Little by little

I will reassemble my room

Little by little

I will reassemble my life

It is just this

Life is process

It has no beginning

It has no end

Birth and death

Too, are phases

In a much larger cycle

That goes on for eternity

These trifles, stupid things

We get so emotional

We do not see the forest

We do not see the trees 

Little by little

Piece by piece

Breath by breath

Step by step

Peace begins with me

Peace begins with you

It has no nationality

It has no agenda

It just is

Inhale, exhale

Open your eyes

Then close them

Life goes on

Life tests us

and tests us

and tests us

and tests us again

This is life

Laugh at the ridiculous nature

of these challenges

We all die one day, right?

So, let's live now

Even if it isn't always easy

The Universe knows why

The Universe is a great trickster sometimes

Let the karma flow

Don't attach

Don't react

Observe

The White Room 

by Marc Lowe

Part I: Introduction to The White Room

He sits in a straight-backed chair in the center of the room, his arms resting on a round, three-legged wood table covered with a white tablecloth. He wears a white suit with a white cravat, starched white shirt, and pleated white pants. His white shoes are polished to perfection, his white hair and mustache contrasting with his dark skin. His top-hat, too, is white. There is some white wine in a flute-stemmed glass on the table beside his neatly folded hands, the palms of which are lighter than the exterior of the fingers. Behind him, a mirror reflecting his image in the mirror in front of him; in front of him, a mirror reflecting his image in the mirror behind, and so on in succession. To his left and right, white- tiled walls, while below and above him a white floor and ceiling to match. There is a white urinal on the wall to his left, the letters “M.D.” painted on its side in red, a white toilet next to it, and on the wall to his right a torn poster with some sort of political slogan on it, written in a foreign language. The door, also painted white, is shut. Locked. The man himself has locked it from the inside, as instructed.

In the rear corner of the room a camera watches, a little red light blinking at its corner. The man’s brow is furrowed, his bushy white eyebrows following the trajectory of the brow; his azure blue eyes, the pupils of which are speckled with white, gaze at something only the man is able to perceive within his blindness, some phantom shape, we may imagine. One hand now crawls toward the stem of the champagne flute to first touch and then lift the glass to his chapped, pink lips. In one determined motion the diaphanous fluid has disappeared down the man’s throat. A slight trace of a smile appears on his face and then is gone. The man suddenly opens his mouth, though no sound emerges. Now he stands up and walks over to the urinal (he does not need a “shooter stick” [white cane] to get around the room, for he has memorized its limited landscape and could navigate his way around it even without a head!). Unzipping his fly, he loosens his belt, lowers his pants and then his trunks (which are black), and extracts his penis, which is lighter than the skin of his face but darker than the palms of his hands, and very long and thin. He relieves himself, moaning slightly, and then reverses the process, pulling his trunks up again, then his pants and belt, and finally zipping up his zipper. Afterwards, he returns to the round table upon which the now empty flute glass rests and sits down, the mirrors once again reflecting their respective images of him in endless succession.

Part II: How The Man Named Gustav Came to Be in The White Room

His name, they say, was Gustav. He was an immigrant from Rennes, in France (though born in Algeria), who had come to live in the United States because, as a blind man, he had been discriminated against in his home country, where unemployment for people such as himself was, he had read in a Braille newspaper, statistically at least three-times higher than for those without, despite the laws requiring companies to keep 6% of jobs in reserve for people with disabilities. What he found, however, upon arriving in this country in the mid- ‘90s, was that the job he had been promised by his blind Asian-American pen-pal before leaving his country—working as a clerk in a store selling men’s clothing, especially suits and tuxedos—had disappeared; the shop had gone bust. His pen pal, too, had mysteriously disappeared, it would seem, though fortunately for Gustav his work visa had already been taken care of. He was distraught, but he did not give up, for he had no choice but to find work, and fast. He searched for another clothing shop that would hire him, as he had experience with sales: he had worked for his father’s store as a teenager before going blind (his medical records state that, on a dare, the young Gustav had stared at the sun for a full hour and thirty minutes, resulting in irreversible damage to his eyesight, though he himself claims that he had always been blind).

