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It appears the lines havehave rottedrotted through.through. werewere nevernever maintainedmaintained inin thethe firstfirst placeplace Have you considered that this is your fault?
Maybe it was lost the moment you were foolish enough to imagine it.
Do not go looking for it.Do not go looking for it. YouYou won’twon’t findfind it.it. Go searching. I dare you.Go searching. I dare you. II hopehope itit hurts.hurts.
Have you considered just pretendingpretending itit nevernever existedexisted inin thethe firstfirst place?place? leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave
You can sit in this doctor'sdoctor's officeoffice deathdeath traptrap as long as you want, but we already know the truth. You think she is behind that big red door?
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
ERROR:ERROR: requested documentdocument garbagegarbage not in system.
It appears the lines havehave rottedrotted through.through. werewere nevernever maintainedmaintained inin thethe firstfirst placeplace Have you considered that this is your fault?
Maybe it was lost the moment you were foolish enough to imagine it.
Do not go looking for it.Do not go looking for it. YouYou won’twon’t findfind it.it. Go searching. I dare you.Go searching. I dare you. II hopehope itit hurts.hurts.
Have you considered just pretendingpretending itit nevernever existedexisted inin thethe firstfirst place?place? leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave leaveleave
You can sit in this doctor'sdoctor's officeoffice deathdeath traptrap as long as you want, but we already know the truth. You think she is behind that big red door?
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
She is already lost.She is already lost.
LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR
It All Falls Down
The bridges in Eclipsium barely stand any more. With every creak of wood, you wonder if the platform below your feet will fall. The great marvels of society and industry, towers of wood and metal, are collapsing. But it is the only way you feel you can move forward. The only way anything can get done. The only way you can get back to that doctor's office and help her.
So you walk.
The path knows only treachery, and no one can say for sure when it will give out.
The bridges of my country barely stand anymore. Long winding roads and towering utility lines built on genocide and racism, perhaps they crumble under the weight of their shame. I know as I navigate my day to day, each pothole and brownout is only a small symptom of a much larger systemic collapse. Every morning I wonder if it will be my last to live in any relative comfort. Every day I wonder how long I'll have access to basic medical care The treachery is all around me in this United States of Snitches, where the simple act of sharing food with homeless people is increasingly criminalized. But I move forward anyway. I believe it is all I can do.
The data you collected for that airline app is now being fed to the government, who are disappearing people of color. Your boss uses the data you collect to stalk teenagers. You get a nice fooseball table in the break room though.
You should have known this would happen.
The university police brutalized another student yesterday. The board of regents want to help build nuclear bombs. The school’s multi-billion dollar endowment continues to invest military surveillance, weapons, and genocide. You get good health insurance though.
You should have known this would happen.
Almost a fifth of your students don’t have regular access to food. The school board is embezzling money. The feds are investigating you, not for the embezzling, but because you let a trans teen be themselves. You occasionally connect with a student about a book though.
You should have known this would happen.
The Hunger
After the river fills with blood, the fish rain from the sky, and the village burns the one person who helped you at the stake, you turn to the castle in the distance. Lines of pigs on hooks feed into the mega-structure to be processed. Smoke stacks, metal machinery, and coal-fire engines reek of hyper-efficient, inhuman industry. At the end of the line, the pigs are fed into a massive, eternally hungry maw.
You dive headfirst into the gaping, ravenous hole and steal its power. Exiting the structure, you return to face the black hole that follows you, certain your this power will save her.
When you hold your newfound privelege up to the thing that haunts you most, you will not return to the doctor's office. You will not bring her back from behind that big red door.
All you do is suck the ocean dry.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about what I would do with immense amounts of power. Laying awake at night, I think of all the things I could do with just a little more money and a little more schmoozing with the right powerful assholes. The satisfaction of cleverness flows through me in my worst moments, believing I can capitalism my way into cooperative housing, abundant food, and equitable education.
But to steal power from within a broken system requires investing in and providing credibility to that system. I tried for the longest time to find the “less bad” jobs that I could “trick” into doing good. I ended up contributing to institutions that would build mass surveillance systems, make lucrative deals with warmongers, and brutalize students in the name of genocide. I saw them turn the rivers to blood and thought myself above it. Then I found myself sucking the ocean dry.
I may have a path forward for you. What will you give?
Connecting in Precarity
What actually happens in Eclipsium? Do you travel through underground tunnels? Do you fight a giant snake? Do you travel to space? What can you know when everything is constantly shifting around you?
Open the Door?
The constants.
The one constant.
The one thing you know is that you are not there for yourself: you are waiting for someone else. She lent you what you needed to escape the village. She created a portal out of the underground. She opened the door that released you from the submarine. The pigs, the deer, the cat: in your final, dire moments against the snake, they built you a way back to that red door. Back to her.
Our present time is one of an ever-shifting nightmare. The horrors have simultaneously existed for centuries and have only just begun to wreak havoc. Yet every time a bridge collapses, we find our neighbors emerging from the dust and wreckage. They may not be able to build the bridge back up, but they can help us wade across the river.
The state comes to take our friends away. We give people new paths to and from work, routing them around the danger. Our friends are arrested at a protest. We send them letters, fill their commissary accounts, and bang drums outside the prisons to let them know they are never alone. Our friends sacrifice their bodies and souls for labor only to be unable to afford rent. We drive them to their doctor's appointments and help navigate the bureacratic maze of workers comp. We build meal trains to help them recover from their injuries. We throw them a rent party and dance joyously knowing, if only for another month, they will have a roof over their head.
You sit in the doctor’s office and stare. When she comes back through that red door, you cannot know what news she will have for you. But you will be there for her. That is what matters.