Audioccult Vol. 66: The Party Is Over

Light a candle. Draw the required sigils. Now, raise your arms above your head and slowly, gently, exhale your soul. You won’t need it here. This is Audioccult, and it’s time to get low. Illustration: SHALTMIRA

Wow, look at us. It took us so long to get here, but we made it. As we all raise a shot to our current social statuses, a lot of words come to mind. I know it feels like we’re going to be young forever, but it’s just not like that, you know? One day you wake up and there’s a shadow looming beside your bed. You’re cowering in fear, wondering who this stranger is hovering over you, and then you realize, “My god. My god. It’s my life.” It’s the grim and hollow thing that grows more hollow with each passing lie of a day, the tattered shell of what you once were clinging desperately to, the facade overtaking the reality. That’s why I’m happy—yes, happy, that elusive adjective—to be here before you, because time leaves us like a lover, and the few good memories we can snatch from its grasp are precious and rare.

I know you all struggle sometimes, but in each of you I see something beautiful. Easton, you’ve been a comfort to the souls of hundreds in our community. Anna, when the light hits your eyes it feels like a warm summer day. So I raise this mid-price whiskey to you all in the spirit of love, yet I raise it as well in the hopes of finding some small measure of comfort in community. Each day I’m overwhelmed by dream-omens I can’t ignore. A night of being embraced by arms that, instead of holding you, give Negative Holds which negate other comforts you might have received. A man comes and starts packing my gear while I DJ; meanwhile another man euthanizes and cremates me. As the ashes are scattered to the wind, the beat drops. In sleep, I lose my vision. When I wake up my retinas are fine; it’s the rest of me that is detached.

You know what it’s like, this feeling. Questions arising in the stagnate emptiness you’ve chosen to sanctify:

-Are you doing the right thing?

-ARE YOU THE PERSON YOU SHOULD BE?? And you cannot find the answers while you lie awake at night, sweating open and empty. You can’t take a punch on the spine your father paid for, you can’t take a kiss from her hands, once offered and now empty. You’d rather glamorize your disease. Wet and whimpering, you take a piss into your hands and you imagine what it was before.

WHO WILL YOU BECOME? Can you imagine it?

WHO WERE YOU BEFORE? Can you remember it?

This is all you have left, these questions and ones likes them.

But, if you can ignore all that, I think this is going to be the most #turnt summer OF-OUR-LIVES! A toast—÷—to happiness!~

Published August 02, 2013. Words by Daniel Jones.