[ToC]

 

C:\RUN PENELOPE.EXE

Brian Oliu

The x is on the other y, incorrect addresses create incorrect maps, the cartographer stuck in traffic somewhere, elsewhere, on the back of busses, hands gripping metal to ground self from the electric shock, how walking across carpet can cause memory to short circuit, the same action causing hair to stand on end after scuffing balloons on basement rugs; it is a blessing to be without analog, ironically letting magnets and point-of-sale hardware doing all of the work, to unlatch bolts and swing open breezeways, no turn of key, turn of phrase, simple turning of crashing systems over, once, twice, as sides and limbs get too warm, skin on shoulder grows taught to close up pores ineffectively boxing out cooling rooms where towers hum. The instruction pointer sequences the inverse of thermonuclear reactions, neglecting the spreading of hues on ice caps north of here (wherever here may be), which would reduce albedo, salt and dirt on sidewalks, clumping together like threshold levels stuck at 128, but you’d never travel that north, east maybe, west perhaps, south certainly, as I know beyond reason you were there, and I saw you mixing chemicals to ascertain mixed chemicals that cause glasses hurled across laminated coffins with coasters and late night excuses perched upon the symbolic dead. I saw

APPLICATION ERROR PENELOPE.EXE CAUSED A GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT IN MODULE OLIU.EXE AT 0001:1122B NO CHILDREN TO BE SAVED FROM LACERATIONS, NO GLIMMERS, JUST ANOMALOUS CONDITIONS, THE STORING OF MEMORY BEYOND OUR BOUNDS

C:\run penelope.exe

The x is on the other y, the bouncing of spindled trees to red rocks, vortexes created to bring serenity in other-wise gridded spaces, no time for open energy to spin, just the bouncing off of financial districts and revised flaxmills, Hooke’s law be damned if springing back is possible. Home is not home, dollar slices shunned, three-dollar cans shunned, brooding now, brooding. Hands with no rings in wool pockets, leather pressed to skin sides, and it’s not even cold there; the rigidness of security measures to keep overweening suitors from breaking down doors, or at least sliding through them sideways like shuffled punch cards. I picture

APPLICATION ERROR PENELOPE.EXE CAUSED A GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT IN MODULE OLIU.EXE AT 0001:1122B NO GANGS OF HUNTERS, NO LIONS CIRCLING, JUST THE OVERWRITING OF DATA OUTSIDE OF LINES OF ALLOCATED OVERWRITING

C:\run penelope.exe

The x is on the other y, the move away from barcodes to prevent photocopies to magnets, black stripes, the unification of access levels, as there are places where we can access together, % start sentinel, and that’s where the similarities end.  It used to be simple; saw to metal on the streets, or holes in plastic. All things now considered and all things encrypted, password protected, a serial of serials, integers and alphabetics both, glyphs maybe, a sequence of sequences. For 128 alternate between capital letters, lower case letters, letters written and never returned (shift enter to return) and numbers, numbers never received. Names of dogs found dead on the side of suburban roads, monikers escaped from with a new postal address, children crushed by steering wheels and their anticipated date of graduation, favorite foods, inside jokes between estranged lovers, maiden names. As it stands, a series of asterisks, placeholders for the authentication and authorization, and this, the auditing of

APPLICATION ERROR PENELOPE.EXE CAUSED A GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT IN MODULE OLIU.EXE AT 0001:1122B NO CUNNING RINGS, NO FINISHING NO NO NO Sleeping, Brian Oliu, your heart so wrung with sorrow? No need, I tell you, no, the MEGA-MIGHTY GODS who live at ease can’t bear to let you ERROR

C:\run penelope.exe -safe

*SAFEMODE* Single-user mode, no daemons, a place for root users no auto executives, 16-bit 640x480 drifting softly at the gate, chandeliers in cars, extended guestbooks and logs in front of touch screens, apples and genuflecting. Phantoms, all, all in spun-sugar dresses with fox patterns. The luckless man; is he still alive? Does he see the light of day? Or is he dead already, lost in the House of Death?

"About that man," she says, transparent as she arrives, "All tools that cut and divide things in half signify disagreements, factions, and injuries. I cannot tell you the story start to finish, whether he’s dead or alive. It’s wrong to lead you on with idle words." At that she ascended and descended off by the doorpost past the bolt; gone on a lifting and sinking breeze, axis mundi perpendicular, up and under.

 

 

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4. Remember what Iphthime always told you: alternate between letters and numbers for best encryption. They'll never guess.