Tuesday 29 March 2011

AURORAE - 'Hotel Novel' second chapter


Now I come to think of it I think this part of the story was written first. Different narrative mode, different characters, but same setting. This one's a bit all over the place, but nevertheless, here it is. There really only a tenuous sense of continuity going on at this point. Later chapters will probably be more focused, though I can't guarantee they'll have even the slightest bit to do with these two segments. Continuity be damned!

AURORAE

The year is waning. Here in the grass the pilgrims are waiting.
A warm night and the glow of distant galaxies. The hotel has shut up for the night. Everyone is out here on the small expanse of grass outside the hotel staff block, waiting for a visitation.
The time has come to trust the forecasted aurora borealis to guide their passage through the dark with dim yet colourful light. This may be Scotland; yet the lights did pass through this sky last night; and there is every chance they may do so again very soon.
Although on this night, the alien hues that yesterday cast spectral contours across the curtain containing the remnants of this world are going to be the ficklest of mistresses.
On this night, the ionosphere sleeps. Out in the void there is only a silent opaqueness, communicating the impenetrable and impossible violence of wide-open space. Out there surely are astronauts; human or inhuman: just floating around. The canvas of the darkening sky is deepest blue, inviting distance; togetherness and estrangement.
In act one, a man climbs up a tree and discovers he can’t get back down again very easily. In this we have the beginnings of something; a situation. There may also be a greater challenge.
That was the afternoon. Now that the sunlight has slipped away, the rest of the travellers lie on the grass with arms and legs akimbo, eyes fixed on the sky and heads together. Seven of them this time, apart from John the night porter who is now back on duty and is probably either cleaning the toilets, drunk or asleep by now.
The time is 11:11; a number signifying great mystical portent. Or nothing at all. The rest of us are awake and wait for the ghost colours to return; to haze the gloaming with transformative streaks.
In act two, it might be also be pertinent for someone to throw some rocks at the man up the tree. It is in this predicament that the central figure begins to learn some life lessons. This scenario, however, is not easily applicable to all situations.
Perhaps there is a repetition in this waiting to be blessed by the gentle caresses of the northern lights. Indeed, any conversation held in stellar shade between the Earth’s magnetic field and the present solar winds must feel like something that must have happened before. An ancient reinterpretation of some almost-forgotten creation myth, from days long eclipsed; the bears and hunters dancing across the chasm. Goya and Dali bare-knuckle fighting.
Perhaps, in the ritual of the colours subdividing, spiralling and crashing into pieces, there are subtle iterations of an ancestral truth to be divined. A secret music; hidden in the grooves of a record.
Perhaps a question will be asked; or an offer made, to be rejected or accepted. Or perhaps not.
Perhaps the birds read those colours that danced across the sky like illuminated Braille. Somewhere, in another corner of the world, emperor penguins might also have been watching the display, like small children held rapt by a firework display. A celebration of things past, and things yet to be.
Big L the dishwasher gets up from the grass; exhibiting an uncharacteristic level of excitement. Big L isn’t normally one for alarum or sudden movements; luckily for him, the front of the hotel is within a couple of minutes’ walk from here, and in plain sight, so running isn’t usually required in such a situation.
Big L waves his hands in front of his face in a pantomime of alarm. ‘Oh my god,‘ he announces. ‘Look at Javier!’
Babs is already up and looking by this point. She has been snuggled up in a duvet in the inappropriate setting of the outside with Anonymous Belgian Guy, and no-one’s quite sure what either of them are up to at all.
The lights might have drawn subversive messages that night; scrawls in neon graffiti describing acts arcane and unknown to humanity. Three entire busloads of German guests at the hotel came out of their rooms and gathered in the car park to watch; creating the impression that they were waiting patiently for some extraterrestrial mothership to arrive and lift them up and away from such a dreary locale, and away to some distant and foreign world.
‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ Babs says; eyes rapt in wonderment at the developing situation over by the front of the hotel.
‘Hang on…’ Big L runs a little bit away from the rest of them and over towards the hotel. A moment later he comes bounding back out of the gloom, an insane patina of mirth on his still-sweaty face.
‘Oh, you guys, this is insane. He’s wearing a balaclava! Don’t think it’s even got any eyeholes in it! I was right, man, he’s a terrorist!’
The impression you could have gleaned from these cascading visions of the previous night would perhaps only have been matched by the tagged sigils of renegade artists unknown in the abandoned areas of train stations; supernatural messages magicked discreetly into the corners of everyday life.
You don’t see this sort of thing in the villages though. You might see that sort of thing.


‘What are you saying?’
Czeslaw the angry Polish housekeeper is now up and at‘em. By this point in the story, he is already becoming known as the Angry Bed Man. He is bald with hairy nostrils, which are often more communicative than him. ‘He is doing what?’
‘Hiding round the side of the front entrance. Wearing a balaclava. I told you before, didn’t I? He’s Basque Liberation front. The Highlands branch!’
‘This is not true. He come from Madrid. That kind, always from Madrid.’
‘Chas, he is! that’s where he’s from!’
Waclaw wrinkles the many hairs in his nose. ‘I think, this is a nonsense. Is not terrorist. Is just strange. You know, Spanish, is always strange. In my country, we have saying - ’
‘Ah’m no interested in your sayings, Coleslaw! Look, you know Celine?’
‘Celine. She is from France, yes?’
‘Aye, Celine! Well, she said, he told her he was Basque liberation front, and she can speak about ten languages. So whatever one he speaks, she can understand him.’
‘Aye,’ Melinda the commis chef says. ‘She says he’s a total freak! Says he came up to her and just like announced, “you will be mine, yes?” And does this big leer, big grin, man!’
‘He’s gone round the side of the hotel.’ Big L continues. ‘Plus, he’s giggling, man. D’You hear him?’
That last night, it was a lot as if someone had been shaking the farthest-off parts of the universe until the forces that powered it broke, loosing thin shards of splintering galaxy to tumble untethered into the upper atmosphere of the planet. The Perseid meteor shower of a few years back was also a little like this; only a smidgeon less apocalyptic. No gods visit small highland villages; only meteor showers. And then, only by accident.
Heavenly portents. The time isn’t 11:11 any more. A silence descends, to be punctuated by a high-pitched cackling sound.
‘Fuckin’ hell!’ Babs cries out. ‘He sounds like an Ewok!’
‘Is he stoned?’ Melinda whispers.
‘No, dinnae think so,’ Big L counters, ‘think he’s just being Javier, man. Cannae speak English, disnae want tae speak English, disnae stop acting like a fucking nutcase any time. Melinda, remember that time he threatened you with a knife?
‘Aye, that was brilliant, man!’ Melinda laughs. ‘He just kept shouting out, SANDWICH!’
‘Aye, sandwich. Only word he knows.’
By now, Czeslaw - or Chas, or Coleslaw, or whatever he‘s actually called - is looking decidedly pensive.
‘But what is this, in balaclava? He is doing what? Is no one in hotel! Is nothing there!’
‘Barry the entertainer!’ Big L is by this point in paroxysms of excitement. ‘He’s there! He’s out the front of the hotel. He’ll be putting his gear away? His amps, and that? Mind, he plays on Monday nights. You know? Singer? For the guests? Strummy guitar-y? You know, the singy songy? You have guitar in Poland, yes?’
Big L often goes into baby-talk when attempting to reason with Czeslaw. Czeslaw is not someone for whom the phrase ‘understanding’ was invented. He possesses a philosophic bent that borders on the baffling - whatever subject you might raise with him in conversation almost always inevitably concludes with him giving you a long lecture on the types of potato soup he and his family apparently consume with great enthusiasm back in Poland. I refuse to believe that everyone in Poland is as myopically obsessed with potatoes - or soup - as Czeslaw is.
‘So what’s Javier doing exactly?’
Melinda is uninterested. She has be up at about half-five in the morning, so this perhaps is understandable.
‘I think he’s going to go and jump Barry. Scare him, likes. Barry’ll be fucking frightened, man. He’s no used to Spanish terrorists leapin’ out at him at this time of night.’
‘Don’t think anyone still up in the hotel,’ Babs murmurs; head now back beneath the grassy duvet with Anonymous Belgian Guy. ‘Bar’s been dead since nine. Early depart in the morning, so all the oldies went off to bed early. Think Barry was playing mostly to staff, and that Joanna on the bar.’
‘She’s weird, man.’ Big L frowns. ‘Her and that other Russian bird. Did you see the suitcases she brought with her?
Aye, all clothes,’ Melinda says, in caustic dismissive mode. ‘Then, her and that other one spent the entire afternoon playing dress-up in the room. Just screeching and laughing all the time. Getting thirsels ready for the local fishermen the night, I’ll wager. Mair nutcases.’
‘Are you sure they’re not fake Russian lesbians?’ Big L asks; sounding cautiously optimistic.
‘They cannae be!’ Melinda shouts back. ‘They’re from Slovakia! That disnae count. It’s no even IN Russia. You cannae be fake Russian lesbians and come from Slovakia. That’s a whole different thing.’
‘Aye, Slovakia is definitely cheating.’
‘That wee bell-end Bozek, you think he’s their pimp?’
‘Got to be. He thinks he’s the king, that one. Wearing that wee waistcoat man, did you see it? Comes into the restaurant dressed like he’s going into a ballroom. I wis half expecting him to be doing the bolero!’
‘Czeslaw now rouses himself from the grass; with a macho Polish grunt that draws everyone’s attention. ‘You are talking, but come! We must see. This Madrid man. We go, come! I tell you, is no terrorist! You Scottish, I think you are crazy.’
The rest of them get up and run off in the direction of the hotel; eager to witness any potential comedy terrorist atrocity perpetuated by a very small Spanish man of indeterminate motivation, in a balaclava, at quarter past eleven on a long and still-Scottish night.
You stay where you are.


Moments or hours pass. The sky turns, and no lights come. An offer must be made at some point.
The girl leans over you as you’re lying on the grass. It’s still light enough that you can make out some of her features; a slyly curling smirk that, when swathed in darkness, gives off an impression of being rather more accepting than condemning. Dusk has kinder words to speak than dawn; it is tired and ready to go to sleep. Whereas dawn blinks agitated into the morning light, regretting the loss of the night just passed.
‘See you? I recognize you.’ she says.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No, I know you. You’ve been here before.’
‘Er, I don‘t think so.’
‘No, I definitely remember you. Last season. I saw you going up the hill once. You must remember that.’
There is also often a hill; that, if mentioned once, must be climbed to the top and returned from.
Electrons and protons colliding with atoms and molecules. Sometimes in these conditions, strange colours can occur; colours on no spectrum the human eye can ever detect; or see.
In act three, it is sometimes necessary to get the man down from the tree; or the hill. Only then can he be seen to have accomplished something great.
‘You’ve been here before.’
I haven’t.
But someone has.

THE STRANGE NOISE OF TURBULENCE IN THE SEA - a novel segment


Okay, so in the wake of one novel here comes a bit of another. The only difference in this instance is that this one isn't 100 percent finished. In fact, this bit here is really the only bit of it that is. The idea is that I'm going to try and write new lumps of this every day and let it evolve in a more broken-up, non-linear way. This chapter is surprisingly linear, so hopefully makes perfect sense on its own. It may equally work as a short story. It's either going to be called 'The Strange Noise Of Turbulence In The Sea' or 'Hotel Novel.' Okay, that last one is only a floating nebulous working title. Like you couldn't guess that yourself...

Neil went to let himself into the flat but found the front door locked. He was a bit pissed off seeing as how he had left the hotel twenty-odd minutes ago only now to discover there was no-one in. And, seeing as how there were three people living there with only two keys allocated to them - an impenetrable piece of hotel politics he had yet to fathom - it was necessary to go all the way back to the hotel in order to find Donny and get a key off of him. This meant another dull march through the expected vistas of the village.
Going down the front and along the high street - such as it was - Neil spotted old Henry coming out of the newsagent. The doddering old bastard was temporarily curtailed in his activities by some American tourists who, while also coming out of the newsagents, decided to do that typical American tourist thing of stopping dead where they were to take in the view and - being vaguely obese as some Americans often were - get in everybody’s way.
Old Henry became trapped like a tragic woodlouse somewhere between the Americans, the postcard stand and some further individuals coming out of the shop. He put his head down and waited patiently for something to happen.
Nothing happened. The tourists seemed to be enraptured by the mountainous sight to be seen on such a clear and balmy day out across the water.
‘Scuse me pal,’ a voice familiar to Neil sounded from back in the shop. ’Would y’mind movin yir erse a wee bit so the rest ay us can get oot ay here? Ah ken it’s a village an aw, but no all ay us are oan holiday, y’ken!’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, madam.’ the largest and most ebullient of the Americans responded. ‘I am truly sorry. I was just admiring that magnificent view out there across the bay!’
‘It’s no a bay,’ old Henry announced, beginning to move his small yet lumbering frame back into action. ‘It’s a fuckin’ pier. Get yir facts straight.’
Grinning like a loon at the local drama, the lead American and his presumed brood backed off to allow the others passage. ‘Boy, you sure do got some colourful characters here!’ the American said to the woman coming out of the shop, as old Henry turned and made a beeline for the pub, his usual port of call on an afternoon.
Marian emerged from the shop doorway. She was fiddling with her purse and grimacing into the light. ‘Aye, an a bet you’ve no been doon the Captain’s Arms at closing time yet either,’ she barked at the tourists. ‘Gie that a go the night, pal, an you’ll see characters so colourful you’ll wish ye were colourblind.’
The Americans chortled at Marian’s turn of phrase and slowly began to drift off in the direction of the nearest tartan-adorned gift-shop. Thankfully for them, there was one immediately next to the newsagent, so they didn’t have to go far. Such are the advantages of villages.
All the time this eventful non-event was going on, in Neil’s head there was still the idea of her; Jasmine-something. As she had been that night. The girl he had talked to for two hours, yet so foolishly had failed to confirm either her name, her email, or a whole lot else.
This had of course been the Captain’s Arms. Usually the haunt of ugly old shites like Henry, hotel flotsam, sloshed fishermen and the legendary gang of glammed-up harpies from the supermarket. On this rare night, Neil had found himself at first far too bored to even progress on to a second pint. Unperturbed by the initially sombre atmosphere, Donny managed to work his way through about seven beers before last orders; and on the momentous occasion of what the DJ suspiciously referred to as ‘disco-time’ lurching into the lounge area at about nine, Donny had taken this as a sign for him to start slow-dancing with the pub’s golden retriever; fairly atypical behaviour even for him. Somehow, Monday night had turned into Funday night.
Jasmine. Although of course that hadn’t even really been her name. Might it have been Jessamine? Was that even a name?
She had been perched next to him at the right-hand side of the bar; by far the best place from whence to observe the sordid occurrences involving disco-time, and the dancing and karaoke spectaculars that regularly went on of a night. What she had been doing there at all was something of a mystery to Neil; she had been on her own - attractive, demure, impeccably dressed and unfailingly polite - despite being surrounded, to an almost meancing extent, by the cream of Scotland’s worst alcoholic degenerates. Despite all of this, and despite Neil’s usual self-imagined lack of tact and charisma, they had talked.
He had found out after a time that she was from some unpronounceable suburb of Paris. She also knew an unbelievably vast amount about movies - although these had mainly all been French movies, so such a potential deal-clincher had left Neil a little bit lost on many points; although, reassuringly, they did come to agree after a fashion that most movies were ultimately a bit crap, and so rarely reflected anything that ever happened in the real world. She also kept touching his shoulder affectionately and grabbing onto his wrist while she laughed; not something Neil was used to by any stretch, but also still no guarantee of anything other than that she was European, and perhaps just a little more tactile than the average village girls who weren’t always exceptionally drunk. Neil expected more people would interrupt them, or stare and make snide remarks, but weirdly this never happened for those too-short two hours. Then closing time had rolled around and they had gone their separate ways; his mystery woman declaring she would be ‘around’ for a few more weeks - but despite having had hardly anything to drink, Neil struggled to recall the exact details of her location and placement in the village as anything other than frustratingly vague.
But all this would surely come to nothing. Knowing Neil’s usual luck, the girl would not turn out to be any kind of a local. The locals were always the ugly and psychologically unbalanced ones - hence their inevitably electing to come to the village in the first instance, get jobs in the supermarket and stay for indefinite years on end. Neil often wondered if any of the locals had ever not been ugly and psychologically unbalanced; or if such a constitution was perhaps something they were duty-bound to pick up on the way in; like some sort of area-specific witches’ curse.



Neil tried to focus his mind on the short journey ahead to the hotel and back to the flat, but got distracted by Marian surging out of the newsagents. She gave Neil a brusque nod.
‘Awright, Neil. How’d you go this morning? It wis the restaurant you were in?’
‘Aye. No that bad, all things considering.’ Neil answered, briefly reviewing the morning’s exciting goings-on. ‘Went quite smoothly. Pretty much done by eight. Did get some miserable bastards moaning about the toast again though.’
Marian gave a conspiratorial smirk. ‘Table twenty-two?’
‘Aye. You got it.’
‘Been here aw week. Typical soor-faced cunts. Wurnae happy aboot the steak last night either. Some people jist go oan holiday tae complain. Dinnae have tae tell you that, though, Neil. You’re a seasoned veteran.’
Neil took the remark as a compliment; of what sort he was not sure. ‘Aye. I suppose so, Marian. Are you on the night?’
Marian spread her hands in supplication. When am ah no? But is anybody gonnae gie me a night off? Never. Isnae in His list o’ immediate priorities. I tell you, Neil, Ah’ve jist aboot had it wi’ this place! Anyway, ah’m wasting your break-time, I’ll see you later. Ah’m off tae see what Hubby wants, for this stupid party thing. Mair responsibilities…’
Marian disappeared up the high street at her typical rushed pace. Realising he had become distracted in his progress back to the hotel, Neil resumed his normal route down the high street, up the dingy back-alley leading across the park, past the leisure centre and back to the hotel. There were no further dramas on the route; unless you counted the old drunk standing next to the mobile cinema and swaying, with a look of fixed concentration on his face; as if he was seeing some ghost-movie projected out of the van and onto his eyes alone.
Neil got to the hotel, slipped in the back door and went down several dreary hallways lit by questionably dim bulbs until he reached the back of the main kitchen.
Inside and at the dishwash area, Donny was bent drastically over the big back sink where he seemed to be attempting to give the plug-hole some form of brutal sexual attention it certainly had not asked for. The hot tap was on full burst and steam billowed everywhere.
‘Donny man, what the hell are you doing in there?’
Donny’s sweat-flecked brow emerged stressed from the sink. ‘This fucker’s bunged again! I telt that Vladimir no tae pour oil doon it, but he disnae hear you!
‘Have you got the plunger?’
‘Bugger that, Neil, I’m usin’ ma fingers. Always best that way.’
‘That’s what you tell all the girls, though!’
‘Aye, ye ken that’s the truth. Never mind that though, what aboot you and that Belgian bird?’
Neil felt a pang of nostalgia; even though it had been only two hours, three nights ago. He had barely been thinking about anything else since.
‘She wisnae Belgian, Donny. That was the other one. Mind? The one who looked a bit like Amy Winehouse?’
‘Oh aye, ah mind - the minger!’
‘She wisnae a minger, Donny. Your understanding of women classifies them into two distinct camps, neither of which are especially accurate.’
‘Aye. Mingers and swingers!’ He shook his head and boggled his eyes by way of explanation. ‘There’s nae need for any other form of classification! If they’re mingers, you gie them a wide berth! If they’re swingers, though…’ Donny made a disturbing and perhaps inappropriate fist which he proceeded to pump in a manner Charles Atlas might have considered employing had he, at some point in his no-doubt estimable life, been a over-excitable Glaswegian ned washing dishes in a highland hotel kitchen.
‘Then, WHA-HEEYY!’ Donny continued, confirming the maths of his equation with a heroic and now double-fisted pose. ‘Oaf ya go! Mingers oot, swingers in! Come OOONN!!! I telt ya, Neil, learn the rules! Git them in yir noggin! They’ll set you in gid stead fir the rest ay yir miserable, self-pityin’ life. Huv ya no phoned her yet?’
Neil produced a huffy snort of irritation. ‘Look, I huvnae got time for your weird mind, Donny. I need the keys.’
Donny broke from his bodybuilding poses to pull a questioning frown. ‘Is Graham no in?’
‘Naw, he isnae! Mind he went away the other night? Off to Dingwall to see a man about a car? Don’t think he kens where he’s going half the time. Took his key with him. Come on, I cannae hang around here on my off-day, watching you getting creative with your fingers.’
Donny now looked slightly disappointed. He peered back into the still-steaming sink unit.
‘Aw look, man,’ he declared, excited. ‘It’s goin’ doon the plughole. At last… But aw this weird slime’s comin’ oot an aw. Now that is whit ah wid call minging.’
A threatening lump of a heap with wild ginger hair and an expression that suggested consistent and sustained periods of heavy drug use leaned out of through the arch that led into the main part of the kitchen. ‘Haw, fannybaws! Stop arsing aboot wi’ that sink and wash some pots ya skiving’ bastard!’
This was Mark the head chef; whose appearance and general demeanour was that of a wine-starved derelict but who in all actuality could sometimes be quite a decent bloke. Although only sometimes.
‘As for yir mysterious slime there,’ Mark continued, gazing down at his underling on sink duty, ‘That’ll be that Vladimir. He’s been spunking his freaky Polish load in there when nobody’s been lookin. I myself reserve ma ain spunk fur the main course. Or a wee bit o’ garnish fur the starters. Nuthin like a wee bit o’ extra special bonus flavourin’ fur those miserable English bastards.’
‘My dad’s English, Mark.’ Neil deadpanned, reluctantly joining in on the hilarity. ‘I’ll have you arrested for bigotry.’
‘And what in hell’s name are you doing here, Neil?’ Mark continued. ‘Have you come to witness the world’s fastest pot-monkey break his own record of only wan pot washed per hour? The people fae the Guinness Book ae Records are comin’ doon here soon wi’ thir stopwatches, Donny, ma boy, so you’d better get a shifty oan, ya big speed-machine, ye!’
Looking browbeaten by his boss’s overbearing verbal assault, Donny pulled his key from his pocket, chucked it to Neil and bent back over the sink, his attention gone from making bizarre wrestling poses and back to the far-more-persuasive lumps of bacon burned so lovingly onto several metal trays by the new breakfast chef.
There was a moment’s quiet punctuated only by the incessant drone of the extractor fans. Still leaning into the pot-wash area, Mark gave Neil a cheeky thumbs-up, before skelping the bent-over Donny on the arse with one of his ever-present kitchen cloths.
Donny’s reaction sent several washed trays clattering onto the floor. He spun around in a combination of alarm and confusion, his face now completely red.
‘Fuck’s sake, man! That’s no a joke! That wis painful! Away back tae yir paperwork, ya fuckin’ bully!’
Mark cackled like a oversized camp schoolboy. ‘Oh, you love it, big boy! I’d ask you to chase me at this point, but that widnae be very responsible o’ me in a kitchen, noo, wid it? Health and safety, an aw that.’
Sighing a sigh of despair turned all the way up to eleven, Neil glowered at the cavorting pair of lunatics in their steamy cavern of ineptitude for a few more seconds before turning and leaving.
Maybe, if I see her again, he thought, as he made his way back down the ill-lit staff corridor that lead out of the hotel and back into so-temporary freedom, I could introduce her to my friends.
Then again, I could always just punch her, scream at her and vomit in her face. That’d probably put me in with a better chance. Round here, that’s first base. Arse-skelping is only second.

Monday 28 March 2011

THE END OF ALL THERE IS - Chapter Two

Okay, I've changed my mind.

There won't be any in-depth, pretentious self-flagellating attempts by me here to try and justify my work, not just yet. Cos I figure if anyone is reading this, then it'd be better if they just read the stuff and decide for themselves whether it has any merit or not.

With that in mind, here be chapter two of 'The End Of All There Is' which I think is going to be the title its stuck with for now. The plan is to do an audio version of it in coming months (unless it goes and gets published - watch this space very slowly), so in the meantime you lucky people can have an exclusive peep into the tumultous universe contained within. Except it'll probably be more fun to listen to the audio cos I'll be doing all voices and that.

Unless you can't stand the idea of listening to a stranger tell you a very long and weird story about an coming apocalypse that doesn't ever really happen (spoiler alert in relation to title).

nb - I'll probably only do the first two chapters for now. Different and newer stuff is waiting up just around the bend. Plus, it has been scientifically proven by several accredited bodies that too much of my novel at one time can threaten the very fabric of the internet. And let's face it, no-one wants their fabric threatened. Not even for a moment. Cos if that happens, you lose your connection and all your clothes fall off. Which is not a pretty sight for anyone, no matter who or where they are.

Anyway. Lock and load!

THE END OF ALL THERE IS

CHAPTER TWO: CODIFIED
Without wishing to dwell on her cut hand or the sounds upstairs any longer, the girl in Cluskey Hall known as Saira abandoned the blank security window and stepped unsteadily away from it, trying to think where to run.
Up the stairs? To the common room, upstairs? It
is upstairs it
is waiting for me it called my name I heard
Where could she even hope to hide in the common room? It was empty - there wasn't a thing in it. Just chairs: chairs, and nothing else.
Where could she hide there? It knew everywhere. Knew every point in the building. Knew every corner of every single room. It knew her.
She wasn't getting out and she knew it. She was cannon fodder for them; for what they knew. For what they would do. For what it would do.
No I won't think like that I won't think that is the way its supposed to be
(it is)
She hesitated on her feet; only silence. She had thought -
She was only wearing her pyjamas. Why was she only wearing her pyjamas? Whose bright idea had that been?
I am only eighteen, Saira thought deliberately: but I am in this place and it is dark and there is no one around and it is coming to get me and it is so very cold and I am wearing pyjamas I didn't wear pyjamas last year it was cold so cold ohgod
Shaking, she ran back to the building's front doors. Without thinking, she rammed them with her scant shoulder; feeling another smart of pain that under the circumstances Saira didn't feel the need to regard as anything other than a very minor concern.
The doors didn't budge.
They were only glass with wooden frames. Small things. Why wouldn't they yield?
Coherence. Sanity
And it was still dark outside. What was the time, anyway? What was the time?
Someone...
had brought her.
Brought her back. Back. To here.
Here.
Who had brought her back? What in God's name
don't take his name in vain he won't help you
was she doing?
She had been at home. At home. In Newcastle, for chrissakes!
Okay. Right, okay. Sane. Let's get a grip on ourselves here, she thought quickly, thinking, why ourselves?
There were six floors. No, no - eight. Shit, no; nine. Nine. Six floors for the students. First floor, union offices, and down here, the foyer, the lecture hall: the canteen, the shop, security: all here still. All dark; all hidden.
And on the ninth floor, Dr. Takahashi.
Takahashi. Was he still here?
She could get to him. He could -
No; he couldn't. She would have to go up; it wouldn't matter anyway. Wouldn't make any difference.
No one had liked him. Saira hadn't liked him, and Saira liked everybody. Saira was a good girl. There had been stories.
It
Could be here, she reasoned feverishly, hugging herself and her numb shoulders: down here: Up there. On any floor: any floor. It can go anywhere.
on any floor on any floor
Oh gOD
Saira ran over to the other end of the entrance foyer and into the main part of the hall. The place looked exactly the same as it had last year; exactly as she remembered it.
Last year. Was it really only last year? Why don't they change it? Why do things never
Saira looked around - thinking of all the girls on the sixth floor from Freshers Week, and beyond. Karen and Carol: Nadja and Jess. And Stace. And Elizabeth II. Lizzy the Second.
And Fereda - always. Ferret to her enemies. Best mates.
For always.
Not a nightmare: not. Knew it was all real from the outset. All the fairies came and told me. Said it was cyclical: a closed ring. Like a movie.
understand
The lights stayed dim. Low enough for non-existent guards to see criminals by: low enough for general reasons of security, of law; but not bright enough for anyone to be able to see her.
remember what's important
Never mind, Saira thought: at least I can see everything. Where are you, Fee? What happened with that bloke? Fee?
The wide staircase with the pitted stone on the steps waited. The lecture hall over to the left waited. A sign indicating the way to the canteen over on the right waited. The balcony going up and round to the union offices above waited.
Fee, it's dark. It's dark and I don't know why it should be this way I didn't ask for this Fee I didn't ask and it's all the same
Saira looked at the decor. At the chipped paintwork; at the posters on the walls.
The same. It's dark, it's different, but it's all the same. Fereda
Fereda didn't answer: nor did any of the other girls. Instead of trying to do anything, the girl called Saira stood there in the foyer of the building called Cluskey Hall: with a sore hand, a sore foot, and a fuzzy head; trying not to think of the thing upstairs; trying not to think of something to do.
Anywhere.
Anywhere. Oh God protect me.
ANYWHERE, the beast in the walls of Cluskey Hall thought, coiling and uncoiling, in its nest of vipers; and of stone.
In the shack alone at the edge of the woods, Gregory Hunter opened his ringed eyes and looked at the back of the envelope.
His endeavours had again yielded a succession of fruitless non-words. For a few more moments, Gregory persevered in searching the skein of lines; desperate in the hope that something approaching empirical evidence might venture itself forth and assist him.
Vellodol... Gregory considered; momentarily noticing something decipherable. Seeks - vellodol?
Daffodil. That makes me think... looks for... daffodils?
Gregory clenched his fists at the desk and shouted at no one. 'Daffodils have fucking nothing to do with this! You useless piece of...'
Useless. He crumpled the paper up and threw it away.
Someone had to be saved and something had to be found. That much Gregory was sure of; the information was scant, but the vision had been momentous enough to convince Gregory that tonight was the night that something had to be done. And Gregory was fairly certain that this something involved him, others, and the girl called Saira.
On the way to this, it had been necessary to set it out, Gregory remembered; the tactics and manoeuvres lost and won: everything he had learned so far: everything they had learned together. All the stuff about icebergs and pyramids; and, of course, about mountains and molehills. About how big the enemy was; how large the opposition were, and how, in the cut and thrust of it all, it was never really all that clear cut.
It had been necessary. And they had done it; implemented it. All the necessary steps had been taken; all the paths to the chosen goal plotted.
And now...
Useless. An impasse.
But what was this, struggling to focus, swimming around in his mind? Did it actually make sense? Did it gel? Hold together?
Is it even a word?
Outside of the hut the wind muttered dryly, whispering mantras and gathering leaves; dumping them down: picking them up again.
Three girls. Three words?
Was it like a boat? If he threw it in the ocean, and left it there to fend for itself, would it float? Or would it sink?
Or isn't it real at all?
He paused in mid-thought, stared temporarily at the ceiling with all of its multifarious tiny cracks and holes that were so very good at letting the rain in, and then banged his head against the desk. He could feel the tiredness closing in: coming down.
There was nothing he could do. Nothing.
There is still time. Even without me there is still time.
Words.
Three words.
I know it's three - it's always bloody three, isn't it? A triumvirate. Trinity. Fathersonholyghost.
He was going to have to sleep; as ever, there was not a thing he could do about it. For no discernible reason other than that it might loosen up some of the unoiled cogs in his head, Gregory banged his brow on the desk one final, half-hearted time.
They might do it, he wondered. If they still can.
Christ; what am I thinking? - don't even know where they live now. Never even really seen one - Not really. Who's to say they even actually exist at all? All we've gots subjective. Circumstantial. Balls in the sky. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Saira...
He reached for the lamp and switched it off before laying his head down on the desk; just a little left of where the backwards swastika was scratched into the wood.
Children, he mused, beginning to drift comfortably off into some parallel world. Never knew what they were trying to invoke.
Can't rely on them. Can't. It's useless. It's me. Just me
Some difficult-to-quantify moments went by. Gregory's head remained on the desk, the heat of the lamp warming his rapidly widening bald patch.
Cannot let her die
She must not die; she must be saved
She cannot be saved
Only it can be saved and then she will go on
One for all. All for the price of one. Buy one get all free
Three words
Three
How many?
How many
They had got in. Got in
Like putting a knot in a baby's umbilical cord right in the womb so nothing comes out. Don't kid yourself, Hunter; it's all totally bloody over if we don't save her.
Three
One two three
Somewhere In the distance an owl hooted: eager for answers, or news of any kind. Waiting for owl news; spoken in an owl language.
anywhere oh god protect me fereda
Gregory leapt up and balanced the lamp. It fell to the floor with a thump, landing on a pile of papers. Ignoring it, Gregory spun drunkenly around, gazing off into a specifically envisaged nowhere lying somewhere in the darkness.
'Saira?' he called. 'Saira?'
Gregory stood as still as he could. No response came. A despondent silence tickled noisily at his ears.
'Saira,' he said, not wanting to move; addressing the dark walls quietly in an owl-voice. 'If you're there - tell me. Tell me what it is. Is it three words? Oh, Saira, my love, please just tell me! Help me to help you.'
Nothing happened. The hut creaked out boredom beneath his feet. The walls went pop.
As if on cue, a bush rustled bushily outside.
Gregory raised his head, cocked it, listened again and then discounted the noise. He returned his attentions to the empty air.
No time left, he thought, feeling a familiar dread weight descend slowly onto the back of his mind and fall gradually down like an indiscriminate veil. No time at all.
Oh fuck. I can't remember. She's going to fucking die and it's going to go and I can't fucking
remember
Saira
There was still time, he thought drowsily, swaying dizzily where he stood. Before they switched him off.
There was always time - a tomorrow. Gregory knew that it was simply a matter of reminding oneself on an hourly basis that this was actually still the case; that, and that there was always more to come.
More. But different. Without her, so, so different. Come on. Fucking
Come
ON
A further noise distracted him from his desperate incantations.
The bushes.
Outside the shack? Rustling: loudly.
Someone?
One of...
It was too late. Too late, surely, even for one of...
They can't have...
The noises came again - only this time louder, and significantly closer.
Bushes rustling; definitely bushes. And bushes don't rustle unless there's someone in them, Gregory thought slyly, grimly pushing the sluggishness in his brain aside and going ever so noiselessly over to the door.
Saira glanced around, not really thinking, not really considering. Something. Heavy. Smash the doors. Come on, come ON
But then, of course, there was
(the only vase is made of gold my love)
The phones!
She jogged around a corner; yes - they were still there, up on the wall. Saira snatched at the nearest receiver but then stopped herself - realising.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this? she thought crazily; insane bells going off in her head. Is this supposed to break it? It's a phone - a fucking phone. Oh God oh shit
Phone the Police, a quiet voice said, rising clearly out of the mud in her head: Simple, dumbass: the cops are the best option. They deal with whacked-out shit like this rather more often than you'd care to think. Don't you know how many call-outs the local station gets in a night just for chicks stuck in towerblocks? What a silly girl you are, Saira; you never listen. What would darling Trevor think? Come to think of it, what would your father
999, Saira thought - at last feeling realistic. Free call. Easy. Easy. Thank God.
She looked behind her. Up the stairwell: all around.
Still not coming: still not coming. Thank God. Thankgod nineninenine
Saira pressed the receiver to her ear and jabbed the numbers in. There was a dialling tone, and the familiar sound of the connection being made: the little bips.
Thank you, she enunciated to herself: Thank you so very much come on
god
He wont save you, you know, the Quiet Voice said; sparkling with unexpected peacefulness in Sairas head. He's a total dipshit. Don't ask for him. Don't count on him. He's ex-directory. Doesn't even know where he is half of the time.
Yes. He will, Saira replied noncommittally to the air. In her other ear, the bips continued to bip. No one was around. A poster on the wall said Lion Dance.
No he fucking won't, girl, the Quiet Voice whispered; seeming to emanate down the line and come out through the receiver.
Are you quite sure any of this is even real?
The line went dead. Somewhere above her on the first floor there was a crash; the sound of someone tearing at corrugated iron. Feeling her stomach turn over and collapse in on itself, Saira dropped the receiver, noticing with only the faintest amount of surprise that the noise the thing upstairs was making sounded exactly the same as it had done in her dreams.
The bicycle man the bicycle man oh God protect me, Saira thought; neither meaning nor believing her plea.
GOD PROTECT YOU, the beast that lived in the walls of Cluskey Hall thought, and slid noiselessly through impermeable stone and into some heating pipes; not making a sound: not a sound.

THE END OF ALL THERE IS - Chapter One

Right then. So here is the first chapter from my first novel...

I was about to drop in the title there, but it has changed and mutated so many times in the last few years that I'm still slightly unsure.

The title for now - and it will probably remain so unless the novel I'm writing now steals this title back off of it, seeing as it had said title first (it's a long story) is...

'Last Chance To Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled'

The title prior to that, for a longish time, was -

'The End Of All There Is'

I may wait and see if I manage to get any comments on this, but I quite fancy writing up a breakdown / analysis of the whole thing, chapter by chapter, to see whether it actually does still work on some level. This book has been very important to me over the years, and is the first part of a trilogy. Volume Two is written but originally was part of the first book, and the aberrant threads were edited out for reasons of sanity, seeing as how it was starting to turn into some demented vision of Stephen King rewriting Clive Barker re-imagining Dune and Lord Of The Rings at the same time, while listening to Swedish death metal, on DRUGS (because we're at the stage now where drugs might be required to read it, never mind write it).

Anyway. Here is the start of it. An in-depth explanation and show notes might follow (I believe you're supposed to do that sort of thing 'after the jump' but I fear my energy levels have dropped to such a state that I can just about manage moving my fingers over the keyboard and not a whole lot else).

So here goes. If you're reading this blog backwards from the far future, you will surely have ploughed through the whole thing already and won't need spoiler alerts. As you know, they all die in the end.

ONLY KIDDING! They don't.

OR DO THEY????

THE END OF ALL THERE IS

CHAPTER ONE: IN MEDIA RES

Right in the middle of it and with fists bloodied, her breaths now coming in hyperventilated gasps, the girl called Saira banged on the window of the security lodge in the foyer of the student hall. No one came.

Sairas blows punctuated an iced-over silence. There was no immediate response. Her knocking echoed out through the foyer before bouncing stupidly back at her. No one came.

The dim security light that gently permeated the gloom wasnt calming. Saira looked around at the various transfigurations of darkness taking place: at the orange-floored foyer turned sickly shiny in night time glow; at the staircase off beyond the union shop doors, twisting mystically off into nowhere; and at the glass-fronted display on the opposite wall, showing the principal members of the union. Their faces grinned unnaturally out at her in lurid colours; paintings on the walls of a haunted house.

That thing's coming. It's coming. I know it

The thing upstairs in Cluskey Hall that had the voice of an air-crash called out. As if to intentionally echo it, something in Saira's own throat gave up and she whimpered again. This time forgetting everything; voices in her head going, it's gone: It's all over, I'm not getting out of this; I'm not.

Another empty silence followed.

HELLO? Saira cried. IS ANYONE HERE? HELLO??

Feeling as if she had been stood in the deserted foyer for quite some time when in all actuality it had probably only been a matter of minutes, Saira found herself becoming unsure about whether or not the noises coming out of her mouth could really help proceedings in any way; or whether or not they really had anything at all to do with her anymore. You've got such a happy voice, Trev had said, that night out on the beach: Saira briefly tried to picture herself as she was now and wondered just what beloved Trev would think of her were he to see her at this very moment; what he would do when he heard her squawking: when he saw her staggering around in the dark. You've got such a happy voice, Trev had said, in between the gasps and the uncontrollable howls: Such a happy voice in the middle of it.

She hit the security window again. Behind it there was a desk, a chair, and a monitor.

There was someone in. There had to be someone in.

She looked behind her. Around her. Nothing.

No one. Why isn't there anyone

Saira banged the window again, readily expecting to see a blue-clad and kindly security guard appear and offer to unlock the doors. Yes, dear: You can go - no reason for you to be here; not at this time of night. After all, what are you doing in here? You shouldn't be here you've got such a happy voice

who's idea of a jumped up practical joke was this

The lights flickered. No guard came.

The thing upstairs called again; disembodied killings in a wind-tunnel. As if removed from her body, Saira's throat tried to produce a scream and, as if to spite whatever noise she had intended to make, nothing but a tight dry rasp came out. No one will come, she thought: no one will come, and it will find me. Get me.

The foyer of the building and the area around the abandoned security lodge continued to look at her morosely, saying: We cannot help you; we are only inanimate: no one gave us brains to help with.

Saira began to sob uncontrollably, her breath becoming ragged and stupid.

'Help me... someone. Please...'

No one is coming. Nothing is coming. Except for it; except for it. Oh God ohgod

The girl called Saira stood in the entrance foyer of the building known as Cluskey Hall. Around her, the dire luminescence of the overhead lights flickered, and then flickered again; seemingly having nothing better to do with their time that be pale and dimly useless.

KNOW YOU, thought the beast of Cluskey Hall, as it moved undetected in the bowels of the building. A night serpent coiling and uncoiling: waiting for food; waiting for daylight. Waiting for eternity; or orders.

Alone in the shack at the edge of the woods, his lamp casting uncertain light across the scuffed and heavily graffitied school desk he had stolen from a skip eight years ago and to this date had neglected to replace, Gregory Hunter closed his eyes, picked up a blunt red pencil and began to write.

Some words came. He wasn't sure what they meant, but scrawled them down anyway. After a few moments of scribbling he stopped, opened his eyes, and looked as open-mindedly as he could at the foremost sheet of A4 paper.

Gibberish -

He had thought so. Just gibberish; the nonsense in his head. Gregory sighed and put the pencil down.

I've failed, Saira, he mulled. You can hardly even say I've tried, though, can you? The Gregmaster's had it. Fucked it up again.

He threw the pencil woodily against the wall. It bounced and fell down.

Gregory scratched his untidy beard and again tried doggedly to concentrate, the back of his head aching with an unexpected tiredness.

One word?

Or was it two?

Come on you stupid old fuckwit. Visualize. Write it down

Grabbing another pencil from the rapidly-emptying holder in front of him, Gregory closed his eyes, pressed the implement to the paper and begun again.

A few moments later he opened his eyes and looked down.

Blind incoherence scattered its way across the page; the work of the eyeless. Was this the fifteenth attempt? Had he even been counting?

The pencil in his hand became the sixteenth to hit the wall. Gregory tugged at his beard before banging his head on the desk, as if trying to extract a misplaced nugget of sensibility that had become wedged there, trapped in some lost corner of his synapses.

Once again, he screwed his eyes shut. Images of nothingness came: desolation and all the things in the past. Sea shanties.

Two words? Three? To do with... transference...? No. Not if I start with

He could see the girls now; the three of them. Standing there.

The plains. The desert calmly static without water; the world with the acid skies.

variations on a theme

everything that is in the future is where we are going

Not girls, really, he stopped to note - they were practically women now. Once again he had forgotten.

Time flows quickly, he thought: so quickly. Only so long left to go. Only so long.

This is like me at school. Always running out of time. And that old school didn't do me a hell of a lot of good now, did it?

Of course, that was in the past . Those smiling faces.

Of course; the past. Of course

I don't remember. I don't even remember.

Saira...

Come on, he repeated to himself, leaning forwards over the desk and staring deep into the blank paper in front of him, seeing paper: seeing sand.

She will be going soon. You know that. You can't not know that - think, Hunter. Think, or your life is going to turn out to be even more of a fucking waste of time than you had ever previously imagined.

One of them - the one with the reddish hair - could he tell if it was red? - was going out. Standing there, in the inconstant future of his mind; smiling; but going out all the same. Fading into dust and fog: transparency. A vampire disappearing from the tomb.

Stay, Gregory hissed to himself, clenching his fists; Stay!

Somewhere outside of the ramshackle pseudo-shed that Gregory Hunter occupied at the edge of the cold and waiting woods, an owl hooted: as if readying itself to sing elegies for the dead.

Closing his eyes and unclenching his fists inside the shack he occupied at the edge of the woods, Gregory Hunter picked up a red felt-tipped pen and began to write; having close to absolutely no idea as to what it was he was attempting to do.

The girl leaning against the security window in the building called Cluskey Hall who was called Saira thought that maybe she recognized someone else's voice deep within the sounds she was making; these sounds of someone shaken, misplaced, and hysterical.

These were not her sounds, surely; not her pleas for help. She was a nice girl; a normal girl. She was a sane girl above everything else. The tears on her face were not hers; they were someone else's. They had to be.

Above everything else. They have to be.

'Hello.'

She cried out experimentally; surprising herself with the sudden clarity of her voice.

'Hello?'

Maybe screaming doesn't really get you anywhere, she considered: except in space

She cried out again. Again no one answered. After a small period of deliberation, Saira pulled back her fist and again banged it into the plastic partition, banging it until her knuckles smarted. The noise of her physical exertions bounced idly around the small entrance foyer of the hall, reverberating wildly; glancing at shadowed shapes without a care or a thought in the world for her safety.

Only one small security light was on overhead. Saira couldn't see anything behind the security window - no security - except for the faint glow of a monitor in the office area behind the main desk. This was the only indication she could detect that any human being had once been there to do something.

It's that old thing again

No-one was coming

It's always that old thing

But that just didn't bear thinking about. Saira gritted her teeth.

Now, she thought carefully, trying to order her thoughts and force away the fear; Confidence. Confidence will get you anywhere.

'Hello?'

She cried out again in a shaky but firm little-girl voice. 'Is there anyone there? HELLO?'

Anywhere but here

She smashed at the window: punched it. One of her knuckles split. The partition didn't budge, and no one appeared.

Several dark droplets of blood materialized on her hand. Saira sucked instinctively at her knuckles and tasted metal; lazily, she took her hand away from her mouth and watched as more of the puree appeared, seeping steadily out of the watery paleness of her hand like tomato ketchup.

This makes no sense. Not for ages now.

But then, the girl called Saira remembered, of course; it was not her blood at all: It was someone else's, she reassured herself: some other person.

Before was now

Before, any blood-letting had always been a release. Saira had felt as if she had been floating up; and away from fake wounds. Isolated and disconnected; like looking at a statue. Easy.

She sucked at her split knuckles again: head fuzzy with ideas.

Her life

is coming

The thing upstairs howled out the sound of steel sheets tearing. This heralded endgames; the ice-hard knowledge of impending death.

you knew it

Feeling her legs weaken and buckle beneath her but managing to stay upright, the girl called Saira who was standing in the foyer of the building called Cluskey Hall stayed exactly where she was. Stand up, she thought: Stand up straight; You've got such a lovely voice. Such a lovely

He had failed her, Gregory Hunter thought, as he sat in the shack staring bleakly at the most recent nonsense he had just poured unbidden on the paper.

The words danced archaic ballet across the A4 page. They were saying: We are only words; we mean absolutely nothing.

Saira, he thought despairingly: Tell me how. Will someone just tell me how?

The too-bright lamp light on the desk hurt his eyes: burning incessantly like a mad sun. Knowing the pain was probably just a result of his evasion of daylight, Gregory Hunter blinked, blinked again, and gazed frowningly at the paper in front of him; silently beginning to despise his rapidly deteriorating eyesight.

But you can still see. So that's not important.

The future is in the past; it is all the same, if you look at it.

Picking up what looked to be the last of the blunt pencils, Gregory scratched his head, scratched his beard, rubbed his face and squinted at the paper. Pressing the pencil to the back of a nearby envelope, he began to write again: thinking: blah blah, blah blah.

GOSPEL - A short story

And now, some bizarre allegorical (bizarregorical?) science fiction for y'all. Not sure if this piece is entirely scrutable, I shall be revisiting it soon and chances are it'll only get longer and more convoluted. Nevertheless... here is what is so far.

GOSPEL

There are three stories that unmake the world before it begins. These stories concern the individuals Farsten Hand, The Icon of the Lady who Has Fallen To the Sea, and Arclord Redshift. Separately and together, they make decisions that ruin and rebuild their age. Their paths are divergent but not mutually exclusive. Endings are found; burned into existence in the heat of exchange. The first is now.

The humagram stands mute and lost in the plaza. This happens on the first day. Her story, as of yet, is untold; yet in its untelling, understandings shall be gleaned.
A voice was raised in the manner of a telling. ‘The Icon of the Woman Fallen to the Sea,’ the voice announced, ‘is one of many in the central agrigrounds of Commuversity 1 that illustrate the woes and follies of days gone by. To many contemplating passers-by, the slowly active statue looks like a relic of the bygone age she is intended to represent; crudely, if appealingly, delineated by technology that is now almost quaint in its ancientness.’
Prime Disseminator Overhead Fryt - a master elucidator in his spare time, which was mostly spent learning young Deciders - was holding forth on the tale of the lady whose story was not to be told properly this afternoon; or ever. ‘Here she stands,’ he continued, ‘festooned as she is in the likenesses of the unintelligently fetid yet intellect-hungry mutt-weeds that signify loss of control and a resultant death by drowning. These women were the Cylryths: courtesans of the waterbearers who sailed off into the undecided regions back in the maritime period. That era was one of great discovery, yet also one of terror, suppression and the forced shackling and crushing of the youngest of minds. In losing their women to the mutt-weeds, the waterbearers of the maritime age learned a valuable lesson that led directly to great advancements in science. Now, can anyone here tell me what that lesson was?’
Zere’en Best Lucky, the shyest yet brightest of all the new young Deciders, raised a slight gloved hand. ‘Do not screw with that which can screw back at you. Sir.’
‘This is the more common wording,’ Prime Disseminator Fryt said, after Best Lucky had prettily blushed and an indulgent chuckle had sounded among the group. ’We must of course have our rebeller maxims. From the oldtongue, the expression is more readily translatable as, “Do not run directly into the arms of that which possesses the arms to swallow you whole.” ’
Indeed, the small group of potential implantees in the plaza thought the statue had something of an odd way about it. As it indeed did have.
Prime Disseminator Fryt went on to detail the imagined history. We here shall listen to other voices.
Originally crafted from Redyum - a material first forged in the prime days and one receptive at the molecular level to custom nanolight treatement that allowed for full humagramattical capability - The Icon of the Woman Fallen to the Sea now possessed a subtly programmed yet distinctly limited ability to perform for any attendant audience. The artelligence encoded in humagram subroutines allowed for a degree of dramatic representation; whereby The Icon of the Woman Fallen to the Sea would act out the very motions of her own undoing. Her surrender to the lulling cries of the mutt-weeds: and her transformation from lusty siren to cruel, cold suicide as she acted out the throttling of herself after murdering her man. Taken by the slithering brainwash of the ascendant mutt-weeds and with her position as a bringer of passion compromised, the Woman Fallen to the Sea would play out her returning to her man at port - her sexual potency becoming poison; her kisses reshaped by the creeping touch of death.
‘Now she stands with arms outstretched. A look of desperate longing etched into her metallic face which seldom changes. Furious and uncouth; as if challenging the very stars to stand down.’
These stars would concede; but not for her.

It is here we take a different path. This tale does not refer exclusively to the Icon of the Woman Fallen to the Sea, yet her presence within the boundaries of it betrays her importance in the telling. This happens on the second day.

So, then. In the origin days, there was Arclord Redshift. The people of this planet knew of an even older time than that of the waters and the weeds; one not so commonly explored on comfortable field-trips such as the one led on this afternoon by Prime Disseminator Fryt.
This time unremembered was referred to as the Redshift Eternity - since, at some point, it must have been presupposed that the period was not expected to ever end.
But returning to the point. The ruler of this cycle was his holiest typeform incarnate, Prime Arclord Redshift.
It was more often said than written that Prime Arclord Redshift was a being possessed of the means to push his way through the very star curtain itself. Indeed, certain shamans suggested in their orations that the Arclord himself might have come from the other side of that untold-of barrier. This was the dread divide that even the mystics could not reach beyond; for fear of discovering the ultimate truth about the mythical clockworkers, or the supposed holes in the end of eternity - suspecting any knowledge of the curtain’s invisible mechanisms would automatically prevent everything the shamans pretended to know from ever having existed.
In truth, and as a feted architect of these times, Arclord Redshift was merely bigger than the universe itself and capable of shrinking himself down to a sensible size. Which effectively meant, at least in this frame of reference, that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. Arclord Redshift had of course never seen beyond the world-curtain and certainly did not possess any special ways or means; nor had he held any obtuse extratemporal understandings of the nature of creation.
It was also said that these rumours about his size had been greatly exaggerated. It was said - mainly announced by the perpetually addled Penetrator Crystaltz Touchnail of the Fourth Tribe of the Term Lossless - that the Lord Redshift had been making it up and was in fact really much smaller than the universe itself - and only knew how to make himself big enough to pass as a God; the likes of which had not been spotted by anyone in the wider firmament for a good long while. It had always been said that the Gods were giants; so by dint of this, it transpired to all that Arclord Redshift was and could only be the one and only God. No better options had yet presented themselves; after all.
So the illusion went unchecked for a very long period, as Arclord Redshift set about conquering roughly ninety-three percent of the spiral without anyone ever stopping to challenge him on account of his mostly confusing size. After many aeons spent dominating and eliminating roughly seven thousand extant species in the spiral, the Lord Redshift became convinced of one thing.
This world’s humanoids were the enemy. This world’s humanoids were the weak and the foolish.
This happened on the third day. Despite only being a humanoid himself, Arclord Redshift knew that this world’s humanoids were not to be trusted under any set of circumstances. Henceforth, they were to be eradicated.
Lord Redshift’s wife was only human. The Arclady Zenethyst Jenesister had been born on a small and undistinguished satellite world which the Lord Redshift had detonated in the early stages of the expansion. While it was expressly stated in the low Gospels that not even the long stretch of eternity stood a chance of damaging the near-perfection of the Arclady’s glittering, hologlyphic condition, Arclord Redshift soon made the arguably harsh decision - after tiring of her constant liberalism - to encase her forever in a block of unmelt. It seemed to him to be the proper thing to do; she had, after all, been attempting to save the universe from the shackles of his all-exacting reign for some years. It was long suspected by many that the febrile condition of the Arclady’s mind and the sabotaging thought-blocks that were placed into it by the Arclord’s psychions eventually drove her into the cold finality of cell-disintegration; although this aspect of the story was excised from the prime arc-spool some time after the now-ruling ur-patriarkism had eradicated every female in the spiral and replaced them with mass-produced fleshfeelers. These were, by any stretch, far easier to put up with.

It transpired then that the better civilized parts of a thousand systems were utterly destroyed by the exhortations of the Arclord‘s expansion. This happened on the fourth day.
Monuments even stand to this today; and these are often seen by the students in Commuversity 1’s central agrigrounds.
There is a humagram of the Arclord Redshift. He eventually died of a degenerative condition brought about as a direct consequence of his constantly trying to make himself appear larger than he actually was. It turned out that in all actuality the Arclord really was quite small - and the eventual scope of his actions only served to confirm this to everyone still alive in that age, and contributed to the playing-out of the ignoble nature of his final days.
His humagram shows him as a hero. Such as he was.

It is here we take another path.
On a different but not utterly dissimilar planet in this same spiral, in this same arc-spool of Commuversity 1, Farsten Hand takes a moment out of the daily slednav from his ap to the processing centre to go stand by the fountain near the corresponding humagram that represents that which he desires the most.
Freedom. This is what happens on the fifth day.
This humagram - like its corresponding doppelganger in Commuversity 1’s plaza - is of Arclord Redshift; performing courageous deeds and saving all, in his lost age of reason. Farsten Hand gazes up and it and wonders if the Lord Redshift was truly misguided in his desire to bring order to the spiral. Yet, after a moment’s calm contemplation, Farsten suspects no; the Arclord was truly pure in his intentions.
Farsten is a processor. He is a processor only because this is a condition of the world and the class he was born into. Farsten’s horizons are all in binary; the ones and zeroes that control the flow of his information and understanding. When he closes his eyes at shiftclose, only these runes lull him deeper into his torpor; filling him with the comfort of knowing who is signifier and who is signified. Appearing and disappear to him: the phantoms in digital fog.
After the first eighteen years, Farsten Hand is losing the will to live. He has read of the waterbearers who carried succour to the newer worlds and of the undoing of their womenfolk at the tentacles of the mutt-weeds. This has led to Farsten coming to the conclusion that the womantypes are to blame for everything that went wrong in the world; and everything wrong in his world. All his controllers in the processing centre are womantypes, and none of them understand the way the world is supposed to be.
They are not educated.
They know not of the Redshift Eternity. A glorious time of peace and progress.
A time without womantypes.
He wishes the mutt-weeds had not gone extinct.

Farsten Hand continues to pay homage to the idol of Arclord Redshift. There is a nearby humagram of a Woman who once Fell to a Sea, but this barely registers in Farsten’s eyes.
In his head, Farsten hears a voice. It is not a real voice, but it is a voice that Farsten hears nevertheless.
Arclord Redshift says to Farsten Hand, kill your idols.
Arclord Redshift says, liars tell the best truths.
Arclord Redshift says, everything that is broken cannot be unbroken.
The Lord Redshift is dead and cannot speak yet Farsten hears his voice.
The Icon of a Woman who Once Fell to a Sea speaks also, but Farsten does not listen to her. Farsten Hand now listens only to Arclord Redshift.
Farsten smiles. He feels the hands of history upon his shoulders.

On the sixth day, Farsten Hand goes to the arma centre. There he creds out six full rotats worth to a corrupt viser for a turn’s access to one of their graymat colliders. In the age of the understood, a great Zeer of the Firstking’s call discovered in his labs through careful testing and experimentation with life’s great particles that all of shiftcreation - as the Zeers had come to acknowledge it - was made up of the elusive substance that became known as graymat. Using the imagetwist wetware he stole from a worklab, Farsten convinces the viser he is not only a respected Zeer, but one with the funds to prove it. The viser has no further questions and leaves Farsten alone with the collider.
On the seventh day, Farsten Hand switches on the graymat collider; a device that was only ever expected to be used in times of improbable turmoil; times never forecasted by the throughthinkers to be close any turn soon.
On the eighth day, eighty thousand and two citadels on worlds in the spiral net were stripped of the life that had come to define their positions in the universe.
Every thread of intelligent thought is reduced in an instant to paste. Not just the womantypes. This event was spoken of in latter days as the uncouth moment, or the gray day.
Years later, it is in the memory of Fasten Hand that the statues were erected.
Humagrams had gone out of fashion by this point. Like so many things. In every zodia in this world, a reminder of He Who Is Henceforth Without Name; the last taker of life; the final uncreator who dared to take on creation and was, in his folly, uncreated. In killing reason, He Who Is Henceforth Without Name became a martyr to unreason.
By removing something’s name, you devoid it of its power. And thus reason was returned to creation. This happened on the first day; as it always did.

I put a curse on you, the lost voice of Arclord Redshift said. You are to be kept, to be held; to be loved, to never be let go. This was all a game you fell for. The true losers are those who do as I think and not as I know. You must learn to understand what I did not.

The people of the plaza thought the statue had a odd way about it. Uncouth; as if challenging the very stars to stand down.
Zere’en Best Lucky, the cleverest of the group by far, smiled and laughed; getting it before all the others. Rather than raise her hand to ask to interject, she spoke clearly: interrupting Disseminator Fryt‘s dry treatise in mid-flow.
‘This statue says,’ Best Lucky announced, ‘I was here once, and I got it all wrong. Please do not as I do, instead learn from my example.’
Prime Disseminator Overhead Fryt halted in his oration. For a moment, he looked genuinely surprised - as if no-one had ever challenged the validity of his authority before. Above him, the blackened visage of He Who Is Henceforth Without Name stared down; not animated, or filled with answers.
‘Well,’ Disseminator Fryte said ‘I think, perhaps, young Zere’en may be on to something. She has broken through the stone, if you will.’

In other places, for Farsten Hand there was to be no more breaking-though. Only stillness in perpetuity; an aeon to consider the gravity of his misdeed. In the cold prison of the entropic void that encased his still-living form, Farsten Hand dwelled on only one thought.
This world’s humanoids are not to be trusted. In their haste they created love. Henceforth, they are forever damned.
Days begin anew; the prime arc-spool is often reset.
New stories can be told. This is one of them.
In her model of eternity, the Icon of the Woman who Never Really Fell to the Sea has but one thought.
Do not run directly into the arms of that which possesses the arms to swallow you whole. This is only one lesson. There are more.