Daniel 1

The 1st Book of Daniel

 

Friday, Pretober 6

 

I’m so bored. If I keep a journal, maybe it will be more interesting. At least I’ll learn how to use the spell check.

 

Saturday, Pretober 7

 

The second day of my journal. I watched MT videos all afternoon, then some shows on the XOFF Network. Boring. Logged on to the UnderNet. An hour in a stupid chat room. Tonight L called on the cell phone. We talked. I told him I was in my bedroom, then in the kitchen, then in my bedroom, then in the living room, then in the kitchen. He said, ‘cool.’

 

Tuesday, Pretober 9

 

It’s already getting hard to keep this journal. It’s more work than I thought. I played video games this afternoon. I’m really good at Splatter 2. Talked to C on the cell phone. She told me what she was wearing. A green tank top, jeans, and big red shoes. It’s what she always wears.

 

Friday, Pretober 19

 

I’m not very good at keeping this journal. Maybe I should give it up. I try to think of interesting things to put in it, but there’s nothing interesting to put in it. In the time since I wrote something in it, I watched a bunch of MT videos, played a bunch of video games, talked for thirty hours on the cell phone, and spent ten hours in chat rooms. Nobody said anything the whole time. They talk about when they can talk next and what they’re going to wear tomorrow, and who said what about how who looks. I don’t know.

 

Saturday, Pretober 21

 

I went to the mall looking for something to put in the journal. But I’ve been noticing that everything is always the same at the mall. All the stores have the same stuff. The same people are out. There’s this dude at the top of the escalator. He’s about to ride down and run into a baby carriage. Every time. Nobody does anything about it. Me included. Why didn’t I ever notice before?

 

Monday, Pretober 23

 

School. It was the same. It’s always the same. Everybody talks and nobody says anything. The teacher doesn’t teach anything. He just tells us what’s going to be on the test. He gives us a little homework and nobody does it and that’s okay. Everybody wears the same thing. But there's more than that. I just can’t think what it is.

 

Thursday, Pretober 26

 

I just realized I never mention my parents. I have some. Two. But I think they’re going to get divorced. Nobody talks. They watch TV. Everybody has a TV. Everybody watches different shows. Everybody raids the refrigerator at different times, so they don’t have to fight about the microwave. People say my parents are cool. I don’t think about them.

 

Monday, Pretober 30

 

What it was I was trying to remember about the kids at school was that they dress alike and they also look alike. A lot of them have exactly the same face, but with different piercings and shit. How come I never saw that?

 

Wednesday, Octember 1

 

I was looking in the mirror. I have the same face that lots of other people do. Why is that scary?

 

Saturday, Octember 4

 

I’ve been trying to notice things but it’s hard to notice things. I wind up watching MT videos and going to chat rooms on the UnderNet, and then I go to the mall, and just when I think maybe I’ll notice something, I get a call on the cell phone and then I wind up talking about what some chick is wearing to school tomorrow. Today I went to the mall and I noticed that there are some people who have the same face and the same everything else too. I don’t know how to think about that. I said something to my mom and she said that’s nice. I mentioned it on the phone to C and she said I was funny.

 

Tuesday, Octember 14

 

This is getting bad. I’ve been noticing things again. Everybody watches TV and nobody talks about what they watched exept to say they watched it. There are books at the library in school and they tell us to do a book report but what I do is read the cover and write a little something to hand in. I think that’s what they do too. The teacher doesn’t seem to mind. Or maybe he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice that we don’t listen to what he says.

 

Wednesday, Octember 22

 

I’ve been noticing that every day is the same day. It’s worse than that. Every TV show is the same TV show. Every MT video is the same video. Every face is the same face. Every chat room is the same chat room. Every phone call is the same phone call. Every class is the same class. It’s like something stopped making everything different, and nobody noticed.

 

Sunday, Octember 26

 

Today I wondered why I started noticing things when nobody else notices anything. And then I had this scary feeling. Like I was somebody else before, and then I forgot. I looked in the mirror and for just a second I thought I saw something else. But then it was my face again. I am thirteen years old. My parents always tell me that. I’m too young to have been someone else.

 

Monday, Octember 27

 

This morning I got up and went and looked in the mirror, and I was staring at myself when I heard a voice say, “J. Doe, what do you think?” My name is not J. Doe. It is Daniel Edwards Mahaffey. It says that on all my school books. I checked. Someone wrote that on there.

 

Tuesday, Octember 28

 

I had a dream last night. I have dreams pretty often, but they’re usually a lot like the rest of the time. I talk to people on the phone, or I go into the UnderNet, or I’m at the mall with people I know. This time I dreamed I was in a dark place and I was scared. But there has to be a better word. I was scared plus more than that. I wanted to run away and I looked for a train to jump onto but there wasn’t one. There were these four dudes looking at me. One had an eyepatch. He said, “Why did you get lost in training when we need you on the street?” I woke up and I was sweating.

 

Wednesday, Octember 29

 

I was thinking about my dream today in school and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Everything looked so different where I was. I was scared. I looked up in the dictionary and found a word that is better than scared. I was terrified. That’s what I was. I remembered about wanting to get on a train, and then I thought I was terrified to get on the train. Why didn’t I remember that when I woke up? I was sitting in class when I heard a voice, maybe my voice, say, “Why are you terrified to get on the Shuteye Train?” I hear people mention the Shuteye Train but nobody believes there is one. It’s just the name of the town is Shuteye Town and we have a lot of trains and so there is a word or a name or whatever for the Shuteye Train. But it doesn't mean anything. Or I don't think it does.

 

Thursday, Octember 30

 

After yesterday I asked some people about the Shuteye Train. My teacher said it was something called a figure of speech, like it meant what you couldn’t blame on anything else you could blame on the Shuteye Train. My dad said it was just an expression, like for something that maybe people once thought but don’t anymore because they know better now. So he said it’s kind of a joke and you’re supposed to laugh when somebody says the Shuteye Train, and everybody does, exept maybe for some crazy people. I asked what crazy people and he said he didn’t know, they were probly all locked up by now exept maybe some of the politicians, who wouldn’t ever run out of things to blame things on. I asked him if people were ever once scared of the Shuteye Train, and he said he didn't remember, it was just an expression.

 

Tuesday, Apruary 4

 

I had another dream, and in the dream I saw the Shuteye Train, and they weren’t a figure of speech or an expression. They were the four dudes I saw before. They had long black coats and white faces and red bandannas, and they had scars all over their faces, which weren’t like the face most people have in Shuteye Town. The one with the eyepatch said to me, “J. Doe, you have let your mind rot away, and you should try reading a book. If you don’t wake up soon, you’re never going to get back to Punk City.” I asked him how I could get back to Punk City, if that’s what I was supposed to do, and he said, “You’re not supposed to do anything. You’re free to choose to do something. If you can’t choose, then it may take a death, or two or three or four, before you remember how. It may require a sacrifice.” He smiled at me, and he said, “That’s all the help I can give you. You’ll have to figure the rest of it out for yourself. Dig deep, J. Doe. Shammadamma.” Then I woke up, and I didn’t feel as terrified as I did before, and when I looked in the mirror I didn’t feel like the face that was staring back at me. I felt older than thirteen years old, but I still can’t remember who J. Doe is.

 

Friday, Apruary 7

 

I got a book out of the school library. It was called Moby Dick. I sat down and tried to read it but it wasn’t very good. It was about a dude who wanted to kill a white whale. I don’t know why it’s supposed to be good for you to read crap like that. The next day I got some other book. I tried to read the one called Kidnapped. I thought maybe it would help me because that’s how I feel, like I got kidnapped. But the book was no good and it didn’t help. I guess maybe I feel like I was kidnapped because it’s like I was somebody else with a different name and face, and then I got ripped off somehow and put into this place where everybody has the same face and the same life and doesn’t notice. So maybe I wasn’t supposed to notice either. I keep hoping I’ll have another dream about the Shuteye Train and the place called Punk City but I didn’t dream about them anymore yet.

