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| << July16, 2008 - Dark Windows #22 - July 15, 2008 |
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DARK WINDOWS #23 - Aug. 1, 2008 ===== ===== ===================> INTRO Every now & then I have a nightmare where I have to get up and walk around the house or watch lame 3am TV for a half hour to clear my head. This week there was a good one: something about being in an arena surrounded by barbed wire, with shattered glass and bits of once-living things on the ground, only to be tackled by two emotionless zombies who pounded silver nails up under my kneecaps with heavy wooden mallets; I'd wrestle a hand free, twist out a nail with a claw hammer, only to have two more driven into other joints. No rhyme or reason. I could see waking up and having a cramp in my knees, maybe, and that would have explained it away -- body signals intruding on dreamspace. But no, it was simply pointless, restless, and mean. My brain acting up. Not even a story to enjoy. Still, night time is the right time for me. Silent. Nobody expects anything of me after midnight. No phone calls. I can surf the web, draw maps of imaginary places, scribble words in whatever notebook is at the top of a pile, plan out video games I'll probably never actually write. Normally, after midnight is my time, and I'll take every hour of it I can get. It's a finite resource, and there's a comedy factor: if I stay up past 4am, an unappeasable hunger sets in. So I try to hit the sheets before that. And every night I try to leave some traces behind. Time fries when not having fun. What is fun anyway? = scott ===================> POEM Smooth Shadows --- I stand behind you behind me the moon, Freshly aroused young silver before you our shadows meet, Our joining becomes arcane, Can you feel the dark contours they snake within your own, They take from your giving, your shadow grows smaller, The night becomes thicker, I watch you tremble now a soul-shiver takes you, From shadow I touch your leg from your leg I touch your heart, Your shadow is gone long before I reach your lips. --- = Written 9/87, unpublished ===================> ODD CLIPS: (clips from old "factual" sources) One can scarcely credit that at any period there could have existed men of science and genius who believed that there were supernatural means of curing disease, did we not even to the present day find imbeciles who verily dread the malpractices of the devil and his vicarious agents. [1] A ring made of the hinge of a coffin had the power of relieving cramps; which were also mitigated by having a rusty old sword hung up by the bedside. [2] A halter that had served in hanging a criminal was an infallible remedy for a headache, when tied round the head; this affection was equally cured by the moss frowing on a human skull, dried and pulverized, and taken as a cephalic snuff. [3] 1. J. G. Millingen, Curiosities of Medical Experience (2nd ed.) (Bentley, London, 1839), p.19 2,3. Same, p.22 ===================> STORY The Twist (part 1 of 2) by Scott Virtes --- Something surreal twisted out of sync and appeared on the sidewalk. In a dark overcoat and tipped-down hat, seeming a refugee from an obsolete age of gangster movies, it walked into the library. "May I help you?" asked the old librarian, a face all obeisance, a face crinkled upon itself like a windblown sheet of newspaper. "What is life?" asked the Gangster-Shadow-Twist. "Excuse me?" the librarian queried, not certain that she had heard correctly. It repeated its question, to which the old lady now responded, "Freedom and a heartbeat, I suppose." "Freedom does not exist and I possess no heart," the Shadow-Twist replied. "Is there anything else involved?" The librarian turned her back now. "I am a busy person. If you have any further questions, feel free to browse." "Thank you," was its departing comment as it hummed through the autodoors and into the March wind. The sidewalk was new, incised with occasional finger-etched immemorials, many letters inside a quarter as many hearts. The bushes were tiny gnarled things with bold thorns and roots buried deep amongst the dry flaky dirt to the side of the walk. Something about their crouching compactness was remotely threatening. Trying to take notes on everything while it had the chance, the Twist turned to examine the library. The library was a thing of red brick and greying, stressed mortar; sporting a great network of choking vines that clung to the walls with inconsiderate talons. The tall, clean windows presented their view of the interior in an absurd way, with different lighting, a different color scheme, and a different sort of motion than the rest of the face of the building. Without a shrug the Twist turned away and came to a street: a strip of hydrocarbon reek that it feared to tread upon. Seeing no alternative, it jetted swiftly across to the other side. Here he was greeted by more buildings, soot-stained and foreboding, boasting their colorful insides through facades of angled glass. One was a room of bound paper, the next a place of styled slabs of wood, and the third a place of strong aromas which lured the Twist to its doors. "What is in here?" the Twist asked politely. His reply came from a girl, young and smooth, idly chewing something that could not be seen. She seemed to find great amusement in this simple question. "Health food," she commented, "You know: fruits, nuts, spinach ... natural things." "I do not know." Its tone was weary. "But I do know that health and life are related. Do these things make one live?" The girl began to smell afraid. "Of course not. But they might make you live longer." She gave up then and tried to shrink away behind the sales counter. "You make no sense, and these scents are not pleasing." The Twist complained, then departed that place. No sooner had he turned a corner than he was hailed from above. "Neat suit, man!" was the call, and when the Twist turned his senses upwards, he saw that the voice came from a young man hanging from a second-story window. It said nothing, and the Hailer added, "Hey man, ya wanna come up'n smoke a bowl wi some bored guys?" The language made no sense, but the Twist understood the tone of invitation, and always accepted such on his quests. It scanned the sides of the building, seeking entrance. A set of rusted, shadowy stairs clung unhappily to the rear of the building, and a door was thrown open at their summit, so thence proceeded the Twist, climbing slowly and purposefully. At the peak of this creaking ascension, the Twist was ushered into a dimly lit room by Hailer, a rough-faced soul with a permanently angered face. "Take yer coat?" asked Hailer. "No. It is mine," replied the Twist, and Hailer chuckled. He led the Twist into the next room, where there were four other men. The room smelled like the smoldering ruins in the wake of a forest fire, a thin bluish smoke clinging to the ceiling, seeking escape through the stucco ridgework. The other occupants sported aggressive and oddly displaced expressions, each staring his own bored amazement at the sight of the Twist. "I'll be damned! It's Clyde Barrow!" shouted one of the men, and some of the others laughed. The Twist did not understand, and did not ask for details, but he mentally labelled this man Shouter. --- Continued in Dark Windows #24 ===================> NOW AVAILABLE: No advertising this week. Please visit me at http://scott.virtes.com any time for free stories & poems to read, and my latest news. ===================> DARKVISION: (captured dreams) "Roll the credits and die already" --- TV has a way of invading our dreams. I have even had dreams with titles, and dreams with opening and closing credits. Even dreams where there were film crews filming the dream content, resetting it and trying again. I had an odd dream about a week ago where what looked like a cloud of locusts turned out to be a swarm of flying machines armed with poison needles. Each bug could shoot down four or five humans, and our base station techies were measuring the cloud on satellite photos -- they calculated that there was 10 or 20 billion bugs. During the course of this brief vision, the people in the dream kept morphing between people I never met and the cast of Stargate SG-1. Sometimes it was Daniel Jackson at the computer, telling us how doomed we are, sometimes it was Dr. McKay from Stargate Atlantis, and sometimes it was just that generic Guy again. In this dream we spent hours dying. Strange dream-hours. Wherever I went, walls or airplanes would fall on me. We kept rewinding and trying different escape methods, none of them worked. Not a relaxing night's sleep. --- - captured 6/1/08 * Note: I hadn't seen either Stargate show in a few weeks. After waking I remember being disappointed that Doctor Who never showed up to save us. Those first thoughts in the morning can be very odd. ===================> MY NEWS: The "Book of Tentacles" anthology is about 60% filled now. "Infradead" is moving more slowly. I've done a few new covers for Samsdot recently. But NO new acceptances of my writing in about 3 months now. ===================> POEM death of a wax building --- In the architect's dark room, Flashlight in my hand I light the match, the model, This symbol of joy only for others; I watch the plastic catch, Blue flames behind veils the fire bursting from the heat, Balconies running shades of window-drip; The mock pavement is calling in gravity's voice, The running tiers of richness grey plastic fume-curls holes chewing facade, The choking sting is worth it this beauty being stageplayed; Creeping shadowheads crawl the walls around, The melted congealing fades, My blow delivered I need my light once more, To filter my way into safe planning, My poverty yields to none, no man no firm no fate I seek my next expression, Back to this drawing board now, there is no more room for condominiums. --- = Written 9/87, unpublished ===================> STORY BITES: (clips from old fictional sources) My life had been one long peregrination -- from the Orient to the Occident, from the Arctic to the Antarctic -- to find myself at last, an able seaman at thirty, in the full vigour of my manhood, drowning in San Francisco Bay because of a disastrously successful attempt to desert my ship. [1] He was the most abnormal specimen of cold-blooded cruelty I have ever seen. [2] I saw blood running in streams, as they shrieked with laughter, but I could not find the mark of it on the grass afterwards. [3] 1,2. Jack London, "A Thousand Deaths" (short story) 3. Arthur Machen, "Out of the Earth" (short story) ===================> POEM Realization --- Understanding - we peak and decline moving outward in nourished numbers falling back from the harsh climate and hidden hunters, falling inward under the blows of disease. Knowing these limits, we can still grow strong, we are forests blasted by the wind of rain and wrong and industry. --- = Written 4/88, 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: 1,990 words cumulative: 47,850 words |
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