The Height of the Ceiling

I didn't sleep last night.  I guess I probably should have been writing up this post in all that free time I had, but honestly, it never occurred to me.  I was just laying there in the dark for hours, too excited to sleep, too confused to sort through my thoughts.  It's all a bit beyond me still.  But the lesson is clear.

Magic is real.

I've read a lot of blogs on here, from people who went through all this stuff in the past.  I'm living with a self-proclaimed witch, and a man who I'm pretty sure has come back from the dead several times, but they're all just things I've been told or read, you know?  There was never any proof.  Sitting in my corner reading the stories of the old sages and such, well, some of them seemed too fantastic to be true.  They were wonderful and inspiring and painful and I wanted to believe them, but I didn't.  Not really.  Even after seeing Him, who cannot ever be reconciled with my...previous concept of reality, I didn't believe in magic.  And I didn't believe that humans could wield it.

Miss Cordelia had been insisting that I was a Crafter, and though she's way smarter than me I didn't honestly believe that either.  I'm not the kind of person who's special, or has any kind of skill.  But she wanted to train me and she's been so kind and she really seemed to think that if I got the skill I could help a lot of people, so I humored her.  I went along with her test.

Besides, I missed her while she was away, it was just so great to have her back.  This whole city scares me a little.

At first I kind of regretted it, following her for that test.  She took me into this awful room and I almost threw up.  It wasn't filled with bodies or anything like that, it was awful in a much more...banal way.  I can't tell you why it dizzied me so much.  Walking in there was like staring at an optical illusion for way too long, I was nauseous and my head hurt and there was this ringing in my ears.

You see, the walls were the wrong shape, and the ceiling was too high.  For the place where the room had been built and the connections of wall and ceiling to be that way, it was just impossible.  It was an impossible room, it was way too big and it was so painful I had to close my eyes and stop looking at it.

Miss Cordelia said that I had the power to fix the room so I tried.  She said to picture the room the way it was supposed to look so I did.  It was easy to figure out what was wrong in the room, and I don't even have any training in architecture.  There were just sections of the room that, when I closed my eyes, felt tight and tampered with and...well this is going to sound dumb but, they felt in pain.  Like someone had taken the room and stretched it beyond what it wanted to be.  So I helped it.

When I opened my eyes, the room was perfect.  Just how it was supposed to look.  It was an incredible kind of magic, and Miss Cordelia told me I had done that.  Me.  Gray!  I who have never done anything right!  I fixed the room!

Miss Cordelia doesn't know this, but while I couldn't sleep I sneaked out of my room and back to that one.  I measured the ceiling in relation to my height and I raised it and lowered it just to prove I wasn't dreaming.  It's just incredible.

I'm so tired, I should take a nap, but I don't want to.  I want to have another lesson.  I want to try and turn the walls purple, I bet I could do that.  I want to go and find pieces of the world that are broken and fix them.  That way the stretched out walls would stop screaming in pain and I could finally get some silence.

Catch you later,

Gray.

District Duty

Okay okay okay. I'm late, yeah yeah, I fucking know that.

But you know what? You try policing an entire city block of proxies for a few weeks, keeping them from drinking themselves to death- or worse- in a city like this. You see how much fucking time you have for writing up blog posts about who you are, what you do, all that shit. Especially when you know nobody gives a shit, am I right? Right.

I'm serious. My codename is Jokes, but this is the fucking business I'm in: keeping our residential district in check when the boss lady is away. And she has been away, so, here the fuck I am. Finally getting around to this thing. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. Tell a joke, maybe? Everybody always likes it when I tell jokes. Here's one:

A Bear and a Hare are traipsing through the forest one day, and both of them stumble upon a genie. Genie pops out, says 'You each get three wishes. What will they be?' 

Bear thinks a bit, says, 'I wish I were the only male bear in the entire forest.'
Hare thinks a bit and finally says, 'I wish I had a motorcycle.'
The Genie grants both their wishes and asks, 'what will be your second wish?'

The Bear doesn't think this time, says, 'I wish I were the only male bear in the entire country.'
The Hare says, 'I wish I had a motorcycle helmet.'
The Genie grants those wishes, too. He asks, 'What is your final wish?'

