[what happens next] kyla houbolt


an entire church of hands
attempts to tell the truth
on the internet
the choir tries to tell
the lies, to tell them into truth
while the advertisement clamors
for its rightful slice of
mind in pieces the pastor
forgets how to sing and so
chokes on the sun pouring in
let the hands hold on while
the roof shakes off
the tiles lie down in seductive
terrain and mostly crying
happens among
the congregants
so
who is laughing now
ah it is the advertisement
it cannot stop
cannot help itself
it is drunk on the bad air
of nobody 
buying this shit
anymore




Kyla Houbolt writes, mostly poems, though she is old enough to know better. You can find most of her published work on her Linktree, here: @luaz_poet| Linktree and follow her on Twitter @luaz_poet

ANARCHY ZONE matt zbrog


For most of our lives, my brother and I were moving in opposite directions, repelled from each other as if two identically charged magnets. But, growing up, we always felt the force of each other. For brief moments, we almost touched. He’d flip through my pre-law textbooks, lazily squinting at their words as if they’d eventually form the scratchy images he found in his DIY punk zines. And I had no choice but to listen to his music, which blasted out of speakers half as tall as he was. But I never understood, and neither did he. Not that there was ever any contempt between us. In those early days, I’d come home from school or from studying, and my brother would come home from whichever one of his haunts, and we’d both sit down and watch the war together on the dormitory’s telescreen. As we progressed through our stylistic phases, we never failed to attempt to explain our subject matter to the other -- and we also never succeeded in understanding our other half. At least not until one of us disappeared, and I began my quest back downward, towards my brother, towards true anarchy.

My brother’s disappearance was perhaps the closest I’d ever felt to him. It hit me like an earthquake. Shook me with aftershocks. Tremor after tremor. How long had he been gone? And what did gone mean? Was gone just a word for extreme distance, or had some dark energy swallowed him entirely? During my ascent from the clear sector, through to the blue, green, and white sectors, he’d mirrored me in reverse, with a descent from the clear to the beige, the gray, and the black sectors. Maybe further. We’d kept in contact as we could, though of course with less frequency and fidelity, due to the distortion between sectors. Throughout our distancing, however, I never doubted my brother’s love. That is to say I rarely thought of it. It was as if I’d always sensed he was right behind me, somehow, until one day I turned around and he wasn’t there. I couldn’t reach him anymore. He was gone.
 
Descending the sectors took almost as much work as ascending them. Extracting myself from my bureaucratic position in the ministry of hyperlaw took the longest of all the steps. I was 26 and had just arrived at a place of security and stability. The White Ring: higher than all the others, a place for only the most dedicated and talented citizens. I spent my time filing claims and counterclaims and ironing my shirts and signing memos and cutting my hair to regulation length and submitting motions authorizing greater military intervention and all this was in the name of helping the efforts in the War Zone, which lay just beyond the white. Sometimes, I’d see our bombers flying overhead, zooming towards the zone. Other times I could hear the percussive air-woosh of ordinance hitting its target. This thrilled me in a way that made me wish to hide the fact that I was thrilled. Such was life in the white. But I told myself I was doing my part. I was one of the good guys. I was a functioning part of the big machine. But I had to undo it all. That wasn’t easy. The rules, the people, the places, the things that had attached themselves to me, and I to them, were all knotted together, seeming to tighten the more I pulled. Things took longer up there when going against the flow. My attempts to extract myself worried and even angered others. Colleagues told me that I wasn’t thinking clearly, that I wasn’t myself -- and they were right. I had to find my brother.
 
Things changed when I finally made it back down to the clear sector. It was here that the resistance to my downward-trajectory finally gave way, reversed in polarity. I noticed it first while walking towards the egg-crate building, now largely abandoned, which held our childhood dormitory. The twisted structure stabbed up at the static-gray sky like a steel drill bit. I felt myself pulled towards it. The security entrance: unguarded. Hyperlift: out of order. I climbed 47 stories up the fire staircase, sweating through rubbish and cobwebs. The smart door to our dormitory room still recognized my face (though it took several tries, with me stretching my facial muscles in peculiarly familiar ways). Inside, the telescreen was, spookily, still on, muted but tuned to the forever war, as it’d always been. The quiet made my ears ring. My side of the room, of course, was bare -- I’d taken everything with me. But my brother’s side was much as I’d remembered it, with the posters on its walls, pasted on top of each other, peeling, acting as some paper geology of his taste: The Sex Pistols, The Vandals, The Misfits, Black Flag, Joy Division, Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, Death Grips, Boris, Sunn 0))), Tim Hecker, William Basinski. More names written in foreign languages, odd pinyin, impenetrable. Then, under a thin film of dust sat his old record player, the relic through which I’d been forced to hear all those names’ sounds. I’d always been more interested in the contraption itself, the old world technology of it, how sound could be stored on grooved wax and then revived by the rhythmically paced scratch of one stubborn needle. I wiped away the dust on the player’s translucent cover and found a record still sat inside: a Basinski. I remembered it. I could conjure the scene. My brother had played it for me, in a nimbus cloud of whatever he’d been smoking. And I could still feel the record’s rattling, rumbling bass, how it shook the walls, a droning ambient work that was meant to represent, my brother had smirkingly explained, the sound of two black holes colliding. It hadn’t sounded at all like music to me then. But it had felt a natural part of my brother’s stylistic progression. Only on my return did I notice its contrast to the music of the other idols on his wall -- idols which each carried their own memories of my brother trying to explain what he had heard and felt in them -- and I realized how far my brother had traveled, had been traveling, drifting, careening further afield, even when we were kids, sleeping next to each other, two beds in a boxy room.

