“IT WAS AT THIS POINT in the narrative when those skilled in the nuances of the oral tradition began chuckling with anticipation.”
Tag: WIP
Works In Progress. The “typing” part of Writing — and the most challenging.
Haiku: First Rain
6:30 a.m.,
And behind my coffee cup,
Earth sips her new skies.
My Contribution to the Tongue Twister Effort
“CHICKEN KITCHEN.”
Prosatio Silban’s Table Tips: Place (A Literary Amuse-Bouche)
SOMEONE ONCE ASKED PROSATIO SILBAN his thoughts on “presentation;” i.e., how a dish should look when it leaves his kitchen. The Cook For Any Price thought for a moment before replying.
“I suppose it depends on your notion of what the food’s for,” he said. “In ancient and epicurean Pormaris, more than elsewhere in the Uulian Commonwell, cooking is an art like music, painting or courtesanry. There, the current fashion is to pile the food as vertically as the ingredients and imagination will allow. Perhaps they think it accents the dinner setting. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban’s Table Tips: Place (A Literary Amuse-Bouche)”
Fists Against The Posts
One kept thinking there had to be another way of looking at it, of really seeing *I*T*, and kept lamenting that particular brand of consciousness so limited in terms of time, space and perception. Oh, to soar as a school of fish — to feel the sea passing between its thousand fins now this way, now that. Or a yearning of swans — the intertwined indefinity of wings passing air down along the silent wind for others to grasp and master; Or roots pushing deep into moisture-thick earth, hardness yielding to an infinitely subtle softness; or to cry with the million-voiced dawn, not as birds but their urgeful chirping and its solid unyielding core: ball of life whirling through sunbound courses to push and dive and collide and bend around and back on itself again — and to know the immediate, im-mediated, proxyless and inviolate NOW of all and none of these NOW: … instead of one of six billion desperate afterimages, held in fading fingers as proof.
Prosatio Silban and the Mayor of Ixtachet
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THE Mayor of Ixtachet, at least until they become so — this Prosatio Silban discovered on a chance visit to the edge of the Azure Void which forms the southwest border of the Uulian Commonwell.
Ixtachet was one of the few villages in the Commonwell not blessed with verdant pasturage and running streams. Instead, its inhabitants lived in a series of cliffside huts, each with a breathtaking view of the Void’s eternal twilight, and a small terraced landhold containing a handful of roosts for the prolific and precarious-clinging snoat whose large, richly flavored eggs were the economic foundation of Ixtachet’s existence. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Mayor of Ixtachet”
From the Ashes
AS DETAILED ELSEWHERE, I DID some freelance work in the early 1990s for an eccentric Northern California non-profit called Obscure Research Labs.
Well… when the phone rings at 3 a.m. and the familiar metallic voice offers an occasional work-from-home project featuring fabulous prizes, free virtual travel and a steady below-poverty income, all I could say was https://metaphorager.net/orl: ORL’s new Facebook page. And I’m told that if enough people “like” it, They might even throw in some food chips. True, it’s a long way to the surface from this new office, but They assure me the packaging will prevent most breakage…
Flash Fiction: Death Finishes His Drink
THE MAN WITH YESTERDAY’S EYES put down his glass.
“Well, it’s 3 a.m.,” he sighed. “I guess those poor bastards aren’t going to terrify themselves.”
Under Oasine: Chapter 3 Synopsis
WHEN LAST WE MET, OUR heroes (the reluctant Hapler, the wounded Ij, and the idealist Twiz) were either successful or not in their quest to prove Twiz’s Theory of Oasine Connectivity: they did discover a new oasis beyond their native Fint, but have been deterred in their return by some unexpected visitors of unknown intent…
After some tense fumbling, conversation is established. The visitors call themselves Aquans (at least, for now) and call the new-to-our-heroes oasis something translating as “Good Fruit and Game, But Watch Out For Leaping Teeth.” They are led by a young woman (for now named “Possible Love Interest, But Watch It Buster”) and are uncertain what to do with the Finter trespassers, especially since their waterpod is broken and Ij injured by the aforementioned Leaping Teeth.
The Aquans then conduct the party (and pod) to their undersurface city, there to consult the Old Aquan. After a couple of pages of travelogue, they arrive and meet the appropriately named Old Aquan — polite, curious and gruff as he cautions the newcomers that they have entered a bigger world than they expected. He does not elaborate, but urges them to leave at once; when told of their difficulties, he orders PLIBWIB to see to the healing of man and pod.
