(no subject)

[ashtreelane]

unseelie’s no dark boulevard of black trees with branches that crackle and stir
Ahead, there's something new: a yawning hole in the middle of the floor, hundreds of feet across.
but a path that leads ’round to the place where it started, which isn’t the place that you were
 
      It's  a  staircase,
                             winding

                                     tighter
                  ible  sin
             invis         gu            and
          tant               lar
       dis                     ity          tighter
      some                far
                       below.             around
      reaches
                                         itself
          it
               until              like
                       a shell

Comments

[tibetanmethod]

SLAM.


Click.




The house doesn't have to slam the door. Cooper just did it.

He staggers a few steps forward. Puts out a hand.

That's a bannister.



Click.

[A long, long sigh.]




"Diane, I seem to have found a staircase. I think -- "

"Is there anybody here? Hello?"

[ashtreelane]

hello?

low?



oh?

[tibetanmethod]

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down--
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing--then--




"I'm alone."

"Again."

[A deep breath.]

"I'm alone, and there's a staircase. The question arises, Diane -- is it better to sit, and wait? Or keep moving toward some uncertain future?"

"Diane, I have to accept the possibility that I'm not going to make it out of whatever this is alive. I started out with a group of people. Now I'm alone. There's something in the walls. The people I was with came from Milliways. And I know -- "




"There's a void out there that's more frightening than anything anybody can imagine, because voids beg to be filled -- but there's no filling it. Diane, I don't know if this is it. I'm afraid it might be."




"I have my tape recorder, two tapes, one set of fresh batteries, my sidearm, my badge, my wallet, a receipt presumably from my breakfast at the Double R, the green butt skunk Harry made me..."

[Jingling.]

"...thirty-five cents in nickels, a handkerchief, my whistle, the clothes on my back, and my intuition. These are my resources. I have no food, no water, and no light. When the time comes -- and I have to prepare myself for that time -- it's probably going to be miserable and painful, and if I'm terrified of anything it's that I'm going to botch it."



"Eventually my tape is going to run out. And if that's not a perfect metaphor for what's going on -- "


"I was never good at figures of speech anyway. Diane, I'm moving down the staircase."

[Footsteps.]

[ashtreelane]

The deep central

shaft of the spiral staircase seems

to go down and down into darkness forever.

And maybe that's precisely what it does. Except

there's really no way to tell, is there? Not from up

here at the top where we stand, looking down into the

depths; staring down into this well of utter emptiness as

though we intended to lower a bucket on a rope and draw

up understanding. As though our eyes could ever drink of

the void and somehow come away from it with the thirst

for knowledge, for light, for some kind of substance,

even briefly satisfied by it. As though, in fact,

some part of us truly believes that there

is anything -- anything at all --

there to see.

[tibetanmethod]

[Footsteps.]











As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here--







"So much silence, Diane."

[Almost reverent, almost a whisper.]

[ashtreelane]

the lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.



Silence,




and cold air that lies still against his face.

There's a landing here,
and a hallway that leads off somewhere into blackness.
...and more stairs,
going further
down.

[tibetanmethod]

"I've reached a landing. The temperature is such that -- "

[A soft sound, like plastic on floor; his voice is far away.]

" -- I'm going to attempt to raise -- "

[Closer, as though he's sat down.]

" -- my own body temperature through the use of a meditation technique called tummo."

Click.





Cooper slips his tape recorder into the inner pocket of his jacket, loosens his tie, undoes the top button of his collar, and stares off into nothing.

And then he closes his eyes, breathes in, and begins.

[ashtreelane]

For a long time, silence and stillness.

And cold.



Then a faint rumble, almost a purr.





The landing shivers slightly under Cooper's feet.

[ashtreelane]

(Or, from the perspective of those _below,

 

 

 

 

 

it's an invisible single helix of stumbling blocks ris^{ing into the dark.})

[yuppie-trash.livejournal.com]

(I'm whistling Bob Marley's version of Don't Worry, Be Happy, the famous principal lyric of a novelty song by jazz composer Bobby McFerrin, the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, holding that position for two weeks in September of 1988. Although I am very sure that I am still living in 1987, this does not bother me at all.)

