Cannot locate signal

I went looking for the cracked, faded and distant voice that I knew lurked somewhere in the jagged landscape, hidden unheard between distorted peaks and hushed valleys. I held the sleek, electronic seashell to my ear, and behind the tempestuous waves I could hear the faint promise of a silent sea of sound, stretching as far as I could ever care to fall.

Too suddenly though, I was pulled from the briny deep before I had found my water wings. Tossed onto the rocks, I held the ocean’s brutally terse rejection message in my hands. No signal.

Trapped in nothing more than passing breaths and fleeting vagueness, with little more than a cotton wool head of winter cold and wistful recollections to my name, I decided that the only option open to me was to surrender to each and every brief moment as it happened, no matter how nonsensical it seemed at first glance (or second blow to the right side of the head). I wrote down almost anything I saw or heard that grabbed my lack of attention - except the all too obvious - simply to fill my fallow mind with disjointed somethings and hopefully carpet the barren landscape with meaningless curves and corners.

My fingers tapped out a frenzied rhythm, singlehandedly attempting to keep up with the electronic voice burbling its observations, obstructions and instructions into my randomly accessed memory. My processor, however, refused to cooperate. My solid state storage lay fragmented and corrupt. Burnt out. Error. Cannot connect. No signal.

Comments: 10

    right now, I know what you mean.

    isabelle | 01.08.08, 23:19

    left at the firt Northern star then straight on until morning.

    miles away | 01.09.08, 00:05

    Have you tried turning it off and on again?

    Jack | 01.09.08, 10:29

    Ask the rotund Gull to move over a bit.

    NAGA | 01.10.08, 00:22

    Isabelle - Sometimes people do know what I mean, yes.

    Miles Away - I always look for the stars, but in this city often all that I get in return is orange streetlight glow.

    Jack - More than that, I even tried reading the instruction manual. It made me shudder.

    NAGA - It gets crowded on this cliff edge, doesn’t it?

    An Unreliable Witness | 01.10.08, 09:14

    The sea is frozen solid. The axe needs sharpening. The one who wields it needs time and rest. His eyelids (ha) droop as the need to sleep intensifies.

    Dawn will break, though, and a warm sun will help melt the ice. And it will all work out, somehow, in the end.

    [Sorry. I had to write this positive err, sentiment from the heart because Jack stole my piss-taking line.]

    Ani | 01.10.08, 11:27

    Your signal has come through loud and clear. Either I am receiving or you have been catching my transmissions. Maybe it’s just the same wavelength, crashing onto different shores.

    2ndhandsoul | 01.10.08, 20:35

    I’m swooning.

    clarissa | 01.12.08, 12:37

    Beautiful! I think you were listening too hard. Message received and understood.

    bipolarworks | 01.13.08, 17:46

    Ani - I am sharpening my axe right now. It is very blunt. [Stoppit, Jack. Don’t say anything.]

    2ndhandsoul - Then again, it could just be the smooth sounds of Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2. Possibly.

    Clarissa - Thank you. Do you require the smelling salts?

    Bipolarworks - I always listen too hard. That is my curse. Or my talent. I can’t decide.

    An Unreliable Witness | 01.15.08, 00:23

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