Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Books

Journal sielwolf's Journal: City by the Sea 20

Journal by sielwolf

"This story you're writing-"

Yes?

"I don't get this one part."

Oh?

"Yeah. Here," points. "She says 'City by the Sea'." Flips through more of the story. "They actually say it all over. All the characters."

Ok.

"So where is it? 'City by the Sea'?"

Well it's a city. And it's near the sea.

"Yes. But is it a particular city? Where are these characters exactly?"

It doesn't matter.

"C'mon. Tell me."

It doesn't matter.

"C'monn..."

No. The city isn't even near the sea. It's on a bay. The bay flows into the sea.

"So it is a place! Tell me!"

No.

"Tell me."

It doesn't matter.

"Tell me!"

It doesn't matter. I could tell you and it wouldn't change anything. You seem interested because you think that by knowing it will reveal something deeper. As if you had that once piece and the rest of the puzzle would all fall in place around it.

"I think you're lying. I think you know and you know it's really pissing me off and you just being spiteful. I'll get angry and there's nothing I can do to you to tell me."

It would be nice to think that. But it isn't true.

"So it's some metaphorical place then?"

You mean imaginary. No, it's not that either. You're still asking the same question. Real or imagined, you want to know because you think it means something. It doesn't. You want to see the other side of the wall and I won't let you. You'd go over there and see it is just another wall, the same wall only from the other side. You think it means something. It doesn't.

I did it on purpose.

"You're being mean. That's all you are doing."

God, the itch is so bad! You want to scratch it! You can beg for it, you can demand it, you can threaten something. It doesn't even matter what I say. I could lie to you and make something up. Truth or lie you'd at least have some answer.

"Don't be a dick."

Baby, it doesn't mean anything. It's intentional. If it hurts you, it hurts everyone else. But I didn't do it to be cruel. It's only a point. The story illustrates it.

"What then?"

Hmm?

"What is it you're trying to say. If the 'City by the Sea' isn't a real place- if it isn't a fake place- why go through all the trouble?"

It's where the story came from. All if it grew out of that.

"It's just a story. Some guy. The girls in his life. A lot of talking. But it doesn't go anywhere."

You could go to his city. You could go to his street. But if you had never read it it wouldn't mean anything to you. That townhouse could be any other townhouse. The trees, the asphalt, the road. Every person who reads it would see a different street, a different house. In time that neighborhood wouldn't be there anymore. The tenants would leave, be evicted, the building demolished. A fire comes, paints up all the maples in black ash and they fall over and it becomes just a big field of wild unkept grass.

All places are like that. Places, people that are all unfamiliar to you are just a tapestry of noise. It could be anywhere else. Here is everywhere else: the same chains, boutiques, coffeehouses, stores. We go all over and are miraculously untouched by anything. We take treasures back home as artifacts, those being better than our memories.

But that neighborhood, in that city? It didn't mean anything. What did matter? The boy. The girls in and out of his life. The girl who was gone and even thousands of miles away he couldn't escape. Between the four of them was a place that will always be there. Four people as the cardinal points of a human cartography.

Our hero- he was alone. He was in this place and it was quite obvious that there was life all around him. The 'City by the Sea' breathed in and out beautiful girls and places and things- but he did not know them. And so it was just a tableau that if he paid attention to all that would come from it was disgust. All the city's brilliant lights and marvels where kept from him by a sheet of impenetrable glass. They could be miles away for all it mattered. The 'City by the Sea' was a desert.

"A desert."

The place-that-was were himself and those three girls, how far or close they might be. And he couldn't see that. So he just starved in the desert-

"Uh huh."

until he left it. And it didn't mean he physically travelled. He realized what sort of ground that he needed to cover. His legs wouldn't take him to that place.

"Well I guess I don't need to read this then!"

Wasn't it good?

"It was. But it made no sense. You explained it to me and I don't know how finishing it would do me any good now."

I see. Well if that's all you needed, I could give you the whole story without you having to read it.

"Oh?"

Yes. The story is as simple as this:

King Rat lived in the desert. ...
King Rat didn't always live in the desert- he lived by the ocean once. ...
And that is how King Rat left the desert.

"Well that's helpful..."

You can be sarcastic but it's true. That's the story.

"But who the hell knows what that means? It doesn't mean anything!"

It does. You can read that story. You can finish it. And then you can read those three lines. You can forget everything else but those three lines will walk you to that place: that boy and his three girls. You want to go to the 'City by the Sea'? Read the story. And later, when you need to remember, read those three lines, and you will be taken back there.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

City by the Sea More

City by the Sea

Comments Filter:
  • .... what city is it?? ;)
  • it's Springfield... now, which state is it?
  • ...because of a *very* similar event. I used to write a LOT back then, we were together four and a half years, and everyone was waiting for us to at last marry and manifest what everyone could see between us.

    She asked me to marry her three times. Three times I declined. Something seemed to be wrong, no matter that everything was so right so obviously. And then we started to talk about some of the poems and short stories I had written.

    Seeing how she could not grasp the central concepts and ideas of all of my
    • Heh. Well a much more thoughtful response than what I'm used to getting. Thanks for the contribution :)
      • You're welcome. I keep noticing we're pretty similar in our thinking, so I wanted to share something I felt you might have some use for.

