
This town isn’t finished. You just need a holiday.
This town isn’t finished. You just need a holiday.
Everyone should have a guitar pedal embedded in their hand and when they want their voice to suit the occasion, they just turn up the overdrive and wham plus.
In order to live freely – free from yourself and the shackles of society and the world you invest yourself in which looks only to take – you shouldn’t label yourself as a specific type of person.
Be the you who believes in yourself. That person is free of all the the aspects of the world that look to take from you, that ask you to give yourself to them freely in the same way an Orwellian organisation would. They take yet are of a world that will continue turning without you, no matter what happens. This real you is abundantly rich in potential, wealthy in happiness, living in freedom.
The inner you pining to come out from within this soiled onion skin is the true master of your world because this person is awake – and with no need to dream of tomorrow because this true master of your world creates it. It matters not who you are now, a chef, a writer, a rioter, a victim, a pessimist, a wanderer, a musician, a poet, a soldier, a police officer, a brother, a sister or whoever you are, the real you needs to break free from the masochistic sleep of society that is plagued by spiritual diseases and fears. The real you is immune to it all. The true master of your world, the real you is immortal and thus you are too when you awake. Now!
Far, far away from this place is Zentril-7, a small colonist planetoid, no bigger than Pluto, with its only claim to fame being its popular pleasure dome, Pleaze, where any man, woman or sligol can satisfy the every desire. It’s where I met Laurali, the green skinned beauty of the pervert room, who just so happened to be the most open minded individual I had ever met. There we talked for hours amongst screams of ecstasy and agony too. I wish I was back there instead of in the leg jaws of this kraken-spider, damn it. I need a spear.
The silicon based life form, mineral in its microscopic structure, grotesque to the human eye macroscopically speaking, began calling for an end to hostility on all open sub sonic communication channels. I, Theodore Tedrickson the Third Ted, am en route to the Oval Room, where I will attempt to convince the President of Planets that we as a species must heed this silicon creature‘s warning if we are to survive the next six months. The eye of the storm is coming and it will give us a chance to reassess our course, even though some of us might not want it. Ted out.
Pulsating square waves cascade into the mindful cacophony of a sweetly chilled autumn’s night, as the drum machine works its circuits into submission. Slaved to its rhythm is the bass guitar modelling machine, a squelching tiny battler with a penchant for the sounds of little green men, typing its tones from one to sixteen, resonating loudly, effecting the air with timeless punk chic. The singer takes the stand, the microphone covered in dust from the shaking floor boards above, and she looks to the metal walls dripping with sweat and lets her song do the talking.
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilisations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!
Captain James T. Kirk
The interesting thing about a proper first person narrative is the reading difficulties and plot pleasures it can cause. Most first person narratives act as substitutes for third person narration – as in the protagonist narrating the story acts more like a third-person narrator than someone living through a part of their life that they shouldn’t be able to see the entirety of when retelling it.
Whereas a first person narrative that pivots on the POV of the protagonist, that is unreliable, that jumps from one moment to the next, starting every moment in medias res, leaving it up to the reader to decipher the continuity unfolding, is overall much more enjoyable and rewarding to decipher and remember.
The science fantasy novel The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe has been a revelation in that regard. It’s mature for its genre in the same way Joyce’s Ulysses is a mature read for literature. At its surface level and some twenty fathoms beneath, the story feels clever without any perception of the cogs the author has put in place to keep the story turning. And that’s because of how the first person narration constructs the story.
Whereas for the savvy reader, one can look deep below the surface to where the cogs and levers constructing the story are found and can realise that the organic feeling of the story is carefully constructed, the plot and dialogue skilfully selected, and the clues to the overarching mystery placed with subtlety. It’s quite good and a most enjoyable read. Perhaps even an all-time fav with the promise it’s showing.
Live long and prosper.