The Fear

[A_C_Slater]

and it's midafternoon and I find myself standing at a phone booth on a corner somewhere downtown, I don't know where, but I'm sweaty and a pounding migraine thumps dully in my head and I'm experiencing a major-league anxiety atack, searchin my pockets for Valium, Xanax, a leftover Halcion, anything, and all I find are three faded Nuprin in a Gucci pill-box, so I pop all three into my mouth and swallow them down with a Pepsi and I couldn't tell you where it came from if my life depended on it. I've forgotten who I had lunch with earlier and, even more important, where. Was it Robert Ailes at Beats? Or was it Todd Hendrick's at Ursula's, the new Philip Duncan Holmes bistro in Tribeca? Or was it Ricky Worral and were we at December's? Or would it have been Kevin Weber at Contra in NoHo? Did I order the partridge sandwich on brioche with green tomotoes, or a big plate of endive with clam sauce? "Oh God, I can't remember ," I moan, my clothes-a linen and silk sport coat, a cotton shirt, pleated linen khaki trousers, all by Matsuda, a silk tie with a Matsude insignia, with a belt from coach Leatherware- drenched with sweat, and I take off the jacket and wipe my face with it. The phone keeps ringing but I don't know who I've called and I just stand on the corner, Ray-Bans balanced on my forehead at what feels like an odd, crooked angle, and then I hear a faint familiar sound coming through the wires-Jean's soft voice (my secretary) competing with the endless gridlock stuck on Broadway. The Maury Povitch Show this morning was about 4th graders who trade sex for crack. "Jean?" I cry out. "Hello? Jean ?" "A.C? Is that you?" she calls back. "Hello?" " Jean , I need help ," I shout. "A.C?" "What?" "Jesses Forrest called," Jean says. "He has a reservation at Melrose tonight at eight, and Ted Madison and Jamie Conway want to meet you for drink's at Harry's. A.C?" Jean asks. "Where are you?" "Jean?" I sigh, wiping my nose. "I'm not--" "Oh and Todd Lauder called," Jean says, "no, I mean Chris--oh no, it was Todd Lauder. Yeah. Todd Lauder." "Oh God," I moan, loosening my tie, the August sun beating down on me, "what do you say, you dumb bitch?" "Not Bice ,A.C. The reservation is at Melrose. Not Bice." "What am I doing ?" I cry out. "Where are you?" and then, "A.C? What's wrong?" "I'm not going to make it Jean," I say, then choke out, "to the office this afternoon." "Why?" She sounds depressed or maybe it's just simple confusion. "Just...say...no...," I scream. "What is it, A.c? Are you all right? she asks. "Stop sounding so f*cking...sad. Jesus," I shout. "A.C. I'm sorry. I mean I meant to say Just say no, but__" I hang up on her and lunge away from the phone booth and the Walkman around my neck suddenly feels like a boulder strapped around my throat (and the sounds blaring from it__early Dizzy Gillespie__deeply irritate) and I have to throw the Walkman, a cheap one, into the nearest trash can I stumble into and then I hang onto the rim of the can, breathing heavily, the cheap Matsuda jacket tied around my waist, staring at the still-functioning Walkman, the sun melting the mousse on my head and it mingles with the sweat pouring down my face and I can taste it when I lick my lips and it starts tasting good and I'm suddenly ravenous and I run my hand through my hair and lick greedily at the palm while moving up Broadway, ignoring the old ladies passing out fliers for, past jean stores, music blasting from inside, pouring out into the streets, people's movements matching the beat of the song, a Madonna single, Madonna crying out, " life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone...," bike messengers whiz by and I'm standing on a corner scowling at them, but people pass, oblivious, no one pays attention, they don't even pretend to not pay attention, and this fact sobers me up long enough that I walk toward a nearby Conrad's