As the walls began to fall around me I concentrated harder than ever on removing my thoughts. I didn’t know what it would do but it felt like the right thing. As the rocks fell their journeys echoed around the chamber like long-buried thunder, deep and rich. As I pushed harder on my thoughts, forcing them from me, the sound lessened until it was inaudible. I was completely within my own mind and I had removed from it all of my thoughts. I had had no reason to fear the void — I was the void. It had no colour; not even solid black or white as neither of those colours existed anymore. It was not silent either, but instead devoid of all noise including silence. It was removed from all of the senses. It was eternity and it was a micro-second. It was everything and nothing.
In a moment the natural order returned and the vacuum was filled with a flood of images, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. Like a surfer battling the roof of a wave I felt myself suddenly deluged. But just as the void had pushed my sanity to the limit so too did the rush of information. I was overwhelmed to the point of instant exhaustion — my mind torn to shreds by trying to follow so many different sources at once. I felt pressure pushing me out, causing me to grow so that I could accommodate all of this data. When finally it seemed as though I could take no more and that my mind and body would explode under the pressure it all stopped. It was still in me but it wasn’t jostling to be seen, heard or experienced. Instead it waited to be selected just like any other memory.
I finally opened my eyes and looked down at the oval through which Death spoke but it was gone. The void had transferred from inside of me to the outside. Somehow, the entire world had been eliminated. I hovered in the air, above and below nothing, and felt tears come to my eyes. Until that moment I wasn’t aware that I could cry but when I did it felt amazing. It felt as though I was crying out all of the data that I had collected. It was like a relief valve had been activated and I could remove them from me. The weight had near destroyed me and now it would go. I would be free.
I felt a tear wander down my face and onto one of my tentacles, leaving behind it a line of cold clarity in a place where heat and crowd had been the norm. I felt the tear leave me, jumping down toward the nothing that surrounded me. I was fascinated by the concept of unending nothing so I watched the droplet fall away with interest. It hovered a few feet away, stopped by absolutely nothing, and then it started to spread. It bloomed across the nothing and created real versions of the thoughts that had rushed into my head. I was rebuilding a world of tears.
I want you to know now that the yonder-realm is here and it is open to you should you need it. Welcome to the birth of an entire universe — year zero.
Sunday 30 December 2012
Y is for Yonder-realm
I remained frozen, hovering above the glowing disc with its mysterious inscription: Xicalcoa. I wondered if it was an Incan or Mayan word. The moment I puzzled over it the word changed to a sentence: eXecutioner In Chief And Last Court Of Appeal. The words pulsed for a moment before changing to the single word: yes. I had just that moment wondered if that was the name of ‘Death’. It seemed that the words were not only answering me but that they were very sensitively tuned to my thoughts - the vaguest flicker of an idea caused a response. So, Death was already in my head and, worst, there seemed to be no corner of my thoughts which Death couldn’t reach. I was more bonded with another being than ever before but I was more alone too.
I had to think of a way out but as soon as I did Death would know what I was thinking. It was like playing poker with the cards facing out. I needed time to figure out how to change the situation. I needed time and space, but as I had Death in my head space wasn’t something I could count on. Time, however, I could get.
Once again I concentrated on the creek with the leaves in it. Once again I sent all of my thoughts downstream. If I couldn’t beat Death, the least I could do is give it no more ammunition. It was much more difficult this time than it had been; my mind was so crowded with questions that it took a long time to get them to leave. Then, once they had left, many of them returned and had to be sent away again. There was one question, however, that just refused to be banished. I couldn’t keep it at bay: ‘Are you Wisp?’ Below me the answer lit up but I was so scared of the response that I didn’t look for a moment, preferring one last second of innocence. Then I did look down and when I did the sorrow I felt seemed to initiate an avalanche from above. Amongst the rocks tumbling down the tube from which I had entered I could see the glowing truth: I am the one you call Wisp.
I had to think of a way out but as soon as I did Death would know what I was thinking. It was like playing poker with the cards facing out. I needed time to figure out how to change the situation. I needed time and space, but as I had Death in my head space wasn’t something I could count on. Time, however, I could get.
Once again I concentrated on the creek with the leaves in it. Once again I sent all of my thoughts downstream. If I couldn’t beat Death, the least I could do is give it no more ammunition. It was much more difficult this time than it had been; my mind was so crowded with questions that it took a long time to get them to leave. Then, once they had left, many of them returned and had to be sent away again. There was one question, however, that just refused to be banished. I couldn’t keep it at bay: ‘Are you Wisp?’ Below me the answer lit up but I was so scared of the response that I didn’t look for a moment, preferring one last second of innocence. Then I did look down and when I did the sorrow I felt seemed to initiate an avalanche from above. Amongst the rocks tumbling down the tube from which I had entered I could see the glowing truth: I am the one you call Wisp.
Friday 28 December 2012
X is for Xicalcoa
The very moment that I wondered why Wisp was searching my mind was the same in which Wisp knew I was aware of the fact. What followed was an awkward minute where Wisp froze inside my thoughts while I puzzled over what to do. The kicker was that anything I thought of no longer belonged exclusively to me and I had a feeling that I shouldn’t trust Wisp as I had before.
In my previous life I had worked in a high stress environment and I had learned to clear my head. It was a necessity if I wanted to get any sleep as I had long had the habit of keeping my work in mind long after my shift was over. I now began that process. I imagined a stream, clear with ribbons of white, rushing over rocks of deep earth tones. A fallen tree bridged the stream and I sat on it as my human form. My legs kicked the air just above the water and I felt the dappled sunlight and shade on my skin. Beneath me a golden autumn leaf traveled along the stream. When it came out from under the log I tossed a word onto it. The word ‘Wisp’ floated away down the creek on the leaf. I repeated this, throwing all of my thoughts downstream until none remained. Some had to be thrown numerous times but all made it to the end. As usual I was left with just an image of myself sitting on the log over the creek. I felt calm and peaceful as I heard imagined birdsong and the rustle of the leaves in the wind.
The quiet was suddenly broken by a sharp crack, a single clap of sound which reverberated off the surrounding trees and followed me as the log on which I sat broke and I was dropped down, not onto the creek-bed, but into a dark-deep chasm which had split the earth below.
Before I hit the bottom of the fissure I was arrested in mid air. I could faintly make out the crags of rocks which lined the tear down which I had fallen. At the bottom, about ten metres from where I stopped, there was an arena like the ancient greek amphitheatres with benches of rock stretching ever higher around a central, oval disc. On that disc was a single word etched in light: Xicalcoa.
In my previous life I had worked in a high stress environment and I had learned to clear my head. It was a necessity if I wanted to get any sleep as I had long had the habit of keeping my work in mind long after my shift was over. I now began that process. I imagined a stream, clear with ribbons of white, rushing over rocks of deep earth tones. A fallen tree bridged the stream and I sat on it as my human form. My legs kicked the air just above the water and I felt the dappled sunlight and shade on my skin. Beneath me a golden autumn leaf traveled along the stream. When it came out from under the log I tossed a word onto it. The word ‘Wisp’ floated away down the creek on the leaf. I repeated this, throwing all of my thoughts downstream until none remained. Some had to be thrown numerous times but all made it to the end. As usual I was left with just an image of myself sitting on the log over the creek. I felt calm and peaceful as I heard imagined birdsong and the rustle of the leaves in the wind.
The quiet was suddenly broken by a sharp crack, a single clap of sound which reverberated off the surrounding trees and followed me as the log on which I sat broke and I was dropped down, not onto the creek-bed, but into a dark-deep chasm which had split the earth below.
Before I hit the bottom of the fissure I was arrested in mid air. I could faintly make out the crags of rocks which lined the tear down which I had fallen. At the bottom, about ten metres from where I stopped, there was an arena like the ancient greek amphitheatres with benches of rock stretching ever higher around a central, oval disc. On that disc was a single word etched in light: Xicalcoa.
W is for Wisp
Wisp floated in the corner, having assured us that there was nothing we could do. We had asked Wisp about Death but Wisp had only told us that Death could not be summoned. According to Wisp there was no need to do anything more as once you had the idea to see Death, then Death would come. But there was something odd about Wisp’s words. As I have previously mentioned ‘talking’ in spirit form was done by images — you thought of the words you wanted to say and the words would appear to the person you sent them to. The font, colour and size would change according to the person ‘speaking’ or the mood of the speaker at the time. Wisp’s words appeared in a light, feathery handwriting just as they had before but now there were bold words beneath the messages. The large letters were faint, though, and try as I did I couldn’t make them out.
I puzzled away at this in the corner while I absent-mindedly flexed and relaxed my tentacles. I desperately wanted to see if I could pick things up but I didn’t want to show my abilities to Death before Death arrived. If I were an oddity in this world then I might be able to use that to distract Death.
‘Do you think Death can see into our heads before it meets us?’ I asked both Wisp and Jonathan. Wisp’s reply came through first, again in that strange double-talk.
‘Of course not. Why would everyone be afraid of having Death in their head if Death could do it before they meet?’
This time I managed to make out a couple of the bold words behind Wisp’s message: ‘TIME COME’. I tried to forget them as soon as I thought of them. It felt as though someone was crawling through my mind, prehensile feathers were tickling out the thoughts I wanted hidden. It was the worst betrayal, the most invasive horror that I had ever experienced. The touch of the being was gentle, so soft that I couldn’t be sure when it had started but I could feel who it was. The question that burned through me so brightly that it was very visible to my new inhabitant, the question that hurt with its fire, was ‘Why is Wisp searching my mind?’
I puzzled away at this in the corner while I absent-mindedly flexed and relaxed my tentacles. I desperately wanted to see if I could pick things up but I didn’t want to show my abilities to Death before Death arrived. If I were an oddity in this world then I might be able to use that to distract Death.
‘Do you think Death can see into our heads before it meets us?’ I asked both Wisp and Jonathan. Wisp’s reply came through first, again in that strange double-talk.
‘Of course not. Why would everyone be afraid of having Death in their head if Death could do it before they meet?’
This time I managed to make out a couple of the bold words behind Wisp’s message: ‘TIME COME’. I tried to forget them as soon as I thought of them. It felt as though someone was crawling through my mind, prehensile feathers were tickling out the thoughts I wanted hidden. It was the worst betrayal, the most invasive horror that I had ever experienced. The touch of the being was gentle, so soft that I couldn’t be sure when it had started but I could feel who it was. The question that burned through me so brightly that it was very visible to my new inhabitant, the question that hurt with its fire, was ‘Why is Wisp searching my mind?’
Thursday 27 December 2012
V is for Voyage
‘Okay,’ I continued, ‘so we’ve got a plan. Now how do we find death.’
‘You don’t.’ Wisp replied.
Both Jonathan and I looked to Wisp in astonishment. Wisp couldn’t remember their past life and wasn’t exactly knowledgeable on the afterlife either. Wisp looked back without embarrassment; an almost naive surprise was present instead. It was as though Wisp saw no reason why we would be surprised.
‘What do you mean ‘you don’t’?’ I asked.
‘Death finds you. That’s Death’s job. Oh, and ‘Death’ is not the right name either.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I used to know another spirit who knew the one you call Death.’
Jonathan and I both looked at Wisp expectedly; waiting to be told the rest but Wisp just stared benignly. The green velveteen beneath me began to scratch against me. Itching was such a weird phenomenon. I hadn’t felt anything since I had died. It felt as though sparkles of static electricity were climbing and falling all over me. I felt the ghost of my hands twitch as the overwhelming need to scratch overcame me. That’s when something strange happened to me; another sensation joined the itch, a rubbing sensation. It wasn’t overly useful for satisfying the itch but it was better than doing nothing. I had to look to realise what had happened. One of the radiating spikes which seemed to make up my body, a body which was now solid, had curled around and rubbed the source of the itch. As it was the area that I was sitting on I guess you could call it the beyond the grave version of scratching your arse but it felt great. I stopped scratching, my itch more forgotten than satisfied, while I flexed and released the shard which I now thought of as a tentacle. It curled in and out, rusty at first but more graceful the more I did it. I looked at another tentacle and concentrated; it didn’t move but one nearby did. Clearly I would have to get the hang of my new body; my solid form. With a little practice I felt I might be physically ready for a great voyage. But where to go?
‘You don’t.’ Wisp replied.
Both Jonathan and I looked to Wisp in astonishment. Wisp couldn’t remember their past life and wasn’t exactly knowledgeable on the afterlife either. Wisp looked back without embarrassment; an almost naive surprise was present instead. It was as though Wisp saw no reason why we would be surprised.
‘What do you mean ‘you don’t’?’ I asked.
‘Death finds you. That’s Death’s job. Oh, and ‘Death’ is not the right name either.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I used to know another spirit who knew the one you call Death.’
Jonathan and I both looked at Wisp expectedly; waiting to be told the rest but Wisp just stared benignly. The green velveteen beneath me began to scratch against me. Itching was such a weird phenomenon. I hadn’t felt anything since I had died. It felt as though sparkles of static electricity were climbing and falling all over me. I felt the ghost of my hands twitch as the overwhelming need to scratch overcame me. That’s when something strange happened to me; another sensation joined the itch, a rubbing sensation. It wasn’t overly useful for satisfying the itch but it was better than doing nothing. I had to look to realise what had happened. One of the radiating spikes which seemed to make up my body, a body which was now solid, had curled around and rubbed the source of the itch. As it was the area that I was sitting on I guess you could call it the beyond the grave version of scratching your arse but it felt great. I stopped scratching, my itch more forgotten than satisfied, while I flexed and released the shard which I now thought of as a tentacle. It curled in and out, rusty at first but more graceful the more I did it. I looked at another tentacle and concentrated; it didn’t move but one nearby did. Clearly I would have to get the hang of my new body; my solid form. With a little practice I felt I might be physically ready for a great voyage. But where to go?
Monday 24 December 2012
U is for Ultimatum
When I started this journey I never expected to have death in the palm of my hand. Then again, I never expected to be dead either. It’s been three days. Three days during which I died, grieved for family and friends forever lost to me, met new friends, searched for Wisp’s family and nearly destroyed my own brother. So you could say I’ve been a bit busy. Oh, and then I found out I was dying again.
Jonathan, Wisp, and I sat in silence after Jonathan announced that we were all destined for the void. I searched deep within my mind and discovered that my initial reaction was accurate: I’d rather be dead. I’d rather be so dead that I was non-existent. If it came to it I’d take hell over the void. I’d take any of them because anything is better than nothing. If you doubt that then you haven’t experienced true nothing. Endless, unforgiving nothing. Not black, not white; nothing. It is the stuff of utter insanity.
‘So, what can we do?’ I asked Jonathan and then repeated to Wisp. I waited for a moment until both came into my head and scrambled each other’s messages as though someone had written statements over each other on a whiteboard. Wisp had started first so the fine, feathered writing Wisp projected was overwritten by Jonathan’s bold copperplate which reminded me of old German newspaper.
‘There is one thing we could do. It rarely works but we could try.’
‘I’m willing to try anything. What do we have to do?’
‘Before we discuss what we will do we should assess the ramifications. Both of you need to understand that our only way out of the void may not be any more palatable than the place we are leaving—‘
‘Surely anything—‘ I interrupted only to be interrupted again.
‘Sssh! Let Jonathan speak.’ Wisp implored.
‘We could challenge Death.’
‘Death? As in the guy from Bill and Ted?’ I asked.
‘No. Death, as in the one who decides our fate.’
‘Well, the worst he could do is send us to the void and we’re already destined for that.’
