Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 48

Remember Atlantis (WIP) – chapter 2

Continued from chapter 1

 

I’m here.

My head swims as I look up at constellations I have never seen. They pierce through the light blue of an early evening sky, beckoning to me, laughing at my distress.

I’m here, but the definition of ‘here’ has changed. Irrevocably and indefinitely.

Something is burning to my left. My pores are clogged with it. It’s seeping into my blood. I turn my head to look, and my neck pulses with a faint pain. Not dangerous pain, just enough to tell me I’m still alive. It will ache for a time, and then subside.

Out of nowhere, a gash of sadness divides me in half. I don’t understand it until this moment: I’m gone. I’ve left. I’ll never see my home again – not the home I left, anyway. If I could weep, I would do so now, but I can’t even sob. The burning inside of me will never be released in the drops of water so praised by our ancestors. That’s only a fairy-tale, a metaphor invented long ago by creatures of legend. Even though we never weep, it’s coded into our language along with the stories of long-dead heroes, foolish tales to take the edge off the pain of being alone in the universe.

I sit up. This is useless. I need to take charge of the situation. Learn of my surroundings. Learn if I’m going to die here or not. Inching cautious fingers along the rough surface of the stone beneath me, I pause to evaluate. Strong, old. But… moving. Yes, it’s moving. Deep, deep down beneath me, something is awake, gathering power. I can’t stay on this rock indefinitely, or it will swallow me up. So where can I go?

I get to my feet, a little wobbly from the crash. Below me, there’s an endless expanse of blue, dotted by the faintest points of flickering light. Again, that disoriented feeling. Is space down there? Or is it above me? Where am I?

Here.

I shrug off my brief dizziness and squint at the blue. There’s something out there – a gleaming metal hull in the gathering twilight. Have I found it already? I creep forward on the cliff, gripping the sharp-edged greenery as I stare down at the long shape with its gaping black doors. It looks nothing like the vehicles I’ve come to search for. Unless the images they showed me were false? Distorted by time and lost in history…

At once, I become aware of my own vehicle, warm and almost glowing behind me: the residual warmth of high speeds, of atmospheric friction. Scrambling over sharp stones, I lay my hands on it, try to piece together a memory-image.

Falling.

That’s all I can remember now, as if the fall itself has wiped my memory. Darkness, darkness and falling. Blue, blue, everywhere, blue calling to me from down below, from the abyss. Danger, cool and still. Not the red-hot rage of my banishers, but the terrifying calm of the thing that knows the power it has over you. The power of the sea, almost banal in its immensity. A power that doesn’t even realize it can drown you.

But I can’t be drowned. That’s just another fairy tale. And I’m not here to wax lyrical about these alien outlines and strangely familiar rocks. I’m here to finish my mission, and maybe save my life.

I start covering up my vehicle with plants – an unnecessary precaution, since the ancient town is evidently uninhabited, but I have learned to be careful the hard way. I rip prickly branches from trees and yank brittle grass from the ground, and my palms sing with the pain of it, but I must conceal my presence. There may still be other species here, and they may have evolved into semi-conscious beings while we were away. After all, we’re not the same people who left.

At once, I feel it again, and I don’t realize until now that it’s a memory: while I was waking up after the crash, I touched something. Freezing in the middle of my work, I grope at the feeling. Yes. There was something – someone – there.

It sucks at my stomach as viscerally as any fall. My mind song touched someone. There’s someone here. How could I forget? Am I so brainwashed by the council that I don’t even register the facts that contradict what they told me? I, who should know the lies they spin to lull us.

But I can’t think of the council. Squeezing my eyes shut, I fumble through recent memory until I grip a strand of truth: a being, like me. But not like me. It fears what I don’t fear, and yet it’s a refuge, like me.

The pieces whirl inside my mind, impossible to interpret. A refuge? Here? I look out over the blue again. Apart from the broken vehicle out there, I can see nothing. No one. On the ground are quickly slithering things, but their minds don’t sway on the same frequency as mine. In the bushes, there is the occasional winged creature, but they gape with sharp little beaks and don’t answer my call.

Where is it? How did I reach it, in the middle of my fall?

And most important of all, how can I find it again?

My precious label

Not being ironic here. My label is precious. It’s the security blanket I hold onto to convince myself that I’m not insane*.

I’ve read a few blog posts about labels lately, and I guess I could link to them, but I’m a coward. I prefer to sit in my own little corner of the Internet, muttering to myself about what the big players are discussing, so that’s what I’m going to do.