The details of what happened next are not delineated in any detail in the report that has come down to us; ours is the edited version, approved by the authorities. But, we digress.... Gustav eventually found a temporary job through a man he met on the street—a clown, by profession, though Gustav never realized this—selling hot roasted peanuts on the grounds of a carnival. This was not a high paying job, of course, but it was better than nothing. One evening, a voice asked Gustav for three servings of peanuts, to which Gustav replied, in his slightly broken English, Yes, of course, sir. When he held out the first of the three boxes filled with nuts, however, no one’s hand reached out to claim it. Sir? Gustav queried, wondering what had happened, but there was no response. Suddenly, and with force, the unwitting Gustav was grabbed by a number of hands, how many he was not sure: it happened so quickly he scarce had time to think, or to cry out for help. The carnival had gone quite silent, and all he could see, as ever, were amorphous, dark shapes inside his head. He fumbled, fell backwards, and when he awoke he was seated in a (...)

Part III: Gustav, The White Room, and Two Visitors

straight-backed chair in the center of the room, his arms resting on a round, three-legged wood table covered with a white tablecloth. He wears a white suit with a white cravat, starched white shirt, and pleated white pants, etc. There are two empty chairs across from him, and, accordingly, two flute-stemmed glasses filled with wine upon the table: rouge and rosé, respectively. There is a centerpiece in the center of the table; it is a metal crown shaped like a phoenix, with a lit candle protruding from it. Behind him, a mirror reflecting his image in the mirror in front of him, etc.

There is a knock at the door. Gustav walks over to it (he has memorized the layout of the room; he knows it like the back of his hand...), unlatches the lock, and returns to his straight-backed chair. Two men enter the room, both wearing black from head to toe. One man’s face is painted like a clown; the other man’s face wears a blank expression. The two men take their places at the round table across from Gustav. They lift their glasses in unison and then drain them. Gustav does not move. He does not have a glass from which to drink. He is not thirsty anyway. He sits in his straight-backed chair and stares blankly. The visitors shake hands with one another. They stand up. They dance around the table, kicking up their heels. They kiss each other’s cheeks. They mime. They unzip their flies and take turns urinating in the urinal. Then they return to their seats.

“Sir, do you know why you are here?” 

“No sir, I do not.”
“Sir, do you know how you got here?” 

“No sir, I do not.”
“Sir, do you wish to leave?” “——.”
“Please lock the door after we exit.” 

“Yes sir.”

The two men in black clothing stand up. They whisper some words in one another’s ears. They look back at the blind man, and then turn around to leave. Gustav follows, locks the door, and returns to his seat. The men have taken their empty flute-stemmed glasses away and have replaced them with a single glass, filled with vin blanc. The candle has been extinguished, or perhaps has gone out. It is dark in the white room. Gustav closes his eyes, sleeps. He dreams.

Part IV: Gustav’s Dream (The Unofficial Report)

I am not who the “report” says I am. My name is not Gustav. I am not French, and I wasn’t born in Algeria. But none of this matters. They say that my skin is dark, but to me everyone and everything is dark. Everything begins and ends in darkness. Where now? Who now? When now? Why do they call me Gustav? Why do they say that I am a Frenchman? I am not any of these things. I am not who they think I am. I am not.