to buy a teapot, but just when I assume my normalcy has returned and I'm all straightened out, my stomach tightens and the cramps are so intense that I hobble into the nearest doorway and clutch my waist, doubling over with pain, and as suddenly as it appears it fades long enough for me to stand up straight and rush into the next hardware store I come across, and once inside I buy a set of butcher knives, an ax, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, and then, at the pet store down the block, a Habitrail and two white rats than I plan to torture with the knives and acid, but somewhere later, in the afternoon, I leave the package with the rats in the Pottery Barn while shopping for candles or did I finally buy the teapot? Now I'm lunging up Lafayette, sweating and moaning and pushing people out of my way, foam pouring out of mouth, stomach contracting with horrible adominal cramps__they might be caused by the steroids but that's doubtful__and I calm myself down enough to walk into a Gristede's, rush up and down the aisles and shoplift a canned ham that I calmly walk out of the store with, hidden under the Matsuda jacket, and down the block, where I try to hide in the lobby of the American Felt Building, breaking the tin open with my keys, ignoring the doorman, who at first seems to recognize me, then after I start stuffing handfuls of the ham into my mouth, scooping the lukewarm pink meat out of the can, getting it stuck beneath my nails, threatens to call the police. I'm outta there, outside throwing up all the ham, leaning agianst a poster for Les Miserable at a bus stop and I kiss the drawing of Eponine's lovely face, her lips, leaving brown streaks of bile smeared across her soft, unassuming face and the word DYKE scrawled beneath it. Loosening my suspenders, ignoring beggars, beggars ignoring me, sweat drenched, delirious, I find myself back downtown in Tower Records and I compose myself, muttering over and over to no one, "I've gotta return my videotapes, I've gotta return my videptapes," and I buy two copies of my favorite compact disc, Bruce Willis, The Return of Bruno ,and then I'm stuck in the revolving door for five full spins and I trip out into the street, bumping into Charles Murphy from Kidder Peabody or it could be Bruce Barker from Morgan Stanley, whoever ,and he says "Hey, Kinsley" and I belch into his face, my eyes rolling back into my head, greenish bile dripping in strings from my bared fangs, and he suggests, unfazed, "See you at Flutie's, okay? Severt too?" I screech and while backing away I bump into a fruit stand at a Korean deli, collapsing stacks of apples and oranges and lemons, that go rolling onto the sidewalk, over the curb and into the street where they're splattered by cabs and cars and buses and trucks and I'm apologizing, delirious, offering a screaming Korean my platinum AmEx accidentally, then a twenty, which he immediately takes, but still he grabs by the lapels of the stained, wrinkled jacket I've forced myself back into and when I look into his slanty-eyed round face he suddenly bursts into a chorus of Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes." I pull away, horrified, stumbling uptown, toward home, but people, places, stores keep interrupting me, a drug dealer on Thirteenth Street who offers me crack and blindly I wave a fifty at him and he says "Oh, man" gratefully and shakes my hand, pressing five vials into my palm which I proceed to eat whole and the crack dealer stares at me, trying to mask his deep disturbance with an amused glare, and I grab him by the neck and croak out, my breath reeking ," The best engine is in the BMW 750iL," and then I move on to a phone booth, where I babble gibberish at the operator until I finally spit out my credit card number and then I'm speaking to the front office of Xclusive, where I cancel a massage appointment that I never made.

