Steven saw the Line for the first time at the age of six. What he remembered most was that it seemed to go on forever, like an oversize freight train extending into the distance as far as one could see. Walking from one end of the factory floor to the other only enhanced the impression of endless massive industrial might. The floor itself was more like a tunnel than a building, it was a dingy iron shell that somehow seemed dwarfed by the machine it sheltered.
Monthly Archives June 2009
what’s with the numbered stories?
Read about the 52 project.
(Hint, it’s cool.)
8 – Default
I knew something was wrong when I woke up to a blank view. I mean really blank, nothing at all, total visual fail. I couldn’t see anything but the stuff in the room, bed, dresser, dirty cloths. No clock, no messages, no headlines, no breakfast menu, not even the inspirational message of the day, which I don’t like but which gives me a comfort by always being there.
Director’s cuts?
As I have noted on a number of stories so far, time constraints have kept me from fleshing them out into the masterpieces I had in mind when I started. I am considering reposting selected stories with more complete and polished prose. These will happen as I find time, and with stories I felt especially disspointed in – but if you have any particular story you’d like to see rescued from the devestation of last-minute authorship, please let me know in the comments or in email, and I’ll see what I can do.
Failure? You decide.
Number 7 posted today at 11:05 AM. Did I fail my self-imposed task? Well, I did finish the story before midnight, and you can tell from the last page or so that I was pressing the deadline. But the coffee shop (free wifi!) network did not let me connect, and I could not post. I also could not post when I got to the house in which I was staying for the night, because they have no internet connection at all.So here I am, in another coffee shop, posting late, my tail between my legs.
As usual, scheduling is my demon, and fight it I must. I cannot use the lack of internet as excuse for not posting on time – I should have had the story done well before the last minute, should have planned more time to write, should have planned my internet connection ahead of time. Shoulda. Didn’t.
7 – Blood of Innocents
Night was velvet around him, he could feel its texture in every nerve, warm soft air heavy with summer scents of cut grass and sun-baked pavement and roses. The grass across which he walked was wet from the evening sprinklers, but his feet made no impression in the soft growth or the sodden earth beneath. He was a black shape against the darkness of the lawn, hardly touched the ground as he moved towards the house, and the up through the air like dandelion fluff on an updraft. He knew from long experience that the darkness of his shape would blend with the darkness around him, he would be a shadow with no distinct shape. His faint shadow in the thin light of the new moon was indistinct.
He looked through the window at what had brought him here. A single candle burned in the room, no electric lights illuminated her face, which was a pale thing, broad of cheekbone and small of mouth. Tears streamed silently down those cheeks. She sat cross-legged on the bed, hands on knees trembling slightly, and then turned with agonizing slowness to the nightstand. He could feel her through the intervening space, she radiated despair like a furnace, he could sense the tendons in her arms tightened to the point of pain as her arms moved carefully, precisely, to open the drawer. She took out two small bottles, held them carefully against the possibility of rattling their contents. He could hear the tiny shift of little pills against each other and the walls of the small plastic bottles.
When the story dies
So what happens when the story just won’t come? When days go by and every sentence seems to want to crawl back off the page and hide? When the great idea you had now looks pale and flaccid from every angle? What happens when the story just isn’t there and you only have a few hours before you have to post?
Obviously you write an epic poem. Well, ok, it’s not really epic. I think you have to have at least three volumes to call it epic, but it sure beats that dirty limerick I’ve had kicking around in my head all week.
6 – The Clay and the Storm
Thunder rolled and rain beat down
the humid air began to stir
and gathered they, of ring and crown
when lightning stuck that rocky spur.
Climbed they, the mountain’s flank
under clouds ominous and dark
armored black and fierce their rank
marched they under heavens spark.