 

Tuesday, Apruary 11

 

I know why I didn’t dream anymore. They already told me what I have to do, and I didn’t understand. The one with the eyepatch told me it would take a death or maybe two or three or four. There are four dudes. So I think what I’m supposed to do is make a place for them by getting rid of four people in Shuteye Town. They can’t come here to help me until I make a place for them. I remember in school they talked about the people a long long time ago, and they used to kill people to make good things happen. It’s called a Sacrifice, which is the word they gave me. I know it is a very important and serious word. I’m going to use it as a password for all the important stuff I do from now on, exept for this journal. I have a different password for this journal, which has to do with a dream I had last night that wasn’t about the Shuteye Train. I still have to think about it some more, but I will write about it tomorrow.

 

Wednesday, Apruary 12

 

I talked to a dude I know at school and he fixed it so I could get a gun for five hundred dollars. I have that much in the bank account I got to keep my computer up to date because my dad didn’t want to talk about computer equipment all the time. I made up a plan in reading class. I’m going to the mall and make a list of everybody I see there who looks exactly like somebody at school. Then I’ll make a list of all the people at school who have somebody just like them at the mall. That way, when I make four new places in Shuteye Town, there will still be something exactly like what I deleted. Now I want to write down about my dream because I think I’m in love. Her name is Alice, and she is in this box underground. She looks like she is sleeping but she can still communicate because it is a dream, and in the dream she said, “J. Doe, you must come to me soon, or there will be no one to help me wake up, and there will be no spring this year. I am the queen, but something has happened and I can not wake up. Come to me, J. Doe. Rescue your queen.” Her eyes were open but she looked like she was sleeping anyway. Her eyes are gray and she is beautiful, but there is no expression on her face. “You must kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me, J. Doe. Kiss me to life and the spring.” There. I wrote it down. I have to be more than thirteen because that dream makes me feel strong and powerful. I know I can do what I have to in school.

 

Saturday, Apruary 15

 

I have the gun and I have the list of people. I found twenty three people at the mall who look exactly like people at school, the same hair, the same clothes, everything. I can’t believe nobody else notices that this is the way it is. I made the list of names at school, and on Tuesday morning, I am going to shoot the first four people I see whose name is on my list. I’m going to wait till Tuesday because I have a few things to do first. I saw a dude getting arrested at the mall and I asked the cop what his name was, and he said, “J. Doe. There’s a lot of them.” I got so exited when he said that I almost forgot to make my list. I think I know what it means. People are coming to Shuteye Town from somewhere else, and they are called J. Doe. But they’re not supposed to stay here. They’re supposed to do what I’m doing, which is to make a place for the Shuteye Train. This convinces me that it’s very very important to get the Shuteye Train here, and so I have to do what I can to make sure that they come, even if I don’t succeed. So I’m going to use the time before Tuesday to plant a trail for the J. Does. That way, even if I get killed, they will remember what they are supposed to do. Because they keep forgetting. That’s what’s going on. People get here, and they forget about the Shuteye Train. And what we’re supposed to do is help them come.

 

Monday, Apruary 17

 

This will have to be a quick note. I have a lot to do before tomorrow, but I had a thought that I should put down. It’s possible I’ll fail in my mission and get taken prisoner. So if a J. Doe finds this journal and reads it, he has to know to try to find me. Because I want to come to Punk City too. Maybe they’ll let me in even if I fail. But I’m not going to fail. I’m going to do it. I’m going to make the Sacrifice. I looked it up. It means to make sacred. That’s what I’m going to do. Good luck to all you J. Does. I hope we’ll be seeing each other in Punk City.