Spectacular Views

I'm not suicidal, I swear. I just found myself standing on the top of a parking garage, one of those huge monstrosities you find at malls, looking out over the edge and wondering what my splattered body would look like.

I rarely go to the mall. I don't like the crowds there, the people all packed together. It was the same when I used to take public transportation -- riding the bus was like being inside a sardine can. Sometimes I couldn't breath and I had to get out early.

But today I had to go to the mall. When I moved out, I took all my clothes, but when I came back for the funeral, I didn't bring that much. Just a change of clothes and a suit. I've been relying on washing one pair of clothes while I wear the other all this time, but yesterday, I found a big rip in one of my jeans. So: off to the mall.

It was crowded, so I had to park at the top of the parking garage. And then, I don't know why, I looked down from the edge and I pictured my dead body on the pavement below.

I shook my head to fling away the bad thoughts. I walked down through the garage and I walked towards the opulent doors to the mall where I could already see giant crowds of people.

And as I walked, their faces peeled away, their bodies twisted, and they all became faceless and formless.

I ran away. Of course I ran away. Wouldn't you? I ran back to my car and I sat there trying to breath, trying to prove to myself I wasn't crazy. It's just your imagination, that's all. You're just imagining things.

But "imagining" is just a short jump to "hallucinating" and that equals crazy, right? Or I have some sort of sickness. Did my mom have the same sickness?

...is that why she committed suicide?

See you later,
Lonny

Three Hopeful Thoughts

What the fuck was that?

No, seriously, what the fuck was that? Did someone just randomly decide to prank me by hacking my blog?

...I hope that was it. I really, really do. Some random fucker hacking this is better than the alternative. Because the alternative is that I wrote that myself and I really don't want to, you know, deal with that.

And I hope that whatever I saw outside my therapist's office was just some guy going to a costume party, going as, what was that weird internet meme? Whatever. Some guy dressed as whatever.

I hope that was a hacker and I hope I wasn't hallucinating.

And I hope that I'm not crazy.

See you later,
Lonny

WELCOME TO

THE NINTH HOUR 

OF NIGHT

SEE YOU 

LATER 

LONNY

With Arms Outstretched

My therapist didn't know what I was talking about.

"I never put any book in my waiting room," he said. "I only put magazines. I know people aren't likely to start reading a long book in a waiting room."

I showed him the book. He said it wasn't his. He said that a previous patient must have left it. I asked if anyone has come looking for it, but he said that nobody has asked about it.

He asked how the book made me feel. I told him I felt confused; the resolution was not just disappointing, but didn't actually resolve anything.

"Much like life," he said.

Sure, I replied. Life has no resolutions, no endings.

"The only ending life has is death," he said. "And, unlike in fiction, death rarely resolves anything. If anything, death brings up feelings that we may not think we had."

He's had this conversation with me before. He wants me to talk about how my mom's death is making me feel. I tell him that my mom's death and The Ninth Hour of Night have nothing in common whatsoever.

"They might," he said. "Why were you drawn to the book? Why did it appeal to you so much? From what I can tell, it's kind of a mediocre pulp fiction. Why did it pull you in?"

I didn't want to talk about it, so I tried to change the topic. I talked about Rilo Kily. I talked about my job. Finally, I talked about The Ninth Hour of Night. "It was about a dark world where there was a glimmer of light," I told him. "Just a single glimmer, but it was enough. It was better than nothing."

"But at the end of the book, it wasn't enough," he said. "And that made you disappointed."

Finally, the hour was up and my session was over. I thanked him and left, the book clutched in my hand.

...and then something else happened. I'm not sure if it actually happened or if I just imagined it. I had just finished talking about the book, I mean, that's possible, right?

I walked out of the building towards my car and I saw a man. I saw a man who seemed to grow taller and thinner, whose face was filled with nothing. I saw one of the None.

I don't know what I saw. I just remember hiding behind my car and when I looked out, he was gone. I must have imagined it, right? Right?

See you later,
Lonny

My Slumbering Heart

I finished the book.

...