[dr. klopek]

Can I have a summary? That's too many words.

[Evan]

as far as i can tell it says:

"...DYKE..."

[A_C_Slater]

Sometimes at night I can't sleep. I stay up all night cursing the earth and everything I have been taught: principles, distinctions, choices, morals, compromises, knowledge, unity, prayer-all of it was wrong, without any final purpose. All it came down to was: die or adapt. I am just one of billions of people who have passed over this planet.

[BusterStacks]

how much of this is fueled by cociane?

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
how much of this is fueled by cociane?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a possibility. But I only use it twice a week at maximum.

[BusterStacks]

I thought so. Still, you gotta resist the urge to post while high.

[A_C_Slater]

I just had to get it off my chest and I figured OOT was the best place. It helped subdue me just enough or else I would have lost it completely. I had to know if anyone else here has ever had an experience like this before. Pure irrational and ineffable terror.

[A_C_Slater]

I've finally managed to calm down. But I'm taking xanax half hourly.

[balkii]

Now I know you're a fake. the King of Bayside High would never post something like that.

and bTW, shouldnt you have an avatar? (http://www.soton.ac.uk/~surfc/Gallery/Look-a-likes/MrRumble.jpg)

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
Now I know you're a fake. the King of Bayside High would never post something like that.

and bTW, shouldnt you have an avatar? (http://www.soton.ac.uk/~surfc/Gallery/Look-a-likes/MrRumble.jpg)

[/ QUOTE ]


I don't know how to make it. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

Can you explain to me. Please?

I want that avatar example so bad.

[Sponger15SB]

I've lost it before with irrational fear and terror. However not even close as bad as you sound.

Everone one and a while I'll keep myself awake at night panicing because I start thinking about dying.

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
I've lost it before with irrational fear and terror. However not even close as bad as you sound.

Everone one and a while I'll keep myself awake at night panicing because I start thinking about dying.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a bizarre coincidence. Didn't you get my PM regarding your avatar?

[Sponger15SB]

Yeah, I did.

I'm rather confused why it freaked you out that bad to PM me.

[A_C_Slater]

I was just reading one of your posts when I got home after the fear hit me. It's the eyes. The left one looks bigger and, well, I'm not really sure, it's almost more malevolent looking than the right one. Is that a picture of you? If it is, I'm not saying you're ugly or anything. It's just that you have a crazy look in the eyes.

[The Dude]

I got 5 lines through before I stopped. Anybody get any further?

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
I got 5 lines through before I stopped. Anybody get any further?

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought (good) poker player's had patience?

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought (good) poker player's had patience?

[/ QUOTE ]
We also know how to fold before the river.

[A_C_Slater]

If you've never had The Fear you wouldn't understand. I posted this for those who know . /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[The Dude]

It would be worth learning about, since I haven't ever had The Fear, but I just couldn't bring myself to read more than 5 lines of your post. I was genuinely curious if anybody made it further.

[Dr. Strangelove]

i am the devil and i am just like you

[A_C_Slater]

There's no use denying it: this has been a bad week. I've started drinking my own urine. I laugh spontaneously at nothing. Sometimes I sleep under my futon. I'm flossing my teeth constantly until my gums are aching and my mouth tastes like blood. I turned the T.V. on today and the first thing I heard was Maury Povitch asking a child, eight or nine, "But isn't that just another term for an orgy?"


Lyrics to Avril Lavigne songs keep intruding, bursting into my head, announcing themselves in tiring, familiar ways, and I stare into space, my eyes lazily lit up while I try to forget about the day looming before me, but then a phrase that fills me with a nameless dread keeps interrupting the Avril Lavigne songs___ isolated farmhouse constantly returns to me, over and over.

[cnfuzzd]

dude,,, seriously,, go somewhere and find people to talk to. Professional-type people who know the reasons you might be feeling this way.

Drinking your own urine is bad, but not as bad as avril songs popping into your head.

peace

john nickle

[brassnuts]

Is this schizophrenia?

[balkii]

[ QUOTE ]
I got 5 lines through before I stopped. Anybody get any further?

[/ QUOTE ]

you made it 5 lines? impressive.

[Popinjay]

[ QUOTE ]
cancel a massage appointment that I never made.


[/ QUOTE ]

So much for [your] happy ending

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I got 5 lines through before I stopped. Anybody get any further?

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean you didn't skip to the end, see if anything interesting transpires?

[Lazymeatball]

I made it 8 lines, then realized I don't care what he ate for lunch. Did i miss any gems in the middle there, or is it all just incoherent ramblings? No offense to your AC, keep on rambling as neccessary.


ps. In the middle he vomits a bunch of ham, and then eats 5 vials of crack whole. Good times.

[Dr. Strangelove]

not a lot of bret easton ellis fans here

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
I buy a set of butcher knives, an ax, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, and then, at the pet store down the block, a Habitrail and two white rats than I plan to torture with the knives and acid

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude you are seriously [censored] up. Honestly I can't imagine how you get by on a day to day basis.
-James

[fsuplayer]

not a lot of bret easton ellis fans here

i read most of it, but i didnt get through the whole book for whatever reason.

AC's post reminded me of it alot though. it isnt an excerpt is it?

