AMKent books

“The binary of my soul is a digit out of place”.

“Right, sounds like an internal exile?”

“Something like that, I’m no genius.”

“No, but you are different.”
“Annoyingly so.”

Pen scrawls across paper, looping letters all joined and wide.

“You want to be loved?”

Small silence, followed by a sigh.

“I guess so.”

“What kind of love?”

“Romantic.”

“Could this solve your internal exile?”

Longer silence, followed by the fingertips squeezing the blood to the surface of the cranium.

“I know what I am, I have calcified wounds, scars on my heart. I can’t expect anyone to deal with that.”

“You are reiterating the internal exile, now answer my question.”

“I think it could.”

The pen marks the sheet again, this time its rendezvous is longer.

“Do you think this person exists? The one that welcomes you back into the fold?”

“I don’t.”

“10 billion people and you don’t think they are out there?”

“No, I think I’m an anomaly.”

Shared silence this time.

“Do you know what separated humans from the rest of life on earth?”

“We were an anomaly?”

“Yes, fiction, imagination, we imagine something transformed and then apply it to nature.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“We dislocated ourselves from nature, like you have dislocated yourself from us.”

“Are you alluding to some cure?”

“Use your imagination.”

A small laugh blown through the nose.

“Is this that manifestation shit?”

“No, if you are exiled then where are you?”

“Let’s call it limbo.”

“It’s not a limbo though, is it? You are exiled from tribalism, from connecting with society and other humans. You are in a mental solitary confinement.”

“You are the expert; how do I get the key?”

“There isn’t one. We are all in a solitary confinement, you are just self-aware enough to know it.”

“So what? Pluralism is an illusion?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Your mind is its own holding cell and no one on earth is ever going to be able to reside in it with you.”

“Love is a nice distraction then?”

“More or less.”

“Sounds nihilistic.”

“There’s meaning, it just isn’t as grand as we might wish.”

“No God then?”

“How would I know, I work with what I have. Right now, that’s you.”

Fingers drum across the sterile table, birds distantly echo melodies, the clouds have lilac veins.

“That’s it then? I’m just eternally doomed to notice my own self-awareness and the isolation that brings?”

“You have to first understand your situation.”

“Well congratulations, now I understand. Where do I go from here?”

“You want something to save you.”

“You said love is a distraction, so, it doesn’t matter what I want.”

“I mean a divinity, not a romance.”

“I can’t make the mental gymnastics to believe in dogmas, I have tried but it’s too big a leap.”

“I am not talking about a religion.”

The carpet is neatly cut to the sideboards around the walls, the books on the shelf are pristine, likely most are untouched.

“Am I to find my divine self? I am the God of my own autonomy, that new-age stuff?”

“You are not the God of your own autonomy, if you were, you wouldn’t feel like this.”

“So, what divinity then?”

“Divinity originally pertained to God-like, not God itself. You must aspire for the unattainable, there is your divinity.”

Cars mechanical gallops are distant, lights begin to fill the rooms of buildings in the distance. Black and gold, black and gold, like the keys of an old Italian harpsichord.

“My salvation lies in exiling myself further, am I understanding this right?”

“Yes, accelerationism.”

“How does that make sense?”

“You need them now; that’s why you feel the exile. No longer need, once you reach that then everything else is happy circumstance.”

“My exile becomes my own solace, my mental palace, I am in heaven when I am within myself.”

“That is no exile, but that could be you.”

“I am too tired, too wounded, I don’t have it in me to become this self-fulfilling Übermensch.”

“You need a divinity to save you.”

“I can’t save myself, and my will is not divine, not anywhere near it.”

The paradoxical sky where moon and sun share the canvas, greeting like ships in the coming night.

“You are no longer writing.”

“There is nothing left to write.”

“Are we done then?”

“Far from it.”

The grass is littered with sticks and leaves, lost toys from dog walks, dug ground from stamping feet in communal sport.

“Is death really, so, unthinkable?”

“It is, that is why we cannot know what comes after it.”

“If I am not god-like, then I just rot in my exile.”

“There are other ways.”

“Ones that don’t require me to evolve?”

“The shark predates the existence of trees, nature’s simpler minimalist design, no need to evolve.”

“How do I be like the shark then?”

“Exist, until you stop.”

“What happens if I reject that?”

“Then you’ve already begun.”

“I resign to the exile; I can make my lot heaven or hell. It only matters to me.”

“There may be your divinity.”