Short Story / City of Glob
City of Glob
I close my eyes, and see colors. Bruised orange my purple grey desire fire red explodes my head, I blend like camouflage. Pink passion blues my brown belly green glow my yellow soul. And we all pass away in shades of grey.
I open my eyes, observe, analyze and observe, confirm all confirmations, focus, confirm and compare, and sleep as the sleepers’ do- tossing and turning, waking and dying, living and lying.
But if I close my eyes, I see colors. Vivid lilac rainbows my blue skies grey like the blur inside the prism.
Getting swept against the mainstream, I sit the bench and observe from the outside. Where time moves slow, like dayway, and things that should be done today can wait until tomorrow. I can only see the glare burnt orange and passive sucked in sunsets of opportunity.
In a desert, quiet like, tired like, town, simple winds overtake the atmosphere. The roads were paved at random on top of sandy banks. We smile sideways in the alley, we party life away.
Living alone in a world of its own: City of Glob. The old people like it here. They reminisce of days gone by, while discouraging the changing day. Built by and for the copper mines, downtown was once paved in dust, with a steady mix of taverns and bedrooms. Dirty miners, piss drunk, raped tired whores in buildings still standing, now considered historical. There are tunnels below the stoplights, where the prominent leaders of the community would meet with their madams. A small town initially based on corruption and scandal as it remains today. Although they patch the roads, they appear unfixable. The kids don’t care if they live or die so why should I?
Small town America is a hypocrite’s hell. Night falls and years pass, but the town remains unchanged. We run like convicts in creek beds, we throw our lives away.
When I sleep the deepest sleep, I travel to other worlds and times, in the future in the past, to the outer realms of the universe, where comets trace my silent self and summon sweet lucidity. The spirits of my ancestors serge inside of me, like the rising tide of a tsunami. Daylight seems as dark as death, where time stands still, against my will.
There are others, age twenty through thirty, just as lost, just as tired. A generation of unemployed empty headed eyesores walk the broken sidewalks, drive wasted up and down the fated highway headed straight for grey. Addictions become the driving ambition in a place like this. Drugs pay more than minimum wage inside the invisible cage that sits on the chest of the kids that never left. Once the future appeared brightly ahead, now that glow is gone, and all that remains is a pipe and a spark, eating away the dream in their heart.
“We travel to antiquity, bridge heaven and hell under spheres of truth and reason; we are not grand, but here and there, at the edge of the end. Our creator is Neptune, our heart beats with Venus, sun watching sleepers, we think too much. We are the future the past, the difference, the result, the answer, the question, and yet we are ignored, a blind spot in the eye of existence.” The Lost
The sun hung there, above a windless day, smothering the tailings. Cool blues and black browns nobly distinguish heaven from hell, as the towns people sleepwalk to work. Smoke light streams through metal blinds in cold dank offices reeking of sweaty pantyhose and bad breath. Glob gossip lingers, lengthy lies fizz out of watered down coke cups. They hide under fingerprinted cigarette butts buried deep in the quick sinking
ashtray at the county court house. They are live wired through phone lines, from business to business. They sweep every doorstep in town.
Power blinds authority, and stubborn spite eats hearts like candy. The day belongs to the working judge. The night belongs to us.
“We watch each other watching from the doorway to the hall; reread the files in the cabinet, reorganize it all, talk and talk and talk until we loose our voices, and we forget what our point was, so we just blow smoke, again and look for things to ruin.” Secretaries of Spit
Emotions walk over me. Happiness, anger, my frustrated heart all laugh at me secretly. Silent sadness whispers madness and tempts me aggressively. And because of boredom, I feel empty as an apathetic response to humanity. So I walk blindly into the dead zone, I’ve boarded up all of the emotional doorways inside of me, and I feel nothing. Nothing, not even a tear or a smile, I can’t even produce a genuine laugh. Like a dwelling machine, I coast along the uneasy current of an emotional override, senselessly vacant or patient and mind full. I pace myself, retrace myself over the course of months and years, still no smile, emotionless. The empty space inside my head seems to have bored my spirit to death.
All religions are welcome here; let faith erase what can’t be forgotten, study the scriptures, let in the light, and forget about the devil on your shoulder: every Sunday the social sinners ask for forgiveness and spiritual guidance, so that they might sin again. We don’t believe what they believe.
Sometimes the clouds hang heavy above, and a sobering haze slides through the old houses. A chill wind zips in and out of haunted tombstones as if touched by a spirit. The sad souls, who lived and died here, walk the hillside late at night. Stuck like we are, they laugh at us.
