A micro story: Sent to Bridges 

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I’m linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories and everyone is invited to write a story or poem constructed of six sentences based on a cue word given.

This week’s cue word is Menu

The Persistence of Memory by Dali. Image: Wikipedia

Sent to Bridges 

And to think it all began with a meadow and a songbird and a clear blue sky on a September morning as bright as a memory tacked to a wall… when the disc arrived hidden under my doormat in a brown envelope, and when I inserted it into my device and was presented with a menu overlayed on a poorly pixelated image of Dali’s The Persistence Of Memory, and a voice in my head saying: Man, you been doing this shit since 1929?

  • Option A: DREAM
  • Option B: DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
  • Option C: DREAM OF A DREAM

The risks were great: virtually entering a world such as I was about to but with both feet still planted in the real world of a surveillant society cracking down on coveted subscriptions to the principles of joy, pleasure and pain – subject to beatings, fines, imprisonment or simply becoming ‘vanished away’ based on the seriousness of classification (and sometimes whims) of an out-of-control government eating itself from within.

ZAP CLICK FLICKER as I pressed Option A, and all at once I saw myself at my desk staring into my device, and I was turned inside out and upside down, my guts and organs pulsating in the sac of my skin upon which hung the frame of my dithering skeleton, and I wished to scream in agony but no words parted the grim and deep orifice of my mouth, and I could only despair at the foolishness of what I had done as my finger bones pressed urgently at Option B.

ZAP CLICK FLICKER and I was transported to a winter forest and was set upon by all the dogs of the world: guard dogs, police dogs, army dogs, rescue dogs, sniffer dogs, the yapping and annoying little inbred dogs, the vicious cannonballs of raging Pit Bulls, Dobermans and Rottweilers and Blood Hounds, and the dogs that shit on your doorstep, and the dogs that piss up your car, and the dogs which we eat and the dogs that we dress in clown costumes and hats, and the dogs for the blind, and the dogs rabid and foaming with every madness known to humankind, and the devil dogs of Satan himself digging up graves in the non-stop search for bones, and the dogs dogs dogs coming at me just coming at me straight at me at me at me… oh… I hadn’t gone to the dogs… the dogs had gone to me.

ZAP CLICK FLICKER as my finger hammered at Option C and I was out of the forest and back at my desk, the right way round and the right way up, the dogs long gone, and I was no more the fool, and I thought I was safe, until, ah, BANG BANG BANG  and I could hear the cops breaking down my door with steel rams and decorated shoulders and an appetite for blood, and how well I could anticipate the hornet sting of their tasers, their boots at my ribs, their sticks in my face, a cold van, a cold cell, a cold sentence, cold, cold, cold… quick… ZAP CLICK FLICKER and my finger once more tapped Option A in that never ending search for my meadow and songbird and a clear blue sky on a September morning as bright as a memory tacked to a wall.

***

Words by Ford Waight

Song: Sent to Bridges written and performed by FLAW5 (Ford Waight)

Video edit by FLAW5 (Ford Waight)

22 thoughts on “A micro story: Sent to Bridges ”

  3. Some mad writing here, V, ! Missed you at last week’s Six but you’ve more than made up for it this week. Very intense piece. You’ve a distinctive writing style (which I’m in awe), certain elements of which immediately grab a reader’s attention.
    (Love Salvador Dali’s works, Persistence of Memory one of my favorites. I have a poster of it somewhere, no doubt rolled up with the M.C. Escher prints from college days.)

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    • Thanks so much, Mz Avery 🙂 A few 1984 comparisons now for this Six which I am super thankful to receive. My mind was more thinking sci-fi David Cronenburg and such, but I think Orwell’s masterpiece has imprinted itself on us over the years as the ultimate dystopia, and of course easy to relate it to some of our current political states. As a few observers have pointed out when judging certain world leaders and their parties… ‘1984 is not a blueprint’.

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  5. Dude!*

    Loved the line: “a meadow and a songbird and a clear blue sky”
    Its got such a strong rhythm which is something I only hope to stumble over, as opposed to be able to calculate it.
    Also love the multi-layered reality thing, Impressive (and enjoyable) feat in a regular story, fearsome when executed in the narrative confines of a Six.
    Nicely done.

    *compliment on a Six that read one part Clive Barker and one part Robert Scheckley**
    ** one of my favorite and surely one of the criminally under-appreciated writers to come out of the Golden Age

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    • Thanks, Clark, and awesome you saw some Clive Barker in there! Robert Sheckley I don’t know (which proves your obs he’s a criminally under-appreciated writer, and a quick online search shows many of his works have been adapted or been an influence for some major sci-fi TV and films).
      As for rythmn in things like my ‘meadows and songbirds…’ line:
      All those years writing nothing but poetry before I tackled stories surely left a mark. (for which I’m thankful) 🙂

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  6. Let’s start from the end; I’m so glad you unearthed those FLAW5 jewels.
    Mate, I am not impressed at all…cause I’ve said it time and again that you are a multitalented Shhhh !!!
    Funny thing, I was listening an hour or so before “One is glad to be of service” by April Rain and it goes hand in hand with the Lockdown!

    You know these moments when you’re watching a movie and you catch yourself clinging to your seat?
    Well that’s your recent six!! Riveting!!

    Thus we reached the beginning – and the end of my comment!
    (We are both messing with time dimensions atm…😉 )

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    • Time dimensional comments rock! I’ll start at the end too… the FLAW5 stuff I found I will add to the multi posts I’ll make in the new year about ‘bands and projects’ I played in.
      A good way to archive a long musical journey I think.

      The Six is an unpleasant one, but good time travel explorations, it only hit me at the end of the piece (which I ended up inserting as a statement of fact at the beginning) the protagonist had been travelling like that (in various forms of pleasure and pain) since 1929!
      That’s one heck of a loop.

      Was a productive 3 days off: the Six, + three chapters of novel + editing, + a Kenner toys post, + even some work on Act2 of you know what 😉

      Thanks for the good words as always 🙂

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  7. Hi there TVTA, wow I got a sudden rush myself just then. I saw things like Minority Report, Blade Runner, Ultraviolet and Lucy running across before my eyes. Certainly a dystopian, 1984, “You will follow the rules – our rules and you will not feel” sorta vibe. I just hope no-one comes banging on my door! Great read as always.

    (p.s. don’t worry about any “Enforcers” visiting me, I have certain skills that makes me a nightmare for people like them….and a few new lightsabers – they are in my latest post)

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    • Hi FT, so glad you caught the vibe of things like Minority Report and Blade Runner as this was the flavour I was trying to mix, along with some David Cronenburg I think. Haven’t seen Lucy yet but really want to.

      PS – I have no worries about you taking care of yourself if the enforcers come calling! Cool, will check out the new sabers! 🙂

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