[What Came Before]

Gyuckgh!

Surely would make an Inchoroi smile, though...

[What Came Before]

Early story for tomorrow -> Sci Story #22

For peace's sake, I bury my rapier and trident-dagger below the feet of my war ravaged son.

For caution's sake, despite my wife's protestations it's under the mattress where I bury my gun.

/Story

[What Came Before]

Heh, very early story for Saturday -> Sci Story #23

She's sleeping, and like every other time I watched her sleeping I think about the paradox.

That and, "How did I get into this mess?"

Even when she's sleeping, I want to open my mouth and say the word "love" but my lips are like eyelids stuck together by the gummy remnants of a stye.

Cause there's another word waiting to jump out, like three wasps at the window where the screen's fallen out so you don't open it 'cause it's August in the cramped confines of Philadelphia.

So I sit there and watch, quiet enough so she doesn't wake up, not that I'm worried. She's a deep sleeper, a kiss on her cheek will make her reach out for me without even waking. Fingers through hair, like I'm doing now? No problem, that's okay too.

Yeah, she smiles but she doesn't wake up. Deep deep sleeper.

I stare at her and think about the "Stranger", the guy I was less than a year ago, the one who I swear is going to fuck this up for me. But "Stranger" is more wish than fact, because I feel him running through me, every day asking "What the fuck are you doing?"

If you put sauce on a meal, is it a different meal? If you change a line of code, just one, is it a new program?

I can hear you asking: Which line? Hell, buddy, that's what I wanna know.

'Cause even if I can pull a Theseus and run Minotaur-Me down in the Labyrinth, that only gets me so far.

Why does the heart push for confessions? Why can't things be left in the grave dirt of old assumption and past expectation? Do Born-Agains feel bad about old shit that they did? 'Cause what I'm going through now - it's more like reincarnation.

But if I don't say something, I know one of my buddy's will. They don't even tease, not anymore, not when I'm around, they've given they're advice and made their peace with my foolishness. But I know they're waiting for this to end so they can pile in with their opinions, all the shit they've said behind my back, all the times they put Dr. Dre's Housewife on repeat while laughing at me.

Goddam, I used to be the alpha. Even when I'm around I can sense the change in the air.

She wants to meet them. It's only natural, it's not like I hang out much with anybody else. Known 'em five years, so of course they come up. She doesn't know "Let's all go out for drinks" is an invitation for drunken hints, revelations about how we met.

I mean, she knows. She was there. And would it surprise her? I mean, what did she think people said when they got the flyer to come down for the shooting?

Maybe she'll laugh, but I doubt it. No, it'll be the crack that shatters the ice. Doesn't matter that I can't be the only one who thought it, even if not everyone would've said it out loud.

But I have to tell her, even if my friends stay silent (doubtful with those fucks), this shit is jagged. The guilt's cutting me deep on the inside. But how do you say those words to that face, the one that is no longer a stranger on the screen? The face of that girl you've seen smiling real smiles, laughing real laughs, the one that you've - fucking hell, that girl you've fucking made love to?

"Look at this shit. God damn, they're inviting people to come in some bitch's face?"

/Story

[What Came Before]

Good stuff Sci, really enjoying it. I like this line:

I stare at her and think about the "Stranger", the guy I was less than a year ago, the one who I swear is going to fuck this up for me. But "Stranger" is more wish than fact, because I feel him running through me, every day asking "What the fuck are you doing?"

[What Came Before]

Thanks dude. I got the idea from an article I read a while back, about a bukake scene that actually did put out flyers to get, IIRC, 100 volunteers. The article interviewed some dudes and the girl.

[What Came Before]

Hah, sounds like the basis of a Palahniuk novel.

[What Came Before]

Sunday's Sci Story #24

Your sigh is lush, dew-drenched grass that I have never walked through.

Your skin, on my skin, is that cool breath of evening I have longed for in twilight.

The taste of these wrists that I'm kissing?

Close kin to honeysuckle, coaxed into bloom by a springtime that I have never known.

/Story

[What Came Before]

Bonus: Doesn't count b/c I wrote almost a year ago, with this sorta inspiring me:

:

faith...in any Presence...it's funny, there's a voice that when it
whispers in your ear  feels so
Close you could swear what you're hearing is an echo that blossoms
from heart through locked sternum.

and then, you blink. ~ and with that brief curtain call It's gone, and
you never knew how much...space...a cavernous acre of silence...there
was on the other side of your skin. the side no one gets to see.

(it's like you're singing that favorite song but it's not the same
when it's just You ~ no instruments / no beats ~ all off key and
unsure words)

you think, 'that orchard inside is nothing but ash'

- but -

it's just soil that's fallow and some day, month, year, epoch later a
fragile green thing with a little blossom (pregnant promise of fruit)
pushes out for a gasping breath of sun lit air. you blink again,
struck, and a humming bird thought blurts across the Mind:

'when was the world this Colorful'? you ask yourself.

and you Smile at the memory of forgotten Newness.

[What Came Before]

More D&D crossposting:

eta: Sci story #25

Uroc

Uroc is six serpents, three of itself given to silver and three given to gold. The Seelie fey dances with itself through the air, catching moonlight and sunlight in its jaws, weaving grand yet ephemeral configurations of light in the sky. Each of these pictures is a moment plucked from its dimensional perception, geometrical representations of higher realities intersecting with the limited vision of three dimensional beings. Each is a riddle worth solving, though the worth of the answer may not be readily apparent.

Yet to see it plain, one must be poisoned by both silver and gold. The venoms of arum and argent allow one to gain some fantastic insight as to the nature of Story from the perspective of "ultraterristials" Uroc calls the Reader and Writer. Seeing as Uroc does allows one to glean something about some part of existence, usually the Feywild but also quite possibly some other plane. Oftentimes, for reasons Uroc never shares, the planes most often glimpsed are those given over to the demons of Chaos.

Uroc travels between the Weal and the Eald, for at times it exhausts its own interest in whimsy and is then drawn to the ancient world serpents who retired to the Eald when the cores of their former homes were shattered by foolish civilizations or their planets entire were devoured by monsters or death fattened stars.

Those who investigate Uroc's past existence will discover the story of a being of most unusual origin. In days that even most deities would consider primordial if not forgotten, there were Weal-born fey that behaved in a manner quite similar to the present nature of the currently dominant Seelie. These fey, in their unbridled lust for excess and shattered taboos, sought to kidnap and copulate with all manner of demons. These fiends, themselves born from the madness of the Abyss, were all too easily seduced though were none too pleased to find themselves imprisoned in the Feywild for the sake of being on hand to slake the needs of the faerie.

One day, while fishing for new paramours in the churning mire and madness where the demons make their home, one of the great princes of these proto-Seelie found himself seduced in turn by the most beautiful silhouette. Swimming through incarnate malice the prince parted the shifting currents of chaos and evil in hopes of finding the form that cast this shadow upon the malleable surfaces around him. Instead he came to realize that the shadow on the stone/water/glass/iron/skin was its own originator. The prince was distraught, for in his hunger he had conjured up the ultimate paramour, the lover of lovers whose embrace would remake the foundations of his being which had been written and woven in the pursuit of only the highest of ecstasies.

He left the Abyss with his newly acquired harem of demons, yet each time he dove into those misshapen lands he found himself stalked by the shadow, its form a muse to his carnal imagination. Nimble hands, soft furred fox tails, the suggestion of numerous orifices. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, the Prince flung himself onto the Abyssal matter and spent himself upon the coruscating alchemies. Only then, weeping at his own foolish frustration, did the shadow speak.

One night, once all the demons were freed from the Feywild. Thus the Prince brought war into the green fields of the Weal, with no subterfuge as to his purpose. Some joined just for the novelty, others in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the creature that reduce a Seelie Prince to a slave of desperate need.

Finally, with the vast host of demons returned, the Prince had the night he had sought from the shadow. Nine months later Uroc came to Seelie claiming his birthright. When asked about his mother, he told the fey she was now a he that walked across the width and breadth of the Abyss, a shadow pilgrim who all the demon lords welcomed, a harbinger of good fortune that had named itself Ztefano. He also said this was the last time he would ever speak of the matter, and as yet has surprisingly kept true to his word.

[What Came Before]

Tues Story -> Sci Story #26

When I first met her I practically ignored her. I was blind, too interested in her younger friend's cleavage. It took wine and a conference held in the winter of Rehoboth to bring us together. I see little reason to give the fucker much of my gratitude, but  thank God for the wasteland that is Rehoboth in Winter.

For someone who flat out refused to get not just contacts but wire frames, and wore out sweaters by feeling cold a little too far into June, she really had the sexy librarian thing down pat. Biting my tongue not to moan in the theater, lunch hour quickies, mile high club, we even once had each other in one of those old fashioned phone booths, her whispering "Fuck me in the Tardis" for the two minutes I lasted.

First time I think ever came while laughing. But with her, definitely not the last.

When Robert killed himself - Most of you know we were close - Second cousins turned into brothers on account of living an hour away growing up. I found out on Friday and bawled into what ended up being a very necessary long weekend. Cradled in her arms, kisses on my forehead, my head in her lap, her fingers running through my hair.

I can't even remember what she whispered, but it made me feel better. Those wounds that can't ever really heal, those are the ones that need the best medicine.

Time neither of us wanted to present or teach so we lit a small fire in a waste bin, blamed the triggering of the sprinklers on some mysterious students.

It should have been me.

-lines excised from a eulogy

/Story

[What Came Before]

Sci Story #27

I'm looking at something that is both green-fly and squid on the other side of gold-framed soap bubble skin. Nothing in my anatomy should respond to Its horrid form or Its thunderous cicada anthem...my meat is loyal to this world...so it must be my mind that moans with starvation, my soul that drags me to the archway that joins Them and Their prey, my heart that has made the softness between my legs so painfully solid I fear my blood gorged member might burst if not soon relieved of the psyche's boiling desire.

