“Blair Jones.” My hands were too hesitant to linger above such a name. Though I had timelessly traced the direction of these letters' dance, pieced together, their intense movement liquified into a nonsensical artform—a mannerless patter of footsteps that swayed without any definitive time signature. Yet, this messiness was their music. In this indefiniteness, they could defy infinity, for this planet was too natural to ever stand still for Blair Jones. The fibers of all the world's clay flooring would unlock their nuzzled bodies and part in staticized hairs just so all the screams that came rushing from his steel steps would be too short to snatch them. Inexplicably, he was too much of a piece of technology to have ever knelt down upon grasses to let them know he walked with empty hands—hands that could be opened up and settled in as a den of refuge. In any way you unrolled the layers of his existence, he could never be laid out loyally enough for any tendon of land to trust they could walk on that hand without it shutting to a clenched fist.

Trading all vitality for digitality, Blair was left gutted mechanically dead. Though he could bend through the speech and physicality of a living person, he seemed to maneuver through life with an immortal heart. The rotation of rusty gears commanded any bodily movement as if his blood were a bionic nonentity. Every facial mannerism was a premeditated operation of expression in which translucent strings attached to the corners of his eyes and mouth were contorted by the fragment of himself that lingers far above any reality. But these robotic movements were too silent to be seen through a camera. That camera in hand was seemingly a sufficient enough scripture for Blair, as he preached flash titles that crocheted a new flesh around anyone who stared up at him with any hint of an eagerness behind their eyes. Somehow, frosting over the moldable masses with rotted verses was still feastable though, leaving millions salivating in just huddling beneath a red roof that read “subscribed.” And even in this elevation of the throne, he’d drop all his jewels to see how they multiplied upon shattering, enamored with how high he could stack these crystals in numbers. Though maybe it was just the sound of it shattering that conducted this impulse; I never caught him counting. 

The entire course of Blair’s life had been held together by an electrical cord, and yet it somehow managed to not overheat, though I’m sure that fire would only be sent blazing through the forests just for the amusement of seeing how many creatures would flee the fiery web unscathed. But hypnotized by the swaying of the match, all that ran in the forest forgot how their vocal cords could vibrate together in a cry of help to where the scent of charring had sweetened. I guess nature never truly mattered to Blair Jones unless he could destroy it. He had entranced viewers so prolifically with the joy of an unsymmetrical pulse that life could not mean anything if not for collateral damage. Though maybe that was his music. In a grotesque sort of way, he hummed along to martial melodies, tearing up grass with each careless step he took. And in that fist, with the grass and the dirt seeping through the cracks, he won. For there is no one more powerful than the man who destroys the only planet that gave him the power to exist.

This name, this bloody signature, could seemingly be looped around Earth, led around in a circular motion, only to continuously cycle forward without the letters ever being able to touch each other and unite. Limitlessly across this sphere, they would spin until bursting into flames, almost smiling while doing so. No, these letters were not meant to follow one another. They had to fly to more distant universes that would allow this name to expand in its entirety, breaking the cosmos and stars if necessary just to do so. Still, among the crowded skies, these letters seemed so comfortable in merely existing, arranging themselves in the ugliest of fashions to still ring out with a sound of beauty. It’s a dreadful phenomenon, but I fall into it every time. Only for him. Only for that name. Blair Jones. 

I found it hard to grasp how I had only detoxed myself from this name for a year now, and that thought only climbed back up my throat as that bitter aftertaste of saying his name refused to evade all bodily senses. Tunneling back down the kaleidoscope of time, though, I could see through the eyes of that girl who once sat with my mouth wide open to catch his punchlines and swallow his stunts. But that girl was more of a voided chamber of sentience than it was a past incarnation of myself. Through it all, that spirit of awareness was stored in some sealed-shut compartment while my voice was released in a puppet-ified vessel that bore my exact resemblance. Binded in that box, you were piled atop the other marionettes of his own creation, unable to even converse without losing air. I’m not sure what our connection was. It certainly wasn’t a friendship. That box was never of a bond but of a circumstance. We were all just a cast of caricatures lost in the insane high of those faceless figures in the hollowed-out rooms of the camera to shape us in larger proportions. Still, there was an irreplicable charge that surged through this separation of the soul—a thrilling sensation I haven’t felt in a year. I should be able to take a sip without spiraling back. I tried assuring myself of some sort of soft landing below, readying my hands to open the envelope. But in remembering those famous last words of the user’s vicious cycle, I stopped.

The invitation still lay barely conscious in my palms, as if urgently etching its final fable into any living being. But that was its mission when it was engraved with such a name anyway. That envelope had been sealed with his name in a golden font just so his heroic stories could be retold and echoed throughout the village just for Blair Jones to re-hear them, only smiling if the echo came back with him being bolder than he had originally written. At the same time, dressed up in this envelope, you have nothing left to do but pity that letter, as if needing to scratch its aching body and nurture it back to full health.

