The Algorithm of Chaos
What kind of writer am I?
There's no point in evasive jinks – I simply have no idea! Sometimes I like myself, sometimes I don't, depending on the dose of impression from the lines and, perhaps, on the time of day.
Yes, I stay in the dark; no one has really told me who I resemble or where I'm heading to. But my firm belief is that writers aren't born, they're DIY products.
At the same time, I don't deny the possible grains of truth in the assessments by my (up to this day) absent critics, pampered in the dynastic shadow of their family trees, and likewise absent critics from noisy dives.
Anyone and everyone can both be right, if they're lucky enough to pop up in the right place at the right time. But what pathetic fools are those trying to stake out both their right and their place, for all upcoming terms. And there still are some so completely insane! Stop staking time, buddy!
But you, citizen, don't hiccup about here with your loyal spleen. My innocent gossip concerns Muammar Gaddafi. As of yet.
Although their fate is cloned from each other’s – a sewer hole comprising the former both czar and god, turned rat food. The sorry fool is done …
And secondly, what else can I do if my heart isn't in angling, either with a rod or a jig? And besides, I don't really root for Real, Manchester, or any of the local footballers. What can I do? (Damn, I think I've heard that phrase before. Are they plagiarising me?)
Here is the straightforward answer: you're destined for the literary world, my boy. Amen.
But then again a tricky question: ‘Why?’
‘You're asking “why”? Comrades! Here a citizen is asking “why!"’
(‘Couldn't resist it, huh? Stole a line from Dovlatov!’
‘Well, saint father! That's what the great are for, so that we, mean sinners, have someone’s shoulders to stand upon!’)
‘Why’ is, of course, a legit question.
Yes, I won't hide it, there was time for me to burn with envy of the demigods having the Writers' Union badges. I did dream of living off the proceeds from the sales of my books published somewhere, by someone.
However, I gave up on that hooey (it's impossible to describe how readily the nonsense died out!) and now I write for personal pleasure. The produced books are published online for everyone to enjoy for free.
True, the Litres stamps then with the arithmetic enigmatic mark of ‘18+’, while at abroad platforms they decipher it into ‘content for adults’.
So, good night, little ones! My books will never become tools for to Alzheimerize your grannies. I and my pen is not involved in production of formatting traps for younger generations.
Yes, I write for pleasure, especially since I have a gap in my biography – I haven't mastered self-masturbation, despite Italian cinema and Hollywood persistent recommendations and promoting efforts. Well, I don't know, maybe I'm just not the right person to fill my spare time with fashionable trends.
This is where we at long last, yet nonetheless arrive in for the final question in this here dissertation: How to write?
For a quick and dirty visual response view another painting, this time by I. Repin called – Barge Haulers on the Volga, full of tension, sweat and loud farts.
The verbal answer is pretty vast, I won't be able to outpour it before the power goes out (due to the blockade, electricity is supplied in spurts of 3-hour duration, to ensure a more harmonious way of life), so I hope to examine it under the next letter in this undercover preface, in the guise of Prologue.
. . .
e). Welcome My Cat Out Of The Bag, Please!
Blessed we are having a chance to live at so enviable time.
‘Happy’s who comes to this world
at its fateful moments…‘
The world has shifted, globally. Countless streams of refugees tread along the roads on this planet, assisting to spin it about the axis. Chaos and snafu take turns at the rudder.
Yet, there can still be found spots connecting peoples as well as persons. One of such contact points is proza.ru, to which I bow low and shout ‘Long live!’.
The meeting place with the compatriots dear to my heart… er… I mean, sorry… It’s where I spread it too thick… on proza.ru I can’t see anyone qualified for being my compatriot.
Yes, the majority of us share the mutual historical past. In the same khakied columns, our ancestors marched on their long treks to the front lines, to the extermination camps, and to the demonstrations on May Day, and the day of Great October Revolution.
They knocked on each other to the murderer-investigators at NKVD, lined each other over the pits and against the walls for executions en masse.
The same chromosome has been added to our genes, useful for composing ‘bullshit’ reports and bribing the auditors from ‘above’. More than anyone, and much deeper, we were moved by N. Khrushchev's memorable address to the UN General Assembly —
… and then the good fellow hero, took his shoe off his to drum with its heel on the polished podium, shrieking, ‘I'll show you Kuzma's mother!’
