The Great Game

I officially suck.

Sorry.

For those of you who are still here, I’ve finally managed to get the book I was working on finished and off my shoulders, my visitors are gone for now, and I will be resuming twice-weekly service by hook or by crook.

If you’re new to the Great Game, please have a quick look at the blurb to your left, where you’ll find a short catch-up introduction.

“Here, to the darkness, you have come. The stars, oh the fleshy stars, they sing, after so long they sing, and you have come to hear, come to the darkness. That which was and may and shall, and the old and new are joined in the fleshy singing, and you, John Taylor, have come.”

I tried to scream, to howl “No!”, but I had no self, no voice, to scream with.

“No?” The amused word was like needles. “Yet here you are, and you hear the song, and the old is new and now. And now, John Taylor, would you join the song? Would you hear?”

I shuddered. “No.”

“You will.” The words burned through me. They were bloated and slick with utter confidence, dripping with disdain. I would have screamed, if I had possessed a throat, if I had been able to think or breathe. Then, mercifully, there was a sense of withdrawal. The sparks whirled away, dancing off towards the shuddering stars.

A moment of peace, and then, impossibly, I realised that I was moving. Nothing changed in the void, there was no sense of physical action of any sort, but I was drifting anyway, as if caught in a current. Perhaps I was gathering speed, because after a time, it did seem as if the song around me was growing fainter. I flew through the darkness for an impossible amount of time; it could have been instants or decades.

Light exploded around me. It began as a series of cracks, a dazzling blue-green. They seethed with energy, and swept out to form junctions, patterns… walls. Almost before I knew it, I was diving through an outlined canyon, all black planes and brilliant edges. It was uneven, shot through with seams and whorls, and it appeared to stretch to infinity above and below me. Occasionally, I whipped past other seemingly separate things, clots and vapours and misshapen bubbles. At such times, the gibbering and cackling swelled, overpowering the rotting song. I soon came to loathe those moments.

I became aware of another presence pacing me. I turned my attention on it. It was my face, flying alongside me. It wasn’t quite right, but it was definitely me. It stared at me impassively, and I could feel that it was exerting a pull on me. Despite the totally blank, mindless expression, I knew that it was boiling with passions that were just out of reach.

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Today’s picture is Tron 2.0 by Michael Knight.