Tag: come back

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Inward from Outward

Apologies to those who grow tired of my protracted not so much writing as meta-writing.  Here I go again today with more of the same.  The one day later proximity of this inspiring painting will play into whatever I may pick out of yesterday’s brainstorming:

http://www.linesandcolors.com/2008/10/15/lucong-cong-hua-lu/

She’d a perplexed look like a lover’d puffed a breath in her face for a laugh or as if a better lover’d just left her.  She appeared this way always.  Rather, this manner formed the basis for each one of her other moods—startled but content, startled but vexed, startled but furious—though she’d never had a lover.

The blushing alabaster of her skin struck a wonderful contrast with her dark eyes when you could find them under her fluttering black hair.

This wasn’t how she was introduced to us, just how we recall her.  Mid-morning, the day after we celebrated Onnaku’s first catch, she drifted inward from Outward on two lashed logs.  Enough blood still rinsing into the saltwater from a gash on her leg that a cloud of [little sharks] orbited her float.  She clung to what remained of her left hand and never once asked for the help we provided.

Day 302

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Red Sands by Request

Turns out I take requests: reasonable ones.  Don’t be asking me to write in the subjunctive on a lark and expecting me to snap to.  This one is from a friend wanting read my thoughts on these photos.  I’ve read up on micronations in the past and decided not to diverge to far from the concept below.  I’d like to to this as I didn’t get to the point before I had to start making money for the day instead of playing here.

“Stifu.  Just stifu Citizen.” President Jim impatiently demanded.  “And get back to your can.  It’s getting dark.”

Citizen Carl did, in fact, shut the fuck up.  And, with an apologetic nod, he got back to his can.  It was, after all, getting dark.

President Jim listened as Carl’s retreat creaked the fifty foot gang back to Tall Can and then faded with the ocean sounds further below.  He waited for the always loud zipola to carry Carl a few hundred feet over the swells to Can 5 where he bunked with 23 other men.  Privacy in Red Sands occurred as infrequently as rainbows even for it’s highest officer—especially even.

Staring into the sunset lit clouds on the horizon allowed Jim to keep some of his worst thoughts even from himself.  When solitude did come it came in the extreme.  Jim waited several more minutes before turning away from the expanse of water.  Then he spoke out loud.

“We’ve had no radio contact with London in two months.

“We’ve not seen contrails in the same time.

“Satellites are still flying; sunsets are the same.

“Henry swears he saw a cruise boat heading south a month back.  Before Dianna and Hamish took Little Boat and have not returned from their search in three weeks.

“Our six months of supplies looks to only be four months useful.  So.  Only two months left.

“Big Boat is leaking diesel and needs work on the prop and can only get less than half of us back to the UK.

“What else?  What else?

“Aaaand, Natty is 27 weeks pregnant.  Stupid girl.”

Days  289 and 290

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The Glyphs of Sedge Street

Charlie Crider enjoyed reading the subtleties of every ship he boarded so he expected the boatswain’s whistle before he saw it.

I was going somewhere with this a week or so ago.

Day 274

Sedge Street is the the oldest, longest, widest, and straightest street in [city].  Sedge remains the most obvious, but not only, symbol of an ancient time.  The historians told the architects who told me there was no reason for its length, no reason other than the seduction of space and the greed to consume it.  I think maybe the builders and craftsmen who constructed the first shops and stables along SSN wanted to market their wares in a primary spot—not one wanting to be even a convenient step or two off the main way.  Everyone wanted to be first so they lined up next to each other like children neatly arranging blocks for counting.

The width they know with a certainty to derive from the need to turn a horse team around on itself to exit town after dropping off goods.  The side streets have always been barely more than cart paths.

Its straightness is a cartographers joke or mistake.  The original planners listed shops, dwellings, liveries, stables, government buildings, and the like on a scroll of butcher’s paper.  Next to each entry, like a bulleted list, lay a large square.

Eesh, gonna have to let this idea simmer down in my head before I proceed.  Guess my week off left my brains weak and flabby.

Three corners of that square hold a number: upper left for the order of construction, upper right for the family, lower left for the type of building.  Each of these three is conspicuously indicated on the scroll in a legend or note.  The fourth corner, the lower right corner, holds a glyph.

Day 275