tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5415744915593379022024-03-12T22:20:17.751-06:00Sick Story Time<i>by <a href="http://oxazine.blogspot.com">Shaun Lawton</a><br><br><b>Read a story</b>,<br>
Go to bed,</i><br>
<small>plant a <a href="http://triggerdreams.blogspot.com">dream</a><br>
in your <a href="http://diurnalislunaticus.blogspot.com/">head</a>.</small>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-71272291026743886612020-02-27T16:57:00.009-07:002023-12-28T23:15:05.435-07:00Emissaries of the Shuttermouth <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Art by Jason Barnett</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><br /> In a backwash of nightfall, as the haze of rain drift freezes in a slanted down glide under arc-light, a razor-edged grimace reveals itself in a weakened pulse of strobe flashing to a lower frequency than that of the long dead starry night's final throes of shed light. <br /><br /> The moon lowers its crescent nail through the skin of dawn, peeling it back to reveal its underside, the fat layer of eventide. In a darkened alleyway rows of serrated teeth close down one after another until they wink out altogether into a shut mouth. <br /><br /> A stranger hides in obscurity keeping a tightly clamped grin. It advances just before dawn under the cloud cover of an almost new moon. Only the light of this outsider's occasionally leaked smiles reveals the cobbled path before it in splintery, shard-like reflections.<br /><br /> Its eyes, should they ever provide the opportunity to be closely examined, would reveal blacknesses compacted into an even deeper dark. They are of an extreme pitch; hidden eyes that themselves see vividly without the need of light. The pupils are triggered to blossom by a strange and remote aperture system, and for this reason fill the eyes with a striated obsidian of a most unusual configuration.<br /><br /> The specimen standing silently in the alleyway is the Shuttermouth, lone leviathan of the night. It has been known by many names throughout humanity's mayfly-like existence: lycanthrope, doppelganger, vampyr, madman. But the Shuttermouth has no name other than those lent him by mankind. <br /><br /> The Stygian configuration of its glossed pupils lost in impenetrable inkiness form an almost impossible to see triangulation whose three points open into tiny clustered triumvirates budding from the tips. They realize a gaze which leads back from a descending line of an unfolding sentience whose purpose is to visually inform the master entity delivering it.<br /><br /> This primordial being is even lesser known than the Shuttermouth, and with far fewer names attributed to it, if any. It sleeps in a special kind of dormancy. It could be described, in human terms, as the Buried Thing. It sends its messenger spies throughout time and across various latitudes of the world. These emissaries live, and die, just as men do. Some live longer than others; some continue to elude death.<br /><br /> The Shuttermouth is one such tenacious deputy of the Buried Thing. It functions as a sort of remote camera device, and occasionally as messenger or courier. Like very few others that have and still exist, its life has spanned at least a couple and maybe well over a few centuries, the actual date of birth impossible to pinpoint. But then virtually every piece, part and bit of information that mankind acquires over its brief career on planet earth amounts to largely a collection of assumptions on its behalf, placed over that empty abyss that has been labeled "the unknown".<br /><br /> The unbeknownst: that vicinity from which all knowledge takes root. Thus, this tree of knowledge has its roots sunken in oblivion. We homo sapiens cannot be consciously aware of oblivion's real nature, for not only do human memories fade away fast, but oblivion itself by definition may not manifest within the human universe. Man's most common mistake in this matter is thinking oblivion awaits them, when the truth may approach something closer to the opposite. <br /><br /> Oblivion resides before the past and everything that has already passed. Oblivion remains absent from time and space. Humanity and other life forms have been slowly seeded from it throughout the ages. <br /> <br /> What lies beyond for humankind is merely death, patiently awaiting with jaws agape for its complimentary sustenance: creation itself, swirling down the drain and into the cosmic disposal machine. Oblivion lies beyond death's reach. We have appeared here as Sustenance for the Serpent of Time. <br /> <br /><br /> That is why individual humans are like ants learning how to fly. The stragglers which continue to elude death, those few survivors, camped out along the banks of time, which refuse to give in to the sand trap awaiting at what would normally be the end of their lives, these are the "special ones" which the Undesignated Thing has sent out its delegates for. <br /><br /> They are the ones the Shuttermouth has most especially been sent to retrieve. The very ones it loves to prey on the most. Individuals such as yourself who love to read and listen to the most arcane memoirs imaginable, such as the one you're reading now. Take heed on the darkened streets before dawn. Best keep moving and watch your backs under the open light of the Sun. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-32736857346369395892020-02-12T22:52:00.004-07:002024-01-21T19:58:39.941-07:00Tree Mirrored In Apples I was incepted from nothing but the memory of a fading photograph. This is how an apple falls from a dead tree. It rolls off to the side and miraculously manages to plant a seed in the ground. Inside the mummified husk glistens a droplet of vitality. The cryptobiotic eggshell cracks open. A copy with nothing left to mimic. How am I to know what being my father's son is supposed to be like, when all I have to go with are memories older than thirty-three years? What I do remember of him remains crystal clear in my mind. The way he delayed responding in conversation sometimes for a few minutes. How his eyeballs resembled hard boiled eggs nestled in their sockets behind the thick lenses of his glasses. He was smart enough to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering, and responsible enough to oversee the start of his own business and the construction of a factory, and maintain it for over twenty years. He kept many friends spellbound with his stories of true life adventures, and made long and lasting friendships with a lot of people. The more I think about it, the better I can see how much I really am like my father. The difference seems to be that his many real life exploits were compressed into fewer years, before being telescoped out into the formative times caring for my brother and I for ten summers through our adolescence and teens. Looking back, it's painful to have to admit I was lucky to have had him until I was twenty-one. When our father was killed, my younger brother was just sixteen. His apple dropped directly at the feet of that tree. My brother has a true genius for inventive craftsmanship and artistry. He's already engineered a hidden cache of unspeakable treasures the world can only dream of being so lucky as to get to see. Meanwhile I wandered off into the west after my divorce and never looked back. I discovered a new home out here and started my love life all over again and have been married for ten years with a beautiful woman who's gifted us with a singular and striking child we both cherish. If my father spent four years at a technical college to then apply his degree toward a successful business, I've shot off in a wild direction chasing fantasies with my best friend until ending up stranded in an alien place. Fate intervened to cut him from our lives as well and here I remain cultivating my family and my wounds. For someone who was never able to remain focused on one thing for long when it came to writing and being creative, I did end up sticking with a menial job for six and a half years until it paid off with my being promoted to supervisor. I stuck with that for another five years until getting a twenty percent raise. Six more years from there and here I am, home owner going on three years and proud father to a loving seven year old boy. The life I've developed here two thousand miles from my family on the East Coast is the product of sheer chance and perseverance. There's no way to see how the apple of my eye reflects the qualities of my Dad. He never had the opportunity to keep growing in order to show me that. The only way I suppose I'll ever know what sort of a man he may have become is to keep on examining myself. I may be my own father's mirror, but I'm not a businessman. How strange that I reaped a life come to fruition from happenstance and chance. My brother and I are no longer all that's left of him. My boy continues to grow and reflect those same half remembered and unknown qualities in the grandfather he never knew. If there's comfort in other men whose fathers are still alive for them, and who truly represent them in their own eyes after their own fashion, then I guess I must find comfort in another way. I must find contentment in knowing the seed that I am grew into a peculiar fruit to penetrate new territory unlike anything my forefathers ever managed to accomplish, even if they may have dreamed it. I feel as if I somehow broke the mold when I rolled off into a strange ditch and grew a new twisted branch of our family tree. A disembodied one that more resembles an autonomous piece of driftwood carried along unexpected tributaries to end up in a foreign land underneath the same constellations. So it makes me think if my own son follows suit his life too may end up nothing like my own. Yet I see so much of me in him already, and in a telling way, a lot of my mother, but no trace of my Dad as of yet.<br />
<br />
What shapes the apple of our progeny if not the form of fate? Have I broken free from the spellbound tyranny of a sordid history doomed to be repeated? I followed not a focused vision for myself in the manner that my father shaped his career and set about accomplishing it. Rather, I went where the wind and whimsy took me, daring to pursue odd cues and enticing circumstances. Perhaps the difference between my father and I is that I've never lived for the future. Instead, I've lost myself in the continuous moment. I must be the only one beginning to suspect this may be the reason I've managed to stay young at heart for so many decades. When a man sets his sight on the future to make his home he shapes his own tomb instead. Since I was a young boy I always wanted to live forever, and today I see no reason to stop dreaming that way. I've stretched the present moment into living with my wife and our son in the same exact manner. We're going to be here today forever and that's another reason we are so different from each other. Because we don't repeat one another's history, we live it together, each under our own sign. I have nothing left today to compare myself with my father, lost to me and our family all those many years ago. All I know is that I loved him, and he returned that love to my brother and I for the ten years he had left since his divorce with our mother. That crystal clear decade remains encased in my skull as vivid memories. Like lava pools with lucid reflections of a long gone life. I don't have to remember them any longer because I know those moments still exist in time. If there's one thing I've learned over the past thirty-three years, it's that our entire existence including all the lives of those who came before us and all of those to come belong to the same single present moment. It is an interval without past or future. Unlike snowflakes or stars but along the same lines my son and I are two reflections in an infinite hallway of mirrors. I know this to be true as certainly as my own father has transcribed these lines. It dawns on me as I write this with him inside me that of course I'm not like him, far from it. I became him the moment his corporeal body was removed from this world. I am my father. The grin across my face as I write this ends up being not just his delight within me now, but a real composite of both our smiles. It's taken me this many years to figure that out. Just wait'll I tell my boy about this. Won't he be surprised at the apples in our eyes.<br />
