Rawr.

November 17, 2009 at 2:32 pm (Uncategorized)

National Novel Writing Month has begun, progressed, and is about half-way done by now.

OMIGOODNESS, it’s insane. I hope to catch up this next week when, happily, I’ll be able to go home for a week-long stint before Thanksgiving. If you’re interested, here’s my profile, and a little synopsis of that story.

Just one more thing to report: This weekend past, six of my friends and I spontaneously decided to make a movie. In one evening. With no planning. We chose a theme (Retro Sci-Fi Adventure,) took five minutes to throw on a costume, and grab some props before heading over to the Center for the Sciences.

Five hours later, we had the footage, a story, and some SUPER-epic photos. Stay tuned for the media-blitz to come. The film’s in post-production, I’m working on a trailer, and the posters…. let’s just say, they’re about the coolest photos I’ve ever been in.

Oh, the title? SPORES.

Permalink Leave a Comment

Burning Bridges,

November 3, 2009 at 3:21 am (Uncategorized)

[winner of the 2009 Beloit Pocket Lint short story contest "Interruptions."]

OH GOD. REMEMBER THIS. Take stock of everything, and know what it is, what it’s like. There are millions of things in the world, and I need to remember them. Grandma’s fuzzy chin, her letters. Mum and Dad’s smell of sandlewood and engine oil. His hands dry and catching like velcro.

The doctor comes in. Quick! This room. Diplomas on the wall, his son’s watercolor turkey by the desk. What about my son?

“How are you doing today?” He asks. How am I doing. “Fine,” I say. “Fine. Nervous I guess.”

“Well, who isn’t!” he says. “Today’s the big jump.” We both know what comes next. The paper sheets crackle as I shift uncomfortably.

The doctor walks out after updating my computer record one last time. This is all ceremony by now. Like Thanksgiving, oh please God let me remember the turkey meat, and the jellied cranberry falling out of the can still in that shape. I want to taste the smells that come out of the oven; the nutmeg and cinnamon from the pies; the acrid burn of the filling, bubbling out of the side. To feel the cutting pulse of the burn through the weak spot in the oven mitt. My wife’s face when I present my master work: a pie of my own devising. My son’s face when he spits the first bite back onto his plate.

There are two orderlies leading me down the hall. The one on my right has pores as big as culverts on his nose, just ripe for blackhead growth. I want to remember college, and the care I took to scrub my face before bed every night. I want to remember the colognes I tried. The taste of mouthwash before a kiss. The soft hum of the computer wheezing under my hands. The essays I wrote, and the walks I took to consider a thesis. The taste of the first snowflake. The crackle of the first autumn leaf.

In the next room, I sit down opposite the new body. The plasticine skin real but unblemished. Only the scars I wanted retained in the dermis. There are strong eyes, just a little bit greener than mine, but the same shape. They let me try wearing contacts to make sure I could get used to the different look. I sit down in the chair facing it, and the orderlies step out to give me a minute alone. “Remember this,” I tell myself. “Remember it all.” How my mouth gets after a night of no sleep. How it was dry when I started taking blood pressure medicine. Remember the swinging hips at the dances and clubs. Remember the feeling of sweat dripping out of and down my back when I would try to climb the stairs.

The doctor comes back in, “Well. Shall we get started?”

“There’s no time … like the present,” I reply. Remember this gnawing in my hands. The arthritis and the anxiety chewing away at my bones. The grip of skin touching skin. The flush and thrill of feeling, buried in a warm touch. Laying in bed with my wife. The cold starch of the sheets against my frenzied back.

“Three minutes to Bridge,” a monitor blinks behind the new head. I turn around and see a similar monitor behind me. The new head is full of hair died to match my DNA perfectly. I loved my hair; not going bald on me until just last year. The same spring pneumonia took my wife. Remember the phone call. The plastic in my hand, the tinny voice in my ear. The bacterial tickle as the two surfaces touched. Remember the sound of the phone dropping. The blood from a bit tongue swelling over my taste buds. Oh God, God of Mercy, please let me remember this.

