The Nicsperiment's Nihilistic Nu-Metal Jaunt to Poverty Point

Life is completely meaningless, and with that thought in mind, I loaded my car up with tons of Sevendust, Slipknot, and Ill Niño, then drove 200 miles to a remote corner of the state to see the remains of the greatest North American civilization created before the arrival of Europeans, now named after a no longer-existent plantation built by European-descended slave-owners on top of those very remains. Yes, life means nothing, and thousands of Native Americans could work together 3500 years ago to build the greatest structure The Americas, let alone Louisiana, had ever seen, only to disappear into obscurity, just like you will after you and your children die, as if you had never even lived in the first place, or been a point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Poverty Point is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a designation you can't just get by mailing in 500 Kellogg's Fruit Loops proof of purchases, though you can get heart disease from all that sugar, which will more blessedly accelerate the coming of your inevitable death. Around 1500 BC, Native American hunter-gatherers built a huge settlement on top of a concentric semi-circle of raised earth...also, they raised the earth themselves...also, they built several ceremonial mounds around the site, one of which is so large it required 238,000 cubits of fill in its construction...also, it is so far from modern civilization, its ruins still exist, as modern civilization is an unceasing monster that devours everything in its path without feeling, much like time will do to your soul, which is just as non-existent as an NBA Championship-winning Milwaukee Bucks team since Jimmy Carter took office.
The night before this trek, I could not sleep, but it's not like that matters, as sleep cannot save me from the cold and unending void. In the morning, I dropped my son off from school, neglecting to tell him that going to school doesn't even matter, as reality is only a construct of human ignorance, though neglecting to tell him also doesn't matter, as reality is only a construct of human ignorance.
I then took HWY 61 up past the state line, encountering a sign no rational person wants to come across, even worse than hearing the phrase, "Congratulations, you have just been drafted to The Milwaukee Bucks."

My meaningless and arguably non-existent existence soon found itself existing in Natchez, and I decided to take in that city's river-walk, before crossing its bridge back to Louisiana. I was at first inspired by the contrast of my new Jeep Renegade's form against the Greek-inspired architecture of Natchez's riverview park, then noticed that the sidewalk was littered with a dead bird who had met his end flying into that same architecture, because life is a cruel cosmic joke, if only the universe was sentient and cared enough to play jokes--SPOILER ALERT, it isn't, so it doesn't.


As the cold shiver of existence passed over me, I suddenly realized that it wasn't existence, but a need to urinate, and somehow I found myself in some museum containing this sculpture commemorating the time a man acted violently against another man, which might as well simply be titled "The Sum of Average Human Interaction Over the Course of Human History," though why even waste the effort on sculpting it, let alone titling it, when we are all going to die.

At some point in the process, I decided that my own welcome death could come even faster if I consumed several chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme donuts and a pint of whole milk, so I stopped at a gas station that could facilitate such a transaction. While passing a group of elderly men, deep in conversation over their morning coffee, I heard the phrase, "You wait to get old, dawg, you gone die." Indeed, though you'll die regardless.
The donuts were old and did not satisfy my craving, even though any satisfaction is only temporary and will swiftly be countered by the dire farce of life.

After driving through remote and empty land, I reached a place even more desolate, known as Tallulah, Louisiana. Tallulah is known for its boarded up businesses and school, citizens who roam aimlessly through its ruins like zombies, and for some reason, the most well-managed Popeyes in the United States, featuring a manager who literally wears a stopwatch around her neck to make sure customers' orders are prepared on time.
It also features one of the most delightfully fallacious water tower slogans I have ever seen.

Instead of Popeyes, I decided to stop at a new restaurant called "Knock-Out," because its cuisine is barbecue, the only genre of food specifically designed to hasten the coming of death's sweet kiss. I found Knock-Out BBQ to serve surprisingly delicious ribs and brisket at a fair price, though it would be nice if they offered refillable water instead of only purchasable bottles. I bought one bottle, drank it, then got my waitress to refill it in the sink, hoping that Tallulah's tap water was full of death-quickening impurities. Unfortunately, it tasted clean and well-filtered.


With a stomach full of fat and smoked-meat-based carcinogens, I drove through some of the most sparse and alienating landscapes upon which I have ever set my eyes, miles and miles of grey-tan empty and untended fields and skeletal forests felled by a murderous autumn, as a thick fog of existential dread draped itself about me to the sound of Slipknot's percussionist banging on an oil drum with an oversized salad tong.
If you ever see the above sentence anywhere but here, you better cry out "plagiarism!"



