TBP#1: Broadripple is Burning

This first selection from The Basilisk project was composed to the song "Broadripple is Burning" By Margot and the Nuclear So and So's. I encourage you to listen to the song as well as enjoy the story I've written below. There are a few different versions of the song, the one I listened to was from the Daytripper sessions. You can find the song on youtube, and their own website is here.
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When Tyler arrived at the farm house, Markus was occupying a few stairs in the yard. Dust caked his face, save for two symmetrical trails from the corners of his eyes to his chin. He was camouflaged against the dirt-colored, unharvested grain waving in the field behind him. The stairs he occupied had been put up two summers back, and his father had planned a shed to attach to them, but caught a bullet before he could start on it.

A dozen yards from Markus was an idling armored car. Men with guns and masks marched purposefully from the house to the car and back again. Each man carried an armful of goods to be stowed in the back of the intimidating vehicle. One of them raised a rifle when he noticed Tyler’s approach.

“Don’t fuckin’ move.” He more suggested than ordered in a gravelly, sleep-deprived voice.

Tyler’s hands went up. “No trouble, just talkin’ to my friend here.” He explained, motioning to Markus.

The gunman kept the rifle trained but took a few steps back, leaning back on the grill of the armored car.

“We heard they hit your family, so I came over quick as I could. What happened?” Tyler said, planting himself on the stairs next to Markus.

“Everything I thought I had has gone to shit.” Markus slurred. He reached down next to his leg and grabbed a paper bag wrapped bottle, took a swig without a wince, and continued.

“They’re the gang that shot m’dad, too. They jus’ drove up this mornin’ and told me to give ‘em the keys and stay out of the way, or they’d shoot me down and take everything anyway.”

“What’s that?” Tyler motioned at the bottle.

“It’s not important.” Markus took another swig and passed the bottle over. Judging by his tone, Tyler wasn’t even sure he’d heard the question.

“Where’s your Mom?” Tyler questioned

“Prob’ly sick off huffin’ glue somewhere in town. Since dad died she ain’t been of any use, you know that.”

“Sister?”

“Katie lit outta town last week, hitchhiking. Got picked up by some truck headed north. Might be dead now for all I know. With any luck she’s somewhere better’n here.”

Tyler took a tug on the bottle and choked on the rancid liquor inside. He passed the bottle back and asked:

“So what’re you gonna do?”

Markus stood and smiled.

“Doesn’t matter. Anything I get, they’ll just take from me. Think I’ll just wander a while, see the sights.”

He shuffled unsteadily to the dilapidated fence, swung one leg over and looked back across his shoulder at his friend.

“Hell, I’m a free man now.”

With that he finished crossing into that dirty wheat field and disappeared into their swaying stalks, singing a wandering song.

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There you have it, post number ten. (approach with trepidation)

The Basilisk Project

I had this idea for a writing exercise. 


I take a song, probably one I don't already know very well, so I don't have images or memories attached to it. I listen to the song a few times, figure out what I think it's about and chew on the images it conjures for a bit. Once that's done, I'll put pen to paper and write out a short story based off of what I've imagined.


I call it The Basilisk Project. I'm not really sure why, something about turning to stone, I'm sure. Either way, the name came to me in a dream, and it's not terribly important. I'll try to churn out at least a page's worth of this writing for any given song, and post them here for your enjoyment. 


Songs that work for this are kind of hard to come by. They can't be too oblique with what they're saying, but can't be too vague, or nothing comes to mind. Instrumentals work great, but tend to lead to more fantastic and longer stories with me. If you have suggestions, please let me know.


In the mean time, tune in around noon for the first episode of The Basilisk Project.


There you have it, post number nine. (approach with trepidation)

Godspeed

My mind has been stuck in space. I think I'll be writing about it a lot in the coming weeks. I just finished collaborating (my first time doing so) with a DeviantArt friend of mine on a poem about space. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I'd like to share it with you.

If you have the time, I encourage you to check out her gallery. Her name is Baylee, but she goes by hhesitate. She's quite the prolific artist/writer. You may find her gallery here: http://hhesitate.deviantart.com/ Please do not stalk her. (seriously)

Poem.

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Godspeed

sometimes i pretend i'm a dragonfly -

skimming across a pond 

at midnight, 

seeing things

all as a reflection,

and i'm not alone between the stars

deluded

prying open my consoles

convinced

if i can eat all the wires

i'll become a machine and not need air

and open all the windows

of my little ship to purge the oxygen

from my skin, a quiet and 

translucent burden

i swear,

if i see one more

violent,

violet,

haunting-my-dreams

nebula

i'll open all the windows

and float on home:

(after all

my heart

is just an engine

made from the remnants

of a dying star)

sometimes

when i know no one

is watching, i'll turn on the speakers

spewing static and subsonic waves,

and interpret solar radiation

as sound, surrounding everything 

with the voices of old gods

the billions and billions

of old gods

which is silly, because i'm the only soul out here, after all

give my apologies to the engineer

who built my little ship;

i'm afraid he won't want it when i return

as i've drawn all over it, you see,

images leaking from my head 

where the cosmos have bent away

refracted dust and starlight

creeping from the windows

like curling frost

or cracks, chasing one another, 

godspeed 

i think the astronauts have

made a mistake: it's more lively up here 

than any average day on the sun-soaked earth,

even if the craters and comets aren't alive, anyway:

if dust fades to dust, and if dust 

is what was and what will be, 

i've fallen further for it than anything else

(even if i am miles and miles and light years high)

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There you have it, post number eight. (approach with trepidation)

Dead Astronauts

The word "Astronaut" won't really mean anything for very much longer. In a world where people can take a commercial flight into space or even an elevator ride to an orbital station, what does an astronaut become? The etymology of the word means "Star Sailor." Is then an astronaut someone who travels to or through outer space professionally? Surely we will come up with a better words for it than that. The word "astronaut" will no longer be useful. It will die.

Dead words are very sad things. There are surely Latin words that haven't been spoken aloud for many many years. Imagine they had a specific word for...I dunno...the person who comes to the public baths intoxicated.. This word is now dead. In fact, it's dead twice-over. It dies first when public baths were no longer available or fashionable, so a word for a drunkard there would be useless. It dies again with the Latin language. Granted, Latin isn't precisely dead, but this particular word has no place in our world, and how would we translate it?

This will happen to the astronauts. The first courageous souls to step beyond our own world won't have a title in the distant future, because they will have many words for those who travel in space, and our primitive word for the beginning of that era just won't fit. It's sad, not just because the word will die, but the romance associated with it.

Yes, romance. There's something romantic about being isolated out in the unknown with little chance for survival or return. That's what makes David Bowie's "Space Oddity" so touching. This romance bleeds from the situation and permeates other things associated with astronauts, like the ridiculous suits and helmets. They're like cowboys. Cowboy hats became romantic symbols because they were associated with the figures who wore them. That domed reflective visor that astronauts wear is the same way, it's associated with the space pioneers who wore them. You can see out at everything around you, but nothing can see in, adding another layer to the isolation of space.

Here's a poem about space:

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I Saw Your Ship

I saw your ship

heading so far away;

your beautifully crafted bones

protecting a beautifully crafted heart

among Orion's remains.

Why so far away?

Are the stars here so boring,

so lacking in their lustre,

that you must seek new horizons?

I know how you feel.

The same thing brought me here,

so long ago.

Olympus Mons is long-since stale

and none care for Ceres since Chisme came,

crashed

and made craters of her caves.

I thought things would be better here,

in the innards of so great a hunter,

but you can't see the colors

for all the dust in the air.

So cold since Betelgeuse burned out.

I'm going to sleep now,

until the stars look foreign again.

I'll dream of you, in your

sleek stellar schooner;

so splendorous I'm unworthy.

Hope my last power cell lasts the trip.

Perhaps we'll meet again

  once you've found the

    light you're looking for

             out there

                 in all this

                               Black.

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Here's another one about space, and cowboys too:

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Shoulda been a Space Cowboy

I should have been a cowboy

But that frontier is gone

The only unknown places left

Lie beyond the light of our sun

Now I can be a space cowboy

With the solar wind dancing in my hair

Letting the stars sing me to sleep

And find my peace out there

I look at my own reflection

It's not all I want to be

There's as many stars as there are people

So there's somewhere out there for me

I'll find some far-off pulsar

Live 'neath its radioactive dome

And if I point my satellites just right

I can hear the music back home

When the time comes for me

To lay down and die

I'll float into a supernova

And my dust will be a star, by and by

Don't take the blame upon yourself

I know you tried to make me stay

There's so little left here for me

The world's a pound and I'm a stray

If you love me like you say you do

Tell all the world that you won't miss them

Take my hand in the deep-space prairie

And be my binary system

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There you have it, post number seven. (approach with trepidation)