P.D. Allen's Blog, page 4
October 30, 2012
October 29, 2012
Bursting Bubbles ~ Excerpt from Mourning Sky
All of their illusions shattered. Religion, the State, the market, all safety nets burned with the sky overhead. For generations, these people lived in a bubble, certainly a bubble that was leaking air, yet a bubble whose membrane stayed intact until this day. This bubble was created by their own technology and their economy. The membrane of this bubble consisted of their hermetically sealed homes with central air, their air-conditioned cars and their shopping centers where they consumed fulfillment.
Into this empty bubble was pumped an artificial environment with which they interacted. The sensory input of this environment came from the internet, from computer games, from commercially recorded music, and most of all from the television. This artificial input created a stultified, atomized world where the residents in their bubbles were taught to accept what they were told, not to question, not to look outside their bubble, and to limit their outside interaction to the simplified format offered by the manufactured input.
They were taught that this lifestyle was good, righteous even. Anything that deviated from it was foolish, perverted, criminal, or downright evil. Divorced from reality, entire generations learned not to trust the world around them, the real world. They projected their fears and hatred outside of their bubbles and sought refuge in their delusions.
Lew first became aware of the psychotic nature of these bubbles in Iraq, when he was a part of the invasion that tore that country apart. All around him, he saw the bloody, inhuman brutality of war and occupation. Yet he also saw how valiantly his fellow soldiers strove to keep their bubbles intact so they would not see the horrible truth of what they were doing. The government and the military did everything they could to help the troops distance themselves from reality and so strengthen the membranes of their bubbles.
Back stateside, the divorce from reality was even more complete. There was an entire society in a bubble. This bubble became so pervasive that the only way to escape it was to flee into the wilderness and become a hermit. Lew tried to patch his own bubble and fit in, but the walls of his bubble became transparent. Nor could he ignore for long the illusive nature of everything around him.
For a few years now, the membranes of the bubbles had grown thin. The bubbles failed with increasing regularity. When this happened, people holed up in their houses, hiding from reality until the bubbles were reinflated. Until now everyone knew the bubbles would be reestablished; the failure was only temporary. But now there could be no doubt the failure was permanent.
Kicking and screaming, the public now had reality thrust upon them. Furthermore, the nature of that bubble-bursting reality became extremely inhospitable. The fears and hatreds they projected on the outside world were now reflected on them. Their heavenly bubbles burst, and they found themselves in hell. This is what they saw, and this is what Lew saw: a world that was hell on Earth, inhabited by people who were little better than dæmons.
Without the input of their manufactured environment, finding themselves in a ruined and hostile world, weak of mind and virtually incapable of rational thinking and critical thought, they succumbed to mass hysteria. Many gave in to their baser instincts. Those who sought to make sense out of their terror were left extremely suggestive, looking for scapegoats to blame for their woes. They fell upon anyone who was different, and that was Delbert. Not that Delbert helped matters himself.
Murderer’s Sky ~ kindle ~ print
October 28, 2012
City on Fire ~ Mourning Sky Excerpt
This was perhaps even more disorienting than the heat and dehydration. Elliot never had seen a daytime sky so dark without being overcast. The two things were incongruent. Overhead the sky was pitch black, but for the stars and the moon shining with a clarity they never before possessed. And off to the southwest was a sun that seemed ready to engulf the entire planet. Despite the darkness overhead, the brightness of the landscape was dazzling. The two were irreconcilable, assaulting the mind by standing the fundamental underpinning of reality on its head. It took an extreme effort of will to keep his mind focused. When he tired of doing so, he lapsed into dreams and visions.
He saw the town of Heater, the town he had striven for so long to serve and protect, burning to the ground. The fire started at that blasted newly built hall of Reverend Chassey’s. The hall was so close to the neighboring buildings that the fire spread through the block. From there, it spread through surrounding neighborhoods. The day was so hot and everything dried so quickly after the rain that all it took was a spark, just one little glowing cinder, to start a fresh blaze. There was something in the rusty residue of the rain that proved to be volatile whether wet, dry or mixed into mud. There were no fire trucks, no volunteer firemen, no sirens. No one battled the flames. The town burned unhindered. The residents tried to save themselves and flee from the burning neighborhood. He saw people running in flames. He saw Sally Gardener, who had once been the most popular girl in town, covered in the drying gore of the rain, crying in terror and agony as she hurried through a burning neighborhood. The teen passed a little too close to a burning building and she burst into flames just from her proximity to the fire.
Murderer’s Sky ~ kindle ~ print
October 27, 2012
Awakening the Undead ~ Mourning Sky Excerpt
Allison fell to the floor as the building creaked and swayed. The long rows of berths teetered, spilling out bodies all over the hall. A heavy man, Joanna Cafrey’s husband Bud had Allison known it, fell on top of her, pinning her to the floor. She grappled with the man, who almost seemed to be wrestling with her. Another body fell on her from the opposite side of the aisle, helping Mr. Cafrey hold her down. Mr. Cafrey was hugging her cheek to cheek. A bead of drool fell from his mouth and ran down her neck. Allison screamed, though the sound of it was lost in the rumbling of the earthquake.
The tremors stopped. The only sound was Allison crying. She became furious, pushing the bodies off of her, struggling to free herself. Mr. Cafrey rolled onto his side with a groan. Allison froze, watching him closely. He moved his head ever so slightly, smacked his lips, and then fell silent again, never opening his eyes the whole time.
Allison looked at the other bodies around her. These people were not dead; they were sleeping. And they were sleeping so soundly even the earthquake had not wakened them.
“What is going on here?” Reverend Chassey’s voice thundered through the hall, startling her. Allison looked around, but could not see him.
“We can’t have this.” The Reverend went on, his voice coming from another aisle. “It simply isn’t proper.”
Allison retrieved her paint scraper and stepped around the fallen sleepers. She followed Reverend Chassey’s voice past the next aisle. “Our Lord cannot find you like this; what would he think?’
And there he was, standing over a pile of sleeping bodies with his hands on his hips. “Get back into your beds.”
All around Allison, the sleepers started to move. At her feet, Mercy Tolver rolled over and looked up at her. Allison had always disliked Mercy, since she caught Allison and her sister sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom during bible study. Allison held her breath, waiting for Mercy to say something, but the woman did not. Though she looked directly at Allison, her eyes were blank and unseeing.
Murderer’s Sky ~ kindle ~ print
October 26, 2012
The Night When the Stars Dripped Blood, II
Excerpt:
“Oh fuck!” Liza Lou exclaimed. The cigarette fell from her hand as she stared at the sky. Everyone looked up. The sky was on fire. As they watched, the flames spread to blanket the horizon.
“They did it!” Curtis was not even aware he spoke out loud as he gaped up at the roiling sky. “Those crazy sons of bitches did it!”
The firemen were no longer fighting the fire. The burning cottage was forgotten, insignificant in comparison with the inferno blazing overhead. They all gaped at the spectacle with their mouths hanging open. Everyone knew they had finally pushed the planet too far, and now they were going to pay the consequences.
There was a loud sighing noise, as though the entire planet was gasping for breath. Then the explosion reverberated across the land. Everyone was thrown to the ground by the shock wave.
The conflagration blinked out as though someone had snuffed a candle. Looking back up from where they lay on the ground, they saw the darkness of space with the stars shining brightly. It was as though someone had ripped the safety cover off of the planet, exposing it directly to space. It was still day. The sun was shining and everything around them was illuminated, but the sky was black.
As they looked up into space, they heard the moaning. It was a long, low mournful wail that seemed to emanate from the Earth itself. And as their hearts were chilled by that sound, the stars began to cry, weeping tears of blood. The rain fell upon them, marking them all with the blood of the planet they had desecrated.
As the stinging blood washed over them, people began to scream and cry, and beg for salvation. Many knelt before the church and prayed for forgiveness. Some howled in terror. Some got to their feet and ran off screaming through the neighborhood. A few ran into the church to hide. Luisa Torres grabbed muddy handfuls of earth and tried to use it to scrub the red rain from her arms. Her husband, Julio, stopped her. Most simply lay there, dumbstruck as the blood washed over them and burned them with their self-destructive guilt.
Mourning Sky at Amazon
Courageous Mind
Quantum Meditation #1794
October 25, 2012
The Night When the Stars Drip Blood ~ Mourning Sky
Excerpt:
Mankind had finally done it. In seeking dominion over nature, they irreparably damaged the life support system for the entire planet. From this day on, the future would be a struggle to pay for the transgressions of the past. Humanity’s insatiable hunger for consumer goods and its unquenchable thirst for prosperity were extinguished by this rain, leaving only desolation and anguish.
From Mourning Sky; Book Three of Under Shattered Skies
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