Finally, aching for any relief from the monotony, I reached Poverty Point, greeted by a twisting complex of buildings and pavilions, though everything was still cast under the rich death shroud of nature's final, pre-winter gasp. I went to the visitor center, only to find it empty, just like existence, and walked over to the archaeological center, only to come upon some group of museum-employee-esque people doing arts and crafts together. They were celebrating Christmas, which is amusing, as the Earth is hurtling through the depths of space at 1000 miles per hour, and will one day be burned up by its own dying sun, though there is a 100% chance that by then all human life will have been extinguished for billions of years, likely due to negative human activities which will hardly be abated by a bunch of archaeologist and museum workers' arts-and-crafts-focused Christmas party. The on-duty employee walked with me to the visitor center, and I paid my $5 entry-fee, then gazed upon a vast-collection of spearheads and artifacts created by a group of people who, while prolific Mississippi valley traders, left no written record, and were therefore forgotten even sooner than every other ephemeral and soon to be unremembered collection of humans.


I then began Poverty Point's 2.6 mile hiking trail, following a very well thought-out and descriptive tour map, which includes facts for each of 20 trail markers, though no amount of thought will change the fact that no one alive 100 years from now will know or care about you, as if anyone alive right now even does. As if to highlight this point, I came upon the second trail-marker, two unmarked graves on a hill the brochure says belong to the husband and wife duo who created and ran Poverty Point Plantation. This couple probably thought they were doing something great for their family and generations of their family line to come, but now they are only known as the slaveholding white people who built a plantation on top of ancient, far more noteworthy Native American ruins. Hey, I guess they are remembered!

The next marker highlights not only the universe's vast indifference, but also just how lousy human beings can be to each other, as PVC pipes mark a circle around a recently discovered, but completely unmarked slave cemetery. Unlike the stone markers given to the departed humans who deemed themselves worthy of keeping this deceased group as personal property, the slaves were given not stone tombstones, but wooden ones, which have all since rotted away.

I then traversed the rest of the first leg of the trail, marveling almost more at the endless surrounding agricultural land than the site itself. The thought that people work these godforsaken fields in the middle of nowhere all day, then have to go to bed at night convincing themselves it is worth it to wake up the next morning, froze my heart in an even heavier ice of disconsolate dread.
And then I saw the mound.

Looming above all else, Mound A is an anonymously-named asymmetrical mound of earth, composed of 15.5 million 50-pound baskets of hauled and dumped dirt. Its construction involved a staggering act of cooperation from the thousands of hunter-gatherers who lived at the site, whom no one remembers, or "who" no one remembers, I don't know, and I don't care.
I approached cautiously under the weak, early December sunlight, gazing up an Escher-esque staircase to the mound's mighty apex. According to the brochure, the mound's shape may have been inspired by that of a bird, though this is up for debate, rabble, rabble, rabble.


As I began the climb, my feet felt strangely heavier with each succeeding step. I am reasonably fit at this point in life, for whatever good that will do me, so I thought this was strange, but I also felt a certain resolve to reach the top of the mound, that strange "just keep going" stimulant that all humans seem to possess, except for the ones who kill themselves.

The moment I reached the wooden platform at its apex, the still air erupted into a breeze, and a shadow passed over the sun. I looked up to see a large bird passing over, assuming it was a vulture. The bird circled back and cawed at me, and suddenly I realized that I was gazing upon an enormous specimen of my favorite animal, the crow, calling to me as I stood on an enormous structure shaped like a crow. Strangely, the crow circled again, cawing loudly, yet not menacingly, then circled again, lower and lower, until it was nearly grazing my head.

I suddenly found myself lying on the platform, rushing air cool against my cheeks, shut my eyes, exhaled, God whispering in my ear. I felt the listless dread flow out of me with the passing wind, filtered through the sound of rustling grass. Minutes, maybe hours passed, then I stood, no longer a nihilist, but an optimist, moving from a negative philosophy, to a positive mental outlook.
I hate nihilism. Nietzsche can keep his dancing.
I hope you won't think less of me either way.
I climbed down the steps invigorated, and looking forward to the fact that the next portion of the trail led through a forest. This is when I discovered that one of the grounds crew had been having a little fun with a chainsaw.


I then enjoyed the hallowed halls of resting wood and fallen leaves, taking my time, and contemplating the fact that, due to a lack of Native American written records, we will never know who exactly the people who built these mounds were, or why they even built them. However, they built them, and they're still here 3500 years later. Not to go all nihilistic again, but we'll see what's left of our modern civilization in 3500 years.



After these deep thoughts about the ephemerality of modern society, I made it back to my car, where I sat and watched a DVD on my laptop for an hour, then drove to a gas station in Delhi to get pizza and an energy drink. The first sip was good, but once I started chasing the pizza with it, it tasted exactly like my sweat. This is quite strange, as everyone's sweat smells quite specific, but this tasted exactly like mine, and I am now quite sure Monster has farmed my DNA to create their Pipeline Punch, which makes for poor taste, but long endurance. Giggity.
Considering my refreshed mental outlook, I went home on different highways, staying strictly in Louisiana this time, hoping to be in Sicily Island after nightfall so that I could
see a real werewolf see if the stars were more visible in the night sky.

