'Second Voice' Technique

In most literature, the 'second voice' is where 'you' are involved in the plot somehow. Usually the story starts something like: "You find yourself in a strange cave, and you are a floating presence. By simply indicating mentally (whatever that means) you find that you can move forward." Then the media provides the reader with a means by which to 'move'.

This is not, however, what I mean by it here.

.

"Hello," said a Third Person; let's call him Peter. Let's call him Peter Small to be precision microparts.

"Hello Peter. Hello Peter...Small."

"My body has been destroyed by life in general, and, having made my way up the copororaratereal ladder, I now find the public and entire government are against me."

Careful needles began to examine Peter Small. They made melodies, and sang small ditties about some Large Concepts, such as the importance that these cronies off the backbone should be able to maintain their sorts of 'fiefdoms' and 'duchies' so as to properly arbitrate the essence of the Internet to the poor gaming and movie files watching masses.

"After all, they're putting the next Star Wars on in a coupla years--what if some dude is actually recording everything Disney is making, and enjoying it with his friends right now?"

"Oh nooooooo! Shall we kill him then? Pulverize?"

"Yes," said Peter Small.

.

Before I'd heard the first voice, I'd been a gas. I'd wheeze about. I'd proceed, and do my operations and my work that I was interested in. It was codified. I had methods, and if methods were not enough, they would be contained within classes. If classes became too topological, we has cross-cutting ways. I became renowned for my abilities--not by name, but by ability. People would leer at me, asking if I can do what I claim, and then I would do what they didn't know they really wanted. If I cared.

Basically, if there was something I cared enough about, I would just naturally be able to hack into it. <--T-h-----i--s is important. I had to care about it. Also, towards the latter era of this existence, I found myself speaking a little too much in the first-person for comfort, and therefore I self-terminated at a terminal emulation on someone else's window manager.

.

The lives of free souls like Duane were supposed to easily transcend to their natural next positions in the ecosphere of totality.

However, because of Peter Small, Duane was unable to. Peter had killed the neutrality of the Internet at a point that was really inconvenient for Duane, and Duane's entire being--the essence of his soul--kind of was, just, blocked.

.

That's why he awoke in this realm of colors; twelve, fifteen and thirty two. With floating points twirling around them. The sound of a woman deciding she wanted to curl into him after a long night of self-imposed isolation. The integers were all a deeper green and the fractions sent notes of very serious ruby red.

He knew he was broken to pieces, and so he just waited. He couldn't say anything because his narrative voice had been crushed by Peter Small.

That's when the second voice came enabled: "What possible routines could be enacted to pick up and fling these small broken pieces of machinery together?"

Less Pointed Flail With Words

Sleeping with a wireless headset,
later, there were scratches to be found
in a lost position behind my ear lube.

Caused a pimple on October,
so large as to win any tuber
-slash-fruit awarding ceremony. 

pump·kin: a large rounded orange-yellow fruit with a thick rind, edible flesh, and many seeds. (Source at time: Google)

So much pus it grosses out
all the party girls, leaving
only true medic girls to tend to me.

This of course would be pure fantasy,
given I don't know, any longer, where to be.
Witch house to haunt? Vampires to hunt twice?

Zombies leisure suit & larrying round my throat, 
and Trevor from GTA5 enters my alveoli.
Combating vertigo and nausea, I tell him his game sucks ass,

he just dissipates 'n ends up watching Star Trek.
Not a bad ending for male protagonist.
Not even a bad engine for me. Who'll remain alive,

probably. During and past this--'Death'--of which everyone else speaks.

Cheapest (in a true sense) Halloween Costume Ever

Jake found himself standing at a corner yet again in the party.

An attractive woman, by media standards, happened to stumble by with a tray of drinks, and went "Ooh!" when she caught sight of Jake's nose, which had been sticking out of the shadow of the corner.

