Temirtau (The ghosts of Google Maps)

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, unable to sleep, I think about how large the universe is. The numbers mean nothing. This planet orbits one star out of hundreds of billions in the Milky Way, and there are a hundred billion other galaxies. I try to understand that and I can't. Astronomical data is relentless, incomprehensible.

So, I try to understand smaller scales. Sometimes it seems ridiculous that there are other towns than the one I am in. I try to imagine these places I've never heard of and maybe, if I can manage that, one day I'll be able to deal with the scale of the cosmos. Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I get lost on the Internet.

I open up Google maps, zoomed out to a full satellite view of America or Germany or Kazakhstan. I begin clicking, zooming in to find a city or town I've never heard of, Karaganda perhaps. I get closer, until the surrounding towns are revealed. I can query Wikipedia for them. There is no entry for Akshatau. People live there, a place too insignificant to be described.

One of the nearby towns, Temirtau, has 170,000 souls, making it about half the size of Brighton. I zoom closer, switch to Street View. A shuttered shop, a few stubby towerblocks on Mira Avenue in the snow. All Google offers are static photos. This town is beyond the reach of the Street View Car, not worth photographing.

A man is captured in that photo, walking in front of the shuttered shop. I want to know why he is there. He could be anywhere in the world. Why have I never met anyone from Termitau, with its bandy team, the new winter gardens – if this town were to disappear, the road rerouted around it, would I ever know that had happened? Is there anyone there like me, unable to sleep, searching an online map?

I follow roads through Texas towns, anonymous places like Brady, travelling down West 5th street. I want to see something that explains the world, why it needs to be as large as it is. I know the Texans would think the same of me, if they cared, that I have no reason to exist. I have no reason not to walk into the sea.

I drink myself to sleep while exploring these American towns, the room lit only by the laptop screen. Being addicted to porn would be easier. I run out of Coke and have no other mixer, so I fill the glass with neat whiskey. It's crap, and I wouldn't endure its taste if I were sober, if I was not walking through the streets of towns with names like Brady, Killeen, Brownwood. Brady (which merits a wikipedia page for its 5,500 souls). I look at these places to ease the insomnia, reminding myself how insignificant I am, that it doesn't matter if I can't sleep.

Background

This is an attempt at writing cosmic horror about Google maps. There’s a brilliant blog post by Charlie Stross, What Scared H.P. Lovecraft, which looks at how the recorded scale of the universe changed significantly in Lovecraft’s life. Stross writes that “Lovecraft interpreted the expansion of his universe as a thing of horror, a changing cosmic scale factor that ground humanity down into insignificance.”

Stross ends the essay by talking about the singularity. He compares the expansion in data storage in his own lifetime to the astronomical one in Lovecraft’s. I don’t recall that this essay directly inspired this story, but they are linked in my mind. There’s something terrifying about the scale of the world, as shown by the Internet. Social media confronts us with the anger and alienation of users we will never meet in person.

Temirtau originated as part of my paused collection Lovecraft in Brighton. Since I wrote it, we’ve had Gamergate and the waves of real-world horror emerging from that. Sadly, when I pick up Lovecraft in Brighton, there’s a whole new seam of cosmic horror to draw inspiration from.

Kickstarter News

The True Clown Stories kickstarter has just reached its target with, as I write, about 50 hours remaining. Running the campaign has been a harder and weirder experience than I expected, but it’s definitely been interesting. I’m grateful to everyone who’s believed in the project to pledge money towards it, and to my publisher Dan from Peakrill Press for his energy and hard work.

Once the kickstarter closes I have to send things out to the instant gratification tier pledgers, then I’ll be working on a draft of the book. I’ve a few new stories I want to write, including a piece about dunk tank clowns. Like Lovecraft in Brighton, this is another project that has been in progress around for years. Now it’s coming closer, I’ve decided to replace some of the older pieces. But, all being well, I should have the text out to the editor (hi, Jude!) in the next few weeks.

Recommendations

Devin Person is a wizard. You can tell he's a wizard because of the robes and white beard.

Devin started out by travelling the New York subway in wizard robes, with a sign encouraging people to talk to him, “because no one meets a wizard by accident.” I first learned about him from Ryan Broderick's Garbage Day, which linked to a New York Times article on Devin.

Declaring yourself a wizard is an amazing feat of reinvention, like that of King Arthur Pendragon. (King Arthur is the only royal I consider myself a subject of - not because of power, but because by doing so I slightly enhance a wonderful dream). Sometimes, simply saying something in the right way can make it true.

Devin now lives in Kentucky, where he runs a regular Wizard Wednesday event. His magic is all about transforming lives. He releases regular episodes of This Podcast is a Ritual, where he talks to other practitioners or discusses his life. The podcast is all part of an ongoing spell, where Devin uses time magic to move the universe towards being a place that is slightly better.