. Others, I hate myself for feeling too lazy to hit the pavement.

I wake up early the next day, put on my suit and go to work. Traffic is horrible, worse than usual. Some idiot’s car is stuck in the left lane, engine smoking. He’s standing there looking at it, on his cell phone, laughing into its tiny microphone. He’s an idiot, clearly; nobody else is giggling over his shitty car.
When I get to the office, my case load seems to have reproduced during the night, spawning little stacks of paper. I boot up the computer, check my watch. It’s seven AM. I should have been here a half hour ago.
Truth be told, I don’t really mind the piled sheets in front of me: I like working hard. I feel like someone with an axe, splitting wood until my bicepts ache from the strain of it, but the sheen of sweat on my forehead is proof that I’ve done something. I attack my first case of the morning like it’s breakfast. I rarely eat breakfast.

Noon rolls around in what seems like a blink of an eye; I’ve covered three quarters of my cases. I feel like a runner again, pushing myself. In the frenzied moment dodging between pen and keyboard I’m perfect. I lift a foot from the pavement and pound another one down. I leave ink on pages like dust and footprints.

My boss calls me into her office just before I go off to get something to eat; I’d like to refuse, but I can live without food for a few more minutes. She talks for a half hour about getting me an assistant, how I could improve my department, how we should download my work onto other people. I feel important. The plan isn’t a good one: sometimes it drives me insane to watch other people fumble over work like words they can’t quite pronounce. Watching, I pronounce them in my head. I am perfect here, alive, the sheen of sweat on my forehead proof that I’ve gotten somewhere.

I take lunch, stopping to buy a coke and a sandwich. Strange how it doesn’t really matter what I eat: eating is an means to an end for me. It’s fuel, something to burn. I barely taste the rye. I guzzle the coke, waiting for the buzz. Relaxing there, I’m not relaxed as much as in neutral, waiting to rev up again, waiting to hit the pedals. It hits me there.

Where am I, really? I went to school for this, came out top of my class, determined to win the awards. The dean gave me a piece of paper that told me I was on his honor list, and in that moment all the sweat and blood felt worth it. Money can’t buy those sorts of things. Hard work, and only hard work can. I got a good job - not the best job in the world, but a good one nonetheless, a place I can shine, stand above the crowd.

But here I am, an insurance cleark: I remember aiming to be an adjuster. Do it? Sure, I could. It would take some study, a few years maybe, but I could do it and become an amazing adjuster. Helping people, juggling the figures, making things work. I’ll probably still do it after I’ve saved up enough money to pay for the schooling upfront. It would be better, wouldn’t it? Somewhere I could shine, stand above the crowd.

I get back to work. I wash the thought out of my head. The here is here and the now is now, and I hover around them like an electron, buzzing, placeless. By the end of the day - by the end of my day - I’ve gotten rid of my entire caseload. My department is the only one current, thanks to me. I reach into my drawer, lift my keys from their slot. They jangle against eachother as I leave the office, open the door and escape its squareness into the great outdoors. Sunshine on my face, and soon the heat of my car. I flip the air conditioning on as I coast down the highway toward home.

I undo both locks and step into my house, car safely in the garage. Flipping on the lights, I notice the walls again. Glad I painted them that shade of burnished red. They’re comfortable, usual, always there. I pour myself a scotch, throw some ice into the liquid. It plunks against the bottom of the glass.

Outside, Jeremy is sitting on his porch, smoking a cigarette, grinning about something. He’s a garbage collector, although I suppose he’d call himself a waste disposal technicial, probably laughing at the irony of such a long title for such a simple job. His imaginary jocularity is catching. I grin with him - or maybe at him. His wife brings him a beer and sits down beside him. She’s reading her Bible. Jeremy puts out his cigarette, notices me, and waves. I wave back.

I notice my sister’s note on the table. “Going out with Steve… be back at ten.” It’s her messy scrawl. The irony of siblings is how different they can be. While I read books racecar style, she doesn’t like books much. I suspect she can’t read that well, although she’ll never admit it. She certainly can’t write; my writing is precise, neat, ordered. It’s a point of pride for me.

Television. I flip it on, the news at seven flickering across the screen. A train has derailed close to Vaughn. I imagine being assigned to that case. Dealing with newly-minted widows who can still see green through a haze of crocidile tears. But then, I’m somewhat jaded about people.

I can’t sit there long. Run. I’ve got to run. I’m sitting on the porch, slipping on my shoes when I glance down at my finger. A ring glints there, but I ignore it long enough to finish the laces and tie them neatly.

I get back, the sheen of sweat on my forehead proof that I’ve pushed a limit. Ready for bed.

The phone rings, and I pick it up. Trey. “Wanna come over and watch the game?” he asks. His house is five minute from mine. I had forgotten the football game was on.
“I’m a bit tired,” I say, looking at my watch. “How about this weekend?”
“Sure thing, man,” he tells me. “Besides, Laura wants me to paint the kitchen anyways.”
I laugh. “You want me over just to watch the game, eh?”
“Yeah,” Trey tells me, and I can hear a grin in his voice. “Definitely wouldn’t want to put off painting for another day.”

I lie in bed for a while, unable to sleep, until the moon breaks through the few clouds overhead. A soft reflection of light off my finger. The ring again. Should take it off. Never do.

