The Revelations by Erik Hoel (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

“Consciousness is the stone of the world!”

His phone buzzes on the dresser, next to the pamphlet from the preacher last night. Rushing back with his toothbrush in his mouth he looks at the name of the caller.

Carmen and Kierk are sitting in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. Neither is sure if this is a date. On arriving they both apologize for Friday night simultaneously. Then, standing outside, they had shared a cigarette. Carmen, after realizing that she never smokes but always does with Kierk, thought—bad sign, Carmen, old girl. She’d also done something today she almost never does anymore, and so currently her face is made-up, her lips a violet matched by her eye shadow, her hair straightened.

Inside they have a little corner to themselves, drinking coffee in two plush chairs, a low round table between them. There is a large open window at seat height right beside them so it is basically like they are sitting outside, and the temperature is perfect, a rare day where there is a playful breeze and a cool blue sky vividly streaked with clouds, as if they are sitting next to a large mural so realistic that tickling gusts are drifting over from the world of the painting.

First, they talk about Kierk’s encounter with the street preacher, and the pamphlet that he found, which he shows to Carmen. He wants to go alone, but she convinces him they should go together to the next meeting of the Following Brothers of Christ to check it out. The conversation moves on to other things between refills.

“I was deciding between grad school and modeling, which was what my mom wanted me to do. Even if you’re doing it part-time it takes up your life. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school for neuroscience but I didn’t have a subfield yet, I didn’t have any specified interests. After all, it’s not like the textbooks even mention consciousness. Anyways, the decision was made after a fashion show at a party. Everyone, I mean, everyone was drunk on wine and shots. It’s like this cream over everything, that’s how it was at those parties. I didn’t go to many but I went to this one. I had this friend, Sheila . . . God, I haven’t thought about her in years.”

“You were good friends?”

“Probably my best in the modeling world. We worked for the same agency and we kept each other company. There’s an unimaginable amount of downtime while you’re being a human canvas. Anyways, everybody in the house was drunk as hell and there were these uppers being passed around and I had a few. Probably a trigger for serotonin-release, like MDMA. And I’d never really done that before. I thought I was really daring, early twenties you know. It’s not like I had a bad trip or anything. I do remember that I could see myself walking around past all these beautiful, drunk, sexy people. The kind of party where upstairs all the doors get closed and you can hear people having sex in them. All models and rich international pricks. Anyways, the party goes on and I do more shots. And later, and I remember this vividly, I was walking through the house, which felt like a mansion, and I was like gliding around.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was trying to find Sheila. I wanted to leave or something. I finally get to this like, big decadent bedroom, and there’s Sheila and this other girl, Samantha, Sam, also a girl who worked for our agency. On the big bed everybody’s naked and Sheila is getting fucked by this dude. Another girl I didn’t even know was giving a blowjob to this guy on the other side of the bed. Sam, she’s also naked, is holding a glass bong and jumping up and down on the bed as the other four are having sex. And she’s just bouncing there in between them, giggling and hysterically laughing and falling over. Sheila sees me by the door and she’s literally having sex as she calls me over because Sam keeps falling on her as she’s getting fucked, and she’s like—‘Sam, what the fuck I’m trying to have sex here, like, Carmen, come get Sam.’ So I like have to grapple this laughing girl between these people having an orgy, get her to put the bong she’s waving around down, and everything just smells like sex and sweat, you know, and this guy is like literally coming on the face of the girl next to me. At one point I fall over on the bed and land like right near Sheila’s snatch so that I could smell the wet plastic condom with that, that acidic undertone. Hear everything, you know? It was just all bodies, all around me. Just all this flesh. And I . . . Sorry, this is probably way too much, but I was like, responding, you know? And at the same time I just felt like, disgusted with myself at that moment. Getting Sam out of there I nearly threw up in the bathroom as we left. Not because I’m a prude. I swear. It wasn’t the number of people, or the openness, or anything like that. It was that it struck me as inexpressibly empty. And leaving that party I knew that I wanted what was missing. The problem is with our whole culture. There’s no mind anymore, it’s all just . . . flesh. Just half of everything. Just the material, that’s all that anyone believes in. And not that there shouldn’t be the material aspect of life. There should be bodies and mechanisms. Engineering diagrams are useful, good. Computers are useful, good. Psychiatric drugs can be useful, good. But somehow the information age, it’s just body. Just syntax and mechanism. And we, humans, we’re not just mechanisms and syntax. Like, real sex, real orgies, involve minds. Because we’re