And my take is this: as humans, we label everything, otherwise we wouldn’t understand our world at all. Sometimes such labelling leads to prejudice and oppression, but we can’t do away with it completely. We can’t have a world where there’s no difference between a mountain and a valley, because we wouldn’t be able to give directions, for one.

That said, the area where the valley magically transforms into a mountain is vague and fluid, so no categories are completely fixed. The prototype mountain is pretty easy to point out, and so is the prototype valley, but the further down the mountainside we move, the more uncertain the categorization becomes.

In the same way, my self-chosen label, ‘INTP’, gradually segues into other types, and perhaps no one can tell exactly where the boundaries between them are. I’m not a prototypical INTP, but rather a peripheral/atypical one, but I still want the label.

Because it means I’m not alone. Because it means the way my brain works is valid. (Although my type is often viewed as a lazy, confused asshole who doesn’t try hard enough. Can’t win them all.) The label is a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold when the world looks at you as though you come from another planet.

And I’m guessing many labels work that way. They transform a vague, confusing mess into a Thing, and with the help of that Thing you can find others who share your experiences, who can give you advice, and who understand. Good labels are good!

Others may find labels suffocating. They may view them as constraining boxes to be broken out of. They want to be larger than a category, to move between poles, to transcend. I too can feel this sometimes with my chosen label. I rebel against my self-imposed INTP-ness and say “Fuck that, I’m a person. I don’t need to be defined.” Bad labels are bad!

Conclusion? People are different. Sometimes a person is different from who they were yesterday. Is this news? I mean… When did “We need to understand that people are unique and celebrate that” become “We need everyone to be fluid and unlabelled”? People are different. Some want the labels. Some don’t want the labels. Fine. Why is this a discussion? Let people have their labels, and let people kick their labels to kingdom come if they want to. It’s all good.

 

* Here used in a negative way, since at this point in my life, I don’t want to be insane. Apologies to anyone who wants to embrace their insanity and finds my wish to conform to society’s norms for psychological health ableist.

Bad advice from a good place

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s over-simplification. This means that I get an aneurysm from just about every inspirational meme on the Internet, and people view me as overly negative when I don’t buy that kind of fortune cookie wisdom.

Like this one, for example: “Stop doing what doesn’t give you joy.” It sounds like good advice, but is it really that simple?

Well, no. If there’s a thing in your life that makes you miserable, and you continue doing it, chances are that a) it also gives you a measure of joy or satisfaction, or b) the alternative is even worse.

Take jobs, for example. Maybe you’re in a job that you hate, and people around you tell you to quit and find something else. But a decision like that is rarely made on a whim. Maybe there are aspects of the job that you like – your colleagues, the fact that it’s close to your home, or the status it gives you – not to mention the fact that making a change always involves a measure of pain, loss, fear, etc.

Besides, maybe this painful/boring/scary thing you keep doing is a big part of your identity. Maybe giving it up would mean admitting defeat in an area close to your heart: for example, you always dreamed of being a teacher, and now that you’ve realized that you’re not cut out for it, giving it up means changing your view of who you are. It can also smart to acknowledge that you aren’t as good at it as you thought, and maybe you’ll miss the students.

Life isn’t simple, and giving advice as if it was doesn’t really help. From an outsider’s perspective, it may be a no-brainer to stop dancing if it worsens the pain in your hip, but what if the dance is who you are? If you give it up, there will be a gaping hole where your dancing used to be, and gaping holes are no fun.

I know, advice like that comes from a good place – but the best help often comes from people who know what it’s like. Another dancer who had to give up because of circumstances. Another teacher who soldiered through despite the obstacles. Another person who made the jump and found a new job.

If you had to choose a guide, wouldn’t you go for the one who’s been there and knows the way out?

Unrequited friendship

Popping in with a quick theory: unrequited friendship is more painful than unrequited romantic love, because many people only want one romantic partner and there are all sorts of chemistry involved, but friendship is more… inclusive?

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe we’re quite as picky when it comes to friends, or at least some of us are. I’m just thinking, there should be a slightly lower threshold for friends, so if you don’t make the cut, it’s worse than not measuring up to life partner standards.

This may all be hogwash.

TED talk about procrastination

This TED talk about what happens in the brain of someone who procrastinates is too funny and accurate. Guess what I’m doing right now while linking to it?

Pax playlists

Since the Pax series is above all about music, I thought I’d share some of the things I built Michael and Jamie’s world on.

Let’s start from the beginning, with Just Playing:

Swansea Till I Die

This one is sort of self explanatory, but yeah, Michael and Jamie’s classmates are kind of big on football, and Michael and Jamie… aren’t. Also, they live in Swansea. So: Swansea City FC chant!

Bye Bye Baby

The kind of thing everyone listened to back in ’75. What would have been on the radio.

Firth Of Fifth

What Michael and Jamie would listen to – kind of a different vibe than the Bay City Rollers, I’m sure you’ll agree. Also, on a more personal note, this was my first introduction to prog, and it was love at first note.

Hush

This was also on the radio – notably, when Jamie shows Michael a chord on the guitar by getting behind him on the sofa, snaking his arms around him and taking the chord on the guitar in Michael’s lap. Seminal event.

Nights In White Satin

The first thing Michael sings, during a camping trip that sets the ball rolling. If Jamie wasn’t hooked before, this seals it.

April’s Fool

So what does Michael’s voice sound like? A little bit like this. Not quite, but almost.

Seekers Who Are Lovers

For me, this is the song about falling in love. I’ve never heard it illustrated this well. It’s like you fall in love all over again while you’re listening.

I Want You

What the title says. Even as Michael and Jamie accept their feelings, things are complicated in Paradise. And angsty.

 

Next up, The Road Taken:

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You

Because the world insists that they can’t be together, and because Zeppelin would have been one of their musical inspirations – even if they didn’t actively listen to them. It was in the air.

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Apparently, Jamie once played and sang this to Michael? I don’t know, I’m just the writer.

Hocus Pocus

Another example of what Michael and Jamie listened to at the time. Delightfully crazy music from the Netherlands. Songs like this give me hope for humanity.

Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra

Michael’s first taste of the harpsichord, and a contributing factor to his abandoning the bass. This is the music they overheard at the studio.

2112

The song they listened to in that farm house. It has changed many lives.

Let Your Body Decide

In the end, Michael and Jamie had to make a decision – to be together or not be together – and this song might have helped them if it had been around at the time.

 

And then we have Release:

Ring Out Solstice Bells

Midsummer at Stonehenge! Who better to encapsulate that vibe than Jethro Tull?

Tarot Woman

Annabelle enters the story. She has her own song, naturally.

Hurry On Sundown

Hawkwind played at Stonehenge, too. Maybe they played this old classic.

Wuthering Heights

Kate Bush would have been on the same Top of the Pops programme as Pax, but she was busy, so they just played this song and had a dance troupe perform to it.

Nature Boy

Jamie discovers a box of albums in the attic, and with it, a hidden side to his mother.

The Musical Box

This was in my headphones when I wrote the Albert Hall concert.

 

Finally, there’s Cutting Edge:

Want

You thought Michael was a sweet guy? Think again.

Mysterious Adventure

The kind of thing Ludo would compose.

Better By You, Better Than Me and Suicide Solution

The songs that landed Judas Priest and Black Sabbath in court. You see, I wasn’t making much up when I wrote that. In hindsight, it can be mystifying, but at the time, these songs were EVIL.

Hades

This is kind of what Ripped Maidenhead want to sound like.

Dansa i Neon

The song that plays on the car radio on the way to Arjeplog. No holds barred, take no prisoners bubble gum pop.

Screams Behind The Shadows

The Sepultura song that plays at Nathan’s place in the final chapter.

To be needed for what you’re good at

Today I got the chance to do something for someone else, and damn, it felt good. As I see it written down, I realize that it might sound ridiculous – what, it’s so rare that I do something for someone else that I have to write a blog post about it? Way to be a crappy person.

But that wasn’t it. I got to do something I’m good at, in the service of someone else. And for me, that is incredibly rare. Normally, I’m expected to do boring or complicated things that I don’t really care about. Like, you know, cleaning the house or baking a cake or phoning the municipality to order one of those forms you have to fill in if you want to change heating systems… in a word, bleh.

But today, something I wrote meant something to someone. Not a book or anything, but a small column I write for a local magazine. The one thing I really love to do, which can seem so esoteric and pointless at times (for other people) – today that gift was accepted by a total stranger, and that whole feeling of “I’m a part of this world after all” unfurled in my heart.

To be needed for what you’re good at. I hope every single person gets to feel that.

The SCIENCE of peer pressure

Perhaps you’re familiar with a psychological experiment where they showed lines of different lengths to people and asked them which of the lines was shortest.

Easy peasy! Or not.

