? March 2007 | Main | May 2007 ?
April 29, 2007
Farts Like Gold: 54 - Logical Shout
I've always wanted to write a book. And now I'm using this blog to force myself to give it a whirl. Every Sunday night I try to post whatever I've managed to write that week. I'm at 43,849 words now with no end in sight and just coming out of a 10 week dry spell.
It's basically a story about men and women that takes place in a treeplanting camp in Northern British Columbia.
It is very much a first draft. Comments and criticism are much appreciated.
If you want to begin at the beginning you should go to Farts Like Gold: 1.
***********************************************************
I filled a plate with pork chops, mashed potatoes carrots, and sat down at an empty table. Tony sat down across from me.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Not bad, I guess. You?"
"Good... good...," he said.
"Did you set the tent up?"
"Yes..." he said. "I should warn you. It's not set up quite the same as it was before."
I shrugged.
"It's really comfortable, though. I had a nap in it this afternoon. That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I had this dream while I was sleeping." Tony leaned forward. His eyes stared directly into mine. "The dream was about us. Well, it was mainly about terrapins, but it was also about us."
"Terrapins?"
"You know... Turtles." He craned his neck and made little flipper motions with his hands. "In the dream I was looking at a big aquarium, a big wall-sized aquarium like in a zoo or something, but it wasn't in a zoo. At this point I didn't realise where it was. Anyway, there were terrapins in the aquarium - three of them. One of them had strange dreadlocky seaweed trailing from its shell, kind of like someone had glued a bunch of flexible inch-thick pipe-cleaners to its back. Another was some kind of weird oblongy terrapin. It was definitely a terrapin, made out of raw organic terrapin material and it was terrapin coloured and everything, but it also looked a lot like a squid without tentacles - just the head part of the squid, except it was a terrapin. You follow?"
"I guess so."
"The third terrapin was just your normal standard issue terrapin. Anyway, they were all duking it out in the tank. It was this big terrapin battle of biblical proportions. You may think terrapins are slow but you have to remember that, fundamentally, they are creatures of the sea. When they are immersed in their element there is no beast more graceful, cunning, or daring. And the aquarium was filled with much terrapin darting and twirling and balletic writhing. And there were also all these beautiful, brightly coloured fish in the tank. They weren't doing much. They mostly just hung in the water in small schools trying to stay out of the way of this massive battle of the terrapins.
"As I watched, the dream camera zoomed back to show that the aquarium was in a small nightclub. You know, the kind with those little round two person tables. There were people sitting at the tables, but I couldn't make out their faces. Both the people and the tables were silhouetted against the brightly lit aquarium. The people were watching the terrapins battle it out. Slowly, the entire tableaux resolved itself into a static image. It all became flat and glossy and the silhouettes of the people became more clearly defined. I suddenly realised the two people in the centre of the picture were you and me. And then I realised I was looking at an album cover with the words 'Logical Shout' at the top and 'Battle of the Terrapins' just below it."
Tony watched me carefully for my reaction. "Do you know what this means?"
I stabbed a carrot with my fork and put it in my mouth. "No idea," I said.
Tony held both his arms over his head. "The two of us -- we are Logical Shout! That's what the dream meant! We are destined to form a band called 'Logical Shout' and release an album called 'Battle of the Terrapins'! It is our destiny."
I shook my head. "Dude. It's your destiny to be rock god. Not mine. My destiny is to get out of this camp and drink until I either forget about Lucy or throw up. Beyond that, my fate is a little fuzzy."
"No, no, no," said Tony. "We're a team, the two of us. We're a duo. Don't you remember how we played together? We were a hit! We were better than Simon and Garfunkel! Do you honestly think they could have rocked out to the Lemon Song as well as we did?"
"Simon and Garfunkel?"
"Never mind. Listen, 'Logical Shout' - it's brilliant!" He was nodding frantically now and his arms kept shooting straight above his head, seemingly at random. "One little nap and I've been inspired with a band name and an album title. We should spend a couple of weeks here. You can make us enough money to fund a demo and I'll write an album's worth of songs. Can you imagine the bass solo for something called 'Battle of the Terrapins'? It will throb into your body through your knee joints and suck the juices from your heart."
"Tony, man, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I'm not staying in camp. I'm leaving as soon as I possibly can. I'm not comfortable here. Even if I did stay, I'm not in any shape to make anybody any money. In case I haven't mentioned it before, my hand is broken." I held it up. "And, anyway, why am I the one making the money?"
Tony dropped his arms to the table. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your hand is broken. Your heart is broken. So what. Fix one and you fix the other. What did you do all day today? Alistair saw you chopping up trees and pounding posts into the ground. Your hand didn't stop you from doing that, did it? And the reason you'd be the one making the money here is because this is your world. Just like the circus world is Alvin's world. And my world is the world of creativity - the world of song and spirit and genius."
"Well in my world, there are no pork chops left." I showed him my empty plate. "I'm going to try to find out what's going on tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your dinner." I stood up and took my plate over to the guys doing dishes.
Posted by YandaMan at 10:37 PM | Comments (3)
April 22, 2007
Farts Like Gold: 53 - Watching the river
Virginia had tracked down Steve, the owner of the company who was in a hotel room in High Level. He and Brendan and Joe were working on a plan to get the trees into camp tomorrow. It sounded like there were basically two options - using a helicopter, which would be easy but be expensive; and using a boat which would be much more difficult, more dangerous, but probably a bit cheaper. My money was on the boat.
I wasn't doing anything useful in camp and I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone so I walked down to the river and sat on the remains of the bridge. I spent most of the day there. A lot of the time I just watched the river to see if it looked like it was going to dry up any time soon. It didn't, so I started to think about the best spots to dock a boat on either side of the river so we could get trees across it. After a while, as word spread around the camp, groups of people started showing up at the river to see the damage for themselves. I avoided them as much as possible.
Around about noon I walked back to camp. Everyone had heard about the bridge by then but it didn't seem to bother them. They all looked relaxed and happy - pleased have a day off and a bit of excitement to talk about. I made myself a couple of sandwiches and ate them standing up by the lunch table.
I borrowed a shovel and a polaski -- which is a fire fighting tool with an axe on one end -- and went back down to the river. I spent the afternoon building a docking area for the boat. I flattened down a path from the road to just downstream of the remains of the bridge. I chopped some branches and logs and laid them down to make a firm platform on the bank. I cleaned up as much of the loose debris from the bridge as I could and pounded a couple posts on either side of my docking area to tie the boat to.
I couldn't be sure it would ever be used but it was something to keep my mind occupied. I finished up around dinner time and headed back to camp.
Posted by YandaMan at 11:34 PM