Wednesday, June 22, 2005
CHAPTER 2: SWEET WINDS
That night Fig slept easy, the words of his electric poem blowing through his mind like sweet winds from a different universe. In a dream, Fig rode these wind currents feather-light and free. He sailed across great and grassy plains; he climbed the chilly gusts of mountain vistas; he even rode the coursing tides on the ocean floor, tasting saltwater on his tongue. He passed by many strange and wonderful people like pirates and cowboys and Spanish conquistadors. He saw jungle animals, sea creatures, and other unusual and savage beasts of unknown origins.
Fig knew the winds were in control taking him wherever they chose. Yet, they held him with soft fingers of air, tender and safe like a mother rocking her infant child, cooing over him with each mellow breeze.
Though it was a dream, Fig’s mind and senses were still alert. Fig knew all that he saw was nothing more than the mind-mist of his sleeping brain but the gentle caress of the warm gale that surrounded him seemed more real than the stale, sad world of his apartment. A dream it may be, but that made it no less true, no less the Elsewhere where he longed to be.
Although Fig was in his dream, he was apart from it. He was watching through water in a glass, the same, but not clear, slightly distorted. He felt like the chaser in a game of "catch me if you can," and just as he would draw close to his prey, they would speed up and dash off to another part of the playground. Perhaps this is why he felt no fear, but just the same, it left him wanting more, to catch this dream world and wrestle it down, to hold it forever.
Even with all its promised glories, Elsewhere had its flaws, faults that Fig could not have understood. He saw this world in color and, to him the hues were vivid and bright, but his eyes had only ever seen a world of gray and steel. Though he squinted, eyes watering at the sight of an azure sky, its blue was a muted copy of the real thing. The green of the grass, the red of the sunset, he marveled at all of these, yet he was seeing a fraction of their true shade.
It was like this with all the colors save one: gold. It was everywhere, in every person that he saw, in every flower and blade of grass, in the waves and even in the air that held him high. Everything in Elsewhere glittered in its form with the fizzled-out firework light of goldenrod. It flashed its presence in some people and places more than others, but it was always there.
Just as night was slipping into morning, the winds bore Fig to a valley far removed. As he drew close, the air now shone more gold than clear, gleaming bright in his eyes. At the center of the valley of golden light, there stood a tall tree, slender and smooth like a willow with flaxen fruit shaped like lemons. Music came from the tree and with each grand chord the air in the valley shimmered and sparkled in glorious light, and there was singing as if the voices of each blossom joined in praise to the tree that bore it in joyous harmony.
Fig did not know how long he hung in the valley surrounded by light and song. He knew this was joy, but he felt it removed. Like everything in Elsewhere, the feeling was a step away. He wanted to join in the song, but he had no voice. He wanted to shine, but he was pale and gray. He was immersed in joy and yet he could taste nothing more than a drop. His belly longed for more, and just as he found his hunger, Elsewhere faded into gray and the morning beyond.
That night Fig slept easy, the words of his electric poem blowing through his mind like sweet winds from a different universe. In a dream, Fig rode these wind currents feather-light and free. He sailed across great and grassy plains; he climbed the chilly gusts of mountain vistas; he even rode the coursing tides on the ocean floor, tasting saltwater on his tongue. He passed by many strange and wonderful people like pirates and cowboys and Spanish conquistadors. He saw jungle animals, sea creatures, and other unusual and savage beasts of unknown origins.
Fig knew the winds were in control taking him wherever they chose. Yet, they held him with soft fingers of air, tender and safe like a mother rocking her infant child, cooing over him with each mellow breeze.
Though it was a dream, Fig’s mind and senses were still alert. Fig knew all that he saw was nothing more than the mind-mist of his sleeping brain but the gentle caress of the warm gale that surrounded him seemed more real than the stale, sad world of his apartment. A dream it may be, but that made it no less true, no less the Elsewhere where he longed to be.
Although Fig was in his dream, he was apart from it. He was watching through water in a glass, the same, but not clear, slightly distorted. He felt like the chaser in a game of "catch me if you can," and just as he would draw close to his prey, they would speed up and dash off to another part of the playground. Perhaps this is why he felt no fear, but just the same, it left him wanting more, to catch this dream world and wrestle it down, to hold it forever.
Even with all its promised glories, Elsewhere had its flaws, faults that Fig could not have understood. He saw this world in color and, to him the hues were vivid and bright, but his eyes had only ever seen a world of gray and steel. Though he squinted, eyes watering at the sight of an azure sky, its blue was a muted copy of the real thing. The green of the grass, the red of the sunset, he marveled at all of these, yet he was seeing a fraction of their true shade.
It was like this with all the colors save one: gold. It was everywhere, in every person that he saw, in every flower and blade of grass, in the waves and even in the air that held him high. Everything in Elsewhere glittered in its form with the fizzled-out firework light of goldenrod. It flashed its presence in some people and places more than others, but it was always there.
Just as night was slipping into morning, the winds bore Fig to a valley far removed. As he drew close, the air now shone more gold than clear, gleaming bright in his eyes. At the center of the valley of golden light, there stood a tall tree, slender and smooth like a willow with flaxen fruit shaped like lemons. Music came from the tree and with each grand chord the air in the valley shimmered and sparkled in glorious light, and there was singing as if the voices of each blossom joined in praise to the tree that bore it in joyous harmony.
Fig did not know how long he hung in the valley surrounded by light and song. He knew this was joy, but he felt it removed. Like everything in Elsewhere, the feeling was a step away. He wanted to join in the song, but he had no voice. He wanted to shine, but he was pale and gray. He was immersed in joy and yet he could taste nothing more than a drop. His belly longed for more, and just as he found his hunger, Elsewhere faded into gray and the morning beyond.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
FIG AND THE FOG
CHAPTER 1: GONE ROT
It was a Monday evening in early February, and Fig sat at his window as he did most evenings before bed. He had closed his book, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and was looking out over the city. He lived on the 52nd floor of the 3rd largest building in Pungent City, and he had never seen the stars. He liked to imagine that the lights of the city were the stars, and he would find all manner of constellations among them. He saw a fox on the horizon, an arrow to his right toward the river, and just as he had found a giant ogre someone left their office, turning off their light changing his ogre into a headless ghoul.
Sometimes he would dig out his notebook and sketch images of these ever-changing constellations, but not tonight. Tonight he was sad and seemed to have always been. Fig had the unfortunate luck to have been born at a time when the world was just past ripe and gone to rot.
Of course, for as much as he knew it was only his world that had gone to rot, though he would soon discover that there were few places left unspoiled in the greater world. What he knew for sure on this cold evening of winter’s end was that something was not quite right, and for him, had never been.
The fog alone was proof enough that things were not as they should be in Pungent City. At the first light of sun, it would descend and cover the city in a blanket of dirty grey smoke that reeked of mold and decay. It stood so thick that one could hardly see more than a few inches in any direction.
The days were dark, the sun filtered through the smoky gloom. And the people of the city were no different: quiet, dark, and moody. No longer able to drive, their cars sat parked on their curbs or locked in their garages looking like carcasses of metal creatures long extinct. When they went out, which was usually only to go to work or for some pressing errand, they traveled by foot. They trudged about in the dark, moldy gray of the daylight hours and inside they grumbled and complained and became every bit as dark and moldy themselves.
As daylight waned, the fog would slowly lift rising just above the tops of the city’s tallest buildings like a great grey umbrella. And so it had always been for the eleven years of Fig’s life. He had never known the warmth of the sun or even seen the great golden globe drift slowly across a blue sky. He had read about the stars and a moon that was blue and sometimes full and sometimes not there at all, but he had never seen any of it.
Many people worked longer hours in order to avoid the fog, leaving before daylight and returning after dusk. His father was one of them. A very important executive at Schlessel and Sons, the top department store in the city, Arthur Newton would quietly creep out of the silent apartment before sunup and return in time for a late supper with his family. He did this every day including Saturday and Sunday. Schlessel and Sons kept him very busy.
Even now, his father was up and working in his study. Fig could hear his muffled but steady voice dictating some official document for his secretary to type up in the morning.
