Intro

Welcome!

This is where I'll put everything I create - be it theories on what some of the songs mean, flash-fiction, maybe some art?, or ... Well, I don't know yet! Honestly, the content in here will probably very slowly upload. Right now, my focus is on using the songs as prompts for mini stories, since I'd really like to hone the skill of creative writing. There is only one available for now, I will make an announcement on my neocity profile for whenever I upload another one. :) Enjoy, and thanks for reading my very silly stories.

To See the Sun Again, I'd Give Everything

The landscape below seemed to twist and rise like the earth was a thickly-viscous liquid. Avis thought it would’ve looked more green but the grass on the other side may be blue, instead. She landed on the upper branches of a tall tree, exhausted from the journey.

Two days, three nights. She hadn’t expected to embark when she did, and indeed, her mind’s been nothing but questions ever since she did. Am I ready? Am I too late? Where am I going? They flow endlessly, pricking her and grabbing hold of her id. She could see the silhouette of two hands, reaching from the dark, gripping her tiny skull. It made no sense. The only thing to do was to stop thinking and continue on.

Since she’d been flying, she followed the Sun. Leaving the darkness behind, she wanted to chase the only certain source of light available. It was encroaching already, creeping along and reaching out like the legs of a trap-door spider. She studied it, wondering if it would stop any time soon. She found that it did nothing but eat and eat and eat. You wouldn’t see it until it had, in fact, eaten everything, for there would be nothing to see but the space it left behind. If Avis stayed to stare at it longer, she’d find that it gave off the same impression of a low moon; a sort of perspective where it seems you could touch it but no matter how far you reach, there is nothing to grasp.

She needed to get going. Up and up she’d fly, chasing the Sun, waiting for a better day, a change of landscape, or even another soul as herself. The expanse spread across her, laying down tiles of trees and foggy hill, as the darkness behind her ate it up. Sometimes she felt as though she weren’t really moving – maybe if she stopped, the darkness would stop and there would be nothing ahead of her. The possibility of this and possibly being swallowed by nothingness chilled her heart. There was nothing to do but continue.

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on” she whispered to herself, making her will real by using her real voice-box to create a real noise. It was her hope that the mere existence of an echo inherently meant someone could listen. Why else did noise travel? On and on she went, whispering her little mantra, waiting for either possibility to be certain.

A minute passed, so it seemed in her mind, but it'd been years. She was exhausted. Her wings gave out. The dark snapped the tiny form as if it were waiting for that chance and she screamed.

.

.

.

It felt like a balled up fist and she found it difficult to move enough to cry. The darkness was not an expanse like the world she left but a constant conclusion. Movement ceased before it began; words were uttered before they were spoken. Nothing seemed to happen, though it consumed every happening from the expanse before. It was pain.

She closed her eyes and simply slept. What else could she do? She could not move, speak, see, or think of anything other than the mere possibility that this wouldn’t be the end. A millennia seemed to pass and Avis became progressively acclimated to her environment. Habits formed, a twisted chemistry took over and Avis began to wonder. She wondered herself into despair. After all, she thought, there very well may not be anything left out there.

As with the expanse, the years seemed to pass in seconds. Though she was in the darkness, and it steadily tried to consume her heart, she was not yet gone.

This is when she made a startling realization; she could move. As those years passed, every day gave a little give. Little by little, allowing room for one more twitch of muscle, she could stretch out her wings and soar. It was hard at first; calamus cracked and bones creaked and the oppressiveness of the darkness still lay heavy on her shoulders. Still, it was new. She could fly. A desperation seemed to reach into her soul and she tried to scream. The echos of her voice clawed at the nothingess which would never answer back; still she screamed and shrieked. "Cease!" she cried.

"Cease! Cease! Cease!" the word went on and on. The brittleness of her wings migrated to her voice; that is, feathers and bones healed and her voice grew harsh. The words eventually started to sound abrasive and senseless than like any word at all. But she was stronger. She continued on, crying for an answer, flying as far as she could. On and on, she didn't know where the darkness would lead. Would she return to the expanse or was something else waiting? Eventually a light appeared in the distance and she sped faster.

Strangely, this was enough. Instead of becoming more desperate, Avis finally allowed her voice to rest. There was a light and it's existence in this void she knew so well meant that something could cut through it. She didn't know whether that something was better or if it was the dull fog from before but at least, finally, she knew where she was going.

Avis and the world she left behind would not be remembered fondly and yet she is pressing on and always will be. In every journey, there comes a time of waiting and a desire for a miracle. What these things teach you is up to the individual and for Avis, the twist in her story came from her own perspective. There won't always be someone to save you but there will always be hope, regardless of how vast the troubles may be.