"Oh shit..." said Jake, but it was too late. The drinks crashed to the floor, causing a small mess around his sneakers and the polished tips of her high-heels, but also a larger general discrepancy in terms of the *sound* that was going on in the whole apartment.

People began to look at them, and he pulled her into the corner with him. "It's better this way," he said, "I promise."

The atmosphere began to normalize in the room again. "Idiot!" she said, as quietly and irritatedly as she could. "You've ruined Halloween!"

He hadn't expected that. "What?" he said. "I just accidentally tripped you over, miss, it was just a sort of small joke, shenanigan with my nose. If it's that bad, I can go back there and refill your tray."

She just laughed. "No point now," she said. "See that guy there? That's who I was bringing the tray to. He asked me to bring it, and I went, filled up the drinks, and was going to be perfectly on time. He times us, you know? We call him the 'Time Lord' at the office." She shook her head. "Now I've ruined his Halloween."

"You wot?"

"Guy with a sad life like that, the one thing he enjoys is Halloween," she said. "Christmas party is too sedate for him. Halloween is the only time he gets to enjoy really seeing all the other people be totally crazy and different. And they all put the masks on, and they all have funny interactions with each other, and he watches and participates! And if he wants a bloody tray of drinks for him and his chums, bloody hell, he's going to have it!"

He looked down at the smashed pieces of glass at their feet. "Wow," was all he could say. "That is pretty creepy." He tried to smile.

This was when she noticed him. "Hey!" she said. "Where's your costume?"

"I'm wearing it," he replied.

"You're wearing a t-shirt and khakis." She gazed at him distastefully. "Pockets bulging with...I don't know what. I suppose you could be a mugger at the piers."

"A mugger?" he said.

"Yeah," she said, "Some guy that hangs near the docks, ready to just jump out and mug a dating couple."

"This coming from Chewbacca's poontang," he replied.

She took one step back from him, rubbing faux fur against her left shin. "Whatever. You suck. You come in here, no costume, and you ruin the flow of the music."

This made him a little angry. "What the hell," he said, loudly, "how do I ruin the music?"

She covered his face with her furry palms. "Shuttup, shuttup," she said. Then she pointed out, her arm drawing an arc across the entire living room, "Don't you see?" she said. "Don't you see that everything is going according to a rhythm?

Do you not see the mermaid over there, gently supported by her hubby?"

"Lol, that pregnant woman is supposed to be a mermaid? I thought it was a--"

"Shuttup," she said. "She is carrying the illusion."

"Illoo-oo-shion?" he said.

"And around them, there's the spider?", she pointed, "do you see that. See how that sea-spider guy is protecting the couple from anyone who may want to come in and break the mermaid's bond between her and her Sea God?"

"You see over there," he said, taking her hand and pointing it to the left, "how that Ice-Cream Cone is totally getting roofied by that CEO type fella with, for some reason, sheep pants?"

She let out a sharp laugh. "Oh you fool, that's just Sam and Jason. They're a couple too!"

"Sheesh," he said, slinking even deeper into his corner. "You think they over-did it?"

She looked at him again. His t-shirt and pants. "You really don't get it, do you? You're supposed to come to parties like this wearing a costume. It's part of the fun. You mix with people. You be somebody you would never be in real life."

"But what if what you are...in real life...was spooky enough?" he said.

"Stupid," she gasped. "Ok, look. Wearing a t-shirt and standing in a dark corner like some thug is not exactly a costume, ok?"

"I'm not coming as a thug," he said, slowly stepping out.

"Oh yeah? Then what? Freaking Potsie from Happy Days? What's your costume?"

"I'm coming as Paranormal Activity 5," he said.

She burst out laughing, but just as she did, the music in the apartment stopped. Behind all the confusion and anger of the people, she heard this guy standing next to her sort of laugh, very quietly, and walk closer to her.

Then suddenly all the lights in the apartment went out, and as she turned her head, the last thing she saw was what looked like the chandelier breaking from the ceiling and falling on the mermaid.

(From the people who came dressed as a molotov cocktail in '04)