there has been a cosmic slip. the tectonic plates underlying the universe have overridden each other somehow. i'm guessing, i know nothing of natural formations or geological structures. i'm struggling with being ralph alverson. i haven't been drinking. i am not he. he is. ralph alverson was here long before me, i hope i'm just filling in the shape he makes in the scheme of things until he returns. that i could live with. i am someone else. the powers-that-be may have been corrupted. there are no explanations. i would sell ralph's right arm just for a clue. i'm sure he'd understand.
being ralph alverson is like being shrink-wrapped, or pouring a can of beer into a short glass without spillage. compression has occurred, compacting against my will. it is quite clear to me that we are not compatible: strange bedfellows we make and no mistake, there have been no negotiations. i have developed a claustrophobia of myself, being a small man ralph lacks space for me to breathe. the soul is measurable, it has dimensions, my word as my bond. i feel myself ready to burst out from inside him at any moment like a hernia. there has been an error. i can feel my finger ends trying to push out through the skin that defines where ralph alverson finishes. i am not raving. being ralph alverson involves my being a contortion artist twenty-four hours a day, trying endlessly to best accommodate my body parts within his ample paunch. ralph alverson would make a poor vessel for any form of travel for anyone except ralph alverson. come back you bastard, i don't want this body of yours, it was granted to you.
i am not by nature a religious man. being ralph alverson has forced me to face up to certain irrefutable facts, there is more to the world than the eye can see, of that i am sure now. i have developed elaborate systems to explain my changed circumstances, they all require a central nub to have collapsed, capitulated, screwed up. the failing is not my own, it is the world that has gone wrong, i am merely the fulcrum upon which the mistake rests.
being ralph alverson has meant being married to mrs ralph alverson, chloe, a nymphet who is far too good for ralph by any metric you want to apply. i'm not ralph alverson, i told her, i'm someone else. there's no such thing as a fixed personality, she said, yesterday's ralph is dead and in his place a new one springs up fresh as a daisy each morning. i'm not speaking metaphorically here, i said, i am someone entirely different. of course, she said, ralph alverson is flux, it is the variety of ralphs i love. stability is sterility. now let's have sexual congress, right here. chloe alverson is persuasive in her arguments, i have been unable to convince her as to my true self as of yet. such athleticism.
living in ralph alverson's home makes no sense. my hands grasp at familiar objects but my brain, like a lazy dog, fails to bring forth the required reminiscences. what does this vase mean to ralph, did he purchase it from some cyclopean tunisian barterer in a moment of holiday madness? or a present from some décor-challenged relative ralph dare not offend? not even echoes or shadows of the past remain within his cerebrum, the last owner was meticulous in his clean-up operation. i look at photographs of my body fishing, sunbathing, cutting the wedding cake, and i see a stranger involved in unfamiliar activities. it is unerring. i sit back in what was once ralph's favourite armchair, according to chloe at least, with my whiskey on the rocks and curse this failing of the machine upstairs. there has been an error. one minute i'm in bed at home, the next i find myself naked on top of chloe. at some point someone in authority must realise that ralph's body and mind have different coordinates.
chloe lays curled up at might feet like a cat, this fetishism is all so much newness to me. when a snake sheds its skin, do you think it mourns for the loss? asks chloe, eyes the size of compact discs. it's hardly the same thing at all, i/ralph reply/replies. i raise my eyes to the ceiling (the colour!!) which ralph probably painted himself and hear him sighing the sigh of a thousand disappointments. there is no sound which can convey the strangeness of being ralph alverson. until i become realigned with myself, i am doomed to force chloe into infidelity, it is the only way i can ensure she will remain for ralph's returns. i am homesick for myself, there is no comfort, not in this life.
reasons why i am not ralph
alverson (part 2):
1. ralph alverson
possesses an extensive collection of classical music, all alphabetised and
neatly stored by the side of his rather elaborate stereo system. i have no
interest, sounds are all the sane to my ears. 2. ralph alverson has certificates
of culinary proficiency lining his kitchen walls. i cut myself on spoons.
3. ralph alverson has three bank accounts which i am unable to access as i
don't know the pin numbers and can't forge his signature accurately enough.
4. ralph alverson is called ralph alverson: my name is alvin ralpherson.
alvin ralpherson's body no longer lives where it used to when we were teamed up together. i went to the old flat as soon as i realised that i was in fact awake and in this fragmentary illusion we refer to as reality, but i'd moved out a few days ago with no forwarding address. it seems strange that i wouldn't have left a note for myself, but then a stranger is at the helm, mutiny in the ranks boys, all bets are off. perhaps i didn't want to catch up with myself. something has gone seriously astray topside. looking out through ralph's eyes, the old place seemed somehow foreign, unusual textures and strange smells for ralph's sensory system no doubt. on the plus side, i had left a full drinks cabinet so i offered to clear the place out for the landlord, claiming to be alvin's long lost twin (separate egg variety). the ruse worked like a treat, i even got my bond back. haha. it looks as if i won't be seeing myself again, not in the near future at least. i drank a toast to my future self and wished me all the best. please don't let him let the side down.
