April 22 1993. The 37th President of the United State, Richard Milhous Nixon, passed away. He was carried by motorcade to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, was then buried Yorba Linda, a suburban city in Orange County, California. You might be thinking this is boring and useless information. You’re right. It is.

What’s interesting is that he was buried within a few feet of the place he was born, giving his life an almost palindromic quality. From birth to death, his planetary displacement was almost zero.

“Almost palindromic” describes many things about Nixon. His surname isn’t a palindrome, but it clearly wants to be. Five letters. An N at beginning and end. A pivotal X in the middle. Vowels in the spaces between. “Nixon” means “Son of Nicholas”, and “Nicholas” contracts to “Nick”, evocative of how “Richard” contracts to “Rick.”

He was born on January 1913. If he’d been born a few months later or died a few months earlier, he would have been exactly eighty years old. Eighty is a nice, symmetrical number, easy to derive as a product and palindromic in base 3(2222₃), 6(212₆), and 9 (88₉.)

The situation is almost poetic, which is to say, it’s truly and deeply aggravating. I can handle the universe not making sense. What I can’t handle is when the universe almost makes sense…and then doesn’t. It’s as infuriating as a basketball shot that scrapes the rim and misses.

Imagine a more poetic and elegant universe, where Nixon/Noxin’s life truly was a palindrome: the second half a reversal of the first half.

Let’s call 1952 the midway point. Nixon was suffering the first major scandal of his career: an investigation on the misuse of Republican party funds. He looked uncomfortable, and guilty. Some women have resting bitch face. Nixon had resting guilt face. The poor guy could have said “I’m the devil” and make everyone wonder what he was really hiding.

During the speech, he told an awkward anecdote about a black-and-white dog called Checkers.

In my universe, Nixon closes those guilty eyes, the universe crunches and inverts like the X in his name…and Noxin opens them. And begins to talk.

“…As it happens, I also own a white-and-black cat called Chess.”

From there, the rest of his life plays out like falling dominoes. Or perhaps someone re-setting dominoes that have already fallen.

1954: expelled from the US Senate.

1960: fails to win California’s 12th congressional district against a Democrat challenger. Tragically loses his daughter in an unexplained accident. Noxin feels nothing. Whatever grief a man would normally feel is expressed only in negatives.

1960: returns to military service in the US Navy.

1962: War. Massive US deployment of soldiers in Vietnam. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs – the United States enters DEFCON 2. Noxin is now part of a new form of war: one that might see nobody surviving to be a winner or a loser – a war fought by the hawks of plutonium and uranium, with humanity as their inept and feeble falconer.

1965: The Tet Offensive overruns key US positions. Vietnamization is failing, and detente is no longer possible. Behind the Iron Curtain, the USSR marshalls its strength like Zeus gathering up thunderbolts.

1966: While overseas, Noxin realises that his wife Pat has left him. He doesn’t understand why, but he also doesn’t understand why he married in the first place. It seems like something that happened to a different person.

1968: all storms break. Europe is under attack. The nukes start to fly. Noxin serves, until the point where he doesn’t. He doesn’t need to see Germany or Poland get taken, added to the Soviet urheimat. He wants to see the rot take hold in his own country. He arranges an honorable discharge, and returns to law.

1973: Noxin watches as the US implodes inwards. This is fundamentally satisfying for him. The stock market crashes. Nuclear fallout terminates the bread basket forever.

1993: Noxin returns to his place of birth, his life a blind-ended worm: no differentiation possible between one end or the other. Then he’s buried in Yorba Linda. The last men of the United States shovel irradiated dirt into this second womb.

Melissa opened the door to the OB/GYN’s clinic. She’d started seeing Dr Sabinsky at the six week mark, and their meetings had already taken on a brisk predictability.

How are you feeling? Any food cravings? No pica? Good, good. Go to the community clinic for an ultrasound. Take some more folic acid. Bulk-billing is available. Good-bye.

This time, she had a sunken face, and shadows under her eyes.

When Dr Sabinsky said hello, she didn’t respond.

She shuffled into the clinic, and sat down in the chair opposite his.

“It’s kicking,” was all she said.

“That’s great,” Sabinsky’s PR smile lit up the room. “You must be so excited.”

Melissa shook her head.

Didn’t look excited. Not even a little bit.

“I don’t know what’s happening, or what I’ve done wrong.” She said, slowly. It was as if speaking cost her dearly. “I don’t even know if there’s a point in coming to you. The baby’s kicking.”

Sabinsky’s smile widened, and then he was off and running, reciting one of the dozen canned speeches that he gave over and over to women in this clinic. “So you’re feeling confused? Not sure what to make of all this? Don’t worry, that’s absolutely normal. Your hormones are on a rollercoaster, but all your metrics are right on point – this has just about been a model pregnancy. What we’ll do next is book you in for a multiple marker test, just to make one hundred percent sure everything’s going to plan in there…”

Melissa shook her head.

“…and I’ve got some more supplements for you to take, and we’ll also get you started on some Kegel exercises. Never too early to start strengthening up your pelvic floor. And then we’ll…”

“I miscarried.” She blurted out.

He stared at her. “What?”

“Last week. I lost the baby.” The words left her mouth like vomit. “My husband and I woke up, and the bed was just a lake of blood.”

“Ah.”

“So why do I still feel it kicking?” Her voice rose, containing a shrill note of panic. She pulled up the hem of her maternity skirt, exposing her swollen belly. “Can you answer that, doc? What do I have inside me?“

He was the doctor. He had an answer for everything.

But when he put his hands on her gravid stomach, and felt something stirring within, he found that he didn’t, and couldn’t.

This is a 24,000 word horror novella about a morbid fascination: self-help.

It’s one of the 21st century’s phenomenons. It’s corruptible linguistically. One letter away from “sell-help”. Another letter away from “self-hell”. It’s corruptible in other ways, too. Scientology. James Arthur Ray. Jonestown. History is full of charismatic sociopaths with the solution to all your problems, so long as those problems are a heavy wallet, your sanity, and your life.

This book takes that idea, turns the dial to 11, and tears it off. Review copies are available. Hit me up at mail @ this website URL, with “Gateless Gate, Skyless Sky” as the subject line.

—

“…Welcome to the program, Mr Zhang.”

What would you do to change your life?

What if you said ‘anything’…and meant it?

Jiro Zhang is a small-time criminal, steadily circling the drain. Then he meets Makassar, psychologist and founder of the Gateless Gate, Skyless Sky method.

This method is like nothing that has ever existed before. Its techniques are terrifying, illegal, and perhaps deadly. It can cure you of anything, even your humanity. It’s Zen Buddhism on steroids, crack cocaine, and Zyklon B. Jiro just has to sign the dotted line.

Under the guidance of the sinister Makassar, Jiro will walk a path to the edge of sanity, and then far, far beyond. He’s on the ultimate self-help journey…but he might look inside and find there’s no “self” left at the end.

Gateless Gate is a horror novella that mixes Buddhism, transhumanism, and ultra-violence. It’s the tale of a man who tears out the darkness in his soul and replaces it with something a thousand shades blacker.

[The Gate Opens Wide.]