Betta Under The Radar
A broken on-line papier machine
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Rest
Slept an unprecedented twelve hours the night before - unbroken. No dreams, no nightmares, only deep, deep unconsciousness. Upon waking, still that feeling of oppression - but slighter now, much slighter, like a fading bruise.
"Words no longer hold back their secrets
They yield to me as the friends of old..." ¶ 2:57 PM 0 comments
"Words no longer hold back their secrets
They yield to me as the friends of old..." ¶ 2:57 PM 0 comments
Friday, April 28, 2006
Outlines for two tales
These two have been living in my head for some time. Hopefully I will get to write them properly now that the Tempest is over.
THE MONSTER
A starving writer has been working away at his novel. It is not a wonder he is starving for he is not a very good writer. His novel (if we might be so generous as to call it that) is a rambling affair full of hanging sentences and plot holes. His prose has all the freshness of a corpse. He has created his Hero, his Virgin, Cuckold and Slut. He now needs a Monster. Somehow he manages to spin a monster of most terrifying porportions. Not the large, lumpish physical monsters that are all flesh and sharp teeth, but a truly maleficient thing - alien, reptilian, very fast, very dark, and very, very old. The novel begins to take strange turn and the starving writer finds himself sleeping no more than two hours at a stretch. At the musty, vulnerable time right before falling asleep and waking up, he is afflicted with the distinct impression that there is someone else in the corner of his room. In short, the more he writes his monster, the more he brings it into being. He writes compulsively now, rushing to the last page of his book with dreaded foreknowledge that when the last sentence is completed, he shall come face to face with the horror that he has created.
THE CAVE OF RED RUBIES : Chapter Two
THE YOUNG MAN'S HEART
He had ridden for days. He was being hunted and if they found him they would eat his heart. Terrified and exhausted, his horse stumbled and lost its balance. They were almost upon him. At the edge of despair, he called an image of her to mind and gave her his heart. She put it in her pocket to keep it safe.
They tortured him of course, but without a heart the young man was not what he seemed and after awhile they grew bored and let him go.
Later, much later, he remembered that he had not asked for his heart back. It hurt him now, not to have it. There was a particularly charming girl he wished to marry and she, bless her, would not accept anything less than his whole heart.
And so he sought his true love, to demand it be returned. By this time, She was happily engaged to a most elegant gentleman (rich too). She did not recall being given a heart. She should certainly remember something as singular as that. On some thought, she did think she had come across a red jewel several years back, at one of the bigger markets. It was most extraordinary, true fire in its deep red depths, and she had worn it for many years to the admiration of all. Perhaps this was the precious object of which the young man spoke? Unfortunately she had traded it recently to a man who, amongst other things, had given her a bolt of exquisite maroon velvet for it. She had used the velvet to cover her chaise lounge.
Cursing her mercenary ways, the young man stormed off in a rage to search for this man, whose only distinguishing feature, as his true love told him, was that he wrote out his reciepts in a red pen. A very red pen, almost the color of fresh pig's blood. ¶ 3:55 PM 0 comments
THE MONSTER
A starving writer has been working away at his novel. It is not a wonder he is starving for he is not a very good writer. His novel (if we might be so generous as to call it that) is a rambling affair full of hanging sentences and plot holes. His prose has all the freshness of a corpse. He has created his Hero, his Virgin, Cuckold and Slut. He now needs a Monster. Somehow he manages to spin a monster of most terrifying porportions. Not the large, lumpish physical monsters that are all flesh and sharp teeth, but a truly maleficient thing - alien, reptilian, very fast, very dark, and very, very old. The novel begins to take strange turn and the starving writer finds himself sleeping no more than two hours at a stretch. At the musty, vulnerable time right before falling asleep and waking up, he is afflicted with the distinct impression that there is someone else in the corner of his room. In short, the more he writes his monster, the more he brings it into being. He writes compulsively now, rushing to the last page of his book with dreaded foreknowledge that when the last sentence is completed, he shall come face to face with the horror that he has created.
THE CAVE OF RED RUBIES : Chapter Two
THE YOUNG MAN'S HEART
He had ridden for days. He was being hunted and if they found him they would eat his heart. Terrified and exhausted, his horse stumbled and lost its balance. They were almost upon him. At the edge of despair, he called an image of her to mind and gave her his heart. She put it in her pocket to keep it safe.
They tortured him of course, but without a heart the young man was not what he seemed and after awhile they grew bored and let him go.
Later, much later, he remembered that he had not asked for his heart back. It hurt him now, not to have it. There was a particularly charming girl he wished to marry and she, bless her, would not accept anything less than his whole heart.
And so he sought his true love, to demand it be returned. By this time, She was happily engaged to a most elegant gentleman (rich too). She did not recall being given a heart. She should certainly remember something as singular as that. On some thought, she did think she had come across a red jewel several years back, at one of the bigger markets. It was most extraordinary, true fire in its deep red depths, and she had worn it for many years to the admiration of all. Perhaps this was the precious object of which the young man spoke? Unfortunately she had traded it recently to a man who, amongst other things, had given her a bolt of exquisite maroon velvet for it. She had used the velvet to cover her chaise lounge.
Cursing her mercenary ways, the young man stormed off in a rage to search for this man, whose only distinguishing feature, as his true love told him, was that he wrote out his reciepts in a red pen. A very red pen, almost the color of fresh pig's blood. ¶ 3:55 PM 0 comments
Post Tempest
The most beautiful clear day, a milky blue sky, as if everything has been washed twice and has come out gleaming, beaming. And the night before was only a dream of a Tempest - a dream in which one was spirited away to a fairie court, where one drank champagne and spoke in loud earnest tones and was carassed by emminent figures who said such pretty things. There was a perfect green dress and a pair of lovely, if not very comfortable, silver-white shoes. It was just as well there was no dancing. Did you know, there is a person or god or amorphous being who controls time with a pocket watch? When it pleases him, he winds it so that the hours pass by in a blurred flash. And the Tempest never really lasts, and you wake up... strangely empty, quite stupid and slow. If asked, one would say that a wonderful time was had, when in fact, one doubts that it was real at all.
Labels: art
¶ 2:11 PM 0 comments
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Comic relief, unhampered thoughts
It is not easy to take one's life. In my circumstances a gun would be extremely dificult to come by. Swallowing pills has a large margin of error and one is apt to come to in a hospital bed - stomach pumped and suffering from the most excruciating (not to mention embarrassing) hangover. Slitting one's wrists is painful, so is jumping off a building. Drowning would be simply awful - the desperate fear and panic right before the end, as one's instinct for survival kicks in. As for hanging by a noose, a rope with eight coils really stirs a deep horror within me. What a brutal inelegant instrument.
I suppose one might contrive to be murdered. But really, who wants to be found raped and stabbed in a gutter somewhere? The squalor of the situation would be unimaginable. Could you hire someone to take your own life? But then, you never know when you'd change your mind, and then where would you be? Also, if I could afford to pay someone for my death, I would certainly use it, fake it and go off to live in a new life in a Latin American country.
I suppose one might contrive to be murdered. But really, who wants to be found raped and stabbed in a gutter somewhere? The squalor of the situation would be unimaginable. Could you hire someone to take your own life? But then, you never know when you'd change your mind, and then where would you be? Also, if I could afford to pay someone for my death, I would certainly use it, fake it and go off to live in a new life in a Latin American country.
Labels: sweet misery
¶ 10:13 PM 2 comments
Fourth World
http://4ourthworld.blogspot.com
All are most cordially invited! I am still working night and day, producing work like a machine - a very ill-tempered machine - but we will keep that between you and me. Let popular opinion be that I am totally organized and as calm as a monk.
All are most cordially invited! I am still working night and day, producing work like a machine - a very ill-tempered machine - but we will keep that between you and me. Let popular opinion be that I am totally organized and as calm as a monk.
Labels: art
¶ 3:36 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
De-worming
Today I am being eaten from the inside by a strong urge to delete this blog. No conceivable reason. Perhaps yet another way of exerting my flagging sense of control.
Labels: sweet misery
¶ 10:28 AM 3 comments
