<span>&</span> i understand when people say you don’t miss what you don’t know, they mean [(transition: "dissolve")+(click-append: " they mean ")[there is no environmentally safe way to remember.](stop:)]
- OJO TAIYE, FROM “[[SURVEILLANCE CAMERA->college]]”You are already in the desk chair. Blue light cascades across your fingers, half-poised on the keyboard. Okay. Not asleep. You must have just zoned out for a second. Happens sometimes. Late nights, lots of work, and it’s whatever. You scrub at your eyes for a second, blinking away the exhaustion.
The pale numbers in the corner of the screen are a time. You blink a few more times. Late. Of course.
> (link: "it’s just fine take a breath")[oh fuck it’s not fine]
> why why why did you sign up for an 8 am class
> hey quick q what the fuck were you doing on the computer
(click-replace: "hey quick q what the fuck were you doing on the computer")[i was](click-replace: "i was")[(link-goto: "actually that's a good fucking question", "computer")]
(click-replace: "why why why did you sign up for an 8 am class")[being fucked up doesn’t equal time management]
(click-replace: "being fucked up doesn’t equal time management")[i just have a hard time with time okay??]You're burning a [[CD->cd]], apparently. That isn't really a thing you do anymore unless you've been messing around with someone's personal data, and you haven't had the energy to do that or anything in a few weeks. For a moment you push at your eyelids as if trying to make the pressure go elsewhere, there you go, push push push and feel the weird consistency of the eyes and how sometimes when people look at you you want to just jab your thumbs in and make them pop.
(click-append: " make them pop")[ (ow ow ow okay too much)]
CD's done burning. You check your recycle bin.
There's a folder for (cycling-link: "an NYU student you've never met with glasses and braces", "some rich guy in a suit who looks like the La Croix version of Patrick Batmean", "a girl with long brown hair and a flatness in her eyes", "who gives a shit, honestly").
> [[hey genius get to class can't you read numbers->class]]
> [[that's it?->investigate]]You've always liked CDs. As someone who's been around hackers, and who <i>is</i> a hacker, raw data never feels safe. All you use them for is some physical storage of people that interest you. Sometimes you like to call it a graveyard, you know, like -- look at all the skeletons in my closet. [[No one else seems to find it funny.->computer]]<h1>+HAMLET
MACHINE</h1>
> [[new session->quote]]
> [[readme.txt]]
> <a target="_parent" href="http://psychexch.tumblr.com">back</a>
> <a target="_parent" href="http://psychexch.tumblr.com/abt.">skip</a>this text adventure will take approximately 15 minutes to play through in its entirety. there are few branching narratives, but plenty of text, so you shouldn’t really need to replay it to absorb information. if you do want to for some reason, or if you just enjoy it, please open it in a new tab (tumblr’s iframe properties keep this from being refreshed when you refresh the tab, so a whole new tab is required. sorry!).
thanks to twine’s wonderful free platform, and to porpentine for some of the most inventive twine games out there.
trigger warnings: abuse, dysphoria, dissociative identity disorder, mentions of drug use.
> [[back->intro]]
Ughhh okay fine fine fine fuck
You don't go often anyway because it's just, hey, sit there and itch and itch and itch in your body for one to three hours while some old guy stands up there. Half of the time you're hungover on something too and you've got your arms clasped around your body like you're trying to keep it from folding in half and hearing all your bones crack and break but hey if NYU wants to cover it then who gives a shit.
It's for the piece of paper. It's not like [[Angela]] who's going to be in debt until she's in her sixties because no one gets to be happy in a place like this, apparently, meaning Under Capitalism which feels like a place (specifically that tundra base in <i>The Thing</i> so everyone thinks everyone else is about to eat them).
You're lucky. You should feel lucky.
> [[well don't go that far.->dis1]]
> AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW
(click-replace: "AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW")[sorry things get weird in here sometimes](click-replace: "sorry things get weird in here sometimes")[sometimes i think my brain is like a big house and things come out of the rafters. does that make sense?](click-replace: "sometimes i think my brain is like a big house and things come out of the rafters. does that make sense?")[(link-goto: "let's just get through this", "dis1")]You already know what's on the CD. It's the same shit that's on the other CDs: bank account and credit card information, emails, business records, medical records, porn preferences.
Someone must've caught your attention last night while scrolling through Twitter or some shit like that. It's whatever. It's not like you did anything with it. That's the whole point. You never know what to do about it, so you just store up the data on a CD labeled with some album you like or that you think fits them, and you move on.
