Was Leo Tolstoy An Idiot? by Devonte Hynes
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I was awake again… I could tell I was for sure this time. The last three moments of consciousness I had figured out eventually were mere fragments of the part of my brain not frozen numb with a throbbing extremely painful fear.
I rested my head upon the sharp metal corner of the front left window… Trying to recall the twisted events that led me to this most unlikely of all circumstances… With each road I deeper re-visited in my brain along with the more I push my head into the corner of the cold window frame…
Ever since The Fuxzprator Regime gained control nearly 30 years ago now… No one in the whole of Bazatof has felt safe.
The Fuxzprator Regime is lead by a tall but slim young man who goes by the name of “H”. Jet white head of short slicked back hair, pale face and dark cutting sunken in eyes. A glossy headshot of “H” is plastered on the walls all around Bazatof, and at the 4th minute of every 17th hour we must kneel down at the nearest picture and mutter the almighty prayer of “H”… If we’re seen not doing this… We then lose the next 16 hours… As in, it is erased, gone… Within a blink of an eye you’re standing outside of a Fuxzprator station, knowing you have but an hour to find another head shot to kneel down too. With each time you’re caught they add another hour, plus the previous hours… For example…
1st time – 16 hours
2nd time – 33 hours
3rd time – 51 hours
It’s a ludicrous concept I’ve yet to quite grasp the relevance of.
No one seems to know much about H. Or the first time they even heard of him… Or even voting for him into power.. It just happened. One day, like so many things that happen on Bazatof, but we grow (grew) used to it with each passing day… It’s normal to wake up one day and have a new building fully erected across the road from your apartment… Such things never seem to be questioned.
But I read. I read the stories of the old world, and I know that things took time, I know buildings take years to be made, for people to be inside, to be working… For man to come from nothing.
The only constant I seem to have in my life is my family.
I’d do anything for them…
My wife is dead.
The woman I love is dead.
The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with is dead. Reason’s unbeknownst to us an alien race called the Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant (The KKK for short) had been watching our planet for some time… Now… I’m aware I’m skimming over a lot of details in this present moment, but understand the torment I’m going through right now… Sorry, I’ll continue… The KKK had been watching our “fair” (fear) planet for some time now… And I’m going to assume they must’ve had an ongoing feud with H… Fuck…
I wish I knew the answers… I’m in a tiny space pod, crunched inside… Speeding through space to what I think might be the planet of the Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant… But I have no way to be sure until I arrive… It was the only vehicle I could find, I need some answers… My wife… Beautiful Lyndsay was
taken away form me forever… And my son… Jacob… Why must this happen…
I have no one.
I look outside this capsule… And all I see is space… Is it even space? Is it a space?
I see black.
I should’ve given up… Will I even make it to this planet, and when I get there is it even going to be where I need to be… To find Jacob.
My son…
They took my son away from me.
Just snatched him from my arms… Why me…!?
Wrong place as always…
Am I making any sense? I’m sorry… My mind is really racing… I’m skipping subjects… The point of writing this down is so that… what is the point?
Oh god… what am I doing…
OK… I think maybe a day has just passed since I wrote that last sentence? I think… I can’t work out if my clock works fine, or if it tends to stop from time to time…
From time to time is an interesting phrase… Technically I guess that would mean constantly right? As we are actually moving from “time to time” all the time…
“… Of it tends to stop constantly…”
That would possibly suggest it’s just stopped altogether… and never continues…so I’d be stuck in time… Which is precisely how I feel right now.
What’s the time?
“Well it’s actually an irreversible nonspatial continuum from the past through the present onwards t’wards the future…”
… Is what I should have answered this question with every time I was asked at work…
Maybe I should attempt some sleep again.
I feel like shit… I wonder how long I was out for this time.
I dreamt of Lyndsay… I dreamt of the moment they took her away from me… I dreamt of the look in her eyes before she was liquefied by that Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant scumbag… I should have done something… I didn’t do anything.
I didn’t do anything. I froze. I deserve what ever torment comes my way… But Jacob? What did he ever do… I was still frozen to the spot when they grabbed him and exited the apartment through the window…
It may feel like I’ve summed up a quite… In fact, the most horrifying moment of my life rather quickly. But that’s how it was… And that’s how it is… It happened quickly, there was no time to think, no time to question motives, no time to think about what’s right and wrong… It happened in the brink of an ice… That doesn’t even make sense… But I don’t care anymore… My family are gone… And I am soulless now because of this.
But I will get you back Jacob… I promise you… I WILL get you back, and The Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant will all pay, with every ounce of my aching body I will make them suffer plights of which they have NEVER ever suffered before…
… I’m thirsty.
I didn’t think this through…
What is H doing right now…
Maybe he got taken in by the KKK… Maybe they’re torturing him right now… I hope they destroy him, it’s all his fault, I know this for a fact… His giant golden face being smashed to pieces by a…
What the hell is that? OK, so I just looked outside the window. I think I can see the Planet of the KKK… I predict two more days roughly until I arrive… This is it, now is the time to start preparing… Well, I guess that shouldn’t be now… It should’ve been before. I’m aware of this, but whatever… Hey!!!
Question: What’s the difference between a Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant resident and a Bazatofian??!!??
Answer:
The Krahpatilt Kequa are Konsalant-ly annoying!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHhahahahHAHAHhhahahHha
hahhHAHAHAHAHhahahahahhHAHAHhahhHAHHAHAHhahahhah
HAHAHhahhahahahHhahahhHAHHhahhahahHhahahahhHAHAHAH
HAhhahaah…
Time for more sleep. Check List upon arrival at the Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalant planet. - Kill every Krahpatilt Kequa Konsalantian I see.
- Keep one alive to show me where my son is.
- Find food.
- Find drink.
- Remember where space pod is…
- Find back up space pod.
- Find weapon…
Wait, I think I’ve written these in an awful order… I NEED A NEW BRAIN… Hello, if you’ll please humour me… I shall refer to the first book of the Cosmic Trigger Trilogy…
Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson teaches us quite a few things…
1.Self induced brain change is indeed, very possible… I shall look into this in a second…
2. Reality is definitely in subject to change in the eye of the beholder... I need to find my reality tunnel… As long as I stay on that path… Nothing can go wrong… Nothing… I have crushed the old filters of Bazatof and am now building new walls within this pod… I am very aware of the confirmation biases of which I am setting myself up for right now, but I also believe because of the situation I’m in right now… I am allowing myself this little taste of inductive inference…
Was Leo Tolstoy an idiot?
It was he who said “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”... Wait. But maybe that means that I’m the “slow witted man...” Most likely, this seems more plausible than a 19th century Russian theorist been a fool... Oh Christ… I am standing at the gates of hell and looking straight into the eyes of Morton’s Demon… There are too many overlays… I seem to be getting closer to the planet… Whilst simultaneously becoming the LIMP in the LAMP.
I’m worried now, I seem to be losing my mind… I’m neither hungry nor thirsty anymore… Every part of my body is pulling me towards this planet… Maybe finally in the mi
I fell asleep whilst typing that last sentence... God knows what I was going to say... But this is it, finally... We’re so close , we’re getting faster now… I can see the planet… It’s glowing, and the sparkling red beauty is filling my heart and stomach, both of which are racing and spinning… My breathing is growing out of control…
I’m sweating, a lot… This must be the planet, this can only be the planet… Surely… I see nothing else now… Just red, such a bright vibrant blaze… My eyes are widening… This is it… I feel the capsule speeding more and more… My hair is starting to fall out… I can see it shedding… I’m going to cover my face with my hands.
Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You by Lightspeed Champion, is out on Domino Records next week
