Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Seven

Theme 127: The Rocket Ship

As the elevator had “Under Repair” signs posted warning off employees this morning, Sophia Quincunx took the stairs to the sixth floor. When she came to the sixth landing, she walked to her office door, which was just adjacent to the teasmade cart and a few yards down from the restrooms, grasped its handle, and was instantly teleported to the Horse Head Nebula, or thereabouts.

Sophia found herself in a starship, or rather, she herself was the starship. A tangled array of biosynthetic cords ran into and out of her cerebellum and medulla oblongata, via a pulsing grommet at the base of her spinal column. Her eye sockets now stretched out in a limacine fashion and poked through the ship’s outer hull at their termini. In place of her eyes sat multi-faceted sensor spheres capable of perceiving the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma radiation to radio waves. Her arms split out into thousands of conduits, braces, and furiously working arachnid-like appendages that tapped and twisted buttons, levers, and webbing on the inner surface of the ship. From her pelvis, cosmically shielded skin and cartilage spread forward to form a translucent lotus bud-shaped envelope around the entire craft. Behind this envelope, her legs, also cosmically shielded, opened out into scintillating zero-point energy sails.

As soon as Sophia came to appreciate her new circumstances, she turned herself about, leaving the Horse Head Nebula behind her and pointing herself toward Sol. She decided to put her capabilities to the test. Her sails became radiant as she tore off in the direction of Earth. She was travelling at close to light speed, 290 million miles per second, when her zero-point field engaged and all of space and time became fluidic around her. She pressed herself onward, faster. Every node in her body-craft reached forward to connect to every other point in the galaxy. She mounted the threshold of universal presence …

Sophia awoke slumped against the bars opposite the door to her office. Dazed, she looked up into the face of a stocky electrician who stood fretting over her. The electrician became relieved when he saw that she was conscious, and he quickly assured her that emergency medics were en route. While they waited, he proceeded to explain in a rapid but stuttering fashion that somehow, he didn’t know how, a conduit from the elevator under repair had fallen behind the wall and made contact with the doorframe, so that when Sophia had touched the handle, she had been electrocuted and thrown back against the bars.

Sophia nodded. She could hear the EM’s hustling up the stairwell now. She looked up at the wall and imagined her starship-self contacting every point in the cosmos at once.



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Six

Theme 180: First Eye Contact

The old glazier Ichor nursed a vodka tonic at the far end of the bar, furtively watching the door.

“Master Ichor! What a rare treat!” exclaimed a thin man who took Ichor by surprise, as he seemed to have materialized instantaneously in the seat beside Ichor. He clapped his hand on Ichor and gripped his arm. He was wearing the unmistakable flannel gray of a Party official.

“I—” Ichor began.

“No, please, no false modesty,” the thin man interrupted. His mannered formality veiled a slight accent. “Though we’ve never met, your hallowed reputation as a master of glassworks proceeds you. I am only too, too honored to speak with you. As it just so happens, I have something with me, or rather two things, I would love for you take a look at and get your expert appraisal of. I know you’ll appreciate them!” The thin man placed a small teak valet on the bar. He unhooked its latch and took out from its padded interior a glass eye, which he held up to Ichor’s face.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the thin man remarked, turning the eye between his thumb and forefinger through a narrow shaft of daylight that ran across the bar, illuminating the eye’s pale blue iris. “Of course, you’d have to have seen it in its proper setting, its owner’s head, to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately, the owner was a young woman, barely nineteen, who was shot earlier this morning. It seems she was an agent against the Party. Can you believe it? So young, so fresh …”

“You see,” the thin man continued after a pause, “she had managed to get through undetected at the Security Checkpoint—which, as I’m sure you’re aware, is very thorough in its cavity searches. She would have gone unpunished on the other side, too, if I hadn’t personally tracked her down after noticing an odd statistical irregularity: a second person with a glass eye of the same make went through the Checkpoint, on the same day!”

The thin man placed the first eye beside Ichor’s drink and took out a second glass eye from the valet, which he again held up to Ichor’s face. This eye’s iris was deep green. “Equally exquisite, don’t you agree? This one was taken from a young man, also barely nineteen, also shot this morning, under very similar circumstances—though we’re fairly certain these two young people had never met. Sad, isn’t it, that this is the way a young man and woman’s eyes should first meet? Ha!” The thin man took up the eyes and clicked them together to make his point.  

“You say they were killed—for having glass eyes?” Ichor inquired haltingly.

“Oh no, of course not. What a monstrous thought! Though it did turn out that both of these unfortunate young people had suffered ‘accidents’ not a week prior, resulting in a loss of the left eye in both cases. But even such an extreme statistical anomaly would not be cause enough to bring accusations. Herein lies the ingenious point, which, again, I know you will appreciate as a master glassworker. For we never would have noticed that both eyes were from the same craftsman if not for a most incredible maker’s mark they both have.”

