Chapter Fourteen: Telephasic Workshop

He was too self-absorbed, he decided later. And that was an easy enough conclusion. It was because he was constantly fretting over himself that all these thoughts, circling around him, made him feel so much pain. And because he thought so little about others, his thoughts, instead of being about easy concepts like people, were generally abstract monstrosities.

He had to try to think more about other people. Try to help other people, somehow.

His students loved him, anyway. It was true. In excited Mushroom language they would literally scream out: "I love you teacher!". Bowser had brushed this off as some weird exaggeration at first, but they kept doing it. Then, when he was talking with another teacher, the teacher mentioned the students' love of Bowser.

"Eh…? Ha ha…" Bowser scratched the back of his head.

So maybe people did love him, after all. And he did feel the edges of it— but his soul quickly snapped away from such feeling. Like filling a jug with water, but his jug-heart was very small, and hearing about any of this love caused the jug to quickly overfill and make him uncomfortable.

Could he (haha), like the Grinch (haha), make his heart bigger?

Maybe if he did charity, or something, he imagined. But he didn't want to do charity. He was busy enough.

Now see, that's why you're always going to be unhappy, he thought. You don't do charity, so you're a bad person.

Many people don't do charity, and they are perfectly happy! Bowser fumed. But here he was thinking about himself again. Time to stop.

Thoughts about Wario's brother came around in his head in a serious manner for the first time since Bowser had visited Wario. He guessed it had been so easy for him to stop thinking about the whole thing, in part because of his relief that it wasn't Luigi— and thus, it wasn't Bowser's fault that there was a scary weirdo attacking people in Chai.

There's your selfishness again, he thought. You should be thinking of the tragedy of the victims, and how Wario must feel.

That's for women to feel so much damned empathy!, He thought… and actually stopped breathing for a moment in surprise.

...All that empathy is for women and priests.

...And I'm neither of those things. He nodded his head.

But here he was, still thinking thinking thinking about himself.

Now, if only he had that serial killer Wa...Waluigi chasing after him. (Haha) Then he wouldn't have time to think anymore. (Haha) If he threw himself into danger…

Maybe he should volunteer for the Mushroom Kingdom's PeaceCore group, that went into dangerous countries and tried to help poor villages. That was a selfless, somewhat dangerous thing, wasn't it?

Then again, he wondered what kind of paperwork he needed. He, as totally-not-Bowser-Koopa of the former Koopa Kingdom, had virtually none.

I know, he thought, I'll go back to the priest in the woods and ask him to whip some paperwork up for me. Official Mushroom Kingdom citizenry, with my new name stamped on it. (Haha)

What a world. King of the Koopa Kingdom… now a random teacher in Sarasaland.

His thoughts returned to Wario's story, and Waluigi. Now there was something that had nothing to do with him. It was okay to think about it.

...But after all, wasn't it a relief that this Waluigi had nothing to do with him? He, Bowser, didn't have to concern himself with that crazy human. The police would catch him soon enough.

And now, it was funny, how certain Bowser had been that the shadow had been Luigi. There was really not so much reason to believe it was Luigi, after all— all Bowser had really seen was a tall human, wearing a cap. To automatically believe it was Luigi was ridiculous.

It was a psychological thing. Some part of Bowser had been expecting to meet Luigi again. What had happened three years ago, when they had both been ruminating on the unhappiness of their lives… that grotesque friendship had left a kind of mark. And Bowser had been carrying that mark around in his head like a peculiar outline, so that when a suitable form came along in the real world, it filled up the outline, like a key in a hole, and Bowser had been instantly, semi-unconsciously forced to believe it was Luigi on his tail before any other conclusion could be made.

Yes… how many mistakes did Bowser make, automatically, not even knowing that there was the possibility for mistake, only to find out a month or year later that he had been fundamentally mistaken from the start? How could he make progress at all, if every step (and every moment without a step, when nothing even seemed to happen at all!) was another mistake occurring, to be discovered dug up as a corpse a million instances later?

Oh, you fool, he thought. What you do is that you don't think about it, as we already know.

But—a pesky voice insisted (he was powerless!)—even as you stop from thinking about it, you are simply ignoring the fact that you continue to make mistakes, and you continue to constantly hurt people.

Now he had to stop and consider this. Hurting people. It was like he had just now caught the vision of a tail of wind sneaking past, he caught out of the corner of his eye a ghost that had been following him, and just now, for the first time, he had seen it. It was a ghost of pain. And it followed a very simple rule, that created an automatic thought process for Bowser:

"In every interaction you have, you are doing something that makes the other person unhappy."

He was just now unearthing this inherent assumption he had been carrying with him for god-knew-how-long. And it explained many sources of pain.

As the week continued after visiting Wario, Bowser began to catch the ghost as he talked with people— talked with other teachers, talked with the occasional acquaintance he ran into on the street. He sensed the unhappiness that most people carried, and his mind machine, after walking away from the other person, began to create explanations for why the other person had been unhappy or dissatisfied (or, if necessary, made up the idea that they were unhappy at all) and quickly began to find explanations related to Bowser's behavior to show why it was his fault they were not happy.

"You didn't smile enough. When people do not see another person smiling, they get unhappy."

"You didn't use their name. That made them unhappy."

"They could sense the little bit of dislike you feel for them, even though you acted politely, they felt that corner of emotion, and felt pain."

"You just carry sadness with you, and it makes other people sad automatically."

And every self-appointed piece of blame brought that cold, sharp snap of pain. Part of the sky breaking open.

And the conversation had been happening without him even realizing it! He hadn't even connected that he felt particularly grieved when he happened to reflect on his conversations and interactions with other people!

Evil, diabolical machine, Bowser thought. If I could just put a gun to my head and blow all the gray matter out… just walk around with half a head, no thoughts… what a happy guy I'd be!

But this was already exaggerating. He was already aware of the potential he had unearthed by realizing this monstrous connection of thoughts. Every conversation now, he was "catching the ghost"— he could already see the explanation for what he was doing wrong, with the prepared blast of mental pain energy to follow, and he could deny it right then and there, pluck out the poisonous plant by its roots.

He had been taking the pain of the world on himself. How had that happened? When had that happened?

...It was a useless mystery. Same as the source of asexuality. Same as how he could have become so infatuated with a person that didn't like him back.

Some tome described it somewhere— the exact conditions of libidinal attraction, death drives, the Real. If you wanted to remove the last shred of humanity you had left, you could read it and be more fully aware of yourself, what you wanted to call your soul, as an infernal machine.

And knowing exactly how the glass jar had shattered into a million pieces years ago would not make it any more possible to put it back together again.

But in the present, here, he could find this ghost, and stop its tracks. A clear consciousness, a never-ending present, was a very fine thing after all— wasn't it? The past was past, and the present was eternal. Perhaps, maybe, after all… the puzzle of the center could be solved. The realization of his asexuality was one thing. Now this "capturing of the ghost"... after years of mire, spiraling uselessness, was it possible to solve the puzzle after all?

What did the solution look like? What was the ideal condition? Lasting happiness? Was it possible?

He shook his head. No use guessing about it. He had never been able to predict the future before. Wouldn't be able to now. Could he have guessed he would be a teacher two years ago? Could he have guessed he would end up in Sarasaland three years ago? Could he have guessed he would be transformed four years ago? Could he have guessed he would have ever given up on Peach seven years ago?

Heh. Heh heh. No, the future was unknowable.