The Story-Thing (in progress...)

dbauler:

Once upon a time I got lost at the mall. Not only did this make me feel incredibly dense, but the frustrating part was I got lost while looking for the bathroom, following directions through access halls, stairways, storage closets, abandoned stores, and finally to what looked like a sewage tunnel. I figured this was a good enough place to go as any, and I knew an actual porcelain bathroom had to be too far from here to find before I exploded. I squatted down and kept an eye out for suspicious sewer dwellers, but by the time I was set I found I couldn't go: there was this smell that was slithering down the tunnel. It was bizzare, wonderful, and possibly narcotic; I found myself even more confused than before. I got up, got my clothes back in position, and followed the smell down the tunnel, until I realized what the smell reminded me of. Wax and pollen, but sweeter and heavier. I didn't even realize what the smell was until I was almost standing on it.

annie:

Honey! Yards and furlongs of honey! And I noticed that the walls of the tunnel were brownish....almost crockery-like. As I scratched my head and tried to make sense of it all, the mouth of the tunnel was suddenly blocked by a large, brown ....thing..... I'd have sworn it was an eye if it wasn't *so big*! And then, echoing down the length of the tunnel, a sound:

"Oh, bother!"

forbidden donut:

And in addition to the smell, there was also the *buzz*. When I initally found myself lost, it was barely indistinguishable from that ubiquitous low-level hum that comes part and parcel with living in modern mechanized society; the subliminal contribution that a myriad of electrical appliances makes to the soundtrack of our lives. As I continued through the rats-nest maze of industrial corridors and service routes in the bowels of the mall, however, it grew in definition and intensity until it was a physically tangible buzzing that had every fibre of my being vibrating in sympathy with it, producing a not unpleasant and definitely mesmerizing sensation much like a light full body massage. In the intervening years I have read much about the effects that sonic vibrations can exert upon consciousness, and I now believe that this buzzing was just as responsible as the smell for the trance-state that I was fully immersed in by the time I found myself slithering through that dank, dark tunnel. Every once in a while when I am in direct proximity to the speaker enclosures at a music event I can experience a brief recurrence of that phenomenon, and occasionally the feelings and associations that it brings up are so emotionally charged that I have to go somewhere safe and quiet to calm myself until it passes. There was no turning back now...

yara:

The boat that carried me over the river of taffy and into the long dark night of Sewerworld was leaky and the old man paddling had but one aor. He never spoke the entire time as I sat there trying to focus on the nothingness beyond the edges of the sticky mess we were floating in. No sooner than I gained a little bit of focus did we reach the dock. The old man stopped paddling and threw a rope up to a shadowy figure. Someone reached for my hand and someone else steadied the boat. Fingers were sticky as they wrapped around my knuckles, cracking the metacarpals. The dock felt like the floor of a movie theater after the last show. Lights glowed softly amber as I stepped forward with hands trailing me; the shadowy someones moved slowly, as though their feet were glued to the ground. I reached the first light and suddenly...

heath:

I:9b - In the division of the crop the fox takes the corn, the bear the more bulky chaff. when we got to the source of the nectar-hum, we realized that it was harvest-time for the souls of the earth. the first race of aleins, the more sly and conniving of the two in conflict, had discovered a way to bring a streamlined straining of souls into direct proximity of the goo-gatherers; the combine, the harvester. here i was, here we were, in this shopping mall, and we realized too late that we were not of this first group, but rather the second. for the other race of aliens was a more slow-moving, deliberate one, and had decided to gather together the masses of all, undifferentiated, unsorted, all at once. but we were the luckier, because although we were clearly deemed impure, we were also earmarked not for distillation and dissolution, but rather for a massive coming-together so that our myriad might beget a cacophanous rift, a doorway, a portal. a flowing-through and under.

I:34 - The wolf dives into the water for reflected cheese. our course was clear. the nectar, once blocked but now flowing so freely through the rift our presence had spawned, now clogged every pore. amniotic, we gaped at absence, now an utterly alien concept. beyond the portal, blocked open Ana's innocent smile, reflected our freedom. in Ana's smile we saw foreverness. how were we to know that it was a scrimwise distortion? we sought Ana before us, and in so doing, missed the warmth of her fingers in our hair. we were asleep, and the fever raged on. but we leapt, all the same.

I:55 - The animals build a road. Ana was right and we all knew it. there was only one way out of this: through.

