Where the Wild Things Go

There are cobwebs in the corners and dust motes pirouetting in the air, dancing golden glints by the light of the open door. The air smells of stillness, of emptiness. The shadows fall thickly in the corners, and the memories slumber in the cracks between the slate floor. They dream of the echoes of laughter and quotes and video parties. They sleep to dream.

A smile hangs in the room, a Chesire cat smile. Everything else fades away, but if you listen carefully, you can still hear the sighs of those slumbering memories.

The door shuts quietly behind them.

Fin

Where Will You Go Today?

It's Friday afternoon and I'm just out of meetings that have crunched my time down into little boxes. On my calendar they are innocuous little things. Twenty-four hours compressed into a 3"x5" square. I fill them in with words; jotted notes. Later I will have to live up to those words.

Today is merely a tightrope act. Yesterday was the day that I realised I needed to come to a full stop. There was something -- not wrong, but not-quite-right. So I left work early, cleared the schedule, took the JMoC out into the canyons and we walked.

I thought, and I didn't-think. At first my monkey-mind screeched and scrabbled and clawed at the bars. I can't sit still, it said. I can't sit still.

Then slowly, one foot before the other, soft fur brushing against my left knee with every movement as the JMoC keeps step beside me in a not-so-perfect heel, my thoughts slow to a whirl, then a crawl, and finally it's just me and the dog and the day.

I can't see far, I notice. I can only focus up close, not far away where there are houses and people and everyday lives. I must squint to see them. So I relax a little further, my footsteps are less brisk and now there's only the jelly-me rolling along the path. And then I can see far, but now I can't see near. My focus is either/or, but my breath comes more easily, because I'm not blind. I'm not. I just -- can't see right now.

*

I come back and I am quiet inside. I'm back. I can see.

*

So, tell me that there are no story ideas out there. Tell me you can't find something in your own life that, clothed within allegory, robed in metaphor, you couldn't make into a dang good ol' fashioned tale.

I have another one of those stories simmering inside my head. It's the novel I'm trying not to write. The same one I've been trying not to write for a year now. The slippery slope down which I slide as I dream in vignette, I hear echos of dialogue. I don't see words on the paper, I see scenes in my head. This is how they would move. Stop it -- right there. How do I describe that? Rewind. Play again. Focus on her hands, or the way her hair floats around her waist as she turns her head angrily. Focus on the smallest details, because you don't have to labour over the larger picture if you take it little bits at a time.

The way she enters a room and mis-steps upon seeing a stranger's face. The way his knuckles tighten around the bars. It's the little things. You don't have to tell me he is angry. You don't have to tell me she's afraid. I can see it myself in the smallest things.

The devil is in the details, but so is the song.

My meeting is about my upcoming schedule, my time, going here going there and there's nowhere to go after platinum status on air miles, is there? But places to go in my head and places to go in my stories. How much more can I build? (How much more will I have to tear down? I am all about the gestalt of creation, but I like to tear things down first, clear the air.) I listen to the details of upcoming travel as droning in my head (and some muffled excitement -- oooh, there will be chaos), and my pulse beats along a tempo: write. Write. More time to write.

*

Snippets:

"You can't keep running," she told him.

"I'm not running." Hard to concentrate when her fingers were running through his hair, down his neck. Wandering over his skin. He turned but she moved to stay behind him. Just out of sight.

"You know there's a war coming."

"You sound like Scorpy."

"Of course." Now her voice dripped sarcasm, and her nails dug into his back. "Of course I sound like him, John."

He yelped, he squirmed, but she still wouldn't show herself. "Aeryn, I can't help you if you keep running away from me."

"It's not about me. It's always been you. You can't keep running from this, John." Her fingers were a vise, they trapped his head between her hands and she cranked him around to show him, to force him to see--

White snow. He tried to focus and was blinded by the white. Snow everywhere. Felt tears running down his face but they were mere shards of the ice that permeated everything. Rocks and buildings, bone and blood.

You can't keep running, she told him, but she had to know that he was on his way. On his way somewhere with every step.

Into a Mind

You live in another world, she tells me. You're no longer here.

Heard that before? T. heard, still hears it, about her online gaming habits. I've received the same about writing, and my own online habits. Those things I've picked up along the way, fitting into the corners of my life, spreading into my hours like an overflowing pool. F. is the pin between us, desperately pulling for shore. She keeps trying to bring us back to the here and now, esconced as we are in our worlds. She stands at my door, bangs instead of knocks, and demands my attention, a bit of me, my time. Your made-up worlds, she says, and there is a note of scorn in her voice.

I asked her, a few days ago, about that tone. The vituperation I sense. You're not here, she tells me. Shouldn't here be more important?

How do you tell someone that so long as you keep your foothold here, so long as you pay your bills and pet your dog and provide furniture for the cat, so long as you go out with your friends for sushi and change the oil and mow the lawn; assuming all these things, no, here is not more important? There can be just as important? I need to go there in order to remain sane?

(Because, a part of my mind whispers, it's not here she's talking about, it's her. She fears being left behind, and I have too few social hobbies as it is. But I do not want to think of this, or think this of her.)

Watch me with a story in my head, wriggling its way out like some growing worm. It niggles, then it nudges, then it just blasts its way through my skull, playing visions on the backs of my eyelids even when I sleep. Stories make me pull over in traffic to scribble notes on my Palm, or my palm, or whatever happens to be handy. Dialogue send me bolt upright at 3am to scrabble for the computer, and sometimes I've heard my whimpering as the computer takes sooooooo daaaaaaaaaaaamn loooooooooooong to boot up. (Yes, that's partially the reason I switched from Windows NT to XP -- the faster boot-up time does less damage to my head.)

How does one define living for oneself? Is in within, or without, or what is the magical blend to balance the two?

*

I have been having problems communicating. My words are quantum units, full of unpredictable energies and solutions. They collapse over the listener like bubbles, resolving into ... something over which I've no control. I am merely left to try and compare measurements: distance, time, trajectory. I started here, you were there, I traveled this far. I think. What did you hear?

This is the common dilemma of the author, the creator, the cry of but that isn't what I meant! Some days it seems worse than others; this is not my week. I reread something I wrote this past weekend and thought: what the hell was I trying to say? My mind turns circles constantly, worrying at itself like a dog chasing its tail. How can I be better? How can I be more clear? How much more can I, should I, do? How much blame should I personally take in the consequences if I fail, and how much are other people?

GAH.

*

Not a snippet, but a poem, written long ago in another world, in a galaxy far away. Written to play with the style, to embed the rhyming device within the verses as opposed to the traditional a/b or a/c structures, and to express frustration in a metred way. Written by a pea who wanted to be a princess:


A Moment’s Inattention

I lost the thread of
our conversation. No inclination
to follow, or to fill the hollow
with sounds. That only drowns
the outside; but there’s no need to hide
the silences, or our use of past tenses
that hover between us. No lover
has need of restraint; they fairly bleed
all emotion, whether hate or devotion.
What came just now is not the same;
that fills our looks and chills
our touch. I think there’s not much
left anymore – nothing here to love for.
I lost the thread of
our intensity; your look tells me
you understand what’s now at hand.

(c) MG 17.8.98

*

Music soothes the tormented soul, or at least provides a very fitting soundtrack. Erm. I'm not on MTV, am I?

"I am the son and the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How dare you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does"

*

Listening to: t.A.T.u., How Soon Is Now
Colour: mustard brown

Pack Up Your Eyes

This weekend was plumbing and drywall and paint that comes nowhere near to matching my walls. But the shower is working, though it seems I must now turn it to C to get the hot water, and the H to get the cold. It didn't seem strange that I would have to do this; K. points out that this is not normally the case. I am once again eating and sleeping.

Do you like traveling?

Oh, yes. Yes indeed. I love traveling. The act of going somewhere new, the excitement, the uncertainty -- I've always loved this feeling. I can't get much perspective of where I am unless I move away from that spot, that moment, and traveling allows me that distance, and provides other yardsticks from which I may measure. Traveling reminds me of how it feels to not have a home.

Traveling for work is slightly different, of course; you're much more task-based, and very often corporate offices schedule you to fly in just before the job begins, leaving just after the job is done. Sometimes I stay longer, smiling at them when I tell them I will be doing so, and they make the appropriate changes. Even when I don't, I watch the lights in the city as I fly in, I feel the excitement of coming home, and something in me loosens.

I would travel, I think, merely for that feeling. Coming home.

I wish I could remember the author of one of my favourite quotes:

"You will only understand what it is to be a citizen of one country when you have been a foreigner in another."

Three relative-time days later and John stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "You can't say I never gave you all my time."

Sikozu still served him with a smile, but Scorpius was tired. She was too lost in this time, and John was wasting into a mere shadow of himself. Something would not let him go.

Pale fingers skittered over the covers, hands twitching to some unheard beat. Scorpius laid a gloved hand over John's, stilling the movement.

"I have to," John whispered. "I have to keep time."

Scorpius felt the beat of John's heart, heard the ragged, rough breaths. He slowly lifted his hand. "Yes."

"You tell me that I dream too much."

He will always regret not telling John no.

"Scorpy." John twisted in the covers, grey upon grey. He glowed softly in the bed, dimmed with cold and time. He was heavy with time, dragging him down. "Scorpy." He looked up with hollow eyes. "Reset," he whispered.

Drifting Down

The past week has been a snowglobe of shaking up and watching things drift down. More people come by to visit, and I am by turns taciturn, moody, and snappish. I blamed it on taxes, and the weather, and time zone changes. Everyone told me those were good reasons and generally left me alone in my corner. I stirred myself for Big Things on Sunday: cleaning out my garage, dumping all the old appliances, sweeping out the spiders, clearing the space. Attacked the lawn with a heavy-duty weedwhacker -- it's been three months since anyone's ventured into the fray -- and discovered I still had lawn furniture. I pressed L. into service as a mower and dove back into the cavern of the garage. I felt lighter afterwards.

I cooked -- find some sort or sense of solace in cooking, still -- and have eaten well, if somewhat irregularly. I remember to cook, but not to eat.

F. asks me yesterday, while I'm sauteeing tilapia in a white wine and garlic sauce: do you think we have a purpose?

Gah, I said, and said again, one eye on the onions to catch them as they become translucent but before they begin to caramelise. I can't answer that, I tell her, because my answer is based upon my own ideology, my belief set. Religions serve to answer that question in different ways, but generally to say yes, there is a purpose, only most of it is hidden to you. Personally, I believe we make our own purpose, if that makes any sense. The path to your destiny, your end, or even your goal is not marked out for you, and yes, you can make detours along the way. Too much depends on who you are now for me to accept that there's any or even only one way to who you will be.

We've got to be here for some reason, she tells me.

I'm browning the fish and my brain is moving more slowly than my spoon, but I still find this comment to be strange, and tell her so. I answer from a biological perspective first. Nature doesn't weigh its goals the same way we do, I point out. Nature is just trying to build a better mousetrap. If we can design the new entrance to the Louvre, the Sears Tower, the Sphinx, Nature doesn't care. She just wanted us to be able to use tools to more efficiently gather food.

The spiritual answer is more difficult, but I reiterate my original theme: don't assume that any god you might choose has the same goals that you do. Do gods serve you, or do you serve the gods?

And what's your purpose? she asks me as I'm taking the fish off the burner.

I'm here, I tell her, to serve as the bad thing your mother always warned you about.

*

My boss told me I may go home early for the next few weeks. He is being thoughtful and generous, and I appreciate it. I have already received my marching orders for the next jaunt, in two weeks. Two weeks can be a long way away, and I'm going to stretch out time and make it longer. Right now I don't dread it. Then again, right now I don't dread anything. I'm in A Mood.

He called me into his office this morning and threw papers in front of me to sign. Apparently one of the e-mails I've not yet gotten to was my notification of a raise, with the request to drop by and sign my way to higher wages. So I signed, much bemused.

Now I'm going to take my group out for lunch and then leave early.

*

There's that novel in me that's itching to get out. I almost pick up pens and paper to jot down dialogue, I dream of scenes. The story tugs at me. I'm here, it whispers, I'm not finished with you yet.

I'm trying not to start it yet, or even, if I could possibly manage, start it at all. I have too short an attention span for real life at the moment; living in another world, one that is so visceral to me, would detract from what little I'm managing now. But it's there. It's right there.

Gah, indeed.

But I'm traveling in two weeks.... and I will have long hours in the air.

*

"If I could taste your salty head
And pick the dead hair from my eyes,
And let you smell the sweet despise,
Those peaks and troughs, guts for a valley,
Are a dead scene in my back alley,
How tall and wide you have to get
How big and dark and badly lit
And if I said I did, would you believe me,
And I showed you gold, would you see through me
And if tomorrow didn't come,
Would you?

I'll run in circles all the time
I'll gather up all that is mine,
Into the room inside my head,
The walls are black, the roof is red.

All In My Mind

When I come back from long trips, I tend to huddle. I lurk away from people, hide in the corner. I don't want to do or be or say anything. Objectively, I worry about being rude, because when people say, Oh, you've been gone so long, I want to see you right away, my first response is back the fuck off. Curses come more easily to my tongue, because I am as itchy and irritable as a monkey with eczema.

I am beginning to sleep more easily, beginning to get back into the patterns of life. I avoided work until Tuesday, ignoring the multiple messages on my phone. The Boss then had A. call up mid-afternoon -- I took her phone call -- and explain to me that he really, really needed to talk to me. So I spoke to him, and there is talk of another trip in the air. (No pun intended.) But not right now. Not right now. Right now I'm in the office, but I'm mainly cleaning my desk. Saying hello to people. Being amused when I tell them that I cut 5 inches off my hair, and they tell me that it looks the same as when I left. (Which is impossible, but telling.)

Did break down to have friends over last night. Cooked one of my signature dishes, a chicken curry blend of Indian/Jamaican curry. Over white rice. Fresh avocados on the side, drizzled with olive oil, spices, and dried basil. I have been in the cooking mood of late; it's a form of domesticism that I can't do on the road. S. brought over an interesting documentary called Hands on a Hardbody.

No, it's not what it sounds; I raised my eyebrows at it, too. It centres around a competition that takes place annually in Longview, Texas. Contestants are chosen randomly for a "game", of which the prize is a Nissan hardbody truck. The challenge is that every single contestant must keep at least one hand on the truck. The last person to remain "hands on" wins the truck.

Huh?

Yeah. These people stand around for DAYS with their hands on this truck. No sleep, and only one five-minute break every hour for eating or bathroom. According to the rules, you cannot lean on the truck, so your full weight is constantly on your feet. You cannot kneel down. You cannot brace yourself. The judge will remove you from the contest if you do so.

The winner was called after 80-something hours of having hands-on. Whoa.

As I watched the documentary, fascinated by these people, I couldn't help thinking that this was torture. Literally. POWs in Vietnam were forced to stand for days on end, beaten when they fell asleep, fell at all. This is similar, though the only beating comes emotionally. But watch the plunge through the psyche -- from competition to identification to anger to delerium -- and you see this microcosm of ... torture. My skin crawled as I watched. I've never seen Survivor, but my impression is that this is like that show, only with the less-attractive people, those who are missing teeth, or wear huge glasses, or generally wouldn't look like svelte jungle goddesses in tank tops.

As the first television I've watched since my return, it was entertaining, amusing, and ... I don't have the English word; the Spanish word is impresionante. I recommend it, if you're into that sort of viewing and can find it. At its heart, it is an examination of the human spirit, complete with boots and hillbilly Texas twang.

*

Whilst gone, I blazed through the Ash series *cough*thankyoucofax*cough*, The Curse of Chalion and Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold, Hell's Faire by John Ringo, and a few other odds and ends. *polite burp* No television available, and no desire for television. Farscape's cancellation has turned me back off the boob tube; I'm generally disgusted with management by mass media perception of what the public wants. [Refer to the coverage on the war if you need any refreshers, and don't get me started.] I'm going back to books, and writing. You say there's a wonderful new series on? Great. Show me the series when it's over and the entire set is on DVD.

Books take up a hell of a lot of luggage space (not that the laptop doesn't), but certainly worth the effort, and I left scattered books behind me, returning only with the keepers and adding them to the already-groaning shelves. I agree with cofax's take on DI -- frankly, it wasn't that memorable a book, and I saw Ekaterin put into the Granny role -- present for emotional baggage and to kick along plot points. Something about the story felt ... lacking, as though a plot thread was implanted somewhere in the text, but not executed. The Curse of Chalion was the better book by far, and I've reread that one since then. TCoC reassures me that I am still a romantic. Caz is Miles in human form. Not a lesser Miles, but one with less to prove to the world. Miles Vorkosigan manipulates and dominates his world as a matter of survival; Caz learns to survive what the world throws at him. I fell in love.

Hell's Faire was the fourth in a trilogy, for which Ringo makes some apology in an Author's Note at the end of my coy. September 11th happened, you see, and he couldn't write for over a month. The publisher was still hounding, so he simply sent what he had, and finished up the story in another book. The story itself suffers as a result, but this isn't a read that you want to tackle lightly anyway. Too many people to keep track of, and lots of movement, armoured tanks and artillery and whatnot. HF, a fairly thick paperback, takes place over a period of two days. There's so much action it numbs you, which I believe it was meant to do.

*

I'm looking forward to a weekend of fantasy life, living in my head and on my computer. Not avoiding real life -- the JMOC still needs his walks, and I have errands to do -- but the constancy of the worlds inside my head are comforting. Something to hold onto during a forced period of rest and relaxation. Poetry has happened, and prose. Perhaps I'll go over the words in my head and on my screen, refine here, tweak there, add this and delete that. Perhaps I'll start writing another of the novels that's whispering in my head, telling me to follow along and watch. Or perhaps I'll simply stare at my computer and see a window to another world.

**

Listening to: Alessandro Safira, Luna
Mood: droop-vine green

Roads Home

Back.

There is so much contained in that single word: memories, weariness, the joy at my cat curled in the small of my back, the JMOC wuffling softly over my toes. Things I have forgotten: birthdays and names and how to be social.

There are things I remembered: how hard it is to be brave for yourself. What it feels to feel home.

Things I thought I would grow out of: left-lane driving on the autobahn.

*

I'm back, but I'm not yet ready to be someone yet. I need the space to unpack the bags. Clear my head. Sleep. I have been unable to sleep. I catch around three hours every two days. I have stopped looking for the news. I don't pick up the phone when it rings.

I haven't watched Farscape since ... November? So don't tell me. I'll have my marathon when I get tapes, and when I can sit down and watch something so patiently. Right now I am a windup doll, and I need to pace out my territory, re-learn my edges. I did watch footage of Columbia. Every time I saw it run, I couldn't help but think: I am watching people die.

My thoughts are disjointed. But there is writing. Thank heavens for writing. Without it I could not keep my mind stitched together.

*

Mere snippets.

Scorpius studied the portable datascreen, aware of the little imperfections in the display. The cracks in the face, the clouds in the crystals, did not hide the red icon that bled off the edge of the field. The newest holo tank on the most advanced Gammak base would have told him the same information.

"He's gone."

"Yes," he said calmly.

Her voice echoed as she moved stealthily into the room. "You thought he might stay."

"Unforeseen circumstances." The sudden influx of Peacekeepers was a message; Grayza was still searching, diligent as ever. As John left, so would he, and they would continue on their way through the stars, Grayza a mere step behind.

"The Fates conspiring against you."

"You do not believe in such things." Either outside influence or old memories surfacing. Given what he knew, the former was more likely. Simply a phrase she'd picked up, as she picked up everything else.

"They seem to believe in him." She laughed, a sound that crept hollowly through their small cramped space.

Scorpius shrugged off the short pause that followed; his thoughts and suppositions were of no use at the moment, lacking such intelligence as he required to draw conclusions. There was no point to wild speculation, no benefit to *perhaps.*

"Peacekeepers are not completely unexpected." He reached forward to turn off the display with its empty starfield. The batteries on this unit would last twenty-seven arns, no more. "This is, after all, John Crichton."

"That was John Crichton. He is far gone now. Chased away by your own." She did not remind him they were no longer his. She did not have to.

"Coincidence," he murmured, staring at the dark screen. "He survives more often than not by seeming coincidence."

"That happens with him." She was somewhere close behind him, Niem's bruised echo. "You end up the loser."

"I have not lost," he corrected her calmly.

"Not everything," she agreed.