I hope you enjoyed that flash fiction! This is my first time doing this sort of creative writing exercise in a long, long time. I want to note that I gave the character the same name as my moniker - Avis - because this song is where I started applying the bird motif to myself. Avis in the story is different from me though. :) There is no absolutely definate meaning to any of the imagery involved... I just tried to "paint" with words. I didn't want the story to come across as like...Stupidly obviously tied to the song, instead simply inspired by it. This song is usually within the top five of my Spotify wrapped, because it always comes again to me when I need it. I've needed it less and less as the years go by though, instead finding myself in songs (from Owl City) that I didn't connect with before. As things change, highschool ends, I get my first job and send out my first college application, I think it is time I start a new chapter too, and seperate myself from the vanity and confusion these past years have afforded me. I think I must sound pretty stupid, so ... Thank you for reading and have a lovely day.

We've been Lied to, that the Sun is something that we can't fly to.

“[faint] is it recording? Okay, go ahead.”

“Can you tell us what happened on [date]?”

“There’s really nothin’ t’say… Yer scientist’s would know better what t’explain than I.”

“Just… Give us a description of what you saw, when you landed. We know about the journey.” There’s a few moments of silence. The burlesque man is leaning his forearms on the table, gently rapping his knuckles.

Finally, he rubs his face with the palms of his hands causing his milk skin to pinken from the friction. “Thanks to technology…” he shook his head, “it’s ‘nbelievable. We were so close. I simply couldn’t believe… I mean… It’s hard to grasp. The heat, I should’ve felt scared.”

The woman sitting across from him nodded. “And… What did it look like?”

“Honest to God? Well, it was hard to see. Even through the reinforced masks, the very ground was blinding. But… From what I made out, the flames… Well, the ground itself maybe. I’m a Kansas boy and when I stepped down, I coulda sworn I was back home, in the wheat fields. Made me weirdly nostalgic, though I was ‘bout 90 million miles from home. Funny how that happens...” The man began to laugh and ended with a coughing fit.

“I see. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us? I can see that,” she flipped through the documents on her clipboard, “you weren’t down for long, otherwise the heat would have melted the internal workings of the ship.”

“No ma’am. There weren’t much to do but … stare, n’then we were back on board.”

“Understood. You may leave now.” The woman’s tone snapped up like her briefcase and her heels clicked out of the room. The man sighed a lonely sigh and trudged out the same way he came in.

***

In the same manner, he walked up the steps to his canary yellow house and opened the door. A woman inside gasped excitedly and raced over to kiss his cheek. “You’re later than you said you’d be, Beau?” Her sweet blue eyes shimmered and red curls shaped her beaming face; Beau felt his heart melt every time he came home from a long trip. This time, it’d been a little over six months and most certainly too long. Again.

His heart pumped restlessly, thinking he’d have to leave once more, in a little less than a year. Yet, those flaming wheat fields…

“Yeah, they wanted to dispatch me on some stuff with the ship before letting me out. N’aw, thanks Marilyn, I think I’m gonna hit the hay though. Been a long day.”

She kissed him once more and trotted off to start a shower.

In the bedroom, Beau dug around the top shelf of a closet. Things like old tape recorders and photobooks were stashed here but he was looking for something else. Finally, behind the box, he found an old leather-bound notebook. He wasn’t a journaling man, everything he needed to say he said to Marilyn, but tonight was different. A sinking sense of paranoia made his heart lay heavy and tired as he was, he didn’t want to forget what had happened. He could not sleep before writing it all down.

He wrote,

The truth is, I saw a lot more than some sun rays. I thought all the black suits wandering around our station was a bit odd and I can’t put my finger on it, but my mother always told me I have good instincts. Sure enough, after clambering on down, a lady I’d seen some before sat me down in a room and asked me questions.

I stayed for a lot longer than a few moments, the ship could take it. Whatever she thought she knew, she wouldn’t know the Phoenix V like I and all the people who worked on it do. So, I lied.

Partially because I didn’t trust her. No one on the crew does. But partially because, I don’t know if I really can explain what I saw.

The moment my feet touched the ground, if you could call it “ground,” a chill washed over me. That sounds ridiculous, given we just traveled 93 million miles to the sun, but something startled me. Like… an intense tug on my heart. I could feel it drawing me in. I didn’t lie about the sun rays looking like a wheat field; the way they flowed and specks of flame scattered like seeds. An inherit glow rising from the ground and the faint feeling from brushing my gloved hand over the flames. Describing it even now, I can feel a complacency within my heart. I may’ve not gone back in that ship weren’t for my mates.

Now, what’s interesting is when I spoke to my mate, August, he said he felt similarly too, when he went to grab me. For him however, it felt like an ocean. Turns out, his Dad’s a mariner and would often appoint August the sternman.We tried to describe our experiences to Peter, but he says he couldn’t see nothing through the cameras inside the hull.

I don’t know what I felt that day. Took us five days to get back to earth and the feeling that something more was just beyond my eye didn’t go away. These black jackets are looking for something too.

Whatever it was, a feeling, the sheer incredulity of landing on the sun, or the power of a star… That evocation was holy. I don’t plan on sharing this with anyone who might try to sully that great thing, and maybe we shouldn’t be traveling to the sun to begin with. But I have a mighty desire to go back.

Whatever it was, that holy land, I need to be there again.

boop