Weight
C
Question 922.06
Tom Gledhill
I
atharsis. I want a release of pressure and build-up and anger and frustration and everything an orgasm should
bring but doesn’t. I want that. I want it now, and I want it shot straight into the centre of me. I want it there,
right there where these ash-clouds of shit patrol the gates to my home. I know for a fact the only intruders
will be attributes of my own sphere of cognition; but the cunts still march up and down. Up and down and up
and down, and reticently, up and down and up and down, and purposefully, up and down and up and down.
There’s no such thing as ‘The Minds Eye’, and if there were, I doubt fundamentally that this would precipitate any real new
or revelatory understanding. It seeks patterns everywhere, finds correlations where there are none, makes decisions before
you know you’ve made them yourself and releases regulating chemicals without even a shade of volition entering the chain.
My mind is like Spinoza’s god: unable to create or control or interact in any purposeful or remotely free way. My mind is
like Spinoza’s god; in that everything occurs according to certain rules, my mode of intellect isn’t even aware of. My
mind is like Spinoza’s god in that it’s just there. It exists. It exists, and it is, and it will be. I can’t control anything. I’m not
even the author of this passage.
“
TOM GLEDHILL is a Philosophy undergraduate studying at University College London.
THRICE FICTION™ • April 2014
t makes sense,” she said, while peeling off her raincoat and her bra. “That
when we fall in love ass-backwards, falling through the looking glass—
that when we’re falling out of love, we’d see much clearer. Right?” She
hung her stockings on the bedpost. “I mean, the laws of physics says that
we’d be gaining our direction, when moving in a line away from chaos.
My priest told me the same. He said it’s healthy for the soul. To free oneself
from selfish obligation. And my bookie at the track said, place your bets on
number nine. But when he comes in last, switch to another color.” Her eyes
were focused on a distant vista. “But if all of them are right; I mean if leaving
him was good; why does it feel as if my soul’s eviscerated?” She slipped her
hands around my waist. I felt them cold and shaking. She squeezed me, while
her lips repeated, “Why?”
CHRIS FRADKIN is a beet farmer who is tending crops in Central California His prose
and poetry have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Thrice Fiction and Thrush Poetry Journal. His songs
have been performed by Fergie, The Plimsouls, and The Flamin’ Groovies. His photography has
appeared in Bartleby Snopes, and his Emmy-award-winning sound editorial has graced The X-Files.
His time is split evenly between writing fiction, reading Philip K. Dick, attempting publication and
fulfilling his duties as a cinephile. He will forever regard Golden Feelings to be the pinnacle of
creative human achievement.
24
Chris Fradkin
Issue No. 10
25