Sniplet from a Possible Future

They thought it would never happen. We thought it would never happen. Not to us, we were special, different. The chosen people. Besides, nobody wanted it, we all agreed on things, when it came down to it. We figured things nobody wanted wouldn't happen, figured we were all sane, at least a little bit.

Others thought they were chosen, too. Others more ruthless, more dangerous, more batshit insane. And they took power with a bodyguard of lies. Those who were supposed to watch for us, supposed to protect us failed. Too many had morgtaged their souls for power and influence, too many were afraid, and the rest, like the rest of us, figured it couldn't happen, even when it was happening in front of their faces.

The others in power thought this was just like any other thing, and tried to accommodate, tried to compromise. There was no compromise, there was no accommodation. What would they need that for? They had all the power and control now. They had the levers of power, they had the horns of propaganda, they had millions of fanatical footsoldiers, tuned only to their horns.

As for the rest of us, we didn't see the dangers. Or we didn't believe them, figured this too would pass. Comfortable in our shells of things, nothing enough to risk fighting for, speaking out for. Or scared, scared of what they'd turned our fellows into. Overwhelmed by the sheer scale and scope of the assaults, attacks that just seemed too big for little us. Or shocked by disbelief, that they'd be so bold, so blatant.

And so, a great many good men did nothing, and evil triumphed. The margins didn't matter, not in a battle fought with lies and hatred. And our empire came tumbling down around our ears, the choicest bits plucked away by scavenging aristocrats, like centuries early archaeologists. Millions of dreams and ideals, sucked by vortexes from the sinking State. Crushed down by the banal and commonplace evil until nothing remained. A lifeless and thinly ground dust, that choked what life remained an smothered whatever tried to grow.

The ones who caused it choked too, on their own vomit and bile, on the dust, but it was no satisfaction, not when all else was lost. With no breath left to laugh. And in the end, others just shook their heads and tsked, and figured it would never happen to them.

Stories from the Rabbit Hole

Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive when there's a Buddah sitting beside you, clipping his toenails?

"Do you have to do that in the car?" I asked him.

"The car is just an illusion," he said, "Besides, they itch. Your attachment to it is the cause of your pain."

"I'm attached to my insides being inside, too, so I'd like to keep this illusion on the illusion of the road."

A toenail clipping ptanged off the windshield in front of me. "Maybe the Universe is trying to teach you something."

"not to let nutters in sheets into my car, right. You're not even the Buddah anyway, you don't look Indian at all. You look like a bald surfer and sound like a fortune cookie."

"What else did you expect?" he asked, "Somebody who looked like Ghandi? Or maybe a little fat laughing guy?"

The stoplight changed and I turned left, headed into town. "Something along those lines, yes. Wise and serene, all that kind of thing."

"No you didn't," he said, "How much do you really know about Buddhism? Kung fu monks, distilled bits from a dozen unread books, and stuff from made up pop culture parodies? You haven't even taken a comparative religion course."

"You're still not the real Buddah," I said.

"Nope, I'm not. He's busy. I'm just a strawman you built up to argue against. Hey, that light's red."

I stupped two inches from the bumper of the car in front of me. "Who the fuck are you, then, and how did you get in my car, anyway? You just here to insult me?"

He cracked open a fortune cookie and handed me the fortune. "The foundation of true knowledge is the knowledge of ignorance," it said.

The car behind us honked, impatient. The road was clear, I turned out, then took the first turn into the bank. I pulled into a parking spot then looked over at him. "So, if you're a stereotype, what's next? Is this gonna turn into some Dante-ish voyage of the psyche? Or am I just losing my mind?"

"Why are we here?" he asked.

"Because I need to go to the bank."

"You're angry a lot. That's not good for you," he said, "I mean, I haven't even done anything to you."

"Not good in some spiritual sense, huh?"

"No," he said, "It'll probably give you heart trouble. You need to relax."

I shook my head and left him there and headed into the bank. Maybe while I was gone, he'd clean up all the toenail clippings.

Part 2

(And the Rabbit Hole link: http://www.livejournal.com/users/crisper/26562.html )
Tags: Rabbit Hole, Writing

Inspiration

I need some imagination on demand, 'cause I can't come up with a good Rabbit Hole thing that doesn't end up lame, or sound like a ripoff of somebody else's.

Hmm, maybe there's an idea, Imagination On Demand, and tie that in to how if you read down things like the Keenspace comic descriptions, most of them start to sound the same, especially how they all say how different and unique they are.

Imaginary Rabbits

"And you are?" I asked.

"Furillius Pitch, Interdimensional Salesfox," he said, bowing.

I knew I'd seen him before somewhere, he looked exactly like his picture... Exactly so, actually. He had a black outline, even, and looked like a cartoon. "No, you're not," I said, "he's somebody else's character, and fictional. You can't be him."

"I borrowed the image from your mind that seemed the most appropriate," whoever it was said, "But nevermind that, I have the solution to your problems."

"Stop that, before we get in trouble. Who are you, really?"

Now he was the spitting image of a 30s era traveling salesman. "I am a man with solutions, and you are a man with problems," he said, "And I think we can find a mutually pleasing solution. Behold, Instant Imagination, cure for what ails you!"

It looked like a plastic soda bottle, with a label made up in Photoshop and then stuck on the outside. Garishly red and yellow, eye-grabbingly annoying. "I think there's a few more pressing problems," I said.

"Well, I don't deal in women, or world peace," he said, "So be happy with what you can get."

(Part of the rabbit hole thingie from http://www.livejournal.com/users/crisper/26562.html )

Tags: Rabbithole, Writing

Imaginary Rabbits, Part 2

I took the bottle and shook it. "It looks like water," I said.

"Of course it does, of course it does! But only to the uninitiated! The truly discerning can see the miracle contained within. THIS," he said dramatically, "is distilled dreams!"

"Uh, okay?"

"One drop of this mixture will give you a creative rush, like unto the finest of psychoactive drugs, with none of the messy side effects! This bottle alone contains the essence of the greatest dreams dreamed by the greatest dreamers of dreams! Children, drug addicts, old people lost in the memories of the glory days that never were! All available to you with any sip of this. Sweeter than the kiss of any muse, more enlightening than months of meditation on a chilly mountaintop, and it can be yours!"

He flourished the bottle dramatically. And equally dramatically, the label peeled off and floated to the ground. "Cheap glue?" I suggested, "So, what's the catch?"

"Catch? Why would there be a catch? I am a respectable businessman, all it will costs you is a mere twenty dollars for this bottle."

"It looks like tap water," I said, "And if it's really distilled dreams, why is it so cheap? Is it past the expiration date or something?"

"I am wounded, wounded good sir! These are only the finest distilled dreams. I'm just overstocked, and need to be rid of them before they go bad. I assure you they still work."

"I'm not gonna pay you twenty bucks for a bottle of tap water, whatever you are. Bye."

He stuck his arm in the door as I tried to shut it. "First one's free, kid. Just a taste, and you'll be sure to believe it."

"Didn't your parents ever tell you not to take drinks from strangers? Mine did."

"Just a sip, see? I'll even taste it first, so you can see," he said, producing two little flattened dixie cups from a pocket that hadn't been there five seconds ago. He filled one from the bottle, lifted it, and chugged. "Well?" I said.

He wasn't looking at me any more though, he was off in his own little world. "Yes!" he exclaimed, "And then Harry Potter will take over the Black Lion, and with Drizzit's help, they'll go defeat Darth Vader! And then the Princess will fall madly in love with me, despite only having known me five minutes. And then everything will explode! It'll be unique and exciting and unlike anything else! You see?"

I shut the door quietly, while he was raving. And then ignored the insistent knocks and his calls to offer me a taste. That's one of the problems with things today, cheap generic inspiration. Let this be a lesson, only buy the real stuff, or grow your own.

Tags: Rabbithole, Writing

Obligatory link: http://www.livejournal.com/users/crisper/26562.html

Stories from the Rabbit Hole, Part 2

I left the bank with an extra thirty bucks in my pocket and in a better frame of mind. Few things are more mundane than depositing a check, and all the numbers had totaled up nicely and happily like they were supposed to. And hey, maybe he'd be gone.

No such luck, of course, that'd be too easy. He was still in the car, sprawled over three quarters of the seat. He moved when I got in. "So, where to now?" he asked.

"Shouldn't you know? You're the guide on this whatever it is, aren't you?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "I am? It's your car."

"Okay, well, I've got errands to run, then. What's your name? I can't just call you 'You' or 'him' or 'not-Buddah' all the time, after all. Maybe I'll just call you Dante."

He shrugged. "I've had a lot of names. Shouldn't it be Virgil? He was the guide."

I hate the turn out back onto the road from the bank, it's right after the light, but all these people line up to turn, so even on red lights it's a long wait sometimes. "You said you weren't guiding. What's wrong with having just one name?"

"It tells me about you, the name you pick," Dante said, scooting down in the seat.

Some idiot in an SUV sped up and then cut over in front of me, right before we had to stop at a light. "Yeah, that saved you all of five seconds, congratulations," not that the guy in the SUV could hear me, "And I imagine that asking what I revealed about me would just get me some cryptic answer, right?"

"Never know unless you ask," Dante said, "So, why do you have five names, if one's fine?"

I shrugged and flipped the turn signal on. "I've really only got three. Ish. My nickname, which everybody except junk mail and the government uses, and then online names. One because I wasn't very creative, and the other's really a not mine, it's my character's. He's just sorta merged with my online personality, and why am I telling you this?"

"Because I asked," Dante said, "and very few people seem to care what you think?"

Goodwill's parking lot can be a pain to park in when it's crowded, this was one of those times. I had to back out and adjust and straighten the car about three times to avoid hitting anybody. And make sure I stopped soon enough to not have the car smash a headlight on the streetlamp's base. I shut off the engine and looked over at Dante. "Yeah, well. I'd rather you were a cute chick and asking me about life, honestly. You gonna come with me? Probably be a while. Though people might look at you weird, wearing just a sheet."

"Let them," he said, "It won't be a problem. So, do your names matter?"

"Lock the door," I said, "And not really, just as long as I know who people mean."

Dante pulled open the door to Goodwill. Nice trick, for a hallucination. "Not a believer in True Names, then?"

"Not really, no. Not much of a Believer, in general."


Part 1

Tags: Rabbit Hole, Writing