The thin man carefully turned one of the eyes to show Ichor its rear portion. “You see, there is a transparent space at the back here. It allows light to come in and then out through the iris on the other side—though the difference between the translucent and opaque parts are imperceptible from the front. Just beautiful! Now watch what it projects when the light comes through.” The thin man moved the blue eye into the sun and adjusted its angle until a bluish hook shape appeared on the surface of the bar. He did the same with the green eye, resulting in the appearance of an identical, except greenish, shape beside the first. “The maker’s mark: the Greek letter, iota!”

“You’re right, this is quite ingenious work. But the young people were killed for this?” Ichor asked.

“No, no. I’m not finished. Watch.” The thin man now slowly turned the eyes toward one another until their lines of sight met and crossed, causing the two maker’s marks to overlap exactly. And here a hidden turquoise image appeared inside the iota symbol. It was an intricate set of patterns that would have to be viewed under a microscope—perhaps they were floorplans or blueprints. A smile broadened across the thin man’s face as he looked from the patterns to Ichor. “Such cleverness, I almost wish I could have let those two go, let them meet for the first time on the other side. Almost. But again we have an instance of the new Party science of statistics outmatching the old arts. So it goes!”

The thin man placed the glass eyes back in the valet, stood up, and put the little valet into his coat pocket. “Now, may I ask you to accompany me to my office, Master Ichor, so that together we may identify the craftsman who made this wonderful, treasonous artifact, the one signified by the iota mark, whoever he may be? You understand the importance of doing so, don’t you?”

“Yes,” croaked Ichor, and he stood and left the bar with his captor.



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Five

Theme 276: What’s for Dinner?

The chef and the owner’s wife reconnoitered in the supply closet behind the kitchen while the owner looked over the week’s returns and debated with his manager in the office upstairs. 

The owner had entered the restaurant with his wife just after closing. He had asked her to remain in the kitchen, to which she had replied, “I think I’ll ask the chef to whip something up for me, if you don’t mind.” In doing so, she had locked eyes with the chef behind the counter, a tall young man with an aquiline nose who perennially rode his Schwinn to work. The chef had returned her look with a familiar smile curved with cupidity.

“Fine,” the owner had said as he turned to climb the stairs with a labored grunt.

In the closet, the owner’s wife could feel the cool stainless steel of the wobbly cabinet table on her skin, since she had hiked her dress skirt up, allowing the chef to hook his forefinger under the hip-joint of her underwear and tug.

“Tell me,” the owner’s wife requested, grasping the chef’s nape in her slender digits, “what do we have on the menu today?”

“Well, madame, let me first tell you about our appetizers,” the chef said, guiding the auburn ribbons of her hair behind her ear. “First we have two of the finest, most delectable little lobes I have ever personally tasted—if you will allow me.” He put first her left and then her right ear gently into his mouth, causing her neck hairs to prickle and her buttocks to clench. “But let us not forget this dainty button chin—and this creamy neck.”

The owner’s wife pulled on the chef’s belt buckle while swerving her head out of the trajectory of his mouth. “Very good! But for the main course?”

The chef, in one neat motion, unzipped the entire length of the back of her dress. “Oh madame, we have such a wonderful variety of options for your pleasure today.”

The pair then heard a creak of floorboards above them. The owner’s wife laughed breathlessly and whispered, “Well, let’s get to it then—chop chop!”



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Four

Theme 965: Dancing

“Hey, hey, Feculent, are you there!?” Procrustes hoarsely whisper-yelled into the hole under the basin pipe in the far corner of his cell. Crouching lower still, he strained to move his shock of ear hair closer to the hole. Soon he heard a creak of bedslats and a sullen shambling.

“What is it?” queried the voice of Feculent, made tinny by its journey through the plumbing between the two cells.

“You won’t believe what’s happened!” Procrustes whisper-cried in response.

“I won’t?”

“No, I doubt anyone would, but I know you can trust me, er, that I can trust you, correct? So I’ll tell you.”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“Remember the two big mayflies I told you about yesterday? The ones stuck between the screen and the outer bars of my window slit?”

“Of course. The mayflies.”

“Well, I’ve taught them to dance!”

“Hm. Are you sure they didn’t already know how to dance?” Feculent wannishly susurrated.

“No! You see, I’ve established a mental link with them. My mental tuning ability has progressed to such a level, I can communicate with insects. I can even elevate them to a higher level of consciousness. You should see these two dance!” The thought was exciting Procrustes, clearly, since glistening globules were forming on his forehead.

“What did you teach them? The jitterbug?”

“No, nothing so sophisticated, only a little jig of my own invention. Can’t you see the potential in it, though, Feculent? This is only the beginning. Imagine a vast swarm at my command. They would have to let us out then. My swarm would give them no choice!”