That’s when the synchronous interpreters had to scratch their poor heads!
(A note for the generation M eggheads: Nikita the hero was the head of the Soviet Union. A genius accomplished! Even when fighting a severe hangover. At one of such matches he promised the USSR population to enter the paradise of communism in exactly 20 years. Another of his brushes with the same opponent saw the birth of his famous slogan, ‘US will be caught up and surpassed by us!’).
After the USSR collapsed, and fate scattered us across the far-flung remainders of the indestructible Union, I had no compatriots left, only fellow language users writing on proza.ru, each to the best of their familiarity with the grammar rules and spelling.
It is to them, my dear fellow LU with their acutely pronounced graphomaniac addiction, that my question is addressed:
How should I write? Eh?
‘Write’ as not tapping away at the poor thing, aka keyboard, with 2 fingers to reach the glorious EOF, but in terms of quality – how?
So that it shoot thru me in a hot wave to reach right down to my heels, to extort, on the way, a scream of self-admiration: ‘Oh, what a son of a gun! You did it!’ That's the kind of crap I want!
No, well, of course, it's all fine and dandy these days: the gaudy certificates, diplomas, master classes, and webinars. However, compatriots with a keen understanding of the subject won't buy into candy wrappers, we are not to get hooked on cake – it stirs our winds.
I think (even if rarely, but then for a long period) that a forum-like approach and a voluntary exchange of experience are needed here.
Everyone has their hard-won trick discovered in the process of their literary work, a gimmick that simply works!
And with this, like, preface, in my right mind and in sober (as yet) memory, I lay the cornerstone of a free distribution of know-how, accumulated while writing. It is called for assistance to the folks in love with writing: how to write so that you won't be ashamed later.
There are different approaches to the task: sober, drunk, muscular-motor…
(The third method is when such a motor takes a pen and a stack of A4 paper bought for the purpose, and starts scribbling, without even looking at what exactly he's writing there. No plan, no system, not to mention a plot. The muscles, he says, will figure it out themselves, and his task is to train himself and plunge into a state of ‘automatism’ (which term, by the way, is a shorter name for this approach).
The next morning, the writer checks what he's scribbled when his hand, equipped with a pen, danced independently over the sheets of unlined paper. Similar to figure skating performed by a pair (hand + pen) of doped-up sleepwalkers.
A close look – shit! He's churned out the fourth volume of ‘War and Peace’ in one night! Oh, my! The fourth volume, for the fourth time in one calendar month!
But what else could you expect letting things drift uncontrollably?)
I'll disappoint you right away – the tricks of such kind don't work for me, I’m forced to resort to ‘hand training’.
The idea itself was stolen from a venerable writer of the stagnation period.
He shared (I'm not revealing the guy’s name out of humane motives, but if you have any questions, send me a private message): ‘Chekhov taught me the craft. I put his stories in front of me and just copied them, line by line.’
And although Chekhov didn't bother to make him Chairman of the Writers' Union (it's his own fault; he should have modeled himself on Comrade Sholokhov who did embrace the post), the copyist, nevertheless, rose to the rank of head of the war fiction department.
What is the kernel of his truth?
The chances of getting a leg up increase significantly when you follow someone's back, step by step – your mug is saved slaps from blasts of the wind…
And now the last layers of my circular pacing have been stripped away, all that remains is to sort things out and openly proclaim – who namely will be taken for the model in production of the following fiction, when I will finally shut up with this, like, Prologue which I still can't wind up.
The delicacy of the question is on a par to its importancy.
However, first, another digression:
To just copy line after line (from whom, my naive friend?) is definitely stupid. It will be easier for me to goofily pick up a book and sillily go on with the translation.
And again the question: who?
Agreed, after translating Joyce and Pynchon, taking some 50 Shades of Harry Potter or the like shit would be…
Theoretically, a possible turn, yet, practically speaking, I'll fall asleep earlier than halfway through a page.
Oh, come what may! It's decided! I'm taking on this one The Algorithm of Chaos recently published on Smashwords. Besides, the author, personally, inspires confidence in me, while the Litres platform are, as usual, taking their time at moderating; it's in their DNA…
Off we go!
The link to the ready product will be posted on proza.ru, in the hope for a whiff of criticism.
(I know, I know, I know the result beforehand, but, still and yet, I have to retain my title in the naivety championship.)
