September 9, 1994 It is a cool summer evening. The murmur of the small crowd to my left feels like a soft aural blanket which cushions the weight of my thoughts. A nearly full glass of wine sits in front of me. I would drink faster if the wine would only quit curdling my half empty stomach. I have to fight the urge to get up and walk hurriedly through the streets with no direction. To walk blindly in hopes that the demons which have taken me will collapse in exhaustion before my body does. Over the last few weeks I have watched myself deteriorate. The suicidal voices whisper their desires. Each night I sleep less and am haunted by more dreams. Although my mind's eye remains lucid, I am sinking. There was a time when I felt able to see through people and grasp their inner selves almost immediately. This ability made me too uncomfortable with strangers so I tried to force it out of my mind. Now this curse is returning full force. I find myself playing with people and manipulating their emotions for no other reason than to exercise my own power. Or worse yet I use it to make people tear themselves open and bare their dark secrets. The other worldliness of this, and the chaos I evoke in others, seizes me with feelings of insanity. It is yet another step in my ongoing alienation from society. The weekend brings thousands of people to town to attend the season's first football game. The town swells with middle class tourist types. I see them lined up waiting to enter a sleazy downtown diner, and I realize to what extent I am not a part of America. Middle class values and the middle class way of life are a mystery to me, and no matter how hard I tried and miserably failed, or how much money once filled my now nonexistent bank account, I will always be excluded. America - home of the brave, land of the free. How I love the promise you proclaim of individuality, of the melting pot, the classless society, the equal opportunity, the dream of peace and liberty for all. But America, how I despise the reality you deliver - of homogeneity, the veil of civility, the moral imperialism, the inability to break through the mundane, the disease of materialism, the conservatism, the media induced apathy, the endless mind numbing diversions which fill life with activity while stealing away it's meaning, the blind patriotism, the ever simmering racism, the bigotry, the intolerance, the bourgeois prejudice, the sexual obsession steaming beneath unspoken oppression, the Protestant work ethic which reduces the population to insectiles, the class barriers which incite prejudices between the small degree of of status between the lower and middle classes, while the true rich have unimaginable wealth and power and are so far beyond our sight that few even know they exist, meanwhile their multinational corporations enslave and exploit the workers who are not only blind but grateful to be pining away their lives for an endless pantheon of worthless, overpriced consumer products until old age withers their bodies and suddenly they look back and wonder what it all amounts to when death sums up the final tally. America, shooting skyscrapers into the stratosphere, shitting factories onto the countryside, building computer networks which bring new addictions to the young, and big brother into our homes. The mechanical human virus devours the land which once belonged to the bison and the red skinned natives. The concrete covers all that is green then cracks and crumbles in the summer heat and winter cold. The smell of urine permeates every city street. Even in the small town of State College, new hotels and apartment complexes arise daily. ...and I long to raise them all with their inhabitants still enclosed. Give me war, terrorism, revolution without reason. Let it burn like Rome. Explode like Dresden. Crumble like Pompeii. I would feel more at home in the ruins. I stand and go into the men's room of the cafe and piss into the sink. For a minute it actually seems interesting. The band is butchering one of my favorite Miles Davis numbers so I begin to walk. My mind races as I move through the streets which are slowly darkening with evening's fall: Library - 'Sorry we're closed.' Tough actin, Tinactin. Sexy Asian girl. Short soft skirt. Smooth well formed legs. Platform shoes. Reminds me of a prostitute from one of those war movies. Red light. 'Walk.' Cross street. Smell of hot dogs. There's that girl Renee. Maybe you saw the one you dream about... Little dog. A wonder it doesn't get stepped on. Coffee shop. Hair salon. McDonald's. Sound and vision fade into haze... The more, the more. All will be decided. Rotting with vanity. Friend of the minus sign. Intoxicated by horrible darkness of mind. The wrath of God. Narcotic of boredom. All is saccharin to my tastes. The world is my emetic. Don't walk. I step onto the street and a bus wakes me from my daze as it passes a few inches from my face. It seems like a joke. Death- the white mask which I carry with me at all times. 'Savor these moments,' it whispers into my ear. When I waste my time, when I think where I want to be and what I want to be doing, when I see life passing unlived, -'You're going to die,' the mask laughs. The streets are full of young men and women who have walked off of their front porches for the first time. Parties roar everywhere. Music echoes from both sides of the street. The bars are overflowing. It appears the football game was won - so celebrate! Of course if it was lost, - celebrate also, cause who really does give a fuck anyway? Line up two groups of proud young sons and bash their heads together so we can celebrate! Cause we misdirected, nihilistic, hedonistic, lost mother fuckers need an excuse. Something, anything, to give meaning to the night's celebrations. We couldn't dare celebrate the void now could we? Let's all drink a toast to nothingness, shall we? You celebrators have but four years to get drunk, laid, overcome your childhood traumas, and then get down to business. America is waiting. A hungry machine that really doesn't need you because there are a million other assholes just dying to be eaten first. I walk past Ornelia and Mina's house. One the other side lives my old friend Judy. I am too introverted to speak so I walk on by. I'm so introverted that I'm turned inside out...walk on. Killing time. Killing mind. Out-walk the demons. Wendy's. Blue Train compact discs. Zeno's bar and grill. 'Hey buddy your fly's open.' Tattoo and body piercing. Men's clothing. Cafe 210. 'Look, that guy thinks he's in Pearl Jam.' The stars shine brightly. The stars are the God and goal of man. Like the stars we abide in solitude. Love and love's murder. To know it is sickness. To love it is death. I stop in front of a health food store. In a moment of clarity I see the madness which has taken me. My blood is on fire. My mind is white heat. This possession has been growing stronger for years. Since meeting Sasha it has gained momentum. Now it seems to have the upper hand. For days I have been seeking help. Psychiatrists won't talk to me because I have no money. I have called priests, preachers, gurus. I reach only answering machines or people who act afraid that someone would come to them for help. Finally in desperation I call the suicide hotline. A recorded voice answers the phone, "Hello. You have reached the Central Pennsylvania Suicide Hotline. Many people consider suicide for a variety of reasons. If you are considering suicide, here are some things you should consider..." I hang up the phone. It is laughable. Like a scene from a B grade TV movie. I find myself in my car and I drive to a little shack at the end of town that functions as a gun shop for hunters. I use what little money I have and buy a shotgun. I have lost the desire to live. Each passing moment is misery so I see no logical reason to continue. While driving the car I caress the steel barrel with my right hand. Touching the cold metal makes it all seem real.... I began seeking abnegation of the self. What have I really achieved? My spirit is dead. Caeser Pink is dead. I no longer believe. My faith in humanity is dead. The world is a vulgarity to my eyes. The one lesson that I have learned repeatedly over these last three months is that human life is treated as valueless by most of humanity. It is amazing that only six months ago I was full of hope and confidence. I see my own descent. I have taken self criticism to brutal depths. I was seeking abnegation of the self, now my ego has been split into pieces and lies before me under the bright lights of the operating table. Early on I felt a schism arising. I had conceptualized my 'self' and 'Caeser Pink' as two separate entities which I refused to unite. Now I see that my self is a host of entities, all of which I am. But my war of self realization has taken too high a toll. I have lost everything I owned and everyone I loved. I have hurt all those near me in order to reach this point. For months I have barely eaten or slept. The stress of my life flows through me like a poison. I am physically and mentally ill. The poison is like lead in my blood. It is like a chemical storm which tosses my entire being to and fro as it likes. It is like a demonic possession that racks my body and directs my thoughts. When it comes, my eyes glaze over and my body is heavy. My mind pours into a trail of darkness and my speech becomes slurred. and disjointed. I look back over how far I've sank and ask "How did I get here?" For the sake of the thing I was searching for I have first questioned, then condemned my every action. I analyze my own actions meticulously. Now even breathing, or a simple gesture, has become a conscious act. The light of consciousness may be illuminating , but it is also paralyzing. Under this intensity of self analysis every action truly reveals its futility, it's arrogance of ego. I once said that I was aware of the doctrine of inaction from the first breath. Now that doctrine is the God of my self destruction. I have peeled back deeper and deeper levels of consciousness and left a gaping wound. I removed myself so far from human society that I feel as if I view life as if it is under glass and I am outside looking in. 'Desire' itself, the prime motivation underlying actions, has become a poison to me. It is the poison which has flooded my body and contaminated my soul. I've lived in desperation for so long. Craving the essence of a sensual life. In the end the love Sasha and I shared became only a further addiction to desire. It was not the loved one I truly desired but the pain of desire as an end in itself. Now even a taste of desire, of this poison, sends me in flight. In flight from passion, beauty, human emotions, love, life itself. I do not believe in myself. I have come precariously close to abnegation of the self. But there are two things which I still have not totally left go of, mind and future. Mind in the sense of that ever racing machine from which I cannot escape, and which I wallow in, joyously feeding my addiction to life. Mind which spontaneously revels in its own creative abilities. The mind which flows from the electric unconscious and makes the artist, genius, and madman so close to the same thing. And the 'future' in the sense of an irrational belief that there is still a miraculous destiny before me. 'Abnegation of the self.' 'The Zero.' Towards this goal I have come so far. The journey has stolen all hope. The sacrifice has been my self and all I hold sacred. I feel that after having come so far towards my goal I should finish what I've started. And for this reason I hold this shotgun in my hand as I drive. The mere thought of suicide is comforting. For months when I lay down to sleep it is this thought which gives the peace of mind which allows me to float away into slumber. The thought which is most alluring, the most seductive, is this, although I know that the final decision to take my own life will never really be made until the gun is aimed at my head, and my finger is on the trigger and I begin to squeeze. But from the moment I make that final decision and begin to pull the trigger, until the moment when the bullet shatters my brain, I will have reached my goal. For that brief moment I will have left go of everything. Even mind and future. For that brief moment I will be pure. I will have achieved perfection. 
The Apologia is a part of Caeser Pink's novel The Murder Of The Holly King. To get your copy and read the full story click here 
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