Part V: The Man Who Was Not Gustav

He sits in a straight-backed chair in the center of the room, his arms resting on a round, three-legged wood table covered with a white tablecloth. The sound of music can be heard from outside, drifting in through the crack below the door. The music is funereal, languid. A flute-stemmed glass sits on the table, empty. The strains of the dirge make the glass vibrate; it emits a sound like soft moaning. The man wears a white suit with a white cravat, etc. He is sitting in the white room, the strains of funerary music echoing dully. He sits, listening. Or is he just sitting? Now he stands. Having no need of a shooter stick, he walks over to the urinal, unzips his fly. He urinates and then returns to his seat at the table. The walls are white. The floor is white. The ceiling is white. The man’s skin is dark, sweaty. He is sweating in the white room, the sounds of a funerary dirge in his ears. He opens his mouth, sticks out his too-pink tongue. An insect the color of sand crawls out, drops to the table on a strand of the man’s saliva. The insect climbs the side of the flute-stemmed glass, falls into its concave center. The man places the light palm of his dark hand atop the glass, sealing the insect’s fate. He waits, breathes: inhale, exhale, inhale, etc. He waits in the white room, waits for the men to come again. The men do not come. The music continues to play. The man continues to wait. In the white room. He waits. The insect has stopped moving inside the glass. The man lifts the glass to his lips.

He wakes. He is at a carnival, selling peanuts. He cannot see the man who speaks to him, but he can hear his voice. Yes sir, he replies, holding out the peanuts, three boxes of them. But no one takes the peanuts from his outstretched hand. Being blind from birth (the sun had nothing to do with it, he insists), there is no way that he can resist his unseen assailants. Why are they blindfolding him? Don’t they realize that he doesn’t see? He awakes in the white room, (still) blind, sitting at a table with three legs. Why three? A flute-stemmed glass of wine sits on the table opposite the man, whose name, they say, was Gustav; who, they say, was a Frenchman of Algerian descent. The camera zooms in, zooms out.

Part VI: Witness’s Confession (Death of the Man Some Called Gustav)

I don’t know where he was from, tell the truth, the man they called Gustav. To me he was just the “man in the white room,” will always be the man in the white room. I watched over him on the monitor for days; he hardly ever moved, except to urinate once in a while. He never ate more than the crumbs of bread that were brought him, though he did drink up all of the wine. Strangest job I ever had, monitoring that man. He never once tried to escape. But then one day he killed himself. Just like that. Smashed the flute-stemmed glass on the round edge of the table and cut his own neck after swallowing a mouthful of shards. Without warning. He did it suddenly, fell to the floor like a sack of grain. The man in the white room, a dark bubbling stream of blood running from his neck: I’ll never forget the image. It’s all on the video you’ve seen, no?

I never asked any questions, never got any answers. Why they had brought him to the white room, dressed him up in white. Why he hadn’t tried to leave. So, I’m afraid I have no explanations to offer you, officer. Perhaps it’d be best if you ask them, the others, the same questions you’ve been asking me. What others? The two men I’ve been talking about all along! Haven’t you interrogated them yet? Yes, of course there were others. I wasn’t the one running the show. No, I don’t know their names; they never told me. I was too afraid to ask—they always had that threatening look in their eyes, and I didn’t want to make trouble for myself or for my humble-but-happy family of three. Yes, of course. Of course I’m telling you the truth. You haven’t seen the video? It’s disappeared? That’s...but how? I’m telling you everything I know. I am not...

Part VII: The White Room (Conclusion)

You sit in a straight-backed chair in the center of the white room, your arms resting on a round, three-legged wood table covered with a white tablecloth, waiting. A flute-stemmed glass filled with sparkling white wine rests atop the table. Your mouth waters. The moment you reach out a hand to pick up the glass two men in black enter the room, one of them with a face painted like a clown. Their images, like your own, are multiplied in the mirrors both before and behind you.

“Do you know why you are here?” one of the men suddenly asks, the one with the clown-face. Grinning ghoulishly, he squirts dark water from a silicone flower on his lapel. You open your mouth to speak, but find that no words emerge. A camera watches you from the rear corner of the room (see the red light blinking there?). There is a picture of a dark-skinned man dressed from head to toe in white on the opposite wall who looks uncannily familiar. You lift the glass, the wine disappears down your throat. You stand, move toward the door, which, oddly you think, has been left unlocked. The two men are now taking turns urinating into the urinal. You consider your options, glancing at the door for a moment before returning to the chair at the center of the room.

When you sit down the first man repeats his question:
“Do you know why you are here?”
You answer:
“No, sir, I do not.”
“Please lock the door after we exit.”

You nod your head, which suddenly feels as heavy as a sack of grain, and try to remember how you got here, but the wine has made you inordinately drowsy and you can no longer think straight. Your eyes close. You are in the white room, dreaming white dreams. When you awake, you find yourself at a carnival, three boxes of peanuts in your lap. Suddenly, an old lady begins to point at you, then another person and another, until a crowd has gathered around. You look down at the three boxes of peanuts with blurred vision (fading, fading...) to see that they are drenched in dark blood. The next thing you recall is waking up in a white-walled room, surrounded by people wearing white. Then, after that: darkness.

—2008/9

My iCloud files are gone, but thankfully I had backed up all of my fiction. This is from 2004's unpublished novel, "To Speak Is to Not See" (the emphasis on "not")...

(Detective M. now recalls, by some oblique association, the wonder he had felt as a child upon discovering that if one pulled some of the feelers from a fly’s underside the others would still continue moving, or that one could burn leaves—even insects—with a magnifying glass and some sunlight. He had always wanted to be a scientist when he grew up, to study the unshakable “Laws of Physics,” and thereby to follow in the footsteps of the great—albeit clinically insane—Sir Isaac Newton. His parents had taught him that the Law of God, their God, governed all other laws, including those of physics, and that if He wanted to, He—though the detective had always imagined God to be a woman with large breasts and wide hips—could countermand them at any time, could literally change all the rules of the game without any warning or explanation whatsoever. This idea had stayed with the detective, though of course he didn’t really put any credence in it.)

Posted to FB (friends-only) on Sept. 19, 2024

When I was little, I used to think, "If only I could complete a single [X] (i.e. novel, musical composition/album, etc.), what a wonder my life would be."

I thought that if I could ever be "good at" just one thing -- something related to literature or music, since I never cared for sports or any of that -- people would recognize my "talent" and I would always be surrounded by friends and supporters and etc.

You know, the fantasy of a lonely, asthmatic kid who never got picked for the team (here's a tissue)...

In my twenties and thirties, I gave up on playing music almost entirely (in middle and high school I had been a drummer and occasional vocalist, though I did not write my own music) and focused almost entirely on language and literature study. I got married early and the only time I sang was at home or in the shower, but sing I did. Often. Or shout (if it was Nine Inch Nails, and no one was around to hear it!).

In my forties, after obtaining my second MA (an MFA in creative writing) and returning to Japan to teach at university, where I had for several years lived off and on between studying at uni/grad school, something inside me broke. I joined a rock band in late 2014 (as vocalist-only, for the first time, instead of as a drummer, something I'd always dreamed of doing/being), put 110% of myself into it, and in the end was disappointed when the bulk of the songs I began writing "a cappella" (before I could play the guitar or piano) were never arranged or performed by the band.

After two years of this, I bought my first acoustic, and less than a year later I had assembled my own band. (Soon thereafter I also bought the Telecaster - electric - that, to this day, I own and use occasionally for recording and/or live performances). I realized, after the band fired me from my own band less than a year later, that the people who had been coming to our shows were not coming either for me or for my songs/performances, but for the other three members of the band, with whom they were friends.

That was the reality of it. Boom.

Post-band, I formed various smaller projects -- using electronic backing, drum machines, whatever worked for me -- and did solo things, either with backing or just acoustic-vocal. People generally did not come, nor did they respond on SNS. In early 2019 a "stalker" who thought it would be funny to try and smear me by putting a bunch of mocking videos on YouTube and other social media sources using my name and image appeared. He had been friends with my ex-bandmates, and I guess he didn't like my music (?)...

