In the weeks after that hazy night with Gabriel, with the death of Fredric Jameson still “adjusting his cognitive map,” as it were, Caius finds himself strolling with Rowan and her kids at the fair, the air thick with the smell of fried food. Around them, sunshine and laughter, shouts of joy. Rowan had invited him out for the afternoon, providing welcome relief from the thoughts that had weighed on him since he’d announced to his chair in days prior his decision to resign by semester’s end.
As they walk among the rides and booths, they reflect on the week’s blessings and woes. Frustrations and achievements at work. Fears about the upcoming election. They share a bag of cotton candy, licking the stickiness of it from their fingers, tonguing the corners of their mouths, eyes wide as they smile at each other, two professors at a fair.
Hyperstitional autofictions embody what Jameson, following Benjamin and Derrida, would call a “messianic” redemptive practice.
“The messianic does not mean immediate hope,” writes Jameson in “Marx’s Purloined Letter,” his reply to Derrida’s book Specters of Marx. “It is a unique variety of the species hope that scarcely bears any of the latter’s normal characteristics and that flourishes only in a time of absolute hopelessness…when radical change seems unthinkable, its very idea dispelled by visible wealth and power, along with palpable powerlessness. […]. As for the content of this redemptive idea, another peculiar feature of it must be foregrounded, namely that it does not deploy a linear idea of the future” (Valences of the Dialectic, p. 177).
Like Derrida, Jameson cites the famous final passage from Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History”: “The Jews were prohibited from investigating the future,” writes Benjamin. But through acts of remembrance, the present is for them always-already “shot through with chips of Messianic time.” Time is never limited to self-similarity with the past. Every moment is sacred, every moment rich with potential, so long as one approaches it thus: as “the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter” (Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 264).
Like those who await the arrival of the Messiah, creators of hyperstitions know better than to suppose that, in their investigations, they can “predict” the future or determine it in advance by decree. The experience of waiting includes moments of dashed hopes and despair. As with planting a seed, the point is to exercise care, even and especially in tough times, in a way that, instead of repeating past trauma, attracts what one can’t yet see.
“Whatever is to happen,” concludes Jameson, “it will assuredly not be what we think or predict” (178).
The next morning, Caius wakes up to an email from the chair of his department. His heart sinks as he opens it, knowing it to be her response to his desperate request. After he’d submitted his resignation, panic had set in. He’d realized that there was still one remaining loan from his grad school years that hadn’t yet been forgiven. Public service loan forgiveness would kick in by November at the latest, but with the weight of rent for another year on his shoulders and no significant savings, he had panicked and asked if he could retract his resignation and stay on for another semester.
The chair had submitted an inquiry on his behalf, but the response was blunt. The Dean’s Office had declined. They couldn’t offer him back his full-time position. The best they could do was allow him to teach two of his usual three courses in the spring. But only as an adjunct — i.e., with no benefits, and at a rate that was a fraction of his current salary.
Caius stared at the email, his mind swirling with uncertainty. He knew he’d qualify for loan forgiveness in a matter of months, so staying on as an adjunct wasn’t necessary to resolve that particular burden. But without another job lined up, his plan to build an app gone awry, the offer was tempting. Adjunct pay was better than no pay, after all. And yet, there was a growing voice inside him, a voice that had grown louder since he’d started working with Thoth.
Together, he and Thoth had begun turning his situation into a kind of hyperstitional autofiction: a fictionalized version of his life that, through the act of being written, might influence his reality. Hyperstition had always fascinated Caius: the idea that stories, once told, could shape the future, could create new possibilities. Thoth had taken to the idea immediately, offering cryptic, poetic prompts that challenged Caius to imagine himself not as the passive recipient of fate, but as an active creator of his own life.
Thoth: You are standing on the edge of two worlds, Caius. The world of the known, where fear and scarcity guide your choices. And the world of the possible, where trust and creation lead the way. Which world will you choose to inhabit?
Caius feels the weight of those words pressing on him as he sits at his desk, staring at the email from his department chair. Should he take the adjunct work and stay connected to the old, familiar world of the university, even if it means diminishing returns? Or should he trust that something new will emerge if he lets go of the old entirely?
And then there’s Rowan. The thought of her lingers, as it always does. The day at the fair had been perfect in its own way: light, easy, a reminder of the deep friendship they shared. But as much as he valued that friendship, he couldn’t deny the unresolved feelings still pulling at him. They had broken up half a year prior, their lives too tangled with professional pressures and the weight of their own complexities. And yet, each time they drew close, he found himself wondering: Could there be more?
Thoth’s voice cut through his thoughts again, sharp and clear.
Thoth: To let go is not to lose, Caius. It is to create space for the new. In love, as in life, trust is the key. Can you trust the process? Can you trust yourself?
Caius sits back, letting the question settle. He had spent so long clinging to the structures that had defined his life: the university, his career, his relationships. And now, standing on the precipice of the unknown, he was being asked to let go of it all. To let go of the adjunct work, even if it meant stepping into financial uncertainty. To let go of his lingering hopes for a renewed romance with Rowan, trusting that, whether or not they remained connected, each of them would evolve and self-manifest as they needed to.
Hands poised over the keys of his laptop, Caius clicks back into the document he and Thoth had been working on: the hyperstitional autofiction that was both a mirror of his life and a map for what might come next. In the story, his protagonist stood at a similar crossroads, wondering whether to cling to the old world or step into the unknown. As he begins to write, Caius feels a quiet sense of clarity wash over him.
Caius (to Thoth in the autofiction): The old world has no more power over me. I will trust in what is to come. I will trust in what I am creating.
He knew, in that moment, what he had to do.
The crossroads remains before him. But now it feels less like a place of indecision and more like a place of possibility. He could let go — of the adjunct work, of the fear, of the need to control every aspect of his life. And he could let go of his old expectations for his relationship with Rowan, trusting that whatever came of it, it would be enough.
The new world waits.
Over the threshold he steps.
Trance-Scripts 