2023-05-03
1. Can A Man Bear Monthly Whimper?
The grim croaks of buzzing Viber as always sent Vit’s train of thoughts to an unknown destination somewhere in stressful life of cavemen at the Stone Age. Those ‘zndyz-dvyn’ sounds were vividly restoring a nest of pterodactyl chicks pipping thru their eggshells.
However, Vit never rushed to join the fuss and hassle in flashy trends. There are buffs starting to fumble with electronic gimmicks before those are fully out of the wrappings, you know. The factory settings in his appliances and gizmos mostly suffered no tweaks.
(In this straightforward way we’ve introduced to you the protagonist of our story. Hopefully, you’ve liked the name. Besides, certain information on his characteristic features was also leaked. Stealthily.
What? How can the main hero be as unadventurous as that? I dunno. Yet, there are chances for him to improve and reform before the happy end.
Anyway, the outcome traditionally stays in the lap of gods. Vit may choose to set a trendier ringtone. We will see.
Still and yet, what makes him refrain from adjusting the things adjusted by lots of good guys? Hey! But it’s a good opportunity to play quick sweepstakes! Is it his laziness or aloofness? Place your bets, dudes. It’s 50/50 as yet.)
Settings from the manufacturer, simple grub out his ancient microwave made in the age of… which one came after the Stone one? Well, whatever… unpretentious blondes – he's not overly picky.
No, Vit doesn't put his nose up in the air like a cool tweak connoisseurs do. He couldn't care less about trends among the troop of advanced assholes. They'd buzz and go over to something else, a week or so newer. At least in its wrappings…
He picked up his Samsung and tapped «answer».
The screen got fully filled with a wide pancake of a face. Of course, the delicacy’s supposed to be round, but this one turned pronouncedly rectangular, it didn't fit.
The caller, so was his constant practice, held the phone way too close to the oversized face. Almost touching, like a hankie readied to catch a rolling out sneeze. Yesterday, there obviously were some dreadful drafts someplace…
‘Apch! Apch! Chhoo!’
Blessed with so generous a gift from benevolent Mother Nature (or was it God planned to share it between seven, yet, accidentally all went to only one?)
The guy could have long ago become a comedy megastar. Equipped for the career much more fitfully than Mr. Beam.
Or Boom? But definitely not Bam… but then… hmm…
Yep, Vit gave up on movies a long-long time ago…
It’s absurdly ridiculous – a guy shy of his unraveled asset! The 2 more pancakes, smaller in size, rigidly athwart to the caller’s skull. His pair of ears.
‘Dumb ass! Still feeling shy? Stuck with the teenage phase of growth. Having the trump suit cards like yours, one would have easily run for president and win by a landslide. What an amazing image! The ears so attentive, rounded, full of kind care. Slap them on your campaign poster – the bomb! 'We do hear the electorate!'– and the election’s won without fumbling with the ballot boxes. A fair play.’
Vit didn't share any bit of that with the guy in the Samsung screen. The mute comments under the moving pancake picture were his private thoughts.
On the whole, this here Vit is a rather taciturn cat, which feature characterizes him not only in the framework of the current narration but in his life too. What concerns the social sphere of life in general, there are firmly founded indications that he has none, and I suspect that Vit doesn’t participate in general elections, never votes in referendums nor partakes in rallies. And all that’s too bad, of course, but then it’s one of his rights. It should be standing somewhere within the scroll of human rights. Just like him, I’ve never opened the charter but it, presumably, does exist or else how come I hear that word collocation so too often?
Now, coming to his private life, I can tell none also. Firstly, it’s not moral to rummage in other guy’s underwear and their idiosyncratic kinks. Secondly I know nothing except his being a man in his prime, single, and not in love with the sounds of his own voice. See?
For that reason the guy hiding his ears outside Vit’s Samsung hasn’t also heard that Vit is not a shaman. And he doesn’t hire himself out as a healer of anyone's psychological trauma.
Even though he knows a remedy or two for the problems caused by a protracted virginity (from the standpoint of a society long driven mad by the tyranny of the market and the political demands for willingness to be happy with anything suggested by the guys who certainly know just because they should know everything).
However, the role of the biblical voice in the wilderness of the loneliness surrounding him did not appeal to Vit. Not at all. So he just said out loud, in a calm tone of voice:
‘What's up, Lex?’
