NaNoWriMo - Paranoia 1
yes, I joined. Couldn't find my old username, so I signed up as "NekonoBaka"
I shouldn't tempt myself like this, what with all these essays I have to do, but there's snatches of story that have been appearing to me in class, and they're hard to ignore. Essays, however, will come first.
I have only a vague idea of where this is going. Quite honestly, a character has appeared, has taken me by the hand and is showing me her story. I think it's a girl. It could be a very sensitive and thoughtful guy. But he/she/it isn't giving me a name. The story, however, is called "Paranoia" for now.
hmm... okay, I'm posting the first 'chapter'. Feel free to point out any corrections.
Paranoia
chapter one
I was in the middle of class, idly looking out the window between scribbles, when I saw the vans pull up. These were not the regular vans, to deliever goods around the city from the distribution center, but purposeful patrol vans. They circle in pairs, seeming to make the population nervous while secretly we giggle at their insecurity.
Usually they make themselves busy by circling and duty done, leave. However, these vans were different; they were real.
For once, I close my book and follow the crowd out of the building when the lecture was done. They were there, the patrolmen at the doors, with pictures in their gloved hands, scanning faces. They had come at a bad time, when all the classes end and the halls are choked with the press of bodies and relentless current. But they were there.
For once, I don't look around, don't try to catch people's eyes and share knowing smiles. I don't look. I keep my face down and pray it isn't me on those photographs; it isn't me they're looking for, I'm not that important. I was promised. Now I remember that promises are dust and spit and I start to sweat in the cold fall air and I'm pushed right next to one of them and involuntary I look up and into his eyes, a glance or two and then I'm through. Collectively, we sigh with relief, us on the other side. But unlike the other less guilty, I haven't done nothing wrong.
As usual, the media have gathered, having tapped the wires and radios. Some of them, I'm sure, know about the raids before the patrolmen get their orders for the day. In the papers they call it 'raiding the Ivory Tower', as if we were innocent students with our noses in our books and heads in the clouds. As if we all didn't know that it is the students that are the most dangerous, with our research and independence to think differently and always asking “why?”
For me, it is a matter of curiosity. I have always wanted to visit the Great Divide, to stand in the land from where the water flows. I wonder whether it is a land where the world is open to the sky across the border. I have always been drawn to where the earth reaches for the sky, but forever shall not meet, and I have always returned to the wide open lands under the sky, with rolling hills and forever shadows to hide in. Another place to slip into and cover my head.
Still shaken, I feel the need to move and use my card to catch the wrong bus. I watch the city pass and by the time I finally reach my apartment, the news has reached my housemates and they have the feed on in the living room. As I walk in, the media posts the person caught in the raid and I could see their shoulders relax.
It was Marcy, I saw, who was taken away. Marcy, who sat with me in class till yesterday and always had a smile and sweet smell. Marcy, who in the rumours that originated from nowhere and were therefore always true, was one of the leaders of student non-violent protest groups. Marcy, for whom the chat channels were alive with outrage. Marcy, who was taken away for being a threat to a strong country.
I was promised, Marcy said once, that no matter what, I'll move forward. I'll be a martyr for the cause; I'll make a difference. Now I see Marcy's face on the screen, as her life is dug up illegally and shown for all the world to see. This is Marcy, kind, gentle Marcy, the dreamer, the innocent, the idealist, the non-violent activist. This is Marcy, the saint, a danger to the nations. What power do dreams have, when they are seen so dangerous?
This is Marcy, my friend, a picture with me, half hidden in the background, a brief glimpse of captured time and light. Who promised Marcy, and who made it real? I was promised that my face and my name would never be held in a patrolman's hands. I was promised, but who was it that promised me?
The chattering of digital voices crying in soundless protest what ought to be my loud wailing. Who are these faceless people, who care so much about a stranger? My hand reaches for the keyboard, to join in, to finally be visible, to be seen, to take the same reckless risks as the others, to be one of those that pushes and will not be silent and makes a difference.
But before my hand reaches the keys, a window, both in my mind and on the screen appears, with the same words typed out so inimately impersonal. Remember, you are promised. It echoes in me, and that tiny little part of everyone agrees it's better not to get involved, it's better to write the paper that's due tomorrow. My hand hovers; my mind is unsure.
