Murky Memories
Something has found its way into my skin, beyond the walls of mucus, and the white cell guard, and it is corroding me from the inside out.
I would write, but when I open my eyes all I see is a throbbing world and I will spare you the visions.
Tonight I’ll slurp down some bog-colored liquid and in the morning chase it with syrup of the sun. Tomorrow I’ll be back to introduce you to the small cloaked figure and the man with a scythe through his head.
-Christian
Whether by swish, clack, or strum, when you summon a new character into this world, it is less like creating and more like meeting. That is why in the evening, when everything is soft, I hear Spooky’s drippy voice behind me, whispering, When? And when I turn, there is only a curtain drifting.
It’s hard when others are not so excited about these encounters as you are.
But there’s a reason the ranks of the successful are thick with the once-rejected (though their capes flow otherwise). They have a taste for brick walls that come at a thousand miles per hour. They know once you’ve survived the impact, and your guts are on the inside and not spilled out all over the place like you expected they would be, you take a deep breath of mortality and realize you can do anything. Some are so proud of their rejection they measure it in inches.
For each uncrumbled wall, we leave an impression, a trail of silhouettes in our wake. It pains me to look at those old figures, hideous and wilting. But it’s far better than hiding away, hands in pockets, because genius did not come pouring from my fingertips on the first try.
Bradbury says, “You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” I take this advice to heart. It may end in a splattery mess of half baked ideas and regrets . . . but I’ll be burning bright before I hit.
Now, I’ve got some characters to resurrect.
-C
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