You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2011.
There you have it, my drafts are up, in the order that they did not appear.
I can’t say I won’t miss this, I can’t say I won’t be back, but for the next little while I’ll be at Yoyo Jump. Puzzled? It’s a reference to the conclusion of Catch-22.
Joseph pondered his being chosen for pod prep on this particular day, he had been planning to take the day off. He found work at the decision tank to be often fascinating but always draining. At first the prospect of playing devils advocate to the perfectly measured decisions of a computer seemed daunting. Within a week however Joseph caught the system making several wrong decisions a five year old could have handled. Operating under a new pride for his indefinable human intuition, he found himself beginning to hate the flat tone and timely arguments of the computer. In every decision it managed to perform correctly it was proving itself against him. Even when the system required correction Joseph felt that he was offering up a part of himself which the computer would take greedily and use forever without so much as a thought for him. He felt on the whole that while the research, pondering and moral decision making proved interesting he was ultimately working towards making himself obsolete.
Joseph’s mind flew jarringly back to the here and now as the transport came to a stop in the underground drop off. The front door opened and the passengers began to exactly disembark in what had long been established as the most efficient manner. The drop off was a large rectangular room intersecting with the transport system like a huge geometric tumor attached to the side of the sweeping tubular tunnel. A permanently nocturnal place, the decor reflected the freedom given to it’s minimalist creators as they played with barely tinted point lights and faded pastels on their secret canvas safely hidden from the sun. To Joseph the shifting gradients and shadows falling across the technicolor surfaces were estranged lovers. They instilled no hope of re-connection; just a sore memory of what might have been.
The passengers shuffled forward slowly as those closest to the far wall walked onto wide stepped conveyors pulling upwards line after line of uniformly outfitted grey humanity. Only remaining distinct through skin tone and body shape. The transport system divided the earth’s population into manageable chunks. It was flawless, yet it lost efficiency compensating for the chaotic nature of its cargo at the start and end of every journey.
That’s not to say though, that the transitional, impersonal and efficient part of the system came to an end upon the humans arrival. Their day of physical preparation for pod insertion took place on one huge assembly line. Joseph reached the top of the conveyor and looked back briefly at the shadows and colors at the bottom of the drop off. It quickly became a bottomless black hole as his eyes adjusted to the pristine sky lit connection factory. He stood at the abstracted beginning to the boxed process, it knew but two things of the world outside: humans emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and humans returned to the darkness of the tunnel. It could only assume darkness was their natural habitat, and the sun it’s own invention.
Enough with your means, this is an ends.
Because in the end, I don’t know what it all means.
Sharpen the blade of reality,
For it has been dulled by familiarity.
Go outside and be stabbed, again and again and again.
I’m in search of company without a clock-speed.
I’ll be at peace when I find someone to agree
All is not as it should be.
But I’ll have to leave if you ever say
It doesn’t have to be this way.
It wasn’t a nightmare, it lacked raw fear. And as such was all the more traumatic. It stuck with me all day. I wish it made more sense, but this is what happened.
Colonisation, hailing both at once from somewhere in eastern Europe and a humanoid yet certainly extra terrestrial race.
I was in the city the first time I knew I was going to die. The first explosion peaked over the top of the skyscrapers. I saw the second as it came, a huge propeller driven zeppelin let go a small cylinder, The very same immense structures evaporated like rigid hydrogen balloons. A chain reaction that removed rather than leveled half the skyline. The third was too close, I saw it dropping and knew running was of no use. Utterly useless, this was boolean and we were dead. I huddled among my parents and siblings as we prepared to meet sweet Jesus our Savior.
Suddenly; elsewhere, home, further away, local, and a more subtle realisation. No college today, obviously never, but all I could piece together were the consequences for today. Then an explosion, a flare shooting up into the sky, an invader has arrived. We round ourselves up to stand helpless before him. He has short blonde hair and is heavily built. He fires many more flares, signaling to others. Gives a ammunition shell to me, I’m confused, now it’s a grenade. 20 seconds.
“Give it to someone else” he says.
Uselessly I look around, the outcome it obvious and time skips forward. I look for an empty space in the crowd, I lie down with the explosive under my stomach. 3 seconds. I’m going to die. 2… 1 second. I’ll be somewhere else soon. Jesus.
Nothing happens, the invader picks up the grenade. A test, an experiment, the invader looks at me. The anti-climax hits full of subtle amusement. I see her in the crowd, catch her eye, she smiles and says something. I wake up.
The average gamer is 37 years old. He spends most days wasting away his life in childish pursuits which amount to nothing. Up to three times a day he is caught for a moment in the terrible grip of perspective; but then finds comfort in the fact that the average gamer is 37 years old.
I’ll put a feather in my hat
And we’ll call it even
(you hurt me)
Here’s what I’m thinking… I’ll post all my unpublished drafts and then get a Tumblr. It’s meant to be a much more social experience which I think will help me to meld what I have created here with who I am really. What either of those are I’m not entirely sure but the point is I think I’m taking my work here a little too seriously (evidenced by the fact I refer to it as “my work”).
I feel like I’m ten feet tall and more hideous than ever.
All I wanted to do was say sorry to everyone,
But now, repenting of that,
I’ll try to put the world back down.
But you’re all still plotting against me,
I plague your every waking thought and invade your dreams.
If you so wish you can observe my actions at any time,
No matter how secluded I may be.
I’m never really alone.
I hear laughter around the next corner,
I want to turn back, shy away from the abuse.
Into my luxurious and lonely landscape sane company arrives.
Speaking kind words that make much more sense.
But my soul leaves it’s home whenever they appear,
Then returning I wonder how things got so tidy,
And it won’t be long until I make a mess of it again.
I’m far too pitiful, and I remain too proud.
Progress Yes (perhaps even success), but no answer.