"Help me. I need you," it seems to cry. 

So maybe Blair Jones wasn't a name to begin with, but rather just a painful dichotomy. It bit far deeper than any other assortment of the alphabet, picking its way in like an insult. But there was still something pleasant about this cut, tempting you to peer inside, trying to push through the reddened waters to discover some sort of human face, some expression of normalcy. I’m always so hopeful in salvaging you, Blair Jones, aren’t I? 

My eyes moved back to the envelope. I shouldn’t dip my toe into these deep waters, but I’m always curious about the tide. In this mystical sensation, I could not bring myself to destroy it. I was paralyzed by foolish hallucinations. It was only paper. One single movement could unstitch it all together with ease. It is probably the easiest thing for human hands to do—to unstitch any descendant of the natural world that gets thrown at them. But I wondered if, through the microscopic threads of the page, it knew how to feel or speak some words of honesty. I flipped back to the name on the front of the letter. 

“Blair Jones.” 

I wonder if the envelope felt any pain after being carved with this name. Did it bleed afterward? Regardless, this letter seemed to have grown, stretching out its wingspan in a way that made it look as if the wrist and the letter had been fused together at the bone. The letter was now a new ligament that could hold far more than a hand, being so confident in absorbing the terrible and brightening joy that comes from being met with the name Blair Jones.

Stepping into the deeper waters, I held my breath as I began the dive into this envelope, no longer fearful of drowning. When you’re already so caught under the current, you become so used to its pull that you become tired of this watery purgatory, almost wishing to be out of the in-between, even if that means traveling past a point of survivorship. 

Somewhere, I must have undergone an odd transformation. As a child, I was always so fearful. I couldn’t step without the slightest thought that the ground I stood on would fall away. But it wasn’t really the fall I feared. I feared the ground collapsing all at once except for one spec of land, leaving only me on an isolated plot to look down at the civilization I had fractured.Though I was always very haunted by darkness, uncertain as to what darkness the dark even held. So clearly can I see myself once cowering under the covers, screaming at my mother about monsters lurking and mocking me under any unlit surface. 

“Sweetie, monsters aren’t real. They can’t hurt you if they don't exist." My mom would always find a way to medicate this routine of nightmares. 

Sighing, I took the plunge. Inside, the letter read, “Celebrate With Us For Reaching 15 Million Subscribers!” I couldn’t even imagine this string of words, in that sanguine an outfit leaving his mouth. Yet, in this plunge, I had melted right through it, appearing on the other side, right at his doorstep.

For all of Blair’s screaming luxury, his house didn’t quite fit with the rest of the picture. The walls were non-expressive whites and grays. But these wooden floors inside were supposedly proof of a richness that moved silently. They all were so quick to adopt its colorlessness, though, as if mimicking its austerity in their wardrobe and talk would camouflage them to be one with the house itself. 

“Angela!” 

I felt his voice bounce off the thousands of bodies inhabiting the space. Looking downward, I refused to comprehend the placement of my shoes and how they were standing on the floorboards. Even in facing my reflection, it must have been another me who slid its way into my skin and was now testing out its stretch. Between the flashing lights, the pouring smoke, and the jumbled mummers, I could not locate myself in this house.

“Angela! Man, right when I was starting to think you wouldn’t show,” Blair wrapped a singular arm around me, squeezing me as a symbol of mindless respect—a welcoming gesture of obligation. Still, I left his limb hanging there. I knew it was a fitting homage, as our friendship was as enduring as the lock of arms he held me with. 

“Only for you, Jones. Only for you.” These words evoked unanimous laughter, but only I could read both their backward and forward flow and be able to translate their humor. Nevertheless, Blair swallowed that line as a compliment, leaving the sarcasm off to the side of the plate untouched, too cold to digest. 

“C’mon. You gotta be in this  video."His arm now moved down to my wrist, replacing the hole in the letter. Amongst the strobe lights, his presence was only further fogged by intoxicated puffs of dialogue.

“I think we both know that’s not true, Blair.” I was hit with a last-minute reluctance that I thought could be saved with a smile. I tried to worm my way out of his fleshy handcuff, but soon we were streaming through winding roads of people, all of whom were too occupied competing for whoever’s presence at this party was the most dominant. Circled up, each of them held their phone flashlights in animatronic submission, chanting and screaming out of desperation to be heard the loudest. I guess they thought shouting at the highest volumes was the only way their connection to this name, Blair Jones, in this one moment of time, could be hardened over with stone. As we continued through the sickening crowd, I persisted in ripping off his hand. “I don’t like being in your videos. You know that. I really don’t want myself on the internet."

