Original: Absolution (excerpt)
I think I'll be using Muse's Absolution Album's tracks as chapter titles. I don't think I'll follow the track order, though.
The tracks:
1. Intro
2. Apocalypse Please
3. Time is Running Out
4. Sing for Absolution
5. Stockholm Syndrome
6. Falling Away with You
7. Interlude
8. Hysteria
9. Blackout
10. Butterflies and Hurricanes
11. Endlessly
12. Thoughts of a Dying Atheist
13. TSP
14. Rule by Secrecy
I don't have a clue as to where I'm taking the story, being, as it is, born of one line and a dream. Stylistically, I'm not sure either, because what I have written down is what I'd like to start with, but there's some backstory I might need to stick in beyond the limits of references. Tracks 1, 8 and 9 would work well for flashbacks in that case.
I also have no idea what title this part ought to have.
The dream that started this rolling:
It's all very dark - night-time in a city. But it's not a big city, with lights and cars. Anyway, I can only see a small alleyway. Then we're inside an apartment, in a room. I don't remember who he is, or why he's there, but to me, the pale man lying on the bed, hiding or exhausted, is an angel. There's somehting terribly sad and vulnerable about him, and I love him and cradle him in the dark. I think there is a bit of the albino monk in him, and Joscelin, and even the "lonely angel" of The Doctor, as seen by Madame de Pompadour**, now that I think it. Anyway, it has left me feeling all day strangely sad and yearning for the angel in the abandoned room of the dark apartment. It's like a version of Nit and the little girl in the bedroom***. I ought to find out the story behind it, or at least write out the scene I see. It's just so heartbreaking and loving at the same time, I keep returning to it. One of those truly inspiring dreams, despite not giving much in the way of story or anything like that. It's just so - such a full moment, short though it may be.
Extract:
"There's an angel dying upstairs."
I squinted into the darkness that rolled down the staircase, my clothes dripping. I shivered in the hallway, my back to the elevator door.
"Are you a doctor"
This time I saw her, a little girl near ten or so - I'm terrible with ages, especially kids' - crouched on the stairs, her head resting against the wall. It looked like she'd been there, like that, a long time.
I took a step back, feeling my shirt stick to the cold metal. The last thing I wanted was to get saddled with a kid, and if there really was someone upstairs - well, let's just say being social is overrated at times like these.
God, times like these. That almost sounded normal. As if these were precedented times.*
I'd only just broken in, thinking the apartment abandoned but still structurally sound. It was hell out there, just pouring rain that was a few degrees shy of ice water. I rubbed my forehead with the hand holding my jacket. I was tired, I was wet, and I was hungry.
"Are you a doctor?" repeated the girl.
I shrugged and wrung out my jacket. "No," I said, "I'm an investment consultant." I bounced on my heels a bit to keep warm, my shoes squelching in the wet patch of carpet I was standing in. The carpet may once have been light beige; now it just looked like dirt.
"Can you help?"
I didn't know what the trouble was but was certain, whatever it was, I - or anyone else - wouldn't be able to help. That was the general rule of things these days.
* I'd written the second sentence, then came up with the first, and don't know which to keep, or if both. Except it was "these were normal times".
** "He delivers great punch to the realization that the humans around him have the comparable lifespan of fruit flies, and that in the end, he will always be a lonely little boy." (Here)
*** A story I have yet to write, about the anthropomorphic personification of the dark, who may just be a fallen angel. One poem's lines sum it best: "stripped of harp, halo and wings, and sent hurtling into darkness". (Dunno the poem's title or author, much to my frustration.)
The tracks:
1. Intro
2. Apocalypse Please
3. Time is Running Out
4. Sing for Absolution
5. Stockholm Syndrome
6. Falling Away with You
7. Interlude
8. Hysteria
9. Blackout
10. Butterflies and Hurricanes
11. Endlessly
12. Thoughts of a Dying Atheist
13. TSP
14. Rule by Secrecy
I don't have a clue as to where I'm taking the story, being, as it is, born of one line and a dream. Stylistically, I'm not sure either, because what I have written down is what I'd like to start with, but there's some backstory I might need to stick in beyond the limits of references. Tracks 1, 8 and 9 would work well for flashbacks in that case.
I also have no idea what title this part ought to have.
The dream that started this rolling:
It's all very dark - night-time in a city. But it's not a big city, with lights and cars. Anyway, I can only see a small alleyway. Then we're inside an apartment, in a room. I don't remember who he is, or why he's there, but to me, the pale man lying on the bed, hiding or exhausted, is an angel. There's somehting terribly sad and vulnerable about him, and I love him and cradle him in the dark. I think there is a bit of the albino monk in him, and Joscelin, and even the "lonely angel" of The Doctor, as seen by Madame de Pompadour**, now that I think it. Anyway, it has left me feeling all day strangely sad and yearning for the angel in the abandoned room of the dark apartment. It's like a version of Nit and the little girl in the bedroom***. I ought to find out the story behind it, or at least write out the scene I see. It's just so heartbreaking and loving at the same time, I keep returning to it. One of those truly inspiring dreams, despite not giving much in the way of story or anything like that. It's just so - such a full moment, short though it may be.
Extract:
"There's an angel dying upstairs."
I squinted into the darkness that rolled down the staircase, my clothes dripping. I shivered in the hallway, my back to the elevator door.
"Are you a doctor"
This time I saw her, a little girl near ten or so - I'm terrible with ages, especially kids' - crouched on the stairs, her head resting against the wall. It looked like she'd been there, like that, a long time.
I took a step back, feeling my shirt stick to the cold metal. The last thing I wanted was to get saddled with a kid, and if there really was someone upstairs - well, let's just say being social is overrated at times like these.
God, times like these. That almost sounded normal. As if these were precedented times.*
I'd only just broken in, thinking the apartment abandoned but still structurally sound. It was hell out there, just pouring rain that was a few degrees shy of ice water. I rubbed my forehead with the hand holding my jacket. I was tired, I was wet, and I was hungry.
"Are you a doctor?" repeated the girl.
I shrugged and wrung out my jacket. "No," I said, "I'm an investment consultant." I bounced on my heels a bit to keep warm, my shoes squelching in the wet patch of carpet I was standing in. The carpet may once have been light beige; now it just looked like dirt.
"Can you help?"
I didn't know what the trouble was but was certain, whatever it was, I - or anyone else - wouldn't be able to help. That was the general rule of things these days.
* I'd written the second sentence, then came up with the first, and don't know which to keep, or if both. Except it was "these were normal times".
** "He delivers great punch to the realization that the humans around him have the comparable lifespan of fruit flies, and that in the end, he will always be a lonely little boy." (Here)
*** A story I have yet to write, about the anthropomorphic personification of the dark, who may just be a fallen angel. One poem's lines sum it best: "stripped of harp, halo and wings, and sent hurtling into darkness". (Dunno the poem's title or author, much to my frustration.)