He became a writer for the feeling of control, but look at this! His main character’s love interest, still covered with paper cuts from scrambling off the page, stretches a length of rope between her hands. She grins, lips red in a way that brings to mind unfortunate similes, and lovingly, caressingly, sweetly, wraps the hemp around his neck and yanks.
As he slips into the unconsciousness that precedes death, he is still grateful for two things: that he can no longer see the red heap that was his main character, and that he spent the advance.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Illumination
They used to know that they had been turned into streetlamps, but after some time, the memories gradually faded, until the shadows that their light cast on the concrete were more substantial than their own pasts.
Every once in a while, when an old friend, an acquaintance, or just someone who reminded them of their humanity walked by, some spark of dim recognition rose within them, and the lights would flicker, the lamps swinging back and forth with faint creaking as the streetlamps quivered at the brink of memory. But always the brief awareness would ebb again, and they would return to amnesia, asleep without sleeping.
They knew, without knowing, which of themselves belonged to the transformed group, and they maintained a greater awareness of these compatriots. They were uncomfortable when the light bulbs burnt out in the other members of their group, and mourned, as much as they could, when they were replaced. They felt a kind of comfort in knowing that the others were there, without ever
Yet with each passing night, they forgot a little more to care about such things, and then they forgot to notice them, the last bits of sentience trickling away like grains of sand. Until one evening, when the moon and stars were so uncharacteristically bright in the city that the streetlamps were unnecessary, there was a strange sort of sigh in the street where they all stood, a rush of cold air and a heave of emotion. The passers-by, who had been laughing and talking, stopped and shuddered, the sigh registering only subconsciously, so that when a few people found themselves in tears they couldn’t say why, nor could their friends find any way to explain that they had felt the same.
This was of course because, in that moment—and strangely, all in the same moment—the streetlamps became truly unaware, with not even a light flicker in protest.
And the street where they stood soon became a street to be avoided, used only in emergencies and traversed at top speed in order to leave it again as quickly as possible. People found themselves huddling inside their coats as they walked on it, hiding from something they couldn’t name, a terrible, senseless grief overwhelming both because of its strength and its lack of cause. The street emptied, of people and businesses, and its length acquired a bubble of ceaseless quiet. The lights went off one by one, and stayed off.
The streetlamps might have been sad to see the people go. Or happy to be alone with each other. Or relieved to no longer be confronted with the evidence of their loss, lively humanity traipsing down the street, being alive without barely any notion of doing so. But they were none of these things, because they were—after all—just streetlamps, and perhaps they had always been streetlamps, just streetlamps who had only imagined a time when they breathed and laughed and walked under streetlamps as casually as people walked under them. Perhaps it was all a dream.
But it was not, and whoever they were—whoever they might have been. . .
They’re gone, forever, and soon the last light bulb will burn out.
Every once in a while, when an old friend, an acquaintance, or just someone who reminded them of their humanity walked by, some spark of dim recognition rose within them, and the lights would flicker, the lamps swinging back and forth with faint creaking as the streetlamps quivered at the brink of memory. But always the brief awareness would ebb again, and they would return to amnesia, asleep without sleeping.
They knew, without knowing, which of themselves belonged to the transformed group, and they maintained a greater awareness of these compatriots. They were uncomfortable when the light bulbs burnt out in the other members of their group, and mourned, as much as they could, when they were replaced. They felt a kind of comfort in knowing that the others were there, without ever
Yet with each passing night, they forgot a little more to care about such things, and then they forgot to notice them, the last bits of sentience trickling away like grains of sand. Until one evening, when the moon and stars were so uncharacteristically bright in the city that the streetlamps were unnecessary, there was a strange sort of sigh in the street where they all stood, a rush of cold air and a heave of emotion. The passers-by, who had been laughing and talking, stopped and shuddered, the sigh registering only subconsciously, so that when a few people found themselves in tears they couldn’t say why, nor could their friends find any way to explain that they had felt the same.
This was of course because, in that moment—and strangely, all in the same moment—the streetlamps became truly unaware, with not even a light flicker in protest.
And the street where they stood soon became a street to be avoided, used only in emergencies and traversed at top speed in order to leave it again as quickly as possible. People found themselves huddling inside their coats as they walked on it, hiding from something they couldn’t name, a terrible, senseless grief overwhelming both because of its strength and its lack of cause. The street emptied, of people and businesses, and its length acquired a bubble of ceaseless quiet. The lights went off one by one, and stayed off.
The streetlamps might have been sad to see the people go. Or happy to be alone with each other. Or relieved to no longer be confronted with the evidence of their loss, lively humanity traipsing down the street, being alive without barely any notion of doing so. But they were none of these things, because they were—after all—just streetlamps, and perhaps they had always been streetlamps, just streetlamps who had only imagined a time when they breathed and laughed and walked under streetlamps as casually as people walked under them. Perhaps it was all a dream.
But it was not, and whoever they were—whoever they might have been. . .
They’re gone, forever, and soon the last light bulb will burn out.
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