Continuing with the theme of archive emptying, here is a storyboard/plotline I wrote up for a story I never even started.
* time is a closed, repeating loop
* the number of human lives on the planet is fixed
* no new lives are ever created
* when a person dies, or reaches the end of one life cycle, they are reincarnated as another person and follow that particular life cycle until its end. And so on
* somehow, the main character is made aware of this situation
* he continues to kill himself until he cycles through every possible life cycle in the hopes that he will eventually be reincarnated as himself and use this 'second chance' to make right some wrong (probably something to do with a girl/lover)
* the time loop always ends with total destruction and then starts over
* by being aware of the loop and altering it (by continually killing himself) he eventually reduces the lifetime of every person on the planet, causing a catastrophic breakdown of time
* he realizes thus and is forced to live out every life in its entirety, essentially on autopilot
* after he explains this to the girl, he is reincarnated as her, and while living her life on auto pilot he realizes she is in love with someone he understands is better for her than he is
* he accepts that she will never love him fully and is doomed to be a self-aware automaton
perspective: after-the-fact narration? Or after-the-fact until he is reincarnated as her? Probably after-the-fact; a memoir of everyone who ever lived.
the train metaphor: time is a train track that is a giant loop. There are many trains on the track. Every time a train reaches the end of the loop a new conductor takes over and drives the train for the duration of the next loop.
Looking back on this, I now find that last part, the train thing, most interesting. To the degree that if I ever summoned the motivation to re-visit this story, it'd probably just be about train conductors on a fixed loop.
Showing posts with label bits/pieces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bits/pieces. Show all posts
7.06.2009
11.25.2008
Jet Car
This part is true:
And we’re in a hotel room but we’re in separate beds, and I can see her lying down across the canyon between beds that might as well be impossibly deep and wide but I don’t care. I’ll be Evel Kneivel and I’ll ride a bicycle or motorcycle or jet-car over the gap and crash in a huge fireball that could be a raging inferno or could be her crushing blue eyes. Either way she’ll put out the fire, smother my smoldering wreck in her open palms, smoke trickling through her fingers, and I’ll be taken to the hospital and condemned to bed rest, so that I can recover and heal and try to jump the canyon again because this is what I do and this is what I will do until someday or somenight I’ll make the jump and land and will be welcomed with cheers and praise and most importantly an open heart that is really all I ever wanted to begin with.
Uhhh, yeah. What was the name of the wine I was drinking?
And we’re in a hotel room but we’re in separate beds, and I can see her lying down across the canyon between beds that might as well be impossibly deep and wide but I don’t care. I’ll be Evel Kneivel and I’ll ride a bicycle or motorcycle or jet-car over the gap and crash in a huge fireball that could be a raging inferno or could be her crushing blue eyes. Either way she’ll put out the fire, smother my smoldering wreck in her open palms, smoke trickling through her fingers, and I’ll be taken to the hospital and condemned to bed rest, so that I can recover and heal and try to jump the canyon again because this is what I do and this is what I will do until someday or somenight I’ll make the jump and land and will be welcomed with cheers and praise and most importantly an open heart that is really all I ever wanted to begin with.
Uhhh, yeah. What was the name of the wine I was drinking?
11.17.2008
Electricity
This part isn't true:
I think I want to have my heart broken. That way, I can always be falling in love. I think I’m addicted to that feeling you get when you think about someone you want. That electric rush, all excitement and desire and passion. And you want her, you want her so bad your heart beats irregularly and your blood becomes liquid electricity even though you’re just lying in bed. The brief moment of weightlessness before you fall back to Earth. All that matters is the quiet touch of her glistening lips and fingers drawn across her naked back. Legs interlocked and the faint smell of her hair that you use to tickle her slender neck. Every time you exhale you want to fill the empty space in your lungs with her scent, her breath. There is a hole in your chest and it creates a vacuum that draws in air and energy and if you don’t feel her skin on your skin your body will cave in on itself. The contrast of her dark hair on the white pillow case is most noticeable at night, when the only sound is the rustle of sheets as they rise and fall with each effortless breath she takes. Crisp autumn air pours through the cracked window and you can’t tell if your hairs are standing on end because of the cold or the electricity between bodies. She is on her side and the sheets rest at the summit of her hips, a single finger whispers lines of latitude up her meridians, following epicurean topography. I think about her clothes on the floor, how her jeans seemed to melt off her body, how her shirt slid over her head in one flawless motion, how her bra came off like turning a page in a book.
Another fragment of the novel. I need to find another word for "electric."
I think I want to have my heart broken. That way, I can always be falling in love. I think I’m addicted to that feeling you get when you think about someone you want. That electric rush, all excitement and desire and passion. And you want her, you want her so bad your heart beats irregularly and your blood becomes liquid electricity even though you’re just lying in bed. The brief moment of weightlessness before you fall back to Earth. All that matters is the quiet touch of her glistening lips and fingers drawn across her naked back. Legs interlocked and the faint smell of her hair that you use to tickle her slender neck. Every time you exhale you want to fill the empty space in your lungs with her scent, her breath. There is a hole in your chest and it creates a vacuum that draws in air and energy and if you don’t feel her skin on your skin your body will cave in on itself. The contrast of her dark hair on the white pillow case is most noticeable at night, when the only sound is the rustle of sheets as they rise and fall with each effortless breath she takes. Crisp autumn air pours through the cracked window and you can’t tell if your hairs are standing on end because of the cold or the electricity between bodies. She is on her side and the sheets rest at the summit of her hips, a single finger whispers lines of latitude up her meridians, following epicurean topography. I think about her clothes on the floor, how her jeans seemed to melt off her body, how her shirt slid over her head in one flawless motion, how her bra came off like turning a page in a book.
Another fragment of the novel. I need to find another word for "electric."
11.06.2008
Ricochet
This part is true:
Around five in the afternoon I decide to take a nap. I spread a blue fleece blanket over the speckled, gray couch apolstery and lay down. I don’t feel very tired, but I keep my eyes closed, knowing that eventually the sleepiness will come. It’s some time before it does. I settle into the comfortable feeling of being awake enough to know that I’m about to fall asleep. Then I hear an oscillating, high-pitched whine from outside my window. It doesn’t ever stop, but the volume fluctuates, indicating the source of the sound is moving. I come to the conclusion that a neighbor from across the cul-de-sac must have a remote controlled car. The noise it makes is very irritating, but I keep my eyes closed, holding out for payoff of sleep. Instead I am rewarded with a half-conscious memory of my childhood.
At some point between third and fifth grade I had an RC car. I think it was called Ricochet or something along those lines. The body of the car was very slim and the the tires were very thick, so that you could flip the car on either side and it would still drive. You could toss the car however you wanted and it would always land in a drivable orientation. I remember one hazy summer evening my neighbor and I walked across the street from our houses to our elementary school, both of us driving our Ricochets. He walked up the fire-escape staircase of the main building and tossed his car onto the roof of a connected building. He piloted his Ricochet off the roof. It landed on a sidewalk and he proceeded to drive it into the gravel playground.
A brief excerpt from the novel, currently called Episodes of Sunshine. To be clear, my intention is not to write a novel, but I must for class. What better way to fill up 40,000 words than vaguely fictionalizing everyday from the beginning of the semester to the end? I'm also inserting essays, stories, and poems into the novel, to take up space. Don't look for it at your local bookstore, it won't be there. But I do like this passage, for sentimental reasons.
Around five in the afternoon I decide to take a nap. I spread a blue fleece blanket over the speckled, gray couch apolstery and lay down. I don’t feel very tired, but I keep my eyes closed, knowing that eventually the sleepiness will come. It’s some time before it does. I settle into the comfortable feeling of being awake enough to know that I’m about to fall asleep. Then I hear an oscillating, high-pitched whine from outside my window. It doesn’t ever stop, but the volume fluctuates, indicating the source of the sound is moving. I come to the conclusion that a neighbor from across the cul-de-sac must have a remote controlled car. The noise it makes is very irritating, but I keep my eyes closed, holding out for payoff of sleep. Instead I am rewarded with a half-conscious memory of my childhood.
At some point between third and fifth grade I had an RC car. I think it was called Ricochet or something along those lines. The body of the car was very slim and the the tires were very thick, so that you could flip the car on either side and it would still drive. You could toss the car however you wanted and it would always land in a drivable orientation. I remember one hazy summer evening my neighbor and I walked across the street from our houses to our elementary school, both of us driving our Ricochets. He walked up the fire-escape staircase of the main building and tossed his car onto the roof of a connected building. He piloted his Ricochet off the roof. It landed on a sidewalk and he proceeded to drive it into the gravel playground.
A brief excerpt from the novel, currently called Episodes of Sunshine. To be clear, my intention is not to write a novel, but I must for class. What better way to fill up 40,000 words than vaguely fictionalizing everyday from the beginning of the semester to the end? I'm also inserting essays, stories, and poems into the novel, to take up space. Don't look for it at your local bookstore, it won't be there. But I do like this passage, for sentimental reasons.
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