The Absent Minded Professor

Down the Dark Corridor Part 2

// July 13th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Random Writings

Part one is located: here

It wasn’t what I had anticipated. As I crossed from the murky, dim depths of the water into the blackest night of the corridor I suddenly felt a rush of water slam down on my head from above and then I was landing heavily on cold, hard stone, my breath (so unnecessary earlier) rushing out of me with a huff.

“Ow,” my voice echoed in what I could imagine was a cavern, but given the deep black surrounding me, there was really no telling. It was then it dawned on me that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. I rolled onto my side and curled in on myself, wrapping my arms around my knees and huddled there for an untold time, my testicles practically crawling back inside my body in an effort to keep me in the baby-making business if I ever got out of this god-forsaken mess. Mother Nature takes care of her own, this thought made me laugh, and if there was an edge of hysteria to it I chose to ignore it. Not like there was anyone there to hear it anyway. I have no idea how long I lay there, shivering as the water evaporated off my body.

You can’t stay here, I thought to myself. “Get up, you can’t stay here,” I mumbled to myself, clenching my teeth in an effort to stop their chattering. I said it aloud to make it seem more real, more urgent. I knew, in some inner part of my being, that this moment was one of those moments where you get to decide if you live or die. Somehow, I had to overcome this lethargy that was slowly consuming me, trying to kill me….

*****

Flashes of light were exploding against my retinas as I struggled against the weight pinning me to the ground. I clawed at the fingers that were clamped around my neck….trying to kill me….

*****

With a gasp, I came back to myself, breathing heavily, sprawled on my back in the inky black cavern, still shivering.  What the hell?! I struggled to reconcile what I’d seen (felt?) with my current predicament. Was it a memory? A dream? I couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, it gave me the willies. So, I sat up. Hey, that’s progress I thought. I stretched my legs out, testing each body part to be sure I was still in one piece. Legs, arms, scapula…all seemed to be in their proper place. Satisfied, I slowly climbed to my feet, the chill of the stone beneath them soaking through to my very bones. Now what? I can’t see and god knows what’s down in this bleeding cavern.

I could hear rushing water behind me. Slowly I did an about face in a carefully precise fashion (it would be too easy to lose all sense of direction in the absolute blackness) and stretched out my right hand toward the sound. All I encountered was emptiness…one…two…steps forward and rushing water wet the tips of my fingers. I took another step, reaching through what felt like a waterfall, and jammed my middle finger against a rock wall. “Fuck!” I jerked my hand back, cradling it close to my chest and hopped around in pain a bit. So much for maintaining my sense of direction.

I forced myself to stillness, taking deep breaths to stave off the hysterical laugh building in my chest. “Ok, easy, Danny, just…think for a minute,” I told myself. I closed my eyes (they weren’t doing me much good anyway) and stood there in all my birthday-suited glory. Talking to myself—great, because insanity is the best way to deal with this situation…what IS the best way to deal with this situation? Find help. For crying out loud, I’m just a… I didn’t know what I was. I didn’t know who I was. Now, just hang on, I’m Danny, Danny Davis (for which, I will hate my parents for all eternity). Right, I know who I am. I come from…I come from…that was it. All I had. Just a stupid name and the knowledge that I’d always hate my parents for gifting me with a moniker that abbreviates to “Double D”. I tried to reach back into my memory and call up more information, but it was like when I’d stretched my hand out into the blackest dark of this stupid cavern…just emptiness. I could sense there were edges, feel the negative space of my memory as a distant idea, but the memories themselves appeared to be gone. 

Down the Dark Corridor

// July 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Random Writings

I can’t breathe, I thought to myself.   You don’t need to. I wasn’t sure where the response had come from, maybe inside my own head. But, with my biggest concern resolved my mind was freed to take in my surroundings. It was dark, murky beneath the depths of the water. I could hear, distantly, waves crashing on the shore. Or maybe it was my heartbeat thudding in my ears. A shadow moved past my right hand, raising goosebumps on my arms. I squinted, trying to see what it was, but all I could see were shadows and vague out-lines. Turning my head the other direction, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a building. A building under the ocean? Somehow, it didn’t seem as odd as it should. Peering around one more time, I slowly moved my arms and kicked my feet, making my way toward the vague shape in the distance. My eyes must have been adjusting to the darkness, because I could see things suddenly, all black and white monochrome: plants, undulating eels, and far, far in the distance (thank god), what I thought looked like I shark.

