Michael Grasso writes

mgrassowrites @ 2005-12-18T18:27:00

2005-12-18T23:27:44Z

circa mile marker 68

someone told you once
"romance is a rate of acceleration."
shot as if from a catapult
down the Mass Pike,
denuded cocoa-colored hills
laced with powder-sugar-snow
ever looming in the foreground
you almost believe it.

zooming by
walls of stone, ice
frozen waterfalls of translucent ivory
ending in daggers
pointed at your heart

(- for ultra_lilac)

Lifesong, Chapter 3

2005-11-02T12:54:59Z

Halifax 1987
Night

Paul was walking on water.

He felt the water soaking through to his socks, and then looked down. He was wearing those ratshit-brown church shoes that he wore from the age of 8 to 10, but they were sized right for his 17-year-old feet, which were admittedly large and inelegant, and not at all boyish.

He looked up, or, more accurately, across, to a series of pine-green hills around a comfortable bay. No sign of life, no boats, no houses. But still, here he was in the middle of the bay, walking on water. The sun reflected off the clear water and near-blinded him when he looked at the water at the right angle.

Let’s look at that again, Paul thought to himself. He looked down and nothing supported him but the surface tension of the water. He dipped his hand into the water and it broke the plane, but his feet stayed above the surface, mostly. They were getting wet still.

So, a correction, he thought to himself. I’m standing on water. Walking would involve moving to a point… somewhere. God knows where. Paul walked – more like sauntered, cautiously – in the direction of the bay, and found himself standing in front of a cod poking its ugly head out of the water.

“Hail dere, sonny.” The cod spoke to him. Paul furrowed his brow immediately and tried to say something, but his mouth just sort of hung open. Fish-like.

“It’s all right, you know. Dere’s nut’in’ t’be scared’f, b’y.” A cod with a Newfie accent! But then again, really, what other sort of accent would a cod have?

“Yeah, but I’m walking on water. Like Jesus.” Paul actually was a little scared at this point, although he didn’t want to show the cod that. Why didn’t he want to show the cod that? Inside he laughed at himself.

“Sure, Jaysus did it. So did a lot of other folk. It’s not exactly a rare talent dere. Let’s see, dere was an Irish fella in the six’ century who walked ‘cross t’Atlantic, he did. Walked or rode a whale, I don’t remember which.” The cod’s tail splashed above the surface, almost playfully. “Ye know who I mean, don’t ye?”

“Yeah, Saint Brendan? I know him. That’s my Confirmation name, in fact. Brendan.” Paul looked towards the pine-covered hills and blinked, making a visor out of his hand to block the sun from view. He did this in an effort not to deal with the oddity of his conversing with a fish, but the cod wasn’t having any of it.

“Well, obviously. You look like a Brendan. Or an Eric.” The cod dove under the water and resurfaced a few yards away. “You know where y’are?”

Paul shrugged. “Up the coast? Or maybe P.E.I.?” It was a bit of an unfair question. Paul had no idea where he was. Never mind the question of how he’d gotten here.

“No. Dis is yer home, boy.” The cod said, satisfied. “You’ve never been dere, but this is yer home. Look harder.”

And as Paul focused his vision on the eastern? western? sunward horizon, he saw something he hadn’t before. This time, he could see a tiny fishing village. There was no metal glinting in the thin sliver of sun that managed to crawl over the steep tree-bearded hills, but there were small houses. No boats, though, that he could see. For some reason, Paul knew there should be boats here. He asked the cod.

“Dey don’t need ‘em no more. Dey’re here t’stay. Want to get closer?” The cod dove under the waters, and Paul could feel himself zoom along that water. No, scratch that. It was the world, rather, that was zooming under his feet at the very speed it rotated on its axis. Because, within minutes, he was at the shoreline with the fish.

The village was ramshackle. It could be Newfoundland. The buildings were log cabins; they had no electricity, it seemed. No roads leading into the village at all. Smoke rose from the roofs, and there were no chimneys? Just holes. This was a seriously backward place! The fardles outside the doors to the cottages said they were in for a nasty winter, though. Full to overflowing with sticky pine logs.

Paul said, “What’s with these houses? They’ve got no money, do they?”

The cod replied, “Dey got plenty of it. Plenty of gold, actually. Dey’re richer than Croesus. Ye haven’t grasped it yet, have ye?”

“I haven’t grasped much of anything since I got here, fish, I’m sorry.” Paul, oddly, wasn’t frustrated by the situation. Being forced to walk on water, waterski at a thousand miles an hour across the ocean, and view a forgotten little fishing village – with no boats, mind –that probably didn’t even have working shitters would be the sort of thing that would make him angry, or at least confused, beyond his ability to articulate clearly. Maybe that was just the thing that was happening here.

“Well, dere’s one more t’ing I get t’show ye, so look well, slinger.” The fish disappeared all of a sudden: not under the waves as he had before, but literally out of sight completely. Paul was confused, and then he plunged feet first through the surface of the bay. Luckily, the water was shallow here, and he only dropped about three or four feet.

Wiping the silt and water from his eyes, he walked towards the shore and did his best to dry out, a bit like a dog, shaking the water and mud from his clothes as best he could.

It was at this moment that he saw the stone.

It looked like it appeared back where Paul had started off, way off a good mile out into the bay. It was a good sized chunk of rock, the same dark grey of a heavy winter cloud cover. It looked mottled from this distance with black spots. It was rounded around the edges and even though it was tough to judge its size from this distance, Paul knew it had to be a good two, three stories tall.

It was floating above the water. Not skimming it, but well above it: at least 100 feet. Paul could barely see a series of vortices of moist ocean air forming and spinning around it, like the dust clouds a helicopter might kick up as it hovered over the ground. A clearer look – the sun was shining right on its “face” – revealed something was carved into its surface. It was carved pretty deep too; the symbol was revealed by the shadows thrown there by the sunlight’s angle.

The symbol looked like a zed turned on its side, with a line through it. Paul couldn’t take his sorry eyes off it. Looking at it was like looking at every face his Da had pulled when he was angry at him or Andy. Intense, profound disappointment shot from that stone somehow, and it made Paul ashamed. Covered in the silty, salty water of the bay, Paul felt like the lowest thing on God’s green Earth.

It was getting closer. Or bigger. Paul wasn’t sure which.

Paul actually began to cower. It was still a thousand yards off, at least, and it felt like a hand reaching from the fucking clouds to clout him one.

“I’m not ready for this I’m not ready for this I’m not ready for this,” Paul repeated, quite unsure of why he’d be saying those words as the stone came to hover over him, throwing a shadow over the entire village now, perching itself on the hillside behind Paul.

Paul turned to face the stone, and stepped into the village to get underneath it, all the while looking up at the carved symbol with intent. Paul dropped to his knees, sure as he had two years ago at St. Bridget’s when he’d made his Confirmation, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something was going to happen: it was going to zap him, or brainwash him, or take him to the aliens or some shit.

Paul looked down at his hands. All of a sudden, they’d become crow’s talons. Paul screamed, and it sounded like the call of a thousand blackbirds come home to roost, to feast on something dead with great joy and exultation.

And even as wrong as it felt, Paul remembered something he’d forgotten up to this point. Something that was frustrating in the back of his mind for years now. He remembered that he’d once sung to Katie. He’d once sung to her in this voice, this harsh, crackling crow’s cackle. And that was all he could remember before the village, the stone, his own hands and voice, all disappeared from his sight and hearing.

1,464 words

Lifesong, Chapter 2

2005-11-01T07:05:09Z

Chapter 1, not part of this NaNoWriMo project, is here.

Halifax 1987

The kitchen’s a mess: littered with TV dinner trays, dirty plates, and random objects. Here there’s a Styrofoam cooler, there there’s a pair of gumboots, caked in mud and grime, smelling slightly of mildew.

Paul put the keys back in his pocket, and shouted out to whomever might be home. He locked the side door to the kitchen and went into the parlor.

Andy was in there. Andy was huge, gigantic, beached on the couch like a boil full of pus. He’d been unemployed now for coming on a year, and was mostly likely physically unable to do the construction work he’d been doing before he was laid off.

“Where’re Ma and Da?” Paul asked him.

“Out. T’ey didn’t say.” He reached into a bag of Doritos and washed it down with a litre bottle of Moxie.

“Move over, I’ve got to watch the community talent show.” Paul reached for the remote control.

“Eh, fuck off! I’m after watchin’ ‘is!” He raised a blotchy, flabby arm to the TV, where 1970s-model cars were careening and exploding in fireballs.

“Jesus Christ, you know Katie was just on there! I was just down the studio!” Paul looked expectantly, almost angrily at his brother, waiting for him to acquiesce. Nothing doing.

“Go use the black and white upstairs, then.” Andy laughed at nothing in particular, and as Paul made his way upstairs, Paul said cruelly, “She’s too good for ya, ya gommel. Don’t ya realize ‘at yet?” Andy laughed again. Under most circumstances, Paul would’ve engaged him in a good fraternal scrap, but today, Paul was afraid he’d really hurt him.

Upstairs in Ma’s sewing room was the old black and white TV. It sat on one of Ma’s three unused sewing tables. Spools of cloth, yarn, and old half-woven tapestries cluttered the room. It, too, smelled of mildew.

Paul hauled it up, moving aside several old moth-holed sweaters that sat in a teetering pile on the sewing table, and grabbed its handle, intending to take it to his room.

When had he done this before? He got an intense feeling of déjà vu all of a sudden; he’d been getting these a lot the past six months. Had he been on a beach, carrying a cooler by its handle? Not a cooler… some sort of wooden container, heavy, with a handle like this.

