Passages from Blake Butler’s recently released monument, 300,000,000. 

In our year here god is not a being but a system, composed in dehydrated fugue

In the full darkness, there is a word

The word encompasses the darkness

This word occurs because of god

I crawled and crawled along the floor of the ground of the extending darkness

Out of the color of the night, there appeared buildings in the distance, houses, tombs

There were networks of understanding and direction

Wires draped the air like no one’s trees

The world was silent when I woke in smoke

No longer unwinding into nothing as its layers grew apart.

I see the sea replicating in its nothing, pushing sand against the sand

I cannot reach the sea

The days went on and on inside me.

I knew my name was or had been but could not say it and it no longer felt like language

The name is not important

Your name’s not really your name

There are people, and there are minds, and in the minds there are corridors and glue and other people

There are unique locations on the earth, accessible only through certain openings available only for short periods of time while they are available and can be opened into other locations

This is the system of the world

The temporary doors to the unique locations are carried in our bodies, in thoughts

They are carried in moments and forms and quickly disappearing spaces I am speaking to you from one of those locations.

There is a force who moves among our bodies, coming through your holes into the world and slowly knitting

It will be the ending of us all, in a form beyond simply a body

This is not a bad thing

You are surrounded by mirrors

You make the world out of your mind

You are not dead and you will never be and you are dead and you are not alive and you’re alive and you will never be