People were different in the lower sectors. But they all reminded me of my brother, all his numerous forms and contradictions and evolutions: dyed hair, shaved heads, tattoos, piercings, pale skin, missing teeth, gold teeth, body mods, digital implants, black fingernails, mohawks, clothing with spikes and chains. I followed the music. I didn’t fit in at all, at first. I had to stop trying in order for it to work. Blood on my collared shirt. Cracked glasses. Fat lip. Doors started opening. I learned how to shrug, to shrug at everything, to dance with shrugs. I shrugged my way down through to the beige sector, then the gray. I can’t say much about my actions during my descent through the lower sectors, other than that they were guided by sound, by a certain rhythm, an intuitive twist and thrust. I cut myself a mohawk. Punk became noise, noise became drone, drone became ambient, ambient became IDM, became grime, became dubstep, drum’n’bass, jungle, two-step, garage, gabber, psytrance, hardcore, and forget the order, they blended into one another. Time lost some meaning. How long had I been on this hunt? There was, with increasing frequency, only the present tense, the now. I traded clothes and chemicals with strangers in the dawn of afterparties, in the musk of smoky rooms, in the damp humidity of defunct warehouses, in the grime of overrun factories, in the pulsing mobs of people throwing their fists in the air in unison to a beat of bass strong enough to rattle your ribcage. I shaved my head completely. I had a data port tattooed on the back of my skull. The specter of my brother was there every step of the way, at every concert, every rave, every bar, every show, a shadow in the crowd, a silhouette walking out the door.

On the way down, there was increasing talk of revolt, of resistance, of full-blown revolution. Fuck the sector system, the factory jobs, the forever war and the heteronormative patriarchy, people said. Death to the monoculture, the red paint on the walls read. I sometimes lost track of where I was -- beige, gray, black -- not realizing a sector border had been crossed until long afterwards. It was unclear if there was a way back. The further I descended, the louder everything got. Words became action. Vague plans drawn up on bar napkins became the stockpiling of fossil fuels and bioweapons. I’d initially had many questions about the ownership of this resistance movement, or the lack of ownership, what with its decentralized nature -- but my old way of thinking eventually fizzled, got replaced with a vacuum, an emptiness which was picking up speed. My notes, which I’d kept somewhat religiously up to this point, degraded, along with my writing skills. Linguistics couldn’t keep up. All this talk of revolution and violence clashed with the young image I had of my brother -- smirking, quiet, more often than not in a vaguely meditative pose, with enormous headphones over his ears and his eyes gazing up at the ceiling as if he could look right through it, to the stars. He was never political. He just wanted to get away. It wasn’t until I first heard whispers of the Anarchy Zone, a place out beyond the black, that I knew, immediately, impossibly, that was where my brother was.

The lower sectors have their own trappings, their own narcotic lull, much as the upper sectors do. A dissociative hum. The most violent ideas become normal, casual. Then you wake up, mid-sentence, in-situ, and ask yourself how you got there, so far from what you’ve known, so far from side-by-side beds in a dormitory. You ask if you’re the same person as you once were, having literally shed your skin over the last X years, and how long has it been, exactly? Would the person you’re looking for even recognize you now, with your tattoos, torn clothes, and shaved head replacing the government strut and starched suits you once wore? What’s left of you? Is this what you were looking for, or were you looking to become someone else entirely?

I found my ticket into the Anarchy Zone at a torture bar deep in the black. The guy’s name was Hat. Word was he ran people into the zone, and not many came back. I spotted him on the far side of the dungeon, where he was smashing a pool cue over someone’s back. He was scrawny, five foot nothing, swimming in huge workman’s overalls, a big yellow bucket hat on top of his head. I introduced myself with a smooth right hook against his boxy jaw. You’re dead, he groaned up at me from the floor, you’re supposed to be dead. It took me a moment to realize he’d mistaken me for my twin. This made me grin wide enough to show off a few of my freshly missing teeth. I was certain, now, that I was closer to my brother than ever.