Here's a little song I wrote,
You might want to sing it note for note,
Don't worry, Be happy.

(It feels like my face is melting off. I can't feel my left hand. But there are stairs. So I start to take them one at a time. I hit bottom, only I don't remember my head bursting like an overripe pumpkin.)

[yuppie-trash.livejournal.com]

(I'm whistling Bob Marley's version of Don't Worry, Be Happy, the famous principal lyric of a novelty song by jazz composer Bobby McFerrin, the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, holding that position for two weeks in September of 1988. Although I am very sure that I am still living in 1987, this does not bother me at all.)

Here's a little song I wrote,
You might want to sing it note for note,
Don't worry, Be happy.

(It feels like my face is melting off. I can't feel my left hand. But there are stairs. So I start to take them one at a time. I hit bottom, only I don't remember my head bursting like an overripe pumpkin.)

[ashtreelane]

Step

    after

         step

             after

                   step

and the whistling echoes

dimly

up and down the central shaft.

This isn't the bottom of the stairway. Just a landing between here and the bottom.
One of ... several.

[yuppie-trash.livejournal.com]

(Muscles twitching. In my arm. All in the diagram, I know the bones in my hand. There's a smell of my own. Of dead bodies and pennies. It's me. They're going to find a body here. Too long before it's found. Take this. No relatives, Sean wouldn't claim it. A number tied to my toe. Wash. Dead flesh under their nails. Take this. They'll say I was a--

Fine specimen.

Fine fine specimen. )

"In every life we have some trouble, when you worry you make it double.
Don't worry, be happy."

[ashtreelane]

Far away,
a gentle rumble, like distant thunder.

[yuppie-trash.livejournal.com]

He stops. The hammer thudding against his leg.

Looks around. Smiles.

Clears his throat, and speaks in a whisper to the empty air.

"If you are going to burp say,

excuse me."

[ashtreelane]

The rising growl -- rising? descending? coming closer, at any rate --

does not, in any way at all, resemble the words excuse me.

[yuppie-trash.livejournal.com]

Patrick giggles, and continues to take the steps (down) up the stairs to the next landing. The direction doesn't matter to--

(--me. White cloth on the table. Blood stains on the floor. The cutting open. A hand, a foot, a head. Head to toe. Holding me. Biceps and triceps work. The leather driving glove keeps my right hand warm. I feel the blood. I have my hammer. I look down at the left, twitch the fingers that look like twigs. It hurts. I laugh. My skin is like marble, I think. Like. A sculpture. Like. A statue. I could chip myself away into chunks and pieces.)

"If I had a hammer, If I had a hammer.
I'd hammer in the morning,
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this laaaaand."

(A song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. It was written in support of progressive movements in 1949. A cover released by Peter, Paul, and Mary in August 1962 became a top 10 hit.)

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

It's an absurd relief to enounter the wall, after so much unchanging emptyness.

They turn, starting to make their way along it--and abruptly, Bev's foot takes longer to hit floor than she expects it to.

She stumbles into Charlie, then steadies herself and feels around cautiously with her foot.

"...Either the floor is messing with us again, or I just found some stairs."

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie extends a foot carefully, steps down, extends the other foot.

"Stairs," she confirms.

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

Encouraged by the idea that there's something to see, Bev pulls out her matches again, and takes another fumbling step forward until she finds the bannister.

"I can try and see how far it goes down--" she offers as she strikes one, and leans out over the bannister to drop it down.

[ashtreelane]

it

fa
ll
s

d
o
w
n

d
o
w
n

d
o
w
n

i
n
t
o

n
o
t
h
i
n
g

[ladyfirestarter]

She strains to follow its descent.

It's impossible to tell if it's gone out, or just fallen too far to see; it's too small a light to illuminate anything but itself.

"Quite a long way," she murmurs.

[bev-marsh.livejournal.com]

Bev curls her hand around the banister, watching the tiny speck of light falls (f l o a t s) and dwindles.

"...Yeah. "

Uncertainly, "Should we go down?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"I'm not sure."

She studies the staircase.

"It brought us here. Maybe it wants us to."