Maybe I deserved to be gang-pressed like a half-mad hyena, lied to and baited into the school president’s office to be detained for hours of incriminating denials. My classmates said I reeked of crazyness, of coming unmoored, of strange and unfulfilled lust, and they swore that I had to be dealt with by armed professionals.

Maybe I deserved better...but who knew what queer shit was growing in the rotting corpse of the American Dream in those dark days after Columbine?

“After all, it pays to be careful,” I can hear the state advisor instruct the school president, “We’ve got a good thing going here--we can’t afford to let some weird little fuck screw it up for us. Think of the potential exposure if you fail to control the situation, not to mention the personal liability. Go in with maximum firepower and make no apologies. Now hang up the phone and call the police.”

Ninety-nine was an ugly year in America all around. Our workers came 2 for the price of one and our home lives strained under a new-found poverty. Our military was bombing Yugoslavia for reasons unmentionable in public. “The Death of American Malehood” followed “Who Are Our Children?” across the covers of Time and Newsweek. America ate its plate of shit without a whimper and awoke bare-faced for work. We built: vast personal fortunes, underground estates, self-instruction empires, child-conditioning schemes, gothic medical bureaucracies, and every kind of prison. Any plausible escape vector for luminous human potentiality was denied with sycophantic odes to the glory of finance, coos for bipartisanship, and ever-harsher prescriptives for self-care. The world in total disarray: work is scorned, lies are exulted, and bad voodoo abounds.

And then again, there was Columbine, a flash-forward to death for a generation that can’t imagine a future, a kamikaze flareout from a generation crushed between the impossibly high stakes of freedom and the unrelenting grimness of social discipline. And nobody wanted to talk about it. It was too real, discussion was too dangerous. Because Littleton was “just like our town.” Because Littleton encircled and choked the possibilities of meaningful life, voided sense and volition, wrought an anti-human reign of terror. When independence is defined out of existence, the programming of the American psyche is bound to run wild.

Nobody could say what we all knew: that Klebold and Harris were innocent, poor dupes who took “Give me Liberty or give me Death” to its necessary conclusion, a self-destruct gene in the American DNA. Innocence is no excuse, but they were real, really existed, really had no truth left but death, really had no strength left to continue. No amount of snitching or psychiatry could have detected or disarmed them. America is dying, avoidance will not save us, we have no idea what to do, and the clock is running down. This is the ugly truth of Columbine, the truth no-one wanted to touch...

...and neither did I. But those poor bastards were out of their misery, and I had to go on, eat and sleep and shit and fuck all the time. How could I keep from feeling and talking? Oh! I know that there’s too much risk in idle communication, too many possibilities for horrible slips, but our sun did not go out, demand a stop, demand a collective passion, demand a pause to fix the American Dream machine.

What could I do? April finished with terrible inertia and May began. And I went on. Worse, I had to leave the house, drag myself to school, suffer our humiliation and absurdity. Now I can see how clumsily I used my voice, but something had to be said. And something had to happen.

On Wednesday, May 26, approaching 10:30, the four other students in my work-group were ushered out of the room by the Principal. I worked on alone, with no explanation for my solitude, and a dark feeling stirred my entrails. I tried to quash the growing paranoia-- cruel manipulations from afar are a fact of life in this dire age, but that was no excuse to indulge dark fantasy. I was, after all, innocent.

And if anything was wrong, I told myself, I could be talked to. I wasn’t beast of unbending will, an unresponsive brute, a monster that could only be taken down by force, wailing and convulsing in paroxysms of uncomprehending fear. I was civilized, I knew the virtues of peace and self-effacement. I never imposed myself. Hell, I respected my classmates, purified my hopes for them, didn’t resist. I wasn’t blind -- I saw the cliques, the pecking order, the systematic cruelty, but I held steady to myself. Making waves seemed a futile and arrogant provocation, and surely their viciousness would mean nothing in the end.

I took my deepest pride from my stoic refusal to insist on anything, and it was my austere resolve to give up anything of myself that the group would not accept. I would change any way they asked me to. It was my way of being useful to the world, and I spited and damned every piece of me that would not be amended. The depth of the irony was lost on me: I took pride in having no pride. I gave over my substance and asked for nothing in return, made neutral emissions, pulsed pure energy. I thought I would be protected.

Yet at that very moment, the final gestures of a most bloody and ungenerous rite were being performed over my affects...

“We’re here to talk about Sam.”

The words uttered then have perniciously dogged me to this day.

“Nothing said here leaves this office.”

