Tag Archives: writer

One-Sided Conversations With The Author

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You can always tell when winter’s officially dead in New York. The city streets are suddenly chock-a-block with flea markets. Seriously, they begin springing up like daisies. People peddling the useless and discardable bits of their lives to folks looking to fill the holes and empty spaces in their own. I’m no exception. I’ve been on both sides of the table.

Yesterday, while meandering through one of the vacant lot bazaars, I ran into an old  fraintance (less than a friend, more than an acquaintance) who was carrying a box of ratty old hardcover books that she acquired on the cheap. We get to talking and I’m surprised at how well the conversation is going (the memories of why we didn’t get along in the end hadn’t hit my expired warranty brain yet). She struggled a bit with the box so I offered to carry it for her and suggested grabbing a bite at a nearby greasy spoon.

Over a meal, we inspected the books. Titles I’d never heard of, in such a shoddy shape as to rob them of any resale value. But we both noticed writing in the margins of several of the books. Pages and pages of it. Questions. Annotations. Comparisons to real life events. Supportive statements.

My fraintance automatically assumed they were the notes of some poor person who used to be a book editor that somehow couldn’t reconcile the fact that their profession was a long dead thing buried in the occupational heyday of youth.

To me, the neatly stacked margin sentences seemed more like thoughts that refused to remain locked within a curious and fully engaged mind and instead tried to open a discussion, share opinions and points of view, enter into an intellectual debate over the content of paragraphs and dialogue. It read like a one-side conversation with the author. Chatting with a literary ghost.

I was actually intrigued by this notion and tried to borrow one of the books to examine at my leisure, but she was having none of it, calling my view a load of romantic nonsense. By this time, the memories of why I hadn’t gotten along with the fraintance in the first place began leaking into the cracks of our conversation and flooding the space between us.

She knew I saw a story in there. Knew that I’d end up borrowing the books one by one in an attempt to piece together a backstory and motivation for the margin writer. Perhaps I still will one day, I just wish I had access to the original reference materials.

Sally forth and be readful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

To Sow, Perchance To Reap

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The world is full of folks who appreciate nature and the great outdoors to the point of creating a mental happy place of some idyllic green pasture. That ain’t me. City boy born and bred. Concrete, glass and steel is my Garden of Eden. Yet, despite not being blessed with a green thumb, I planted something today.

An idea.

Okay, “idea” is a bit of a stretch. It’s more like a plot germ. As it stands, it’s a weak and feeble thing prematurely delivered into the world that requires incubation, so I decided to commit it to the ground at the tail end of my mind and ignore it until it has the strength to claw its way out of the grave.

But don’t feel too sorry for it, though. It’s not alone. It’s planted beside random bits of cool dialogue that I’ll never be able to work into a real world conversation, and nebulous set pieces that don’t quite fit into any of my existing stories. They’re all tucked away in my own personal mental pet cemetery.

“The soil of a man’s mind is stonier; a man grows what he can imagine and scribes it.”

Apologies for the bastardization of your quote, Stephen.

And no, I won’t tell you what the plot germ is. Not out of fear of it being stolen (what, thieves on the interwebz? Nope, I won’t believe it) but simply because 1) you wouldn’t understand it in its present form, and 2) I’m not superstitious but I firmly believe in the dreaded jinx. If I tell you what it is, it’ll never grow.

So, I will go about my business and occupy my mind with trivialities—like the numerous problems with Star Trek Into Darkness and why show writers create interested premises for Doctor Who episodes only to abandon all logic and rush the stories to unsatisfying climaxes—and allow my subconscious to absently weed my preemie idea seed. I’ll wait until it breaks free of its chrysalis as a brain soil stained vision with roots that encircle the heart of a story that I cannot wait to write. Until then, I’ll follow the sage advice of Mssr. Ron Popeil and, “Set it and forget it.”

Sally forth and sow, perchance to reap.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Songs As Stories: Stars Go Blue

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When Stars Go Blue *Inspired by the song “When The Stars Go Blue” by Ryan Adams

It was a secret place, a quarter acre of Eden abandoned and erased from the mind of mankind the instant the original sin was committed, and I had stumbled upon it quite by accident.

No, that was a lie and I promised myself I would not defile the sanctity of the garden if it could be helped.

I was not proud of the actual reason of how I came to be in this place, simply because I was a stalker. In my defense, it was only the once, I hadn’t made a habit of following women around without their knowledge. Just one woman. The one I was currently spying on, crouched here in the bushes amongst the flower blossoms, berries and leaves.

Mari.

