Shambal Brambel was part of the first group that arrived. The goal was terraforming and experimental neutronium injections to increase the moon’s gravity. He observed and was nominally a part of the quick rise and fall of a cobbled topography that at its peak consisted of pragmatically identical structures for housing, processing or atmosphere production. The so-called city was webbed with motorways. Vehicles of every sort streamed along them almost like fluid, casting whorls of grey waste in their wake.

The processing centers dappled the landscape, imbibing incoming material from other moons, coordinated within a space where administrators, like Shambal himself, were rooted to machines that stretched throughout the crust. He observed the decline until only he remained, still rooted yet connected to nothing, staring out at what once was.

My implants must be malfunctioning again. The ones that control subtlety of hearing and touch. I usually get them calibrated before each cycle, but immediately following the end of the last one, I ran into a clone of my old friend Acy from back in pre-school and primaries for the eighth colony in-vitros. Turns out this version of him is over on Nereid. Or in Nereid to be more specific. We got shitfaced on ostensible White Russians on the temp base. I dare not think too hard about what passes for “Kahlúa” in these parts.

Back to the implants, though. The whole of the greenhouse and its extensions oscillate in a way that transforms something I don’t quite understand into living matter. The machines crawling through brain dampen the effects of sonic attack emanating from below. The sinewy undulations of the structure plugged into what we call “the guttering orifice” are helices of melodies that ever repeat, stumbling drunkenly across the circle of minor thirds and major seconds. Fortunately, I have drugs that knock me out during off shifts. At times I even dream and am always taken by a cascade of diaphanous arpeggios that eject me far, far into and then beyond the Kuiper Belt.

My companion, or rather my ex-companion, had to be removed from the project on Larissa for attempts at sabotage. Most of him was unmade and joined the particulate matter flowing through ducts between algae farms. I maintained his skin to create crude, flappy percussion instruments. I spend some of my downtime practising them. In the flat space, they sound more like bangings on hard rubber than what they are supposed to be, but that may be the fault of the resonating chambers or the general lack of acoustic conductance within the tiny, atmosphered living chamber.

Unfortunately for me and for the project, the algae is failing. Despite the effort, most shielding from debris and radiation is useless. When the last farm is converted to waste, I’ll, too, be unmade. Perhaps the drums will remain to be discovered by another generation.

The structures that now adhere to an erstwhile rubble-mound were a dream I had epochs ago when I gazed from our station orbiting Neptune outside the Adams Ring with one eye closed like a cyclops through my telescope. If the rifts and crags are poems scrawled across the so-called surface of the moon, my greenhouses are diacritics and vowel marks that allow them to be deciphered. The sprawling atmosphere machinery is calligraphic accretion and wheezes rhythmically like the bellows of an accordion in time with a truncated metrical pattern.

As with the other inner moons, I ship the vegetable matter to Triton, vacuum packed on automated airless shuttles. I haven’t heard anything back for over eighty-six thousand passes around Neptune.

A slightly modified version of Thalassa sings in my ears via my filthy Tuxedo speakers that are devoid of bass response. Or practically devoid of bass response. I’m following, perhaps, and perhaps not, Christian’s need to “test” mixes on as many reproduction devices as “necessary”. Of course, this is just his excuse to remain in a state of sloth. One’s life of extreme lujos can’t be bothered to move from the bed or sofa to engage in unity with high fidelity headphones when one can simply play music through the speakers of one’s “device”. I am filled with rage at these antics! His death will be prolonged during centuries of torturous neural procedures. He’ll know the true Christian vision of the lake of fire. Fuck um.

The last few days, I’ve noted in myself a resurgence of Lakife-related activity. I’m certainly happy about it. Once upon a day which most likely was never a holiday in this or any other related political state, I found a list of sentences that were translation candidates for “fleshing out” a conlang. I realise that there is an arbitrariness to such lists, but upon finding it once again two or three days prior to today (a day that was also not likely a holiday in this or any related political state, or at least an any that are important to affairs in the “valid” universe), I’ve continued translation work, hoping to be persistent at at least one a day until they are exhausted.

One of the recent ones is

Tul tzuf tafju les liz topen tetyk soletiz jo miloka texotz li anjo ar misyt.

Though Lakife phrases are a bit more loose than their English counterparts, I’ve maintained a more or less consistent structure throughout the epochs.

Tul

The sentence begins with an adverb. Tul actually means low, but in this case, it could be interpreted as low-wardsor downwards. Perhaps of the lower portion. In some cases, I’ve prepended fe- to words to give them adverbial quality, but I’m questioning the decision if the meaning is clear. I think in this case it is.

tzuf tafju les liz topen

One of the original decisions concerning the language was to have closed prepositional phrases. That is, the phrases would have a pre- and postposition. In this case, tzuf and topen, the first of which means between or through or among. Topen is directional and means vector on its own. Tafju les liz is branches of tree (literally). Plurals are usually assumed (or not) according to context in Lakife. The whole phrase, then, gives the sense of movement through the branches of the trees. If you add the aforementioned tul, it’d be down through the branches of the trees.

This adverbial phrase comes first in the sentence. I attempt to always front-end such information. Why? I suppose it was an arbitrary decision which speaks deeply of my disturbed psychology. I want to know the context of a situation before the activity begins.

tetyk soletiz jo miloka

I’ve not invented a word for the “Sun”. It’s simply star (tetyk) our (soletiz). Works for me. I’ve taken a chunk of granite out of Toki Pona’s stone tablet in that I’d like the vocabulary to be minimal (for now). So if I don’t absolutely have to invent a word, I’ll use combinations instead. Were Lakife a “living” language, the expression tetyk soletiz would possibly contract to something more manageable throughout the epochs. Miloka is a continual form of to look. It’s also volitional, as opposed to miloku, which would be the more passive to see. The jo after tetyk soletiz could be placed after tetyk. It’s the ergative marker. Miloku means to look at. No following preposition (or postposition!) is needed.

texotz

Child or children. Again, explicit plurality is for the weak. There is no marker, but this is the absolutive case.

li an(jo) (ar) misyt.

Here’s a part of Lakife that I still am not completely certain about - subordinate clauses. This one is not so murky because it directly follows texotz. Li is the connector. Possibly, an is not necessary. It means “it” or “he” or “she” or “they” and refers to the child or children which is / are referenced immediately before. Misyt is the continual form of the verb to entertain. In a language such as Spanish, the verb would be reflexive, thus the clitics in parentheses. To say They are entertaining themselves, an would be in the ergative case and ar would indicate “reflexion”. This illustrates another ordering choice that I prefer for Lakife. Subject Object Verb. I don’t always hold to it, but ambiguity is removed because the ergative particle jo is placed after the subject.

The moon had been hollowed out for as long as anyone could remember by the time I’d arrived. What the mechanized diggers found during the process is still a mystery. We call it the pulsing mind of the moon. It throbs in regular time that has, as far as anyone knows, been consistent in interval to the microsecond. There are lengthy pauses, however, that spawn myriad conjectures. My theory is that the moon exists in a graduated, localized bubble perpendicular to the outside fourth dimension. The pauses are perceived proportionally to one’s distance from the central pulsing mind. For if one is close enough, no cessation occurs at all.

Originally the purpose was to experiment with zero gravity plant growth, but the resulting labyrinthine maze now only serves as a meditation point. We only maintain Sao as a point of rest and recreation as the organic life itself cannot be consumed. The regularity of the beats creates zen-like experiences for any who descend close to the pulsing mind. A few of the first died of thirst because they forgot where or even who they were. Since, alarms have been placed to revive those in a state of recreation so that, refreshed, they can return to the surface and then to their work on Neso or the inner moons.

A good deal of people I know or have known have Anxiety Hangovers. Or Anxiety Anticipations. Or even Anxiety Flashbacks. Or the horrifying Anxiety Nostalgia. Or combinations of them. The hangovers I can understand. They are a lesser form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And in that case, the flashbacks are related, and are also understandable. The worrisome part is the degree to which these flashbacks occur and how debilitating they are. None of the humans I’m referring to have been in a war or associated “level” of trauma. I realise that said “level” is relative. A human born and raised in a BOX who knows nothing else may receive its first anxious moment whilst crossing a busy street or peeling a banana, for example. This experience could scar them for life! For even three or for lives. Imagine it!

