INTRONAUT - Fluid Existential Inversions (An introspective. An interpretation. An inversion.)

Written by: Heavy Grinder

INTRODUCTION:
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Unlike many of our contemporaries, we here at Sleeping Village Industries regard the act of reviewing as a purely objective process. Hence, our staff operate exclusively within the bounds of rigorous scientific methodology. Following a comprehensive certification program, we dedicate countless hours studying the latest sources of mind-bending and soul-crushing stimulation in the name of the betterment of our society. Our latest study discusses the impact of a particular stimulus (hereby referred to as Intronaut) on the nervous system of our test subject (hereby referred to as Heavy Grinder.) Upon completion of this article, Sleeping Village Industries recommends that the public takes proper precautions when conducting their own experimentation, though we consider our findings to be the authoritative conclusions. Conduct future testing at your own risk. - Ed.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1.     Procurement of the Victuals     00:55
2.     Cubensis             06:53
3.     The Cull             06:59
4.     Contrapasso             06:47
5.     Speaking of Orbs         05:07
6.     Tripolar             06:28
7.     Check Your Misfortune     05:48
8.     Pangloss             06:35
9.     Sour Everythings         07:32

MATERIALS:

DATA COLLECTION:

1.  Procurement of the Victuals

• 0:12 – The walls are thin and close.  Enveloping.  I can’t breathe.  Looking upward.  There is nothing.  A dizzying array, I lose myself.

2.  Cubensis

• 0:15 – Moving forward, going nowhere.  I see not of myself; like light in a black hole, I cannot escape myself.
• 0:29 – Pry open this container.  Set free a restless spirit into air and space.
• 0:55 – Pulled left, punched right.  The walls show their bounds.  I am their limitations..
• 1:16 – Am I still moving?  It is hard to tell.  I mistake my breath for wind, escape still eludes me.  
• 1:45 – RIOT! THIS. IS. NOT. YOUR. PLACE.  
• 2:40 – She lays her hand on my head and tells me, nothing.  A whisper and an echo but there is not sound.  Ricocheting temple to temple slowing at each bounce.  Am I still moving? Not real, she is not there, another illusion I am compelled to embrace.  
• 4:29 – Speed does not equate to intensity.  Am I still moving? I realize now the uselessness of the question, it has no application to me, thus, no utility.  Pulled left and flattened unrecognizably.  Punched right and no wiser when the head snaps back.
• 6:01 – Determined I am not.  Compelled I am.  

3.  The Cull

• 0:07 – There were cracks long before.  Decomposition, draining an Olympic pool, descent into despair; these things take time.  
• 1:01 – Scaling the mountaintop.  Heaven was never closer.  The wound ached but never enough to impose an appreciable cost.   Things were so great.  She was perfect.  He slept on the floor sometimes and never knew of sadness.  Not in that time.  
• 1:47 – Nature reclaims what is hers.  Balance must be restored.  What is borrowed must be returned, what is bought must be paid.  
• 2:36 – In each flight an apex.  A moment of weightlessness.
• 2:48 – DO IT! FLY! SCALE THE SURFACE OF THE SUN! LOOK AT THE CHAINS ON THE GROUND, YOU HAVE ALREADY BROKEN FREE!  The light lifts and guides, FOLLOW IT!  You never knew the truth until now…
• 4:07 – I spent years looking.  It yielded little.  I spent years working.  It yielded less.  I could not see until I closed my eyes.  Demands and restraints; the prime mover of my former self.  I looked at the image of my face, and escaped from bondage.
• 5:23 – Flying now, free. Held aloft by the light.  There are holes in my skin, I am translucent.  I see what was and what will be.  I will be there soon, as I have been forever.  Projected onto the outer fabric.  I look within, and return home.  

4.  Contrapasso

• 0:16 – Fuck off.  Sick of your shit.  FUCK. OFF.  There is a limit to my civility which in and of itself is a gracious and wholly unwarranted gesture of courtesy you have NOT FUCKING EARNED.
• 1:08 – And yet you claim authority.  I will kill you and watch the authority drain lifeless from your eyes.  Who will you appeal to then?  Limitations most certainly go both ways.
• 2:32 – Waiting for that moment.  I cannot see what you do, but I know subtlety.  Your reason has escaped you and it will cost.  Perhaps you never learned and it is not you who failed.  I stand at the ready, waiting.  I will not fail.
• 3:52 – Alive now, I am.  If we were the same, then there is no distinction of anything or anyone.  I have found my place.  In you.  
• 4:26 – The color of blood, the same color of passion.  We only think one to be deadly, but the fallacy is exposed as passion spreads on the floor and begins to dry.
• 5:01 – I cannot think of another time in my life.  This is the only thing I have ever known, this is the only moment in time.  I cannot lose this moment.  They see no danger in me, and I see no suspicion in them.  I am safe.  
• 6:01 – Passion does not easily fade as blood does not easily wash.  Is my slavery no different from his? 

5.  Speaking of Orbs

• 0:00 – I thought I knew how I felt.  I was wrong.  
• 0:53 – The fear that lives in me grows.  It speaks to me.  Our conversations are indirect but poignant.  It knows where to find me and I am far too willing to send a signal, just to make me easier to find.
• 1:32 – At pace we can get there by midnight.  We run as rain falls.  Does the fear run faster to attempt a warning, or do I run faster to attempt an escape?
• 2:56 – Pulling away from the others.  Safe and comforted inside, despite the snakes at my ankles.  We have longed for a moment of rest but would mourn the absence of the journey.  
• 3:56 – Safe.  Secure in all things.  I breathe out.
• 4:23 – Impending death.  It is certain, I can feel it.  

