Anxiety Time Machine

=><= [[Anxiety Time Machine->time machine]]  (set: $typewriterText to "by Valentine Carter ") {  (set: $typewriterPos to 1)  |typewriterOutput>[]  (live: 50ms)[  (append: ?typewriterOutput)[(print: $typewriterText's $typewriterPos)]  (set: $typewriterPos to it + 1)  (if: $typewriterPos is $typewriterText's length + 1)[ (stop:) ] ] }

let this initial point of departure [[slip away]]

in an endless [[pursuit]] of a destination [[a fixed point]] upon which to alight finally at ease, in [[repose]]

at last but if what if this [[resting place]] is not the final stop after all merely a point noting [[continuance]]?

Time check: (current-time: ) Maybe take: a [[pause]] a [[restart]] a [[swerve]]

(set: $typewriterText to "a brief stutter in a long sentence which seems to spew out into the night ") {  (set: $typewriterPos to 1)  |typewriterOutput>[]  (live: 20ms)[  (append: ?typewriterOutput)[(print: $typewriterText's $typewriterPos)]  (set: $typewriterPos to it + 1)  (if: $typewriterPos is $typewriterText's length + 1)[ (stop:) ] ] } { (live:3s)[ (stop:) like [[the wrong coloured smoke]] at the Vatican when there is still no pope, no human to act as an escaltor from earth to the [[heavens]], & still it continues almost as if none of it matters, not really ] }

it's fine just take a breath and start [[over again|slip away]]

a sudden [[unexpected|eating away]] turn in events & now we can no longer trust this compass or believe [[this clock|flipped]] that counts the hours that knows it is (current-time: ) on a (weekday: )

this is a scant pilgrimage though peopled by [[human resources managers]] social media officers & baristas maybe a [[hairdresser]] or two a photographer, half a poet, someone who once worked as an usher at a cinema that's [[now closed]]

these are not reasons to give up more to take another step along the [[cliffside]], beside the [[ravine]] and hope that round the next [[bend]]

another destination presents itself like an ancient temple emerging from the mists high upon a mountain top early in the morning before the [[tourists]] descend like [[gannets->slip away]]

ready { (live: 2s)[ (stop:) steady ] } { (live: 4s)[ (stop:) [[go]] ] }

and yet somehow despite that sense of [[progress->expected horizon]] lent by time and that setting sun again & again [[resetting->a lighter shade of paint]] the day, the end seems to be no nearer than it was when we [[set off->slip away]]

like the hole left by a nail that was removed, a nail that used to hold a [[picture hook]] by the look of these dusty edges left on the wall like a frame but at the same time not a frame, delineating nothing but [[a lighter shade of paint]]

or maybe the head of a stag hung there a little bit of a murder scene brought home to have above the dining table, so the killer can remember the thrill of taking a life as if that will make up for the empty hollow yearning that is [[eating away]] at his insides like the parasite in a parable or other such [[cautionary tale]]

not quite a tabula rasa but almost were it not for that [[sinister edging]] as if the night itself were bleeding into the day from some unappointed place far from the [[expected horizon]]

this is a life lived in passing, as a backward glance tossed over one's shoulder, briefly dissmissive and while they look to the past let us [[run like skittish foals->sinking]] into the future as if we are now [[free->now closed]]

let's hope that time will setttle these arguments submerge these values like a Pacific island swallowed by the rising, rising ocean. & then time will have all the people now silenced & scattering, [[searching->slip away]]

[[fois]] gras [[veal]] other [[blood sports]]

the sun [[sinking]] down to places we can't see & suddenly it becomes a vehicle of dawn, not dusk and the world is [[flipped]]

as if it's no more than a timer that someone is using to monitor a [[breakfast]] egg, a small hourglass that is surely an heirloom of sorts, a souvenir of [[past times]] but now it's (current-time: ) there's no more time for eggs

but for now this little helix of sand is just doing its job, making sure that nothing is overdone & even though you cannot see inside the pristine shell to check the consistency of the yolk the timer is always confident & for this five minutes so cleanly marked & noted a sense of purpose & achievement [[prevails->go]]

there is a right path, surely, [[a safe place->cliffside]] for feet to tread that is not made of people's dreams, [[people's necks->sinister edging]]

all this cruel confusion somehow trapped in a wide open space, free but [[caught not knowing->sinister edging]] when it will ever end or if it will just all somehow [[start again->slip away]]

oh, the terrible burden of effort of not allowing this billowing disappointment to ruin [[this journey|cliffside]], this adventure but still there it hangs in the air like a reproach, a judgemental finger as rigid as saints' moral fibre like granite, or perhaps a million grains of sand held in an hourglass pouring away [[again & again|past times]]

as if we are little more than bundles of pixels moving through [[a finite space]] while a clock that shows (current-time: ) & counts down or we use up our only life in desperate search of power ups & [[easter eggs->fois]]

dealing in dead things that still grow and that in this specfic context are often beautiful or striving for some kind of beauty or trying to hold back the inevitable that [[approaches|fois]]

[[one foot then the other one foot then the other one foot then the other|swerve]] or perhaps [[other one then the foot other one then the foot other one then the foot|sinking]] or perhaps [[then the foot one other then the foot one other then the foot one other|pursuit]]

don't look I wouldn't keep going [[I would->cliffside]]

the new biblical plague [[leisure-wear locusts|veal]], descending on restaurants and beaches displacing the rest of us just trying to make our ways through the daily [[workaday->human resources managers]]

perhaps we all have to contemplate the quiet despair of confronting the too-soft egg, the unforgivable insult of this [[snotty yolk->the wrong coloured smoke]] I mean, sooner or later

and new destinations present themselves like the lights of a city blinking on street by street as you watch from a balcony high above it all [[seeing so far|bend]]

as if somehow the destination is coming to meet us, like an unasked for blind date armed with a single red rose and a copy of [[the local paper->hairdresser]] but which destination and how does it know where we are so far ahead of the appointed hour how can this be good, positive? it can't it can only be horrible [[Stop.->restart]]

just a nanosecond to snatch a breath { (live: 1s)[ (stop:) a last gasp before we all [[plunge on|pursuit]] ] } { (live: 2s)[ (stop:) and it all [[begins again|restart]] ] }

still, we haven't found the edges quite yet haven't breached the boundaries quite yet there's so much to explore, so much to [[tick off->go]] done, done, done & [[still more->cliffside]]