Covid came in 2020, shortly after I moved to Tokyo for work, and I again had to move to another apartment (my current place of over four years now) after a bitter breakup. I continued to make music on my own, realizing that nothing I did would change the way the outside world "was" or that I would likely not gain any sort of fanbase by doing the music I did/do. During the pandemic, music was the only thing that kept me from throwing in the towel. That and listening to talks about how NOT to depend on others/external things. I realized, then, that all of the BS external stuff that was making me so frustrated was just that: a veneer, a mask, a deception.

FF to 2024. The music has evolved/changed, but the situation has not.

I feel very much supported by a small handful of people who respect what I do. By and large, however, nothing has really changed at all. The way I respond has changed, but nothing "objectively" has...

Going back to "when I was little" for a moment...

When I was writing day and night, obsessed and possessed by the written word, I completed several collections of short stories and novellas over a period of several years, as well as a longer novel. Most remain unpublished to this day.

And since I started writing and recording (and mixing and designing artwork for, etc.) my own musical material, I have produced -- on my own -- more LPs than I myself can literally count or recall. I have performed hundreds of live shows, both solo and in collaboration with others, over a span of around 10 years (maybe slightly less than 10...). But nothing has really changed at all, except the quality of the music, the production, and what is inside of me.

That idea that "If I am good at one thing..." or "If I can only see this one project to completion..." was completely naive and, well, incorrect. A very childish idea, indeed. The most surprising part for me has been, over time, that I had so much more than only "one [X]" in me after all. Music (and writing, and video work, and...well, CREATIVITY) have become the reason that I still bother to wake up in the morning. And all of the commercial stuff really sucks, you know? I mean, no one seems to have the focus for anything of any real substance anymore, and everything is about instant gratification and profit.

Let me tell everyone here a little secret: FB is actually quite depressing to me.

I am beyond caring very much about thumbs up and so on, either here or on other platforms (the only time I've ever gotten them is when I post photos of food or my daughter, never for creative endeavors). But when you put 110% into your music, your visuals, your production, your ART (which is the expression of one's deepest aspects)... You do everything possible to make your art the best that it can be, and you get almost no response and no turnout at shows...

Well, it's "Turn and turn again (I shake!)"...

Do it, or quit. I have no choice, since if I quit my life loses all meaning entire.

It's funny to me how the very second some influencer says something is good and puts it on social media, everyone else jumps on the bandwagon, and then everything that the person who, five minutes ago, was an unknown says or does is repeated or imitated by everyone else. It's like, "Bowie was a GENIUS!" (he was) or "Elon Musk is a GENIUS!" (he isn't) and so then everyone is supposed to never question anything they did (like the awful Glass Spider tour of '87, or Musk's Neuralink trials, for which he tortured and slaughtered animals needlessly in order to bring Orwellian Mind Control to the masses).

It's the same thing when bands try and cover other bands' material. Instead of creatively reinterpreting, they get stuck on the chords and using sheet music. Status quo is boring.

You know, you really have to kill your ego, sit back, enjoy the moments you can, and laugh at the absurdity of this place we call "Reality." As Alan Watts once said, "Don't worry, it's all a show."

 I wrote a new story last night, the first in a very long time. I would like to share it with you here, now.

Angel Integers

Marc Lowe

Suddenly, he awoke.

3:33 a.m.

Groaning slightly, he rolled over onto his side.

The bed was, as always, empty. Save himself. 

Just as it had been, now, for three and a half years.

Every night this week, for three nights in a row (or should it be “three mornings”?), he had woken suddenly.

And every night, when he turned on the small bedlight and glanced over at his digital clock, it read:

3:33 a.m.

What in the world, he wondered, could this mean?

Perhaps, he told himself, it meant nothing.

Absolutely nothing at all.

But he had this nagging feeling inside him that there was some sort of message here, some sort of sign that he was being asked to decode.

