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Writing Machine
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Is that an existential question?
Posts: 1,863
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Damaging Synapses - Conclusion
Okay everyone, last entry. Notice I didn't say end. That doesn't mean I'll be doing another one. I have other things I've been given to write. Hope you all enjoyed it.
DAMAGING SYNAPSES
What kind of person drank wine with a straw?
The same sort who eyed the inside of that straw until they fell into it.
It wasn’t really a sensible thing to do, but it was a robust sort of wine, hardly used to being over powered.
So, she fell down the straw and landed in the center of a giant, white rose.
“Well, this is certainly unprecedented.” She declared, gazing about “No more alcohol and ahm---“
What had she been doing prior? Adam Douglas? Channeling quartz crystals? Nude photography? Editing Internet writing forums?
Good lord, it could have been anything…
She sat there a moment, and focused on what she knew…
‘…Okay, military retired, middle aged white female, drinking a glass of wine in a rural dive near where my car died. People stared at me for drinking wine with a straw, so I took it out back to stare out at cornfields framed by trees wearing fall…’
“Well dear, it was how we found you. Human disapproval is a sure sign that your kind is close by.”
“You weren’t in the straw.”
“No Sam, I certainly wasn’t…
…Her name was actually Samantha, although having worked so many male dominated jobs in the military, Sam wouldn’t have answered to it, because no one ever used it.
“…You were seeing Gibreel’s fall in the first chapter of Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’.” The flower went on to say “And so you fell too.”
“I wasn’t blown out of an airplane like him, though.”
“You were still expelled by human forces, dear.” The flower countered firmly “You had to land somewhere. And that you completely accept this tells us we found the right you to land here.”
“Well, panicking isn’t very productive after the fact.” Sam acknowledged reasonably “I only have problems with the process of the situation’s becoming fact.”
“Synapses, my dear.” The flower commented authoritatively “Modern human life isn’t good for them…”
Sam looked around then, noticing other very large flowers of differing sorts.
There were a few tulips of various colors, opened outrageously wide, but looking perfect nonetheless. There were magnolias on single stems. There was a white lily and crazy, patchwork daisies. A creepy looking Venus flytrap stood next to a daffodil that looked like it was glazed ala ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’…
“…That one,” Said the rose, noticing Sam’s curiosity “Is for the one named ‘gohn’. The Venus Fly Trap is for the one called ‘semtecks’. ‘Chris Miller’ will be the lily, tulips for ‘Maria’ and ‘Lone Wolf’, magnolia for Ms. Vodka, and the daisy for ‘strangedaze’.”
And then, it began raining the aforementioned writers.
“Are we missing anyone, my dear?”
“Er---Pawn?”
“Would you recommend his work?”
“From what little I’ve read.”
“We’ll mention it to the Prince---oh my.” Two screams, female, seemed less surprised than the flower.
“There’s Gigi with Ms. Vodka. We forgot,” The flower added with a sigh “They come as a set.”
The first words that came out of Chris Miller’s mouth when he landed were “I’m blaming Wyndstar for this. She does these twisted realities.”
“You too?” Ms. Vodka agreed, despite having no idea who she was agreeing with.
“If you blame her, you’ll have to tell her. Then she’ll write about it, and god knows how she’ll write us all up.”
That was semtecks.
That reality was now coming into focus for everyone. Identities and origins came to them, as if they’d just been obscured by a drunken fugue slowly subsiding, even though these were not facts originally part of their consciousness.
And it did not feel at all out of the ordinary.
While they were partly in wonderment at having been sucked out of their lives and being deposited on giant flowers, the situation was like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July; they weren’t every day, but their occurrence wasn’t an inconceivable one.
Only one factor seemed inconceivable, and that was how they saw each other.
While actually having human forms, each person saw the other as the essence they felt in their writings.
Gigi and Ms. Vodka felt like reading a combination of Bob Dylan and Ben Johnson.
Semtecks made a person feel like the Manhattan Transfer’s song ‘Twilight Zone’. Gohn felt like living in complicated, urban elegance gone a bit rough. strangedaze was a patchwork quilt with the trace scent of pepper and curry.
Maria gave off the impression of blue and silver bells floating subtly by.
Lone Wolf was a hooded shadow of ‘Casablanca’ and Chris Miller the sharp, techno traffic of a server.
There were definitive genders, but no faces. Identity was sense, not sight, though the surroundings were otherwise quite visual.
“Rabid artists.” strangedaze remarked about the almost neon landscape.
“Because you fell into a sign that used a neon vortex and it opened your mind.” The daisy he landed on explained.
“That’s what we get for looking down the tunnel to your son’s toy train set.” Gigi ribbed a sheepish Ms. Vodka.
“People aren’t usually known to fall thru them.”
“Unless its us writing poetry…”
It was a bit on the surreal, as gohn explained how he seemed to get sucked in by an on line video poker game. Chris looked too hard into the drain while washing dishes with a story coming to mind. Maria was looking into a dry well thinking of her last story.
Semtecks fell into his own manuscript aster his mind began wandering in fields of blank white.
“Oh god---I knew I shouldn’t have left Cartoon Network at night on for white noise.” Lone Wolf groaned anxiously “Oh god---I’m brain fried. I can’t even remember what Adult Swim is called!”
“Alcohol is much more fun, dear.” Gigi counseled consolingly “You should try it instead. It causes less brain damage.”
“That might explain this.” Chris commented thoughtfully “The damage of misspent youth.”
Gohn shook his head. “But I’m still spending my youth. So why am I here?”
“You are here,” The white rose told them “Because you are the most constant participants on the writer’s forum that met the requirements. You were all also connected because you all are consistent participants in each other’s works. When a receptive state of consciousness, such as daydreaming occurred,” It was revealed “You were all drawn here, by the Prince.”
Chris looked at Ms. Vodka and shook his head.
“Now I really AM going to blame Wyndstar when I see her.”
As Sam stared at their unseeing eyes, that occurrence became very unlikely…
***
Some believed that for every unpleasantness, there was some humor too.
For example, while Gigi was staring dumbfounded, responding with a droll “Huh…?’ to what was happening amidst the giant flowers, eggo was daydreaming about it and was laughing his butt off at Chris mourning not having deadly nightshade and gohn staring at himself as if he’d turned into a daffodil.
But a robust wine sucked thru a straw tainted the vision, and by this time, it had gone to someone’s head.
Eggo’s day dream turned him into an orange dreamsickle being unwrapped by Graff as the devil he’d bamboozled in one of his stories bellowed peals of laughter that alerted the giant flowers.
They sucked the pair post haste into the head of a lilac turning eggo back before Graff slathered him with a coat of 98.6-degree saliva.
They forgot his wrapper.
“Just---why are we here?” Gigi finally demanded, using severity to stifle the urge to point at a merry dangle and scream about short change for two scoops and a mini-cone.
“You are here to answer a question posed by the Prince of Whispers and Mists in three parts.” The flowers answered them pleasantly “You will answer by your actions, the first comprising of nudity, and possibly photography.” It was revealed, as eyes grew wide. “The second will require some of you to become a line of poetry, while the last action has yet to be determined.”
“Er---I’m not sure I do nude very well.” semtecks mentioned, doing a lousy job of hiding his nervousness as the scenary began turning into an ancient harem built into a lush oasis.
It was complete with harem babes.
Sort of.
These ladies weren’t quite human; their skin was simply one big petal and their hair was like fresh, green grass.
These ‘harem’ girls were age appropriate plants.
The Prince obviously drew the line at certain issues that might require therapy later in this group’s collective sexual lifetime.
“You mean, I’m not a daffodil?” gohn finally caught up as one tried to undress him.
“No. You were placed on an edible one.” It was revealed, as the daffodil tickled his ear with a part of her anatomy that would probably have to be covered with at least a g-string on earth. “You seem to have issues concerning food. We wanted to oblige you.”
“Does it still apply?” he wondered.
“Nectar has to be someplace.” Strangedaze quipped distantly from the land of dirty thoughts.
So it was, but for the female writers, it was someplace far different.
And now, they were too…
***
There was disappointment all around.
“It would have been interesting to find out what ‘sensing’ a completely naked man was like---aside catching a glimpse of eggo’s ‘bits’.” Ms. Vodka mentioned wickedly.
“If the boys are becoming nude models, that means we’re going for the poetry.” Gigi reasoned critically “But what’s being naked and acting out poetry got to do with this question? And who is this Prince?”
The flowers began whispering softly to one another and they sounded surprised.
“Act?” the rose sighed, “You do not understand what we mean then.”
Softly, the flowers began to recite;
“In seeing the mists
dance,
sight becomes
a partner
to the rhythm
of the moon
drifting the soul
nearly and
succinctly
into passion’s embrace
to whisper sweet promise
giving rise
to the entwining,
the rushing,
burgeoning energies
falling
head and heart long
into the eternity
of dreams…”
The flowers repeated over and over the whispered verse until the words began losing their meaning, the meaning dissolving the sense of who and what and why their audience was. With those anchors gone, four writers found their very essences swept away by concept that became a current, while its substance began to expand beyond what their five senses could encompass.
The only way they could survive was to release themselves into that expansion.
Ordinarily, reading something like this poem would give at least Gigi and Ms. Vodka cause to ask why this poem was, what was its point.
This poem wasn’t asking them to analyze it.
It was verse, seeking completion, using seduction to lure the human soul. It used tenderness and beauty, engulfing them in the warm sea of itself.
They became the points of light, the stars in its velvet backdrop, each giving a soft, alluring definition to the other by virtue of presence.
And they all faded into the enthralled night…
***
While the ladies become one with verse, and the men fought off – with little conviction – women fondling and pawing their clothes, Sam sat on her flower somewhat annoyed.
“And there’s a reason they didn’t see me?”
“You’re wondering about a species who can barely recall their dreams, my lady. They are blind to seeing the reality in even the simplest fantasy, where even writers seldom recognize that their visions are more than failed meal tickets.”
“Will they all remember this?”
“Not even when you write it, my lady.”
The Prince offered Wyndstar his hand and she stepped out of the flower.
“And they do not see you, my lady,” The Prince answered solemnly “Because you do not permit it, and you understand why. Your question was merely rhetorical.”
“Ah yes.” She acknowledged sarcastically “Because knowing ME made it possible for YOU to abduct them makes me a likely target for a stoning. It isn’t a prospect I find appealing.”
However, her ability to keep them from acknowledging her didn’t change the fact that their lack of memory was entirely on they themselves, rather than Wyndstar.
“They will return to their reality in the morning, my lady, and they will not remember.” The Prince revealed to her “You will write, and they will return the next night as if they had never departed. The opposing reality will not be seen as reality until it is returned to. You will write this as instructed,” He concluded firmly “And we will see if my question can be answered.”
After a moment of review, Wyndstar frowned.
“Its Douglas Adams---geez.” She grumbled “I have his book and the bloody movie to memory not to get it correct. And I have to—“ She gaped “I haven’t been able to find a subject lately for that. Why do I have to write—“ and it got worse “You can’t start sentences like this! Chris will go nuts!”
“Unlikely.” The Prince assured dryly “Your haphazard writing should garnish far less attention than its subjects. If not,” He warned ominously “The question will take a somewhat more—ludicrous turn.”
“Don’t say that.” Wyndstar snapped testily “I’m not doing this as a serial.”
The Prince emitted a low, throaty laugh as the comments started being logged in the forum already.
“Onelight,” Wyndstar moaned in despair “I’ve died and gone to hell…”
PT III
***
One would have anticipated a sloppy sex scene given the factors of naked human men and flowers that saw sex as absolutely necessary.
And they did.
The flowers had sex with the men’s hair and their dandruff, after extensive foreplay with their clothes, wallets, toenails and fingernails.
“So many layers.” The flowers declared in awe.
“Irrepressible.” Eggo pointed, hoping to get things started.
“The words are so much bigger.” The plant cooed, undoubtedly impressed “How wonderful that you possess a potency, and take pride in it, as opposed to your others, who seem to wear such instead between their legs.”
There was some minor relief, at least for gohn, semtecks and Chris, who still had old-fashioned notions of privacy and primacy.
They didn’t’ even have the decency to let them ask “Your place or mine?’.
In the end, the gentlemen got a light slap and a tickle and were unceremoniously dumped (sans clothing) into the sea where there female counterparts already bobbled, like bewildered giant heads on bodies that didn’t make sense.
One of the girls seemed dressed in drag more than the others, it was suddenly noticed.
“I’m just happy to be here, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.” She declared, bobbling as she looked back and forth.
At that point, the stars scurried across the sky, forming a marquee.
“The part of Gigi will now be played by bobothegoat.”
“I always wondered about this sort of thing.” Bobo admitted.
“It would explain why s/he got confrontational at the point where all the men had to strip” Maria reasoned.
“The make up job didn’t survive the poetry.” Lone Wolf pointed out.
“Besides,” Ms. Vodka revealed at the last “Gigi declined being here.”
They all nodded, as if it all was perfectly clear.
“Does anyone notice that we’re bobble heads?”
“I knew rhythm had nothing to do with the head nodding.” Strangedaze picked up on Chris’ observation.
Semtecks groaned. “I knew it! I’m at a party and I over ate the brownie!”
“Men can be such silly things, no?” Maria giggled, and Ms. Vodka nodded.
And then, they dove under the water, their fish tales waving.
“Fish tales?” gohn was taken aback.