Fuck. I don't fucking know what the fuck that was. I mean, it was good until the very end when suddenly it went from being a good mystery to be an aBSOLUTE MINDFUCK.

So I'm going to spoil you guys, okay? I'm sorry, but I need to share my pain with others and this blog is as good a place as any. So here goes:

So Johnny Rien is investigating the Ninth Hour. He's looking for his client's daughter, who was supposed to be kidnapped by the Ninth Hour, but it turns out that she's working for them willingly...or was possibly brainwashed by them. Anyway, he finds out that she's actually been replaced by something else, some entity that can take her shape, a shapeshifter or something.

Right, so you're probably thinking "Well, yes, that is weird." No, see, that's in the middle of the book. That's weird, but I've read these types of stories before. I wasn't that surprised that the book turned into fantasy. But now Johnny Rien has to find the daughter and fight the shapeshifter and stop the Ninth Hour from replacing more people with shapeshifters (they are called "The None" here, but you know they are shapeshifters).

And then, at the end, when Johnny has finally saved the girl and stopped the evil plan, the Ninth Hour try to trick him and convince him that he's one of the shapeshifters. I was expecting this twist ending, you see; these types of stories always have a twist and I thought it might be cool if Johnny was one of the None and he didn't know it (and yes, I did realize that "Rien" is French for "nothing"). But no, Johnny is perfectly human.

But then everyone around him turns out to be shapeshifters. Or something. Honestly, I'm not sure, but then the book goes super weird:

The Ninth Hour's last curse was for me to see the truth of all things. I saw the people as they were: faceless, formless, shapeless. They were all nothing, all None. I was surrounded by crowds of the unnamed, the unseen, the unheard, the unthought. They are not real. They are mere fiction. 

I sit here in this dark room and I await my end. I await it eagerly for I cannot continue living like this. I cannot continue knowing what I know.

The Ninth Hour is None. We are all none. We are nothing but words, empty of meaning and devoid of thought.

I welcome oblivion. Turn the page and end my existence.

You see what I mean? What the fuck, right?

Well, time to return it to my therapist's office. Maybe I can ask him where he got it.

See you later,
Lonny

Paint's Peeling

I just got back from my therapist. I had to wait a while in the waiting room because I was super early and he still had another patient in there. And, for some stupid reason, I didn't bring a book, so I looked around to see if there were any good magazines.

And I found something. It was a good. An old, beat up paperback. It's called The Ninth Hour of Night. It's a thriller of some sorts and, well, I was hooked by the first page. It's about this detective named Johnny Rien who is investing this cult called the Ninth Hour. Very noirish.

And...I took it. I stole it. I know, I know, but I couldn't finish it before my session and I have to finish it. You are probably thinking: just buy it from Amazon. Well, after I took the book back home, I remembered I could do that and resolved to return the book next time I was there.

Except I couldn't find the book on Amazon. Or at Barnes and Noble. Or anywhere on the internet.

Isn't that weird? I mean, nowadays, it's almost impossible to have a book that's not recorded somewhere on the internet. On eBay or Goodreads or whatever. But I can't find it.

So I resolved that as soon as I finished reading it, I will return it. I mean, it's not like he will miss it, right?

See you later,
Lonny

The Good That Won't Come Out

Okay, so, I have a confession to make: I wasn't a very good son. I know it, I just have to admit it to other people. I didn't call my mom, she always called me. I don't know why. I think I lived alone with her so long that I just...got sick of it. I got sick of her.

That sounds horrible and it is. I wasn't a good son. I left home as soon as I could.

But I didn't want her to die. I just wanted to be somewhere else. Is that wrong? Is that bad? Isn't that what I was supposed to do? Aren't kids supposed to move away and grow up and become adults?

I don't feel like an adult. I never have. At first, I justified that by saying it was because I was in college and I was still going to classes and living in a dorm. But then I graduated college and I moved to a different city and have a job and I wear ties and cook my own dinners and I still don't feel like an adult. I don't feel grown up.

I feel like I'm pretending. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm just a kid trying to be grown up and failing miserably

I don't know what to think. I have a session with my therapist again today; perhaps he will.

See you later,
Lonny