Listening to The Raven, by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan. I have started something but have now been stuck for more than an hour with the song on repeat. I just can't seem to get to the next scene.
Earlier today I read Irish Gumbo's post concerning "the background hiss" of the universe, also known as the "hydrogen line." When the song came on the first image flooded into my mind, along with the central idea of this galactic serpent song.
I am a descriptive writer. Put something in front of me and I can wrap it up with words. But ask me what happens next and more often than not I won't be able to tell you.
The following is what I have so far. I know that it is not finished but I am trapped in this moment and can't get my mind to lean anywhere else. So I am asking, can anyone out there tell me what happens next? If you hop on the music link and take a quick listen to the song, you'll catch the mood and hopefully this will help you to help me move this thing forward.
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Inside this song, Quentin Tarantino watches himself climb out of a long black car and stand before the dilapidated remains of an old hotel. The car is impossibly clean, despite the plumes of desert sand that scramble over the paint. Quentin looks down to see the creases in his leather shoes fill with fine beige lines and in his mind the process spreads like a cancer until his legs become ancient Egyptian pillars, frozen in eternal fragility.
His eyes follow the sound of steady hissing that is coming from the hotel. He hears the dust skid across the splintered wooden planks of the porch, a multitude of tiny grains diving like kamikazes between the cracks.
He steps forward, the murmur of the sand like a spent record drawing him in.
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The hotel doorman winks at Quentin suggestively, before passing him a folded up note of yellow paper.
Tiny plants grow, or grew, in the crevices of the steps. Their colour so faded it is impossible to know if they are just clinging to life or if life abandoned them long ago. The door is cracked open, a tiny rivulet of sand spilling out. He spreads his hand towards the door.
"This is it," he says to himself. "This is The Church of Dust."
He can hear the sand grind in the doors hinges as the weight swings it back behind him. Sunlight sifts through gaps in the roof. It breaks cleanly on the stairs, is a bright slash on the walls. It blurs obliquely on the curves of the reception desk, is caught in the crystals of the cheap chandelier and sprinkled randomly in muted rainbows around the foyer.
He takes a step, and the snap of bone beneath his foot echoes abruptly. Something shifts near the roof, startling his glance upwards. Whatever it was dislodged grains of sand. For a moment the falling particles are caught in the light, a tiny constellation glitters and dies. He looks down, sees the curl of some small creature's bones. It's only then that he notices footprints leading away from him towards the stairs. The background hiss seems to grow louder as he moves towards them.
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