“Aren’t they to die for?” Cooed bobo in falsetto, as s/he wiggled what still strangely looked like very thick, hairy toes, under gohn and Graff’s noses.
Daintiness apparently escaped bobo and the gesture.
“Why am I still naked?” Graff shuddered, as bobo gave him the fluttering eye.
“We should follow the rest of them.” Chris directed, cutting off bobo before s/he could flirt with him “Separating might turn us into Michael Jackson or something.”
“You’d be Michael Jackson.” Gohn told strangedaze.
“Fine.” The other writer conceded easily “You’d be that McCauley kid.”
“Better than the monkey.”
“You mean bobo…?”
Instead, they all ended up mermen the moment they dove under the waves. While that didn’t help to explain things, at least they were free of the bobbling and bobo’s hairy toes.
Although why he smelled fishier than expected, even being beneath the water, no one had a clue. But it was so cloying, it seemed like it was all around them.
As they pressed, all that mattered was that they got to where the females were post haste; beating out any other comers that could make further madness happen.
The lucky first winner turned out to be Graff.
Bobothegoat waited eagerly with open arms as Chris began to scream like a little girl.
“Holy shit holy shit omigawd I get it!” He exclaimed as Graff slammed into bobo—and vanished.
“We’re seamen!”
“That’s a dirty trick.” Strangedaze acknowledged, heading into Ms. Vodka.
“Is this an under aged joke?” Wondered eggo.
“If you run into Maria, you will be for—at least the next 18 years!”
The warning came too late.
“At least she’s a good writerrrrrrr…”
Maria and eggo were gone.
“I’m not waiting.” An aggressive female growl poked at semteck.
It didn’t surprise him to learn that Lone Wolf was that kind of girl.
Gohn and strangedaze stared at Ms. Vodka and immediately went into ‘Rock, paper, scissors’ but it really didn’t matter.
Ms. Vodka nailed them both!
Apparently being flushed, though Chris Miller drolly, was the price of being right.
But where exactly did that leave him?
“Do you want to stay here, and be a half born idea, or would you rather come with me and help expedite this insanity that got an extra day because—of something I’d rather not say because it will get me blasted in the forum later, and yes, I know this will end in a compound sentence later.”
He would not know her from a mermaid or a white rose, but she was human enough, and judging from her speech that very much reflected certain personal letters Chris had received, well…
“…Wyndstar.”
“That saves introductions.”
“How about my digni---“ And she gestured to Chris before he could even finish.
Chris was now as fully clothed as he was fully human again.
“And before I have to start catching rocks, this just might by your dreams invading my mind. That’s happened before.”
“I suppose if I were upset you might have reason to be concerned about that, but---I wrote ‘Ganymede’.” Chris confessed, even though he knew that she already knew that he understood “This is all really fascinating in an ‘I’m on an acid trip’ sort of way.”
“I’ve never done acid.” Wyndstar admitted with a frown.
“I suspect you wouldn’t need to.”
There was a short moment of silence where the pair actually expected the sort of weirdness that prevented all the other writers from having conversations that represented the civilized manner of ‘getting to know one another’.
Instead, they just stared at each other.
“My lady, while dead spots in a plot works for inserting a poignant moment in badly written romances, here it only works for a critic looking for loop holes in consistency.”
Here was a bit of familiarity, though it was admittedly an uncomfortable one.
Chris had seen a picture of this congealing mass of arrogance and cold mist taking on a sort of human form.
This was the Prince of Whispers and Mists.
At least this time, he was wearing jackboots and a silver trimmed black duster.
“Well, this is helpful.” Suddenly, Wyndstar became just the backdrop for more fascinating fare “I’ve asked Wyndstar about you, but the source is a better way to learn things. Or,” He glanced backwards “Should I continue to ask her?”
“You needn’t ask questions you already possess the answers to, Mr. Miller.” The Prince assured him, though he didn’t sound at all reassuring “You simply need to make the choice to accept them.” And he gestured beyond.
Beyond, lay an infinite number, points of energy.
And they were coming right at him…!
PT 4
Brilliance really wasn’t brilliance, unless there was someone who thought it was.
Truth was the same way; unless someone acknowledged it as such, it was simply a piece of data just waiting passively.
But what was the truth?
The truth was multiple points of blinding brilliance dancing around Chris Miller’s head as pointed out by the Prince. Distractions from keeping the writer from going around and around about an answer he DID know, was being shown to him by the Prince’s action.
The truth was that nine writers had become the culmination of the creative thought of God and were manifesting it in the most obvious way possible.
The truth was that there were nine flittering fairies with gossamer wings requiring someone to believe in them that they could begin existing in another way.