“You may be right,” Feculent admitted. “I have some business to attend to now, though, in bed. Keep me updated.” There followed once more the sullen shuffle and the creak of bedslats.

“Yes, I will, I will!” Procrustes rasped. He stood up and turned his eyes with pride to the window slit. Two mayflies crouched in the pale lightwell, twitching.



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Three

Theme 199: The Vessel

Captain Cage-de Ratte strode the length of his quarters on the U.S.S. Eagleclaw, a mighty Baltimore-class cruiser, alternately casting his eyes on the chop of the stormy night sea rolling past his porthole and then on the model sailing ship he had just completed atop his tidy desk. The roar of the four mammoth steam turbines reached his ears merely as a low hum. Updecks on the bridge, beeping and pinging instruments kept his crew alerted to all threats for miles in every direction. The instruments both plotted the ship’s course and laid it in with scarcely any human interference. Captain Cage-de Ratte huffed and muttered, gesturing to the model frigate, “In your day, men tasted the salt air, gazed at the horizon from atop the masts, to know what to do. Now we just do the bidding of blips and beeps!”

Aboard the H.M.S. Nonesuch, a weather-besieged three-masted frigate, Captain Heartstrings crashed down into his cramped chair in his cramped cabin, lit by sputtering lamp-flame, for the first time in three days. His livery was soaked through, his cowhide boots sloshed, and his teeth chattered. He had gone hoarse screaming over the bitter winds. Not half an hour prior, he had seen vindictive sprays tear two of his crewmen from middecks and toss them out to the churning void, never to return. The Captain’s belly groaned, unsatisfied with the meager allotment of stale grain he and his crew had been consigned to since the meat preserves had become infested. His eyes turned to the illustration on the cover of a French novel that lay on his desk: it was of a mechanical ship many times the size of the largest galleon, made all of silver, that was charging unperturbed through a roiling night storm. “Aye, that’d be the way to be!” Captain Heartstrings muttered between coughs. 



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day Two

Theme 307: Feelings about Unrequited Love

Between clawed and wedged apart slats, cracks in the ceiling plaster offer light and space just enough so that Desirée, her etiolated cheek sweating against the pinewood, can view Clive from the attic—as he dries dishes, as he strings the rigging on his model clipper, as he combs his hair, as he twists in his bedding. “Oh Clive,” Desirée whispers, her thick, greasy strands trembling with the expulsion of mephitic breath. “Clive. Now do you have time for me, darling?” As she gazes down at him from the darkness, her tongue slathers a cool board as if it were the back of his neck.

Clive sometimes becomes possessed of the conviction he hears someone whispering his name. And his anxious speculations over the creaking in the rafters have begun to creep into his dreams, though a thorough investigation has assured him no animal could enter the attic from either the sealed hatches or the painted-over venting.

Never once, however, has Clive wondered what became of that terminally shy woman from claims.



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Vignettes by Me, on Themes Picked Randomly: Day One

Theme 21: Weather outside the Window

Lazy lariats of slime slide down the elliptical outer portals after sputtering against the domed eaves, blotting out the dayshine.

“It’s clear to me,” Hilbert says, pointing to an unseen expanse beyond the clogged portals. “The weather regulators are tapping into the recycling vats again. They thought they could siphon off resources and give us a rainbow show. Instead, look what happens: the system overcorrects, and we get this again!”

Water beads inside the portals from the humidity caused by the overheated slime as it streaks away on the other side.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Hilda says, shrugging vaguely in her husband’s direction. She shifts position on the sofa pillows and reaches to open a transparent cubical enclosure. Now she can return to her latest passion, one she has neglected for her colonial duties: imprinting an uplifted micro-oraristrix with linguistic engrams.



Explanatory Postscript: When I say “picked randomly,” I mean picked from a Master List that I’ve compiled of 999 themes intended to serve as creative writing prompts (from the following sources: 501 Writing Prompts; 25 Creative Writing Prompts; Examples of Themes; List of Themes; 365 Creative Writing Prompts; 100 Themes Challenge Writing Prompts; List of Journal Ideas; and Top 10 Types of Story Themes). To pick a theme at random, I roll three ten-sided dice (the first for the hundreds place digit, the second for the tens, and the third for the singles) and find the theme under the number I have rolled. If I hit a theme I have already written on, I roll again. If I ever roll 000, I make up a theme. The Master List is a secret, so don’t ask for it.

Bits and Passages

A SPROOKJE

Under a bridge, a lubricious wodge of tatterdemalions sheltered from the rain.

THAT I AM REALLY LYING

I should say, when I say I believe this or that, that I am really lying, in a sense, since I am a complete speech-act pragmatist, and so I am only looking for the operational value in holding various beliefs as precepts to various potentially interesting philosophical practices. Though I do believe stable truth values hold within paradigms.