[jakethebake]

try hitting the return keey once in awhile while typing. new paragrahs are good. run ons are bad.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ QUOTE ]
it isnt an excerpt is it?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, it's from american psycho

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
There's no use denying it: this has been a bad week. I've started drinking my own urine. I laugh spontaneously at nothing. Sometimes I sleep under my futon. I'm flossing my teeth constantly until my gums are aching and my mouth tastes like blood. I turned the T.V. on today and the first thing I heard was Maury Povitch asking a child, eight or nine, "But isn't that just another term for an orgy?"


Lyrics to Avril Lavigne songs keep intruding, bursting into my head, announcing themselves in tiring, familiar ways, and I stare into space, my eyes lazily lit up while I try to forget about the day looming before me, but then a phrase that fills me with a nameless dread keeps interrupting the Avril Lavigne songs___ isolated farmhouse constantly returns to me, over and over.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, I loved this book the first time I read it. I especially love these passages.

I remember thinking what a great Rasta stage name that would be, Nameless Dread.

[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]
not a lot of bret easton ellis fans here

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't read it for 7 or 8 yrs., but I recognized it by the end of the first sentence.

There's a lot there--it's a great book.

A lot of people dismissed it because of the "pop" nature of it and the seemingly prurient nature of much of the content, but it's great, really.

[A_C_Slater]

...where there was nature and earth, life and water, I saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel baclward, unable to take it in.


It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I dealt with the tangible. This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever , that people were good or that man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person's love or kindness. Nothing was affirmative, the term "generosity of spirit" applied to nothing, was a cliche, was some kind of bad joke.


Sex is mathematics.Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define Reason. Desire__meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in... this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged...

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it isnt an excerpt is it?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, it's from american psycho

[/ QUOTE ]

I was just about to compliment AC on his writing, too.

Oh well.

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it isnt an excerpt is it?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, it's from american psycho

[/ QUOTE ]

I was just about to compliment AC on his writing, too.

Oh well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah right. No one in the world writes like this guy.

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]


Yeah right. No one in the world writes like this guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is from my favorite author:

A computer chatted to itself in alarm as it noticed an airlock open and close itself for no apparent reason.

This was because Reason was in fact out to lunch.

A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of million light years from end to end.

As it closed up lots of paper hats and party balloons fell out of it and drifted off through the universe. A team of seven three- foot-high market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of asphyxication, partly of surprise.

Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it too, materializing in a large woobly heap on the famine- struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system.

The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.

The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backwards and forwards through time in a most improbable fashion. Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns. These patterns quickly learnt to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary of the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to. That was how life began in the Universe.

Five wild Event Maelstroms swirled in vicious storms of unreason and spewed up a pavement.

On the pavement lay Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent gulping like half-spent fish.

"There you are," gasped Ford, scrabbling for a fingerhold on the pavement as it raced through the Third Reach of the Unknown, "I told you I'd think of something."

"Oh sure," said Arthur, "sure."

"Bright idea of mine," said Ford, "to find a passing spaceship and get rescued by it."

The real universe arched sickeningly away beneath them. Various pretend ones flitted silently by, like mountain goats. Primal light exploded, splattering space-time as with gobbets of junket. Time blossomed, matter shrank away. The highest prime number coalesced quietly in a corner and hid itself away for ever.

"Oh come off it," said Arthur, "the chances against it were astronomical."

"Don't knock it, it worked," said Ford.

"What sort of ship are we in?" asked Arthur as the pit of eternity yawned beneath them.

"I don't know," said Ford, "I haven't opened my eyes yet."

"No, nor have I," said Arthur.

The Universe jumped, froze, quivered and splayed out in several unexpected directions.

Arthur and Ford opened their eyes and looked about in considerable surprise.

"Good god," said Arthur, "it looks just like the sea front at Southend."

"Hell, I'm relieved to hear you say that," said Ford.

"Why?"

"Because I thought I must be going mad."

"Perhaps you are. Perhaps you only thought I said it."

Ford thought about this.

"Well, did you say it or didn't you?" he asked.

"I think so," said Arthur.

"Well, perhaps we're both going mad."

