The Mortal Burden
Book I


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter III
The Mortal Burden – Part XIII: Zombie or Zombi?
The Mortal Burden – Part XIV: “I Can’t Take You Anywhere!”
The Mortal Burden – Part XIV: The Third Coast
The Mortal Burden – Part XV: Infinity as My Witness
The Mortal Burden – Part XVI: The 4th Wall
The Mortal Burden – Part XVII: Eternity Is a Concept



The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter III
The Mortal Burden – Part XIII: Zombie or Zombi?
The Mortal Burden – Part XIV: “I Can’t Take You Anywhere!”


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter II
The Mortal Burden – Part VII: Remember
The Mortal Burden – Part VIII: Gods of One
The Mortal Burden – Part IX: Cold Heat
The Mortal Burden – Part X: A World to Die On
The Mortal Burden – Part XI: Boundaries Into the Deep
The Mortal Burden – Part XII: The Singular I


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter II
The Mortal Burden – Part VII: Remember
The Mortal Burden – Part VIII: Gods of One
The Mortal Burden – Part IX: Cold Heat
The Mortal Burden – Part X: A World to Die On
The Mortal Burden – Part XI: Boundaries Into the Deep


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter II
The Mortal Burden – Part VII: Remember
The Mortal Burden – Part VIII: Gods of One
The Mortal Burden – Part IX: Cold Heat
The Mortal Burden – Part X: A World to Die On


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter II
The Mortal Burden – Part VII: Remember
The Mortal Burden – Part VIII: Gods of One
The Mortal Burden – Part IX: Cold Heat


The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter II
The Mortal Burden – Part VII: Remember
The Mortal Burden – Part VIII: Gods of One




When every song has has been sang, when all rhythm becomes one,
when the melodies have gone flat,
Each and every cord has been played and the strings have all been strung
When all configurations of all music depleted
the choir’s harmony lost
When all the bright golden angels of our nature have rusted and dimmed
And all and every demon bled thin
When all the lyrics have been written and every word sang
When all of the combinations of music
of all the world’s, of all of the people,
of all the universes, of every string, of all reality,
of all time
Have been strummed
The metronome will stop
when the last song
Is finally sung
It’s the time, when all things, and all time, all of everything everywhere it’s the end of all things, it has finally come

©️ Jacob Pickard.2026.

The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter I
The Mortal Burden Part I: Specicide Blues
The Mortal Burden Part II: This Mortal Burden
The Mortal Burden Part III: Blood Furnace

The Mortal Burden – Part IV: Six feet of razor-toothed bloody destruction

The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter I
The Mortal Burden Part I: Specicide Blues
The Mortal Burden Part II: This Mortal Burden



The Mortal Burden
Book I
Chapter I
I decided to serialize my novel. Chapters are just two big for this media type.


For whatever reason these four short scifi stories are interconnected. It was never my intention nor concept, these stories were written at different times in my life; yet they all speak to the philosophy & concepts of reality, creation, chaos, order, and individuality.




All works ©️ Jacob Pickard. 1995-2026.
In the vast expanse of space, all the material physical things that exist in it, then time, the utter insurmountable distance among and between each.

We exist.
Does it matter why? Or who? Or what?
You exist.
Is this…
Not enough?
“Meet me and hit me
Tiny and sticky candy
Kiss and eating
Are just the same things”
……………shiver down spine……………..

The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
Red and roses
Lips and breath
Hair and dolls
They’re look alike
Smoke and mist
Night and midnight
The deep and hell
They really get me
Flip and fly
Heal and feel
Flower and poison
Are on the brink
The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
Body and Jell-O
Crack and jazz
Arch and bridge
They’re look alike
Meet me and hit me
Tiny and sticky candy
Kiss and eating
Are just the same things
Free and fall
And love and low
Evil make you feel good
Can’t help doing that
The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
The borderline
The Borderline” is a song by character Sharon Apple and performed by Akino Arai. It is featured in the anime OVA series Macross Plus and its compilation movie.
I am Pariah
A life devoid of touch, love, passion, a pillar of rough-hewn granite, to make other’s lives more comfortable so they don’t have to feel guilt. A mirrored avatar to reflect what they want to see; taking responsibility for the cowardly acts of their Phantoms.
Selfish Ideological Narcissists, making victims that exist in the interstitial spaces, Acceptable losses in the war.
A living taboo, stigmatized, no one wants to touch this flesh, it is taboo made real.
Aged masculinty shattered into dull edges, ego ripped out, longtime ideological identity destroyed; the devouring mother’s hunger satiated.
I no longer want to try to identify with anyone, as anyone, or with any group. All are phantoms.
The gulf is now infinite. Not your spaces in-between, because nothing exists on either side.
Playing my part in the background, while the Phantoms roleplay; it’s the curse of total detached awareness & empathy. Pain hidden in the shadows, invisible to all.

Pariah is my rightful place, I am the sacrificial king: I will let this demon eat my soul.
……and I will REVEL in the consumption
One with the Pariah that haunts the
interstitial spaces
the Pariah that whispers to the
phantoms in your nightmares
©️ Jacob A. Pickard. 2025. Originally
published on SubStack.

I’ve been reluctant to share this one. The vulnerable parts of me in this water color are still part of me now.
Some people re-invent themselves, that is a skill I don’t possess. I carry everything because it’s me and good or bad I own it, and owing it is important. If you don’t own your choices, you make villians of others as an excuse for your actions. There is far to much of that in our world.

Credit to the prompt goes to https://justrojie.com
How do you actually define this?
When you stand for something, that means you should be automatically against the binary inverse, unfortunately pride, arrogance, aggrieved victimhood, situational ethics (tribalism), can & will take these parts of character, twist them into unrecognizable mutants, and destroy those things once held dear into phantoms and outright frauds.

The above are three human conditions, I stand against. I have stood against them for basically my entire life. They are reflected in most of my actions, down to where i shop (I keep it small, local or regional as possible), who I support politicaly, and personal interactions with others. I view all people as equal at birth and all should have the same opportunities.
I question everything, even my personal philosophy, my left leaning politics, my character, my actions, what I beleive since I was young. Growing up in conflict has conditioned me into a powerful detachment, yet I am endlessly passionate when it comes to my beliefs, that “being rational”, that empathy & compassion in the end will make the case that these base human needs will win out and are more important than rage, bigotry, hate, apathy, & indifference.
“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
Alexander Hamilton

No doubt I am a fool; but at the end of the day, looking into the mirror, it’s far more important that I expressed my character honorably and that I stand my ground.
©️ Jacob Pickard.2026.
Things have changed.

Time vigor pride beaten down by the club of life.
Resurrection?
Not while we’re alive.
©️ Jacob Pickard. 2025. Written ~ 2010.
Okay ive never done this before but here we go:
“What’s a stupid thing you do or say, and you know it’s dumb, that slightly annoy’s other people, but you do it anyway because you think it’s funny and you don’t care it annoy’s others?”

I have no white whale to consume my soul, I am that white whale. Born a beast a monster: failures, oppression, hurt, murder, rape, death, genocide, femicide, and even your internal misery. I am your enemy i am your monster.
qualities you possess, your biological virtuous signaling superiority; a kingdom built of rage safe space for authority
victimhood aggreivment gives you power, self righteous-justification, superior unquestioned objectification
of me, the white whale
pluck out my eyes, spear my flesh, spill my blood, sickle my fat, bind my girth, blind me with your spit, hell hath no fury like your scorn upon me, i am your monster, your beast, a sacrifice for the goddess your ruler above, penetrate me, rape me, a mangled object your conquest that was born guilty

Yes be Ahab, understand
While lashed on your shattered ship
Sinking into the ocean abyss
”Damning yourself was a choice, you created your end by decision, your agency was your own.”
“Never understanding the nature of revenge while you let me consume your soul, do you understand you never were free, as long as all your thoughts were always centered on me.”
I, the white whale swims free, I will forever, be the last thing your living eyes ever shall see

©️ Jacob Pickard. 2025.
This was a compilation punk 7″ from the early 90’s to support the Mowhawk native American Resistance against the Mexican government. This is a lesson on what needs to happen in the United States.



To resist is to change yourself.
You must become a warrior.
We out-number the villians in this world.
There is NO room for apathy.
Only TOTAL resistance.

Each of us is a temple of ego: a beacon to the uncaring universe, that has no value for organic, the growth, over the membrane of existance.
What? You think that you are the pinnacle of creation (or evolution for the atheists)
How precious?
We, you, us, an abberation in the universal plan. We know existence is a curse. The Increased organization & order brings suffering, losers in an extistance that will disappear, we are nothing.
Fighting against the entropy of bliss, we are the chaos in a reality evolving into absolute nothing, perfection.
I write this to make us small? Is this an excerise to crush your ego? Or to test it?
Does it matter?

©️ Jacob Pickard. 2026