‘No, that is not the worst. With Death you get two options and, you must understand that neither are good. You can either submit yourself to the eternal void or allow Death to look into your mind. That is the ultimatum.’
Jonathan, Wisp, and I sat in silence after Jonathan announced that we were all destined for the void. I searched deep within my mind and discovered that my initial reaction was accurate: I’d rather be dead. I’d rather be so dead that I was non-existent. If it came to it I’d take hell over the void. I’d take any of them because anything is better than nothing. If you doubt that then you haven’t experienced true nothing. Endless, unforgiving nothing. Not black, not white; nothing. It is the stuff of utter insanity.
‘So, what can we do?’ I asked Jonathan and then repeated to Wisp. I waited for a moment until both came into my head and scrambled each other’s messages as though someone had written statements over each other on a whiteboard. Wisp had started first so the fine, feathered writing Wisp projected was overwritten by Jonathan’s bold copperplate which reminded me of old German newspaper.
‘There is one thing we could do. It rarely works but we could try.’
‘I’m willing to try anything. What do we have to do?’
‘Before we discuss what we will do we should assess the ramifications. Both of you need to understand that our only way out of the void may not be any more palatable than the place we are leaving—‘
‘Surely anything—‘ I interrupted only to be interrupted again.
‘Sssh! Let Jonathan speak.’ Wisp implored.
‘We could challenge Death.’
‘Death? As in the guy from Bill and Ted?’ I asked.
‘No. Death, as in the one who decides our fate.’
‘Well, the worst he could do is send us to the void and we’re already destined for that.’
‘No, that is not the worst. With Death you get two options and, you must understand that neither are good. You can either submit yourself to the eternal void or allow Death to look into your mind. That is the ultimatum.’
T is for Triptych
‘Sleep-fire? What is it?’
‘Well, according to Fanny Gibson, she’s a dear you know, passed away in 1895 and loves a chat about textiles—‘
‘Jonathan,’ Wisp interrupted, ‘Sleep-fire.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, Fanny told me that sleep-fire is passed between us when we communicate. I suspect a good way to think about it would be like a flu for spirits. Because all of the never-roam are linked we now all have it. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you for much longer.’
‘Why? It’s not like you can die?’ Wisp asked. I didn’t want to speak as I had a dreadful feeling what was coming.
‘Yes, we can die. That is, we can be lost to the void. It’s a kind of death and, in a way, it’s much worse than a mortal death. You see, we’re here on a stopover. No one’s really sure why we’ve been stuck here while others get through but we are here. The point is that after a while we should be heralded off to the real afterlife.’
‘Is there a time limit on being sent to the next afterlife?’ I asked.
‘Not that I am aware of. One of the never-roam was here for more than five hundred years before heading off to the next afterlife. He used his last thought on this realm to tell all of us that he was moving on. He was lucky. Now that we have sleep-fire we won’t be around for long. None of us.’
‘And because you’ve spoken to us … ‘ I added with dawning realisation.
‘I’m afraid so. You and Wisp are both infected. I couldn’t have prevented it as I didn’t know I had it until now. As one of our number has gone it means that we were first subjected to the virus as long as a month ago. You never had a chance. As a result, here we are; a triptych of death.’
‘Well, according to Fanny Gibson, she’s a dear you know, passed away in 1895 and loves a chat about textiles—‘
‘Jonathan,’ Wisp interrupted, ‘Sleep-fire.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, Fanny told me that sleep-fire is passed between us when we communicate. I suspect a good way to think about it would be like a flu for spirits. Because all of the never-roam are linked we now all have it. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you for much longer.’
‘Why? It’s not like you can die?’ Wisp asked. I didn’t want to speak as I had a dreadful feeling what was coming.
‘Yes, we can die. That is, we can be lost to the void. It’s a kind of death and, in a way, it’s much worse than a mortal death. You see, we’re here on a stopover. No one’s really sure why we’ve been stuck here while others get through but we are here. The point is that after a while we should be heralded off to the real afterlife.’
‘Is there a time limit on being sent to the next afterlife?’ I asked.
‘Not that I am aware of. One of the never-roam was here for more than five hundred years before heading off to the next afterlife. He used his last thought on this realm to tell all of us that he was moving on. He was lucky. Now that we have sleep-fire we won’t be around for long. None of us.’
‘And because you’ve spoken to us … ‘ I added with dawning realisation.
‘I’m afraid so. You and Wisp are both infected. I couldn’t have prevented it as I didn’t know I had it until now. As one of our number has gone it means that we were first subjected to the virus as long as a month ago. You never had a chance. As a result, here we are; a triptych of death.’
Wednesday 19 December 2012
S is for Schlaf-feuer
I looked down at the couch on which I rested and saw that I had created a dent in the cushion. Suddenly I had mass. My head swam with images of the things I could do; I could touch things, pick them up, manipulate them. I was immortal (or so I guess, I mean can anyone other than James Bond die twice?) and I could do things. I could become the coolest superhero on the planet; I could be as reckless as Iron Man, and probably ten-times drunker as I assumed alcohol wouldn’t affect me). This was awesome!
Then I thought back to the way Jonathan had said it. He had sounded like he was a doctor telling me I had six weeks to live. I thought through what he must have meant: I was now visible. I could start a riot the second I left Jonathan’s house. A floating, honest-to-God spirit! They’d dump John Edwards in a second to get their hands on me. And what could I tell them? That they had secret basements full of emotion and that apart from that I had no more idea about the afterlife than them? I’m sure that wouldn’t impress anyone and it might make some try to kill me properly.
‘Can I die?’ I asked Jonathan.
‘That is a matter on which I cannot comment. I have only heard of one other realest spirit before and I know not where they are now. I shall try to contact one of their friends, though.’
Jonathan hovered above his chair and began flashing colours again as he contacted the Never-roam. He wasn’t gone long, though.
‘It’s the strangest thing but I can’t get a hold of them.’
‘Maybe they’re out.’ I replied distractedly.
‘Honey, they’re the Never-roam, remember.’ Wisp reminded me.
‘Oh yeah. Maybe …’
‘There can be no maybe. If she is uncontactable then something is very wrong. I shall try someone else.’
Jonathan flashed colours again and this time he found a spirit quickly. He seemed to be concentrating harder than before, as though he had to shout to be heard and the other voice was equally weak. I imagined radio static over their conversation.
‘I see.’ Jonathan said, slipping out of the talk. ‘I have some bad news,’ he addressed us as his colour returned to normal, ‘we believe that we have fallen victim to what the Germans call Schlaf-feuer — sleep-fire.’
Then I thought back to the way Jonathan had said it. He had sounded like he was a doctor telling me I had six weeks to live. I thought through what he must have meant: I was now visible. I could start a riot the second I left Jonathan’s house. A floating, honest-to-God spirit! They’d dump John Edwards in a second to get their hands on me. And what could I tell them? That they had secret basements full of emotion and that apart from that I had no more idea about the afterlife than them? I’m sure that wouldn’t impress anyone and it might make some try to kill me properly.
‘Can I die?’ I asked Jonathan.
‘That is a matter on which I cannot comment. I have only heard of one other realest spirit before and I know not where they are now. I shall try to contact one of their friends, though.’
Jonathan hovered above his chair and began flashing colours again as he contacted the Never-roam. He wasn’t gone long, though.
‘It’s the strangest thing but I can’t get a hold of them.’
‘Maybe they’re out.’ I replied distractedly.
‘Honey, they’re the Never-roam, remember.’ Wisp reminded me.
‘Oh yeah. Maybe …’
‘There can be no maybe. If she is uncontactable then something is very wrong. I shall try someone else.’
Jonathan flashed colours again and this time he found a spirit quickly. He seemed to be concentrating harder than before, as though he had to shout to be heard and the other voice was equally weak. I imagined radio static over their conversation.
‘I see.’ Jonathan said, slipping out of the talk. ‘I have some bad news,’ he addressed us as his colour returned to normal, ‘we believe that we have fallen victim to what the Germans call Schlaf-feuer — sleep-fire.’
Tuesday 18 December 2012
R is for Realessence
I was immediately swept up in the current of the cruel liquid-air that ran through the chambers of the heart of my brother’s house. I was pushed through the chambers, rapidly experiencing joy, sorrow, anger and contentment in succession, feeling each emotion for a moment before moving on to the next. Above me I caught fleeting glances of Wisp, who was coloured a terrified sharp orange. I called out to Wisp for a report. If I had’ve kept my fingers they would have been crossed to the point of white-knuckles.
I continued to swirl for another minute without anything from Wisp. The emotions that I was going through were becoming more than just a roller coaster. I could feel something within me stretching. It was as though the very particles of my form were stretching, like those ships going through black holes in old sci-fi movies. I tried to brace myself, to hold myself together but I had no power to do so. I had no muscles, no bones, just light. Again I cried out in our peculiar way of communicating. I imagined capital letters flying from me to Wisp. I was scared — more scared than I believed possible considering I had no reason to fear death. I felt myself breaking and I did the only thing I could do; absolutely nothing.
* * * * *
It was some time later that I became aware of myself again. I was in Jonathan’s house but, unlike the last time I had been there, I was actually resting on the couch instead of hovering above it. I could feel the sticky velveteen; unwashed for an indeterminate amount of years. Jonathan backed away as soon as I could see him but Wisp stayed by me.
‘What happened? Did it work?’ I asked through the haze of transition.
‘You’re okay!’ Wisp replied
‘What about my brother?’
‘Heath’s better. You fixed the tear.’
‘Great! Let’s get going then. We still have to look for your family Wisp.’
‘I’m afraid you can’t do that.’ Jonathan said from a chair across the room, ‘you’ll be spotted. You’ve achieved realessence.’
I continued to swirl for another minute without anything from Wisp. The emotions that I was going through were becoming more than just a roller coaster. I could feel something within me stretching. It was as though the very particles of my form were stretching, like those ships going through black holes in old sci-fi movies. I tried to brace myself, to hold myself together but I had no power to do so. I had no muscles, no bones, just light. Again I cried out in our peculiar way of communicating. I imagined capital letters flying from me to Wisp. I was scared — more scared than I believed possible considering I had no reason to fear death. I felt myself breaking and I did the only thing I could do; absolutely nothing.
* * * * *
It was some time later that I became aware of myself again. I was in Jonathan’s house but, unlike the last time I had been there, I was actually resting on the couch instead of hovering above it. I could feel the sticky velveteen; unwashed for an indeterminate amount of years. Jonathan backed away as soon as I could see him but Wisp stayed by me.
‘What happened? Did it work?’ I asked through the haze of transition.
‘You’re okay!’ Wisp replied
‘What about my brother?’
‘Heath’s better. You fixed the tear.’
‘Great! Let’s get going then. We still have to look for your family Wisp.’
‘I’m afraid you can’t do that.’ Jonathan said from a chair across the room, ‘you’ll be spotted. You’ve achieved realessence.’
Sunday 16 December 2012
Q is for Quintessence
As Wisp and I headed back to my brother’s house I felt lighter. It was a strange feeling as I hadn’t actually done anything and Jonathan’s instructions were entirely theoretical but I still felt that at least I was heading in the right direction.
At my brother’s place the house was empty. I hoped one of his mates had taken him in for the night as it would be much better for him to be out of the place until it was fixed. In the back of my mind I feared that my brother had been removed by the police or the fabled men in white coats. Inside the house evidence of the earlier disturbance littered the kitchen and loungeroom. I was finally glad to be a spirit just so I couldn’t cut my feet on the broken glass which sat like fresh snow on the tiles and carpet.
I hovered over the entrance of the basement with Wisp beside me. Both of us had been given instructions. Wisp was to stay outside and enter only after fifteen minutes. I was to drown in the quintessence until then.
Jonathan had explained to us about the quintessence. It was a variation of dark matter; that much the physicists had correct, but they did not understand its function. In fact, no one living was likely to ever understand it as it was without the realm of the breathing life. Quintessence was what filled the basement in my brother’s house. It filled the ‘heart’ in every house. It was not linked to the acceleration of the universe, but rather the excess of emotions. Jonathan explained that when you feel that you are about to burst because you are feeling an emotion so strongly — whether it be love or hate, sorrow or joy — the quintessence was the reason that you didn’t explode in feeling. It was like a sponge for feelings. Sometimes, however, it malfunctioned. This could result in anything from a person having a ‘nervous breakdown’ (Jonathan said they aren’t really nervous breakdowns) through an excess of emotion or, as had happened with my brother, the quintessence might stop taking the emotions and start giving them back.
I looked over at Wisp and Wisp looked back at me. At first Wisp had protested the plan but it had become clear that it was the only plan. I admit I could feel that tingle of fear but I was ready to try it, no matter the consequences. I broke eye contact with Wisp and dropped down into the quintessence as though it were the cold, unforgiving ocean.
At my brother’s place the house was empty. I hoped one of his mates had taken him in for the night as it would be much better for him to be out of the place until it was fixed. In the back of my mind I feared that my brother had been removed by the police or the fabled men in white coats. Inside the house evidence of the earlier disturbance littered the kitchen and loungeroom. I was finally glad to be a spirit just so I couldn’t cut my feet on the broken glass which sat like fresh snow on the tiles and carpet.
I hovered over the entrance of the basement with Wisp beside me. Both of us had been given instructions. Wisp was to stay outside and enter only after fifteen minutes. I was to drown in the quintessence until then.
Jonathan had explained to us about the quintessence. It was a variation of dark matter; that much the physicists had correct, but they did not understand its function. In fact, no one living was likely to ever understand it as it was without the realm of the breathing life. Quintessence was what filled the basement in my brother’s house. It filled the ‘heart’ in every house. It was not linked to the acceleration of the universe, but rather the excess of emotions. Jonathan explained that when you feel that you are about to burst because you are feeling an emotion so strongly — whether it be love or hate, sorrow or joy — the quintessence was the reason that you didn’t explode in feeling. It was like a sponge for feelings. Sometimes, however, it malfunctioned. This could result in anything from a person having a ‘nervous breakdown’ (Jonathan said they aren’t really nervous breakdowns) through an excess of emotion or, as had happened with my brother, the quintessence might stop taking the emotions and start giving them back.
I looked over at Wisp and Wisp looked back at me. At first Wisp had protested the plan but it had become clear that it was the only plan. I admit I could feel that tingle of fear but I was ready to try it, no matter the consequences. I broke eye contact with Wisp and dropped down into the quintessence as though it were the cold, unforgiving ocean.
P is for Pericardia
Jonathan then moved back on his chair and went into a sort of trance. His green hue gave way to shards of red, yellow, blue, and every other colour known to humanity. As Jonathan seemed to cycle through them like a radio tuning to stations some were overlapped, creating new colours like blue/yellow, red/green and pink/orange. There were no more of Jonathan’s words coming into my head but I could hear a faint, high-pitched squeal like a modem across a quiet room. The flashing colours finally subsided and Jonathan began to control the colour changes. He appeared to be in conversation with three people: Sickly yellow, deep crimson and olive green. He rotated between these colours and his own forest green depending on who was speaking. At one stage he began to flicker between crimson and olive before his forest green returned. I figured crimson and olive were interrupting each other before Jonathan told them to take their turns.
I watched Jonathan, fascinated by his ability, as Wisp looked around the room. Clearly Wisp had seen all of this before. A few minutes later Jonathan returned to his forest green colour and the high-pitched trilling faded out.
