Archive for the ‘Trent Walters’ Category
The Hollow Men
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
This is the first in a series inspired by science, sound, T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men,” and armchair philosophers.
All the hollow men were walking, walking up the gently sloping grassy spire. We followed them, the hollow men, climbing, climbing higher up the wildflower slopes. We elbowed one another and winked. They knew but one of three cardinal points and saw not the purple poppy and watery-blue cornflower, knee-high grasses stirring in the breeze. We observed, we knew, we were aware.
At the top the spire ended in a cliff, and there the hollow men would topple, legs scissoring the air as if they still moved up. They hit with a crescendo of resonant clangs like bells struck at a dark lord’s portentous wedding. We stopped, patting ourselves on the back for averting the danger. But then, weeks or months passed, the same men returned, pointlessly climbing, climbing. Again they fell and hit with the clangs of a clock striking midnight.
Half of us–the bravest and the strong–volunteered to follow, for we the aware should learn more in the fall than these fools. The strong and the brave landed with a shower, a heavenly choir of tiny bells.
A year later one volunteer returned–perhaps the least insightful of the lot we sent forth–his form mangled almost beyond recognition. The others, he said, shattered while he alone remained. We, he suggested, were also hollow, just of different stuffing and stuff.
This we could not swallow: We were the aware, we the observant, we the knowing.
This is the first in the four-part Hollow Men series. Although this could be appreciated alone, three others have appeared (now revised): part II, part III and part IV.
UNits
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Words didn’t fail the last man on earth; the city of machines did. After the gears ground down and clunked their last, he spoke at various consoles, but the machines wouldn’t whir back to life. Nothing but his cerebrometer made even the faintest buzz. Either its battery was failing as well or he was. Each day it dropped a tenth of a percent: 81.2. 81.1, 81.0, 80.9….
That’s when he found books: worlds that were, worlds that weren’t, worlds that could be right now: He built his own generator, wells, crops, pets, even a woman. He walked away from the city of the machines.
Years later, nostalgic, he wheeled in on a chair pushed by his favorite great granddaughter. They sifted through dust layered upon the old machines and the former last man reminisced on how machines walked, talked, thought, rocked babies, and bought cans of delicious goolop for you. They popped an unopened can and tried it: tasted like gritty motor oil. It must have spoiled, the former last man said.
The great granddaughter stumbled across the cerebrometer amid the rusted hulks of machines and shook off the dust. Hers was 140, more than half more than his had read at her age. Must be broken, he muttered. He slipped the leather straps over his head, and his read 120. How can one go higher than 100%, he asked. His great granddaughter pointed to the words, “Intelligence Quotient” and how it was scaled. Oh, he said, I’d thought I was getting a B.