Excerpt from my unedited novel, The Shape Shifters. Let me know what you think:
I had seen so much, and traveled so far. I felt more overwhelmed than ever, the THING dragging on me and pulling me everywhere. I actually felt distinctly dizzy. I had taken the pills the man had given me and I had become wide eyed and alert- though I felt paralyzedly so and the gaze of my eyes seemed to rot everything that it saw. It was as if some sickness was guiding my vision to specific dead things about the Living Things around me. The momentum that had carried me in this way through the city was fading, and I leaned against a street corner to rest. Turning my head I saw a large man in a black coat leaning on the wired fence behind him.
The stranger was staring at me, and I felt an uneasy chill that made me want to shrink up into a ball and hide. It seemed that with his stare he was intentionally trying to dissect my mind, to find out what I was made of and what was holding me together so that he could break me. He smiled, and I was alarmed by the convoluted gesture. It seemed that he was warping his countenance in an effort to make me believe he was my friend, though really it was just a ploy to get me off of my guard. I wondered at his mechanical actions. How did he expect me to buy into such a fake idea? But even as I looked back into his eyes, I felt a great dread enter my consciousness that perhaps, perhaps, this person could do to me great damage and that I would not have the strength to counteract him. I gave an unwillful and involuntary shudder. The stranger's eyes seemed to harden into certainty, as if I had given him the satisfaction of telling him that I was exactly the way he pictured me in his twisted logic. My eyes turned downwards and I looked unseeing at the floor. I felt like a lamb at the slaughter. I stumbled away and the thing dragged me into more turmoil.
As I walked through the city streets, the alien feeling of my sense of sight was beginning to create a kind of existential nausea. The images that my brain was receiving were so bizarre and foreign that I was soon feeling tense and panicky just by experiencing my surroundings. The noises and lights and disconnected rhythm of the city was transporting me into a state of total catatonia. I dragged my body into an alleyway and sagged to the concrete floor against the side of a dumpster. The acrid smells filled my nose and the sense of terrible nausea intensified.
I sat there mouth agape and staring for several long minutes, mesmerized and utterly controlled by my senses that seemed to be attacking me. It was as if my internal system was mimicking the chaos of my surroundings. More than anything, I did not want to exist.
I looked up to find two men standing a few paces away from me. One of them was the leering stranger, who was holding a knife. The other was a large muscular man with red hair and clutching a large metal reebar in his hands.
"Kid, give me your fucking money." said the red haired man. The stranger stepped around me and lurked in the shadows of the alleyway. I stood up and swayed slightly, stumbling a bit towards the stranger. The stranger raised his arms and lunged at me, swinging the reebar towards my right hip. At that moment, a pigeon flew off of the dumpster and over the man’s head. It was such a beautiful and effortless flight, where a feeling of hopelessness could not possibly exist. Absurdly, I was deeply moved by the experience of the bird, and suddenly I was filled with the biological need to act; the psychological poisons immediately ceased to have power over me. In the clarity of a single, suspended moment, I felt the tensions release from my body, and my body suddenly felt filled with substance- as if before it had been a deflated balloon.
I was awakened to emptiness, and at the speed of thought, I rippled my attention throughout my body and the area around me to disturb the man's focus. I needled him with a sudden stare of measureless power. Temporarily memorized by a sudden unknown opposition he was faced with, the stranger hesitated and his knife arm missed its target. Weaving through the spaces between us, I dealt him three blows simultaneously. My right hand broke his collarbone and my left leg kicked the inside of his knee, while my left arm jabbed his wrist, knocking his knife onto the floor and sending it spinning. I sensed a heavy weight about to smash into my back and I turned with its linear momentum, sending the other strange man that had side stepped around me toppling onto the sprawled body of his broken companion.
The stranger sprang back up, though the large man did not stir. He snarled and twisted his face up at me, walking cautiously towards me. He seemed reluctantly amazed. Fearfully gazing at me, he said “you scum, why can’t I see myself in your eyes?” He lunged at me and I struck him once in the chest. The force of the strike rippled throughout the man’s entire body and caused him to black out.
I treated the men as best as I could and left them where they lay.
I wandered onward, my body buzzing and prepared for battle. However, I was loose and the tensions that came along with heightened sympathetic nervous system activity seemed to be eliminated. I felt strangely exhilarated, prowling the city streets with the subtle and fluid movements of a stalking wolf. It seemed incredible before that I had momentarily forgotten how to listen. The bird that had taken flight had saved me; it was so beautiful that it gave me "reason" to connect to life. I had learned the key to dealing with the inner-folk. To aggressively listen so that I could still MOVE inside of the strange structures I was being presented with. I now walked, listening to everything, unrestricted. I noticed that as I "worked" my attention that my environment seemed to have changed once more. I could feel the life in each person that walked past me, despite any rigidity holding them in their systems. In a sense, I saw their centers that they were rejecting, and I could love them as an animal of the forest.
