Spectacles can't be trusted, Tim. I said so in my speech, standing on the breakfast table, just before I slipped on the oatmeal and broke my middle finger. I'm a mess, Tim. I'm smoking again (I think), I can't find my penis, and these glasses are pinching my face. Excuse me, Tim, time for my enema.

"Hey, get your fucking hands off me."

I'm back, Tim. I'm okay this time, but the great doctor is pissed at me. His face exploded because of a little shit on his alligator shoes. He's walking around in angry circles gnashing his perfect teeth. Dr. Plutus tells me to stop writing letters to myself. Dr. Plutus is an asshole. Dr. Plutus is an asshole. Dr. Plutus is an asshole.

Dr. Plutus wears dark sunglasses. You can't see his eyes.

It's like looking through the spectacles of a stranger; looking out through eyes that belong to someone else. We can see 360 degrees and in ultraviolet. We have night vision too, and we can see the heat coming off bodies; female bodies, Tim. But you can't trust spectacles. Like for example, if two nurses are coming down the hall with heat coming out of their pants, which woman is your savior, and which one is lying about reality? I think I was a nice person once, Tim. Do you remember?

For example, I never did swear much. Now every other word out of my mouth sends the nurses into a hissy fit. They scurry around with their potions and herbal soaps and they brew this filmy stuff in big cauldrons. They're up all night tossing toads and large black ants into the mix, cackling like witches at a man roast. The nurses like to minister to males. It gives them mini-orgasms, little shivers that you can't see, but there is this tiny smile on their faces when they watch you drink the stuff.

It tastes like soap. You have to drink the whole thing while the nurses gather around and hold hands and get that silly smile on their faces. Anyway, I hear this voice in my head every time I kick open the nurse's bathroom door and scream "Fuck the nurses!" A little voice whispers in my ear "Oh, shit, get the soap."

I think maybe I was a nicer person once. It's hard to remember stuff with these glasses pinching my face. Anyway, if I was a nicer person, I might not have said all those things that I regret so much. So, I'm sorry, Tim, even though it's too late. I didn't know you were going to take it so seriously, like it mattered so goddamn much what I said. I call everybody a moron.

They changed the live feed in the motion calendars. Nurse Darwin said it was daylight savings time. That explains why it's so dim around here. They're saving the light for later. I thought it was April, but the live feed shows a blizzard in downtown Sumeria. They got the year wrong too.

All the nurses wear dark glasses. You can't see any eyes in this place.

Do you remember if I smoke, Tim? I couldn't find my cigarettes, then my penis turned up in my pants after being missing for two weeks. One of the nurses had it, I think. It came back wearing a sweater and a tiny hat. I need to throw up again.

Last night or two months ago, after I spit the red pills down the air purifier again, I remembered the beginning. How I spilled gravy on grandma and insulted the priest, who is an asshole anyway, and mom got upset and cried because my manners were so horrid, and then dad threw my suitcase out the front door.

I forgot to sleep the night before, sitting up in the attic in the dark, by myself, trying to figure why I was here in this pointless universe. That was the night I discovered the microscopic spiders that crawl on your face and eat dead skin. I'll bet that's what you saw, too, the nanospiders. You probably didn't want to live in a pointless universe surrounded by gillions of nanobugs. But like Uncle Joe said, it probably didn't have anything to do with me and my foul mouth.

I smoked all those dung smelling cigarettes of yours, Tim. I forgot to tell you I smoked your last pack or two. I hope you didn't get all in a panic looking for a smoke on the same day you realized about the universe being pointless. So, I'm sorry about your cigarettes, Tim, and about calling you a moron and a hopeless asshole, and all the other stuff. So I must smoke, right? Because I remember about your lousy cigarettes.

Help me to understand. This soapy taste in my mouth, that's real, isn't it? And I am alone in this airless universe, right? The rest of you don't really exist. I am God and I am alone and all of you are make believe boys and girls. Even the lovely nurses with steam coming out of their pants are pretend. In the real world, people don't flicker and skip frames.

I seem to remember that the world was not all black and white. Weren't there colors?

Please God, help me to see that this is just a really bad dream. I'm hurting, sir. I don't get it. I don't understand why you can't build a damn thing that lasts.

I hate Auto Saints Day, that was the beginning, my hating the day as the sun came up through a crack in the attic wall. I wasn't going to show up again, but mom gets this teary-eyed pain on her face. She has this obsession about family and spiritual values. I wasn't going to show up because of the priest and all that bullshit about the Auto Saints, and also because of the stupid stuff he says at funerals when he doesn't even know the dead boy very well and he could give a shit about the blank looking, pain-laced brother heaving his guts out in the Petunia bushes. You can't breathe in a fucking funeral hall. I can't breathe in here either. There's no clean air left.