I dream of being in love, that night. I wake up, sweat on my forehead. Stumbling to the mirror, I shave, half-blind still. It’s six, but I push myself awake: I am getting somewhere, doing something, filling the time with more than trivialities. I am no longer trapped. I am no longer frightened. I’m going somewhere.

The door slams behind me, and I realize I’ve forgotten breakfast again. The ring on my finger catches one of my keys as I reach into my pocket. The ring’s too big for my finger, now. I should really take it off.

I never do.

I am going to die tonight. Maybe it’s completely irrational to say something like that based on a feeling alone, but there you have it. The feeling came like a knot in my stomach, somewhere inbetween 106th Street and somewhere in Manhattan. I can’t quite remember where I got off the subway and back on again. I can’t even remember how many times I did it, north and then south, north and then south - too many times to count, probably.

The odd thing is what I’m thinking about. It should be a big thing, dying. Maybe it will be. Maybe it’ll be like a last gasp before being swallowed into somewhere wholly different. Maybe I won’t even remember any of this bucking of trains and opening of doors.

There’s music playing in Times Square: it’s Chuck, a busker always eery under the flash and glimmer above him. He’s got his trumpet this time, playing a tuneless bit of jazz, music that doesn’t really make any sense. But then, neither did any of this; a life so short and an eternity so long.

I still smelled her on my fingers. I smiled at the thought. How would it hit her after all this time? She’s probably sitting in some apartment in the Bronx painting like she always wanted. Or writing. She wrote me a poem once, and I loved it despite its flaws, or more better, for its flaws. I always find it so hard to love things that seem perfect. They’re too abstract. I prefer concrete things.

My parents. Will they miss me? I suppose. But it’s odd how things tend to go on after like time didn’t just rest in the crook of a story’s arm and reverse entirely, like they barely even happened at all. The events shape us and form us, I suppose, but we go on being shaped and formed: we never stay the same.

I wanted to, once. I was only fifteen, granted, but I thought that I’d stay in that clear time when everything was right, and I though I’d stay there forever. A year later, I was a different person, and though the death remains in the back of my head, I barely ever think of it, to tell the truth. It became part of me, some, but mostly passed through me and turned into a past I seldom revisit.

Didn’t see that one coming. Nope, but then I though everyone lived forever. That was being young. All that aside, I am going to die tonight. I know it. Nothing I do will stop it.

I still smelled her on my fingers, still heard the jazz, still bathed in the electronic ether above.

Of course, I didn’t see that car coming either.

This is a work of fiction, just so you know.

When do you stop?

It’s always a good question, and one I don’t often enough ask myself. When to give up, to let go, to move on, to do all those things. And it’s not just girls either, it’s cars, loved ones, jobs, habits, lifes lived, and places inhabited. It’s a whole lot of things. I’ll be honest with you: I don’t do any of these things very often. Sometimes I call it “liking what I have”, and sometimes I’m a little more transparent and call it “being afraid to move”.

Yesterday that all ended. I walked into my boss’s office unannounced and told him how deeply dissatisfied I was with my job. He looked at me blankly, still holding his pen in midstroke as if wondering where this was all coming from. He asked me a few questions, but it became obvious quickly that I wasn’t gunning for a raise or trying to weasel out a better benefits package. Leaving? Yep, leaving. And that was that.

I sold my car to my neighbor for a couple hundred dollars knowing it would probably end up chopped for parts or something. He towed it away the next morning before I woke. Signing the papers, I stood in the empty space in my driveway as a few neighboorhood children looked on, realizing for the first time exactly what I was doing. Crazy. Well, that’s the new me. The insane guy. The wierdo from nowhere.

I packed up my stuff. Gave some of it away, sold a lot of it on Ebay. Slimmed down my earthly posessions to a few thousand Ogg files and some clothes. Suprising how much money a guy can spend of stuff and end up holding two grand in his hand going “Oh, wow, I’ve wasted my life.”

That was it. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone, not even the girl. An airline ticket and three hours of waiting and I would be gone. But she knew - she did. She had to understand that I would leave eventually. You have to scratch the itch sometime.

But maybe I’ll come back. Hey, you never know - I do things like that. Disappear. Come back again. She’d approve - God knows the countless times she’s vanished only to be just around the corner when I went looking. But this isn’t a movie. She’s not waiting for me at the airport, nor is she rushing up to kiss me, tell me to stay. She probably thinks she’ll see me on Saturday. She’s probably reading right now, or emailing me or something.

I’ll check, on the plane. I’ll email her back and tell her all things I could never say close up. Hi. I love you. I’ve waited for you. I got sick of it the other day, and I’m leaving for a while. Maybe forever. I love you. I’ll sign my name and that will be that.

I hear the boarding call. Suddenly it all come rushing in on me, the enormity of what I’m doing, like ears popping as a plane ascends. How crazy this must look, and how much I’d like to kiss her one more time. Push the thought aside.

Getting on the plane, I look at all the unfamiliar faces and know that wherever I go it’ll always be like this: people I barely know except as nearby faces. But then, the plane begins taxiing. Then I realize the knot just under my heart has unravelled and I feel fine. I’m getting somewhere, I think, even if I don’t know exactly where I’m going.