‘Hey, Vit. Still working your ass off? Your rosy dreams to rip a green benjamin off prozzza.net, right? Dude, you are indeed a slow learner. Typing away a ton of crap a day for nothing. Forget it, bro! They only share likes to the members of their own mob, and get the bill in turns. You're not an uncle to them neither a cuz. Do you really need it? Why ramming the shell of that Qua Klux Clam?’
‘I don't give a damn about any prose mob, mind you. And both two cents or a sack of shekels will never be the objective. I use the site as a tool to hone my skills and personal style. You can’t deny, this Monthly Challenge with a $100 prize carrot serves a good incentive to break through the usual writer's block: "Half kingdom for a plot! All of the subjects are exhausted. Oh weh, a priori!" While at prozzza.net, there's no time to lament. Get your "whachabaut" and saddle up, quill riders! Bucks go to who gets the most likes. Time flows, it’s a month minus today already!"’
Stop straining yourself and clickety-click the keyboard to pieces. Tell me, how much presidents have you collected so far from these monthly runs? You spend more green on doping than that entire prize can cover.’
‘Well… a couple of times, I got position 20 at the finish.’
‘Hippety-hoppity! That’s the homeboy! So, at the start, you were 20 whippets, right?’
‘Not my fault… See, the audience is different. They think in terms of Disneyland and Steve King, any move beyond the comics plane spells a bummer. That’s why every like from over there spills a ray of hope. We can understand each other after all. Over the barriers of prejudice and idiocy inoculated into both them and us.’
‘Here, here! A standing ovation! The best speaker I’ve ever listened to! Yes, sir, in all my life! My guess is that well-off psycho patients are allowed there to graze in the internet vistas. That’s where your sorry couple of likes come from. Or maybe from a nursing home. But definitely keep hanging out there with them, bro. Moreover, it’s principles at stake. They matter, not the bucks, eh? And then: what's there in a $100 bill? It won't kick around in your pocket for any longer than the very first ownerless blonde in your way.’
‘Would you kindly shut up your sermon fire hose, Padre?’
‘Well, now, Vit, I've got a friendly offer coming up. The kind you can't reject even while rock’n’rolling in Saint Vitus dance. A fucking gold mine, oil fields that will have BP and Shell ripping hair from each other's scalp to get the right of sucking your dick for a good-night. A lullaby with elements of improvised jazz, okay? You get the beat?’
‘What hooey is this? Drilling my private parts with rigs? Oh, fuck off!’
‘Come on, man! I was just putting it metaphorically… The point is, the like opportunity comes along only once in a lifetime, if ever.’
‘Yeah. I got it. After sampling some metaphorical shit from that gold mine, you’ve got on high… Still don’t forget yourself and keep in mind – I'm a celibate.’
‘Since when?’
‘Okay, call me tomorrow morning, when you feel better.’
‘Wait, wait! I'm not kidding! There’s some business to discuss!’
‘Talk business then and don't wind things up like a startup pimp.’
‘Look, there's that story… well… the material… It'll make you famous, Vit! Overnight! You'll have as great a name as Pynchon, Joyce, Hemingway!’
‘And who was that guy in the end?’
‘Hemingway? I am damned if I know. Yet, my ex-girlfriend drenched his book with tears once a month. Regularly.’
‘Girls and books are polar things, they don’t go together, so don't push it! Maybe, a couple centuries before… But mankind has long since forgotten those days… Anyway… So, you got jealous and remembered the guy’s name, right?’
‘A girl from the virginal hinterland can keep a surprise or two up her sleeve, believe me, cuz… In short, the file I put my paws on contains something that will shutter the whole world in less than 3 days. All that remains is to edit it, sign with your name, and wake up great the next morning. Yummy enough, eh?’
‘Okay. Just to save you from overdosing on your own junk. Drop that file to my email.’
‘Forget it, handsome. I never have nothing to do with emails.’
Which is genuine truth. Lex is completely obsessed with personal data security. Stuck in his ways on that point. Irrevocably. It takes an entire week to convince him to send you a "hi-bye" including the link http://:sweet-grandmother/tales-for-grandchildren/charle-perrault.html.
And yet, at the very last flash, he'll definitely have the jitters. Probably, because of his position with some obscure Office that works for the government.
