My House Arrest

The Call is Heard

2006-06-15T13:03:00.000+09:00

Lucy and I have heard the clarion call. Alicia and her Genius Child Orchestra have set up on the crowded streets of downtown Picar. Our radios picked us the first scratches of their strings, plaintively calling to us, pining for their "lost shaker of salt." I take this as the dollmaker accepting my invitation.

Led by Lucy, we are marching to the echoes of the rhythm section's drumbeats. We are marching through the back alleys and shantylands on the outskirts of Picar, the site of our glorious house arrest. We are beating a path to spot where the children are performing. The men with the Roman collars have been good enough to line the way, providing an escort to our encounter, our meeting with the Softest Person.

I never check to see if Lucy is still behind me, I can feel her hot breath on my neck.

Charles Offers an Invitation

2006-06-12T13:00:00.000+09:00

The Recruitment Officer Pays a Visit

2006-06-12T10:42:00.000+09:00

I returned to the glory of my house arrest only to find a recruitment officer waiting in my living room. Lucy helped me take my shoe off and placed my feet on the ottoman. She said she would retire to her radios, and let us men speak alone.

Apparently, this finely groomed recruitment officer represented a group called The Genius Child Orchestra. He said they had discovered Alicia and were willing to offer her a first seat in the woodwind section of their paramilitary organization. Of course, before doing so, her guardian would need to sign a permission slip. It seems that Alicia offered up my name as guardian.

“Will I be implicated in the activities of this Genius Child Orchestra?”

“To as slight an extent as I can arrange,” the recruitment officer promised.

“Then I shall offer dear Alicia my permission, as long as holiday leave and summers under house arrest are assured by your organization.”

These things were promised and I signed gladly.

As the recruitment officer excused himself from my house arrest, he said, “The dollmaker will be pleased. You’ve allowed him to embark upon his newest and finest profession to date.”

The Softest Person is the conductor of this wonderful new orchestra. It pained me to realize that he could be behind such beauty and that he alone could bring forth the greatest of Alicia’s talents.

Lucy returned from the attic with a radio tucked under one arm and my missing shoe in her other hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had it all along.”

She put on my shoes on and we stepped back outside. “No matter how exquisite the genius children sound in unison,” she said. “We’ve got to retrieve Alicia, and restore the peace of your house arrest.”

A Continuance Granted

2006-06-08T12:09:00.000+09:00

Lucy called the whole thing off. She interrupted my demise at its most divine moment, by yelling “Cut!” The gorilla camera crew hit ‘pause’ and the Soviet warhead was left suspended in the low atmosphere above Picar. The folks around town have taken to calling it their “civic mobile.” There’s talk of bringing the Anglo-artist Helium to town, to have him judge whether Picar’s frozen warhead compares with his own installations and happenings. I assure he’ll say it surpasses his complete oeuvre.

Despite the lost art of my expiration, it really was for the best that Lucy saved me, as I can’t bear to imagine that my last moments were to be spent free from house arrest.

She stopped the proceedings because her “plans had gone horribly awry.” Apparently, for weeks now, Alicia had been tweaking the transistors at night, casting messages to The Softest Person, an old trading partner of mine, if my atrophying memory serves correctly. And now that Alicia had complete possession of the mollydoll she had left the house arrest to find this mediocre dollmaker.

If Alicia remains missing, it’s doubtful our center will hold.

Lucy says she can find my missing shoe, my brother’s shoe. Then I can move on from the spot, the locus of my aborted demise, and help her return our Alicia to our house arrest.

A Beautiful Demise

2006-05-31T23:48:00.000+09:00

The gorilla camera crew has begged me not to move. They said that if I remain in place, mapless and shoeless, it will result in the most wonderful of disasters. An explosion is slated to occur on this very spot in not very long. If they get it on tape, they will win the Grand Jury Prize for World Peace and get a three movie contract from a big studio. Also, the Soviets will be given a permanent seat in the League of Nations for ridding the world of the number one purveyor of anti-feline crime. And me? What do I get? The gorilla camera crew said I would die a free man, away from my house arrest.

I know I don’t want that.

My Bearings

2006-05-27T04:24:00.000+09:00

I wish I could locate a map. Picar is teeming with geography, especially for such a seemingly bucolic resort town.

I wish I had my brother's shoe back. Barefoot, I can't move.

And the gorilla camera crew has also left my house arrest to document my current predicament, on the empty streets of Picar.

