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Today, I have mind to give you a bit of a tour. You are, after all, currently wandering around in the surreal representation of my mind. To make sure you don't fall through any gaps between one strand of logic to another, here are a few introductions to the head-people/animals/things you may encounter while trudging through the grimy grey meat between my ears.

The largest project I've been tinkering with since before freshmen year is a tangled mess of a story that will, at some point, become a novel. I say 'tangled mess' because I had a great deal of difficulty understanding the main character, his objectives, and his nature. To remedy my flimsy handle on the character, known only as the Hitchhiker, I wrote numerous 'exercises'. Most of these character wreck diving explorations will probably not end up in the finished tale, but the mood and tone are the same. Below is an exert from one of these; it's been unedited for the most part, so please excuse the glaringly obvious symptoms of a first draft.

"The Hitchhiker slept in the gutter for three nights, and on the forth morning of his arrival in the city he leaned over the edge and spat blood into the gritty little run off. It bubbled and foamed all the way past the drain, and once it ran down the city’s throat he stood up. His clothes, layer after layer, felt stiff and thick with sweat and rain water. He bent his arms and with every little movement of every little muscle, his spine and neck crunched like rusty silverware. Beside him lay an old, toothless German shepherd itching at the makeshift bandanna around its neck.

“Mornin’, John.” Said the Hitchhiker while brushing the street sand from his filthy black hair. The small pieces of dirt and stone and glass pattered onto the asphalt.
John kept his head between his paws, but his tail thumped the chipping sidewalk, mimicking the boy’s syllables.

The sky above stretched out in a flat, sightless ocean of ash. No pregnant clouds this time, just a grey haze of apathy and a shroud of cataracts. People dressed in rags walked the streets. If a single man among them wore bright colors untouched by the damp fade or slimy residue of their lives, he was an earthbound God. But the Hitchhiker could see no one among the countless dirty faces who’d rise to meet that. Earthbound Gods, unless they had some form of protection other then pieces of paper and vocal threats, never lived long in the rat holes of these passerby cities. The people would descend upon them in an instant, clawing and screeching, and they’d leave nothing but bloody pulp. They’d even take the hair. The hair of a God fetches a high price. In this place, only the tired and the angry slept."

The smaller, more manageable project that's absorbing my attention is a shorter story about a little boy named Kite who asked his mother a very simple question. Her answer shepherds him into a dark and dangerous world just beyond his backyard. Information on that one will come up shortly.

Do you have your own projects? Artwork? A novel? Poetry? Short stories? Songs? Give us a taste, won't you?

This post's featured artwork, seen below, is by one of my favorites, Andoledius. Click the image for a bigger view.