Perhaps I’m being callous, but in my experience, life is episode after episode containing multitudinous levels of coping mechanisms. One learns to observe, experience and detach oneself. There may be a genetic component to anxiety and if so, shame on those finicky genes mucking up various human existences. I personally believe, however, that the majority of anxiety and how it’s experienced and dealt with is an environmental issue. Our species, if nothing else, is adaptable. Just as one improves on a musical instrument or at mathematics or at worshipping goats, one can improve at moving that anxious blot in one’s head into a convenient mental bath of acid. Goodbye, anxiety!

Perhaps I’m being callous, and perhaps I was not as observant in the past as I am during this epoch of my existence, but what I term as Anxiety Nostalgia is a plague nowadays. I see, before my eyes, time and again, humans close to me experiencing “trauma” (it’s all relative, you know, especially for the BOX PEOPLE and their BANANA) and then re-experiencing it over and over again, sometimes in diminishing echoes and sometimes endlessly repeating full-force. And what pocks my patellas is that these humans seem to relish the experience. They go over said “trauma” again and again in their minds, with their voices and with gesticulating limbs as if retelling an amusing anecdote from their last banana peeling match, but with the anguish of anxiety plainly typewritten on their faces.

I highly doubt this behaviour is genetic. A deeper examination may call up perpetual exposure to sensationalist news and the truncated emotional depth of social media, all of which may contribute. But the seed is in BOXING during youth, metaphorically, of course. And, furthermore, BOXING during adolescence especially in cloistered peer groups or an isolation from cloistered peer groups that are perceived as favourable.

Perhaps I’m being callous because I offer no solution besides the omnipresent fuck um. I have felt like I needed to point out this modern human feature for some time, so there we go! When this concerns regard people close to me, I certainly have enough empathy to feel the echo of Anxiety Nostalgia and por supuesto it smarts, but I state again that I have no immediate solution.

In any case, the heat death of the universe is just around the corner. I have a couple of minutes left, so I’ll peel myself a banana.

Never mind that I must mostly remain inside the structure that is affixed to the planet’s so-called bedrock. It’s preferable to suiting up and tethering oneself during an occasional outdoor repair. The building straddles a long ravine that, in my estimation, descends at least 12 kilometres. The organic forms (that I assume are more plant than animal or fungi) respire helices that are entirely shades of grey. They rush upwards, almost violently, dancing in the false atmosphere like brutish ballerinas before finally clinging to the walls or ceiling in repose as they dissipate. The “creatures” themselves also are entirely shades of grey. Upon entering this ecosystem, it’s as if every cone cell has fallen dormant.

I once wrote:

A bone-red heart beats beneath a slope. Weeds grow to voice displeasure at stiff winds that wither it. It beats once an epoch. It beats once a time I sit on this bench and will it to life. Weeds clutter the slope. They spell the echoes of past beats, reverberating in the witchy breeze.

My iterations in Pagan Park map the manner that my psyche has grown throughout the last 19 years. I believe I first walked its pitched sidewalk during the xmas season of 2005, a few months after my parents moved to Seminole from Fort Stockton. I have no prior recollection of being in the park before then. My parents took over my grandmother’s house here, so I had been to Seminole before, of course, upon hundreds of occasions. However, as a child or even a teen, I’d never been allowed to wander. I was either in the house reading a book or listening to music or both or with my parents and some extra-solace locale.

They never strolled in Pagan Park. They never strolled in any park, as far as I know. They weren’t big strollers, you see. Again from just my personal recollection, their only forms of entertainment were television and gambling. I guess not much has changed in that realm.

The bone-red heart. The metaphor of a heart is a metaphor of my, shall I say, meditative life. It beats only when I stroll and when I sit on the myriad benches to think and jot thoughts. I can mark the rings of my growth as laps along the winding walkway in Pagan Park, at least from 2005, the year Christopher Bender called me on the antique phone in my parents’ “office” and also the year he sent me a stack of books that he checked out from a library in Raleigh to read to Seminole even though I was only to be here a few weeks. One of those books was The Long Walk, later made into a film, about escapees of a Siberian Gulag traversing the Gobi and then the Himalayas. It was a very enjoyable read. I still recall the moments lost in its paragraphs.