Without a map and a shoe, this town is as good as a prison.

Nocturnes

2006-05-25T20:51:00.000+09:00

I’ve been on the streets of Kallarackel's deserted kingdom all night, pacing them beside my brother Horace. For the first hour or two he was not aware of my presence. Finally, he stopped and said, “Charles, let’s be serious. Give me my shoe.”

And, with that, never once looking at my eye, or my face at all, he bent down and untied the shoe. Gently he removed it. Then - he walked on. Barefoot, I was stranded alone on the hushed streets of Kallarackel. This was certainly not the host country of my crimes or those who arrested me. I had been sent far – farther than I deserved, I thought.

I watched Horace disappear down a lane, the morning mist beginning to seep in from the seaside. I screamed for Lucy. I yelled for Alicia. I received no answer. I assume they’re still captives of my once and glorious house arrest.

On The Outside

2006-05-23T01:37:00.000+09:00

The streets are lined with cobbles and the salt spray is palpable if not confirmed. I still haven’t seen any actual shoreline. But what I did see was my brother, Horace. He was busy searching, very busy. I tapped my toe (clad in his old shoe) twice on the window pane, and he did not so much as turn his head. He seemed preoccupied, overturning pillows, dumping out drawers, and conspiring with a tired-looking maid.

So I’ve departed my house arrest. I’m out on the streets.

It might really be best for everyone, if I simply returned.

A Choice is Made

2006-05-21T22:29:00.000+09:00

Lucy and I were at a standstill. Who knows what Alicia was up to, but I assure you it involved her mollydoll. I wore my twin brother’s shoe, and I was perfectly willing to step right through the hedge.

“Escapes are not uncommon,” I told Lucy. “Just recently, another man fled this bucolic village.”

She simply shook her head.

“Okay then, Lucy. Just tell why I must stay – give me one explicit reason.”

She did not answer. Instead she dropped to one knee and reached for the laces of my shoe. She yanked them into a tight and secure double-knot.

Two Glorious Days

2006-05-18T06:31:00.000+09:00

For two days, Lucy has been locked away in the attic and the transmissions have been constant. And during these past two days, it would be no exaggeration to assert that my house arrest has reached its greatest glory. And for these two days, Alicia and I have sat at our kitchen table, regarding my twin brother’s shoe. I know Horace and I know he’ll want it back.

Finally, I could wait no longer, and, with Alicia’s nod of blessing, I reached for the shoe and loosened the laces. As I slipped my foot inside, Lucy came bounding down the stairs.

“No, Ol’ Uncle Charles,” she warned. “I must tell you that is not such a good idea.”

The Shoe of Revelations

2006-05-15T22:05:00.000+09:00

This morning I visited Lucy in her attic (it’s my my house arrest, but, I’ve admitted, the attic, and the transistor radios, are all hers). She’s there before I wake each morning and still tweaking dials when I rest my head to sleep. But this morning she was conducting a symphony – it was a glorious chorus of crackles, static and hissing pops. I shouted to her, “You’ve done it! You’ve found a frequency!”

Without patience she shoved back her safety goggles. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m transmitting.” Then she offered me her first smile. “Transmitting like I’ve never fucking done before.”

Luckily, Aliss arrived at the moment and took my hand. She led me down the flights of stairs to the ground floor of my house-prison and out into our small garden, where we came up to the rich bush – an azalea – from which she came. The exact spot where I first found the girl, clutching her rope doll. She pointed at the dirt and said, “Please. Smell. Take a sniff, Ol’ Uncle Charles.”

I dropped to my knees and did this very thing. And I’m not sure if I liked what I smelled. The smell of salt and fish and oxygen-rich air. Apparently we were living in a seaside town. It was the wrong place all together for a truly glorious house arrest.

When I stood back up she was holding forth a shoe – three stripes along the side. Nambo’s shoe – from my trunk.

“How did you get that, my girl?”

“I opened the trunk.”

Things were not going right. The house arrest was not holding together. “Then, am I right to assume you’ve taken possession of the mollydoll? My mollydoll.”

She nodded. And pushed Nambo’s shoe into my arms.

“What do I want with this fool’s shoe?”

“Before Nambo wore that shoe, it was loved and worn by another man. He told me to call him Horace.”

“Horace? Dear Aliss, do you know who Horace is? He is Ol’ Uncle Charles’ twin brother.”