I see the picture again, so hastily posted and snatched away on the screen. My face seems to linger, an afterimage of intent. It wasn't a released photograph; it was taken secretly from Marcy's file. It was in the patrolman's files of investigation, the poster stated, boasting a little on how they stole the picture. Maybe the patrolmen are looking for some of these people. Maybe they're looking for me.
As I type the mindless exercise, I can imagine the patrolmen's van flying out of their headquaters and down the streets, cutting off the public paths and siren flashing silently. Always be watchful, for the seemingly harmless can be the most dangerous. Appearances are decieving; people are decietful. Of all Marcy's accociates, I am the most quiet and harmless, therefore I am the most dangerous.
I imagine them talking over my profile: sits with Marcy in class, goes to Marcy's study group, attracts little attention, politically silent, a scholarly student on the sidelines, watching and knowing too much. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts, therefore the watcher is most dangerous, to themselves and to the good of everyone. I wonder whether they really believe that, or have they had it drilled into them since it was first decided what their careers would be as they lay defenseless in their cribs.
But then, does it matter? They are coming to take me away. I imagine that this is a crackdown, a purge, the one we were waiting for and dreading in our hideyholes and it's finally happening and that any moment the patrolmen will knock on the door and the promise will be broken, and...
A knock on my door makes me stop and refuse an offer of a drink from my housemates, to fortify and maybe ease my nerves. There is no heavy boots in the hall. There is no sharp pounding on the door, no demand of entry to which me and my housemates refuse, no burst of the door and seizing hands, no confascation of discriminating items and arrests and reading of rights and pushing into vans and great walls and bars and filtered light. Apparently, I'm not so important for that.
The exercise is wasted on me, as I move through the motions. I've reached the point where I don't need to think about it, not here, not in my home, my safe bundle of walls and wide windows and buried blankets and it still isn't high enough. The pull of the sky is strong, but the ground and gravity makes the laws here and keep their captives jealously. I fear that I'd have to become insubstantial to float free. I feel restless and longing to obey the summons. But if I did that, I wouldn't be myself. I wouldn't know how to make myself solid again.
Maybe that will be my fall. I am one of the few, who believe in both the good and evil in people, in free will and destiny and sin, in reincarnation and in heaven, in acts of kindness and in saved by grace, in remaining pure and in experiencing the world. I embrace it all, as a truth of itself, from culture and time and language and belief and nations. I am both a lying hypocrite and a truthful zealot, a devil and a saint. All in time.
How do I do this and not be mad? There are no labels except those we make, and those are unfiting. A person cannot be limited by a word and a definition. Words are false; speaking is no communication, only interaction. The soul cannot be taken apart and examined under a microscope and easily defined. It is more real than real, and not limited. So people should not be limited. All are mine.
Medically, they have a term for me, and little white pills to ease my diagnosed suffering, with a lock on my windowed door and soundproof walls to soften my screams. Except, I do not scream, or tear at my hair, or rant nonsense, or bash or scratch or silently weep, or look blankly into space as I drift from the scientific and lawfully real world. I have no symptoms of disease, and so I am overlooked. We are both suspicious and so trusting, despite our creeds.
Statistics say that a person is recorded between thirty to forty times a day, through security cameras and careless tourist photographs and the like. Officially. Unofficially, the number is much higher, but then, they don't want people to know that. It leaves for some room to breathe, some room to slip up. I could have told Marcy about the raid today, and warned the rest, but it wouldn't have done any good. Marcy wouldn't have run, too much pride. Marcy was promised. I was promised too.
I am the silent eyes behind the secret watching lens, seeping knowledge from the source, the wound, and creating my own. I am dangous, silent and watchful, with unsure knowledge that could topple empires and end wars, and unclear motivations of what I will do next. I should be plucked at the stem, while still in the bud before I can bloom and bare my thorns.
How shall I do that? How shall I rise up and sink deep into flesh and draw blood? How shall I make my presence known? How shall I use all this knowledge? Or should I remain silent, watching eyes, the kind that children wished would come on the eve of winter holidays and bring presents and goodies? But that would be unfair and disrespectful to the jolly man in red, the babe in the cradle and the tradition of the temple. How good it was to believe in such things. But I am not such a person to give myself to poverty, or to martrydom with a gentle smile on my face. But I do not like this anymore, to sit here idly, while others stand and proudly fall. This watcher can remain silent no more.
current word count: 1852
I shouldn't tempt myself like this, what with all these essays I have to do, but there's snatches of story that have been appearing to me in class, and they're hard to ignore. Essays, however, will come first.
