Otherworldly Music
Red Rocks: 20,800 A.D.
In the presence of three tribal elders, Inich had replied that the world could be arranged precisely and eaten with the heart, allowing anyone to touch the strange energy.
"So illogical!" The tribal elders' words may have been admiring or depreciating. To them, the bones and manuscripts of the Dead Ones were trifles in comparison to this world's rich natural wonders. Whoever they had been, they lost their inheritance and were now inconsequential. When Inich wandered into their ruins of stone piles and metal beams, he occasionally found artifacts, but they rarely made sense. He brought home certain stones and metal shards, arranging them on the floor precisely. His family watched his pursuits nervously, but with fascination. Inich frequently arranged things - words, clothing, food - in inexplicable ways that pleased him, rather than in the most efficient manner. That's when his father had spoken to the tribal elders, who seemed uncomfortable with the topic. However, they explained that children manifested such behavior occasionally. As long as they always displayed efficiency in public , no harm came from infrequent indulgence. "But efficiency comes first," they cautioned, "not vague personal preference that cannot be justified."
Inich understood. His people had created a grand society capable of feats that lesser societies called "magic, and to uphold it, he must follow its rules. He could do that. But he came to the Red Rocks when he needed to explore or destroy his own rules. At the Red Rocks, he felt for vibrations stored in objects, walls, and earth.
Inich was fairly skilled at vibrational interpretation. It was no magical act, just basic science of the mind. But the ancient texts indicated that vibrational interpretation was different than "music." Music, he understood, drew up the heart into the mind and out through the mouth or the fingers. It could produce tears with no discernible cause, and lift moods from low to high. He had tried repeatedly, in solitude, to mix vibrations and produce mood alteration, but all he could do was create frustration at his own failure. He took this as a small success. After all, frustration was a mood.
Everyone knew that places held vibrations and the rocks held ages worth of music. The healers could put their finger tips to an object and know who had it last, and which ailments that person suffered. Easy. Simple vibrational interpretation, something that every child could do at least a little. Surely he could do the same here, dredging up the ancient songs and rhythms! He pressed his palms and forehead against the rough red rock, but no song came. He concentrated as the sun slowly crossed the sky, but he was not a gifted healer. Such skills traveled through generations, and his mother had been a mathematician.
At noon, he didn't bother to wipe away his tears but instead let them flow and mingle with the red dust. Frustration again. Was it really a small success, or a simple reaction to the stimulus of failure? Inich was a skilled meditator and daily opened himself to emptiness and pureness of being. He did not care for wilder states of mind, and so this outpour of grief and frustration seemed both novel and disturbing. He slumped against the stones and tried to think, as orderly thought leads to calm behavior. So he thought about the electrical conductivity of the water that rolled down his cheeks, and recalled that some of the Dead believed water carried other fluid energies. They claimed that it carried the emotions, song, and visions.
He felt each tear travel down his face and pool in the hollow of his throat. And with each tear, he heard something indescribable. In his clear state of mind, each splash of water sent a shock of what could only be music coursing through his bones. The vibration he knew, of course, but the notes as they were called, created shivers in his belly and tingled up his spine. The tingling grew greater and more vivid, sending colors spinning into his vision. He felt song explode from his throat as he tried to mimic words he'd never known before, and beneath the roaring waves of precisely-arranged sound, he sensed he was trying to express something too deep to quantify, something that the words only minimized. Arranged just precisely, it communicated. It immersed. It filled his being.
And he knew he was dying as his brain and body struggled to process what they were not meant to enjoy, yet he didn't care. Couldn't care, no more than one of the Dead could shield their eyes from their angels, only disintegrate in bliss. With each note, the gray dust of his body mingled with the red dust of the monoliths.
The singer opened his eyes to the stars, fingers strumming his guitar, singing to the first song hunter.
Inspired by the Autumns - Pale Trembles a Gale (remix)
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The Song Forest
Behind the compound, I lie in tall grass and focus on the planets hiding behind the sky. I have a game today. My surroundings slowly drip into small waves until they are hollow shadows. I keep my eyes open and witness the many layers peeling back: a man on a boat, a woman in mountainous jungle, a child knee-deep in snow. The meadow's clear silence begins to sprout tall buildings, concrete slabs, and the screech of transportation. The jolt is heavy as I sink into the new scene. I sit up and inhale the stinking air, wincing at the humans in pursuit of commerce and fantasies. Their parade is hungry. I try not to watch them too brazenly; they don't like my kind. Our eyes upset them, our gazes shaking lose unnamed fears and regrets. We view it as healing; they view it as attack.