She hadn’t known and she didn’t seem to find this fact remarkable. Instead, she told me to put on the shoe. “It will carry you out,” she said. “With this shoe on, you can walk through the hedge and straight to the sea.”

“What? But Aliss, this is the Golden Age of my house arrest.”

I stared through a gap in the hedge and feared what lay beyond.

“And, please, Ol’ Uncle Charles. It’s time you call me Alicia. I believe that name has become available once again. Alicia.”

And with that a scream came from the attic, the voice of 1,000 transistors in unison. The girl and I looked to the sky and watched the blue atmosphere shiver. It was in this moment that Lucy led the world in prayer – a prayer in my name.

A Domestic Squabble

2006-05-09T16:00:00.000+09:00

Today, I heard the girls talking. Aliss is more forthcoming with Lucy than she is with me. She was yelling at Lucy, telling her to STOP!

Lucy told Aliss to “relax.” She said, “Don’t worry, girl. I can’t even communicate with him. The gorillas have confirmed it. These radios will never receive messages from the outside world – they can only send transmissions.”

Aliss was still ill at ease. She hugged her rope doll and told Lucy it was wrong. “Don’t contact him,” she begged. “I don’t want to hear from Leo.”

“Like I said, Aliss, don’t worry; that’s simply impossible.”

Leo?

I set to my writing table and drafted a letter, to be hand delivered through my traders. I would order a doll from the Softest Person, perhaps a gift for Aliss. It should be a lion, a doll that shows the greatest cunning, that emits the most compassionate of ferocities.

Outgoing Connection

2006-05-08T22:12:00.000+09:00

I observed an important scene in the attic this morning. If this glorious house arrest is to end, it won’t be through the weak-kneed means of inviting local gutter punks to hold book club meetings in my living room (the traders have been sending me letters requesting this very thing, and offering 10% discounts on copies of Dick Yates’ lesser novels), but it will come by reaching out, by sending my story and my messages beyond the confines of my well-controlled household. That is, if I do eventually chose to escape this house arrest.

So – what did I see this morning? Lucy conferring with the gorilla camera crew. Until now, I thought I was the only one to notice them. I’m still confident that they’ve evaded the notice of the girl, Aliss. Without Lucy noticing, I cocked an ear and eavesdropped. The gorillas claim that we’re going about it all wrong. The condition of the house arrest would never allow our transistor radios to pick up outside signals, but there is nothing to stop us from using them as a tool of transmission. Lucy nodded gravely, which I understood as her agreement to adjust her research, to find a way for me project my words – to create an unseen, airborne bullhorn for Old Uncle Charles.

I retired to the bedroom for my afternoon nap, visions of broadcast wracking my imagination, to find little Aliss working the lock of my trunk. I shoed her away with the cast of my leather size 10. She jumped back and I laughed. “We’ve discussed this, Aliss. The trunk is not to be touched. That trunk contains, among other things, a mollydoll.”

And then the girl spoke. “What do you want? What will it take for you to part with the greatest of your many possessions? I want the mollydoll.”

I, of course, laughed and laughed. “Dear Aliss, a trade for the mollydoll would take nothing short of Nambo’s shoe.”

“Fine then,” she said.

“Fine then? Oh, really? Don’t you understand, Aliss? You can’t give me Nambo’s shoe. Nobody can. It’s gone missing.”

She shrugged and she smiled and she walked away, leaving me to go about my napping. I couldn’t fall asleep – not even for a wink or two.

God damn you, Aliss.

We All Have Our Hobbies

2006-05-02T16:37:00.000+09:00

Earlier, Lucy searched for some music with which to solder transistors by. She turned up the Ezra Kire records I thought I had known better than to purchase. She dropped one on the turntable and began to cry. She spoke wistfully of her travels and of a world far away from our peaceful house arrest. Aliss entered the room and sat at Lucy’s face, rapt with tales of abroad. Very quickly, I noticed that work on the radios had fallen by the wayside.

I yanked the Kire record from the player and carefully returned it to its sleeve. Without hesitation, I opened my trunk and added this recorded to the collection within – locking it away tight. When I returned, Lucy was back at work, noiselessly turning knobs had bending wires.

Aliss had returned to the pantry where she rocked angrily, ticking off integers at a furious rate.

“You stop that,” I commanded. “It’s not appropriate for the household.”

“I will not!” she said. “I knew a girl who stopped counting once; her name was Alicia. And things didn’t turn out well for her, not well at all.”