<br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-70703397522285306782017-02-10T13:09:00.002-07:002023-04-17T12:57:09.645-06:00Mark the Scope<div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>by <a href="https://testscan.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton</a></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>A hard-drive
sits in a pile of rust </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">mistaken for the dunes of a desert over</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the
horizon of a long poisoned place</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">half buried in the red sandy grains
blending </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">into one another like the curves of sleeping </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">women by the constant winds erased. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The dunes shift and grow as the wind blows </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">off
the grains by the millions in a fine spray </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of dust gradually
disappearing into the distance </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">only to swallow up the sinking Sun in a
wavering </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">unfocused miasma of pungent slag. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Cloud
does not whir, in silence it does not stir</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">quietly it is churned without
even the shadow </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of a sound, around and round it slowly grows</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as more and
more files continue to upload </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">forcing it to swell, ripen, and breed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Cloud does not know that it needs everything </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we want to remember,
so it forgets its there just as </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">surely as we disregard we're awake. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Asleep
in our dream </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we close our eyes, so when we open them back up </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">upon waking we're still really sleep walking without </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">knowing it. The trick is
the next time we find ourselves </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">having suddenly dropped or fallen while
lying reposed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on our beds, that is the instant in which it is </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">necessary </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to willfully stand up from the bed and open our eyes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(this
for the last time) before resuming our sleep cycle </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">uninterrupted by the parasite dreams competing with </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">each other to feed
on our electrostatic energies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You see,
this world you observe outside of our warped car </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">windshields and
polarized sunglasses and disposable contact </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">lenses, this growing complex
organism of chaotically ordered </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">arrangements that we call life, that
we visualize so clearly </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from behind our corneas and through the pin-hole
cameras </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of our eyes, processing sensual information to our brains, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">arranged in patterns that mirror pairs of galactic superclusters</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">despite appearing as a single realm or continuum through which </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we may
step, so carefully one foot at a time, in such a measured </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and resolute
manner, across the most steadfast bedrock stage </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of planetary solitude,
may in reality (insofar as how the value </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of that word relates to our
comprehension of what it is supposed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to represent) be not so much the
singularity we imagine it to be </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">suspended in a likewise manner amid the
scattered bodies of the stars </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">but more of an entangled miring of
criss-crossed and knotted clusters </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of multiverses competing to perform
their song which results </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as a symphonic overture seamlessly blended
together into </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">what appears to us as the singularity of our world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The inimitable presence of a </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">superconductor
remains </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">at large suspended in the very atoms we breathe. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When we
articulate our belief systems with our </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">human voices we are adding
nothing more than </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">chimes to the backdrop of this overture. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When we
procreate and raise children who grow </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">tall and kind and wise we are
adding instrumental </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">prowess to the orchestral pit in constant turmoil </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">at
the quantum level of creation. Mountains heave </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">upward through oceans
from shifting tectonic plates </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">while oxygen facilitates the growth of a
fungal hide </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">upon the planet's crust which the Earth itself </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">must scratch
away the itch fertilized by lightning </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">strikes and pulverized asteroid
mist adrift </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">with dandelion spores and bee pollen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The key to seeing the bee as it really exists </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in our world is to see that it's not from this world. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The corner stone of under standing out in the field </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of real knowledge is to remain ignorant. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Usable information is static at best and passed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> from hand to mouth and lips to ear for years. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The words are seldom remembered but the actions </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">they engender are copied almost forever. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The most colorful birds or the feathers </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of dinosaurs are not of this earth but another. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The sky seeps in from afar as well siphoned </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">intentionally to keep us under its spell. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The skin of the sky is like the lid on an eye </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that is sleeping in its own unmade bed. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The spores of the pine tree are as alien as any</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">thing piped in from the mysterious Outside. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For all we know, s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">erpents and cats originate </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">from an ancient process, the Chimera Divided. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Its attempt to contribute to our compound reality</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">may have refracted into the two separate species. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This planet any planet all planets like our Sun </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This star any star all stars like this galaxy</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Any
galaxy. All galaxies. Like any super</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">cluster, galaxy, star, planet,
plutino, centaur </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Asteroid, moon, comet, or meteorite, this Earth </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">remains the
exact and precise divine center. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">art by G. Alden Davis</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-63436990311711978112017-01-26T16:09:00.005-07:002023-12-28T23:14:05.483-07:00I HAVE KNIVES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The name of the first one is Zebra, an old machete I was given in Honduras. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The blade is tarnished with age and neglect, and twenty inches long. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At its widest it's an inch-and-a-half, four inches from the tip, then tapers down </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">to a one inch width at the hilt. On either side toward the top flat edge</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">of the blade runs a narrow shallow depression nearly eight inches in length</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">to channel the flow of bleeding sap away from the razor sharp side. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Oh, I have knives. I'm not an obsessive collector; more like a magnetic attractor</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">over time. Zebra's brown leather hand-tooled scabbard rivets together</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">brown and green braided leather tassels hanging from the top by the hilt,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and is stitched together in a wavery seam running along the middle of its back.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Down the center of the front of the scabbard are arranged sixteen embossed</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">triangles in a line. Within each triangle (half an inch wide) appears a sigil </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">of a five-sprigged plant bearing three globular fruit. Along the edges run </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">lines of embossed tiny 'X's. Zebra will turn thirty-four this year, and although</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">much of the length of her blade has dulled its edge, there are yet a few sharp</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">segments, mostly toward the tip. My other knife is a genuine Ravola for fileting</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">fish, made in Finland with the artisan's fine signature etched into the three-</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">and-a-quarter inch blade. The blonde beechwood handle has a slight crack in it</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">but otherwise remains in immaculate condition. The five-inch leather scabbard</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">slips halfway up the handle's shaft before gripping it in a tight seal. This one</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">is named Stinger for its dexterous precision and pointed sharpness. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I have knives, and they've come in handy, from time to time. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I have many more knives, of every size and for a wide variety of reasons. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">From a small one inch long pen knife which folds up into a brass cross</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">to a full replica of the Conan the Barbarian sword given to me by a friend</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">just a year ago. Every one of my knives carries its own particular story.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">They have all suffered their own various degrees of use. Oh, I have knives,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">alright, and they all happen to share one thing in common. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">None of them have ever drawn blood </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-31218201001649883382014-08-20T10:14:00.001-06:002023-04-17T12:56:43.645-06:00The Time of Anarchia <div style="text-align: left;">