Their disembodied schemes have wormed their way into my flesh, contaminated my sunlight, filled my apartment with dust. They have labored to undo me, to shut me down with doubt and fear; they have dug their way towards my heart. This is the diabolical power of the sorcery worked against me -- secrecy, insinuation, remote control. It has been my painstaking labor of these two years to infer fragments, grasp at straws, tease the enervated fibers of my nervous system out of their grim tapestry. I hope that I can re-assemble something of myself that is clean and free and worth protecting. I have worried myself to nosebleeds in trying.

“...he goes on and on about things...”

Nothing said at school meant anything. No benefit was expected from our shared experience, and there was no understanding. My classmates didn’t question our isolation, but surely it was a mistake or they didn’t know how...what could be gained by coming together to remain separate, jealously guarding ourselves from each other? Surely they had nothing to lose by my attempts at communication...

“...and he sings.”

It is true that I sang. Was it an offense? I had hands, too, and feet, and a throat, and a mouth, and a stomach. How could my brain grapple with shadowy Possibilities when it felt so clear and fine, when a bright jolt of morning clung to my head, and fragrant air lingered in my throat?

“...and he smells...”

Even in my delirium I adhered to my protocol. I told myself I would respond to any rules, but I would not jump at shadows or be ashamed of honest mistakes. I wouldn’t hold myself apart, hem my thoughts in, let them hack at me as a separate flesh. Surely I was too proud for such a sad and defensive life. A note dropped in my locker suggested I use deodorant -- so I bought deodorant and returned to class.

“He’s just really unprofessional.”

The voice of the lead bitch of the group rings particularly clearly in my head. She was thoroughly professional, of course -- from her clothes to her flirting. When she wanted my support she stood closer, touched my hands, brushed her breasts against my back. But I didn’t have the right kind of offerings to make to her, I could not deploy my libido as currency. I took the words ‘work’ and ‘group’ literally; I wanted ours to be a shared effort. I could neither supplicate to her or make myself attractive as something withheld.

“...he meditates, and it’s like he’s in his own world...”

As they advanced disdainfully on me, I retreated into my own depths, eliminated my characteristics, unmade my encampments, broke down my equipment, silenced my stories. It was the only way I could protect my sense of pride without breaking the peace. I was in their world as much as I was in my own! I was meek! I didn’t cross any line they laid down!

But the rude implications mounted, unanswered, and I was running out of conversation...

“...there’s just something weird about him...”

Coldly walled in and starved for contact, words struggle for meaning, and even the most studied calm will break. Another classmate, a paranoiac agitator who had apparently been confused by my expressions of horror at the bombing of Belgrade and the Columbine shootings, point blank accused me of being “obsessed with bombs and guns.” My impossible pride had come to its end, and I could no longer exist without a reversal, without demanding pride and presence from my accusers. Either resist or die.

“...and that’s when he said he had bombs and guns...”

So I blurted gross violence, a broken joke, an accidental beginning. My classmates played dumb and held on to their precious shard of evidence, planning my disappearance imagining the smell of my blood.

“You are aware, certainly, that these are very serious charges. Please go on...”

“...and he said ‘wait ‘til Friday and see what happens’ and...”

A blatant lie, told to the principal, the president, the police, the lawyers. Anything to stop me. It chills me to think of how bloodlessly my classmates cast their words into air, and of the terrible damage they have done. Those fucking cowards fail my test! They didn’t have the heart to say one true word to me, but would glibly roll off reams of lies behind my back. And for their craven treachery they were coddled and protected by the Authorities. A double curse on school and government, administrators and police! Traitors and betrayers of traitors, profiteers, monopolizers of violence, enemies of growth. It is impossible to finish what they began without a bloodbath. They are lucky I chose to work on my own new beginning...if I was really any kind of killer they would all be dead.

As my four classmates returned to the room, smiling nervously and advancing on me, I still hoped for the best. I let the crude lie the princess of the group croaked out stand unchallenged, and dully assented to join the principal in his office.

Then...the horses and hounds -- police, removal, suspension, psychiatric evaluation. No explanation, no chance to confront my accusers, no meaning but SWALLOW IT DOWN! The affair had ended and what was left: torture, shame, pain of death...admit responsibility for the rotten seed and stinking carrion. Strip away the skin and continue, raw.

01.10.00 Each morning begins in a flash of superintensity, fluid minimized motion through the routine of waking up. Between 1999 and the first year of the 21st century, this strange year, the year zero-zero. A new skin slumbers under the scab, reconnecting, itching, ready to be scraped clean. Sleep deprived walk blissful to work through grayness with my walkman on. The day quickens with odd suspended pauses, a meal gulped, hurried moments, until it’s time to go home. Warmth, food, exhaustion sets in and the mind goes to war. Possibility loses to inevitability, intoxication, feverishness, starts and stalls. We must complete the transformation or the scab will choke us.

