the night reeks of old pine and termite shit and the faint bitter layering of old cigarette ash. in the dark, there's nothing but your own lungs at work and the cot creaking metallic beneath you, noisier than any barracks-issue. constellations smear the windows of your little cabin like crushed flies; moonlight steeps the dank floorboards blue, blue, blue-green-blue, flecking shadows across a ragged plank, magazines stacked on folders, the old workstation you used to bang on as a kid, all clacking keyboard, a heavy-headed monitor, and a system that coughs static and dust every time it boots up. in the still and the black outside, things are scuttling and slithering and prickling needles high; but nothing dreams out here but you.
close your eyes. press your palms flat against the bed. military routine does something to you -- files you down to gristle and grim conviction, works you until your bones grind through patterns in reflex. tomorrow's chores: collect water. check the generator at dawn, before the day goes bone-bleaching. track the weather report for the week to measure out your next restock in town. carve open one can of soup or beans to take with the bread before it goes bad. read the new magazines out on the porch 'til just before noon. there's a fleet's worth of stories buried in this state: warped little skeletons pulled out of the thin, glassy lakes up where civilisation clusters; radioactive coyotes bounding out of the canyon where they used to dump nuclear waste; a man with the wings and head of a moth who defends hitchhikers on the backroads.
they say the egyptians believed that the sky wasn't real space -- it was a woman, a goddess, who covered the planet with her body. according to the mythology, the stars were just a part of her skin. they still made pretty good progress on working through star tables, though -- and they tracked the nile's flooding based on an astronomical calendar. don't ask me how that fits together.
this is not a desert story, nothing to clip out of a newspaper or a magazine's gloss. you are not dreaming the easy curling voice, the railing's clank beneath your knotting fingers, the history of a people who watched the stars and crumbled away to dust. the dream is that there's someone else to tell it to you.
but it isn't the story that matters -- rumors come and go, but how many times have you heard that voice? a hundred. a thousand, in countless ways -- through daylight, yawning bright; echoing down the barracks halls, tugging at your rucked-up collar (take it easy, cadet); skimmed across the library's rooftop through sand-scrubbed shadows and silence. i should've known i'd find you up here. a laugh, warm as a firing engine, and the press of his palm against your spine. sorry i'm late.
that's a story too. here is the dream: the way you close your eyes. how your hands bunch tight like there's a railing out here to hold onto.
w7d1, night
the night reeks of old pine and termite shit and the faint bitter layering of old cigarette ash. in the dark, there's nothing but your own lungs at work and the cot creaking metallic beneath you, noisier than any barracks-issue. constellations smear the windows of your little cabin like crushed flies; moonlight steeps the dank floorboards blue, blue, blue-green-blue, flecking shadows across a ragged plank, magazines stacked on folders, the old workstation you used to bang on as a kid, all clacking keyboard, a heavy-headed monitor, and a system that coughs static and dust every time it boots up. in the still and the black outside, things are scuttling and slithering and prickling needles high; but nothing dreams out here but you.
close your eyes. press your palms flat against the bed. military routine does something to you -- files you down to gristle and grim conviction, works you until your bones grind through patterns in reflex. tomorrow's chores: collect water. check the generator at dawn, before the day goes bone-bleaching. track the weather report for the week to measure out your next restock in town. carve open one can of soup or beans to take with the bread before it goes bad. read the new magazines out on the porch 'til just before noon. there's a fleet's worth of stories buried in this state: warped little skeletons pulled out of the thin, glassy lakes up where civilisation clusters; radioactive coyotes bounding out of the canyon where they used to dump nuclear waste; a man with the wings and head of a moth who defends hitchhikers on the backroads.
they say the egyptians believed that the sky wasn't real space -- it was a woman, a goddess, who covered the planet with her body. according to the mythology, the stars were just a part of her skin. they still made pretty good progress on working through star tables, though -- and they tracked the nile's flooding based on an astronomical calendar. don't ask me how that fits together.
this is not a desert story, nothing to clip out of a newspaper or a magazine's gloss. you are not dreaming the easy curling voice, the railing's clank beneath your knotting fingers, the history of a people who watched the stars and crumbled away to dust. the dream is that there's someone else to tell it to you.
but it isn't the story that matters -- rumors come and go, but how many times have you heard that voice? a hundred. a thousand, in countless ways -- through daylight, yawning bright; echoing down the barracks halls, tugging at your rucked-up collar (take it easy, cadet); skimmed across the library's rooftop through sand-scrubbed shadows and silence. i should've known i'd find you up here. a laugh, warm as a firing engine, and the press of his palm against your spine. sorry i'm late.
that's a story too. here is the dream: the way you close your eyes. how your hands bunch tight like there's a railing out here to hold onto.
how you pretend you're still waiting. ]