Livejournal after the rains
Oct. 1st, 2002 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirez01. Summer. The city smelled of diesel fumes and abandoned fast-food, and the pavements were sticky with the droppings of the gargoyles.
02. In person. If I wasn't already drunk, I was on my way to one bar or another. Any dive would do to escape the heat and replace it with the familiar fug of warm ale and Player's Navy Cut. You had a hat on, which faced forward in the approved manner.
03. You know, I think I would have to say "I suddenly found myself under a bucket, but there was nothing there except some cement, so consequently I went home wearing the wrong head." You just don't get quality like that anymore. Not with the new machines and their homuncular operators shuffling around the backstreets.
04. It's a terrible device. Songs have been written about it. Good songs with fine tunes and worthy backbones hand-selected by stout yeomen. And then the machines come.And they subject the songs to processes that insert words about the device and the songs become... Less than they were.
05. Once. It looked like a mechanical penguin fashioned from brass and ebony. There was a tiny key, if I recall, that you wound carefully. Then we stood back from the tabletop and watched as it lurched hither and yon, spitting burning tar and the most foul imprecations in a mechanical screech.
06. Oh, that night we were gods and goddesses of a silvery domain that seemed to stretch to forever. We whirled and sang and studiously ignored the glints and scraping noises from the shadows.
07. No, I don't think I can. There are probably words that can be bent to that end, but they are complex and untrustworthy things not befitting the sentiments required for such an endeavour. Instead there will be the secret language of flyovers and abutments. This will be our codex.
08. "... And then he said, 'A half-hundredweight of sharp sand! My dear fellow, I intend to bury the wench, not build her a monument!'" The laughter splashed outwards like acid. The curtains - being thin, since it was yet summer - were the first to go, falling into a heap and writhing.
09. We took the codes and inspected them carefully. The infection was well-hidden and surprisingly effective when we tried it on a machine we had stolen for the purpose. It was over in a matter of minutes.
0a. The dreams remain, for the most part, unsettling. Often I have to remain awake afterwards. I find that good coffee and a long walk through the darkened streets generally sets my mind at ease, though. Sometimes I fancy that if I kept walking I might one day reach the edge and find something new.
0b. It lifted as if it were falling uphill. 14,000 tonnes of multi-hulled titanium alloy decided it didn't belong here and accelerated toward the ionosphere with a cheerfully relentless enthusiasm not usually seen on repurposed cold-war tech.
02. In person. If I wasn't already drunk, I was on my way to one bar or another. Any dive would do to escape the heat and replace it with the familiar fug of warm ale and Player's Navy Cut. You had a hat on, which faced forward in the approved manner.
03. You know, I think I would have to say "I suddenly found myself under a bucket, but there was nothing there except some cement, so consequently I went home wearing the wrong head." You just don't get quality like that anymore. Not with the new machines and their homuncular operators shuffling around the backstreets.
04. It's a terrible device. Songs have been written about it. Good songs with fine tunes and worthy backbones hand-selected by stout yeomen. And then the machines come.And they subject the songs to processes that insert words about the device and the songs become... Less than they were.
05. Once. It looked like a mechanical penguin fashioned from brass and ebony. There was a tiny key, if I recall, that you wound carefully. Then we stood back from the tabletop and watched as it lurched hither and yon, spitting burning tar and the most foul imprecations in a mechanical screech.
06. Oh, that night we were gods and goddesses of a silvery domain that seemed to stretch to forever. We whirled and sang and studiously ignored the glints and scraping noises from the shadows.
07. No, I don't think I can. There are probably words that can be bent to that end, but they are complex and untrustworthy things not befitting the sentiments required for such an endeavour. Instead there will be the secret language of flyovers and abutments. This will be our codex.
08. "... And then he said, 'A half-hundredweight of sharp sand! My dear fellow, I intend to bury the wench, not build her a monument!'" The laughter splashed outwards like acid. The curtains - being thin, since it was yet summer - were the first to go, falling into a heap and writhing.
09. We took the codes and inspected them carefully. The infection was well-hidden and surprisingly effective when we tried it on a machine we had stolen for the purpose. It was over in a matter of minutes.
0a. The dreams remain, for the most part, unsettling. Often I have to remain awake afterwards. I find that good coffee and a long walk through the darkened streets generally sets my mind at ease, though. Sometimes I fancy that if I kept walking I might one day reach the edge and find something new.
0b. It lifted as if it were falling uphill. 14,000 tonnes of multi-hulled titanium alloy decided it didn't belong here and accelerated toward the ionosphere with a cheerfully relentless enthusiasm not usually seen on repurposed cold-war tech.
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no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 08:25 am (UTC)I hate LJ memes sometimes.
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Date: 2002-10-01 08:36 am (UTC)I don't think I want to see the other answers!
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Date: 2002-10-01 08:43 am (UTC):)
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Date: 2002-10-01 08:45 am (UTC)Well done, John, you've proved one can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!
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Date: 2002-10-01 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 08:58 am (UTC)I just came up with answers to a... Different set of questions.
my guess is...
Date: 2002-10-01 10:53 am (UTC)02. And did you still come out to meet me and did we go boozing?
03. What was the funniest thing that happened that day?
04. Describe a rat-trap
05. Have you ever seen a rat-trap for real?
06. What happened at the last party you held?
07. Describe a pixie hunt
08. If you are married, what was your best man's speech like?
09. If you are a computer bod, what have you said which has most shocked a work colleague?
0a. Do you have nightmares? If so, how do you get over them?
0b. And pray tell was your last nightmare about?
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Date: 2002-10-01 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 08:56 am (UTC)I'm deleting the bloody thing then.
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Date: 2002-10-01 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 09:26 am (UTC)OMG! Thank you for making me actually laugh out loud for the first time in days. May i use that quote?
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Date: 2002-10-01 03:14 pm (UTC)That's the one line I appropriated from elsewhere. In this case, it's between song banter from the Godlike Robyn Hitchcock, which was captured for posterity on the album 'Gotta let this hen out'.
I'll away and hide under a rock.
Please don't call me Reg...
Date: 2002-10-28 05:20 am (UTC)Anyway, I'm not really posting on LJ, since I'm only here in the name of research. So, "you ain't sin me - roight?"
Re: Please don't call me Reg...
Date: 2002-11-05 01:55 pm (UTC)All in the name of research you understand...
Thank you
A. Lurker
no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 03:18 pm (UTC)Bukowski? Thanks, I think.
Though of course I'd prefer it if people were saying 'Hm. Sounds like JH-R'...
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Date: 2002-10-04 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-06 06:21 am (UTC)Anyway, that seems to suggest you have the seeds of 0b different stories there. Just ferment them up....
R
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Date: 2002-10-06 08:50 am (UTC)Check the Journal, He Sez
Date: 2002-10-19 07:40 pm (UTC)Aaron the Sprog-rich