Fishbowl Helmet
Ask the next question...
- Joined
- May 14, 2012
- Messages
- 954
This is a slightly later part of my WIP. I like what's there, but I'd like feedback on whether it works for other people as description of the scene. Does it give you a feel for the scene, does it help you visualize or just confuse?
Constructive criticism always welcome.
##########
I took out the photo of Jessica and her friend on the field trip. It might have been local, might not. Generic cityscape with a few trees and rocks. Brick buildings in the background. No street signs, no cab companies, no local color at all. It could have been taken anywhere.
“Well, ****,” I said to the girls in the picture.
Staring at the picture I knew what I had to do next. I hated using the Sight. The best way to describe magic to people who can’t use it is with drugs. Casting a spell was like doing a rail of coke. Killing someone with magic was like opiate withdrawal. But there was no fix to cure the pain, no dose that could make things right. There was no methadone. Magicians had to ride it out till they were forgiven, or learned to love the sickness. Opening your senses to the world was like an acid trip. Just like any hallucination, it could be a good trip or bad. State of mind was a big factor, so was not being surprised or interrupted.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
I focused on the girls and the trees and the rocks. My attention narrowed down till the only thing I could see was the picture. The colors popped more. Started to swirl and move. A moment later I fell in, past the white Polaroid border and into the shot.
The day was alive. People walking up and down the sidewalk. Cars honking, traffic already gnarled for rush hour. Trees bent and leaves fluttered in the wind. But the scene wasn’t crisp like the photo; seeing things this way turned the world into a broad-brushed, overly bright and gloppy oil painting that refused to hold still. Colors flowed and seeped into one another like the dyed currents of a meandering brook. The brush strokes of the world collided and collapsed, raised mounds of paint like mountains pushing toward me rather than reaching for the sky, then rolled back in eddies, sweeping the mountains into streams of flowing color. Besides the trippy visuals, this place worked on dream logic. Free association and hallucination were the order of the day, causality was ******.
Constructive criticism always welcome.
##########
I took out the photo of Jessica and her friend on the field trip. It might have been local, might not. Generic cityscape with a few trees and rocks. Brick buildings in the background. No street signs, no cab companies, no local color at all. It could have been taken anywhere.
“Well, ****,” I said to the girls in the picture.
Staring at the picture I knew what I had to do next. I hated using the Sight. The best way to describe magic to people who can’t use it is with drugs. Casting a spell was like doing a rail of coke. Killing someone with magic was like opiate withdrawal. But there was no fix to cure the pain, no dose that could make things right. There was no methadone. Magicians had to ride it out till they were forgiven, or learned to love the sickness. Opening your senses to the world was like an acid trip. Just like any hallucination, it could be a good trip or bad. State of mind was a big factor, so was not being surprised or interrupted.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
I focused on the girls and the trees and the rocks. My attention narrowed down till the only thing I could see was the picture. The colors popped more. Started to swirl and move. A moment later I fell in, past the white Polaroid border and into the shot.
The day was alive. People walking up and down the sidewalk. Cars honking, traffic already gnarled for rush hour. Trees bent and leaves fluttered in the wind. But the scene wasn’t crisp like the photo; seeing things this way turned the world into a broad-brushed, overly bright and gloppy oil painting that refused to hold still. Colors flowed and seeped into one another like the dyed currents of a meandering brook. The brush strokes of the world collided and collapsed, raised mounds of paint like mountains pushing toward me rather than reaching for the sky, then rolled back in eddies, sweeping the mountains into streams of flowing color. Besides the trippy visuals, this place worked on dream logic. Free association and hallucination were the order of the day, causality was ******.
