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| << June02, 2008 - Dark Windows #19 - Jun 1, 2008 |
July02, 2008 - Dark Windows #21 - July 1, 2008 >> |
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DARK WINDOWS #20 - Jun 20, 2008 ===== ===== ===================> INTRO We've been experiencing a slow comedy of vegetables this year. A few years ago when we tried to plant some edible things in our garden, they all got eaten by birds and rabbits. Now we have a few half wine casks, and so we have plenty of space out of rabbit's reach to experiment with. We have tomatos, spinach, beans, eggplant, bell peppers, chives and cucumbers growing right now. The comedy comes from the snail's pace of the whole project. Yes, it's fascinating, and yes, the fruits & veggies taste so much better when they're fresh off the plant ... but it just ... takes ... so ... long! Weeks for the sprouts to reach a size where they're likely to survive. More weeks to get the first flowers, only to realize we don't even know how each plant is supposed to get pollinated -- it ain't all bees. Then weeks of looking at passing flowers to see if there's any sign of fruit. Then wondering how big the fruit will get, and whether it will ever turn the right colors and be ready for eating. Okay, if you're impatient, stick to greens. We can pluck a few bits of chives or spinach and the rest will keep growing. At the moment, every plant I listed is producing food. I have to say plants are fascinating, and gardening is one of the most down-to-earth and useful hobbies we've ever tried. Which is where most readers will say ... DUH! The sad thing is just how little most people know about food, about the plants around us; a lot of information has been lost as we've become dependent on stores and corporations to handle our food for us. So, one series of articles I'm accumulating is about "lost" (or at least not widely known) uses for plants. Did you know those little purple flowerson the chives are edible? They're potent, too, and add unexpected color to a salad. That's my odd topic for today. You'll probably see weird plant lore among the Odd Clips -- I didn't realize it was an interest of mine until I found over 1,000 clips in my files. That's no exaggeration, either. = scott ===================> POEM In a Locked Place --- I shared the skeleton key and let you into my life, Your doorswing etched out a clean wedge of light, I was the dusty room before the antiquarian, You were the student of my moth-seen furnishing. I rolled the dust-rats around in your wake, You eased back my curtain brushing my pane, My floor sighed its pleasure under your tread, Your eyes stroked my closet your hand the bed. But my wood could not outcry my secrets to you, And when the door closed you were outside anew, Now in the darkness most things are the same, But your footprints (my patience) cry out to be tamed. --- = 8/87, published in Expressions newsletter (3/01) ===================> ODD CLIPS: (clips from old "factual" sources) Take a bramble apple, and lupins, and pulegium, pound them, then sift them, put them in a pouch, lay them under the altar, sing nine masses over them, put the dust into milk, drip thrice some holy water upon them, administer this drink at three hours, at nine in the morning, etc. [1] The gems bearing the effigy or figure of Pegasus or Bellerophon was held to confer courage, and was prized by soldiers. Those engraved with Andromeda reconciled differences between men and women. The image of Mercury rendered the possessor wise and persuasive, and so on. [2] Turquoise was believed to be a protection from falls, and the amethyst against intoxication. Jasper cured madness, and agate was an antidote to the poison of scorpions and spiders, besides being beneficial to the eyes. [3] 1,2,3. W. Carew Hazlitt, Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain: Faiths & Folklore (2 vol) (Reeves & Turner, London, 1905), p.6 1 is quoting Cockayne, Saxon Leechdoms 2,3 are quoting Roach Smith, Richborough, 1850, p90-2 ===================> STORY Patient Music --- >> 4:03 Daydreams pass overhead: like firestars they dance through the amber sky towards outstretched hands. The hands are pale and pleading, their message is not being heard. Patient music is playing like an index of metals. The sounds are peaceful, yet there is a feeling of urgency and concealed pain. I open my eyes. >> 4:06 The clock ticks away the time, happily and quietly, with its bold and sandy digital display. Someone wanted me to have that clock, so I could stare at it and count down, but why? Someone is watching, but their faces are hidden among the clouds and walls of the world. That patient music is playing somewhere, it seems miles away. Every now and then there is a morbid, forbidding chord. Something is