I have only a vague idea of where this is going. Quite honestly, a character has appeared, has taken me by the hand and is showing me her story. I think it's a girl. It could be a very sensitive and thoughtful guy. But he/she/it isn't giving me a name. The story, however, is called "Paranoia" for now.
hmm... okay, I'm posting the first 'chapter'. Feel free to point out any corrections.
Paranoia
chapter one
I was in the middle of class, idly looking out the window between scribbles, when I saw the vans pull up. These were not the regular vans, to deliever goods around the city from the distribution center, but purposeful patrol vans. They circle in pairs, seeming to make the population nervous while secretly we giggle at their insecurity.
Usually they make themselves busy by circling and duty done, leave. However, these vans were different; they were real.
For once, I close my book and follow the crowd out of the building when the lecture was done. They were there, the patrolmen at the doors, with pictures in their gloved hands, scanning faces. They had come at a bad time, when all the classes end and the halls are choked with the press of bodies and relentless current. But they were there.
For once, I don't look around, don't try to catch people's eyes and share knowing smiles. I don't look. I keep my face down and pray it isn't me on those photographs; it isn't me they're looking for, I'm not that important. I was promised. Now I remember that promises are dust and spit and I start to sweat in the cold fall air and I'm pushed right next to one of them and involuntary I look up and into his eyes, a glance or two and then I'm through. Collectively, we sigh with relief, us on the other side. But unlike the other less guilty, I haven't done nothing wrong.
As usual, the media have gathered, having tapped the wires and radios. Some of them, I'm sure, know about the raids before the patrolmen get their orders for the day. In the papers they call it 'raiding the Ivory Tower', as if we were innocent students with our noses in our books and heads in the clouds. As if we all didn't know that it is the students that are the most dangerous, with our research and independence to think differently and always asking “why?”
For me, it is a matter of curiosity. I have always wanted to visit the Great Divide, to stand in the land from where the water flows. I wonder whether it is a land where the world is open to the sky across the border. I have always been drawn to where the earth reaches for the sky, but forever shall not meet, and I have always returned to the wide open lands under the sky, with rolling hills and forever shadows to hide in. Another place to slip into and cover my head.
Still shaken, I feel the need to move and use my card to catch the wrong bus. I watch the city pass and by the time I finally reach my apartment, the news has reached my housemates and they have the feed on in the living room. As I walk in, the media posts the person caught in the raid and I could see their shoulders relax.
It was Marcy, I saw, who was taken away. Marcy, who sat with me in class till yesterday and always had a smile and sweet smell. Marcy, who in the rumours that originated from nowhere and were therefore always true, was one of the leaders of student non-violent protest groups. Marcy, for whom the chat channels were alive with outrage. Marcy, who was taken away for being a threat to a strong country.
I was promised, Marcy said once, that no matter what, I'll move forward. I'll be a martyr for the cause; I'll make a difference. Now I see Marcy's face on the screen, as her life is dug up illegally and shown for all the world to see. This is Marcy, kind, gentle Marcy, the dreamer, the innocent, the idealist, the non-violent activist. This is Marcy, the saint, a danger to the nations. What power do dreams have, when they are seen so dangerous?
This is Marcy, my friend, a picture with me, half hidden in the background, a brief glimpse of captured time and light. Who promised Marcy, and who made it real? I was promised that my face and my name would never be held in a patrolman's hands. I was promised, but who was it that promised me?
The chattering of digital voices crying in soundless protest what ought to be my loud wailing. Who are these faceless people, who care so much about a stranger? My hand reaches for the keyboard, to join in, to finally be visible, to be seen, to take the same reckless risks as the others, to be one of those that pushes and will not be silent and makes a difference.
But before my hand reaches the keys, a window, both in my mind and on the screen appears, with the same words typed out so inimately impersonal. Remember, you are promised. It echoes in me, and that tiny little part of everyone agrees it's better not to get involved, it's better to write the paper that's due tomorrow. My hand hovers; my mind is unsure.
