Otherworldly Music
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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