“Space Age” is the last prompt for the year from the Queensland Writers Centre.
Straight away the brain races towards rockets and colonization and some obligatory dystopia – the top layer. Makes me think of John Lennons’ song ‘Glass Onion’ on The Beatles ‘White’ album from 1968. You gotta peel it back. One onion made of many layers.
Peel It Back
So after free-balling it for a bit, we ended-up with two characters running from a debt in some kind of space vehicle, escaping to a different dimension or part of the universe. The characters are like Ford and Arthur Dent in ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’.
Moshab and Layne.
Moshab comes from a workmate. He was telling me something about a taxi driver and called him Moshab – that name just stuck. Layne just sounds good after Moshab. Moshab has wracked- up debts across the Milky Way and the two are being chased by all manner of beings.
The whole thing has a comedic feel (perhaps because of the encroaching holiday season, or maybe as a revolt against the seriousness of the previous story I did called ‘Thin Corridor”). So humour is foundation of this one.
I’ve got an Opening…
It’s about collecting opportunities.” said Moshab, “And when you’ve got enough, you build your ‘opportunity robot’ and turn it on; that’s the secret.
Layne sniggered at this typical vocabulary drool.
“By ‘collecting’ you mean ‘stealing’, and by ‘opportunities’ you mean ‘money’.. Right?”
Moshab dotted on the ships dashboard, pretending to check over some data.
“Depends how you look at it my good man. The universe provides ample vantage from which to view, why not choose one that suits your paradigm?”
“Makes you rich you mean”, said Layne. He’d heard it all before, the linguistic concoctions, the solace in paradox, the reason in rhyme. But this time it was different. They were coming after them, all of them – every conceivable specimen of being, from all across the Milky Way, chasing their money down, looking for their ‘Pound of Flesh’.
“Money is just a concept Layne, a means to an end”.
“A means to our end you mean.”
Moshab brushed this off with more dotting at the controls.
“It’s one of the fundamental laws of life Layne; Life is a gamble worth taking, and anything worth taking is worth gambling – an endless, beautiful cycle that completes itself, it is what it is, and it aint what it aint”.
“Well you’ve reached new heights of linguistic dribble with that one man”.
“I’ve got something coming through on the vibra-schtick”
Something happens, they get stuck, and then something unexpected happens. Something connected in a way to what is said in the beginning. Don’t really know yet.
It all comes from a pretty intense dream I had last week, which I thankfully wrote down in the middle of the night.
Black Wasp Dream
A dude has cheated heaps of people – beings from all across the local region of the Milky Way. They come to earth to get what they’re owed, bringing all sort of calamity.
One of the creatures – insects – bugs, is from a different time slot. The creature is killed by the dudes friend, but the creatures are ancestors of humans and the fabric of human reality starts breaking down.
Black Wasps