A week later, Ij is fit as a Finter fiddle, developing a crush on his nurse (much to Hapler’s amusement), and ready for the PLIBWIB-lead journey back to Fint. The four set off in the repaired-and-spiffed-up pod: but after a page or so of narrative feint, they run smack into the bigger world of which the Old Aquan warned them…
And that’s all you get ’til I write the next chapter! (See https://metaphorager.net/under-oasine-synopsis1/, second paragraph; for an Oasine Overview, click to https://metaphorager.net/tag/under-oasine/).
Spacetime Coordination
“So the first thing is where. My first thought is the Heart of Green.”
“Off to the Right?”
“No, before that and down hill. At the base of the Stairstream.”
“Oh. Under that cliffy flat place that leads to Blasted Heath, over the cliffs.”
“Yes, where Keith started cursing out the valley in neo-Sumerian.”
“—hole.”
“Quite. Anyway, what about there?”
“Okay. Sure. Then we could go by Elven Rocks…”
“The rocks on the right, or the ones on top of the hill with the view down the back and, what is that, north?”
“Yeah … I think they filmed part of Harold and Maude out there. Looks like it. The bridge scene.”
“That was San Mateo.”
“Right, but if it wasn’t, then there. But on the from where the view is.”
“Roger Dean Rocks.”
“Roger Dean Rocks. Right. The acorn mortars.”
“Right. And through that sort of on top of the hill lane. You know? By the rock by the tree.”
“Oh! Yeah! The birthday rock!”
“Didn’t you play the flute up there once?”
“I’ll bring it.”
“Who else can we invite?”
“Who else knows the way?”
Wanted: Art Factory
BRIGHT-EYED BUT LIMP-TAILED creator — more ideas than Warhol or Lucas with one-tenth the energy, no pretensions and no contacts — seeks talented but inspiration-dry makers to loose entertaining visions on unsuspecting populace. Preferred media disciplines: comix; publishing; publicity; cartography; lost-wax casting; rocketry and aeronautical/transorbital fabrication; costume design; beekeeping; gaming, including RPG and videotronics; orchestra; robotics; armory; theater and film/video; MOOG synthesizer; CG and model-building; architecture; laser optics.
No pay necessary — work from home in your spare time. Equal returns and credit guaranteed Scout’s honor (“A Cheery Coproduction of _YOUR NAME HERE_ and Neal’s Brain Unlimited”). No poseurs, players or funless wimps need apply. Please direct all serious inquiries (no phone calls please) to scoop at sonic dot net.
Under Oasine: Chapter Two Synopsis
NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED than I to have finished the second chapter of my novel[1], nor when the characters hijacked the plot (at about the 0.23 mark. Stephen King said that was going to happen eventually). Thus, in all its synoptic glory[2]:
In our previous chapter, our three heroes (one reluctant), in their quaint craft the Deeper, tumbled deep into the oasis of Fint to surface only the Hydrator knows where. Are they lost, or is their hometown, or…?
After a brief discussion, Twiz and Ij take the Deeper’s small-boat (and a variety of weapons) for a closer look at their new surroundings while Hapler putters with the quaint craft’s gomaker: a complex assembly of pith and vegetative muscle, now damaged from the Deeper’s tumble.
Twiz and Ij soon discover that, wherever they are, at least they won’t starve. Fish are plentiful within the oasis lagoon, and fruit from its overhanging palm trees; but these are as unfamiliar to the explorers as the songs of afternoon insects. Ij is so taken by a clump of flowers that he doesn’t notice the beast until it leaps on him. A quick struggle, some deft spear-work by Twiz, and the sharp spindly thing lies dead.
Meanwhile, Hapler has troubleshot the damage and is heartened to see that it’s minimal. He is about to effect repairs when a banging on the hull draws his attention: Twiz, with the delirious form of Ij. The two lash their stricken companion into his hammock, then medicate him into sleep.
After a fitful dinner, Twiz and Hapler divide the night between them. Nothing happens during Twiz’ watch (beyond some intense apprehension and self-castigation); Hapler is just beginning to enjoy the strange insect-song when he notices a ring of eyes all around the Deeper. The eyes belong to slender grey-green figures — about a dozen of them — who swarm over the craft and subdue its astonished occupants.
Tune in next time (say, another 5,000 words) for the next thrilling chapter of Under Oasine!
[1] “My novel” (I love saying that; insert Peewee Herman giggle) is called “Under Oasine.” It’s set in an otherwise desert world, and everything I blog about it is tagged, well, https://metaphorager.net/tag/under-oasine/.
[2] Sorry, that’s all you get ’til the whole thing is done. (See https://metaphorager.net/under-oasine-synopsis1/, second paragraph.)