Healing does not return us to our old body. This newness, this strangeness, this urgency pervades year zero. The mind rushes forward, the blood starts and stops, runs in circles. The days pass without number, we are nameless, and the desert grows...how long can we dwell under this ether veil without straying into the realm of the abnormal?

The inevitability of everyday is the sole movement of life. The relentless drills, the barked orders. A tired thrill, admired for its precision and ease, but it makes the motor go.

Americans seem to have lost their lust for the future. What mad pride can birth itself in this barren landscape?

How can an honest person bear general company without being reduced to screaming? How can he not be dragged into complicity in our mutual death, the pettiness, the persecution, the servility? I will hold myself up to god if it sears all the flesh from my bones.

What is happening to us? A new social work is already in motion, but what will it produce? Everything will be consumed.

Empty clamor...lost at zero. The year is gone.

What is the cause of our sickness? Truth is reviled and the artifice runs so deep. There are no teachers. How can I begin?

Wait...I must stick to the facts. All doubt vanishes when it is tested against reality.

America is on its death-bed, the spirits of our forefathers cry in their tombs. Our revolutionary independence, based on the gross physical willingness to endure the hardship of life on the frontier, is being sucked dry by blood-hungry profiteers, parasites on our living dream. They have wooed us with terrible deliciousness, poisoned our senses, projected our images into space. The American Dream is sick and worried; an intoxicated, docile host. Our grain is rotting in our silos, we are not vigilant, the worm has grown.

America is a valley of shadows, our wilderness cordoned off into dead subdivisions, the featureless kingdoms of unknown landlords, and unrelenting fear and loss is the price of survival. The fruit of the earth is hoarded, forbidden, wasted. Common life is relentless striving over areas of expertise, conceptual ownerships, systems of rent and taxation. Acquisition precedes gain in the ordering of mankind, miracles die on the vine. Yet we churn on as if pursued, slaves to our grotesque hunger, unable to enjoy the quickness of life in our veins or the thick flow of history that will carry us away. We are lost.

We are being lied to! Their map will only lead us deeper into the mire! With parasite-voice they say freedom needs cash, that our freedom should bow to their money. As if independence could depend on anything! As if their money had sired the cosmos! It is their cash-law parasitism that depends on freedom -- our freedom. Do not give it up! They are trying to sell us our own dream.

Shut out their individual independence based on market value. It is an axiom designed to produce the ugliest life imaginable, the least defensible being, magnitude without substance, a living death of exchange through bank windows. Perfect host. Maximum profit. America has taken up this grim logic, confusion reigns, life is indistinguishable from death, fear from desire, the lethal from the vital. We are ignorant of the miracle of growth, our gaze no longer wanders to the horizon. We believe ourselves masters because we lord over a sterile orb, and rich for trading truth for cash.

And we eat. Sorry and loathsome, we cannot raise our heads from eating. America will consume anything, blind and ignorant -- it is our only function left in the world. Food, poison, shit, flesh, money, plastic idols, disposable furniture, useless technologies, insane artifices, engineered famine. The blood and suffering of the entire earth. Engorged breasts spurt tainted milk, mouths snap, tongues flail, throats retch, assholes suck. We fuck unfecund.

How can we find our way off this horrid empty globe, and onto the broad earth, into the open sky? What can justify an improbable and suffering life to this harsh world, free and rebind time and space around a single form? Without a living inheritor, history cannot be loosed from the past, and the future is void. But how can we be prepared to pay the price of freedom, to make humanity a machine for the transformation of spirit into pure radiance, when failure equals doom? What skin is adequate to the task -- so porous sometimes, and sometimes burnished bronze?

I say that it is pride, sheer pride, that can protect the sensate body at the limit of human endeavor, pride that illuminates the territory the body needs to flourish, pride that keeps experience unified and uninterrupted. With pride, we can know feeling as the unmediated truth of our existences, gather our pasts on a single loop of thread, and push forward in the darkness and peril of cold space. We can each take up a personal history from the collective lot, travel at full sails and chart unknown waters. Eliminate the isolated world of selfhood, we are free from grim designs. Not one experience need be excluded. Not one person need be excluded. Pride in the straight, pride in the bent. There is no shame that cannot be outlived, no guilt that cannot be expunged, no wrong that cannot be righted.

I cherished my existence that could not be taken from me unripe, arrested and reduced to cash, but I could not defend it. I saw the loneliness and hurt in my classmates, but I could not comfort them. Because I could not bear to touch them with my exposed self, vulnerable in its infinitesimal meaning, I had to progressively retreat and define myself out of existence. So they advanced, hungry, malicious, and I could not beat them back. They hunted me down and took my pelt, left my flesh to rot in the sun. What good is some fucking dead hide? Why would my classmates steal from me what they could not use?