I would not go so far as to say that philosophy is a kind of literature, since it has definite governing aims and ways of positioning and contrasting arguments, independent from particular linguistic instantiations, and even has ways of proving things locally, under provisionally given precepts, but I would say that it is more like literature than science. 

RESISTANCE TO HEGEL

Don't you understand that your resistance to Hegel contains the seeds of your acquiescence to Hegel? By denying Hegel you are only sublating Hegelian discourse and allowing it to flourish within the edifice of your denial, which propounds the positivity of its own negativity. 

SAVE THE MOSQUITOES

In 2nd grade, apparently already an incorrigible satirist, I conducted a "Save the Mosquitoes" campaign; I made signs and passed out individually crayon-scrawled awareness-raising fliers. This was in Orlando, Florida. My teacher was more bewildered than annoyed, but she made me stop anyhow. I think it was my way of asking, "Is environmentalism hopelessly anthropocentric?"

BUT

Seriously though:
Fish people.

Proving Conspiracy Theories

The realization that humans and their institutions are in fact small and vulnerable overwhelms some people’s sense of truth. People resist the idea that one man who was a pretty good shot could kill the most powerful figure in the world, by himself, or that a small group of guys with box cutters could orchestrate a disaster that would plunge us into decades of war.

However, if you want to show that a sensational theory that contradicts loads of accepted evidence is true, you need very strong counter evidence—not some circumstantial bits and pieces cobbled together with your speculations about what seems likely to you.

You have to prove that an incredible thing is true, not prove that it hasn’t been disproven—or ask me to disprove it.

If you want me to believe that there is a species of giant hominid secretly lurking in North American forests, I don’t want to see your blurry pictures of something that may or may not be a guy in an ape suit, and I don’t want to hear your speculations as to why this idea “just makes sense.” I want the actual body of a Sasquatch, dead or alive. It’s on you to prove it with strong, undeniable evidence. It’s not on me to disprove your silliness.

This is important because when you become willing to play around with the truth and suppose the world really must be the way you feel it to be, you begin to think that your enemies may really be inhuman monsters, which opens the door for the worst forms of bigotry.

Logo Design for Li

Stop Saying "That's So Random!"

Ok, this is very important! Stop saying "That's so random," or "random" in any configuration, when what you want to say is that something is peculiar, weird, unexpected, or chaotic. Randomness is a property of numbers or members of a set selected by a randomizing process. By definition, there is nothing unexpected or unpredictable about a thing that can be described as "random."

Think of it this way: you have a normal six sided die, and you roll it. Any result from one to six pips would be equally random (physics approximately permitting, of course). However, it would be truly strange to get seven pips. That would not be random. But when people say, "So random!" they seem to mean something truly strange has happened, not something to be expected from among the supposed available outcomes.

The Harmony Springs Prospectus (complete)

Harmony Springs: Introduction

Harmony Springs: Prospectus (without introduction)

Harmony Springs: Complete Sample Character Profiles, with All Character Data

Harmony Springs: Monad Solomon Drawing

Harmony Springs: Monad Solomon Sketch

Harmony Springs: Crystal Miaojing Drawing

Harmony Springs: Gordon Hastings Drawing

Harmony Springs: Character Files Progress 2

Our Broken Democracy: A Simple Fix

Harmony Springs: Character Files Progress

Harmony Springs: Phyllis Coil Drawing

Harmony Springs: Character File

Harmony Springs: Scheduling System Data

Harmony Springs: Scheduling System

Let's Build a Town: Tables

Let's Build a Town: Complete Rules

Frontier Township: a Board Game

Harmony Springs: Resident Relationship Data

Harmony Springs: Labor Class Residence, Complete

Harmony Springs: labor class bathroom drawing

Harmony Springs: labor class bedroom drawing

Harmony Springs: labor class kitchen drawing

Harmony Springs: labor class front room drawing

Harmony Springs: Labor Class Residence Sketch

Harmony Springs: Relationship System

Harmony Springs: Finished Drawing of Harmony

Halloween Monsters!

The Tower Clock Dreams of Harmony Springs: Harmony drawing, progress 3

The Tower Clock Dreams: Harmony drawing progress 2

The Clock Tower Dreams: progress on Harmony drawing

The Clock Tower Dreams: all 64 characters, finished

The Clock Tower Dreams: 16 more characters

Clock Tower Dreams: Twelve More Character Profiles

The Clock Tower Dreams: Four Character Profiles

The Clock Tower Dreams outline, finished

The Clock Tower Dreams, more pieces 5

The Clock Tower Society, more pieces 4

The Clock Tower Society, more pieces 3

More Musings on Machines

On Models

The Clock Tower Society: More Pieces 2

Miscellaneous Passages on Miscellaneous Matters

3D Mansion Design (all original components)

The Clock Tower Society: More Pieces