Now I’m under the covers, trying to drown out the sound. I hope she will reach the end of her current set and this torturous counting will find its natural end.

The Protection Pickle

2006-05-02T16:09:00.000+09:00

If anyone broke into my house, and dared steal my chest of objects, the results would be bad. However it ended up.

The reason why I know that nobody will break into my house and steal my chest of objects is that I'm under a very strict house arrest. The premises are completely secure; I cannot leave. And, as such, no one can enter.

But, then, again I consider the fact that two people have infiltrated my home and taken up permanent residence beside me - Aliss and Lucy. And that causes me to worry about my chest of objects.

My Greatest Acquisition

2006-04-24T12:17:00.000+09:00

This morning it finally arrived, the spoils of my latest trading coup – a genuine mollydoll, crafted by the malleable hands of the Softest Person. It’s not the first of his dolls to come into my possession, but it’s certainly the most important.

Immediately, I set to finding a place to display it. The mantle and center of my kitchen table did not seem quite right. I really thought it best if I had it displayed before noon, so I asked Lucy for her advice, but she was too busy. “You’ll know the right spot when you find it,” she said, and retreated to the attic to test the transistors and radio dials.

Then I looked for Aliss, but she was hiding in the back pantry clutching her rope doll; she does not like to be disturbed when she’s huddled back there amongst the bags of onions and potatoes.

I returned to my bed chamber with my mollydoll to dream of a place to display it, and the gorilla film crew was set up to film every minute of my consideration. The lead gorilla, though, did not have his camera trained on me but it was pointed under my bed. So I looked under there to see if it was the right place for my mollydoll, the greatest acquisition of all my trades and commerce. Instead, what I found a steamer trunk, one that I had never put there myself, but that was certainly there.

I pulled out the trunk and placed it at the foot of my bed. I opened it and this is what I found:
dusty old remote controls (no batteries)
plastic shopping bags
cords and rope and lengths of plastic sheeting
a plush-toy cat wrapped in shredded rags
blocks of dried-out molding clay
a sharp little pile of cut-up credit cards
a plastic samurai sword
a busted old transistor radio
a yellowed stack of weirdly childlike newspapers
a goddamn motherfucking gorilla suit

To this collection, I added my mollydoll. Lucy was right: I did know the right spot when I found it. I locked the trunk and pushed it back under by bed to be re-forgotten.

State of the House Arrest

2006-04-22T11:50:00.000+09:00

My house arrest is many things, but one of the things it is not is lonely. For instance, at least six women visit me each day. And now two women live with me. One, named Lucy, is a sort of protector, and the other is a more vulnerable one, a girl, named Aliss. Together our household is full of humanity, and, as such, there is no need for animal companionship. This is not a lonely house full of cats.

Even if the laws of this land did allow me to possess a cat, I can’t imagine that would turn out well for anyone.

A Nocturnal Transaction

2006-04-19T01:52:00.000+09:00

I was awoken by plaintive bleatings in the middle of the night. “Shush,” I told Lucy, “Old Uncle Charles must be regular about his sleep.” But Lucy wasn’t there; it wasn’t her waking me. It was the girl I had heard of often, but never seen. She was standing beside my bed. “You must be Aliss,” I said. “Lucy warned me that you’d be coming.”

Aliss reached into to my bed and quickly I grabbed her rope of a doll that lay safely beside me. “You’ve come to reclaim your property? But what do you have to offer me? Surely you’ve brought something to trade. That is what Old Uncle Charles is – a trader.”

She nodded softly and descended the stairs that ran down from my bedroom. I thought it best to follow her down. She led me to my yard and the exact bush where I had found her doll. She reached in deep and pulled forth a box – adorned with dials and filled with rotting transistors. The switch was turned to ‘off’ but the radio static coming off it was palpable. “And what shall we call this?” I asked.

“It’s a DAB, and it’s for you.”

I accepted the DAB and handed her the rugged doll. Her hands trembled as she grasped it, unsure if she wanted it or not. “For you,” I said, and pushed it toward her. But she seemed guilty, ashamed. I could almost see tears. Her hands held the doll but would not accept it.

She looked away - back into the bushes. And that’s when I saw what she had been aware of, what had always been there, in the yard of my house arrest, unbeknownst to me – a gorilla bearing a whirring film camera, excitedly pointing his lens at the transaction that threatened to take place before him.