I have struggled to remember the faces of those who condemned me, seen them staring at me silently, inscrutable, punishing. It’s all I was left with, and I’ve studied every minutiae for some clue to their motivations, and gradually, the faces have changed, the extraneous details have worn away, and I have seen something else. Not faces, but an operation...their programming has been revealed.

The Babylon program -- total vanity -- count-down to death.

What did they get in the end? Nothing but to hunt. A momentary respite from fear granted by exercising lethal capabilities, a moment of clarity within living-dead confusion, a measure of life by death’s yardstick... ‘Some dead hide?’ What else is there but dead skin when appropriation is the only sustenance... And always, the trading. Trade up, trade down, continue to procure the unholy sap of the process, their living-dead sex-thrill: controlled predation, the jerk of puppet strings.

But the class was filled with proficient skin-traders, why would they risk everything to eliminate me? Because the death trade demands certainty, already-completion. They would rather fashion me into a killer than to leave me as an unknown. In towns where vanity reigns -- Littleton, N.Y., L.A., Washington -- death-thrill is the last reliable value and the only form of communication. Our leaders will defend their monopoly on violence with single-minded devotion, numbed to everything else by their limitless greed. Every American must obey their blind tyranny; everyone feels their stinging touch. The Living-dead commandment: “Everyone Gets Skinned.”

America is dead, yet it lives -- profiteers, boards of corporations and heads of government, have raised an army to counteract the forward motion of history and arrest our country at the moment of death. But their blockade cannot hold forever. Are we rough enough to survive the break? The American Dream or the vanity of Babylon...how long until revelation?

But to make time when there is no time...the army of the undead marches.

They speak:

“Future? What future? History repeats itself. The universe is infinite, don’t waste your time. You’re late for work as it is.”

“Let’s be professional about this. You’ll be better off if you co-operate, sell yourself a little. Be sensible. I’ll only bleed you from 9 to 5. It won’t hurt...much...”

“Peace, still. Listen to the silence. You are safe in my surety. This is how I love you -- from inside yourself. I am everywhere, and no-one escapes the grave.”

“I want your body. I need your flesh. Give me your meat.”

“Flesh, Flesh, Shame. No truth. No science. No evidence.”

Do not listen! They are an unAmerican unpeople, administers of annihilation, crude amalgam alive-dead, perpetually poisoned, writhing and scourging the world in their ugly wrath. They have with their bodies, their one body, fused America onto the world as they have fused Death onto the American Dream.

If they cannot rest, they must feed. I have stared into the face of vanity. We must shut it out and lock the door. It will devour our senses, strip away our instincts, mar our spirits. I thought a proud future could be produced in accommodation to the conventions of the dead. But pride and vanity cannot combine, they live in unavoidable confrontation. Only pride can communicate with pride. I could not join my classmates, I could not oppose them, I hovered at zero magnitude, as vain as I was proud. Although I sensed life close at hand, bright and buzzing, I found myself bound to shadows. I wanted nothing more than to see something living emerge from my classmates, but all I called out was their fear. I was nothing they could identify, and they responded by cutting me off completely.

So in the end, I was starved out, I broke down, my instinct took over, and my pride wavered into the positive.

Forced back into myself, I had to take a stand. It is through my body alone that I touch the world, and for the first time that body must belong to me. I will not live in the ways of death, and I will not be bled willingly. My pride must contain an attitude of war, a violent cleansing of the gray doom that threatens me, a shrugging off of the commandments of a dead god so that a living god can spring into existence. I will not douse my anger, my light will shine fiery as well as luminous. I take my steps with this in mind. I will build what I need. I will wage war.

A new future will cost us everything we have and give us everything anew. Betrayal, bad faith, and morbid blindness -- that is what they’ll give us. They would choke the vastness of space so that it can neither fill nor empty, steal our lives and give us a slot in their monarchy of fear and despair. They have offered us an anti-future, why not put a match to history?

Ignite the Spirit -- we may yet rise! Change is alive!

Pride has enlarged my heart, I have been changed, even my persecutors have done their part. But I cannot abide by their vanity any more. We have been too generous to these filthy thieves liars and traitors, too long given them the benefit of anonymity when we should curse their names to the cosmos. They are doomed, and they will take us all down. They deserve to be beaten and broken and driven into the sea. Making allowances to them is not strength, it is vanity! Isolate and arrest all undead parasite hosts! Act immediately. America is past year zero... The fallout has begun.

I’ll take pride, the future will be mine. I’ll be weird and livid under the American sky -- and fuck you if you can’t take a joke.