I walk willful under a barking moon with my subconscious and my shadow. We argue sad tracers spaced out and undefined, and marvel at the scope of the heavens. My shadow is confused easily by the illusive games my subconscious plays, and will chase my inter child around my mind a thousand times before the night is through. My sensitive soul would like to watch the moon glow in tomorrow’s backyard, but remains a voiceless idea fading in and out of my shadow’s fake laugh.
At night the trailer park chemist, snorts lines of glass, and smiles. Psycho synthetics siphon daydreams from impressionable minds. The underworld emerges beneath a crooked sky. A hidden sadness conspires between what’s lost and dead, and those awake aren’t worth remembering. It is the art of giving up, when things are left unclear. The first hopeless breath condemns the loser who waits for death.
Outside, this waking dream is a garden, where Eden devours tall talking trees. Mixed minds grow like winter grass in somber soil. Impressions of time fade out like pale grey sunbeams. Reflecting waters absorb the elements of the cosmos, and color the planets cool blue, and red orange. Set against the heavy day, the horizon bends into a hemisphere, where purple comets spin webs of stardust amid a lifeless void.
In the middle of the day, the workers break for lunch. The wind skips through bellowing along wayward hills, banks, and concrete. Whispering daydreams to some random street talker, who fantasizes about sleeping with beautiful women. His life is placid, longing for excitement. The breeze walks through him, chilling his bones, causing him to lose balance, and tumble. After the fall, he carried his brain to the corner and waited for help to show, he gawked at the girls across the way, imagining them naked. His watery brain slipped through his knotted joints and down the wash drain. One shot in the head, and he was dead. His reasons go with him, like the wind. Rumors say his tortured soul sits in chains on the street corner, watching the girls walk away. The wind tells us crazy stories that we like to forget.
Transients migrate downtown, confused by their own pungent aroma. They sip Whiskey at town hall, with drunken smiles and high glossed eyes. No past, no family, incoherent, and lost, they walk miles in this wasteland, digesting livers, sucking on stench, they walk with the dead. Without shelter, we are the same. We have no names.
In Glob privacy is irrelevant. The arrest log prints on Tuesday. Every so often a house blows up, a body is discovered, and someone commits suicide. Every so often the plot thickens, a lie becomes truth, and a mistake becomes a quick fix. As the world spins round, we throw rocks at passing cars. We play chicken in the highway. We wait for night to fall.
“When the moon is blond and wailing we play cops and robbers in the streets. Hide and seek from here to there and back to the station. Forty-Five, without exceptions, brake it twice and learn a lesson. Chasing quietly like a dogs tail. Welcome to Glob; we hate it here.” Us
In the dark, drugs start moving. Continuously transferred from East to West, the mix of product and currency circulate the community. There are no receipts, no reports, no sales tax, and no records. Bud blows through slightly cracked eyes like green leaf gray oceans of time. Behaviors bake as wafers set out in sour heat. We live in the moment. We wait for the end.
Inside the silence of an unexpressed emotion lies a pool full of forgotten thoughts. A collection of consciousness buried under regret, trapped beneath uncertainty, and suffocated by uncomfortable feelings. Here crazy thoughts demolish and insanity reins.
I circle south into the Jungle,
Run like rain in cartoon green, meet the ugly bridge and cross it, trip on a giant thorn and almost fall into a gaping black hole. Breathing in, I pull the thorn out, and hear the dark hissing of snakes, braided into the broken bridge, mixed crayons, snapping at my legs, while trying not to fall, I release a bloodcurdling scream, which awakens my skin and releases my mind.
The authorities sit on every corner, waiting for a reason to release their aggression. Armed with tazors, guns, and badges, they perform over the scanner. Diligent determined officers, provide a comfortable service for a small town in nowhere.
We watch them watching us. We hate them all.
“10-4, we have an unidentified juvenile in a green jacket walking up Broad St. after curfew. I’m going to go ahead and check it out, and see what he’s doing out this late.” Officer Jack
Glob daylight rapes eyesight. Toxic trees sway overhead, dusted winds wrestle violently, but the air remains stale and empty. Days pass through like tourists, glancing quickly then away.
I never used to be a pessimistic fool. Ironic overtones foreshadow my cynical demise. My views appear sour, tart, and sad. Wonder ways fill my days with crying eyes, and I refused to look at them. The answers in my pocket, the story’s in my head.