A set of squat buildings, behind a high chain-link fence. CCTV cameras on each pole. Sullen Rottweilers walk their handlers three times a day, around the parking lot perimeter.
The surest way to get a break from Lex’s usual endless chirping is to ask: how his working day was. And that's it. You won't hear a tiny peep from him for at least ten minutes. He's absolutely not there for the stretch. Reserved, gloomy, quiet…
Impressed, undoubtedly, by the fate of a Jewish couple who also worked for the government before they got electrocuted for leaking A-bomb production plans and formulas to the SU.
‘Come on, it was a gag. Don't wet your bed tonight. Everything will be fine, kiddo. There, there. Which flavor ice-cream you want?’
‘How about 2 at Uncle Tom's Cabin? Are you comfortable?’
Even big-shot billionaire guys can’t say ‘no’ to a buddy.
True, one crowned slut, a nymphomaniac perched on the Russian Empire throne, canvassed for keeping enemies closer than the most trusted of your friends.
So that you could sense the slightest stir in their souls, thoughts, intentions, and anything else that could get up, so she said.
A dumb bitch, albeit spiced with cunning. It's friends you need to keep an eye on, 24/7. Your friends know your weak spots better than you do. These guys won't miss, O, no. You won’t recover after their pointed hits. Never ever…
‘Ah! And you, Brutus!..’
Yep, you moron! Don’t look for better hands when in need to pass away urgently and cheaply. Rest in peace, you fucking idiot.
‘Seems fine to me,’ responded Vit.
2. A Cozy Nook For A Lecture
Despite the establishment’s name, no one had ever even seen Tom at the Cabin, but the fact hardly keyed up any щаеру restaurant patrons. Even the absence of his both nephews and nieces was accepted by the regulars with a seemly composure, no jitters at all.
The Cabin’s owner, Madame Harriet, for all her undeniably advanced age, retained a caustic bitchiness and the light-speed reflexes of a rattlesnake.
Not a single gunslinger in the wildest parts of lawless Old West would ever hold a candle to her, if you benchmark the milliseconds it takes the duellists to draw their weapons.
True, instead of a hefty six-shooter, the old woman kept a can of lachrymator in the lace pocket of her apron. Such armament turned the traditional baseball bat under the bar into a relic, ridiculous comically outdated.
(According to a survey by Fyrbes magazine, in the Half-Wild West, bartenders working for the Russian mafia favored gorodki bats in their under-the-bar arsenal.)
The use of tear gas aerosols eliminated the bouncer's job on the establishment's payroll.
With a mixture of emphatic grunts and rattling clicks of her tongue, this old viper disgustedly grabbed the tamed hooligan by the ear with two fingers, and personally led him out the door to point her victim the direction of the nearest water pump.
Like, she's all so soft and fluffy a dandelion. And like, the poor wretch could see a thing through the streams of tears and snot smeared all over his face.
Then she would crawl into the kitchen, this underhanded cobra, as if to get her hands washed, for hygiene's sake, but in reality – collect her usual share of fawning compliments from her subordinates…
During the day, Uncle Tom's Cabin was a cozy dining room to match the hint of family in its sign, but in the evening it transformed into a restaurant with a well-deserved reputation, because Madame Harriet kept excellent cooks and chefs.
(Without going into racist, sordid details – we're not hack writers for the Black Hundred’s fanatics – let's just briefly note that, yes, of course, the chef's skin color was appropriate ‘cause, after all, it was Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Excellent food, coupled with the enveloping, pleasant atmosphere of an old-world Southern manor: Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, which is Georgia on my mind…
However, not along with Ray Charles's enraged roar, but in the classic version of this twice-winning song of the year (1930 and 1953), as performed by the lead singer in the band of the gypsy virtuoso Django, aka Sultan, well, you know what I mean…
So, if you get the chance, visit the place, even though that bitch with her pocket sprays doesn't pay me a dime for advertising and/or word of mouth.
She might treat you for your PR efforts to tea once every six months, no oftener. And even then, no sugar to it, the stingy little gastropod!..
. . .
Taking a seat in the corner compartment, Vit leaned back against the thick upholstery, promising everyone who leaned against it the peace and serenity of a pleasant rest. And if not right now, when you’re too uptight to get the hint, then someday, but it definitely would. At least, that's the kind of thoughts inspired in anyone by it, this upholstery.