The point of the experiment was that people had to answer in groups, and the whole group consisted of actors who said that the longest line was the shortest one, and the researchers found that many people agreed with the group even though it should be obvious that the group was wrong.

Peer pressure.

But then they followed up this experiment with a similar one, where they used brain scans to see what happened when these people made the decision to go along with the group. Apparently, what happens is that when the group says something, the individual starts to see the world that way, too. In other words, the people who went along with the ‘lie’ thought they were seeing a shorter line.

Scary.

But of course, there are always exceptions. Some people in these experiments did not go along with the group. So what happened in their brains? Well, there was a lot of activity in the yikes-I’m-going-to-be-socially-rejected parts (in layman’s terms). I’m thinking this may demand a lot of energy. I’m thinking if you’re the kind of person who regularly objects to the group consensus, you may wind up exhausted.

But what happens if you regularly think differently from your peers, but you never say anything? There must be some activity in that ‘yikes’ corner of the brain, even though you choose to keep quiet, right? And that activity, that latent I-should-say-something-to-balance-this-discussion-right-now-but-I-can’t-DEAL-with-the-weird-looks must be draining, mustn’t it?

Or am I just rationalizing my urge to watch Girls instead of washing the dishes? Hmm…

Pax and moral panic

To be honest, I’ve never been this nervous to publish a book. It’s not just the usual “Will the dramaturgy work?” and “Is this really boring?”, but also the frigging subject matter. Suddenly this book has become topical in a way I never thought it would, which has me thinking maybe I should have come to some sort of conclusion about the freedom of expression/artistic responsibility dilemma. Or maybe it’s better that I don’t? I don’t know!

So anyway… yeah, this book is about freedom of expression. And artistic responsibility. And bullying, and moral panic, and heavy metal, and law, and…

Mostly, though, it’s about questioning. I mean, it always is with me, isn’t it? QUESTION EVERYTHING. Don’t rest, don’t take a breath. HAVE QUALMS. So at least I think Cutting Edge looks at the matter from different points of view. I may not have resolved anything with this story, but at least I acknowledged the existence of a dilemma. Perhaps that’s all we really can do.

And the judgment will fall on April 6 (preorder March 24).

GFY: My share of the blame

The best thing about self publishing is that it’s quite easy to revise, and that’s what I’m going to do. Over the next year or so, I’m going to go over my back catalogue and change a thing here, clarify a thing there. Especially anything that might be construed as GFY.

Because I never meant it as GFY. When I first encountered m/m, I was mystified by it. (“But… but… isn’t that, like, bi?”) Since then, I’ve read a few GFY’s, and sort of cringed and skimmed over the moment when they say those words. Just a personal reaction, so I’m living and letting live here.

And yet a few of my stories can probably be read as GFY. Why? Because age of consent. Of course there is such a thing as a “late bloomer” where self discovery is concerned, but for the kind of stories I write, it’s just not doable to have fifteen year old characters. And I do love self discovery in my plots, I won’t lie, so I’ve been “forced” to set them all at or over eighteen years of age.

Which means that it can look like that trope. And I don’t want it to, so I’m going to go back and add mentions of bisexuality or whatever else is pertinent, republish and let this post be my apology for any erasure (as a token of my good will – no pun intended – there is Rival Poet, which is slightly more explicit about it). You could say that I should leave the past in the past and simply do better next time, but it’s been bugging me for days, because I know just how it feels to be hurt by something you love.

There’s a Swedish genius of a cartoonist who makes excellent commentary on all things political and social justice, and I’ve read and loved her for years. And then one day, I came across a cartoon that smacked me in the face. She probably didn’t mean it the way I took it, but my feeling was that if you were a bullied middle class intellectual in high school, you should just suck it up, because the rest of your life is going to be a breeze, and you’re just sulking because you didn’t get laid.

Like, whoa. What just happened? I got hit by a truck, driven by someone I admired.

And since then, I sort of can’t love the rest of her stuff anymore. I know that sounds petty, but I sort of thought she was on my side, and it turns out she wasn’t, or at least that’s not how I’m reading it anymore. In fact, it feels like I’ve been constructed as The Enemy. So there’s a sour taste in my mouth every time someone mentions her, and that makes me so sad, because it used to be something I loved.

So that’s a long explanation for why I don’t want to be that person, and why I’m going to do my best to change what I already put out there so that no one will ever have to feel slapped in the face by something I wrote. If it’s already happened, or if it happens in the future, I’m sincerely sorry! (And please tell me.)