The oxygen concentrator burps
Out hot air, every eleven seconds.
The house is quiet
Technology's miracle machine,
Internal whirring evidence,
On the job,
Deadly quiet
Life and death suspended
In the machine tick zone
Super-consciousness heightened
Levels of awareness prevail
Given, subconsciously.
Listening for a bell, a cough, a sound
In the hush that precedes doom
Nothing
Hushed internal burping and whirring
Every
9 seconds beep
Click, intake,
Valve release, plop, spurt of air,
Bladder empties, fwoosh,
Repeat,
11 seconds...
A human voice breaks the pattern
Anomaly in the imaginary aural graph -
Spell broken.
Elongated, freakish machine metronome:
Recover!
Outside the front door there's a
different world
So strange to the medical environment.
In the distance children laugh.
The sun shines.
People talk, sing, love, cry
Life passes by, beyond the
Machine tick zone;
And then it's gone.
3 seconds boop, exhale, uptake,
Click whir whine, outflow
9 seconds beep, valve click, release
Bladder fill
Existence,
The Ache.
***
I really posted this as a sort of vehicle to make a couple of comments, since the comments really would not take up enough room to warrant an etire post. I have moved away from casually posting brief statements and snippets over the past few years. Lately I reserve my posts for either meaninful creative works, or at least lengthier pieces of fluff.
I decided to put together a short story compilation, something I have never done before. It's still uch too early for the collection to have a title. The first release from the compilation was "Turning, Touts Pout." The second is called "The Night Watchman and The Huntress." Currently the second story remains unfinished. I did not come up with some sort of arbitrary timeline for its release, but I hate to mention something that is to be released without reeasing it shortly thereafter. So I feel I am running slighlty behind on releasing "Night Watchman." I had a major shoulder injury (yes, again, and it may sound like a broken record, but honestly it is a new and very seriousinjury). It has prevented me from putting the finishing touches on the story.
I feel a comment about that work is in order, and I didn't really want to mar the piece by attaching the comment to the story itself. The first draft of the story had Julian experiencing gender dysphoria at the age of eleven. On paper I could not live with even the idea of even having a character of such a young age in proximity to the subject matter. The fact of the matter is that in real life the experience does at times start at very young ages.
It's important to keep in mind that "Turning, Touts Pout" is not about sexual events or experiences, it's about self perception. I chose to keep the age of the character somewhat older than is realistic (at least as pertains to the facts surrounding the person in real life Julian Spencer is based on). The story is absolutely not meant to be sexually suggestive or lewd in any way. There is one paragraph I can think of that I may edit at some point to further reduce the perception that this story has anything to do with sex. Just to reiterate, one final time, "Turning, Touts Pout" is about how a young boy experiences gender dysphoria; it is absolutely not about homosexuality.
I had a couple of other comments, but I'll have to add them later. Cheers!
***
I really posted this as a sort of vehicle to make a couple of comments, since the comments really would not take up enough room to warrant an etire post. I have moved away from casually posting brief statements and snippets over the past few years. Lately I reserve my posts for either meaninful creative works, or at least lengthier pieces of fluff.
I decided to put together a short story compilation, something I have never done before. It's still uch too early for the collection to have a title. The first release from the compilation was "Turning, Touts Pout." The second is called "The Night Watchman and The Huntress." Currently the second story remains unfinished. I did not come up with some sort of arbitrary timeline for its release, but I hate to mention something that is to be released without reeasing it shortly thereafter. So I feel I am running slighlty behind on releasing "Night Watchman." I had a major shoulder injury (yes, again, and it may sound like a broken record, but honestly it is a new and very seriousinjury). It has prevented me from putting the finishing touches on the story.
I feel a comment about that work is in order, and I didn't really want to mar the piece by attaching the comment to the story itself. The first draft of the story had Julian experiencing gender dysphoria at the age of eleven. On paper I could not live with even the idea of even having a character of such a young age in proximity to the subject matter. The fact of the matter is that in real life the experience does at times start at very young ages.
It's important to keep in mind that "Turning, Touts Pout" is not about sexual events or experiences, it's about self perception. I chose to keep the age of the character somewhat older than is realistic (at least as pertains to the facts surrounding the person in real life Julian Spencer is based on). The story is absolutely not meant to be sexually suggestive or lewd in any way. There is one paragraph I can think of that I may edit at some point to further reduce the perception that this story has anything to do with sex. Just to reiterate, one final time, "Turning, Touts Pout" is about how a young boy experiences gender dysphoria; it is absolutely not about homosexuality.
I had a couple of other comments, but I'll have to add them later. Cheers!
Repent or Die