I see the picture again, so hastily posted and snatched away on the screen. My face seems to linger, an afterimage of intent. It wasn't a released photograph; it was taken secretly from Marcy's file. It was in the patrolman's files of investigation, the poster stated, boasting a little on how they stole the picture. Maybe the patrolmen are looking for some of these people. Maybe they're looking for me.
As I type the mindless exercise, I can imagine the patrolmen's van flying out of their headquaters and down the streets, cutting off the public paths and siren flashing silently. Always be watchful, for the seemingly harmless can be the most dangerous. Appearances are decieving; people are decietful. Of all Marcy's accociates, I am the most quiet and harmless, therefore I am the most dangerous.
I imagine them talking over my profile: sits with Marcy in class, goes to Marcy's study group, attracts little attention, politically silent, a scholarly student on the sidelines, watching and knowing too much. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts, therefore the watcher is most dangerous, to themselves and to the good of everyone. I wonder whether they really believe that, or have they had it drilled into them since it was first decided what their careers would be as they lay defenseless in their cribs.
But then, does it matter? They are coming to take me away. I imagine that this is a crackdown, a purge, the one we were waiting for and dreading in our hideyholes and it's finally happening and that any moment the patrolmen will knock on the door and the promise will be broken, and...
A knock on my door makes me stop and refuse an offer of a drink from my housemates, to fortify and maybe ease my nerves. There is no heavy boots in the hall. There is no sharp pounding on the door, no demand of entry to which me and my housemates refuse, no burst of the door and seizing hands, no confascation of discriminating items and arrests and reading of rights and pushing into vans and great walls and bars and filtered light. Apparently, I'm not so important for that.
The exercise is wasted on me, as I move through the motions. I've reached the point where I don't need to think about it, not here, not in my home, my safe bundle of walls and wide windows and buried blankets and it still isn't high enough. The pull of the sky is strong, but the ground and gravity makes the laws here and keep their captives jealously. I fear that I'd have to become insubstantial to float free. I feel restless and longing to obey the summons. But if I did that, I wouldn't be myself. I wouldn't know how to make myself solid again.
Maybe that will be my fall. I am one of the few, who believe in both the good and evil in people, in free will and destiny and sin, in reincarnation and in heaven, in acts of kindness and in saved by grace, in remaining pure and in experiencing the world. I embrace it all, as a truth of itself, from culture and time and language and belief and nations. I am both a lying hypocrite and a truthful zealot, a devil and a saint. All in time.
How do I do this and not be mad? There are no labels except those we make, and those are unfiting. A person cannot be limited by a word and a definition. Words are false; speaking is no communication, only interaction. The soul cannot be taken apart and examined under a microscope and easily defined. It is more real than real, and not limited. So people should not be limited. All are mine.
Medically, they have a term for me, and little white pills to ease my diagnosed suffering, with a lock on my windowed door and soundproof walls to soften my screams. Except, I do not scream, or tear at my hair, or rant nonsense, or bash or scratch or silently weep, or look blankly into space as I drift from the scientific and lawfully real world. I have no symptoms of disease, and so I am overlooked. We are both suspicious and so trusting, despite our creeds.
Statistics say that a person is recorded between thirty to forty times a day, through security cameras and careless tourist photographs and the like. Officially. Unofficially, the number is much higher, but then, they don't want people to know that. It leaves for some room to breathe, some room to slip up. I could have told Marcy about the raid today, and warned the rest, but it wouldn't have done any good. Marcy wouldn't have run, too much pride. Marcy was promised. I was promised too.
I am the silent eyes behind the secret watching lens, seeping knowledge from the source, the wound, and creating my own. I am dangous, silent and watchful, with unsure knowledge that could topple empires and end wars, and unclear motivations of what I will do next. I should be plucked at the stem, while still in the bud before I can bloom and bare my thorns.
How shall I do that? How shall I rise up and sink deep into flesh and draw blood? How shall I make my presence known? How shall I use all this knowledge? Or should I remain silent, watching eyes, the kind that children wished would come on the eve of winter holidays and bring presents and goodies? But that would be unfair and disrespectful to the jolly man in red, the babe in the cradle and the tradition of the temple. How good it was to believe in such things. But I am not such a person to give myself to poverty, or to martrydom with a gentle smile on my face. But I do not like this anymore, to sit here idly, while others stand and proudly fall. This watcher can remain silent no more.
current word count: 1852