But then I showed up anyway, go figure. I did it for mom because of that look on her face that makes me so deeply sad. Anyway, I like talking with Uncle Joe. Joe is digging in the Trinket Jungle now, unearthing evidence that our ancestors were assholes.

I didn't know about the seven commandments then. I didn't even realize that Uncle Joe was famous. He found the first commandment on the same day the surgeons tried to save your sorry ass, Tim. I didn't think people still bled to death in hospitals. The doctors just stood there and watched the blood soak into the sheets.

You were dead anyway. I don't know why mom and dad hauled your carcass to the hospital. I guess they needed a miracle; except no miracle happen. God wanted you dead.

I found your note written in blood on the floor in the attic "Call Alice...." I don't know why I rubbed that out before anybody could see it. It was a gut feeling that maybe you should just die and not leave mom and dad with a mystery; they are nuts anyway from trying to figure why a nice kid like you could do such a God awful rotten thing.

Who is Alice, Bro? Why didn't I know about Alice?

I looked for a "Goodbye, I love you" note, but you didn't leave one, asshole. Your diary was full of nonsense about Limbic Implants, The Roiling, something about Dallas acting strange lately, on and on about cesspool alleles, and then heaps of gibberish about God; nothing about Alice. No hint about your mood or suicide dreams. And thanks for leaving it up to me to tell our mother and our father that you checked out of the family. Why didn't you just shot me first, asshole. And how did you get a level five nanoblaster into the house without anyone seeing it?

I still have your stupid diary. Nobody but me even knows you had it.

I stood out there alone on the lawn after dad threw my suitcase out the front door, with my underwear blowing around the yard, and I got this sudden urge to leave home and find myself; like maybe go to college and memorize pointless facts that might further my evolution. When I was smoking your dung cigarettes in the attic, Tim, I saw an ad in this men's magazine, "Hormones Unlimited" or something. It was about this visionary school in Sumeria, where you learned to be an eye doctor in a few weeks without having to study. Something like that. I didn't finish reading the ad because mom was calling me with that hurt sound in her voice, "Come down to dinner, Tim, Honey, it's Auto Saints Day, your Uncle Joe is here, and Priest Blah is here (and grandma, but not you asshole)." Anyway, I ripped out the application form and sent it in; what the hell- it was impulsive. I get like that sometimes.

The sand was blowing in my eyes and my toothbrush was laying brush side down in the dirt. I guess I looked confused or something, because dad came outside with Uncle Joe and they looked at me for too long, sad eyed, like they had to tell me all the Goldfish had died, like it was my fault or something.

Did I used to wear glasses, Tim? Because these spectacles pinch my face. And you can't get them off even when you beat your face on the wall until your shirt is all bloody and the nurses are having a collective hissy fit because now they have to put clean sheets on the bed again and buy a new carpet. Even hammers and pointy calipers won't remove the spectacles. They're welded to your nose and screwed into your skull. I think they have bio-nanowires so if you do yank them off, part of your brain rips.

I don't think the spectacles were working right when I got here. One temple was duct taped and there was dried blood on the left lens. I think you are supposed to be able to change channels, too, but these babies just free wheel from commercial to commercial. I have the Jester Virus, too. They're supposed to be virus proof.

You know, if you say "penis" to a nurse enough times, it makes her nuts. They get all agitated and belligerent. Then you have to gargle that crap and swish it around in your mouth. If you spit it on a nurse they get really pissed. Then you have to swallow the stuff and say thank you, sir, madam, doctor, assholes.

Dad looked like he was going to cry when he tried to talk to me so he turned away for a moment to kind of get his breathing right and Uncle Joe said "Damn it, kid, it's not your fault. Bad things just happen in life."

"I decided to go to college, Uncle Joe. I'm going to be a vision doctor."

Dad and Joe had this kind of blank look on their faces when I said that, puzzled, like when they told my nephew that spinach was good for him and he said "Yeah, but what about if it rains?"

They just stood there silent while I picked up my toothbrush and put it in my pocket. Uncle Joe was shaking his head, staring straight at me. Dad had this look that washes around his face like one moment he might hug me and the next moment he might go nuts and sob and throw stuff again. It's kind of confusing to know what to do when your dad gets like that.

So, I just gave a little wave and walked away without looking back. I love my old man, so I probably should have looked back, or hugged him, or at least said I was sorry for killing one of his kids. But I just left. That's the kind of outstanding son I turned out to be. Uncle Joe said: "I'll write you, kid."