‘Well, that was enlightening. According to the knowledgable women and men of our network you are no ordinary spirit. Recall, if you will, my explanation that you had been in the heart of the house. Well, just like a human heart has a pericardia; a sac in which the heart is protected; so too does the house heart. It appears that you have breached the pericardia of your brother’s house heart, which you shouldn’t have been able to do.’
‘But I did it too.’ Wisp cut in.
‘Yes, I asked them about that. They believe that when our friend here penetrated the protective sheath they left a hole through which you could enter.’
‘I tried to go into a nicer part of the … heart. I tried to make it better.’
‘The others were a bit confused by that too. Meredith, the crimson spirit, thought that you may have left a permanent tear in the first chamber but only a temporary one in the second.’
‘Is there a way to fix it? I want to help my brother.’
‘There is but you must understand something. Every house has these hearts, the chambers of which are called Keeping Rooms. In the Keeping Rooms all of the emotions which have been shed within the house are stored. They usually leak slowly, which is why you may sometimes get an instinctual feeling that a house is ‘happy’ or ‘sad’. You’ve opened a flood-gate. Now we’re going to have to try to close the crevasse.
I watched Jonathan, fascinated by his ability, as Wisp looked around the room. Clearly Wisp had seen all of this before. A few minutes later Jonathan returned to his forest green colour and the high-pitched trilling faded out.
‘Well, that was enlightening. According to the knowledgable women and men of our network you are no ordinary spirit. Recall, if you will, my explanation that you had been in the heart of the house. Well, just like a human heart has a pericardia; a sac in which the heart is protected; so too does the house heart. It appears that you have breached the pericardia of your brother’s house heart, which you shouldn’t have been able to do.’
‘But I did it too.’ Wisp cut in.
‘Yes, I asked them about that. They believe that when our friend here penetrated the protective sheath they left a hole through which you could enter.’
‘I tried to go into a nicer part of the … heart. I tried to make it better.’
‘The others were a bit confused by that too. Meredith, the crimson spirit, thought that you may have left a permanent tear in the first chamber but only a temporary one in the second.’
‘Is there a way to fix it? I want to help my brother.’
‘There is but you must understand something. Every house has these hearts, the chambers of which are called Keeping Rooms. In the Keeping Rooms all of the emotions which have been shed within the house are stored. They usually leak slowly, which is why you may sometimes get an instinctual feeling that a house is ‘happy’ or ‘sad’. You’ve opened a flood-gate. Now we’re going to have to try to close the crevasse.
Saturday 15 December 2012
O is for Organ failure
Wisp led me away and over the roofs of suburbia like a gritty magic-carpet ride. Disney never envisaged the factories and hills hoists and washing that would never be fully clean in the polluted air. I was struggling to pay attention to our journey as I couldn’t get the thought of my brother’s pain out of my head. The afterlife was starting to blow and I wished now that I had managed to find my way off the planet when I died so that I wouldn’t have had the chance to make my brother feel this bad. It had become clear to me that there were many people who had died and weren’t buzzing around the planet. If they all had’ve stayed then we would have been overrun with all of the people who had died throughout history. Why had Wisp and I stayed behind?
Abruptly Wisp pulled me down and through a hole in a red-tiled roof. The house which we had entered had clearly seen better days as the paint flaked crisply on the walls and subsidence had caused a window to shift in the wall and leave a large gap. On an old sofa lined with worn, brown velveteen sat a being like Wisp and I.
‘Wisp! How’s things. Come in, come in. Pull up a chair.’ The green spark turned to me, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. Please take a seat. My name is Jonathan Fitzmorris.’
Jonathan eagerly bid us to sit. I mused that if we had’ve had hats and coats Jonathan likely would have taken them from us and hung them up in the hall. I hadn’t actually sat since my transformation and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was possible as I seemed to be able to go through everything. I settled for hovering above a chair.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come to see me. What can I do for you?’
‘Jonathan, my friend here needs some help. She’s activated something in her brother’s house. It’s a basement that isn’t normally there.’
‘My dear,’ Jonathan replied to me, ‘I believe I can help you. I am a part of a group called Never-roam. We communicate telepathically as, you may have guessed, we don’t leave our houses. We live as though we were still human. I have heard of this phenomenon that you have described before. You were in the heart of the house. What has happened is similar to organ failure.’
Abruptly Wisp pulled me down and through a hole in a red-tiled roof. The house which we had entered had clearly seen better days as the paint flaked crisply on the walls and subsidence had caused a window to shift in the wall and leave a large gap. On an old sofa lined with worn, brown velveteen sat a being like Wisp and I.
‘Wisp! How’s things. Come in, come in. Pull up a chair.’ The green spark turned to me, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. Please take a seat. My name is Jonathan Fitzmorris.’
Jonathan eagerly bid us to sit. I mused that if we had’ve had hats and coats Jonathan likely would have taken them from us and hung them up in the hall. I hadn’t actually sat since my transformation and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was possible as I seemed to be able to go through everything. I settled for hovering above a chair.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come to see me. What can I do for you?’
‘Jonathan, my friend here needs some help. She’s activated something in her brother’s house. It’s a basement that isn’t normally there.’
‘My dear,’ Jonathan replied to me, ‘I believe I can help you. I am a part of a group called Never-roam. We communicate telepathically as, you may have guessed, we don’t leave our houses. We live as though we were still human. I have heard of this phenomenon that you have described before. You were in the heart of the house. What has happened is similar to organ failure.’
Friday 14 December 2012
N is for Never-roam
I led the way back toward the stairs to the mystery basement; the Keeping Room. I expected to feel the rush of adrenaline and a slight wave of nausea which had always accompanied fear in my living body. It was strange having the feeling of fear without the physical sensation — I thought that it seemed like I had uncovered a cheat code in life. A cheat code that let me still recognise emotion but never feel that I have to obey it. I felt, in that moment, invincible.
We hovered over the entrance to the basement. From there I could see the dimensions of the room, taking up about a sixth of the size of the house. I floated across to the area beyond that room. I looked over at Wisp.
‘I’m going to try to enter the room beyond the one which I went to before. If I’m not back in five minutes come in for me.’
‘Will you be safe?’
‘I don’t know, but I get the feeling that I activated a bad section of the basement. I hope that not all of them are bad.’
‘Okay. I’m watching the clock on the wall. Go!’
I plunged beneath the kitchen floor and into a room the same size as the first Keeping Room. Once again the wind swept me up and held me powerless, although now I was feeling happiness. No, not happiness, more like joy, contentment and bliss all in one. It was as though everything was right with the world. I hovered within this air, floating as though on a calm ocean. It was beautiful but I had to go. I didn’t want to worry Wisp after the day we’d already had.
When I got up to the kitchen Wisp was waiting, one eye on the clock.
‘Can you see Heath?’ I asked her.
‘Yes, he’s come over all calm and smiling. You did it!’
A crash came from the living room. This time it was Heath falling onto the floor, racking with sobs despite the presence of his friends.
‘It didn’t work!’ I yelled.
‘It did work, but only while you were down there.’ Wisp replied.
‘I have only one option, then.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘I have to. I will stay here.’
‘What about you? What about if someone else needs help?’
‘I got him into this and I’ll get him out.’
‘There must be another way. I have heard of a group, the Never-roam. We have to find them.’
We hovered over the entrance to the basement. From there I could see the dimensions of the room, taking up about a sixth of the size of the house. I floated across to the area beyond that room. I looked over at Wisp.
‘I’m going to try to enter the room beyond the one which I went to before. If I’m not back in five minutes come in for me.’
‘Will you be safe?’
‘I don’t know, but I get the feeling that I activated a bad section of the basement. I hope that not all of them are bad.’
‘Okay. I’m watching the clock on the wall. Go!’
I plunged beneath the kitchen floor and into a room the same size as the first Keeping Room. Once again the wind swept me up and held me powerless, although now I was feeling happiness. No, not happiness, more like joy, contentment and bliss all in one. It was as though everything was right with the world. I hovered within this air, floating as though on a calm ocean. It was beautiful but I had to go. I didn’t want to worry Wisp after the day we’d already had.
When I got up to the kitchen Wisp was waiting, one eye on the clock.
‘Can you see Heath?’ I asked her.
‘Yes, he’s come over all calm and smiling. You did it!’
A crash came from the living room. This time it was Heath falling onto the floor, racking with sobs despite the presence of his friends.
‘It didn’t work!’ I yelled.
‘It did work, but only while you were down there.’ Wisp replied.
‘I have only one option, then.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘I have to. I will stay here.’
‘What about you? What about if someone else needs help?’
‘I got him into this and I’ll get him out.’
‘There must be another way. I have heard of a group, the Never-roam. We have to find them.’
Thursday 13 December 2012
M is for Might
Wisp turned to me as we watched John stumble back into my brother’s house.
‘So, you wanna look around some more?’
‘Not near that room.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Bad memories - not mine, but I think my brother might have been involved.’
‘So the house has a room with his memories in it?’
‘Yeah, I guess. The weirdest thing is that there is no basement in his house.’
‘Well, clearly there is. You were in it.’
‘That’s what I’m saying. There was never one before and I bet that if you asked my brother now he would tell you that there is no basement. It’s like it’s the house’s room, rather than the owners.’
‘Okay. What—‘
From inside the house there came a huge crash as a wooden chair bounced off the loungeroom wall.
‘What the hell is that?’
There was shouting as it appeared someone had gone Hulk on the place.
‘Heath, what the fuck—‘
‘Put it down! You’ll hurt someone!’
‘What the h—‘
A second chair, or perhaps the first one, liberated itself by way of crashing through the window and landing in the backyard.
Wisp and I floated back into the kitchen where Heath was standing with the kitchen table held over his head. A statuette of a man on a horse, which had sat on his table since he had moved out, was in the corner, the half of the rider was separate from the horse which was also separate from the base. Heath’s muscles bulged as a look of pure grief and outrage started out from his eyes.
He began to pull the table back, as though he would use the remaining momentum to throw it. That’s when his balance was off and that’s when Ben, his best mate, took the chance to tackle him to the ground. Heath was quickly beaten and he collapsed against the table and the wall.
‘What the hell is wrong with you, Heath?’
‘I don’t know. I was fine and then I started thinking about my sister and I was angry. I don’t even know why I was angry.’
I turned to Wisp, ‘Am I crazy to think that the Keeping Room might be involved in this?’
‘No. Not much is crazy at all when you’re dead, though.’
‘I have an idea. It’ll take a tonne of guts. And I can’t guarantee it’ll work.’
‘But it might, and that’s good enough for me.’ Wisp replied as we watched my shocked brother calm down.
‘So, you wanna look around some more?’
‘Not near that room.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Bad memories - not mine, but I think my brother might have been involved.’
‘So the house has a room with his memories in it?’
‘Yeah, I guess. The weirdest thing is that there is no basement in his house.’
‘Well, clearly there is. You were in it.’
‘That’s what I’m saying. There was never one before and I bet that if you asked my brother now he would tell you that there is no basement. It’s like it’s the house’s room, rather than the owners.’
‘Okay. What—‘
From inside the house there came a huge crash as a wooden chair bounced off the loungeroom wall.
‘What the hell is that?’
There was shouting as it appeared someone had gone Hulk on the place.
‘Heath, what the fuck—‘
‘Put it down! You’ll hurt someone!’
‘What the h—‘
A second chair, or perhaps the first one, liberated itself by way of crashing through the window and landing in the backyard.
Wisp and I floated back into the kitchen where Heath was standing with the kitchen table held over his head. A statuette of a man on a horse, which had sat on his table since he had moved out, was in the corner, the half of the rider was separate from the horse which was also separate from the base. Heath’s muscles bulged as a look of pure grief and outrage started out from his eyes.
He began to pull the table back, as though he would use the remaining momentum to throw it. That’s when his balance was off and that’s when Ben, his best mate, took the chance to tackle him to the ground. Heath was quickly beaten and he collapsed against the table and the wall.
‘What the hell is wrong with you, Heath?’
‘I don’t know. I was fine and then I started thinking about my sister and I was angry. I don’t even know why I was angry.’
I turned to Wisp, ‘Am I crazy to think that the Keeping Room might be involved in this?’
‘No. Not much is crazy at all when you’re dead, though.’
‘I have an idea. It’ll take a tonne of guts. And I can’t guarantee it’ll work.’
‘But it might, and that’s good enough for me.’ Wisp replied as we watched my shocked brother calm down.
Wednesday 12 December 2012
L is for Lost-and-Found
The Keeping Room was incredible - soft and red like plush velvet, it pulsated in a steady rhythm. I looked at the ceiling, and heard the tv on above me. How could they not hear this? It was as loud as thunder. Then I realised that until I had walked in here I hadn’t heard it either. There was something strange about this place. The room in which I was standing seemed to speak with each pulse but the words were numerous and jumbled. I moved into the centre of the room and into the focus of wind coming through the two open doors. When the breeze first hit me I was held by the worst feelings I had ever felt. Fear, doubt, aching sadness as though I had just lost everything I ever loved. I no longer had knees but I fell to the floor anyway. I was stricken silent — unable to put words to what I was feeling. I felt as though I were ice; blue ice with no centre. Not even a centre of air or ice but a vacuum. Everything that was me was sucked out in that room.
I huddled on the floor, unable to move under the weight of horror in that room. If I had’ve been able to move I have little doubt that I would have tried to stop the pain in anyway possible. I didn’t know if I could die again but I would’ve tried if it would make the horror stop.
The next thing I knew I was in the back garden of my brother’s house. Wisp hovered over me as though I were about to explode.
‘Are you okay?’ Wisp asked as I felt myself flicker to life.
‘I am now. Where was I?’
‘Somewhere called the Keeping Room.’
‘That wasn’t any normal room.’
‘It didn’t seem normal. I don’t know what it was, though.’
‘Well, I’m not going back in there. That was—‘
We were interrupted by my brother’s friend, John A, who had stumbled drunk into the backyard. He looked through us as he lumbered toward the lemon tree, only just managing to lean one hand against the trunk before the flood came. Well John, you’re going to have a big headache tomorrow, aren’t you?
I huddled on the floor, unable to move under the weight of horror in that room. If I had’ve been able to move I have little doubt that I would have tried to stop the pain in anyway possible. I didn’t know if I could die again but I would’ve tried if it would make the horror stop.
The next thing I knew I was in the back garden of my brother’s house. Wisp hovered over me as though I were about to explode.
‘Are you okay?’ Wisp asked as I felt myself flicker to life.
‘I am now. Where was I?’
‘Somewhere called the Keeping Room.’
‘That wasn’t any normal room.’
‘It didn’t seem normal. I don’t know what it was, though.’
‘Well, I’m not going back in there. That was—‘
We were interrupted by my brother’s friend, John A, who had stumbled drunk into the backyard. He looked through us as he lumbered toward the lemon tree, only just managing to lean one hand against the trunk before the flood came. Well John, you’re going to have a big headache tomorrow, aren’t you?
Monday 10 December 2012
K is for Keeping Room
Thanks to Christine Town-Treweek for letting me use her pic as inspiration.
Wisp and I hovered together over the main streets, back alleys, pubs, shops and supermarkets of middle suburbia. We swooped through the supermarket several times as it seemed to be the peak shopping time and we figured that amongst those who were running to get to the checkout someone Wisp had known might be among them.
The sky grew dark very quickly; it had been close to dusk when we had entered the supermarket but as we followed a group and their trolleys out of the automatic doors we entered the halo of an orange streetlight which cut through the pitch-black sky.
‘Well, maybe next time.’ Wisp lamented while heading away from the shops.