That's why hunting their songs can be a dangerous game.
Now immersed in their world, I tune my ears for distant music, flipping past radio waves and flat recordings, settling instead on the acoustic waves of live performance. Here's one that rises above the others! I grab the thread of song and then run from city to city in search of the source. In this world, I blur as I run.
The guitarist sits in someone's dimly-lit backyard, leaning against the post of an empty, rusted clothesline. He looks up as I arrive, his voice halting and strumming faltering.
Continue, I tell him.
The man's fluttering and racing mind stills with his voice. He shivers. "Who the hell are you? You're ... pulling nightmares up from my guts or something."
I look away. It is an instinctual response between our species.
The man's hands still strum the guitar, but he seems unable to sing anymore.
I step closer, realizing I'm standing in an overgrown flower garden. I crouch to his level. What makes you sing?
The man's thoughts tumble like dead weeds down a path. Images form and reform: a dark-haired woman in a bright dress leaning against the peeling white paint of a dilapidated wooden building. A full moon over an empty prairie, and discarded bottles glittering. Calloused fingers and blood blisters, hunger edged with desperation, and a sickly desire that grew to burn brighter than flame. My breath catches and I tremble under the weight of the emotion.
I stand up and step from the garden. You sing well.
I let the worlds snap back into place. I sit up and inhaling the scent of jasmine and magnolia of home, savoring the weight dropping off. I walk west to the woods and find an empty space to solidify the song. A note marries an image here, a tone combines with an emotion there, all stack and curve and stretch into time. I weave several levels of experience, of meaning, and of comprehension, suitable for dancing between. This song grows roots in the soil and in space, adding to the forest of song sculptures.
I stand back and survey my work. I will send a dream to the man. When their cities crumble, perhaps they will find their way here and sleep.
Inspired by Mark Lanegan - Riding on the Nightengale
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The Watery Promises of Geometry
The professor stood at the water's edge and gave his lecture to the seals. They watched suspiciously, squirming to better assess the haggard old man who stepped closer to the water with each word. They chose to keep their distance.
"There are rooms in this water, and all water, connected by corridors of an alternate reality. Each bubble of air contains a world of entities that our science has never captured. Such buoyant happy creatures, always interested in human awareness, touching the hair, the lips, desiring stories of mundane matters! As our primitive cultures speak of elementals or devas, so do these entities speak of us. We occupy only one slice of their reality, but we are intimately familiar with this slice, moreso than they will ever be. We have the advantage here, knowing the ins and outs of how to exist in the body. They wish to know what we know, and vice versa. One can strike bargains for mutual benefit."
The professor's knees were wet, but he hardly noticed the sloshing of his expensive Italian shoes or the cold sand between his toes. He next addressed the kelp tangling his legs.
"To establish a connection, one must submerse one's feet in a natural body of water, adopt a state of zen-like concentration and open oneself to the fluid qualities of water. Surroundings fade and give way to the watery walls of their dwellings. They share the dimensional secrets if one allows them to view the physical realm through one's eyes. It can be frightening, of course, but in my twenty years of exploration I've never experienced difficulties with them overstepping boundaries. They are respectful."
The professor grew too close to a school of fish, and they scattered around his waist. He glanced at their wake and called after them.
"Some say that a madness can occur. I concur that it's possible; those with inferior genetic makeup may have less ability to cope with expanded awareness. My colleagues and I are currently experimenting with this, and we seek to discover the problematic genes to avoid any future mishaps." He paused as the water lapped his chin, and turned his face to the sky, now addressing the circling pelicans. "Ahmed was assessing the data I'd brought back from the water rooms but I haven't heard from him in weeks." He coughed, expelling water from his nose. "But he's busy, and aren't we all? I am late for my appointment in the corridors. Today they promise to teach me the language of crystalline geometry. I had a taste last week ... amazing stuff ...so much potential for science..."
The pelicans turned away when they heard the high-pitched chattering and saw the bubble swarms appear. They had learned that such beings offered tasty fish, but ruined the belly.
