This gun, attached to the side of his head.
He grips the handle.
He can never go further.
Instead, he just slides his hand down to his side.
But it stays, high.
It’s always there; ready.
Pressed against his temple; a metallic appendage.
It’s midnight now.
She decides to leave.
Mutually.
He grips, going further than he ever had.
But he stops.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The thought of you and I
Walking on a cloud
Afraid to look up
Too scared to look down
So I'll just stay here
And tread both heavenly and fearful ground.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Sound of Drums
The Sound of Drums
by Dustin Goodwin
A lonely silhouette sits on the street corner of a forgotten road within a forgotten city. Almost a pity, the ray of an overhead light casts a shadow over the “man”. Sand and dirt fill the streets around him and sit beneath his feet. Meeting the sand on the floor is the beauty of a brown and polished guitar with silver strings. What sings are the strings of the wood-clad instrument as the figure summons the music to pluck away. Some say the silhouette plays when the nights become days and the days become burdens of finding a purpose in all life. Tonight, this figure takes the guitar and plays a tune of a rising pace, strummed to the speed of the swift winds. "Sinful", the word to describe the sound that the instrument portrays, for it plays the noise of a thousand dusks and dawns on the horizon. Cries in the distance of another place arise as another man casts his stone:
Not much more but the filth of a rotten corpse or the scent of a diseased dog exists anymore. The sound of drums fills the atmosphere occupying every inch of space with a subtle noise that haunts the mind. I can't tell you what year it is, because no living person can recall a fact so useless. The people of this earth lost count simply because no one cares. A year to them is a new year of misery and torment. The entire population of the once United States of America became self-reliant when the collapse of Domacracy occurred; Government along with it.
What has this world come to? Each day that goes, this thought runs through my mind. I think about the deterioration of humanity as the rain gathers into puddles. The glow of red, flickering neon lights illuminates the darkened liquid, as I thrust my leg into the center. The water gets scared and jumps out from under my boot. It reassembles when it’s safe and away from me. To my right, a few darkened folks gather at their porch steps; some sit and others fall. The population has suffered a substantial loss in recent times. Everyone is dressed in black. It's as if they're all going to a funeral. They're standing in their graves.
Once again the figure picks up his guitar and strums the chords. He hits all the low notes; rarely moving down the board of strings. The moon illuminates the darkened backdrop of a saddened space. The pace of the guitarist slowly starts to rise. To the surprise of silence, the figure begins to chant. He can't speak English, he can't even hear. A look of fear strikes the man's face when he opens his mouth to sing. What his voice brings isn't the sound of a song, but the sound of a thousand bellows, his voice their single vessel. The night is still.
In the final hour I walk into the bar which was once a circulating business. The bottles on the wall behind the bar are gone, shattered or fallen over. A few chairs are missing their legs. A few people actually took the time to set them back up; certainly not
the man in the corner of the room with a mainline in his arm. Another man sits in a seat holding a bottle with a broken top on his table. He is a man who used to come here every day. He's probably never had a real home. No one knows for certain. I Haven't seen him in a while. The darkened rings under his eyes signify the lack of sleep. I don't blame him. For some reason, he's skinnier than I can remember. His hair is thin and he almost looks like a woman. His eyes are fixed on me and no one else. There's nothing to drink, so I sit across from him. He looks at me with a disturbed look on his face.
"It's the last one." he says.
"I know."
He says a few other things, but I can't hear him. Inaudible. I sit for a little while longer and decide to leave. Outside, there are a good number of people all looking in the same direction, while listening to dull roars of what sound to be bombs going off. I can't hear them. I can't hear them just as I can no longer hear the birds sing. All I can hear is a faucet. Dripping. Like the sounds of deep drums. It haunts me. Something so haunting, I'd rather not say. Like the face of death and God himself smiling to spite my presence. The waves of cold heat come from the distance and brush across my face. It feels nice.
For one final performance, the figure picks up his guitar and begins to pass over the chords with his dexterous hands. Bland is the night tonight. The light is only shining on and for the guitar, towards a new face of a new musical nuance. For once, the musician knows no limits, as he violently hits the steel strings with hands of hate and fingers of fear. The sound is almost unbearable, until the strings break loose. Hell once did the same.
by Dustin Goodwin
A lonely silhouette sits on the street corner of a forgotten road within a forgotten city. Almost a pity, the ray of an overhead light casts a shadow over the “man”. Sand and dirt fill the streets around him and sit beneath his feet. Meeting the sand on the floor is the beauty of a brown and polished guitar with silver strings. What sings are the strings of the wood-clad instrument as the figure summons the music to pluck away. Some say the silhouette plays when the nights become days and the days become burdens of finding a purpose in all life. Tonight, this figure takes the guitar and plays a tune of a rising pace, strummed to the speed of the swift winds. "Sinful", the word to describe the sound that the instrument portrays, for it plays the noise of a thousand dusks and dawns on the horizon. Cries in the distance of another place arise as another man casts his stone:
Not much more but the filth of a rotten corpse or the scent of a diseased dog exists anymore. The sound of drums fills the atmosphere occupying every inch of space with a subtle noise that haunts the mind. I can't tell you what year it is, because no living person can recall a fact so useless. The people of this earth lost count simply because no one cares. A year to them is a new year of misery and torment. The entire population of the once United States of America became self-reliant when the collapse of Domacracy occurred; Government along with it.
What has this world come to? Each day that goes, this thought runs through my mind. I think about the deterioration of humanity as the rain gathers into puddles. The glow of red, flickering neon lights illuminates the darkened liquid, as I thrust my leg into the center. The water gets scared and jumps out from under my boot. It reassembles when it’s safe and away from me. To my right, a few darkened folks gather at their porch steps; some sit and others fall. The population has suffered a substantial loss in recent times. Everyone is dressed in black. It's as if they're all going to a funeral. They're standing in their graves.
Once again the figure picks up his guitar and strums the chords. He hits all the low notes; rarely moving down the board of strings. The moon illuminates the darkened backdrop of a saddened space. The pace of the guitarist slowly starts to rise. To the surprise of silence, the figure begins to chant. He can't speak English, he can't even hear. A look of fear strikes the man's face when he opens his mouth to sing. What his voice brings isn't the sound of a song, but the sound of a thousand bellows, his voice their single vessel. The night is still.
In the final hour I walk into the bar which was once a circulating business. The bottles on the wall behind the bar are gone, shattered or fallen over. A few chairs are missing their legs. A few people actually took the time to set them back up; certainly not
the man in the corner of the room with a mainline in his arm. Another man sits in a seat holding a bottle with a broken top on his table. He is a man who used to come here every day. He's probably never had a real home. No one knows for certain. I Haven't seen him in a while. The darkened rings under his eyes signify the lack of sleep. I don't blame him. For some reason, he's skinnier than I can remember. His hair is thin and he almost looks like a woman. His eyes are fixed on me and no one else. There's nothing to drink, so I sit across from him. He looks at me with a disturbed look on his face.
"It's the last one." he says.
"I know."
He says a few other things, but I can't hear him. Inaudible. I sit for a little while longer and decide to leave. Outside, there are a good number of people all looking in the same direction, while listening to dull roars of what sound to be bombs going off. I can't hear them. I can't hear them just as I can no longer hear the birds sing. All I can hear is a faucet. Dripping. Like the sounds of deep drums. It haunts me. Something so haunting, I'd rather not say. Like the face of death and God himself smiling to spite my presence. The waves of cold heat come from the distance and brush across my face. It feels nice.
For one final performance, the figure picks up his guitar and begins to pass over the chords with his dexterous hands. Bland is the night tonight. The light is only shining on and for the guitar, towards a new face of a new musical nuance. For once, the musician knows no limits, as he violently hits the steel strings with hands of hate and fingers of fear. The sound is almost unbearable, until the strings break loose. Hell once did the same.
Parcellon
PARCELLON
A light between life and darkness appears and I slowly blink away blurred vision. I clasp the floor with flat palms and get myself back onto my feet; only to realize I’m simply lifting the right side of my face from a thick puddle which rests on metal ground. I must have hit my head on something earlier. On what, I’m not entirely sure. I look around only to find myself in a sort of metal box lined with several screens, buttons, and levers. The purpose of such contraptions I cannot fathom.
On the other side of this twenty-foot by twenty-foot cage is a man who appears to be more asleep than I once was. I trudge toward him with misguided vision. After nudging him once or twice, I realize there’s no reason to continue further. I turn him over to read a name printed on a nametag in front of his heart. A name I can recognize but not remember.
The date on his wristwatch says May 13th, 2150; a date which I cannot place. I look at my own uniform in the spot where there should be a surname but isn’t. I’m wearing the same one piece jumpsuit that this fellow is; a worker bee.
I wipe the sweat and fresh blood from the top of my brow as I try to get a feel for things, when a voice begins to speak to me.
“Would you like an orange?”
It was the stale, female voice of god calling out to me.
More softly, “would you like an orange.”
I realize now that it is just one of the machines, or this machine as a whole speaking to me. I answer.
“Yes.”
A robotic arm slides from one end of a pivoting contraption against the roof and plops a ripe orange into my palm. I peel it apart and begin biting into it. I stop midway and marvel at the machinery around me.
I walk over to what appears to be the biggest screen in the room. Lots of buttons in many shapes. Many are paired together depending on color, or form, but I decide to press and hold down a button in a shape of its own located on a pad below the screen and begin to speak.
“Another.”
The machine replies to me in a rather icy-hot tone.
“Rations met.”
I run my fingers across a few more buttons, and grip a lever or two. The texture is both familiar and fresh.
I walk around the room to try to get a feel of the prison I find myself in. For the most part, it’s a plain cube. Nothing worth noting other than a few gizmo’s and screens I can’t decipher, and a large box next to the computer with an opening I can’t seem to budge. I look inside my pockets, and find nothing. There seems to be nothing on me worth mentioning other than my own clothes.
My mind still stirred, I attempt to react with the computer’s voice in hopes that she can answer something.
“Computer.”
There’s silence, and then a reply.
“Yes?”
I point to the corpse in the corner, and look up at the ceiling.
“Identify.”
My arm still raised, I get an answer.
“Colonel Wilkinson, third year crew member. Supply officer.”
I try to grasp the situation further and finally ask the most direct of questions.
“What’s happened here?”
There’s a pause far longer than any other I’ve gotten.
“Information withheld. Identity confirmation required.”
A little pestered, I walk over towards the body and search his chest pockets, and then his side pockets. I feel around an empty space for a moment until the tip of my finger nudged a small plastic trinket. I fish it out.
It’s a small chip of some sort that looks like it could probably fit in one of those old coin clots from days old.
I head over to the computer on the far side of the room and search around for a means by which this can be read.
Ah.
There seems to be a small entry. I place the chip inside in hopes that I get a positive reaction. Once again, there’s a pause.
Soon to follow the curious silence, a beam shooting from the ground shows a projection of a goliath piece of machinery. It appears to be a ship, a complicated contraption; a scaled model with deep-set features, and smoke pouring from the side.
I sit across the room and watch the object rotate with a blue hue in the center of the room.
It spins on a slow axis and the computer’s voice seems to correlate with the speed of the rotation.
It explains that fifty-four hours ago, The Maddox-Wright, this ship, was attacked by an unidentified enemy and the portion of the ship which I’m standing in now was broken off. This dead officer, the computer, and myself are left here on the surface of this unnamed planet.
I attempt to process an SOS message to send out to nearby receivers, but there are none within range. It seems as though the only thing I can do it sit here in hopes that a friendly ship will pass along, and notice this damaged sanction.
Thankfully, this is the ration center, so if need be, I can live on the food located here in this room for however much time is needed. Unfortunately that won’t last forever, and neither with the artificial oxygen that’s currently being regulated and supplied by the mainframe of this system.
The computer continues to talk but eventually my mind begins to mend words together, and all I hear is a muffled monotone.
I stand next to the door.
Nothing will last.
I weigh my option.
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