‘There are still a lot of people in the beer gardens and pubs. Why don’t we hang around and have a look?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t feel like we’ll get anywhere.’
‘Do you think it’s pessimism or instinct?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wisp replied. The words in my head had turned to the colour of dark blue ink. Wisp was crying through thought.
‘It’s okay. We’ll find someone. You can’t give up after a first glance.’
‘I’m sorry, I just wonder if I’ll ever remember.’
‘I’m sure you will. In the meantime, why don’t we go have some fun?’
‘Fun? What can we do?’
‘Come on!’ I beckoned Wisp as I headed off towards my brother’s house. If anyone would be having a few beers and watching the footy it would be him. I figured a night of pointless sport and people having fun might cheer Wisp up and it turns out I wasn’t too far off. Wisp had a minor breakthrough. It wasn’t much but it was something. During the game one of my brothers friends yelled out ‘Screw the maggies!’ and Wisp seemed to brighten instantly.
‘I’ve remembered something!’ Wisp yelled above the commotion.
‘What?’
‘I hate Collingwood.’
I felt myself grin. ‘That’s a good start.’
After the game Wisp was hard at work, trying to understand how this new piece of information could work within the context of a previous life. I floated along happily. My brother had seemed happy and I was glad. I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was going which is how I ended up taking Wisp right over my mum’s house. We went in for a look around and that’s when I saw something new — a trapdoor in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was open. I told Wisp to wait for me and floated just above the stairs into a basement that hadn’t been here before. The sign on the wall said it was ‘The Keeping Room’.
Wisp and I hovered together over the main streets, back alleys, pubs, shops and supermarkets of middle suburbia. We swooped through the supermarket several times as it seemed to be the peak shopping time and we figured that amongst those who were running to get to the checkout someone Wisp had known might be among them.
The sky grew dark very quickly; it had been close to dusk when we had entered the supermarket but as we followed a group and their trolleys out of the automatic doors we entered the halo of an orange streetlight which cut through the pitch-black sky.
‘Well, maybe next time.’ Wisp lamented while heading away from the shops.
‘There are still a lot of people in the beer gardens and pubs. Why don’t we hang around and have a look?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t feel like we’ll get anywhere.’
‘Do you think it’s pessimism or instinct?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wisp replied. The words in my head had turned to the colour of dark blue ink. Wisp was crying through thought.
‘It’s okay. We’ll find someone. You can’t give up after a first glance.’
‘I’m sorry, I just wonder if I’ll ever remember.’
‘I’m sure you will. In the meantime, why don’t we go have some fun?’
‘Fun? What can we do?’
‘Come on!’ I beckoned Wisp as I headed off towards my brother’s house. If anyone would be having a few beers and watching the footy it would be him. I figured a night of pointless sport and people having fun might cheer Wisp up and it turns out I wasn’t too far off. Wisp had a minor breakthrough. It wasn’t much but it was something. During the game one of my brothers friends yelled out ‘Screw the maggies!’ and Wisp seemed to brighten instantly.
‘I’ve remembered something!’ Wisp yelled above the commotion.
‘What?’
‘I hate Collingwood.’
I felt myself grin. ‘That’s a good start.’
After the game Wisp was hard at work, trying to understand how this new piece of information could work within the context of a previous life. I floated along happily. My brother had seemed happy and I was glad. I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was going which is how I ended up taking Wisp right over my mum’s house. We went in for a look around and that’s when I saw something new — a trapdoor in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was open. I told Wisp to wait for me and floated just above the stairs into a basement that hadn’t been here before. The sign on the wall said it was ‘The Keeping Room’.
J is for Junelight
Wisp kept a little distance between us while I watched Ivan read in between bouts of pushing his hair back from his forehead. It was hard to leave him. The first time I’d had no choice but this time I had the choice and I was having plenty of trouble with it. Finally Wisp came up next to me.
‘Did you love him?’
‘I think so. I never got to find out for sure.’
‘You got regrets?’
‘Just one. Just him. Anyway, that’s enough of that. We need to get you a history.’
Wisp and I moved back to the main street and started swooping down on the most popular spots in the area — the beer gardens. Despite the fact that it was winter the day was warmer than average and the people had responded by heading to the local watering holes. We swept low over a large green-area, striped on both sides with picnic tables and benches. Silver circles showed the patio heaters.
‘People can’t see us, can they?’ I asked Wisp. We were getting close to people and although I didn’t think anyone had seen me yet, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t.
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone’s seen me.’
‘Okay. We should probably be careful, though.’
‘Yeah.’ Wisp replied, distracted. I could see why — there were people everywhere. That probably meant it was a Friday afternoon and a rare opportunity to get out in the elements before winter set in properly. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like we got snow or anything. But you do get acclimatised to your place so we got cold in weather that would make a Norwegian go swimming.
I told Wisp I would be back in a few minutes. I knew I shouldn’t — it had been hard enough the first time. When I got to the side street which housed the library I looked further up towards the train lines. I could just see Ivan in his blue jacket and jeans heading towards the car park. He checked the street before crossing the carpark entrance, watery sun refracting yellow-blue off his skin and hair. I burned while he walked in the Junelight.
‘Did you love him?’
‘I think so. I never got to find out for sure.’
‘You got regrets?’
‘Just one. Just him. Anyway, that’s enough of that. We need to get you a history.’
Wisp and I moved back to the main street and started swooping down on the most popular spots in the area — the beer gardens. Despite the fact that it was winter the day was warmer than average and the people had responded by heading to the local watering holes. We swept low over a large green-area, striped on both sides with picnic tables and benches. Silver circles showed the patio heaters.
‘People can’t see us, can they?’ I asked Wisp. We were getting close to people and although I didn’t think anyone had seen me yet, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t.
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone’s seen me.’
‘Okay. We should probably be careful, though.’
‘Yeah.’ Wisp replied, distracted. I could see why — there were people everywhere. That probably meant it was a Friday afternoon and a rare opportunity to get out in the elements before winter set in properly. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like we got snow or anything. But you do get acclimatised to your place so we got cold in weather that would make a Norwegian go swimming.
I told Wisp I would be back in a few minutes. I knew I shouldn’t — it had been hard enough the first time. When I got to the side street which housed the library I looked further up towards the train lines. I could just see Ivan in his blue jacket and jeans heading towards the car park. He checked the street before crossing the carpark entrance, watery sun refracting yellow-blue off his skin and hair. I burned while he walked in the Junelight.
Sunday 9 December 2012
I is for Incandescent
Wisp and I decided to cruise around the area; Wisp’s first memory as a … whatever we were … was here so Wisp probably died around here. We hoped that Wisp would recognise a name, a place, even a photo on a mantel. Anything. As long as Wisp could start to understand their origin.
We meandered down toward one of the larger roads. This was one that led into the city and hence was constantly busy. There were trams, trains and buses. Supermarkets, clothing shops, markets and bars. It was the teeming life of the area and, therefore, a good place to start.
The old library sat on a side street just off the main road. It was an art-deco building, an original that had kept its sweeping lines and curves. If I had a heart then it ached when I saw it. The amount of time I had spent in that place. Sometimes with friends and family, sometimes alone. I adored that building; and not just for its architectural beauty. It was the home of books and the bookshelves ran down the main room in long lines, shelves heaving beneath the weight of so much paper turned into art. I told Wisp I was going to take a look inside. I’m still not really sure why I did that. Yes, the building was lovely and so were the books but they would still look the same as they did a week ago when I was last here. It’s not like I could take anything with me either. I didn’t have hands let alone my library card.
I swept down through the automatic doors. I wasn’t sure if I could go through solid objects and the reason I hadn’t found out is that I still acted like I was alive; I still waited for doors rather than trying to headbutt them. Old habits die hard. I groaned inwardly at the death pun but I was cut short. There, in the dim, wood-panelled vestibule, he sat. Ivan was seated on a blue plastic chair, the one closest to the glass doors. He had a book in his lap which was angled toward the door to catch the only light. A lock of dark brown hair had fallen onto his forehead. I imagined he had pushed it away several times — he always used to do that. It was part of his charm and his charm was never lost on me. My courage was, though, and I never told him how I always thought of him as mine. As I watched him glowing in the light from the doors, incandescent in a room almost empty of light, I wish I had told him.
We meandered down toward one of the larger roads. This was one that led into the city and hence was constantly busy. There were trams, trains and buses. Supermarkets, clothing shops, markets and bars. It was the teeming life of the area and, therefore, a good place to start.
The old library sat on a side street just off the main road. It was an art-deco building, an original that had kept its sweeping lines and curves. If I had a heart then it ached when I saw it. The amount of time I had spent in that place. Sometimes with friends and family, sometimes alone. I adored that building; and not just for its architectural beauty. It was the home of books and the bookshelves ran down the main room in long lines, shelves heaving beneath the weight of so much paper turned into art. I told Wisp I was going to take a look inside. I’m still not really sure why I did that. Yes, the building was lovely and so were the books but they would still look the same as they did a week ago when I was last here. It’s not like I could take anything with me either. I didn’t have hands let alone my library card.
I swept down through the automatic doors. I wasn’t sure if I could go through solid objects and the reason I hadn’t found out is that I still acted like I was alive; I still waited for doors rather than trying to headbutt them. Old habits die hard. I groaned inwardly at the death pun but I was cut short. There, in the dim, wood-panelled vestibule, he sat. Ivan was seated on a blue plastic chair, the one closest to the glass doors. He had a book in his lap which was angled toward the door to catch the only light. A lock of dark brown hair had fallen onto his forehead. I imagined he had pushed it away several times — he always used to do that. It was part of his charm and his charm was never lost on me. My courage was, though, and I never told him how I always thought of him as mine. As I watched him glowing in the light from the doors, incandescent in a room almost empty of light, I wish I had told him.
Friday 7 December 2012
H is for History
It wasn’t until I met Wisp that I understood the everdreams. I was floating along, having a look at the people still roaming around the circle when all of a sudden I felt … wrong. It was like I was blue and red had suddenly been introduced. It wasn’t like a toxin had come into me, just something foreign and, really, that was scary enough. It passed in an instant, although I shivered for a long time afterwards. Straight after the sensation had gone I felt a voice. It wasn’t hearing; I could hear the world like you would as a living person. It was feeling the words; as though they were raised and I was touching them even though I knew I wasn’t touching them.
‘Hi, I’m Wisp. Sorry about running you over like that.’
‘That's okay. I’m Josie, I guess.’
‘That’s a human name. Did you get to keep yours?’
‘I guess so. No one has spoken to me before so I don’t know if I’ve broken any rules.’
‘There aren’t rules that I know of, it’s just that when I got here I couldn’t remember my name so I gave myself one that seemed to fit what I was.’
‘Are you dead too?’
‘I think so. No one’s told me that either but I know I’m not like those people down there.’ Wisp flashed images of living people through me to illustrate her point. It was wonderful to fully see a someone’s point of view, I was entranced with how Wisp’s colours were different from mine. They saw the world through a light pink filter. I thought I saw the world unfiltered but now I wasn’t so sure.
‘Hey, that trick you just did. I had that happen to me before. But it was all images about my family.’
‘You must have hit an everdream.’
‘It showed me my grandparents as kids and then it showed me some kids I didn’t know.’
‘The everdream shows you the past, present and future. You probably saw kids which were connected to you but haven’t been born yet.’
‘Are they common, these everdreams?’
‘They come and go. I once saw three in one day. Then none for a week.’
‘Were they about you?’
‘No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t remember who I was. I’ve seen a lot of different things, though, and I’ve seen them in a lot of different places. It’s unlikely they were all about me.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw a woman crying as people stormed the Berlin Wall. I saw a device hidden in a cave, it spoke to me in words I didn’t know. It spoke like we’re speaking now. I also saw a man washing his car light blue car in the sun.’
‘Past, present and future.’
‘Exactly. The man washing his car was the first clue I got to who I was. I didn’t know the man, but I knew that his car was a Mazda MX5 coupe with alloys and a six cylinder engine. I guess I liked cars.’
‘So, we can find the past.’
‘Yes, and that’s what I’m looking for; my past.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘Of course. I don’t know how many more of us there are but I could use some help. Sometimes the past is a tangle.’
‘Hi, I’m Wisp. Sorry about running you over like that.’
‘That's okay. I’m Josie, I guess.’
‘That’s a human name. Did you get to keep yours?’
‘I guess so. No one has spoken to me before so I don’t know if I’ve broken any rules.’
‘There aren’t rules that I know of, it’s just that when I got here I couldn’t remember my name so I gave myself one that seemed to fit what I was.’
‘Are you dead too?’
‘I think so. No one’s told me that either but I know I’m not like those people down there.’ Wisp flashed images of living people through me to illustrate her point. It was wonderful to fully see a someone’s point of view, I was entranced with how Wisp’s colours were different from mine. They saw the world through a light pink filter. I thought I saw the world unfiltered but now I wasn’t so sure.
‘Hey, that trick you just did. I had that happen to me before. But it was all images about my family.’
‘You must have hit an everdream.’
‘It showed me my grandparents as kids and then it showed me some kids I didn’t know.’
‘The everdream shows you the past, present and future. You probably saw kids which were connected to you but haven’t been born yet.’
‘Are they common, these everdreams?’
‘They come and go. I once saw three in one day. Then none for a week.’
‘Were they about you?’
‘No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t remember who I was. I’ve seen a lot of different things, though, and I’ve seen them in a lot of different places. It’s unlikely they were all about me.’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw a woman crying as people stormed the Berlin Wall. I saw a device hidden in a cave, it spoke to me in words I didn’t know. It spoke like we’re speaking now. I also saw a man washing his car light blue car in the sun.’
‘Past, present and future.’
‘Exactly. The man washing his car was the first clue I got to who I was. I didn’t know the man, but I knew that his car was a Mazda MX5 coupe with alloys and a six cylinder engine. I guess I liked cars.’
‘So, we can find the past.’
‘Yes, and that’s what I’m looking for; my past.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘Of course. I don’t know how many more of us there are but I could use some help. Sometimes the past is a tangle.’
Thursday 6 December 2012
G is for Golden Ratio
I don’t know who you are except that you are the person who is reading this. But a part of me feels like I know you, or that you know enough about me now to know me. I’m not sure if this knowledge can be sent only one way. It makes sense that when you take on information from me that I should get at least some residual part of you back. Even if that doesn’t make sense to you, I feel it. Every time you read this I feel something coming back from you. That’s part of the reason why I am still telling you this. The other part is that I have something to share with you and I think it’s time you knew it.
You must have realised by now that I can’t speak. I do, however, have the memory of language. I’m writing these events as best I can from memory because it wasn’t until much later than this that I developed the ability to write. Sometimes it’s the things you can do effortlessly in your other life that take the longest in this one. Enough about me, though. I want to tell you something I’ve learned.
If you’ve studied maths then you know the golden ratio. If you’ve ever opened your eyes then I’m sure you’ve seen it, whether you are aware of it or not. It’s the basis of everything; the Fibonacci sequence (remember when everyone was reading Dan Brown), the shell of a snail, the tines of a pinecone. They all conform to it. That’s what troubles me.
You see, it’s easy for the living to forget that they are, in fact, living. Occasionally you’ll be aware of your pulse, your heartbeat. Rare occasions when the sunset is too perfect, or those diamonds in the night sky make you feel small. That’s when you notice. I am not living, and it’s a condition that, as it is new to me, I’m very aware of. Now that I am not living I can look on the living as an outsider, something that at first stung me in a place where I imagine I would have eyes. I am gaining the ability to accept my condition, though, and as I do I notice things.
Just as the golden ratio is present throughout nature so it is present throughout people, as people are from nature. Just as the golden ratio provides that things start small and get bigger so do humans. You don’t merely grow, though, you expand. The race expands. What I need to share with you is a question that bothers me: what happens when the human race expands beyond the planet’s capacity? From a speck of dust to a sandstorm, we are the golden ratio.
You must have realised by now that I can’t speak. I do, however, have the memory of language. I’m writing these events as best I can from memory because it wasn’t until much later than this that I developed the ability to write. Sometimes it’s the things you can do effortlessly in your other life that take the longest in this one. Enough about me, though. I want to tell you something I’ve learned.
If you’ve studied maths then you know the golden ratio. If you’ve ever opened your eyes then I’m sure you’ve seen it, whether you are aware of it or not. It’s the basis of everything; the Fibonacci sequence (remember when everyone was reading Dan Brown), the shell of a snail, the tines of a pinecone. They all conform to it. That’s what troubles me.
You see, it’s easy for the living to forget that they are, in fact, living. Occasionally you’ll be aware of your pulse, your heartbeat. Rare occasions when the sunset is too perfect, or those diamonds in the night sky make you feel small. That’s when you notice. I am not living, and it’s a condition that, as it is new to me, I’m very aware of. Now that I am not living I can look on the living as an outsider, something that at first stung me in a place where I imagine I would have eyes. I am gaining the ability to accept my condition, though, and as I do I notice things.
Just as the golden ratio is present throughout nature so it is present throughout people, as people are from nature. Just as the golden ratio provides that things start small and get bigger so do humans. You don’t merely grow, though, you expand. The race expands. What I need to share with you is a question that bothers me: what happens when the human race expands beyond the planet’s capacity? From a speck of dust to a sandstorm, we are the golden ratio.
Wednesday 5 December 2012
F is for Friction
The everdream continued but it took on a different shape. It had started out brown and golden, as though memories were like photographs and could be turned sepia with age. It then progressed a vivid blue as the dream moved into the recent past. The future, though, that was silver. Not a depressing grey but glimmering swirls of silver-white that shone and sparkled. There were a boy and a girl, neither of whom I recognised. They were playing in a room with alphabet decals on the wall and green carpet on the floor. It wasn’t a room I had seen before (the green carpet made me want to puke to be honest) but the kids seemed comfortable there. They seemed to be around the same age which made me suspect that they might not be from the same parents as they didn’t look like twins. The girl was slim with light blue eyes which shone as she ordered a yellow robot around the room. Another thing I hadn’t seen before: the robot appeared to be voice controlled. The boy, the darker of the two with brown eyes and dark brown hair, yelled at the red robot. In the middle of the room the two robots clashed. No damage was done but the little girl was not happy about her robot being waylaid. She ran to the door in her dark pink tights, light pink skirt and blue t-shirt and threw the door wide. Her lungs were certainly healthy as she yelled ‘Mum!’ so loud that I looked around to see if anyone else had heard. There was no one around. In the everdream Mum came in and told both of the kids to play nice. I wondered why this had been part of the everdream that I was watching. Every part up to that point had been about people who were connected to me. Now I was seeing a stranger telling some kids off? It didn’t seem like it belonged there.
I didn’t have time to wonder, though, because the dream had shut itself off. I was left hanging over my grandparents’ grave bewildered. I felt green, like the carpet in the last part of the everdream. I felt full - as though too many things had been absorbed by me during the dream. There was something not right in that dream.
I was shaken from my thoughts as my mother arrived at the grave with her pup in tow. She began to fuss over the old flowers which were there from her last visit. She replaced them with new ones from her garden and wiped over the area before sitting on the edge. I’d seen her here many times before, in my old life, and I knew that the pain was always present here. I watched her wipe away a silent tear, knowing that we were both holding the internal clashes of pain and loss. We were joined in friction.
I didn’t have time to wonder, though, because the dream had shut itself off. I was left hanging over my grandparents’ grave bewildered. I felt green, like the carpet in the last part of the everdream. I felt full - as though too many things had been absorbed by me during the dream. There was something not right in that dream.
I was shaken from my thoughts as my mother arrived at the grave with her pup in tow. She began to fuss over the old flowers which were there from her last visit. She replaced them with new ones from her garden and wiped over the area before sitting on the edge. I’d seen her here many times before, in my old life, and I knew that the pain was always present here. I watched her wipe away a silent tear, knowing that we were both holding the internal clashes of pain and loss. We were joined in friction.
Tuesday 4 December 2012
E is for Everdream
I turned my back to the park and headed up the street on which my mother’s house stood. I still couldn’t remember the colour of the roof so I counted the houses on the left, counting by twos on the odd numbers so I would know when I got to her place. It turned out that I shouldn’t have worried so much — I could see my mother’s car in the driveway. I zoomed quickly by the windows, seeing as much as I could of the interior without staying in a fixed place. I didn’t want her to see me and be scared, I just wanted to know that she was okay. When I got around to the backyard I realised that there was no way I would find her here. Her dog was not in the yard so that meant she must be walking with the dog and I knew exactly where to look.
Some people might think it macabre that she walked the dog at the local cemetery but mum had always found it peaceful. I remember a few years back when my sister and I offered to take mum out for lunch for her birthday and she told us that the only thing she wanted to do was walk the dog. I hadn’t been to the cemetery for a while even though my grandparents were buried there. I didn’t like the idea of visiting the bodies they no longer inhabited as a form of remembrance. When I wanted to think of them I would rather dredge up a childhood memory of them than look at cold stone with their names on it. When I reached the cemetery I decided to go to my grandparents grave. Part of me was curious to learn how I would feel about visiting them in their place of rest (although I’m not sure you could call my condition rest as I had just flown three-quarters of the way around the world). A larger part of me hoped that perhaps they might be hanging around there too. Maybe they knew that their daughter, my mother, was nearby and maybe they had decided to visit her too. I looked at their grave from above, recognising the marbled grey stone and white chips with flashes of quartz that caught the sun and glinted light into the tears I would inevitably shed during my visits here. There was no one here, alive or ethereal. As I was alone I swept a little closer to better examine the site. I was hovering above the modest headstone when the everdream hit. I call it that now but then I had no idea what had happened. I tingled all over as though I were in the middle of a Tesla coil. I felt like I had turned a piercing light blue even though I had no colour that I was aware of. Images rapidly flipped through me; extremely fast but I could see all of them clearly and in detail. Some were old — I saw a girl in full colour running down the street to a woman. The girl, I knew from a sepia-stained photo my mum kept, was my grandmother and the woman was her mother. Then a man in an army uniform, proudly straight-backed with black wavy hair pushed from his forehead by a wet comb; my grandfather as a young man. The thing about everdreams is that they don’t just show you the past, though. They show you ever - everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. I didn’t know that at the time, which is why I was too late.
Some people might think it macabre that she walked the dog at the local cemetery but mum had always found it peaceful. I remember a few years back when my sister and I offered to take mum out for lunch for her birthday and she told us that the only thing she wanted to do was walk the dog. I hadn’t been to the cemetery for a while even though my grandparents were buried there. I didn’t like the idea of visiting the bodies they no longer inhabited as a form of remembrance. When I wanted to think of them I would rather dredge up a childhood memory of them than look at cold stone with their names on it. When I reached the cemetery I decided to go to my grandparents grave. Part of me was curious to learn how I would feel about visiting them in their place of rest (although I’m not sure you could call my condition rest as I had just flown three-quarters of the way around the world). A larger part of me hoped that perhaps they might be hanging around there too. Maybe they knew that their daughter, my mother, was nearby and maybe they had decided to visit her too. I looked at their grave from above, recognising the marbled grey stone and white chips with flashes of quartz that caught the sun and glinted light into the tears I would inevitably shed during my visits here. There was no one here, alive or ethereal. As I was alone I swept a little closer to better examine the site. I was hovering above the modest headstone when the everdream hit. I call it that now but then I had no idea what had happened. I tingled all over as though I were in the middle of a Tesla coil. I felt like I had turned a piercing light blue even though I had no colour that I was aware of. Images rapidly flipped through me; extremely fast but I could see all of them clearly and in detail. Some were old — I saw a girl in full colour running down the street to a woman. The girl, I knew from a sepia-stained photo my mum kept, was my grandmother and the woman was her mother. Then a man in an army uniform, proudly straight-backed with black wavy hair pushed from his forehead by a wet comb; my grandfather as a young man. The thing about everdreams is that they don’t just show you the past, though. They show you ever - everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. I didn’t know that at the time, which is why I was too late.
Monday 3 December 2012
D is for Degrees
Where do you start when you have the whole world to explore? I had probably missed seeing around ninety percent of it in … I guess you’d call it my previous life. I wanted to go to Mexico and see the day of the dead (no pun intended). I wanted to go to Antwerp and look at the fields that Van Gogh painted. I wanted to go to London and watch the filming of the new Sherlock series or go to Wales to watch Doctor Who. On reflection there are two reasons I’d make a terrible Time Lord. One is that when presented with the world on a plate I wonder where the televisions are, and the other is that I couldn’t decide where to go on one tiny planet at one time.
I did make a decision, though. I’m not sure how long it took because even this high up the sun doesn’t move very quickly. I wanted to see the people I loved; those who I had left behind.
I began to circle the Earth to the right. I guess I did that because I used to be right-handed. If I had’ve been left handed or better at geography I probably would have saved myself about a day’s travel but I guess none of us can ever know everything.
I started to zoom in on the country of my birth and death. A place I had once considered to be my little corner of the Earth. I guess I was kidding myself on that as none of us are here long enough to consider ourselves anything more than a brief visitor, an acquaintance of a planet far older than our minds can comprehend and with a longer future than we can see. If you’re curious to know what it’s like to find places while flying at a low altitude then go to google maps, zoom and remove all of the street names and other indicators of place. Nothing looks like it did when I had walked those streets. I couldn’t even remember the colour of my mother’s roof. I could have dipped lower but I wasn’t sure if I was visible to people, even though I couldn’t see me. I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary heart-attacks.
As I roamed above the houses I watched the people. A little girl being pushed on a swing by an old man, the girl screaming ‘Higher, Papa!’ while Papa did his best to comply with her wishes without putting her in danger of a broken bone. At the same playground a small boy, perhaps two or three, with golden curls, flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes is helped by an older boy with matching curls and eyes across a rope bridge. The young boy poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth while concentrating on getting across while the older boy kept his eyes on the younger ones progress, ready to catch him if required.
On a bench away from the play equipment an old woman sat and threw bread to hungry ducks. They were all degrees of people, some further around the circle than others. I was a degree, too, but I was a degree on a sphere; the sphere we are unaware that we are on until we move outside of the two dimensional circle.
Sunday 2 December 2012
C is for Convex
It’s an odd thing, trying to move without a body. The air feels like quicksilver and it seems to collect and swirl around whatever I am. I looked for reference points. A song popped into my head: ‘I hate to admit it, that’s my reference point, but there it is’. I didn’t know I knew songs. It sounded ethereal, wispy. I wasn’t sure if the original recording was like that, if my memory had made it like that, or if there was something to do with my current form that made sound like that.
I decided that I had flitted enough; time to focus. I looked across the ink sky and found Mars - it’s the bright one that doesn’t blink and looks a little yellowy. I kept my eye on it while I thought of moving. Mars stayed still. I looked at it again and pictured an old-school joystick in my head. You know, the ones they used to have on Ataris. I moved the joystick to the right. Mars still didn’t move. Maybe I couldn’t move at all. It made sense that I would need some form of propulsion.
I closed my eyes and ordered my brain to examine myself. I wasn’t sure that I had a brain but thoughts were coming and going so I assumed that whatever I had, brain would be a good word for it. I was already adapting to being a something in the middle of nowhere, so it was better that I used a familiar term. As my brain tried to process me I began to feel tingles, as though nerves were reaching out in all directions. That was good. It meant that I had form and that the form could sense.
I focussed on Mars again. This time I tried to push the tingles over to one side of me, hoping that the tingles could exert some force. I kept at it for more than a minute before I felt it. I felt it before I could see it. It was just a small shift, but I had definitely moved. I looked at the planet and tried again, my excitement building as I saw that I was moving in relation to the planet. Internally I felt laughter, but I couldn’t produce it on the outside. I began to twirl, I tried doing flips. I felt like I had felt when I was a little kid. Those days when doing a cartwheel felt like the coolest thing on the planet. The utter freedom of throwing yourself around without fear that you will be hurt.
I turned to face the sun, basking in it’s golden warmth as tendrils of heat shimmered around me and caressed my form. Then I turned my back to the sun to look at the Earth - tiny and enormous as though I was viewing it through a convex lens.
I decided that I had flitted enough; time to focus. I looked across the ink sky and found Mars - it’s the bright one that doesn’t blink and looks a little yellowy. I kept my eye on it while I thought of moving. Mars stayed still. I looked at it again and pictured an old-school joystick in my head. You know, the ones they used to have on Ataris. I moved the joystick to the right. Mars still didn’t move. Maybe I couldn’t move at all. It made sense that I would need some form of propulsion.
I closed my eyes and ordered my brain to examine myself. I wasn’t sure that I had a brain but thoughts were coming and going so I assumed that whatever I had, brain would be a good word for it. I was already adapting to being a something in the middle of nowhere, so it was better that I used a familiar term. As my brain tried to process me I began to feel tingles, as though nerves were reaching out in all directions. That was good. It meant that I had form and that the form could sense.
I focussed on Mars again. This time I tried to push the tingles over to one side of me, hoping that the tingles could exert some force. I kept at it for more than a minute before I felt it. I felt it before I could see it. It was just a small shift, but I had definitely moved. I looked at the planet and tried again, my excitement building as I saw that I was moving in relation to the planet. Internally I felt laughter, but I couldn’t produce it on the outside. I began to twirl, I tried doing flips. I felt like I had felt when I was a little kid. Those days when doing a cartwheel felt like the coolest thing on the planet. The utter freedom of throwing yourself around without fear that you will be hurt.
I turned to face the sun, basking in it’s golden warmth as tendrils of heat shimmered around me and caressed my form. Then I turned my back to the sun to look at the Earth - tiny and enormous as though I was viewing it through a convex lens.
Saturday 1 December 2012
B is for Books
Books. The last thing I saw and the only thing I remember. My favourite stories from a life filled with stories float across my vision, partially see-through as memories often are. The hours I lost to those stories, the magic I gained, the incredible ability to destroy the outside world and creep inward into imagination while also jumping outward into the writer’s story. I suppose there were other things about my life. I guess I had a family, at one time or another. I know there must have been a mother and father involved at some point. Whether they were together or united in a test tube they must have existed. I felt a strange glow take over whatever I am now. I must have had friends too. The glow continued so I guess they were very important to me too. So, I was a person of books, family and friends.You must lose everything except your final thought when you die. Or, you must only have that in your conscious thought. The glow made me think that there were still memories in me of my life, but that they were buried too deep for me to access them.
Buried. I remember that word. That’s what they do to you when you die. They bury you while you deal with buried memories. They don’t know, the living people. They don’t know the synergy of life and memory. I do now.