I had seen so much, and traveled so far. I felt more overwhelmed than ever, the THING dragging on me and pulling me everywhere. I actually felt distinctly dizzy. I had taken the pills the man had given me and I had become wide eyed and alert- though I felt paralyzedly so and the gaze of my eyes seemed to rot everything that it saw. It was as if some sickness was guiding my vision to specific dead things about the Living Things around me. The momentum that had carried me in this way through the city was fading, and I leaned against a street corner to rest. Turning my head I saw a large man in a black coat leaning on the wired fence behind him.
The stranger was staring at me, and I felt an uneasy chill that made me want to shrink up into a ball and hide. It seemed that with his stare he was intentionally trying to dissect my mind, to find out what I was made of and what was holding me together so that he could break me. He smiled, and I was alarmed by the convoluted gesture. It seemed that he was warping his countenance in an effort to make me believe he was my friend, though really it was just a ploy to get me off of my guard. I wondered at his mechanical actions. How did he expect me to buy into such a fake idea? But even as I looked back into his eyes, I felt a great dread enter my consciousness that perhaps, perhaps, this person could do to me great damage and that I would not have the strength to counteract him. I gave an unwillful and involuntary shudder. The stranger's eyes seemed to harden into certainty, as if I had given him the satisfaction of telling him that I was exactly the way he pictured me in his twisted logic. My eyes turned downwards and I looked unseeing at the floor. I felt like a lamb at the slaughter. I stumbled away and the thing dragged me into more turmoil.
As I walked through the city streets, the alien feeling of my sense of sight was beginning to create a kind of existential nausea. The images that my brain was receiving were so bizarre and foreign that I was soon feeling tense and panicky just by experiencing my surroundings. The noises and lights and disconnected rhythm of the city was transporting me into a state of total catatonia. I dragged my body into an alleyway and sagged to the concrete floor against the side of a dumpster. The acrid smells filled my nose and the sense of terrible nausea intensified.
I sat there mouth agape and staring for several long minutes, mesmerized and utterly controlled by my senses that seemed to be attacking me. It was as if my internal system was mimicking the chaos of my surroundings. More than anything, I did not want to exist.
I looked up to find two men standing a few paces away from me. One of them was the leering stranger, who was holding a knife. The other was a large muscular man with red hair and clutching a large metal reebar in his hands.
"Kid, give me your fucking money." said the red haired man. The stranger stepped around me and lurked in the shadows of the alleyway. I stood up and swayed slightly, stumbling a bit towards the stranger. The stranger raised his arms and lunged at me, swinging the reebar towards my right hip. At that moment, a pigeon flew off of the dumpster and over the man’s head. It was such a beautiful and effortless flight, where a feeling of hopelessness could not possibly exist. Absurdly, I was deeply moved by the experience of the bird, and suddenly I was filled with the biological need to act; the psychological poisons immediately ceased to have power over me. In the clarity of a single, suspended moment, I felt the tensions release from my body, and my body suddenly felt filled with substance- as if before it had been a deflated balloon.
I was awakened to emptiness, and at the speed of thought, I rippled my attention throughout my body and the area around me to disturb the man's focus. I needled him with a sudden stare of measureless power. Temporarily memorized by a sudden unknown opposition he was faced with, the stranger hesitated and his knife arm missed its target. Weaving through the spaces between us, I dealt him three blows simultaneously. My right hand broke his collarbone and my left leg kicked the inside of his knee, while my left arm jabbed his wrist, knocking his knife onto the floor and sending it spinning. I sensed a heavy weight about to smash into my back and I turned with its linear momentum, sending the other strange man that had side stepped around me toppling onto the sprawled body of his broken companion.
The stranger sprang back up, though the large man did not stir. He snarled and twisted his face up at me, walking cautiously towards me. He seemed reluctantly amazed. Fearfully gazing at me, he said “you scum, why can’t I see myself in your eyes?” He lunged at me and I struck him once in the chest. The force of the strike rippled throughout the man’s entire body and caused him to black out.
I treated the men as best as I could and left them where they lay.
I wandered onward, my body buzzing and prepared for battle. However, I was loose and the tensions that came along with heightened sympathetic nervous system activity seemed to be eliminated. I felt strangely exhilarated, prowling the city streets with the subtle and fluid movements of a stalking wolf. It seemed incredible before that I had momentarily forgotten how to listen. The bird that had taken flight had saved me; it was so beautiful that it gave me "reason" to connect to life. I had learned the key to dealing with the inner-folk. To aggressively listen so that I could still MOVE inside of the strange structures I was being presented with. I now walked, listening to everything, unrestricted. I noticed that as I "worked" my attention that my environment seemed to have changed once more. I could feel the life in each person that walked past me, despite any rigidity holding them in their systems. In a sense, I saw their centers that they were rejecting, and I could love them as an animal of the forest.
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