Bill Janssen

“The fact is that we lack the terms to define [the Null Rhythm], and there are too many hypothetical notions upon which our assumptions are stacked that it would be silly for us to explore it. All the same, there are layers of absence between waves of static, perforations in the surface of the latent aural wall that descend to pits of ecstatic dread, eschewing the crystallized intelligence and industry of all manifestation with its own form of anti-intelligent, retro-manifestation–not the undoing upon ‘the done’ so much as the unbeing upon the ‘will have been’ (which can be stretched to include both the ‘have been’ as well as the invariable ‘to be’). The Anti-Rhythm rises from the perforations, from those pits, only to remind itself of the sheer inadequacies and of the abomination of existence, which is not to say that it confronts or beckons to all or any who exist. Rather, like a listless predator who has lost the thrill of pursuit, it observes without interest, without appetite even, this objective reality that has prevailed only in meeting the standards of its bitter contempt, for all braided within its fabric languishes in mere folly, and all therefore remains too intertwined with the scraps and muck and detritus and moreover with the flaws in this tapestry of being to intuit its desultory artifice. There is no unbeing of the ‘will have been’ aligned with a destined course. The destined destination is simply a byproduct of aim-befuddled movement.

[Excerpt from "Why Yes Always But Also Why Always Yes Never" by Ashim Shanker]”
― Ashim Shanker

“He paused as his eyes went Elsewhere. His mouth hung open uncharacteristically in an odd moment of hesitation.

But then he spoke: “I dreamt one night that I stood before the Conjurer of All. I do not know if this Conjurer was God, per se , but let us entertain the possibility that there exists, at least encoded in the patterned mechanisms of the human mind, a necessary and indelible embodiment therein that is simultaneously the Creator of the Universe and the Forger of All Things Within It The Knower of All there is to Know, to say the least. I stood uncomfortably before such an entity and this Conjurer spoke thus, ‘Seeker of Truth!’ His words were oppressive, yet assuring, ‘Now it can all be told! Now you may have all the answers you seek. All the answers of the Universe!’ This proclamation only satisfied me briefly, for I almost immediately found myself responding, ‘Dear Conjurer, I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but instead of all the answers, may I not have more
questions? An endless supply even? For all else would seem insufficient. I could never face a world that lacked mystery.’ The Maker laughed as though I had told the only joke in the Universe in which he could find humor. I awoke immediately, out of breath, for I, too, had been laughing.”
― Ashim Shanker, Inward and Toward

“The will to inflict pain arises often out of a misplaced desire for empathy and so represents a rather pure gesture of affection.”
― Ashim Shanker, Inward and Toward

“Look out the window of the train: you’re moving, but you can’t remember leaving. Jagged brown crater dwellings run across the landscape, pipes with thick black smoke pouring out. Smoke overflowing, as the buildings themselves are caked with a sort of black tar.
Evening sun peeks over the horizon through rusted steel water towers and other ancient skeletons. Their frames stand fixed, albeit hunched forward, anchored in by the ankles in scrap iron dunes that stretch for miles with frigid desert rats scurrying through as giant shivering Scarabs hover in the sky: wired-in and vigilant, murmuring ancient mantras, overshadowing newer, but desperately cruel partisan inscriptions of code in the soot-stained brick facade.

Look at your superimposed reflection in the window across from your seat and envision subatomic particles acquiring sentience in the vacuum of an Accelerator. All wondering how it is they got there, who it is they presume to be.

Always wondering. Spiraling...really! Always spiraling at breakneck speeds through the vacuum—eternally in doubt. You are suddenly reminded of the words of that great Algorithmist painter, Carlotta Wakefield, 'Mediocre painters portray that which they understand. Fabulous painters: that which they Surmise...'

You wonder if that, too, applies to our constructions of reality, ersatz or otherwise.

(From the short story "Leapfrog")”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog