skrim [1st cluster]
by aqaraza
sk7167
something must be said, then, about the inheritance. clearly stated in the will was the passage from name to name of the tree itself, and -- presumably -- its attendant foliage. the irony here is nothing if not complete. greatly proud of the tree, gen3 had planted it with hands of toil and passion. upon the passage of gen3 through this skrim to the surface of the next, our facing image revealed a numbing blossom: at the base of the tree had sprouted a vine. gen2 cultivated the tree; "the vine is natural. the vine adds character. the vine will die in its own time." the vine refused to comment; rather, it continued to prosper, ewaving its tendrilled mass into itself with an exuberace befitting that of the polyglot.
time passed; corrective measures were taken as brows curled in troubled glances. the vine seemed resistant to all attacks. yet gen2 had to go on; gen2 remembered as if in hoarded shadowlight the early days, spent with gen3, tickling lightly the newer buds of the nascent tree unfolding in sunbeam. beneath that accursed vine, projected gen2, lies the heart of all hope. and when gen2 passed skrimwise, chasing after gen1 with a billowing plea, gen1 was left in the position we contest here today.
for here, gen1 holds, lies a mass of vegetal seething remembered only in its vine-clad struggle under deepening shadow. the memories here are perhaps cloudier, or perhaps more detached: incomprehension, an amount of concern, as gen1 watched gen2's hearth smoulder helplessly over the slow encroachment of indifferent vine. there came a time, of course, when gen1 came to understand just what was at work. yet the half-grief had shifted: directed no longer at the tree beneath, there bloomed more concern for the tragicomical gambits of gen2's tribulation. our concern now, insists gen1, is not so much for ourselves -- and perhaps no more for the tree beneath the vinelash [which may be gone for all we see] -- but rather for a hazy projection. we can see ghosting it up behind us the inveitable. and we will not pass a strangled legacy any further. either gen0 lives out a world free from the troubled passion for the tethered choketree, or there simply will be no gen0 to claim. because if the choketree and its empty atrophy does not brand their heads numbly, then we most certainly will. mark our words. our litigation stands unsettled; the choketree breathes slowly beneath an indifferent undertow.
sk7482
the car was a mess. to be sure, it had been far too complicated a machine, it had been moving at an innappropriate rate of speed. later, there would be some question of brake malfunction brought to light; for now, though, we fixate only on the car itself. which was a mess.
a mass of steel, it had bent itself into the most obtuse of forms in its attempt to adapt to the shape and structure of the tree into which it had slammed. an origami crash. paint chipped in the folds, exposing steel rent asunder, cracked like micro-canyon. the sound, a mixture of white static and crushing heat, had been heard blocks away: no-one who rushed to the scene was surprised to see that they were not even among the first to have done so.
and there, gathered around a spot several hundred feet from the crash itself, was a circle of attention. eyes with hairy pupils sucked in the light. what could plainly be seen by all was the fact that the crash itself had not marked the end of the ride for the driver, merely the removal of said's apparatus from said's proximity. the driver, flung through the windshield, had been forced to compensate for the stoppage of the apparatus through the continuation of its massive momentum. the car itself had stopped, to be sure. but the crash had only just begun. it was as if the mass of ambient machinery had lent the driver a moment of fore-shadowing, a real-time model of the larger crash to come. what thoughts might have snapped through said's mind in the moments filled by travel from seat to brick wall? "my car is gone, and it dreams of my future." nothing so lingual, perhaps. the crash crowd mulled.
and then -- and no-one could ever seem to get straight just when or how or why this had occurred -- someone had picked up a tin barrel from beside the red-wet wall. placing it upon the ground and lifting lightly with his upturned feet, he had slowly begun to caress the barrell-flat, using the balls of his hands to bring resound to the hollow form. a hundred hearts turned in slow unison, to remember the beat of hollow earth.
there is no need to describe the driver, or said's body even; the car had provided it's model, mangled structure and crease-canyon shatterbox. the car too lost oil, the car too smelled of silent settling. this recognized, the crash crowd slowly, slowly set in motion, moving in an infinite loop around the crashcar crashflesh crashdrum shatterbox. and they began to dance, and to melt.
sk8261
my mind seems a skrim upon which my world projects its shadowlight. beyond, figures dance. beyond, skrims recede in billowing corroboration. beyond, the light dims and fades, leaving dancing afterflash upon the skrim of my mind.
sk9127
my world seems a skrim upon which my mind projects its shadowlight. beyond, figures dance. beyond, skrims recede in billowing corroboration. beyond, the light dims and fades, leaving dancing afterflash upon the skrim of my world.