I:72 - In winter the hare says, "If it were warm, I should build a house." it was when we got to the first level that we began to fret a bit. Ana had said she was taking up the rear, and at first we had been able to hear her and her crew down below, yellingthe same sorts of keep-going informative communiques that we were. but soon, in the mists of the climbing, steady hand over hand feet on steel, we realized that we hadn't heard a peep from them in a long, long time. Jesse took a light-stick from my pack [he was right behind me, and in a much better position to reach it than i, ironic considering that it was my pack], and paused for a moment. crack and shake, the plastic tube sent unearthly yellow-green probing out into the murk. "ping" whispered Jesse, as he dropped the little tube straight down the ladder's chute. the string to which it was tied whirred as it spun out from its spool. i crossed myself thrice; lag sucks. we paused for the night.

yara:

it's not often that i think of Jesse. someone will raise the name, or there'll be a flash of someone who looks just like him. the love of my life whom i hope to fuck tonight reminds me of him, with the darknesses hiding beneath the layers of subtle sarcasm. after Jesse dropped the tube down the chute, he went to get a beer. and never made it to the bar. somewhere along the way, he slipped on the sticky mess of wires near the door. the wires grabbed his ankle like children reaching for mom's hand. he eased quietly into the cables and servers.

[login] tango
[password] ******

Welcome to Jesse. Thanking you for joining us here at the Netrip Ethernet Network 
  3.14.74. Enjoy your stay.

dream: {23}

yara:

i am sure that somewhere there is an edge i am supposed to reach. a point where i end and you begin. where i end and the tree begins. and yet somehow i've missed it. i've walked past it. i left it somewhere 4 drinks or 2 weeks or 9 books back. i don't know. it was there last time i looked, and then it snuck away like so much dust in the dirt.

-=-

we're at the top of the hill and jesse is sitting on one side of me and kevin is sitting in front of me. we are watching the lights on santa monica bay and i'm reliving every moment of this seven and a half years later. the one, the one that slipped away. what you never had but might have will always haunt you more than what you had and let go. there's a ghost that hangs with each word, each phrase, each sunrise. the ghost of regret. the ghost of "i never told him..."

-=-

ben-jakob continued the sunlight refinery experiments well on past the point of when the sun had ceased ot exist. the sun faded, slowly, once the war had begun between the monkeys and the trees. the sticky sap bleed from the alien trees as the monkeys rampaged, taking every last notion of propriety and maple syrup along with their tawdry delights. we watched, from the hill overlooking santa monica bay, eating Hickory Farms cheese wheels and sliced sausage and salty crackers. as ben-jakob continued on, the ball of fire that was the sun rethought its mission of providing energy to a bunch of hapless trees and depraved simians. energy continued to flow throughout the universe but no one was quite sure where it was coming from as it was always black as night these days. then ben-jakob cracked the code. prior to their amalgamation ben had studied sound and jakob, silence. jakob took the lead in the sunlight experiments because the sun had nothing to say. they could communicate with minor hand signals and gestures that meant nothing to anyone, including the monkeys who knew 34 different gestures including the one they used most often--the one for "fuck you." as we said, they were depraved. ben, of course, studied sound and after their merging continued secret experiments on the side of sound, going so far as to tie it to the notion of energy and the flow of ideas throughout the universe.

-=-

we sat on the hill til i could no longer feel my feet and we ran out of crackers to put the rubbery sausage and chewy cheese on. it's quite possibly one of the greatest memories i have of jesse, casual, loose, undefined. i can't remember his face at all. i only remember the length of his lean body and the way his blue eyes pierced me with cheap Bauhaus lyrics that i thought meant He Knew Me.

-=-

eventually, ben-jakob cracked the code that permitted the flow of energy: "it says, 'nah-nah-boo-boo'."

dbauler:

When is now?

I've never really cared much for souls. I can't get to wherever it is that such things make sense, fall into place. I don't doubt that the flaw is mine, and that ultimately i'll come to a place where I'll need that faith, that means of guidance, and it'll be too late to learn. I just want it known that I understand this, it's not hubris or ignorance which will lead me to my endings. I can't explain. When I was younger, I spent nights awake listening for the sound of footsteps, the traces of intruders and zombies. Beneath the hum of the power lines outside, behind the creaking of the house on its foundation, there were times I swear I heard something moving, making feasts of my family, searching for my door in the dark. I would tiptoe over to the door and peer outside, my small concession to my fears. All these years later, I was doing the same, only I was hoping, praying that the footsteps I was following were real, not imagination, not just hope.

