the way to wonderland - post five

She had stopped listening and was trying to find the right mental phrases to accomplish a ten-step trip down the dirt road. A shiny pebble a few paces down would work. Her thoughts ran quickly through a few phrases. I want to pick up the pebble. I want to stand next to the pebble. I want to walk to the pebble. Success. The bands left her legs until she stood next to the pebble. Her armbands vanished at that point, and she picked it up. Step by tedious step and backwards was how it went. How on earth did those tripod men keep such a pace? You had to have so much information or be able to moment by moment know precisely what you wanted. She wondered if she would be here long enough to learn the tricks and shortcuts that would make life livable. But what about the cult? Her brain was firing and the bands held her still. Focus was what she needed. Another pebble would be helpful. There was one glinting at twenty paces. I want to walk to the pebble. Nothing. Perhaps it wasn’t’ a pebble? I want to walk to the shiny object. Temporary liberation. She must remember: her movements required specificity, but objects could be general.

I did a little bit of work on it last night. I've gotten to the point where I don't know where this story is going anymore. I love that moment, because possibility and creativity can really open up. It does mean that some serious editing is in my future though. Previous posts are here, here, here, and here.

the way to wonderland - post four

Exhausted, the girl made herself into a pile and began to think out all of this information and hoped that her own logic had some shared characteristics with this world’s. The evolution of these people was clearly out of her realm. She couldn’t move easily. She could see her own gravity. It was not subject to her will. There was some strange religion of which she was a part. Perhaps the bands were some sort of ceremonial magic? Her frustration bubbled and built until she couldn’t just remain thinking. More information, more experience. That is what she really needed. How could she really make any real judgments based on three-legged men and her own capacity to move? Up she stood and took a step. Her foot snapped back to its place beside the road. Was she stuck here? No. She tried the other foot. Same result. She tried to kick her one foot, then the other, and then both. Nothing. Crawling? Maybe that was her movement? Crouching down, her hands reached out to the ground but jerked back to her body immediately before touching the ground.

I WANT TO CROSS THE ROAD!!!!!!!!!!

Her voice scared her. The horses looked at her, but she barely noticed because her leg tethers were suddenly gone. It took her a moment to understand this, and she sprinted across the road. Her run would have kept going clear into the pasture, only she fell hard onto the ground once she had completed the crossing, the bonds back in place. Nooooooooo. She cried. Her face and hands hurt from the scrapes and blossoming bruises, but the bitterness in her sobs was from her loss of freedom. She wanted to go home now. She wanted a warm bath and a good dinner and her parents reading to her before she fell asleep.

The horses stirred.
Poor girl. It’s so hard to watch them when they are first born. I hope this one doesn’t take a long time to learn the method.

Can’t we just tell her? I’ve seen this show so many times I’m bored of it.

I just don’t think that would be fair, do you?

Excuse me? She called across to the beasts. You seem to know how to help me. Please help me. I just want to…

Yes? The enthusiasm perked the horses ears.

I don’t know.

Oh. Their faces fell longer and they returned to their grass.

So close.

I know.

Close to what?

If you don’t know, we certainly can’t tell you.

Yes, you can.

Please, argue with us. That will get you what you want.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be stuck here forever or even for five more seconds. I want to be free, and you two act like you know how to get free. She would have stamped her foot into the dirt if she could.

That’s a start.

What?

Know what you don’t want. It’s a start.

True. Not the best start we’ve seen, but not the worst.

Certainly not original.

Definitely not.

How did you get free?

The horses cackled, and the sound of it made her skin crawl and her bands shudder. We were never bonded. We’re horses, you silly ass. [ed. Couldn’t help myself]

Please. I …

What happened before you crossed the road?

You can’t help her.

Hush. What happened?

I yelled. Oh! GIVE ME FREEDOM!

I’m done helping if you continue to use that grating pitch and volume.

But

Do you want my help?

Yes, please.

Now think. What happened before you crossed the road?

I yelled… that I wanted to cross the road?

The horse nodded. Did you know why?

To get to the other side?

What?

Nothing. I just wanted to cross the road.

Exactly.

Okay. I want wave at the horses The band evaporated. She waved and casually tried to place her hand on her hip, but the band grabbed hold and moved it back into place. You have got to be kidding me. I have to state every movement I want to make before I make it?

Only if you have a particularly disinterested body.

Can we please move on? There’s no show any longer, and I would like to find greener grass. No offense, chicken, but you are not the most interesting thing in the meadow. This grass has more to offer.

She had stopped listening and was trying to find the right mental phrases to accomplish a ten step trip down the dirt road.

It's back! Previous wonderland posts: one, two, & three

the way to wonderland - post three

The body was a thin body. Thin not in girth, but in density. The landscape was visible through her hands. The feeling was not light; gravity was visible and seemed to have a special task for holding her to the ground. Bands of various thicknesses connected her joints to the earth. Her hands passed through them as through a sunbeam. She took in the green, breezy fields and their inhabitants. She didn’t see anything attached to the horses or cattle, and they were secure to the ground. Perhaps only humans we tethered? It was curious. Footsteps approached at a run or trot, and there were several pairs.

This moment was the only constant from her various travels: should she hide and observe or risk meeting what was coming? This time the pastoral surroundings gave her courage, perhaps from a false sense of safety, but she remained in the full view as a line of jogging men in bright, clownish clothing breached the hilltop. Three legs apiece, the extraneous one seemed in use to be something of a training wheel to keep them from falling to their right as they all leaned ten degrees off the vertical. A total of eight eyes (and these were paired in the usual way) noticed her and quickly looked away with a forced casualness.

She tried to speak but found no voice, even though she was sure she had spoken a few words on arrival. Had that all been in her head? Was this a telepathic planet? She reached out with her mind but found only her own voice. Pardon? Excuse me? Please stop. I need help. Please. Her panic grew and her gestures amplified, but the bands restricted them to the normal range so that the waving of her arms in terror merely looked like the waving of a hand in greeting. The men were nearly to her, so she decided to jump in their path. She didn’t even reach two inches in the air. After they had passed, their whispers entered her ears, and the one distinct word among them was “cult”. They were gone.

Exhausted, the girl made a pile of herself and began to think out all of this information and hoped that her own logic had some shared characteristics with this world’s. The evolution of these people was clearly out of her realm. She couldn’t move easily, but she could see her own gravity. It was not subject to her will. There was some strange religion of which she was a part. Perhaps the bands were some sort of magic? Her frustration bubbled and built until she couldn’t just remain thinking. More information, more experience. That is what she really needed. How could she really make any real judgments based on three-legged men and her own capacity to move? Up she stood and took a step. Her foot snapped back to her place beside the road. Was she stuck here? No. She tried the other foot. Same result. She tried to kick her one foot, then the other, and then both. Nothing. Crawling? Maybe that was her movement? Crouching down, her hands reached out to the ground but jerked back to her body immediately before touching the ground.

I WANT TO CROSS THE ROAD!!!!!!!!!!

Her voice scared her. The horses looked at her, but she barely noticed because her leg tethers were suddenly gone. It took her a moment to understand that they were missing, but she soon sprinted across the road and would have kept going clear into the pasture, but she fell hard onto the ground once she had completed the crossing. The bonds were back in place. No. She cried. Her face and hands hurt from the scrapes and blossoming bruises, but the bitterness in her sobs was from her loss of freedom. She wanted to go home now. She wanted a warm bath and a good dinner and her parents reading to her before she fell asleep.

This post is late because I was at a breakfast with Governor Paterson who is incredibly funny. I'm going to keep working on Wonderland, so look for new posts next week. Previous posts are here: One; Two

the way to wonderland - post two

Alice was wrong. A looking glass is not the gateway to untold worlds. It takes precision to accomplish that kind of journey. One doesn’t just crash through a mirror and expect to find something unexpected. But an electric socket? That is the way to many other sides. You have to be exact. Too much of the current and you could discover the truth or fiction of the afterlife. Too little and you might as well have eaten a shitload candy for all the jolt you get. If you are able to get it just right though, it’s like all your circuits fire at once and brain currents that never would have met cross and whatever it is that is you is instantly on a trip. I’m eleven years old, and I’ve been on hundreds of journeys. I’ve lived hundreds of lives. I’ve grown old. I’ve grown young. I’ve been female, male, transgender, and lacking gender. I’ve been a member of the ruling class. I’ve been considered subhuman. I’ve never been equal. My lives have been quiet or famous or subversive or rebellious or murderous or typical. I can do anything, and I will do everything as long as I have time to let the right electrical forces meet.

The first time was around age three - a lucky accident of typical childhood curiosity. I am addicted. Unlike other drugs, the first time was merely an introduction. The power and clarity of my universes only increase with each attempt. That first world… sometimes I wish I could go back there to experience it fully. It was like moving through fog where nothing stops your movements except your inability to gather information about your surroundings. Going back, however, is against the rules. Not the physical ones. I can end up back somewhere I’ve been before. My rules, the ones that make my addiction livable: When making the final exit, the desire of and for that world must be left behind. I don’t care to live with longing. It’s incredibly limiting. So I leave longing like things you throw away when moving: you would like to keep them, but they are more of a burden than they are worth. Usually, I imagine my desire that way. I pack it in a box and leave it at the threshold. It is a sad liberation, but I carry little emotional baggage back with the memories from my other lives.

With all of this traveling and all of these lives, I still don’t know why I always come back to this one, this body. Is this actual reality? Why? Are the families and friends of all my other selves merely figments of a heightened imagination? It’s impossible, and no one who hasn’t experienced at least one other life can convince me otherwise. These places are too real, too logical in their own logic – not dream logic but whatever the prevailing rules for that planet are.

I don’t think I should stop. Even with all of consequences. My parents’ faces when one of them finds me lying on the floor with frizzed hair and a singed hem. Or my teachers noses that curl as if they smelled an offensive odor whenever I speak. Or the rocks the other children throw at me whenever the adults are not watching. My peers fear me for so many reasons. I could try to fit in and stop the abuse, but there is always a place full of confidantes or hangers on somewhere between my brainwaves. Who needs them?

There is one thing that does worry me about this electrical play. EST: Electro-shock therapy. It’s not difficult to draw comparisons between my play and that … therapy. I don’t have enough information, but I’ve heard the horror stories, and it adds an edge to my travels. What if I end up a shell of a person with no life here or anywhere else? I’m sure what I need to know would be fairly simple to find or calculate, but if I look and find that it will cause an anti-future, will I stop? Will I be forced to? Will I be able to? Will I care to? I don’t know. I hope, if that’s what is coming for me here in this life, that I kill myself trying to cross over instead. I’d rather be a corpse than a vegetable. Unless I’m making too many assumptions and judgments of the lives of vegetables. Maybe those souls’re anchored in one of the other worlds and because of this planet’s laws of matter, they leave a low functioning animal body – their box of desire and longing. We are not their actual reality, merely their crossed currents. They’ve gone home or left on another adventure or are resting in some paradise while this body minds the dreams and relationships they created here. Oh. I hope so.

These wires are my favorites. They’ve started me on so many journey and are nearly 100% reliable. Plus the blue rubber feels safer to me than any other color. I know it’s just a superstition, but it’s mine. It helps. With these, I don’t hesitate. You just pull the blue bit back about half an inch on both strands and plug in.


~~~~~~
The body was a thin body. Thin not in girth, but in density. The landscape was visible through her hands. The feeling was not light; gravity was visible and seemed to have a special task for holding her to the ground. Bands of various thicknesses connected her joints to the earth. Her hands passed through them as through a sunbeam. She took in the green, breezy fields and their inhabitants. She didn’t see anything attached to the horses or cattle, and they were secure to the ground. Perhaps only humans we tethered? It was curious. Footsteps approached. They were running or trotting, and there were several pairs.

This moment was the only constant from her various travels: should she hide and observe or risk meeting what was coming? This time the pastoral surroundings gave her courage, perhaps from a false sense of safety, but she remained in the full view as a line of jogging men in bright, clownish clothing breached the hilltop.

I didn't have time to do much on this story last night! I did some editing and started on the next part. I'll be working on it tonight (and probably the next few days). I'll just link back to previous posts for those (unless I make some major edits). First post is here.