Wrote you a love letter
Then tore it up to bits
Took the shredded pieces
Threw them in a pit
Setting it on fire
Watched the passion glow
Each piece flared from another
The flames of nevermore
Wrote you a love letter
Knew I would not send
Wrote you a love letter
Sealed it with my blood
Stood there with the ashes
As they crumbled away
The wind sent some flying
Forever out of reach
The seasons took the rest
Let it slip away
Walked away in silence
Left behind a stain
Wrote you a love letter
Knew I would not send
Wrote you a love letter
Words etched in my head
Wrote you love, and
Sealed it with my blood
Woman meets Woman. Women split. Misdeeds and transmogrifications happen. Women become one. ℵ2+. Time is a douche. Love rules. The end.
What was this all about, Stu?
In the end, Love. You may argue this, but for me it was about Love. There are many interpretations of Love the emotion and Love the word. Then there is a sliding scale for every iteration. Love astray. Love together. Love.
Add Love with: Existentialism + Nihilism + Greek Mythology + Block Universe Theory + Quote: “Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away.” by Kurt Vonnegut + Quote: “Time is an illusion” by Albert Einstein + Time Conceptualization & its relation to what we’ve been experiencing in the last year plus + the quotes I used, all picked out before I began the challenge + Philosophy + Physics + Math + Assorted Doodads =Liquid Time.
No animals were harmed during the writing of Liquid Times. No drugs were a part in its evolution.
My experience(s) with Liquid Time
I put in a shit-load of research, playing around with (and still hating) the formatting of the “new” WordPress Block Editor. And, of course, writing the darn thing. I gave myself many stress headache moments, simply because I am a Pantster and write my A to Z post ON THE DAY as the letters roll by. I usually have Story Beats/Story Spine floating somewhere in my mind, but as the characters & plotting develops, I may end up in a whole different direction. 2019s A Car In the Woods (Science Fiction/Horror/Thriller, 27 posts) is a prime example of that. I originally planned 26 separate flash fiction pieces on the theme. By D, I dropped that idea as it became a larger whole story.
So it goes.
Liquid Time was unlike any other of my A to Z’s in that I had NO CLUE what to do with it. Time has been on my mind for a long while. That was the starting point, and my meandering tangent mind went where it went. I also knew that this needed a very different approach in how I tackled the subject(s). Plus, I needed to really challenge myself in writing style(s); I started to feel I was getting in a semi-rut. As I was discovering the story along the way, I pushed myself even harder.
Tales of Tale Spinning will bring you to a listing of my previous A to Z worlds. You’ll get what I mean.
As to the overall mechanics of Liquid Time:
The color blocking (or with specific words/concepts) are all related to the normally accepted meanings of those colors. Slight variations occurred as needed: Red could be anger or danger. The context around it drove the interpretation. The colors themselves will most likely need to be excised if this is to be taken further. I am thinking on what to change and how.
I choose to work with the line verifications (left-middle-right) with a variety of thoughts: POV change, dialogue without the “she said/he said” designations of who was speaking, change in the style (prose vs pinprick, almost bullet-like, actions/thoughts), free-form poetics, and one or three other things. You might realize that I do not like conjunctive words and did my best to minimize their use.
The formatting on this drove me crazy. The Block Editor of WordPress (great horror story title) that I hate with a passion. The inability to highlight one word or idea without the entire block changing really threw me for a frustrated loop. Same with adding color to one word/name. Couldn’t do it as a whole.
A lot of my “choppy” lines were forced on me due to this not being really user friendly. Probably the only positive out of this whole formatting mishigas.
As to the rest: I know that Liquid Time was challenging to read. I did my best to reincorporate things I threw down. The big one I never came back to was the Snow/Ice demoness from the first of Janaculum. If I DO return to LT, she will definitely play a bit of a larger role, in a way. Does the letter K connect anything for you?
Also, If you’ve read my previous work, you should know I’m not a big fan of spelling everything out. I enjoy books where I have to dig to get it or let my interpretation be and move on. Cloud Atlas, Ulysses, and other books anyone?
I saw by stats that I had a decent readership with a larger reach than last year. Yet, I had a HUGE drop in comments after the first five posts. I know I blew it on my blog hopping and I plan to rectify it. Liquid Time was too much, at Times. Pun intended. So, pretty disappointing, but as Lou Reed sang at the end of Perfect Day: “You’re going to reap just what you sow.”
