Diminished density
Unfinished stories, or reflections - fall 2025
When I’m bored and restless at work, I write a lot. Usually short angry poems pressed on the backs of business cards, black gel cracked. A friend reminded the succor of streaming words onto the page via type, especially for prose.
Anyway, here’s a small scrap of fiction, a form I haven’t touched since high school.
Thief of the Moon (Norman Lindsay, 1924)
“Chlorophyll”
Terrified of missing rehearsal again, the fragile creator chose to disintegrate. There had been minimal back-and-forth communication, at least regarding scheduling matters—a great deal was shared about some new mp3s. Having placed the carrot far ahead of the stick, to the point where the carrot was nearly translucent, she had successfully duped the others into duly unspoken complicity; it was an accidentally pristine misdirect from an amateur illusionist, still sensitive to the “magician” label and compulsively unwilling to practice. Her spectral mage disguise was certain to rot under scrutiny. Thank God no one could be bothered to scrutinize.
The breaking began with her toes, specifically digitus minimus pedis sinister. Phantasmagoric cracks danced within the bone until it had vanished in pixelated piecemeal decay. One can imagine how difficult it is to stand without a crucial toe. When she imagined the music being made only a couple miles away, in a warmly carpeted blue-hued rental room, the breaking increased. Almost psychokinetic, she could destroy herself from the inside out with highly concentrated focus. Her bandmates sang harmony in a realm beyond direct awareness. She was a solipsistic hallucination projected into the world of others. The wavering pitch of the bass player attempting to go up the third made her death steady and fruitful. If the data were placed on a graph, it would resemble a cheerful parabola that had been sliced in two, perfectly bisected with studious aim.
Occasionally, the antidote was sleep. She discerned this feeble balm over years of study. Once again caught beneath an avalanche of fictional dread, she finally gained the strength to shut her eyes. Any dreams set to take the stage appeared to have gotten caught in traffic; only black welcomed her in. The swallowing was reliable—every dream had to start this way, regardless of what came next, rote and unremarkable or abundant with an orchard of horrors. She prayed it would be unremarkable this time, but faith was never accounted for in the original equation. Such vile introduction would destabilize the prospective reverie by a factorial measure. As per the manufacturer’s manual, dreams are meant to happen to someone, not to be controlled. Even a feeble shift in the dreamer’s favor, whether autogenic or received via postal service, was a cataclysm.
The dream seemed to spite her when she dared to pose like she could control the unfolding timeline. Her pose was never too drastic. Any friends ensnared by her recollection affirmed this understanding, or at least avoided making the unforced error of disagreeing. The dream must have forgotten to consult with them. Terror broke immediately. It intimately ascended through her spinal tunnel and demanded to speak with her manager. The terror scurried around her cranial cavity, prodding cholesterol until it wept dairy-free tears. Each swell was a scourge to the neonatal dream, giving it plenty of bad ideas and a firm education in Mike Love-funded musical history. Her bandmates would never forgive her.
The dream appeared as an infinite cusp, a glowing horizon looming like distant Iowan storm clouds, bulbous and dense in their cumulonimbic splendor. If the dream arrived, she would be forgiven for missing practice. Her psychosomatic suffering absolved her of any comrades’ anger, or so she assumed. They wouldn’t kick her while she was already down, would they? Resigned to patience, she stared down the slow dream. A misty haze reveled in place, shielded by deceptive perpetual motion, concurrently approaching and static, limitless and yet bound by atmospheric strata, a solvent marriage of departures and arrivals destined for suture.
While awaiting the dream, she remembered some music. Even in times of escape, it helped to pass the time. She fled the embrace of one song for another. The new song was more like rain than the last one. It resembled the rotten chlorophyll of her youth. Her headphones rarely made the journey into dreams alongside her, so she had to imagine. After sitting on the windburned plain for several minutes, blinking rapidly and attempting to conjure sounds in her head, the song finally enthralled her.
Raindrops dodged every leaf, besides potentially aqueous gusts passing through perforations in the foliage. Sound curled up in her ears, contact microphones directly wired to flood cochlea. It always felt safe to destroy her hearing. Essential, but easily marred. It helped to think of it as a choice. Either drown in the storm song or let the dream, a stunted puppet master needing a dose of control, overcome her.
Time will determinate when I revisit this but I imagine it will be soon. Thanks for reading.