Often while dreaming, I sift center rings of Mercury, moons of Neptune. I rush inside myself, with out looking back into the darkness, I suffocate my soul’s will to let go, and I’m relaxed in cool comfort and control of my childhood dreams. I send messages into the form of my former self crossing all dimensions of my eternal awareness, in an attempt to reach out to my innocent self and prepare her for the future. In another world I am eight years old.
Into the black, I dive, fading so far into the second world, I may not wake. With each deep breath, with each layer of sleep, I fall weightless. I am only aware of the light inside me, my energy traveling through the unseen gaps in time. Inside a dream the door to another world may open or close at any moment. The odds of finding the right door to a preconceived destination are based on the power of the idea, the light inside the being. Behind the door, the energy will explore and observe, as it wills. Ideas prove misleading, and confusing, without purpose, as Earth fades fast into the backdrop. I focus and float among the stars, being made of the same gases, we burn as separate entities dividing time and space.
Worlds away, I see myself, the divine child. My light illuminates my purest form, and I extend myself inside myself, in the form of a lucid dream. The message was to pay attention to the path; it twists, turns, and forks. Getting lost is inevitable, and choosing the wrong direction is unfortunate. I pleaded with my young soul to make smart decisions, but she wouldn’t listen.
Across worlds, solar systems, memories, and melodies, my energy travels. I explode inside the brain, I can’t contain, and breathe in the stagnant air of my reality, and I no longer care.
Somewhere in the back of my collective unconscious I remember the schoolyard, spinning circles, as they shouted, 1, 2, 3, round and round, the hop scotch squares, the bench, the slide, dizzy dancing, I stopped, held my breath, slipped my hands around my neck, while everyone pushed on my elbows, and then I passed out. Once the rush of air and blood hit my brain, a soft buzz lingered.
Sometimes, in memory, I blink too hard, or think too much, blurring my vision, like passing out on the playground, a soft buzz.
My eight year old self, prays the rosary every night, kneeling by her tiny bed, with snow globes sifting above her head, waiting for Mom to kiss her goodnight, shut down the lights, and dream.
One night, I remember dreaming, that my future self came to me with a message. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so I told her to go away, because I didn’t care.
The town delays inspiration. Without a word, things stay the same, and no one complains, but under the surface is a back up of energy, growing like spite in an angry atmosphere. The people are uneasy. We make them that way.
Simple ideas conform me, under the stars influence, and I find myself seeking an illusion, a fable, to comfort and enlighten my thoughts. In dreams, I am brilliant. Perfect, patient, and internally focused on the great connection, the unknown, the ultimate black and white. Another world waits by campfire amid the cosmic plane. Gates form lines, across the surface, doors stack heavily against their frame. Walls and bridges float high above the ground, without destinations, and milk white islands form faces in the surrounding black waters. Lost souls sit on hot rocks along the gravel beach, waiting for a shooting star to carry them back home. A waiting room for the wonder whys, an eternity of second guessing. Often I feel that I’m doomed to return there, to waste the afterlife like I wasted this day. An eternity of wishing and waiting, reflecting and waiting, hopefully waiting, for another chance, another star.
The sun hung high, like crack hoes, mid drift open, calling by name. Eyeballs roll at the Circle K ho, waiting for her connection, leaning side saddle against the payphone, carving her tag across the plastic wall. She bums a cigarette from a passerby, as she waits to hear the low tones of bass. The dude pulls up beside her, she hops inside, her heart pumps five times as they ride down to the stop sign. Once the deal’s been made, he drops her off, she gets her fix, making her numb to the world, elevating all responsibility, allowing her to ignore her present reality and focus excessively on her personal wants and needs. We look for a reason, but can’t find it.
We listen for the answer, but it never comes.
Glob offers no intervention. There are no programs designed for the lost. Their road is a dead end, with a large fence to contain it. Without rehabilitation, or second chances, there is a hopeless pressure deciding the pace of disaster. A sad sequence of unchangeable events is repeated through different minds, a preventable end is over looked again. We don’t need help. We have control.
The freight train plows through town three times daily. Spray painted, front and back, graffiti, large words tag the trains back cars, messages from the youth, symbolized through nameless act of bravery. An art show on rails, slides by unseen, speaking to those that understand, like a message in a bottle, the metal carcass composes relations, but chugs through unnoticed. Our art form is illegal, our colors paint the world.
