Welcome to the Agglomeration
The IB is over. Expect this blog to have a new post soon.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
7 years ago
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Honey
Perchance if it does end there,
then we won't have to stop,
and those fleeting eyes can linger
just two moments more. He is
dead and buried,
after all.
What if something lies behind that tinted pane,
and stares into a void every time we
see ourselves and wonder
how much hair we've lost since last
we flossed.
And if this is the next movement in
an eternal partita, perhaps our
chances are stacked on mellow ground.
The pendulum does swing in two
directions.
By some divine inspiration, that ending must
imply some beginning - lost to those who seek it,
yet naked to the blind. To know sweetness is to
believe fruit tastes funny.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
This is not an injoke. It is a pipe.
T
Seven bakers sleeping in a tub
Extol their new yeasty gruel
Roaring in fermenting aphasia
Over breakfast music,
Four by three and a quarter rack.
Kids nowadays delight in the stuff,
Champagne entrenched risotto
A modern deal-breaker,
Let it be law that all shall have cake
Bread, the fruits of yesterday, can get los
Fillerbecausebloggerlinebreaksfail!!!!!!!!!t?
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
A return to form with a poem. After yesterday's post, I felt it necessary to revert to the original stylistic choices of the blog. Groan away in the Cbox, peoples.
Flicker
Flicker
Just one time
By the pool
Flicker
Freeze frame
Flashed?
Pinpoint of light
Freeze it there
Flicker
There it is again
Subtlety abounds
It mystifies
Frozen
Yet indistinguishable
Blurry photons
Unframed and unpointed
Flicker
It dwindles
The wax is melting
It flickers
Freezing without warmth
Flicker
Flicker
Flicker
In that one moment
the answers to the
universe and everything
are known
in that one moment.
Then it is gone,
It flickers no more.
It does not flicker.
There will be no more
Flickering.
Only the sweet smell of
burning wax in the frozen air
that frames our existence
Which but in just one moment will
Flicker
Flicker
and be gone.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The Fall
Just as the first uplifts wake my spirit,
and twinkling surges meet in prospect
you shred my wings through absence,
vanished after just greeting's lapse.
Traceless, you've left to deal with the better,
more important
things in life.
The bittersweet scorn aftertaste you breathe
traces my descent,
your vapid perfume plunges just
above me,
tormenting and provoking,
keeping me aware of your existence,
though your presence died so long ago.
The whispering winds over howling birdsong,
a tremulous crescendo that carves my passage,
that vertical tunnel - my frictionless road -
drawing me closer toward the mundane core,
that pathetic crust - no it doesn't suit -
and second, direction abandons me, next my
grasp of time until I land face first
into a red pile of autumn leaves
beneath the skeleton tree.
The exorcism has failed.
Was it worth your grace?
The hidden price will reveal itself
when there's nothing left to burn.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Sonnet 2
Light sans burdened care,
sins indicting unaware,
nothing to hide, naught to share,
weightlessness too much to bear.
From a distance watch the pair,
entwined hopes fresh yet rare,
future's lost its way right there,
full of youth, tripped down the stairs.
Silhouetted under transfixed moonbeams,
the forest entrance gaping wide
shields hidden desire from the carnal tips
of wild entranced inhibition.
Tonight's tale, our unfinished treasure,
relieve our senses beyond true measure.
Labels: Composition, Sonnet
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The all-consuming spaghetti monster that is the IB has been mostly responsible for the lack of postage that this blog has experienced over the past month. The other part is Seussical's fault. However, I've been so pissed off lately that I have to deal with like I usually do. So here's a poem. Do what you all usually do. Skim read it and forget about it for the rest of your lives.
Sonnet 1
Peace four layers deep is not
a cake worth trying. The sponge,
tasteless and soft melts away,
leaving arrays of dustspecked white.
The filling sour, do not devour,
poison trickling from unsheathed tips.
Forget the chocolate glaze, rich silk
not worth journeys of thousandmile.
You peel them away one by one,
and nothing remains but that
which couldn't stand alone,
worthless by itself, furthermore together.
Why be here to tempt the time
when nothing resonates except the rhyme?
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremediated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Sonnet
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Well I can safely say the the finale of the Transcriber was a huge success. Out of the 5 people that I know read it, two haven't because they haven't got around to it, one has and doesn't get it, the other has but won't tell me what he thinks about it and the other's computer is firewalling her from being able to access it.
Now for a return to my more preferred medium of poems, although I am thinking through another short story in my mind at the moment. More on what will happen with this idea at a later stage.
Did Someone Say...
Stately in the Peruvian clime,
the daily afternoon climax
seems over all too soon.
It starts with a wreath and
finishes with a wraith with
nothing in between but
the wrath of scorpions and
cinnamon disinfectant.
Politics always excels in
being that elephant
which all in the room
proceed to stab with kitchen straws
with some feeble aim to draw blood,
and failing that a cloud monster.
When the leaves have settled,
the tea simmers over, burning
the hands but leaving the fingers
to the army-trained professionals
of retired school teachers and
one-legged athletes.
The coming together of these people.
That resembles
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Finally, the finale for my first major short story is here. Please read, enjoy, and comment on the entire short story or perhaps even just the ending. Thanks for the loyal and dedicated readers who have stuck by this project no matter how terrible it became. All I hope is that it wasn't a complete waste of time.
The Transcriber Part 13
The trick was to make them think they were out for four years. It wouldn’t prove a challenge at all to manipulate any semblance of time when the very concept had not even been established in their consciousness. A minute is however long one first learns it to be, and if no one proves it otherwise, that’s fact. The scientific method. It was Number One’s job to make sure no paradigms were shifted during the operation. In fact he was the only one in on the actual aim of the Karringer case. For all the other members of the board, Karringer and Ganderton really had escaped. And that’s how it had to seem. That’s how the operations had been run in the past, but Number One realised that was the reason that the operations were still running. They had not been able to get one successful case because their approach was wrong. However, he couldn’t openly share his plan with the rest, it would be too risky. That’s why Karringer was special. He was specifically chosen as his experiment. After all, one success was all they needed. And if he was right, well everything would change.
All the instructions were given to Ganderton. He was really nothing more than an accessory, someone to guide Karringer, all pawns in his orchestrated scenario. He had always been a firm believer in determinism, and he believed that the key was setting up the right environment, the right influential factors to push Karringer into the inevitable choice. It was for this reason that he quite easily made the call to follow only him when they split up a few hours earlier. Ganderton had played his role. The endgame was near.
He poured himself a glass of his favourite cognac and looked out over the metropolis. He had always found the view to be best on the top floor of a giant corporate penthouse office, it was one of the main reasons he purchased it. It wasn’t like he did any work there. All his work was too classified and underground to be conducted in a location situated in such public domain. But he could afford luxury, and he knew he wasn’t going to live long enough for money rotting away in bank vaults to do him any good, not in his line of work. It was a miracle he’d lasted this long, in fact, so in his eyes there really was nothing to lose. Just enjoy the moment. The quiet, still eye of the storm.
His peace was interrupted by his mobile. Slightly irritated, he set down his glass on a nearby glass table and answered.
“Yes?”
The voice on the other end replied, “Sir, we have just apprehended Ganderton. “
“I thought he had disappeared.”
“That was correct. We picked up him at the Gate, sir.”
“The Gate?” A brief pause. “If he knows where the Gate is, then we have to assume that our cover is blown. They must know that this is one of our controlled environments. Kill Ganderton, and secure the Gate in case Karringer shows up.”
Number One heard a gun click behind him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Tell your man to stand down. Now!”
He turned around and looked at the man holding the gun. It was Josef Karringer.
The voice from the other phone spoke again, “Sir, we have captured Ganderton. Do we have a confirm to kill?”
Number One looked straight into the eyes of Josef. His lips curled into a small smile.
“Mikhail, stand down. Do not kill Ganderton. I repeat, do not kill Ganderton. But make sure he does not escape.”
Josef, satisfied, put down his gun. “We need to talk.”
Number One gestured toward a seat whilst he himself sat down opposite it. Josef remained standing.
“So tell me, Josef, how did you get past security?”
“I think you’d know that answer better than anyone. You knew this was going to happen. You knew I would come. In fact, I believe you know exactly what it is I want.”
Number One kept his eyes fixed on Josef. He had brought only the gun with him, nothing else.
“Where is the book, Josef?”
“The book?”
“We know that you took it with you and that Ganderton doesn’t have it. Where is it?”
“It was destroyed. There was an ambush. To get away, we had to leave it behind. But we didn’t want it to fall into anyone else’s hands, so we burnt it. I need another book. “
“There are only two of its kind, Josef. You went and recklessly destroyed one of them, but since it seems you have passed the book’s test, I suppose I can bring some leniency to our discussion of terms. We will provide you with the facilities that you occupied earlier. Things will go back exactly to the way they were. But know this – once you agree, you have sold us your soul. This life will become your livelihood. There will be no freedom. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Freedom wasn’t right for me. The world outside, I just don’t belong there.” Number One felt a hint of triumph, but contained his feelings. “I will agree to your terms if you do one thing for me. Something inside Syro wants him to be free of all this. All his life he’s felt what I’ve felt, the desire for something beyond our restrictions, and for him, it has lived up to his expectations. Let him go. Let him pass through the Gate and out into the real world.”
*
Their plan had worked. He was free. That was five days ago. Five real days in the real world. It was only now, when the initial euphoria that had flooded his consciousness finally began to subside, that he remembered the parting gift that Mikhail, the guard at the Gate had given him ‘on orders from Number One’. It was the only thing tying him to that past, to Josef, wherever he was now, and to a part of his life that he hoped to finally be able to leave behind him forever. He removed the object from his pocket. It was a small box with a ribbon tied to it. It was shaking gently with a hardly detectable but insistent hum. He could see a small trash bin in the distance, but there was something that told him that he shouldn’t just throw it away. Somehow, it felt like a part of him that he should know. Syro felt safer when he remembered that there was absolutely nothing that they could do to him now. He was finally free from their grasp. After this, he reassured himself, it would finally be over.
Syro quickly removed the ribbon from the box. Then, standing on a sidewalk of a deserted lane, he lifted the lid. Instantly he collapsed, unconscious, onto the hard stone pavement.
A voice broke the flow of Josef Karringer’s ink.
“This is impressive, Josef. Very impressive. Is there anything I can get you Josef, to make you more comfortable? This is the first day of the rest of your life, after all. Just want to make sure you settle in ok.”
“I would like a red cushion. A red cushion will help me write better.”
He wrote every day. He would write until he fell asleep. When we woke, he would start to write some more, before he felt too tired to continue. The last thing he saw each night before his eyes could stay open no longer were blue walls.
*
Number One stared at the page in front of him.
“When did you get this, Mikhail?”
“He wrote this today. For reasons as I’m sure you’re aware now, we felt that we couldn’t abide by our usual principles of inspecting and leaving his work there. This is far too important.”
“If he wrote this today, then there’s nothing we can do about it. Take this back to his room. Place it exactly as you found it. This is of no consequence to Josef now. He’s made his choice.”
Mikhail took the page and read it again as he left Number One’s office and took it back to Josef’s room.
At the same time, two policemen jumped out of their vehicle, parked hurriedly with its end sticking out as a potential obstruction to incoming traffic, and ran toward the flashing alarm in front of the shop. It housed antiques from some of the world’s greatest collections.
The glass was smashed when they reached the shop. From what they could see nothing had been stolen. Then one of the policeman beckoned his partner and pointed to the floor.
What they saw was a trail of blood leading inside the store. They followed the trail into the inner sanctum and saw a man lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. One hand was clutching his stomach, the other was trying to reach out to the massive antique in front of him.
One of the policemen asked apprehensively, ‘What’s your name?”
The man on the ground did not respond immediately, as if unsure of the answer to the question. Before he could respond he slumped to the floor. The hand reaching up toward the antique fell to the ground. On closer inspection, the policemen found that in his hand was a small bloodstained box.
They moved past the motionless corpse and box to check the antique for any contamination. Luckily the man had not spread any of his blood onto the brilliant pure white marble. They stood still for a few moments, awestruck by the gravitas of the towering marble statue before them.
Then one of them spoke. “I’ll call it in.”
*
Mikhail opened the door to Josef’s room. He placed the sheet of paper back on the table where Josef wrote, and left the room as silently as he had come. Josef Karringer had no idea in the morning that anyone had come in during the night, as usual. But for the first time ever, Josef dreamt. He dreamt that he had lost his friend Syro. But he knew that uneasiness was ill-founded. Syro was free. And he was content. He walked over to his desk to begin another day of writing. Then he saw it. A gift to him, placed on the chair he would sit on to write. Everything was perfect. He was so excited by the red cushion that he didn't even notice the small box that had been placed in the corner of his desk.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremediated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition, Transcriber
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Well it's been a while since I've published a poem so here's something I put together today.
Banks Aren't Open on Sundays
Quizzical
with a blank slate
face
and a briefcase of
Monopoly banknotes,
he circumnavigates
the lamppost,
laps the red fire hydrant
and in his haste, almost
trips
over
a soft silky cloth linen dress
discarded in the gutter
folded on one side of the
footpath but he steadies himself
with daiquiri-sipping gravitas,
commands the open space
with his presence
and continues around the corner
where a upturned semitrailer
is ablaze and the sight almost
causes a fleeing pedestrian
to bundle him over
but courtesy of a swift sidestep
and a sprint
he's past the carnage and
back on track,
just down the narrow alleyway
by the two chairs of his
favourite Vietnamese eatery
through an attempted mugging -
two balaclava-clad figures wrestling
a Gucci handbag - and into the main
street on which his brisk walk
takes him through the cornucopia
of energetic vitality so typical of
modern suburbia, and at last, with
thirteen seconds to spare, he has
arrived at his car, its windscreen smashed,
and its sides strewn in kaledoscopic graffiti.
So much for free parking.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
This year I've decided, and this was partly inspired by Ngiammy's quip on his blog that I had won a few creative writing awards despite the fact that I have only won one, to try and enter a few of these competitions, mostly with my surplus poetry presumably, just so I can say that I entered (and most likely failed) in my attempts to prove the quality of my poetry. In any case, the earliest competition I could find was one that is set in South Australia. With a deadline of January 8, I thought I could pick one of my more recent works to try and post in. It was all going well until I realised that this competition required a theme, which was 'Life, The Universe and Everything'. I scratched my head for two days and tried to get some inspiration for this theme. Inspiration didn't come. Instead, I came up with this. Should I enter it? Comment away, peoples.
The Alchemist
Life's lessons are contained within
a conical flask, heated in a bubbling
cauldron of sweltering gold in a distant
macabre atelier.
For those who miss the interchange
Follow the platinum trail into
incoming traffic. You know steel
can’t hurt you.
These corrupt and putrid lead sores
charm the moon into eclipse, their vigour
of nickel teaches hardship - ferrous pain
no less so – enough for the budding
zen master.
Being enlightened in the universe
means only to have sacred bronze. Travel back
and be greeted by the nickel codex.
Success of Magnum Opus proportions, a custom
to occult unification – but mind the thorny fire –
and be enveloped into a higher state of
everythingthereistoknow.
The alchemist learns all of life’s lessons from the meniscus.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremediated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
With the new year comes inevitably new poems. Like last year they will be of varying and in many cases dubious quality. It seems apt to begin 2010 with Post 101 though so begin 2010 with Post 101 I shall. Here's my first poem of the year, fellow Agglomerators. Have a great year, everyone!
Dusk
Swallowing stillness
the encore that holds no refrain
in the ambiguity of black sheep
counting fireflies.
Tortuous intuition is woven down
the silent hill through the
padded grass mattress and its
border with the rock people.
Creeping tendency to flush the
ravines with acid reign,
their dictatorships are gone by dawn,
leaving no trace but the first
beginnings of mothball.
The sedaned couple relish the
subdued tacitity after their play
as the last tint of eventide
wafts into the midnight air down by
the overpass.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: 2010, Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
So. Post No. 100. Few have speculated as to the nature of this slightly important post because frankly they've had better things to do. And even those who have devoted their brains to dwell over the matter for an inconsequential amount of time while they were waiting for the ice cream to melt over their pancakes for example, or while they were sitting on the toilet with nothing else to read, have quickly and perhaps rightly moved on to much more important things, like reading Digital Fortress. However, those who know me personally, or even those who have half paid attention to the occurences of this blog will not be surprised to know that I will be publishing something that I have creatively worked on, something that I have invested time and effort into, in the hope that someone will find it inspirational, thought-provokingly interesting or at least entertaining.
So with Arensky's Trio in D Minor playing the background, I present to you Part 12 of the Transcriber. This will either mark the end of my creative pursuits on this blog, or symbolise a new beginning. I say that only because I hear false dichotomies increase the chance of reader interest by 3%.
The Transcriber Part 12
Josef Karringer was sure time slowed in the black room. He had only fallen asleep three times in that room but already it seemed although that was longer than his entire existence in the previous rooms. He attributed this to the fact that he no longer had any purpose in those walls. There wasn’t a book for him to write from, nothing to copy. Everything that had formed the essence of his life just wasn’t there anymore. It lacked purpose. He was angry at how naive he was, thinking that he would have his freedom once he had completed the book for them. How stupid he was. Completing the book for them? For who? Who were they? Who was watching? Why was he here? For all he knew, there was nothing out there for him. Existence was this, these series of rooms, it meant nothing, everything amounted to nothing, it was inconsequential, all of it. Random motion, life just an accident, something that would dissipate, never to exist again, just another accident in a long series of accidents that he had never known or never would know. Where was the meaning? How could he make his life mean something, and if it couldn’t be done, why was there an innate desire for that to be so? Who was he?
A knock at the door rescued him from being enslaved in a vicious circle of unanswerable questions. It was something new, an entirely original experience. All the time he had spent in the room, those who had entered had always done so in his sleep, and as a result, Josef was primarily unaware of the occurrences although he had gradually begun to harbour suspicions that people might’ve been entering his room once the gifts arrived. He didn’t believe they came from nowhere. But there was nothing he could do to prove, and furthermore it was of no consequence of him who or what came into his room because it affected nothing, it changed nothing. This alone was enough to fill Josef with a tingling sense of anticipation and desire for discovery as he opened the door. Standing there was something that he had never seen before in his life. But somehow, he felt like he knew the man.
The man said nothing, grabbing Josef by the arm and dragging him out of his room. And then he stopped, as if he had remembered something. The man entered Josef’s room and took all the pieces of paper that Josef had been writing on himself, without any visual material to aid the transcription process. Josef wondered why his meaningless doodles were of any importance to this man. But he didn’t care. He was getting out of the black room. That was all that mattered. Who cared where this road would lead him, if it meant not a day longer spent in that cell, in that torturous prison where there was no meaning. Granted, Josef could not be sure there was meaning anywhere. But at least now he would be able to find out for himself. So Josef found himself trusting this man immediately, both on account of the immediate sense of inexplicable familiarity as well as the opportunity the man symbolised for him to discover himself.
He began to walk after the man, who had gestured for him to follow. Together they escaped the facility and went into hiding from the people who had held them prisoner for most of their lives. With inside help, Syro Ganderton and Josef Karringer went dark, and a week after their escape, the operation to locate and recapture them was abandoned. For all intents and purposes they were gone, and the operation would have to continue without them.
And so it did. For four whole years. Then Syro and Josef resurfaced.
To be continued...
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Transcriber
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Summer Syntax
A parody starts off like a lone peach, which
unlike apples, don't fall far from the tree.
Falling into a heatwave at noon, one leaf shielding the
scorching glare of the sun, juices seep from its skin.
There are easier ways of keeping cool, the
connoisseurship of peach-juice-pressing, eg.
You hold its plumpiness between your hands,
you remove the blackberries from the fridge,
and throw it into the Arctic sinkhole.
These burning seconds are frozen with activity.
The stars give little meaning. When they shine through
the clouds, they are as distasteful as a limousine
outside a dilapidated Chinese eatery, or the toddler
who can't get enough of Baskin Robbins Maple Nut.
The full bloom of spring is a form of expression,
the naked flesh reminds the peach of past lovers,
every orange is a traitor, every grape a sister.
The peach persists in its journey, or rather it
continues in its resistance all night,
leaving a trail of internal fluid on the
granite tabletops and marble stairs of mansions,
a trail for all Hansel/Gretel fanatic wannabes.
At dusk the tumult is over. The sound of the blender
whirring from the cottage will attract its owner, and
as he stands there before the peach, now juiced up,
sweating, the beads of his bodily fragrance will form a smile
and the man will express a complete parody.
(That. And his house has burnt down.)
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Samurai
The swords have long since married
the spectating leaves far away
beneath that cavalier
amongst the lily-strewn fields of
curved, crushed petals, and the
seasoned aroma of sweet decay.
What honour is there in the fragrance of
guilt-infused tea, when the blackened
leaves no longer emanate their tradition
nor provide a home for the lost
tatami souls? Their waning season
brings grief to fruition, and for months
the sky punishes them with rain,
but no water falls down to cleanse them,
not a drop ripples the harmonious discord,
no flood carries them to quiescence.
The winds of regret crack their armour
and their proud souls escape, superior.
A victory Pyrrhus would be proud of
in a different land, in a different age.
Fearless warriors are born but never killed.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
Howeverwhichway the Wind Blows
The telltale signs lie in the detail,
not the outward smile, not the fashioned hair,
but the twitch of the ring finger when
she sways and spins.
No amount of bureaucracy can contain
those intricacies. Undecipherable anthills
over which the whole world runs,
giant corporations and sickly politics.
We are the leviathan, we are the ones.
Trample the sweet grass and lemon dew
and crush those brave blackhearts who dare
to stand and fight for grains of dead flesh.
How could it be any worse than this?
It's simple. Condensed blood
sweet to the lips of flux, and its master,
the dark caped figure with the bald sphere.
The wheel turns.
A better wheel turns.
And when there is reprieve --
What reprieve?
The survivors cling to their mountaintops,
the lost loves are swallowed by the axes.
Extra mint, extra honey, extra quick.
Bring on sophisciated technology
for the advancement
and betterment
of society
and
humankind.
Howeverwhichway our streamlining, purifying and freshly industralised air pushes you.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The Transcriber Part 11
The first steps were especially difficult. Adapting to his new surroundings was made especially difficult by the fact that Syro didn’t have a lot of time. The immediate problem was that he had no idea where the so-called Transcriber was. Secondly he had no effective means of communication with anyone, due to the fact that he had been in that cell all his life and language was one of the luxuries that simply weren’t presented to him during his captivity. But all that was about to change.
Syro examined his surroundings. He was in some sort of facility; more educated people might correlate the visuals to resemble something like a ward or wing of a hospital. Not bearing the necessary skills to read a map, and indeed lacking a map in the first place, Syro decided to be guided by pure intuition. He walked down the corridor and at the first intersection decided to turn right. Then immediately he ducked back at the sound of footsteps in the distance. Breathing heavily and struggling not to make a sound, he waited and sighed with relief as the footsteps subsided. Once silence had been restored he cautiously walked out into the open and proceeded down the corridor. He took the next left, the next two rights, and then another left, with every corridor he walked through looking the same as the ones he had previously travelled through. The only thing that convinced him he was wandering around in circles or squares was the names that were printed on each door he passed. They had always been different so far, leading him to the obvious conclusion that he had indeed not traversed that particular corridor before. The names of course, he couldn’t read, but he had developed a form of photographic memory, and he remembered them, making sure that the same combination of symbols had not recurred.
Walking past REYKJA, DUBROV and CHISIN, he arrived at a T Junction. To the left was another long corridor similar to those he’d pass through before. But to the right, there was simply a black door. Syro shivered, not because he was cold or experiencing any sort of muscular or physical spasm, but rather due to his experiencing of a phenomena scientists have attributed the term ‘déjà vu’. This was of course impossible for Syro, seeing as he’d never left his cell in his life. However, Syro quite logically rationalized this feeling as due to some inconsistent clarity in the remembering of his dream. It was quite easy for his subconscious to have recognised a similar or perhaps that very door as part of his dream, therefore accounting for that nervous sense of foreboding yet familiarity that déjà vu would cause.
What mattered was that this was a starting point. Something that he felt was different, something that might just be the answer he was looking for. He approached the door and knocked. There was no response. He tried again. He was met again with silence. So Syro tried the only option left to him. He tried the door handle, hoping that it would yield. The laws of probability were in his favour. The door was unlocked and it opened, revealing someone already inside, concealed in the darkness. Syro had no choice but to enter and close the door behind him, but only have taking a few seconds to locate and activate the light switch, dispelling the shroud of mystery that the figure had hidden himself under. He looked at the man, now illuminated, and wondered if he was who he sought. Was he the Transcriber?
What was more disturbing was that he recognised the place somehow. It was refurbished differently, but the shape of the room, the height of the ceiling, and something else that he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Syro wished he could remember his dream more clearly. But now was not the time for that.
The man stepped toward Syro, and said something. Syro, of course, could not understand what he said, but you, the reader, may find it of immense value.
“Hello Syro.”
Syro did recognise his name, and so knew that the man was speaking to him.
“There is not much time, Syro, and I must get back to the others. But first, I would like you to know that you have an ally and that someone believes in your cause. I’m sorry that we did this to you, but you are the only person who can undo our great mistake. Take this.”
He gave Syro a rolled up piece of paper, a keychain and a headset. Puzzled, Syro felt frustrated because he couldn’t ask him what they were for.
“These will help you, Syro, but the greatest gift of all I can give you is this.”
He took out a syringe from his pocket. Inside was a black aqueous substance.
“I’m sorry, Syro. This is going to hurt.”
The man lunged forward, grabbed Syro’s arm and stabbed his arm, inserting the contents of the syringe into his bloodstream. Syro immediately fell limp, and the man placed him gently on the floor.
When Syro came to, he had a headache but he remembered what had just happened with alarming clarity. He got up quickly and looked around the room. The man was gone. He diverted his attention to the objects that he had left behind. The keys were obviously to let him out of the room he was in and perhaps others in the complex, but he did not know what the headset was for yet. Lastly he unrolled the piece of paper and found that one side was a schematic of the complex he was in. The other side was filled with text, and was addressed to him.
It took him five seconds to realise that he could understand everything on the page. He could read! And so he did, deciphering the meaning behind the text, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. When he reached the end, the first words that Syro Ganderton had uttered in his entire life, were let out into the world.
‘Now I understand everything”.
To be continued...
A note to my readers. This post does not signify the end of my hiatus. I have simply decided against writing the remaining parts then publishing them at a rate of 1 part a day. Instead I will publish each part as I write it.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Transcriber
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The Transcriber Part 10
Josef had been recorded this entire time, courtesy of the blinking red dot. There had always been someone on the other end, inspecting his progress, monitoring that everything was as it should be. When Number One received a call from his partners at 2:14am in the morning, he knew that it had to be something important. Instead he got something monumental. They had finally found who they were looking for. Josef had finally passed the test.
“Get everything ready, I need him transferred to the black room immediately”.
*
The next time Josef woke, it was in complete darkness. Well he thought it was complete darkness, but it was really just the colour of the walls that had led him to this erroneous conclusion. That’s the problem with perception. Stick a guy on a top bunk with his nose almost touching a black roof, and his eyes will convince him that his whole world is black. If Josef had known about their existence, now probably would have been an opportune moment for him to join the ranks of the anti-realists. Unfortunately that was not an option, so exploration of his new environment would have to suffice. He slid himself off the bed and landed on the cold hard floor. The layout was almost exactly the same as the room with the green walls except his bed was now a bunk and the room was slightly larger. Josef made his way toward the table. There was nothing on the table except a pad of paper and a pen. At first Josef dreaded that he would have to transcribe another text, but he saw that no book had been left for him. With the subsiding of the initial onset of relief, confusion began to dominate his cognitive processes. Whoever was keeping him here obviously wanted him to write something, but he had no idea what. It seemed this was just another obstacle in his road to freedom. The difference was, now there wasn’t a path for him to walk on.
As Josef sat contemplating his plight, his right hand, which had previously been twirling the pen, gripped it as any writer would. He began to doodle meaninglessly on the page, as if recreating the process of writing would somehow illuminate his condition. It did not, but that was only because Josef could not read.
*
For Number One, this was nothing short of a glorious day. His plan had almost reached fruition, and soon he would have all the answers to the questions that he had spent twenty years researching, and devising a mechanism to address. He looked with admiration and wonder, but also satisfaction at the clear screen in the conference room. It was zoomed in specifically at the page that Josef was doodling on. Except they weren’t doodles. They were words. Josef was writing of his own accord.
Number Five asked the question that everyone wanted to, but were too amazed to ask.
“How is this possible?”
Number One’s lips curled upward slightly to form the slightest semblance of a smile.
“Josef Karringer is writing of his own free will, because Josef has something to tell us. We have conditioned him, we have tested him, but most importantly we have prepared him for this very moment. He has completed his rite of passage and will now be an invaluable resource to us. Josef Karringer is not simply a transcriber. That is merely what we have introduced to as a means of developing his potential and for him to harness his true ability. Gentlemen, we have finally found the one we have been searching for all these years.“
*
Number Eight approached the closed door. It was almost the end of another shift. Although initially he thought that he was the luckiest of all of them because he got to see firsthand on a day-to-day basis the fruits of their labour, years of routine had long sapped that enthusiastic vitality from him. In his aged wisdom, he’d realised it was him who had drawn the short straw. Door 30. On the door was a plastic rectangle that had been glued on. It bore the letters:
GANDERTON.
Before opening the door, Number Eight checked the dosage of the nightly cocktail of nutrients, liquid and anesthetic was correct. Then he unlocked the door and entered the cell. Ganderton was sleeping, as usual. Stepping quietly toward the motionless body, he took out the syringe and knelt down to administer the contents. Just as he was about to insert the needle into his arm, Ganderton’s eyes opened. A quick punch to the head and Ganderton was able to place Number Eight in a chokehold. A few seconds later, he was unconscious.
As Ganderton stood over him, he reveled in the element of surprise. It gave him the upper hand in this instance, but he knew that soon they would know he had escaped. Soon the entire oppressive entity that had imprisoned him here all his life would be out searching for him. Syro Ganderton had been at a crossroads, but now he had made his choice. He had gone past the point of no return, and the only thing he could hope for now is that whoever the Transcriber was, he would be able to save him.
Syro took Number Eight’s keys and weapon, and placed him in his bed. He covered him with the bed sheets to give some illusion to those people watching (because he knew he was being watched – Syro, being the genius that he was, did notice the red dot – the colour of the dot always matched the walls for camouflage purposes – and did deduce that it was something used to monitor him) that everything was fine.
Then he stepped for the first time outside his cell, into the world, into the unknown, and onto the road that for the first time, he had picked for himself.
To be continued...
Hope you have enjoyed The Transcriber so far. After a short hiatus, the story shall be completed.
Till next time may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Transcriber
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The Transcriber Part 9
The cell was damp and smelt of moldy algae. It was a dark room, save for a dim beam of light that penetrated the otherwise unyielding concrete wall through a barred window. Drops of water erratically hit the ground from the ceiling, resulting in a soft and uneven rippling echo that reverberated throughout the tight space. There was no furniture inside the cell except a bed. Lux was sitting on the bed, his right hand handcuffed to the frame. He had no idea where he was, or how it was since the meeting with those manipulative capitalist bastards had gone so horribly wrong. One thing he did know – he was gone. There was no chance for him to return to his normal life, to his life of prosperity, innovation and ambition. It was all over for him, because he had been too greedy with a cutthroat corporation that simply saw him as a means to an end. What they were going to do to him, he also didn’t know. Why hadn’t they simply killed him? Why was he still alive?
The door to his cell opened.
Guess he was about to find out.
Three men entered, two well-built guards flanking their superior, who was dressed in an immaculate black tuxedo.
“Mr. Harding, I am here to personally thank you for your invention. You have changed everything, bringing our vision one step closer to reality. Thanks to your box, my experiment can finally begin, and we owe it all to you. My experts have slightly modified your initial design to suit our purposes. With such a volatile design, the powers that I intend to harness are dangerous yet immense if controlled properly. I feel it is my duty to show you exactly what it is I intend to use your design for, so you can know exactly what it is you have actually created.”
He showed him.
And finally, it all fell into place. Lux realised what he had done, and he didn’t he think the words “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’ could capture the calamitous proportions of what his creation would be used for. They had to be stopped. Lux pushed himself off his bed, trying to tackle the tuxedoed man but his hand was chained and he stopped just short of his target. Lux realised that he was powerless to do anything. And that was the worst part about it all. The futility, the weakness, and the realisation that it was the end for him.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
The man in the tuxedo laughed, but then turned solemn in expression. He placed the vibrating box in front of Lux, just out of his reach. Then to Lux’s horror, he opened it. The three men left the room, leaving Lux alone with the box in his cell. Within moments, the box was still.
And so it was done. Josef closed the book with a thud, and assembled the numerous pages of his transcription in order in a neat bundle. Now he hoped that he would find the answers that he was looking for. After all, the book was completed; he had copied out every single letter without knowing what anything that was written meant. He had done what was expected of him. And now more than ever, he just wanted to be free.
To be continued...
Only one more part of 'The Transcriber before the 'mid-season hiatus'. Don't miss Part 10 to be published tomorrow.
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Transcriber
Welcome to the Agglomeration
The Transcriber Part 8
Syro was dreaming for the very first time. His body was reacting to his strong urges of desire as well as his naïve hopes for forgiveness, and something to fill the gaping hole that his loss had left in him. Demoralised. If that was their goal, then they’d achieved it. But it wasn’t really their fault. It was him who had not acted. He delayed, and he lost. Fate made its choice, and was punishing and tormenting Syro for his reluctance to follow through.
As much of a genius as he was, Syro did not understand the human condition, nor the emotions that arise to protect and keep the things we love and hold most dear. He also didn’t understand how dreams were a way for the subconscious to communicate to him. He was in a glade somewhere. It was strange. He recognised it, except he knew that it was impossible because he had spent every day he could remember within those red captive walls. A prisoner of a faceless captor. Now he felt free, he could smell nature, feeling the breeze blow through his hair, dewdrops trickling down his skin, and the chirping of birds. He could make out two figures walking behind him, but he didn’t know who they were. When he turned around, their faces were an obscured, blurry smudge, an agglomeration of distorting colour and moist texture. He felt for some reason that they were bad people, very bad people, but he didn’t know why. He rationalized it by attributing it to the guilt he felt about destroying the statuette. He was a bad person, the good ‘him’ was him and the ‘bad’ hims (there were two, so twice the badness) was behind him, pushing him, relentlessly, emotionlessly made him so morally ambiguous that he didn’t even recognise himself anymore.
We all have our inner demons. The only difference was that Syro was seeing them in a human form, in a form not unlike his own. The glade quickly took on an uninviting feel, and Syro ran. He ran as fast as he could. And then he ran faster. He began to accelerate exponentially, running initially at the rate of an Olympic athlete, then an automobile then an aircraft. Of course this was just his subconscious; it was just a dream after all. As reality around him began to meld together in a trippy kaleidoscopic rainbow of dazzling and garish hues, Syro noticed that there were no longer any people following him; he was alone again.
His pursuers gone, there was no further need to run. As soon as he stopped, he realised he was now in a laboratory of some sort. It wasn’t like any of those modernistic workspaces in science fiction or crime procedurals, nor did it have the trappings of a lair of some mad scientist bent on creating a new mutant virus to graft tomato seeds onto the arms of homophobic gerbils. It was an extremely large room, cavernous even, with white walls, white tiles and a white roof. In the distance, he could make out two objects. Syro decided that if he ever got out into the real world, his lab would look something like this. Pure and minimalistic and fully equipped to ensure maximum efficiency and optimal operating capacity. As he approached them, he saw that there were instead two rectangular blocks of roughly carved slate with a surface of smoothly polished, gleaming marble. They were operating tables, Syro realised. Strapped on top of each table were his two pursuers from before. So they hadn’t given up chasing him after all, they’d been captured. But by what? His mind? What was this dream trying to tell him?
Syro stood between the two tables that restrained his enemies, now with no reason to fear them. The manacles that bound them to the stone tables vanished, and now the two dream figures had turned into ethereal creatures of black smoke. Then one of them let out a sudden cry. The smoke was being sucked from it by some invisible vacuum. The consistency of the smoke thinned until the being fully dissipated. In its place was a box. The other smoke creature rasped one final warning to Syro before it too was consumed by the ravenous void. Then it was gone, replaced by a similar box. On closer inspection the boxes seemed to be pulsating slightly, and exuding a high pitched buzzing that overwhelmed him. Syro sank to his knees, his hands firmly pressed on his ears. But it was to no avail. Syro screamed and opened his eyes, and saw the red walls he had known all his life.
Quivering, with sweat trickling down his body, Syro remembered the parting words of the creature in his dream.
The Transcriber will save us all.
To be continued...
Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations.
Labels: Composition, Transcriber
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