'nother one

[bain_sidhe]

Don't worry, I don't plan on posting them all here, but when I do one that's got a political theme, I just have to share it here!

Here's the image:



and here's the momento:

Kent knew he should find somewhere else to spend his days. Looking at the squat, massive, ugly sculpture was like picking at a scab. It should be his soaring, singing sculpture that dominated this plaza. It was his sculpture that dominated it – in another timeline. One that was forever lost, now, since some bastard had gone back in time and distracted the one secret service agent who had seen Sirhan’s gun on that fateful California night.

Who would have thought such distant events could change one artist’s life so radically? Kent hadn’t even voted in the ‘68 election. Everybody knew Kennedy would win. But it was Ethel’s project supporting the arts that kept him going through those first two lean years, and that, in turn, gave him the confidence to submit his proposal to the Association’s sculpture project. Without that, in this timeline, he had given up. Now, 30 years later, he was just another bum on the street.

Still, he had to admit, Crovello’s sculpture fit this timeline better. Cold, massive, hunkered-down and closed in on itself. Self-contained. Secretive. Self-centered. Selfish. His own sculpture had been airy, soaring, full of hope and light, incomplete without space and wind to animate and give voice to the joy within. A sculpture for the timeline – the home – that apparently, only he remembered.

No, he shook his head sadly. He was not at home. He was in some other world, a world like this sculpture. Ugly. He laughed out loud as a pigeon seconded his opinion with a well-aimed dropping. “You and me both, bird” he said, ignoring the discomfort of passersby who carefully avoided noticing him. “You and me both.”

At 280 words, it's my shortest yet.

[oneighty]

1. Good thoughts

The world of RFK airy soaring full of life and light and the opposite world of Nixon cold hard full of death and dark.

And how we were robbed of the dreams my a time traveling CIA agent.

Like maybe now huh?

180

[bain_sidhe]

2. I actually committed the sin of re-writing a little

at 3 AM, no less. I wanted to make it a little more ambiguous - is the guy crazy, or not?

But, yeah, that was the flavor I was looking for? How different would the world - and this country - have been if we hadn't had Nixon and the whole escalation of the VietNam war, and Watergate robbing us of our faith in government's potential for good...

Final version is here: http://www.webfaerie.com/faerie_bytes/?p=92

[JitterbugPerfume]

3. they stole our dreams

when they killed our brightest and best

John Kennedy

Robert Kennedy

Martin L King

MalcolmX

Medger Evers

and the list goes on

what an ugly world we live in

[bain_sidhe]

4. You know, seeing that list

It struck me... I can't think of a single conservative that was outright assassinated like these liberals were.

I remember reading that there were some conservatives that died in accidents or plane crashes - either someone close the the Kennedy assassination investigation or the Watergate investigation, I don't rmember which. But these people were outright murdered.

Strange, in a scary, tinfoilhat kind of way.

[sybylla]

5. You know, as I read these they remind me of

the Spoon River Anthology - a series of little slices of another's life.

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. I was discussing the Spoon River Anthology with a friend just recently

The corrupt underbelly of society

I guess the closest the Conservative movement got to it was the attempt on Reagans life, but it was nothing like the assault on Liberals .

I am not a tinfoilhatty person but when it is so obvious?

Assassinaton was the first thing I thought of when Wellstone was killed too <sigh>


He was such a treasure

[bain_sidhe]

7. except sciencefictional?

Hmm. One thing I've thought about (for the future) it to write more on the "destroyed space station" theme, try to weave them into something very much like the Spoon River Anthology.

But that's down the road, and may never happen. After all, I once thought of using the "grandma's trunk" idea to write a "novel" about a woman born in the civil war era, through the guilded age, got involved in the Free Thinkers, Wobblies and Women's rights movements and up through the second world war. That never actually got written, although quite a bit of the research got done.

[sybylla]

9. I had a similar idea to yours re: grandma's trunk

I have always been intrigued by the conceit of using letters to tell a story. In my version of "grandma's trunk" a descendent finds letters in an old dresser drawer detailing an exchange between grandma (or possibly a sibling) and a close acquaintance/lover that reveals something very shocking.

Each chapter covers a letter or perhaps letter and response with their subsequent impact on the descendant's life. I'm a genealogist so this concept has always had a special appeal to my creative side. It could be a short story or as long as a novel. The real trick is telling a story through letters, conveying enough information to tell a story without sounding contrived.

[oneighty]

8. Spoon River

Where in the missing husband claimed to have been captured by pirates on Lake Michigan to explain his unauthorized absence.

Hahahaha

there I pirated a thread.

180