Bottom Line: will I be back for next year’s A to Z? I plan to, but who the heck knows what the frig I will be up to in 2022. So, most likely yes. Maybe. Probably. We’ll see.
Time will tell.
What’s A to Z April Blogging Challenge Got To Do With This?
Created in 2009 by Arlee Bird, the A to Z Blogging Challenge has united hundreds (thousands?) of Bloggers throughout the Blogaverse. If you blog, you can join & post 26 times during the month of April, beginning on April 1st and ending on April 30th. Sundays “off” for good behavior. I’ve been involved with the challenge since 2011, not participating a few times. I’ve been introduced to many bloggers whom I may never have come across without the A to Z; many I can now call friends. There are too many to link to at the moment. Look at the commenters from April 1st forward on Tale Spinning. That’ll be a good start.
Arlee has had a semi-rotating team of amazing talent surrounding the event(s) and the site(s). They all need a big hand of applause. This year, his co-host team has been: J Lenni Dorner, Zalka Csenge Virág , John Holton, Jayden R Vincente , and Jeremy Hawkins . Please click on their names to visit their blogs. To find the other bloggers who participated:
I am most likely moving Tale Spinning to Blogger by the end of May. I’m in the setting up phase, doing my best so it looks and acts like I’d like it to. Tale Spinning Redux. I’ll announce when the time is right to end my time with WordPress and go back to Blogger. Gotta figure how to link up all of my work here to a new hosting site. Not today. Headache arose just writing that.
(ZV) adjusted the continuum of time by integrating spatial dimensions with the astral and ethereal planes. The system, in entirety, becomes changeless through the dramatic metamorphic change. There is no progression of time. Everything is Timeless. Khronos is frozen in Time. (ZV) is stuck, not frozen.
This is not a chance happening, an accident, kismet. (ZV) has gained: this has been a plan. The thought of it being of divine design is not sufficient. It had earthly intention meaning that is meaningless for them. They gave it credit as a thought experiment, dismissed it, letting it fade away. Stuck, they demanded accountability.
Their thinking of convergence began when Zehara, in her mind, liberated Valentina; Valentina held onto the concept of abduction. It had not begun at that point. In this static dimension of all reality, the realization of their connection(s) expanded. Without limits, for they now understood that Limit was another bespoke label. It was a coping strategy employed by all sentiments at whatever level of being the concept of Limit was conceived.
The Infinite. A label, yet one that was the existence. (ZV)’s paradigm of being changes.
If Time is unchanging, if it just Is, then what becomes of Time? Z crows that Time is dead. V reputes that; even if the progression of time stops here, now, it still remains in what came before. The push/pull of their separate hypothesis is contained; thought transcends, but they don’t question it.
Until they do. Why/how is there a movement in the thought process as they are incorporeal? How is Khronos? Z thinks of circles. V envisions infinity. Symbols are meaningless.
Time is meaningless?
Khronos fragments.
V supposes that Time is illogical if it does not fit the restricted theorem. If there is no end, no beginning, Time is then infinite, and with Infinity there is no need for time. K’s circle is a closed unit. It, too, deletes the thought of beginnings and ends. If the circle is pure, uniform, unbroken, it can stop or start. Anywhere. It doesn’t need time to consume itself.
The fragments of Time do not fit. Time has not been linear nor circular. Khronos imposed junctures and splits, uncircular paths, a transmogrification of the superlunary powers fundamental to Time’s being time.
“Time is a feature of creation, and the creator remains apart from it, transcendent over it.” ~ ~ James Gleick
EVERYWHEN
♁Ananke
Is witness to all beginnings; to all ends.
The End of All Things rips apart the progenitor with every erasure.
Erasures are Endless.
Endless.
There is nothing to measure.
It is or it is not.
Everything Is.
(☿+♀+☾+♂+♃+♄+♅+♆+♇+☼)+∞³⋝ω
Khronos is a part of the process, as is
Ananke
They were
♁ ⋝ t (⨍⨳⊎∞) =⨿
Khronos upset the balance
The Screams Must Stop
JANICULUM
(ZV) feels the sacred knife from their temple slice into the ethereal-corporal sync they have manifested. They feel a rift, a change, yet pain is of the past, not the present. What comes can not be seen from here. They have been severed from an aspect of themselves that has left the feeling of <.
Only for that time of piercing
A great severing occurred.
They experience the force within them ascend to a higher intensity
What was a standstill finds Khronos waver
Wavered
Khronos meets level meeting level
Balance happens
Khronos identifies the truth
(ZV) shares the truth
Awareness that the blade Ἀστερία bore sliced through the other
“Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.” ~ ~ Mahatma Gandhi
elsEwhen(s)
∃∀
E = GHA (apparent Sun) – GHA (mean Sun)
Entropy exists for all in Time
Khronos encompasses Entropy
Decay, destruction, non-existence
Khronos is the medium
Neither
Striving for or against
yet
All life ends
The stars go Nova
Galaxies are consumed
Universes burn
Dimensions fragment,
Reduced to the dust of the dust
In perpetuity
Obliterations
Happens
(ZV), the Goddess
Blocking the passage of Time
Time works against (ZV)
Ἀστερία fell
The sacred knife
Smeared with her blood
With outstretched arms
In determination to end the madness
A tool in another's hands
She screams the primal scream
Of the universal trauma
Of creation
The blade plunges into
The ooze that has bound
Khronos with (ZV)
As she is torn asunder
Her scream continuesBringing
“Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment. That is what’s real.” ~ ~ Sara Paddison
JANICULUM
The Oracle of the Peak leaps from the outcrop
The sacred knife is raised
Blood smeared from tip to hilt
The Oracle’s descends at the rate of 10-21 seconds, a trillionth of a billionth of a second.
She becomes her own variables, phasing through every who she is/was/might be
Her scream is infinite
At a standstill, the god and the goddess
Clash for control over the other
Seek non-existence for the other
Fight for what is theirs
He was right; they were wrong
They were right; he was wrong
Time hangs in a balance
The scale does not tip
Still, The Oracle of the Peak falls
As she prophesized in dreams
In her dealings with the dead
Seeing the future
Living all of her linear pasts
Breathing through all of her linear moments
Seeing nothing nothing nothing
Of what’s to come of her
She falls, with the sacred knife now in both hands
She screams, with the sacred knife now thrust forward
Ἀστερία
The Oracle of the Peak’s name
Ἀστερία falls, and as she does
The sacred knife plunges into
Prebioticorganic synthesis ooze
Ἀστερία’s screeches fades…
THIS IS NOT
LAB
FLOAT POD
CONNECT
A touch of a thought
Breaks the seal of the trap
The shrieks, set free,
CoalesceThe particles bond
A form arises
Changes pitch and tone
A Goddess, intervenes
They have somewhen to be
“Time is a construction of our consciousness.” ~ ~ Maria Popova
LAB
FLOAT POD CONNEC
O, the delicate keeningBehind the trap of lined lead
Disintegrates unscheduled times
Goddess driven
Pain of particles peeled
Flung
To reform
A new scream
A new scream
A Goddess
Intervenes
(zv) runs hides strikes falters dies repels repulses defeats rejects dies allows checks subjugates overthrows disintegrates rises liberates dies fights dies overcomes dies resists dies resists dies resists resists resists resists
Janiculum
Collision at Janiculum lasts a triennium at a stretch, only to repeat. The god of Time confronts the Time Thief-Violator. Named for elimination, named to never exist. Janiculum, newly reformed, crumbles into broken stone and dust. (ZV) retaliates dividing Time’s ceaseless attacks into fractional fragments, searching for the moments the power is hers for the taking. Nothing lasts while everything continues.
Their confrontation falls into synchronicity across all that falls under Time’s sway. Galaxies perish. Time lines are erased. Different paths begin.
The three plunge to the “end” of Time. To the “beginning” of Time.
There aren’t any boundaries
Space exists. Time is. Necessity is.
The measurement of Time is a construct
Janiculum, a recurrence
The god and the goddess
At a standstill
The Oracle of the Peak has lived and died upon the rocky outcrop
Always remembering
Immobilized, bearing witness
‘now’ compels her mind
The Oracle’s body responds
She draws out the sacred knifefrom the Temple of Alcyeyx
(ZV) crunched, borrowed, were on, lost in, and held Time on/in/between their hands.
They shattered the barriers of Time
Which mended itself, begin anew, restored the orderliness of Time
Only to be reduced to states of constant flux
To begin again
Yet
The disruptions of Time were judged as provocations of the rule of Time
Khronos noticed
Khronos was all the time Time needed.