<i>by <a href="https://testscan.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton</a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is a time of frustration amid conquest, a time for killing bees in order to keep our lawns tidy and clean. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A time when citizenship means tainting one's innocence with the complicity of mass suicide. A time when all one can do is wink and think "<i>That's the problem though, isn't it? Thinking about it in the first place</i>," </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a time that is forever escaping us through the collective screen of our forgetfulness, a time to be echoed through the void after its own echoing, a time currently being lost to us all at an accelerating rate we are fundamentally incapable of keeping up with, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a time bound to leave its imprint as yet another layer of electromagnetic radiation which woven into helps define the remainder of creation, in other words a time like any other to come or go before it, a time whose arena becomes the stage of our actions and their consequences here during this primordial moment we managed to capture for ourselves by our very definition, the solitary champions of existence, wallowing in this, the time of our lives, a time of shedding more than skin after we strip our clothes, a time of flensing and dismounting from our sure footed steeds, our bodies we have ridden this time wave upon wave our entire lives from the moment we were conceived, to our Mothers we have continued to occupy and further this time, a time of treasured visions behind the eyes of a dragon, a time of sapphires and tiger pupils held in locked regard, a time of regalia and innocence devoured wholly as in the instance of the anaconda preying upon the star-nosed mole, a time of rapture like any other and of a pain so unique and intense it blurs away altogether among the suturing numbness of the stars, a time to remember who we are and forget who we've become; the universal solvent performs its work on everyone, o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">nce upon a time when personality was exterminated in favor of efficiency and convenience, when fear of the dark was bred out along with the heart, where automated drones did not so much as spill a single teardrop over the prospect of the extinction of the bees, where gray skies unleashed radioactive rain upon a new continent of plastic, Anarchia, home for the formerly homeless and disenfranchised splinters of humanity, a time when oceanic travel was outlawed by every nation on Earth and pirates once again roamed the seas, naturally; i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">t was a time for starting over and beginning new stories. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-17463601125468361632014-05-07T11:21:00.002-06:002023-04-17T12:58:02.963-06:00The Hidden Visitor<br />
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<i>by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/thornswrath">Shaun Lawton</a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br />Once while I was hiking deep in the Ozark mountains near Eden Falls cave, I spotted an insect that has yet to be classified by entomologists. <br /><br />The reason for that, is because unlike a dragonfly, this black beauty doesn't have wings affixed to its thorax. The body itself is connected by a hinge which effectively renders it invisible to the naked eye, upon taking flight. It doesn't have a pair of wings; it is a pair of wings. It's about two inches long and deadly as a diamond.<br /><br />I spotted it lazing upon a fallen log amid a small grove of birch trees alongside the footpath I was following. As I approached nearer, I noticed the weird insect, which resembled a black walking stick at first. I thought it was odd that the grove was completely silent. Suddenly it opened a cobalt blue membrane underneath it just a fraction of a centimeter. I immediately recognized that as a natural warning.<br /><br />I halted in my tracks and held my breath, so as not to disturb even the air with my intruding presence. I examined the insect's poise and marveled over the deep luminescent aquamarine color which blazed at me from the narrowest slit. I interpreted the message as stating "You may pass through my woodlot, but be warned. This is my domain, and I may exact retribution if you fail to respect it."<br /><br />I carefully exhaled my pent up breath, bowed my head, then took extreme care to step silently and quickly through the birch trees, ducking so as not to brush against any branches or leaves, as quietly as possible without disturbing a thing.<br /><br />This miniature hymenoptera had folded it's cobalt membrane shut and allowed me to pass on further up the trail. Half an hour later, when my friend dared to approach the very same grove, he did not fare with half such luck. I sprinted back down the trail in order to warn him to proceed as carefully as I had, to no avail. <br /><br /><br /> I watched as the air before his face crackled with static energy just seconds before he was struck from out of the blue and stung beside his left eye. Immediately afterward the predatory insect vanished as quickly as it had attacked. By the next morning my friend's eyelid had sealed shut and swollen up to the size of an orange.<br /><br />Later that night, while we camped out among the sprawling constellations of our galaxy, I noticed a strange sight high above the rising sparks of our campfire. All the stars were shimmering with different colors, and right there in one small cluster, I recognized that exact same shade of ultramarine cobalt blue, flickering and twinkling in the deep night sky.<br /><br />I thought about my small dragon insect friend. I knew then that no entomologist could ever classify such a creature without its permission. Today, I don't wonder where it came from so much as I consider how it was capable of surviving the cold vacuum of space during its migration here.</span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-56069165707741514072014-04-23T12:52:00.003-06:002023-04-17T12:58:49.615-06:00Leaf Course<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>by <a href="https://deepdreamgenerator.com/u/thornswrath">Shaun Lawton</a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I had no idea what I was seeing. Staring through the surface of the still pond created a refractive illusion. I scrutinized the veneer of warped leaves submerged beneath the bracken. Stray beams of sunlight illuminated spores slowly drifting across them. On closer inspection the spores were swimming in unison. I thought of sea monkeys I'd ordered from comic books as a child while I leaned in to get a closer look. Then I realized they featured softly glowing spicules along the sides of their bodies. They resembled mutated infusoria or something. I reached through the surface of the pond water with my left hand and scooped one elm leaf out to study it closer. As the now clear looking water drained off the edges of the leaf and around my fingers to drip back into the pond, I noted the little invertebrates were sliding along just beneath the exterior of the epidermal layer itself. I could see the leaf's split veins amid the vivid green contours, yet these minuscule creatures appeared to be sealed within the upper epidermis layer. I observed in astonishment the tiny denizens of this leaf world. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Setting this peculiar leaf next to me on the grass, I reached forward and scooped out more fallen leaves. None of them exhibited this remarkable feature. Somehow this startled me even more. It was getting later in the afternoon, and I could hear the sounds of children playing in the distance. I peered back at the first rescued leaf and could still plainly discern the movement of these protozoa-like colonies playing about on the surface, scintillating in the sunlight. What the hell? All the other leaves seemed normal. I decided to take the strange leaf home, taking care to bring a few of its companions to showcase the difference between them. I stuffed the normal leaves in my jean's back pocket. They were leaves fallen from a nearby elm tree which looked as if it must've been a thousand years old. I turned my head to the left to examine it. The tree appeared to be kneeling alongside the pond for an eternal drink. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I never did make it back to the house that day. Somehow on the way I got lost wandering through a section of the park I hadn't really noticed before. There was a foot trail leading away from the pond which I followed until some time later I realized that wasn't the route I normally took to get home. Knowing that direction to be slightly northeast, I didn't worry about the new course, figuring I could re-correct as I emerged from the other side of this grove. Only there wasn't another side. There was just the pathway leading deeper into the woods, which grew thicker and wilder the further I advanced. The familiar sounds of children at play were nowhere to be heard. Starting to get a strange feeling of unease, I decided to turn around and retrace my route back to the pond, and head to my apartment complex the normal way. When I turned about there was no longer a trail leading back. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This stopped me short for a minute while I pondered how bizarre that was. I was literally standing at the end of the well-worn footpath and gazing into darkly overgrown woods. What the hell? I whipped my head around back toward the direction I had been heading, fearing the path may have vanished in that area as well, but it was still there, leading with gentle curves around and deeper into the forest. Should I force my way through this new growth behind me anyhow and try to get back to the pond? I stared down at the strange leaf in my left hand as if to check for an answer to my dilemma. The leaf was radiating a new green barely brighter than before, and the miniature stream of eerie microorganisms I had perceived were still there, describing a pattern reminiscent of the tracks left by wood worms in bark. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I observed the flow of these organisms or whatever they were was now synced up to form a closed loop flowing counter-clockwise. "<i>Widdershins</i>..." I thought to myself while listening to the growing quiet settling in around me amid this unexplored portion of the city park near my apartment. Only I felt as if I were as far away from my familiar lodgings as I had ever been, and the thought raised the hairs on my forearms with goosebumps. The twisting course ahead of me seemed to indicate I should follow, so I did. The shining leaf in my hand suddenly appeared to be a weird form of compass. I noticed the cycling protozoa were doing so more rapidly as I walked, and other times they slowed down. Then it dawned on me that it happened every time I took a turn in the pathway. When I veered right, the circling organisms trapped within the leaf's epidermal layer would speed up slightly, and when I began following the foot trail to the left, they slowed down to a crawl. I thought that was very odd. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I decided to test something. I stepped off the path to the right and the flowing organisms in the luminescent leaf's infrastructure began speeding up remarkably, enough to scare me back onto the trail for some reason I couldn't begin to fathom. The hairs on my arms were raised back up again. I took a deep breath of the musky air, then I stepped off the path to the left, and sure enough those weirdly colored microscopic cultures slowed down to a sluggish pace. I took another couple of steps and they stopped entirely. This made me feel much better. I smiled in the growing shadows of the woods. I glanced over to my right at the path but it was gone. I had finally found my way home. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-7155999895845575192013-06-21T11:58:00.003-06:002023-04-17T13:00:20.365-06:00Silver Gren Amid the Outer Spheres<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>by <a href="http://animusvoid.blogspot.com/2014/02/second-exodus.html">Shaun Lawton</a></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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Silver Gren ruled the circumferences, which is to say, pretty much everything. From his perch clutching the second finger of my right hand, he drove me into a staring wound many times.</div>
