Posthuman Blues

I've been invited to write something for New World Disorder. Anything I want, if I understood correctly. I've got this idea for an alien invasion story -- a potentially unique alien invasion story -- that might work . . .




Fun fact: You can actually make out my apartment in this picture.


The idea occurred to me while sitting next to the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain this afternoon. The fountain just came on a day or so ago. While I was sitting there drinking coffee and watching it, the water abruptly shut off; apparently the pipes were being tested. But since I was one of maybe four or five people present I felt a distant, completely irrational sense of responsibility -- as if my very presence had caused the tireless columns of water to vanish.

I get a similar feeling when I walk under a light that happens to flicker out the moment I'm beneath it. The other night, for instance, a streetlight winked out while I crossed the street, as if acknowledging my existence by offing itself. A ritual sacrifice; the inanimate humbling itself in the august presence of the stridently organic . . .

Tell me I'm the anchor of my own ascension.
Tell me I'm a tourist in the 4th dimension?

--R.E.M., "Animal"