The power cord dangled at his feet, and Paul wrapped it around his wrist as he took the TV to his bedroom.

Paul’s bedroom was littered with a mess, but it wasn’t the chaotic, neglectful mess of the rest of the house. It was the mess of a teenager with an active mind. He’d had the maximum number of books out of both the school and public libraries. They varied; Paul’s interests were all over the map. A historical novel about a female Irish pirate, a simple guide to electrical engineering, a computer programming book, a history of Canadian hockey. The books were riddled with notecards, Post-it notes, even ripped pieces of paper to mark his place. Paul had become quite a reader in the last year or so.

It took a while for Paul to tune in Channel 5, CTV. The Community Talent Special aired every Saturday at dinnertime, 6 pm, going back as long as the station had been in existence, he supposed. The signal was faint and fuzzy, despite their three-decker house being on a stout hill in Cole Harbour.

Paul had enjoyed seeing Katie and her band, A Winter’s Tale, perform on the show, but for God’s sake, could they have been more out of place? Katie, clad in a black puffy tulle dress, leggings, and combat boots, sang her ethereal lyrics with her backing band, who were just as “Gothy.” They were stuck in between a group of eerily-smiling Grade 5 Irish dancers and a group of four performing standard poodles. Neither the crowd nor the host knew what to make of Katie and the boys.

Seeing the performance on TV was a poor echo of the real thing. When Paul had heard Katie’s voice – weak and quavering of timbre in the first verse, but strong, bold and heartfelt by the last chorus – the microphone and P.A.’s amplification somehow faded away, and he could hear her voice, the same voice with which she’d “auditioned” with him after school, after chorus.

Paul knew music pretty well; he grew up around enough of it in Newfoundland, with his uncle being an accomplished and semi-famous bodhran player and piper. His talents were slight, as he looked at the electric guitar on one side of the dresser.

Katie was in closeup on the screen, as the song ended. The black kohl ringing her eyes was more… profound in black and white, it seemed. And as the host interviewed her and the band perfunctorily, Paul drifted off into the same daydream of Viking longships he’d had on the drive back from the TV studio.

They were sailing with the rising – or was it setting sun? – at their backs, drums beating the rhythm of their rowing, into a rocky cove in Norway.

Or was it Newfoundland?

Katie drove herself home after the show; the boys and she had stopped at Tim Horton’s for coffee, discretely spiked with Bushmill’s from a flask when no one was looking. They’d been all smiles and laughs after the performance, so proud of themselves for the job they’d done on TV for their first “real” gig.

Katie hadn’t had the heart to tell them she’d signed a record contract three days ago, without them.

It had actually begun three years ago, when Katie had been a competitor in Montreal at the Eastern Canada Junior Vocal competition. Several record labels, most of them with special interests in French music, had been there, looking for the latest teen singing sensation. No one made enough of an impact to be signed, but when Katie finished third, she got a couple of business cards. Or, rather, her mom had gotten them.

Six months ago, she’d had a conversation with her friend Paul on the steps at school. Katie was smoking and she remembers Paul disapproving.

“Those things’ll ruin your voice.” Paul smiled, his pudgy cheeks rendering his eyes invisible.

“Ah, who cares. I’m singing in stupid chorus. Like it matters.”

“You should be doing more, Katie.” Paul had always been this way, for as long as Katie had known him. Insistent on her talent. Sure, Katie knew she was talented, but that didn’t mean she liked hearing it from people.

“Well, ever since I told my mom to stop grooming me for those creepy ‘girl singer’ competitions, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to do anything.”

Paul had thought for a moment, fiddling with his wallet chain. “Well, what about those guys who like the same music as you? Are they musicians?”

“Piddling ones,” Katie said. “They don’t take it seriously.”

“Well, then,” Paul said, his eyes finally reconnecting with Katie’s after being lost in a short haze, “see if they want to get together and play after school. And if they don’t – heck, even if they do -- you’ve got that keyboard and four-track. Record yourself a demo. Send it out. Right? I mean, you’ve got contact information at at least three record labels, hmm?”

Katie exhaled smoke. “Yeah, from three years ago, when I was a zombie on stage singing folk songs to a recording for my mother’s approval.” She laughed, and stubbed her cigarette out on the stone steps.

“So? If the demo’s good, they don’t have to remember who you were. They just need to know who you are now.” Paul looked out to the street, waiting for his ride home, satisfied and now unable to meet Katie’s eyes.

Katie thought back to this now. She hooked up with A Winter’s Tale shortly after that. After getting herself in tune and writing four original songs by herself, she recorded the demo. Then, two months ago, a letter had come from Toronto. Matrix Canada, an industrial/goth/experimental music record label aligned with a major label in the States, had heard her demo and wanted to send someone to Halifax to speak with her. She’d left her age out of the letter she’d written to send with the tape. Would her parents have to co-sign the contracts? Heck, they’d have to know about it. And the last thing Katie wanted to deal with was her mother.

Katie arranged for the meeting with Nancy Swerthlow, Matrix’s A&R rep, at a coffee shop in downtown. Nancy was about 30, wearing an ensemble that would have endeared her, strongly, to the boys in A Winter’s Tale. Black boots with shiny silver buckles, black skirt and black v-neck top; they’d have been drooling. Katie herself was taken in by what was obviously a concerted effort to seduce her to sign with Matrix. Nancy was smooth, effusive in her compliments, and world-weary enough to put stars in young Katie’s eyes.

Nancy said, “How old are you, Katherine?”

“Eighteen.”

“Do you have ID on you?” Nancy sipped at her coffee.

“No licence. I don’t drive. Sorry.” Katie’s eyes darted away from the contract that was on the table.

“Well, I’m sure you want your people to look at this. But then, you don’t have an agent, do you?” Nancy’s smile was shining white like polished marble, but there was definitely no sincerity behind it, Katie had decided.

“No.” Katie sipped at her own coffee; the bitterness made her wince. She hated coffee.

“In that case,” Nancy said, standing up, “maybe you could have your parents look at it, hmm?” She smiled that empty smile again and stood up, leaving enough money for the coffee. “I’ve got a plane to catch. It was nice to meet you Katie. I hope I hear from you soon.” Katie was found out and embarrassed, and blushed furiously.

Katie unlocked the front door to her house and walked in. Her parents had been at the TV show, but had to go immediately afterwards to visit a family friend in the hospital. At least that was their excuse. Truth be told, ever since Katie had said to her mother that she was going to pursue this recording career on her own terms, her mother hadn’t been paying much attention to her.

The house smelled slightly of disinfectant; the weekend maid must have been through while she was gone. Covered in make-up and late-afternoon Atlantic Ocean mist, Katie made a beeline for the washroom to take off her thick makeup and wipe her face.

Eventually, she’d have to tell the boys in the band. That wouldn’t be easy, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. They’d expected great things; to go to university together, maybe at Dalhousie, to play the clubs themselves, to get a record contract together. The sense that she was being plucked, at random, from obscurity chased her like a phantom, and the boys’ likely reaction did not help matters.

She went to her room, still filled with flouncy pink artifacts of her early adolescence, although the posters of Depeche Mode and the Cure mitigated that embarrassment a trifle. Katie thought about Paul; always on the periphery during this process, always pleasantly encouraging, a direct and total contrast to her mother. Paul would be most heartbroken of all, Katie feared.

She sighed, and analyzed all the signs. He was infatuated with her, she was sure. They’d been friends, both on the edge of being outcasts at school for as long as she could remember. She could still remember the awful taunts of “dumb Newfie” that were slung at him when he first moved to town in Grade 5. She remembered how her own short-lived attempt to be in with the “popular” girls failed miserably in Grade 8. And from then on, they were best friends.

But now, it just seemed different. Katie wanted nothing to do with Paul in that way. She was happy with their friendship the way it was. But if she succeeded? Went away to make a record? How would he react?

She took her headphones and put Victorialand in her Walkman and slept a deep, untroubled sleep. She dreamt of endless glaciers, snow and ice on plains and hills that she’d never seen, waking or dreaming, before.

2,056 words

Sense, said the spider (microfiction)

2005-10-15T23:43:04Z

The weekends are the worst.

There are times Dave would've done anything to be relieved of those 64 hours between quitting time Friday and back-to-work on Monday. Just erase them. They gave him nothing: no satisfaction, no wholeness, no company, no hope.

There was a spider this Saturday night, climbing up the far wall of his bedroom, where he lay in the near-dark, TV flickering enough to see the dark speck on the white wall. This spider was moving, but Dave had an intuitive grasp that it would want to perch in the ceiling vertex, a dead-end for all its prey.

Dave had been widowed 5 years, 3 months, and 2 days.

This apartment had no memories. It was cleaned out and hollow of all deeper meaning. It was a fourth in a series of year-long leases at different apartments he'd had since Katie died.

A widower at 34, Dave thought to himself. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Dave rolled over on his side, picked up the crime novel he'd been reading all weekend. Sometimes he'd try to lose himself in a book, a movie, a computer game on weekends, but it always ended up being the same.

The spider was now in the corner.

There'd been counselors, priests, family, friends, booze, tears, a botched suicide attempt, a night going 120+ mph on the highway north, which was where they'd used to go one weekend a summer since college. There'd been a lot of this sort of thing until he'd moved out of their house. He didn't pay bills for three months afterwards anyway.

The funeral weekend he'd been pretty well sedated, first by doctors, then by friends who gave him benzodiazepine after benzodiazepine, washed down with rum out of a flask. Headaches, dehydration and anterograde amnesia were pretty much expected under such conditions.

These are things Dave thought about on weekends.