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The shimmery reflections whispered to me, sometimes like a scalpel's quick grin, other times like liquid fire in a silver bullet. Secreting a heated controversy over what's real and planting seeds in my dreams were the least of its concerns, I immediately knew.</div>
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The messages pressed in its leaking steam machine whispers only reached the core of my mind after a long time seeping in. I would stare at the ring's mercurial curves for minutes on end, wondering what lay nestled deep inside that tiny cavity it had for a skull.</div>
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The ring was fashioned in a rather ingenious design of a simple frog motif. A head with two tiny lumps for eyes; a tortoise-like open mouth in which only shadow could be discerned, hind legs formed to sculpt into the perfect circle of the ring itself, made of silver.</div>
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When worn, it gave the appearance that the little tree frog was hugging onto your finger. I wasn't too sure about the skull. More likely it was a relay-icon built of supremely fibrillated and folded-in nanowiring, containing within its small frog-shaped dimension all the circuitry needed for an instrument more powerful than any supercomputer I'd known.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
As it lay dormant upon my finger, possibly sealed in some alien dreaming, I began to ponder how much it depended on me having just recovered it off the bar room floor, where presumably it had inadvertently slipped off some former customer's finger.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It had been lying on the dusty floor at a canted angle when I leaned down to pick it up. The first thing I remember is that it <i>bit me</i> after I put it on my finger.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This happened in the early afternoon, and there was nobody else in the bar except for the bartender, a skinny goth chick in black leather pants and turtleneck.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
She had a scar across her left eyebrow that slashed diagonally upward, as if the knife blade that granted it had been flicked viciously. It accented the natural set of her left eye as she stared at me.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
"Can I get you something?" She asked as if it never would have occurred to me.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I tried my best to appear not to ignore nor acknowledge her, stating "Yaeger shot" deadpan.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
She reached for the green bottle, and generously poured my shot to the rim.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I tossed it back. She had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. "Another."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
Repeat aforementioned cycle. Yep. Still the greenest eyes I'd ever seen.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
This certainly interested me, but I tried not to show it. I was still thinking about the ring I had just found. Maybe it was hers. It was already on the second finger of my right hand.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Perhaps she'd notice it. I couldn't believe how the ring seemed to have bitten me, after I put it on my finger. When I first put it on, I reached over with my right hand to hitch my left sleeve further up to the wrist. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
To all outward appearances, one of the ring's rigidly extended fore-arms snagged the pale skin of my wrist. I still have the curiously small scar, like a tiny otter's twisted moonclaw print.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I kept waiting for the bar girl to recognize the silver frog ring on my finger, while at the same time thinking the ring must take with it it's prior host's memory of it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
She was about to pour me a third shot of Jaeger when I indicated with my left index finger that No, I'd prefer a beer from the draught.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
"First Amendment," I said and she poured me a cold frothy tall one.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I gratefully sipped from the rim, sucking most of the foam off the surface and relishing the cold, hopped up flavors and fizzy carbonation.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
My mind wandered back to the ring's previous owner. Assuming they had similar-sized fingers to mine, there've been many instances when during a particularly cold, dry afternoon...the fingers of my hand contract just enough to let a ring slip off, sometimes so obliquely as to be scarcely even noticed. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
Perhaps that is exactly what occurred to the previous wearer of the ring. I began feeling more certain of it, and resolved to bear the ring upon my finger openly, to give it a fair enough shot at being found.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
Of course I could meet this person and they might even notice and admire the curious handiwork of the ring's design, not even for a moment suspecting they themselves had ever worn it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I drank the remaining dregs of the microbrew and pushed the glass forward two inches, by means of asking for another. The bartender and I were on the same wordless wavelength. She slowly poured me another.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
One thought in particular kept rising up in my mind while I meditated there at the bar. It swam up before my mind's eye with startling suddenness.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
Like a dream of darkness, firstly. And secondly, it was like a realm without sound. Really, it was a realm of sounds in quite a different octave many levels below that which we are used to hearing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
It was a region of enormous calm and supreme quiet, transcending the dark. As if disallowing it to take shape.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
The sound seemed comprised of far-reaching distillations of pings and tones somewhat akin to the overhead view of a starry night, only in a sense very much like an audial array of constellations.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
There was also a lurking presentiment in this strange void of sight and echoed sounds, as if a certain swift deliverance of a leviathanesque nature charged every possibility.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
I almost felt as if I were venturing too far out into deep waters, with every passing moment. I looked down at the ring, and saw it regarding me from a tilted angle, as if not about to let me out of its baleful sight. I pushed a twenty dollar bill across the counter toward the bartender.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
"Keep the change."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
Silver Gren led the way out of the bar, as if something incredible far away was reeling it in on an infinitely thin invisible fishing line. I could feel it tugging against my finger as it led us up the stairs and out onto the cold windy street.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
There was an unseen line of tension leading up the sidewalk, pulling me without question in a particular direction. Putting my hands in my pockets did nothing to alter the ring's sensitivity.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
We were lured along for several blocks in the direction of the old Chylde Manor building, abandoned and left derelict for the last twenty-six years.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px;">
As I suspected, when it loomed out of the darkness ahead of us, a great chipped and flaking bulk of ruined shadow with a gaping, hangar sized entrance, the ring pulled off the sidewalk and straight towards the broken building.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I had no choice but to follow.</div>
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<br /></div>
shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-43344529069380387322011-12-24T18:26:00.005-07:002023-04-17T13:02:00.311-06:00The Three Brazen Cowards<div><i>by <a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/shaun-lawton/plasma-tales/paperback/product-1mm5rwwg.html">Shaun Lawton</a></i></div><div><br /></div><br />
<div align="center">
<a href="http://freezinezone.blogspot.com/2011/05/plaztic-zone.html"><img img="" src="https://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/thorngrub/FreeZine%20II/jessehelms-2.jpg" /></a><br />
<small><i>illustration by jesse stevens</i></small></div>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A lone car skated on the edge of oblivion. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a wood-paneled PT Cruiser with three burros in it. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The elder burro was driving. His right hoof pressed against the steering wheel, with his left elbow resting on the open window sill. The stub of a lit Cuban cigar was wedged between two lower side teeth. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vultures circled slowly in the skies beyond, forming a lazy halo, targeting yet another dead thing below. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The lead burro could barely keep the car on the road. Skidding out of control every now and again, he yanked hard on the steering wheel in an attempt to avoid some jackhammers left lying next to newly dug potholes. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Where's the damn music in this tin machine?" barked the distracted driver through the slot between his huge front teeth. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The burro in the passenger seat—a gray, forlorn looking jack—leaned forward and began twisting the radio knob, seeking through static and white noise, pausing at each new song or jingle that came warbling through, until he had completed a full round of all three available stations. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Use tha FM signal jackstump—" </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The donkey in the back seat just stared ahead through the windshield at the oncoming scenery slowly washing over them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The voice behind the one lone working speaker morphed into a porcine squeal. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"—<i>Rifefullamatics in a French regime intransigence maneuvers</i>..." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The jack in the front seat twisted a knob.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*static* </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"...uprising in Southwesthamshire..." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*yawing—* </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He twisted the knob again.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*—warble* "<i>...introducing a constant and noble</i>...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*knob-twist* <i>...city of lost knowledge</i>—". </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Barkey slapped the radio off himself with a cuff and a bray, knockin' the jack's hoof off the dashboard. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Where's the Rolling Stones when ya need em? Got any of that wild Willy Wonkastic left? We gotta find us some mares." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He clenched the Cuban cigar between his teeth and drove on. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cornrows began passing by on either side of them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two police cruisers could be seen parked a quarter mile ahead on the left shoulder—each with their own snared victim. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Barkey pressed a hoof against the accelerator—it was a matter of chance, but the timing was crucial in a situation like this. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Either one of those Clydesdales could be finishing his business and ready to spring-release himself on the next passing vehicle. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a matter of perfect timing to avoid getting nabbed, on account of the fact that every commuter without exception was speeding—and well over twenty miles past the limit, mind you. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For the Clydesdales, it was shooting fish in a barrel. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Better speed <i>now</i> and get past them, or with their luck—<i>Woot</i>—they'd be nabbed sure as shingles. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rain began pattering against the windshield. Smoke whipped out of the driver's window in steadily vacuumed gusts. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They were cruising along at around an even ninety miles an hour. It was high summer alongside a midwestern mountain range. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No one was prepared to die that day. Least of all, the Clydesdales. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The PT Cruiser with the three burros slipped past both parked police vehicles while the Clydesdales were mounting back into them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The rain stopped. Barkey switched off the wipers. He crushed out his cigar butt in the pop-out ashtray. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Strap on." He accelerated the vehicle up to 100mph. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Blue lights flashed on behind them, accompanied by the familiar yowling of the police sirens. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Both of them cruisers were in the rearview mirror now. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How'd they nab us so suddenly?</span></i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Barkey looked over at his jackmate in the passenger seat. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All three burros stared straight ahead through the bug spattered windshield. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"You pullin' over boss?" asked the jack in the passenger seat. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After a quick verification in the rearview, Barkey grit his large teeth and hissed through them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Ya damn straight I'm pullin' over. Now both of ya shaddup and lemme do the talkin'." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He eased the vehicle nice and steadily down to 90mph, and with a practiced self assurance, slowly brought her down to 80...until he reached the speed limit of 75mph, at which point he put on his right blinker, and began easing over into the next lane, in preparation to pull over onto the shoulder. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Directly ahead lay the entrance to a bridge. There wasn't enough distance to pull over safely. He'd have to wait until they were passed the bridge, now. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A 55mph sign flashed by. Barkey eased his rear right hoof off the gas. Another glance in the rearview revealed the Clydesdale at the wheel to be frantically gesturing with his hooves for him to pull over. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At that moment they plunged through and onto the bridge. The last opportunity to pull over disappeared behind them in an instant. The Clydesdale chasing them behind the wheel only seemed to become more agitated and flamboyant, he could be seen in the rearview gesturing rudely with his right hoof. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second police car nudged up alongside them. This second driver was casually loading a gigantic-muzzled old fashioned snub-nosed revolver in his lap, with one hoof on the wheel and a sardonic grin on his muzzle. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Panic flashed through Barkey's mind—but after flaring out, it dissolved away into so much acrid smoke streaming out the window—and grim resolve set itself in its place. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The dogged donkey continued to drive 55mph, determined to complete the 12-mile bridge's distance without breaking a sweat nor going over the speed limit. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second cruiser with the revolver fell back alongside his partner. Now both police cars appeared almost frantic in their chase, lights flashing and sirens blaring into the distance. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The burro in the back seat of the escape car coughed. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I'm feeling nauseous again—d'ya think—" </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before he could finish his sentence, pink bubblegum-like tendrils whiplashed from both police cars behind them, ensnaring their speeding vehicle in a giant sticky-stringed spiderweb netting. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next thing any of the burros knew, the cruisers continued on a trajectory <i>above and over</i> them, pulling the pink and semi-elastic webbing taut until it hauled their moving PT cruiser <i>up off</i> the road and into the blinding blue of the afternoon sky. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the radio station, wind blasted through the lowered windows in the escape car. All three burros stared directly ahead through the windshield into the glaring sunlight. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They couldn't even see the helicops ahead and above them, hauling their asses back to the Grain Compound. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The two sidekick burros were nothing more than mules, really. They didn't even know they were—that was the sad and funny thing. They were no hinnies, that's for sure. Barkey brayed out with sudden laughter. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All he wanted, all he dreamed of, his entire life while incarcerated in the Moonshine Pits over at the Grain Compound, was to eat heated-up beans out of a can. Over a real campfire. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To wake up alongside the rails of the tracks turned blood red by the setting sun. To learn how to play the drums. Or the banjo. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Barkey looked up one last time at the overhead sprawled out clouds, reeling by on their journey back Home. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is what we get for attempting to go against the Grain.</span></i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">He sighed. A burro can always dream.</span><br />
<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-61833547852721779862011-03-25T15:52:00.003-06:002023-04-17T13:02:45.862-06:00CITIwakes<div><i>by <a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/shaun-lawton/the-cosmic-egg-other-hatchlings/paperback/product-14qkv259.html">Shaun Lawton </a></i></div><div><br /></div><br />
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<a href="http://freezineoffantasyandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2011/03/citi-wakes.html"><img img="" src="https://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/thorngrub/freezine/22711_30-1.jpg" /></a></div>
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The meshPasser undergoes an <i>a priori</i> examination of its insular membrane and various obverse mechanisms, momentarily recharging in the twi-dulled murk of the Arcasm Ritual Building, sarcastically referred to as the A.R.B. by weary tenants. Heliocentric memory eraser plasma-pulse frequencies sporadically annihilate thirty percent of the sprawling community's immediate recollections. The rest soak in the ultraviolet neon sponsorship of causal determinism, relishing in the uplift throughout the megalopolis, introduced by the incessantly gnawing away thrash dancebeats subliminalized by endorphin-spiked electromagnetic rhythms incorporated into the Systemic Periodic Elemental Reactionist Multiplex sound system—injected citywide by the Corporate Inquisition Terminal Interface.<br />
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The Heberin Collective are wired for a night out on the town. Their Moderator has cc'd them clownWhite, a neopurgative pulse enhancer designed to work out the stress from the hardbeats of the daily grind. Heberin moves through the CITIscape with the ease of an octopus in stealth locomotion, under cover of the hyper-neon polylit continuum scarved about them in perpetuity. Embedded headphones, most designed after compound insect eyes, fit snug like iridescent bottlecaps over the eartunnels. The earlobe itself had long dropped away from an overripened humanity in its latter-era stages of evolution amidst the frequency lanes. <br />
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Aesthetic tribal bodily piercing gradually mutated to a far more utilitarian scope. Die hard implants sunken into key skullpoints have the firmly rooted tenacity of mountain climbing spikes left driven into cliff fissures. Whether for the commuter Ziplines, or for more extreme recreational sports, is left to the individual CITIzen to convey. Ever since the dawning of this new age of neoExpressionism, the will of the populace is no longer such a concern to government, as is the controlling of the overwhelming urge to self-express or otherwise create in a manner suitable for the background and influential exploits of the middle class—a middle class driven to a frenzy of consumption, perpetuated by a similar motivation from an industry that caters to personal excess. <br />
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Through various means of interface and a veritable wide-angled spectrum of choices by which to administer a myriad of perception-enhancing and/or -distorting drugs to an all-too compliant citizenship, the CITI itself has been quite successful in organizing a sort of nocturnal emission exorcism ritual, effectively banishing the shed demons every night in an orgy of nightclub catharsis, highlit by strobing lights synchronized to an unfathomably monstrous beat keeping the ongoing crowd moving and shaking out on the viewscreen dance floors. <br />
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Wired for more than just sound and purple-laced visions, the Heberin Collective voluntarily assign themselves the bearers of an ultimately unregistered, and therefore potentially dangerous, form of psyche-enhancement known as Lady Salvation, an often copied (yet never replicated) chemical Psionic Communion Wafer. One taste of its mnemonic circuitry triggers a placebo domino effect. Illegally peddled and inferior substitutes have been known to induce lurid visions of a Salivating Lady perpetually coming at the user with hooked fingers under a drooling rictus, as if caught in an infinite loop of nightmarish attack. Such slogans or half-believed stories as the "Lady in Waiting", which are passed among schoolchildren to this day, are generated by these replicating motifs as expressed through constant generations of aloof and disenfranchised collegiates in the throes of shedding their own personal angst. Visualized and embodied under the boosted effects of synthesized cultigens combined with MemErase (necessarily every Rager's beverage of choice), these cautionary myths eventually took root. <br />
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Under the auspices of a normal Heberin outing, there cannot be an individual's comprehension of one's own role in the undertaking, for the nature of the Collective is to forego individuality itself in favor of the enhancement of a group<i>soma</i> experience—something that only the groupMind can know and even begin to understand. Which is precisely the reason many CITIzens volunteer for such an enterprise in the first place. Human consciousness has explored the lonely peripheries of isolation to its ultimate limits, again and again and again. Such deadening of that nerve seemed bound for no good reason or destiny, and although it took humanity many failed generations of missing the mark of opportunity, eventually the time arrived when its constituents began ceasing to think so much of themselves, and turn to wondering, what's out there, so immense and hollow and sprawling and vibrant?<br />
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So has ritual continued to form the behaviors of young persons. Riticen, a bisexed Caucasian from a gender-specific, postSchool colony in the American Pacific Northwest, reflects on his most recent, nocturnal sojourn from Dutyfree. Such a widespread feeling—that is, tingling from all the nerve centers clustered from head to toe—of exultant liberation shoots through Riticen, that he shakes his hair free rapidly of the steamshower droplets, and steps out of the hydroslot, to stand dripping before the two-way mirror. He reaches over and nudges the door open a few inches, letting the circulation from the rest of the apartment enter the washroom. Wiping the steamed looking glass clear with a towel, Riticen waits for his image to gain focus in the heated conditions before him. Gradually, his haggard features reveal themselves through the clearing mist. Reflected in the humid mirror Riticen sees the meshPasser mask, hanging limp from a peg behind him. He reaches back for it without turning his head, and grabs its familiar, comforting form in his right hand. For a moment, the neural connectivity breaches the impasse he'd left off with, sending dim sparks of reassurance up through the nerves of his arm. <br />
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Riticen slips the meshPasser mask on over his head, and grins as it reinforces his facial physique. Its perfectly balanced endorphin enhancers motivate Riticen with the exact amount of chemical inspiration needed to face the Collective's quest for the evening. Wide-eyed and staring at himself in the mirror, a complete stranger reflects back behind a flesh-toned, featureless mask with all the blank expression of a department store mannequin. Search as he might for any memory of Heberin's past nocturnal activities that may lie concealed behind the reflections of his darkened eyes, Riticen emerges empty-headed from the washroom, having entirely forgotten, or perhaps merely not ever having been in a position to know first-hand anyhow, the oblique details of completed excursions. Whatever cloaked activities the group of mysterious co-benefactors had committed itself to, it was impossible for each individual to consciously recall them. Riticen turns and slips out of his CITIcube, then just as quickly, out of the tenement complex and into the night.<br />
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The Merging is a process that takes anywhere from mere moments, to hours, or even, on rare occasions (such as attempted mergers with new or distant Collectives), days. Riticen cannot imagine waiting any longer than the few minutes it usually takes him to begin Merging. Most of the volunteers in his Collective, he imagines, must dwell somewhere within or near the sprawling perimeters of his own CITIcube. Otherwise, the etherConduits' electroconnectivity surpassed his capacity to imagine. Normally, after turning the second or third CITIblock, the merger begins to take effect. <br />
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As Riticen steps toward an intersection of busily bypassing electromagnet Cushion Cars, the prerecorded digital soundbytes of lions roaring fades away to be replaced by the insistent chirruping of tropical birds—an indication that intersection crosswalks are primed for safe pedestrian crossing. An electronic amalgamation of coyote yips morphing into wolf howls segue the moments before the crosswalks' pedestrian safety is heralded as coming to an imminent end. The lion roars are reserved for the actual passing of lethal traffic, itself synchronized so that no intersecting spokes of the roadways' oncoming traffic must wait their turn. Instead, mass multi-directional pedestrian crossings take turns consistently with multiple and simultaneous vehicular crossings—the various, advancing minicars themselves interpenetrating with exact timing and zero collisions—just one example of the many flowered patterns in the pulse and flow of CITIlife. <br />
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As Riticen steps back up to a CITIblock curb, his viewpoint of the funneling crowd forges against him and in a dizzying, panoramic moment, blends along with him into the slipstream, suddenly giving way to an unfamiliar pressure of heavy gloaming, as if the velvet underside of the city's streaming haze had become an oppressive inversion, and he staggers beneath its weight as if he'd donned a lead apron, and then a <i>whistling overture of white noise reductionism formulated a wind snapping latticework, as of a tightly woven superfabric buffeted by an overpowering gale from behind. A blinding sensation of whiteout spread over the meshPasser's tinted lenses, dialed to protect the retina and subsequent ganglion cells which serve as an inlet to the superimpositioning of the holographic laser light injection. <br /><br />Vague, distant impressions of slapped, woven metal cordons against outstretched palms rushed in on eddies of reviving consciousness, each subsequent wave of which poured down in a funneling stained glass tunnel over the mendicant's hoods...surfers of oblivion blinded by the white gales of blasted time...lapping distant waves of licked drops of laughter flung off the tips of tongues...dissolving in a hushed babelogue of interpenetrative chanting accorded from the arabesques of yesterday's desires, and dusted off the forgotten relics of all antecedent dreams. <br /><br />Winnowing in winterlight, through minnowguts, translucent and underlined with waterproof mascara, blinking false displays of chameleonic spots for eyes, thorned with disarrays and first-night-out-ever thighs, slumped to glittering scales both wide-angled and magnified, the compound vision in mimicked reflection of tiny repeated forms stretched out to radialize a centrifugal stage upon which ardent hopes yet promised to materialize. A beckoning, much like a mating ritual dance, performed by plumed lizards or feathered raptors in a trance. An unvisualized soaring...the letting go of a ship from its sails... perfunctorily grinding to a halt against the backwashed turbulence of the roiling waves...temporarily cast off against a stomach churning impasse. As if to say, or at least suggest, that there is no way one could pass this test.</i> <br />
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Images strip from the silver screen of his mind's eye in such quick succession, that only a blur of associations is left in Riticen's fading recollection. And these, in and of themselves, are each captured by surging wavecrests from out of the depths, snatched from quiescence by a vulgar demand they be eaten by the collective unconscious wallowing beneath like a great, undulating blister of foul, decompressed air just wafting upwards for its inevitable venting toward an unsuspecting yet all-too-deserving surface. <br />
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Riticen's eyes snap open in an underground oxygen bar. A patron dipped in synthetic, glow-in-the-dark latex brandishes a knowing look in his direction, before disappearing into the depths amid strobes of pulsing black light. Refreshed to a point distinguished by every pixel in his eyes, Riticen sips generously from his ninety-ounce staff drink, held firmly as a cane in his stable right hand. The drink holder rather resembles a faintly glowing, fungus-patched oaken branch, sanded down and varnished to a well-protected finish. From a sheared-off bole emerges a microcircuit drinking straw—or so the imagistic software suggests, through manipulated photoreceptors. <br />
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As the cool, lime-green and slightly radioactive flavor of the Benzylamine-laced drink passes through his taste buds and down his throat and into his stomach, Riticen slowly realizes the latest Collective mergerQuest has come to another, rather abrupt, end. Leaving him exactly <i>where</i> within the sprawling confines of the CITIplex, he can only guess. None of the establishment's artistry or neon sloganeering provokes any stirring of memory from him in the least. A hazy recollection of being in the A.R.B. surfaces momentarily. There is a sense of anesthetic cushioning to his memory; a gauzy sort of tunnel vision, limned with a dusty, brightening light, like that which precedes the onset of a migraine headache, when all attention is brought to a central spot of glaring incandescence which otherwise obscures what might be glimpsed directly ahead. When this ravaged hole of radiance begins to expand and eat up the entire range of Riticen's field of vision, that is when the blinding pain of a migraine splits through, and the world reels about spasmodically as his locomotive escape from the O<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><i>2</i></b></span>Club is engendered, and a section of the CITIcurb rises from the fog and acclimates itself resolutely against his fallen body. <br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-46221194385016729722010-02-03T14:00:00.004-07:002023-04-17T13:03:43.461-06:00The Receding Horizon of Tomorrow's Dream<br />
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<i>by <a href="https://themoonbog.blogspot.com/2013/08/eclipser.html?spref=bl">Shaun Lawton</a> </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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<a href="http://weyrd.blogspot.com/2011/01/spirit-walker.html"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcyVCZzCEId8SExaVVycH-89P7WPX_blRuuqRyJSqEfsJOb4eUd7gtBXF3ibN8yMl2ZglbiuKNGjAG1H2CgmDlZOcFQlqKFLbbTmlM6GV7QIbtthP7qY8OmuM3webfCyoe706o70ptWUE/s320/recedhoriz350.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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A starfire came winnowing up from the fanning motion caused unwittingly by three mule men sitting at a polished obsidian table playing <i>Cabron</i> with a soft greasy deck of cards so worn out the hearts and spades had been colored back in several times over the years. They had gambled away their sapien souls in the game against El Chulo, lost over the withered and dried crops hacking out dust clouds in a slow roiling backwards motion revealing the uncurled entrails of a slaughtered pig shark. <br /><br />Slit open flaps stretched out, pinned with its own serrated hook teeth in a screaming revelation of its inner abortion. A gurgle sucking rolled up nearly translucent worm baby whose coal diamond eyes have dialed open the short distance between it and its dead mother splayed and hacked wide open a monotone receiver - (no answer) - so kid, rictus set, resolved to climb the ladder until several new skins grew and shed, each enmeshed from the stripped hides of jackal daffodils growing wild like fireweed in sussuration, lichen lapsed in a hungry siege vortex. <br /><br />Attempting penetration of a maximum security business office shielded by man tall mirrors tiled against the lost dwarf star slipping into unconsciousness the farther scientific knives brighten, the less strands left from the cut cord unraveling dead weight pulling gravity grinning knowing who's winning because the few left in the open have lost god, was the rough approximation of what a 273 year old sea tortoise glimpsed in a nictitating fraction of a moment as it gazed into a still eyelet of sheer lucid reflection one blood drop removed from rippling out of focus. <br /><br />A delicate interval suspended in bright silence blitzshrieked in a gradient ramped in by the frenzied choral overtures of frequency city, and the great ancient corrugated fins stroked twin hooked track patterns in the sand, where hermit crabs have traced and mimicked the nervous history of Cheloniidae already; a crooked, branching network leading across random vistas of moonlit bones of coral where ghost crabs haunt the sidewinder ways and a binary star is visible to the naked eye of an octopus secreting a dried out mucous castle to peer out from under the pier at the hunchbacked manacled procession of slaves furrowed in the brow of a central american wasteland. <br /><br />Singled out as the only inheritance, and with the edges melting from the poles more every year, the jilted dancing reflections, like moths flying apart in a darkened jar, with the lord of hydrogen dissolving from the sky, Juan Carlos Morte simply lifted his hands to the universe, pulling shoulder harness straps looped twine taut, a jack in the box surprise over oily thumbed cards, geisha veiling the shotgun blast behind a paper partition. Spray art and brimstone rising sunburst spattered spangled and tattered in the age old manner of surrender, taken for waving goodbye, the lousiest hand of goat rummy sporadic chance ever dealt. shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-59135240504885604322009-08-07T16:43:00.001-06:002020-02-27T16:06:40.130-07:00Carina Nebula Panorama<div align="center">
<i>by <a href="http://freezineoffantasyandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/">shaun a. lawton</a></i></div>
<a href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/16/image/a/format/xlarge_web/"><br /><img img="" src="https://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/thorngrub/carinaneb.jpg" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/16/image/a/format/xlarge_web/"><small><i>photo courtesy of Hubblesite.com</i></small></a></div>
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The continuum of space in this region curves along the contours of an astronomical skull vaguely human in appearance. The skull lingers, the image of a face thrown from a ghost into a colossal mirror. It is comprised of slowly shifting loops of pregalactic dustmotes. They gather together to form a smokelike chalice, a shadow thrown from the excalligraphed egg developing right beside it. This egg is illuminated from within by green mossy patches in a star-sparked albumen draped in suspension across the vacuum, a whispered dream of things to come. The placental egg-sac mirrors a faint visage of an infant's ovoid skull, a superimposed mask of bone looking downward and away, fog and shadow drifting from its eye sockets. <br />
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This vast explosively forming egg of cosmic debris is ridden by a wide-shouldered warrior whose long dark hair blows in the solar winds. He oversees the development of this crucial nexus, formulating a sort of galactic nest. Past civilizations on Earth have often mistaken the great over shadowing skull's left eye socket and expanding nasal ring for the gilded butterfly wings of the rider's steed. These wings were construed in ancient times as being a part of the constellation Vela. In half forgotten myths, they once represented the sails of a mammoth ship named the Argo. <br />
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This region of deep space is now called Carina, and it's spirit guardian is the warrior rider Navis. Argo might have been the haunted egg gifted with the shadow of promise that we can now see Navis ride to defend; whatever the case, most legends like these are lost now, sunken below the waves of distant memory. This current glimpse of Navis's solar photoshadow serves as a reminder that he was assigned to preserve the egg-cache. Argo is a galaxy in utero, and it must be protected and defended from injury or evil, and allowed to fully develop. <br />
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The unfathomable stream of flowing hydrogen below Navis is an analog of the river Lethe. In the fulcrum of expanding space, seminality is reversed, hence the flowing hydrogen gas represents life. Yet it is a predatory life aiming to feed on the rich astral nutrients of Argo, therefore it represents certain death to the developing galactic foetus. The river of hydrogen passes along the equivalent, in outer space terms, of an underground cavern. The cavern is overseen by a couple of neighboring globular clusters: the astral rabbit and stellar black panther. The rabbit can be seen distinctly squatting on its haunches, in profile. Its left eye rolled back, forever on the lookout for marauders sneaking up from behind. The panther is below him, overlooking the astral river's source. Both these star clusters are guardians of Lethe's riverbanks. They patrol the entrance at the foothills of the interstellar mountains, from which grows the Sanguine Tree. This celestial tree towers munificently behind everything in that region. Wrapped in scarves of universal mist, the Sanguine Tree's roots grip the edge of a cliff face whose slope plummets straight into the starry depths. An enormous grinning troll with the power to hypnotize can be seen guarding the tree. The surrounding debris framing this entire scene is the shed outer coronal ring of Argo's flash birth. Various lords of light can be seen gathering for this event. <br />
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In the gray flowing mist of the Lethe, astronomic cephalopods swim through on their way downriver. They migrate towards the floating amnion-veiled, empyrean foetus Navis defends. They wish to feed upon his winged egg. His sense of pride, from having been assigned this post, ever burgeons, like a peacock's tail feathers, in a ratio directly proportional to the development of the embryonic cache he helps incubate. Argo is the very motherlode of celestial particles that will coalesce to form a galaxy. By the time the brood hatches into sentience, Navis will have long evaporated into a mere memory of a ghost imprinted on the lens of their mind's eye. <br />
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Navis beholds all manner of nautilus spawn frilling towards him through the misty currents of the Lethe. He watches as they approach the great chain of glittering islands strewn along the borders surrounding his incubating egg's celestial nesting cradle. The frillspawn have begun their genesis of a long untiring journey towards the promised haven that awaits them on the other side of the necklace of islands. They strive to reach the head of the nest egg Navis has sworn to defend until his final dissolution. <br />
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Mysterious characters lurk within the clustering shadows in the cavernous regions by the source of the Lethe. Many naiads and hydriades dwell along the riverbanks there. They appear to orginate from a nearby rearing seahorse star cluster. This supercluster confers with a half-wolf, half-man cluster named Amnos. These two act out their roles amidst lanes of newborne galaxies. Not all star clusters have names. Some of these form like streaming capes, some resemble kites with twisting trails behind them. Various older myths claim these as the distillate ejecta of reincarnated manta rays and other marine life. Today they are simply refered to as nebulae. <br />
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Faces of the recently forgotten, half remembered, and totally imagined slowly form themselves out of the abstract vapors haunting the shallows of these riverbanks. Among the reeds they beckon the occasional wandering dryad to their doom. Many naiads come out to appropriate a chambered nautilus or other cephalopod, in hopes of riding it all the way to the promised gardens rumored to be hidden beneath the hatching egg's unfolding wings. Every one of the encroaching incunabula are knocked from their saddle by Navis's controlled sling bolts. <br />
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Among the most striking aspects of the composition (as revealed through gravitational microlensing) is how the great skull haunting the rider of the winged egg foetus resembles a shadow flag. A flag that serves as a reminder of a superimposed reflection whispering promises from an almost forgotten dream. That dream must be the lost echo of a song issued from contractions during this distant solar flux. The reverberations of this music awaken some of us today, one at a time, trapped out here on the lonely periphery of this isolated wharf, long abandoned in the annals of space. Gazing from our stranded pier with enhanced vision escalated through a glass monocle, the nearly disregarded tapestry of this lost legend calls out subconsciously a siren serenade. A requiem which tells of the harbinger of that winged bird of paradise. It sings of the forgotten forerunner and protector. It relates how the vision of our eyes equals the music of our dreams.<br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-89545846907164382062009-07-10T19:12:00.002-06:002023-04-17T13:04:39.458-06:00Four-line Stories<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>by <a href="https://zetatine.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton</a> </i></div>
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<u><b>folk tale</b></u><br />
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<br />
Satyr Amerind hybrid union dance<br />
shadowthrown in hive chambers of honey light <br />
andromorphous scream in self-sacrifice, reflecting <br />
a dream-visor removed quick for noticing chroma.<br />
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<u><b>caravan</b></u><br />
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<br />
Wind driven, a memory dubbed gaels<br />
licked catlike at our sails; prows cut<br />
dream powered; below decks seven slept;<br />
under in silence the chevron of orca led.<br />
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<br />
<u><b>In Other Voids</b></u><br />
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<br />
Everything has its place in the shifting winds,<br />
was said. All of it trapped in the focus of a<br />
magnificent lens, being outer space itself that<br />
curves dreaming souls across to star in other voids.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<u><b>On Mount Drone</b></u><br />
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The spectrum: light from fractured dreams <br />
a dream: a piece of carbon. Every sound:<br />
a memory of its having been made, and every <br />
sight: a dream of a time passed away.<br />
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<u><b>gone</b></u><br />
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Sheaves fold on a sharp wind, slap against<br />
poles as desperate, brief want ads to be<br />
ripped away by an unseen howling whose<br />
chilling message is lost to no one.<br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-82867811541228937592009-01-24T11:02:00.002-07:002023-04-17T13:05:27.441-06:00Plastic Owl Effigy<p><i>by <a href="https://coalraker.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton </a></i><br /><font size="2"><b><br /><br /></b></font></p><p><font size="2"><b><br /></b></font></p><p><font size="2"><b>We discovered the entrance to a universe halfway up a hiking trail. <br />We were exploring one of the canyons along the mountain range nearby.<br />We've made it a ritual every winter to hike up the trails after dark.<br />There is no one else to bother us or get in our way sledding back down.<br />A blanket of snow is draped across everything in gleaming silence.<br />Sticking to the well packed path is necessary to prevent sinking too deep.<br />We drag our sleds behind us as we wind up the trail with light sticks.<br />Placing them carefully at bends in the path as markers, little glow posts.<br />Facing our mortality in the winds of night on a mountainside is a blast. <br />Sharing the forest with night creatures reminds us of our relationship.<br />Our relationship to the occult sky and the starpoints spread out above.<br />The kinship felt with the wind answers the question where do we roam?<br />Anywhere we please so long as we can carry our hearts and eyes along.<br />Off a bend in the path about a half mile up the trail we spotted an owl.<br />It was up on a branch in the half gloom, starlight reflected off its eyes.<br />Unblinking it regarded us in what some would consider a baleful stare.<br />As birds have always been our spirit guides, we knew better than this.<br />Owls in particular are indicators of portentous probability, to us.<br />This one proved to be something more as it flew away through the gloom.<br />It looked back over its feathered shoulder at us indicating we should follow.<br />Its aerial path took it between older trees deeper into the sighing forest.<br />Having been literally born for exploration of the unknown, we followed. <br />The ticking forest welcomed us into its embrace. We left our sleds behind.<br />That owl led us back to the city and is now perched over our front door.<br />It turned into a hollow plastic effigy filled with smooth rounded stones.<br />It fools petty scavenger birds from swooping into our yard for scraps. <br />The sleds were recovered and now hang in the garage, warped with time.<br />The ringing laughter cascading in our yard brings echoes of this memory.<br />Our children are forbidden from ever exploring the mountain after dark.<br />We simply want to prolong their time with us here in our heart.</b></font><br /></p><p></p><p></p>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-45731456696526451792009-01-22T18:31:00.001-07:002023-04-17T13:06:04.334-06:00A Tale For Children<p></p><p><br /><i>by <a href="http://shaunlawton.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton </a></i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i><br /></i><br />Wikki is a snuggly wuggly<br />Pretty Blue was cuddly too<br />Fuzzy Wuzzy was dropped eight feet<br />Zachary the owl was really neat<br /><br />All these things I say are true<br /><i>Now how many pets <br />remember you?</i><br /><br />Smokey was a cocker spaniel<br />of deepest darkest black<br />Bambi was a small and spotted<br />spindly-legged fawn<br /><br />Lancelot the ocelot and his twin brother <br />Ivanhoe romped until dawn amidst the pieces <br />of Bambi spread all over the lawn<br /><br />Because Bambi got eaten <br />by a pack of wild dogs<br />who fell in from the woods<br />late at night while <br />the children slept<br /><br />and the fire from <br />the fireplace licked <br />at the logs and all the <br />adults stood by and wept<br /><br />because there was nothing that they could do<br />to bring Bambi back who was scattered <br />and shredded and gobbled-up by the pack <br />who though they're roaming around now <br />and feeling well fed,<br /><br />they're looking for YOU and all of your friends<br />and family too to steal into your home<br />during the wee hours of night and <br />rip off your face with their teeth--<br /><br />--they just might.<br /><br />'Twas a terrible tragedy to behold<br />Smokey ran off with the murderous pack<br />the ocelots ate cockroaches, <br />got sick, and died.<br />Fuzzy slept under <br />the tire for the <br />very last time. <br /><br />While Pretty Blue and Zachary flew<br />off into the cloud jungle blue<br />and Tangle Bones Rubber Head Wikki Wikki Kitty<br />was left to be cared for by Jen in the city. <br /><br /> ~<i> <tt>fin</tt> </i>~ <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-56439883019250459432009-01-22T18:23:00.002-07:002023-12-28T23:14:54.710-07:00Through the Creeping Glass<b><br /></b>
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<b><b>I.</b></b></div>
<b><br /><br />Evening's primal tide<br />pulls us to her dark girth<br />the sun's heat rise severs<br />our umbilicals of birth<br />the shade of night falls, a filter<br />slivered into a vertical pupil <u>opening<br />silent unseen gates</u> through which <br />a predatory bestiary steps<br />into this, our world<br />after the curtains<br />of dusk are drawn<br />the theater of sleep<br />projects fractured visions<br />within our domed cathedrals<br />while outside, IN THE GREAT<br />WALL OF THE WILD the darker<br />side of thy lacine thrives<br />and the children are trained<br />to walk in the sun all their lives<br />and to run from the stories of wolves<br />that are lies cried out by the elder<br />and weaker in power who've been<br />given three tries at building<br />their enamel tower black<br />on the landscape of dream<br />scaring the crows away<br />with a crucifix loom<br />as its shadow leans out<br />while the Sun's going down<br />and the majority of the whole<br />of men awaken from their <br />nightmare's compounded<br />gravity to walk around<br />in the lightness of the Sun<br />each one a beast<br />with a mask of complacency<br />and a mime without individuality<br />a king stripped of sceptre<br />or a jester tricked back<br />into forgetting to remember<br />he's a member of the cast<br />hypnotized into performing<br />the dream that is played<br />in the cathedral of wilderness<br />for the seated rows of hooded monks,<br /><i>reptiles watching themselves</i>.</b><br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-87673950783042320202008-04-23T08:20:00.002-06:002023-04-17T13:06:54.230-06:00A Scanner Trade<i>by <a href="http://stavebranes.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton</a> </i><br />
<a href="http://cyberrealism.blogspot.com/2010/12/h.html"><img img="" src="http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c152/thorngrub/Decorated%20images/200c84e2-d7a3-4c5d-9cc1-35ec2f2c45b5.jpg" /></a>
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<br />
Happily the technocrat drone clone <br />
from the mutAnt colony sub<sub><i>human</i></sub>1 <br />
whistled his way to his weekly splinter tribe Faction 9 <br />
Survivalist meeting. (He was only required to make it <br />
half way to the meetings, of course. <br />
<br />
In that span the TSA supercomplex <br />
had assimilated all the information it required <br />
for the meeting to proceed without him. <br />
Reports, notes, speeches scanned and <br />
mindsets imprinted.) <br />
<br />
The drone clone stepped off the commuter trax <br />
at the very next exit, and stepped into the wind. <br />
It was free to do what it wanted to.shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-51647684830033804572008-04-01T13:02:00.001-06:002023-04-17T13:08:00.450-06:00>H<p><br /></p><p><big><i>by <a href="https://posthumanmagazine.stores.jp/">Shaun Lawton </a></i></big></p><p><big><br />Four years later, the first transhuman in vivo Minksian-Kurzweill clone emerges from its neonatal intensive care unit, eyes unblinking. Max would quickly grow to establish the first CORE school (Consilience Of Recombinant Extropy) by the seasoned age of four. In the year 2020, eight year old Max would engender a transubstantiative doctrine reprising Heraclitus' ideas of flux, and publish his manifesto <b>>H</b> by sending it back in time to his conception-year, where it now appears on carefully selected nodal points of the <a href="http://cyberrealism.blogspot.com/2010/12/h.html">internet</a>. <br /><br /></big></p><p><big><br /></big></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-541574491559337902.post-38192497028632482792007-03-23T11:13:00.002-06:002023-04-17T13:08:52.062-06:00The Shed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>by <a href="https://crossovervinyl.blogspot.com/">Shaun Lawton </a></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div>
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Rudy was seventeen. He lived out in the back yard, in a shed that his stepfather helped him convert into an insulated bedroom. Rudy liked it out there, separated from the glowing warmth of the main house, where his mother, stepfather, and younger brother dwelled. It was quieter and darker in the back part of the yard the shed occupied. The shed couldn't have been more than thirteen by thirteen square feet, all told. His stepfather David used to keep all his tools stored in there. <br />
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Propped inside had been a couple of rakes, some snow shovels, even a wood lathe, which had cost David a pretty penny. There was also the regular assortment of toolboxes, wrenches, screw drivers, hammers, a pickaxe, barbed wire, old coffee cans full of nails, and curious odds and ends the two had liberated from various junk yards. The usual stuff a moderate alcoholic kept around for his hobbies and side-projects. <br />
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Now a couple of boards resting over cinderblocks served as the front door steps. The sliding aluminum accordion panels which had hung precariously there before were now replaced by a proper door: one of those cheap hollow pinewood deals that almost begged to have a fist punched through it. The shed was situated about thirty yards from the back porch of the main house. The back of it stood about four feet from the chain link fence marking the rear perimeter of the yard. Beyond that was dense Arkansas woods standing in a carpet of dried leaves. <br />
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It was early October. For some reason, Rudy dreamed more intensely during this season. He sometimes wondered if it was because the planet tilted at just the right angle this time of year, causing his dreams to fall into his head from a kind of centripetal force. Just a week ago, he had dreamed that he had awoken in his bed out in the shed only to find the walls and ceiling were missing. Kind of like what happened to the kid in the white wolf pajamas from that Wild Things book. <br />
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Beyond his bed stretched the desolate forest. The main house was nowhere to be seen. There was no chain link fence. Rudy sat up to get a better look. The stars were out and the moon was three-quarters full, without a cloud in the nighttime sky. The forest surrounding made a lovely pattern of crisscrossing moonshadows along the ground. There appeared to be glowing gray-blue lichen crisscrossed along all the tree trunks themselves. The smell of pines was crisp and clear. <br />
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Rudy looked up and saw that strange glowing fungus grew on the trees as high up as he could see. He was surprised how well lit the outdoors was, this late at night. Every last detail was etched in this weird twilight, and underlined by shadow as if a contrast knob had been turned to achieve better focus. Pebbles along the ground, pine needles strewn before the bases of trees, dried mulchy leaves forming a rough bedspread across the ground: all of this was perfectly visible to the naked eye. Rudy noticed every detail, the split veins spreading across leaves, and he thought he noticed an insect scurrying from a curled leaf cover to an acorn's shade, and then disappear behind the small nut's tilted crown. <br />
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That was when he heard a deep bass sound. It prickled the hairs on his neck and set his heart beating quicker. It sounded like a forced exhalation accompanied by a meaty snort. Rudy whipped his head around to try and visualize the panorama of forest surrounding his lonely stage in the woods. The floor and steps leading down to the earthen yard were all that remained of his shed, along with the contents of his room: a desk with a Panasonic stereo set up on it. A couple of black RCA speakers served as looming bookends. The cord stemming from behind the stereo disappeared from view behind the desk, partially erased by the night. By the foot of the bed (to the left of where the door would have been) was a bookshelf stuffed with science fiction paperbacks. Rudy briefly wondered if the stereo would work. Then he heard the snapping of a twig directly behind him, about five feet beyond where the chain link fence behind the shed would have been. <br />
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That meant whatever was out there couldn't have been more than twelve feet away. Suddenly he could hear it panting. Rudy wasn't scared of dogs, any kind of dogs. He didn't care if it was an untamed wolf or a wandering coyote, they just didn't intimidate him. He perceived himself as an alpha male. For some reason though, his chest tightened up, and his heart beat faster. Maybe it was not a wolf or a dog. Maybe it was a man panting there. Rudy was too paralyzed to turn around and look. That's when he woke up, his sheets already kicked off the bed and his room back to normal, with the posters back on the walls and the cool green glow of the stereo panel indicating the time: 2:17 am. He looked over to the door. It was wide open. Some dried leaves had blown in. <br />
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The smell of autumn always reminded Rudy of used coffee grounds. He got up quickly and walked over to the open doorway. He could see the back porch of the main house thirty yards away in the distance. He shuddered from the chill and reached out to shut the flimsy door. Pushing the knob in and twisting it easily to lock it didn't offer any consolation. His heart rate would not slow down. Rudy stepped back into the center of his fragile room and stared ahead in the dark. So this is what it felt like to be a rake or a snow-shovel stored away in his stepfather’s shed.shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0