The animal in me wishes to flee until it exhausts all its strength, but knowing this They have seduced and ensnared the higher parts of my mind.

I'm not strong enough to resist the call, that buzz-gargle of alien intelligences. I'm barely strong enough to draw the gun now aimed at my chest.

So weak, the mind that is me. Thank the gods, the zonei who guard the veil woven in space-time, the star watchers to whom we pass messages of lamb and bull through the fire, that I am wise enough to know the measure of my weakness.

Thank the gods, the zonei who use our prayers as mortar in the walls between this world and the Other, that I chose needles over bullets when I selected my gun....

When I wake up, the conjunction of comets and planets is passed, and the gate before me shows nothing more than a pitted mosaic set on an old temple wall.

/Story

[What Came Before]

This idea popped into my head, and I felt the need to get it down. Might be something I stash away for a novel later.

-------------

   I have a condition.

   Whenever I turn on my computer and open Firefox to the MSN homepage and see that bright red "breaking news" banner across the top of the screen, my heart kind of skips a beat and I get this hot tangled feeling in my gut. For a second, I just pray that it's something horrific and awesome: a massive terrorist attack or an alien invasion or the second coming of Christ. But then I actually read it, and realize that it's only a random shooting at some shopping mall in Idaho with one dead and five wounded, and I can't help but be a little dissapointed.

   But that's not what my condition is.

   The date of my birth was January 7th, 1985. I didn't have a dad, or at least not one that I ever knew. My mother wanted a kid, but she couldn't stand any man long enough to get married (or maybe none of them could stand her). So instead she got me from a clinic. I am the son of an anonymous sperm donor, a man without legacy or heritage. A blank cheque, payable to whomever. My father could be anyone. He could be a plumber or a geologist or a serial killer. He could be dead. They always say it causes a lot of problems for a kid to grow up without a father...but then that's not really a condition, and even if it is, it's not my condition.

   My condition is called synesthesia. This is difficult to describe if you've never heard of it, and it's impossible to imagine if you don't actually have it. Stimulation to one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary response within a secondary and otherwise unrelated sensory or cognitive pathway, blah blah blah...

   So, I hear colors. See sounds. Abstract concepts like numbers and letters each have their own special attributes, unique themes or vibes...even personalities.

   January, the month in which I was born, is a pale girl with icy hair and eyes like diamonds catching light in the dark. The platinum girl.

   The number fifty-five is exceptionally ugly. Dogshit ugly. But five, just five by itself, is elegant and graceful. Stately, like Kate Middleton or the Starship Enterprise.

   The doctors tell me I'm different from other synesthetes. They say my crosswirings are denser, tighter, more entangled than any other case they've seen before. I have so many interactions that most of the time I don't even know which is which, where one sensation ends and another begins, a sense linked to a sense linked to a sense, everything blurred and indistinct until suddenly it becomes crystal clear and so bright that I double over, nauseous, my brain roaring from the vivid reality of it all. I have tasted every sound, touched every color. Every letter and number and month, even days of the week, they are all individually just as unique as living people. Sometimes more so. To sit here and list every one of them would be impossible. It's an infinite fiber of sensation, minimized only by my own conscious effort not to explore it. I'm reminded of those little animated fractal patterns you see on the internet, where the more you zoom out, the more you realize that what you're looking at is just one tiny part of a far larger image.
   
   The harder I try to find a limit, the deeper I plunge into the abyss of my own psyche, and the more I realize that there is no limit. Even now, I can feel myself floating upon those unknown waters, always drifting further out to sea. But I can't allow that to happen. I must always keep sight of the shoreline, for I do not wish to discover what lay beyond the horizon...and what monstrous spider must be crouching at the center of the web.

   You can't imagine how hard this makes finding someone to fuck.

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[What Came Before]

Awesome. If that was a prologue to a book, I'd be at the cashier.

[What Came Before]

Sci Story #28

My gums are like mosaics with tiles fallen out. My tongue is telling me that while my smile is fucked I might still enjoy chewing with the teeth that remain.

Sad thing is, I told them everything I knew ten days ago.

Funny thing is, I came up with the idea of decentralized rebellion.

/Story

[What Came Before]

Sci Story #29

There's a collection of black birthmarks on my skin, splotches my mind wove as my soul fashioned its new, updated cocoon. Guess the last thing on it were stab wounds.

It's a weird thing, remembering the woman that I was, in a world where sorcery worked. Where words didn't need the medium of silicon and wires to make changes in reality. One could speak murder so long as one had breath enough to shape speech with their tongue.

Is this worse? Not necessarily. There are no dragons here, no vampire royals hunting peasants on the moonless night.

Living without magic seems like a fair trade, to be able make it to seventeen this time around.

And honestly? Between you and me? Having a dick is weirder than not being able to fly.

/Story