While You Sleep

For this week’s experimental fiction assignment, we were asked to do a piece on anything we wanted, no restrictions. Based on something I’d seen a while ago, I took a magazine article and morphed it into my own.  This was the result:

Translation:

While You Dream

Psychologists uncovered rain.

Smart Solution

By Any

Your new up is better than awake. Why?

The mind leads down, explains Deirdre Barret, author, “conform rules. Inside the box now.”

Think about the night and the rain, your rain, as you dream vivid words that get yourself to step here.

STEP 1

You climb between the sheets. Say “you are an object, reminds of a photo”. This technique works best when you’re emotionally ahead as you sleep.

STEP 2

Keep your pen so you can take notes. As dreams say “be sure to use body”

STEP 3

Lie in bed and go down. Soon rain becomes flooded.

Last, the rain was turned off, so your actions are successful in the waking world.

Computers Have Feelings Too

Oulipian technique: Computer generation.

The Me Runs Like A Filthy Note

Small, grimy authors buy a noisy cooler

and eat calmly like a dusty parent.

Numbers shrink like old windows

while the car talks like an old slum.

Why does the corner shrink?

Cars run like misty smoke.

Hope is a lively lie.

its light eats while a grimy flower

never fights a window

never loves a street.

When does the Hitchcock stop?

All days catch rain.

Small, dead coolers roughly gnaw a grimy, dead me.

It cracks quickly like a sidewalk.

Why does she stop?

All stories unwind misty negatives.

Accordions talk!

Rums crack!

Doors move like big words.

Drink roughly like a faceless girl

and never unwind a dog.

You should stop the words.

Where is the embroidered rain?

Coolers dance with fast music

the Hitchcock stops like a grimy picture.

Process:

For this experiment I used this particular software. The program generates random sentences by using certain patterns of the writer's choosing. The person then places random nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in separate columns, and the computer processes and arranges the words according to these patterns/constraints that are written down at the bottom. The words I chose for this exercise were primarily taken from past blog posts.

 Although the idea/possibility of computers overtaking the literature/journalistic  world is not my favorite, I do appreciate this technique's more experimental, Oulipian point of view: that it is always possible to create something new. In this case, by deconstructing past works and recombining it in certain patterns, a somewhat existential poem was created. 

For Rent

You start by going inside your head.

  

It’s a very small room. Four walls, a bed, and a desk. The curtains are drawn and the table seems like its seen better days. A thick layer of dust settles on top of it, and as your fingers swipe across its length, little flakes wake in astonishment at having somebody else there. You start making your way to the bed, but someone knocks at the door. 

 

 “Are you the writer?” the man has a patch covering his left eye. His angular face is strained with worry. A small hound sits by his side. 

 

 “I’m the landlord. Did you come to see the room?” the dog starts sniffing at your bare feet. Its presence makes you nervous; you didn’t have something like this in mind. 

 

 A slight movement draws your attention. There are words hanging in the air somewhere to his right, but every time your eyes move in their direction, the words shift and slip to the periphery. The man cracks a smile at your predicament. 

 

 “The words are on the loose,” he says, “you do need to lease this room.” 

You step back and let them inside. The man carries a small compass, and begins to wander around. Trails of words follow him, but you can’t make them out.  

 

 “The more you look, the less you see.” He stops and checks his compass. Then he bends down and crawls under the bed. The dog barks, but it seems to come from far away. A loud noise is heard. Then silence. Now the sound of water begins building up until it comes pouring out of the floor. In this moment, a stream of words comes rushing out in your direction.

 “Stop!!! Stop!!”

 

 The door is kicked open, and three policemen enter the room. They run in while blowing their whistles and dive under the bed. 

 

 “Catch it!!! Now!” the explorer gives you a net, and begins to swipe his in the air. The dog barks and bites at some of the words, changing their meanings as his fangs tear the letters here and there. The words slap you in the face; they cut and slice your flesh. They fly and hop around with no care.

 

 The three policemen try to grab at some of them. The short one tries to use his whistle, while the burly one swings his club around. The third, lanky one, writes his report down.

 

 Three hours later and the room is upside down. The desk has fallen over with the weight of so many abstract words. Beside it, the explorer and his dog lie exhausted on the floor. He grabs the letter “I” and gives it to the dog as a chewing bone.

 “Did you get to catch the story?” the explorer asks. The three policemen sit in a row, as they check for reason within all this smog. You start to smoke.

 “It must have flown past us”, you take a drag and hold it down, then glance around at all the unconscious letters lying around. The explorer checks his compass as the white noise fills your lungs.

 “I’ll take the room”, he says.

 The dog gnaws a shapeless bone.