The dieing day defines us, rewriting our beliefs. It is the unnamable force that guides our actions and ideas. A wave of sarcasm sucks out our voices, revealing the moons twisted smile. As morals disappear, irony concurs, the speed of light persuades the night to pull the curtain, and end it all, since we’re destined to fall.
The normal nightlife in Central Heights, sits quiet in a trailer. Three cops sit at the four way waiting for signs of activity, while a group tweekers watch them through small holes cut into the blinds. A dingy layer of smoke sits under a line of street lights that flicker in beat with the sirens. Wired walkers take the back roads, and play ditch ‘em with the force. Marching in the moonlight, they jump cactus, and make fires, while the rest of the world sleeps. They tell stories, rarely blinking, until their pupils shine as black as Apache tears. Crashing where ever they fall, they carry their lives in a backpack, migrating from house to house until they disappear. We know what we’re doing. We know everything.
“From winter to spring, we know everything, from the 1st street to the last stoplight, morning is to day, as day is to night. We are like fire, wild, spreading, an unstoppable force to contain. We multiply in the air that you breathe, as clogging cloud of dejecting waste, that with each bite you taste, and so it goes. We are your sons and daughters; we are the fire starters, we bear the weight of your karma, we will expose you for what you are.” Us
On the outer shell of this boxed up hell, are canyons, highways, and mountains. The roads I’ve never known, the world I’ve yet to see. Unable to free my feet from the floor, I’m stuck standing still as stone, while my mind flips impatiently, digging up bad memories, observing insignificance, classifying everyone, carrying around a collection of emotions and reactions, documenting random thoughts, in search for a coincidence with meaning, an idea that connects me to a world I’ve never met.
In the middle of a memory, I followed my heart to a new door. A door I’d never seen before. At first afraid to open it, I tried to walk away, but the mystery intrigued me. The door creaked like old wood as I slid it to the side, and the knob left a thin layer of dust on the palm of my right hand. With a deep breath, my conscious self stepped inside the room, surprisingly excited. My ego felt betrayed by my self for keeping this space in my brain such a secret. My subconscious gave my heart the key, and neglected to inform the rest of my personality. I laughed at myself as I stepped inside, thinking how silly to start a war between my counter parts when I was fully aware that we work better as a whole. Even though the reasons were unclear, there had to be a purpose in me being here. So I observed the room in detail, it was empty without windows, painted black from the ceiling to the floor, I couldn’t see my hands, I couldn’t find the door. Feeling trapped, I started to panic, and scream, banging on the walls, jumping up and down. Tears ran down my face, and I knew no one could hear me. I was stuck inside myself, and it was up to me to find the way out. I sat in silence for a while entertaining different ideas. In trying to formulate a plan, I realized that I could hear my heart beating, and the air changing gases in my lungs, so I knew I was still alive. I called out to my heart with thoughts of love, and beauty. Smiling, I sat back, and focused on the faces of those I love or have loved in the past. I held onto that feeling until the door creaked open, and the light shined down upon my face. I returned to my mind with a new perspective, my emotions were contently agreeing with my thoughts. I know longer feared facing my fate; instead I rode on a wave of confidence to the oceans of my destiny
My mind melts in the mayhem of motion, while the future knocks at my front door. I feel transforming energies all around me. Changing tides move smoothly, and beckon me to follow. The altitudes carry me into my circumcenter, and a positive vibe glows from within my aura. I feel, once again, optimistic about life, and I am overwhelmed by an inspiring voice, I haven’t heard is some time. Good karma has stretched out her hand to me, and pulled me off the ledge. Standing now on solid ground, I feel alive and grateful.
The eyes of Glob look toward the smiling Pinals from a distance. A glimpse of spring sits chirping in a barren tree, waiting for the grass to grow long enough to build a nest. The air appears crisp and energizing, while the restless day undergoes a sudden change in understanding. The people skip in and out of shadowy alleys, boldly excited about their new found moods. Winter winds have faded bleak uncertain points of view, and things no longer seem so unpromising. It’s as if a timeless idea has been whispered in the ear of every soul, happy thoughts flourish in each person’s brain, and although Glob is the way it is, it’s not the same. The spirits have granted a break from dismay, and a desire just to be has been recently introduced. If everyone’s changing, maybe we should too.
I can still see all the colors, but I don’t have to close my eyes, soft blues sparkling with red intensity, mellow yellows and wiry greens, lavender lays in a bed of soft grays, soaking up pink sunshine, a vibrant display all day, everyday.
