#the valeries

[odettecarotte]

A beautiful woman who shows compassion when confronted with her lover's faults can really carry a fella off, Jules.

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

My son likes to torment men. Especially men like you and me, Jules. I don't believe it's really a sex thing so much. He likes to torment men who hold some power over him- who help him sustain some semblance of a middle class existence. In essence he likes to torment his father. It is almost suicidal, the way he threatens the very pillars that sustain him.

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

I'll take care of it next week is the way my son eventually answered my question. He seemed incredibly stupid when he said that. It was one of the stupidest phrases I think I have ever heard uttered aloud, Jules, and I have heard many, many dumb phrases in my time as a state-appointed grief counselor. Not just lackadaisical or slackerish, but actually like a very dumb person. Shockingly stupid. My son, that is. Much more dumb than I would have ever expected any member of my family to be. Including my wife's troubled brother — a low functioning alcoholic who still lives in his childhood bedroom with my mother-in-law where he periodically slips into an alcohol-induced coma then loses his ability to speak for weeks at a time. In this instance, my son was able to speak, but his speech was about as meaningful as the garbled mush that falls from my brother-in-law's mouth during one of his bouts with wet brain.

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

For one, I have decided to eliminate any music that could give rise to emotions. When I began writing, I played music from my CD collection, but then I began to sense visages of Valerie in harmony and rhythm. Even the most rigidly minimalist house music filled my head with unbearable fantasies. My son coerced and abused in a techno club. It was a Brandenburg Concerto that ultimately prevented sleep for two nights, and I have avoided music ever since. I am certain Bach alone is not to blame, but under current time constraints, I see no option but to eliminate stimulation that might have any effect on my nerves.

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

In all honesty, Jules, at this stage I'm having some difficulties processing everything contained within Valerie's emails. I sense interference in the signal. The picture has become pixelated and punctured by static. It's as if the electricity powering her email account contains an intoxicant. An intoxicant that enters through the eyes, and shocks the nerves in such a way that a uremic plume is emitted from my pores. A sour cloud forced through my glands, flushed by hot shame. If I don't calm down, it may be impossible to construct some coherent narrative about what actually happened.

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries

[odettecarotte]

As I am sure is relatable to culturally aware individuals of my generation, the digital revolution laid a schizophrenic pall over the consumption and production of all media. As if culture was not already dead enough, my son's generation took what is likely my generation's greatest innovation, the home computing system, and injected it with commerce and advertising that implants itself in every modicum of one's being, making it so not only are the images that appear on my son's computer screen the stuff of nightmarish schizophrenic hallucinations, but furthermore, each consumer of this culture — essentially every single person on Earth at this point — has been subjected to at least a few innocuous schizophrenic delusions about the world we live in and their place in it. I mean, for all that is love, Jules, have you seen the video of my son dressed in a purple Kimono, whoreish makeup and a blond wig, injecting himself, as he claims in the video, with a concoction of LSD, methamphetamine, fentanyl, ketamine, tranquilizers, and Cialis?

Forrest Muelrath, The Valeries