“Alright, Simon,” the Doctor says, “We’re going to link you up now. Alright?”

“That’s … fine.” I mumble feebly. Remember my grandmother’s voice. Remember the story of Grandpa and the bear at the window. Remember being read to in bed, the static carpet during winter, the smell of cocoa after school. The paper nightgown shifts as they readjust me in the chair. Remember the tearing of my shoulder from the thresher at Grandma’s house. Throwing it in the fire with the rest of the barn, and the hay. The year of sheared sheep wool that had rotted in the shed.

The wires delicately brush the chip on my spine. Everything sounds orange for a moment before they hitch into place, threading onto the poles. Remember Christmas morning in slippers, and the cool interior of the stocking felt by my little soft hand. The veins in Grandma’s nearly translucent arms, but her strong lilac hug. The golden ring on my own palsied hand. The liver spots. Bunyans by my toes.

Then I see D sharp everywhere for another moment as the new body is connected. I’m seeing into my seeing into my eyes, seeing. I look at we; myself. Existing now across both bodies. In both chairs. Seeing both monitors, counting down; at “One Minute.” I see my faces, both strong and sunken. My smiles are nervous, gently shaking, but set more firm as well. This isn’t the first time. The first time I passed out. Oh God, help me remember this.

I lift my hands. My right hands, and I shake them across our laps. My laps. Remember my Dad’s khakis. The Monopoly money strewn across his legs when I robbed the bank, my mother laughing, spilling the wine on the carpet, producing the stain I vacuumed five times a week for a year. The quality of sunlight in the nursing home when she called me by my wife’s name.

“Simon.” The Doctor’s saying. “I need you to get ready now.” He smiles at me. No, at my first self, not the new body. He looks nervous too. Poor guy. I wonder how many of these he has to watch a day. How many times the person leaped back across at the last moment. How many people got stuck. Or cut in two. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven. I hear the prayer in both imaginations. I can tell where the boundary lies, this way. I can see the divide. I know which way I have to go across it, but I don’t want to just yet. Remember the day my wife left. Remember the sting of her hand against my face. The way the bed clothes fell off of me, and off of my secretary beside me. Remember my son’s face in the doorway as my wife stalked out. The hot tears on my face. On his face. On hers. The shuddering sighs that racked me for a week. Remember the moment I made that decision. Remember how the typist didn’t care. Oh God, give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

“30 seconds,” now.

“Are you ready Simon?” he says. Wearing a mask now, just recently put on. I feel for the gap between me; just at the edges of my fingertips. I touch my hands together again to feel the space. I knock my knees. I turn my heads.

“Almost, yes.” Oh God, remember this self. Remember this consciousness. This soul, if it exists. And if I don’t make it, please take me in with open arms. Remember this stream of thought: know that this is who I am. And that this sense, this being, this finiteness that is me is what I am. I am the make of me, and this glimmer of self I call I is what I will continue to be. Remember this. Please, above all, remember this.

“I’m ready, now.” I say. I’m ready. I feel for the other brain. Lead us not into temptation, I think, and I hear it in both places. I am sitting in my own head, and for the last time, I pick myself up and feel  my way out. I make for the bridge, the lit glimmer that connects my bodies, the wire-thin thread that binds me up in two. But deliver us from evil. There it is, I feel my way across it, leaving my old body, the new body coaxing me in, empty, waiting for me entirely. The sandlewood hug of my mother before Daddy’s funeral. The last scratch of his beard against my shoulder as I hugged him … hugged his body in the church.

For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory. I hear the echo back across the break, but I can’t stop to look. I close my original eyes because I’m crying now. I’m crying in all eyes. I wipe the tears using only the new hands. Pushing, forcing spots to appear against the new eyes that will never be exactly the same. For ever and ever.

“0 seconds.”

Oh God, remember this.

Amen.