Oddly, Dave hadn't gotten fired; he'd fallen up. The Peter Principle, they called it. His work was shit, his dedication suspect, and yet he'd been promoted twice since it happened. Sympathy? Dave's boss, Bill Acker, was a widower too. He was 60.

The phone rang. Dave did not move or flinch. He could hear the answering machine in the other room.

"David, it's Mom. We've wanted to talk to you for a long time now. I want you to know that we're here for you, and that we love you. Your brother and Karyn had the baby! I know that Brian called you too, David, and I think it's horrible how you haven't called him to congratulate him and..."

The machine beeped. Dave felt three tears drop from his eyes to the bedsheets.

Eating seemed like too much effort. Sleeping too expected.

It was his fault. That morning, she'd wanted a ride but they'd just fought and Dave told her to take the train. At the train station, a maniac — a sick fucking maniac no more deserving of life than that spider weaving a web in the corner of the room — came along, ran up to her and pushed her off the platform as the train approached. He ran out of the station and the transit police and the city police chased him down into the street. In a mirror, he was killed by a speeding truck.

Later on, they found out, through journals and clippings and other pieces of evidence at the maniac's home, that he'd been planning this for years. He called it "The Event," and apparently thought that he'd be elevated to godhood once he took a life in this fashion.

Dave paid a visit to the maniac's parents' home in the suburbs and killed their dog with a dose of poison. They'd raised two non-maniac children; it wasn't their fault. Dave felt horrible for months afterwards.

Maybe he'd sleep. He felt tired; weekends were like that. A lot of sleeping. The fewer hours awake the better. He lay there on the bed, holding a phantom.

He fell asleep.

"Sense," said the spider, as Dave fell asleep, curled in the fetal position.

A Child's Crusade

2005-05-04T11:37:52Z

crossposted from mgrasso

Here's something that came to me today. For Barons of Suburbia. I'll have to add It to the eventual Recommended Reading list. The prospectus is coming. ioianthe, you home tonight, wanna talk about it?

Stephen rode his bike, a black and silver Huffy, through the leafy streets of downtown Tyrconnel. At the end of summer, you could ride down the length of Broadway from Lighthouse Pharmacy to the Russell Junior High baseball diamond, without the sun ever hitting your face. The leaves were already starting to shed, on this last week of August; the trees knew September was around the corner, even though a heat wave had just broken, merciful south winds off the Atlantic bringing relief and thunderstorms, their severe black heads like hammers.

Stephen was riding to a baseball game, the last of the Summer Youth League. After this, he'd be going to Tyrconnel-Ormonde Regional and trying out for, well, ideally JV and if he was good enough, a spot in the varsity bullpen next spring.

Across the wires over Broadway were the Bicentennial banners, whipped since June into shreds, their red and blue faded from innumerable rainy afternoons and weeks under the powerful New England sun. As Stephen rode, the trees' shadows on the street below created a strobe effect, yellow-green sunlight flickering across Stephen's deep green irises. Stephen blinked, and saw them.

High school kids. They were hanging on the corner between the ballfield and the vacant lot behind Raymonds Hardware. Smoking, looking at the cars that were dropping kids off. Stephen's parents didn't take much of an interest in his sports. His dad came back from Vietnam five years ago without his leg and the joy in his son he had when he'd left. His mother, always harping on him, afraid to ask his father to do anything, making Stephen spend the summer at the house cleaning gutters, repainting fences, mending furniture.

It was funny; the more he thought about his parents, the more the high school kids seemed to take an interest in him. Stephen knew one of them: he was the left fielder for the T-O Regional varsity squad last year, Paul Contreau. Big kid; at least six feet at the age of 16. He was being scouted, it was said, by colleges and even a few minor league teams. And he was mean as the summer day was long. He was in charge of the Gauntlet.

It was said that if you wanted to try out for varsity, the summer before you came back to school (or came to high school for the first time), you had to endure a Gauntlet. What it consisted of, no one really knew, because you were sworn to secrecy afterwards.

"Closs." Paul called out Stephen's name as he rode his bike towards the gate nearest the home dugout gate. "C'mere."

Stephen locked up his bike with lightning speed, took his glove off his handlebars and tucked it into the back of his pants as he walked over. Slowly. Defiantly.

"Closs, you want to try out for Varsity in the spring, right?" Paul took a long drag off his cigarette and blew the smoke towards Stephen's face.

"Sure." Stephen looked over to the field where Coach Wilson was getting the players for the Raymonds Hardware Giants ready for the game. He looked over at Stephen and the high school boys.

"You don't sound so sure. You know that we want to meet everyone who wants on the team, gather them together before school starts, make sure everyone's got the right stuff for the team? Tomorrow night, at the Lighthouse on Andrews Beach."

"The Grey Lighthouse?" Stephen's voice broke. The Grey Lighthouse had been abandoned since before World War I; some keeper had gone crazy and killed his wife and kids up there, and it hadn't been used since. At least that was the story told in town, the one you learned when you were around 10 or 11 and such gory histories began to gain some favor.

"Yeah." Another drag, his cigarette glowing, a small pinprick aflame in the twilight like the distant fires of a deep, endless inferno. "You in?"

Coach Wilson was shouting, but Stephen was in a world of his own looking into Paul's eyes; they reflected the cigarette's glow when he inhaled.

"I'll be there." Stephen punched his glove, drew out his Saint-Michel medal that Maman had given him before she died, kissed it, and ran onto the diamond, leaping over the foul line as he did every time he took the field.

The Eternal Babylon (gaming fiction)

2005-04-22T12:44:18Z

From an RPG I played last night... poetry and narrative of my character's Hellenistic incarnation, Cynthia of Magnesia, a sailor-poetess-alchemist.

Cynthia begins her Alchemical ritual with the unstringing of strings from her lyre, to help invoke Naoth. She takes one string and wraps it around her pen, and takes yet another and wraps it around a small soapstone statuette of Aphrodite, whose planet also rules Naoth. She lights a brazier to focus her Fire Ka, and begins to recite her poem in her manticore's purr.

The arrow of the Huntress, Artemis, flies from the foam
Of her sister's dwellings, undersea, into the rising sun
East, across the olive groves, across the deserts
The arrow, cloaked in moonlight and spume, soars over
The dead streets of lost Babylon.

Cynthia invokes her childhood patroness, Artemis, as well as Naoth's patron planet, Aphrodite. She is far from happy with this initial metaphor, and considers scribbling it out, but she presses on.

War came to these boulevards, choked with gods and ziggurats
The cleansing fire, the slicing sword, the foul anger of Ares,
These battles raged, breaking the citizens, wounding the city
As the people were left covered in the ash of their love.

To refocus, Cynthia gazes into the fire, and taps into the earthly emanation of Eneuth, the decan of fire, war, and conflict. This is a more successful turn, and Cynthia decides she can tell the story of Babylon's history, both literally and figuratively.

Artemis, the Huntress, wrestled the lion of the sands
Her love and power tamed the powerful beast, and laid its bones
To form the boundaries and foundations for a New Babylon

The power and glory of Cynthia's Arcanum, the Strength Arcanum, the taming of lust and bestialness, is evoked within her lines to show the forming of a rebirth of Babylon after the ravaging beasts of war went through the city.

What was this city? Cradle of mankind's laws and gods?
First city of the ancients, first home of man's mind?
I have seen cities, O Muse, in this life and others long past,
Much like this one, but none exactly like it.

Cynthia/Rubric casts her mind back to her last life in India, where she, as Rohit, helped plan the first city of the Indian subcontinent, in an effort to defend the tribe from invasion and conflict. What would a new Babylon look like? How could the tragedy of old Babylon be avoided?

Tell me, O Muses, all nine of your graces, all Arts, all Fire,
What is the unwinding of the years, the ending of this age?
How many miles must a man walk to the Babylon gone?
What words must be written to end one story and begin the next?

Cynthia's natural ability with riddles lets her pose the rhetorical questions to the Muses and, to echo these riddles, she unwraps the lyre strings and uses them to trace what she believes to be the last two lines of the poem. The energy of the lyre strings is misdirected, though, and the poem needs a more definitive ending.

The navel of the world, the center of creation, greatest city,
The root of the tree, and the power of the Kingdom,
This is thee, Bablyon, the gateway from one age
Into the next.

Cynthia's mapmaking skills, combined with her awareness of reality reflected in the 10th and lowest Sephiroth of Malkuth, allows her to finish the poem, planting the city of Babylon on the map.

Presence, part 2

2005-02-02T15:46:53Z

"So," the little man asked of Siobhan after she'd gathered the firewood, started the fire, and made a broth in the little man's cauldron, "what is it you seek?"

"I seek the Tale That Was Never Told."

Silence filled the night.

The little man, fear sudden in his eyes, gulped. "The Tale-Never-Told, the Song-Never-Sung?"

Siobhan merely nodded.

"You seek this, when all of the Ogham bards have failed?"

Siobhan stirred the thick broth within the heavy iron pot, the wildfowl she'd hunted with her own bow floating in huge chunks in the soup. "I seek it. I wish I hold it in my heart next to Her fire. It is for Her that I do this."

"The tale has never been told for a reason, you know. And you believe you will be the one to find it, to remember it, to sing it?"

"I am the one."

"Then you must begin past those woods, into the Trackless Pines of the Wolves. There you will find what you seek." The little man ladled out a small portion of broth and sipped it.

"I leave now, though the hospitality of your hearth is inviting. I must waste no time, even though it is night." Siobhan took her spear and her bow and stood up, brushing the dirt from her legs. The little man said one last thing before she left.