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I love this, its descriptiveness is awesome, the writing exceptional. I think your talent is amazing, keep it up and thank you for sharing that with us.
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September 03, 2006
Deleted User
I definately think that this story could be published in as literature magazine. And as for being in a book of your own work, I’m not sure. But only because I haven’t read any of your other work. But if the rest of it is as good as this is, then you will definately have no problem. It was a little drawn out. Some of the sentences were a little repetitive. But, overall, it was a good piece of writing. Keep at it!
What a cacophony of symbolism and surrealistic visions. The battering of visual continuity is mind boggling. The randomness and yet organization of this story is well worth a second, third, and even fourth read just to catch all the nuances thrown at you from all directions. Mind blowing and mind tripping in its telling. Almost like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hose, the visual descriptors used are incredibly accurate and physically there, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into the black soul of despair and apathy.
I really like the narrative text , I like what are saying about small times and the way they mask things. the beggening sounds like this town is somewhat evil and bleak but then it becomes like a charater in the story and i really like that.
You have alot of grammaitcal errors that make it really hard to read your peice. You tend to use to many commas causing alot of confusion. Also sometimes you start to write about something that really makes no sense, almost as if it’s an ‘inside’ thing. The best example I can find that you need to fix is this,
‘I close my eyes, and see colors. Bruised orange my purple grey desire fire red explodes my head, I blend like camouflage. Pink passion blues my brown belly green glow my yellow soul. And we all pass away in shades of grey.
I open my eyes, observe, analyze and observe, confirm all confirmations, focus, confirm and compare, and sleep as the sleepers’ do- tossing and turning, waking and dying, living and lying.
But if I close my eyes, I see colors. Vivid lilac rainbows my blue skies grey like the blur inside the prism.
Getting swept against the mainstream, I sit the bench and observe from the outside. Where time moves slow, like dayway, and things that should be done today can wait until tomorrow. I can only see the glare burnt orange and passive sucked in sunsets of opportunity.’
1)The first paragraph really loses me and from that point on I couldn’t really enjoy the story for what it may be. I can’t even tell you how to fix it cause I don’t even have a clue of what you are saying.
2)The second paragraph is an example where you use to many commas in places you should and ramble on about something that really has no point. And you overuse the word confirm.
3) You lose me once more in your thrid paragraph. I think I understand what you are trying to say but you dedianetly need to reword this. The one thing I can actually tell you to fix is the part about the bench. You said yu sit the bench. Obviously I believe you mean you sit on the bench
Yu unnecasarily complicated your story making it hard for a reader to keep their attention, which is what I was trying to show you. You could simplify your work using bigger words and smaller sentences that don’t run on. If you fix these problems you may have a good story with plenty of potential. This is not an attack on you as a writer either.
I liked it, the writing sytle is different, I actually was thinking about expeirementing with something like it, now that I see how it looks I don’t think my writing would do it justice, but for this work your goals seem reasonable and I believe you will accomplish them
At first, I thought this was going to be a huge political statement,
Dirty miners, piss drunk, raped tired whores in buildings still standing, now considered historical. There are tunnels below the stoplights, where the prominent leaders of the community would meet with their madams.
but then I find myself thinking these same thoughts, knowing these same things, as I am sure all writers must…
Simple ideas conform me, under the stars influence, and I find myself seeking an illusion, a fable, to comfort and enlighten my thoughts. In dreams, I am brilliant.
This author has a definitive control over words and lets them loose like they obey every whim of the mind and of the hand.
Very descriptive, every detail is perfect, and I look outside my window and wonder, “Is this my city?”
Worthy of publication.
I think it is very original, but feels like there are words missing throughout.
‘I close my eyes, and see colors. Bruised orange my purple grey desire fire red explodes my head, I blend like camouflage. Pink passion blues my brown belly green glow my yellow soul. And we all pass away in shades of grey.
I open my eyes, observe, analyze and observe, confirm all confirmations, focus, confirm and compare, and sleep as the sleepers’ do- tossing and turning, waking and dying, living and lying.’
This is a very excellent beginning. And it becomes more excellent as the piece goes on, being built off of it. It sets the stage for the title “City of Glob.”
Your writing style is very cool. It is almost singable and poetic. Keep up the hard work. You’ll go far.
That was a story that was filled with wonderful description and showed some great talent. I think I only found problems that I found myself lost in the color theme. It all ran togather and kind of left you wondering about the big picture. A few fixes here and that can be resolved.
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