short story

[Westley]

I wrote this in like an hour after returning from a super scandalous party (just a small one though), and I was still massively trashed and wide awake. So I wrote this. Tell me what you think. Be aware. Definitely adult themes.

It's a monologue for a friend of mine, Alexa Bowen.

Listen to this while you read. If you don't have Imeem login with bugmenot or something.

http://www.imeem.com/electronicmusic...e_aerodynamic/


At least I didn’t do tweak. I’m freaking out. No really. Don’t laugh. I can’t- Where did I put my bra? Oh it’s in my shirt. Good. Isn’t it nice to know things are where you left them? I wish I knew where I set my sanity. Everything is moving too fast to keep track of. I’ve never felt anything like this. The world isn’t staying put. It’s a kaleidoscope of colors and all is one and one is all, it’s a carousel sabotaged by the Mad Hatter spinning out of control faster and faster, until all the colors and all the people blend into each other, a thousand people reduced to a great convulsing shuddering mass. I can feel my heart rate quicken. The music, which has transcended sound, is where I really am.

I’m not standing inside an arena of thirty thousand people. I’m floating in a river of sound and light, the heat washing over me in waves, and I am it’s captive, slave to the eternal dance, slave to the beat in my chest, pounding in perfect rhythm to the beat of the dance floor. I can feel hands on me. There are people everywhere, they’re breathing on me and they’re touching me and there’s no room to breathe. There is only the dance, thirty thousand people all dancing to the beat, all rising and falling, all trying to get away from life, trying to wring a little more happiness from their tired existence. Are they going about it the right way?

I see a girl with a pacifier, black hair and no top holding her breasts, her head down, tears rolling down her cheeks. I’d rather not repeat what they’re saying around her. A couple guys try to cop a feel and she spits at them. It’s not an entirely useful deterrent. Another girl walks up to her as if to help and get’s pushed away and screamed at. I can’t tell what for. I wish I could spare a shirt but I only have the one and I don’t like the way the guy behind me is dancing. I want to say something but nothing I say can be heard and the only way I can keep myself from losing sanity and clear thought is to keep dancing, to keep watching.

I see a man wandering aimlessly through the crowd, his right eye nothing but a red stain leaking blood onto a black shirt. Under the black light it glows like semen at a crime scene. How long has it been since I took them? My brain feels like a boiled egg, The euphoria’s wearing off and I feel awkward, my brain stuck in overdrive. How can my mind be so foreign to me, but yet even tripping I’m still me. There’s a universe hidden inside me that only I can see, and as I look up at an arena of jumping, frying, fizzing ravers, I realize every one of them has their own hidden universe, their own unique lens for viewing the world. My teeth start chattering again and I remember that I took two more pills with a large glowing white mushroom not even an hour ago. What the **** was I thinking.

I'm an oven. I can feel the heat rising up my chest and into my head and back down in waves and I want to lie down and sleep. My skin is suddenly all pins and needles and I bite down so hard I can feel pain in my jaw. My legs turn to goop without warning, and I feel a pain in my chest. I feel myself falling, and I reach out at the nearest guy in front of me. He misreads my intentions. He lifts me up but grabs me by the ass and pulls me uncomfortably to him. I just want to get away. I just want to lie on the floor and vomit. Why is he doing this to me? I’m not capable of dancing anymore. I can only hold myself up on him, and as he slides a hand down my back and slaps my behind I puke on his face and his clothes and turn away as I hear laughter and jeers and I don’t make it very far. I can hear him calling me a ***** and I want to get through the crowd, no longer thousands but instead one great hive consciousness. I wonder how I’m supposed to get home as a foot is placed in front of me. I manage to fall in the one place people aren’t packed to the brim. He is instantly on top of me and as I scream I can feel my heart pounding far too fast, like a prisoner jackhammering through his cell. The rolling in my mind seems to drown out all the rest, as darkness swallows me up. The puke covered man on top of me grabs me around the throat. Both of us are being stomped on and trampled. I have no resistance left to give. I laugh. I laugh in his face. He slaps me. The darkness is somehow very welcoming. Someone kicks him in the face. He rolls off me clutching a bleeding nose. The red and the green mingle on his face. Christmas colors. I want to get up but I can’t. I don’t know why I can’t, but it doesn’t trouble me all that much. I see a hand outstretched. I grab it. As I’m pulled up my hair gets caught underneath someone’s shoe and my head snaps back. I moan and collapse back to the ground. Most of the people don’t even realize I’m even there. A couple of them are concerned and try to give me some space, but I feel a high heel stab into my shoulder. It seems far away and distant. I was just almost raped. I could be trampled to death. But I can only sit there as my body begins to grow more numb. The pain in my chest is growing. My heart is not beating on time. My chest starts shaking, my whole body begins to spasm, and as I look up at thirty thousand people, a billion lights, and infinite universes I will never fully understand, my vision blacks out, and I release one final whimper.

[Westley]

Nobody commented? What a bunch of wimps.

[telkanuru]

Needs paragraphs.

[Go? Fencing?]

Needs paragraphs.

Seconded.

[Westley]

Eh, it was designed as a monologue so I never really worried about it. Besides, it kind of helps the whole stream of consciousness thing. I guess I should put them in though.

[Got_Fenced_In]

Nobody commented? What a bunch of wimps.

I read it when you posted it. I enjoyed it. But I didn't want to exactly critique you on it. Because how much value does my opinion really have to you? =P


I will say I didn't know you were much of a writer, though.

[Mergs]

Sounds like a stream of conciousness meandering that could have been written by any number of tripped out, high, drunk, etc post adolescents from any generation.

[Go? Fencing?]

I will say I didn't know you were much of a writer, though.

Only when he's high.

[Westley]

Sounds like a stream of conciousness meandering that could have been written by any number of tripped out, high, drunk, etc post adolescents from any generation.

I doubt it. It takes more than narcotics to write. I love cyclical stories and you can see it in that one too. It's definitely more than meandering. Everything there has a point, which is pretty cool considering how drunk I was. I was lucky I found the keyboard. Also, I think good stream of consciousness stories take a certain talent to write. There are some very famous writers that would have been largely incapable. (Have you ever read H.P. Lovecraft? He had no clue how to write dialogue or enter somebody's head.)

I love first person naratives because of the way they so simply allow you full access to the character's mind.

Hey, I'm not saying I'm the greatest writer ever, and I'm certainly not comparing myself to Lovecraft, I'm just saying I've developed a certain style. In this story, I wanted to REPRESENT every "tripped out, high, drunk, post adolescent." I only wanted to create a scene that had the ability to make you feel like you were there, in the rave as much as in her head, really to test my friend's acting abilitities. When she performs it, I want everyone there to leave their seats and enter a rave- I want them to feel some sense of loss when she dies and when they see the others in the rave I want them to spend just a couple seconds wondering about those people and what their story is. I want them to connect. Besides that, heck with it. Hell, I did write it in an hour while so drunk I almost puked. I'll edit it eventually.

I hope I got E right. It's one of the few drugs I haven't done- I value my serotonin too much. If I rewrite it I'll really try and make the reader feel like he's on it.

[Mergs]

I doubt it.

Oh, really. And what is your basis of experience? How many generations of producers of such drivel have you personally known? I'm on my third. I recognize this style for how it was "written", and you confirmed it. Jackson Pollack was the only artist that I knew who became aclaimed for it.

Carefull about not hurting that arm as you try to give yourself accolades for this "work".

[telkanuru]

Leaving aside the rest of your argument, the idea that Jackson Pollack is the only acclaimed artist who used drugs to fuel his creativity is.... very interesting?

[magic_moose]

Oh, really. And what is your basis of experience? How many generations of producers of such drivel have you personally known? I'm on my third. I recognize this style for how it was "written", and you confirmed it. Jackson Pollack was the only artist that I knew who became aclaimed for it.

Carefull about not hurting that arm as you try to give yourself accolades for this "work".

Not that I disagree at all with your point about Westly's production, but I will add that more wonderful authors, poets, and artists than one exist whose works are very much drug oriented (Interestingly enough, most are from the 1800's *):

Thomas de Quincey - Opium
Wilkie Collins - Opium
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Opium

Henri de Talouse-Lautrec - Absinthe
Arthur Rimabud - Absinthe & Hashish
Phillip K Dick - LSD and prescription drugs

Of course, I have to add Salvador Dali's observation, "I don't need drugs. I AM drugs".

* Perhaps this just reflects my taste for literature/art/poetry from the 1700's and 1800's. Anyone care to add more modern folks to the list?

[Fencergrl]

Timothy Leary & Lewis Carroll both come to mind. There's another well known writer of the 60's/ 70's that I can't remember.

Aldous Huxley was one of the most important figures in the early history of LSD. His experiments with psychedelic drugs (initially mescaline) and his descriptions of them in his writings did much to spread awareness of psychedelic drugs to the general public and arguably helped to glamorize their recreational use, although Huxley himself treated them very seriously.

Naturally he influenced Jim Morrison of the Doors. Not to mention the huge list of songwriters of that era who also wrote while high.

Before that, the Beatniks, and the 20's... sex, drugs and alcohol was a big part of that culture as well.

The story is the same with all of them. They either die from drugs or get damaged by them. The body can only handle so much damage.

[magic_moose]

Huxley of course! How could I forget "Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell" ?

I think Jim Morrison was most influenced by Rimbaud though. Morrison tried hard to be a second Rimbaud but failed because his poetry only holds up when sung by Jim Morrison. Morrison could sing the most awful trash and make it sound wonderful somehow.

"Anything too stupid to be said is sung". - Voltaire.

[Fencergrl]

Doors of Perception... where Jim Morrison got the name for his band.

[Mergs]

Ya'll missed the point, gang.

Pollack's stuff was more like the stream of conciousness aspect of the OP. I'm not saying that there weren't artists of all genre who were both brilliant and high/drunk most of their lives, but that the stuff they did were products of their more lucid moments. And better organized.

[Westley]

I doubt so on the part of Lewis Carroll. You know he was tripping while writing- besides the obvious, he often seemed to forget points or comments he made earlier in his stories, changing randomly from one thing to the next without tying up half the loose ends.

Of course, it rules anyway.

http://www.21cmagazine.com/issue2/excess.html

Of course Mergs himself missed the point as well. This is just one story I've written among many, and I never said it was good. I told you what I was aiming for. I said I had a particular style at one point. I still believe I do. I wanted to hear your opinion- nothing else and nothing more. The reason I pointed out my intoxication was because I've never written while drunk before, and I wanted you to know where I was coming from. I wasn't even sure if I could type while faded. I wrote it like I write a great many stories, very quickly, in one great push. It's just one more story. I will say all the people I wanted to like it liked it, so on that measure it's a success. Hopefully when it's performed it will be perfect. I was glad the intended actress's father, Michael Bowen, enjoyed it, and thought it was a good match for her. But I wanted to hear a completely impartial side to things.

[telkanuru]

Ya'll missed the point, gang.

Pollack's stuff was more like the stream of conciousness aspect of the OP. I'm not saying that there weren't artists of all genre who were both brilliant and high/drunk most of their lives, but that the stuff they did were products of their more lucid moments. And better organized.

First chapter of the Sound and the Fury?

Anything by Alan Ginsburg?

[jjefferies]

I wrote this in like an hour after returning from a super scandalous party (just a small one though), and I was still massively trashed and wide awake. So I wrote this. Tell me what you think. Be aware. Definitely adult themes.

It's a monologue for a friend of mine, Alexa Bowen.

??Alexa?? Or ??Victoria?? and just how blitzed were you?

Sounds like a .... great party. Yeah!!
Just remember to take sound canceling earphones for your iPod and every thing will be Ok. They play what they want, you listen to something cool and more to your groove.

Our lady in Pink was just by to raid my mp3 stores. Showing off a new glam iPod everything in Pink. So I got to test the sound cancellation powers of the "in Pink" earphones. Nice!


Man I gotta get over there and find out what's happening.

[stellarindia01]

Hi,

I enjoyed a lot while going through this story. The story is very nicely narrated.

CSK