Simple.
> [[is it that simple?->dis1]]How long has it been since you've talked to Angela?
A week, right? No. Two weeks?
... A month?
Feels like you're getting bigger holes in your brain all the time, all this empty space you can't account for. You're just busy with work. It takes up so much time. [[So much you.->class]]Hey new tactic here how about we
(click-append: "about we")[
just don't]
(click-append: "just don't")[
fucking think]
(click-append: "fucking think")[
about it!!!!]
(click-append: "about it!!!!")[
Every time I think about shit like this I think I'm going crazy and](click-replace: "Every time I think about shit like this I think I'm going crazy and")[you know the last person I told about something like this was mom and](click-replace: "you know the last person I told about something like this was mom and")[well](click-replace: "well")[you remember](click-append: "you remember")[
right?](click-append: "right?")[
or was it her](click-append: "or was it her")[
[[at all?->memory]]]It's snowing. There is a snowman named Kevin McAllister in the front yard. You are holding a camera. Shutter. Shutter. Shutter.
(Shut --)
The monster is in the doorway.
<box><div>I’M GOOD HAMLET GI’ME A CAUSE FOR GRIEF
AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW</div></box>
You wake up in October 1994(click-replace: "in October 1994")[in April 2008](click-replace: "in April 2008")[in a month in a year [[but it doesn't matter->job]]].It doesn't matter. Nothing matters to anyone. You try to make it matter and it falls apart, so here you are, working your pentesting job, breaking things again and again until they can be built better. The problem is that nothing is good enough for you. People keep getting angrier and angrier and all you can do is shrug and tell them to make it better make it better make it you-proof.
It's not your fault that your boss insists everyone stay as long as you do. You told him to let everyone else go to their Memorial Day barbecues and he insisted because fuck everyone else even though it's your sorry ass that doesn't have a barbecue to go to.
Hugo (says his lanyard -- come on you don't know anyone here really) says there's something fucked up in the server room.
> (link: "how did they fuck up the server room")[apparently that's too aggressive]
> (link: "AAAAAAAAA")[screaming into your desk is definitely breaking company protocol]
> [[cool let me go beat my head against a server until i die->room]]<span>...</span> his commitment to vengeance seems to require an absolute identity... of the standard dramatic type drawn from contemporary Elizabethan dramatic literature -- [(transition: "dissolve")+(click-append: "from contemporary Elizabethan dramatic literature -- ")[ the revenger.](stop:)]
- MATTHEW PROSER, FROM “[[MADNESS, REVENGE, AND THE METAPHOR OF THE THEATER IN SHAKESPEARE'S <i>HAMLET</i> AND PIRANDELLO'S <i>HENRY IV</I>->server]]”They're not bad people really they're just tired and fed up and annoyed which is why you don't think about how the server room is built until the lock clicks shut.
It takes a second for the realization to kick in. Then you do the only thing you can think of which is hit the door(click-replace:"hit the door")[kick a server](click-replace:"kick a server")[yell for help](click-replace:"yell for help")[fucking give up].(click-append:" fucking give up.")[
Give up.
Do nothing. Like always. There you go. It's easy that way.
You (click-append: "worthless")[worthless worthless](click-append:"worthless worthless")[worthless worthless worthless] [[fucking coward.->choice]]]You don't get to talk to him this time. Sorry.
For this to happen, he has to be alone. But we can watch through the glass. Watch as he staggers around the room. Finds the vent. Sits down next to it, to the suffusion of cool air in the heat of the server room, the noise, the endless noise, and rips off the lanyard
<box><div>SHOULD I BECAUSE IT’S EXPECTED STICK A PIECE OF IRON INTO THE NEAREST FLESH OR THE NEXT-NEAREST HOLDING ME FAST BECAUSE THE WORLD SPINS AROUND LORD BREAK MY NECK FALLING FROM A BEERHALL BENCH</div></box>
rips his head from his shoulders a guillotined self or breaks his neck in the noose of our hands alas there he goes, gone, and in his place, for the first time, this new self, a new new self born, a new self for a new world, a self he can call rage and love in equal parts who turns to us audience and says
<box><div>[[SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THIS AGE OF HOPE->rot]]</div></box>This is a call for a formalization of the text. Up until this point there has been Hamlet alone. Now there is a Hamlet-actor, who is aware of his role and the nature of theater, and yet still Hamlet. Is this actor more or less Hamlet than Hamlet himself? Is there a difference at all? If two people are almost entirely identical and one is aware and one is unaware, does one carry more power(click-replace: "power")[control] in the relationship?
Let's say Hamlet is gone. Here we define gone as "absent from events". Let's say the Hamlet-actor is forgetful. Let's say that the world continues spinning despite any difference. If everyone Hamlet loves forgets the difference, then was there ever any difference at all?
> [[yes.->text]]
> [[no.->text]]
> [[you're being myopic.->text]]Let's say there was (link-show:"a daydream.", ?1) |1)[And for right now, let's say it's (link-show:"just us in it.", ?2)] |2)[Let's say I built it for you. You know the story about the medical gloves. About how the purest thing is being able to (link-show:"love someone to the point of invention.", ?3)] |3)[And I made this for you.
(link-show:"Here. I'm going to make everything for you.", ?4)]
|4)[<box><div>BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU BE (link-show:"IN THIS STORY.", ?5)
|5)[(AT LEAST
[[NOT YET->story]])]</div></box>]
You wake up in the hospital.
And it's not what you remember. And you're alive. And the light is filtering yellow-tinged through the blinds. And you're alive. And a tear crawls hot and wet down your cheek. And you're alive. And you think that your skull should be bleeding but it's not. And you're alive. And you think that you should know something but you don't. And you're alive. And this is how it's going to keep going. Until it doesn't. [[That used to scare you.->scare]]
(click-replace: "And it's not what you remember.")[ ]
(click-replace: "And the light is filtering yellow-tinged through the blinds.")[ ]
(click-replace: "And a tear crawls hot and wet down your cheek.")[ ]
(click-replace: "And you think that your skull should be bleeding but it's not.")[ ]
(click-replace: "And you think that you should know something but you don't.")[ ]Because (link-show:"<i>How did this come to be?</i>", ?1) |1)[is another way of asking, (link-show:"<i>Why did this happen?",?2)] |2)[which is another way of asking, <i>What do I do now?</i>][(transition: "dissolve")+(click-append: "What do I do now?")[
<i>What on earth do I do now?</i>](stop:)]
- ESME WEIJUN WANG, FROM [[<i>THE COLLECTED SCHIZOPHRENIAS</i>->after]]The problem with forgetting things for so long is that when you remember them, it recontextualizes everything.
THe problem with recontextualizing everything is what it sounds like: nothing feels the same. But once you get there, you can't stop remembering, which leads to new context, which leads to more memory. Do you understand? It never stops.
The problem with remembering is that once you start, you can't forget again.
I have no choice but to remember. I have no choice but to keep going. [[I have the choice to not have one.->end]]-- It's very nice to meet you, Elliot. (click-append: "It's very nice to meet you, Elliot.")[
-- It's... It's nice to meet you too.](click-append: "It's... It's nice to meet you too.")[
-- I'm sorry. It's just a little strange for me. I mean, I was working with you for over a year, and this is the first time I've met this part of you.](click-append: "I'm sorry. It's just a little strange for me. I mean, I was working with you for over a year, and this is the first time I've met this part of you.")[
-- It feels like the first time I've met me too, to be fair.](click-append: "It feels like the first time I've met me too, to be fair.")[
-- Then we're going to find out about you together. Is that okay?](click-append: "Then we're going to find out about you together. Is that okay?")[
-- I guess so.](click-append: "I guess so.")[
-- You guess? What're you worried about?](click-append: "You guess? What're you worried about?")[
-- I'm worried about how much I miss them. I didn't even really meet... him. The one you knew. But I still miss him.](click-append: "I'm worried about how much I miss them. I didn't even really meet... him. The one you knew. But I still miss him.")[
-- Are you worried that you're alone?](click-append: "Are you worried that you're alone?")[
-- I'm worried about how much he loved me.](click-append: "I'm worried about how much he loved me.")[
-- And why does that worry you?](click-append: "And why does that worry you?")[
-- ... Because I love him too. He scares me, [[and I still love him too.->next]]]If I stopped(click-append: "If I stopped")[
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe](click-append: "If I stopped and thought, maybe")[
the world
can't be saved,
the pain
was [[unbearable.->movie]]]Come on.
You have to let go too. All of us do, at least for a little while. You don't want to miss everything, right?
Don't you see? This was an introduction for him. For the rest of his life. This is a conclusion for us. For the pieces of him that are us.
Temporarily, anyway.
<a target="_parent" href="http://psychexch.tumblr.com/abt.">What I mean to say is that the movie's about to start.</a>