freer

when is now?

as i listened to those footsteps, wondering "is it *finally* here?", i continually inhaled the intoxicating familiar scent and soothed by the ever present humm. what the hell am i doing here? why am i obssessed with those damn footsteps...desperately praying for some other answer? i know it's too late but i start turning back.

bzzzzz...we are one...bzzz...one is life...bzzz...life is love...bzzz

as i listen to those footsteps approach, wondering "is it *finally* here?", i realize the flaw is mine. i embraced the false sunlight. now i know why i never told him those words. i found the true light.

bzzzz...we are one...bzzz...one is life...bzzzz...life is love...bzzz

as i listen to those footsteps approach, i am filled with light and sound. sound growing in definition and intensity...a physically tangible buzzing that ricocheting through every fibre of my being...vibrating in sympathy with it. i'm home.

flink

Sometimes footsteps get heard here under the big brown eye of Pooh. But, then, sometimes it's just a matter of filling out more credit card applications, of pulling more pranks, getting more backrubs. See, this isn't any kind of fucking _elegy_ we're constructing here, okay? What it's all abt is cranking shit up past 11, not getting burned by the _man_, not getting drowned by the _woman_ (though, of course, if you're in a position where she's like to drown you in honey, you're doing mighty well, tell you what) but rather sacking the mall & taking every ounce of booty available!

What am I going on abt, you ask? _Sex_, man, sex! & not the normal self-inflicted variety, neither! (BTW, kids, ifn's you go read the bible, you'll find that Onan's sin was really closer to premature ejaculation than masturbation. That's a tip!) No, what I'm going on abt right now are the pure & simple healthy fantasies it's to be hoped we all share. Or, to be more clear & honest, that I hope are shared by the people I'm prone to fantasizing _abt_. Which, at the moment, is 1 _hell_ of a list, including huge portions of the 225 or so female members of the Reed freshling class & lots & lots of other people, some of whom you who read this may know, some you mayn't.

But this isn't abt sex, strictly. Nope. It's rather more abt using that kind of energy to _do things_. Things like compell people into rubbing yr back when it's needed (this is a pheremonal operation...that is, 1 can use pheremones to cover up a perhaps lack of charisma)...things like convincing large groups of people to help you assault the local mall w/ strong ash spears & high-flown flowin' rhetoric. Things like looking deep deep deep into yr parole officer's brown eyes & murmuring very very quietly "Well...I may have been just a little bit *bad* lately, but I bet if you got strict w/ me I'd be *real good*..." Yes, I tell you even things like drowning out the rumbles of our society!

1 time I followed this couple down into the tunnels under the mall...beautiful couple, tell you what. Kind of woman that'd turn Liberace's dead gay fucking head, kind of man that even I (a rock-hard red-blooded 100% heterosexual _man_ kinda man...ahem) wd get misty & non-locally aroused (ahem) over. So of course it was natural that I follow them. They had sex, down there in the tunnels,& the smell was wonderful, narcotic. I can still taste it in my mouth & smell it in my clothes. & you know something? I heard some footsteps out there, so I know I wasn't the only 1 who knew abt the shit...

Later they did it on a riverbank/beach thing...on top of a hill. (I'd be more specific if I cd, but the splendor of their congress made the bulk of the rest of the world go 'way.) The subsonic vibrations from their bumping bodies--gut&thigh to ass--I swear were so powerful they'd make even Bauhaus lyrics sound profound...I want to call it some kind of massive coming-together, b/c _more_ people were touched by what they did that time. Even if just a small group.

(I miss fingers in my hair, if I cd see you smile I'd walk straight into you & dissolve...just to think you were even passing by. Just 1 time I'd like not to tell where you begin & I leave off.)

It's _their_ energy that fuels us, & certainly no orange ball of fire anywhere above. Trick is to feed on just the slightest bit of it, not vampire it (my own fantasies aside, thank you very much)...like using a single glowing coal to start yr _own_ fire.

So yeah, there's footsteps out there. I've been following those of those 2 for years now, & I think the echoes of those steps have helped wrench some beauty out into this world we more or less share. I'm proud of the work they've done, & thrilled at the beauty there's been around me sometimes. (CF a large proportion of the female population of Reed College, & some people who you may or may not know otherwise.)

It's here. There's light. I ain't know nothing 'bout no sound, really.

But you know something? I ain't goin' _nowhere_ safe & quiet to ride this 1 out, nope.

cyberdancer

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