For the first time I look around myself. I’m not sure where I am. There are no white clouds or half naked cherubs, there are no flames and satyrs. I seem to be just hanging out in the clear air. The sun is out. I look at it and for the first time in my life I’m not blinded. Sorry, I should say for the first time ever I’m not blinded. It’s quite pretty when you can see it properly, golden and roiling like a lightened version of magma. Or like the bouncing golden curls of a child. It’s not scary, just awe-inspiring. Impressive, perhaps, but even that word doesn’t do it justice. I look down. I’m further away than I thought from Earth. I can see the water and the land, the curvature of the horizon. I don’t know how I got up here. Perhaps souls, if that’s what I am, are not supposed to be conscious. Maybe I had a little problem with icing on the way up and it woke me up. Maybe I was supposed to become a star and now there is a star missing because I’m hanging around down here. Hanging around? I wonder if I can move.
Buried. I remember that word. That’s what they do to you when you die. They bury you while you deal with buried memories. They don’t know, the living people. They don’t know the synergy of life and memory. I do now.
For the first time I look around myself. I’m not sure where I am. There are no white clouds or half naked cherubs, there are no flames and satyrs. I seem to be just hanging out in the clear air. The sun is out. I look at it and for the first time in my life I’m not blinded. Sorry, I should say for the first time ever I’m not blinded. It’s quite pretty when you can see it properly, golden and roiling like a lightened version of magma. Or like the bouncing golden curls of a child. It’s not scary, just awe-inspiring. Impressive, perhaps, but even that word doesn’t do it justice. I look down. I’m further away than I thought from Earth. I can see the water and the land, the curvature of the horizon. I don’t know how I got up here. Perhaps souls, if that’s what I am, are not supposed to be conscious. Maybe I had a little problem with icing on the way up and it woke me up. Maybe I was supposed to become a star and now there is a star missing because I’m hanging around down here. Hanging around? I wonder if I can move.
Friday 30 November 2012
A is for air-tight
Well, it's been a while guys but I guess I'm back from the tunnel that is studying honours and backing it up with Nano. Now I have a new challenge and it's one that I can blog to you. #amonthof is a space for people to explore their creative works. The rules are simple. For December we will create a piece every day for twenty-six days. If you want to get involved check out the facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/amonthof/485153634862449/?notif_t=group_activity. They're also on twitter but I can't remember my password so you'll have to find them yourselves.
The first of December is 'A' - here's my piece.
A is for air-tight
The world was still heavy with rising mist floating toward the sky in the sunshine. The world of last night, the thunder and lightning, the parallel bright and dark, had left and now the steam was its legacy. Brown patches in the grass had greened slightly at the rain but it wouldn’t last; this corner of the world would get a lot hotter before it cooled again.
Lawn mowers and the sounds of frustrated DIY mingled with bird song and the chatter of people enjoying the weekend. A dog barked. Nothing unusual happening today in this neck of the woods. Nothing unusual except that I couldn’t breathe.
Was it Newton who said that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Was it Einstein or Aristotle? I can’t remember. Whoever it was they summed up most of the world quite well. It stands to reason that everything happens because something caused it to. On this average day, while I sat there drowning in nothing, starved for air, I realised that there wasn’t always a reason for the reaction.
There was nobody holding a bag over my head. No one had a noose around my neck. I hadn’t miss-swallowed anything. In fact, my head, my mouth, my nose, my throat, my lungs, they were all clear. I just couldn’t breathe.
Maybe I’d forgotten how. It seems unlikely but I could find no other explanation. Let’s face it, when your lips are turning blue and your chest won’t rise you don’t have a lot of time to come up with explanations.
There was a photo on the shelf. A picture of my mum and dad holding me shortly after I was born. So it was going to be a hollywood cyclical death, huh? I see myself in birth as I experience death. Too hokey. Too obvious. Too much of a cliché. I moved my view which was getting dimmer by the moment. The book case. It housed some of the best things in the world to me. The pages which had kept me from sleep for hours because I couldn’t put them down. The places that I never visited physically but that my mind knew intimately. The friends I had never and would never meet but who I could happily chat to.
The world was heavy and I was heavy too. The books. That was my last.
The first of December is 'A' - here's my piece.
A is for air-tight
The world was still heavy with rising mist floating toward the sky in the sunshine. The world of last night, the thunder and lightning, the parallel bright and dark, had left and now the steam was its legacy. Brown patches in the grass had greened slightly at the rain but it wouldn’t last; this corner of the world would get a lot hotter before it cooled again.
Lawn mowers and the sounds of frustrated DIY mingled with bird song and the chatter of people enjoying the weekend. A dog barked. Nothing unusual happening today in this neck of the woods. Nothing unusual except that I couldn’t breathe.
Was it Newton who said that every action has an equal and opposite reaction? Was it Einstein or Aristotle? I can’t remember. Whoever it was they summed up most of the world quite well. It stands to reason that everything happens because something caused it to. On this average day, while I sat there drowning in nothing, starved for air, I realised that there wasn’t always a reason for the reaction.
There was nobody holding a bag over my head. No one had a noose around my neck. I hadn’t miss-swallowed anything. In fact, my head, my mouth, my nose, my throat, my lungs, they were all clear. I just couldn’t breathe.
Maybe I’d forgotten how. It seems unlikely but I could find no other explanation. Let’s face it, when your lips are turning blue and your chest won’t rise you don’t have a lot of time to come up with explanations.
There was a photo on the shelf. A picture of my mum and dad holding me shortly after I was born. So it was going to be a hollywood cyclical death, huh? I see myself in birth as I experience death. Too hokey. Too obvious. Too much of a cliché. I moved my view which was getting dimmer by the moment. The book case. It housed some of the best things in the world to me. The pages which had kept me from sleep for hours because I couldn’t put them down. The places that I never visited physically but that my mind knew intimately. The friends I had never and would never meet but who I could happily chat to.
The world was heavy and I was heavy too. The books. That was my last.
Thursday 9 August 2012
Many months back ...
Good morning, afternoon, evening, night my internet friends.
It's been yonks since I've seen you — who would've thought that doing your honours year, moving house, and all the little things in life could be so big. Starting today I will endeavour to get back to you more often but for my recent absence I thought I'd give you a little present.
It's not overly easy to do this but I think it's better to than not. I know everyone goes about their writing their own way but we're always looking for new tricks to fit into our bag of writing goodies. For this reason I have decided to update once per week with a section of my thesis, starting today with the first draft of part one (it's a six part project). Yes, my writing is pretty damned terrible in this but I use the first draft to get the ideas down and to make sure that I am including everything I feel is necessary for the work.
I was going to put in an introduction to my piece, explaining the themes present in both capitalist dystopia (the first three parts) and communist dystopia (the last three parts) but this isn't about my thesis as such. This is about drafting, revision, editing — how we do what we do. For that reason here is the first (very rough) draft of part one of my piece which has the working title 'One plus one'. Over the coming weeks I will add the entirety of my first draft and my revisions. This way you can see what I do and how I do it. I will also add beneath the text the synopsis which I started with for this section to illustrate the link (or lack thereof) between the planning and execution of the work.
Part One - Quinn
Chapter One
Your nose is itchy. Want to know how I know this? I know this because I just told you it was and because I told you this it has happened. It's the cause which is the effect. The neat little equation that needs no journey — it is its own end and its own beginning — Ouroborus.
Another equation that contains its own result is this one:
a x (tc/1,000)
——————— = x
(pfe/100,000)
In the everyday this means that age times training costs divided by one thousand is then divided by projected future earnings divided by one hundred thousand. Where x is greater than zero the result is conclusive: retirement. I have been subject to this equation my entire working life but I never gave it a thought. Not until it was turned on me.
Things before that had grown into a loop. Since Marissa left (well, since she stayed I guess; she broke it off but kept the house) I was in a rut. I went to work, I dealt with customers crap (‘Lady, you took a bad photo. That’s not something I can help.’) and I fulfilled my obligations to a dying industry. In fact we were all waiting for our retraining orders; no one used camera film anymore so no one needed developers. That was five days. Saturdays were poker night at Bobby’s. The other was Sunday afternoon with my daughter, Miranda.
She’s the cherub Raphael painted on a good day. She’s warm, bright and full of good intentions. I’d take her to a park across town or to a movie. We’d sit together and watch people or characters do their things. She’d tell me about the life I no longer shared with her: ‘We have to do a project on our favourite animal but I can’t decide which one’s my favourite’ ‘You tell people your name is Blakewins but Mum calls you Quinn. Why?’ ‘Mum and Chris took me to see Disney on Ice.’ ‘I think I want to be a journalist. They get to go lots of places and tell people things. Either that or a hockey player’. These moments felt stolen and guilt pulled me from the side that said she’d be better off without me to the side that said that I should be as good a father as I could. She never stayed with me, she never even saw my flat. How could I take a bright gem and put her in the middle of all that? In the inner city the days were grey, washed of colour. The grey people pushed their way from the grey train stations to their grey office buildings, clutching coffee like a talisman against the smog and chaos. The nights, though, they were something to see. Brighter than day, louder than the sound of a clock at 4am to an insomniac; there was a fight on every corner, a hooker in every laneway and sirens rushing to revive partiers and free victims of drunken brawls. This was no place for Miranda, so I contented myself with her picture by my bed.
Of course, nothing stays frozen and while Miranda was getting awkward about the subject of boys I was getting worse. I didn’t even know there was anything wrong at first. A headache that stayed for a couple of days, a blotch in my vision that I put down to the transition between bright shopfront and darkroom. Then the headaches and the blotches took up residence in me. I had just started to wonder if I should try to see the doctor down the street (or if I should save up to see one whose degree wasn’t from the Online University of Mexico) when life gave me the answer. What are the odds that the blotch would hide a stop sign? What are the chances that it was Sunday afternoon? Who would’ve thought that a man who drives by himself so often would be carrying his daughter when it happened? We were lucky; Miranda escaped with a cut on her neck from the seatbelt and a headache. I didn’t have a single injury. Marissa was furious. ‘How’d you miss a bloody stop sign?! How could you be so careless with Miranda in the car?! What if she had’ve been killed?!!’
Chapter Two
From that time I saw Miranda only twice. Each time it was following a three-hour journey on two buses and a train to get to Marissa’s house. On the first occasion Marissa didn’t speak to me at all — she just opened the door and called Miranda out of her room. The second time was worse. The blotches were bigger now and I was having trouble at work. I was lucky that I had some friends on staff, so they covered for me for a little while but it couldn’t last forever. My half-yearly physical showed up what I already knew to be true; my vision was too far gone for me to work there. The doctor promised me he would make it clear in the paperwork that with treatment some of my sight would return but the company weren’t interested — they applied the formula and discovered that I was not economically sustainable. That’s what started it — when I told Marissa I couldn’t pay child-support that fortnight.
‘What are we supposed to do? I don’t earn enough to cope on my own. Chris is waiting on a promotion so we can all move in together. Isn’t it enough that you put her in danger? Now you won’t even help me provide for her. You never take her for nights so I can have some time to myself, you take her one afternoon a week and think you’re the best dad in the whole world. You’re not!’
‘You know I’d give you the money if I could. It’s not up to —‘
‘Yeah, here we go again. It wasn’t your fault when the christmas tree caught fire. It wasn’t your fault when you put in that stupidly beg cat-flap and we got robbed. It wasn’t your fault ever and now it’s still not your fault. Have I got that right?’
‘I’m being retired.’
‘You want me— You’re what?’
‘Retired. My hearing’s in six weeks. I’m so close to blind now that they won’t bother with trying to rehabilitate me.’
‘Fuck. I’m sorry. I— Shit. Shit!’
‘She knows about retirement, they cover it in economics at school. I’ll talk to her.’
‘We should both talk to her.’
‘Are you saying I can’t handle this? She’s my daughter! For fuck’s sake, Riss, it’s my problem and I’ll handle it.’
‘Your problem? It’s yours, hers and ours. You might be most affected but you’re not the only one who’s going to suffer from this.’
‘Yeah, nice one, Riss. All I heard was “You’re going blind and you’re going to be shipped off to the island but I need pocket money!”’
‘So because this means my daughter will have to learn to live on two-minute noodles and mince I’m selfish? Oh, and nice one on playing the blind card, Quinn, really nice.’
‘Don’t you EVER accuse me of using my blindness! D’you think I’m happy about it?! The fuck—‘
‘STOP!’ Miranda screamed from behind her mum’s legs. ‘Is it true? Are you going to the island?’
‘Mirry, I’ve got to go. I don’t have a choice.’ Quinn was holding himself together as though he were shards of glass that were too broken to fit together again.
‘Can I come and see you there?’
‘I’m sorry, Mirry. They don’t let people come to visit. You have to stay here with your mum,’ Quinn bit down ‘and Chris.’
‘But I wanna see you, too.’
‘I know, honey.’
Chapter Three
There’s a couple of things I could tell you about what happened next but, to be honest, it’s hard to know where to begin. For one thing, being blind is a bitch. It’s hard to remember which part of the footpath has that crack in it, it’s damn near impossible to pour a coffee without burning yourself and porn without the vision is just a series of grunts that may as well be coming from a donkey.
That’s not the worst of it. The worst is the way your place with your friends and family is taken from you. In a few short weeks I was no longer a father, an ex-husband, a buddy, a colleague. I had become ‘the blind guy’ and suddenly that was the only thing people saw in me. It was bad enough with people on the street but it was so much worse with my family. I would’ve degenerated slowly to hell, I would’ve welcomed the ferry to the island, if Felix hadn’t called.
How to explain Felix? He’s my cousin but as we were both only-children we were more like brothers as kids. Despite this we really couldn’t be more different. I remember the photo that used to sit on my wall at home: I was the pudgy blonde kid with a goofy smile and a baby face who could make a computer do anything he wanted wheras, Felix with his big smile which combined with his blue eyes and wavy dark hair to make him into the man he is today. He’s a Casanova who’s got the fat wallet and the good college background to back it upF. Even when we were kids he could get anything he wanted — he once charmed a teacher out of giving the class tests for an entire year.
The thing about Felix is his talk. Before the end of a fifteen minute phone call he had me convinced that I could stay on the mainland and provide for Miranda. His plan was simple; leave all of my assets to Miranda and go on the run. I probably wouldn’t be able to go back and see Miranda but at least she would have money and I wouldn’t end up on the island. Felix didn’t listen when I tried to tell him that a blind man going on the run sounded like a Monty Python sketch. He said he knew someone who could help me. He didn’t mention two things: that he’d been embezzling money from the corporation he worked for and that he was intending to run with me.
Synopsis:
Themes: Dehumanisation, Nature
Capitalist setting: I'd prefer giving Quinn a boss and a soul-sucking job. Perhaps something like a call centre. The money he makes there is barely enough to live on and he has to put in extra hours (unpaid) to be seen as promotion material. He lives alone - his ex-wife and child live in his old house and he visits them when he can. His place is a worn-down apartment in the outer-city - out enough so that he still has to factor in transport but close enough so that the rent is exorbitant. His area is industrial - smoggy and loud and ugly NATURE. He has little in the way of possessions as he is alone with a small income and provides child support (happily, I might add) to his wife. His small apartment is constantly having difficulties (water pipes freeze regularly, heating goes out, in fact, I think this is set in winter). He eats the same thing over and over because he never learned to cook anything (meat and three veg). He picks up his daughter every Sunday afternoon and takes her out somewhere cheap. They never go back to his place as he doesn't want her to see how he lives (despite the fact that she's only young and probably wouldn't get it).
