Archive for the 'Transmigrant Blues' Category
Transmigrant Blues by Indi Riverflow
Is it the story of a girl having flashes from her past life?
…or a writer imagining his future destiny?
Is the girl insane? Is the writer vain?
I, who? ( Round 1 : Page 2 )
How hard will they look, though, really? Why did they go to all the trouble of scaring the bejeesus out of us with the hour-long sermon on the futility of escape, if we were really so hopelessly trapped? Starting to think it’s all just hype.
“I am the Light made Flesh…” (Round 1 : Page 3)
Like an unwelcome long-lost lover who presumptuously returns and resumes residence without the tiniest accounting of possible changes in the interim, my alter ego has been pulling harder on the reins. Eager to pick up where he left off, diving into bed without noticing the new aftershave in the medicine cabinet or neckties in the closet. Ignoring the comprehensive remodeling the place has undergone in the past decade and a half, and the half-mad protests of the mistress: I have my own life, there’s no place for you here anymore…
Religion Row ( Round 1 : Page 4 )
The problem, according to Llewellyn Reece, is that the ego, the sense of identity, is only partially inherent in the soul. Mostly it is a mask, based on your true self, but modified by time and place and circumstances. So when the keywords activate the memories, sufficient disparity might exist between past and present personae that for some time they might compete with each other for dominance. It hadn’t been of much concern at the time, since, whether I cared to admit it or not, preservation of ego had been precisely my goal, and I had felt it large and sturdy enough to survive any transformation. It hadn’t occurred to me that the new me might resent this. Selfish, but almost the opposite, since the net result is a total disregard of one’s own future needs.
Crazy Bear ( Round 1 : Page 5 )
Crazy Bear was loaded to the gills, in more ways than one, so it was wise as well as lucrative to humor the dope-crazed madman. It was also fun, if you had a sense of humor; I-Victor, that is-knew him from the crackpot circuit. We made a casual friendship over the years out of an intense acquaintance, getting along, I suspect, primarily because we were both out of our minds. He had guided me along my first, fitful explorations of that which cannot be explained, but can be perceived by the sensitive, and instructed me in the fundamentals of the Art.
Be Here Now ( Round 1 : Page 6 )
Occupying a rather more modest nook next door is the Society to Restore Natural Selection, which is a new one to me. Girlish curiosity overcoming my haste, I skim a handbill: Read more
Church of the Eternal Glow… ( Round 1 : Page 7)
I edge away from the entrance to the Cult of Cuckoo Ca-Ca, pick up my pace to quickly get beyond the horrible groaning inside the Masochist Gym & Sauna, and consider crossing the street entirely to avoid what I at first take to be an Episcopal Church, of all things-what on Earth is that doing here?-but calm down when I realize it is actually the E-piss-go-pal, a homosexual watersports collective and Ecstacy-drenched dance club.
Pleasure / Pain (Round 1 : Page 8)
The chapel/dance floor is mostly deserted, as the action/services here are a strictly nighttime affair, but the Holy DJ is installed behind the Eternal Turntables, spinning the electronic hymns of the faith, and five or six psychedelic dervishes are still furiously contorting their way to dance enlightenment, with and without glowsticks, before him. Holoprojectors cast animated abstractions on every crevice of every wall, and multicolored lasers pierce the thick cloud of haze emitting from what I presume is the Sacred Smoke Machine.
The boundary between Babylon and bohemian heaven ( Round 1 : Page 9 )
Well, it’s not a disaster. Obviously the Order, enhanced by my large “offering,” moved to more spacious and luxurious quarters. Maybe Melvin knows where they moved. I knock.