        Tell me, doesn't the ignorance bother you? I am not as self-important as I was, and don't think anymore that everyone should understand what I write. Actually I don't write anymore at all, because becoming a husband and a father of two (and soon, of three) has changed me a lot, and I'm still working out how to distill the insights of the last five years into something I can
        • The sielwolf thing... Sielwolf was a band. They did industrial noise during the 90's and got more abstract as time went on. I really dug them when I was in high school which was about the time I started going online to play Quake. I needed a handle and it was what I decided on: it was a 'thing' (as compared to a phrase), it was uncommon (so a limited chance I would be confused with someone else) but not so odd as to be incomprehensible. It also looked like a collision of German and English and as a Ge

          • The sielwolf thing... Sielwolf was a band.

            And a German one at that - I googled them and looked through some of their lyrics. Let me just say that I really was into Industrial (coming from the hometown of the Krupps and all that) some years ago and those lyrics aren't exactly what I would call well done. They're rather clumsy, nebulous, obviously try to look clever but lack any inner construction or sense. That doesn't have to say anything about their music, however, which might or might not be great. I can see however how Sielwolf makes for a good

            • The sielwolf thing... Sielwolf was a band.

              And a German one at that - I googled them and looked through some of their lyrics. Let me just say that I really was into Industrial (coming from the hometown of the Krupps and all that) some years ago and those lyrics aren't exactly what I would call well done. They're rather clumsy, nebulous, obviously try to look clever but lack any inner construction or sense. That doesn't have to say anything about their music, however, which might or might not be great. I can see however how Sielwolf makes for a good name, it's pretty unique.

              I got into them in their later albums which are more sparse vocally and into minimal noise. They were less chuga-chuga-chuga guitar and beat driven industrial so they still make it onto my queue while others (KMFDM, Laibach) don't. I guess I'm getting old :P

              I was really referring to Kulturkrieg, your blog title, as it resembles the name of a section I used to sysop on CompuServe around ten years ago (which was Technik&Kultur and dealt with the influences of technology on our lives, especially culture and arts).

              Tell me, do you speak German or do you just like the feel of the language?

              For the generations after 1914 or so it became less popular in my family to speak German. :P What I know was from formal education and I haven't used it in... ten years? All the art or literature or music I have was either translated or didn't need

      • The problem with your writing is that it sometimes makes me too thoughtful, and I wander off to ponder, then forget to come back and comment, assuming my pondering leads to any worthwhile comment.

        • The problem with your writing is that it sometimes makes me too thoughtful, and I wander off to ponder, then forget to come back and comment, assuming my pondering leads to any worthwhile comment.
          Well I'm honored :P I think the best writing is that you can come back to and either rediscover or find something new. That's what I seek to create.
    • It's odd how you can go through stages of knowing a person. At first you know nothing, then gradually you gain understanding, and then sometimes after years you're stuck with an epiphany and realize that you know nothing after all. I once not married a girl as well...
      • I think the problem lies somewhere in between those stages - there comes the most dangerous moment where you think you know all essential things about your partner, and stop to look at the small things and update your idea of the partner. And then comes the day when your idea about your partner and reality differ so much...

        And there's something else. I've once read a saying I found very much to be true: The biggest problem in relationships is her thinking that he will change, and him thinking that she won't
        • I've lost touch with her entirely. She moved to another part of the country and went to law school. I hope she's doing well.

          • I hope she's doing well.

            Which brings up an interesting question - my amour fou has fled to London and then Berlin after we split up and apart from a X-mas card in 2002 I haven't heard of her, which doesn't bother me too much as it was another life I was living back then. But I sure would love to hear if life's been good to her, and share how it's been for me.

            What do you, what does "Aunt Dottie" think about contacting old friends and SO's just for asking "whazzup"? There are so many people I haven't heard of in years, but I just d

            • By the strangest coincidence, at the same time we were discussing this I received a Christmas card from a friend and former crush. In the card she discussed the things she and her family have been up to this past year, including acting as a bridesmaid for my ex-fiancee. I suppose she's doing well.

              As far as contacting old friends and lovers, I think that has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. I think that there will always be a bit of luck involved in whether it turns out well or badly, but if you've b

              • By the strangest coincidence, at the same time we were discussing this I received a Christmas card from a friend and former crush.

                Wow, life is strange at times. You know what? I'm going to write her a card this year. Writing Christmas cards isn't common at all in Germany, but then again she doesn't have my new address and as I don't intend on ever moving away again (it's my own house, a 1914 Jugendstil villa), she should have it.

                As far as contacting old friends and lovers, I think that has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. I think that there will always be a bit of luck involved in whether it turns out well or badly, but if you've been out of touch for years anyway, you're not really risking much more than some awkward moments in the attempt.

                You have a point there, yes, it's very different from person to person and yes, there's no risk in there. Thanks for the reminder. :)

  • It was many and many a year ago, In a Kingdom by the Sea...

    But if she represents your target audience then is your audience more likely to focus on this mysterious location rather than the story itself?

Slashdot Top Deals

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

Close