“But why shouldn’t you? What are you so afraid of?” He only grabbed tighter. Before I knew it, he led me into a back room filled with a collection of men all drawn in a similar style, each one drooling with a camera in hand. Immediately as I entered, they buried themselves beneath the buttons of the camera, as if birthed as a freakish amalgamation of man and machine. 

“What is this?” I poked him with a question mark that could not be avoided. “You’d be a great thumbnail.” With this, the room ascended into a primal playground. “I really wouldn’t, Jones." I thought I could lose myself in the maze of heads outside the door. But Blair worked faster.

“Please. Please. Just one bit. One bit.” He blocked out the door, even being so generous as to extend out a pinky to secure the veracity of his words. Before I had my chance to break that finger and remember the decomposition of this boy standing in front of me, I was back in his hands, this time moving in front of the bed. There, a man sat with his eyes darting throughout the room in an undefined path, and in this state, his breath pulsed heavily. 

“Who is this?"

“Convenience store worker. We met him  today."Blair pulled out his camera, believing these two hints of information to be sufficient enough to catch me. I stared right into the pupils of the lens. Those 15 million viewers never got to see this lens. They’d never be able to reach their hands inside and sort through the distorted draft circulating through this room. Senselessly, they had claimed a projection, a person made of pixels, and yet they all believed they had felt the textures of every item in this house. 

“And what is this? What’s it gonna be?” Blair failed to respond, too stricken with laughter to press his lips together and give voice to his artistic vision without choking, but I could already map out the twisted path his mind was leading. Deep within me, I knew if I followed it to its destination, I would never leave that man’s face. He’d somehow sew us together at the mouth in an irreversible embroidery that no shriek would ever be piercing enough to break, and we’d be a scandalous souvenir.

“He’s a stranger,” I anticipated the ending. 

“Exactly. Think of the title. Think of the views. You’d be like us overnight,  Ang."Admittedly, I did stand there in contemplation for a brief moment. Latching onto this pause, their laughter blurred into a howl. I wasn’t allowed to catch on to this laughter, though. Its syncopation ran around me, never letting me crawl around inside and learn its speed. Glancing back at the man, though, I had made up my mind.

“Yeah, how bout you go play this charade somewhere else?" was what I had left them with. I could already sense Blair’s footsteps trailing behind, already signaling the intentions of his conversation. 

“Ang. Angela! Angela!” When still I wouldn’t acknowledge his infantile demands, he forced me back, positioning me with a glass of the unknown. 

“Loosen up?” He stood there, hoping I’d bite, but I kept moving. Among all this internal clamor, though, a sound leapt its way down from the rooftops. It spread its message with a burning sound. Using my own intuition, I knew it was a cry from the ceiling trying to warn us that it all might collapse inwards. 

“Angela, you know you’re ruining everything with this act, right? Right?” The door, the door, the door. I needed the door. How did I even get in here? “You think you’re above us, huh? Do you?” He was very insistent on catching his prey tonight. I went to face him, finally face that name, and erase everything that slept inside the nooks of those letters. 

That rooftop noise re-emerged, though, and beat me to it. Flying from the rooftops, something had crashed, just missing the outdoor pool, and was now covering the pavement below in a distributing paint. A mixture of cries and screams followed this nameless party guest’s sudden departure. Any sentiments of genuine concern were disemboweled by an overly dense fascination—a disfigurement lusted over in the way a young boy tainted with mutilated curiosity will pull apart their hamster’s fluff and leave them convulsing on the floor past the point of reparation.

My image was no longer the infatuation at play. The fresh corpse was more valuable. The body continued to slowly twitch, and whether that remaining pulse had any flutter left didn’t matter, but the angle and velocity at which this event could be documented did. They used his death as a jungle gym, but maybe their vision was so far poisoned with that unknown liquid that they couldn’t tell it was a death at all. That man’s body was their new play toy, laughing as they picked up his arms only to see it flop back on the cold walkway. I stood there, imagining how long it would take to drain that laughter once they realized that his breath would never return to rewatch the footage and laugh along in reminiscence. But the flying fingers of the crowds never ceased in fighting over the guts of this fleeting organism. With their eyes alone, the crowds passed this body through their teeth, sucking it down to the bone so they could have a trophy of wilderness to wave endlessly into the skies.

I’m still unsure as to what species Blair Jones was. Though he had features that clicked into the same spaces as they would on a human face, I could not be swayed that this was truth. So I guess my mother had lied to me. Monsters do exist. And here, in this house, attached to this name, they would only continue to grow and grow and grow. And all I could do was stand out here and watch.