His eyesight has already begun to go at the start of the story. Perhaps we see him poring over bills in the hope that he can afford to see an ophthalmologist (is that the right person?). He has a car accident with his daughter in the car with him. She needs some very basic treatment but the ex-wife doesn't want him to drive around with her anymore so he has to visit her at the ex-wife's house which is across town. As his eyesight continues to fail it gets to the point where he is fired because he cannot complete the tasks required of him. He is scheduled for 'retirement' under ‘the formula DEHUMANISATION.
It's been yonks since I've seen you — who would've thought that doing your honours year, moving house, and all the little things in life could be so big. Starting today I will endeavour to get back to you more often but for my recent absence I thought I'd give you a little present.
It's not overly easy to do this but I think it's better to than not. I know everyone goes about their writing their own way but we're always looking for new tricks to fit into our bag of writing goodies. For this reason I have decided to update once per week with a section of my thesis, starting today with the first draft of part one (it's a six part project). Yes, my writing is pretty damned terrible in this but I use the first draft to get the ideas down and to make sure that I am including everything I feel is necessary for the work.
I was going to put in an introduction to my piece, explaining the themes present in both capitalist dystopia (the first three parts) and communist dystopia (the last three parts) but this isn't about my thesis as such. This is about drafting, revision, editing — how we do what we do. For that reason here is the first (very rough) draft of part one of my piece which has the working title 'One plus one'. Over the coming weeks I will add the entirety of my first draft and my revisions. This way you can see what I do and how I do it. I will also add beneath the text the synopsis which I started with for this section to illustrate the link (or lack thereof) between the planning and execution of the work.
Part One - Quinn
Chapter One
Your nose is itchy. Want to know how I know this? I know this because I just told you it was and because I told you this it has happened. It's the cause which is the effect. The neat little equation that needs no journey — it is its own end and its own beginning — Ouroborus.
Another equation that contains its own result is this one:
a x (tc/1,000)
——————— = x
(pfe/100,000)
In the everyday this means that age times training costs divided by one thousand is then divided by projected future earnings divided by one hundred thousand. Where x is greater than zero the result is conclusive: retirement. I have been subject to this equation my entire working life but I never gave it a thought. Not until it was turned on me.
Things before that had grown into a loop. Since Marissa left (well, since she stayed I guess; she broke it off but kept the house) I was in a rut. I went to work, I dealt with customers crap (‘Lady, you took a bad photo. That’s not something I can help.’) and I fulfilled my obligations to a dying industry. In fact we were all waiting for our retraining orders; no one used camera film anymore so no one needed developers. That was five days. Saturdays were poker night at Bobby’s. The other was Sunday afternoon with my daughter, Miranda.
She’s the cherub Raphael painted on a good day. She’s warm, bright and full of good intentions. I’d take her to a park across town or to a movie. We’d sit together and watch people or characters do their things. She’d tell me about the life I no longer shared with her: ‘We have to do a project on our favourite animal but I can’t decide which one’s my favourite’ ‘You tell people your name is Blakewins but Mum calls you Quinn. Why?’ ‘Mum and Chris took me to see Disney on Ice.’ ‘I think I want to be a journalist. They get to go lots of places and tell people things. Either that or a hockey player’. These moments felt stolen and guilt pulled me from the side that said she’d be better off without me to the side that said that I should be as good a father as I could. She never stayed with me, she never even saw my flat. How could I take a bright gem and put her in the middle of all that? In the inner city the days were grey, washed of colour. The grey people pushed their way from the grey train stations to their grey office buildings, clutching coffee like a talisman against the smog and chaos. The nights, though, they were something to see. Brighter than day, louder than the sound of a clock at 4am to an insomniac; there was a fight on every corner, a hooker in every laneway and sirens rushing to revive partiers and free victims of drunken brawls. This was no place for Miranda, so I contented myself with her picture by my bed.
Of course, nothing stays frozen and while Miranda was getting awkward about the subject of boys I was getting worse. I didn’t even know there was anything wrong at first. A headache that stayed for a couple of days, a blotch in my vision that I put down to the transition between bright shopfront and darkroom. Then the headaches and the blotches took up residence in me. I had just started to wonder if I should try to see the doctor down the street (or if I should save up to see one whose degree wasn’t from the Online University of Mexico) when life gave me the answer. What are the odds that the blotch would hide a stop sign? What are the chances that it was Sunday afternoon? Who would’ve thought that a man who drives by himself so often would be carrying his daughter when it happened? We were lucky; Miranda escaped with a cut on her neck from the seatbelt and a headache. I didn’t have a single injury. Marissa was furious. ‘How’d you miss a bloody stop sign?! How could you be so careless with Miranda in the car?! What if she had’ve been killed?!!’
Chapter Two
From that time I saw Miranda only twice. Each time it was following a three-hour journey on two buses and a train to get to Marissa’s house. On the first occasion Marissa didn’t speak to me at all — she just opened the door and called Miranda out of her room. The second time was worse. The blotches were bigger now and I was having trouble at work. I was lucky that I had some friends on staff, so they covered for me for a little while but it couldn’t last forever. My half-yearly physical showed up what I already knew to be true; my vision was too far gone for me to work there. The doctor promised me he would make it clear in the paperwork that with treatment some of my sight would return but the company weren’t interested — they applied the formula and discovered that I was not economically sustainable. That’s what started it — when I told Marissa I couldn’t pay child-support that fortnight.
‘What are we supposed to do? I don’t earn enough to cope on my own. Chris is waiting on a promotion so we can all move in together. Isn’t it enough that you put her in danger? Now you won’t even help me provide for her. You never take her for nights so I can have some time to myself, you take her one afternoon a week and think you’re the best dad in the whole world. You’re not!’
‘You know I’d give you the money if I could. It’s not up to —‘
‘Yeah, here we go again. It wasn’t your fault when the christmas tree caught fire. It wasn’t your fault when you put in that stupidly beg cat-flap and we got robbed. It wasn’t your fault ever and now it’s still not your fault. Have I got that right?’
‘I’m being retired.’
‘You want me— You’re what?’
‘Retired. My hearing’s in six weeks. I’m so close to blind now that they won’t bother with trying to rehabilitate me.’
‘Fuck. I’m sorry. I— Shit. Shit!’
‘She knows about retirement, they cover it in economics at school. I’ll talk to her.’
‘We should both talk to her.’
‘Are you saying I can’t handle this? She’s my daughter! For fuck’s sake, Riss, it’s my problem and I’ll handle it.’
‘Your problem? It’s yours, hers and ours. You might be most affected but you’re not the only one who’s going to suffer from this.’
‘Yeah, nice one, Riss. All I heard was “You’re going blind and you’re going to be shipped off to the island but I need pocket money!”’
‘So because this means my daughter will have to learn to live on two-minute noodles and mince I’m selfish? Oh, and nice one on playing the blind card, Quinn, really nice.’
‘Don’t you EVER accuse me of using my blindness! D’you think I’m happy about it?! The fuck—‘
‘STOP!’ Miranda screamed from behind her mum’s legs. ‘Is it true? Are you going to the island?’
‘Mirry, I’ve got to go. I don’t have a choice.’ Quinn was holding himself together as though he were shards of glass that were too broken to fit together again.
‘Can I come and see you there?’
‘I’m sorry, Mirry. They don’t let people come to visit. You have to stay here with your mum,’ Quinn bit down ‘and Chris.’
‘But I wanna see you, too.’
‘I know, honey.’
Chapter Three
There’s a couple of things I could tell you about what happened next but, to be honest, it’s hard to know where to begin. For one thing, being blind is a bitch. It’s hard to remember which part of the footpath has that crack in it, it’s damn near impossible to pour a coffee without burning yourself and porn without the vision is just a series of grunts that may as well be coming from a donkey.
That’s not the worst of it. The worst is the way your place with your friends and family is taken from you. In a few short weeks I was no longer a father, an ex-husband, a buddy, a colleague. I had become ‘the blind guy’ and suddenly that was the only thing people saw in me. It was bad enough with people on the street but it was so much worse with my family. I would’ve degenerated slowly to hell, I would’ve welcomed the ferry to the island, if Felix hadn’t called.
How to explain Felix? He’s my cousin but as we were both only-children we were more like brothers as kids. Despite this we really couldn’t be more different. I remember the photo that used to sit on my wall at home: I was the pudgy blonde kid with a goofy smile and a baby face who could make a computer do anything he wanted wheras, Felix with his big smile which combined with his blue eyes and wavy dark hair to make him into the man he is today. He’s a Casanova who’s got the fat wallet and the good college background to back it upF. Even when we were kids he could get anything he wanted — he once charmed a teacher out of giving the class tests for an entire year.
The thing about Felix is his talk. Before the end of a fifteen minute phone call he had me convinced that I could stay on the mainland and provide for Miranda. His plan was simple; leave all of my assets to Miranda and go on the run. I probably wouldn’t be able to go back and see Miranda but at least she would have money and I wouldn’t end up on the island. Felix didn’t listen when I tried to tell him that a blind man going on the run sounded like a Monty Python sketch. He said he knew someone who could help me. He didn’t mention two things: that he’d been embezzling money from the corporation he worked for and that he was intending to run with me.
Synopsis:
Themes: Dehumanisation, Nature
Capitalist setting: I'd prefer giving Quinn a boss and a soul-sucking job. Perhaps something like a call centre. The money he makes there is barely enough to live on and he has to put in extra hours (unpaid) to be seen as promotion material. He lives alone - his ex-wife and child live in his old house and he visits them when he can. His place is a worn-down apartment in the outer-city - out enough so that he still has to factor in transport but close enough so that the rent is exorbitant. His area is industrial - smoggy and loud and ugly NATURE. He has little in the way of possessions as he is alone with a small income and provides child support (happily, I might add) to his wife. His small apartment is constantly having difficulties (water pipes freeze regularly, heating goes out, in fact, I think this is set in winter). He eats the same thing over and over because he never learned to cook anything (meat and three veg). He picks up his daughter every Sunday afternoon and takes her out somewhere cheap. They never go back to his place as he doesn't want her to see how he lives (despite the fact that she's only young and probably wouldn't get it).
His eyesight has already begun to go at the start of the story. Perhaps we see him poring over bills in the hope that he can afford to see an ophthalmologist (is that the right person?). He has a car accident with his daughter in the car with him. She needs some very basic treatment but the ex-wife doesn't want him to drive around with her anymore so he has to visit her at the ex-wife's house which is across town. As his eyesight continues to fail it gets to the point where he is fired because he cannot complete the tasks required of him. He is scheduled for 'retirement' under ‘the formula DEHUMANISATION.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
Offensive Language
2 Words Forward
Offensive
Art should offend people because art should challenge people.
Eriq La Salle
I came across a stumbling block recently when I realised that no one had ever told me they had been offended by my writing. I felt like I hadn't pushed nearly enough boundaries if this was the case. But then I asked myself, does writing have to offend? Am I crap because I'm not Salman Rushdie? Some of my favourite works offended the hell out of me when I first read them. I hated Gregor Samsa's family when I read Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. Why? Well, I guess it's because he was so devoted to the family that banished him as a freak and then rejoiced in his death. Am I being unfair? I'm really not sure how I'd react to a family member turning into a giant cockroach but I'd like to think that I'd still hang out with them. Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' was another one that offended me - I hated the colonial aspects of the text: the descriptions of the natives as being sub-human. Then I realised that both of these causes of offense are products of their time. Kafka wrote 'Metamorphosis' at a time when people were beginning to turn against Jews in Europe just before World War II. Kafka was merely relating this to us in an uncanny little package. Conrad was in the middle of the colonial era where it was common to see people as being sub-human because of their different culture. Perhaps his point was to make others aware of the folly of this - I really can't remember. In any case, there's no offense in either of these stories when they are taken contextually. It'd be like being offended by Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' because you don't get the satire. When I think about my favourite authors now, I'm not offended by anything they've written but that makes sense - many of them are my contemporaries and write within my time. Of course, I love classics, offensive books such as 'Metamorphosis', 'Frankenstein' (if you don't find Frankenstein offensive re-read it with a modern view) and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' among them. They are of their time, though, and that's not offensive — that's context. So, I'm cool with not being offensive. I'm still going to aim for challenging, though.
1 Word Back
Language
I'm sure I've bemoaned this before but I really don't have time to do as regular updates to my blog as I once did due to studying honours this year. One of the texts that I'm working on is Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We'. I adored this book when I first read it - it's the predecessor of another favourite, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell. I did, however, receive a sharp wake-up call when I downloaded it to my Kindle last week. I do own the paper copy but for researching the Kindle's search function cuts out heaps of time. So I started searching. I tried 'One State', the name of the Earth in Zamyatin's united nation. No results. That's weird. So, I started flicking through my paper copy to find a reference that I could cross with my Kindle version. It turns out that I have two different translations which are not just slightly off but have very different words for core themes. My Kindle calls the 'One State' the 'United State', a term that I'm not overly pleased with as it seems to refer to America in a book which was written in the USSR. As I flicked further I realised that it was not only key terms but the flavour of the book had changed. The Kindle version was clumsy. Perhaps this is a sign that it's a more correct translation but I liked the flow of the paper version. The case being that I don't speak Russian I can't tell what the difference really is. It would take me a long time to learn Russian to a standard where I could understand Zamyatin's original words for what they were. So, I'm choosing enjoyment of reading over clumsy. If anyone knows what the better translation is, though, I'd be very interested in learning this.
Offensive
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| 28 Pounds doesn't sound very modest to me! |
Art should offend people because art should challenge people.
Eriq La Salle
I came across a stumbling block recently when I realised that no one had ever told me they had been offended by my writing. I felt like I hadn't pushed nearly enough boundaries if this was the case. But then I asked myself, does writing have to offend? Am I crap because I'm not Salman Rushdie? Some of my favourite works offended the hell out of me when I first read them. I hated Gregor Samsa's family when I read Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. Why? Well, I guess it's because he was so devoted to the family that banished him as a freak and then rejoiced in his death. Am I being unfair? I'm really not sure how I'd react to a family member turning into a giant cockroach but I'd like to think that I'd still hang out with them. Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' was another one that offended me - I hated the colonial aspects of the text: the descriptions of the natives as being sub-human. Then I realised that both of these causes of offense are products of their time. Kafka wrote 'Metamorphosis' at a time when people were beginning to turn against Jews in Europe just before World War II. Kafka was merely relating this to us in an uncanny little package. Conrad was in the middle of the colonial era where it was common to see people as being sub-human because of their different culture. Perhaps his point was to make others aware of the folly of this - I really can't remember. In any case, there's no offense in either of these stories when they are taken contextually. It'd be like being offended by Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' because you don't get the satire. When I think about my favourite authors now, I'm not offended by anything they've written but that makes sense - many of them are my contemporaries and write within my time. Of course, I love classics, offensive books such as 'Metamorphosis', 'Frankenstein' (if you don't find Frankenstein offensive re-read it with a modern view) and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' among them. They are of their time, though, and that's not offensive — that's context. So, I'm cool with not being offensive. I'm still going to aim for challenging, though.
1 Word Back
Language
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| A less glassy Integral than I expected |
Thursday 29 March 2012
The creature and the beast
2 Words Forward
The Creature
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| In the interest of full disclosure my notepad is slightly smaller than the one pictured. |
Firstly, sorry for taking so long in updating my blog - there's this thing called life that happens to be colliding with me as I work towards getting my honours which leaves little time left for my fun projects like this. Now, to the action. As per my last post I'm involved in the collaborative project 'Ask, New Mexico'. In fact, you can read my first chapter and Talitha Kalago's wonderful second chapter now (the third chapter should be up on Sunday night Australian Eastern Standard Time). We often talk about the writing process and how we go about things. I find that keeping all of my drafts means that I can go back through them and see how my story developed. So, I thought that today I would share a little of my process, the stitches that make the creature (I'm reading Frankenstein at the moment). Here, for my embarrassment and hopefully for your interest, is my first go at the first chapter of 'Ask, New Mexico'. After reading this please go through to the Ask, New Mexico page linked above to see the finished product.
