There is a pause. She ashes her cigarette. It falls on me. It seems like the birds have stopped too.

I am below everything.

there's probably something in that, but I don't feel like thinking about it too much yet.

Rain, starting

"Anyway, you're you. I mean, look at you!" she says. "You could get with anyone, anyone in the street. Really."

something for the future. something to look at when this is more. I've been thinking about... whatever

13, H, grate

the textwall is as much for me as it is for you

somewhere between instagram and chatgpt

to work in time to get to the timeless, perfection thru chaos

The bird dives back into the tree. It shakes, some leaves fall.

Her English is poor but she manages a brief introduction before getting to the point. She asks if she can touch his face. She's already reaching out and gesturing at it. Koreans are way too polite, he's just laughing awkwardly. I put my hand kind of between them and wave it to try and indicate no to her. I'm still in fucking mime mode. I say no, but it's not really to her, or to him, just no, in general. This is all too weird. Dejected, she departs with a comment about having never seen someone like him before.

As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.

I catch him on his way to the bar, telling him about this old racist failed actor that I'm avoiding. That I'm failing to confront. I get the sense he's avoiding people too. We get our drinks and find a corner. We chat for a bit. He's managing just fine.

The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."

I'm getting bored and he can tell, so he shifts the topic towards me. He tells me he'd spotted me chatting to a girl earlier, a black girl, and asks what I thought of her, if I liked her. I mimed affirmatively.

or never left

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:31:03

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:18:46

Thank you for telling me that I'm failing to see how I'm reproducing the dynamics I'm trying to critique by only describing my Korean colleague / fresh meat and the black girl in relation to others and myself.

Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.

i got bored though because i knew all of the different arrangements of it. i probably needed to stick at it longer to get it dense enough to feel navigable in a way that was engaging to me

plato

A procession forms behind the French Raj and his fireworks bearer as they head out the door. I've lost my Korean colleague / fresh meat in the chaos. I'm sure he'll be able to fend for himself. They have mandatory military service in Korea.

mazelike/rhizomatic/immanent/emergent are not antithetical to a transcendent real but its very manifestation

But seriously, thank you, Jack, for telling me that I could submit this to a high-level literary magazine or creative nonfiction outlet with some minor tweaks. I don't think I will do that.