"Your journey will not end well, sister. Much blood will be spilled. Many lives, lost. Your own? I cannot see. But this much is true; if you seek that song, you will bring misery to many nations."

Siobhan did not respond as she turned and walked away.

Presence: An Imbolc Tale. Part 1

2005-02-02T13:30:47Z

This tale takes place in the days before Siobhan the Red entered Her Exalted Presence and left us for the lands of Tir Na Og. You see, Siobhan was once mortal as you or I.

In those days she was a warrior-witch of her tribe. The legend that surrounded her was that no one was quite sure while she'd earned the name, "The Red," because of her flame-red hair or because she'd spilled the blood of so many of her tribe's enemies.

She was a disciple of Brigid, and so mastered the Three Arts: those of the Forge, those of the Hearth, and those of the Harp. It was agreed that while she was not the best at all these arts, like Lugh, there was no one among her tribe who could do them all.

One day, she left her tribe behind and journeyed to the west (not the West, mind, that journey would come later). Among the rolling hills and green moss she encountered a little man. He was squat and ugly and covered in dirt.

"Hello, sister," he said, pleasantly. "My word, you are as beautiful as I am ugly."

"I am uglier than you can see with your eyes, little man," Siobhan replied.

His eyes went to her spear, strapped to her back. "Sister, that is a fine weapon. I could never make such a superior spear for killing foes."

"This spear is naught but a piece of driftwood bound to a crude iron scrap. It is nothing." Siobhan sighed heavily.

"Indeed," the little man said. "Would you agree to cook for me? It seems I have not eaten in many days and a fire would do us well."

"I am no cook," Siobhan replied. "Indeed, I am but a scavenger, not used to preparing meals. I cannot even tend a fire properly."

"Very good," said the little man, suddenly satisfied. "Go find some firewood and I will tell you what you wish to know."

Siobhan left for a stand of trees: not the oaks, but the dying birches, to collect fallen limbs to feed the little man's crude hearth. In this she knew she had passed the first test.

Office haiku :)

2005-01-13T13:45:30Z

I call this one, "PC Load Letter."

Heavy the ozone
Hangs like grey, low-lying clouds
Around Mt. Fuji.

:)

mgrassowrites @ 2005-01-09T08:03:00

2005-01-09T13:03:05Z

Rubies

Small rubies glow, as if from within
Strewn across a cold stone floor
They give warmth, somehow.
Warmth of color.

A treasure not sought, not found
But rather, situated on their own
And not forgotten, either
Merely waiting patiently

If I put them in my hand
The color inside bursts forward
Lighting the way out of the cold halls
And into the sunlight of morning.

Which itself is the red of small, faceted gems.

Red and Blue, part 2

2004-12-05T14:10:05Z

Rudolph was concerned for his city cousin.

He expected to see her on St. John's Day, and so when a few days had passed, and he had taken into account the possibility of obstacles on the road from the city, he left a message with the family in the village and went off towards the old Grazier's Road, the direction from which she'd approach.

Rudolph had opportunity to think, beneath the sweetly-granted shade of the forest, chopping-axe on his belt, as he searched for signs of his cousin. They'd visited since he could remember, first in their respective parents' care, and now on their own. Rudolph distrusted the city when he visited, always wary of lusty cutpurses and bloodthirsty whores. It was a confusion of smells and visions, and whenever he thought back to church and the lessons taught there about the Everlasting Infernos of Perdition, it was the city his imagination visualized.

In the road there stood an old man. He looked like an aged vagabond, perhaps, or a woodsman gone to seed. He was scratching about in the dust with a stout stick of oak. Poor old-timer. He'd be robbed and killed by highwaymen if he stayed out here long. Funny, he didn't look like anyone Rudolph knew in the village...

"Hail, Elder," said Rudolph in the language he reserved for local members of the nobility, just in case it was a doddering old noble with a case of the pox wandering the Margrave's Highway. "Do you need aid?"

"An excellent question!" the old man said suddenly and brightly. "Why, yes, in fact, young man, I believe I do need aid at this moment. I am looking for a door I misplaced here in the road some time ago."

Did he say "a door," thought Rudoph. He was right; the old man was completely off his rocker. "A door, Elder? Do you mean an old door from your manor-house, perhaps left for firewood long ago and carted out here by some teamster for shipment to market?"

"What a story you spin!" the old man replied with much glee in his voice. "Anything to explain away my odd words, eh? Anything to put a definition for the unknown. No, my son, it is not a door to my manor-house, although it does lead there."

Crazed. A lunatic. Best to escort him back to the village; the chirurgeon or even the church might be able to help him with his madness. "Come, old man," the politeness gone from Rudolph's voice and replaced with hard-edged, fiery resolve. "You must come with me back to the village. How did you get out here?"

"Ah," the old man said sadly, "wrong question. And you were doing so well, too! But now, alas, no better than your cousin."

With this, Rudolph grabbed his chopping-axe from his belt, remembering his duty to Flavia. "What do you know of my cousin, old man! Speak!" He advanced on the old man like a wolf on a doe.

"Out of questions, I'm afraid. The rules are the rules. Ah!" The old man lifted his oaken staff, in what looked like a defensive posture to Rudolph, and said, "There's that door!" He raised the staff and waved it in a wide arc, and when the arc completed its trajectory, both the old man and Rudolph had left the Margrave's Highway.

Red and Blue, part 1

2004-11-29T21:56:47Z

Rudolph and Flavia were cousins. Rudolph lived in the tiny hamlet of D_____ in the lands of the Margrave, where he cut wood, toted loads, and otherwise lived the humble life of a downtrodden yet proud peasant. Flavia, on the other hand, was of the city, surrounded by suitors always, fragrances of a thousand foreign lands wafting through her small home, which she shared with an aunt, Bella.

Once every two years, Flavia would travel to D_____ to visit her poor country cousin and on the intervening year, Rudolph would team up the oxen and take his cart to the unfamiliar streets of the city. The road they would follow was in olden times called the Grazier Road, but in these modern times was deemed the Margrave's Highway.

That road was shaded from the summer sun (for the cousins invariably visited each other at midsummer, when travel was easiest and markets most friendly) by huge trees, oaks and maples and tall willowy aspens. No one could remember why it could ever be called a Grazer or Grazier's Road — it had been overgrown with the foliage of the forest (or the Margrave's Forest, as the mapmakers now had it) for as long as men had lived among its boughs and leaves.

On this particular year, it was Flavia's turn to leave the comforts of the city and visit her cousin in the fields of the Margrave's winter vineyards in D_____. A winter wine was made there; not much in demand at city market, but cheap enough for medicines and the undiscerning drinker. On that road, accompanied by men of her aunt's household, Flavia's caravan came across a man standing in the road. Neither young nor old, he smiled at her with a gruesome yet somehow familiar grin. The horses all stopped a good 50 paces before the place where the little man stood.

"Sir, I know not who you are," said Flavia, when none of her men came to push the likely robber into the forest before shooting him in the face as a lesson to other highwaymen. "But you must move from the road, for we are set for D_____ before nightfall."

"I cannot move from the road any more than the road could leap from these woods and stretch from Paris to Nantes," said the young-old man in an eerie, keening voice. Perhaps he was a plague-bearer, thought Flavia. He certainly was wearing ragged clothing and his skin was not of a healthy shade.

"I am afraid, sir," responded Flavia, "that if you cannot move from the road, I will have to ask these men to remove you." A steely glare in her eyes that, she imagined, almost caused the stranger to leap back a step. But there he stood still.

"Those men," said the stranger, "are no more able to move me from this road than the road can fly into the air and transport you to the Kingdom of the Slyphs, which some men say lay beyond the clouds."

At that moment, Flavia looked behind her, for she could no longer hear the clanking of armor and armanent, nor the impatient clomp of horseshoes in the dirt. And lo, her gallant protectors were disappeared, vanished from the road, not a trail to be seen behind them.

"I ask you, sir, did you see where those men went off to? I plead with you as a titled lady of the city beyond, what has become of them?" Flavia's confidence wavered, so far from the orderly cobblestones of the city.

"I cannot tell you where they went," said the man as he approached, showing his rags to not be rags at all but a shift cruedly woven of oak leaves and leathers, "much as this road cannot dive into the Nortzee and blaze a trail underwater to the shores of England. But I can tell you, my dear, that you and I are kin. As much as you do not wish to believe it."

Flavia looked shocked, and held her hand to her open mouth as the man approached, as much from surprise as sudden exhaustion. The man certainly smelled of the forest: the musty odor of decaying things, moss on trees, fresh apples, and summer downpours. "Sir," she yawned, "I've never seen you before in this life."

"That, for the first time, young girl," said the man, catching the suddenly sleeping Flavia in his arms, "is the first time you've been right all day."

(to be continued?)

Lifesong, Chapter 1

2004-03-23T03:44:11Z

Driving home today, listening to Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, I got the idea for a new novella. Who knows how it'll turn out. Weirdly enough, it's influenced by Changeling: the Dreaming. I swore to myself I would not "pollute" this journal with gaming-related or genre fiction, but the pull of using the Changeling concept of Glamour was too strong.

I know a lot about Sarah McLachlan's early career. She was a real wunderkind, much like her fellow Canadian female musicians Celine Dion, Alanis Morrisette, Shania Twain, etc. Must be something in the water. Recorded her first album at 18. She (and these other female Canadian musicians) are obviously the influence for the Katie character here.

Paul's a bit trickier. He seems to me to be initially influenced by the Sweet William character in the movie The Hanging Garden. Secret infatuation, the dark secrets of a hidden heart undergoing a Chrysalis. And yeah, he's a troll, Changeling-style. That will probably become more evident later. Maybe not. Whether he is Seelie or Unseelie, well, we've yet to see. I want to tell this story without the Changeling stuff getting in the way, but yet I want that element to remain.

Apologies to any Canadians reading. I don't know if there was a "Community Auditions" type show on in Halifax in '87, but it seems likely. All cultural mistakes are despite my extensive experience within the bosom of Canadian culture.

Halifax 1987

The windshield is fogging up, no matter how high Paul blasts the defroster. It's a soggy day, Gulf Stream waters mixing with frigid March air over the Atlantic, creating the thick peasoup fog that any Halfiaxer knows. It's born into your soul.

Paul's not from here, though. He's a Newfie. All the taunts on the schoolground in Grade 4, all the cruel jokes about the Newfoundlanders that he'd never heard before. To Paul, before moving to Halifax, Newfoundland was home and something to be proud of. Even aged eight he felt that way. Credit his extended family in St. John's, proud Newfoundlanders, some of whom had never really taken too much to Mr. Mackenzie King's Newfoundland Act, t'ank you very much.

Paul lost the accent three weeks into his time at his new school. Ten years old and already pretending.

On his way to the TV studio now. Katie. She sang in church. She had for years, ever since her First Communion. Paul met her two years ago. They were in Grade 10 algebra together. Katie and he had worked together because Katie was a self-described "dunce" when it came to math. All Paul had to do was relate it to music, which she was a whiz at. It took a few afternoons at Katie's house, pitcher of milk and Katie's mother's sugar cookies on the kitchen table (Paul ate most of them, to be totally honest), and she was back up to an eighty-three average.

Both of them were in the honours classes, so they saw a lot of each other those next couple of years. Now in Grade 12, Paul was looking at colleges in Toronto and Montreal, and Katie... well, Katie.

Today was a big day for her. She'd been singing in church, sure. Accompanying the deacon on Saturday guitar Mass. But that stopped once her cousin from Ireland brought over those Walkman tapes last summer. The Cure. The Smiths. Bauhaus. Her hair got darker during the summer. Wasn't that the opposite of how it usually worked? Paul didn't see her much after August, until the fall term school talent show and the debut of Winter's Tale. That was Katie's new "band." Three Grade 12 boys in eyeliner and black dyed hair. And Katie, her auburn hair black as pitch and her glorious voice turned into a dirge.

It was the night after that performance that Paul looked in the mirror and saw his new face. The echoes of the longboats, and the drums of the Vikings. It was that night that Katie's songs first flowed into him.

Paul parks in the studio lot, gets out of the car. The suspension on his '79 Ford lifts up when he moves his bulk out of the driver's seat. Paul goes to the audience entrance, there's not a line. They'll be pulling people off the street to fill the studio audience; families and friends don't even come close to filling the seats. Paul ambles in and sees Katie's parents and gives them a perfunctory wave. Two record labels have been by the house this winter. Katie called Paul after each visit.

They were still friends, sure, but Paul knew it couldn't last. The last six months of Katie's explosion of talent had given Paul a gift he couldn't return. The double-sight that cursed his vision now. This winter he actually saw a Viking longboat out on the bay. And whenever he went long without hearing Katie's voice, he felt weaker, angrier, more distant from his family. He ate. He gained weight.

The studio stage is so small, Paul mused. It looks so much bigger on TV. Paul knew something about illusions, now.

These sorts of local community talent shows were an endangered species, even in the Maritimes. You could only show so many high school Irish dance teams and classical guitarists before people turned the dial. And people had cable now. The community audition show was quaint now. A dying breed. Again, Paul could relate.

True to form, Paul sat through two step dance teams from local grade schools before A Winter's Tale took the stage, after the first commercial break. Paul wondered what the mothers watching on TV would make of Katie's dark, sonorous lyrics. They washed over Paul, and he couldn't help but close his eyes.

Dark-winged birds of longing
Find the way across the sea
Making those before them
A weeping throng for me

Katie sang, and Paul saw fjords in his mind. Gateways of light and song, unreachable but tantalizing in the wash of genius from Katie's heart.

Lexicon of the Second Age: Entries I through P

2004-02-03T15:27:33Z

It's been a while since I've updated my Lexicon writings here, so here's the update:

Lexicon of the Second Age.

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

The Idvaders were the colloquial term given to the faction of mercenaries hired by almost all sides during the wars that have racked many regions these past few years. They weren't called, they weren't Summoned from Outside, they just conveniently showed up one day. Somebody said that they arrived one day when a Rider slew his brother in a fit of envy, but I aver that that was just some sort of Cain Echo that we haven't charted yet. Whatever the case, pretty soon they were "helping out" on all sides of the wars.

Their mysterious origins were intriguing, as was their modus operandi in battle. Yes, some forces create doubt in their opponents using trickery, disguise, or rhetoric. The Idvaders made a warrior fight himself, to a certain degree, not only inspiring doubt in himself, but also in his compatriots. Then the usual flaws of the soldier would kick in: greed, a thirst for rapine, murder without honor. And before you know it, a small force of Idvaders (perhaps even one one-hundredth of the enemy force) had effectively broken their enemies and cause them to fight furiously amongst themselves.

But the Idvaders could not trigger their ability in the hearts of Powers, so when a strike team of thrice-damned Powers took it upon themselves to rid the Universe of the Idvaders, that was the end of them.

So you don't have to tell me what you're asking next. Weren't the Idvaders constructs made by the Excrucians to wreak havoc on creation? My informed theory is that they were not. Even though that elite team of Powers were imperceptibly infected by the Idvaders and ended up starting the War of Hearts Not Minds, I still believe the Idvaders were a totally natural phenomenon. The Excrucians don't require our baser desires to eliminate us. Those urges would be entirely too crude a weapon with which to annihilate us. And Powers don't require outside influence to plot and connive against each other, that's for sure.

One interesting note: some of the Idvaders escaped the purge and were taken to the Barathrum of Ordination by certain emissaries of Hell. If rumors are to be believed, the Idvaders were neither able to improve themselves in the Barathrum, nor were they killed during the rites. Rather, they faded away gradually with each bit of pain inflicted on them, as if the pain was too much for them to bear, as if they were the only ones worthy of such an honor. Hell, in the course of eliminating the rest of these Idvaders, respectfully disagreed.

See also: Barathrum Of Ordination, Riders of Denith-Pranum, War of Hearts Not Minds

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

"Sisters! Your constant spouting off of prophecy and madness vexes me. Fix me a good stiff drink, and I'll have none of your mushrooms floating about in it."

You have to talk to them like that. They don't understand anything but grand declamations, preferably spoken over a geothermal vent spewing noxious, hallucinogenic fumes. They'll take their trips any way they can get them.

The Sisterhood of Jasper, or Jasperated Sorority, usually includes two to three score women, ranging in age from nubility to senility. They will lair either in a remote mountaintop location or a deep cave, but whatever their shelter, it must be entirely made of natural, unworked earth.

Their founder (foundress? foundrix?), Filhomeena (at least according to them; I've heard stories about the same Filhomeena that would make your tail curl), was a speaker of truths and damned half-lies par excellence.

Now, if you go to seek wisdom from the Sorority, please keep some things in mind. They are so busy prophesying all day long that they, er, really don't go to the bathroom that much. They wear loin cloths that handle all their needs, at least for those who still excrete on a regular basis. (Ed: Thank goodness for Lus's sometimes-disgusting attention to detail. This could explain the long-misunderstood etymological link between the modern words "jasper" and "diaper," through the Latin "jaspis." See below for a further explanation.)

They often weave complicated and beautiful repeating patterns into the garments they wear over these primitive "jaspers." These pattterns are meant to evoke the Mandala Principle, which they believe is the basis of all prophecy (all things "pattern" themselves and are connected to all other points in the "pattern"). They also sell these patterns in clothing and tapestries to outsiders to fund their own life in their forbidding nunneries.

So yes, to the outsider, they appear eccentric and anti-social. It's meant to be that way. Just take a sampling of some of their more infamous predictions:

(Ed: here the text is blank for one-and-a-half pages. Why does he leave such gaps? And I won't hear any nonsense about the scholar's blind eye problem, either. Lus's attention to detail and picayune style clearly precludes any such hijacking by historical vandals. I remain unconvinced on this matter, for the record.)

They are my sisters, though. My sistren in chalcedony. And as such they are welcome in my chancel once every 801 years, as their name dictates. They can't argue with that. I hate the stink when they come around. (Ed: I am unclear on the obscure meaning of this statement. Any takers?)

See also: Anaphora, Scholar's Blind Eye Problem, Mandala Principle

"Dammit, Private! Man those Tiphareth cannons and aim them at these coordinates!" hands private papers

"Sir, yes sir!"

rhythmic blasts of golden light

"Ah yes. A good solid hit. Still, it's going to take more than a bit of Beauty to take down those damned automatons. Goggles on, men."

sound of goggles being snapped into place

"Where the hell's the Netzach Navy in all this? Their Psychologic Turbulence hasn't even swirled up an eddy yet!"

"Sir, they're guilting each other into an infantile state as fast as they can..."

"No excuses, man, no excuses. Did you see the Binah Moths airborne last night, showering down Myrrh Bombs on the enemy? A beautiful sight."

"To be fair, Captain, they are closer to the Godhead."

"I won't hear it, Private. I won't stand excuses! Down that road there be qlippoth."

"Sir! Spin Wolf Cavalry Unit 16 reporting in from the front! We're taking heavy casualties and the Geburah Mines aren't protecting our flank!"

"Soldier, snap out it and tell your men to just judge the enemy harder."

"Yes sir." inimitable sound of Spin Wolf roaring away

"All right. Tell the Hod Motes to send this message to all fronts and all units. We are on the offensive, now. We will not fail, we will not let another part of Creation fall, whether to the Fleet of the Yu Ketch or even to the Burning Blot. Remember the ?VelonianEmpire! Remember '62 and 'X6! Now, we rally. Now, we unite all Ten Fallen Shards of the Godhead. Now, we attack!"

cheers, applause

"Good use of Yesodian Rhetoric, there, sir."

"I studied it at the academy, Private. And thank you."

See also: Fleet of the Yu Ketch, Burning Blot, Spin Wolves, Velonian Empire

"What is scholarship but creation? Every chronicler brings their own perspective to their history. And in every text, a tiny little universe waits to be born..."

-- The Commentaries on the Lamentations of Steven, Quantum Archivist Elrey-or-Madram

Excuse my sadnesses, myriad and infinite
Awful to conceive and horrible to be born
For with every story my darkness grows
A mote of black, a terrible story
Slouches toward me to be born.

-- The Lamentations of Steven, Cycle 21, Verses 9 through 13

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

Some people are afraid of history. Steven was one of them. No last name, no portfolio is known about him except that he was once a historian who saw too much. Some believe he went back to the beginning of all things, the Zeroth Age. I don't put much stock in this theory; I mean, then you'd have to posit a negative-First Age, and so on to infinity. The universe doesn't like that idea, I can tell you from experience.

Anyway, others say Steven saw the face of the Invisible One, or whatever passes for Its face. Being a chronicler of reality and then seeing Reality's nature encapsulated in one entity drove Steven to see infinity, essentially Everything in a series of barbershop mirrors. That could do a number on you.

The Lamentations, the elegiac poem cycle that resulted from the historical trauma he experienced, tell us not much about the nature of Steven's trigger event but do tell us a bit about what the Quantum Archivists only could ever hint at. Steven feared histories and those who wrote them because he believed that with every story ever told a new universe was created. These universes, he posited in the Lamentations, would eventually cluster, swarm, and crowd out Reality in an effort to assert their existence.

The more I think about it, the more the whole Lexicographer-Assassin thing makes sense to me. After all, their dual purpose is creation and destruction. Perhaps they glimpsed what drove Steven to lament endlessly; that for every story told, another, in the form of a human life, must be destroyed.

See also: Invisible One, Diachronic Library, Quantum Archivists, Zeroth Age

Found on a ripped, burned piece of paper in the stacks of the Diachronic Library by a standard Lexicographer-Assassin patrol. Psychometric and carbon dating inconclusive. Paleographic analysis leads to conclusion that the following was written sometime in the Third Age, 20th century. The extensive knowledge of the Second Age contained within is disturbing, to say the least.

Time gets all messed up in the Christian Bible. Most people don't know that there's actually 27 different stories of creation hidden in Genesis. And then there's the famous "there were giants in the Earth in those days" passage that gets the UFO nuts and angelic-contact cults all aflutter.

Yes, the Daughters of Adam did mate with the Angels of Heaven. One of these was named Montoranian Montinath, in the tradition of the time. This was the Second Age, you see. Antedeluvian. So Montoranian Montinath, a well-formed and cheerful youth infused with that small amount of divinity, was able to wrestle the turtles that held up the world, shatter mountains with a cough, all that heroic age stuff.

But the time comes in any hero's life to retire, and this is one of those rare cases where the "return home" portion of the heroic journey ends up being more interesting than the quests or the youthful boasts. In fact, he did not return home when his quest had ended; he'd outlived all his human family and friends. No, it was time for him to engage in the past-time of all nigh-immortal beings, the practice of Horticracy.

He governed a few minor gardens at first. He was well liked by both flora and fauna, and moved up through the hierarchy of gardens until he traveled to Iluac.

He wasn't able to be the governor of this garden, of course. That honor belonged to Aeliom. But Montoranian was one of his Chief Gardeners. Mostly, these Chief Gardener positions went to minor spirits of Knowledge, Valets to Heaven, but Montoranian was nothing if not insistent.

When Iluac started to mold itself to Montoranian's superior will, the trees and plants absorbed the now-superceded spirits of Knowledge and Aeliom himself was usurped.

Now you can say that the Deluge and the eating of the Tree of Knowledge happen very far apart in Genesis, but in most people's minds, the Garden of Iluac was a future-echo of Eden. Montoranian's subsequent embracing of the Dark sent the Second Age into the Small Fall which triggered the Deluge. So, instead of Adam begets Everyone Up to Noah, Adam and Noah's stories both got their start thanks to an old Nephilim-hero who just got too bored in retirement and decided to take up gardening.

See also: Iluac, Small Fall, Valets

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

Sure, the Inquistorites were ruthless, savage, and (their worst sin) ubiquitous. But even in the greatest ages of darkness, someone has to strike a light. I daresay that the Niberal Court was that light for those of us who survived the predations of the Inquistorites.

Instead of assessing guilt, the Niberal Justices were interested in determining truth. Most of the time, when two contradictory views of the universe encountered each other and couldn't live with each other any longer, they took their cases to the Niberal Court with the hopes that either the two views would be reconciled, or the less-true view would be eliminated. These generally weren't big-deal ideas (with the exception, in my opinion, of the Monkey Paradox) but small ones. Think of it as the "small-claims court" of the Age's Nobles and other Very Important Personages. I'll give you an example.

In the Yellowstalk Empire, there was a dispute that couldn't be settled by the horticrats. The floating swordfish-chancel of Xiphias had docked in one of the Yellowstalk Empire's most important ports, and its presence there clashed with the consensus reality, especially considering the rose garden that was growing on the giant swordfish's back. The minor horticrats and gardeners were up in arms over this offense at aesthetics.

It took the neutral viewpoints of the Niberal Court to settle this dispute. I'm getting ahead of myself, in a way, but when has that ever been unexpected. (Ed: Nice admission.) See, the Niberal Justices really had to exist in a vacuum, in a totally neutral environment so they literally could not be relative to anything. Their judgments on Truth had to be completely unbiased. When they were founded, the Niberal Justices found that their judgments were being compromised by all sorts of prejudices that were (sometimes literally) floating through the courtroom's transom.

They consulted with Anthurian Azurus to use his Weirded prison realm of Nahistrallia as a location for their Niberal Court. The price exchanged for rent was said to have included the Justices' senses of both pleasure and guilt, two qualities they would no longer need after this relocation of the Niberal Court.

To get back to the case of Yeomen of the Yellowstalk Empire vs. the Imperator of Xiphias, the Court found in favor of Xiphias, for its Auctoritas protected itself from not only the harmful effects of the outside universe, but also its judgments. Those poor yeomen of Yellowstalk. Their complaints went unanswered among the horticrats, and as punishment, the Niberal Justices reincarnated then into roses in Xiphias's rose garden. One of them eventually ornamented Filhomeena's hair for a day, then was left to wither and dry in a dusty corner somewhere.

The lesson here, as usual, is that the squeaky wheel does not get the grease, but rather gets smashed to bits and left in the junkyard.

See also: Anthurian Azurus, Filhomeena, Monkey Paradox, Xiphias, Yellowstalk Empire

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

People can't leave well enough alone. Take the motif of the lake, for instance. Idyllic, a place for retreat and contemplation, perhaps a spot of fishing. But the flipside of that is the Menacing Lake: creeping with scum, home to strange aquatic creatures or long-dead inhabitants, morning mist hiding unspeakable horrors. (Ed: see Loch Ness, Hali for more information)

The Lake of Ondôar exemplifies this indecision perfectly. Home to a lush (and powerful) garden and presumed breeding ground for the Infants of Inscience (although I personally believe the I.'s of I. are present everywhere that sentients don't care what happens to them), Ondôar was a gorgeous, topographically-impossible lakeside that bent around Möbius-style, although you'd never know it just standing on the pier, casting your line for some fine fish, looking to the opposite shore and never realizing that the opposite shore was actually underneath your feet the whole while. Thinking about that too long would result in a headache no amount of afternoon beer could cure. Besides, they'd never let you fish on Ondôar anyway. (Ed.: Was Tautological Navigation invented here? Must investigate further.)

The other odd thing about the lake is that it has tides. The water level can rise as much as 4 feet on a typical day. Obviously, we're not talking lunar tides here and the cause of the water level change is wholly unknown. Most of the usual gang of Ultracrepidating Investigators believe there's something forgotten and monstrous at the base of the lake, and when it shifts in its dread slumber, horrible things happen. Overwrought bunch of pansies. They just love hearing the sound of their own voices saying words like "eldritch," "squamous," and "rugose."

Yes, we all know something huge and forgotten lies there, and that one day it will rise and sink the whole world. Listen, if you don't believe the myths that an old fisherman nine centuries old tells you while serving you the best mug of ale you've had in all Creation, you don't deserve to call yourself even an amateur chronicler. But belief gives power. When the hangover hits, forget you ever heard this myth of a Monstrous Deluge. Hmm. Better throw a "noisome" in there to keep the Investigators happy.

See also: Infants of Inscience, Ultracrepidating Investigators, Tautological Navigation

The Eulogy of GhottrumVispal, transcribed by Professor Aliz of the University Of Consilience:

Note: This eulogy was shouted forth by every living and inanimate thing within 50 leagues of GhottrumVispal's internment. Though I lost consciousness several times during this cacophonous choir, I feel the intent of the words is intact. Events I witnessed are in italics.

"How could His Greatness be surpassed? O, Superior of Superiors, let this chorus of abjection be Your one and only legacy."

