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Metapatterning for Disconnection
For Théodore Ostrom, a physicist researching dark matter at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory, becoming posthuman both evokes terror and excites pleasure.
The terror is easy to understand. The days of the human may be numbered.
Following the return to his Beijing apartment during a global speciation event, Théodore Ostrom receives a call from an automated legal service, informing him that his family has died in a motor vehicle accident.
What about the pleasure? The exhilarating prospect of getting out of the old limits of human life, its uncertainty, its impermanence, and opening up new ways of being other-than-human.
In the hours leading up to his family's virtual funeral, Théodore Ostrom speculates over his complicated relationship with (0), who has already transcended without him. Having no choice but to decide whether to become posthuman or to remain human, he writes Metapatterning for Disconnection, a deracinated monologue that embraces extinction in an attempt to achieve a final, if not total, catharsis from the human condition.
The terror is easy to understand. The days of the human may be numbered.
Following the return to his Beijing apartment during a global speciation event, Théodore Ostrom receives a call from an automated legal service, informing him that his family has died in a motor vehicle accident.
What about the pleasure? The exhilarating prospect of getting out of the old limits of human life, its uncertainty, its impermanence, and opening up new ways of being other-than-human.
In the hours leading up to his family's virtual funeral, Théodore Ostrom speculates over his complicated relationship with (0), who has already transcended without him. Having no choice but to decide whether to become posthuman or to remain human, he writes Metapatterning for Disconnection, a deracinated monologue that embraces extinction in an attempt to achieve a final, if not total, catharsis from the human condition.
56 pages, Paperback
Published May 21, 2023
1 person want to read
About the author
Brandon W. Teigland
4 books15 followersBrandon W. Teigland is a Canadian speculative fiction writer and apocalyptic realist largely concerned with pioneering the posthuman as a neo-decadent literary phenomenon. He is the author of the novella Under a Collapsing Sky (2021), the novelette Metapatterning for Disconnection (2023), the novel Neuromachina (2024), and the fiction collection My Child is a Stranger (2025).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 16, 2025
"Metapatterning for Disconnection" is a beautiful fictional monologue that is impressively jam packed considering it's concise form.
As with all of Brandon's other works it is mix of the strange, the ethereal, and the insane, though this story feels much more relatable, and less foreign, than the authors other works. I very much appreciate this stark difference after reading his prior two books. I think this is the perfect companion piece to both "Under a Collapsing Sky" and "Neuromachina".
The almost quaint approach Brandon takes when documenting one man's decision to become posthuman helps ground the insanity of those previous two novels. Where they feel like you're dropped into the dark depths of a pool while being unable to swim, "Metapatterning for Disconnection" feels like slowly wading into that chilly reservoir.
I genuinely loved the experience of being dunked chaotically into those prior entries, but to me this feels like the lignin that is holding together an impressively strong collection; one that I am excited to return to in the future.
As with all of Brandon's other works it is mix of the strange, the ethereal, and the insane, though this story feels much more relatable, and less foreign, than the authors other works. I very much appreciate this stark difference after reading his prior two books. I think this is the perfect companion piece to both "Under a Collapsing Sky" and "Neuromachina".
The almost quaint approach Brandon takes when documenting one man's decision to become posthuman helps ground the insanity of those previous two novels. Where they feel like you're dropped into the dark depths of a pool while being unable to swim, "Metapatterning for Disconnection" feels like slowly wading into that chilly reservoir.
I genuinely loved the experience of being dunked chaotically into those prior entries, but to me this feels like the lignin that is holding together an impressively strong collection; one that I am excited to return to in the future.
December 4, 2023
Thoughtful and beautifully written piece. "Metapatterning for Disconnection" takes you on a journey through introspective, self analysis. Protagonist Théodore Ostrom contemplates life and death once he hears the tragic fate of his family. Living in an artificial, disconnected world - Théodore seeks connection through past memory, love and nature. All which has left his world, leading him to decide his own fate with transcendence. "Beyond love, we live in the heartbreaking expression of our past, in the sure decay of hope." This dreamlike, deeply emotional story touches on human patterns in an intriguing scientific expression. Théodore experiences an awakening from his moment of death. "We wake up and the world is different, though nothing has changed." Teigland integrates worlds and concepts together with brilliance and sentiment.
August 31, 2025
This story, for me, is ultimately a mediation on death and of course by extension, existence. Becoming posthuman begs the question of what we will leave behind if choosing to undergo this process.
Most of the narrative oscillates between the protagonist’s memory of events and theoretical abstractions, lulling the reader into a dream-like trance state.
These asides into science, existence, fatalism and determinism, feel familiar but also heightened due to the dire sci-fi world building and the protagonist’s irritated demeanour.
I found some catharsis in this exploration of solitary thoughts similarly to reading Sartre’s “Nausea,” trading in a bourgeois tone for a more proletarian dystopia that suits the current zeitgeist.
“Metapatterning for Disconnection” is not a light read, but one that will have you analyzing your own life as painstakingly as the protagonist, which in some cosmic masochism actually brings out gratitude in its process.
Most of the narrative oscillates between the protagonist’s memory of events and theoretical abstractions, lulling the reader into a dream-like trance state.
These asides into science, existence, fatalism and determinism, feel familiar but also heightened due to the dire sci-fi world building and the protagonist’s irritated demeanour.
I found some catharsis in this exploration of solitary thoughts similarly to reading Sartre’s “Nausea,” trading in a bourgeois tone for a more proletarian dystopia that suits the current zeitgeist.
“Metapatterning for Disconnection” is not a light read, but one that will have you analyzing your own life as painstakingly as the protagonist, which in some cosmic masochism actually brings out gratitude in its process.
August 11, 2023
An interior monologue of a scientist dealing with the sudden death of his family and coming to terms with his desire to transcend humanity all during a post apocalyptic pandemic.
Your mind is guided through an abrupt yet deep read of a contemporary psychological experience of post-human feeling;
“Life is a body ripe for viruses. To be flesh and blood is problematic, I thought. To be stuck in your skin, to be merely entrails in a skin and then, having given your skin up to medicine, to no longer have that skin to yourself, to be forever hidden away behind a body, and the functional extremities of the heart, neurons, and immune system in which it begins and ends, like a knot that cannot be undone, binding us to a plot larger than ourselves–a plot where we are bound to our own body as others are bound to their bodies.” I particularly enjoy the introspective depth and observation of modern society and where the “human” may now stand against the “alien”.
Brandon makes it all the more alluring with their lyrical scientific wit.
Your mind is guided through an abrupt yet deep read of a contemporary psychological experience of post-human feeling;
“Life is a body ripe for viruses. To be flesh and blood is problematic, I thought. To be stuck in your skin, to be merely entrails in a skin and then, having given your skin up to medicine, to no longer have that skin to yourself, to be forever hidden away behind a body, and the functional extremities of the heart, neurons, and immune system in which it begins and ends, like a knot that cannot be undone, binding us to a plot larger than ourselves–a plot where we are bound to our own body as others are bound to their bodies.” I particularly enjoy the introspective depth and observation of modern society and where the “human” may now stand against the “alien”.
Brandon makes it all the more alluring with their lyrical scientific wit.
May 1, 2023
"Metapatterning for Disconnection" begins on a “desperate afternoon…[in] February,” which struck me as ironic since I started reading the book on a hopeful morning in April. But as I dove into Teigland’s sparkling narrative, I began to see that the book is awash with similarly discombobulating contradictions. It is a story about loss, and it takes us on a journey straight into some subterranean part of our psyche, where both the raw pain and the sheer beauty of our human existence coexist. Teigland’s prose is unfiltered and unfettered, like it’s being administered intravenously.
On the first page protagonist Théodore Ostrom learns that his family has been killed in an accident, and now he must mourn them alone, in his high-rise Beijing apartment, in the middle of a pandemic lockdown. He is trapped in this sublimely depressing landscape “where… blood rain …[falls] like red resentment” and he never sees a single bird. Futuristic robots deliver him vodka and a fancy mourning suit, he takes a bath, smokes some cigarettes, attempts to gets drunk, and pops some pills. While he does all this, his grief plummets Théodore Ostrom into a deep reverie of memory, longing, and dream. It is the specific, personal grief for the loss of his family, but also the pain of the loss of his lover, (0), who has transformed and become posthuman. In a heartbreakingly poignant scene, Ostrom watches (0) in holographic form, evoking a memory of the time they were human lovers frolicking under a Mediterranean sunset. Beyond this personal pain, Théodore Ostrom is also grieving the broader loss of human connection, nature, and joy in our age of plague, environmental catastrophe, and political instability. And because we are all part of this grievous zeitgeist, we are pulled into the abyss along with him.
The ending sequence flowing from bright-psychedelic-rainbow-dream to dark-visceral-graveyard-reality is, quite simply, jaw-dropping. Teigland is taking powerful risks here, weaving his macabre new literary web, and he does not disappoint. "Metapatterning for Disconnection" is a dark, gorgeous, existential trip worth several reads.
On the first page protagonist Théodore Ostrom learns that his family has been killed in an accident, and now he must mourn them alone, in his high-rise Beijing apartment, in the middle of a pandemic lockdown. He is trapped in this sublimely depressing landscape “where… blood rain …[falls] like red resentment” and he never sees a single bird. Futuristic robots deliver him vodka and a fancy mourning suit, he takes a bath, smokes some cigarettes, attempts to gets drunk, and pops some pills. While he does all this, his grief plummets Théodore Ostrom into a deep reverie of memory, longing, and dream. It is the specific, personal grief for the loss of his family, but also the pain of the loss of his lover, (0), who has transformed and become posthuman. In a heartbreakingly poignant scene, Ostrom watches (0) in holographic form, evoking a memory of the time they were human lovers frolicking under a Mediterranean sunset. Beyond this personal pain, Théodore Ostrom is also grieving the broader loss of human connection, nature, and joy in our age of plague, environmental catastrophe, and political instability. And because we are all part of this grievous zeitgeist, we are pulled into the abyss along with him.
The ending sequence flowing from bright-psychedelic-rainbow-dream to dark-visceral-graveyard-reality is, quite simply, jaw-dropping. Teigland is taking powerful risks here, weaving his macabre new literary web, and he does not disappoint. "Metapatterning for Disconnection" is a dark, gorgeous, existential trip worth several reads.
March 26, 2023
This is a thoughtful, poetic, and well-informed piece of work. Emotionally dense yet critical of thought; the writer extracts full attention from the biographical details and is deft at both characterization and narrative analysis. Brilliant language!
**The science is also - bonus - really interesting. Most people think string theory is macramé and this author knows what’s happening 👍🏼👍🏼
**The science is also - bonus - really interesting. Most people think string theory is macramé and this author knows what’s happening 👍🏼👍🏼
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews