How many obscure references can I slide into a blog-entry-title?
At least two, unless the term “red herring” is more obscure than I believe it is. In which case, I guess three.
Sometimes a story is an accident. Sometimes you get a half-formed idea as you’re dozing off or getting ready to go to work so you scrawl a few sentences on a torn receipt and forget about it.
Nine times out of ten, if you ever see that scrap of paper again, you see that what you’ve written is garbage.
But sometimes you find those sentences and you think, “Hey, not bad. At least worth starting a Word file for.”
So you do.
And whatever the original idea was, doesn’t matter. Because you’ve got something new on your hands that’s being reshaped and re-imagined every morning. Every time you think about it, every time you turn on the computer, the story grows and surprises you. And sooner or later what you’re writing seems like it came from someone else—not in that you’ve read it before, but in the sense that it never seemed like and idea you had in your head.
And you’re as excited to see where it goes as anyone you’ve been brave enough to show it to.
What you’re about to read is the first few paragraphs of just such a story. Originally the idea was a very short story about a man whose marriage happened to be falling apart. I thought I might juxtapose how one’s personal world can fall apart against the more literal idea of a dying planet.
That’s still the central idea. What’s changed is the scope of the story. I find that every time I try to end it something in me says, “But wait, there’s more!” and I have to give my inner Ron Popeil an opportunity to sell me on it.
The story now looks to be taking shape as a novella. I know there’s no market for long short stories, but what can I do?
I will briefly say that what you are about to read has gone through no revisions whatsoever. It is raw and probably not what you will see in the final version of the story.
Still, try to enjoy.
(Title withheld for now)
J. D. Buston
Nothing that starts in slow-motion ever stays slow-motion. Everything’s cumulative. Like floodwaters; like a river spilling over its banks. Like an invasive species experiencing a population boom. Like a new mutation of a virus becoming an epidemic. Like the greenhouse effect burning the grass on a dry prairie. Like a marriage falling apart.
Are these similes getting through? Everything speeds up. Like the end of the world.
And what I want to know is; if there’s eight pints of blood in the human body, how much cement mix do I need to inject for my blood to become rock?
Some people say this is just the way it is. They say these are just the laws of thermodynamics doing their thing, asserting themselves. The game you have to play. The game you can’t win. The game you can’t break even in. This, they say, is merely the entropic principle. This is another system breaking down. The game you’re destined lose from the beginning.
And what I want to know is; if I stay away from major arteries, can I extract enough veins from my body to weave myself a noose? I know I’d have to learn how to do surgery and I’d have to give myself enough time to heal between extractions and I’d have to refrigerate my rope—forget all that. What I want to know is; could I do it?
These people, these thermodynamicists, they’ll tell you it was evident from the outset. No system can continue indefinitely—it will always break down. Order will always become disorder. The very idea of a perpetual-growth economy, they say, is laughably absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
They’ll tell you most things are absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
And what I want to know is; is there a poetic way I can kill myself for my own crimes? For my part in the absurdity?
My wife—my ex-wife—said I was a cynic. It’s starting to look as though she was right. I think, at heart, she was happy to see entropy at work on our marriage. It forced her to craft an exit-strategy. She never could have done it on her own.
At least two, unless the term “red herring” is more obscure than I believe it is. In which case, I guess three.
Sometimes a story is an accident. Sometimes you get a half-formed idea as you’re dozing off or getting ready to go to work so you scrawl a few sentences on a torn receipt and forget about it.
Nine times out of ten, if you ever see that scrap of paper again, you see that what you’ve written is garbage.
But sometimes you find those sentences and you think, “Hey, not bad. At least worth starting a Word file for.”
So you do.
And whatever the original idea was, doesn’t matter. Because you’ve got something new on your hands that’s being reshaped and re-imagined every morning. Every time you think about it, every time you turn on the computer, the story grows and surprises you. And sooner or later what you’re writing seems like it came from someone else—not in that you’ve read it before, but in the sense that it never seemed like and idea you had in your head.
And you’re as excited to see where it goes as anyone you’ve been brave enough to show it to.
What you’re about to read is the first few paragraphs of just such a story. Originally the idea was a very short story about a man whose marriage happened to be falling apart. I thought I might juxtapose how one’s personal world can fall apart against the more literal idea of a dying planet.
That’s still the central idea. What’s changed is the scope of the story. I find that every time I try to end it something in me says, “But wait, there’s more!” and I have to give my inner Ron Popeil an opportunity to sell me on it.
The story now looks to be taking shape as a novella. I know there’s no market for long short stories, but what can I do?
I will briefly say that what you are about to read has gone through no revisions whatsoever. It is raw and probably not what you will see in the final version of the story.
Still, try to enjoy.
(Title withheld for now)
J. D. Buston
Nothing that starts in slow-motion ever stays slow-motion. Everything’s cumulative. Like floodwaters; like a river spilling over its banks. Like an invasive species experiencing a population boom. Like a new mutation of a virus becoming an epidemic. Like the greenhouse effect burning the grass on a dry prairie. Like a marriage falling apart.
Are these similes getting through? Everything speeds up. Like the end of the world.
And what I want to know is; if there’s eight pints of blood in the human body, how much cement mix do I need to inject for my blood to become rock?
Some people say this is just the way it is. They say these are just the laws of thermodynamics doing their thing, asserting themselves. The game you have to play. The game you can’t win. The game you can’t break even in. This, they say, is merely the entropic principle. This is another system breaking down. The game you’re destined lose from the beginning.
And what I want to know is; if I stay away from major arteries, can I extract enough veins from my body to weave myself a noose? I know I’d have to learn how to do surgery and I’d have to give myself enough time to heal between extractions and I’d have to refrigerate my rope—forget all that. What I want to know is; could I do it?
These people, these thermodynamicists, they’ll tell you it was evident from the outset. No system can continue indefinitely—it will always break down. Order will always become disorder. The very idea of a perpetual-growth economy, they say, is laughably absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
They’ll tell you most things are absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
And what I want to know is; is there a poetic way I can kill myself for my own crimes? For my part in the absurdity?
My wife—my ex-wife—said I was a cynic. It’s starting to look as though she was right. I think, at heart, she was happy to see entropy at work on our marriage. It forced her to craft an exit-strategy. She never could have done it on her own.
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