At this moment, the mountains around the gravesite began to rumble. Several strong-willed entities such as Uesther fled the scene at this time.

"O, Universe of Perfection, give rest to this Wearer of the Cloak of Majesty, give Him peace and success in whatever comes afterwards..."

The sheer rock face of the cliff to the gravesite's west gave way, collapsing and destroying all of the petty lifeforms who'd escaped from their holes and caves to attend the internment. The chorus of praise was a little softer now.

"This world's concupiscence for You to remain alive is testament, a lasting tribute, to Your greatness and absolute fearful Majesty. There is no land that does not weep for You, no river that does not turn to stone. There is no fire that ever existed as intense as Your own self."

The remaining mud and rock on the cliffside falls away to reveal a great, 20-story gem, flattened like a grand shard of glass, five-sided, deep green and darkly patterned deep under the translucent surface. All beings in GhottrumVispal's aura stop speaking in unison, and turn slowly to the revealed Pentavarate.

"What in Majesty's name is that... that... that... that..."

The echo of their words still rings today, inside the infinity contained in the Pentavarate.

See also: GhottrumVispal, Uesther, University of Consilience

Lexicon of the Second Age: History of the New Sun

2004-01-15T17:22:44Z

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

Everyone knows that the Inquistorites started the damn war. I mean, how has that ever been up for debate? I don't have a lot of love lost for them or the Knights of Intabulum, really, but everyone knows we were all poorer for how that whole affair turned out. I wish someone could have warned us about the Thirsty Sunspots back then.

There have been a lot of books bearing the title History of the New Sun. Most take a maudlin tone, bemoaning all the death, destruction, and ruthless questioning that went on during that time. Some even go so far as to blame Crepuscule for starting the whole mess by dividing things up as it did. Crepuscule had to be done, though; you don't know how many people went out in the thick black night and never came home. Unless you've seen your best friend flung up into the sky to spend eternity as a star just because he didn't know any better than to go out in the Serious Night, well, you'll never know why.

Even the "New Sun" of the title is sometimes confused. Some think it refers to the multicolored sun that we were given during this time. Others who lean to the metaphorical state that the New Sun is the focused intensity of these last days of our Age. I have to laugh when I hear these brutally stupid observers when they say that an Ending is coming; don't they know that we've been bestowed infinity? These days will never end, just like the sun will never burn out in the sky.

Most of your Histories of the New Sun have a substantial portion that takes place in the courtroom. There are trials, adjournments, motions and countermotions. Every time a gavel struck in the Inquistorites' kangaroo courts, an eclipse occurred. Every time a pursued Knight or even an innocent bystander was sentenced to death, the New Sun wept sundogs. It seems like every one of the court reporters there wrote their own History of the New Sun. Me, I'm glad to relegate this to an appendix, as I am now. Good riddance.

See also: Crepuscule, Inquistorites, Thirsty Sunspots

Lexicon of the Second Age: Genun

2004-01-13T16:02:34Z

It's a small inn, on the road to somewhere feet have never trod. One of those poetical-type places in a tiny grove of trees, a modest chimney sending out black clouds of thick, sweet-smelling smoke, a signal to all travelers that Yes, you are welcome here.

Into this inn, in the mid-afternoon of a day like any other, strides a confident young man. He appears to be slightly-built, a bit jaunty by the look of this haphazard clothes. He's got a small tri-corner cap on, and in this part of the world that signifies he is an Apprentice Bard.

The Bardic Colleges were outlawed many years ago, their existence deemed unnecessary by the ruling classes, but their insignia and uniforms stil live on, in snatches of cloth and secret signs learned in the first weeks of training. The young man, Genun, knows these signs, and much more, from his days in the ?Workshops of Xad Dunlop. Xad was a kind teacher, much the opposite of the cynical, drained taskmasters who took young Apprentice Bards under their wings. Sometimes literally, it must be added. In the workshops and conservatories, the young Apprentice Bards would learn rhetoric and music, mostly, although all the pursuits of all the Original Muses were at least covered tangentially.

When the young Genun walks into the inn, he is greeted by a few lonesome drunks who don't know him from Adam, but the barkeep and owner is more wary. He's seen Bards, Apprentice and Master, come to this inn before. The crowd, not usually unruly, has done everything from shout them down from the stage to curse them and their kin unto the thirteenth generation. They don't like singers, they don't like jongleurs, and they don't like entertainment outside of the bottom of a beer stein around these parts.

Genun quickly negotiates the fee; this skill is taught in the first year in a Bardic Apprenticeship. He promises to return this evening with his band. The barkeep, a slight smile playing across his face, nods sagely and starts mentally preparing the mops and buckets needed to clean up the young boy's blood and teeth likely to be on the floor after tonight's performance.

The inn, in a friendly and open manner, greets the boy-Bard that night, as he walks in, sans band. "Where the Hells is your group?" the barkeep asks. Genun opens his set on a bone flute, playing a melancholy tune that settles the audience in their seats, their hands on their mug-handles, ready to fling them.

And then something strange happens, as it never does in this part of the world. Those brass, wood, and tin mugs start to grow arms. And legs. And lutes. And little drums. And they all march to the stage, a symphony of hollow little homunculi. They break into a cheapened, corrupted version of the Battle Hymns Of Melek Taus, and act out a little play battle for the entertainment of the rabble. For once, the drunkards are speechless at a performance.

This didn't stop Genun from getting beaten up, of course. But every one of them was sure to tip generously.

See also: Battle Hymns Of Melek Taus, Original Muses, Xad Dunlop

Lexicon of the Second Age: Fleet of the Yu Ketch

2004-01-12T19:40:00Z

From the Gazetteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

There were wars in those days; don't let any old-timer or reincarnated so-and-so tell you otherwise. And, as we all know, the first folks to be recruited in a war aren't soldiers or sailors, but makers. The people and entities who can make the instruments of war. After all, you can't make an omelette without first making a few pans.

Gnymon wasn't a pacifist, by any means. He had qualms about crafting the Boat of Precious Jade, but they were mostly aesthetic and not in any way related to what it might be used for in the upcoming war against the Unknown Benefactors, whose generosity and patience had damned them in the eyes of a vast majority to complete annihilation.

No, his qualms rather rested in the actions of a few of his apprentices at his island Campus. Now, I will say that echoes of this myth can be seen in every story about men pursuing dangerous knowledge in a remote location. You can only see the echoes now because this was the first time that anyone pursued Prometheanism in this fashion. (Ed.: Refer to myths of Faustus, Prospero, Oppenheimer, Gilligan for more information)

Anyway, the island was secure, and the pupils cut off from all communication with the outside. Some recall that this was done by simply canceling all the ships scheduled to depart from the island Campus. Others believe that those who hired Gnymon killed all the families and friends of the pupils instead. They were both equally easy (or difficult, depending on your point of view) to do, so your guess is as good as mine.

I'm rambling now, so I'll get to the point. It's Anaphora again, of course. Back then all you had to do was misplace a couple of parentheses to really get in trouble. And that's exactly what one of Gnymon's students did. Was it out of malice? Or did he do it because he wanted to see what happened, like a Noble focusing a Markov Lens on his pet mortals and watching them fry? At any rate, yes, you can imagine what happened: the prototype got multiplied n^∞-1 times (well, that's just an estimate; talk to a mathemistorian for the real deal), only smaller, so this swarm of tiny jade boats, equipped with tiny jade golems who'd kept their original strength, sailed off over the Second Horizon and killed anything in their path. Which, yes, included the Unknown Benefactors, but also a whole lot of other beings who didn't deserve their fate nearly as much.

See also: Anaphora, Gnymon, Unknown Benefactors

Lexicon of the Second Age: Errors of Perfection

2004-01-09T23:14:16Z

ACT II, SCENE GIMEL. A GARDEN IN PERFECTION'S CHANCELETTE.

PERFECTION, stage upwards, is levitating down to stage. Three PETITIONERS and the Power of Pi are kneeling, eyes averted, stage left. Set decoration indicated: representations of trees from perfect circles and squares. The stage must be unsullied by mortal feet.

PERFECTION: Thus in this time of strife
In the seventy-first emanation of Our Power
We tread the ground of our sanctum whole
A senseless, tasteless, sightless bower.

We ask thee, petitioners three,
What is the boon thy mortal kings
Have fixed to thee, in thy finite love?

PETITIONER THE FIRST: My Lord, there is, in the lands of mortals
A concern, however so small, that thy Estate is troubled.
We have noted the rain, far from being uniform in every fall.
In some storms is halved, and in some is doubled.

What may we do, mortals three?
To attend to thy bidding, and...

Set direction: GIANT FOOT from stage upwards crushes all three PETITIONERS in a messy squall of blood and guts.

PERFECTION: Never ask me that again. Awful people.

Enter INVISIBLE ONE, invisible.

INVISIBLE ONE: Perfection! You have committed an act of...

PERFECTION: Oh, I know.

PERFECTION sighs deeply.

PERFECTION: I'm ready.

INVISIBLE ONE points invisibly to PERFECTION, disintegrating him.

Exeunt Omnes, pursued by giant foot and the ?Power of Pi, silent as a mime. Chorus sing to Anthrosia.

See also: Power of Pi, Invisible One, Anthrosia

Lexicon of the Second Age: Diachronic Library

2004-01-07T19:40:06Z

All things evolve, all things change. That is the First Order.
Those things which record other things must also change. That is the Second Order.
The pattern that forms when these two overlap is the Third Order. That is our Order.

-- creed of the Order of Diachronic Librarians

Twelve times our Library burned. Twelve times an Age's knowledge was lost. No longer.

-- attributed to Wayn'aup, founder of the Lexicographer-Assassins

From the Gazeteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler

The Diachronic Library, as its name suggests, charts the changes of the multiverse with as much success as might be expected. Its beginnings are shrouded in the mysteries of the First Age, a time when any petty Power could stake a claim and hope to hold their Domain thusly.

The Lords and Ladies of the Library took on a hereditary monarchy in the First Age, and protected the protean knowledge stored within their books, scrolls, and memory-records with an elite order of Lexicographer-Assassins, now known as legends throughout the worlds of the Ash.

The Diachronic Library now stands as a testament to the unceasing and slightly annoying tendency of every relationship between Nobles, Imperators, Gods and other assorted Beings of Great and Impressive Power to be recorded dutifully for some unknown Reader. They're Professionals, you see. Fully trained and licensed. But their records are always missing some crucial bit of interest for me, personally.

I visited there, as a child, you know. My predecessor took me there to meet the Librarians and the Lexicographer-Assassins, as he faded into oblivion and I took over the Estate of Onyx. My predecessor wanted me to continue his hobby of writing histories. I was a whelp, a brat, and as is common in these situations, it was my prerogative to ask the really troublesome questions.

"If everything is infinite, and everything changes, then that means the number of changes in infinity is a second-order infinity, right? You don't fear Anaphora?"

"Does it bother you that taking down histories is a creative act, and killing people is a destructive one?"

"Why does your King never leave his throne room? Isn't he a historian too?"

"How do you file everything? Monkeys?"

Precocious, wasn't I? Oh, youth really is wasted on the newly-Ennobled.

See also: Anaphora, Monkey Paradox, Wayn'aup

Lexicon of the Second Age: Caltha, the Leaves of

2004-01-05T20:19:59Z

From the Gazeteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler:

Why is peace so hard to live in, so boring to confront with each dawn? The bare petals and leaves of the Flower-Chancel of Caltha are testament of the essential evil of banality.

Caltha's Imperator was Uesther, the Lady of Peace, Catalogs, Cotton, and Marigolds. The Marigold was chosen as the perception/shape-template for the Chancel in its Sixth Iteration.

Oh yes, those petals, dipping and exquisitely curved, luscious in their deep yellow-orange, were a treat for the Infants of Inscience who manifested there, sliding and crying with joy at the texture of the peacful, soft petals and leaves. The whole place was a terror to behold for those of us with... rarer tastes.

In fact, the joy and pleasure and light became too much even for the Powers who held this Grand Marigold. Eventually, you tire even of the screams of joy the I.'s of I. bring as they bounce, slide, and gambol among the leaves. It's not surprising. Beauty and joy aren't everything.

So when the wild beetles of the Boreal Cicatrix came and ate up both Caltha's wondrous stalk and all of those inane Infants, some said that Uesther Herself was pleased.

SEE ALSO: Boreal Cicatrix, Uesther and Infants of Inscience

Centalogue I: The Simpsons

2004-01-01T11:23:59Z

After princeofcairo, I'm going to write 100 words each on 33 topics of interest to me. Dubbed awkwardly the "centalogue" (sic mixing of ancient languages, see Unknown Armies schools of magic for inspiration), this will occur all through January and be uniformly lj-cut. Today, The Simpsons.

Recent Simpsons episodes can be comfortably grouped into two categories: "Homer does something stupid" or "We feature a minor character for an episode."

Once, this show had a dark, twisted moral center (mmm, dark twisted moral center). It took the traditional sitcom trope of "someone learns a lesson each week" and turned it on its ear. But it always had a heart. This morning I woke up thinking of "Lisa's Substitute," a funny and touching episode.

I posit (Chris) Carter's Law: All TV shows eventually descend into formula, no matter how original. Corollary: that old chestnut about "jumping the shark."

Wow. Writing just 100 words is tough! This looks to be a good challenge for Verbose Mike.

Lexicon of the Second Age: Barathrum of Ordination

2003-12-31T14:27:44Z

If you don't remember, I'm working on a collaborative fiction project based around the RPG Nobilis. Here's a link to the Lexicon of the Second Age project.

"Come now, you know that it is always the prerogative of those granting power to demand a price in ordeal before bestowing said power, no?"

scream of pain and terror

"Did you really expect your request to the Prince to go unanswered? He likes you. He finds you useful. And with more power, yes, more power, you would be infinitely more so. Here, the dross of mediocrity is burned away and replaced with cold steel."

louder scream in response to increased pain

"Oh, my language? It's something about the black robes; it makes one ever-so-melodramatic. But think on this: Powers of Improvement, of Advancement, none have conceived of a laboratory as grand as this Barathrum. To be sure, it looks like a prototypical dungeon of torture, but behind these walls... oh, I speak too much of our secrets here. Here, have a balm of Antiburath. We have much of it here. In the reverie it induces, you shall know your Destiny."

sigh of relief, words spoken with hesitation "And... and, my Get?"

"Absolutely safe. Although if you'd not pulled through, they'd be sent to ?Quicklime Way. Not my decision, you understand, but the penalties for failure to withstand the Rituals of Ordination are not just that of refused power."

nod, distant look "The herb is taking effect. I can see our home, the magnificent ?Xiphias, cutting through the waves."

"Your obsession with beauty is disturbing. But yes, your Swordfish awaits you if you continue to withstand the pain of Ordination. Shall we continue? The pain will help your visions. I promise."

grim smile "Indeed."

SEE ALSO: Antiburath, Quicklime Way AND Xiphias

Lexicon of the Second Age: Anders Town

2003-12-20T14:12:53Z

Well, NaNoWriMo didn't work out, but in the process of being part of a collaborative RPG thingy called Lexicon (check that link for how it works; it's too complicated to explain here), I've gotten a chance to get my writing working. I plan on working in narrative, expository, dramatic, and epistolary forms in this project (at the least). Here's my "A" entry, and here's a link to the Lexicon of the Second Age itself.

From the Gazeteer of Lus, Power of Onyx and amateur chronicler:

Your journeys will bring you to Anders Town someday. Some maps call it "Anders City," the "Upside-Down Citadel of Anders," "Anderus Secundus," and all sorts of other catchy names.

You'll know you're close to reaching it when your ship begins to collide with small chunks of ice. No icebergs yet, mind you. Just the slow realization that the air has grown cold, your sails are weighted down with rime, and the rum does nothing to warm your blood.

The ice near Anders Town is grey, though. A medium grey that is almost opaque. And when you reach the solid plane of ice that is, in essence, the gate to Anders Town, you will notice the wisps of snow playing over its surface like white-winged gulls. Beneath, you'd swear you could see lights, and shadowy spires.

Entering doesn't require more than an effort of will: even for mortals. Just wish yourself in that shadowy city below the ice and you'll be there. It is perpetual night in Anders Town, and the city is upside-down, its streets on the other side of the grey ice floating in the worldsea. No one falls "upwards" here, of course; the citizens of Anders Town are oblivious to your physics.

And oh, what citizens they are! Dead-eyed, you'd call them ants if they didn't look so much like people. They scurry on the streets (there are no vehicles in Anders Town), the sidewalks, and all the surfaces of the sheer black skyscrapers that make up their "town." I've always thought it more of a city, myself. - ed. Dull sodium lights glimmer in the windows of the black towers, but no entrances can be seen by visitors.

Where is the titular Anders? Gone, now. If you make it as far as the city square without succumbing to the despair of the blank-eyes citizenry, you'll see a worn, black stone statue, dedicated to the town's namesake. Most believe he was a Power of Frustration who abdicated at some point in the distant past, and this, other than his Chancel, was his favorite place to be. They say his first citadel was glorious, a crumbling ruin of a castle in a green river valley overcome with foliage. The citizens will not answer you if you ask about him, and, if you're lucky, their ceaseless scurrying will not infect you before you have a chance to rejoin your crew and leave.

The secret here is that damned Jewel of Markov, which has escaped my grasp every time I've laid eyes on it. One emanation of the jewel was sighted here in the last age.

SEE ALSO: LUS AND JEWEL OF MARKOV

NaNoWriMo meta-entry 2: Hitting the road

2003-11-03T13:12:13Z

Well, the first weekend is over, and I've got 4,857 words done. One-tenth of the way there after one-tenth of the month. I'm shocked at my... consistency. A few words about what's transpired thus far.

Word of fair warning: this novel will bounce back and forth infuriatingly between time periods. There are three main ones as I see it, in Mark's life in the novel: before the move to California, during his California years, and the present. You'll see equal parts of each as we go. My first flashback Chapter was 3, where you see the immediate aftermath of Mark's move to California. More will be revealed.

One thing I haven't had opportunity to talk about yet is how much fun this has been thus far. I expected drudgery, I expected writer's block, but each chapter has come out pretty neatly. Granted, they're probably not as clear as they would be on second or third rewrite, but that's what the point of this whole exercise is. Serenity now... insanity later, to quote a wise man.

My characters haven't gotten a good chance to talk very much yet. I do have a particular block when it comes to scripting dialogue. I know not everyone in the world talks like me and my friends do, and that makes it tough to make dialogue that's true to life. As I said before, people are generally boring, and don't employ literary devices while talking about what they got at the store. All that stuff has to go into the non-dialogue bits. And if it looks like I'm showing off, well, I apologize. If it looks like I'm not showing off enough, again, I apologize. :) Anyone here have words from their own writing about dialogue vs. narrative bits and how they should interact?

Okay, I think that's all for this meta-entry. Stay tuned for Chapters 5 and 6, hopefully in the next 24 hours.

320 words
Tuesday, November 3: 7:12 am