Dallas was in the garage. I backed him out and then galloped off in the direction of the Trinket Jungle, on my way to Sumeria, at the beginning of my journey to manhood. That's how I remember the beginning, with my insulting the priest and dad sort of throwing me out with tears in his eyes, and my stealing the family AM Camel.

I threw that "manhood" bullshit in there to make the story more interesting. Dr. Plutus says I'm stuck in neutral with no chance to progress my masculinity. But Dr. Plutus is an asshole, so what does he know. Assholes are a dime a dozen.

Uncle Joe says the Trinket Jungle is the result of our ancestors being assholes, like Dr. Plutus. They were a very stuff-oriented civilization, he told me. Then the stuff overflowed and choked off their morality and spirit and soul and character and whatever it was that make mankind more special than snakes.

Uncle Joe says the Trinket Jungle is full of useless parts, old car skeletons, collar bones, broken faces, but mostly auto remains. There was this scientific error a long time ago (actually, a billionaire blew up a bomb in a sports stadium) and a place called Chicago "revaporated" and got renamed Sumeria. Joe says that sometimes scientists take a wrong turn (like build bombs instead of curing cancer), especially when they let their love of money and power overshadow their passion to do good. It's possible, Joe says, to go from angel to asshole in under nine nanoseconds.

Ever since Uncle Joe told me about the big city of Sumeria and the Holy Ziggurat of Our Lady of the Sacred Mechanics, I've wanted to travel and find myself. I don't know where I've been, especially the last couple weeks or years or something, but now I'm here and I can remember about driving Dallas, our Animal Motors Camel across the Trinket Jungle after forgetting to pack food, water, and a jacket. I had about eight pairs of lucky red underwear (with the hearts) and my dirty tooth brush and some old dental floss, but that's about it. I never was too good at planning ahead. Joe found the seven commandments in the Trinket Jungle, in the trunk of a black, 1993 Buick Regal.

So, I was gone from home about an hour when I started to lose weight. I'm down to around minus ten pounds now which is why when I turn sideways I disappear. When you get that thin, it's hard to find yourself. To be fair, I have to admit that the food in this prison is pretty lousy, so I stopped eating three or four months or days or years ago - whatever. I guess there must be some nutrients in the soap.

Anyway, the Trinket Jungle is dangerous and crazy and it goes on past starvation, and crying doesn't help. So you just keep on moving; past neutron bombs that failed to go off yet, past nanoblades that slice you up if you get too close, and past vials of goo that killed all kinds of long dead things that don't taste too bad when you are starving to death; something in the goo keeps the meat pretty fresh.

Oh, and there's the shadow people, and the U.J. Rabbits, and the talking weather. It's not your usual monkey hideout. The Jungle gets more unreal especially as you get close to Sumeria. I found this out after the Trinket Rangers tried to kill me; I should be dead. The Rangers come from the unreality of Sumeria. The shadow people hate them.

I got this idea for a novel after I didn't get a glass of water for about a week (only later did it occur to me to drink The Fog). My novel is about a misunderstood adolescent kid who is pretty bright and actually very nice when you get to know him. He has a little brain damage from grief and war wounds so he swears too much. He also doesn't give a rats ass what people think about him; he just blurts out whatever leaps to consciousness. I call the book "My Journey to Manhood and Assorted Other Bullshit." To be honest, I pulled interesting stuff from my own life and put it in the book. Actually, all I have so far is the title, but I'm pretty pleased with that.

I had several favorite titles which probably I should share in case it turns out to be important for human evolution. For a long time I thought "Lust for Gluttony" was real funny. Then I thought I would call the book "This is Not your Father's Jungle", a true story, by Timothy the something.

What the hell is my last name, Tim? If you don't have a last name there might not be an end. You might not be on the list for termination. You might have to be loved by God forever in some room where they have board games like Monopoly and Risk and where all the food is nanopaste stuff in little bio-degradable jars. On Mondays you might have to go bowling with the saints. Why would a nineteen year old young man forget his last name?

Or maybe I'm not nineteen anymore, time being screwy and all.

By Tim

Get the hell out of Detroit! It's infested with nano-roaches. Dead brothers are everywhere on the street corners, in the meat lockers, in the attic. What's that weeping sound that goes on and on and on into the night and day again and another night. Holy men gaze skyward; they cannot see the dead brothers. They cannot see the weeping mothers. They are waiting for a better life later. Get your camel and get out of there.

That's enough for now. That intellectual stuff can make you want to give up thinking. I always get thirsty when I think so hard and then I start wondering about girls, like what happens when you suddenly squeeze their tits when they are trying to take your blood pressure.

One thing about nurses, they have a bad sense of humor. They don't care to build any relationships, either. Did I finish telling you about how I forgot to bring food and water on my way to college?