Weeds grow to voice displeasure at stiff winds that wither it. The winds wither the heart when it doesn’t beat. That is, when I am absent. It all sounds a bit solipsistic, but in essence, the beating of this heart are the pulsations that lunged me forward through life. I’m not saying that my time in other places were not also involved in my psychological evolution, of course, but these static epochs here have always been ones of meditation, as evidenced by the fact that I make quite a bit more blog entries whilst visiting. I’m unsure what duration I’d have to be away for the heart to wither in its entirety. I suppose I’ll know once my parents trade their consciousness for peace and my visits become sparse.

Weeds clutter the slope. They spell the echoes of past beats… I imply that my thoughts, gestating from their spilled contents originating upon one of the myriad benches or another, grow as weeds among the “carefully” manicured park. I agree (with past-self!) that “progress” or, rather, movement forward in time erodes all things. Well, that’s pretty auto-apparent, eh? An axiom, as the kids these days say! The implication that my incipient ideas seeded malas hierbas that perhaps hurl spores into the semi-desert breeze is a captivating one. If they are still swirling round, I could re-capture a few, much like I’m doing here, and enlighten myself.

One of the main reasons I write is for my future self, in any case. I cannot remember every lesson life has taught me - obviously, as time and again I still stumble into wretchedness. The “scribblings” in Martenblog are more lumpy and weighted than the diffuse spores outspread from the aforementioned metaphorical weeds. I can review and learn more easily from past horrors (and other milder forms of experience).

I admire humans (and a few choice insects, too) who are more methodical that I am at organizing their thoughts in writing, revising and updating their lives. They are an inspiration yet I don’t necessarily strive to be like them. This may seem like a paradox, but so might my contempt for “efficiency” in general.

Fuck um.

Tuesday morning and I’m sitting half-lotus in my bed in Seminole. Yesterday was my first real day of absolute productivity and the productivity was all in the form of music. Naiad threatens to be a great piece upon completion, even if I toss aside some of my bolder noise experiments because I simply do not know how to get them to function in the mix correctly. Perhaps I should take a page (as the Druids said back in the day) out of Thalassa with its sudden drop in volume to create contrast. I’ll go with my churning gut later this morning.

On the subject of productivity, my days have been so far devoid of it in the form of programming. I know I should introduce myself once again into Martin’s projects, but I’m finding it difficult to emerge from the so-called “programming stupor” after a week of torpor. Perhaps completing a smaller personal project first could be motivation. Unfortunately, not a ONE comes to mind, volečku! Ha!

Getting back into a semblance of routine writing is also a chore. My mind doesn’t want to direct itself to the task. One might ask whether I have anything worthwhile to write about to begin with and if this is the seed of struggle. One might also ask what is the measure of worthiness. If I read back, some of my most enjoyable blog entries have been concerned with the absurd and I’ve told myself time and again throughout life that self-amusement is one of the primary ways to hold the existential dread at bay. So, those “one might asks” are rendered rhetorical. In fact, I just reminded myself of a task I’d set myself last time I was in this parched berg that some of its denizens surely call a settlement. I was going to go through my jottings during walks in Pagan Park over the epochs and elaborate on any flashy or spiky insight that occurred to me. Any at all. This I shall follow up on.

Later today, I drive to Seminole to deposit my casino winnings into my bank so they can swim the tiny wires to Europe, as is the way of things.

Now shower. Breakfast. And to Pagan Park for a “stroll” amongst the stasis there.

I’ve been on Naiad for approximately forty days and forty nights now, enough to see Thalassa looming through the sky twice, and I must admit that more than anything else, I miss my cat. My “office” is adjacent to the greenhouse and atmospherically controlled at a temperature much more to my liking than when I’m strolling among the flora. Humidity has never been my bag, having grown up in a parched wasteland. There are some scabs of youth one can never quite pick away.

We designed the greenhouse here to capture the eerie glow of Neptune and bend its light into something akin to a living metrical pattern. That is to say, it pulses like arrhythmia and the flora, on their alien stalks, sway to the pattern and apparently flourish. I’ll count out its repeating phrase time and again though mostly in my subconscious. I’m fairly sure it will persist in my dreams even after my return to home and to my cat.

That’s still fifteen passes of Thalassa away.