Brokehead
On the utter immutability of the reverse-negative creative act
Animating spirits: TMK | PKD | RAW
I’ve mentioned previously the UAP/UFO novel I’m working on. It’s the most difficult fiction project I’ve attempted. I’m drafting a post that explains why, but even that is extremely hard to formulate.
I’ve been an on-again-off-again researcher of UFOlogy for 30 years. The forthcoming post will explore how I became involved and point to previous (non-fiction) work I’ve done on the topic. It’s an excruciating field. Whenever I think I’ve grasped an angle, it vanishes under scrutiny: external pressure, self-censorship, whatever.
For now, I’m posting ‘Brokehead’, a fragment of the novel. It’s possibly the bones of the novel’s opening chapter or the seed of a completely different project. The novel follows the Terrence McKenna/Philip K. Dick /Robert Anton Wilson approach to UFOlogy (i.e. the phenomenon is connected to consciousness). I think it should be constructed like a hologram (if I can summon the skill).
I won’t explain the plot for now. We’re going in cold.
Brokehead (a fragment of a novel)
The young man was an edge case, a genetic anomaly submerged in brainsick dreams. Huddled in his mental cave, he saw a glistening pool an arm’s length away. The liquid throbbed, generating heat, then erupted, splashing him with sodium tears. The air brightened. He saw it was an eye, not a puddle, an orb sprung from an outsized skull. He searched for the second eye but found only a gored hollow, a crater forged from a neurological meteor strike. Circular scars marred the head, which rested upon a diminutive body. He supposed the parts comprised a child, its age and gender unknown.
The creature’s every movement bisected dimensions. A headshake collapsed the thin neck. A shrug of diaphanous shoulders disintegrated bony blades like the molecules of a moth disturbed in flight.
‘Welcome to the Star Family,’ the child said, slicing its hands through the air. The appendages were covered with squirming black hair, a nest of vipers. ‘You’ve been absent, but through this technology we’ve found you again.’
‘This isn’t a serious place.’
‘No? Scientists could study you, examine near-death without risking murder.’
‘That a joke?’
‘Yes. Are you talking to yourself? You think that.’
‘Being trolled by interdimensional aliens must be the dumbest way to die.’
‘We can be serious if you like. We can go dark. Deep down, you know what this is.’
‘N,N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is a serotonergic endogenous psychedelic substance that can shift the planes of conscious reality.’
‘A portal, mate. That’s what it is.’
‘I’m a white Brazilian.’
‘No.’
‘A black Romanian.’
‘Idiot.’
‘A German Scot.’
‘Shut up and look behind.’
The young man turned, spotting dim stairs in the void. A gang of clowns ascended, generating visible electrical static. The thick white noise became variegated wigs, puffy pink sleeves, bulbous red noses. Arms moved independently of legs, a sentient geometry under synchronous control.
Closer, he saw their true nature, mechanical entities built from metal plates in circus hues. ‘Your toys?’
The plates morphed at speed, creating fleeting combinations. Rivets and screws were barely visible, too fine for coherent shapes.
‘You can play with them.’
‘How? Lattices for bodies, boxes for heads. The torso is a Möbius strip, the ears mathematical symbols.’
Behind the child, a white glow. The young man saw an orb inside a cube, a power pack for the odd creature.
‘We can take you deeper,’ the child said. ‘Just say the word.’ The glow intensified, revealing new detail. The creature wore a hood, its face blackened beneath.
‘My DNA is strange,’ the young man said.
‘You can say that again.’
Spinning, hovering cubes appeared, a lattice of light. From each, the young man’s voice emerged and overlapped, a generative sonic puzzle.
‘My DNA is strange.’
‘DNA is my strange.’
‘My strange DNA is.’
The lattice was digital, a string of symbols. It was wooden, a hanging frame for plants.
‘Both and more,’ the child said. ‘Touch it and see.’
‘Stop. I want no dark place, no light. Release me.’
The child yawned and flapped a hand. The young man fell into the eye, sailing through layers, past the sclera and cornea, beyond the iris and choroid. He crashed onto the retina, a soft, billowing pad of nervous tissue.
He woke on his bunk bed at Torvik Orm airfield, swathed in a doona. Other trainee pilots littered the dormitory, sprawled in groaning, sweaty heaps. Demonic stenches crazed the air. Spirit smoke, synth food, piss.
‘Welcome back,’ said Brokehead, a new recruit. He reeked of the spirit molecule. He wore only underpants, his torso covered in bloody welts. A cannula hung from his hand. ‘You look like cheap hell. Where’d you go?’
‘Home. But I lost the key.’
To be continued.
