Lucid Waking

Archive for June, 2009

Pointless

        The sky outside the window was ashen as was the rest of the world underneath it. Only the track for a few meters ahead of the engine was visible and the faint outline of a roof and pillars to mark the station outside the train doors. He watched her as she waited for the doors to open and then glide up the steps into a compartment to sit on a red velvet seat just like everyone else. Her mahogany hair was pulled back into a tight swirled bun so that the contrast between her hair and the sharp line of her mask was even more apparent. She wore an overly ornate Venetian mask that he had seen photos of amidst other marks of tourist fascination with Mardi Gras’s madness. A dark smear of blue acted as a thick eyebrow arching over her left eye and then down her nose bridge where it landed in a neat circle of purple. The eye underneath the blue smear was a golden brown whereas the other one, beneath an exaggerated array of black lashes on her mask, was blue. She wore a summery, strapless dress with a black bodice and empire waist raining down a skirt with every color imaginable—even some without names.
        He reached to adjust his own mask, painted black with white and red swirls like vines or drips dancing around the face. She glanced at him before sitting down a couple seats away from his. He moved over so as to be closer to her, but she refused to acknowledge him and kept her bicolored eyes on something outside her window. But what he saw was nothing but a wet, shimmery gray.
        The conductor yelled out into the open space before shutting the doors with the slam of hollow metal. The train whistle screamed into the mist before the steady chug of the engine kicked in and sped the cars into the fog.
        “You seem nervous,” he said. She turned sharply to face him and he extended his hand. “Max Blackbourne.”
        She glanced at his outstretched hand for a second before taking it and giving it a hearty shake. “Forgive me,” she said in a lavender voice, “I don’t remember my name.”
        Max shrugged. “I didn’t either, I just made that one up during the ride.”
        “Oh?” she said in a more relaxed voice. “Then I’m Ivette Campo. Pleasure to meet you.”
        “That’s a pretty name.”
        She shrugged. “I heard it somewhere. Probably the opera. Do you like music?”
        “Not that kind of music.”
        “Then you probably haven’t been introduced to it properly. I don’t suppose they have a phonograph around here?”
        Max shook his head. “If they do, there aren’t any records.”
        Ivette sighed. “Of course, that would be the way of things, wouldn’t it?” She shifted in her seat so that it was more natural to speak with him, but she faced the opposite side of the car and put her hands in her lap. “Where are we going, anyway?”
        Max shrugged. “I don’t know.” (more…)

Botanic Garden Pictures (Part 2)

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Botanic Garden Pictures (Part 1)

I went to the Botanic Gardens last Thursday because I hadn’t gone there in a long time and thankfully, nothing about it really changed. I had a lot of fun, got a bit of sun, and took about 140 pictures. I thought I’d stop uploading now that the gallery has 90 pictures and continue later. So, here is part 1:

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Gravity

I would have had this up sooner if I could upload the original version, which had both rightside up and upside down views. But, I decided to put up one anyway, because I’d hate to have my hard work not seen. What took this one so long was that the drips had to dry and as a terpintine wash, it took a while. But, here it is at long last:

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Dilmun

        Eleven o’clock is pitch black. You’re walking a dog, but it’s too late at night. It can’t be the real reason you’re out, it really can’t. But you can’t remember why you’re there. You can’t remember anything.
        No drugs in your system, but your vision is cloudy and your head is light. The dog leads you around the block faithfully, but you aren’t sure which house is yours or where the dog came from. It pulls hard against the leash and you follow it, unsure of where you’re going.
        Dawn’s pallid head appears on the horizon and you can finally see in the growing light your destination. The dog sniffs at a piece of iron sticking out of the ground like a sign. You read the words:

CAUTION: due to the use of artificial air in our system, symptoms of lightheadedness, restlessness, blindness, deafness, memory loss or nausea may occur. Please use a gas mask when entering and exiting our facilities and leave quickly when you experience these symptoms.

Thank you for visiting Dilmun! We hope you’ll come again!

(more…)

What’s This?

Hi, you’re friendly author/artist here. I doubt anyone has noticed so far, but I thought I’d bring up some changes that have occurred recently. In order to get more feedback on my art as well as writing– and to break up all of the text that appears–I’ve decided to put photos and art on the home page, i.e. in the blog. Everything is going on the blog and it will be treated like it is–a log/diary/journal.

This isn’t to say that the rest of the site is going to be lax. My portfolios will be updated when I feel like it, but you’ll know when I’ve put something up because it will be on the home page and in the archives. I’ve gone through and added posts for all of the artwork on the days they were originally published. Stories, poems, and prose that I like will go up on the Favorites page as well as Best of the Blog winners. So if you don’t want to go through the archives, but want more than what’s on the front page, go there for your written work and the art pages for visual stuff.