having become ralph alverson,
i have had to face a few difficult epistemological questions:
who am i?
what is the fundamental idea of ralph alverson?
am i being punished?
have i been misfiled by the powers that be?
who is now at the controls of alvin ralpherson?
where does ralph alverson keep his corkscrew?
i can see why ralph alverson might well have walked out on the job of being himself. i wouldn't have stuck around had i been dealt his cards at the start. i look in the mirror and see ralph alverson staring back at me like some frightened fat child and i weep. being ralph alverson means being clean-shaven, he lacks the capacity to grow even the faintest of facial hair. lost in the woods, ralph would be lucky to survive a week without my know-how and survival instinct leading the way. i have developed a sense of pity for this sorry individual. ralph can't even take a good drinking session to numb his worthlessness, such is his pathetic constitution. i am now a cheap night out.
maybe it's more like a butterfly developing from a pupa. or is that idea raising my own station too high?
apart from my desire not to be ralph alverson, everyone else seems quite keen for me to continue in the role. ralph's workmates, fred, bill and, i forget the others, they are instantly forgettable, like to carry me at work, i have no background in jig riveting but it seems that ralph didn't either. finally common ground. the drill comes down, the drill goes up, a puncture marks the hole where once there was metal. these are simple tasks, a monkey could take the place of ralph given sufficient training. the mind-numbing inanity of ralph's job is soothing to my troubled mind, like an anaesthetic needle bath. down, up hole. and again. down, up, hole.
being ralph alverson now means that i own an extensive collection of occult books, it seems ralph read little else but. it is not impossible that this situation was brought about by one of his twisted rites, my systems would allow for such an enterprise with a little manipulation. would such a man leave the books behind as evidence though? was all this a mistake on his behalf too? was my name brought into one of his nefarious spells by spoonerism? is ralph alverson waiting for me to balance the books of nature and return him to his position as ralph alverson? am i suffering from delusions of grandeur? are there too many questions? there has been an error.
eyebrows were raised at ralph's sudden decision to take his coffee with three sugars, but other than that the change appears to have gone unnoticed. hangovers, black eyes, tourette's syndrome have all afflicted me without comment being passed. fred, bill and the others who i forget nod at me throughout the day without a suspicion flickering in their eyes. either people never took an interest in ralph or people fail to observe change in familiar things. or both. i wouldn't give ralph the time of day if the truth be told. why me ralph? i don't even know you.
ralph alverson is a name and a body and nothing more.
ralph alversonism is a process by which a person can take on the physical form of ralph alverson, despite not being ralph alverson. this does not mean that there are many sufferers waiting within like russian dolls to take their turn as ralph, but more that the body ralph has developed a means of attracting others against their will. ralph is a magnet, there could be thousands of us at his mercy. the man has no respect for personal space.
today as ralph alverson i decided to commit crimes of a most heinous nature, thus proving that i am not the man that they all insist i am. today, ralph threatened a priest, robbed a bank and made lewd advances towards two young girls, both stunningly attractive and utterly out of my/ralph's league. had i seen him through my own eyes, i would have been disgusted at ralph's outrageous behaviour and callous wickedness, it was the work of a charlatan. ralph's temperate disposition replaced by a fury which knows no boundary, that at least must be recognised as inconsistent. the case is being made against myself, these actions must be taken into account at some level. i, however, am blameless in the affairs of ralph alverson, on account of my not being him. today was my emergency flare from behind enemy lines, my final beacon to the heavens. ralph alverson's case will be noticed yet by these gods who mock me with their indifference. well have some back cloud-bound bumblers, ignore that.
take the ralph alverson out of the ralph alverson and what remains but future dust? ralph alverson is a poor shaped receptacle for that even.
i confessed to chloe of ralph's misdemeanours: i have found ralph to be a most remorseful man in light of his recent behaviour. she was shocked. but honey if it was sex you wanted, you only had to come to me. am i not enough for you? chloe, the purpose was the act, not what the act entailed, i'm a bad person. i almost gave a man of god a heart attack. but he was old wasn't he, and he believed in heaven didn't he? you could have done him a favour, they say that god works in mysterious ways when they don't have an explanation, don't they? likewise the bank had plenty of money. they expected robbery to justify their insurance payments. just numbers. ralph can do no wrong, and was absolved of all guilt by steamy and exotic sexual activities i knew nothing about before i started being ralph alverson. this penance is the devil's doing. ralph alverson is incapable of evil. everything he does is excused in advance and validated by forces outside of his control. being ralph alverson is like being a middle-aged foetus, squatting in the womb, oblivious to the repercussions of his tiny kicks on his mother's belly and the outside world.
i have resigned myself
to four things:
1. i am condemned to be ralph alverson until death, at which point i may be
able to explain the error to someone who is responsible.
2. chloe will continue to prevent me from taking responsibility for ralph's
actions through her seduction techniques and elaborate justifications.
3. being ralph alverson means not being alvin ralpherson, the meaning has
evaporated.
4. not being ralph alverson is a preferable state of being to remaining as
ralph alverson.
something went wrong. i had no choice. there was an error.