Coworkers called her Marionette behind her back and sometimes to her face, passing it off as good-natured teasing. There was nothing good-natured about it. She acquired the nickname because she was a gangly woman who moved about in a jerky fashion, as if the unseen wires that made her move were constantly in a tangle that the puppeteer hadn’t been able to sort.

Mari did as people of her ilk often do, she kept herself to herself, stared at her shoes rather than make eye contact, and accepted all the negativity heaped upon her shoulders with nary a complaint. But she couldn’t hide the fact that she was miserable, just as I couldn’t hide that I was somehow drawn to that misery.

Although I wanted to know her for a while, I was too shy to make an approach. Today, I told myself, would be the day. As I went through my daily grind, I slowly mustered all my courage and screwed it to the sticking place. Ten minutes to quitting time, I marched to Mari’s cubicle, prepared to make my intentions known…

But she wasn’t there.

I searched by the fax machine, in the kitchen near the coffee maker, I even bore the brunt of strange stares when I loitered outside the women’s restroom, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. Completely and utterly defeated, I grabbed my coat and left for home.

Half a block before the entrance to the subway, something grabbed my attention out the corner of my eye. Across the street, Mari sat on a bench at a bus stop as the 5:17 pulled up. I wanted to run across the street, braving the crosstown traffic and hop on the bus to make my stand. Instead, I froze. All my former courage had long abandoned me.

For the second time today, my heart sank. And for the second time today it did so without merit. The bus pulled away to find Mari still seated. And she sat as bus after bus pulled up and away. She did not read a book. She did not listen to music. She simply sat patiently.

Then when sufficient time had passed, Mari stood and walked away. I couldn’t tell you what possessed me to follow her on the crooked path that weaved through narrow alleyways, towering overpasses, black as pitch underground tunnels. Eventually her journey came to a halt in front of a lot that appeared to have been vacant for centuries.

Mari stood at the perimeter of the lot and at the precise moment the evening woke and forced the daylight into hiding, a door appeared with seven locks. She stood absolutely still and waited. In the newborn evening sky, stars bloomed and seven of them twinkled blue in a sequence that repeated seven times. The locks tumbled one after the other and the door opened slowly.

Mari stepped through the door frame but hadn’t appeared in the lot on the other side. From my vantage point, she simply vanished.

I ran to the door and managed to squeeze through before it shut, but instead of finding myself in the overgrown and refuse-filled lot, I stepped into paradise. My clothes melted from my body and ashamed of my nakedness, I hid in a nearby bush.

In the very center of the garden stood a mammoth tree that bore unrecognizable fruit of various shapes and sizes, the roots of which branched out along the grass and touched two streams on either side, one that appeared to have been made of milk and the other honey.

Standing beside the tree was Mari, naked but no longer that gangly woman who was awkward in her skin and awkward in the world. Here, her jerky movements flowed gracefully, her normally dull and lifeless eyes were polished to a fine shine, and her crooked mouth straightened and nearly split her face in half when she unleashed that radiant smile.

Mari blew a kiss up to the tree and somehow that kiss became a breeze that rustled the leaves which made a sort of melody unlike any I had ever heard. A pure music played by nature itself.

She danced around the tree all night without tiring, in time with the tune, and sang in a voice that was different from her normal mousy tone, stronger now, more confident. And I watched all the sorrow and strife, all the hurt and anger, all that was wrong with her life evaporate from her body.

When she sensed it was time to leave, Mari reached up and plucked the smallest of the fruit from a low hanging branch and dipped it in the stream of honey before washing the meal down with a cupped hand from the stream of milk.

The door reappeared and her clothing was folded neatly in a pile beside it. With each layer she put on, the transformation to her old self, the Mari that people mocked, began.

I thought about following her, but how could I ever leave this place, this patch of perfection? I knew she would be back and the next time I would talk to her, for certain. Until then I was contented to wait until she returned to dance again. I would wait until the stars went blue.

Sally forth and be dancing where the stars go bluingly writeful.

©2014 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

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Of Air Returned

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i.

I burned my soul to ash but the pain paled in comparison to the terror that struck my heart like a match, anticipating her arrival and the tirade she would carry in tow. An unwarranted fear, as she was calm when she saw what I had done. Calm and nurturing. Soothing my pain with herbs and aromas, and each early morning during the hour of the wolf, she laid an ear on my back and listened as my soul mended itself.

She never spoke the words of disappointment aloud but it registered in her eyes. Although residing within my body, this wounded thing, this unwanted soul, did not belong to me. She had laid claim to it many years past, and in my despondency, I had taken liberties with her property and attempted to destroy it. Again.

ii.

The first time, I threw my soul into a sinkhole and allowed the ground to swallow it whole. I made her acquaintance when she plucked it from the soil like a tattered tuber. “I saw what you did,” she said. “And since you would so recklessly toss this precious thing away, it is no longer yours, but mine, agreed?” I nodded and she handed my soul back to me for safe keeping.

I honored our pact for a few years, caring for it within my limited capacity, but during a particularly nasty bout of depression, I tied heavy stones to my soul and pushed it off the sea wall. For a second time, she appeared, fishing my soul from the waves and scolded me, “You are charged with protecting this thing that is mine, do you understand?” Again, I nodded. Again, I lied.

iii.

“Why do you want this worthless soul when it has been crushed by the earth? Why do you want it when it has been drowned in the sea? Why do you want it when it has been set aflame like so much tinder?” I searched long and hard yet found no answer in her silence.

iv.

During the day, when she thought me preoccupied, she secreted herself in the shadows and slept. One day I followed her into the darkness and watched her body twitch from dreaming and listened as she muttered,

One more soul, once buried deep.
One more soul, in ocean steeped.
One more soul, by fire burned.
One more soul, of air returned.

v.

Under her care, my soul grew healthier and it frightened me. I was pitilessly plagued and badgered by the phrase, One more soul, of air returned, that repeated in my mind’s ear until it turned dogged and cacophonous. But she was unaware of my inner torment, in fact, she was in an exceptionally good mood today, her voice almost a song, “I know you don’t see it, but you are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”

vi.

Today was the day. I felt it in my marrow. Something was destined to happen, something I most likely would not survive. I should have embraced this eerie premonition, for it was no secret that I did not want to continue in this manner, broken, detached and alone. But the choice of how and when I departed this wretched life was mine to make and mine alone. So, I stalled by distracting her with trivialities. “May I have more broth? Have you seen my shoes? No, not that pair, the other ones? Can we go for a walk?” If she knew my plan, her expression never showed sign. No request was too large or small on this day. She granted them all.

vii.

We strolled along the pathway in the park that led to the duck pond, a place we visited often during my convalescence. Picked, naturally, as not to arouse suspicion as I searched for the proper diversion in order to make my escape. But I was so wrapped in my own thoughts, I failed to notice that she was walking slower than usual today. “Can we rest a moment?” she asked as we neared the benches. “I am a little short of breath.”

Her breathing became a labored and raspy thing before it hitched and became lodged in her throat. When her face went dusky blue and she slid off the park bench, I panicked. The opportunity had presented itself and there I stood like an idiot, frozen. Entangled in the decision of whose life to save, or more accurately, whose death I could live with.

There was no real choice.

viii.

Her breathing was a trembling, liquid sound as I pressed my mouth to hers and exhaled, but instead of me breathing air into her body, I felt her sucking air from my lungs, and not just air…

I tried desperately to pull away but her thin, vise-like hands clamped down on the nape of my neck and held me firm in a kiss that was collapsing me. My hold on life became dim and futile, but before I slipped away into emptiness, I noticed the oddest thing: her belly began to swell.

Every fiber of my actuality was drawn into her, and my soul, the object I had forever been so reckless with, was systematically being stripped of concern, of negativity, of identity. I fell further and further into a darkness that pressed on me from all sides. So tight, so constricted. I was still unable to breathe but the sensation was somehow different now.

At the very moment when it seemed the darkness was about to claim me for eternity, there came a burst of light so bright as to cut my eyes. Thankfully something soon blotted out the light – a face, slowly coming into focus but I knew her before I saw her. From the moment I heard her soft cooing, “You are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”

Mother.

Text and Audio ©1988 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

About Of Air Returned: Delusion can be a scary thing, but it can also be wonderful at the same time. This piece was written in the early part of 1988, during a period when I swore I could do no wrong—it’s fine, you can laugh, I’ll just cringe quietly in the corner. I was heavily into both science and speculative fiction and had recently rediscovered the works of The Brothers Grimm, so I was determined to create my own collection of fairy tales for the—then—modern age.

Applying fairy tale rules, I could introduce the fantastic or the bizarre into any story with little or no explanation, and have all the characters in the tales accept everything as normal. Wishes as deus ex machina. Love as the ultimate cure-all. All the good stuff without all the fuss. Genius, right?

It would take the better part of six months for me to discover I wasn’t the groundbreaker I imagined myself to be. On the plus side, I followed my then idol, Harlan Ellison’s advice and was able to churn one of these puppies out a day.

Of course, most of them are unreadable. This one teeters on the edge. I kinda like it and it kinda embarrasses the hell out of me, but it was one of the three Rhyan Realm tales–yeah, I created my own sub-genre name for them, what of it?–that actually saw print… after 10-some-odd rejections.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss a few minutes goodbye.

The Web and the Too Close Crescent Moon

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Sadder than any person I’ve ever seen, Madam Ostelinda greets me with a weak handshake before taking the seat across the table and begins to remove the cloth from her crystal ball.

“That won’t be necessary, “ I say. “Your sign out front says you’re a dream interpreter as well, is that right?”

“I am,” says the fortune teller and I’m surprised at how much her accent doesn’t match her garish Roma garb, as if she can’t be bothered putting on the full routine anymore. In fact, her office or workspace or inner sanctum or whatever you call the place a woman in her line of work plies their craft seems a bit underdone, like a cheap curio shop that isn’t ready to open for business because it’s not fully stocked.

“I’d like to tell you about this dream I’ve been having.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” she says, repositioning the deep velvet cloth over the glass orb and locking eyes but still not properly seeing me.

“Okay, so, I’m looking up at this crescent moon in a night sky filled with stars and it’s too big, the moon, like I can almost reach out and touch it, except my arms won’t move. Then I realize I can’t move my entire body because I’m tangled up in some sort of giant spiderweb which for some reason is at the mouth of a cave. And before I can make sense of it, I hear a noise, a scrabbling or scratching sound that’s getting closer and it’s clear that something is approaching behind me and because I’m immobilized I can’t see it but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it’s the thing that made this web.

“I try calling out for help but my lips and my teeth have these hooks and hollows that have been locked together like a flesh and bone zipper. All seems lost when out of the corner of my eye I spot a pair of scissors stuck to the web near my right hand and if I can only reach it I can cut myself free…but try as I might my fingers just aren’t long enough and the creature is right behind me, and just when I sense it’s about to strike…I wake up.”

I study Madam Ostelinda’s face, who is clearly preoccupied with other matters, and I do not rush her interpretation so we sit in her shabby mystic lair in silence for a long moment until the time the impatience I attempt to tamp down forces a biological urge to clear my throat.

The faux gypsy returns from her woolgathering and asks, “How many times have you had this dream?”

“There have been at least eleven instances in the past two weeks,” I reply. “Any idea what it all means?”

It is now Madam Ostelinda’s turn to clear her throat as she leans forward on the table, lacing her fingers in an academic professorial manner, and explains, “Well, a crescent moon indicates cyclic changes, renewal, and possibly progressing smoothly toward a new life path. The web could either suggest that you’re being held back from fully expressing yourself or you feel trapped and don’t know what to do or where to go. The scissors could denote a need to become decisive and take control in the real world, or you need to cut things or people out of your life.”

“I suppose I can agree with some of that,” I nod. “Not to change the subject but you seemed a little distracted after I finished telling you my dream. What were you thinking about?”

“You noticed that, huh? My apologies. It just seemed familiar to me, that’s all, like I’ve heard something similar to it before.”

“From your daughter, perhaps?”

And there is the look I have been waiting for, the dawning recognition.

“Amy?” she says my name and I am triggered, losing my footing in the present and falling back through the calendar of my life to the days when my younger self delighted in having my mother’s undivided attention.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, smiling despite myself.

This woman, who looks nothing like I remembered; who looks nothing like me because I take after my father, struggles to find words and when she eventually does, all she can muster is, “How did you find me?”

“A private investigator. Dad told me it was a waste of money and time but sometimes I’m like a dog with a bone, a trait he says I get from you. It took the private eye a while to find you because you did one hell of a job changing your identity.”

And any satisfaction I thought I’d feel at finally confronting her is lost when ages-long regret strips away the gypsy mask to reveal the sad, small woman beneath.

“You must think I’m a horrible person,” she turns away as she says this as to hide the tears welling in her eyes.

“I did, for a long time,” I admit. “But now, all I want are answers.”

“You’re not going to understand.”

“Try me. And as for the scissors thing, I’m not trying to cut you out of my life,” I say and proceed to ask all the questions a parent who abandons their child dreads.

Text and Audio ©2019 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Wanna Succeed as a Writer? Buddy Up to Failure, it’s the Best Friendship You’ll Ever Make

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Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. —- Theodore Roosevelt

The act of bollocksing it up, getting it all wrong and falling flat on your literary face is the worst, most evil thing that can be thrust upon the fragile ego of a creative person. No writer ever wants to be standing hip-deep in a congealing bucket of epically proportioned failure. Not only does it cling to you, branding you with the scarlet letter of incompetence, but the fumes from it seep into your pores and attack your confidence, enthusiasm and self esteem.

And even worse than failing? Atychiphobia:

From the Greek phóbos, meaning “fear” or “morbid fear” and atyches meaning “unfortunate” atychiphobia is the abnormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure, often leading to a constricted lifestyle, and is particularly devastating for its effects on a person’s willingness to attempt certain activities.

But “fear of” is getting kicked to the curb in this post because—if you haven’t sussed it from the title—I’m actually advocating for failure, which in my insolent opinion, gets a bad rap.

When you first begin to write for an audience, or writing in a genre that’s new to you, or in a different format, etc., your first attempts will most likely not be optimal. No two ways about it. No getting around it. Why? Because your life isn’t a movie, wunderkind wasn’t conveniently inserted into your backstory, and greatness isn’t DNA-encodable at this point in time, it still has to be strived for.

You. Will. Fail. Fail to connect with your audience. Fail to notice logic issues in your plot easily spotted by a reader. Fail to end a story properly (if you even complete it at all). Fail in your use of words to convey the intended images. Fail to make a sale. Fail to impress your literary heroes. Fail to please everyone (always), the majority (on occasion), and anyone (trust me, it happens).

The only surefire way to avoid writing failure is to either never commit your ideas to paper–let them swirl around in the magical kingdom of your imagination, living their Peter Pan existence, as you vegetate in front of the TV–or never put your writing out into the world. If either of these sound like a viable solution, good on you and go for it. I’m not here to judge.

If, however, you’re not satisfied with letting ideas fester in your gray matter as you wait for the opportunity to unleash your genius in that perfect moment that never ever seems to swing around your way, you’ll need to look disappointment square in the eye and accept the fact that the outcome of your writing endeavors will not always line up with your expectations.

And though I’m not here to judge, should you actually consider never committing your ideas to paper, one possible adverse effect is that idea can metamorphosize into a bloated squatter that takes up an unnecessary amount of mind space, thereby blocking the arrival of new ideas. If it were me, I’d serve it an eviction notice and make way for a new tenant. But that’s just me. Still no judgements.

Once you’ve wrapped your noggin around the simple truth that you will fail and have given up feeling hopeless, weak, and belittling both yourself and your talents, you’re finally ready to accept the fact that failure plays a very important, incredibly positive role in your writing life. In fact it offers you a chance to grow and learn.

The first step in learning how failure breeds success is to let yourself fail a few times. Experience it in it’s totality. When you discover that it does not, in fact, destroy you, feel free to brush yourself off and climb back on the horse. All successful writers have experienced failure (and a great deal of the time the success/fail ratio favors the negative) but what made them successful is they weren’t afraid to fail and if they did, they just learned from their mistakes and moved on.  They didn’t allow themselves to be defeated by rejection, hurt or disappointment.

There will be those of you who poo-poo (yeah, I said poo-poo, deal with it) the notion of getting accustomed to failure because you personally know someone whose first ever novel made the bestsellers list, whose first draft screenplay became a Hollywood blockbuster, whose tweets became a TV series, blah-blah-blech. There’s a professional name for that phenomenon. It’s called a miracle. Right place, right time, all the planets fall into alignment. This is great when/if it happens, but you shouldn’t factor it into your overall game plan. It’s akin to being dirt poor and signing the deed on a mansion just because you’re sure you’re gonna win the lottery.

Well, writing calls, so I must be off–I’m sure I’ll speak more on this topic in the future–but before I go, let me leave you with a list to help you on your way to palling up with failure:

  1. Read.
  2. Write.
  3. Fail.
  4. Learn.
  5. Repeat.

It’s as simple, and as difficult, as that.

Sally forth and be writeful.

Aeton and Ioasephyn

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Minds Eye

Aeton was made for Ioasephyn, and she him, of this there was never any doubt. Formed during The Great Making and united in an unbreakable union when the world was in its infancy, the couple consummated their love as the molten planet cooled. Theirs was the first love and the fulcrum on which all love that followed would be balanced.

In the days before there were others, Aeton and Ioasephyn relaxed in fields of spun gold and stared upward, watching as the void caught fire, pinprick flames burst into life throughout the inky black and became stars. As the land masses grew restless and pulled away from one another, separating the waters into greater and lesser portions, the pair frolicked while the planet went through its growing pains.

When others came, some as a byproduct of their union, and the rest molded from clay or evolved from simpler lifeforms, they watched as gatherings became villages became towns became cities, and those overpopulated cities became nations. There were those who sought to rule these nations, some successfully, others less so. Aeton and Ioasephyn had seen the noblest of endeavors corrupted by pettiness, jealousy and greed and wished to separate themselves from the inevitable outcomes.

Time passed for everyone but the young lovers. Their children grew older, as did friends. Not all were accepting of the fact, so they vanished from the daily workings of societies, and only visited occasionally when curiosity got the better of them.

One such visit proved disastrous for Ioasephyn when someone in a new city recognized her. She thought enough time had passed and the world had forgotten them. How could she have known that she and Aeton had become the stuff of legend? A legend planted in the soil of truth, watered by myth in each retelling until it sprouted the belief that their blood, the liquid of pure first love, granted eternal life.

They surrounded her, the entire city did, and forced her into a prison until they consulted with an elder on the precise details of the ritual needed to extract the blood for the immortality elixir.

Aeton was on the opposite side of the world when he felt Ioasephyn’s fear tug at his heart. He pleaded with the moon to create a tide that would carry him to his true love’s side. It obliged and he rode the waters day and night without rest until he arrived at the city that held her.

Without delay, he met with the officials who held his love and attempted to reason with them. With a father’s patience, he listened to their wild tales and struggled to dispel the myths. He told them the truth in the Voice of Authority, but they paid no heed and took him prisoner, as well.

The legend warned that the couple’s invincible power was only focused in their union, so the jailers locked Aeton and Ioasephyn in cages separated far enough apart so they could not touch. Upon seeing one another, the lovers wept for they knew their demise would soon come. But they were not angry, instead, they pitied those who could never have seen the world through their eyes. The love they declared for one another stood the test of the sometimes wondrous sometimes terrifying times they lived through, and it would survive this as well.

Though they had accepted their fates, Aeton could not bear the thought of Ioasephyn not existing, so he hid her away somewhere no one would ever think to find her. He hid her in plain sight, tucked away in the corner of the mind’s eye of everyone in existence. He spoke the words of the incantation in his native tongue, acquired at the dawn of language when words contained magic.

Unbeknownst to Aeton, Ioasephyn had done the same to him. They truly were of one mind.

So now they lived where visionaries and dreamers created and though they often tended to their own affairs, sometimes they could be glimpsed frolicking on the cusp of thoughts or relaxing in fields of gossamer daydreams, staring upward and watching as the void caught fire, pinprick flames bursting into life throughout the inky blackness to become ideas.

Text and Audio ©2014 – 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

The Next Now

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Next Now

Though he swore to himself that he would never ever in a million years be caught dead doing it again, Clayton Jacobson wound up working late. Nearly four and a half hours past his quitting time, according to the clock, whose disinterested face stared down upon him from its lofty perch above the office door. Which made it two hundred and seventy minutes since his co-workers abandoned him without a second thought, retreating to the comfort of their homes, leaving him to pick up the slack.

Traitors, all of them.

Experts claimed that it was impossible to put a dollar value on a human life. But Clayton knew that to be a lie. He was aware exactly what his life was worth at current market value between the weekday hours of nine-to-six, or better yet, nine-to-ten thirty. He was a salaried employee that wasn’t eligible for overtime pay, so rounded up, his life was worth twenty-six dollars and fifty cents an hour. That boiled down to forty-four cents a second that he collected as he sat at his desk completely inundated with work and wasting his life away doing something that held his interest not in the least. Forty-four cents for each precious second of his life that he had exhausted and could never reclaim ever again. And as he inched ever closer to his own inevitable demise, he couldn’t help but think how cheaply he’d sold a portion of his life to a faceless entity that wouldn’t be able to recall his name in the fiscal quarter that followed his inevitable termination date.

Clayton Jacobson was a corporate cheap date.

As a reward for his continued loyalty, he had been given what was considered to be the reasonable and customary stock options package, which made him the proud owner of five thousand shares of complete and absolute boredom. Every day at approximately this very instant, he cracked his investment portfolio wide and contemplated his stock, and as always, he came to the realization that he was wealthier than he thought. He personally owned more boredom than he knew what to do with.

Cursing himself for being a corporate lackey, he rubbed his tired eyes, yawned, stretched, and began the protocol for closing up shop. It’s not like he could simply get up and leave. His position as office manager included the responsibility of backing up the entire day’s work onto the server, which would cost him another half hour, at least.

While the backup chugged away at its steady pace, Clayton impatiently packed his briefcase with files stacked in his Incoming tray under the guise of finishing the work at home. But he knew all too well that once he stepped foot into his apartment, he would ignore the work like an overdue bill or a random bit of junk mail. Physically taking work home was just a force of habit. It made him feel like he was making a dent, which was the lie he told himself every evening.

After all the computers and office equipment were shut down, he shrugged on his coat, locked the front door and tripled checked that it was secure. That was the one and only OCD that Clayton had. Is the door locked? Did I lock the door? were the questions he would ask himself every time he left the building. And he realized that this problem of his wasn’t founded in reality since never once in all his years had he not successfully locked a door upon leaving a place, but still, he found himself constantly returning to check locked doors. Tonight wasn’t a particularly bad night. He only went back and checked the door three times. His standing record was twenty-seven, which was probably due to the fact that he was not only exhausted that night but also on a heavy dose of cold medication.

Clayton Jacobson did not take sick days.

On his fourth time exiting the building, Clayton lost his footing and hit the concrete pavement like a baseball player sliding home. The briefcase slipped from his grasp during the fall and popped open, scattering files and papers all over the sidewalk. Embarrassed, he looked around quickly to see if anyone caught his fall. Not a soul in sight. Good. He slowly got to his feet, dusted himself off and looked at the spot in front of the building where he had tripped. He half expected to see a patch of ice, grease or something, but there was nothing there.

That’s odd, he thought as he began scooping the papers back into his briefcase. Although it was a cold night, it wasn’t particularly windy, which was a good thing, since Clayton hadn’t fancied the idea of chasing paper down the street.

As he fastened the last latch on his briefcase, Clayton rose to see his bus pull away from the bus stop. He chased after it, hoping that the stoplight at the corner would turn red, giving him the chance to catch up with the bus and plead his way aboard. Usually, the bus drivers were more lenient about picking up passengers outside designated areas after ten o’clock at night. Unfortunately, the stoplight and Clayton were not in accord as it allowed the bus to escape him.

At the bus stop Clayton didn’t even bother reading the schedule because he knew the next bus was a half hour away and it was far too cold to stand out on the street and wait and if he went back into the office, he would get caught up in work and miss the next bus and most likely fall asleep at his desk. Since there were no open coffee shops at this time of night, he resigned himself to walk home. He lived close enough to his job so that walking wasn’t out of the question, which was the only real perk that was associated with his employment. Twenty minutes by foot if he hustled, a half-hour if he took a more leisurely pace. Theoretically, he could have been home before the next bus arrived, so he hoofed it.

At the corner, his nemesis, the streetlight, turned red and he was forced to wait his turn against the traffic. A man sidled up to Clayton’s elbow so silently he could have been a shadow.

“Excuse me,” the man said and Clayton tried to suppress the urge to jump out of his skin. “May I have a moment of your time?”

“Sorry. I have someplace to be.” Clayton didn’t even meet the man’s gaze.

“Surely you have a moment to spare, in one of your pockets, perhaps?” the man’s manner was polite and seemed completely genuine.

“Is this about money?” Clayton shot him a glance.

“No.”

“Cigarettes? Because I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I. Not for some time now.” A fact the man seemed to find rather amusing.

“Okay, so are you some kind of cop or something? Am I under arrest? Are you looking for sex? Are you initiating into a gang and need to cut a complete stranger? A serial killer cruising for a little late night murder?”

“No, no, no, no, and no.” the man smiled.

“Then what, for God’s sake?”

“As I said initially, a moment of your time.”

“For what?” Clayton spat.

“I think you dropped something.” The man said, pointing in the direction of the office building.

Clayton assumed it was a sheet of paper that he missed when he was scooping up his papers, but what he saw instead was— well, at first he thought it was a pile of garbage. But that wasn’t right. It was a body. Strewn on the sidewalk like a rag doll.

Convinced that his eyes were playing tricks on him, he walked slowly to the body that looked strangely familiar. Well, it ought to have looked familiar, it was wearing the exact same outfit Clayton had on, identical down to the shoes. Even the open briefcase was the same.

“Who is that?” Clayton asked.

“You know who it is.” The man was suddenly behind Clayton again, but this time he didn’t jump.

“How?”

“Heart attack.”

“But I didn’t feel anything.”

“Some people never do. Perhaps you were too preoccupied?”

“Oh come on, is this some kind of sick joke?” Clayton tasted the fear in his own voice. “I slipped and hit my head, didn’t I? And now I’m hallucinating, right? Or maybe I’m still upstairs in the office asleep at my desk, or better yet at home in bed having a bad dream?”

“No, no, no, no and no.”

“Then I’m–” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

“Well and truly dead, I am afraid.”

“And you are?”

“Your travel companion,” the man offered Clayton another smile.

“Oh, I get it! You’re going to point out all the wrong I’ve done and give me the chance to rectify it, that’s what this is, right?” Clayton hadn’t meant it to sound so sarcastic.

The man shook his head. “You have not done any wrong.”

“Then maybe there was something I was supposed to do, some potential I was supposed to live up to that I didn’t…”

“No, you lived your life accordingly.”

“So, this is it? No ceremony? No pomp and circumstance? Just heart attack, boom, I’m dead?”

The man seemed confused. “Would you prefer there be a penance? A punishment?”

“Not exactly, but something more than this.”

“Oh, but there is more. Your mind simply has not adjusted to your new reality just yet, which is perfectly normal in the beginning. You are clinging to the shadows of your old life, but all this will fade and you will begin to see anew, once you have accepted the fact that what is done cannot be undone.”

“So, what do I do now?” Clayton asked.

“Travel with me for a moment.” The man gestured at a car that Clayton could have sworn was not there before.

“You drive a car?”

“It is my conveyance. Your mind views it as a car, as that is what you are accustomed to,” the man said patiently. “For your comfort, you may wish to remove your coat.”

“But it’s freezing out here—” and as soon as Clayton heard the words, he felt foolish. “Oh, right.”

“Let me help you.” The man took Clayton’s briefcase, slid the overcoat off his shoulders, and let both items fall to the ground. As they landed, there was a deafening boom, which cracked the pavement and shattered the windows in the surrounding area. Or Clayton thought the windows shattered. When he looked up again, the windows were whole, as if nothing happened.

“I feel so much lighter now.” Clayton bounced on his toes like a little boy.

“You have just stripped yourself of your biggest encumbrances.”

“Which were?”

“Labor and haste.”

This answer made Clayton stop bouncing for some reason and he turned to look at his body crumpled on the sidewalk. “Can we do something about this?” he pointed at his former shell.

“Like what?” the man asked.

“I don’t know.” Clayton scratched his head. “Rearrange it? Move it inside the building maybe? Something more dignified than this. This isn’t how I want people to remember me.”

“Those who remember you will do so in their own manner. You cannot change that,” the man said as he opened the door for Clayton, who looked at his lifeless body one last time with a twinge of regret for not having lived a richer more fulfilling life, before he slipped into the passenger seat.

The man entered the driver’s side and took the wheel. And they drove, so slowly that it seemed to Clayton they were not moving at all, but instead, time moved around them. Not through them, Clayton noticed, around them. There was no time within this conveyance. One moment, the time the man asked of Clayton, was the same as eternity in here.

“Where are we headed?” Clayton asked.

“The next now.” The man answered and said no more. And he hadn’t needed to because somehow Clayton understood. For the first time in his life, or more accurately his death, he understood perfectly.

Text and Audio ©2013 & 2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

About The Next Now: One night I was working on a short story that I’ve been toying with for the better part of a year. I was knee-deep in the rising action stage, typing away—and even happy with most of it—when it happened: The Click.

It’s a magical moment. Your pupils dilate. Your breathing slows. The fog in your head clears. Time slows to a crawl. And for one shining moment, everything is perfect. Every sinewy thread of plot comes together. It may be a mess, but it’s all there. It can be fixed and made whole—we have the technology.

And then the world speeds back up and it’s a race against the clock to type out as much as you can before the perfect purring of a well-oiled machine becomes a sputter and you lose something—or worse—the machine takes a great big dump.

That’s this one right here. A simple story about a wage slave that dies, unappreciated. No fanfare, no glorious reward for living his life correctly and doing no harm. A simple leave your things behind and move on to the next phase of your existence, or the next now.

The Missing Piece

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

The Universe expanded just wide enough to allow worlds to form. And those worlds were meant to spawn beings. And those beings were meant to learn the ways of the Apparatus Universi in order to keep the universe running, for The Universe was not a living thing, as most intelligent races postulated.

The Universe was a machine constructed by the Vetus Mundi Tinkerers, a race of cosmic free-thinkers and craftsbeings who, though long-lived, were not immortal, and eventually succumbed to the end fate that awaits us all, while waiting for their successors to arrive to remove the heavy burden from their weary shoulders and carry on in their stead.

But the changing of the guard never occurred. Somewhere down the line, the sacred knowledge meant to be handed down the generations until the various races sufficiently evolved to the point when they were ready to transition into tinkerers, had been mistold, mangled and eventually forgotten.

Now The Universe was winding down, beginning to fail because a piece was missing. Some small, yet vital part had somehow come loose during millennia of daily operation and was set adrift on the spaceways, with no one to find it, no one who even knew what to look for.

Text and Audio ©2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys