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forsythI have no idea what this is, or where it's going. But I'm getting a Cory BoingBoing (what, you can spell his last name?) meets Warren Ellis vibe from the way it's coming. Here's the first bit, for your edutainment.
It's three o'clock in the city, and it feels like I'm the only one awake. Just me and the rooftops and uneasily sleeping pigeons. Then a gout of smoke and light comes from a door slammed open, but it's not fire, just people pouring out of a tavern, so drunk the only thing holding them up is each other. The door slams shut just as quickly, cutting off the noise before more than fragments have a chance to escape and echo down the empty streets. The partiers wander down the street with as little aim as their intoxicated singing. They were drunk enough to see each other as as beautiful and smart as they thought they were, in their private selves, and didn't care if the world was watching. So they sang and groped and wobbled their way down the street, leaving trails of sound and spilled booze, which slowly mixed into the fabric of the city after they rounded a corner out of sight.
So now I was alone again. It still felt wrong, but I hadn't been back to New York in ten years. It wasn't the same city that'd drawn a young me in like a moth, but it was. Even during the years of the greatest megacities, there was only one New York, and it haunted the city still, like the shadow of young beauty in a crone's face, still there if you had the right eyes to look with. But for all that, it wasn't anything like the city loved, and loved in. Even at 3 AM, the streets would have been crowded, especially near the clubs and bars and taverns. But the thing that stuck with me the most about New York had been the traffic. The constant noise, in the background, engines and horns, stitched together by the drama of the occasional siren. This felt more like Tokyo, or somewhere in Europe, but I'd lived through the changes there. Coming back was like seeing the girl you'd chased with a frog middle school who comes back the next summer and holy shit, she's got boobs.
Enough standing around and getting nostalgic, standing around on the street in New York's never been a good idea, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck tingling. I set off, reassured by the weights in the various pockets of my jacket. I knew what I was looking for, after six months on an assembly rig over the Sahara, there were comforts of civilization I was longing for. I stepped into the Starbucks down the street, this I'd missed. The one on the rig had been shite, and the last proper cup I'd had had been in London, in a Starbucks run by a couple of third generation Indian-American expatriates. You fly in at two in the morning and see if you need coffee. And I had to go meet Mr. What's-his-name, Special Assistant to Ms. VP-of-something, in six hours. Fuck if I knew what was so bloody important that they couldn't just zip it over to my account, or teleconference. Especially if it was so bloody urgent they couldn't wait till my shift was up, and scrounged up a converted jet from somewhere.
(c) 2005 Me, all rights reserved, etc.)
Tags: Writing, Fiction
It's three o'clock in the city, and it feels like I'm the only one awake. Just me and the rooftops and uneasily sleeping pigeons. Then a gout of smoke and light comes from a door slammed open, but it's not fire, just people pouring out of a tavern, so drunk the only thing holding them up is each other. The door slams shut just as quickly, cutting off the noise before more than fragments have a chance to escape and echo down the empty streets. The partiers wander down the street with as little aim as their intoxicated singing. They were drunk enough to see each other as as beautiful and smart as they thought they were, in their private selves, and didn't care if the world was watching. So they sang and groped and wobbled their way down the street, leaving trails of sound and spilled booze, which slowly mixed into the fabric of the city after they rounded a corner out of sight.
So now I was alone again. It still felt wrong, but I hadn't been back to New York in ten years. It wasn't the same city that'd drawn a young me in like a moth, but it was. Even during the years of the greatest megacities, there was only one New York, and it haunted the city still, like the shadow of young beauty in a crone's face, still there if you had the right eyes to look with. But for all that, it wasn't anything like the city loved, and loved in. Even at 3 AM, the streets would have been crowded, especially near the clubs and bars and taverns. But the thing that stuck with me the most about New York had been the traffic. The constant noise, in the background, engines and horns, stitched together by the drama of the occasional siren. This felt more like Tokyo, or somewhere in Europe, but I'd lived through the changes there. Coming back was like seeing the girl you'd chased with a frog middle school who comes back the next summer and holy shit, she's got boobs.
Enough standing around and getting nostalgic, standing around on the street in New York's never been a good idea, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck tingling. I set off, reassured by the weights in the various pockets of my jacket. I knew what I was looking for, after six months on an assembly rig over the Sahara, there were comforts of civilization I was longing for. I stepped into the Starbucks down the street, this I'd missed. The one on the rig had been shite, and the last proper cup I'd had had been in London, in a Starbucks run by a couple of third generation Indian-American expatriates. You fly in at two in the morning and see if you need coffee. And I had to go meet Mr. What's-his-name, Special Assistant to Ms. VP-of-something, in six hours. Fuck if I knew what was so bloody important that they couldn't just zip it over to my account, or teleconference. Especially if it was so bloody urgent they couldn't wait till my shift was up, and scrounged up a converted jet from somewhere.
(c) 2005 Me, all rights reserved, etc.)
Tags: Writing, Fiction
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Date: 2005-06-09 10:23 pm (UTC)