Permalink Leave a Comment

Jarring,

November 3, 2009 at 3:17 am (Uncategorized)

Galiolinda pulled her knees closer to her chest, wiping her runny nose on a cardigan’s sleeve. The Sieve was gone, and no amount of cheesecloth or strainer would suffice. The cauldron boiled away beneath her rickety cat-walk, the dark red gelatin slowly heaving and rolling over as the viscous jelly stewed and cooked. Well, now it would be jam. Sieved jam. The Queen would not approve of an improper jelly, let alone the one she’d lost the Sieve in. She shuddered for a moment, considering trying to run away, perhaps to some long forgot corner of the castle. But she could never make it past all the other jelly girls without being seen. The jam pulsed orange for a moment, as some deep vein of marmalade kindled and incarnadined. She shuddered again.

‘What if I borrowed another jelly girl’s Sieve?’ she thought. ‘Could I pull mine out before it thickens? Ribobecca might sympathize with me…’ then she remembered taking Ribobecca’s nutmeg the batch-year before. A quavering sigh escaped her lips as she crawled down the catwalk to her den.

- – -

When she came to, she almost screamed. Plummeting through darkness for maybe half a second, she collided with an equally dark surface: the floor was polished glass, a dark prism echoing deep into the earth. A matchstick guard stood on either side, splinters just folding back into red-tipped twigs, tipping onto the burnished glass beside her. She looked up, and saw the crystal plane stretching off into the middle distance. At the end of which, two massive eyes blinked once, set in an equally massive face.

“You lost your Sieve.” The Queen thundered. Galiolinda said nothing. One doesn’t talk back to the Queen. Her majesty blinked again, heavy lashes wafting through the air, almost producing a tangible breeze. The royal arm rose above the ground’s edge, and swung towards Galiolinda. The massive hand stopped, suspended over the jelly girl for a moment, before plunging through her into the cavernous dark below. Galiolinda gasped, but felt nothing as the ghostly hand passed. It groped with bejeweled fingers for a moment, before seizing some intangible edge in the crystal and drawing it up through the ground. A gown of glass quickly became a tent, and then a jar. Galiolinda was trapped.

The royal hand wafted back to the edge and the massive head, still staring directly at her. The Queen blinked once more before fading into shadow, leaving the jelly girl alone in the room of glass.
- – -

*tink tink tink*
*tink tink*
*tink tink tink tink*

Galiolinda sat up suddenly to see Ribobecca frantically tapping on the outside of the glass jar. She was wide-eyed with fright, and upon seeing Galiolinda stirring, immediately motioned for her to be silent. Ribobecca pulled her Sieve out of its pocket in her frock, and pressed it against the glass wall. As it connected, a thrumming tone began to resound inside the bell jar, but the Sieve’s metal mesh passed unhindered.

Galiolinda grabbed the edge, the vibration increasing in sonorousness as Ribobecca tugged her through, and out. They stole one panicked look at each other before running quickly away, towards an edge of the glass plane. The matchsticks started to snap and split, popping up into running position to chase the rogue jelliers.

“Quick!” Exclaimed Ribobecca, holding the sieve back out to Galiolinda. At the edge they jumped, both grasping a side, and they slid into the castle walls.

The Queen found the jar empty, and resolved to bake tarts with the bones of the jelly girls.

Permalink Leave a Comment

Behold, A Horse

November 3, 2009 at 3:14 am (Uncategorized)

[reference image]

The soldiers shamble to their posts,
their arms are sore, their hearts morose.
Another day of war and fights;
and day dawn’s light as bright as night’s.

The bodies steeped against the wall
shift from rot and start to fall.
Spears are shattered, favors lost,
wives forgot, and lovers crossed.

Snotty slaturns wash the stables,
fecal scum coats all the tables.
An opal knife might cut through bread,
but marks in wood are just as dead.

The walls are buttressed by the felled,
the boys, the men, the seldom geld-
ing smashed against the stone.
A lonely soldier’s moan begins to drone.

A dove will fall into the fire,
as cook will smile her life’s retire.
Pidgins roost in saddlebags,
their horse’s bellies ’stend and sag.