going to happen soon, but what? >> 4:08 A world of echoes; there are pieces of myself coming undone, crying, running for shelter. There is a cold fear somewhere in the emptiness of my body. As my scream echoes off the walls in a chorus of helplessness, my fear is shattered. I watch the broken pieces as they fall to the floor and skitter about my legs. The sound of fallen fear is a maniacal, all-knowing laugh; just another chord in the deadly music. But just as I am not afraid, I am also not laughing. Someone else is. I want to see him. >> 4:09 But there is nobody. I look at my bound hands and think about my fear. I know that it was in pieces around me, and I suddenly wanted it badly, but I could not reach it from where I was trussed in the chair. Without that fear, I could feel nothing at all, and the emptiness was excruciating. One of my arms was bare, and an IV-tube pumped venom into my arm. A wave of nausea struck, and I looked away at a blank wall. I know that I have done this to myself, somehow. Yet I do not know how, or what was happening. >> 4:09:05 The clock says 4:11, but I know it's wrong, because I see it jumping around on small spidery legs. It hops onto its web and crawls toward me with the unbelievable swiftness of a predator. It flashes its hateful message, 4:12. Emptiness only hurts because of time, and time was trying to kill me (again). A strand tickles my face, but my fear had broken, and I cannot flinch. The creature brushes against my cheek, weaving mad silk around me. Everything was lost behind the haze of its web when it bit into me. I screamed at the razor sharpness, and felt the blood. >> 4:10 A hand touched mine. "Steven?" said the voice. I tried to nod, but felt nothing. A shadow bent over me, and the clock over its shoulder said 4:10, but it wasn't as bright as it should have been. The glaring white room had faded to a wash of browns. My arm decided to convulse; it slapped the table wildly, and I could not stop it. "...sometimes it takes ten minutes," said most of the voice to another shadow. I realized how much I hated that voice. I wanted to reach up and strangle that voice, but then I understood. I had strangled people before, and this chair was proof that I would never do it again. They said there was no other solution, that nobody wanted to pay to keep me in jail, rotting. Something in the growing darkness made me want to cry, but I had no eyes. >> THE END? "The People are glad you're suffering," said part of the voice. "Some wanted to see you burn, but those days are over. We used humane drugs for a few years, but that was silly, wasn't it? After all, you people have caused so much pain." I agreed. I was a murderer, and I would always be here in this chair. Something grabbed my wrist, but could I feel it? None of the voice spoke: "That's that. Let's have the next." I felt a body being thrown to the floor. Suddenly, I was not alone in the darkness, for others had died before me. There were rows of dark faces, hundreds of eyes with no trace of sympathy. --- END --- Old version of story published in DARK STARR (12/86) with one critical typo in the last section. ===================> DARKVISION: (captured dreams) White Bird ::: I was doing maintenance on a parking structure, and got a call to go clear some birds out of a light fixture. Easy enough. I don't know why we have to always be pushing animals around and killing them -- but humanity is heartless, taken as a whole. I found the light easily enough, on level C, the big white plastic light half full of shadow. It cast two whole parking spaces into semi-darkness. Ooh, that was worth complaining about. I got on my ladder and looked closer. One whole corner of the plastic has broken off, and there was a nest with two plump brown baby birds stuffed inside. They flapped their wings and opened their mouths at me. But it was my job to ruin their day. I bent down to fumble through my toolbox. Somehow, none of the cold metal tools were made for grabbing soft, defenseless critters. As I was partly bent over, I heard a scratching noise above me, and something fell on my back. I could feel little legs kicking, then heard a flutter and saw one of the birds fly away toward the sunlight. Okay, that meant I only had to wrestle one bird. Maybe if I could scare it, it would fly off on its own. I put on my thick yellow gloves and reached into the light. It was nice and warm in there; I could feel the heat on the back of my arm. A cozy spot. Oh well, they're grown up now. I got a loose grip on the little bird and pulled it out. It squirmed and gave me that orange-throated open mouth gesture again. The bird version of a middle finger, I guess. I opened my hand, and it sat there for a moment. Then it crapped and flew off. I guess I had that coming. I took off the glove, flicked the gunk onto the pavement, and dropped the gloves back into the toolbox. That was easy. But as I took a step back down the ladder there was a tiny chirp. I looked back at the nest -- oh yeah, I still needed to get the nest out of there! -- and saw a skinny white bird sitting there. Not like the others. This one was obviously the runt, stunted, never given any room to grow. It moved feebly, barely able to keep its head up. I reached in with my bare hand and grabbed it. It was warm and soft, but also a bit prickly to the touch. With one finger I pet the back of its neck. I know it wasn't a cat, but as a cat person my petting instinct took over. I could feel the bones in its tiny spine. We looked at each other. Its eyes were just little black dots with a trace of an orange eyelid. Not lively like any other eyes I've looked into. Bird eyes. Something jabbed my finger. A bone? The little thing chirped, and in the next few seconds it came unraveled. The skin just faded, the insides went dry, and I was left holding a perfectly white, bleached skeleton which collapsed into a pile in my hands. I found a little baggie in my toolbox, dumped out the random screws that were in it, and gently put the bird bones inside. I don't know why I kept them. But ever since I've had those bones in my toolbox, better and better jobs have come my way. Within a month I quit my job at the parking garage and got a contract doing bridge construction. Whenever I was on a job site and something good happened, I found myself muttering, "Thanks, baby bird." And I still don't know why. --- (captured 2/17/08) ===================> MY NEWS: Wow. The doldrums just keep drumming. No new sales of fiction or poetry. I'm waiting on about 57 submissions, though! On the other hand, after talks with the publisher, I've decided that my upcoming chapbook ("Jane Doe Discovered") will be a 3-in-1 chapbook, almost 3 times the pages for only about $1 or $2 more. The new title is "Improbable Jane." ===================> POEM Compound I --- Briefly my eyes swelled and cracked into hexagonal plates like an insect my vision cast in multitudes overlapping in comical duplicity, I stare at my now-thousand hands swirling through the air at my slighest flex spectra of information whirling before me ... my insect eyes fade back to the mundane swallowed back fully now to darkness. --- = 7/87, published in The Fifth Di... (8/01) ===================> STORY BITES: (clips from old fictional sources) When a machine-gun bullet lodges in your heart, you remain conscious for about fifteen seconds -- long enough to realize that you have already gone into your last spin; but you know you are dead, unless a miracle has happened to save you. [1] It was as if I had touched a button and set in action a terrific, complicated mechanism of rumours that pretended to be sworn truth, of gossip that posed as evidence, of wild tarradiddles that good men most firmly believed. [2] There never is any first-hand evidence in these cases. But A knew B who had heard from C that her second cousin's little girl had been set upon and beaten by a pack of young Welsh savages. They said that a responsible medical man's evidence was final and convincing; but they didn't bother to find out who the doctor was, or whether there was any doctor at all. [3] 1. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Beyond the Farthest Star, ch.I 2,3. Arthur Machen, Out of the Earth (story) ===================> POEM Taking Apart the City --- Filing down the skyscraper, Sharp strokes through cement, Toolteeth catch the steel girders, Evoke chunks falling streetward; I chisel out shapes like emotion, Form curves from the uncarved office Molding the hard angles into softness; Stepping back I survey my work, The vast and windowed nude in thoughtful repose; The next building looks to me Like it should be a rosebush, I tread the traffic as I move on. --- = 8/87, unpublished ===================> ABOUT THE AUTHOR Scott Virtes has had over 400 stories & poems published since 1986. Look for them in Analog, Space & Time, Ideomancer, Dreams & Nightmares, Cafe Irreal, Planet, and more ... My Home page: http://tales.scvs.com?inw=dkw Notice: Odd Clips and Story Bites all come from original sources in the public domain, or are brief clips in the spirit of fair use (a.k.a. free advertising for the source). All other sections of this newsletter are copyright (c)2008 Scott Virtes. All rights reserved. Please don't grab chunks of my work and post them all over the place. If you ask permission, you'll find that I'm pretty easygoing. ;-) ===== this issue: 2,430 words cumulative: 41,410 words |
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July02, 2008 - Dark Windows #21 - July 1, 2008 >> |
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