Peering at his reflection in the window, he saw a brown-eyed boy with hair the color of cinnamon toast. He was short for his age, and if he had his father’s genes, he would stay that way. He saw little else that reminded him of his father. His skin was a cool shade of pale, which he hated; his father’s dark almost bronze. His nose was small and a bit turned up at the end; his father’s was crooked, bent along the bridge. Fig wished most that had his father’s broad shoulders and thick arms, but in his own reflection, Fig saw a gleaming white, skeletal specter staring back at him.
The one feature that stood out about Fig’s father was his eye. He was missing one, or at least Fig believed it was missing. He had never seen what was underneath the black eye-patch his father wore over his right eye. Only twice had Fig asked about the missing eye, his father would simply say, "I lost it" and no more. He understood it was a topic that his father wished not to elaborate on.
"Have you been drawing again?" Lost in his thoughts, Fig hadn’t noticed his father had left his study and was standing in his bedroom’s doorway. There he stood, hair parted perfectly from left to right as always, a tired grin upon his face.
"Not really." Fig replied.
"Too bad. I really like this one." His father pointed to a bulletin board above Fig’s desk. On it was a picture he had drawn just two days ago. It was a sketch of a knight in full armor riding proud upon a regal steed exhaling steam from its flared nostrils. King Arthur had always been one of his favorite stories.
"Well Fig, you had better turn in. You know what your mother would say if she knew you were still up." Fig’s real name was James William Newton. His father had given him his nickname, and he loved it as much as he detested his real one.
"I know. I know. Read me a story first?" He looked at his father hopefully. Fig’s father loved a good book as much as he did, and sometimes, though rarely, he could convince his father to read to him.
Fig really enjoyed it when his father would make up a story for him. This was even more rare, but he was surprisingly good at inventing epic tales filled with wonders unlike anything Fig could have ever imagined. In his father’s stories, there were worlds inhabited by evil creatures with snake-like heads and red eyes, wild and dangerous forests where death was only a breath away for those who ventured there, and great warriors who were just and good and who always won in the end.
The stories seemed so real sometimes Fig could almost believe that they weren’t make believe at all but were adventures his father had lived in a life long past. But then he would picture his father riding into battle wearing a charcoal gray suit standing short in the saddle of a white stallion, and it was just too funny to believe.
His father yawned, and said, "Not tonight boy. I’ve got to be up early, you know."
"Yeah, right then. Goodnight Father."
"Goodnight Fig." His father gently closed the door behind him as he returned down the hallway.
It was just then that Fig saw it, as turned back to his window for one last glace upon the city. It was there, uptown in the skyscrapers on 23rd street. Some of the lights had come on, several at once making a pattern on the side of the buildings. He blinked and looked again, and he saw that it was more than a pattern, it was a word. In boxy lettering the lights seemed to have spelled out a word in all capitals.
ALTOGETHERELSEWHERE
Two words, and as soon as Fig saw them more appeared. The lights read:
altogether elsewhere
the sun sheds it skin
and the quick grow quicker
altogether elsewhere
And then, they were gone.
CHAPTER 1: GONE ROT
It was a Monday evening in early February, and Fig sat at his window as he did most evenings before bed. He had closed his book, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and was looking out over the city. He lived on the 52nd floor of the 3rd largest building in Pungent City, and he had never seen the stars. He liked to imagine that the lights of the city were the stars, and he would find all manner of constellations among them. He saw a fox on the horizon, an arrow to his right toward the river, and just as he had found a giant ogre someone left their office, turning off their light changing his ogre into a headless ghoul.
Sometimes he would dig out his notebook and sketch images of these ever-changing constellations, but not tonight. Tonight he was sad and seemed to have always been. Fig had the unfortunate luck to have been born at a time when the world was just past ripe and gone to rot.
Of course, for as much as he knew it was only his world that had gone to rot, though he would soon discover that there were few places left unspoiled in the greater world. What he knew for sure on this cold evening of winter’s end was that something was not quite right, and for him, had never been.
The fog alone was proof enough that things were not as they should be in Pungent City. At the first light of sun, it would descend and cover the city in a blanket of dirty grey smoke that reeked of mold and decay. It stood so thick that one could hardly see more than a few inches in any direction.
