Paradiso Universalis

One day, afterward, you get a letter in your email from a friend you haven't heard from in years. They reconciled with you, the letter goes, but it isn't you. It was at the time, but it isn't, they know now - some kind of neural net situation or a human ringer. Paid, maybe, or maybe that was a joke. They were good at being you, and the letter isn't really trying to get back in touch; it's seeing if you can point your ex-friend to where they might find the fake you again. You draft a reply pretending to be a supercilious little AI assistant, and only a sudden surge of vertigo prevents you from sending it. You tell your friends - the ones you have now, the ones who know you as you are now - and they don't seem surprised at all. Unchanged, in fact, in any particular by the things you say.

In unguarded moments you swear you can feel the heat of some unseen creature breathing against the nape of your neck.

A beautiful sordid little love affair with pixels carried out in strange, difficult text. Contains four glitch prose poem pieces - "After Cadillac Mountain", "True Love Leaves No Traces", "Fullmethyl Neoludd", and "The Legion Method" -- the last not previously available anywhere, the first three largely posted on what would go on to become the automated hate speech website and buried deep in its guts.

Contains one 37-page pdf. $8 or best offer, free OK.


From the bottom of my heart, thank you for keeping the dream alive.