Two starts:
1) "Been awhile since the wise owl flew by. Been awhile since I seen any bird."
2) "D'you think they knew?"
"Who?"
"The birds."
"You getting soft in the head?"
Expansion of number one (I already preferred this start and, as you can see on my final copy, it's the one I stuck with.)
"Been awhile since the wise owl flew by. Been awhile since I seen any bird." Jeremiah mused to himself.
"D'you think they knew?" Agnes asked him as she pushed back an ancient flywire screen with a tray of iced tea.
"What?"
"D'you think the birds knew about Old Flo?"
"What? You think just cause she feeds the birds they shot through cause she was dyin'?"
"Well, they have smart eyes, some of those birds."
"You lucky you're good looking!"
It was part of their code to throw compliments after insults. It had saved their marriage more than once.
"Where's Lachlan?" Jeremiah continued after a sip.
"He's up at Jackson's Hill playing with the Davison boy."
"No I'm not."
Lachlan angered the rusty door's hinges as he careless threw the door aside.
"What've you been doing?"
"Marty and I were putting together a radio using his dad's old harvester as an antenna."
It's hard to know what stuck out most about Lachlan — his auburn hair and freckles made him easy to find, his correct grammar and Edinburgh accent made him, as Old Haskell would say, stick out like dog's balls on a budgie and his ingenuity had accelerated his learning to the point where, at age 12, he was in his final year of middle school. He was also the only orphan in the area, his grandparents his only remaining family.
"What ya making a radio for?" Jeremiah asked.
"Wanted to see if we could."
Jeremiah leaned back to turn on his radio. A race caller was reporting the latest odds and scratchings for the 4:20 at (?). Lachlan skulled his drink and ran towards his bike.
"Be back for dinner!" Agnes yelled to his back.
Note to self:
What's missing:
Establish a farming community - also, they're on hard times - it's a dustbowl of rotting machinery where once there were fields of crops and animals.
This note is a verbatim transcript of what I came up with in an hour and a half between classes at uni. You'll notice that despite being an editor my first draft contains some inaccuracies ('skulled', for example) and there is a question mark instead of a place name at the end because I hadn't come up with a name yet. I think the biggest developments, however, are in the character of Lachlan and the overall story arc. Lachlan is described in much greater detail here than he is in the finished work. I consciously did this because I wanted to make the final piece as mysterious as possible so I used very little description. You'll also note that I didn't like the fact that I hadn't described the town at all. I chose a failing farm town partially because of the name of the project but also because I felt that withered machinery rusting in barren fields is creepy. The arc is wonky here; I've mushed in the birds and the radio because my brief included the radio and I think birds are a great way to show strangeness. Both made it in my final but I hadn't yet linked the birds and the radio at this stage of the writing; that actually occurred when I was writing the scene where the radio comes to life and I realised that radio sounds are quite similar to bird sounds as far as adjectives go (squawk, tweet etc.). So here we have the bare-bones of the work which would become the first chapter of 'Ask, New Mexico'.
1 Word Back
The Beast
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| I've lost so much time to this website! |
This entry also concerns my notes above. Perhaps one of you eagle-eyed readers will have noticed a difference in spelling between the notes and the finished copy. When I describe the woman who fed the birds before she died her name is 'Old Flo' in my notes and 'Old Flow' in the final. It's a small thing but I've got to admit it's really bugging me. It's the first time that I've been auto-corrected in my work and I really resent the fact that my reference to 'Flo', being a hint towards birds with 'Florence Nightingale' was changed to be associated with water, something that I didn't put anywhere else (it is, in fact, absent in the dustbowl of Ask). I'm also annoyed that I missed it on the edit. I've since turned my auto-correct off which is equally annoying as it does come in handy when you are repeatedly writing long words but I feel that I do not want to dance with that beast again (not even for a talking tea-pot, although given that I drink a lot of tea the teapot would most likely say 'Ow! This water's hot!' more than anything else).
Sunday 18 March 2012
Forward March! and Back To Basics
2 Words Forward
Forward March!
I literally realised five minutes before typing this sentence that there was no picture of me on my blog! So, that's me above. At the time I was setting out on a journey I'd covered twice before — National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That's my old computer who got me through last November and then tragically died, taking with it four years of uni work, three novels and countless short stories. I didn't expect that my computer would die, as evidenced by the fact that I never backed up my work. I also never expected that last November would be the start of the flurry that I had been waiting for: after writing my novel in November I thought I would have a break and then edit it for a few months. Obviously, having lost the entire novel I could no longer do that but I found something more. I started getting involved in a local writers group and submitting short stories to publications. I was published simultaneously as a writer and editor, getting all of the firsts away in one fell swoop. Then I submitted more. I faced the fear of rejection (I was rejected, too, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected), the dizzying thrill of the wait for a reply and the utter joy of acceptance. It's been a crazy ride guys and if you're putting it off I can only tell you what you already know: it's going to be scary, fun, crazy, exciting and in the end you just might get published so get going!
To see my published journal contact the Geelong Writers.
To see the awesome collaboration novel I'm in (you can read it for free online) go here.
1 Word Back
Back to Basics
There's been a lot of charts popping up on the net about grammar and spelling. Yes, these charts have been around for a while, and yes, they do target the same things (the obligatory apostrophe section and the ever-present section on 'their, there they're' and 'your and you're'). The oatmeal probably do the best ones in that they are correct while being entertaining (did you know that dolphins get run over by jet skis if you misspell 'weird'?). I'm actually glad that these things are around - they're a great chance for people who are unsure of their grammar and spelling to get bite-sized lessons. On the other hand, we really shouldn't need these. I did all of my primary and high school education while only encountering grammar in one class: Greek class. That's right, I did thirteen years of schooling at a sub-tertiary level and I only learned grammar when it related to another language. For all that I still had good grammar but it was no fault of the school system; I just read so much that I knew what sentences looked like. When I got to university and had to take grammar tests (they do this for students in Professional and Creative Writing) I did well on them except when it came to the 'why'. In fact, my only 'why' was 'because it looks wrong'. I've since studied editing and put myself through hell trying to learn all of the things I should have known my whole life. There can be no doubt that I would have had a much easier run if I had learned grammar from an early age. There can also be no doubt that if grammar and spelling were taught in early schooling there would be no need for the charts around the web.
Forward March!
I literally realised five minutes before typing this sentence that there was no picture of me on my blog! So, that's me above. At the time I was setting out on a journey I'd covered twice before — National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That's my old computer who got me through last November and then tragically died, taking with it four years of uni work, three novels and countless short stories. I didn't expect that my computer would die, as evidenced by the fact that I never backed up my work. I also never expected that last November would be the start of the flurry that I had been waiting for: after writing my novel in November I thought I would have a break and then edit it for a few months. Obviously, having lost the entire novel I could no longer do that but I found something more. I started getting involved in a local writers group and submitting short stories to publications. I was published simultaneously as a writer and editor, getting all of the firsts away in one fell swoop. Then I submitted more. I faced the fear of rejection (I was rejected, too, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected), the dizzying thrill of the wait for a reply and the utter joy of acceptance. It's been a crazy ride guys and if you're putting it off I can only tell you what you already know: it's going to be scary, fun, crazy, exciting and in the end you just might get published so get going!
To see my published journal contact the Geelong Writers.
To see the awesome collaboration novel I'm in (you can read it for free online) go here.
1 Word Back
Back to Basics
There's been a lot of charts popping up on the net about grammar and spelling. Yes, these charts have been around for a while, and yes, they do target the same things (the obligatory apostrophe section and the ever-present section on 'their, there they're' and 'your and you're'). The oatmeal probably do the best ones in that they are correct while being entertaining (did you know that dolphins get run over by jet skis if you misspell 'weird'?). I'm actually glad that these things are around - they're a great chance for people who are unsure of their grammar and spelling to get bite-sized lessons. On the other hand, we really shouldn't need these. I did all of my primary and high school education while only encountering grammar in one class: Greek class. That's right, I did thirteen years of schooling at a sub-tertiary level and I only learned grammar when it related to another language. For all that I still had good grammar but it was no fault of the school system; I just read so much that I knew what sentences looked like. When I got to university and had to take grammar tests (they do this for students in Professional and Creative Writing) I did well on them except when it came to the 'why'. In fact, my only 'why' was 'because it looks wrong'. I've since studied editing and put myself through hell trying to learn all of the things I should have known my whole life. There can be no doubt that I would have had a much easier run if I had learned grammar from an early age. There can also be no doubt that if grammar and spelling were taught in early schooling there would be no need for the charts around the web.
Monday 5 March 2012
******** and The Eye Is Mightier Than The Chip
2 Words Forward
*********
It's time for another look at censorship in light of recent developments. If you don't follow Tech Dirt or Stephen Fry on twitter then you may have missed this article. In a nutshell, the article tells of Paypal's demands that Smashwords (a publisher) remove any works or pieces within works which contain "bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and under-age erotica". Smashwords was at pains to point out that they had no choice but to comply as their business is run through Paypal. They also advised that this isn't Paypal's fault but that the online payment website was under pressure from credit card companies to comply. From the outset I'd like to make it clear that it doesn't matter whether I find such themes as I listed above to be distasteful or wrong; that's never a part of the argument despite what pro-censorship advocates would have us believe. The point is that whether I wish to access this material or not it should be available. Sure, you can post warnings on things so that people who are sensitive to these things are aware that they are contained within but preventing people from accessing writings is not the answer. When credit card companies dictate what we can buy with money that they allow us to access then we are losing our freedom. There are a lot of smart people out there so I'm hoping someone comes up with an alternative so we can avoid these situations in the future.
1 Word Back
The Eye Is Mightier Than The Chip
The proliferation of editing software had me concerned for all of about two minutes. Yes, it's cool that you've programmed something to recognise a split-infinitive or a misspelled word. You know what? I can do that too. On top of that I can recognise words which are spelt correctly but used in the wrong place. I can identify clunky sentences which are grammatically correct. I can review the language used in the context of the target audience and I can identify idioms which will work with select audiences. In short, I'm more than a chip - I'm a wordie who knows what word should go where, when and why. Do that, Mr. Chip!
*********
It's time for another look at censorship in light of recent developments. If you don't follow Tech Dirt or Stephen Fry on twitter then you may have missed this article. In a nutshell, the article tells of Paypal's demands that Smashwords (a publisher) remove any works or pieces within works which contain "bestiality, rape-for-titillation, incest and under-age erotica". Smashwords was at pains to point out that they had no choice but to comply as their business is run through Paypal. They also advised that this isn't Paypal's fault but that the online payment website was under pressure from credit card companies to comply. From the outset I'd like to make it clear that it doesn't matter whether I find such themes as I listed above to be distasteful or wrong; that's never a part of the argument despite what pro-censorship advocates would have us believe. The point is that whether I wish to access this material or not it should be available. Sure, you can post warnings on things so that people who are sensitive to these things are aware that they are contained within but preventing people from accessing writings is not the answer. When credit card companies dictate what we can buy with money that they allow us to access then we are losing our freedom. There are a lot of smart people out there so I'm hoping someone comes up with an alternative so we can avoid these situations in the future.
1 Word Back
The Eye Is Mightier Than The Chip
The proliferation of editing software had me concerned for all of about two minutes. Yes, it's cool that you've programmed something to recognise a split-infinitive or a misspelled word. You know what? I can do that too. On top of that I can recognise words which are spelt correctly but used in the wrong place. I can identify clunky sentences which are grammatically correct. I can review the language used in the context of the target audience and I can identify idioms which will work with select audiences. In short, I'm more than a chip - I'm a wordie who knows what word should go where, when and why. Do that, Mr. Chip!
Saturday 3 March 2012
Read, Write, and Blue
2 Words Forward
Read, Write
As you might have guessed from the picture above or the background of this blog I like books. Oh, and the fact that I'm a writer might also have tipped you off. The thing is that I've met people who love the idea of writing but don't read. I'm not surprised merely because I've always been a bookworm, there are a couple of more troubling things about this. Firstly, it's important to know your industry — you can't expect to pen a book and get published without knowing a bit about what's around at the time (or, as my inner nerd would say 'One does not merely walk into publishing'). Secondly, and most importantly, you're missing out on a massive part of your education by not reading. As a reading writer you'll find words that you can use and your grammar will improve because you're immersing yourself in edited work. There are other things to consider too. When you read a piece you can look at the tricks the author uses in their writing: does the author reveal plot points all at once or are they hinted until they become clear? Does the author change the tempo of their sentences to match the action of the story? Are different characters written in different ways to aid differentiation? There is so much more than just these examples that you can pick up when you read. Also, you might just enjoy the book!
1 Word Back
Blue
If you think I'm the kind of person who doesn't swear then you probably don't know me very well and you have definitely never been in the car with me. I sometimes write swear words too, but I try to keep it audience appropriate (''That motherf**ker's still in my bed!' cried the little bear' is not something I would put in Goldilocks unless I was doing a gritty re-boot starring Samuel L. Jackson). That's part of the work of an editor: we can't merely ensure that the language is correct or that it correctly phrased for the text (ie. to blank out letters or to let the word stand) but we need to consider whether the language is appropriate for the target audience. It's not something limited to swear words, either, but across all language. Is the author using uncommon or unusual words? We have to consider whether the audience will understand this. If it's an academic work and the words are used correctly you may wish to let this stand. Literature can also get away with exercising the vocabulary but if you're editing a novel which is making an attempt at reaching a broad audience then you have to consider whether the large words could still be expressed using more basic language. I'm no slouch when it comes to vocab but I've been alienated by authors who use words frequently which are uncommon. I just can't be bothered using a dictionary every time something comes up so I don't bother reading them. There are more than enough books which are entertaining and accessible so unless you're targeting an audience which will understand or appreciate the use of uncommon words re-phrase it: you're not dumbing it down if you're saying the same thing and more people will be able to read it.
Read, Write
1 Word Back
Blue
If you think I'm the kind of person who doesn't swear then you probably don't know me very well and you have definitely never been in the car with me. I sometimes write swear words too, but I try to keep it audience appropriate (''That motherf**ker's still in my bed!' cried the little bear' is not something I would put in Goldilocks unless I was doing a gritty re-boot starring Samuel L. Jackson). That's part of the work of an editor: we can't merely ensure that the language is correct or that it correctly phrased for the text (ie. to blank out letters or to let the word stand) but we need to consider whether the language is appropriate for the target audience. It's not something limited to swear words, either, but across all language. Is the author using uncommon or unusual words? We have to consider whether the audience will understand this. If it's an academic work and the words are used correctly you may wish to let this stand. Literature can also get away with exercising the vocabulary but if you're editing a novel which is making an attempt at reaching a broad audience then you have to consider whether the large words could still be expressed using more basic language. I'm no slouch when it comes to vocab but I've been alienated by authors who use words frequently which are uncommon. I just can't be bothered using a dictionary every time something comes up so I don't bother reading them. There are more than enough books which are entertaining and accessible so unless you're targeting an audience which will understand or appreciate the use of uncommon words re-phrase it: you're not dumbing it down if you're saying the same thing and more people will be able to read it.
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