But on the ramparts looking out,
a young recruit will give a shout,
“At gate’s position, stands a thing…”
What, in the night, the Greeks did bring?

The guardsmen race onto the ‘parts,
the corpse-movers work in fits and starts
to clear the city’s gate;
And Troy is once more opened for a day.

The mass is pulled into the square,
as villager-soldiers breathe the air
and watch the heaving wreck:
its equine head sways on a creaking neck.

From timbers fine, its back holds up
a coat of pine and heavy gut,
legs stand on board a deck that’s towed,
as logs below convey the load.

Grim morning sun above the clouds,
casts dapple pallor on the crowds.
They stand in awe at gate and horse,
the quiet scene bears no remorse.

A wench in stocks, then, starts to grin,
with gravy-drool-flecked-dirt on chin,
her teeth a mass of scraggle, gum,
“Rest like the dead! The war is won!”

In castle’s keep, the kingdom’s lord
glistens wearing Trojan horde.
His daughter walks to window’s sill,
and gasps at sight of feared: fulfilled.

She begs him, “King! Father, my lord,
do not accept this fell reward!
Invite the horse, our end’s assured!”
He heeds her not. Speaks but one word.

In city’s square the mood is light,
though dancing, singing, none seems right,
until the lad set out at night,
confirms “Greeks gone!” Their freighters flight.

Then stupor begins! The bacchanal,
blood-touched wine runs down the walls.
The revelry runs into the eve,
and manic joy’s at last perceived.

In tower tall, the princess watched,
her cheeks and tear-touched skin unwashed,
King sighs again, speaks only thus,
an eponymous name, some strange “Epeus”

When long at last the people fall
to sleep on ground, on wood, in cowl,
the dark cloud day gives way to night,
and horse’s eyes flicker but once, a light.

Into silent barrack-turned feast-time inn,
around the beds and cradles grim,
past sleeping harlot, wench, and whore,
step sprightly enders of the war.

Back to the gate, the moon-glints go
and with a single whispered “Ho”
the door is pushed through carrion gore,
that since morning’s fallen from bulwark-shore.

At long-ended last, the doors were forced,
by troops disgorged from wooden horse,
received as gift wishing war’s battles end.
What Greek’s ship absences portend.

Permalink Leave a Comment

The ‘G’ is my specialty,

September 30, 2009 at 11:00 pm (Uncategorized)

The world of Matt has been a little hectic for a while now, what with re-learning radio-shtuff with MSM, and slowly but surely making headway in that Maddening universe. Just recently, the idea of doing a collaborative film project with my esteemed college cohorts resurfaced, and at our weekly ‘get-together and be creative on purpose’ night (today) I busted out ye olde’ laptop, and started hammering away on a potential opening scene. If it stays true to the universe in question, the movie would be a companion to MSM, giving a sort of 3-dimensional and extra-cinematic quality to some of the characters and organizations.

I’ve been fortunate enough to play some Halo 3: ODST with my cohorts from home, and while the internet problem has been a phantom thorn in everyone’s foot, there’s no denying that the game is pretty brilliant. ODST offers both a very different take on the single-player storyline for a first-person-shooter, and a GLORIOUS “Firefight” mode, pitting me and my three friends against wave after wave of alien baddies. We’ve also been doing pretty well with sticking to our ‘once a week sit down and teleconference a game of D&D’ plan, though it sounds like school’s exponential curve of work may begin to disqualify us all too soon. We shall see.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, and I have a pile of library books to finish by Saturday. Hello rocking chair and peppermint tea: I have a plan.

Permalink 2 Comments

I sign letters ‘MGR’

September 18, 2009 at 12:38 am (Uncategorized)

This is the workshop. The pantry. The card catalog of my achievements. The collection. The repository. The online access to a handful of my creative works.

Some of them are games. Some of them are pseudo-professional. Some of them are dangerous, and shouldn’t be entered into lightly. And many of them are strange.

Look around. It’s only a start, but even the Universe had to begin somewhere.

Permalink Leave a Comment