Ok so yesterdays brainstorming session was a disappointment, to say the least. I needed to keep my story moving forward at a decent pace, not fall right on its face right away and then describe boring stuff. I get that. So let's do that today.
Two hours, go!
Two hours, go!
Do I like this brainstorming thing?
Reasons to be on journey:
Lost dog
Won sweepstakes
Meet favorite author
Safe deposit box(?)
LOVE
New job (boring)
Calls to action:
Kicked out of house
Nuclear fallout
Immunity to disease
Find cellphone
Extortion
Girlfriend leaves him
Bomb strapped on chest (obviously)
Pinocchio “real boy” syndrome
Characters, partners in crime:
Group of fishermen
Painters who are out of work
Spies
Armless war veterans
Think I’m just going to start and see what happens, like Ray Bradbury says
The gears whirred and stopped, blue lights shooting out of the cellar window like a Pink Floyd light show. Jimmy disconnected the power strip with the toaster, coffee maker, TV, and drills attached to it. Then, he climbed up on the work bench and disconnected the neon signs, the room illuminated with the synthetic blue glow. He pulled a switch and the power turned over to auxilliary, the thing that looked like one of the things they catch ghosts with in the center of the room shaking when its light was off and then rumbling again, shooting its lights all over the place.
“They told me I’m crazy, they said it wouldn’t work,” Jimmy talked to a poster of Einstein he had hanging on the wall. He had the whole series of genius posters outlining his nuts-and-bolts mad scientist shack; Isaac Newton giving a thumbs up, Galileo Galilei with a constipated look on his face staring directly at a fern plant being pumped full of Dr. Pepper, George Bernard Shaw, and David Crosby with his best moustache. “I’m crazy, right?” He looked at the box, which was still shooting lights but not doing much else. He willed it to shake or spin, but it sat there motionless.
Every time a pedestrian passed their silhouette would walk across Jimmy’s walls, like some kind of shadow ritual. “C’mon, c’mon!” Jimmy repeated this mantra to himself, his invention starting and restarting like it was turning the keys within itself and the engine wouldn’t take. It seemed like it was trying to rip an iron mask off of itself.
Jimmy had rented out the house that sat on the adjacent side of the lawn, purposely becoming ascetic. The cot and minifridge in the far corner were his kitchen and bedroom, the hat rack was his walkin closet. A man should be completely consumed with his work, he thought to himself repeatedly, even saying it outloud in the mirror when he woke up. When he wakes up, that work would be right in his face, he would have no choice but to face it. Still, he missed the amenities; no plumbing, hot water, he had to take the walk of shame up to his past house and knock on the door to use their bathroom or take showers.
Jim refused to keep a set of keys, even when Roger the new tenant told him he was crazy. Every time someone called Jimmy crazy he’d insist, “That’s what they said about Sir Isaac Newton,” or “All the geniuses go crazy at some point.” But this was the moment of truth, this is why he went to Radioshack and spent what was left of his life savings on that electric generator, the Honda EU6500isA - 5500 that sat in front of the garage door stoically, as if to say “Do your worst, Jim, I can handle it.”
From the house, Roger and his youngest daughter stood by the window watching the lights flashing. Roger insisted his daughter not be near the windows, so they came outside, and a moment later Jim heard a knock on the door.
“Are you almost done for tonight? You know, if you did this during the day the lights wouldn’t bother anyone.” Roger pleaded in his most diplomatic tone. He was tired of having to ask Jimmy to turn off his halfassed inventions, his gratitude for the house was waning.
“It’s about to work,” Jim said, although he wouldn’t disclose what it was supposed to do. “I can’t cover the window, you know this. You saw what happened to my pillow.” The pillow was unrecognizably tattered in his Peoria Wildcats novelty garbage can.
Roger’s daughter had ran back inside the house, and he pounded on the door like he was posting an edict. “End of the month, that’s it.” He said sternly as if he caught Jim with his hand in the cookie jar. “And if there’s any more blue lights going on could you face it away from the house.”
“Fine! I’ll be out of here by then, way out of here.” Jim assured himself, staring defiantly at the door through his chemistry goggles. He defiantly left the faceless sufferer facing the porch. When he knew Roger was gone he added, “I don’t yell at you about your stupid kids and wife always running around the house using the oven.” He snickered to himself, focused wholeheartedly
Jim stared down at the tired machine, the “on” switch trying diligently to undo itself. As if it had given up and submitted to Jim’s will, it spit up a tiny little man in suspenders and a bunch of nails and then started shedding pieces as it spun.
Charles lunged for it and hit the off button, being struck in the face by nails on the way but none of them hard enogh to embed themselves in his skin. He grabbed the little man who was covered in pink goo and removed the brick from the top of the terrarium under the window. Opening the plexiglass top, he used the little man to shield himself from spears and arrows fired by the similar men inside. He quickly put the brick back on top, the tiny men cursing at him in an undeveloped foreign tongue.
His experiments teetered on the line between excitement and dread. He couldn’t tell if he was excited anymore, or just obsessive. This was the fiftieth time. The little men had eaten one another, they worked out some sort of system, all he knew was that it seemed like their numbers never changed regardless of how many his machine produced.
He shook the contraption, lifting it off of the ground and holding it by his ear. The regulator was still in place, it wasn’t the same machine it had been last time, although it produced the same result. He looked at the fork, contemplating stabbing the thing and electrocuting himself in the process.
The men in the cage held up a sign to the side, written in a foreign language they must have created themselves. It was an ordinary terrarium, decorated with ordinary terra cotta plants and wood chips. There were eight of them in all, frizzy haired bearded little men who had came seemingly from nowhere.
The door swung open, knocking the auxiliary generator over. “Are you about done?” Roger had changed into pajamas, wearing the sleeping cap part of the ensemble.
“Do people really go to sleep wearing hats?” Jim asked perplexed.
“What the hell is that?” Roger pushed past Jim, stepping over the generator which spilled some sort of black fizzy liquid onto the cement. He took the cinder block off of the terrarium and let the guys loose one by one.
“What are you doing?!” Jim yelled in his most angry voice, which wasn’t that angry at all. He was happy the guys were leaving, although he did want to run over and stomp on them for some reason. One with a particularly long beard flicked him off as he took off through the garage door. Roger held him back, and Jim gave up easily.
“The machine is supposed to pump out a yellow one for every 12 white ones I get.” Jim explained. “Not yellow as in asian, no, they start to grow these pearls out of them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment