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.