On a gray morning, with a drizzle of rain that sounded like soft static, Hat and I took off in a bike and buggy from an abandoned truck stop way out on the rim of the black sector. Hat driving, me riding shotgun. You look identical, it’s a trip, Hat laughed over the rumble of the buggy engine, you and your brother I mean, a spitting fucking image. I had my hair freshly cut down to the scalp. I’d triple-knotted my leather boots. I had a small satchel strung across my chest. Contents: a flask of vodka, some shag tobacco, a few items to barter with, and a voice recorder (my handwritten notes simply couldn't keep up anymore). At Hat’s recommendation, I’d brought my own weapons. I’d 3D printed a Luger and taped a boxcutter to my left forearm. Hat wore airman’s goggles. He had a crowbar slung through the belt-loop of his overalls. Some people stay in the Anarchy Zone because the radiation eats their mind, he shouted over the buzz of the exhaust. Others, they just like it there, I don’t know, and I don’t fucking know what happened to your brother either, I just took him close as I could to The Front, like he asked, and it ain’t even my responsibility what happened after that, so don’t try to lay that trip on me, okay, go write your congressman. We approached a checkpoint -- men in uniform, first waving their arms in X’s above their heads, then firing automatic weapons up into the air. Hat twisted the throttle, and we roared on through. Some people actually fucking stop and turn back, Hat cackled, can you believe it?

Smoldering skyscrapers. Oil fields on fire. Air strikes. Mobs. Tear gas. Crucifixions. You can’t slow down for a second, Hat shouts from the driver’s seat. There’s a distortion a distortion a distortion here, put on your gas mask. How far are we now from the white sector? Closer than you think. Buy discount, buy discount, all your insurance needs are always Coca-Cola. The sectors are circular, they touch, Hat shouts. The War Zone and the Anarchy Zone, they touch, too. They touch at The Front. Two all-beef patties special sauce. There’s a distortion here a distortion here from the collision of two oppositely charged forces, Hat shouts, like two black holes colliding. Rape me. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Rape me again. A more perfect union. Do you need help filing your taxes? Just call 1-900-smash your plane into the money church. I’m looking for my brother. Is he looking for me? Has he swapped his leather for starched shirts? Did we pass each other along the way? Would we even recognize each other anymore, or recognize ourselves, or neither? Or is this simply our native orbit, to seek each other but never touch? Just do it. I’m loving it. Have it your way. Strangle your puppy. Declare jihad against have your own vacation home for the low-low price of God is dead. My pet goldfish died when I was five and my brother held me in his arms as I wept. God give me a rule, any rule, please, so I can break it. The directional hierarchy of the sectors is bullshit, Hat shouts. There’s no up or down, just around. Welcome to the forever war. Cash for gold. Blood for oil. Money back guarantee on all chemical weapons. Zero down on your first human trafficking. Would you like to remortgage your home and eat a baby? If I could just have a minute of your time to talk about the gospel of eternal salvation and check your credit score. Strap in, Hat shouts, we’re making a break for The Front. When a bully at school tripped me at recess my brother beat him until he bled. We were ten. Oh say can you see by that freshly dug mass grave that fossil fuels are murdering the planet and presenting an existential crisis to humanity that promises a unique financial investment opportunity. Has your cat had her shots? Act now and you, too, can fuck a $2,000 couch in the ass and have your friends watch. Hold on tight, Hat says, as we barrel towards the last barricade, The Front can even make your sense of self melt away. Death to order, death to anarchy, I am my brother, he is me. We’ll end this war or die fighting it. Love thy neighbor and chug a bottle of bleach during your two weeks of company-approved vacation from a job you never wanted in the first place. Reanimate the dead and give them life insurance. Take a selfie with a grilled cheese sandwich and feel a sense of righteous satisfaction when you share it with the world. Wait. Have I been here before? I’m certain I have. Have I left? Maybe the middle was where I was trying to get to. As kids, we played video games until the sun came up, while the war raged on in the background. There was nothing better than that. Ever. One hundred billion dead landlords. The city is a kill. Learn how you yes you can market your inner arsonist. The Senate floor calls on the representative from are you dealing with a dry itchy scalp? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a one-time cash down payment. Mosh through the bodies. Push and claw to the front. Keep the rhythm at all costs. Feel the sweat and heat of the people around you. Move as one. If we don’t make it across the border, if we don’t make it through, we’ll turn around and crawl back up the sectors. I still know the way back, I think. And when we get there, back to the top, once we’ve reached our moment of perfect conformity, once we have them all fooled, we’ll break out, we’ll dance and mosh and scream and throw chairs and set fires. And I’ll find my brother this way. He’ll be on the other side of our shapeless, colorless office, standing on his desk, doing the same thing. I’ll almost be able to reach out and touch him. We’ll grin gap-toothed at each other. We’ll shave our heads and roll up our starched sleeves and show off all our hidden tattoos. Providing, of course, that we still remember they’re there.
 
They’re still there.



Matt Zbrog writes: I'm a freelancer from California who's been living abroad since 2016, exploring countercultures in ex-authoritarian states. No plans on ever going home. Twitter: @Tyler_Says Instagram: @weirdviewmirror