16
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I saw the watch in my dreams.
It was on that little glib walking past when I was out in that grotto where the river goes through the giant boulder mountain. I imagined the shine deep in the cavern I entered… echoing clicks, evidence of stops and starts. I imagined going deeper inside, sensing a light following from the back sides of my ears, tickling with enough sense to be more than just light, and turning and looking and seeing the small jaggedly drawn hole of white that was the entrance, eclipsing the shadow of you now in front of me being eclipsed by the rhythmic flash of your watch, occasionally revealing to me some water glisten and some of you.
I thought to eat your beads of sweat like the water glisten, but I started to unwrap your watch while looking straight into you and then you put the watch in my mouth and it felt like smooth plastic but morphed into something much less stiff when I began to chew on it. More like rubber now. I had only heard of rubber, never seen or felt it. But my brain told me in the moment, “rubber”.
17
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scroll.......
18
For that one we just ended up slicing up the sounds of a newer clothes shell drone, I forget the name of the company that makes them and it's impossible to find ones that aren't updated seeing as they inflict complete hell-on-earth poverty into your soul slowly each time you decide not to update it. It's like they keep finding more holes to fill but can't have anyone knowing any other version existed although we all know that's how it works. But I guess if you're a company, your reality can just be the reality if you have the money or whatever to make it so.
So we chopped it up and layered some slight machinery sounds of parts that overlap w the clothes shell drone so that the recording sounded like an older, slow to process, jittery yet determined one.
You sort of sculpt little zits into the audio, and then inject your little flavor into the almost poppable bubble right at the point. That's how you know it'll really go smoothly, and sound more natural. Otherwise it's choppy. The cheaper ones are done with less care, so they can get a little choppy. But even if you need choppy, it's no good.
19
I was sent to take some recordings to add to the bank. We already have millions of recordings between the group of us at work, and every employee that has ever worked there, but we had some requests that were very specific. So I went. I had seen this place before, as I think it used to be where TSN tours would begin. Maybe they still do, but I haven't had the time to take one in years and I feel like they only use certain entrances for so long until they have to rotate to a new one, so I'm pretty sure it's not in use anymore.
20
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“The Nausea sets in whenever the suits aren't working or are too old, and that's how we know to replace them. It can be… say… uncomfortable-ish! But it's very minimal in comparison to the caliber of uncomfortable we had to deal with before utilizing the Systems!”
I must have rolled my eyes on waking to that kind of a statement.
“How exactly do you measure that?”
The tour guide blinked. “Measure what?”
“Uncomfortable-ish-ness. Who did you ask? Was there a world survey? Because I've never heard of anyone being asked at their home for an official opinion. Y’know. For there to be records of uncomfortable-ish-ness for you to compare.”
“I'm sorry! What can I do to make you feel more comfortable?”
“That's not what I said”
They felt a wind on everyone's face. The wellings came up in their lungs and the stars appeared to be laughing. Not in the cartoon way. Just in the way that they intuitively felt that if these were stars they were seeing and they were real, they would be laughing. Gawking at the contempt… the attempt to address it. It was unwarranted and who even cared. You were a performer, but there was no pay for this one. A side street wingman.. to.. err… yourself. Or your head.
21
The dopplets walked in and out. Shit was shipped. What more is there to say?
22
I'll fucking tell you. Work is a life. Life is how many works you've lived. Its in the loops of your tiny gummies in your body very small. They sit there, tiny, whispering ‘work work work work work work’ and then what are you even doing
23
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On break I smoke by the nearby body of water. I can't tell what kind it is, I just know in roughly the same location, water floats and laps and I walk to it and it's my spot and I don't usually take in the sight of it. It just marks where I want to be, far enough and different enough from work that's it's not work… and that's good enough for me.
I work at the tower field. Watts Tower Field. Drinking water gets stored and protected here. It never really gets used for anything, and sometimes I think it's just here so rich ppl don't have to worry much about their drinking water future. People come in and do things to the towers that I don't really pay attention to or try to understand. It's not my job to. And it's not their job to do my job. So I don't care. If I'm around when they are I help them climb but otherwise we don't interact. They make me kind of nervous.
24
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(a spell)
Meteriorial
Swourial
Light at the tip of your tongue like a sugar crystal melting
San swuvially, and sparkling meats
Cut to perfection.
25
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A red ball was floating in liquid, the liquid was glowing blue, the waves became tentacles that became smoke pouring from a mouth, pouring like it was water…
26
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I had to leave a letter of apology in their box just for face’s sake. Although we’ve got disconnected higher ups there's not much in between us since we do a good job and are pretty self-directed. It's also cheaper for them that way. But we have to keep up a good satisfaction rate and like when you have to go to redirection classes after doing something that's illegal that shouldn't really be illegal to wipe your Illegal History clean so you can get rehired into something that isn't working with the TSN, we gotta wipe all the negatives clear to stay afloat.
The location sent me to some alleyway. Walking up to the mouth of this trash corner made me start to think this was some prank. I walked into it out of curiosity. My forehead suddenly felt like it was being dragged down and being turned, fixating on the feeling of something I guess I had passed, pulsating a thought so forceful I felt that I was suddenly overwhelmingly high, unable to move normally, folding under gravity.
A brown bag, made from thinly veiled wood cut finery with a ketchup number 9 swabbed on it, looked at me. It didn't look at me with eyes but it made me connect with it in a way that I can only describe as it looking at me.
desktop: hover over different parts of the image to see what you can click
mobile: click HERE to play (doesn't work well on this page)
27
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I’m watching someone bleeding out on the pavement. I see their employee name tag off to the side.
“Hey 000… hey, 000…”