Another One Lost

2006-04-07T01:15:00.000+09:00

Lucy has kept the women at bay. Which is fine by me, except my trade is slowly being brought to a halt. Still the state provides me with food and other such requirements. And Lucy fills my head with ideas. She still swears she knows nothing about transistors. But I have caught her no less than three times in as many days, holed up in my attic, tweaking dials and recording frequencies. Every time I find her she is sporting a grossly oversized pair of richly padded headphones, and nodding with the subtlety of a learned scholar. But still Lucy feigns ignorance. And I don’t complain, because I love her company.

Today she said she knew there was someone out in my yard.

“How? How do you know that, Lucy?” I asked. “Do vintage radios have nothing to do with it?”

She ignored me and ran out the back door. I followed. The backyard is within my Allowable Living Area. There was a rustle in the bushes and Lucy lunged forward, grabbing anything that moved. She pulled out a length of rope. It was hearty waxed hemp. She held it forward like a roadside opossum. A tag hung from its end:

PROPERTY OF ALISS H.

“That’s not a rope,” I said. “It’s a girl.”

“No, Old Uncle Charles,” Lucy said. “It’s a girl’s property. So I assume it’s a doll.”

“Perhaps.”

She told me to be quiet as she listened to the air currents. “This girl,” she said. “Aliss H. She’s not far.”

“But you let her slip through your fingers, Lucy.”

Lucy turned back to the house, the dark edge of gloom creeping across her face. “It’s not the first time Aliss has done this.”

I’m going to sleep soundly tonight, with Aliss’ rope by my side.

Lucy's Lost

2006-03-30T20:58:00.000+09:00

Today the women arrived, and a few minutes later, another woman showed up. But she was different, I could tell from the looks on their faces, the faces that visit me every day. They’re all sent to me by the State, or whatever authority I’m living under at present. But this woman came to visit me on her own.

I asked my visitors to please excuse us. One of them began to disrobe, from the bottom up. I held up my hand. Would you please excuse us? They all left, in an orderly line. But I could see they weren’t happy about it. They knew that this new woman, this interloper, might discuss dangerous matters. Particularly, the customizable nature of transistor radios and their frequencies.

The woman’s name is Lucy and she’s still here. She knows little about transistors, but I do think she understands harmonies and their liberating powers.

I asked her. “Did you come to me on some sort of a pilgrimage?”

“A pilgrimage,” she said. “Yes. To Las Vegas. I got lost along the way.”

“And when you got lost, you heard about me? You read about my case in the papers?”

“No. But I realized that finding my way wasn’t so important. Getting to Vegas wasn’t my goal – making the people I used to know believe I was in Vegas. That is what’s important.”

“I understand,” I said. And that’s when I thought I knew her well, well enough to reveal my nickname – the only name my loved ones call me by. I hadn’t shared it with any of the other women, with anyone else who visited me during the time of my house arrest. “Please,” I said. “You can call me ‘Rabbit.’”

“Why ‘Rabbit’?”

I didn’t know her that well. “Let’s just say that rabbits and cats don’t get along.” And then, without warning, I struck my wine glass with my spoon, and together we enjoyed its ring. And then with her own throat, Lucy produced the exact same note. At will.

“Can I use your phone?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s right over there.”

Media Request: Granted

2006-03-23T20:49:00.000+09:00

Recently, the women sold me mail - at a particularly fair price. I think it was because they knew it contained a letter I ought to read, from a Master John Wesley Stevens. Stevens wants an interview. If you're a reader of Dead Leaves, then you know the state of the publication. Stephens is looking for his big score, and an exploration of the mind of a criminal outcast is just the thing to kickstart his project.

I wrote him a short note:
"PLEASE COME VISIT MY HOUSE. I WILL GRANT YOU FULL ACCESS. IS THIS WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE? (see attached)"

Apparently, the likeness scared the reporter silly. He wrote back. "You've been following me. You know me."

"NO," I wrote back. "OLD UNCLE THOMAS HAS BEEN 'ROUND THE BLOCK ONCE OR TWICE. DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU'RE THE FIRST PRE-PUBESCENT NEWSBOY I'VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH?"

He's yet to write me back. Perhaps he thought his nature was more novel, or he hoped I would think so at least.

My Noteworthy Talents

2006-03-21T01:17:00.000+09:00

This evening I received my visitors, two of them, in the kitchen. I had spent all day rearranging Brim's containers. They're remarkable flexible units. I arranged them into a kitchen table and stools. I sat around the table with my women. Again, they wanted to trade - to buy and sell.