The days were dark, the sun filtered through the smoky gloom. And the people of the city were no different: quiet, dark, and moody. No longer able to drive, their cars sat parked on their curbs or locked in their garages looking like carcasses of metal creatures long extinct. When they went out, which was usually only to go to work or for some pressing errand, they traveled by foot. They trudged about in the dark, moldy gray of the daylight hours and inside they grumbled and complained and became every bit as dark and moldy themselves.
As daylight waned, the fog would slowly lift rising just above the tops of the city’s tallest buildings like a great grey umbrella. And so it had always been for the eleven years of Fig’s life. He had never known the warmth of the sun or even seen the great golden globe drift slowly across a blue sky. He had read about the stars and a moon that was blue and sometimes full and sometimes not there at all, but he had never seen any of it.
Many people worked longer hours in order to avoid the fog, leaving before daylight and returning after dusk. His father was one of them. A very important executive at Schlessel and Sons, the top department store in the city, Arthur Newton would quietly creep out of the silent apartment before sunup and return in time for a late supper with his family. He did this every day including Saturday and Sunday. Schlessel and Sons kept him very busy.
Even now, his father was up and working in his study. Fig could hear his muffled but steady voice dictating some official document for his secretary to type up in the morning.
Peering at his reflection in the window, he saw a brown-eyed boy with hair the color of cinnamon toast. He was short for his age, and if he had his father’s genes, he would stay that way. He saw little else that reminded him of his father. His skin was a cool shade of pale, which he hated; his father’s dark almost bronze. His nose was small and a bit turned up at the end; his father’s was crooked, bent along the bridge. Fig wished most that had his father’s broad shoulders and thick arms, but in his own reflection, Fig saw a gleaming white, skeletal specter staring back at him.
The one feature that stood out about Fig’s father was his eye. He was missing one, or at least Fig believed it was missing. He had never seen what was underneath the black eye-patch his father wore over his right eye. Only twice had Fig asked about the missing eye, his father would simply say, "I lost it" and no more. He understood it was a topic that his father wished not to elaborate on.
"Have you been drawing again?" Lost in his thoughts, Fig hadn’t noticed his father had left his study and was standing in his bedroom’s doorway. There he stood, hair parted perfectly from left to right as always, a tired grin upon his face.
"Not really." Fig replied.
"Too bad. I really like this one." His father pointed to a bulletin board above Fig’s desk. On it was a picture he had drawn just two days ago. It was a sketch of a knight in full armor riding proud upon a regal steed exhaling steam from its flared nostrils. King Arthur had always been one of his favorite stories.
"Well Fig, you had better turn in. You know what your mother would say if she knew you were still up." Fig’s real name was James William Newton. His father had given him his nickname, and he loved it as much as he detested his real one.
"I know. I know. Read me a story first?" He looked at his father hopefully. Fig’s father loved a good book as much as he did, and sometimes, though rarely, he could convince his father to read to him.
Fig really enjoyed it when his father would make up a story for him. This was even more rare, but he was surprisingly good at inventing epic tales filled with wonders unlike anything Fig could have ever imagined. In his father’s stories, there were worlds inhabited by evil creatures with snake-like heads and red eyes, wild and dangerous forests where death was only a breath away for those who ventured there, and great warriors who were just and good and who always won in the end.
The stories seemed so real sometimes Fig could almost believe that they weren’t make believe at all but were adventures his father had lived in a life long past. But then he would picture his father riding into battle wearing a charcoal gray suit standing short in the saddle of a white stallion, and it was just too funny to believe.
His father yawned, and said, "Not tonight boy. I’ve got to be up early, you know."
"Yeah, right then. Goodnight Father."
"Goodnight Fig." His father gently closed the door behind him as he returned down the hallway.
It was just then that Fig saw it, as turned back to his window for one last glace upon the city. It was there, uptown in the skyscrapers on 23rd street. Some of the lights had come on, several at once making a pattern on the side of the buildings. He blinked and looked again, and he saw that it was more than a pattern, it was a word. In boxy lettering the lights seemed to have spelled out a word in all capitals.
ALTOGETHERELSEWHERE
Two words, and as soon as Fig saw them more appeared. The lights read:
altogether elsewhere
the sun sheds it skin
and the quick grow quicker
altogether elsewhere
And then, they were gone.