"Yes," said Arthur, "we'd be mad, all things considered, to think this was Southend."

"Well, do you think this is Southend?"

"Oh yes."

"So do I."

"Therefore we must be mad."

"Nice day for it."

"Yes," said a passing maniac.

"Who was that?" asked Arthur

"Who - the man with the five heads and the elderberry bush full of kippers?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. Just someone."

"Ah."

They both sat on the pavement and watched with a certain unease as huge children bounced heavily along the sand and wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas.

"You know," said Arthur with a slight cough, "if this is Southend, there's something very odd about it ..."

"You mean the way the sea stays steady and the buildings keep washing up and down?" said Ford. "Yes I thought that was odd too. In fact," he continued as with a huge bang Southend split itself into six equal segments which danced and span giddily round each other in lewd and licentious formation, "there is something altogether very strange going on."

Wild yowling noises of pipes and strings seared through the wind, hot doughnuts popped out of the road for ten pence each, horrid fish stormed out of the sky and Arthur and Ford decided to make a run for it.

They plunged through heavy walls of sound, mountains of archaic thought, valleys of mood music, bad shoe sessions and footling bats and suddenly heard a girl's voice.

It sounded quite a sensible voice, but it just said, "Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling," and that was all.

Ford skidded down a beam of light and span round trying to find a source for the voice but could see nothing he could seriously believe in.

"What was that voice?" shouted Arthur.

"I don't know," yelled Ford, "I don't know. It sounded like a measurement of probability."

"Probability? What do you mean?"

"Probability. You know, like two to one, three to one, five to four against. It said two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against. That's pretty improbable you know."

A million-gallon vat of custard upended itself over them without warning.

"But what does it mean?" cried Arthur.

"What, the custard?"

"No, the measurement of probability!"

"I don't know. I don't know at all. I think we're on some kind of spaceship."

"I can only assume," said Arthur, "that this is not the first- class compartment."

Bulges appeared in the fabric of space-time. Great ugly bulges.

"Haaaauuurrgghhh ..." said Arthur as he felt his body softening and bending in unusual directions. "Southend seems to be melting away ... the stars are swirling ... a dustbowl ... my legs are drifting off into the sunset ... my left arm's come off too." A frightening thought struck him: "Hell," he said, "how am I going to operate my digital watch now?" He wound his eyes desperately around in Ford's direction.

"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

Again came the voice.

"Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and falling."

Ford waddled around his pond in a furious circle.

"Hey, who are you," he quacked. "Where are you? What's going on and is there any way of stopping it?"

"Please relax," said the voice pleasantly, like a stewardess in an airliner with only one wing and two engines one of which is on fire, "you are perfectly safe."

"But that's not the point!" raged Ford. "The point is that I am now a perfectly save penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!"

"It's alright, I've got them back now," said Arthur.

"Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against and falling," said the voice.

"Admittedly," said Arthur, "they're longer than I usually like them, but ..."

"Isn't there anything," squawked Ford in avian fury, "you feel you ought to be telling us?"

The voice cleared its throat. A giant petit four lolloped off into the distance.

"Welcome," the voice said, "to the Starship Heart of Gold."

The voice continued.

"Please do not be alarmed," it said, "by anything you see or hear around you. You are bound to feel some initial ill effects as you have been rescued from certain death at an improbability level of two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand to one against - possibly much higher. We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank you. Two to the power of twenty thousand to one against and falling."

The voice cut out.

Ford and Arthur were in a small luminous pink cubicle.

Ford was wildly excited.

"Arthur!" he said, "this is fantastic! We've been picked up by a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive! This is incredible! I heard rumors about it before! They were all officially denied, but they must have done it! They've built the Improbability Drive! Arthur, this is ... Arthur? What's happening?"

Arthur had jammed himself against the door to the cubicle, trying to hold it closed, but it was ill fitting. Tiny furry little hands were squeezing themselves through the cracks, their fingers were inkstained; tiny voices chattered insanely.

Arthur looked up.

"Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."

[A_C_Slater]

Who's the author?

[SomethingClever]

Douglas Adams. From "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

Read it now before the movie comes out in May...