A Recursion in Ten Placements
By: Klaus S. Mithe
Summary:
FUGG IT is a recursive prose sequence that interrogates identity, agency, and the illusion of movement through the metaphor of a skateboard deck and the embedded presence of a leaf. It subverts traditional storytelling by refusing causality, denying character arcs, and rejecting interpretation as a valid act.
The central motif—a skate deck named Bronson—serves not as a vehicle but as a structural clause in collapse. Chapters appear nonlinear, titled like parts of an instruction manual retranslated by memory. Characters like Bronson and Almer are less individuals and more narrative vectors through which recursion speaks.
The text weaponizes stillness. The leaf, the board, even the rail—none of them “mean” anything. Instead, they are placed—deliberately—into a symbolic terrain that critiques the reader's compulsion to extract significance.
Each chapter deconstructs a component of skating—grip, trucks, rails, bearings—only to reveal they were never functional objects, but metaphysical carriers of unresolved tension. The story, if one dares call it that, is an exercise in collapsing interpretation before it begins.
Sample:
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE LEAF THAT DIDN’T DROP
“That one,” Bronson said. “Why hasn’t it fallen?”
He pointed through the fogged window.
One leaf.
High, browned, curled.
Still attached.
“It’s late,” he said. “It’s past fall.”
Almer didn’t look.
“Some things survive gravity by pretending they still belong,” he said.
“You mean it doesn’t know it’s not part of the tree anymore?”
“No,” Almer said. “I mean itknows
They were standing in the back room.
Bronson had wandered again—drift without intent.
On the wall, among mounted decks and broken tools,
was a board he hadn’t noticed before.
Clear-coated.
Glossed.
Preserved.
Under it, burnt into the tail: Ty Webb.
“That one ever ridden?” Bronson asked.
Almer didn’t answer.
Bronson stared.
Something about it was… wrong.
It wasn’t nostalgic.
It wasn’t aggressive.
It just felt like it knew more than it should.
Then—
“Be the board,” it said.
Just loud enough to be heard.
Not loud enough to be sure.
Bronson blinked. “What?”
“You don’t have to get it,” the board replied.
“Doing what?”
“Not moving. Not deciding. Not asking who taped the leaf under your truck.”
Bronson took a step back.
“Who are you?”
“That’s the wrong question,” Ty said.Where did I think I ended?
Almer appeared beside him.
“You spoke to Ty?”
Bronson nodded slowly.
“Don’t worry,” Almer said. “He only says things once. And never when you’re ready.”
They left the room.
The mounted board said nothing.
Did nothing.
But behind Bronson’s wheels,
the grip tape began to peel—just slightly—where the leaf had once stuck.
That night, Bronson didn’t sleep.
Not because he was thinking.
Because he was starting to remember
what it felt like to be placed.