The first one looked at my container-furniture and caressed it tenderly. There was beautiful ethereal rock music being piped in. "This," she said, "is a kitchen of distinction."

"I'm charmed. Do want to hear a story? A story of how I came to this glorious age of my house arrest?"

"Of course," she said. "Why do you think we visit so often?"

"Well I can't tell you the whole story. That wouldn't end well for either of us. But it did begin with killing cats. I was damn good at it. And people admired that. And that's how I came to love her, the girl that led to my house arrest. I met her at the municipal pool. We spent so much time in the water that I couldn't avoid the topic any longer. I told I could kill a cat quicker than any man she knew. She said she wanted me to teach her. So, I did, and she learned well. I liked that about her."

The first woman smiled, impressed.

The other woman, the second one, offered me a book. It was called Fuck World Trade.
"The idea might have appealed to me, at one time" I said. "But now that I'm a part of them, the international markets - I'm sold on them." I let her keep her book.

"If you want to help me. Get in touch with Brim. Find him, call him. Tell him I'll give him anything it he knows how to get me out tof his house. Tell him I can kill a cat quicker than any man he knows."

The women looked at each other. Finding Brim wouldn't be easy for them.

My Countenance

2006-03-21T00:46:00.000+09:00

The other day I hid my face. My women visitors tell me I'm beautiful, but how can I trust them?

They have too much to gain.

Entering the Trades

2006-03-19T14:01:00.000+09:00

Woke up this morning and thought of what I did to find myself under expatriate house arrest. Stared it right in the face. I didn't flinch for a fucking second.

Then I answered the door; it was my lady callers. Today they had a new idea. They would sell me things, and, some of these things, they said, I could sell to other women who visited me. I could be a successful businessman without leaving my house. Other things, I could keep for myself.

The first items they offered me were several shrink-wrapped Ezra Kire albums. His early albums. I passed. I hate fucking caucausians from the subcontinent who make that cloying crap music that they all make. He's the worst of the bunch, too. But this did tell me that I was probably living in a third world country, where they still play Ezra Kire's albums at restaurants and coffee shops, and set it to videos of local youths involved in voiceless melodramatic tragedies, involving forbidden love and cars and cliff edges.

The next thing they offered me was a collection of plastic crates. Admittedly, it was an impressive collection. This too I was going to pass up, as I need to save my money to buy transitors. I'm going to need a lot of transitors to get all these radios working just the way I need them to. But, then the lady told me who the crate collection's previous owner was - a man named Brim, from London. SOLD!, I said.

One of the woman stayed and spent the afternoon with me in my bedroom. When I came back downstairs the crates where stacked in a single flush column in the corner of my living room. They still wait there, begging to be rearranged.

Where I Live

2006-03-19T13:45:00.000+09:00

Normally I don't think about where my house is. I'm under house arrest, so the outside, my municipality, nation-state, whatever is of little concern to me. But today, it struck me: these women, my visitors, are from another country. Which means, I'm living in another country, for whatever it's worth.

The way I could tell is their physical features. They're differnt than mine. This is what I, Old Uncle Charles, looks like (you've probably seen me on the news):

(picture)

But the bone structure, the skin tone of my visitors is different. So they're foreigners, I figure. Or, actually, I'm a foreigner, I guess.

It makes sense they'd move me out of country. My criminal case, it was too high profile, touched too many nerves. It was probably just easier to ship me out to ... wherever this is.

I'd be lying to say that I'm not a bit curious to figure out what country this is, just for kicks. I've got an idea about how to pull it off too. They let me bring my collection of antique transitors radios with me. And if I place them in an advantageous position, their frequencies seem to scramble my bracelet, and extend my allowable range. I'm thinking, if I place my radios just right, I'll be able to step out front and have a look around. But I don't know how to do it. Yet.

I'm told there's a man in London named Brim, who understands how to reorder aged household technology for new purposes. To date, I've been unable to locate him. But my women, my visitors, say they will help.

Doesn't mean I don't live my life

2006-03-18T13:20:00.000+09:00

I live alone. And the state (or wherever it is I am) says I can't go outside. At least, not past the plastic wood shed.
So what? I'm having a great time. Even if no one around here believes me. Even if my family says I need "counseling" to deal with what I did.

I still get visitors. Often. Not loved ones or anything. Even better -

Women. Fucking crazy women.