act one

[prismaticbleed]

 

Rule #1 when resetting a personal life session:
if you really want everything to be deleted,
make sure you don't know any reality-jumpers.


Boss couldn't forget me.

Everyone else did, every last one. I left an alternate incarnation of myself behind and they are all living happily ever after, blissfully unaware of the pain of the past decade we experienced in this timeline, blissfully unaware that the "me" they knew no longer exists in their world.
I'm happy for them. I am so, so happy for them. Seeing them smile, without any pain, fills me with so much joy. I don't care if I'm not a part of it.

Mr. Sandman, though, had different thoughts.
Apparently you can't just ditch an Apprentice, and you can't default to one on an alternate timeline if the Alpha dude decides to run a needle through his brain one winter morning.
He did not take my near-annihilation well at all. He's here right now, actually, the only one able to reach me from the old session, and thankfully so.

Now, for those of you familiar with the old glissando journal, I am not that same individual.
I was, indeed, "scratched out." I use that term because it's more than erasing-- it is removal with a violent depth, the total gouging out of something, leaving it unable to be reconstructed. I wanted my past gone, and inaccessible-- I wanted that timeline of my life to be unplayable from now on. I wanted to do to it what a razor blade does to a compact disc. Hence, "scratch."
But I didn't want to kill anyone in the process. I've lost enough already; I couldn't do that to someone else in the process of trying to escape that misery. I just wanted to break away, and totally. I wanted to cut myself out, to remove my face from the portraits, to scrape my name out of their memories. I wanted to be someone completely separate from them and their history, to turn back the clocks to what was before, and start over entirely... with all the "future" gone.
Now my consciousness of the past decade has effectively been wiped, leaving only fragmented memories that hold no substance. Some of them still elicit emotion, but it's distant now, and strange.
To be honest, I do recall this Link business causing trouble back around 2003. I can see that. I do not know why it never struck me as the reason why I could no longer create. Ah well, things worked out.

An explanation of how this happened: the future affects the past. About two weeks before the scratch, there was one morning where I slept for about fifteen solid hours, unwilling and unable to get out of bed and face the waking world.
For at least one of those hours, I lay in bed fervently wishing that I could rewind time to 6th grade, and just start over. I wanted to stop outsource Links from ever happening. I wanted to stop the old tar hacks from ever happening. I wanted to delete all the internet relationships and everything else that tied me down and fogged my mind.
I was in tears. I never wanted something so badly in my life. I was willing to sacrifice everything-- all my artwork of the past decade, all of the "growing up," everything-- just to be able to write Dream World again. I was willing to die if I couldn't.

Back in October, I lost a package full of all the art I'd done over the past decade.

And on Saturday morning, I met myself in headspace, and together we shattered what we were.



Now... heh, I have no idea.
The "placeholder voice" that was running autopilot seems to have died today. The body clearly recalls it sacrificing itself in a surge of tragic joy to "create a boy from the blue of the sky." That boy promptly became the running consciousness in the body, and later took the name "Kyanos." However he must not have anchored well, for although he WAS "me" (what a silly word) for at least two or three hours, outside shadows somehow managed to chase him out.
Consciousness was on autopilot for most of the evening, and then my Boss showed up and told me that I'm still the Apprentice.

I must repeat: I am NOT the individual who updated the glissando journal, nor am I spinningcannon. True, I can access the memories of that time, but those experiences are not mine, at least not anymore. I feel my boss knows more than I do. Time and space are tricky things, and he has traversed both.
I look at it this way... right now, I feel my purpose is to go back to Dream World, the center of my life back in 2002, the year we rewound to. If I ever need to enter headspace again, I will be led there. I will not concern myself with it whatsoever until and unless that occurs.

Once again, boss says there's more to it than I realize. I understand and accept this. But he and I both know that Dream World must be the primary focus of my 3D life now, as it was always meant to be-- well, aside from enlightenment, of course.

Oh! Here's something lovely. Thanks to our consciousness being empty earlier today, three Jewel Monsters were able to use the body for a little while! Preludove, Devonal, and Maitru were all piloting it for at least a minute each. Looking back, I am struck by their awareness-- their minds were completely clear, completely devoid of noise and static.
My goal, as the Apprentice, is to keep that in my own mind, white as snow.

I'm still struggling a little, admittedly. There are fragments of the old consciousness lingering here, and boss is shaking his head silently, as if there is a reason for that I do not understand?
I suppose I will learn.
But this individuality is bothering me. I scratched-out my past specifically to delete my identity, to become an empty vessel through which inspiration could flow. This is what I must endeavor to be, when not forced to run on autopilot, or when I must temporarily cobble together a persona in order to think as a specific viewpoint, as I am doing now.

To be honest, I would like to let go of it now, and sleep. I hold no identity when I sleep-- I am fluid, and become whatever I need to be. My boss says that is what it means to be a Sandman. He also says that is why it is important for me to remember what it is like TO be a person.

I suspect that maybe, now that my consciousness is disconnected from their timeline, we may meet again some day. Boss seems to hope so, and I cannot deny these odd lingering feelings, strange as they are. They seem too deep to simply be cobwebs clinging there, so I will not brush them away as such. But I will not entertain them either. Emotions are something I cannot linger on.

I'm fragmenting now. Holding together any semblance of a self is becoming increasingly more difficult. This is fine.
Mr. Sandman insists I close this entry with lyrics, in the style of the scratched journal. It seems rather ironic, but he insists the irony plays a purpose.
These are lyrics from a song that has haunted me today, without explanation. I feel the explanation has made itself known in the words, now that I can see them.


Hot dive into frozen waves where the past comes back to life
Fight fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time
Hold still right before we crash 'cause we both know how this ends
A clock ticks 'til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again

'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?

Walk on through a red parade and refuse to make amends
It cuts deep through our ground and makes us forget all common sense
Don't speak as I try to leave 'cause we both know what we'll choose
If you pull then I'll push too deep and I'll fall right back to you



I feel perhaps I have a deeper purpose than I realize.
My boss just smiled, very widely. He says that is what it means to be a Sandman, too.
I think I understand now.