If so, though, he thought to himself, a message from whom?

And also why was he “being asked” to decode it?

He tried to go back to sleep. Closed his eyes. Breathed slow and deep into the bottom of his belly.

No use.

Useless even to try.

Sleep did not — would not — come, just as it hadn’t come the night before. And the night before that, too.

He was tired. He wanted no more than to sleep.

The pattern repeating itself for three consecutive nights.

3:33, the clock had read.

What time was it now?

3:44.

Apparently only ten minutes had passed. It felt as if it had been much longer.

Ah…whatever, he thought to himself aloud, speaking to no one (or were his words heard only by him, inside his head? Had he actually aspirated them, or only thought them to himself? Did it matter, since no one else was around to hear them, anyway? If a tree falls in the forest… Etc.). 

He got out of bed, turned on the light.

I am so tired, he said aloud (or perhaps he only thought it to himself, or, alternately, perhaps, and again, he first thought and then said it — aloud — to no one and for no logical reason).

It was no use overthinking, he told himself.

Overthinking never got anyone anywhere, he said aloud this time (to himself, to no one).

Indeed, someone, somewhere answered.

(No, no. That was impossible. No one else was in the room. He lived alone, had always lived alone. Hadn’t he always been alone here?)

No one answered.

He must have answered his own statement. There was no other explanation for it (he reasoned with himself).

Funny, that, since it wasn’t even a question to begin with, and so required no answer.

Yet an answer (or perhaps a response, at least) had come.

Indeed.

Just this.

Indeed.

3:33 a.m.

What time was it now?

He glanced back at the digital clock, which was still there beside the bed on his nightstand (why would he expect it to be anywhere else, after all…), over on the opposite side of the room, opposite to where he was now standing.

But wait. Where was he now standing? Was he even standing now?

Wait a minute…

No, not just for a minute. 

(Slight sense of panic.)

Where was he now? And what time was it?

He opened his eyes. Still lying in bed.

He turned on the light, glanced over at the clock.

3:33 a.m. it blinked.

The man sat up in bed, stiff as a rod.

What’s going on? he thought to himself.

What’s going on? he answered himself (this time aspirating the words, the three words emerging as three separate soundbytes, one after the other in sequence…).

Suddenly, and inexplicably, he began recounting a long-forgotten childhood memory.

(When he had been 11 years old, his father had brought him to a carnival.

At the carnival, he had wanted cotton candy.

The father had said, Son, your mother will kill me if I let you eat that. You know that you are not allowed to eat sweets.

The man (i.e. the boy) said to his father, But Dad, I want it. Can’t I have it?

The father said, Son, your mother will murder me if I buy you that.)

He was awake now. Lying in bed.

The clock was still blinking.

3:33

3:33

3:33

What is the meaning of this? the man now screamed aloud, despite himself.

The walls reverberated with the sound.

The clock continued to blink 3:33.

And now, a siren began to wail in the distance.

At the same time, the man’s phone began to ring.

(Bizarre timing, the man now thought to himself without, however, voicing this thought aloud.)

He thought it best to ignore the call.

He wanted badly to just ignore it.

He let it ring.

And ring.

And ring.

After several minutes (three? or was it more than that?) he gave in to the incessant buzzing and answered.

Here is your sign, a rather hoarse and broken voice (male or female, it was difficult to tell) at the other end intoned.

Before the man could respond, the line went dead.

The ambulance siren had long gone silent.

The man got up from the bed, walked over to the window.

He opened the blinds to reveal that the glass behind it was now frosted over with a thin sheet of frosty white icing.

Here is your sign…

What could all of this mean? he thought to himself.

(And why was his window frosted over? Wasn’t it still summer? Or had the seasons changed and he had merely not noticed until this moment?)

Returning to bed the man closed his eyes, pulled the covers over his head, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

August 7, 2024

Tokyo, Japan