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Lots of love, your editiors, Alex, Eden, Venusia, Ynes, Harriet, and Amelia
I learnt how to ride a bike on New Year’s Day.
The obvious New Year’s resolution for my fumbling presence in adulthood—hollering and stumbling around a public green on a purple bike—removed some of the shame that had stopped me from learning to ride as a child. Being an adult who doesn’t know how to ride a bike is a lot less embarrassing than using a Tinker Bell one at eight. Legs pushing down on pedals I’ve never met before.
This week I fell off my bike onto a flat shared path. I tried to adjust the glasses falling down my face and, with only one hand holding on, I swerved to the right; then swerved even harder to avoid crashing into a girl passing by. Understandably, she was shaken by the sight of a grown adult (who seemed proficient in passing at a comfortable distance) suddenly falling into a crumpled mess, face scraping the pavement right before her feet. Oops.
It opened a wound on my knee. It festered and reminded me of my inelegance. Daily I peel away its covering and replace the dressing with another pink maltese bandaid, watching the cells regenerate in the mini epidermis world I’ve shielded. .
Because the alternative is bleak. Turning to the sky, we are stabbed by the thought of the void; its limitlessness shadows an existential loneliness that is darkened further by its appeal to our imaginations. But we risk gazing ourselves blind at the vast shroud of atheism that wraps around our planet. Spec evo, then, can be understood as atonement for our cosmic loneliness. Lovecraft and Fermi echoed the universe’s maddening silence back at us but left us dazzled; how shall we comfort ourselves with all this blankness in our eyes? We push off from our human isle and swoop the unbodied universe with our madness: spec evo ignites the stars with vitalism and possibility.
EnricoFermiatthecontrolsofthesynchrocyclotronattheUniversityofChicago,1951.
pologies unrecognisable, baffling our understanding of biology. Among the more outstanding suggestions are those of plasma-based life, or wispy spores in the violent hearts of sinewy stars.
H.P.Lovecraft,1931,H.P. LovecraftPhotoGallery
Eosapien,WayneBarlow
Eosapien,WayneBarlow
AlienPrototype,BaxterMitchell-Knight
AlienPrototype,BaxterMitchell-Knight
AlienPrototype,BaxterMitchell-Knight
AlienPrototype,BaxterMitchell-Knight
Tamisiocarisborealis
BeardedCeticaris,JohnMeszaros
The Official Pulp Chatterbox ***We hold no liability over this
GUIDANCE:
Rip out and fold.
Charge the chatterbox with energy, hold it genlty cupped in your hands and say a soft prayer ‘Dearest Pulp Almighty, Let this vessel guide me, let my Saturday be at it’s whim, and my virgin hair fry at it’s command.’
tooththeof
horizon, how wide the view is. I think a part of the reason I’ve been feeling how I have is because I’m too low to the ground: my bed, my bags, my clothes, my books, my computer and phone. It means I just flop out of bed onto the floor and I don’t use my legs first thing which makes me lazy. I roll around like a seal onto the carpet and I go on my phone. I slink to the electric heater. Everything is at my fingertips. I used to want things. When I sit down on my carpet, I stand up with hairs, strings, lint, paper, plastic clinging on my pants or skin. I feel too overwhelmed about my room to do anything about it.
Yesterday, I saw a possum on the road. It was brand-spanking-fresh, nestled between the gutter and the road. The stream of water that had pooled off from the rain, stopped and moved around the possum, leaves and twigs collecting and nestling around him almost like they were offerings.
I can’t believe you’re real.
Is it better to be angry or sad? This is something the five-year-old I babysit asked me. I’ve attached a photo that sort of helps explain my thoughts. I don’t believe anger or sadness is a poison, even if it is directed at someone else. It’s our body’s way of alerting us to danger, which is useful. The sky is concrete, mate. Me? My rage is a cyst. It is the size of a large grape, as firm as anything, and is nestled by my sternum.
Flat. This is the issue. My floor is flat. My surfaces are. My sky is. A slab of concrete. My bed. It makes things too easy for me. The road! The possum, who probably fell out of a tree, died from the flat. In impact onto the flat. Everything is at my fingertips.
You know what, actually, here is something I’ve been working on. I’ve been too shy to show you but here we go:
Possumpossum, Takemewithyou!
IfIfellfromthetreethatyoudid, Iwouldn’tdie,only Snapmyshins.
UnlessIwasrunoverbyacaras soonasIhittheground. The end.
Fuck me, I can’t believe you’re not here. My cyst is throbbing. I’m angry, not sad. The sky is the same as the road. If I fell upside down, I’d break my shins. I miss you so much, I want to fall from a tree. Medium height. Tall enough that you’d have to come visit me and feed me soft foods. Fuck me, I am so sad about that possum.
Yours, Alex
It’s okay that you’re not here. Really, it’s alright. I’m good :)))))
The view that you talked about, I would love to see it. From the top of a tree. I’d love to share a blunt with you and believe that the lights on the top of the cranes are little stars. I’d love to see the oil they collect. I miss you.
I actually don’t hahahahahah :)))
I hope you can forgive me.
Something strange happened to me. When I walked down the road, I braved a glimpse at the place where the curb met the road, the little crevice and the possum wasn’t there. There was a mound of brush and twigs and leaves. No fuzzy coat. No stream. No burial ceremony. No choir. No possum.
I can’t really tell whether I made the whole thing up. Like scary to think about.
Anyways, I hope this didn’t ruin everything. I’ll message you with more care from now on.
P.S. I just remembered I forgot to tell you one thing: when we were 15, do you remember that gatho that Mel hosted. Her parents were in Canberra for her older sister’s graduation lol. I remember that bc her older sister was the one who gave us the grass. Well I actually think Mel rummaged around her desk and grabbed it. I hadn’t smoked EVER before and idk what possessed me to start that night, especially bc we weren’t that close yet and I was still attempting to win your favour. It was us, those boys (Matt and Blake and that lot), Mel and those girls. I never liked those boys. I could never fit in with them however much I tried. I would think about every word I said. I didn’t feel close with you girls either tho so idk. Everything I said made me feel like a fucking pussy. I smoked the shit and cried the whole night.
I wonder whether I should smoke again. Whether I’d cry. Do you think I should? I would love to do it with you sometime. Cry, that is.
Please help me
Lol :))))))))))))))
Alex
And I know how it sounds for a dude to be super angry so I’m aware of that. Flagging that. I just think that the crux of the issue for me is that I sleep on the floor (which makes me feel low) and because I feel low, I’m too lazy to cry? Something like that? Or too depressed to cry or smth.
I was thinking about the possum. What turned out to not be the possum but to instead be a mound of leaves and mulch. Maybe that’s what I am to you? (I don’t want to be forward or presumptuous but just go with me for a sec). In highschool, I was a guy friend to you because I was nice and you genuinely trusted me bc I also didn’t get along with the other guys. I cried when I was high which made me vulnerable and approachable or smth. And I fully understand why you didn’t like the other guys, trust me, but I also think I felt weird about being the guy that cried in front of everyone that one time. So then I sort of toughened up and tried to butch up a bit, yk? So I lulled you in, because I was nice, but really I’m just angry because I felt like I was weak? So then I tricked you and you can see that about me now and now you don’t want to be friends anymore? Does that sound right?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that nothing is as it seems and you’ve seen the real me and freaked out which is valid. I have a cyst and it pulsates. That’s the truth.
I guess I just miss you. I guess I wish the possum was real so that I could cry. I guess I want you. In my life. I guess I feel it less now.
I’m going to get so fucking high tonight, I swear to god.
I’ll keep you updated, Alex
away from my view. I couldn’t see any industry speckling the horizon. Only the crowns of some trees.
I think I’m going to move back home. I don’t like living alone.
I wish you’d respond to me. I’m sorry I’m so angry. I’m not angry at you, if you’re worried about that.
Just to clarify, I’m not in love with you. In case you were scared of that and that’s why you’re not responding to me. I’m not in love with you. I just love you. I would be your little possum hahaha :)))
When I smacked the pavement, I looked up at the sky and I thought that the sky wasn’t flat. It’s round and it’s about to swallow me.
I guess the question is: isitbettertobeangryorscared?
I’ll be wearing a cast for a while but I’ll be okay.
I haven’t been able to stop crying.
I probably won’t email you until you email first, just so you know.
Best, Alex