Just as I tasted the bitterness on my tongue that presaged fear-induced nausea I was startled to discover I had arrived in front of the silvery, shadowy building without realizing it. In fact, I was certain I hadn’t been swimming long enough to get all the way to what had been a distant shape not so long ago. Odd. Then things got much, much stranger: the sea of kelp to my left slowly parted down the middle, revealing a tunnel in the sandy ocean bottom. Terror should have taken me, I should have bolted in the other direction… I should need to breathe, my mind screamed. But none of that happened (not even the need to breathe). Instead, I began the slow swim into the pitch black corridor. I didn’t know how long it was, but I was going to find out what was on the other side…

Jump to Part 2

Words are cheap…

// July 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Random Writings

Words are cheap…but finding your voice- that costs you. In fact, it costs years of your life, laughter, tears, hate, and love. Finding your voice requires something to say… that something has been lived (well known secret: writers mostly use what they’ve lived as the initial seed of a story).

I’ve wondered at my recent silence. No voice, no words. Just an empty page. I’ve stared at it, I’ve rambled my way through pages and pages of ideas (jotted down usually in the middle of the night over the years), but nothing comes. I just find myself staring, contemplating how easy it used to be, grasping at shadows.

I remember as a teenager writing these sort of beautifully macabre tales about bats and ravens, wolves in the night guiding children through copses of trees inhabited by corpses. My “little stories” (jotted down in nearly illegible hand-writing in spiral notebooks) were speckled with grief and death…the things I lived when I was younger. The isolation I chose after those experiences, though, seems to have largely silenced any voice I once had. Is this what happens when you grow up and move away?

I used to live in the thick of things. I used to walk the ocean paths at night and listen to waves crashing on the shore and wonder about what lived in the dark under the surface of the water. What I wouldn’t give for the sound of the ocean tonight.

Becoming a fan: inspiration and appreciation

// July 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Random Writings

I have a newly developed theory. We connect with people who create things (actors, writers, directors, artists) as part of a natural desire to fill a certain void in ourselves. Falling in love with a play, or a movie, or a TV show is part and parcel of satisfying some missing thing…that thing you don’t get in a nine-to-five existence: the magic of creation- the imagination in its most raw form. And the creative items that are left behind (the show, play, the art itself) are living embodiments of something that I truly believe we are all striving for in our own ways: to create something.

Maybe you’re not an artist or a writer or an actor, that doesn’t mean you lack desire for that feeling of creativity- even if it manifests as being the kind of mother who can love her children wholly and without reserve, or an engineer who can build technological, practical wonders, or even someone who just loves to go out every night and dance. This desire for creativity is in all of us, some more pronounced than others, I would suppose.

Many people move well beyond enjoying art and become Fans (that capital “F” is quite significant- take note of it). I come from a world where being A Fan is almost mandatory. My Dad went to gaming and SciFi conventions, I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen all the Star Trek movies, nor could I watch Star Wars without quoting the dialogue along with the actors. The world of Science Fiction and Fantasy (I tend to lump the two together) spawns a great number of Fans. They attend conventions, stalk hotels hoping to catch sight of their very favorite actor and wheedle an autograph out of them. They dress up like the characters, obsessively study the mythology of their chosen SciFi/Fantasy worlds. It’s a beautiful community, this is in no way a critique of the convention-going type of Fan. Most of them live without reserve and love life in a way I can only dream of. I just have never really been one of them. Maybe it’s that youthful desire to be nothing like your parents, but I’ve found myself holding back from Fan-dom, finding that it somehow makes enjoying the creativity harder for me…

Lately, a funny thing has begun happening to me, though- I’ve found myself creeping toward becoming a Fan of a particular piece of creative works. Even (horror of horrors) of a particular individual involved in the creative work. I’m not going to name names, that’s not the point of this ramble- it’s not about identifying a person who is making great art, it’s about exploring what has gently tugged me out of my reserve to become a full-fledged Fan of a person.

It’s a funny thing when I examine it, because it’s not about what art this individual has made (though all of it that I’ve been able to get hands on so far has been very enjoyable), and it’s not about the person as a person either (though from what I can tell from the variety of interviews I’ve watched, they seem a to be quite lovely)- it’s about inspiration. Discovering the Fan inside myself has meant discovering that for me personally, it’s about how famous people inspire me to pursue my own creative impulses, and not about how much I enjoy watching the fruits of their creative process. Or, I suppose it would be more accurate to say that not only must I enjoy the creativity they bring to the table, but I must also be inspired by them to pursue MY creative work.

Not surprising, I suppose. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way. It just has never occurred to me that I had a Fan lurking inside me, waiting for the right person to inspire me in an unexpected way. That- the inspiration- that is a kind of magic. Who knew?