“And now comes the awfulness of the story, where the mind must engage in the awfulness of truth dressed in philosophy, ‘nuts and bolts’ hard to understand.” Declared the voice of forever.
“Hi Twinkles.” Eggo slapped Chris on the back.
The others had turned him into light, too.
“You have all been subjected to the twists and turns of a mind without boundaries.” The voice intimated, as the group marveled at being color itself in the form of light, fragmented spectra, yet still connected by their basic structure and venue of consciousness.
“Do you dare ask yourself whose mind that could be…?”
They could communicate with each other without words, feel how the other felt, was part of each other’s functions, life.
There was the feeling of never being alone, though they were still able to ‘step into another room in the house’ if they wanted to simply be inside themselves, alone.
And being light, for that one split second, they understood, as it applied to them, a basic truth; nothing was real.
Their essences could engage in anything they wanted, they could rack up the consequences like bees racked up pollen, but it was all temporary—even the material.
All that mattered was the experience that they could walk away with, even if it turned them into hoary, cross-dressing gnomes with hairy toes.
Or mermen.
Or words.
Or thoughts.
In the place where their minds were, they could even be a bunch of human writers unaware that they were anything BUT that at that moment.
With that, the group fell out of the air and landed unceremoniously to the ground on their collective butts.
“That could have ended better.” Strangedaze thought aloud what they all could agree on.
“Or it could have gone on forever, but for Mr. Miller’s acknowledgement that you existed, you’d have been like so much other phenomenon on Earth that basks unseen from human ignorance.”
“The Prince of Whispers and Mists.” Chris introduced for the others as the entity bowed gracefully “He’s Wyndstar’s narrator I suppose.”
“Narrator, figment, fragment, phantom, delusion, dream—anything but solid, independent reality because my presence is not experienced as depicted by the standards you are taught to accept, yes.” The creature responded with a certain arrogant amusement “Let’s call me the dream that’s haunted Wyndstar’s dreams with all of YOU for a week, her dream, for none of you will remember it.”
“If it’s real, why wouldn’t we?” asked Maria quite politely “This has been a lot of fun.”
“I can see his point.” Strangedaze reasoned solemnly “Because we’re all dreaming at once. If we all admit we dreamed this, all of us, at the same time, then we have to admit that it might have been more than a dream, and then we might have to admit that there’s more to reality than just the dream.”
“Like dominoes.” A new voice went on to say “One realization leads to another, leading too fast to a place we might not be familiar with, too fast for us to be ready for.”
“Ah. The ‘nuts and bolts’.” The Prince smiled, catching her hand.
Gohn’s face lit up in recognition.
“Wyndstar, I presume?”
“Is this when we learn just what the heck the question was?” asked Graff hopefully “This has been fun and all, but it would be nice to know the purpose. Why all this, and why us?”
“All good stories have an ending.” Lone Wolf chimed in.
“Well, not always.” Chris had to add, as a creeping suspicion engulfed him with the knowing expression growing in the Prince’s eyes “Life has its closure in death, but not all stories end with closure for the reader, or the participant.”
“True enough.” The Prince agreed with a nod “Now, so my lady here can be put to task, I give you the question, admitting now that the answer is not for me, nor was it ever.”
“What?” they all collectively gasped.
And so he put to them; “What was the story?”
They stared at the story’s ending, after days and days of waiting for Wyndstar to post updates; the same thing went through their minds.
“What kind of an ending is THIS supposed to be? What’s that supposed to mean?”
They were going to have to mass pm her and get her to pin down something a little more specific, a little more definitive that just their suddenly waking up the next day, and seeing ‘DAMAGING SYNAPSES – Conclusion’ logged on in the forum.
Was this all a dream, or what…?
Wyndstar sighed as she finished up typing the last paragraph of the story.
Of course, she herself understood what it meant. The Prince had told her when he dashed them off to their respective places in the waking world after asking them the question. Her problem was going to either be a deluge of questions, or complete apathy.
That was fine. The work was still worthwhile for what would come out of it.
“What’d you all expect?” Wyndstar typed in at the last “This was your story, not mine. If there’s going to be an ending, that’s going to be up to you. And don’t whine about this being a cop out. No story ever ends, and if it does, that’s up to you when you yourselves decide what the story was.”
And after a moment of thinking about it, she added. “You did get your answer Chris. I should have just warned you—he never gives them straight up…”
__________________
Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.
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This was great and very fun to read, even better than Blademasterzz script/dialogue thing about the forum in the lounge. Alway fun to read these type of stories.
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