6.  Tripolar

• 0:00 – Look up!  There it is in plain view for all to see.  Severed heads rest peacefully upon pikes.  Souls float in the same way, pierced by daggers with our own hand on the other end.  Do they rest similarly at peace?
• 0:56 – I have looked into the black and seen the surface of the sun.  It lives!
• 1:56 – The path taken was not the path given.  Scripted in papyrus, wet congealed characters disintegrate in the sun, invisible but for their memory and inspiration.  
• 3:08 – I melt into the black.  I can smell the wet ink as it envelops me.  Rearranged, I divide and combine again.  The script no longer is foreign; I own my destiny.  Written by another with me serving as the architect, the foundation, the raw intangible, the spirit and the purpose.
• 4:55 – Opened up to a new paradigm. The universe has changed nothing, I have changed everything.  
• 5:14 – Rise!  Rebirth! See what was there from the infinite birth.  Feel the energy harnessed and focused into a narrow beam of light.
• 6:00 – Destroy the unbelievers.

7.  Check Your Misfortune

• 0:00 – Oh, to return to this place.  I look up and see across time to where I was, then.  We associate eras and ‘times’ of our lives with places, etched in grey matter stone, they form into our consciousness.  We challenge; twist hunks of metal into masterpieces, only to burn them down with a whisper.  These places lay new foundations on which we stand.  Only to fall yet again.
• 0:44 – Face down, bloody and bruised.  Oh, to return to this place.  What was once comforting now feels like death.  I stood here?  Linear growth seems laughable, exponential growth seems an impossible dream.  What have I become?
• 1:45 – Ocean currents sweep across my face, leaving my body untouched.  I have eclipsed what I thought possible.  The movement of my body was effortless, rewarding, and rejuvenating.  A victory is mine.  And then I turned around…
• 3:18 – White death rolling at a pace I cannot match let alone exceed.  Futility is my existence.  I face a choice;  white death, or a victory.  Timing is everything, I can do no more.  I have made my choice.  Will I make it through?
• 4:20 – Oh, to return to this place.  Intrinsic love and pain intertwined.  I cannot unbound these shackles.  Would I if given the chance?  My jaw is bruised, damaged by my own misguided struggle.  Love and pain, here in this place.  I stand in the place where they have always remained. Watching…guiding.  .  They sustain me and yet I do not know.  Love and pain to imprison my freedom.  They are my lifeblood. Oh, to return to this place.

8.  Pangloss

• 0:00 – This is not what I wanted.
• 0:43 – This is not what I wanted.
• 1:04 – This is not what I wanted.
• 1:21 – What if it was? 
• 1:58 – Unresolved but determined I am.
• 2:15 – Scripture proclaims and I remain unconvinced.
• 2:57 – I have given everything to this and what has it returned?
• 3:28 – Good friends and a bottle of pills.
• 3:42 – This cannot be.  Light twists and reforms.  This is not the way.  I will choose another path.  Have I the agency?  My foot sinks into the ground, imprinting a legacy of smooth misfortune.  So quick the descent, the gravitational constant.  Halfway down I look up and see myself.  It is never too late.  I have no shovel but I have my hands.  I close my eyes and dig.  I lose perception.  Which way am I digging?
• 5:27 – Do not look at me here.  See me for the first time if you must but do not lie.  It is everything to me and nothing to you.  Turn your back and go.  Stay with me.  This is not what I wanted.

9. Sour Everythings

• 0:08 – There was no resistance there.  Flight was effortless and we’ll be there soon.  This is what you tasted in your dreams.  The essence of your true self, fulfilled.
• 0:23 – Dance with the dream, it is real.
• 0:40 – Easily, you see serenity.  Your power unrestrained and realized.  
• 1:11 – Wings unfurled.  The majesty of ownership.  Mirrors reflect open skies and let fly the restless souls and their eternal dreams.
• 1:49 – The view is different from up here.  Perspective matters.  Saturn eats his children or protects himself from adversary.  Have you missed something or have all you need?
• 2:39 – Death is no longer an option, this much is clear.  
• 3:06 – Why yet do we still wait? 
• 3:40 – Sacrificed.  Worshipped.  Embodied.  Entombed.  Present.  Loved.  Forgotten.  Neglected.  Imprisoned.  Release.
• 5:09 – This is eternity!  
• 5:41 – I live for the first time.  You are all my slaves.  I have conquered myself.  And have only myself to blame.  
• 6:46 – Cool air and a soft touch.  You are with me and I have never not loved you.  Find me here and you will know my heart.  It was lost in the dark river.  And now held aloft to breathe, for the first time.​

FINDINGS:

Following repeated exposure to the stimulus at extremely close range, the test subject is compelled to recommend to all listeners for future testing.  In fact, our test subject, literally, is compelled as he has lost all free will and is no longer in control of his own capacities.  Listen at your own risk, and determine your own fate. - Ed.
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Intronaut - Fluid Existential Inversions ​was released February 28th from Metal Blade

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Intronaut can be found:
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