According to this night sky map, in rural, industry-free Sicily Island, the Milky Way should be visible, but as a reward to me for making you read all of the soul-crushing nihilistic garbage above, someone in the area had recently clear-cut a large swath of Sicily Island forest, and was burning it in massive, ghastly piles, casting such a bright orange light into the heavens, the stars were visually mute. I was okay with this, though, because by that point I just wanted to see my family again, feeling like the endless monotony of North Louisiana's rural highways was holding my now optimistic and certain existence hostage.
This was the moment the ghost of Friedrich Nietzsche rose from the asphalt.
"Instead of seeing your family again," he said, ghostly mustache bristling in the firewinds, "you must dance. We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."
I slammed my brakes, smoke and haunting embers wafting through Neitzsche's spectral form.
I began to think of a philosophical comeback, something to shut him up and get him out of my way, but under his fierce and ancient German gaze, I could only hang my head.
"What's the matter, The Nicsperiment? You love to make fun of my philosophy, but when faced with my apparition, you can offer only silence?" A green-wooded tree popped in the flame, startling me out of my reverie, and still, I could think of nothing.
"'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' I came up with that. People will be saying that forever! You think my philosophy is ephemeral? What have you done, paean?"
I coughed, glanced at his fierce, blazing stare, looked back at my steering wheel.
"You have nothing to live for. The best you can do now is die. Throw yourself into the fire."
Suddenly, his feet started to tap the glowing pavement, then bounce, then jig. "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn’t hear the music." He raised his face to the sky. "Dance! Dance right into it! You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame! How could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?"
I tried to press the accelerator, but my feet seemed immobile, just as his danced wildly. With his index finger he wildly twirled his mustache, bent his head forward, and looked over his spectacles into my very soul with a piercing, patronizing glare.
"To dance and to die. To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses!" He smiled as spectral children appeared dancing amidst the flames, hand in hand, spinning, twirling, sparks swirling around them, and then the owners of Poverty Point Plantation, and their slaves, dancing, dancing in the mad fires of the night. Joining them in the dance, a spectre of myself, arms raised, dancing, burning in the eternal heedless fires of time. Neitzche cackled over the roaring endless winds of the void. "Then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has achieved and what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death. One should never forget that Christianity has exploited the weakness of the dying for a rape of the conscience; and the manner of death itself, for value judgments about man and the past."
He flared his hands into the air, but a smile spread across my lips. Neitzche cocked his head to the side. Laughter exploded from my lungs.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is it the truth? Have you seen it?"
I banged my fist on the dashboard as tears streamed down my face, laughter pouring from me as from a gorged spring after a long winter.
"Well, what is it, The Nicsperiment? Spit it out! Have you seen a truth? Ja oder nein!"
I finally corralled my guffaws to a point where I could speak, eyes alight in newfound life.
"Yes, Friedrich. I've seen a truth. A truth that makes me laugh."
His raging feet had slowed to a trickle, and now they dried to an impatient tapping. "Well, The Nicsperiment, what is it?"
"I might be wrong," I said. "I only know this from Wikipedia. I guess you have Wikipedia in hell? Anyway, you asked Lou Salomé to marry you three times, right?" I sniggered, about to burst back into laughter. "And she said 'no' to you three times. Three times! Didn't you get the hint after the second time? That must have sucked!"
He lowered his head. "Well, it wasn't pleasant. I...I...
"So what children and witnesses watched you cheerfully accomplish your death by syphilis? Was that how you freely chose to go? Syphilis? And mercury poisoning? And strokes? And pneumonia? You couldn't even decisively settle on one way to die!"
Neitzche grunted impatiently.
"But it's true. You really chose that death freely. You chose it hard."
Neitzche straightened his spectacles and snorted. "The Nicsperiment, I have presented you philosophical arguments, and you have not refuted them, but instead bullied me by presenting embarrassing facts about my personal life."
"Yes, I guess you're right, Neitzche." The wind danced a burning leaf through his jaw, and it crackled into the pavement. "That was a low blow. And for all I know, my wife could leave me, my son could disown me, and I could reach a low moment and visit a brothel, and come down with syphilis myself, or worse. I could die ignominiously, just like you, but ironically, in regard to your philosophy, this very conversation and day has given me purpose--to not die ignominiously."
"That's it? It almost sounds like you are agreeing with me! But what about the last thing I said to you? I've tarnished your religion..."
"You can no more tarnish my religion than you can make a man a dog by simply saying that he is. I'm not going to argue subjectives with you, as I am sure you realize that philosophy itself is just as subjective as religion. If I say God whispered in my ear on the top of a Native American Mound, who are you to say he didn't? If I say that I feel unconditional love for mankind because I feel unconditional love from the creator of the universe, who are you to say that I don't? My actions show my true beliefs, just as yours show yours, even though they neither prove nor disprove them. Now get out of my way. I've got a sleepy wife who surely wants help putting our son to bed, a son who likely has a ton of today's college football news to tell me, two fighting cats I need to break up, and a dog to kennel for the night. And even if I didn't, I'm ready to go home. Now get out of my way."
"I'm a ghost," he said with disappointment. "You can just drive right through me."