Khronos was the cosmogony with Ananke
Consort, Equal, Progenitor
Creating the seeds of the universes
Overseen by Time
A roiling blast of primal anger fell
At every interference of Time
Which spanned all beginnings, all ends
via (ZV)
Who did not/will not/won’t back down
At any Time
(ZV) was expansive
For every fall, obliteration, discarnate state of nothing
(ZV) held
Reincarnated, reborn
The ultimate Samsara
The realization of this
Was/is/will be
Spontaneous
Time stood/stands/will become
Still
Just joining in? This is the final Arc/Act/Part of LIQUID TIME, a tale told in 26 posts. Maybe one or two more. Click the link above to take you back to April 1st, 2021, the first “official” posting for the A to Z Blogging Challenge.
“An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length.” Virginia Woolf
JANICULUM
The Oracle of the Peak lay prone on the rocky outcrop. Her eyes feasted on the return of the Goddess, Alcyeyx. She noticed the division of the one, eyebrows raised but quickly pulled back, an involuntary shrug eased almost made her chuckle. To her, the contexts of the different body’s alignments, posturing, tones, placements, drew one correlation. This was an entity in complete and utter thrall to itself, no matter the form(s) it took.
Prophecy brought her to the ruins of Janiculum. This Oracle, the great-great granddaughter of she who fled The Ice Leveling, gathered the herbs she’d need, the homemade tools of her wooden pestle and bowl, and “borrowed” the sacred knife from the Temple of Alcyeyx. It was a trek that took its toll on her twenty-six ans. Hunger was continuously nibbling away at her resolve. Fasting before she left was not ideal. The Priestess had pleaded with her to stay. The Oracle would not heed any deterring words.
The quarreling below limped to an end as night began its saturation of the sky and land. She prayed herself to sleep, hearing sounds far different than the bellowing of the day. It was a lull as the Goddess lay calm in her mind. The Oracle slept through the remaking of Janiculum. Alcyeyx turned back the ruins piece by stone, tile by oiled skins, foundations secure, thick and sturdy Oak. The Gates of Prógramma Spoudón stood golden and tall. The dawn light showered the gates, which spread its diffused luster over the reborn city.
Janiculum was as it was, as it always should be. Z and V left the vaulted walls of the city hand in hand. Breathing in the air they did not need, they nestled down on to of the freshly misted grass. Their love making woke The Oracle, who had been paralyzed atop the mountain hand. Her mind had been screaming over and again to find true waking, but she was caught on the tines of fear.
The Oracle of the Peak needed the liquid tincture of ashwagandha. Her shaking subsided as her teeth stopped its grinding. She spat out diluted blood from the lacerations of the night terror. It took a short while for The Oracle’s breathing to relax and her head to stop twirling. Rising, Her eyes first went to the Goddess, but a strong reflected sun beam drew all of her attention. Dropping to her knees, scrapping flesh on the harsh rock surface, The Oracle was transfixed by the reality of Janiculum restored.
A roiling blast of primal anger fell. The Oracle almost tumbled off the outcrop. She wished she had. Yet, she knew it was not her fate in the balance. She screamed for the Goddess, she screamed for the city, she screamed as the Peak shed tears of rocks.
“Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.” ~ ~ Rose Kennedy
(ZV) withered
(Compositions + Substance) Bond
Broke
A rupture
Null unit { }
Z
V
Unjoined
The moment slipped out of their control
elsEwhen Z
anger anguish escalate/s/d to nth level extremes bringing a mind blankness overruled by the raging mixture of emotions Z had no awareness of the deaths the sundering caused in Z’s wake diseases transferred at rates unimaginable when all Z was brought to islands of quiet of peace of centering only to be jaunted into the swirls of destructive force to return to peace to seek out violence to destroy to quiet to all things detrimental all until Z challenged Khronos who slapped Z down rejected rejected snubbed erased until
elsEwhen V
V filtered through equations, all equations
Dispelling the soul freezing zemblanity
That washed over and through V
To return to equations, formulas,
Routine
While suffering this travesty of moments
That soothed, touched, cherished, ached
That itched, burned, chilled, ached
In a melody of high bliss
Counterbalanced by exquisite agony
An emotional/pragmatic overload
Where it all led to Khronos
Who had no sense of V
Draining V
until
Tale Spinning 