So. I’ve had a near-death experience lately. I’m supposed to take a long hard look into myself now, reconsider my big choices, maybe reconcile with that brother of mine, those things. Instead I can’t stop feeling curious about “the missing reel”. You see: moments before your death, you are supposed to see your whole life in pictures. I love pictures, and I love seeing myself in pictures! And I was so excited about what soundtrack they’d choose for that montage sequence depicting my Baruchlife. I’d have a few obvious suggestions for songs that seem central to me over varying ages, but then again they could surprise me with the perfect hymn that I haven’t even heard yet. On the other hand, what scenes would they use for the editing? Thinking about this, I started to consider the missing reel.
You’ve heard the comparisons between consciousness and a film-reel. You’ve also heard what happens when you indulge yourself into a too heavy dose of alcoholic substances: the famous white-out, the memory-lapse, the glorious “oh, is that supposed to be me on those pictures?? How did I even get there??”
For the sake of my point, let’s consider these moments as a film tear of your consciousness – meters and meters of reel – lost to the dead of night. Have you ever wondered what’s going to happen to those cut-out clips?
Let’s imagine I’ve met “this guy”. Doesn’t matter if this happened for real, we’re deep into hypothesis anyway. So, he told me that he knows a guy who knew a guy that calls himself ‘the reel collector’. That’s the dude who collects all the reel material that’s been cut out, puts a file number on it and stores it away in a big storeroom. Yeah. And at the end of your days, what you are gonna see when the soundtrack starts, that’s nothing but this guy’s inapprehensible masterpiece. Not a slideshow of your graduation day or your first girlfriend’s first kiss… Those kind of things you remember all too well yourself… But a hours-long track of all the missing reel material that blacked itself out of your memory, the rightfully forgotten moments of utmost drunkenness, nonstop, scene after scene of “oh shiiiiiiiiit….!” The outtakes of one miserable life, saved into one final ‘cutscene’! That term makes so much sense, if you think about it: Those are really just pre-rendered visuals to be watched. Nothing much that can be influenced anymore, once the cutting started.
I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean: It’s a really scary thought though, because, let’s be honest, it’s probably gonna be really embarrassing, and that’s the last memory you’re going to experience of yourself. On to a happy afterlife, dude! On the other hand, you won’t see anything about work, distress, early morning shifts or awkward succumbing to self-doubts: Just more-or-less happy people singing and dancing and feeling at the height of their times, enlightenment 40 seconds per minute, and every time it ends with you going (or falling) to sleep. How… positively optimistic!
If you can remember it, it might as well be forgotten.
I think I could take comfort in the idea of the archive: Nothing’s truly lost. Because there’s that guy. The true story about myself is somewhere on that missing reel, filed away in the big shelf: The grand decisions, the life-changing oaths, the immortal fraternizations, the great love of your life, all the glorious moments. All forgotten. But all but forgotten.
Because of that guy.
I know this could come off as a romanticisation of alcoholism.
But seriously!
On that tapes, too: No fiction!
Baruch Caan
Well, that was unpleasant.
I’ve been badly cut off from all FictionNet access – AGAIN – for such a long time now. And to what gain? I’ve been hunting wascally wabbits down that hole… And meanwhile, Baruch has resurfaced. Only now, I’ve lost quite a bit of interest in my banter here. Baruch, Baruch, Baruch… poor man. I was hoodwinked with you. It seems like you’re still in the dark – or have you been playing the long game all along, with your pseudo-philosophical meanderings on magique and identity and all that treasonous terror? No. Nobody knows that much and remains as vulnerable as you.
So much knowledge, so much information coming together… reports of a large avivessel crash near the border – you all KNOW which border I’m talking about, if you know anything; a DUF vessel, almost certainly the same as the fast response we knew about from the outset, flies a successful rescue mission and crows about saving humans from the unhuman threat, as predicted; rumors of rival factions meeting during said rescue mission, broadcast by scared survivors. A green shapeshifter, a powerful mage in a glinting metal mask – and a loud, loud fight. Baruch in the middle of all of this, of course.
But this is just the puppet game that distracts us. More is yet to come. A certain foreign power seems to have a great interest in certain DUF elements. More to the point, these seem to be very clandestine – it took me a hell of a lot of digging to find anything at all, and the only reason I’m still safe to do so is that I’m on the move. Special agents on the move, and spies have been utilizing their contacts. Always good to keep many sources – that way you notice the tremors when people start moving. It looks like resistance to the DUF might be building up from the inside and out.
As the pressure grows, cracks appear. I’ve been working on what issued forth from one of those cracks – a juicy little source, almost dry now, unfortunately. I hate it when they run out, but I don’t really like pressing them, either. Maybe, when I have a little more time, I’ll build a modified mask or two – that’s always easier.
Baruch, have you perchance looked up at the sky recently? I think not. Too much navel-gazing. If you had, you would have noticed that it’s all but blotted out by the kingmakers and magistrates on all side. You can’t even see your strings, can you? It’s only the watcher from outside who sees the game entire. Even so, some of the players are still in shadow and the end yet remains unclear.
It’s not about Catherineborough, or not only. So the Guilds are there and their speakers have mostly returned, but at the same time certain partygoers seem to have seen a drunk green shapeshifter (or at least his known cover identity) in Lawport – a notorious den for espionage. Who are these people and what are they doing here? They’re not DUF, that much is clear – so that makes more than a few factions competing. There’s still rumours about some unidentified agents moving in the wilderness around Lawport. Meanwhile, the DUF whittles away at their own little mages-in-training, finally confessing how much they want their own magique. Not much loss there after the Bloody Reminenscence.
And the fact that I remain free and capable of writing tells us something, as well. I’m not playing a perfect game, so either the DUF isn’t, either, or some elements within it don’t mind it if the internal schism gets talked about. Or my shield of anonymity protects me yet – but somehow I doubt it. But let them come, I’ve taken years to prepare.
I’m not at the core yet. But I’ll get there soon enough.