But that’s not all! Commentary and Site Updates page…gone forever. Anything I have to say will be put in a post on the easily accessible front page. Commentary will be in an Author’s note on the bottom of the post. You don’t have to read it, but it’s there just in case. I’ll still keep a running tab on prose/poetry post numbers as well.

Pages may be renamed or added to make the site easier and more comprehensible. I’m still working, but expect changes–visual and otherwise–for the better.

That’s the End of the That

        He smelled her long before his eyes could adjust to see her: the putrid smell of manufactured lilacs, faint odor of nail polish, the cigarette smoke, the leather, the makeup. He never gagged, but he felt like he should have some sort of reflex kicking in to counter the wall of odors into which he walked. When his eyes adjusted he could see her silhouette and she turned to face him, making her Grecian nose and full lips, which were noticeable in her profile, invisible.
        “I didn’t think it was a good enough night for you to be out on the prowl,” she said in her thick, fake Assyrian accent. She always liked flaunting her ethnicity.
        “Cut to the chase, Lucine. I got your letter and you aren’t here to taunt me.”
        She took an irritated drag from her cigarette. “Then you know why I asked you here.”
        “I’m a little puzzled as to why here, but that’s not really the issue you plan on addressing.”
        She sighed dramatically. “Maybe we should sit down; I’m getting a little light headed.”
        He rolled his eyes, but followed her retreating figure to a bench she knew was there. She took another deep breath and then turned to face him again. She forcefully grabbed both of his hands and placed them on her lap, so that she could bring her face closer to his. The stench of her perfume and makeup were consuming and he bit his lip to keep from gagging, but she didn’t notice.
        “I’d like to apologize for leaving you high and dry at the show,” she said. “You deserved to get paid for all of your work and I should have made sure to see you first after I was done performing. Regardless of the fact that I had delicate matters to deal with regarding recording contracts and performing deals, I needed to put my best bassist first and I’m very sorry. In fact,” he heard her leather coat creak as she reached inside a pocket and shoved a wad of balmy paper in his hands, “here’s the money plus a little extra for your troubles.”
        He put the cash in his pocket and slid farther down the bench to get away from her. “Right. And what’s this little rumor I heard that you’re hiring all new musicians?”
        “Not true,” she said. “I’d never get rid of Nadine.”
        He laughed. “Nadine told me you were getting a new band, but she’s on contract, so you can’t get rid of her yet.” He stood up and tried to get his bearings, making one last valiant effort to get the last word in the conversation: “That was a good act you put on—and thanks for the cash.”
        But he knew she always ended things and as soon as he had found the path back out of the park, he felt her at his shoulder floundering after him in her high-heeled shoes.
        “Good luck finding a job with the market these days. Not much demand for a musician and you know, without me, you’re just a nameless face.”
        He made an effort to smile. “That only means I have something to build on, instead of being stuck with a reputation that’s killing my career.”
        “Killing it? You clearly haven’t seen the tabloids. Well, toodles! I hope you die in a ditch.”
        He paused as she turned her back on him and swaggered down the sidewalk to where her chauffeur was waiting in her red car. “I hope you do, too,” he mumbled back to her as he turned the opposite way to walk around the block. His car was parked right behind hers, but it wasn’t worth the hassle to be around her any more than he had to be.

(more…)

Outside Photo Shoot

With a model and everything!

and a flower:

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A Silver Cage

        "What was it, exactly, you were hoping to see?" the man at the ticket booth asked us once we had left, disappointed, from the blue striped tent behind him. The rather large sign leading us to this destination had us rather excited for a mystical bird with large shimmering feathers in all sorts of peacock and macaw colors, but what we saw made us think we had wasted five dollars. The billboard had promised something new, unusual, and unique, but we felt like a glance outside the window would give us something more.
        "Anything but a gold finch," my friend said. He had asked for our money back and seemed overly intent on fighting for it.
        "That’s because you didn’t stay for the show," the ticket-seller said. "It’s a magical bird, you know."
        "What does it do? Dance, back flips, cook?"
        The ticket man smiled. "You’ll have to watch and see for yourself."
        At least he was kind enough to let us back in without paying a second time, though we were both so deflated anything that happened next, we had thought, was likely to make us feel worse. The tent filled up, but the mood did not improve. Perplexed whispers filled the arena as the golden bird did nothing but flutter about its cage. Domed and wide, the cage stood about six feet tall and had a human-sized door among the narrow silver bars. The bird was utterfly dwarfed in its surroundings and very nervous. We sat near the front as if that would change our deflated predisposed notions of the spectacle we paid ten dollars to see.
        My friend had almost grabbed my wrist to leave again when we were shushed by a rattle of the cage bars. The flapping of feathers stopped and so did the occational twittering. We turned to face a tall woman slipping into a gown we hadn’t noticed lying on the bottom of the cage. She reached between the bars and opened the barred door, stepping into the arena and gaging her audience. Her eyes were a soft blue and her hair the color of butter. Before she had mesmerized the crowed with her glance, music crept from off stage urging her into a dance.
        I don’t remember much else about that night. We left shortly after she finished dancing, though many of the other spectators waited for an encore. We returned many times after that ,but the girl in the cage always did the same thing. One time, I stayed later, but she didn’t have any room in her cage to do much else but stand up and cry. I know she didn’t realize I was at the top of the stairs because whenever we stayed later other times, she would watch us curiously until we left. At the end of August, the carnival left on the next rain out of town. But carnivals after that, I still waited for the bird man and his finch. Something about her performance and after show tears made an impact–I realized only later it was because I was in a similar situation: trapped to perform at society’s whim. I relaized this on an airplane to interview for a new job and when I did, I cried.

The Worst Job

        The clock on the wall said 1:37 when he walked in the door late, as I suspected he’d be. The room he entered was not an office, or a café, but a waiting room and a strange place to be accused of untimely-ness. He muttered an apology to the secretary before sitting down in a chair closest to the door.
        “Well it’s on your watch,” the secretary said, blandly. “You’re not wasting my time, just your own.”
            He didn’t look the part, but I could tell that he wanted a job in this office very badly. His knee bounced up and down at an uncontrolled pace while he stared intently at his hands. No matter how he sat, he was gawky and long, though he tried to make himself smaller as the secretary glared his way when his chair creaked as he moved or he reached for a glossy magazine on the table by his chair. I watched him over my newspaper, intrigued by this newcomer who thought he could handle the monsters at this place.
        “Miss Noire,” the secretary said, sweetly in my direction, “would you like to start the interview now?”
        I stood up and walked over to the man fidgeting in his chair. I extended my hand and introduced myself. He turned white, but shook my hand and stood up before following me to my green office that looked a little too doctor-y for my tastes at the moment.
        “What did you say your name was?” I asked, giving him a chance to introduce himself, though I already knew who he was.
        “Mark Atherton,” he said. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve been going as.”
        “Mr. Atherton, then. Do you know much about this job that you’re applying for?”
        “Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically to emphasize his single-word answer. “I’m aware of all of the benefits.”
        “Then let me familiarize you with the deficits.” I pulled out a yellow packet that I kept in my desk for these occasions. It was wrinkled and soft at the staple from years of flipping over the words. I smoothed out the packet gently and began my shtick. “This is a job that requires you to work every day and every hour—there is no break, there is no stopping. You’ll be traveling all over the world and you have to work on a clock; you will not be allowed to arrive late. Every second you might be across the world from your last location and you are not allowed to slow your speed or stay for prolonged periods of time. Slacking off on the job or not being diligent will cost this company, so it’s important to be on top of yourself and the job.
        “Now, we’d pay you,” I continued, fingering a page of the packet, “but you won’t have time to spend what you earn. Forget about wife and family, because you won’t have time to see them. It’s a grueling job, but rewarding in its own way. So, Mr. Atherton, are you still interested in this position?”
        He paused, staring at the yellow packet. “Yes,” he said after a long silence.
        “All right then,” I smiled. “So far you haven’t shown much promise, but we’ll set you up with a trial period with our current Grim Reaper and you can get a taste of the expectations. In the mean time, enjoy your day, you’ll start tomorrow bright and early—5:00 sharp. If you’re late, you lose this job; I hope I’m clear.”
        “Perfectly,” he extended his hand. “Thank you for this opportunity.”
        “It’s hard to get anyone interested in collecting souls,” I said, “it’s the least I can do for the favor you’re doing for me.”
        He raised one eyebrow very slightly, but I refused to elaborate. I showed him the door, shook his hand again and then turned to our secretary. He shook his head, but continued with his paperwork.
        “Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said walking back to my office. “Frank is getting tired of doing the job and all the other applicants got cold feet once they realized what they were in for.”
        “I understand, Miss Noire,” was the only answer I got, but I could tell that whatever happened with our newest Reaper was going to be much better than the situation I had currently.