The Bear says, 'I wish I were the only male bear, period.'
The Hare smiles and says, 'I wish the Bear was gay.'

Ha ha.

I got more but don't have the time to tell 'em. Fuck you, that's why. This place is a mad house when the Witch is out. She left a little while ago to broker her deal with that Cult Leader chick, calls herself the Fire online. You know I have never known a cult to actually call itself a cult? That's a goddamn joke right there, you wonder why anybody joins up. Then again, you wonder why anyone becomes a proxy in the first place.

That's not to say anyone ought to question my loyalty! No, fuck that, I've been in this for seventeen years. I'm not getting out any time soon, especially not under Cordelia's watch. We're doing real good work with her, better than I've seen in years. I mean that. She doesn't get called a witch for no reason, y'know? A lot of the stuff we do is these rituals...you've never seen so many proxies in the same place that weren't Shells(you know the type. No brains, get their orders direct from Father, like He's got a USB cord plugged into the back of their head and shit.)

It's not like the bureaucrats, all paperwork and business. It's some mystic shit, designed to strengthen Father's hold over this plane of existence. The boss lady's room is covered in it; tapestries on the walls, weird plants in every corner, and little artifacts she's picked up from travelling around the world. I guess she flew solo for a few years before starting up in Vegas. But all of that shit is why they call her 'The Red Witch.'

Anyway, the deal must be going well, because Vanguard, stone-cold silent brooding asshole that he is, popped up a little while ago and grabbed a couple things as collateral I guess. One of the artifacts from the Witch's stash, some rune or something I dunno, and a girl we've been keeping around for a rainy day. Rainy Day Girl is literally what the boss lady calls her, I dunno what she does. Nobody tells me shit. You'd think they would, after seventeen years, huh?

Hell no. I get stuck on District Duty. But I still haven't even explained what the fuck that is, have I? So lemme lay it out for ya.

See, as is common knowledge these days, Vegas is our primary base of operations right now. We're a cell that stretches a fair ways out from here but this is where most of the important business gets done, and where the Witch spends most of her time. What isn't exactly common knowledge is how homebase is divided. There's the Casino, our primary source of income around here. I'm not sure how the boss lady got ahold of it. She claims Father's divine intervention connected her to the right people, the right resources. In-the-know folks from all around connect with us through there. On top of that is a penthouse of sorts, set up as a multi-person apartment stacked right on top of the Casino. I have a room there, but whenever Cordelia pops out or gets busy, I get sent off site. Over to the District.

The District is a glorified fucking proxy rest stop. It's a city block of apartment buildings, all of which we own, or the Witch owns, whatever. Each building is dedicated to a specific purpose, but all of it is one big proxy living space essentially. Three apartment buildings are set up for conscious proxy life, with another one beside that housing our Shells. That last one is run by the Caretaker, spooky, junkie bitch that she is. Our fellows who pass through, even if they aren't necessarily one of ours, have a dedicated building. Most of these except for the Shellhouse has a recreational area.

But the District needs somebody to watch out for it. Monitoring who is in what building and when, who comes and who goes, and what business everybody has with everyone else. I liken the feeling of trying to keep up with it all to what it must feel like to be a chicken running around without a head. It sucks, it fucking sucks. 'Yeah yeah, do your damn job, Jokes. Quit complaining.'

Well I wouldn't be if it wasn't every time, and if the boss lady wasn't breathing down my neck for a frigging blog post in the middle of all this. It is a shit job, trust me okay? I've got enough to worry about without taking the internet's oh-so-important opinion of things. But whatever, it's not that big of a deal. At least things are quiet in the District for right now. Other than the occasional visit from Morningstar, who likes to fuck with me by "forgetting" to sign in when he shows up or leaves, and spreads really weird rumors around which I then am forced to clarify.

Ha ha.

So what else can I say? Supposedly the boss lady will be back soon, pulling the full weight of the Fire Cult behind her, and who knows what'll happen after that? Probably ol' Jokes will get pushed around by a new batch of folks. That's a pretty safe bet. Until then, I'll be wrangling this District and hopefully nothing will catch on fire. Morningstar, that is not a fucking challenge. I will report your ass to the Witch. Seriously.

Jokes out.