(Hallucinogen - Gamma Goblins [It's Turtles All the Way Down mix])
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The Jungle Devouring Itself
The jungle leaves its noise under layers of grimy stones and dead vines. Thick air muffles the insect wings, bird calls, and my footsteps, and the parrots watch as I pick through the silent ruins. Occasionally I speak in desperation to hear a noise, but it sounds like the movement of fish underwater. I step carefully, terrified I may fall into one of the iridescent puddles and wake up in a world 10,000 years from this place. These portals sprinkle the ground like child's glitter. History books claim that the conquistadores had never made it here, but they are wrong. The evidence is at my feet, suggesting adventures never given the chance to be heard.
My guess? Their machetes sliced through the jungle vines and they marched ahead to find their fictitious cities of gold. The natives, unconcerned for the gold, protested and shouted warnings. Once inside, Goddesses drank the men's screams and tears like nectar shook from a flower. Like bees and caterpillars, men were only miniscule creatures to be forgotten, swords and helmets clattering to the stone floors and rusting into fragments soon buried by centuries of creeping vines and lemur bones.
I am so grateful to have seen this holy place. But please, don't let it devour me. I promise I was just leaving.
(Inspired by the Loop Guru song "The Third Chamber, Part IV")
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The Dream Highway
The dream highway ran the narrow strip between the surf and the forest, and we drove alongside a ditch with an invasion of elephantine, doe-eyed marine creatures. I forget their name, but I saw the flicker of their forked trunks under the low-hanging willows and pointed them out to Andy, who whipped his head around to watch them as we passed. The car roof had partially faded away, and we drove with the breeze twisting my hair to the sun. The road to Mt. Kamea was still half-formed, a product of an ancient tribe slaughtered or plagued out of existence. Occasionally the broken tree trunks would slice through the car and I'd shiver. The baby in the backseat squealed in glee, drops of laughter flying into the air and disappearing behind us in a smear of glitter. I chuckled. Babies always find disruption novel.
"What's under the mountain, Mama?" asked Andy, shaking the baby's liquid off in distaste.
"The ocean under the earth," I replied, rounding a curve of glass bricks, the snowy mountain peaks gleaming. I imagined sinking knee deep into the soft, mild snow, and the permafrost covering Kamea forest's green leaves.
"Can we swim in it?" he asked.
"We can. But we'll probably dissolve after a few minutes."
Andy was silent for awhile, toying with the baby's rattle. In the rearview mirror, I watched his face transform in distraction, from infant to old man. His tiger-stripes were starting to show, darkened by the constant sun-exposure. He finally wormed his way between the bucket seats and turned to face me. "That's what we want, isn't it?"
I nodded, listening to his words weave into the the mountain peak's hum. "It's what we always want, son."
(Inspired by The Verve song "Beautiful Mind)
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Cracks in the Sea Sky
When you're shipwrecked and cannot die, the page of your book never turns. You live one endless day of saltwater, wind, and the veiny red behind closed eyelids. The water will not burn your tongue nor your guts, but neither will it stop the hollowing thirst. Breathe deeply and watch the flashes of fish under your wet fingers, because this is all you have.
And eventually, you realize that you can tear away the sea and sky. You see the grey void beneath the searing blue, and wisely choose to let the sky curl back into place, the sea slapping at your feet once more. "I will not remember that," you say to the sea, and the words echo for a long time, maybe years, but maybe only seconds. It's ok. You'll remember again when the shadowy figures dart under your dangling feet. You'll clutch your tattered raft and whisper, "It's just a dream, wake up! Wake up!"
And you will. You'll wake up to the void, the last churning of your stomach fading into incoherent particles, and you'll turn right back to the open sea.
The sea is full of many dead things. You notice them when you cannot die.
(Inspired by the Sting song "Something the Boy Said")
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What lives in the rain
When it rains in my city, tiny lifeforms sprout on car hoods, a wet dog's fur, and brick mortar. Each raindrop shudders as crystalline structures build, the air permeated by the data transfer hiss. I close my eyes and see them catalog the inhabitants of their temporary world: microbes, humans, animals, and ghosts. The ghosts see them as a pervasive metallic sheen, and the squirrels instinctively avoid the tiny filaments. Human bodies react imperceptibly, bellies subtly churning at this biomechanical intrusion, but sometimes the children will wrinkle their noses and say, "It smells weird out here."
When the final drop falls, these delicate bodies rust away before the last puddle dries, their data evaporating back to the alien atmosphere. The magnet of an ethereal intelligence pulls it effortlessly out of our world, where it will never exist again.
(Inspired by the Coil song Dark River)
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